Hi all. I'm trying to come up with a good white aggro deck (I don't mind splashing another color into it). My group only allows new bordered cards and no mythic rares. I mostly face a U aggro illusion deck, a W/B knights deck with a lot of control and a vampire deck with lots of removal.
The deck itself needs to function well in both in two headed giant and three player free for all. I'd also like it if the deck wasn't that expensive.
Stairc could you expand on that idea? I have never really made many 3 color decks. I am wondering how we would fit the mana for Thrun and Grand abolisher considering they both need 2 of their respectively colors while using invisible stalker and sovereign? Will we need a playset of misty rainforest?
Hi all. I'm trying to come up with a good white aggro deck (I don't mind splashing another color into it). My group only allows new bordered cards and no mythic rares. I mostly face a U aggro illusion deck, a W/B knights deck with a lot of control and a vampire deck with lots of removal.
The deck itself needs to function well in both in two headed giant and three player free for all. I'd also like it if the deck wasn't that expensive.
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
Hmm... Good white aggro deck is easy to build, but it won't be as good in two-headed giant and free for all as some other options. But, since that's what you're after, I recommend looking at some Windbrisk Heights/Spectral Procession lists.
Here's a link that should give you a ton of ideas. Let me know if there's any you like.
Stairc could you expand on that idea? I have never really made many 3 color decks. I am wondering how we would fit the mana for Thrun and Grand abolisher considering they both need 2 of their respectively colors while using invisible stalker and sovereign? Will we need a playset of misty rainforest?
Hmm... Good white aggro deck is easy to build, but it won't be as good in two-headed giant and free for all as some other options. But, since that's what you're after, I recommend looking at some Windbrisk Heights/Spectral Procession lists.
Here's a link that should give you a ton of ideas. Let me know if there's any you like.
I'm not so much fixed on an aggro deck as much as I want a change of pace from my control deck. If you have any other suggestions that may work (combo?,tribal?) I'd be happy to consider them.
Otherwise the cards you linked look interesting. I'll see what I can come up with them.
I'm not so much fixed on an aggro deck as much as I want a change of pace from my control deck. If you have any other suggestions that may work (combo?,tribal?) I'd be happy to consider them.
Otherwise the cards you linked look interesting. I'll see what I can come up with them.
Cool. Let me know what direction you want to take them, if you find one.
Also, alert everyone! My first article in the Dan's Deckshop article series is going to be published on MTG Salvation sometime this week! There's been a lot of people who insist that people online don't care about casual decks and deckbuilding so please, if you like the article weigh in with a comment saying you do! If I get enough positive feedback I'll write more.
The articles will be expanded versions of what I've done in this column, detailed deck-construction walkthroughs of reader requests, now with extra commentary as well as testing against a bunch of different match-ups. The first article in the series is about the popular master transmuter deck I wrote up earlier in the thread. If it goes well, I'll be writing about at least one brand new deck in my next article - one of my favorite lists ever.
So, if you want to see what this thread looks like in article form - check it out this week.
So, I got my hands on a copy of Garruk, Primal Hunter today and it really excited me, so now, I want to build a deck around it and wondered if you guys could help me, but there's two issues, the first is that I got only a single copy and can't get more, the second is that the deck must be as cheap as possible. My first thought was to make it UG with lots of acceleration and some big guys to go aggro so, if you could make something around this idea it would be awesome, thanks in advance for any help.
So, I got my hands on a copy of Garruk, Primal Hunter today and it really excited me, so now, I want to build a deck around it and wondered if you guys could help me, but there's two issues, the first is that I got only a single copy and can't get more, the second is that the deck must be as cheap as possible. My first thought was to make it UG with lots of acceleration and some big guys to go aggro so, if you could make something around this idea it would be awesome, thanks in advance for any help.
Yo Pedro. You're the one who asked for the big sphinx deck right?
Yeah that's me, huge thanks for that dude, the deck's realy awesome.:)
Sweet. It's the feature of my first Dan's Deckshop article.
Props to whoever is the first to spot it, read it and comment on it once it goes live on MTGS (Edit: Which it now has)! And honorable props to the next seven (being in the Top 8. Get it?)
