All right, I'm honestly off, I'm just going to unsubscribe from this thread because it's becoming frustrating for me to read how BAD are Goblin Assassin, Krenko, Scrapper, Stingscourger and many more. I've been winning with these cards for years now, they all proven to be really great, Gaka has been playing a couple of them for years too. Mogg War Marshal is seriously solid in this deck depending on the package you play.
We definitely have completely different ways to play this format and I'm not willing to waste time anymore defending all the games I've been winning with these cards (I don't really see how I would win otherwise, plan A is Norin, but you need a plan B, especially now that they printed cards like Containement Priest).
@Al_Z_Heiner: Krenko doesn't need any support, he produces a token every turn for free. Or more and more if your opponents don't deal with it. Goblin Assassin is one of the really rare and tutorable red creature card to deal with Avacyn. I'm all ears if you have better suggestions.
I know we will never really agree anyway, you say Krenko is bad, while I think he's most of the times better than Kiki-Jiki and Welder (both these cards need a specific board situations to work, Krenko does not).
Moggcatcher is a win by itself assuming you are playing the auto-include goblins (even without Chieftain).
@osieorb18: well, Chieftain can be win-more, so can be Gauntlets. +1/+1s are usually good in Norin. Haste is good with Krenko. It all depends on what you play. I don't exactly consider Squee good by himself and I think the 4-CMC bad Mogg War Marshal is everything but good when you have so many better options available, but when you add Chandra, looters or Helm of Possession, suddenly Squee gets better. Gaka plays Conjurer's Closet and I can fairly understand why he plays the 4-CMC Mogg War Marshal only because of that.
Pulling out gobis is a mistake. We do not have better replacements dor their abilities.
If someone is taunting you that you play a gobo deck,who the eff cares? (12 years generally) Play the best cards you can; at the moment the abilities gobos bring to the deck are not replaced by anything better in my opinion.
Couldn't agree more. If you can find a better red creature than Goblin Welder, Krenko and Kiki-Jiki, I'm all ears. In the meantime, those 3 are good enough by themselves in a color with a lack of tutor to make both Moggcatcher and Goblin Matron worth playing, which themselves make toolbox cards like Settler and Scrapper worth playing too. Assassin has a pretty unique effect with Siege-Gang Commander being one of the best token producer in mono-red.
If you are playing all of these, you may as well play Chieftain to make Moggcatcher a win condition by itself, considering it's a good creature for the deck (P/T boost are always good in Norin) and the only better creature than Welder is an haste Welder. And there you go, 10 goblin-oriented cards. Mini-tribe subtheme.
Terrain Generator is better in this deck because of the multiple wheel effects. It enters untapped, taps for mana, and can ramp later on. With Valakut (the only real CIPT land worth playing IMO), you can also get 2 triggers on the same turn (including 1 at instant speed).
Oh I forgot, what about Commune with Lava Gaka? There were a few heated debates about that card on here but it looks like it didn't make your list. Did you reject it?
The problem with Commune with Lava is that it is at its best when you have more mana than you know what to do with. If you've got six billion mana and this in hand, then hell yeah. Until that point, however, you get to stare at it with distaste. Casting it for one isn't useful. Casting it for two sucked up four mana to exile two cards you may or may not want to play now but might want to later. At the very least the cards stick around until the end of the next turn, so it's not completely useless.
If you're playing a UR storm, this card is probably crazy useful. You can cast this for some amount at the end of turn and go into the combo turn with another X cards to play with. But we're not a combo deck. This effect isn't useful to us.
why would you ever cast this for x=2? You want to cast that thing when it's the last card in your hand, and you should already have at least 7-8 mana by that time (mid-game) or billions (late-game). In both cases, this should give you 2 land drops and at least 1 spell, if not more, to cast. Let's say you have 7 mana and cast this for X=5 in your main phase. If you hit 2 lands, you get to play them and have 3 or less spells to play in your next turn. I highly doubt that you really need the 3 spells, usually the best of the 3 will do.
