I know people say Phytoburst is not good even in draft. And have never heard/read anything of Feed the Pack yet, so I assume it's not a very popular card.
But I just came by this card (Feed the Pack) again and saw some synergy here: On a single Phytoburst + sac, you get 6+ 2/2 Wolfs. The downside is that Feed the Pack costs 6 mana, and that's why I thought of keeping it monocolor for maximum consistency.
However, I haven't really thought on how to setup a full deck yet. Is there any hope it could work?
Side questions:
- Is there any standard-legal card similar to Feed the Pack, that is easier to cast?
- If, on activating its ability by sacrificing a creature, your opponent destroys the enchantment before the ability resolves, do you still get the wolf tokens?
DISCLAIMER: I don't write all of what I'm about to write to make you feel "bad" or tell you that your idea is "bad", or anything like that. I'm genuinely trying to explain why I don't think the deck would work very well. If, after what I've said, you think I'm wrong, then I respect that and wish you well with your deck idea. If you'd like to discuss the nuances of what I'm about to explain, I'd be happy to debate it with you. I want to be clear that my purpose here is NOT to rag on your deck or idea, but simply to point out what I think are its flaws.
The problem is that you're trying to win with a 6 mana enchantment that doesn't win the game right away. In order to combo it with your pump spell, you need 8 mana! Most (non-instant) cards that cost that much mana have to basically just outright win you the game in order for them to be really good.
Imagine your perfect scenario: You play 5 lands and three mana ramp spells (elves or farseeks, or some such cards) and on turn 5 you cast this enchantment and your pump spell on some creature you have lying around (probably one of the mana elves). Then at the end of the turn you sacrifice the creature and get 6+ 2/2 wolves.
Your opponent untaps and plays Supreme Verdict (or Bonfire of the Damned, or Terminus, or Mizzium Mortars overloaded, or Detention Sphere on the wolves, or...). You now have a bunch of lands in play, your Feed The Pack, and no creatures in play. You've spent all that time to resolve your dream scenario and you'll still lose.
Well, you might be thinking "what if they aren't a control deck, so they don't have those cards?" Well, if they were an aggro deck, they've probably already done a LOT of damage to you, because you've spent the first few turns setting up your board. Now they just need a burn spell or two to kill you. Or if they're some sort of combo deck, they're probably pretty close to just combo killing you themselves.
The point I'm trying to make is that if you want to build a deck that is focused around doing one specific thing, that specific thing had better be REALLY REALLY powerful, and if it costs 6/7/8 mana, it probably needs to pretty much win you the game right then. When I was new to Magic (many, MANY moons ago), I went to my first tournament with a red green deck that sported Orcish Lumberjack, Tinder Wall and Shivan Dragon. To put this in context, Shivan Dragon was like the most scary creature people could imagine in those days. My whole plan was to accelerate fast into a shivan dragon (as fast as turn 2!!!) and kill them with it. The very first game I draw my opening hand and I probably smiled the biggest smile you can imagine. My opponent played a swamp, and passed. I played Forest, and Tinder Wall. My opponent played a swamp and passed. I played a Forest and 2 Tinder Wall. I sacrificed all 3 and played Shivan Dragon. TURN 2!!! I probably whoop'ed in excitement. Talk about awesome! This guy was gonna get DESTROYED. He, very casually, tapped his two swamps and played Terror on my Dragon. I looked down at my hand (probably more lands and some Orcish Lumberjacks), and I went from the height of excitement/joy to the crushing realization "I'm going to lose really badly!" And I did.
I tell that story because, as I explained above, this was my deck's dream draw. If I had realized at home "my dream draw gets negated by a two mana spell that is played rampantly", I probably would have rethought my strategy. It was an important lesson (actually, lessons, because it also introduced me to the idea of "card advantage").
I hope my wall of text is in some way helpful to you and your thinking about deck design. Cheers!