First off, I would just like to say how awesome this is. You are an incredible person
That being said, could I abuse that incredible-ness a little? I'm relatively new to Magic, and am just starting to get really into it. I've primarily played aggro up to this point, tried an Izzet combo/control deck, and LOVED it! I was wondering if you could help me build an intangibley mean control deck. I want a ruthless, heartless deck that puts my opponents on lockdown (While being as fair as possible, I suppose. I wanna still have a playgroup after creaming them with it ) I would like for it to be U/B, that really appeals to me, but if you see anything better, trust me I'll take your word for it. As for cards in mind, I really don't know what a good control deck needs. I assume counterspells and good board control, but I'm new to this style and haven't explored these cards too much.
You're help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!
Hehe, read it! Do you do such a in depth analysis for every deck you make except for the "write it all down as an article".
It was a pretty interesting read and made me want to play the deck, however, it kinda costs $20 more than I'm willing to spend. Actually, screw trying to make it sound like I'm giving a review of what I read, I'm really bad at all these word things. Interesting deck, and awesome article
I don't know any non artifact heavy decks that I consider Spike, Johnny and Timmy. They're rare. Like Control/Combo/Aggro decks if such a thing exists. (I think I've heard of one.)
How long did it take you to write this? Do you still have time for the "Need a Deck or Deck ideas"? I've got one in mind
Silly Blood Clock / Umbillicus.
EDIT: Well speaking of those two I'd be willing to make 3 deck around those. GU tempo using cheap creatures with ETB/LTB effects and bounce (Man O'War) to screw with my opponent. Hehe. Black Red discard/burn seems a start. Theres alot of creatures that ETB dealing damage or making people discard. The bounce keeps their hand ripe for discard and the burn is scares them away from taking the life loss. Yay! The last is a white metal craft/affinity deck using The two with Tooth of Criss-crossa or something. (read about those 3 cards comboing elsewhere.) Thing is, 3 artifacts is metalcraft. It's also enough (along with the tooth) or me to use the 3 mana affinity for artifact flash artifact to buff creatures and negate that cost. Otherwise I only have to pay 2 a turn whether or I have 1 or 2 clocks on the field.
But those are just my initial brainstorm. I'm up for ideas for all. You seem to be much more in depth in your analysis.
I loved your article. The deck looked really similar to what I ended up putting into my unblockable bittersteel colossus deck.
Any chance you could help me out with my latest? I decided to take one of the Innistrad Intro packs (Spectral Legions) and see if I could turn it into a better spirit/token deck from some Modern legal Casual play. Here is what I have so far. The problem I run into is that too often I find a card that I really like and try to use it even if it doesn't really fit the deck. There are some cards I have in there just because I have them and not the better cards. And I also tossed around Intangible Virtue, Mikaeus, the Lunarch, and Honor of the Pure
I'm building a casual deck built around blue bounce and aggro.
My ideal setup right now is first turn Flayer Husk, second turn attack with husk, if a creature is out, bounce with Mistblade Shinobi (since presumably nobody wants to trade with a germ) and equip it after combat to the now unmanned Flayer Husk, or drop Blighted Agent.
Third turn, High Tide, Writ of Passage the Shinobi if I need to. Otherwise, drop Cephalid Constable, equip him. Turn four, Protective Bubble the constable and that oughtta lock the game down. The alternate win condition is just equipping and shrouding Blighted Agents and using the remaining bouncers to protect myself.
For dealing with stuff, Curfew to get crazy extra value out of bouncers like Aether Adept and Manowar, Aether Tradewinds to bounce their land in exchange for my bouncers, possibly Peel from Reality as a more expensive Curfew.
Any suggestions? I considered Clout of the Dominus as a good way to boost and protect Constable or even going blue-black and using Helm of the Ghastlord on Blighted Agent, using Dimir Cutpurse to tighten the lock when the field is bounced clean, etc. My only fear is bounce goes from being a potential lockdown strategy to just a cute gimmick if it's not consistent enough and branching to other colors makes me afraid. I've also considered Blinding Souleater to enable Shinobi or Constable.
For what it's worth I feel like Flayer Husk does a lot here. It's a one-drop that brings Shinobi off the very crowded three drop spot, it boosts Blighted Agent and Cephalid Constable, it's not a good block to make early unless you've got a one-drop with 2 toughness, and if you need an earlier bounce, you can curfew the germ (who vanishes but would die soon anyway when we equip) and a creature while leaving Husk on the ground for anyone else on the ground or even to equip to another husk!