Then, in a late game situation where you have 12-14 mana available, you cast this for X=7 to 9, so you have 3 mana left plus your land drop of the turn. You can then play immediately a 4-drop (4-drops represent nearly 25% of the deck), pass the turn, and play a couple more spells the turn after. And that's if you don't have a mana doubler by then. You exiled a Wheel of Fortune? You can cast it too and still use the remaining exiled cards afterwards.
It's really good honestly, red can have some lack of gas sometimes lategame and wheel effects also help your opponents (besides a well timed Jar or Wheel+Chandra's -3). Commune with Lava does not.
He uses both ban lists combine so it's illegal for him to use. Sorin is a fine card in mono black but he likes synergy and that's more of a good stuff card. My builds a little more good stuff with a big mana theme like a more typical mono black build and horobi is still an excellent general that allows some really obscure cards to become stupidly powerful. If your going for optimization yes use the tutors that are banned in dual that he's not using.
This.
Sorin tends to piss off opponents in multiplayer games too. Soul Conduit is better in the deck if you want that kind of effect at 6 mana, it's easier to reuse and with all the life costs in the deck, it's easy to put someone down at 1 or 2 life every turn.
Ghost Town vs Oboro, Palace in the Clouds: I think the former is better. The fact that Oboro is legendary and taps for blue is msotly irrelevant, since it's not an Island anyway. Ghost Town has a timing restriction but it's free. This deck has plenty of ways to return lands to my hand for 1 already, so I think that Oboro doesn't really do much. Ghost Town, however, at 0, can be returned to my hand during my opponent's upkeep if I have Ward of Bones or Land Equilibrium on the field, and it triggers landfall for each 1 I invest with Patron (really good with Hedron Crab, Roil Elemental or Seer's Sundial). Also, Ghost Town is $0.50 and Oboro is $18 for total unknown reasons (is this really played outside of EDH lol?). So, Oboro out, Snow-Covered Island in.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: honestly doesn't do that much in the deck, it works late game when I have already plenty of mana and plenty of creatures in play, but with Patron of the Moon putting a lot of lands into play, it feels a little bit win-more when it works, and when it doesn't work, I will prefer an Island. Tectonic Edge: Wasteland will do for now, I can always recur it with Elixir of Immortality after some Trinket Mage shenanigans with Riptide Laboratory (I can get back Expedition Map here too). High Market: Added this as my only sac outlet, that will have to do for Shackles and Roil Elemental. Academy Ruins vs Buried Ruins: the advantage of Buried Ruins is that it is faster, returning the land directly to hand. With that said, Academy Ruins is a better card overall and blue has no problem drawing cards. I'm cutting Buried Ruins to have more Islands. Riptide Laboratory: too good to pass. Coral Atoll: I have mixed feelings with that one, I already have plenty of ways to bounce lands but that thing ramps with Patron and works great with Land Equilibrium too. I like having that option, despite it CipT. Glacial Chasm: not a mana-producing land, but really good in this deck since we can bounce it and replay it at instant speed with Patron when needed, without ever needing to pay the cumulative upkeep if we don't feel like wasting life. Radiant Fountain: totally cancel any life loss from Glacial Chasm, and can win a ton of life with all the non-infinite loops in the deck. Mutavault: synergy with 2 themes in the deck: Moonfolks and Wizards; can draw cards with Azami and gives flash to my general, can carry Adventuring Gear, it's good. Reliquary Tower: with all the Sunder effects, there will be situations where we get to 10+ cards in hand; blue isn't recognized for recursion, so this is how we deal with that. Thawing Glaciers: basically Farseek every turn when Patron is there (1 to put it into play at EOT, 1 to activate it). Mouth of Ronom: just for the sake of playing Snow-Covered Island instead of Island, because I don't feel like buying 20+ unhinged Islands (got Unhinged lands in all my decks), it's also one of the rare card to kill creatures in this deck. Tolaria West: can be used as mana early game and tutor late game, profit! Vesuva: the reusability that this deck provides with lands really make this land shines here. Halimar Depths: we can't scry and most of my draw spells can go further than 3 cards, so I don't think playing that CipT land is worth it. Soldevi Excavations: this is the weird cycle of lands in Alliance where you have to sac an untapped land when it enters the battlefield (untapped). Scry 1 is good, it taps for 1U like Coral Atoll without the loss of tempo. I like it but as my 41th land (see below).
