counterbalance top in the casual room huh. And a mill deck that all it does is counter and be uninteractive. If you are going to make decks for the casual room, you might want to rethink what is in those decks. You made 2 decks that all they do is not allow the opp to play a game. Not fun for them, and since it is the casual room, all it means is that you ruined some games for others. You didnt show that you made good decks, you just made decks that are gonna run rampant through the casual room.
i think you forgot to mention one of the most powerful blue enchantments, especially when running into decks using gaea's blessing. you need to look at forced fruition.
the way it works is:
whenever your opponent casts a spell, they draw 7 cards.
if you get that out, the odds they draw the gaea is god for you.
Expedition Map and Bloodbraid Elf are obvious oversights on my part and they should be in the deck.
Tolaria West and Vesuva are not in this deck because I'm really trying to streamline the mana to make an essentially 3 color deck work and still include enough Mountains to have a feasible chance of activiating Valakut.
I've tested Vesuva and most of the time Valakut is the last thing you want to copy with it. Most of the time Vesuva is little more than a Reflecting Pool that enters the battlefield tapped. I'm not sold on Tectonic Edge in a deck with more than 2 colors. I had too many games where I can't find my colored mana but I have plenty of colorless land in the form of Wasteland, Mutavault, and Mishra's Factory. This deck is very Mountain hungry as well.
I picked Goblins because it is a very reliable base for a red based deck. Also goblins have a reasonable good game against control decks, which are the decks that Valakut would fear the most as Scapeshift is easily countered.
Both good points. I plan on trying other types of Death's Shadow decks in the future.
I will say though that I usually try to stay away from the "win all at once" type of deck -- especially when that "all at once" happens on turn one or two. And I also try to avoid deck ideas that were tier one in tournaments, since my column is meant for casual vanguard. Thanks for the ideas though! -CR
PS To anyone who cares about grammar as much as I do, I just want to quickly point out that the error in the article's tagline isn't my fault! I originally submitted it as "ought not to." The editor I guess didn't like the word ought, and so changed it to should, with the only problem being that "should not to" doesn't make grammatical sense. Sorry everyone....
As usual I love the stuff you put out Cotton. However, you are thinking waaaaaay too hard on Death's Shadow. Maralen is definetly the avatar to use, however for my trick you could use any avatar with a high hand count and a low life. Death's Shadow wants your life to be low so it can be big, right? Well you're focusing on the lowness of your life, and not the hugeness of your creature. I would make the deck Red/Black. Toss in 4 Lotus Petals for color fixing and a bunch of ritual effects. Pay a lot of life to Maralen like you did. With a Blood Crypt (really good in this case) or a Badlands (less good cause no life loss) you could potenially see first turn that looks like this.
Pay 10 life. Play Blood Crypt and lose 2 life. Play Lotus Petal. Tap the land for Black and cast Death's Shadow at 8/8. With a second Petal, you can cast Mass Hysteria, he has haste now, attack for 8 damage. Sac your other petal for red, and play Rite of Flame, and use Fling to toss him at your opponent for another 8 damage. That's 16 damage on turn 1. Granted your hand is now empty, but you get to tutor on your next turn. 16 damage is enough to kill most avatars.
As for Chronotog. I don't know if you remember, but Chronotog used to be a teir one deck in tournament standard vanguard. You use the draw ability to kill your opponent with Soul Spikes and Conflagerate. The whole idea is to use madness and draw spells and pitch cards. Works even better in classic thanks to FoW! yay?
I've thought about this before. My reasons for not are:
1, game reports in the casual room are fairly meaningless
2, it's better to just post the final iteration of the deck -- the one that's the result of my tuning -- than all the failed previous versions of the deck.
I think I would have gone for a more midrange approach instead op gobins to take more advantage of the mana accel.
Expedition Map and Reap and Sow seem good.
West is nice but double U makes it a little awkward on the mana perhaps.
Vesuva might not work with Scapeshift, but it works when you get the valakut into play first.
You could then fetch Vesuva with scapeshift and some mountains and get damage from it.
vesuva doesn't work with scapeshift - vesuva needs to copy a land that's already in play, not one that's fetched alongside it from scapeshift.
a new staple to the colorless staple format (imo) should be tectonic edge - while it can't really screw someone over like an early wasteland, it does still destroy one of the many annoying lands that can be found in 100 cs decks.
