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By: Flippers_Giraffe, Simon Smith
Nov 18 2015 12:00pm
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This article was dew a bit sooner but I got hit really hard by the MTGO bug. I've been building lot's of new and exciting decks, I just can't pull myself away from my computer at the moment which is great for you as it's now catch up time, I have enough decks to cover quite a few articles behind me now, so I should be regular for a bit, but not in that way...

M2015 and the Theros block has rotated since I last wrote which has left Elspeth, Sun's Champion feeling very unwanted she's crashed big time into the bargain bin, she was once a very important lady in Standard and now she's begging for work the poor lass. She's currently sitting around the $2 mark.

Speaking of prices a lot of Vintage cards have dropped over the last month, staple cards like Tundra and Volcanic Island are really on their way down to affordable levels for casual players.

I'm quite enjoying Standard at the moment everything is up in the air which makes things very interesting, it's nice to see lots of people playing different decks in the Just for Fun room.

So off to Standard we go with our first deck of the article, this was my very first deck using the new cards from Battle for Zendikar. I decided I wanted to build a deck based around the Eldrazi Drones. I'm not really into the big Eldrazi but the drones hit something of interest and so a new deck was born. The card that first drew me to them was Dominator Drone. I quite like the Ingest mechanic, yeah it's not the best but always makes me smile as it's as if he's chewing his way through your opponents deck going om nom nom nom.

He's not going to be winning any games by himself so needs to bring a few friends along for the party. Our one drop is Salvage Drone to start things rolling. I find he sticks around for quite a few turns before there's something bigger on the other side of the table. Then we bring our drone booster into play Ruination Guide to give the rest of our drones a bit more power, I didn't bother with his counterpart Tide Drifter as I wanted to be pushing forward and not having to be the defender. Our last drone in the deck is Skitterskin who is gifted with regeneration which has come in handy more than a few times.

If it all goes wrong and we find ourselves out numbered then we do have another creature that we can call to our aid, he's not a drone or even an Eldrazi but he's earned his place in this deck by winning most of the games that's he's shown his face in. He's a big bad dragon from Dragons of Tarkir Deathbringer Regent, when he comes into play and if he was cast from your hand and there are five or more other creatures on the battlefield you get to destroy them all apart from Deathbringer Regent. He may be quite hard to cast but he's totally worth it!

Next we look at removal of which there is quite a lot in this deck. We have hand removal in the form of Despise which actually lives up to its name, the number of players who have conceded on turn one when I cast it is quite amazing, it's not like it's the return of Hymn to Tourach. The second card is Transgress the Mind which is most useful in the early game and has some very cool art work as well, if not a bit disturbing for those of a faint disposition.

Continuing with removal we have Complete Disregard to tackle the early critters, Titan's Presence which lets you exile a creature with power less than the card you reveals power when you cast it. Grip of Desolation is an interesting removal card as it not only exiles a creature but also a land as well, I think I'll be trying this card in Legacy at some point as the land removal could be most useful. Lastly we have Scour from Existence, pick a card and exile it, yep any card will do land, creature or even a planeswalker, the choice is yours. 

There's a few cards left of note that are quite interesting, Hedron Archive which is your average mana accelerator but you can also sacrifice it to draw two cards which makes it really useful in the late game when you have too much mana floating around. Hedron Blade is also quite good against other Eldrazi decks although I'm not seeing as many now as when Battle for Zendikar first came out. Lastly we have a land Skyline Cascade which can stop a creature from untapping in its next untap phase after the land comes into play, it's not a game winner but can be quite useful.

Overall the decks quite fun to play and it has a nice flow to it, the mana ramp is spot on and it has enough removal to support it for the win. Deathbringer Regent really is a star in the deck, he comes in totally unexpected and just wipes the floor most games. 

 photo drones.png

    Creatures     Artifacts 
Deathbringer Regent  3 Hedron Archive
4 Dominator Drone Hedron Blade
4 Ruination Guide    
Salvage Drone   Lands
Skitterskin 4 Dismal Backwater
    5 Island
  Instants   4 Polluted Delta
Complete Disregard 1 Shrine of the Forsaken Gods
Grip of Desolation Skyline Cascade
Scour from Existence    
2 Spell Shrivel    
2 Titan's Presence    
       
  Sorceries    
Despise    
Transgress the Mind    
       

 

 

The next deck will be based in the Modern format around a card that I found would be interesting to build round. It's not the most exciting card in the world but then it's not always the exciting ones that trigger that deck building spark. The card is Blightcaster from Origins. He's a pretty standard card but has a nice trigger when an enchantment comes into play which gives a creature -2/-2 of your choice. Yep that's all it took for my gears to start grinding and an hour later I had an enchantment deck not necessary based around this guy but it fully uses his ability.