Rule of thumb for the number of lands: a minimum of 37 mana-producing lands with 1 more land for each pair of CipT lands. Glacial Chasm and Thawing Glaciers don't produce mana, Coral Atoll, Tolaria West and Vesuva come into play tapped, so I need 40.5 lands. Since I needed a spot for Rift, I'm at 40 lands right now, but I'd like to find a 41th spot for Soldevi Excavations. Could be Wayfarer's Bubble.
Here's the full list as of now, it pretty much has everything I need:
Already got 54 cards out of 100, and the 46 cards I don't have are worth a total of 140 CAD (with Land Equilibrium being 60 CAD and Vesuva 22 CAD right now). Should be able to start playing the deck really soon because of how cheap it is, the full list is worth 566 CAD which is 450 USD right now. For those on a budget, I'd only swap Wasteland for Tectonic Edge but I think it would be hard to cut cards like Land Equilibrium or Vedalken Shackles.
Well... this is really interesting from a rulings perspective from what I can see.
Still, if there is any infinite combo possible here, it's a total headache to play after a couple of hours of play and a few beers haha, so that's fine. It would take more than a miracle for someone to play Metamorph without copying anything (besides if it ETB off Warp World, not seeing any other permanent when the replacement effect applies) so I will just call this fine, I'm not even sure that I understand correctly how it works as I am writing this.
Shapesharer is a fun card, really. Since it targets two creatures, the ability will work even if the second target is gone, using last known informations to copy the permanent. It can mess up with my opponents' permanents if they are not careful, and it works with Mutavault too. It can turn a tiny creature into a huge attacker/blocker, or give some relevant ability when the creature attacks (copying any of the 5 Titans), or some LTB ability if copying Mindslicer for example. I love this card. The fact that it's a Moonfolk and a Wizard just makes it really good for this deck.
If Phyrexian Metamorph is a copy of Mutavault and you play Vesuva, copying Phyrexian Metamorph... you have to remember that a clone copying another clone becomes whatever that clone copied, so Vesuva would just be an unanimated Mutavault right on step 2 in your example.
This is why I said it's nearly impossible to make Vesuva ETB as a Caged Sun. Song of Dryads works and you probably can imagine why it's different. When a card copies something, you replace all of the copiable values on the card.
Also, Cyclonic Rift is somehow missing in my list, so I need to cut 1 card. I need to cut another one to add a sac outlet, and the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards High Market, as much as it hurts to play non-Island lands. I could remove other utility lands, and with the high-density of non-blue permanents this deck plays, an Island is probably better than Nykthos. Now, there is Ghost Town vs Oboro, and how useful these lands are. I'm not quite sure yet. And I probably don't need to have both Wasteland and Tec Edge.
Pentavus is interesting, it's the only card I could be tempted to run. What's your experience with it? If you had to choose between Pentavus and Battlesphere, which one would you choose? I realize that Battlesphere does more for 7 mana and is better with Warp World, but if we have access to more than 7 mana, Pentavus can be stronger. Flying tokens could be relevant too.
It was one of the major obstacles I had with my mono w deck. Since I was already intending to use Faith's Reward effects, I decided to double down by using eggs to get around the card draw issue.
I was curious to how other mono w decks were solving the problem.
You could probably look into coercive portal for potentially one card a turn.
Pursuit of Knowledge is a card that I run. It's an enchantment, but I'm not sure if there is a way to abuse it in your deck.
Memory Jar is something I end up shoving into most of my decks.
I see that you are using Crucible. Cycle lands could be a decent addition as well. When I redo my mana base I intend to put cycle lands into my deck as well.
Portal only works for 1v1, in any other scenario, my opponents will be happy to Planar Cleansing all my enchantments and will vote carnage. In 1v1, I can just vote homage and it works since the vote is tied.
Memory Jar can be interesting. Pursuit of Knowledge is only good with any of the 3 other cards drawing me cards (Mind's Eye, Clamp and Sundial). I don't imagine myself skipping 3 draw steps for it. It's really good with Jar though. I will need to start thinking about Memory Jar, although I don't want to end up playing this card in all my 5 mono-colored decks lol.