Side questions:
- Is there any standard-legal card similar to Feed the Pack, that is easier to cast?
Not that I know of. If you didn't already know about it, you should check out gatherer.wizards.com . It is a deck database that you can use to do really cool searches on all the cards in the game (and you can refine the search to just standard, and by colors, and card types, ect). You can use that tool to help you find other cards that are similar.
- If, on activating its ability by sacrificing a creature, your opponent destroys the enchantment before the ability resolves, do you still get the wolf tokens
Yes. If the ability goes on the stack, when it tries to resolve, it doesn't care if the enchantment is still in play. However, if the opponent wanted to do this, they could just play the destruction spell during your main phase, before the enchantment's ability goes on the stack (at the beginning of the end step). That would stop it from working. Also note that this is generally true, but not ALWAYS true. Some cards have clauses like "If <<this card>> is still in play...", in which case killing it after the ability went on the stack WOULD stop the effect.
DISCLAIMER: I don't write all of what I'm about to write to make you feel "bad" or tell you that your idea is "bad", or anything like that. I'm genuinely trying to explain why I don't think the deck would work very well. [...]
Hi!
Thanks for your reply. That's precisely the kind of response I expected, like a view from a more experienced player.
I'm well aware that I'm not very experienced in Magic yet, and if I have bad idea, then I would like someone to point it out. Of course, I undestand you don't want to make people "feel bad".
Hi!
Thanks for your reply. That's precisely the kind of response I expected, like a view from a more experienced player.
I'm well aware that I'm not very experienced in Magic yet, and if I have bad idea, then I would like someone to point it out. Of course, I undestand you don't want to make people "feel bad".
Thanks.
I hope it helped. If you have any other specific questions about your deck idea, I'd be happy to discuss it.
If you're wanting to make a deck that makes lots of token creatures, I would suggest taking a look at the Dragon's Maze Event Deck (here is a link: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p1026695.html ). It is great for a budget, and I've seen someone playing it straight out of the box at local FNM (going about 50% wins, which is pretty good for a less than $30 investment). It could easily be tuned with pretty inexpensive cards into a pretty good deck.
The key is that they're just playing good cards that make token creatures. They're not trying to "go all in" on making a huge wave of token creatures in one turn that costs 8 mana, which would leave you susceptible to "wrath of god" type effects. In fact, this style strategy is actually pretty decent against board sweepers, because you can usually pressure them with just a couple of the tokens plus intangible virtue, and then if they sweep you can follow up with flashback on Lingering Souls. For a real blowout, if you have the mana for Rootborn Defenses, you can REALLY knock them out when they go for the sweeper.
before the last rotation there was a red enchant called Warstorm surge that i used in combo with feed the pack. it was a terrible deck but it was fun to sac a tree of redemption for 26 damage to the face.
if your a fan of feed the pack and play casual games its a fun little deck
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Just little idea:
Card similiar to Feed the Pack would be Korozda Guildmage.
If you can combo it with Ogre Battledriver
(new card, coming in M14: 2RR, 3/3, Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, that creature gets +2/+0 and gains haste until end of turn.)
you can win game instantly, but that's slow, 3 card combo.
Thanks for pointing the golgari guildmage. It end up being 6 mana as well because you pay 4 to sacrifice. I don't think I'll go for it now, because I don't have the manabase, and would have to run it out of gates. And that's pretty slow, specially for the GBR version.
I hope it helped. If you have any other specific questions about your deck idea, I'd be happy to discuss it.
[...]
I started playing magic a few months ago. Currently, I play a budget version of a Dimir Mill-Grow deck for FNMs. I can usually go 2-3 with it, and that's ok to me.
I've started building a simic (probably splash white) deck. Not so budget, but I've some of the cards already like the Master Biomancers and some lands, and I'm building it slowly. It'll only be somewhat playable after M14 release, probably. That's good because I can use M14 cards, like the new mana elf and others. Also sad, because Gavony Towship, the main reason to splash white, will be about to rotate out.
