Lorwyn stuff doesn't really add to the deck. But pulling out Rav doesn't also hurt the deck much either. Ajani Goldmane could possibly come in (survives a balance!), and Oblivion Ring almost certainly should come in (replacing... Marauders?).
Basically, the idea of the deck is to suspend Restore Balance, and then suspend Greater Gargadon. A few turns later, you should be out of cards in hand, and can sacrifice all your permanents to Gargadon. If you have multiple Gargadons suspended (or often even with only one), you can manage to clear the board of creatures, hands, and lands... leaving only the Gargadon (which comes into play after the Balance has resolved, as long as you stack upkeep triggers properly). He then swings hastily for the win (either then or the next turn).
Everything else in the deck basically stalls the opponent. You kill their small critters, and hold off the large ones (chumping with Marauders and fogging with Dawn Charm) until Balance can wipe the board clear. Then your suspend-guys come on down for the win.
Card choices:
Lands: You really really really want an untapped source of white or red mana first turn. As your lands aren't going to be lasting very long, Gemstone Mine is awesome. The few life going into the Forge also aren't going to matter. New Benalia is decent - I don't like the cipt, but scry one in a deck without draw is very nice.
Balance, Gargadon: Make the deck work.
Epochrasite: Early game always castable chump blocker, late game (especially after a Balance!) beater. Pretty awesome, all around.
Dawn Charm: Counters burn to the face (saved me today!) and stalls the early game with a fog effect. Very good.
Fury Charm: Kills the Rack dead, kills artifact mana, and sometimes allows you to pop off Balance when the opponent is *completely* not expecting it. The blue mage will tap out... and then get balanced when they expected it to be happening two turns from now.
Pyroclasm: Stops early creature swarms. Very effective.
Rift Bolt/Incinerate: Other burn. Cheap, gets cards out of your hand, and kills creatures or the opponent.
More iffy choices:
Keldon Marauders: Five damage for two mana is not a bad deal. Also serves as a very nice chump blocker early in the game, killing a creature and dealing two to the opponent for a mere two mana. But is it really necessary? I am unsure!
Boom/Bust: Sometimes this is great - I destroy the mana of the type they need, and hold them off. Sometimes its crazy good, armageddoning my opponent when they don't expect it. Often it sits in the hand, not really doing anything to affect anything.
Also, the sideboard:
No idea here. Generally, Nodes for critter attacks, and land destruction for control.
So:
Any suggestions on card choices?
This deck beats decks without counters pretty well. When there are counters.... well, bad things happen. As I said, I just went 3-2 tonight, losing (barely each time, 2-1 and fighting) to blue-flavored control decks. Sac all my lands to the gargadon... and counter Restore Balance. Blech. What can I do about that matchup? I was thinking I either go aggro (and have some sort of transformational sideboard) or I go land-d (and hope to keep the opponent off of blue mana for the counters!).
I like this idea. I think Wrath Of God could help. It looks like you're going for a sorta controlly thing, and Wrath never seems to hurt.
I'd almost consider Rift Elemental even, since you got sooo many suspend card. And I'd almost wanna try and MD some Detritovore, I think non-basics are still gonna be popular in pain lands, man lands and the new tribe land coming out. Being able to kill more then 1 land a turn with a suspended Detritovore and Fury Charms or Rift Bolt seems like it could be pretty hot.
It's a neat deck, a guy at our local FNM has been playing this for two or three weeks. It's a difficult deck to work around if the player's opening hand is a gargadon and restore balance.
*** is nice, but it's 4 mana, a sorcery, and does the same thing that Restore Balance does.... which means I'm afraid it'll get stuck in my hand by the time Restore Balance goes off, letting my opponents have cards in hand. Yes, it's good to have backup sources of board-sweepers, but I don't know, yet. (Also, I don't have any, but it's something to look for, at least.) More wrath = better, but I would probably try sulfurous blast before then. (As I can instant-ify it.)
