If there was ever a deck that wants to play Waves of Aggression, this is it.
Zurgo loves that card.
My experience with my zurgo deck has led me to a few conclusions.
1) Ramp to drop him a turn earlier. People are way less prepared turn 4 than 5.
2) Extra combat steps and damage doublers are killer. Psychotic Fury will kill people. So will Seize the Day.
3) Just beef zurgo up and swing. It's a relatively simple deck. There are a few cute tricks you can do, but really it's all about getting him in the red zone.
4) Sweepers are good. Wrath away everyone else's stuff often. It keeps the heat off you and let's zurgo through.
5) Stuff like Jokulhaups,Obliterate, and Wordslayer can easily win the game. Not everyone appreciates them though, especially the green Mage with 20 land out.
6) Maze of ith is really annoying. Pack a couple was to get around it. Shroud/hexproof are good. Incendiary command and Volcanic Offering can take care of it too.
7) Skull rend is flavorful so people can't get too upset about it. It's brutal though.
I'll add some more specific cards and findings soon.
We played "old-school" edh for a while to shake things up between regular games. Every card had to be old card frame and black-bordered. Poltergeist was pretty annoying actually. He stops non-trampling elder dragons and other flying fatties with the basically free regeneration. With the relatively low number of wrath effects he was pretty much an auto-include in any black deck that could accept him, theme-wise (because themes make "bad but cool" decks even cooler and even worse). Kind of an older Reassembling Skeleton or Pestilent Kathari. I've considered playing it outside of that variant, but it's mediocre despite the artwork. Tony DiTerlizzi is one of the great artists magic lost. They can't get rid of Rebeccau Guay, but just about everyone else is gone. I personally think magic cards have gotten less aesthetically pleasing as the art became more realistic and cohesive.
Blood Frenzy is a pet card of mine that nobody sees coming. In multiplayer you can get it to be +4 damage on an opponent and a removal spell on another opponent's creature pretty often. It could just be a +4/+0 on Zurgo, too. It's also fetchable with Sunforger, which is a solid card in any r/w deck with creatures. Nobody sees Pyroblast coming either.
I think this might be the deck I finally run Odric, Master Tactician in after wanting to for so long. I'll probably run a few other things that mess with combat, Basandra, Battle Seraph being one of them.
Twilight Drover goes really well with other token generators. Necromancer's Covenant isn't really on theme but is a good token generator and graveyard hoser. Foundry Champion could be decent at taking advantage of a lot of tokens and mana. True Conviction, Vicious Shadows, and Stalking Vengeance can all be pretty bonkers with tokens. Sometimes to the point that they're unfun when they completely turn a game around.
I apologize for the lack of updates and responses, folks. We hit it hard as soon as the engine was finished and have pretty much been completely out if cell service and wifi. We are currently in the desert of Nevada and hoping to be in San Diego tomorrow. Unlike the original map, we are going to do pretty much the entire California coast including at least passing by LA. I'll get to PMs shortly. Thanks for all the love, everybody.
Could be worse. Could be a lot better though. We have been broken down stationary in Denver for the past week. The motor is out and almost done with a full rebuild.
I believe they were going to Portland and that event was what... last weekend. Not sure where they are off to now but I suspect they are either still there or going to the next location.
We aren't going to any official events, or at least aren't planning to. If it works out, then maybe. We are pretty casual and would welcome another player whenever possible. Three player politics are going to be the death of us.
We will be in the Denver/Boulder area for the next few days at least if anyone is around there looking to get together and play some cards or otherwise.
Our first stop to play with someone else was at glimflicker's house in Knoxville, Tennessee. We payed a few games an had a great time hanging out there. He can attest to us not being sketchy guys out to steal your cards.
We have a lively bunch of Magic players here in Hays, Kansas (that's on the eastern side of the Great Plains, about halfway between Denver and Kansas City). We can help you out as you're passing through: games, hospitality, etc.
