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By: Leviathan, Mike Morales
Jul 12 2012 8:45am
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A while back, I mentioned a couple of Unfinished Decks that I usually messed around with.  These decks weren't ready for prime time but were fun to play.  One of those decks used our boy Marton, which you can see here.  

Marton Stromgald
An Unfinished Commander Deck
Creatures
1 Anger
1 Ashling the Pilgrim
1 Blood Knight
1 Bloodmark Mentor
1 Canyon Wildcat
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Duplicant
1 Dwarven Blastminer
1 Dwarven Miner
1 Epochrasite
1 Fledgling Dragon
1 Furystoke Giant
1 Goblin Patrol
1 Goblin Shortcutter
1 Hissing Iguanar
1 Homura, Human Ascendant
1 Iron Myr
1 Keldon Vandals
1 Magus of the Moon  
1 Mogg War Marshal
1 Obsidian Fireheart
1 Ornithopter
1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
1 Palladium Myr
1 Phyrexian War Beast
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Plated Geopede
1 Rakka Mar
1 Rapacious One
1 Rustrazor Butcher
1 Scorched Rusalka
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Slith Firewalker
1 Soulbright Flamekin
1 Stigma Lasher
1 Stuffy Doll
1 Taurean Mauler
1 Thick-Skinned Goblin
1 Viashino Heretic
39 cards

Other Spells
[Artifacts]
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Loxodon Warhammer
1 Nuisance Engine
1 Skullclamp
1 Snake Basket
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
1 Whispersilk Cloak
[Planeswalker]
1 Chandra Ablaze
[Enchantments]
1 Blood Moon
1 Breath of Fury
1 Goblin Assault
1 Goblin Bombardment
[Sorceries]
1 Earthquake
1 Firecat Blitz
1 Incite Hysteria
1 Insurrection
1 Rolling Thunder
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 World at War
22 cards
Lands
1 Dread Statuary
1 Forgotten Cave
1 Ghitu Encampment
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Hammerheim
1 Kher Keep
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Mishra's Factory
24 Mountain
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Springjack Pasture
1 Strip Mine
1 Teetering Peaks
1 Urza's Factory
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
38 cards

Sideboard
1 Marton Stromgald
1 cards
rustrazor butcher

 

I decided to pick this deck up, brush it up, and make it more competitive.  Here is the new and improved deck:

Marton Stromgald 2.0
A Commander Deck
Creatures
1 Anger
1 Ashling the Pilgrim
1 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Duplicant
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Goblin Welder
1 Hellrider
1 Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Iron Myr
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Manic Vandal
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Myr Retriever
1 Oxidda Scrapmelter
1 Palladium Myr
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Precursor Golem
1 Pyreheart Wolf
1 Rakka Mar
1 Rapacious One
1 Ravenous Baboons
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Stigma Lasher
1 Taurean Mauler
1 Urabrask the Hidden
1 Viashino Heretic
1 Zealous Conscripts
30 cards

Other Spells
[Artifacts]
1 Akroma's Memorial
1 Caged Sun
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Druidic Satchel
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Grim Monolith
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Mana Crypt
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind Stone
1 Mind's Eye
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Skullclamp
1 Slate of Ancestry
1 Sol Ring
[Planeswalkers]
1 Chandra Ablaze
1 Koth of the Hammer
[Enchantments]
1 Fervor
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 In the Web of War
[Instants]
1 Into the Core
1 Starstorm
[Sorceries]
1 Firecat Blitz
1 Gamble
1 Goblin Offensive
1 Heat Shimmer
1 Insurrection
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Wheel of Fortune
32 cards
Lands
1 Arid Mesa
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Buried Ruin
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 High Market
1 Kher Keep
1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Scalding Tarn
21 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Springjack Pasture
1 Strip Mine
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Winding Canyons
1 Wooded Foothills
37 cards

Sideboard
1 Marton Stromgald
1 cards
hellrider

 

As you can see, there have been lots of changes.  Here's the deck tech:

