MTG Salvation

Stoneforge Mystic is banned in Modern.

Just wanted to throw that out there.

@mordraid: That Miracles deck looks like it would be fun to play. I'd go with that one personally but I could see why you would pick the BUG Tempo one as well.

Quote from mordraid

Hey guys, i really need community help. I have a tournament in 10 days. I'm totally torn apart between two of my decks.

I'll post both decks you'll tell wich one to pick.

BUG tempo

wdlssm's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
creatures 4x tarmogoyf 4x delver of secrets 4x snapcaster mage Instants: 4x force of will 4x brainstorm 4x daze 2x spell pierce 2x ghastly demise 1x darkblast	Sorceries: 3x ponder 2x thoughtseize 2x inquisition of kozilek 1x life from the loam 1x maelstrom pulse planeswalker: 2x liliana of the veil Lands: 4x wasteland 4x underground sea 4x mistyrainforest 4x verdant catacombs 2x tropical island 2x bayou

Miracle-still

wdlssm's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
creatures 3x snapcaster mage 2x geist of saint traft Instants: 4x force of will 4x brainstorm 3x counterspell 4x swords to plowshares 2x spell pierce	Sorceries: 3x ponder 2x entreat the angels 3x terminus planeswalker: 3x jace, the mind sculptor 1x elspeth, knight errant Artifacts: 3x sensei's divining top enchantments: 3x standstill	Lands: 3x mishra's factory 4x flooded strands 4x tundra 3x misty rainforest 1x karakas 4x island 1x plains

I know that some card choices may be questionable but, i like to try things. Just tell me wich one you would pick.

By the way, if you wouldn't pick any of these two, please tell why.

Thanks ! :smile:

I am going to copy the template from the Modern forum for simplicity:

Favorite Playstyle (Aggro, Midrange, Control, Combo): It used to be Control, then I got into Aggro-Control, and now I'm into Combo.

How Competitive (For Fun, Local Tournament, MTGO, PTQ/GP): Mostly for fun but if there is a semi-local large event I will probably show up and I do plan on going to the occasional SCG Open.

Favorite Cards/Colors: Blue mostly, but I like every color.

Budget: Mostly not an issue.

Staples/Decks Owned: Bant (Aggro, Natural Order, & Stoneblade), BUG Control, Elves (Glimpse Combo & Natural Order), Merfolk, Reanimator, RUG (Canadian Thresh & Natural Order), Sneak Show, and Stoneblade (UW, UWR, and UWB).

I am having a hard time deciding what Magic deck to play. Here is a little bit about me. I have been playing since around Legions but only truly got into Magic from Shards of Alara onwards. After completing the Zendikar block I quickly made the transition from Standard to Legacy because I was sick of dealing with rotations. I have slowly been acquiring staples for a while and am now in a position where I have quite a few options on what to play. I am currently in a Magic Combo phase and I have the urge to play either Reanimator or Sneak Show.

My personal favorite of the two is Reanimator for two reasons:

1) Sentimental reasons (gifts)
2) I have an absolute blast whenever I have played it.

I would definitely choose Reanimator over Sneak Show for my casual table top games but I am afraid it would be easily hated out at larger events like SCG Opens and other larger events.

I have absolutely no experience with Sneak Show but I had collected the cards because I thought the deck sounded fun. The idea of a Hasty Emrakul off of a Sneak Attack sounds like a lot of fun, plus the deck seems more resilient to hate.

As a Reanimator player I think Sneak Show has the advantage games 2 & 3 because of the access to Red for Pyroblast/Red Elemental Blast and bigger, scarier creatures. That's where I'm at.

#TLDR: Do I stick with Reanimator, a deck I know pretty well that can lose to hate, or do I move onto another deck that I haven't actually played before because it might have a better win ratio in a larger event (and might be fun to play :p)?