So now we have our wizard let's see what other cards we can use to support him. As we are going to be going enchantment heavy there wasn't any excuse to not use Eidolon of Blossoms to help us with some extra card draw. Courser of Kruphix also fits in nicely with the enchantment theme and can help speed up our deck by playing lands from the top, she's also quite a decent blocker as well being a 2/4. I also went with Grim Guardian as well who again is a great blocker but also has a nice ability that causes our opponent to lose a life when an enchantment comes into play on our side.

We also have Leafcrown Dryad which is ok to trigger the above cards and she has reach but she can also be cast as an enchant creature as well if you need something to block a larger flying creature. On the big end of the enchantment creatures we have Doomwake Giant, while he's in play when an enchantment comes into play all your opponents creatures get -1/-1 for the turn and yes that's each time an enchantment comes into play. I went with the promo version in foil as below as the card looks really nice with the current foil effect.

To help our deck along we have Sylvan Caryatid for an extra mana boost. Herald of the Pantheon from Origins to help reduce the cost of our enchantment creatures. We also have a rather odd creature that goes quite nicely with our enchantment creatures ability's Forlorn Pseudamma, she's a 2/1 zombie with intimidate, when she untaps you can pay three mana to put a 2/2 enchantment zombie into play which will trigger most of our enchantment creatures abilities apart from Blightcaster. While we are on the subject of enchantments I'm also running a pair of Gutter Grimes, its got quite a lot of text for it's ability so I'll just do a copy and paste "Whenever a nontoken creature you control dies, put a slime counter on Gutter Grime, then put a green Ooze creature token onto the battlefield with "This creature's power and toughness are each equal to the number of slime counters on Gutter Grime."". As you can see it's quite a fun card especially with some mass removal.

Of course we don't need to be in white for mass removal as we have Damnation which fits in perfectly. Also on the removal side we have Grasp of Darkness which is still one of my favourite removal spells in black. We also have some enchantment/artifact hate in the form of Krosan Grip, the split second mechanic is still worth using in my opinion to get around all those Counterspells.

I must say it's not one of the most deadliest decks I've made but I find it really fun to play especially when you start triggering off all the enchantment creatures and Blightcaster. At the end of the day though I prefer fun and interesting games than just crushing my opponent, if my decks get to that level I find I lose interest in them quickly. 

 photo grim blight_1.png

    Creatures     Instants
Blightcaster  3 Grasp Of Darkness
3 Courser of Kruphix Hero's Downfall
1 Doomwake Giant 2 Krosan Grip
Eidolon of Blossoms    
Forlorn Pseudamma   Lands
Grim Guardian  6 Forest
Herald of the Pantheon Grim Backwoods
Leafcrown Dryad Jungle Hollow 
Sylvan Caryatid Oran-Rief, the Vastwood 
    Swamp 
  Enchantments Woodland Cemetery 
1 Bow of Nylea    
2 Gutter Grime    
       
  Sorceries    
Damnation    
       

 

Now to the last deck of the article, for this we visit the Vintage format. I wanted to build a deck around an old card from Alpha/Beta, I was having a nostalgic moment when I created this deck and choose Kormus Bell. On the outside it's not a super powerful card as one would expect from the set that brought you Time Walk, Black Lotus and the moxen. While it's in play all swamps become 1/1 black creatures and are still lands. Yes that's the card we will be building round for this deck.

There are two options to abuse this card one is via stomping down with our swamps, for that we need a way to improve our swamp finding abilities for this we have Liliana of the Dark Realms, her +1 ability is that she can search for a swamp and put it into our hand giving us an endless supply, well not quite endless but enough for our evil plan.  To help out our 1/1 swamps I'm running Corrosive Mentor so they get wither and Mightstone to improve their power. If you really want things to take off we also have Eldrazi Monument to give our swamps an extra +1/+1 and flying but that's at a cost of a creature a turn to be sacrificed to the dark gods. But and a big but this is only our reserve plan our main one is much more nasty, oh yes insert evil laugh right about here mmmmmwwwwahahahahahaha 

Our evil plan is as follows, cast Kormus Bell so all swamps are creatures, which is fun. Bring out Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth so everybody gets to enjoy having lots of swamps running around, well that is until you drop Curse of Death's Hold. Oh look all your nice little swamp creatures get -1/-1 and die horribly, such a shame, mana denial at its best. Of course at that point we either get a disconnection or our opponent finds it funny and my swamps go in for the kill.