Here are the cards that I've never used in a deck prior to this:

reforge the soul stigma lasher goblin welder fervor 

21 new cards that I have never used before:  Goblin Welder, Hellrider, Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician, Iron Myr, Manic Vandal, Oxidda Scrapmelter, Precursor Golem, Pyreheart Wolf, Ravenous Baboons, Stigma Lasher, Zealous Conscripts, Slate of Ancestry, Chandra Ablaze, Koth of the Hammer, Fervor, In the Web of War, Firecat Blitz, Goblin Offensive, Heat Shimmer, Reforge the Soul, Darksteel Citadel.  A bunch of these are token creation or help with the token theme.  On top of that there are some "enters the battlefield" guys, some draw, and some cards from recent sets.  Both of the planeswalkers worked well for me in this deck and I was usually happy to draw them.  Goblin Welder is a nice form of recursion thhat helped out a lot.  Finally, Heat Shimmer was a great addition.  I loved it every time I drew it.

Here is one game.  I had a really hard time getting replays to work, so I taped this assuming that I would not get a better game.

But I did play another game where the replay worked fine.  Here it is.

The deck is pretty good in its current form.  There were a couple of cards that I tried, such as Mana Geyser and Battle Hymn, that underperformed and didn't make the cut for me.  In addition, I tried to keep Dolmen Gate from the original deck but it just wasn't really that good.  Other cards that I really wanted to work were Relentless Assault and World at War, just because multiple attack steps means really huge guys with Marton.  Unfortunately I had to make room for other stuff and they were among the first to get cut.

In the end, the deck is really about finding the right times to go all in and take people out.  Like in the second game, after people took out my initial onslaught I sort of became and afterthought and took advantage.  The deck takes a little bit of practice to play but once I got it in its current form I ended up with a really, really good record.  So it is really good, better than I thought it would be.

I hope you guys enjoyed the videos!

NO MULTIPLAYER ROOM

For those of you that have been on MTGO since Wednesday's update and tried to go to the multiplayer room for your Commander fix, you'll notice that the room is gone.  Essentially you can now play multiplayer games in either the Beginner room, the Just for Fun room, or the Anything Goes room.  This leaves me with a little bit of a conundrum.  I've noticed that there are occasional games in the Anything Goes room, but they are few and far between.  So I'm going to have to get my games in the Just for Fun room.  I assume that most of the people who read me or that I would normally play against will be in that room.  Does this sound good to you guys?  Or would you rather I try and prepare decks for the Anything Goes room?  Let me know! 

Until next time!

Leviathan, aka Tarasco on MTGO
mrmorale32 at yahoo dot com

CONQUEROR & COMMANDER ARCHIVE

7 Comments

Thanks for the shout out. I by bogtrog at Thu, 07/12/2012 - 21:13
bogtrog's picture

Thanks for the shout out. I am glad you liked Heat Shimmer. It is one of those cards that is difficult to quantify while building a deck, but is always seems so good when you draw it in an actual game.

I have have tinkered with Marton decks quite a bit so it was fun to see your updated take on it. I recently tweaked my version to be a duel focused version.

You are spot on with all your haste enablers, it is so important to get Marton into an attack phase. I almost think of him a big creature pumping sorcery. You are right Fire cat blitz is a total all-star in the deck and is probably one of its best cards.

Also thanks for the tip on Star Storm, it is one I had not thought of.

I do enjoy the Warp World back up plan in my version, and it can be a ton of fun. I also love Mana Echos in my deck. With so many armies in a can you can build up a lot of mana. I have chained a few creatures together and won simply on huge Firecat Blitzes or Comet Storms. Speaking of armies in a can I also like Snake Basket, and Thopter Assembly, although they are a bit slower.

I had not yet realized they removed the multiplayer room. That is ridiculous. Why would you steer all games into the same over full, and hard to navigate room? Seems dumb.

Anyway fun article. I really am liking the videos you have been doing.

