Hey spooky, I've been playing legacy burn on modo but I really like your combo elves list. How much am I sacrificing in terms of power when I switch. Is it worth it?
Mono Green Combo Elves is not a half bad deck. It is where I started and I built upon that foundation to a later stronger 3 colour build. How much are you sacrificing? Not as much as you would think, the Mono coloured version tends to be able to turn 2 more on its Glimpse plan. (it's easy to disrupt though) The cost is some redundancy and disruption you gain as well as the loss of DRS. I would suggest if your playing online to go ahead and give it a go, you can pick up some fetches and duals online cheaply later on if you desire as well.
Lastly, Cradle makes the deck far more potent, but one or two copies can be put in the main with some number of Crop Rotation used to make up numbers. This is in fact the way the deck use to be built and it can sometimes be even more explosive as chaining Cradles can make you just go nuts. It is something you can build if you like the deck, but it's not something that is a must if your playing on a budget. Turn two Priest can be as effective sometimes and with turn one Mana elves, GSZ can fetch one turn two.
While the build is weaker than the builds you will find in the Elves primer, it's not that much weaker since your only really trading off redundancy and some speed in the loss of Cradle for cost but not the power of the Elves shell overall. It's worth it and you can build up form there.
Thank you so much for pointing all of this out to me! Not many people know just how difficult it is to maintain this primer, and I often get lost in he wall of text. If more people helped me find mistakes the quality of the post would be that much better, so again, thanks! I'll get to fixin them (and some deck order issues) asap.
I noticed another mistake on the Solidarity list. In your "Adding money", you pull the two win cons.
What to take out
-7 Island
-1 Brain Freeze
-1 Pact of Negation
-1 Peer Through Depths
-1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Otherwise, thanks for all your hard work on this! I've been following since v2(?), and have New Alara Aggro and CascaBalance built, but I've never felt ambitious enough to try with the meta.
Also, as a budget alternative to Flusterstorm, what about Counterflux with a Steam Vents and a set of KTK Blue Fetches?
Hey Spooky, great thread as usual. It`s been a long time since my last post here in MTGSalvation, I`ve been toying with some of your deck ideas. Took them as basis for my own brewing and this is what i came up with after a year or so playing them casually.
Hey everyone I want to make the Green Storm Deck a reality. been playtesting and it seems pretty reliable and consistent. may add Gitaxian Probe main see how that works. the big thing is what should i play in the side. I was thinking leyline of sanctity could be good maybe laboratory Maniac as alternate non-targeting win-con. maybe even emrakrul since when i get going i can easily cast it or such, even blood moon could buy me time to combo out...really need help on the side part. any help what so ever would be appreciated.
As far as the sideboard goes, your main problems will be combo matches, as well as burn. I might play something like this, but it all depend son your meta.
There are a plethora of other graveyard hate options instead of rest in peace, and warmth could easily be a couple circle of protection: red. Pithing Needle is mainly for planeswalkers. I'm not really sure how dangerous they are in total, but I know dealing with Jace before he kills you can be an issue.
Hey spooky, what about Omnitell? What do you think about it? They have a mono blue version (no dual needed in this case) and, besides the FoW, you can do it in a low/mid budget. Here is an example.
From the decks on the original post of the thread, which ones are more powerful?
Which ones are more suited as a starting point before you start adding more expensive parts? (question is because some decks list more expensive parts, others do not which seems to indicate that the list you see is pretty much as good as it will get)
Those that could be upgraded better than others
Merfolk
Blue Tempo
Reanimator
Pox
This is all just my opinion. Do you have any questions about any of these decks? What is your personal price range? What kinds of decks do you like to play?
Well, must start by saying that I only play on MTGO and not on the dailies, mostly only in the 'tournament practice' and 2-mans. I've played Burn to death in every single format and even though I like it, after so many years going mountain-bolt just gets boring. Very boring. I like decks that do a balls-to-the-walls type of play, things like Big Red or Show and Tell. I like getting a (big) Eldrazi on the table. Oh, and I refuse to play black cards. One of those things. The art in Ad Nauseam put me off from ever playing black cards.
