Magic: the Gathering - The Resurrection

[Izulde]

So I used to play Magic way, way back in the day. I got out of it around Visions, just after that, I think.

One of my roommates and I were talking the other day about how we both used to play and got out of it, and how cool it would be to get back into it.

Today we found a card shop a few minutes drive from our house and each picked up a starter + booster of the Duels of Planeswalkers box, where it was a themed deck packaged with a 10th edition booster pack.

The shop had a black/green, a blue, a black, and a red deck available. My roommate got the black/green and I chose the blue.

We played a lot of games with just the base starter decks, which included the following:

The Nissa Revane Deck (Green/Black)

Lands (24)
16 Forests
8 Swamps

Creatures (21)
3 Elvish Eulogist
2 Elvish Visionary
1 Gaea's Herald
1 Talara's Battalion
3 Elvish Warriors
1 Greenweaver Druid
1 Imperious Prefect
1 Elvish Champion
1 Jagged-Scar Archers
1 Drove of Elves
1 Immaculate Magistrate
2 Moonglove Winnowers
1 Lys Alana Huntmaster
2 Elven Riders

Other Spells (15)
4 Giant Growths
2 Wurm's Tooths
1 Naturalize
1 Nature's Spiral
3 Eyeblight's Ending
1 Elvish Promenade
2 Essence Drain
1 Coat of Arms

Thoughts
While both decks were balanced, we both thought this deck was initially much stronger constructed than the blue deck. It's an elf themed deck that can create some absolutely filthy creatures. Coat of Arms and Imperious Prefect were probably my two favorite cards out of this one. I love playing Creature Type theme decks and so Coat of Arms would go in a lot of my old decks if I still had them (including what was my most fun deck of all time, a goblin deck). I won one of my games by managing to get out CoA and IP and just continuously tapping the IP to add 1/1 Elven Green Warriors that would be 2/2 automatically without the CoA, and with the CoA, the elf army grows strong quite quickly, especially if there's other elf booster or boosted by elves in play, which this deck has a lot of.

Jace Beleren Deck

Lands (25)
25 Islands

Creatures (16)
4 Cloud Sprites
2 Wall of Spears
1 Phantom Warrior
3 Snapping Drakes
2 Thieving Magpies
2 Air Elementals
1 Mahamoti Djinn
1 Denizen of the Deep

Other Spells (19)
2 Unsummons
2 Kraken's Eyes
3 Essence Scatters
2 Negates
2 Boomerangs
2 Deluges
2 Cancels
1 Counterbore
1 Evacuation
1 Mind Control
1 Mind Spring

Thoughts
Not surprising for a blue deck that it was heavy on the counter and clock reset type cards. It also relies a lot on its flying creatures to do damage and the Cloud Sprites proved to be good early damage whittlers against the B/G deck. Evacuation and Deluge saved the deck's player's ass in a lot of games, mostly when my roommate played. It's a decent base to build off of, but definitely the weaker of the two decks and one that relies a lot more on good draws to succeed.

Booster Pack Modifications
We got a mix of cards in our boosters (I personally was thrilled to get the reprint of the Serra Angel in mine, as I love Serra Angels, even though I prefer the original artwork) and decided to mix and match the blue/green/black cards from each booster to adjust the base decks.

My Nissa Revane Mods
I dropped all 3 of the Elvish Eulogists, who while useful in that they're cheap elf drops and can buy you time with their sacrifice ability (gain 1 life for each elf in your graveyard), just didn't seem to fit in the deck in my opinion. I also dropped one of the Wurm's Tooths and one of the Elvish Riders, who while they have 3/3 and are unblockable except by walls and flying creatures, seemed too high a cost (3 colorless, 2 green) to justify being in the deck.

The 5 Additions
Oakenform
Tendrils of Corruption
Howling Banshee
Windstorm
Elvish Visionary

Effects
It made the deck much, much stronger. The Howling Banshee and Windstorm (which I wouldn't include except against this Blue deck and its flier-heavy nature) in particular were effective and Elvish Visionary's draw a card when played is awesome.

I forget the changes my roommate made to the deck with his turn, but I know he dropped Oakenform and added something else instead.

Roommate's Jace Beleren Mods
Took out all 4 Cloud Sprites and a Wall of Spears.

The 5 Additions
Sage Owl
Ponder
Merfolk Looter
Negate
Boomerang

Effects
Although the change wasn't as dramatic on the surface of it, the card control abilities of Sage Owl/Ponder/Merfolk Looter eliminates some of the luck element the basic theme deck has, and more counters are always good for blue.

The decks played fairly evenly after the substitutions. Denizen of the Deep got a perfect play during one of the times I won with the post-mod blue deck, in that there were no creatures on my board when I played him (he sends all your creatures in play back to your hand when he comes out, which is why I'd probably remove him from the deck later on, even though he's an 11/11 beastie).

We're planning on picking up some of the other starter + boosters next weekend. Definitely the red deck, although I'm disappointed Duels of the Planeswalkers doesn't come with any white in the starter decks.

Edit: I didn't make any other changes to the Jace deck other than my roommate made. We didn't have a great draw for blue in our booster packs. Some cool red/white stuff, though.

[Abe Sargent]

Yay Magic!!!

I'm not sure what this dynasty will do, though. As you buy cards you'll make decks? Document matches? trading for cards you want? Reading internet articles?

[Izulde]

Buy cards, make decks, probably. Maybe brief summary of the general flow of matches?

My roommate's mostly into it for the deck building, and perhaps by chronicling that, I can learn to be a better deck builder myself.

[Abe Sargent]

Awesome awesome!

[Izulde]

Nothing new to report cardwise. We were going to head to the shop today, but my roommate wanted to get some work done. This weekend I'll be in Washington DC for a conference, so that's out.

On the other hand, we played four games last night. He played exclusively with the blue deck, me with the black/green deck.

I won 3 games to 1, with a couple of very close games in there. The one I lost was because I got a terrible land draw, and there's not much you can do about that, but at least I was able to keep it going for a while.

[Abe Sargent]

It would have been awesome if you were there today - prerelease was today for the next set

[Izulde]

It's been an odd series of circumstances the last week. Walked out of the English Department of the new place I'm teaching at and there's a bunch of Magic players sitting at the tables.

Then tonight I wandered into a pizza place and saw a bunch of board gamers and a couple Magic players. Took it as a sign from God/The Universe that I'm meant to play Magic again. So I rushed home, grabbed the only deck of mine I could find (a black/green poison deck) and went back.

Played this one guy for like 7 hours straight I think it was. First against his rainbow sliver deck, which I got a few wins against, then against his blue deck, which was either 50/50 or in my favor. I definitely found some weaknesses in my deck that can use some correcting, but the guy said it has a lot of potential, and that mine was the first poison deck he'd ever lost to.

Playing against my deck also gave him some ideas of how to fine-tune his blue deck, and I'll look for my other deck(s) tomorrow so I have variety on Tuesday when I head to campus. Towards the end I was getting a little fatigued playing the same deck for 7 straight hours. I'll post my current card list and comments on it either in a bit or when I wake up next.

[BYU 14]

Very cool, playing Shadow Era a lot online right now, but miss magic. The one time I tried to get back into it online I realized just how behind the times I was after some bad beats and stopped.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Very cool, playing Shadow Era a lot online right now, but miss magic. The one time I tried to get back into it online I realized just how behind the times I was after some bad beats and stopped.

Yeah I may see the same thing happen to me this week, but my confidence is up a bit after doing fairly well with my deck last night and seeing opportunities for change. I'll go over that in my next post.

[Izulde]

The No Name Poison Deck
10x Swamp
8x Forest
1x Khalni Garden
4x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1x Ichor Rats
1x Hand of the Praetors
1x Plague Stinger
1x Septic Rats
1x Vampire Nighthawk
4x Birds of Paradise
1x Blight Mamba
2x Cystbearer
1x Lotus Cobra
2x Llanowar Elf
1x River Boa
1x Thrun, the Last Troll
1x Ichorclaw Myr
2x Vector Asp
3x Contagion Clasp
1x Throne of Geth
2x Whispersilk Cloak
2x Phyresis
1x Relic Putresence
2x Harrow
1x Nature's Spiral
1x Quest for Renewal
2x Glissa the Traitor
1x Bonehoard

The stars of this deck in last night's marathon session were the Contagion Clasps. Once I got those going, it set my opponent on a clock because I had boku mana sources with the Elves and the Birds. Terramorphic Expanse was great in terms of getting me a land I was short of, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to instead swap them out for something else.