For chaos warp, I ended up asking you because recently I've run into situations where it's best use was to target my own stuff. Even though I want to remove it, I'm also unsure if I should remove it. The only situation in which some other form of removal would be worse could be against gods, but most of these gods we go up against are also commanders. Hence my conundrum.
Yeah, Gods are a problem. We don't care at all about some (Erebos for example, I'd be happy to see you pay life with him), but some others are really explosive (let's say Kruphix, give him 2-3 turns and he will Genesis Wave his whole library). Chaos Warp can deal with 'em when not used as a general. Also, targetting one of my own token isn't that bad, is it? I mean... it's the worse case scenario... we usually get a permanent out of this, if we got Valakut, it can be Lightning Bolt, if we got any enchantment, it can be even better. Sometimes we just miss and it's bad. But still.
You really made me think about P-Storm and K-Pool again though. I kind of missed the chaos effect, even though I would often lose to these cards, that was fun. But it's not great in the deck. So I guess I'm better staying away from these cards.
Side note on Volcanic Offering since I didn't talk much about that card since I added it. It did a great job so far, with the political aspect, I usually get 4 different targets with that thing because there is always a player starting to do some degenerate things and we all want to slow him down. It works. When I added it, I said that even destroying a land AND a creature for 5 mana at instant speed was okay. But everytime I have more than 1 opponent, I managed to destroy at least 3 permanents and usually 4 if my opponents control 2+ creatures each. It's as good as spot removal will ever get in this format, and it's fun.
So Krenko is bad.
All right, I'm honestly off, I'm just going to unsubscribe from this thread because it's becoming frustrating for me to read how BAD are Goblin Assassin, Krenko, Scrapper, Stingscourger and many more. I've been winning with these cards for years now, they all proven to be really great, Gaka has been playing a couple of them for years too. Mogg War Marshal is seriously solid in this deck depending on the package you play.
We definitely have completely different ways to play this format and I'm not willing to waste time anymore defending all the games I've been winning with these cards (I don't really see how I would win otherwise, plan A is Norin, but you need a plan B, especially now that they printed cards like Containement Priest).
I know we will never really agree anyway, you say Krenko is bad, while I think he's most of the times better than Kiki-Jiki and Welder (both these cards need a specific board situations to work, Krenko does not).
Moggcatcher is a win by itself assuming you are playing the auto-include goblins (even without Chieftain).
@osieorb18: well, Chieftain can be win-more, so can be Gauntlets. +1/+1s are usually good in Norin. Haste is good with Krenko. It all depends on what you play. I don't exactly consider Squee good by himself and I think the 4-CMC bad Mogg War Marshal is everything but good when you have so many better options available, but when you add Chandra, looters or Helm of Possession, suddenly Squee gets better. Gaka plays Conjurer's Closet and I can fairly understand why he plays the 4-CMC Mogg War Marshal only because of that.
Couldn't agree more. If you can find a better red creature than Goblin Welder, Krenko and Kiki-Jiki, I'm all ears. In the meantime, those 3 are good enough by themselves in a color with a lack of tutor to make both Moggcatcher and Goblin Matron worth playing, which themselves make toolbox cards like Settler and Scrapper worth playing too. Assassin has a pretty unique effect with Siege-Gang Commander being one of the best token producer in mono-red.
If you are playing all of these, you may as well play Chieftain to make Moggcatcher a win condition by itself, considering it's a good creature for the deck (P/T boost are always good in Norin) and the only better creature than Welder is an haste Welder. And there you go, 10 goblin-oriented cards. Mini-tribe subtheme.
Then, in a late game situation where you have 12-14 mana available, you cast this for X=7 to 9, so you have 3 mana left plus your land drop of the turn. You can then play immediately a 4-drop (4-drops represent nearly 25% of the deck), pass the turn, and play a couple more spells the turn after. And that's if you don't have a mana doubler by then. You exiled a Wheel of Fortune? You can cast it too and still use the remaining exiled cards afterwards.