But after so many years of burning away, I would be looking at something that was immersive and most of all tweakable , something I could look into a new set and say 'now, that's an interesting card to try in my deck' which with burn the last time we got was with the Eidolon.
So I guess from that list Enchantress? (there's a version that casts an Eldrazi as alternate win con doesn't it?) Not sure if there is anything else in your list or in the original post that fits the description above.
My budget is not that great, maybe 225usd, which translates to some 275 tix...
Tweakable decks listed would probably be any of the stompy variants, Enchantress, and blue tempo. If you like casting very large creatures I would look at Polymorph combo (Which can be turned into show and tell), Urza Tron, and Elf Ball.
This thread is an incredible resource! I usually enjoy resilient combo decks most out of all the different archetypes. No glass cannons for me, but I like to do something broken, so the Nauseous Grace and High Tide lists drew my eye. Does anyone have a sense of how competitive those decks are in general, or if there are any other similar decks that do well? (would Living End have a similar playstyle?Polymorph? )
I also can't decide if Spiral Tide or Solidarity is a better High Tide choice. There are quite a few videos of Feline Longmore doing really well with Spiral Tide in tournaments, but while I might get FOWs someday, I definitely won't go as far as candelabra of tawnos. Both decks fit my budget (roughly $200) since I own some EDH staples that overlap and can replace FOW with misdirection/pact, and flusterstorm with swan song. She said in her deck techs that Spiral Tide is a stronger deck, but I don't know if that still applies to candelless Spiral Tide.
A Candelless version of 12-Post Eldrazi is also close to my budget now that Prime Time and the Eldrazi have come down in price, but I suffer from the same problem of not knowing how competitive it is without the money card.
Serra avatar could be played as a one-of in the life deck. Mostly, though, it would allow you to never deck yourself, as she can discard to the hand size rule infinitely. She COULD be used as a win condition, too, but she doesn't have hexproof or shroud, so this is very risky.
Gitaxian Probe would be a great addition, you just need to find something you are willing to take out. The list is pretty tight as it stands, what were you thinking of removing to make room?
First, thanks so much Spooky for making and maintaining these treads. Probably endless help to new players.
1) Prices have changed a lot. A lot of the budget decks posted, while still probably good deck choices in general, cannot be bought for anything near the quoted price. Do you think it's worth doing a quick update on rough price range per deck?
2) I used to play a G/B Vengevine variant. My list was not budget, but I think the budget version of it is both smoother and potentially more explosive than the posted one (mainly because less dependant on Slowried Alive and more options to play around GY hate).
A few extra pieces of value:
-Carrion Feeder+Gravecrawler combo for easy fatty
-Crawler combo recurs Vengevine even with empty hand
-Feeder lets you sacrifice Vengevine/Crawler to dodge exile effects like StP or tuck like Terminus
-16 creatures you're happy to discard, making Mongrel and Troll headaches in the combat zone
-12 1-drops for easy Vengevine
-less dependant on Buried Alive (turn 3 Buried Alive is SLOW, leads to "do nothing" turns, and is easily disrupted)
-can board out graveyard dependence into more of a "fair deck" to dodge hate
-Stinkweed Imp dredges to find Vengevines and Gravecrawlers and Therapies without spending mana (i.e. don't waste turns casting dig spells and doing nothing)
-Stinkweed randomly trades with dangerous things like Griselbrand and Emrakul... (well they may end up +6-7 cards after the trade, but that beats just dying)
-Dredging Stinkweed makes it easier to cast 2 creatures even from an empty board and empty hand
-Blood Artist seems awesome, though not as awesome as in Zombardment with Lingering Souls
Slowness of Buried Alive:
Without mana acceleration, this comes down on turn 3 at the earliest. It involves tapping out and doing nothing for turn 3 just to set up potential shenanigans for turn 4. If those shenanigans included infinite damage via Kiki+Pestermite+Karmic Guide or 20 to the face via Necrotic Ooze+Phyrexian Devourer+Triskelion, then MAYBE it's worth waiting till turn 4. Simply cheating out a few 4/3s (conditional on sandbagging 2 creatures in hand) probably isn't enough impact against a format that cheats out scarier things 1-2 turns earlier. After extensive testing of the non-budget version, I found I liked the deck better when it depended less on effects like Buried Alive and spent more time interacting with the board.
