I realized something very troubling today. Enlightened Tutor is restricted in Vintage, meaning my deck isn't legal. My one rule for deck construction is that it be legal in at least one format. v_v
I think I am going to retool this to either be just blue, or add in some black (tutors + hunted horror = oh my!).
After playing this a game or two in larger multi (players>3), I found the counter magic was really hard to play (so much attention had to be put on everything that was happening) so I dropped the counters to go a more beat down path.
Squire is just in their for the hell of it (it would be an awesome psyche out to drop it for 7 or something).
I now have 7 tutor effects and 2 masks, so that is like 9 copies of mask. Also, the Enlightened Tutors are never dead, cause if I have a mask out already I can just fetch a fatty.
The Stifles are in there as a back up plan so that I can still play some of my dudes without the mask (except for dreadnought, as I don't think his is triggered... but I could be wrong).
I agree, Eater of Days seems to be quite a house. I will have to pick up 3 more of those. It also goes well with the Academy Ruins. I also like the idea of going for the beat down. I tried the deck out today in a game of large multiplayer and I found that the pile of counter magic wasn't really needed in that setting, and that something like a Holy Day would have probably been more useful. Also white allows stuff like Dust Elemental or Serra Avenger (lol, turn 2 Serra Avenger).
At the Indy prerelease they announced two new tournaments that will be at Gencon this year.
The first was (from the best of my memory) a "Championship Block Draft" with a first place prize being a "4x foil set of Time Spiral." I don't know what a Chamionship Block Draft is, and I assume it would be different from a CBS block draft. Also I think the foil set includes timeshifted cards, but I am unsure if it is all of Time Spiral block or just the Time Spiral set.
The other one is a "$5000 Grand Melee" tournament. Obviously with a $5000 cash prize going to first place. I don't know much about the Grand Melee format, but from a little research it looks like massive multiplayer where you can only effect people to your right and left, and multiple turns happen at once. This should be a really, really interesting tournament if it is Vintage or even Legacy.
They said that both of these would officially be announced in a week, so we should know more then.
Aphetto Runecaster is just awesome in this deck with all the morph and mask synergy. Also note that if you put an Aphetto Runecaster into play via mask and then flip it, you get to draw a card off of it.
I tossed in Mana Drains in place of Counterspells because I had a nice playset of proxies of them, and they seem gennerly good with mask.
Again, any more ideas to tweak this would be awesome. I don't really want to proxy much of anything if possible (I only proxied the Mana Drains cause I had a cool set of proxies to use).
I want to make a casual/multiplayer deck based around 2 copies of Illusionary Mask.
My initial thought was to just go all sorts of colors to play all sorts of crazy creatures with the mask, but this idea died out when I found it hard to keep up with what my opponents were doing. I decided the deck needed to be more focused. Probably one color, maybe splash a second. Blue was my first idea as the primary color due to it's counter magic and artifact helper cards. Perhaps splash white or black for mass creature removal when my opponents get out of hand?
Since I only have 2 copies of Illusionary Mask, and I don't really want to proxy any of my cards, I will need some tutoring effects. This first two cards that came to mind were Fabricate and Muddle the Mixture.
Next I will need some creatures to put out with Illusionary Mask. Some cool ideas (that haven't been overdone 100 different times) are Sky Swallower and Leveler. Because of Illusionary Mask's awesome ability to simply drop creatures into play without their comes into play abilities both of these otherwise bad cards become much better. Some other cool ideas along the same line is Hunted Phantasm and any of the Leviathan type creatures.
Next up is to protect everything that I have been putting out with Illusionary Mask. I toss in 4 Force of Wills and 4 Counter Spells. This should be plenty, but just to make sure I also toss in some Voidmage Apprentices. Since Voidmage Apprentice only says when it turned face up, it still counts when playing it with mask, and it costs like 5 mana less (3 for Morph + 4 for flip face up vs. 2 for Mask's ability + 0 to flip face up).
To fill out the rest of the deck, I just tossed in some draw spells as well a creature that drew cards when it turned face up.
My game plan will probably be "Find Mask->Play With Mask->Smash People /w Large Creatures."
So basically what I am looking for is idea on how to improve the deck and idea of cards that I missed, or any other input on the deck. Thanks.
We are still figuring that out.
As of now, I have edited the second post on the spoiler thread to be a mini-spoiler for the bonus cards.
They will be on a separate spoiler, if nothing else.
Gold comes before Artifacts in numbering.
W,U,B,R,G,Gold,Artifact,Land
(right?)
Is this ancestral art big enough? I think the porportions might be off slightly (taken from a pic of the real thing, and did some skewing, etc). It would be cool to have this as a card ^_^.
Also, where are people getting the unedited (without a magic card on top) pic of the pearl art? I can't seem to find it.
That would actually be kinda funny. I would think the signature value would vary from person to person, so I am not sure how accurate that can be.
Often times collectors view a signature as makeing the card no longer mint. Most people do not care one way or another if a card is signed. Very few people actually believe a card to be worth more when it is signed, and even then it is hard to find someone who will actually PAY more for a card that is signed.
In general, a signed card means the most to the person that got it signed, as they did so for a reason, and to them, it is worth it.
I think I am going to retool this to either be just blue, or add in some black (tutors + hunted horror = oh my!).
More as this story develops.
