I was out of the game for many years and recently have returned. I've been playing 99% casual games with friends at school and I want to upgrade one of my old decks in hopes of making it a lot more deadly than it was.
Here is my list.
I played this deck for many many years and loved it. So much so that when I stopped playing the game and sold my stuff, this deck was among the small collection of stuff I chose not to sell. And since I was out of the game from 2005 until 2013 there are so many new cards that running through them trying to figure out what I could add is daunting to say the least. I would appreciate any suggestions that could help to maybe make this a force to be reckoned with.
That is a great card! If I sub it in for the Doomsday Spector you think? I was also wondering about the maggot carriers, if maybe there was something better out there for 1 mana. A friend showed me some cards which cost either a blue or a black to cast, I'm not sure what set that was from.
Also Dimir Cutpurse looks interesting to me, I was thinking it would be a potential replacement for Ravenous Rats.
Your friend mentioned both a U and B card for 1 mana to replace Maggot Carrier, yeah? The creature that meets this criteria is Oona's Gatewarden. That would be a consideration, I suppose. It blocks really nicely early and can permanently cripple a creature. Another card for the same cost, , would be Dream Salvage, and that card would be awesome for your deck. If you Recoil with a Warped Devotion and 1 mana leftover and then cast Dream Salvage, you get 2 cards for only 1 mana!
Hmm... Ravenous Rats is pretty good... but if you wanted to go really deep into this discard strategy, you could run Anvil of Bogardan in its place. That gets the discard juices flowing! And speaking of discard, what about Liliana's Caress/Megrim? Those two are some of the most punishing discard effects out there. I wouldn't run Dimir Cutpurse, since it doesn't have any evasion (flying etc.). If it did have evasion, it would be one of your superstars.
Last thing I can think of is to run more dualcoloredlands. They tremendously help in casting color-intensive spells.
Revamped Deck list after milling over all the options. I dropped repulse all together as well as the Maggot Carriers. Added Dream Salvage and Liliana's Caress which is much better than Megrim because it's cheaper, but then I wondered if Megrim wouldn't be better because of Perplex's transmute. Also, having 4 perplex and 4 undermine means I now have 8 counter spells. And while that's good, I wonder if it isn't a bit over kill? I could go down to three copies of one of the two and add a 3rd Anvil of Bogardan, or I could add in a 4th underground river, which would give me 21 lands. I worry about mana in this deck, as that is quite a bit lower, but then I realized that my most expensive card is the Specter...so I don't know.
I had also considered replacing probe with Duress or Ostracize. And I wondered about maybe a Planeswalker?
What do you all think?
*EDIT*
So Megrim is 69 cents, Liliana's Caress would cost me 20 bucks for 4. I think I'll stick with Megrim for the moment...
Alright, I would think whatever does better in testing regarding Megrim and Liliana's Caress. If the Caress is better, than keep it! 8 counterspells isn't overkill, but if you dislike how many you get, you could replace 1 or 2 with your suggested cards. Keep in mind, though, that Perplex isn't always a counterspell. Most of the time, though it is. I would actually bump the land count to at least 22, since a control deck wants as many lands as possible. Probe is pretty sweet, but you could replace it with your aforementioned cards, or you could try something like Cranial Extraction or Memoricide.
That sounds good. I think what I will do is pick up what I don't have with the current list and do some testing. Bumping the lands isn't a problem, but the question is, do I add more island/swamps, or go for 2 more Darkslick shores?
I would go for the Darkslick Shores. Ya never know when you need both colors.
So I got it in yesterday, put it together and spent the better part of last night and today playing it and holy heck! I washed out against my friends mono green elves, bounced 18 permanents back to his hand, with two warped devotions on the field and 1 megrim. He discards 18, takes 36 damage, but because of his life gain he was at 42 so he was still alive and so I dream salvage and draw 18 cards, lay down an anvil and the game is over next round when I hit him with both specters I had on the board! I LOVE this deck. Perplex is helping a LOT! Really loving the fact that I can go get a Devotions or a Megrim anytime I need it.