Mongrel vs Oona's Prowler:
Prowler obviously has evasion and hits for more with an empty hand. It sort of holds off Delver... except:
-It doesn't actually hold off Delver (trades with their worst card instead of the Insectile)
-Gives opponent control over your combat step
-Much easier to kill with -X/-X (Disfigure) or burn (Forked Bolt=facepalm) than Mongrel
-Dies to ubiquitous -1/-1 splash hate
-Can be slower clock than Mongrel
-Forces you to discard post-combat, which limits play options
Mongrel gives you, instead of opponent, control over its size. That lets you play combat tricks and dodge removal. It does risk getting chumped for days or outclassed by Goyf. However, in conjunction with Troll, it trolls the opponent to make blocking a nightmare and generally deter their attacks. It's also cheaper on the wallet. Putrid Imp is another budget option for a discard outlet and actually plays better with Vengevine than Prowler.
DRS makes Buried Alive easier to power out, so count upped to 3 for G1 explosiveness.
Bloodghast as a secondary Buried Alive target and more fodder to Lotleth Troll/Carrion Feeder.
Fetchlands to enable DRS and Bloodghast. Paradise for Ghast too.
Urborg because Carrion-Crawler combo wants black mana.
Post-board you can swap out Buried Alive & Bloodghast & other slots for some combination of Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Liliana and/or other disruption. You transform into a fair deck that can easily play around their boarded in GY hate with some of the top BGx tools in Legacy.
I also see a Natural Upgrade to the Polymorph deck as new cards have been released:
Cloudform gives you a 2/2 flying hexproof, which means you can safely Polymorph it without worrying about enemy removal. You just need to dodge counterspells on Polymorph, which gives you a lot more resilience than the combo usually has. It's a bit expensive for Legacy at 1UU, but it does curve out a turn before Polymorph, and it pitches to Misdirection, so the downside is minimal.
I also see a Natural Upgrade to the Polymorph deck as new cards have been released:
Cloudform gives you a 2/2 flying hexproof, which means you can safely Polymorph it without worrying about enemy removal. You just need to dodge counterspells on Polymorph, which gives you a lot more resilience than the combo usually has. It's a bit expensive for Legacy at 1UU, but it does curve out a turn before Polymorph, and it pitches to Misdirection, so the downside is minimal.
Hexproof =/= Shroud, you can still target it with spells and abilities you control.
Yeah. In fact, Hexproof is the ideal keyword for a Polymorph target for that very reason. You can Polymorph, but opponent can't counter it by Bolting in response. The other hexproof non-creature creatures are Simic Keyrune and Lumbering Falls, both also new-ish additions, but both require splashing green and using way more mana on the critical turn, so completely unplayable. Swiftfoot Boots could work with Ancient Tombs, and also lets you go for hasty Emrakul, but it's just too easy for opponent to Bolt/etc. in response to Equip, so Boots is probably just worse than running counters instead.
Just adding a bit more info. I think this is a vid of the Super Budget deck Sac Land Tendrils. The Underground Sea can be replaced with something more budget friendly, like a Gemstone Mine.
Which deck here is the best to start up and slowly add more cards into it later without changing it into a whole brand new deck?
I am looking into 12 post.