Quote from Grand Superior

Yeah, Karakas is the one card that wrecks us more than graveyard hate and Griselbrand's power is making it so everyone has it. The tech of two maindeck Karakas in Reanimator has been amazing for me so far, and it's nice to be able to preemptively stop Maverick from using their Karakas (they usually only run one) as well as completely wreck the Sneak and Show matchup. I can't imagine running the deck without it now.

I'm not sure why I never tried that. That sounds like an amazing idea. There's a Death and Taxes player in my meta that plays 4x Karakas, it will be nice to see his face when I drop mine and blow both mine and his up.

Here is my current deck list, now with Karakas! Thanks Grand Superior!



I'm currently missing 4x Polluted Delta, I am working on getting them. Other than that, it's pretty cookie cutter. I have yet to use the Show and Tell sideboard effectively. The one time I saw it I was stuck on 2 mana and unable to cast it because my previous version didn't use any Sol lands.

For those of us regularly facing Sneak Show, what's the typical post sideboard game look like? It seems like they have graveyard hate, more counterspells, and bigger fatties post sideboard.

To Grand Superior, are you having any issues with mana screw/what does your manabase look like?

Quote from Lormador

Reanimator has 7 write-ins at this point.

That's because players who play it have a great time.

I definitely find Reanimator really fun. It is simply just a blast to play! My vote goes to Reanimator.

The cards do eventually air out, so to speak, but I found out that the process takes a long time. I just recently double sleeved up my favorite Legacy decks (last December) so I could swap between them on the fly and found that after a two months they were flat but still have just a think veil of air inside.

About a month ago I stuffed the cards into a box with extra cards (to the brim) and left them like that for a week. After that week my decks are only like half an inch to an inch (Reanimator using foil cards from Graveborn) taller than my single sleeve decks. They are SO much easier to manage and shuffle now!

Hey everyone, I've recently started toying around with this deck after seeing it played on MTGO. I really like the idea of the deck so here is my first deck list.



I'm having difficulty deciding how many Snapcaster Mages to play.

I'm not sure if Sigarda, Host of Herons is going to make a huge splash or not. I am planning on running that card in my Bant list (sideboard) to combat Black decks that run lots of Edict type effects. I can see it being an issue considering this deck plays for the mid-late game.

razefire, I like your list. Maybe I'll try it out.

Quote from Ppa0

I like the the idea, and the possibilities but there are 2 things that bug me about this deck. I like the concept but how does this beat combo elves or NO elves? Also I don't quite get Game Plan 3 since you can only activate that ability once per turn?

Well it has a similar game plan to Natural Order Elves (I play that deck). I would think it comes down to the deck with better draws. At least with Brainstorm and fetches you'll have a slight advantage.

Against Glimpse of Nature, not sure. I don't play that deck that often, can anyone with more knowledge chime in here?

Great catch about Game Plan 3, I noticed it myself yesterday discussing it with someone else. Does anyone have a good draw engine to utilize? Perhaps Staff of Domination?

Quote from Mazil

Hmm I thought that since you are already running life from the loam and intuition, you could possibly add 1xacademy ruins and 1xmindslaver. You never know, you might be able to steal a few games because you can catch your opponent unawares and snap the lock on them.

That seems like an interesting idea. What would your decklist look like?

Quote from Moonbeam

I've recently played Intuition elves and did fairly well with it. There are already decklists that were succesful in the past, just look it up in the council. It's a very good deck and I really dont know why people forgot about it. Surgical extraction hoses it pretty bad, but there is Natural Order in the SB to take care of that problem. So I strongly suggest you trying out Matt Nass build, as it's nearly perfect for an intuition build.

I love his deck actually. It's one of the reason I wanted to try this deck out (plus I love Vengevine!). I'll update the OP with the decklists when I get home. I'm currently on my phone.

Intuition Elves deck is a combo deck at its core with an aggro backup plan. The deck runs Fauna Shaman, Glimpse of Nature, Intuition, and Natural Order for resiliency that is hard to beat.

