3-way 2HG I think is THE BEST group format because the politics are great! During your attack step you have 5 players with opinions on who you should go after. The politics are transparent and if you get "Teamed up on" when defending against 2 other teams, at least you have your partner to back you up. I highly recommend playing this format.
6 players - That a long game. My play group switches the format based on the number of players we have:
2-3 Players - Free for all
4 Players - 2HG
5 Players - Star
6 Player - 3-way 2HG --- This is an F-ton of Fun --OR-- 3HG (Hilarious)
7 Players - Funky Star (Same Principal, you have 3 "opponents" to eliminate)
8 Players - 4-way 2HG
9 Players - 3-way 3HG -- It's only happened once.
@ Guerte I like your list! It's pretty high class, what with your Forcefield and Mishra's Workshop. -- Let's just say this will be a Cockatirce only build for me ; )
Really good stuff here. I bought the pre-con b/c of the value and b/c Feldon of the Third Path, is a house for Rakdos re-animator. I started playing with the rest of the pre-con and really enjoyed the central engine in Daretti. The identifiable problem with the pre-con is that although you get really far ahead cycling your junk, there is no explosive finish. In the theme of this primer, I started building out Red Artifact Good Stuff:
For the finish I want to kill everyone at mostly the same time - so big red button heartless hidetsugu to get people into burn/ through damage range. And since we are recurring artifact creatures over and over Purphoros, God of the Forge! I Just played with Purphoros for the first time this weekend and he's a **HOUSE** in this deck. Sac/Cycle any of the following for big combo damage:
Finally, a board control card I haven't seen anyone talking about yet: Portcullis! Super cool with man lands. Scenario: you have the only creature, Portcullis and a man land in play. An opponent goes to cast a creature - you respond by activating your man land. Now the creature count is 2. You opponent's creature is exiled until the portcullis leaves play - AND you can cast an actual creature on your turn again. You can also stack creatures behind the Portcullis intentionally so you get a bunch of ETB triggers if/when you sac the Portcullis to Daretti. Or Kill the portcullis, establish a board and bring it back later to freeze other players out from casting creatures. With the heavy sac and recursion elements in this deck you get a lot of board control with this one card.
Lastly a question - do we even need Caged Sun? and/or other manna doublers? Wouldn't this slot be better spent on another 2-drop manna rock?
I will be interested in hearing more about how PigsPaw's control themed deck works out with more testing. I have been running a 22 creature count version based on Ikaour's base and my determination is that it's not a Top 8 viable build. While it is strong and trumps many competitive decks, it tends to produce 2-1 wins which are not as good for Swiss matching. Also, Marath is very prevalent in the online and shop tourney Meta's I've been playing and it's just a bad match up for creature based Mogis. This is because Marath is a faster aggro deck, with game ending combo and Marath himself can pick off your key dudes like BoB and Mana Forger.
Going more sorcery control, like PigsPaw, I agree that other plainswalkers like Koth and Chandra should be in there. I might also like t0 see some other big board wipes like Devastation, Wildfire, Destructive Force or Burning of Xyine. Mass Resource banging and letting Mogis and Sulfuric Vortext do their work could also be aided by Blackvise, Staic Orb and Tangle Wire.
Played an 8 man LGS tourney last night. Dropped a matach to Balthor which I should have won. Beat Prosh 2-1 and lost to Marath 1-2. I am adding Pithing Needle and Earthquake to help with future Marath pairings.
Dropping Contamination. It did help in a couple of games last night, but the one time I prepped the with Ophiomancer, my creatures got cleared with sudden demise the turn before I got Contamination on the table. I am hoping the addition of Earthquake to take out Marath's weenies will be a more successful strategy. However, I am also happy to have an X spell finisher for this aggro deck.
Zo-zu is out. I just never find myself playing him.
Also dropped Rakdos Carnarium. Picking up a land an coming in tapped is too much of a tempo disrupt (and begs for a wasteland.
Have still been having trouble getting stuck on 3 land. I'm moving to a 40 land count.