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Mono Green Combo Elves is not a half bad deck. It is where I started and I built upon that foundation to a later stronger 3 colour build. How much are you sacrificing? Not as much as you would think, the Mono coloured version tends to be able to turn 2 more on its Glimpse plan. (it's easy to disrupt though) The cost is some redundancy and disruption you gain as well as the loss of DRS. I would suggest if your playing online to go ahead and give it a go, you can pick up some fetches and duals online cheaply later on if you desire as well.
Lastly, Cradle makes the deck far more potent, but one or two copies can be put in the main with some number of Crop Rotation used to make up numbers. This is in fact the way the deck use to be built and it can sometimes be even more explosive as chaining Cradles can make you just go nuts. It is something you can build if you like the deck, but it's not something that is a must if your playing on a budget. Turn two Priest can be as effective sometimes and with turn one Mana elves, GSZ can fetch one turn two.
While the build is weaker than the builds you will find in the Elves primer, it's not that much weaker since your only really trading off redundancy and some speed in the loss of Cradle for cost but not the power of the Elves shell overall. It's worth it and you can build up form there.
Happy Hoofing.
Current decks of choice:
Vintage: Shops.
Legacy: Lands.
Modern: Lantern.
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What to take out
-7 Island
-1 Brain Freeze
-1 Pact of Negation
-1 Peer Through Depths
-1 Blue Sun's Zenith
Otherwise, thanks for all your hard work on this! I've been following since v2(?), and have New Alara Aggro and CascaBalance built, but I've never felt ambitious enough to try with the meta.
Also, as a budget alternative to Flusterstorm, what about Counterflux with a Steam Vents and a set of KTK Blue Fetches?
Mono W Tokens
So far the list feels really good and sometimes can be very explosive. I don`t have the Mentors yet, just testing them shows promise though.
An idea I had was to go -4 Orim's Chant sending them to the SB, and go for +1 Eidolon of Rhetoric, +1 Spirit of the Labyrinth, +1 Enlightened Tutor, and +1 Umezawa's Jitte.
Another list I like a lot is Fangren Forest:
The Sb should include Thorn of Amethyst, Trinisphere, and Ratchet Bomb vs combo alone, and sometimes that`s not even enough.
I hope you like my take and evolutions on your propossed decklists. Ideas and suggestions are obviously welcomed.
WDeath and TaxesW
RWGBurnGWR
New sets have come in, prices of some cards have shoot up that some of those budget decks are getting rather 'un-budgety'...
-4 Orim's Chant
+4 Silence
-2 Elspeth, Knight-Errant
+1 Luminarch Ascension
+1 Mobilization, or Sacred Mesa, or Heliod, God of the Sun
-1 Kor Haven
+1 Plains
-4 Wrath of God
+4 Day of Judgment
These are your main options.
As far as the sideboard goes, your main problems will be combo matches, as well as burn. I might play something like this, but it all depend son your meta.
4 Rest in Peace
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Pithing Needle
2 Rule of Law
2 Warmth
1 Oblivion Ring
There are a plethora of other graveyard hate options instead of rest in peace, and warmth could easily be a couple circle of protection: red. Pithing Needle is mainly for planeswalkers. I'm not really sure how dangerous they are in total, but I know dealing with Jace before he kills you can be an issue.
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Which ones are more suited as a starting point before you start adding more expensive parts? (question is because some decks list more expensive parts, others do not which seems to indicate that the list you see is pretty much as good as it will get)
Burn
Landless Dredge
Dredge
Soldier Stompy
Boo Berry
Enchantress
Shoal Infect
Those that could be upgraded better than others
Merfolk
Blue Tempo
Reanimator
Pox
This is all just my opinion. Do you have any questions about any of these decks? What is your personal price range? What kinds of decks do you like to play?
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But after so many years of burning away, I would be looking at something that was immersive and most of all tweakable , something I could look into a new set and say 'now, that's an interesting card to try in my deck' which with burn the last time we got was with the Eidolon.
So I guess from that list Enchantress? (there's a version that casts an Eldrazi as alternate win con doesn't it?) Not sure if there is anything else in your list or in the original post that fits the description above.