We are going to need a few more cards though if things don't work out. We have Damnation which works nicely if our swamps are indestructible via Eldrazi Monument. We have a play set of Black Knights for the early game to stop fast decks like goblins, they also work well with Corrosive Mentor with their first strike ability. Bile Blight can be used as a reset point giving all swamps -3/-3, you need to make sure you are holding back a few swamps if you play this or have Liliana of the Dark Realms in play. Our other star in the deck who likes killing swamps is Bane of the Living, I haven't used this card in a long time but it is really good for a nasty surprise.

   

Then we have the staples for a black deck in Vintage, Dark Ritual, Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Mox Jet, Sol Ring. I also have a few Sign in Blood's for some extra card draw and I'm running Ancient Tomb's to help speed the deck up in the early game.

It is one of the most fun decks I've played in the Vintage format in a long time, it can be really deadly if you get the right cards at the right time or you could end up winning just by pure swamp power. I'll be delving back into the old cards again soon so expect the un-expected.  

 photo dark realms.png

    Creatures     Planeswalkers
Bane of the Living  3 Liliana of the Dark Realms
4 Black Knight    
2 Corrosive Mentor   Artifacts
    1 Eldrazi Monument
  Enchantments 4 Kormus Bell
Curse of Death's Hold 4 Mightstone
    1 Mox Jet
  Sorceries 1 Sol Ring
Damnation    
Demonic Tutor   Lands
2 Sign in Blood 3 Ancient Tomb
    16  Swamp
  Instants Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Bile Blight    
Dark Ritual    
Vampiric Tutor     
       

That I'm afraid is the end of the article, hopefully I'll be back real soon as I said at the start of the article I have lots of decks that have been play tested and are ready for you to see.

All the best Flip

4 Comments

Bile blight plus Urborg plus by AJ_Impy at Wed, 11/18/2015 - 15:39
AJ_Impy's picture
5

Bile blight plus Urborg plus Kormus Bell is even better than that: Since it runs off names rather than subtypes, you could, for example, wipe out every creature named forest even though they're only creatures because of the bell and the tomb.

Yeah that is very true, the by Flippers_Giraffe at Wed, 11/18/2015 - 16:17
Flippers_Giraffe's picture

Yeah that is very true, the strange thing is from all the games I've played with this deck I've yet to draw Bile Blight to actually try it out!

Nice Combo... by Fred1160 at Thu, 11/19/2015 - 11:43
Fred1160's picture

I did a similar combo in R/G and it's Modern legal: Gaea's Anthem, Natural Affinity, and Pyroclasm. My 3/3 lands survive and your lands all die.

Nom Nom Nom by ComixWriter at Thu, 11/19/2015 - 12:29
ComixWriter's picture

Great minds think alike, Simon! I tested the Dimir Devoid/Ingest strategy at this week's PDC, even naming it "Nom Nom Nom," too: http://pdcmagic.com/gatherling/eventreport.php?event=MPDC+31.04

While I'll be writing about the deck in near future, I believe Ingest may skew the very popular Delve mechanic. Currently in Standard Pauper, sacrificing one's own creatures to damage/kill/remove another threat is quite common. Oddly, casting a spell AND losing a creature to target a threat seems like terrible card advantage; you spend two cards to get rid of one. However, that dead sacrificed creature becomes fodder for delve spells, reducing cmc of bigger spells, often negating the card disadvantage. Cards in exile don't fuel delve. Sure, killing a threat is handy, but ingest never wants to KILL anything but our opponent, thereby bypassing the graveyard. Tightening Coils deftly shuts down most Husks or Landfall-triggering creatures, while keeping them OUT of the graveyard. Sure, they can block, but they can't block FLYERS. Therefore, no serious ingest deck would be without Mist Intruder and Benthic Infiltrator. Please consider those options, even if playing outside of the Standard Pauper format, Simon. Love the discussion on it!!