I do love how this deck wins when it wins with crazy pressure. I've often found the "Pow" factor to be hitting Devotion on Mogis and getting a chance to swing in . I've been thinking about going more in the direction of Black control and splashing Red just to cast Mogis. Then using BB and BBB perms to hit Devotion. Alternatively, I've been contemplating adding more hasty fliers like
I feel like this deck is close to breaking into the true "A-Tier" but needs some more KO punches or broken combo to get there. Urborg tomb of Yawgmoth is already in. What about Coffers and
My last Budget build is coming up short I've gone 3-1-4 playing against control decks navigated by reputable French national players (who don't F-around and play real meta game decks.) I definitely miss having Bitterblossom to slip under counter cover. I also lost a Game to Geist which is usually a favored match up for Mogis. Nin the pain Artist beat Spastika's build and I split 1-1. I think I would have dropped if we'd gone to game 3. Key is killing Nin over and over again.
Contamination is doing ok. I have have been getting the 2 turn stall I want from it. But, I've had to put in on the board before getting Mogis. So, I haven't netted damage there. Once again, having BB would make a big difference. Ophiomancer and Cures of Shallow Graves have been great however, giving me beats on offense and chumps on defense. Curse also permitted me to check a sword of fire and Ice. Forcing my opponent to redirect the sword damage to the new zombie each turn (he still got the card draw: that card is so stupid.)
I'm going to scale back the Hasty aggro creatures (Sorry Exava), keep Contamination and put the the "A-" tier hand destruction back in.
Ok so I have an update to my under $25 per-card "Budget Mogis." (Sorry about the formatting) I have this on paper and will be testing it this weekend. What I have been struggling with with this general is the constant debate of creature count vs. disruption and control elements. For defense against Elf Ball and Marath I'd been running heavy on sweepers. When up against online opponents where I've been seeing more blue I've wanted to get heavier on hand destruction. The moon cards have been auto-wins in many 2 and 3 color match ups which has made me interested in running Contamination. To feed Contamination I added Ophiomancer and Curse of Shallow Graves as well as look to get back Gravecrawler and get dorks out of Young Pyromancer.
Fo0kinz has also had me thinking more about getting my devotion count up. So this build is guided by 3 factors: 1. getting more dudes on the table, 2. getting haste dudes out on T2 and T3(For 6 points of "pre-sweeper" damage.) 3. being able to keep Contamination on the board for at least 2 turns.( Admittedly if if I had Bitterblosom in my budget that would be the best for goals 1 and 3.)
Saddest about loosing Entomber Exarch (we were just getting to know each other) But, I've added 3 other Hando cards and I need pyroclasm back after loosing to Geist.
Creature count is down to 22 : (. But, I feel like I need the discard to combat counter and the pryoclasm for Geist, Elfs and Marath.
With Oona's Prowler the opening hand math is 6 points on T4 vs. 4 points on T4. And statically, you are going to benefit more often from the 6 points of flying damage, than have someone play a control effect on Braids (in which case you have sweepers.) Remember you can always sac Braids if she's running wild on you (and you controller her.) Same with Smokestack with 1 counter. Aristocrat does get the edge if you draw into her mid to late game. So for a post Mogis blast to the face I can see picking Aristocrat. Aristocrat is also the perfect follow up to you're opponent's sweeper spell.
How many points of damage is Zu-Zo getting for you? He's a house against snap lands, but my experiace is he doesn't stick around more than 2 turns and may not get an attack in. Perhaps swap Prowler with Zu-zo?
Moon effects have been such power in this deck, I'm thinking about running Contamination. Even if it is only for 1 turn, being able to shut down your opponent's mana and stop them from casting their gen on turn 3 might be enough to get ahead. With Youg Pyromancer, Curse of Shallow Graves, Bloodghast and Gravecrawler you have an chance to set up a very quick lock with the right draw. Of course it would be preferable to drop this after Mogis in on the board, but if Contamination keeps Marath, Prosh or Animar off the table while you dig for a sweeper... worth thinking about. It is also a "Must counter" spell vs. Blue. On the flip side this is a dead draw against Greislbrand, Iname or Kagemaro/Oloro.
I like seeing Young Pyromancer in this list. Heisenb3rg abused me with him flashing back faithless looting then swinging in with Hellrider.
I recently droped Falkenrath Aristocrat for Oona's Prowler. I'm thinking I'll get more damage earlier with Prowler (6 on turn 4 instead of 4,) though it doesn't add as much count for Mogis loyalty.
I've been playing with Curse of Shallow Graves too in order to: a) increase momentum in a lead b) make more sac out lets for stax and Braids.