Not sure if this is posted or not but I would like to see a Vampire deck that destroys and utilizes Sorin Markov for a quick win. Just in case, can you post a normal deck like what you would build to win and then make a low-budget version just in case I don't have the cards needed for the other one or I can't find or get them?
I'm not sure why you'd want to load up on instants for the purpose of controlling werewolves. You gain only very situational benefits from them being human, and if those are important, there's better non-transforming humans anyway.
If you're worried about werewolf hate, recall that the human side subtype is "human werewolf," so Slayer of the Wicked can still bring them down, etc.
I see that there are a few requests for Werewolf decks. Well, I originally tried to build a standard R/G Werewolf deck and it probably wasn't as good as it could have been. One issue I noticed was that I'd come to turns where I'd have tons of mana, but I wouldn't want to spend it on casting spells because that would revert my werewolves back to humans. So, I started looking online for artifacts or enchantments I could pour as much mana as I wanted into, so I don't need to waste mana. I eventually found Demonspine Whip...maybe I was seduced by the artwork or the concept, but it is in fact a card I can pour as much mana as I like into, and its designed for use in an aggro deck. Perfect.
It occurred to me that maybe I could go a less standard route, and instead of running Green and Red, I could run Red and Black. I thought about what element of black would compliment werewolves. (The deck recently presented on magicthegathering.com that uses blue to create werewolf tokens was so cool...but I don't think black has anything analogous to that....) I figure black's discard theme is most appropriate to hinder my opponent's ability to play spells and ultimately change my werewolves back to their original forms.
How would you go about designing a deck like that?
Keep in mind, I am ultimately issuing two challenges:
1) Give the deck ways of using mana without casting spells.
2) Effectively running a sub-discard theme (unless you can think of a more useful black sub-theme)
I realize there are black werewolves....I don't expect they'd have a place in this deck, though it'd give me a chuckle if you got them to work here. I also realize a deck like this will be easier once we see all of the red werewolves in the Innistrad block, so this will naturally be a work in progress.
If nothing else, Olivia Voldaren is a great choice for a deck like that. She's definitely not a wolf, but she drops at 4, is a total beast, and operates on the same principle as Kessig Wolf: That when you've loaded up on werewolves, you need other things to dump your mana into so you're not wasting your turns.
Whether to run that vs. Demonspine whip and whether to run discard probably both turn on whether you're looking to be legal in a particular format or if this is kitchen table. (Some people like their casual decks to be format-legal if they decide to invest in a few big name cards to try it out in competitive play)
If you don't care about being Standard-legal, you're in luck. Otherwise, bad news, as recent black discard has been pretty anemic and I doubt they'll ever go back to Hymn to Tourach.
That'd be cool if I could run it in a tournament, but, frankly, I really don't care. I'd much rather have a deck that can wow my friends, than lose in tournaments.
Olivia is an interesting choice (and I cracked one of her at the pre-release), and she suggests that maybe there are other black options besides discard. Discard is just so devilishly frustrating when it works, that it was immediately appealing for me. But that's not to say I don't also have a love of aggro.
I was thinking of making a control spirit deck, probably B/U or W/B. Ideas? I think maybe a mill subtheme would be cool because spirits at least in INN are evasive
Also CruelIrony, you may already know this but Kessig wolf Run is amazing pump without playing spells.
I agree that it is, but not in a B/R deck....though I'd definitely use it in an R/G Werewolf deck.
I decided to go ahead and construct my own deck list....I doubt its very good, and it probably could use waiting until we know about all of the Innistrad Werewolves....but here it goes:
The deck itself needs to function well in both in two headed giant and three player free for all. I'd also like it if the deck wasn't that expensive.
Any suggestion would be greatly appreciated.
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Hmm... Good white aggro deck is easy to build, but it won't be as good in two-headed giant and free for all as some other options. But, since that's what you're after, I recommend looking at some Windbrisk Heights/Spectral Procession lists.
Here's a link that should give you a ton of ideas. Let me know if there's any you like.
http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/td/38
I'd reccomend Mystic Gate, Flooded Grove and Seaside Citadel as ideal color-fixers for this particular three-color deck. It'll work out fine. Misty Rainforest will actually be inferior to these options.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
I'm not so much fixed on an aggro deck as much as I want a change of pace from my control deck. If you have any other suggestions that may work (combo?,tribal?) I'd be happy to consider them.
Otherwise the cards you linked look interesting. I'll see what I can come up with them.