The blue splash allows you to play Intuition for both tutoring capabilities as well as a Vengevine aggro plan. This makes this version of elves a bit more resilient to mass removal like Engineered Explosives, Oblivion Stone, Perish, and Pernicious Deed. It also allows for more sideboard options.

This deck has a three distinct lines of play:

Game Plan A: Glimpse of Nature Combo

Glimpse of Nature --> Draw and Play Ton of Guys --> Whatever You Want

Game Plan B: Intuition Vengevine Beatdown

Intuition for 3x Vengevine --> Cast Any 2 Creatures In One Turn --> 12 Points of Haste Damage (Works Well With Glimpse of Nature)

Game Plan C: Fauna Shaman

Fauna Shaman--> Grab relevant hate card --> Turn guys sideways.

Game Plan D: Natural Order Combo

Natural Order --> Progenitus --> Swing.

Cool Synergies:

Dryad Arbor + Fauna Shaman + Life from the Loam = repeatable fetching.
Life from the Loam + Wasteland + Land + Land = Obvious.
Wirewood Symbiote + Any Elf = repeatable blocking without damage (relevant vs Umezawa's Jitte)

The List:

Elves by Matt Nass (11th Place at SCG Open San Jose 01/16/2011)



The Updated List After the Tournament:



My constantly updating list with advice from this thread (updated 4/21/2012):

I don't think paper Modern has very much to do with paper Legacy. Legacy is a hugely popular format. Just because they have announced Modern doesn't mean that all the players playing Legacy are just going to suddenly stop playing Legacy. Players who have spent the time and the money to play the format are going to continue playing the format.

On topic, I still don't ever have a problem finding a game to play on MTGO - ever.

Based upon a few criteria you mentioned I would suggest this 14" Lenovo laptop.

Quick overview:

Price tag: $849.99
Screen Size: 14"
Processor: i5 (2.5GHz, Dual-Core with Multi-Core Rendering, 2nd Gen)
Ram: 6GB
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 6470M (1GB Dedicated)

*The small size will allow your to easily travel with it (it only weights 4.4 pounds).
*The processor is very fast, allowing for fast boot times and faster loading of every day programs like Chrome, Firefox, and iTunes.
*The graphics card should CRUSH older games like counterstrike and play other current games decently.
*It has the best price to performance ratio for your budget on bestbuy.com (I just checked for you - 4/16/2012).

The only negative thing I can see about it is that it runs with a 4 cell battery which means it may have a short battery life (think 2-4 hours). This is sort of a moot point since most classrooms have outlets and when you're gaming you should be plugged in anyway (if you're not your computer will downclock your graphics card to save power).

Edit: As far as brands go, it's doesn't matter. All the parts come from the same places essentially, the major differences come from which parts they chose to use. It's honestly not fair to judge a computer based solely on brand. It's much more accurate to say that you should avoid particular models than brands.

Edit 2: Not every Best Buy will carry this model in store. If you want to check one out before you buy it, try to call your local store(s) to see if they have a display model before you waste your time getting down there. This goes for any computer you look at (obviously).

I'm with razefire. Noble Hierarch is one of the reasons why Bant is played. She has single handedly won me so many games it's insane.

Besides, we're Bant - not Maverick. We run blue for counters.

I'm not sure about the tournament scene but I'm not having any problems finding individual matches online. I don't usually have to wait more than 5 minutes for a match - I can usually find a match almost instantly.

I find that it's a great area to playtest. The client enforces the rules and the decks range anywhere from Burn & Mono-Black Control to Maverick & Esper Stoneblade.

I honestly think it's awesome. As a player who has spent tons of money on paper Legacy, I play much more often online than I ever did in paper. This allows for me to practice my deck (I have the same deck built online) so that when a SCG Open swings around I can go and kick butt.

Uptick simply means that they noticed people were buying Tarmogoyfs more than normal so they increased the price a little.

It has been dropping for a while in paper form and I have been watching it trend down on MTGO as well.

For now, unless you really need some for your deck, I would wait until at least the Modern season officially ends. That's what I'm doing.