Seems like I was a bit too quick on the happy train. I'm getting murdered by creature decks. They get me down to less than 8 life before I can do anything at all to them. Undermine was completely useless to me today! I only won one out of 18 games and that was because I got lucky and my opponent was mana screwed. So I need to do more reworking. I need to find something that is more useful than the rats, because they've been less than useless. Any ideas fellas?
Probe has been totally useless and Anvil of Borgadon ends up hurting me because it keeps me from playing other cards. I found Consult the Necrosages which is like a more expensive (mana cost) Hymn to Tourach but then I thought why not just run hymn?
My friends elves multiply so fast I cannot last, he literally has me down to lower than 10 life by the end of his fourth turn, and then he doubling chants and it's over.
The simplest solution against a swarm of creatures would be to use B sweepers to destroy them or U sweepers to bounce them.
If the creatures are particularly resilient you could stall them with Fog Bank or Meekstone.
I switched out Perplex for Unsummon, my wins against faster decks are improving. Especially the mono colored decks, due to washout and megrim. I'm consistently swinging for about 24-28 damage on the 7th turn, bounces and discards helping me delay them. I'm considering taking the Undermines out and in favor of more bounce cards, hopefully Snap, and or Vapor snag. I just cant afford to use such an expensive counterspell because it delays me from my goal of getting my enchants out onto the field and every wasted turn for me, brings me closer to death.
I was out of the game for many years and recently have returned. I've been playing 99% casual games with friends at school and I want to upgrade one of my old decks in hopes of making it a lot more deadly than it was.
Here is my list.
4x Ravenous Rats
4x Warped Devotion
4x Wash Out
4x Maggot Carrier
2x Sleeper's Robe
4x Probe
4x Doomsday Specter
2x Repulse
4x Undermine
4x Salt Marsh
2x Terminal Moraine
8x Swamp
10x Island
I played this deck for many many years and loved it. So much so that when I stopped playing the game and sold my stuff, this deck was among the small collection of stuff I chose not to sell. And since I was out of the game from 2005 until 2013 there are so many new cards that running through them trying to figure out what I could add is daunting to say the least. I would appreciate any suggestions that could help to maybe make this a force to be reckoned with.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
Also Dimir Cutpurse looks interesting to me, I was thinking it would be a potential replacement for Ravenous Rats.
Blizzard Specter would work better than Doomsday Specter, since with the Doomsday Specter and Warped Devotion, you'd have to discard a card. I would also consider Ghastlord of Fugue in that spot if Blizzard Specter doesn't work.
I think a really fun card you could run is Perplex, since it either: a) counters an unwanted spell, b) makes the opponent discard everything, increasing the value of Warped Devotion, or c) tutors for Warped Devotion/Recoil/Probe/Repulse/Undermine.
Your friend mentioned both a U and B card for 1 mana to replace Maggot Carrier, yeah? The creature that meets this criteria is Oona's Gatewarden. That would be a consideration, I suppose. It blocks really nicely early and can permanently cripple a creature. Another card for the same cost, , would be Dream Salvage, and that card would be awesome for your deck. If you Recoil with a Warped Devotion and 1 mana leftover and then cast Dream Salvage, you get 2 cards for only 1 mana!
Hmm... Ravenous Rats is pretty good... but if you wanted to go really deep into this discard strategy, you could run Anvil of Bogardan in its place. That gets the discard juices flowing! And speaking of discard, what about Liliana's Caress/Megrim? Those two are some of the most punishing discard effects out there. I wouldn't run Dimir Cutpurse, since it doesn't have any evasion (flying etc.). If it did have evasion, it would be one of your superstars.
Last thing I can think of is to run more dual colored lands. They tremendously help in casting color-intensive spells.