I used Harrow a ton, but I'm wondering if Cultivate is better than Harrow.

I used Phyresis a few times, and once it got me the win because I switched my Vampire Nighthawk from the Lifelink drain to Infect, and he had no fliers to stop me.

Drana was never a factor because she never hit the board, and Thrun, even when he did get in, was pretty useless. Glissa has potential because of her Deathtouch and First Strike, and I got the Phyresis and Whispersilk cloak combo on her once, but then he destroyed the WS Cloak. to negate that advantage.

The biggest weakness I saw from this deck after the extended run is that there's no way to win other than poison, which is great when it works, but it also makes it vulnerable and for a less fun deck to play.

So as I was starting to organize my cards tonight (it's going to take a long time to finish it), I hit upon the idea of using cards from my broken up Elves and Angels G/W deck.

After doing some tinkering and adjusting...

Glissa's Unholy Poison Elf Army (Working Title)
8x Swamp
12x Forest
2x Glissa the Traitor
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Cystbearer
1x Elvish Champion
1x Elvish Promenade
1x Gaea's Herald
1x Glistener Elf
1x Immaculate Magistrate
1x Imperious Prefect
1x Jagged-Scar Archers
1x Lys Alana Huntmaster
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Contagion Clasp
2x Coat of Arms
1x Nature's Spiral
2x Whispersilk Cloak
1x Plague Stinger
1x Hand of the Praetors
4x Phyresis
1x Relic Putresence
4x Unholy Strength
1x Quest for Renewal
1x Spider Umbra
2x Cultivate

As you can see, this deck has now transformed from a pure poison deck to one that will either poison you to death or slam you with buffed up elven hordes. I dropped Throne of Geth for Nature's Spiral, as while I had Throne in there to be an emergency poison counter add for tight games, in practice it doesn't seem to do much, and Nature's Spiral gives me greater versatility as a save for either one of my ways of winning.

One of the first things I did after Thrun and Drana was make the decision to take out all 2 black casting cost spells. The guy said that my deck really relied on green to get it started and that's even truer now, so I shifted to a 12/8 you see here and may even go 13/7 depending on playtesting.

I feel a little more vulnerable now to fliers after dropping 2 Birds, Drana, and the Vampire Nighthawk, which adding the Jagged-Scar Archers and Spider Umbra don't wholly alleviate.

Another couple cards I mulled over were Drove of Elves and Chimeric Mass, but decided not to include them for now.

As of this moment, this is the only complete deck I have, as I deconstructed my red deck (which frankly sucked ass when I looked at it again), and had already deconstructed my Elves & Angels deck before this.

I'd like to build a second deck tonight yet, and maybe I will, but the Poison Elf Army should be a lot of fun. It retains the quick mana and land buildup I loved about the original Poison deck while still maintaining the Poison, adding another win path, and using one of my favorite groups - elves. Also hearkens a bit back to my Goblin weenie deck back in the day that everyone laughed at until it took them down.

Oh, and I just realized as I went to get more cards to sort... I have almost a whole box of Time Spiral packs to open yet from the last time 3 years ago that I got back into Magic

[Izulde]

Had a lot of bureaucratic stuff I had to do today, so was only able to get in two and a half games before class.

Lost both games to a red/green deck, then had a three-way going with a red/green and red/blue where I was holding my own until the evening class folks (including me) had to book. A few things I noticed from those plays:

Unholy Strength is awesome, but I need to be patient with them against red decks, because of Lightning Bolt's ability to knock out 3 toughness guys. Had I been more conservative my first two games with it, I would have lasted longer.

The third game I was more patient and built up a Llanowar Elf to a 6/4 with Infect and hit the R/G for 6 poison damage, and was looking good to just sweep through everyone, but then I got Red Suns' Zenithed by R/U to lose my threat.

As far as the elf horde aspect of it... didn't really get it going, although I was able to get Coat of Arms out in two of the games and had two Llanowar Elves out in the one game (the one where I had the 6/4 Poison Elf going).

I still feel like this deck is good. I just need to play it some more to really get a feel for its success or not. Had a couple misplays in my first two games that come with using a new deck and all that, so we'll see how it goes on Thursday when I should have more time.

[Izulde]

Today was the first time I finally got to get a real run of Glissa's Unholy Poison Elf Army. Tuesday I got in for part of a four way game and I was pretty much controlling the board but I had to go to class.

Fast forward to today where I played a guy's 88 card Commander deck against my 60 card deck and won the first two games handily, then lost the third when he got his power combo out.

He told the other people at the table, "He's got a tough elf infect deck. It's hard to beat." Best part was, after I crushed him the first game with a Llanowar Elf with Unholy Strength, Phyresis, and something else - forget whether it was Spider Umbra or Whispersilk Cloak, he said, "I'm going to have to bring my serious deck with me next week. I underestimated you. You're very unassuming." To which I just smiled and thought to myself, "Yep, that absent-minded professor persona works well."

The second guy I played, I also played three games, and he had a serious blue/red deck. Followed the same pattern - beat him the first two games pretty handily, and the third one he got out some ultra-combo that blocked my massive 2/2 elf army and that I couldn't hear the particulars of because it was awfully noisy in there.

Thoughts on the Deck So Far
I still love the speed of this deck. Llanowar Elves and/or Birds of Paradise really get the mana generation going fast. Unholy Strength continues to be one of my favorite cards - 1 black mana for +2/+1? Absolutely!

Got out the Imperious Prefect a couple games this time, and I love the elf factory it creates, especially when I also got Coat of Arms out and created an army of +5/+5 elves - that was before the guy dropped the power combo I missed hearing all of what it was because of the noise (this was the first guy, by the way).

Quest for Renewal is turning into one of my favorite cards, too. Being able to have untapped creatures every turn is terrific. Contagion Clasp played a lesser role than in the earlier marathon from the first version of the poison deck, but still managed to be a key role in one of the second guy victories.

Elvish Promenade is a great card to keep in reserve until you're ready to drop it as a bomb. I did that one game when I had two Llanowar Elves and my Glistener elf out with Coat of Arms and the guy I was playing was like, "...Fuck." It's honestly one I thought about taking out until that play, so I'm not sure on it.

I feel like Cultivate could maybe be cut down to 1 or maybe even eliminated from the deck completely. I did use it once today, but overall, it doesn't seem to be anything more than a save in case I don't get out a swamp or forest quick enough.

Relic Putresence has yet to play a role in any of my games, so I wonder if I should drop it and/or make it a sideboard card if/when I get back into tournament play.

I will say though, overall, I feel like this is the best deck I've had since my Goblin weenie deck in high school.

But I also have the urge to create more decks, and have been tempted to create a milling deck, because as you might imagine, Jester's Cap is one of my favorite cards and it'd be cool to create a deck designed around something different than my usual creature-based victories (whether poison or otherwise).

I do love the uniqueness of my elf infect deck, though. Not a lot of people around this area play poison decks these days, so I've definitely got a signature going, whereas milling decks are much more common.

[Izulde]

So a runthrough my cards says I don't have enough yet to make a good milling deck. A half-assed one maybe, so I'll think about this for a bit and decide if I want to make the second deck that. Most of the cards I have are those I'm not excited to make a deck out of at the moment TBH. I'm weird in that I very much have aesthetics involved. I suppose I could take another crack at an Angel deck, but then I'd want to make it green/white because I love my Birds, even though there's other, less appealing options like Sphere of the Suns and Prismatic Lens, Phrophetic Prism, and Khalni Gem... and originally I wanted to make a Nicol Bolas mill deck, but the costs to get that going with what I had just weren't feasible. Besides which, Jace, Memory Adept is really the way to get a mill deck running, particularly in combination with a creature that has Sword of Body and Mind, which I do have one of.

So I may wait until opening the Time Spiral packs before deciding what/how to build a second deck. At least I have one I'm really happy with so far, even though I'm pondering tweaks - like do I really need two Glissas? She's boltable and hasn't been a major factor in any games so far.