So, far that has been going well adding 4-6 additional points of damage each time it's resolved. I also like having enchantments adding towards Mogis's loyalty, since they tend to survive sweepers.
I've been running Ikaoru's build above +/- 4 cards for 10 days strait. So far I've gone 15-2-8 for a 60% win rate. Most losses have come either from faster mob decks (Elves, Animar, Marath) or from Mana screw. It think going to 39 lands is prudent since there are no other Mana sources besides Dark Rit in the deck.
This deck runs great, the heavy disruption makes dork damage add up quickly. Mogis, if he resolves is consistently worth 6-10 points of damage. However, resolving Mogis T4 is not essential to winning, so it can be a nice counter fish to cash him T4 if you're camping on something more important like a Phyrexian Arena or a Blood Moon.
Having pushed the deck above (v6.)to the point of semantic differences with Ikaoru, I decided to make a version I could put on paper w/o the big money cards and snap lands. Here's my > $25 build for people who want to play Mogis Mid Range with out a large investment in snaps, snow lands, BoB and Three Kingdoms Cards.
Over all the deck is very fun and strait forward to navigate. It's a "fair" deck (no stupid infinities or instana-wins.) And the Lando is disruptive but not nauseatingly repetitive like Rhada or Skullbriar (ect.)3-Color players will often scoop if Blood Moon or Magus hit. It's a nice way to stick-it to guys with $1000 mana bases. Also, when you win it is usually quick, which is nice for making sure you don't time out rounds in tournaments.
I guess my final thoughts for this post are that making the 10 life jump from Duel Commander to Standard Commander with Mogis is a Big, Big hurdle. Those 5 additional turns grinding with Mogis and drawing aggro from the whole board is a lot different than running hardcore disruption and efficient creatures in 1:1 play.
I've been running Mogis with pretty much this build for the past week. It's been pretty solid. Dark Depths has deffinately been an asset in the deck (and a great deterent for disenchanting Blood Moon;)) Hando trumps lando when playing an aggro build. Stromkirk Nobel and Slith Firewalker are the best clocks. Turn 4 Mogis with Turn 5 Demigod is pretty boss too.
The number of paylife effects in the deck can be a bad thing if you get behind
2-3 Players - Free for all
4 Players - 2HG
5 Players - Star
6 Player - 3-way 2HG --- This is an F-ton of Fun --OR-- 3HG (Hilarious)
7 Players - Funky Star (Same Principal, you have 3 "opponents" to eliminate)
8 Players - 4-way 2HG
9 Players - 3-way 3HG -- It's only happened once.
The first 4 you should be running anyway b/c they are cheap to convert artifact creatures who can either chump for Daretti or be sac fodder.
Really good stuff here. I bought the pre-con b/c of the value and b/c Feldon of the Third Path, is a house for Rakdos re-animator. I started playing with the rest of the pre-con and really enjoyed the central engine in Daretti. The identifiable problem with the pre-con is that although you get really far ahead cycling your junk, there is no explosive finish. In the theme of this primer, I started building out Red Artifact Good Stuff:
And also dabbled in some Stax control elements:
Since I'm playing plainswalkers I added contagion engine, and contagion clasp which also feeds grim poppet, everflowing chalice and astral cornucopia.
For the finish I want to kill everyone at mostly the same time - so big red button heartless hidetsugu to get people into burn/ through damage range. And since we are recurring artifact creatures over and over Purphoros, God of the Forge! I Just played with Purphoros for the first time this weekend and he's a **HOUSE** in this deck. Sac/Cycle any of the following for big combo damage:
Finally, a board control card I haven't seen anyone talking about yet: Portcullis! Super cool with man lands. Scenario: you have the only creature, Portcullis and a man land in play. An opponent goes to cast a creature - you respond by activating your man land. Now the creature count is 2. You opponent's creature is exiled until the portcullis leaves play - AND you can cast an actual creature on your turn again. You can also stack creatures behind the Portcullis intentionally so you get a bunch of ETB triggers if/when you sac the Portcullis to Daretti. Or Kill the portcullis, establish a board and bring it back later to freeze other players out from casting creatures. With the heavy sac and recursion elements in this deck you get a lot of board control with this one card.
Lastly a question - do we even need Caged Sun? and/or other manna doublers? Wouldn't this slot be better spent on another 2-drop manna rock?