My budget is not that great, maybe 225usd, which translates to some 275 tix...
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I also can't decide if Spiral Tide or Solidarity is a better High Tide choice. There are quite a few videos of Feline Longmore doing really well with Spiral Tide in tournaments, but while I might get FOWs someday, I definitely won't go as far as candelabra of tawnos. Both decks fit my budget (roughly $200) since I own some EDH staples that overlap and can replace FOW with misdirection/pact, and flusterstorm with swan song. She said in her deck techs that Spiral Tide is a stronger deck, but I don't know if that still applies to candelless Spiral Tide.
A Candelless version of 12-Post Eldrazi is also close to my budget now that Prime Time and the Eldrazi have come down in price, but I suffer from the same problem of not knowing how competitive it is without the money card.
Gitaxian Probe would be a great addition, you just need to find something you are willing to take out. The list is pretty tight as it stands, what were you thinking of removing to make room?
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1) Prices have changed a lot. A lot of the budget decks posted, while still probably good deck choices in general, cannot be bought for anything near the quoted price. Do you think it's worth doing a quick update on rough price range per deck?
2) I used to play a G/B Vengevine variant. My list was not budget, but I think the budget version of it is both smoother and potentially more explosive than the posted one (mainly because less dependant on Slowried Alive and more options to play around GY hate).
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Wild Mongrel
2 Blood Artist
4 Stinkweed Imp
4 Vengevine
4 Cabal Therapy
3 Disfigure
2 Abrupt Decay
2 Buried Alive
//Lands: 19
19 budgetlands
4 Blood Scrivener
3 Duress
1 Krosan Grip
2 Faerie Macabre
1 Darkblast
4 slots
A few extra pieces of value:
-Carrion Feeder+Gravecrawler combo for easy fatty
-Crawler combo recurs Vengevine even with empty hand
-Feeder lets you sacrifice Vengevine/Crawler to dodge exile effects like StP or tuck like Terminus
-16 creatures you're happy to discard, making Mongrel and Troll headaches in the combat zone
-12 1-drops for easy Vengevine
-less dependant on Buried Alive (turn 3 Buried Alive is SLOW, leads to "do nothing" turns, and is easily disrupted)
-can board out graveyard dependence into more of a "fair deck" to dodge hate
-Stinkweed Imp dredges to find Vengevines and Gravecrawlers and Therapies without spending mana (i.e. don't waste turns casting dig spells and doing nothing)
-Stinkweed randomly trades with dangerous things like Griselbrand and Emrakul... (well they may end up +6-7 cards after the trade, but that beats just dying)
-Dredging Stinkweed makes it easier to cast 2 creatures even from an empty board and empty hand
-Blood Artist seems awesome, though not as awesome as in Zombardment with Lingering Souls
Slowness of Buried Alive:
Without mana acceleration, this comes down on turn 3 at the earliest. It involves tapping out and doing nothing for turn 3 just to set up potential shenanigans for turn 4. If those shenanigans included infinite damage via Kiki+Pestermite+Karmic Guide or 20 to the face via Necrotic Ooze+Phyrexian Devourer+Triskelion, then MAYBE it's worth waiting till turn 4. Simply cheating out a few 4/3s (conditional on sandbagging 2 creatures in hand) probably isn't enough impact against a format that cheats out scarier things 1-2 turns earlier. After extensive testing of the non-budget version, I found I liked the deck better when it depended less on effects like Buried Alive and spent more time interacting with the board.