Just to recap:

Up For Potential Elimination
1 Glissa the Traitor
1 or 2 Cultivate
1 Elvish Promenade (though it was great that one game even though I did eventually lose the game)
1 Relic Putresence
1 Lys Alana Huntmaster (2C2G - 3/3 - 1/1 Elf Warrior for every Elf spell cast, so a potential Elf factory since I can get her out by Turn 3, maybe Turn 2 if I have her in opening hand, but overall it seems like she could be dropped)

So we're talking 5, maybe 6 cards that can be swapped out for Overrun, Talara's Battalion, bringing back Contagion Clasp or Birds of Paradise in greater frequency, or even something like Praetor's Counsel. Definitely Overrun though, which I only have 1 of. The +3/+3 and Trample till end of turn would give this deck the knockout punch it currently lacks.

[Izulde]

Spent all day today hunting around town trying to find decent card storage options, and the only place I found them? Walmart. Yeah.

I went to one of the card/gaming shops that's ironically near where I'm teaching this semester. Took 5-10 minutes standing by the counter for anyone to even acknowledge me when I wanted to look at the binder they had and at least pick up some sleeves. Didn't like the binder, so just got the sleeves I liked best, even though I should still have enough for another deck out of my Black Lotus sleeves.

The Magic players there were a pretty cliquey bunch it felt like. They also seemed quite disorganized because there was supposed to be a league tournament today, and the following exchange happened:

*2 guys show up and ask about the tournament.
*Guy who's supposed to organize it: Eh, we don't have that many people yet, and we're waiting on X and Y to show up.
*2 guys: Okay, cool. We'll wait a bit then.
....
....
....
45 minutes pass during which the organizer is still chatting away to his two buddies while they're playing Commander/EDH, and another group of players at the next table are all chatting away to each other as well.

*2 guys: Are those coming? We really wanted to play that tournament today.
*Supposed organizer: Eh, I don't think we have enough people interested, so eh, probably not.
*2 guys: ...Fuck this. *storm out*

20 minutes later, X shows up.

*Supposed organizer: Hey, X.
*X: Hey. You guys finish the tournament already?
*Supposed organizer: Nuh, we're not doing it. 2 guys were here but they got pissed and left.
*X: Cool. I didn't wanna pay $5 anyway.

Shortly after that, I finally gave up and walked out myself, tired of the snobbery and the completely unprofessional nature of the setup there (which seemed to be heavily invested in Warhammer anyway).

So I may go back to the old Magic shop I went to a few years ago. The owner there isn't the greatest person on the planet, but they run a very well-organized, professional store.

Anyway, I've noticed both with the group I play with on campus and this bunch that Commander/EDH is the most popular format. It's one I'm not crazy about at first glance - I prefer the elegant cohesion of the 60 card format (and I'm quite irritated with WotC for eliminating the maximum deck size, although I realize it's designed to sell more cards and/or prevent everyone from running a milling deck). But I'll give it a shot if the campus folks (which is the most diverse group of Magic players I've ever seen by the way in terms of race and gender) prefer it.

I also discovered that my poison elf deck passed out of Standard, which I figured, but is Modern type legal. Problem is, from skimming the Net, it doesn't seem like Modern is a very popular tournament format, which sucks, because everything except the booster packs in the Holiday Box and the 3 pack of boosters I bought at Walmart are Modern only. I tried seeing if I could put together a deck with those 7 booster packs that didn't suck, but it was a no go.

I don't have the money to go crazy buying a ton of Magic cards, nor do I have the storage space, so for now, I'm just going to stick with creating Modern legal decks and playing them casual, and maybe see if I can find Modern tournaments in the city, or if there's sealed deck Standard tournaments around here.

Or I could move to Los Angeles. A lot of my closest friends live in the SoCal area so I've been wanting to move there anyway, and LA has a shop that does Modern tournaments every Wednesday I think it is.

(Note: I'm joking. The LA smog would probably kill me inside of a week.)

Haven't yet made the tweaks I was thinking of to Glissa's Unholy Poison Elf Army, because I not only have these new cards, but I also found a box with yet more cards in it that I'd forgotten about, and those offer some interesting tweak possibilities as well.

With the new cards and the ones I've found, I might be able to make my mill deck a watery reality (pun intended, both for the blue element of it and for the rather weak nature it's going to be).

There's also a Black/White legendary card I got that I'd love to build a deck around - Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts.

It's funny... From an ethical standpoint, I don't like Black. But from a sheer fun gameplay perspective...

Glissa's Unholy Poison Elf Army - Green/Black
Mill Deck I'm Mulling Over - Blue/Black
Teysa Deck I'm Pondering - White/Black

Overall I'd have to say Black and Green are my favorite colors to play, especially Green. It wasn't always that way, though. When I first started playing back in... 95 I want to say it was? I loved White/Blue, White/Green, and Mono Red. Tried Blue mono, and didn't like it. Tried Red/Blue Land's Edge deck and hated it.

One thing I've noticed though in my most recent return - I'm seeing a lot more variety in color plays than I ever have before, which is awesome, and makes for a lot more fun.

[Izulde]

Second 8 week class started at the community college, and there's still a dedicated daily Magic group there. Monday I didn't have a chance to play before teaching, but yesterday I did with Glissa's Unholy Elf Army, unchanged from its last version.

Played a three way against an obnoxious Mill deck and a red/black powerhouse deck. Was one turn away from winning.

Then I played some 1 v 1 against the Mill deck, and won 3 games to 1. He kept going on on and on about some scry combo he thought was so awesome, but that no one else believed in. His deck had some strength to it, but it was also quite weak in a way - a mono blue deck that had to hope it could mill me fast enough before I could destroy him with the Infect mechanism (as the elf build was too slow to go for wins against that).

Another guy showed up with a red/blue deck that had some insane combo - this guy is *good* (and I talked to him a bit at the bus stop later that night). Played him 1 v 1 once and I got mana screwed with not being able to do anything.

Then we did a couple of 4 ways with me, Mill deck guy, super red/blue, and a guy who was running blue/green that was evidently set to Standard format. The red/blue guy won both games, but I was able to get him down to a one turn victory in one of those games. Blue/Green guy just kept getting hosed.

Basic Thoughts
1. Infect with Contagion Clasps is still awesome.
2. Relic Putrescence has continued to be useless, so it'll drop.
3. I feel like Cystbearers should be dropped. 2/3 with Infect, but they're still Boltable (although they could be Holy Strengthed to 4/4). I don't know... the 3 casting cost seems a bit high.
4. Whispersilk Cloak is terrific, and got me the win a few times.
5. If I drop the 2 Cystbearers and Relic Putrescence, and add 3 Glistener Elves...

8x Swamp
12x Forest
2x Glissa the Traitor
2x Birds of Paradise
1x Elvish Champion
1x Elvish Promenade
1x Gaea's Herald
4x Glistener Elf
1x Immaculate Magistrate
1x Imperious Prefect
1x Jagged-Scar Archers
1x Lys Alana Huntmaster
4x Llanowar Elves
2x Contagion Clasp
2x Coat of Arms
1x Nature's Spiral
2x Whispersilk Cloak
1x Plague Stinger
1x Hand of the Praetors
4x Phyresis
4x Unholy Strength
1x Quest for Renewal
1x Spider Umbra
2x Cultivate

That would make the deck move a lot faster, and also allow me to put things out to start both the Elf and Infect trains sooner (In fact, one of the games I played the Mill deck 1v1, I was hitting him both with life whittling *and* infect creatures, which was fun.

I'm going to start another deck, too, to have some fun and variety. Not sure what I'll do... going to look through what I have this weekend and play around with things.

One thing I thought was nice to hear was that no less than three of the people played said, "You've got a really strong deck there." I was worried about how it would do since expansions have come out since the last time I played.

[Izulde]

Stupid me got suckered into buying Conquering Hordes deck, not realizing it was preconstructed with no randomization.

What's worse, the deck is the most shit pre-constructed deck I've EVER seen.

There goes the idea of me playing Standard at Friday Night Magic tomorrow. I wanted to try the booster draft anyway.

I thought I had enough Black Lotus sleeves to create a second deck, but it appears I don't... I'm like 3 or 4 short, which is really weird. But maybe that's accurate, because I have another set of sleeves I bought (that are much less cool incidentally) the last time I played.