3x Muddle the Mixture
3x Leveler
3x Nevinyrrl's Disk
2x Echoing Truth
3x Aphetto Runecaster
2x Phyrexian Dreadnought
2x Hunted Phantasm
1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
2x Sky Swallower
1x Eater of Days
2x Dust Elemental
2x Serra Avenger
1x Squire
4x Enlightened Tutor
3x Stifle
2x Academy Ruins
13x Islands
8x Plains
After playing this a game or two in larger multi (players>3), I found the counter magic was really hard to play (so much attention had to be put on everything that was happening) so I dropped the counters to go a more beat down path.
Squire is just in their for the hell of it (it would be an awesome psyche out to drop it for 7 or something).
I now have 7 tutor effects and 2 masks, so that is like 9 copies of mask. Also, the Enlightened Tutors are never dead, cause if I have a mask out already I can just fetch a fatty.
The Stifles are in there as a back up plan so that I can still play some of my dudes without the mask (except for dreadnought, as I don't think his is triggered... but I could be wrong).
Any more suggestions?
The first was (from the best of my memory) a "Championship Block Draft" with a first place prize being a "4x foil set of Time Spiral." I don't know what a Chamionship Block Draft is, and I assume it would be different from a CBS block draft. Also I think the foil set includes timeshifted cards, but I am unsure if it is all of Time Spiral block or just the Time Spiral set.
The other one is a "$5000 Grand Melee" tournament. Obviously with a $5000 cash prize going to first place. I don't know much about the Grand Melee format, but from a little research it looks like massive multiplayer where you can only effect people to your right and left, and multiple turns happen at once. This should be a really, really interesting tournament if it is Vintage or even Legacy.
They said that both of these would officially be announced in a week, so we should know more then.
4x Muddle the Mixture
4x Mana Drain
4x Force of Will
4x Voidmage Apprentice
3x Leveler
3x Nevinyrrl's Disk
2x Echoing Truth
3x Aphetto Runecaster
1x Phyrexian Dreadnought
2x Hunted Phantasm
1x Vesuvan Shapeshifter
1x Mischievous Quanar
2x Sky Swallower
1x Sol Ring
1x Mana Vault
1x Lotus Petal
4x Cloudpost
2x Vesuva
2x Academy Ruins
12x Islands
Vesuvan Shapeshifter and Mischievous Quanar are nice utility creatures to go along with the Aphetto Runecasters.
Nevinyrrl's Disk is just awesome with Academy Ruins, and Academy Ruins is nice to use if someone Disenchants my mask or kills a Leveler/Phyrexian Dreadnought.
I tossed in Mana Drains in place of Counterspells because I had a nice playset of proxies of them, and they seem gennerly good with mask.
Again, any more ideas to tweak this would be awesome. I don't really want to proxy much of anything if possible (I only proxied the Mana Drains cause I had a cool set of proxies to use).
My initial thought was to just go all sorts of colors to play all sorts of crazy creatures with the mask, but this idea died out when I found it hard to keep up with what my opponents were doing. I decided the deck needed to be more focused. Probably one color, maybe splash a second. Blue was my first idea as the primary color due to it's counter magic and artifact helper cards. Perhaps splash white or black for mass creature removal when my opponents get out of hand?
Since I only have 2 copies of Illusionary Mask, and I don't really want to proxy any of my cards, I will need some tutoring effects. This first two cards that came to mind were Fabricate and Muddle the Mixture.
Next I will need some creatures to put out with Illusionary Mask. Some cool ideas (that haven't been overdone 100 different times) are Sky Swallower and Leveler. Because of Illusionary Mask's awesome ability to simply drop creatures into play without their comes into play abilities both of these otherwise bad cards become much better. Some other cool ideas along the same line is Hunted Phantasm and any of the Leviathan type creatures.
Next up is to protect everything that I have been putting out with Illusionary Mask. I toss in 4 Force of Wills and 4 Counter Spells. This should be plenty, but just to make sure I also toss in some Voidmage Apprentices. Since Voidmage Apprentice only says when it turned face up, it still counts when playing it with mask, and it costs like 5 mana less (3 for Morph + 4 for flip face up vs. 2 for Mask's ability + 0 to flip face up).
To fill out the rest of the deck, I just tossed in some draw spells as well a creature that drew cards when it turned face up.
My game plan will probably be "Find Mask->Play With Mask->Smash People /w Large Creatures."
So basically what I am looking for is idea on how to improve the deck and idea of cards that I missed, or any other input on the deck. Thanks.
Oh right, forgot about that. >_<
I just woke up.
Good job on the recall (and pearl too), pretty good for a picture from a digital camera. Glad a got a couple snaps of that while I was at gencon.
Also, where are people getting the unedited (without a magic card on top) pic of the pearl art? I can't seem to find it.
Often times collectors view a signature as makeing the card no longer mint. Most people do not care one way or another if a card is signed. Very few people actually believe a card to be worth more when it is signed, and even then it is hard to find someone who will actually PAY more for a card that is signed.
In general, a signed card means the most to the person that got it signed, as they did so for a reason, and to them, it is worth it.
Is this too small?
Is that too small?
If not, then:
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~smithric/magic/bayou.jpg
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~smithric/magic/scrubland.jpg
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~smithric/magic/tropical_island.jpg
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~smithric/magic/tundra.jpg
http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/~smithric/magic/volcanic_island.jpg