I would like to know which would be the best finisher for the UWB Control list, because milling the enemy out every game seems a bit unrealistic to me. I was thinking about Drogskol Reaver. Do you have any other ideas?
Well, this is exactly the problem with control on a budget right now. Non-budget versions usually can get away with planeswalkers, Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel, Angel of Serenity and Thragtusk as win conditions.
However, on a budget, there are far fewer options as win conditions that are less than $10. Drogskol Reaver is one possibility, but it's still a questionable one.
I really don't have many other ideas (if there were a solid finisher for UWB, it would already be in there).
I'm not sure this is the place for this question/discussion, so feel free to flame me. But what I'm wondering is this:
Are budget players better off budgetizing known decks or creating a new deck using cards that are not at a premium?
An argument for new decks is that a budgetized top deck will always be worse for the wear than the nonbudget version. People know how to play against those optimal decks, and the strategy applies to your weaker version. A new archetype will not use the most powerful cards, but can have cards that are optimal for its strategy. The liquimetal coating decks of last season strike me like this.
An argument for budgetized decks is that these archetypes have effective strategies, and hours of expert development poured into them. They will not be as effective as the nonbudget version, but are virtually guaranteed to be better than some less developed crazy or unproven idea. The budgetized red deck wins is the current banner holder for this argument.
I lean towards the new ideas, but I'm a Johnny by temprament. Is this a non-issue? Or is one approach more worthy of our time and attention than the other?
I address this issue in section 3 of the guide, but don't give a definitive answer as to which approach is superior, because... well, neither is better than the other. It really depends.
That may sound like a wishy-washy answer, but it's the truth.
Both ways can build solid decks and both ways can build piles of trash.
If your own ideas for decks aren't very solid, you might be better off using someone else's deck as a model, a template, or just straight up copy 90% of it, and make changes accordingly for your budget. On the other hand, it's important to note that if a deck revolves around a certain card, or really needs certain cards to make it work properly, then there may not be a way to substitute it and making a budget version of that deck may be poor.
For example, if you build an aggro red deck from scratch and just put in some lands, some creature, and lots of burn, it's probably not going to be too far off the mark from what you want in the deck. On the other hand, an aggro blue deck probably won't work very well right now.
If you look at a G/W aggro deck that did well online and can afford to get Loxodon Smiter, Gavony Township, and some other low budget rares, you might be able to build something fairly close that does well. However, if you are trying to build the U/W/R Flash deck that depends on Geist of Saint Traft, Restoration Angel, and Snapcaster Mage, but without using any cards that cost more than $10, you lose your main win conditions and all the shocklands that make the deck consistent. It's not a good idea to do this.
Being a Johnny, your first thought is going to be to brew your own ideas and build something on your own.
I tend more towards a Spike and if it's good and wins, I'll play it. If someone else has made it work before I got a chance to use it, then they've done the leg work and there's a good chance I'll do well with it, too.
I think if you're going to run a budget deck an original decklist is often better in an FNM setting. Players won't know how to react to a rogue deck and that can create a significant advantage. Often times when you budgetize a competitive deck you end up losing a lot of powerful synergies and the deck isn't nearly as good. With an original budget list you can often create your own synergies with less expensive cards. They might not be as powerful as top tier strategies but I would posit that many of those interactions would be more effective than a budget version of a top deck.
I've played budget netdecks, and I've played budget rogue decks. I can say with some confidence that Bant Control without Thragtusk or Restoration Angel will always have a worse chance than a random U/R Storm nobody has prepared for. If you can't beat 'em with chase-rares, beat 'em with the element of surprise.
Shred-Freak. The haste is more relevant. You get an attack now (2 damage) and one next turn (4 total). It takes three turns (including the turn you cast it) for Chainwalker to just catch up.
More importantly, you can swing after a sweeper or when they swing back and race them. The Chainwalker they see coming and if you unleash it, it can't even block.
Human Reanimator (minus Huntmaster of the Fells, Cavern of Souls, and shocklands) added.
Awesome deck. :3 I love the consistency, The lack of chase rares doesn't take as much out of it as I expected it to. Almost makes me want to take all my Angel of Glory's Rise out of my trade binder to try it out.
Well, this is exactly the problem with control on a budget right now. Non-budget versions usually can get away with planeswalkers, Snapcaster Mage, Restoration Angel, Angel of Serenity and Thragtusk as win conditions.