Mongrel vs Oona's Prowler:
Prowler obviously has evasion and hits for more with an empty hand. It sort of holds off Delver... except:
-It doesn't actually hold off Delver (trades with their worst card instead of the Insectile)
-Gives opponent control over your combat step
-Much easier to kill with -X/-X (Disfigure) or burn (Forked Bolt=facepalm) than Mongrel
-Dies to ubiquitous -1/-1 splash hate
-Can be slower clock than Mongrel
-Forces you to discard post-combat, which limits play options
Mongrel gives you, instead of opponent, control over its size. That lets you play combat tricks and dodge removal. It does risk getting chumped for days or outclassed by Goyf. However, in conjunction with Troll, it trolls the opponent to make blocking a nightmare and generally deter their attacks. It's also cheaper on the wallet. Putrid Imp is another budget option for a discard outlet and actually plays better with Vengevine than Prowler.
Eventual upgrades:
-4 Blood Scrivener
-4 Stinkweed Imp
-1 Disfigure
-1 Krosan Grip
-2 Blood Artist
-3 Duress
-15 budget lands
+4 Deathrite Shaman
+3 Bloodghast
+2 Abrupt Decay
+1 Buried Alive
+4 Verdant Catacombs
+4 Polluted Delta
+4 Bayou
+1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
+1 Undiscovered Paradise
+4 Dark Confidant
+3 Thoughtseize
+2 Liliana of the Veil
+1 Toxic Deluge
(Seems like a lot of purchases, but aside from 1 Buried Alive and 3 Bloodghast, these are all staples)
4 Deathrite Shaman
4 Gravecrawler
4 Carrion Feeder
4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Wild Mongrel
3 Bloodghast
4 Vengevine
//Spells: 11
4 Cabal Therapy
4 Abrupt Decay
3 Buried Alive
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
2 Swamp
2 Forest
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Undiscovered Paradise
4 Dark Confidant
2 Faerie Macabre
2 Liliana of the Veil
3 Thoughtseize
2 Disfigure
1 Darkblast
1 Toxic Deluge
DRS makes Buried Alive easier to power out, so count upped to 3 for G1 explosiveness.
Bloodghast as a secondary Buried Alive target and more fodder to Lotleth Troll/Carrion Feeder.
Fetchlands to enable DRS and Bloodghast. Paradise for Ghast too.
Urborg because Carrion-Crawler combo wants black mana.
Post-board you can swap out Buried Alive & Bloodghast & other slots for some combination of Dark Confidant, Thoughtseize, Liliana and/or other disruption. You transform into a fair deck that can easily play around their boarded in GY hate with some of the top BGx tools in Legacy.
Cloudform gives you a 2/2 flying hexproof, which means you can safely Polymorph it without worrying about enemy removal. You just need to dodge counterspells on Polymorph, which gives you a lot more resilience than the combo usually has. It's a bit expensive for Legacy at 1UU, but it does curve out a turn before Polymorph, and it pitches to Misdirection, so the downside is minimal.
2 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
4 Wind Zendikon
4 Cloudform
Spells [28]
4 Lotus Petal
4 Misdirection
4 Daze
4 Ponder
4 Preordain
4 Polymorph
4 Proteus Staff
4 Ancient Tomb
14 Island
4 Khalni Garden
You cannot target an hexproof creature, and Polymorph targets.
Hexproof =/= Shroud, you can still target it with spells and abilities you control.
Yeah. In fact, Hexproof is the ideal keyword for a Polymorph target for that very reason. You can Polymorph, but opponent can't counter it by Bolting in response. The other hexproof non-creature creatures are Simic Keyrune and Lumbering Falls, both also new-ish additions, but both require splashing green and using way more mana on the critical turn, so completely unplayable. Swiftfoot Boots could work with Ancient Tombs, and also lets you go for hasty Emrakul, but it's just too easy for opponent to Bolt/etc. in response to Equip, so Boots is probably just worse than running counters instead.
Just adding a bit more info. I think this is a vid of the Super Budget deck Sac Land Tendrils. The Underground Sea can be replaced with something more budget friendly, like a Gemstone Mine.
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/28480_Video--Epic-Experiment-In-Legacy.html
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Want to play a UW control deck in modern, but don't have jace or snaps?
Please come visit us at the Emeria Titan control thread
I am looking into 12 post.