Hays sounds like a great place to stop. I'll get in touch with you as we get closer. My best guess is somewhere around the 20th or 21st of June (maybe a bit later), but it depends on other detours, the weather, etc.
If you guys come through Clarksville, TN you can do laundry, shower, hang out, and drink some beers at my house. I don't play EDH yet, but I wouldn't mind trading some beers and my washing machine time for you to teach me. If you're not coming through Clarksville, have fun on your trip. Sounds like a blast.
That sounds excellent. Maybe Monday the 17th? 2 of us are EDH vets and the third is just learning and we've taught quite a few people how to play. We'll be in contacts with you pretty soon.
That sounds like fun. You miss my state by about two states so I guess I dont have much to add but if somehow you end up going through South Dakota let me know.
South Dakota is definitely on my list of places to visit soon, but not this trip.
Seems fun. You're pretty much missing any major form of civilization in Utah, and are going to be about four hours out of my area, but I wish you the best of luck!
Edit: It looks like you're traveling through Moab though, and I recommend you a least check out Arches National Park.
I've heard great things about Moab and Arches and would like to spend a couple days there if possible. I'm aware we're missing civilization in Utah, it just happens to be the least steep way for us to get from Colorado to California as the bus doesn't have much power but does have a lot of weight to carry around. There's a pass that's considerably less steep through the north of Colorado and we thought it would be cool to follow the Colorado River for a while.
I live in Richmond, KY which is around Point B. The local shop, Cosmic Oasis, hosts EDH every Wednesday night starting at 6:30. They also run a board game cafe next door with a wide selection of board games, a spot set up for Super Smash Bros. Brawl or live performances, and some good food. Mondays are usually free-play night, and FNM is typically a good size with decent pay out (if you care about that).
There's a small water park in town, and I hear there's some decent hiking to be done at a place called Pinnacle Rock a little ways south. If you come down the Mountain Parkway you'll pass through Natural Bridge State Park and Red River Gorge which has really good hiking and camping areas.
If you're in the area, feel free to message me. I can't really help you out with accommodations (outside of hotel suggestions), but I can at least be a local resource for your travels in Kentucky.
We are picking up our third person in Jackson, KY which looks to be about an hour and a half away from you. We'll be leaving there late Saturday the 7th or early Sunday the 8th and have to get to Tennessee pretty quickly (two of our solid time constraints on the trip). I'll discuss with the others and if we can get going quickly, I might be sending you a message.
While in the Seattle area, heres the two card-shops I frequent to play EDH ...
Card Advantage Games
Address: 17851 1st Ave S, Burien, WA 98148
Time: Tuesday nights. Usually starts between 4 and 5pm and goes until 10pm. More of a casual meta that enjoys the fun-board states that you talk about. I got a huge frowny face from the entire table when I went infinite with a 3 card combo that involved a creature with a tapping ability.
We frowny face people who go infinite too, but at least it ends the game. At least two of us know how to play with more competitive players. I can always just pull out Zo-Zu the Punisher because nobody knows how to play against. Winning with him is usually a fluke though.
We're going to Bonaroo, which I believe is near Manchester June 12-15. We're volunteering so are supposed to arrive the 10th. We are coming there from Jackson, KY and leaving early the 16th and heading toward St. Louis. Want to meet us near Knoxville for some camping and magic or host us? Knoxville is a pretty good halfway point between KY and Manchester. We'll have just showered in KY so we'll smell nice and fresh.
Either before or after Glacier stop in Missoula, Montana for a night. We will treat you right
Float the river through town, hop out at the park and walk right into a bar. Love this town in the summer
It'll be mid-July, but I'll definitely hit you up. Thanks. Any tips on things we have to see in Glacier, Yellowstone, or Grand Teton? I mean good stuff, not just touristy "must see so you can say you've seen it".
There's supposed to be a kick ass shop in Portland, with a room that has beer on tap.
I believe you're thinking of Guardian Games. It's a great store.