Razia's Purification is worse, as it's a gigantic 6 mana, meaning I'll almost never get to play it (Balance is likely to go off sooner!), and it'll be stuck in my hand always.
I've thought about Rift Elemental, and I don't know which way to go on this. It's cheap (so I can get it out of my hand), but dies to my own removal (pyroclasm), and is kinda slow.... but it is a good way to dump extra mana at end of opponent's turn. I'd put it in, but what to remove?
I maindecked one Detritovore yesterday, and it was... well, less than optimal. Three players played only basic lands, and it got stranded in my hand there at least twice. Against my other opponents, I think it killed one land, as usually Balance would end up going off before I had enough mana to suspend a big one anyway.
The problem is that I want to run spells that I can get rid of easily - this makes Balance devastating, because it becomes a Wrath, an Armageddon, and a Mind Twist... all in one. If I have cards left in my hand, they'll hold back lands and recover quickly, while I'll have sacrificed everything to the Gargadon. However, when I don't draw a Balance, I wish I had something that was bigger than a little burn spell! So it's always back and forth... do I add higher costing stuff? But then it gets stuck! So then I take it out, and have problems when people get big creatures out and I still have four turns to go on Balance.
Dust of Moments is very much like Fury Charm, but I like Fury Charm more (because I can hit artifacts, and very occasionally give Gargadon trample). I could possibly use them both (as cheap instants), but I feel like Dust of Moments will be dead if I don't have suspenders out (while the Charm is almost always useful).
So thanks for the comments (and hopefully I'll get more), but try to keep the idea of the deck in mind - I like to get things out of my hand quickly to make Balance completely devastating. Cheap (but useful) suspend cards, charms which serve many purposes, split cards that I can use early (Boom) or late (Bust)... all these are very important, but I think I pretty much mined most of those ideas already... just seeing what other people can think of now which I might have missed. Also, more ideas for the control matchup - I do pretty well against aggro, which is why I don't know about adding Wrath, but control is just terrible if they save a counterspell to deal with Balance.
Why don't you run some artifact mana artifact's are good because balance ignores them completely
also you could run orizon Canopy in the Deck because, your deck run's really cheap spells you don't really need much mana, and when your opponent doesn't has any lands in play the cards in hand don't really matter
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My new houserules:
1. Every player saing exiled or battlefield will be kicked out.
2. Not using you mana deals 2 points of manaburn.
3. Combat damage goes over the Stack and you can freely assign it.
4. Lifelinks does stack and doesn't safe you from dying.
5. Tokens are owned bye the one who has made them.
Everyone thinking M10 will not affect a lot of cards or Limited a lot, either has no clue about magic or has never played limited or is getting paid by wizards to do propaganda.
historically, RW control decks of various kinds (and this is more or less a RW control deck of a particular sort) are just inherently weak against counterspells. you've got to resolve bomb sorceries to win, the whole strategy is hinging on a small number of cards. there's no good way around it. RW control decks have only been able to be tier 1 in metagames where blue control is almost unplayable (such as during Onslaught block).
my suggestion for what to do against Blue is basically to sideboard heavily. I see that you've already got a full load of Detritivore and Cryoclasm. That's probably the best you can hope for, though maybe Avalanche Riders is better then Cryoclasm once the Ravnica duals leave the format. you'll have to figure out exactly how to sideboard against blue. my intuition is that your best bet is to actually board out Gargadon and Balance.
for the maindeck, most of it looks pretty decent. the most questionable card there is Dawn Charm. Fog variants generally aren't that great without some way to recur them. My suggestion is Serra Avenger, this will also work to prevent a pretty reasonable amount of damage (by blocking or just absorbing an Incinerate) and also provide a very good clock. The Keldon Marauders should probably be Mogg War Marshal. It provides far superior stalling on the ground and it removes 3 counters from Gargadon, seems like a natural choice.