It turns out, by some freak of nature, I only have 1 Glistener Elf, despite the fact that it's a Common. I am much disgruntled. I may throw 3 Giant Growths in there instead - not sure. Still some fine-tuning to do with that deck, which I *think* qualifies for Modern?

Anyway, I'm going to put together either the Teysa deck or the Mill one. Need to look through all my cards again and see. Will post again when I have a preliminary deck put together.

[Izulde]

Cards Dropped From Glissa's Unholy Elf Army
2x Cultivate
2x Cystbearer
1x Glissa the Traitor
1x Relic Putrescence
1x Spider Umbra
---------------------
7 total

Cards Added To Glissa's Unholy Elf Army
2x Copperhorn Scout
1x Ezuri's Archers
1x Giant Growth
1x Overrun
2x Tainted Strike

There's really not much point to having two Glissas in this deck, even though it's named after her. Literally, the only artifacts I have are the Contagion Clasps.

The Cystbearers, as I said before, didn't fit the theme of the deck, ad Relic Putrescence was useless. Spider Umbra was one I debated keeping in, but ultimately dropped for now.

Additions - The Copperhorn Scout untaps all your other creatures when it attacks - very useful for when I've used my Birds and Llanowars for mana.

Ezuri's Archers gives me a 1 green 1/2 with Reach that becomes 4/2 when it blocks a flier.

Overrun is perfect for this deck's elf army secondary method of winning, and I addressed the loss of Cystbearer infect in part with the Tainted Strikes - +1/+0 and Infect until end of turn for 1 Black.

Giant Growth may be dropped. We'll see.

And then there's the new deck I created, which I'm still not sure about, but I'll have to play it today and see.

Ajani and Teysa's Wedding
9x Swamps
10x Plains
2x Scoured Barrens
1x Ajani Goldmane (+1 for 2 life, -1 for +1/+1 counters on all your creates, -6 for Avatar with power and toughness equal to your life - 4 loyalty initial)
1x Blood Seeker
1x Child of Night
1x Contagion Clasp
1x Decimator Web
1x Divine Favor
2x Duress
1x Goldenglow Moth
2x Go for the Throat
1x Grindclock
2x Jester's Cap
2x Lone Missionary
1x Luminarch Acension
3x Mardu Hateblade
1x Purge the Profane
1x Pulse Tracker
2x Shriekhorn
2x Stormfront Pegasus
1x Soul's Attendant
1x Soul Warden
1x Spear of Heliod
1x Suture Priest
1x Sword of Body and Mind
1x Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts
1x Typhoid Rats
1x Undercity Informer
1x Vampire Nighthawk
1x Victory's Herald
1x Whispersilk Cloak
2x Whitesun's Passage

The main intended paths to victory are twofold here:

1) Milling/Removing cards from deck effects - Decimator Web, Grindclock, Jester's Cap, Shriekhorn, Sword of Body and Mind, Undercity Informer

2) Ajani's Avatar Owns All - Basically, a buttload of stuff gives me life (some of which also whittles down life of opponent), rock out with the Avatar, and *bam*, especially if Whispersilk Cloak comes along for the ride.

Basically, I had nothing in my cards that lend itself to the traditional blue Mill-focused deck, so I decided to improvise with a black/white melding of my two deck ideas.

How this plays remains to be seen. My initial gut says it's not as strong as Glissa's Unholy Elf Army, but maybe it can be with tweaks. At least this gives me a use for Ajani, who is one of two very sucky Planeswalkers I have.

[Izulde]

Different store, with great employees, but the clientele is again cliqueish. Going to stick around Booster Draft tournament though and come back tomorrow night for Modern tournament.

[Izulde]

Reduced to playing my decks against each other and talking to myself. What a complete fucking waste of time. Shot the whole fucking day on this bullshit.

[Izulde]

Red seems very popular for standard. Seeing a few tri-color decks too.

[Izulde]

Grand total of people who would play with me before Standard tournament started: 0

Number of people interested in Booster Draft tournament: 1 (Me)

Games where I played my decks against themselves: 2 and a little of a third.

Number of Booster Draft games played: 0, since I was the only one interested.

Hours fucking wasted today doing jack shit and sitting around as a result: 9

I had things I could have been doing, but I set this aside for what should have been a day/night of fun. All it did was leave me with renewed hatred for gaming store groups, and once again be disgusted with wasted time.

If it's dependent on a certain number of people showing up, don't fucking advertise it every week like it's a guaranteed thing

Modern tournament tomorrow there. I asked about the start time "It's supposed to start at 2, but can be as late as like 4, 4:30. It just depends on when people show up, and somebody might be like hey my friend's coming in half an hour so then we'll wait".

Needless to say, I'm calling tomorrow at 1 to see if it looks like they're going to hold the damn thing, and if they are, I'll ask them to please wait until I get there.

[BYU 14]

Getting a good store is tough, but I am lucky to have two very close. The one I mainly play at on Sunday will always have 10-14 players for a standard tournament on Sunday and up to 20 for FNM, which of course I have to miss due to Football right now. Everyone at the store is nice to play against and just enjoy the game. Even have a Dad/Daughter combo that come in a lot, which is pretty cool.

The other store is an exclusive gaming store and gets 20-30 for FNM, though I have heard the crowd there is somewhat cliquish too. I will try playing there at some point, but really like the comic store I play at now.

I am currently running a Mardu Mid-Range deck which us fun to play and lethal when it is hitting. Have gone 5-0-1 (1st) and 2-2 (9th) with the final tuned version below. The 2-2 day I had to Mulligan an insane 6 times, despite running 24 lands which is just ridiculous. Bad draw day.

Having just got back into the game after not playing for well over 15 years I am sticking to standard as I don't have the time to put into putting a modern deck together, not to mention the fact that it would be pricey and I have already sunken enough into standard

Mardu-Mid range deck
Creatures
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Butcher of the Horde
2 Wingmate Roc

Planeswalkers
2 Sarkhan the Dragonspeaker
1 Sorin Solmn Visitor
1 Chandra Pyromaster

Spells
3 Lightning Strike
3 Stoke the Flames
3 Crackling Doom
3 Hordeling Outburst
3 Banishing Light
2 Despise
1 Murderous Cut

Lands
2 Plains
3 Mountains
2 Swamp
1 Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth
2 Windscarred Crag
2 Battlefield Forge
2 Temple of Silence
2 Temple of Malice
2 Caves of Koilos
4 Nomad Outpost
1 Bloodfell Caves
1 Bloodstained Mire

Sideboard
2 Elspeth Suns Champion
2 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Murderous Cut
3 Erase
3 Deflecting Palm
2 Anger of the Gods
2 End Hostilities

The current standard metagame is quite a bit slower since rotation and I feel this deck adapts nicely. I can play a decent tempo game by getting a 1 drop Bloodsoaked Champion down, having a turn 2 lightning strike ready, then ramping to Goblin Rabblemaster and Butcher of the Horde on turns 3 and 4. Both BSC and the Rabblemaster tokens work well with Butcher as food to trigger 1 or more of his abilities, plus the fact that BSC has the raid ability to return from the graveyard if I attack each turn and can pay 1B. I added the Hordeling Outburst this week as having the ability to drop 3 Goblin tokens on turn 3 would allow a turn 4 Butcher to come into play with Haste, Lifelink and Vigilance if I sacrificed all three, a potential game changing swing. Outburst could also power-up Rabblemaster if dropped turn 4 to a potential 7-2 attacker if all 5 Goblin tokens possible were on the board.

A turn 5 Wingmate Roc dropped after attacking to trigger his 3/4 Bird partner will usually seal the deal. Of course, I don't always draw on curve to this so I have control elements in Banishing Light and Crackling Doom (a very underrated card IMO) to keep the board controlled and can also use Lightning Strike and Stoke the Flames to help here or just deliver 3 or 4 to the face of the opponent respectively.