However, on a budget, there are far fewer options as win conditions that are less than $10. Drogskol Reaver is one possibility, but it's still a questionable one.
I really don't have many other ideas (if there were a solid finisher for UWB, it would already be in there).
Sepulchral Primordial is worth looking into as a finisher. I know it costs 7 to play, but the thing I look at is that it has Intimidate, and brings a creature back from the opponents GY to our battlefield. This is a good tempo swing that control decks need right now, especially in budget.
That's about as good as you're going to get while remaining in budget. If you had access to dual lands it's actually best to go with white as your main color with blue and red as your secondaries. Adding white gives you Feeling of Dread, Lingering Souls, and Supreme Verdict which are great at fending off aggro.
I figured I should share it here, since I evolved it from an earlier version of yakusoku's all-commons RDW deck. That version gave me the first taste of winning games on MTGO - 70% win rate in the Beginner's room, 40% win rate in the Just for Fun room.
The version I just shared does even better - in a recent 10-game run in the Just for Fun room, I won 8 games. My 2 losses were to better R/x decks, i.e. decks with rare cards. That said, I have two caveats:
1) My opponents in this recent run of games were generally not the strongest I have ever faced. OTOH, I'm also not that strong a player.
2) These games were single games, not matches. I'm not sure how I would do in game 2.
The sideboard is ... tentative. It is purely theoretical, and has never been tested for real. It is a transformational sideboard into a more mid-range/control-ish strategy - basically swap all the sideboard cards for all the 1-drop creatures.
I welcome any questions and discussion on both the sideboard and main deck.
After yakusoku's advice, the following sideboard is probably better:
I feel that the extra Mountain is needed if you run the 3-cmc Traitorous Blood to bring up the total lands to 22 so you can cast it more consistently. Other cheap Common spells you can consider in the sideboard are Faithless Looting, Madcap Skills, Mugging, Dynacharge and Nightbird's Clutches.
I've tested Madcap Skills with some success in my RTR-block RDW deck. It's basically a nerf-ed variation of Pyreheart Wolf, a staple in competitive Standard RDW decks. Dynacharge is a main deck staple in competitive RTR-block RDW decks. Mugging is a sideboard staple in RTR RDW decks. Nightbird's Clutches is a weaker form of the White/Blue detain and/or tap creature spells that have been used to devastating effects against me in the past. Faithless Looting was somewhat used in older competitive RDW decks in order to gain utility out of excess Mountains, and only dropped because it was superseded by Stonewright and Hellion Crucible.
I think your sideboard would be better served by addressing individual matchup problems, rather than a transformational one. RDW doesn't really do that switch well. (GW, for example can add in Centaur Healer, Angel of Restoration, and Thragtusk and go from GW aggro to midrange against red decks, for example.)
So, you might have Thunderbolt against flyers, especially Restoration Angel, Electrickery against weenie decks/tokens, Traitorous Blood against decks that run a big finisher or Thragtusk, and 3x whatever else for what you typically face online.
I think your sideboard would be better served by addressing individual matchup problems, rather than a transformational one. RDW doesn't really do that switch well. (GW, for example can add in Centaur Healer, Angel of Restoration, and Thragtusk and go from GW aggro to midrange against red decks, for example.)
So, you might have Thunderbolt against flyers, especially Restoration Angel, Electrickery against weenie decks/tokens, Traitorous Blood against decks that run a big finisher or Thragtusk, and 3x whatever else for what you typically face online.
Hahaha! You are probably right. Seriously, though, my main deck is a variant of the no-chase rares budget RDW list you posted pre-GTC. I'm running a variant because I either can't find some of the cards or because some of the cards are not in my current budget.
The list I posted here uses cards scavenged from my main deck (e.g. Searing Spear and Gore-House Chainwalker) and from the MTGOTrader Penny bot (e.g. Bellows Lizard and Dragon Hatchling). I posted my modified all-commons list because it gave a surprisingly good game 1 in the Just for Fun room of MTGO (meaning that I never played matches with it) and also to give back to this thread which has given me a lot of fun. Anyway, I'll go back and edit my posted list.
I know we had a thread that was like this, but in your guide could you single out which decks are best for beginners, or take one deck for a beginner and prioritize cards for them, which to get first, which are essential, etc. Or do you feel like that's better as a separate thread.
It seems red always gets recommended first, so that would be the aggro deck to do. What would make a good balance? Maybe one of the tokens decks, or Esper or Bant control?