Going more sorcery control, like PigsPaw, I agree that other plainswalkers like Koth and Chandra should be in there. I might also like t0 see some other big board wipes like Devastation, Wildfire, Destructive Force or Burning of Xyine. Mass Resource banging and letting Mogis and Sulfuric Vortext do their work could also be aided by Blackvise, Staic Orb and Tangle Wire.
Dropping Contamination. It did help in a couple of games last night, but the one time I prepped the with Ophiomancer, my creatures got cleared with sudden demise the turn before I got Contamination on the table. I am hoping the addition of Earthquake to take out Marath's weenies will be a more successful strategy. However, I am also happy to have an X spell finisher for this aggro deck.
Zo-zu is out. I just never find myself playing him.
Also dropped Rakdos Carnarium. Picking up a land an coming in tapped is too much of a tempo disrupt (and begs for a wasteland.
Have still been having trouble getting stuck on 3 land. I'm moving to a 40 land count.
I do love how this deck wins when it wins with crazy pressure. I've often found the "Pow" factor to be hitting Devotion on Mogis and getting a chance to swing in . I've been thinking about going more in the direction of Black control and splashing Red just to cast Mogis. Then using BB and BBB perms to hit Devotion. Alternatively, I've been contemplating adding more hasty fliers like
- Mirri the Cursed
- Stormbreath Dragon
ANDThundermaw Hellkite or evenI feel like this deck is close to breaking into the true "A-Tier" but needs some more KO punches or broken combo to get there. Urborg tomb of Yawgmoth is already in. What about Coffers and
Contamination is doing ok. I have have been getting the 2 turn stall I want from it. But, I've had to put in on the board before getting Mogis. So, I haven't netted damage there. Once again, having BB would make a big difference. Ophiomancer and Cures of Shallow Graves have been great however, giving me beats on offense and chumps on defense. Curse also permitted me to check a sword of fire and Ice. Forcing my opponent to redirect the sword damage to the new zombie each turn (he still got the card draw: that card is so stupid.)
I'm going to scale back the Hasty aggro creatures (Sorry Exava), keep Contamination and put the the "A-" tier hand destruction back in.
Fo0kinz has also had me thinking more about getting my devotion count up. So this build is guided by 3 factors: 1. getting more dudes on the table, 2. getting haste dudes out on T2 and T3(For 6 points of "pre-sweeper" damage.) 3. being able to keep Contamination on the board for at least 2 turns.( Admittedly if if I had Bitterblosom in my budget that would be the best for goals 1 and 3.)
Here is MartilD's Budget Mogis v.3:
1 Slith Firewalker
1 Hellrider
1 Demigod of Revenge
1 Thundermaw Hellkite
1 Hammer of Purphoros
Recursion/Dork Makers
1 Ophiomancer
1 Gravecrawler
1 Curse of Shallow Graves
1 Bloodghast
1 Young Pyromancer
ETB Disruption Creatures
1 Manic Vandal
1 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Fleshbag Marauder
Tempo Setters
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Oona's Prowler
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Zo-Zu the Punisher
1 Sulfuric Vortex
Utility and Card Advantage
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Pain Seer
1 Manaforge Cinder
Hard Board Control
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Blood Moon
1 Dystopia
1 Tangle Wire
1 Contamination
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Koth of the Hammer
Artifacts
1 Skullclamp
1 Umezawa's Jitte
Spells
1 Despise
1 Distress
1 Wrench Mind
1 Pyroclasm
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Night's Whisper
1 Read the Bones
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Dark Ritual
1 Terminate
1 Go for the Throat
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Duress
1 Pillage
1 Damnation
1 Slagstorm
1 Price of Progress
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Sudden Demise
1 Temple of Malice
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
8 Mountain
9 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
1 Rishadan Port
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wasteland
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Thespian's Stage
Version 3 edits.
Saddest about loosing Entomber Exarch (we were just getting to know each other) But, I've added 3 other Hando cards and I need pyroclasm back after loosing to Geist.
Creature count is down to 22 : (. But, I feel like I need the discard to combat counter and the pryoclasm for Geist, Elfs and Marath.
How many points of damage is Zu-Zo getting for you? He's a house against snap lands, but my experiace is he doesn't stick around more than 2 turns and may not get an attack in. Perhaps swap Prowler with Zu-zo?