Cool. Let me know what direction you want to take them, if you find one.
Also, alert everyone! My first article in the Dan's Deckshop article series is going to be published on MTG Salvation sometime this week! There's been a lot of people who insist that people online don't care about casual decks and deckbuilding so please, if you like the article weigh in with a comment saying you do! If I get enough positive feedback I'll write more.
The articles will be expanded versions of what I've done in this column, detailed deck-construction walkthroughs of reader requests, now with extra commentary as well as testing against a bunch of different match-ups. The first article in the series is about the popular master transmuter deck I wrote up earlier in the thread. If it goes well, I'll be writing about at least one brand new deck in my next article - one of my favorite lists ever.
So, if you want to see what this thread looks like in article form - check it out this week.
Happy building,
Dan
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Sexy Sig by mchief111 @ Rising Studios
EDH
G Isao
Read this, was happy.
Read this, was unhappy.
When will it be published?!
Great! And whether you like it or hate it, let me know in the article's comments. It'll impact whether I write more.
Sweet!
*laughs* I'm not entirely sure. I was told sometime mid-week. I'm guessing sometime tuesday-thursday.
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Yo Pedro. You're the one who asked for the big sphinx deck right?
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
Sweet. It's the feature of my first Dan's Deckshop article.
Props to whoever is the first to spot it, read it and comment on it once it goes live on MTGS (Edit: Which it now has)! And honorable props to the next seven (being in the Top 8. Get it?)
Remaking Magic - A Podcast for those that love MTG and Game Design
The Dungeon Master's Guide - A Podcast for those that love RPGs and Game Design
Sig-Heroes of the Plane
That being said, could I abuse that incredible-ness a little? I'm relatively new to Magic, and am just starting to get really into it. I've primarily played aggro up to this point, tried an Izzet combo/control deck, and LOVED it! I was wondering if you could help me build an intangibley mean control deck. I want a ruthless, heartless deck that puts my opponents on lockdown (While being as fair as possible, I suppose. I wanna still have a playgroup after creaming them with it ) I would like for it to be U/B, that really appeals to me, but if you see anything better, trust me I'll take your word for it. As for cards in mind, I really don't know what a good control deck needs. I assume counterspells and good board control, but I'm new to this style and haven't explored these cards too much.
You're help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much!
It was a pretty interesting read and made me want to play the deck, however, it kinda costs $20 more than I'm willing to spend. Actually, screw trying to make it sound like I'm giving a review of what I read, I'm really bad at all these word things. Interesting deck, and awesome article
I don't know any non artifact heavy decks that I consider Spike, Johnny and Timmy. They're rare. Like Control/Combo/Aggro decks if such a thing exists. (I think I've heard of one.)
How long did it take you to write this? Do you still have time for the "Need a Deck or Deck ideas"? I've got one in mind
Silly Blood Clock / Umbillicus.
EDIT: Well speaking of those two I'd be willing to make 3 deck around those. GU tempo using cheap creatures with ETB/LTB effects and bounce (Man O'War) to screw with my opponent. Hehe. Black Red discard/burn seems a start. Theres alot of creatures that ETB dealing damage or making people discard. The bounce keeps their hand ripe for discard and the burn is scares them away from taking the life loss. Yay! The last is a white metal craft/affinity deck using The two with Tooth of Criss-crossa or something. (read about those 3 cards comboing elsewhere.) Thing is, 3 artifacts is metalcraft. It's also enough (along with the tooth) or me to use the 3 mana affinity for artifact flash artifact to buff creatures and negate that cost. Otherwise I only have to pay 2 a turn whether or I have 1 or 2 clocks on the field.
But those are just my initial brainstorm. I'm up for ideas for all. You seem to be much more in depth in your analysis.
Any chance you could help me out with my latest? I decided to take one of the Innistrad Intro packs (Spectral Legions) and see if I could turn it into a better spirit/token deck from some Modern legal Casual play. Here is what I have so far. The problem I run into is that too often I find a card that I really like and try to use it even if it doesn't really fit the deck. There are some cards I have in there just because I have them and not the better cards. And I also tossed around Intangible Virtue, Mikaeus, the Lunarch, and Honor of the Pure
12 Plains
4 Island
4 Moorland Haunt
Creatures
2 Adaptive Automaton
1 Angel of Flight Alabaster
2 Chapel Geist
4 Doomed Traveler
1 Gallows Warden
1 Geist-Honored Monk
2 Spectral Rider
2 Thraben Sentry
2 Voiceless Spirit
2 Battleground Geist
4 Mindshrieker
2 Moon Heron
1 Stitched Drake
2 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Divine Favor
2 Pacifism
1 Spirit Mantle
Spells
2 Vapor Snag
1 Negate
2 Midnight Haunting
2 Rebuke
1 Spare from Evil
My ideal setup right now is first turn Flayer Husk, second turn attack with husk, if a creature is out, bounce with Mistblade Shinobi (since presumably nobody wants to trade with a germ) and equip it after combat to the now unmanned Flayer Husk, or drop Blighted Agent.