I know we had a thread that was like this, but in your guide could you single out which decks are best for beginners, or take one deck for a beginner and prioritize cards for them, which to get first, which are essential, etc. Or do you feel like that's better as a separate thread.
It seems red always gets recommended first, so that would be the aggro deck to do. What would make a good balance? Maybe one of the tokens decks, or Esper or Bant control?
I'll consider this, but I can't remember ever doing anything like that. Red is very straight forward and aggro has a good path to victory that easy to learn, so it's a natural start for beginners. After that, I'd probably recommend one of the control decks for contrast - to see what it's like on the other end.
What do you like about the guild? Do you like any strategies or any particular cards? Is there something from DGM which catches your eye, or is this a play style that appeals to you for some reason?
I can suggest a R/W deck, but it may not necessarily be a Boros deck, because I value a good deck over themes. You may have the opposite idea and want a Battalion deck, but many of the Battalion creatures are just bad.
I noticed that too - a lot of Boros cards involve first strike and double strike, which I guess isn't bad against other aggro decks, but I'd prefer to take boosts in power or toughness as an anthem effect. I guess Wizards didn't want Boros to be a Rakdos/Golgari copycat. Red and White have always had a hard time getting along, because White wants to take its time and Red wants to go fast, so you get a lot of wonky cards like enchantments that give minor power boosts to all your creatures.
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There should be an update coming soon (AFTER the pre-release) with Gatecrash added.
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Yes. See the post I made just above yours:
Please let me know if you see any problems (card name misspellings, incomplete decks, duplicate cards) or have any suggestions.
However, on a budget, there are far fewer options as win conditions that are less than $10. Drogskol Reaver is one possibility, but it's still a questionable one.
I really don't have many other ideas (if there were a solid finisher for UWB, it would already be in there).
Are budget players better off budgetizing known decks or creating a new deck using cards that are not at a premium?
An argument for new decks is that a budgetized top deck will always be worse for the wear than the nonbudget version. People know how to play against those optimal decks, and the strategy applies to your weaker version. A new archetype will not use the most powerful cards, but can have cards that are optimal for its strategy. The liquimetal coating decks of last season strike me like this.
An argument for budgetized decks is that these archetypes have effective strategies, and hours of expert development poured into them. They will not be as effective as the nonbudget version, but are virtually guaranteed to be better than some less developed crazy or unproven idea. The budgetized red deck wins is the current banner holder for this argument.
I lean towards the new ideas, but I'm a Johnny by temprament. Is this a non-issue? Or is one approach more worthy of our time and attention than the other?
That may sound like a wishy-washy answer, but it's the truth.
Both ways can build solid decks and both ways can build piles of trash.
If your own ideas for decks aren't very solid, you might be better off using someone else's deck as a model, a template, or just straight up copy 90% of it, and make changes accordingly for your budget. On the other hand, it's important to note that if a deck revolves around a certain card, or really needs certain cards to make it work properly, then there may not be a way to substitute it and making a budget version of that deck may be poor.
For example, if you build an aggro red deck from scratch and just put in some lands, some creature, and lots of burn, it's probably not going to be too far off the mark from what you want in the deck. On the other hand, an aggro blue deck probably won't work very well right now.
If you look at a G/W aggro deck that did well online and can afford to get Loxodon Smiter, Gavony Township, and some other low budget rares, you might be able to build something fairly close that does well. However, if you are trying to build the U/W/R Flash deck that depends on Geist of Saint Traft, Restoration Angel, and Snapcaster Mage, but without using any cards that cost more than $10, you lose your main win conditions and all the shocklands that make the deck consistent. It's not a good idea to do this.
Being a Johnny, your first thought is going to be to brew your own ideas and build something on your own.
I tend more towards a Spike and if it's good and wins, I'll play it. If someone else has made it work before I got a chance to use it, then they've done the leg work and there's a good chance I'll do well with it, too.
Shred-Freak. The haste is more relevant. You get an attack now (2 damage) and one next turn (4 total). It takes three turns (including the turn you cast it) for Chainwalker to just catch up.
More importantly, you can swing after a sweeper or when they swing back and race them. The Chainwalker they see coming and if you unleash it, it can't even block.
Awesome deck. :3 I love the consistency, The lack of chase rares doesn't take as much out of it as I expected it to. Almost makes me want to take all my Angel of Glory's Rise out of my trade binder to try it out.