It's really good honestly, red can have some lack of gas sometimes lategame and wheel effects also help your opponents (besides a well timed Jar or Wheel+Chandra's -3). Commune with Lava does not.
This.
Sorin tends to piss off opponents in multiplayer games too. Soul Conduit is better in the deck if you want that kind of effect at 6 mana, it's easier to reuse and with all the life costs in the deck, it's easy to put someone down at 1 or 2 life every turn.
Something like Siege-Gang Commander or Pia and Kiran Nalaar? Honestly, both Impact Tremors and Outpost Siege deserve to be in every Norin list. I was skeptical at first, but they're good. Even more if you think that the creature density is high enough to play Conjurer's Closet (which works nicely with Outpost Siege again).
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: honestly doesn't do that much in the deck, it works late game when I have already plenty of mana and plenty of creatures in play, but with Patron of the Moon putting a lot of lands into play, it feels a little bit win-more when it works, and when it doesn't work, I will prefer an Island.
Tectonic Edge: Wasteland will do for now, I can always recur it with Elixir of Immortality after some Trinket Mage shenanigans with Riptide Laboratory (I can get back Expedition Map here too).
High Market: Added this as my only sac outlet, that will have to do for Shackles and Roil Elemental.
Academy Ruins vs Buried Ruins: the advantage of Buried Ruins is that it is faster, returning the land directly to hand. With that said, Academy Ruins is a better card overall and blue has no problem drawing cards. I'm cutting Buried Ruins to have more Islands.
Riptide Laboratory: too good to pass.
Coral Atoll: I have mixed feelings with that one, I already have plenty of ways to bounce lands but that thing ramps with Patron and works great with Land Equilibrium too. I like having that option, despite it CipT.
Glacial Chasm: not a mana-producing land, but really good in this deck since we can bounce it and replay it at instant speed with Patron when needed, without ever needing to pay the cumulative upkeep if we don't feel like wasting life.
Radiant Fountain: totally cancel any life loss from Glacial Chasm, and can win a ton of life with all the non-infinite loops in the deck.
Mutavault: synergy with 2 themes in the deck: Moonfolks and Wizards; can draw cards with Azami and gives flash to my general, can carry Adventuring Gear, it's good.
Reliquary Tower: with all the Sunder effects, there will be situations where we get to 10+ cards in hand; blue isn't recognized for recursion, so this is how we deal with that.
Thawing Glaciers: basically Farseek every turn when Patron is there (1 to put it into play at EOT, 1 to activate it).
Mouth of Ronom: just for the sake of playing Snow-Covered Island instead of Island, because I don't feel like buying 20+ unhinged Islands (got Unhinged lands in all my decks), it's also one of the rare card to kill creatures in this deck.
Tolaria West: can be used as mana early game and tutor late game, profit!
Vesuva: the reusability that this deck provides with lands really make this land shines here.
Halimar Depths: we can't scry and most of my draw spells can go further than 3 cards, so I don't think playing that CipT land is worth it.
Soldevi Excavations: this is the weird cycle of lands in Alliance where you have to sac an untapped land when it enters the battlefield (untapped). Scry 1 is good, it taps for 1U like Coral Atoll without the loss of tempo. I like it but as my 41th land (see below).
Rule of thumb for the number of lands: a minimum of 37 mana-producing lands with 1 more land for each pair of CipT lands. Glacial Chasm and Thawing Glaciers don't produce mana, Coral Atoll, Tolaria West and Vesuva come into play tapped, so I need 40.5 lands. Since I needed a spot for Rift, I'm at 40 lands right now, but I'd like to find a 41th spot for Soldevi Excavations. Could be Wayfarer's Bubble.