If I am playing a pure agro deck I will board in Anger of the Gods and End Hostilities for the BSC and Elspeth and Deflecting Palm for Rabblemaster and Murderous Cut, with Stormbreath coming in for Despise. This will allow me to wipe the board, deflect damage back from pumped creatures and minimize damage until I can get the heavy hitters in on turns 4 and later, with Elspeth being the final win condition here. (Her +1 ability is also amazing with Butcher as it allows a Lifelink/Vigilance trigger on every turn)

For enchantment hate I board in erase to deal with decks running Suspension Field and/or Banishing Light.

Against Mono-Green or Abzan decks I board in Anger of the Gods (For mana dorks and to deal with Sylvan Carayatid, which is a staple of both decks and Hornet Queen which is huge in Mono-Green) and a second Murderous Cut to deal with the fatties and Siege Rhino. (another staple of Abzan) Deflecting Palm for Lightning Strike or Stoke is also a great addition to bounce back damage from Siege Rhino or a pumped up Hydra or Polukranos.

Sorry kind of thread jacked, but its early and I am awake way too soon

[Izulde]

That's awesome. I'd love to get into Standard, esp since that seems to be the only format that has actual tournaments that run, but alas... no good cards atm.

[Izulde]

Community college today. Ran into the Blue Mill deck guy again, and we immediately played each other in two games of 1v1 - him with some adjustments to his deck, me with Teysa and Ajani's Wedding.

First game was a thing of beauty - I got out Grindclock, Shriekhorn, and Contagion Clasp, and Sword of Body and Mind, cheerfully started milling him, much to his frustration. He's a rather excitable kid, and he immediately said he wanted all three of Shriekhorn, CC, and SoB&M for his deck (he has Grindclock). I won that one, but not before he got out a card that milled 33 of my own cards. It was one that milled the opponent for however many cards were in your graveyard. Great for Mill vs. Mill decks.

Funny thing was? I didn't beat him by milling. Instead, I got out Ajani Goldmane, and by the time I fired off his -6 ability while still keeping him at 1 loyalty, I was up to like 31 life, and I got Whispersilk Cloak on the Avatar, so I killed him with the 31/31 unblockable Avatar.

Second game played beautifully as well. I didn't get much mill action going, but I Jester's Capped his reshuffle graveyard into deck cards, and kept gradually pinging away at him with creatures (I think that was the game Mardu Hateblade and Storm Pegasus did most of the damage).

Then the guy with the powerhouse deck showed up, only he forgot to bring one, so I let him borrow Glissa's Unholy Army. This may have been a mistake in retrospect, as I think a few cards got scuffed up during the shuffling even with the sleeves (his motor skills aren't as good as they could be), and one was a foil rare, another a rare. If so, not a huge deal, I guess. I'll just pay whatever it is to replace them if it really bothers me. Maybe on my Christmas list, even haha. For now, I'll consider them as adding character or something, since I don't plan on selling them ever, and while I do my best to take care of my cards, wear and tear will naturally happen, I suppose. Good lesson not to ever loan out my decks to anyone, ever - and it's possible the scuffs were there before, and I just didn't notice it until now. I do know the kid didn't do it intentionally even if it happened today. It was clear even from talking to him last week that he has nothing mean about him, and he would be horrified if it did in fact happen through his shuffling.

Anyway, the 3 way. Blue mill was in a very strong position late in the game, thanks to a combo of Thessa and some card he had that made every land on the board an Island, and said card was also an 8/8 creature with Islandwalk. He also had a copy of that creature, and he was crowing about how he was going to kill us all.

That's until I Go To The Throated his original creature, and the kid playing my Glissa deck had out an Elf (I forget which one), next to Immaculate Magistrate, Coat of Arms, and a fully activated Quest for Renewal. Said elf also had Whispersilk cloak attached, which apparently negated the Islandwalk, and all lands are islands text of the Copy creature? Anyway, the elf had Infect due, thanks to Phyresis, and it was a 11/11 poison elf due to the pumps, and it killed the Copy, then killed the Mill deck on his next turn.

He was down to 2 life, I was at 2 poison counters. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to draw a card that allowed me to kill him, so my own deck beat me.

Then those two left and a third guy showed up who was new to me. He'd been watching with glee as I crushed the Blue mill deck, and I asked him to play with me. He had a red/black/white tri-color Standard deck, and the two games I played with him were the most enjoyable games I've had in a long time. They were tense, strategy filled games where either one of us could have won, and both of us had to think a lot about how to approach the situation.

Both games, he got out a card that gave his creatures Vigilance, which made it tough. He did beat me both games, but like I said, it was close each time. He admitted without vigilance, he would have lost, and I was one flipping mana from bringing Teysa into the field for two turns, which would have won me the second game. Ironically enough, that next turn, I drew Ajani, and I glared at the card and said, 'You know, if you'd shown up last turn, I could have survived this game." But at that point, it was too late.

He also used the Outlast mechanic, which I guess is new to standard. Also the Morph mechanic, which is new to me, too.

A fourth guy showed up then, and we did a 3 way. He had one of those powerhouse Standard decks that's designed around supercombos like a Planeswalker, a morph, and a Hornet Queen.

With the slower speed of the game, R/Bl/W guy was able to build up his army, and superstandard deck got out his Hornet Queen, and a Morph card. Meanwhile, I'm running my Glissa deck personally for the first time that day, and I'm not having much luck getting anything going after superstandard countered my Lys Alana Huntmaster. Superstandard went after Tri-color guy, and I was able to eke out a loss where I would have won the next turn to superstandard guy, but i had the very real feeling all game long that my deck was woefully underpowered compared to theirs. Not a good feeling.

Tomorrow one of the guys who was a year ahead of me in the MFA program is bringing his deck, and we'll be opening packs that I got this weekend (I got 3 each of the Standard, since he asked me to get 2 of each expansion, and when I asked what ones, he said he didn't know, so I just got the ones in current Standard rotation). We'll also probably play each other.

I have another 80 sleeve set I got, so I'll be making another deck this weekend most likely. I want to get to the point where I can put together a Standard deck, even though from what I saw this weekend, I'd get destroyed in a tournament.

Oh, another cool thing about Tri-color deck guy - He said it was an honor and a privilege to play me (this is also the day a few people found out I'm actually an instructor - a professor in their eyes - which I suppose I technically am.. an adjunct professor anyway), and that he really enjoyed the necessity of thought that went into our 1v1 games.

So damned refreshing to have a group of people actually want to play, and not act like snobbish dicks. Reminds me of how/why I love this game so much, and if I could, I'd sit and play Magic all day.

[BYU 14]

Cool you ran into those guys and rekindled the spark a bit.

Those Green Devotion decks are a pain in the ass and give my deck the most trouble right now. Hornet Queen, Courser of Kruphix, Polukranos and Genesis Hydra or Arbor Colossus are staples of that deck and tough to get by death touch if you don't have Anger of the Gods or Drown in Sorrow side boarded to get rid of the Hornets. If you run a deck with no red or black you need End of Hostilities.

The standard game now pretty much requires you to run 2 or 3 colors to be successful, with green being the best mono color to run because of the threats above. Red and Black are serviceable as mono decks, but far behind green IMO. I tweaked my deck above after Sunday as mono green is the only deck I have not beaten (0-2) since standard rotated. I now run 3 Angers and 2 End Hostilities in the sideboard, as well as the 4 Crackling Doom and 1 Murderous cut in the main to deal with this. Anger also crushes Aggro decks before they can overrun you.

Good luck on the deck building

[Izulde]

Pretty much all my decks through the years, with very few exceptions (the goblin deck back in the day) have been dual color decks. Mono is boring, and I still think tri-color decks are insane.

The cruddy pre-constructed (which I did use a few things out of for T+AW BTW) was black/white. My favorite card in that pre-constructed so far is Spear of Heliod. Mardu Hateblade is a great turn 1 drop, too.

I notice a lot of people running Sarkhan, but his -6 ability doesn't impress me, unless you can give the emblem to other people? His +1/-1 loyalty abilities are terrific, though.

[BYU 14]

Sarkhan ultimate is a double edged sword. By the time you would get to it you are usually top decking (at least with Mardu, Red agro, etc) so it is very useful for getting 3 cards in your hand at that point and you can usually play them all that turn if 1 is a land.

It lets you do more work on your turn, with the likelihood your opponent also is top deck or close to it, so they can't answer you effectively. The downside of course (for my deck) is you can't hold anything to counter your opponent, such as Deflecting Palm, or a Crackling Doom if plays a fattie his next turn. The former of which won a match for me last Sunday because I was able to hold it.