Sepulchral Primordial is worth looking into as a finisher. I know it costs 7 to play, but the thing I look at is that it has Intimidate, and brings a creature back from the opponents GY to our battlefield. This is a good tempo swing that control decks need right now, especially in budget.
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Ch.3 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?p=6409825#post6409825
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If you want alternate wincons, Talrand, Sky Summoner is a good choice. I actually prefer him over Guttersnipe in the sideboard.
3 Bellows Lizard
4 Goblin Arsonist
4 Somberwald Vigilante
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Ashmouth Hound
4 Dragon Hatchling
4 Gore-House Chainwalker
4 Rakdos Shred-Freak
4 Pillar of Flame
4 Searing Spear
LAND - 21
21 Mountain
2 Brimstone Volley
2 Mountain
4 Scalding Devil
3 Thunderbolt
4 Wall of Fire
I figured I should share it here, since I evolved it from an earlier version of yakusoku's all-commons RDW deck. That version gave me the first taste of winning games on MTGO - 70% win rate in the Beginner's room, 40% win rate in the Just for Fun room.
The version I just shared does even better - in a recent 10-game run in the Just for Fun room, I won 8 games. My 2 losses were to better R/x decks, i.e. decks with rare cards. That said, I have two caveats:
1) My opponents in this recent run of games were generally not the strongest I have ever faced. OTOH, I'm also not that strong a player.
2) These games were single games, not matches. I'm not sure how I would do in game 2.
The sideboard is ... tentative. It is purely theoretical, and has never been tested for real. It is a transformational sideboard into a more mid-range/control-ish strategy - basically swap all the sideboard cards for all the 1-drop creatures.
I welcome any questions and discussion on both the sideboard and main deck.
After yakusoku's advice, the following sideboard is probably better:
4 Thunderbolt (against x/4 flyers)
4 Traitorous Blood (against fatties)
1 Mountain
2 Volcanic Strength (against decks with Mountains)
I feel that the extra Mountain is needed if you run the 3-cmc Traitorous Blood to bring up the total lands to 22 so you can cast it more consistently. Other cheap Common spells you can consider in the sideboard are Faithless Looting, Madcap Skills, Mugging, Dynacharge and Nightbird's Clutches.
I've tested Madcap Skills with some success in my RTR-block RDW deck. It's basically a nerf-ed variation of Pyreheart Wolf, a staple in competitive Standard RDW decks. Dynacharge is a main deck staple in competitive RTR-block RDW decks. Mugging is a sideboard staple in RTR RDW decks. Nightbird's Clutches is a weaker form of the White/Blue detain and/or tap creature spells that have been used to devastating effects against me in the past. Faithless Looting was somewhat used in older competitive RDW decks in order to gain utility out of excess Mountains, and only dropped because it was superseded by Stonewright and Hellion Crucible.
So, you might have Thunderbolt against flyers, especially Restoration Angel, Electrickery against weenie decks/tokens, Traitorous Blood against decks that run a big finisher or Thragtusk, and 3x whatever else for what you typically face online.
Hahaha! You are probably right. Seriously, though, my main deck is a variant of the no-chase rares budget RDW list you posted pre-GTC. I'm running a variant because I either can't find some of the cards or because some of the cards are not in my current budget.
The list I posted here uses cards scavenged from my main deck (e.g. Searing Spear and Gore-House Chainwalker) and from the MTGOTrader Penny bot (e.g. Bellows Lizard and Dragon Hatchling). I posted my modified all-commons list because it gave a surprisingly good game 1 in the Just for Fun room of MTGO (meaning that I never played matches with it) and also to give back to this thread which has given me a lot of fun. Anyway, I'll go back and edit my posted list.
It seems red always gets recommended first, so that would be the aggro deck to do. What would make a good balance? Maybe one of the tokens decks, or Esper or Bant control?
I'll consider this, but I can't remember ever doing anything like that. Red is very straight forward and aggro has a good path to victory that easy to learn, so it's a natural start for beginners. After that, I'd probably recommend one of the control decks for contrast - to see what it's like on the other end.
A little more input would help, too.
Why Boros?
What do you like about the guild? Do you like any strategies or any particular cards? Is there something from DGM which catches your eye, or is this a play style that appeals to you for some reason?
I can suggest a R/W deck, but it may not necessarily be a Boros deck, because I value a good deck over themes. You may have the opposite idea and want a Battalion deck, but many of the Battalion creatures are just bad.