Why don't you run some artifact mana artifact's are good because balance ignores them completely
I thought about it. It's a halfway decent idea, but I generally don't need to "ramp up" into anything. Garga and Balance each only cost a single mana (when suspending), and everything else is about two mana anyway! I'm sad that all the signets are gone, boros signet might have been nice, but other than that, what do I run? The best mana artifact is the Relic, but it costs three... far too much for this deck in my opinion.
also you could run orizon Canopy in the Deck because, your deck run's really cheap spells you don't really need much mana, and when your opponent doesn't has any lands in play the cards in hand don't really matter
I figure Canopy can't do much good in the deck - it's a plains that hurts me (as I play no green), and while saccing to draw a card is nice, by that time I'm going to want a hand free of cards anyway! (To make Balance blow them out.) It's definitely a good card, just not so much for this deck.
historically, RW control decks of various kinds (and this is more or less a RW control deck of a particular sort) are just inherently weak against counterspells. you've got to resolve bomb sorceries to win, the whole strategy is hinging on a small number of cards. there's no good way around it. RW control decks have only been able to be tier 1 in metagames where blue control is almost unplayable (such as during Onslaught block).
Yes, this is unfortunately very true. I just figured that blue control might go under the wheels of the aggro bus very shortly (once all these tribal decks get running), and so there might be a spot for this deck.
my suggestion for what to do against Blue is basically to sideboard heavily. I see that you've already got a full load of Detritivore and Cryoclasm. That's probably the best you can hope for, though maybe Avalanche Riders is better then Cryoclasm once the Ravnica duals leave the format. you'll have to figure out exactly how to sideboard against blue. my intuition is that your best bet is to actually board out Gargadon and Balance.
I agree with all this - I'll have to see how many actual islands I see.
for the maindeck, most of it looks pretty decent. the most questionable card there is Dawn Charm. Fog variants generally aren't that great without some way to recur them. My suggestion is Serra Avenger, this will also work to prevent a pretty reasonable amount of damage (by blocking or just absorbing an Incinerate) and also provide a very good clock. The Keldon Marauders should probably be Mogg War Marshal. It provides far superior stalling on the ground and it removes 3 counters from Gargadon, seems like a natural choice.
Dawn Charm is pretty much awesome. It's not just a fog, it's also a counterspell. While most of the time it just helps stall me to get a Balance resolved, it's also saved me from game-losing burn and can also counter discard spells. The Avenger is awesome, but comes out three turns before Balance resolves, sometimes too late to do much. It's also double-white in a red-heavy deck.
The War Marshal is another good idea, though - it does stall very nicely (though I'll likely never pay the echo). It doesn't do as much damage to the opponent as Marauders do (as those do 5 damage pretty much always against non-aggro decks), but those tokens actually stick around forever. I'll have to give it a try, thanks.
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What I played:
4x Restore Balance
4x Dawn Charm
4x Lightning Helix
4x Pyroclasm
4x Keldon Marauders
4x Rift Bolt
3x Fury Charm
2x Boom//Bust
2x Sudden Shock
1x Epochrasite
1x Detritivore
5x Plains
2x New Benalia
2x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Gemstone Mine
1x Sacred Foundry
4x Plains
4x Battlefield Forge
4x Gemstone Mine
2x New Benalia
2x Terramorphic Expanse
4x Epochrasite
4x Greater Gargadon
4x Keldon Marauders
4x Fury Charm
4x Incinerate
2x Boom/Bust
4x Pyroclasm
4x Restore Balance
4x Rift Bolt
4x Cryoclasm
4x Detritivore
4x Porphyry Nodes
1x Pull from Eternity ?
Lorwyn stuff doesn't really add to the deck. But pulling out Rav doesn't also hurt the deck much either. Ajani Goldmane could possibly come in (survives a balance!), and Oblivion Ring almost certainly should come in (replacing... Marauders?).
