or is he? due to lack of research we honestly cant say whether or not zombies would retain typing skills and a sense of humor...and if im right it could definitely help the community team win if instead of playing hammy just eats the brains of his competitors...

I like what you want to put in, and I agree about 18 land and about removing the Zephyr Sprite. But I wouldn't want to take out the Cancels. This deck is very good at generating card advantage, the flip side of that should be then trading 1-for-1 with the opponent's threats until they run out. Which this deck is a little poor at with a weak creature base, spells like Weakness that can't deal with some targets, etc. Cancel is guaranteed to be able to find a target it can 1-for-1 with, often trading up for a higher mana cost spell as well. Essence Scatter is always live as well. I also like the one-of Goliath in there not only because it gives me one more potential answer for a Stampeding Rhino or Craw Wurm, but because with two Gravediggers he gives me the potential to have him trade with two fair-size enemy creatures. I might consider dropping the Coral Merfolk, Warpath Ghoul, or a Mind Rot for Deathmark before I'd drop the Goliath. Though those other two creatures are better for mana curve and early blockers (or early hits if they're slow to play out creatures).

Of those suggestions, I'd feel most comfortable with +1 swamp, -1 Zephyr Sprite. After that, I'd say maybe a Negate or Deathmark swapped in for a Mind Rot taken out - or even both Mind Rot, which is potentially a dead card or just too slow/weak sometimes. The reason I kept out negate and deathmarks in this build is if I'm building up card advantage into a pile of weak-ish cards, I want as much as possible for every card to matter. 1 or 2 dead cards and I might not have enough card advantage to keep up and pull ahead. Two bears can trade with a Craw Wurm, and if I'm more than one card ahead in card advantage at that point, I'm still treading water at the least. If a negate or deathmark pops up when I can't use it, and I pull Weakness against fatties, I'm in trouble. I'd feel a little safer with 1 Deathmark game 1 than two of 'em, for that reason, and the following games either go to 2 or 0 as appropriate. But I could still see taking a chance on 2, as it will probably win more game 1s than it will lose, on average. Since it's so cheap I could also consider something like +2 Deathmark, +1 Negate, -1 Zombie Goliath, -2 Mind Rot (or 1 Mind Rot & 1 Zephyr Sprite, probably better) as at that point, I'm lowering an already low mana curve even further. Though the benefits of 18 land to consistency and to the Consume Spirit and Looming Shade are still relevant.

I think I like +1 Island, +1 Deathmark, and maybe the Negate or second Deathmark for the Zombie Goliath? The Consume Spirit, Looming Shade, and Zombie Goliath are all a little "odd man out" in that most of this deck is trying to get card advantage and mana/tempo advantage by swarming you with 1-3 mana spells and getting to where it could play them two a turn. Spells that want bigger amounts of mana don't fit in with that plan A. Though they do help with having a plan B when the small spells keep me alive but don't finish the opponent off, and the game goes long. If the game goes long enough, I hopefully have "enough" swamps whether I ran 9 or 10, whereas the short game needs that double-blue earlier rather than later, especially if I keep both Cancels in. If I wanted to run the 10 swamps, taking out 1 of the Cancels for Negate helps support that plan - though I still wouldn't want to take out both Cancel, it's so good in this deck!

+1 Swamp, +2 Deathmark, +1 Negate, -1 Zephyr Sprite, -1 Cancel, -1 Mind Rot, -1 Coral Merfolk perhaps?

I still want my +1 Air Elemental, +1 Tendrils of Corruption, +1 Mind Control. But ya gotta play the cards you're dealt, I guess!

One good interview with Gordon is worth a thousand 'updates' from Eric. Good work Hammy.

Thanks for the article! Your enthusiasm is catchy :)

You did a pretty good job with the draft and the game walkthroughs. There are serious problems with your deck construction, though.

The first thing is that you need 18 lands with this deck. No question. It's not even a matter of land-spell ratio (although I'd play 18-22 anyway). The problem is that you want as much Black as possible, but you also have 4 cards that require double Blue. I'm not claiming that you wouldn't have been manascrewed in game 3 anyway, but it did happen.

The next thing is that you should always play Deathmark maindeck. It is live against 7 of 10 possible 2-color pairs, mathematically speaking, and is even less likely to fail when your second color is not Green or White. It also happens to be ridiculously powerful when it works, as opposed to the other color hosers, which are merely okay.

Negate is another card that you should almost always play maindeck, because very few M10 decks have nothing you'd like to stop. I would certainly play it over Cancel when you have less than half Islands.

Zephyr Sprite has no business being in your maindeck. I would only side that in against an opponent with multiple copies of Stormfront Pegasus, Kelinore Bat, Child of Night, Elite Vanguard, or the like. Otherwise it is just too low-impact. I'd rather have 19 lands than play Zephyr Sprite, because there is more value in avoiding land shortage than topdecking a Sprite when you need action.

Therefore, I'd recommend +1 Swamp +2 Deathmark +1 Negate, in exchange for -1 Zephyr Sprite -1 Zombie Goliath -2 Cancel. Goliath is only remotely playable, as it has the annoying tendency to trade for cards that cost less than it. I understand that you wanted a "win condition," and I've played Zombie Goliath many times for that exact reason, but it just doesn't work out often enough.