While in Oregon, you should also stop off in Eugene or Springfield. There's a shop in Springfield with EDH on Tuesdays and Saturdays and a shop in Eugene with EDH on Thursdays. Your trip sounds awesome and I hope you make it to Eugene/Springfield!
Thanks. I hope we make it there too. In a 40-year old vehicle, you can never be sure.
Portland locales:
Tuesday night at red castle goes late. Large turnout (15-25) but sort of hit or miss on the skill level of players.
Wednesday night at time vault goes until nine or so. Modest turnout by local standards and hit or miss on the skill level of players.
Thursday night at guardian games has a medium to large turnout and goes until nine. After that we hit a local bar with the better players / players with social skills. It does have beer on tap and is one of the larger game stores in the United States.
Saturday night you could probably get an invite to galspanics.
All that said, the locals that haunt mtgs would probably put together a get together for out of towers such as yourselves.
Hit me up once you figure our your itinerary.
Will do. We have sufficient social skills and are okay with players of all skill levels (play skills and social skills).
It's near the beginning of your journey, but we're at Virginia Tech, in Blacksburg VA.
It's the summer so not many people are around. But there are a few EDHers always up for a game.
I'll check tomorrow to see how far out of the way Blacksburg is from our planned route. We won't be going particularly fast up the mountains, but we do have 5 days to make it from NC to KY, which is only around 6-7 hours in a normal car. They'll only be 2 of us then, but if you have 1 or 2 friends around who want to play, we have a 4-5 player group. A 4-5 player group sounds good to me. It's a pretty area and I'm sure we could find a good place to camp nearby.
Thanks again to everyone. I'll try and keep this updated where we will be stopping and who we play with, as well as how our newer player learns and what he takes to. We started him on Ruhan of the Famori who is pretty fun and powerful when there are only 3 players. I'll try not to clutter the thread with too much non-EDH stuff. If anyone is curious about a particular deck, let me know and I'll get back to you as soon as we can. I'll post tomorrow or the next day with the final selection of generals when we prioritize what exactly is able to fit in the two boxes we have. We won't be able to modify decks much once we leave (been trying to balance power levels over the past few weeks), although we'll have a 50 to 100-card pile of good stuff to swap out cards here and there.
Hey, all. I and two others will be traveling across and around the country over the next 2-3 months. We are casual EDH players looking for others to meet up with. Two of us have been playing magic for around 10 years and EDH since around the time of Planar Chaos. The third has recently gotten back into magic and started playing EDH within the past couple months, but he's really excited to learn more. Like I said before, we're pretty casual and care more about having fun and cool board states than winning.
Here's a general map of where we'll be going:
We are leaving from North Carolina June 2nd for Kentucky and then Tennessee.
We are leaving from Tennessee June 16th and heading west to Colorado (through St. Louis and Kansas City). We'll probably spend a little while around Boulder and Denver.
From there we'll go north to Fort Collins and over the Rockies, following the Colorado river southwest through Grand Junction.
From Grand Junction onwards, our route is a bit less defined. We'll probably go through southern Utah into Arizona and then to California, but we're not sure of the exact route. We are definitely going to be in the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane.
We're going through Idaho to Glacier National Park, then south through Montana and Wyoming to Yellowstone.
We'll finish up back in Boulder.
Here's a picture of our car/house:
If you're anywhere along or around the route and want to play some EDH, please let me know. Here are some things we'd appreciate:
1) People to play magic with! Or just new friends in general.
2) A place to shower and/or do laundry
3) A hose to fill up our water tank
4) Recommendations on places to camp. We have the vw camper and a small tent and are looking looking for places that are relatively secluded and free, ideally.
5) Recommendations on places to eat
6) Fun things to do: places to swim, hike, etc.
What we can provide you with:
1) New people to play magic with that love to have fun.
2) Cooking
3) Musical entertainment
4) Drinks (If you're of age)
5) Being the coolest kid on the block with the yellow bus parked outside your house
6) You tell me. How can we help you out?