Here's the full list as of now, it pretty much has everything I need:
1 Patron of the Moon
Creatures: 20
1 Hedron Crab
1 Floodbringer
1 Shapesharer
1 Soratami Cloudskater
1 Vedalken Æthermage
1 Soratami Rainshaper
1 Trinket Mage
1 Archaeomancer
1 Glen Elendra Archmage
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Soratami Mirror-Mage
1 Soratami Savant
1 Windrider Eel
1 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Soratami Seer
1 Roil Elemental
1 Soramaro, First to Dream
1 Uyo, Silent Prophet
1 Stormtide Leviathan
Sorcery: 5
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Fabricate
1 Wash Out
1 All Is Dust
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Cyclonic Rift
1 Muddle the Mixture
1 Blue Sun's Zenith
1 Stroke of Genius
1 Thwart
1 Gush
1 Sunder
Artifact: 21
1 Adventuring Gear
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Expedition Map
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Fellwar Stone
1 Mind Stone
1 Surveyor's Scope
1 Extraplanar Lens
1 Vedalken Shackles
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Khalni Gem
1 Perilous Vault
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Gilded Lotus
1 Memory Jar
1 Storm Cauldron
1 Caged Sun
1 Ward of Bones
1 Flooded Shoreline
1 Overburden
1 Mana Breach
1 Land Equilibrium
Planeswalker: 1
1 Tezzeret, the Seeker
Lands: 40
1 Academy Ruins
1 Coral Atoll
1 Ghost Town
1 Glacial Chasm
1 High Market
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Mutavault
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Riptide Laboratory
26 Snow-Covered Island
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Tolaria West
1 Vesuva
1 Wasteland
First page updated.
Already got 54 cards out of 100, and the 46 cards I don't have are worth a total of 140 CAD (with Land Equilibrium being 60 CAD and Vesuva 22 CAD right now). Should be able to start playing the deck really soon because of how cheap it is, the full list is worth 566 CAD which is 450 USD right now. For those on a budget, I'd only swap Wasteland for Tectonic Edge but I think it would be hard to cut cards like Land Equilibrium or Vedalken Shackles.
Still, if there is any infinite combo possible here, it's a total headache to play after a couple of hours of play and a few beers haha, so that's fine. It would take more than a miracle for someone to play Metamorph without copying anything (besides if it ETB off Warp World, not seeing any other permanent when the replacement effect applies) so I will just call this fine, I'm not even sure that I understand correctly how it works as I am writing this.
Shapesharer is a fun card, really. Since it targets two creatures, the ability will work even if the second target is gone, using last known informations to copy the permanent. It can mess up with my opponents' permanents if they are not careful, and it works with Mutavault too. It can turn a tiny creature into a huge attacker/blocker, or give some relevant ability when the creature attacks (copying any of the 5 Titans), or some LTB ability if copying Mindslicer for example. I love this card. The fact that it's a Moonfolk and a Wizard just makes it really good for this deck.
This is why I said it's nearly impossible to make Vesuva ETB as a Caged Sun. Song of Dryads works and you probably can imagine why it's different. When a card copies something, you replace all of the copiable values on the card.
Also, Cyclonic Rift is somehow missing in my list, so I need to cut 1 card. I need to cut another one to add a sac outlet, and the more I think about it, the more I'm leaning towards High Market, as much as it hurts to play non-Island lands. I could remove other utility lands, and with the high-density of non-blue permanents this deck plays, an Island is probably better than Nykthos. Now, there is Ghost Town vs Oboro, and how useful these lands are. I'm not quite sure yet. And I probably don't need to have both Wasteland and Tec Edge.
Memory Jar can be interesting. Pursuit of Knowledge is only good with any of the 3 other cards drawing me cards (Mind's Eye, Clamp and Sundial). I don't imagine myself skipping 3 draw steps for it. It's really good with Jar though. I will need to start thinking about Memory Jar, although I don't want to end up playing this card in all my 5 mono-colored decks lol.
You really made me think about P-Storm and K-Pool again though. I kind of missed the chaos effect, even though I would often lose to these cards, that was fun. But it's not great in the deck. So I guess I'm better staying away from these cards.
Side note on Volcanic Offering since I didn't talk much about that card since I added it. It did a great job so far, with the political aspect, I usually get 4 different targets with that thing because there is always a player starting to do some degenerate things and we all want to slow him down. It works. When I added it, I said that even destroying a land AND a creature for 5 mana at instant speed was okay. But everytime I have more than 1 opponent, I managed to destroy at least 3 permanents and usually 4 if my opponents control 2+ creatures each. It's as good as spot removal will ever get in this format, and it's fun.