Off the top of my head I'd rather have Grim Lavamancer, Figure of Destiny and Goblin Lackey over Goblin Guide. Another problem with the guide is that a large percentage of the removal in the format costs 1 mana and is at instant speed.(Swords, Path, Lightning Bolt, and Burst Lightning) If your opponent has one of these, he'll wait for you to attack, get a 40% chance at a land, and then kill your guy. And that's only on the first turn. In the later game, he gets a lot weaker, and if your opponent has a sensei's divining top out, that percentage is going to increase to over 90%.

The dark depths combo is harder to pull off than other combos such as Painter/Grindstone and Squirrel Nest/Earthcraft because the pieces of the Dark Depths combo are different types of cards and you need different tutors to find each piece. Also, Wasteland, a card found in virtually every 100 singleton deck can disrupt the combo.

Well, for Azusa to work, you don't need that many lands, just a bounceland like Selesnya Sanctuary or a Karoo. Before Zendikar playing the same land 3 times in a turn didn't do much... Now it can a bit more impressive. Also being able to reuse effects like Kabira Crossroads and Teetering Peaks with a bounceland or Meloku can be useful. So it's not just landfall creatures and effects.

If you kill Thopter Squadron itself, you kill the combo. Also, it's not an auto-win like Painter/Grindstone, which is why Thopter is usually overshadowed by Painter/Grindstone.

Usually my opponents will spring the Painter Grindstone combo on me while I am tapped out. Then boom, they find Gaea's Blessing. I untap and I have a chance to remove the Painter before they can find a way around the blessing. It's not a perfect defense, but it is does offer me some protection.

Also I like New Frontiers whenever we're dealing with landfall and Valakut.

I've been a part of the custom card contest for the past four months and have had a lot of fun with it. I even came in second place in September and used the winnings to soften the blow on my wallet and finish my set of Baneslayer's. It was just in time before the price skyrocketed, and they helped me win a standard daily event the next day. It seems like the contest has been getting a little less support, so thanks for the shout out. I like seeing what kind of ideas people come up with. The more the merrier.

Nice article

What are your thoughts of Lavaball Trap is some sort of mana ramp deck?

~ rushmore111

Goblin Guide is by far the "best" red one drop I've ever seen (I can't think of any others now) cos it's just so fast and good at what it does. Turn 1 goblin guide is such a beating.
Card advantage really only matters when you actually start grinding down and that is if you assume the worst case scenario of your opponent revealing lands which should happen only 40% of the time so you have a better coin flip for an advantage over them.

The dark depths combo is rather easy to pull off in a BGW deck from just playing a normal game that is a little skewed towards getting the combo. It's definitely not a turn 2 combo if that's what you're thinking but more like a turn 5-6 combo if forced out consistently. Green (esp with white) has many cards that can search for each side of the combo.
One reason why it might not see play would be that people are not confident of the token surviving but it's not that difficult to recur the pieces with a Reveillark + eternal witness...

For the painter's servant combo, you'll always want to have some form of protection before you go off (I do anyway) and the thopter combo is harder to disrupt (cos it doesn't have a vulnerable component) although it doesn't win immediately.
That is why I think that the belcher combo > grindstone combo cos by the time you have have protection for the grindstone combo (after surviving the opponent's attacks also), you would be able to shoot someone with the charbelcher for the win at around the same time. My only qualm with grindstone combo is that it forces you to play around removals unless you have balls of steel. I'm almost never concerned with the combo being disrupted by a gaea's blessing because that can only happen after the combo actually goes off. That said, the situation is definitely better now since you can actually tezzeret out expedition map to get academy ruins to put the painter back on top... but swords to plowshares/path to exile are still a concern.

Abt azusa, I don't really have a clue to what a landfall deck would look like to assess that. From the cards I have, I see that only a couple have landfall and a Harrow would probably be a nicer card to have than azusa so I'm not sure what I'm missing.
For azusa to work, you need to draw tons of cards cos you need can't put lands down if you don't have lands. she dies to shock anyway so she might not be very relevant in games. I've only seen her in some heartbeat decks till today.

Scapeshift is an odd card. It works if you have 6 lands (assuming you're playing some red deck like the one I have there) or if you have some landfall creatures. It doesn't do much without either conditions and I never manage to get 6 lands with scapeshift but it's interesting to see stuck in hand as I try to not win to see whether I get the 6th land. Probably worth its slot.

For a deck that plays oran-rief you'd probably want more green creatures so it's a very odd card to play otherwise. Not that many decks can use it well cos it produces green mana which you probably need to cast green cards..

Brain fart, not sure what I was thinking about letting it resolve lol. Must be the flu setting in, anyways you can daze your own brainstorm to save the land if needed.

Um..that decklist has Plated Geopede in it. Just the lists are screwed up with how the "Creatures" and "Non-Creatures" are seperated out.

-M

Really? From the accounts Ive heard if you bring a sub par deck you get yelled at pretty fiercely in TP. No pleasing anyone. I don't even try. I let people know ahead of time (by setting the table) what I am interested in. If people don't want to see counters, not my problem. I said "Competitive" or "Bring your best" or whatever. That isn't always true actually particularly with extended format I just bring a laid back deck and play to socialize or just have fun. But the point is, know your opponent or at least let them know who you are (aren't).