1) A mana base of mostly non-basics? Check. Although there are a surprising number of basics in there, too.
2) 5WUB, 6WWW, WUG, 3GG, and 2UU all in the same deck? Check.
I don't consider card value to be greedy so much, but you had that too. The sad thing is, 5cc was still greedier. All non-basics with the vivids and Pools, and absolutely silly things like 1UUU and 2GGG in the same deck.
Match 7 game 3 was AWESOME. As was the one time someone got mindsculpted.
Clarion Ultimatum + Amulet of Vigor = you're going to grab what? Hmm.
I think the Boss Naya player misplayed that last game. With Collar and Knight on board (plus a Dauntless Escort in play) he could have equipped the collar and killed any number of your creatures -- including the Baneslayer.
He simply needed to be in combat with your creatures and used the Knight's ability to fetch Sejiri Steppe granting protection from white. Alternately he could have sac'd his escort and let the collar's deathtouch deal with any one of your creatures.
Not knowing the full details, maybe there was something that prevented the above plays. But if not, seems like whoever you were playing didn't really know the deck well.
counterbalance top in the casual room huh. And a mill deck that all it does is counter and be uninteractive. If you are going to make decks for the casual room, you might want to rethink what is in those decks. You made 2 decks that all they do is not allow the opp to play a game. Not fun for them, and since it is the casual room, all it means is that you ruined some games for others. You didnt show that you made good decks, you just made decks that are gonna run rampant through the casual room.
true that card is a killer to play against, but the mana cost is a little heavy, if i was going to run it I'd only include it perhaps as a 2 of
Marlen doesn't let you draw cards at all, so Disenchant is strictly better than a more narrow cantrip.
i think you forgot to mention one of the most powerful blue enchantments, especially when running into decks using gaea's blessing. you need to look at forced fruition.
the way it works is:
whenever your opponent casts a spell, they draw 7 cards.
if you get that out, the odds they draw the gaea is god for you.
great article, i really enjoy seeing the thought process behind the deck as well as how it performs
Expedition Map and Bloodbraid Elf are obvious oversights on my part and they should be in the deck.
Tolaria West and Vesuva are not in this deck because I'm really trying to streamline the mana to make an essentially 3 color deck work and still include enough Mountains to have a feasible chance of activiating Valakut.
I've tested Vesuva and most of the time Valakut is the last thing you want to copy with it. Most of the time Vesuva is little more than a Reflecting Pool that enters the battlefield tapped. I'm not sold on Tectonic Edge in a deck with more than 2 colors. I had too many games where I can't find my colored mana but I have plenty of colorless land in the form of Wasteland, Mutavault, and Mishra's Factory. This deck is very Mountain hungry as well.
I picked Goblins because it is a very reliable base for a red based deck. Also goblins have a reasonable good game against control decks, which are the decks that Valakut would fear the most as Scapeshift is easily countered.
Both good points. I plan on trying other types of Death's Shadow decks in the future.
I will say though that I usually try to stay away from the "win all at once" type of deck -- especially when that "all at once" happens on turn one or two. And I also try to avoid deck ideas that were tier one in tournaments, since my column is meant for casual vanguard. Thanks for the ideas though! -CR
PS To anyone who cares about grammar as much as I do, I just want to quickly point out that the error in the article's tagline isn't my fault! I originally submitted it as "ought not to." The editor I guess didn't like the word ought, and so changed it to should, with the only problem being that "should not to" doesn't make grammatical sense. Sorry everyone....
Yeah, I wish I had started tracking things earlier, I know things were definitely higher.
In each case where I grabbed the # from mtgo I verified that I could find stuff at that price or cheaper in game.
As usual I love the stuff you put out Cotton. However, you are thinking waaaaaay too hard on Death's Shadow. Maralen is definetly the avatar to use, however for my trick you could use any avatar with a high hand count and a low life. Death's Shadow wants your life to be low so it can be big, right? Well you're focusing on the lowness of your life, and not the hugeness of your creature. I would make the deck Red/Black. Toss in 4 Lotus Petals for color fixing and a bunch of ritual effects. Pay a lot of life to Maralen like you did. With a Blood Crypt (really good in this case) or a Badlands (less good cause no life loss) you could potenially see first turn that looks like this.