I apologize if this is the wrong place, so if the mods feel it should be moved, feel free. We are especially looking for EDH players or people who want to play EDH (you're welcome to borrow our decks). Comment here or PM me if you want to make new friends, please! I can PM you my cell number or email if you'd like.
I have a Arcades Sabboth deck that is entirely old card frame and black bordered. Arcades is legends and autographed and the entire deck is pretty awful. Criteria as to which cards I would include gave special consideration to:
1) Pre-Exodus for a black expansion symbol.
2) Cards with obsolete keywords or creature types. Brushwagg, Hunding Gjornerson, islandhome, etc. I avoided phasing and banding though...
3) Excellent art.
4) Cards that nobody has ever heard of.
The deck looks fantastic although the mana base (along with the rest of the deck) is low-budget and not great. Hello Karoo and Aysen Abbey. It's not something that gets played often, but it is fun and really good looking.
I also have a Rith, The Awakener deck which has a pretty good record but is reliant on a few bomb enchantments. I prefer older generals despite them pretty much being worse.
Vish Kal is completely underrated. He might not be as good as Teysa, but he is certainly better than ghost council. He may not get cast as much, but he's about making a big impact when he is cast. He can easily alpha strike and has built-in removal.
Tunnel vision into tombstone stairwell with deathbringer thoctar out. Zombies don't take things seriously and aren't going to be super competitive so you might as well have fun with it. Just run a bunch of zombies and zombie-themed cards. I run lord of tresserhorn as the general in my zombie deck. 10 power for 4 mana ftw.
Zurgo loves that card.
My experience with my zurgo deck has led me to a few conclusions.
1) Ramp to drop him a turn earlier. People are way less prepared turn 4 than 5.
2) Extra combat steps and damage doublers are killer. Psychotic Fury will kill people. So will Seize the Day.
3) Just beef zurgo up and swing. It's a relatively simple deck. There are a few cute tricks you can do, but really it's all about getting him in the red zone.
4) Sweepers are good. Wrath away everyone else's stuff often. It keeps the heat off you and let's zurgo through.
5) Stuff like Jokulhaups,Obliterate, and Wordslayer can easily win the game. Not everyone appreciates them though, especially the green Mage with 20 land out.
6) Maze of ith is really annoying. Pack a couple was to get around it. Shroud/hexproof are good. Incendiary command and Volcanic Offering can take care of it too.
7) Skull rend is flavorful so people can't get too upset about it. It's brutal though.
I'll add some more specific cards and findings soon.
Aurelia, the Warleader for multiple combats is the best, but Waves of Aggression is great too and often overlooked. Seize the Day can be really surprising. I'll also run Godo, Bandit Warlord and probably Hellkite Charger.
As far as creature pump goes, Nobilis of War is pretty solid. Sunhome Guildmage generates tokens too. Damage doublers like Furnace of Rath and Gratuitous Violence might find their way in too. Marshal's Anthem doubles as recursion. This is the best use Fervent Charge has ever had, so you should play it. It's surprisingly good. Ogre Battledriver seems pretty good too.
Blood Frenzy is a pet card of mine that nobody sees coming. In multiplayer you can get it to be +4 damage on an opponent and a removal spell on another opponent's creature pretty often. It could just be a +4/+0 on Zurgo, too. It's also fetchable with Sunforger, which is a solid card in any r/w deck with creatures. Nobody sees Pyroblast coming either.
I think this might be the deck I finally run Odric, Master Tactician in after wanting to for so long. I'll probably run a few other things that mess with combat, Basandra, Battle Seraph being one of them.
Twilight Drover goes really well with other token generators. Necromancer's Covenant isn't really on theme but is a good token generator and graveyard hoser. Foundry Champion could be decent at taking advantage of a lot of tokens and mana. True Conviction, Vicious Shadows, and Stalking Vengeance can all be pretty bonkers with tokens. Sometimes to the point that they're unfun when they completely turn a game around.