I have yet to use his -6, either because I have won the game prior to that or my opponent has used removal (usually Hero's Downfall or Utter End) on him. Don't know that I ever would use it, unless we were both top decked and I needed to catch up. Still, his +1 as a 4/4 indestructible flyer is great and the -1 is a good situational ability to deal with threats like Stormbreath Dragon, Wingmate Roc, Courser, etc

[Izulde]

Glissas Unholy Elf Army is going away. More on that later.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Sarkhan ultimate is a double edged sword. By the time you would get to it you are usually top decking (at least with Mardu, Red agro, etc) so it is very useful for getting 3 cards in your hand at that point and you can usually play them all that turn if 1 is a land.

It lets you do more work on your turn, with the likelihood your opponent also is top deck or close to it, so they can't answer you effectively. The downside of course (for my deck) is you can't hold anything to counter your opponent, such as Deflecting Palm, or a Crackling Doom if plays a fattie his next turn. The former of which won a match for me last Sunday because I was able to hold it.

I have yet to use his -6, either because I have won the game prior to that or my opponent has used removal (usually Hero's Downfall or Utter End) on him. Don't know that I ever would use it, unless we were both top decked and I needed to catch up. Still, his +1 as a 4/4 indestructible flyer is great and the -1 is a good situational ability to deal with threats like Stormbreath Dragon, Wingmate Roc, Courser, etc

I got to open a few of the current Standard rotation packs today, and I'm very quickly seeing where multi-color is a huge thing right now. The guy I bought some packs for pulled a tri-color land in one of his packs. I still have a few more packs to open myself, but I got a couple interesting cards that I'll go into more detail on later.

[Izulde]

So the guy a year above me in the program brought his powerhouse, rares-filled deck and some other decks today. My growing suspicion that Glissa's Unholy Elf Army is too slow in the elf building mechanic was confirmed, despite the fact that I have the slow build built in, in case the infect mechanism doesn't start early enough.

So I'm going to deconstruct the deck this weekend, and build a much faster black/red Infect deck that deals in Infect and burn.

As for as Ajani and Teysa's Wedding, he beat me a fair number of games because his deck was highly tuned from the Guild days, and built to be a powerhouse Standard from that block, whereas mine is just cards I happened to have round. I still scored a few wins off that deck, a tri-color deck he built back in the day, and destroyed a blue/green deck he threw together some time ago.

I discovered the beauty of Undercity Informer with Sword of Body and Mind having free reign against his blue/green deck. Sword of Body and Mind mills 10 each time it does damage to him as a player *and* the 2/2 green wolf token created is a creature that I can then sacrifice to force him to mill to a land every turn.

It makes me want to explore this mechanic further potentially (I ended up killing him via life points because he had an 80 card deck, and I slapped Divine Favor on it).

A&T's W can use some more tweaks obviously, but I'm definitely feeling now that it's the far stronger of the two decks, which pleases me.

So we'll see what the weekend brings (or maybe sooner, depending on how awake I am when I get home tonight and tomorrow).

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Izulde

I got to open a few of the current Standard rotation packs today, and I'm very quickly seeing where multi-color is a huge thing right now. The guy I bought some packs for pulled a tri-color land in one of his packs. I still have a few more packs to open myself, but I got a couple interesting cards that I'll go into more detail on later.

Tri-colored lands are still cheap too, if you are going to build a standard deck using three colors you can just pick then up as singles for about a buck each still. They were 49 cents when I bought mine. Only disadvantage is that they are tap lands, but most games now don't see anything hit the board until turn 2 or 3, so not a huge deal.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Tri-colored lands are still cheap too, if you are going to build a standard deck using three colors you can just pick then up as singles for about a buck each still. They were 49 cents when I bought mine. Only disadvantage is that they are tap lands, but most games now don't see anything hit the board until turn 2 or 3, so not a huge deal.

Yeah with all the tri-colors running around, even with the mechanics built into it the in-rotation cards to make tri-color viable, it's still an overall slower play, you're right - though people still go hunting for that unbeatable insta-kill infinity combo, which irritates me.

[Izulde]

So, some social commentary regarding today's games: The guy and I played in the reception area of the adjunct building, which led several people to comment on our playing Magic, many expressing curiosity about the game, and interest in what we were doing (Magic has that effect on people I've noticed).

Things got interesting when one of my students came in to office hours for help with a paper:

"You guys are playing Magic? I've played a few times." So we paused the game of course, so I could help with his paper, and he hung around to do rewrites on his draft and watch us play while he made adjustments.

Then another student came in for help with their paper, and said, "Oh, you guys are playing Magic? That's pretty awesome." He didn't play himself, though. So again paused game, helped student with paper.

And we also occasionally paused a game so my opponent could go out for a smoke with his girlfriend, a senior undergrad who he's living with, and who hangs out with him in the building sometimes between classes.

Also during this time, there was another adjunct who was holding mid-term conferences with their students. This cute girl (one of the students) saw we were playing and that we were discussing tournaments, and she asked if there was a tournament on campus. We said no but that it was a good idea. Naturally this led me to ask if she played. She did a couple years ago, but then someone stole her cards. She used to play a white Angel deck with defending walls to stave off attackers until her angels got out (note: Of the 4 women that I've personally known to play Magic, 2 of them have played white angel decks.)

So I walked over to the couch, sat next to her, and flipped my binder open to show her my various Serra Angel art forms. We chatted a bit more - she'd been in a tournament once, just for fun, and she played this guy who snidely said, "I'm not going to go easy on you just because you're a girl" and she was like "O-kaaaay..." He was naturally one of those dudes with a powerdeck and squashed her and then he was like "Sorry about that." And she was all like, "I didn't expect to win. I'm just here to have fun." She was also the only girl at the tournament too, which I'm sure didn't help matters.

Anyway, then it was her turn to go in for conference, so I went back to check on my student (Opponent was still out on smoke break at that point). Then when cute girl came out, she was heading out the door (it was Opponent's turn in the game we were playing then), and I called out, "Hey, I didn't get your name."

"Liliana*," she replied. "Nice to meet you," I said. She paused, and then glanced at me, which made me realize, oh crap I'm supposed to give my name! "Izulde", I answered, and we shook hands, and she headed out, mentioning that she might buy cards again, as I'd said that the campus tournament was a good idea. When I related this to one of my female friends later, she said, "You didn't get contact info?" And I was like, "...No... forgot".

* - Not her real name. I'm substituting it with a reference to the planeswalker of that name.

Oh well!

This exchange, small talk though it was, gave me the werewithal to say hello to people, and another girl remarked that she liked my hat. Inconsequential exchanges of course, but I've noticed that when I'm playing Magic, people will talk to me much more often, and I'm more likely to talk to people. There must be something that changes in my face and the way I present myself when I'm playing, because outside of that, I'm usually either ignored, or regarded with wary suspicion.

Weird times, man. Weird times.

[Izulde]

Infect isn't here. Infect went away.

As I was in the middle of creating what I intended to be a black/red infect deck, I very quickly realized what I was creating was something that had nothing to with infect, so I ended up with something completely different.

Drana's Burning Vampire Kisses
11 Swamps
10 Mountains
2x Blood Seeker
1x Bonehoard
1x Chandra's Spitfire
3x Child of Night
1x Claws of Valakut
1x Crowd of Cinders
1x Deathbellow Raider
4x Doom Blade
1x Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief
1x Feast of Blood
1x Fireball
2x Flame Slash
1x Forked Bolt
1x Generator Servant
2x Guul Draz Vampire
2x Kiln Fiend
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Lightning Strike
1x Pulse Tracker
1x Punishing Fire
2x Red Sun's Zenith
1x Shadow Alley Denizen
1x Tuktuk the Explorer
3x Unholy Strength
1x Vampire Nighthawk
1x Volcanic Strength

Burn, control, and lots of vampires. I'm hoping this will be a fun deck to play, and one that can either go fast, or slow. If not, I'll just make up another deck. I did have to raid 4 cards from A&TW to make this deck, so...