Basically, the idea of the deck is to suspend Restore Balance, and then suspend Greater Gargadon. A few turns later, you should be out of cards in hand, and can sacrifice all your permanents to Gargadon. If you have multiple Gargadons suspended (or often even with only one), you can manage to clear the board of creatures, hands, and lands... leaving only the Gargadon (which comes into play after the Balance has resolved, as long as you stack upkeep triggers properly). He then swings hastily for the win (either then or the next turn).
Everything else in the deck basically stalls the opponent. You kill their small critters, and hold off the large ones (chumping with Marauders and fogging with Dawn Charm) until Balance can wipe the board clear. Then your suspend-guys come on down for the win.
Card choices:
Lands: You really really really want an untapped source of white or red mana first turn. As your lands aren't going to be lasting very long, Gemstone Mine is awesome. The few life going into the Forge also aren't going to matter. New Benalia is decent - I don't like the cipt, but scry one in a deck without draw is very nice.
Balance, Gargadon: Make the deck work.
Epochrasite: Early game always castable chump blocker, late game (especially after a Balance!) beater. Pretty awesome, all around.
Dawn Charm: Counters burn to the face (saved me today!) and stalls the early game with a fog effect. Very good.
Fury Charm: Kills the Rack dead, kills artifact mana, and sometimes allows you to pop off Balance when the opponent is *completely* not expecting it. The blue mage will tap out... and then get balanced when they expected it to be happening two turns from now.
Pyroclasm: Stops early creature swarms. Very effective.
Rift Bolt/Incinerate: Other burn. Cheap, gets cards out of your hand, and kills creatures or the opponent.
More iffy choices:
Keldon Marauders: Five damage for two mana is not a bad deal. Also serves as a very nice chump blocker early in the game, killing a creature and dealing two to the opponent for a mere two mana. But is it really necessary? I am unsure!
Boom/Bust: Sometimes this is great - I destroy the mana of the type they need, and hold them off. Sometimes its crazy good, armageddoning my opponent when they don't expect it. Often it sits in the hand, not really doing anything to affect anything.
Also, the sideboard:
No idea here. Generally, Nodes for critter attacks, and land destruction for control.
So:
Any suggestions on card choices?
This deck beats decks without counters pretty well. When there are counters.... well, bad things happen. As I said, I just went 3-2 tonight, losing (barely each time, 2-1 and fighting) to blue-flavored control decks. Sac all my lands to the gargadon... and counter Restore Balance. Blech. What can I do about that matchup? I was thinking I either go aggro (and have some sort of transformational sideboard) or I go land-d (and hope to keep the opponent off of blue mana for the counters!).
It's very fun to play, though, I had a blast.
I'd almost consider Rift Elemental even, since you got sooo many suspend card. And I'd almost wanna try and MD some Detritovore, I think non-basics are still gonna be popular in pain lands, man lands and the new tribe land coming out. Being able to kill more then 1 land a turn with a suspended Detritovore and Fury Charms or Rift Bolt seems like it could be pretty hot.
Btw, trickbind ftw.
I'd also suggest... Dust of Moments and Rift Elemental
special thanks to sentimentgx4 for the sig
Pourquoi?
Razia's Purification is worse, as it's a gigantic 6 mana, meaning I'll almost never get to play it (Balance is likely to go off sooner!), and it'll be stuck in my hand always.
I've thought about Rift Elemental, and I don't know which way to go on this. It's cheap (so I can get it out of my hand), but dies to my own removal (pyroclasm), and is kinda slow.... but it is a good way to dump extra mana at end of opponent's turn. I'd put it in, but what to remove?
I maindecked one Detritovore yesterday, and it was... well, less than optimal. Three players played only basic lands, and it got stranded in my hand there at least twice. Against my other opponents, I think it killed one land, as usually Balance would end up going off before I had enough mana to suspend a big one anyway.