Vorrac Battlehorns gives cheap trample and is silly with Iroas. Shizo, Death's Storehouse is a solid card for evasion. Grappling Hook and Kusari-Gama seem like they'd be fun on Zurgo.
Skull Rend, Rakdos Charm, Cauldron Dance, and Torrent of Souls are really solid r/b staples.
We certainly will. Thanks.
Thanks. 1 month and 1 week now. We started June 2nd.
Could be worse. Could be a lot better though. We have been broken down stationary in Denver for the past week. The motor is out and almost done with a full rebuild.
We aren't going to any official events, or at least aren't planning to. If it works out, then maybe. We are pretty casual and would welcome another player whenever possible. Three player politics are going to be the death of us.
If anyone is passing through Hays, Kansas, I'd highly recommend stopping at the gamers guild. It's a small shop with a super friendly owner and great prices.
https://m.facebook.com/TheGamersGuildHays?refsrc=http://www.google.com/&_rdr
http://aikidoofnorthwestkansas.com/index.php/pricing/merchandise/mtg
We will be in the Denver/Boulder area for the next few days at least if anyone is around there looking to get together and play some cards or otherwise.
We are in croo camping right by the west tollbooth. Feel free to come hang out at the yellow vw bus at some point.
Thanks so much again for your hospitality and introducing us to land equilibrium.
Hays sounds like a great place to stop. I'll get in touch with you as we get closer. My best guess is somewhere around the 20th or 21st of June (maybe a bit later), but it depends on other detours, the weather, etc.
That sounds excellent. Maybe Monday the 17th? 2 of us are EDH vets and the third is just learning and we've taught quite a few people how to play. We'll be in contacts with you pretty soon.
South Dakota is definitely on my list of places to visit soon, but not this trip.
I've heard great things about Moab and Arches and would like to spend a couple days there if possible. I'm aware we're missing civilization in Utah, it just happens to be the least steep way for us to get from Colorado to California as the bus doesn't have much power but does have a lot of weight to carry around. There's a pass that's considerably less steep through the north of Colorado and we thought it would be cool to follow the Colorado River for a while.
We are picking up our third person in Jackson, KY which looks to be about an hour and a half away from you. We'll be leaving there late Saturday the 7th or early Sunday the 8th and have to get to Tennessee pretty quickly (two of our solid time constraints on the trip). I'll discuss with the others and if we can get going quickly, I might be sending you a message.
Crater Lake is definitely something I'd like to see.
We frowny face people who go infinite too, but at least it ends the game. At least two of us know how to play with more competitive players. I can always just pull out Zo-Zu the Punisher because nobody knows how to play against. Winning with him is usually a fluke though.
We're going to Bonaroo, which I believe is near Manchester June 12-15. We're volunteering so are supposed to arrive the 10th. We are coming there from Jackson, KY and leaving early the 16th and heading toward St. Louis. Want to meet us near Knoxville for some camping and magic or host us? Knoxville is a pretty good halfway point between KY and Manchester. We'll have just showered in KY so we'll smell nice and fresh.
It'll be mid-July, but I'll definitely hit you up. Thanks. Any tips on things we have to see in Glacier, Yellowstone, or Grand Teton? I mean good stuff, not just touristy "must see so you can say you've seen it".
We like beer.
Thanks. I hope we make it there too. In a 40-year old vehicle, you can never be sure.
Will do. We have sufficient social skills and are okay with players of all skill levels (play skills and social skills).
I'll check tomorrow to see how far out of the way Blacksburg is from our planned route. We won't be going particularly fast up the mountains, but we do have 5 days to make it from NC to KY, which is only around 6-7 hours in a normal car. They'll only be 2 of us then, but if you have 1 or 2 friends around who want to play, we have a 4-5 player group. A 4-5 player group sounds good to me. It's a pretty area and I'm sure we could find a good place to camp nearby.