Changes to Ajani and Teysa's Wedding As A Result
+2 Stormfront Pegasus
+1 Whitesun's Passage
+1 Exsanguiate

More life stuff and more flying (took out a Blood Seeker, Guul Draz Vampire, and 2x Child of Night for this).

[BYU 14]

You using this for modern, or just casual?

[Izulde]

Casual. Modern is too hard to find.

[Izulde]

Walked into the commons today, said hello to Blue Mill kid and another guy he was playing. Blue Mill kid left to go get something and other kid asked me "Is he always this arrogant and boisterous? I mean, he's even more arrogant than me, and that's saying something." "Yep," I said.

So we played 3 games of 3 way. First game was me trying out Vampire Kisses, and Other Kid destroyed us both with a black/white Lifelink and control deck he first built when he was 10, and has been adjusting and editing for the past 9 years, so it's a powerhouse and a half, to say the least. His life was up to 80something by end, and his record was something like 11 million life in a previous version of the deck.

Blue Mill started saying I should use my black/white, which I planned to anyway. Black/White Lifelink said "If you two are going to use your mills on me, I'm bringing out my EDH deck." So I said, "How about this? I'm open to attacking either of you, though I'll only mill Blue Mill." "Okay."

What I did instead was focus my attacks on Lifelink and mill Blue Mill. Second game was a very long, protracted battle, the longest 60 card 3 way any of us had been in for a very long time. Blue Mill could have killed Lifelink for multiple turns, but opted not to, because he said he wanted to make the game interesting. This turned out to be a very stupid mistake on his part. Lifelink built up to 31 life after having been whittled down extensively. Only problem? I had been building up my own life with the two Soul creatures and with Ajani Goldmane, and even though Lifelink had Sanguine Bond out, and had us both down a fair ways, I was holding steady at 26 life, with Ajani out at 6 loyalty.

"I will -6 loyalty Ajani, essentially sacing him to create a 26/26 creature. ...Then I'll tap 3 to put Whispersilk Cloak on him, making him unblockable with Shroud... and then I'll cast White Sun's Passing, to put myself at 31 level, making the Avatar 31/31... and... bye-bye."

That defeat of him was so beautiful. And then Blue Mill's trying to figure out a way to beat me, and Lifelink and I are both like "You realize you're dead next turn, right?"

"What? Why?!"

"Unblockable 31/31 avatar that can't be targeted."

"...DAMN IT!"



Next game, Blue Mill got really pissy because I milled two of his reshuffles, and he kind of threw a crying hissy fit about it. So then he kept trying to divert attention between me and Lifelink, which of course led Lifelink to win handily again. Most irritating moment of the game: When Bluemill is like "My deck went off with that High Tide!" and Lifelink and I just looked at each other, not saying a word. So Blue Mill had managed to mill us for some cards each. Not a big deal.

Then Superdeck Standard guy came along and we played four way. I brought out my test deck, which, incidentally, means I have yet to play Superdeck standard guy with Ajani and Teysa's Wedding.

Vampire Kisses did all right, considering it's a test deck, and a severely underpowered one at that I was able to *almost* kill Lifelink but there was a confusion on the life total that left him with 1 life, but Superdeck Standard stomped us all. Blue Mill had mana screw, and unfortunately, nobody takes him seriously anyway, either as a person, or as a player.

Interestingly, both Lifelink and Superdeck Standard are convinced Blue Mill should devote his deck entirely to Mill, and just forget the 10 or so creatures he has in his deck. Which is a good point, come to think of it - I've yet to see him actually win a game by completely milling someone. Knowing him, though, he won't listen.

As I left to teach class, I asked Lifelink what he thought of Ajani and Teysa's Wedding. "Too slow. Stick with the other deck and build that."

While I see his point, I also happen to like Ajani and Teysa's Wedding to play with a lot more. Drana's Burning Vampire Kisses felt quite dull honestly.

And yes, I know I need to remark on the cards I got in the packs, but before I do that, I'm going to go deconstruct Burning Kisses for a different deck idea.

Oh, side note - I love Crowd of Cinders, and eventually want to build a deck where that becomes a potential knockout punch.

[Izulde]

New deck!

Thrun's Redemption
8x Mountains
11x Forests
1x Copperline Gorge
1x Avenger of Zendikar
1x Bellowing Tangleworm
4x Birds of Paradise
1x Bonehoard
1x Chandra's Spitfire
2x Copperhorn Scout
1x Drove of Elves
1x Ezuri's Archers
1x Fireball
2x Flame Slash
1x Forked Bolt
1x Generator Servant
1x Gaea's Herald
1x Khalni Gem
2x Kiln Fiend
2x Lightning Bolt
2x Lightning Strike
4x Lllanowar Elves
1x Nature's Spiral
1x Overrun
1x Praetor's Counsel
1x Punishing Fire
1x Quest for Renewal
2x Red Sun's Zenith
1x Summit Apes
1x Thrun the Last Troll
1x Tuktuk the Explorer
1x Volcanic Strength

I swear the box of Time Spiral is looking at me, coughing and going, "Aren't you going to open me? I might, you know, have useful stuff?" Maybe, but I hate the suspend mechanic which seems to be the priority of Time Spiral. Oh well, probably why it was so cheap, and the old roommate and the other dude never did pay me their share, so the box became mine completely.

But back to this deck. I know I said Thrun did nothing in Glissa's Unholy Elf Army, but I have a soft spot for him. He was the first mythic rare I pulled when I got back into Magic the first time a few years ago. I'm also not sure about Tuktuk and Khalni's Gem. Feels like I should put another Summit Apes in here (I have another one) since I'm running red/green.

Maybe should bump up the forests more since it's green heavy, but yeah, basically the way this deck started, I took a bunch of stuff from the previous two decks and blended them together, with mana dorking and burn as baseline things.

Then I looked through my binders for rares/uncommons I wanted to run, and thus arrives Thrun, Avenger of Zendikar, Praetor's Counsel, and Bellowing Tangleworm, and Drove of Elves - very pleased to see I have the green version of Crowd of Cinders in DoE.

Not sure yet about the Copperhorn Scouts, but I'll play them to see how they do as attacking untaps of Birds and Elves. Also not certain about Gaea's Herald negating the countering of creatures, though I feel like it should be in there to frustrate blue decks. Perhaps a sideboard item.

Maybe *this* will be the deck that can finally compete with the powerhouses.

[Izulde]

So... I played against a preconstructed Standard deck today.

Thrun's Redemption won 1 and lost 1. Ajani and Teysa's Wedding won 1.

That's not a good thing when your deck is barely holding even against a precon, even an excellent one as this one was in many respects (Sultai Schemers). Makes me angrier still that I got conned by the pre-con that suggested it was random, especially since these intro decks are cheaper, I think.

So I have the flier with the 5 Khans of Tarkir intro decks in my possession now. I may get one tonight and build off of that. I still do have 3 standard boosters to open as well.

It will get its tail kicked, but I'm going to put a deck together for standard play and do Friday Night Magic with the Standard Tournament tomorrow, I think.

[BYU 14]

The one nice part is that all the clans have a variety of decks that can be successful, but a few core cards are common (and key) to all variants.

With the Mardu deck I play you will see some decks with Wingmate Roc (my choice) and some with Stormbreath Dragon instead, or even extra planeswalkers. But for creatures you can count on 4 X Goblin Rabblemasters and 3X or 4X Butcher of the Horde as the lynchpins, with Seeker of the way making a strong push for a standard component as well.

Spells in Mardu will pretty much always include 4X Crackling Doom and 3 or 4X Lightning Strike and 3 or 4X Hordeling Outburst. After that is a variety that includes Chained to the Rocks, Hero's downfall, Thoughtseize, Despise, Mardu Charm or a couple of others.

You can count on 4X Siege Rhino and Abzan Charm in Abzan decks, 4X Mantis Riders and usually 4X Rabblemasters in Jeskai decks, etc.

My advice would be to pick a clan, identify the 2 or 3 core cards that are common to most all of the deck types and build from there to suit your preferred style of play. Jeskai is very versatile here in that it can go tempo, control, or combo.

[Izulde]

Thanks, BYU 14. I found four of the five clan intro decks in Target (Temur may have been there too, but I didn't notice it), so I googled the core cards for the Abzan and Jeskai decks (I hate Mardu from that useless pre-con with a die I bought last week, and my other opponent ran the second deck, so I knocked those two out immediately)

Abzan was the best match for the type of game I like to play and it wasn't even close.