The problem is that I want to run spells that I can get rid of easily - this makes Balance devastating, because it becomes a Wrath, an Armageddon, and a Mind Twist... all in one. If I have cards left in my hand, they'll hold back lands and recover quickly, while I'll have sacrificed everything to the Gargadon. However, when I don't draw a Balance, I wish I had something that was bigger than a little burn spell! So it's always back and forth... do I add higher costing stuff? But then it gets stuck! So then I take it out, and have problems when people get big creatures out and I still have four turns to go on Balance.
Dust of Moments is very much like Fury Charm, but I like Fury Charm more (because I can hit artifacts, and very occasionally give Gargadon trample). I could possibly use them both (as cheap instants), but I feel like Dust of Moments will be dead if I don't have suspenders out (while the Charm is almost always useful).
So thanks for the comments (and hopefully I'll get more), but try to keep the idea of the deck in mind - I like to get things out of my hand quickly to make Balance completely devastating. Cheap (but useful) suspend cards, charms which serve many purposes, split cards that I can use early (Boom) or late (Bust)... all these are very important, but I think I pretty much mined most of those ideas already... just seeing what other people can think of now which I might have missed. Also, more ideas for the control matchup - I do pretty well against aggro, which is why I don't know about adding Wrath, but control is just terrible if they save a counterspell to deal with Balance.
also you could run orizon Canopy in the Deck because, your deck run's really cheap spells you don't really need much mana, and when your opponent doesn't has any lands in play the cards in hand don't really matter
1. Every player saing exiled or battlefield will be kicked out.
2. Not using you mana deals 2 points of manaburn.
3. Combat damage goes over the Stack and you can freely assign it.
4. Lifelinks does stack and doesn't safe you from dying.
5. Tokens are owned bye the one who has made them.
Everyone thinking M10 will not affect a lot of cards or Limited a lot, either has no clue about magic or has never played limited or is getting paid by wizards to do propaganda.
my suggestion for what to do against Blue is basically to sideboard heavily. I see that you've already got a full load of Detritivore and Cryoclasm. That's probably the best you can hope for, though maybe Avalanche Riders is better then Cryoclasm once the Ravnica duals leave the format. you'll have to figure out exactly how to sideboard against blue. my intuition is that your best bet is to actually board out Gargadon and Balance.
for the maindeck, most of it looks pretty decent. the most questionable card there is Dawn Charm. Fog variants generally aren't that great without some way to recur them. My suggestion is Serra Avenger, this will also work to prevent a pretty reasonable amount of damage (by blocking or just absorbing an Incinerate) and also provide a very good clock. The Keldon Marauders should probably be Mogg War Marshal. It provides far superior stalling on the ground and it removes 3 counters from Gargadon, seems like a natural choice.
I thought about it. It's a halfway decent idea, but I generally don't need to "ramp up" into anything. Garga and Balance each only cost a single mana (when suspending), and everything else is about two mana anyway! I'm sad that all the signets are gone, boros signet might have been nice, but other than that, what do I run? The best mana artifact is the Relic, but it costs three... far too much for this deck in my opinion.
I figure Canopy can't do much good in the deck - it's a plains that hurts me (as I play no green), and while saccing to draw a card is nice, by that time I'm going to want a hand free of cards anyway! (To make Balance blow them out.) It's definitely a good card, just not so much for this deck.
Yes, this is unfortunately very true. I just figured that blue control might go under the wheels of the aggro bus very shortly (once all these tribal decks get running), and so there might be a spot for this deck.
I agree with all this - I'll have to see how many actual islands I see.
Dawn Charm is pretty much awesome. It's not just a fog, it's also a counterspell. While most of the time it just helps stall me to get a Balance resolved, it's also saved me from game-losing burn and can also counter discard spells. The Avenger is awesome, but comes out three turns before Balance resolves, sometimes too late to do much. It's also double-white in a red-heavy deck.
The War Marshal is another good idea, though - it does stall very nicely (though I'll likely never pay the echo). It doesn't do as much damage to the opponent as Marauders do (as those do 5 damage pretty much always against non-aggro decks), but those tokens actually stick around forever. I'll have to give it a try, thanks.