It has Ooze Flux for making tokens, and if I can afford, I plan to get maybe 2 Garruks. But I'll wait to see what version of it, if any, will be in M14 - I hope for a reprint of the M13 version.
And I had this Feed the Pack idea while looking at my cards for what to put in that new deck.
I just thought it would be fun to play a monogreen deck (if it had any chance and I didn't have to spend much money on it) in an environment where most people play full 3-color decks with 12 shocklands and 12 checklands.
Except for monored, I've never seen anyone play a monocolor deck there.
Frank does cover a lot of combinations in this article that spacetime mentioned.
There's a lot of x/x creatures right now where x= number of creatures. Coice of Resurgence is current poster child of non-budget, but most are cheap, especially since you're going around Feed the Pack's 6cc. But they also make good use of creature accelerators, so maybe you'd want a number of mana dudes, some x/xers and then feed the pack. Plus a Tree of Redemption or two, of course.
Frank does cover a lot of combinations in this article that spacetime mentioned.
Good article!
That GW deck seems really solid.
One interesting thing I noticed is that he found a good use for the keyrunes.
I always thought of those mana artifacts from RTR block (either the keyrunes or those that can be sacrificed for a card draw) as useless cards. But with Feed the Pack the keyrunes can be turned into wolves once you don't need them for mana.
Thanks for pointing the golgari guildmage. It end up being 6 mana as well because you pay 4 to sacrifice. I don't think I'll go for it now, because I don't have the manabase, and would have to run it out of gates. And that's pretty slow, specially for the GBR version.
2 Mana on one turn and 4 mana on another turn is MUCH easier to do than 6 on a single turn.
I started playing magic a few months ago. Currently, I play a budget version of a Dimir Mill-Grow deck for FNMs. I can usually go 2-3 with it, and that's ok to me.
I've started building a simic (probably splash white) deck. Not so budget, but I've some of the cards already like the Master Biomancers and some lands, and I'm building it slowly. It'll only be somewhat playable after M14 release, probably. That's good because I can use M14 cards, like the new mana elf and others. Also sad, because Gavony Towship, the main reason to splash white, will be about to rotate out.
It has Ooze Flux for making tokens, and if I can afford, I plan to get maybe 2 Garruks. But I'll wait to see what version of it, if any, will be in M14 - I hope for a reprint of the M13 version.
And I had this Feed the Pack idea while looking at my cards for what to put in that new deck.
I just thought it would be fun to play a monogreen deck (if it had any chance and I didn't have to spend much money on it) in an environment where most people play full 3-color decks with 12 shocklands and 12 checklands.
Except for monored, I've never seen anyone play a monocolor deck there.
As pointed out by others, Feed the Pack by itself can be a decent finisher in a green deck. The key is to not use it like you described, where you try and play a growth spell the same turn you play it in order to make a ton of wolves all at once, and that is the sole focus of the deck. Instead, if you play a mono green strategy with big beefy guys, and you just build up over time, then Feed the Pack, as a 2 or 3 of, is a decent card. I just don't think it's a good "build around me" card, and certainly not if you plan to abuse it by playing it and a pump spell on the same turn.
Glad someone found that Frank Lapore article, that should be a good place for you to start!
It could also be used as a sideboard card against decks that don't have good sweepers and try to win long games. I dunno if there are any decks like that in your area.
Your UGw deck sounds fun, good luck with it!
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I'm not really a green player yet, but I just had this idea, and thought it might be worth hearing other people thoughts on it.
Could a standard mono green deck, based on Feed the Pack and Phytoburst, be decent?
I know people say Phytoburst is not good even in draft. And have never heard/read anything of Feed the Pack yet, so I assume it's not a very popular card.
But I just came by this card (Feed the Pack) again and saw some synergy here: On a single Phytoburst + sac, you get 6+ 2/2 Wolfs. The downside is that Feed the Pack costs 6 mana, and that's why I thought of keeping it monocolor for maximum consistency.