Thanks again to everyone. I'll try and keep this updated where we will be stopping and who we play with, as well as how our newer player learns and what he takes to. We started him on Ruhan of the Famori who is pretty fun and powerful when there are only 3 players. I'll try not to clutter the thread with too much non-EDH stuff. If anyone is curious about a particular deck, let me know and I'll get back to you as soon as we can. I'll post tomorrow or the next day with the final selection of generals when we prioritize what exactly is able to fit in the two boxes we have. We won't be able to modify decks much once we leave (been trying to balance power levels over the past few weeks), although we'll have a 50 to 100-card pile of good stuff to swap out cards here and there.
Here's a general map of where we'll be going:
We are leaving from North Carolina June 2nd for Kentucky and then Tennessee.
We are leaving from Tennessee June 16th and heading west to Colorado (through St. Louis and Kansas City). We'll probably spend a little while around Boulder and Denver.
From there we'll go north to Fort Collins and over the Rockies, following the Colorado river southwest through Grand Junction.
From Grand Junction onwards, our route is a bit less defined. We'll probably go through southern Utah into Arizona and then to California, but we're not sure of the exact route. We are definitely going to be in the Bay Area, Portland, Seattle, and Spokane.
We're going through Idaho to Glacier National Park, then south through Montana and Wyoming to Yellowstone.
We'll finish up back in Boulder.
Here's a picture of our car/house:
If you're anywhere along or around the route and want to play some EDH, please let me know. Here are some things we'd appreciate:
1) People to play magic with! Or just new friends in general.
2) A place to shower and/or do laundry
3) A hose to fill up our water tank
4) Recommendations on places to camp. We have the vw camper and a small tent and are looking looking for places that are relatively secluded and free, ideally.
5) Recommendations on places to eat
6) Fun things to do: places to swim, hike, etc.
What we can provide you with:
1) New people to play magic with that love to have fun.
2) Cooking
3) Musical entertainment
4) Drinks (If you're of age)
5) Being the coolest kid on the block with the yellow bus parked outside your house
6) You tell me. How can we help you out?
Some EDH decks we are bringing:
I apologize if this is the wrong place, so if the mods feel it should be moved, feel free. We are especially looking for EDH players or people who want to play EDH (you're welcome to borrow our decks). Comment here or PM me if you want to make new friends, please! I can PM you my cell number or email if you'd like.
1) Pre-Exodus for a black expansion symbol.
2) Cards with obsolete keywords or creature types. Brushwagg, Hunding Gjornerson, islandhome, etc. I avoided phasing and banding though...
3) Excellent art.
4) Cards that nobody has ever heard of.
The deck looks fantastic although the mana base (along with the rest of the deck) is low-budget and not great. Hello Karoo and Aysen Abbey. It's not something that gets played often, but it is fun and really good looking.
I also have a Rith, The Awakener deck which has a pretty good record but is reliant on a few bomb enchantments. I prefer older generals despite them pretty much being worse.
Check this list out. It's since been further tuned, but it has some excellent cards in it: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=363200
A few cards worth mentioning that I run and have seen run to good effect:
Phyrexian dreadnought is 1 for +12/+12 and easily recurred
Storm herd also helps for OHKO if Vish Kal is already out
Sun titan is amazing anyway, but get silly. Add Necrotic sliver or bone shredder or reliquary monk
Puppeteer Clique can provide a huge game swing
Druidic satchel don't laugh, it makes tokens and ramps you
Grave pact and related cards (martyr's bond, butcher of malakir
Yosei, the morning star
blade of the bloodchief gets out of hand fast, especially with token generation or reassembling skeleton
Kjeldoran outpost is an oft-forgotten token generator
Havoc demon kills a lot but leaves vish alive if you have another creature
haste enablers like greaves, boots, and hall of the bandit lord
Falkenrath noble is more annoyance than pure power, but he can take a sizable chunk off of life totals
Horobi, death's wail is mean, but generally overkill
Mother of runes is always annoying, but combined with darksteel plate or aegis angel vish gets very hard to kill