Abzan Siege Pre-Con
Creatures (23)
2x Disowned Ancestor
3x Ainok Bond-Kin
1x Sungrace Pegasus
2x Child of Night
2x Abzan Falconer
2x Tuskguard Champion
1x Abzan Battle Priest
1x High Sentinels of Arashin
1x Razorfoot Griffin
2x Saltroad Patrol
1x Mer-Ek Nightblade
2x Longshot Squad
1x Armament Corps
1x Ivorytusk Fortress (Foil)
1x Carnivorous Moss-beast

Other Spells (11)
1x Suspension Field
1x Eternal Thirst
2x Abzan Banner
2x Kill Shot
1x Abzan Charm
1x Dragonscale Boon
1x Hunt for the Weak
1x Flesh to Dust
1x Incremental Growth

Lands (26)
1x Blossoming Sands
1x Jungle Hollow
2x Sandsteppe Citadel
1x Scoured Barrens
8 Plains
7 Swamps
6 Forests

I very quickly determined that what I wanted to do was merely splash Black, so out went the Swamps.

From there, other adjustments followed, based on various packs I opened and a vision I developed for the deck. To that end we have...

The Deck That Needs A Name
Creatures (24)
3x Abzan Falconer
1x Abzan Battle Priest
3x Ainok Bond-Kin
1x Ajani's Pridemate
1x Armament Corps
2x High Sentinels of Arashin
1x Ivorytusk Fortress (Foil)
1x Mer-Ek Nightblade
1x Opaline Unicorn
1x Pharixa's Mender
1x Reclamation Sage
1x Servant of Tymaret
1x Scourge of Skola Vale
1x Sungrace Pegasus
1x Supply-Line Cranes
1x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Tuskguard Champion
1x Vanguard of Brimax

Other Spells (15)
1x Abzan Banner
1x Abzan Charm
1x Ajani's Presence
1x Dragonscale Boon
1x Eternal Thirst
1x Feed the Clan
1x Incremental Growth
2x Kill Shot
1x Pillar of Light
1x Ray of Dissolution
1x Reviving Melody
1x Solemn Offering
1x Suspension Field
1x Viper's Kiss

Lands (21)
1x Blossoming Sands
1x Jungle Hollow
2x Sandsteppe Citadel
1x Temple of Silence
8 Plains
8 Forests

Bold = changes to the original pre-constructed deck.

So yeah... it'll get its tail kicked tomorrow in the tournament, but that's okay. I'm keeping the original premise of the deck, which is +1/+1 counters, and abilities kicking in for that - hence adding some more counter-adding stuff.

Also added stuff to get more life, and things to control against super-creatures I come up against, along with enchantments and artifacts. Tossed in a couple graveyard retrieval items as well.

Is it a tournament-winning deck yet? Of course not. But I feel like this new version is much more streamlined, and much more capable of dealing with different types of threats. That's a big weakness I noticed about A&TW - very little threat control.

Thrun's Redemption got another play today, by the way. Student came in with a blue/white deck from back in the day that did some nice counter things and had an 8/8 flier out at one point, until I was able to Red Sun's Zenith it.

So I'll probably stick with tweaking those three decks for now. Still nothing with blue, which is a shame, because I like water, and islands, but blue is always the color I do worst with.

[BYU 14]

Abzan is a solid deck and is probably the most popular right now, though there are several different takes in it, so it is still offers a lot of diversity. My deck is geared more to beat this than any of the other clans because so many people play variants of it.

So since you are going for a life gain theme I would definitely look to collect 4 Siege Rhinos, 3 more Abzan Charms and 3 more Caryatid as the next additions.

If you are going to run more Ajani Pridemates for that token pump from life gain I would definitely add some protection for him (God's willing is good here and I have some extras I will mail to you if you want, FB your address to me if interested)

For removal suspension field is cheap, a 2 drop and handles creatures of toughness 3 or greater which are big in this meta. Doesn't take care of Stormbreath Dragon though, so that is a bad matchup for you. You can also pick up Despise as a short term solution as it deals with creatures and planeswalkers before they hit the board and both these cards will be plentiful at your local store for a quarter each.

As you build the deck you can look towards getting Hero's Downfall and Utter end as more versatile, but pricey removal.

[Izulde]

I actually do have a Gods Willing, but since it's only for one turn, and it can't be used to counter a counter, I didn't include it.

I did, however, go through Ajani and Teysa's Wedding, and pulled the last Abzan Banner from tournament deck to put in Spear of Heliod instead.

[BYU 14]

Spear will be good short term, but just expect your Ajani to be targeted by removal, which this meta plays a lot of once he starts to gain tokens.

[Izulde]

I also took out a Kill Shot and replaced it with Roar of Challenge.

[Izulde]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Spear will be good short term, but just expect your Ajani to be targeted by removal, which this meta plays a lot of once he starts to gain tokens.

Yeah that's why I have graveyard retrievals built in, in part.

[Izulde]

As I was eating lunch, I realized my long-term strategy means I'm going to have to favor 2 or 3 mechanics at most, and what do I want? Trample? First Strike? Flying? Lifelink? Deathtouch?

I'll probably have to play more to find out, but for now, I'll re-drop Roar of Challenge, since it needs Deathtouch to be effective and I have one Deathtouch granting thing in the deck, and Ajani's Presence, since it only adds +1/+1 and not counters. Instead, I'll add in Divine Favor (while not a counter add, the +1/+3 is a much bigger buff, and I gain 3 life), and Tormented Hero (Heroic ability is Opponent loses 1 life, I gain 1).

[Izulde]

Played Mill kid today. He's made some adjustments to his deck and added more defensive fliers. First game I played him with my Standard deck, and he said, "What's the point of this deck? I'm not really seeing it." Then the abilities started kicking in on my all +1/+1 counter guys and he saw the point of it. Beat him a second time, but overall, I started to really hate how slow this deck is, so I may try reconstructing it as aggro. BYU 14, any ideas on how to do that?

The rest of the time I played Thrun's Redemption, and mopped the floor with him every.single.game. Kept destroying his defensive fliers with burn, and I kept getting out mana dorking fun with Birds and Elves. I even beat him when I was getting incredible green mana screw, until I was finally able to pull a forest and start dropping stuff.

I've discovered Khalni's Gem has a definitive use in this deck. When I drop Avatar of Zendikon, as I did twice this game, by following it up with Khalni's Gem, I'm able to guarantee landfall for my plant creatures. In fact, one game I killed him with a Plant token.

There was one contest where he got out a great opening hand, and eventually was able to mill me down to 15 cards left. That kind of wasn't a problem because I had Avatar and Khalni's Gem out, plus some other stuff, and he only had one blocker.

The first game with Redemption, I managed to kill him with a Volcanic Strength Bird. One game I beat him despite having no mountains out - just Birds for red mana.

So I'm starting to rediscover faith in this deck - its ability to control and burn, while quietly building up. One game, he thought he had me on the ropes and in position to bounce back... only for me to crush him with Overrun.

[BYU 14]

Sticking with the Abzan theme, this is much more agro if that's what you want. Curves out at Siege Rhino, ramps mana with Mystic and Caryatid to monstrous Fleecemane and get Rhino out on turn 3. While you build to this, plenty of 1 drops to get threats down quick.

2 Elvish Mystic
3 Sylvan Caryatid
3 Gnarled Scarhide
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
3 Fleecemane Lion
3 Mardu Hateblade
3 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Siege Rhino

Spells
3 Raise the Alarm
2 Bow of Nylea
3 Abzan Charm
3 Abzan Ascendancy

Land
4 Caves of Koilos
3 Forest
4 Llanowar Wastes
3 Plains
4 Sandsteppe Citadel
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Windswept Heath (or Temple of Plenty since Fetches are pricey)

Sideboard
4 Despise
3 Nyx-Fleece Ram (A good counter to keep Red agro at bay while you build)
2 Bow of Nylea
3 Gods Willing
2 Arethos God of Passage
1 Whip of Erebos

[BYU 14]

Other good Abzan mainboard options for agro

Heir of the Wilds
Rakshasa Death Dealer
Anafenza the Foremost