BG Spanish Inquisition BG
RG Belcher RG
Modern
UBRG Necrotic Ooze ComboUBRG
Standard
Ha Ha!
Pauper
B Suicide B
EDH
UG Momir Vig, Simic Visionary UG
Casual
BURW Tokens BURW
UR Grand Affinity UR
Tiny Leaders
W Rune-Tail Soul Sisters W
4 Blizzard Specter
4 Ravenous Rats
Instants/Sorcery 22
4 Undermine
4 Perplex
3 Probe
4 Recoil
3 Wash Out
4 Dream Salvage
3 Megrim
4 Warped Devotion
Artifacts 2
2 Anvil of Bogardan
Lands 21
4 Drowned Catacomb
3 Underground River
4 Darkslick Shores
5 Island
5 Swamp
Revamped Deck list after milling over all the options. I dropped repulse all together as well as the Maggot Carriers. Added Dream Salvage and Liliana's Caress which is much better than Megrim because it's cheaper, but then I wondered if Megrim wouldn't be better because of Perplex's transmute. Also, having 4 perplex and 4 undermine means I now have 8 counter spells. And while that's good, I wonder if it isn't a bit over kill? I could go down to three copies of one of the two and add a 3rd Anvil of Bogardan, or I could add in a 4th underground river, which would give me 21 lands. I worry about mana in this deck, as that is quite a bit lower, but then I realized that my most expensive card is the Specter...so I don't know.
I had also considered replacing probe with Duress or Ostracize. And I wondered about maybe a Planeswalker?
What do you all think?
*EDIT*
So Megrim is 69 cents, Liliana's Caress would cost me 20 bucks for 4. I think I'll stick with Megrim for the moment...
BG Spanish Inquisition BG
RG Belcher RG
Modern
UBRG Necrotic Ooze ComboUBRG
Standard
Ha Ha!
Pauper
B Suicide B
EDH
UG Momir Vig, Simic Visionary UG
Casual
BURW Tokens BURW
UR Grand Affinity UR
Tiny Leaders
W Rune-Tail Soul Sisters W
BG Spanish Inquisition BG
RG Belcher RG
Modern
UBRG Necrotic Ooze ComboUBRG
Standard
Ha Ha!
Pauper
B Suicide B
EDH
UG Momir Vig, Simic Visionary UG
Casual
BURW Tokens BURW
UR Grand Affinity UR
Tiny Leaders
W Rune-Tail Soul Sisters W
So I got it in yesterday, put it together and spent the better part of last night and today playing it and holy heck! I washed out against my friends mono green elves, bounced 18 permanents back to his hand, with two warped devotions on the field and 1 megrim. He discards 18, takes 36 damage, but because of his life gain he was at 42 so he was still alive and so I dream salvage and draw 18 cards, lay down an anvil and the game is over next round when I hit him with both specters I had on the board! I LOVE this deck. Perplex is helping a LOT! Really loving the fact that I can go get a Devotions or a Megrim anytime I need it.
Thanks for all your help guys!
Here is what I am considering.
I just discovered Snap, and I remembered Unsummon but then discoveredVapor Snag
Probe has been totally useless and Anvil of Borgadon ends up hurting me because it keeps me from playing other cards. I found Consult the Necrosages which is like a more expensive (mana cost) Hymn to Tourach but then I thought why not just run hymn?
The simplest solution against a swarm of creatures would be to use B sweepers to destroy them or U sweepers to bounce them.
If the creatures are particularly resilient you could stall them with Fog Bank or Meekstone.
I switched out Perplex for Unsummon, my wins against faster decks are improving. Especially the mono colored decks, due to washout and megrim. I'm consistently swinging for about 24-28 damage on the 7th turn, bounces and discards helping me delay them. I'm considering taking the Undermines out and in favor of more bounce cards, hopefully Snap, and or Vapor snag. I just cant afford to use such an expensive counterspell because it delays me from my goal of getting my enchants out onto the field and every wasted turn for me, brings me closer to death.