However, I haven't really thought on how to setup a full deck yet. Is there any hope it could work?
Side questions:
- Is there any standard-legal card similar to Feed the Pack, that is easier to cast?
- If, on activating its ability by sacrificing a creature, your opponent destroys the enchantment before the ability resolves, do you still get the wolf tokens?
Thanks.
The problem is that you're trying to win with a 6 mana enchantment that doesn't win the game right away. In order to combo it with your pump spell, you need 8 mana! Most (non-instant) cards that cost that much mana have to basically just outright win you the game in order for them to be really good.
Imagine your perfect scenario: You play 5 lands and three mana ramp spells (elves or farseeks, or some such cards) and on turn 5 you cast this enchantment and your pump spell on some creature you have lying around (probably one of the mana elves). Then at the end of the turn you sacrifice the creature and get 6+ 2/2 wolves.
Your opponent untaps and plays Supreme Verdict (or Bonfire of the Damned, or Terminus, or Mizzium Mortars overloaded, or Detention Sphere on the wolves, or...). You now have a bunch of lands in play, your Feed The Pack, and no creatures in play. You've spent all that time to resolve your dream scenario and you'll still lose.
Well, you might be thinking "what if they aren't a control deck, so they don't have those cards?" Well, if they were an aggro deck, they've probably already done a LOT of damage to you, because you've spent the first few turns setting up your board. Now they just need a burn spell or two to kill you. Or if they're some sort of combo deck, they're probably pretty close to just combo killing you themselves.
The point I'm trying to make is that if you want to build a deck that is focused around doing one specific thing, that specific thing had better be REALLY REALLY powerful, and if it costs 6/7/8 mana, it probably needs to pretty much win you the game right then. When I was new to Magic (many, MANY moons ago), I went to my first tournament with a red green deck that sported Orcish Lumberjack, Tinder Wall and Shivan Dragon. To put this in context, Shivan Dragon was like the most scary creature people could imagine in those days. My whole plan was to accelerate fast into a shivan dragon (as fast as turn 2!!!) and kill them with it. The very first game I draw my opening hand and I probably smiled the biggest smile you can imagine. My opponent played a swamp, and passed. I played Forest, and Tinder Wall. My opponent played a swamp and passed. I played a Forest and 2 Tinder Wall. I sacrificed all 3 and played Shivan Dragon. TURN 2!!! I probably whoop'ed in excitement. Talk about awesome! This guy was gonna get DESTROYED. He, very casually, tapped his two swamps and played Terror on my Dragon. I looked down at my hand (probably more lands and some Orcish Lumberjacks), and I went from the height of excitement/joy to the crushing realization "I'm going to lose really badly!" And I did.
I tell that story because, as I explained above, this was my deck's dream draw. If I had realized at home "my dream draw gets negated by a two mana spell that is played rampantly", I probably would have rethought my strategy. It was an important lesson (actually, lessons, because it also introduced me to the idea of "card advantage").
I hope my wall of text is in some way helpful to you and your thinking about deck design. Cheers!
Not that I know of. If you didn't already know about it, you should check out gatherer.wizards.com . It is a deck database that you can use to do really cool searches on all the cards in the game (and you can refine the search to just standard, and by colors, and card types, ect). You can use that tool to help you find other cards that are similar.
Yes. If the ability goes on the stack, when it tries to resolve, it doesn't care if the enchantment is still in play. However, if the opponent wanted to do this, they could just play the destruction spell during your main phase, before the enchantment's ability goes on the stack (at the beginning of the end step). That would stop it from working. Also note that this is generally true, but not ALWAYS true. Some cards have clauses like "If <<this card>> is still in play...", in which case killing it after the ability went on the stack WOULD stop the effect.
Hi!
Thanks for your reply. That's precisely the kind of response I expected, like a view from a more experienced player.