Third turn, High Tide, Writ of Passage the Shinobi if I need to. Otherwise, drop Cephalid Constable, equip him. Turn four, Protective Bubble the constable and that oughtta lock the game down. The alternate win condition is just equipping and shrouding Blighted Agents and using the remaining bouncers to protect myself.
For dealing with stuff, Curfew to get crazy extra value out of bouncers like Aether Adept and Manowar, Aether Tradewinds to bounce their land in exchange for my bouncers, possibly Peel from Reality as a more expensive Curfew.
Any suggestions? I considered Clout of the Dominus as a good way to boost and protect Constable or even going blue-black and using Helm of the Ghastlord on Blighted Agent, using Dimir Cutpurse to tighten the lock when the field is bounced clean, etc. My only fear is bounce goes from being a potential lockdown strategy to just a cute gimmick if it's not consistent enough and branching to other colors makes me afraid. I've also considered Blinding Souleater to enable Shinobi or Constable.
For what it's worth I feel like Flayer Husk does a lot here. It's a one-drop that brings Shinobi off the very crowded three drop spot, it boosts Blighted Agent and Cephalid Constable, it's not a good block to make early unless you've got a one-drop with 2 toughness, and if you need an earlier bounce, you can curfew the germ (who vanishes but would die soon anyway when we equip) and a creature while leaving Husk on the ground for anyone else on the ground or even to equip to another husk!
i was thinking 4 full moon's rise as a definite card to keep
mayabe some giant growth and lightning bolt to keep the baddies away and to manipulate the werewolf control
mayabe some seething song as well?
If you're worried about werewolf hate, recall that the human side subtype is "human werewolf," so Slayer of the Wicked can still bring them down, etc.
It occurred to me that maybe I could go a less standard route, and instead of running Green and Red, I could run Red and Black. I thought about what element of black would compliment werewolves. (The deck recently presented on magicthegathering.com that uses blue to create werewolf tokens was so cool...but I don't think black has anything analogous to that....) I figure black's discard theme is most appropriate to hinder my opponent's ability to play spells and ultimately change my werewolves back to their original forms.
How would you go about designing a deck like that?
Keep in mind, I am ultimately issuing two challenges:
1) Give the deck ways of using mana without casting spells.
2) Effectively running a sub-discard theme (unless you can think of a more useful black sub-theme)
I realize there are black werewolves....I don't expect they'd have a place in this deck, though it'd give me a chuckle if you got them to work here. I also realize a deck like this will be easier once we see all of the red werewolves in the Innistrad block, so this will naturally be a work in progress.
Thank you and happy building.
Whether to run that vs. Demonspine whip and whether to run discard probably both turn on whether you're looking to be legal in a particular format or if this is kitchen table. (Some people like their casual decks to be format-legal if they decide to invest in a few big name cards to try it out in competitive play)
If you don't care about being Standard-legal, you're in luck. Otherwise, bad news, as recent black discard has been pretty anemic and I doubt they'll ever go back to Hymn to Tourach.
Olivia is an interesting choice (and I cracked one of her at the pre-release), and she suggests that maybe there are other black options besides discard. Discard is just so devilishly frustrating when it works, that it was immediately appealing for me. But that's not to say I don't also have a love of aggro.
Also CruelIrony, you may already know this but Kessig wolf Run is amazing pump without playing spells.
I decided to go ahead and construct my own deck list....I doubt its very good, and it probably could use waiting until we know about all of the Innistrad Werewolves....but here it goes:
4 Instigator Gang
4 Kruin Outlaw
4 Village Ironsmith
2 Feral Ridgewolf
2 Kessig Wolf
2 Mind Shatter
3 Terminate
4 Duress
1 Mind Rot
2 Painful Quandary