I'm appalled as well about by Kumagoro42 at Thu, 07/12/2012 - 14:20
Kumagoro42's picture
5

I'm appalled as well about the disappearance of the multiplayer room (I didn't get the update yesterday and weirdly enough the program let me in anyway, so earlier today I was in the ghost of the multiplayer room with 3 other people looking confused). The Just for Fun room was already overcrowded as it was, and I for one can't afford to have all the games shown, or my PC would slow down to impossible levels. It looks like Resource Management 101 to me: to divide your customers into marketing profiles then address each of them to where they want to go is more logic and profitable than having everything and everyone mixed together. That's why supermarkets have aisles with different product types, and not just one gigantic shelf with everything on it.

The mulitplayer room removal by Leviathan at Thu, 07/12/2012 - 18:55
Leviathan's picture

The mulitplayer room removal is super annoying. I understand why they did it (sort of a one stop way to meet up and play with people looking for the same level of action) but the implementation is horrible. After playing last night in the Just for Fun room, I found that I had to sort the games by type, then scroll down until I saw Commander. Typically they would all stay on screen. The annoying part was that there is no distinction between 1v1 and multiplayer Commander games unless someone puts something in the notes. So I ended up joining a couple 1v1 games before getting into multiplayer. The other way to get a multiplayer game going is to create one yourself, put something in the notes, and then advertise in the chat. I had good success with this.

But it's really just a huge pain in the ass. I have heard several people mention the horrible lag. It seems apparent they didn't want to create a multiplayer room for the new UI, so might as well get us used to it now. I wonder if the multiplayer community is big enough and ticked enough to get something done about it.

Also interestingly, I didn't see anything in the article on the mothership covering the new UI about multiplayer capability or functionality.

Glad you guys like the videos! I will try to keep them coming. Unfortunately many of my replays either never get onto the system (ie., I play a game, win, then look for it under the Games tab and it isn't there) or get corrupted a couple turns in. Super freaking annoying. I've already had 3 games for next weeks deck that would be good for the article, but all of them are missing/corrupted. Le sigh.

Mana Echoes is interesting, and a card I hadn't thought of. I did have Snake Basket in my initial version as you can see, but I was disappointed to note that you can only make snakes at sorcery speed. Super annoying.

Have you ever been able to by KaraZorEl at Thu, 07/12/2012 - 23:40
KaraZorEl's picture

Have you ever been able to transform Homura? He seems custom-built for a Lyzolda deck...

Also, getting rid of the multiplayer room was one of the worst decisions I've seen on MTGO since I've been here for, what is it? Two years now? I really extremely doubtful about Wizards of the Coast at this point. Can they afford to treat their customers poorly in the midst of a worldwide recession? Yet, they seem to be constantly doing so.

Loved the article. I have to by Micasmit25 at Fri, 07/13/2012 - 01:49
Micasmit25's picture

Loved the article. I have to admit I've always had a soft spot for Marton.

As someone who is new to the format I'm definitely discouraged about the removal of the multiplayer room. Can I request that if things stabilize into some sort of informal process in either the anything goes room or the just for fun room that you let your readers know?

So you got me excited about by bogtrog at Fri, 07/13/2012 - 22:32
bogtrog's picture

So you got me excited about ol Marton again so I have been running him some today. I haven't touched the deck in months so I had to make some updates with some of your ideas here and some cards from the most recent sets. Again my version is built for 1v1, but I was having a surprising amount of success with it, and a lot of fun. I was able to win many games early. It was more resiliant than my previous attempts, and could fight trough a fair amount of disruption and still get there.

Mana echoes contined to be super for me and can really propel game big game winning turns. Nothing quite like playing out a siege gang commander and getting 16+ mana to keep going. Speaking of siege gang, with targets like him, Kiki, Ib and welder a goblin matron is a great adition.
Maybe it is just the sped that my deck wants but I found battle hymn pretty useful.

I also found having other avenues to victory was one of the things that made the deck more resilient and less of a one trick pony. Warp world, Vicious Shadows, and comet storm ended up finishing as many games as big Marton swings did.

Good times.

Last, now having seen the merged room, it doesn't seem like the end on the world. Definitely not as good as it used to be though.

I think Vicious Shadows by Leviathan at Mon, 07/16/2012 - 16:57
Leviathan's picture

I think Vicious Shadows definitely should be in the deck, with Warp World being right behind it. My only misgiving about Warp is the mana cost. But I can't believe I forgot Shadows.