I'm well aware that I'm not very experienced in Magic yet, and if I have bad idea, then I would like someone to point it out. Of course, I undestand you don't want to make people "feel bad".
Thanks.
I hope it helped. If you have any other specific questions about your deck idea, I'd be happy to discuss it.
If you're wanting to make a deck that makes lots of token creatures, I would suggest taking a look at the Dragon's Maze Event Deck (here is a link: http://www.trollandtoad.com/p1026695.html ). It is great for a budget, and I've seen someone playing it straight out of the box at local FNM (going about 50% wins, which is pretty good for a less than $30 investment). It could easily be tuned with pretty inexpensive cards into a pretty good deck.
The key is that they're just playing good cards that make token creatures. They're not trying to "go all in" on making a huge wave of token creatures in one turn that costs 8 mana, which would leave you susceptible to "wrath of god" type effects. In fact, this style strategy is actually pretty decent against board sweepers, because you can usually pressure them with just a couple of the tokens plus intangible virtue, and then if they sweep you can follow up with flashback on Lingering Souls. For a real blowout, if you have the mana for Rootborn Defenses, you can REALLY knock them out when they go for the sweeper.
if your a fan of feed the pack and play casual games its a fun little deck
Thanks for pointing the golgari guildmage. It end up being 6 mana as well because you pay 4 to sacrifice. I don't think I'll go for it now, because I don't have the manabase, and would have to run it out of gates. And that's pretty slow, specially for the GBR version.
I started playing magic a few months ago. Currently, I play a budget version of a Dimir Mill-Grow deck for FNMs. I can usually go 2-3 with it, and that's ok to me.
I've started building a simic (probably splash white) deck. Not so budget, but I've some of the cards already like the Master Biomancers and some lands, and I'm building it slowly. It'll only be somewhat playable after M14 release, probably. That's good because I can use M14 cards, like the new mana elf and others. Also sad, because Gavony Towship, the main reason to splash white, will be about to rotate out.
It has Ooze Flux for making tokens, and if I can afford, I plan to get maybe 2 Garruks. But I'll wait to see what version of it, if any, will be in M14 - I hope for a reprint of the M13 version.
And I had this Feed the Pack idea while looking at my cards for what to put in that new deck.
I just thought it would be fun to play a monogreen deck (if it had any chance and I didn't have to spend much money on it) in an environment where most people play full 3-color decks with 12 shocklands and 12 checklands.
Except for monored, I've never seen anyone play a monocolor deck there.
There's a lot of x/x creatures right now where x= number of creatures. Coice of Resurgence is current poster child of non-budget, but most are cheap, especially since you're going around Feed the Pack's 6cc. But they also make good use of creature accelerators, so maybe you'd want a number of mana dudes, some x/xers and then feed the pack. Plus a Tree of Redemption or two, of course.
Good article!
That GW deck seems really solid.
One interesting thing I noticed is that he found a good use for the keyrunes.
I always thought of those mana artifacts from RTR block (either the keyrunes or those that can be sacrificed for a card draw) as useless cards. But with Feed the Pack the keyrunes can be turned into wolves once you don't need them for mana.
2 Mana on one turn and 4 mana on another turn is MUCH easier to do than 6 on a single turn.
As pointed out by others, Feed the Pack by itself can be a decent finisher in a green deck. The key is to not use it like you described, where you try and play a growth spell the same turn you play it in order to make a ton of wolves all at once, and that is the sole focus of the deck. Instead, if you play a mono green strategy with big beefy guys, and you just build up over time, then Feed the Pack, as a 2 or 3 of, is a decent card. I just don't think it's a good "build around me" card, and certainly not if you plan to abuse it by playing it and a pump spell on the same turn.
Glad someone found that Frank Lapore article, that should be a good place for you to start!
It could also be used as a sideboard card against decks that don't have good sweepers and try to win long games. I dunno if there are any decks like that in your area.
Your UGw deck sounds fun, good luck with it!