Pay 10 life. Play Blood Crypt and lose 2 life. Play Lotus Petal. Tap the land for Black and cast Death's Shadow at 8/8. With a second Petal, you can cast Mass Hysteria, he has haste now, attack for 8 damage. Sac your other petal for red, and play Rite of Flame, and use Fling to toss him at your opponent for another 8 damage. That's 16 damage on turn 1. Granted your hand is now empty, but you get to tutor on your next turn. 16 damage is enough to kill most avatars.
As for Chronotog. I don't know if you remember, but Chronotog used to be a teir one deck in tournament standard vanguard. You use the draw ability to kill your opponent with Soul Spikes and Conflagerate. The whole idea is to use madness and draw spells and pitch cards. Works even better in classic thanks to FoW! yay?
I think eye of ugin's the winner for sheer uselessness, but loses some points in that it's not all that valuable.
I remember picking life from the loam a couple of times in ravnica block despite it's very very low (usefullness in limited)/(financial value) rating.
Weirdly, I guess that lftl might actually be playable in this limited format, but that's by the by..
I've thought about this before. My reasons for not are:
1, game reports in the casual room are fairly meaningless
2, it's better to just post the final iteration of the deck -- the one that's the result of my tuning -- than all the failed previous versions of the deck.
Thanks for the feedback though -CR
envy
Legacy Online Born on release of Saga. Sadly I was wrong about the Sinkhole or rather WOTC was ; -)
"However every way I look at it I see the establishment of Legacy Online being Pencilled for the release of Urza's Saga."
Legacy Online Born on release of Saga. Sadly I was wrong about the Sinkhole or rather WOTC was ; -)
"However every way I look at it I see the establishment of Legacy Online being Pencilled for the release of Urza's Saga."
I think I would have gone for a more midrange approach instead op gobins to take more advantage of the mana accel.
Expedition Map and Reap and Sow seem good.
West is nice but double U makes it a little awkward on the mana perhaps.
Vesuva might not work with Scapeshift, but it works when you get the valakut into play first.
You could then fetch Vesuva with scapeshift and some mountains and get damage from it.
Legacy Online Born on release of Saga. Sadly I was wrong about the Sinkhole or rather WOTC was ; -)
Two cards that I would have felt were auto includes are Tolaria West and Expedition Map as both can search for Valakut. Nice article though.
Two cards that I would have felt were auto includes are Tolaria West and Expedition Map as both can search for Valakut. Nice artilce though.
Two cards that I would have felt were auto includes are Tolaria West and Expedition Map as both can search for Valakut.
Creating decks is fine, but you should definetely give us some testing, and maybe adapt with some tuning...
vesuva doesn't work with scapeshift - vesuva needs to copy a land that's already in play, not one that's fetched alongside it from scapeshift.
a new staple to the colorless staple format (imo) should be tectonic edge - while it can't really screw someone over like an early wasteland, it does still destroy one of the many annoying lands that can be found in 100 cs decks.
nice article. interesting deck.
Unless I've got my interactions wrong this deck should be running a Vesuva to enable the full Valakut kill.
Also, a section on gold staples (the RG ones at least) would have been nice. Deck needs more Bloodbraid Elf.
Yup, that was greedy!
1) A mana base of mostly non-basics? Check. Although there are a surprising number of basics in there, too.
2) 5WUB, 6WWW, WUG, 3GG, and 2UU all in the same deck? Check.
I don't consider card value to be greedy so much, but you had that too. The sad thing is, 5cc was still greedier. All non-basics with the vivids and Pools, and absolutely silly things like 1UUU and 2GGG in the same deck.
Match 7 game 3 was AWESOME. As was the one time someone got mindsculpted.
Clarion Ultimatum + Amulet of Vigor = you're going to grab what? Hmm.
I think the Boss Naya player misplayed that last game. With Collar and Knight on board (plus a Dauntless Escort in play) he could have equipped the collar and killed any number of your creatures -- including the Baneslayer.
He simply needed to be in combat with your creatures and used the Knight's ability to fetch Sejiri Steppe granting protection from white. Alternately he could have sac'd his escort and let the collar's deathtouch deal with any one of your creatures.
Not knowing the full details, maybe there was something that prevented the above plays. But if not, seems like whoever you were playing didn't really know the deck well.
I think Rampant Growth would be better than Llanowar Elves in budget deck.