Moon effects have been such power in this deck, I'm thinking about running Contamination. Even if it is only for 1 turn, being able to shut down your opponent's mana and stop them from casting their gen on turn 3 might be enough to get ahead. With Youg Pyromancer, Curse of Shallow Graves, Bloodghast and Gravecrawler you have an chance to set up a very quick lock with the right draw. Of course it would be preferable to drop this after Mogis in on the board, but if Contamination keeps Marath, Prosh or Animar off the table while you dig for a sweeper... worth thinking about. It is also a "Must counter" spell vs. Blue. On the flip side this is a dead draw against Greislbrand, Iname or Kagemaro/Oloro.
I recently droped Falkenrath Aristocrat for Oona's Prowler. I'm thinking I'll get more damage earlier with Prowler (6 on turn 4 instead of 4,) though it doesn't add as much count for Mogis loyalty.
I've been playing with Curse of Shallow Graves too in order to: a) increase momentum in a lead b) make more sac out lets for stax and Braids.
So, far that has been going well adding 4-6 additional points of damage each time it's resolved. I also like having enchantments adding towards Mogis's loyalty, since they tend to survive sweepers.
This deck runs great, the heavy disruption makes dork damage add up quickly. Mogis, if he resolves is consistently worth 6-10 points of damage. However, resolving Mogis T4 is not essential to winning, so it can be a nice counter fish to cash him T4 if you're camping on something more important like a Phyrexian Arena or a Blood Moon.
Having pushed the deck above (v6.)to the point of semantic differences with Ikaoru, I decided to make a version I could put on paper w/o the big money cards and snap lands. Here's my > $25 build for people who want to play Mogis Mid Range with out a large investment in snaps, snow lands, BoB and Three Kingdoms Cards.
1 Manaforge Cinder
1 Avalanche Riders
1 Manic Vandal
1 Hellrider
1 Oona's Prowler
1 Slith Firewalker
1 Pain Seer
1 Young Pyromancer
1 Undead Gladiator
1 Stigma Lasher
1 Braids, Cabal Minion
1 Gravecrawler
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Demigod of Revenge
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Bloodghast
1 Mesmeric Fiend
1 Fulminator Mage
1 Zo-Zu the Punisher
1 Magus of the Moon
1 Flametongue Kavu
1 Graveborn Muse
1 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Pyroclasm
1 Pillage
1 Damnation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Grim Discovery
1 Hymn to Tourach
1 Inquisition of Kozilek
1 Night's Whisper
1 Read the Bones
1 Despise
1 Thoughtseize
1 Toxic Deluge
1 Drown in Sorrow
1 Faithless Looting
1 Duress
1 Slagstorm
1 Rakdos Charm
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Sudden Demise
1 Terminate
1 Diabolic Edict
1 Go for the Throat
1 Skeletal Scrying
1 Volcanic Fallout
1 Dark Ritual
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 Skullclamp
1 Umezawa's Jitte
1 Tangle Wire
1 Blood Moon
1 Bitterblossom
1 Dystopia
1 Phyrexian Arena
1 Sulfuric Vortex
1 Curse of Shallow Graves
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Liliana of the Veil
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Reflecting Pool
9 Mountain
10 Swamp
1 Blood Crypt
1 Rishadan Port
1 City of Brass
1 Command Tower
1 Dragonskull Summit
1 Sulfurous Springs
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Wasteland
1 Mutavault
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Lavaclaw Reaches
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1 Blackcleave Cliffs
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Rakdos Carnarium
Update:
Other Cards to consider:
Over all the deck is very fun and strait forward to navigate. It's a "fair" deck (no stupid infinities or instana-wins.) And the Lando is disruptive but not nauseatingly repetitive like Rhada or Skullbriar (ect.)3-Color players will often scoop if Blood Moon or Magus hit. It's a nice way to stick-it to guys with $1000 mana bases. Also, when you win it is usually quick, which is nice for making sure you don't time out rounds in tournaments.
I guess my final thoughts for this post are that making the 10 life jump from Duel Commander to Standard Commander with Mogis is a Big, Big hurdle. Those 5 additional turns grinding with Mogis and drawing aggro from the whole board is a lot different than running hardcore disruption and efficient creatures in 1:1 play.
Enjoy.
The number of paylife effects in the deck can be a bad thing if you get behind