I'm not talking about taking broken banned decks and bringing them back in such a way that they will be broken again.
I'm talking about either dead decks that can either be brought back to viability in such a way that they wouldn't break magic in half, or decks that are on the cusp of being viable, but just need a card or two to do it.
For example, there are plenty of tribal decks on the verge of being as playable as elves and goblins, but just need a card or two to pull it off.
A 2 mana Vampire lord is exactly what Vampires needs to be viable. All the good Vampires cost three mana and are stand alone creatures which screws up the decks curve. A two mana lord would be the perfect fix.
And Kithkins likewise is really powerful, and very fun, but missing just a few key cards. Knights too.
What other decks (especially old school decks like reanimator and pox) can you think of that can be brought back without breaking magic?
I think the very best thing Wizards can do for old school magic players is to print cards that revitalize dead decks and make them into viable strategies again. This keep magic fresh and diverse, while still giving it an old school feel. When an ancient deck like Pox, Reanimator, Workshop Aggro or Survival comes back from the dustbin of Magic's history, it's the perfect combination of nostalgia for older players, and variety for newer players.
Reanimator (one of the most old school and funnest strategies in the game) was revitalized by them unbanning Entomb and printing Iona, and then subsequently killed again by the banning of Mystical Tutor. However, all it would take for Wizards to reanimate Reanimator again without making the archeatype too powerful or unbalanced is to print another Careful Study. That's it, a one casting cost card that immediately both draws a couple of cards and acts as a dicard outlet will make the deck playable. Just that one card is all that stands between a viable strategy and a dead one.
And then I thought back to other decks that Wizards revitalized just by printing one or two cards...
Pox as an archeatype was revitalized for quite sometime when they first printed Smallpox and Phyrexian Totem. Now, the archeatype is dead again due to black's inability to deal with artifacts/enchantments. But that too could be fixed in theory.
Merfolk was revitalized just a few years ago with the printing of a few playable Merfolk. Now it's one of the best decks in magic.
Survival was revitalized by Vengevine (far too well actually, but that's fine, I'm still glad that Survival got some much needed love)
Kavu Predator was revitalized somewhat by the printing of Nature's Claim to supplement Invigorate and Swords to Plowshares.
Elf based decks have been revitalized recently due to the printing of some really powerful elf lords. Now, I see them everywhere, and have seen them take quite a few victories in the local scene.
Workshop Aggro is on the verge of being revitalized due to the unbanning of Grim Monolith and Metalworker, and the printing of stronger artifact creatures.
There are actually dozens of other such examples of dead decks that Wizards brought back to life by printing or unbanning just a few cards.
So this begs the question, what old school decks and archeatypes can you think of that are on the cusp of being playable, and can be made viable just by printing or unbanning one or two cards? To me, the biggest decks that come to mind are Reanimator and Pox. But there's clearly others. So I want to hear from you guys.
I'm mainly curious if you guys can think of any other pump spells akin to Virulent Swipe, Vampire's Bite or Unholy Strength in standard that are worth playing. If not, I'll just stick some equipment there and call it a day.
No don't get Knights for 3 weeks of use. Too much money and trouble for too little benefit.
The card WILL drop in price. Extended and Legacy aren't anywhere near as popular as Standard. Plus, very few legacy decks use Knight. Even Legacy Bant doesn't use it!!
I edited my Vampire list posted above to make room for Duress in the board. It seemed neccesary against combo/control. I didn't add Bloodghast though because it's too expensive and not great without Highborne which in turn would change the deck completely. I didn't swap Sign in Blood for Dark Tutelage though because the curve is already too heavy on 3cc stuff and then you have to wait two turns for Tutelage to generate as much card advantage as Sign, and for an aggressive deck, two turns is a long time.
Tendrils is rotating out...so is Hypnotic Specter.
Here is my Dark Tutelage deck. It's fairly inexpensive and is pretty competitive.
(Decklist Snipped)
I'm trying to get another Bloodghast. When I do, I'll run 4 of them and 4 Gatekeepers and move the 2 Hexmages to the sideboard.
The lifegain in this deck is very nice and easily makes up for 2 Dark Tutelages in play. The card advantage is absolutely insane. The 6 artifacts are enough to sustain the Lichs.
It's a fairly inexpensive deck, too (runs 55.00 to 167.00 according to tcgplayer).
You should never ever ever ever ever ever play less than 4 Gatekeeper in a monoblack deck. It's the best card in the deck. Cut the 4th Shade for it as Shade is a card you don't want to see multiples off any ways and it's not very good early game.
Also 6 artifacts is not enough to support two Lich. With just 6 copies of a card, there is no assurance you will ever see one in any particular game. If I was to abuse lich, I would play 9 artifacts and 4 Lich. It makes the whole thing much more consistent. Also I don't like Demon's Horn, you're the aggro deck in almost every matchup so you only should care about your opponent's life total.
Maybe Mox Opal will be playable in the deck post rotation.
And lastly, Sign in Blood is not a sideboard card. It's a maindeck card that you occasionally sideboard out to make room for other good stuff. I would sideboard Duress so you have something strong to bring in versus control and combo decks.
Otherwise, your list looks solid.
When Tendrils rotates out, I'll play Smother, Urge to Feed or Consuming Vapors in it's place. It's a common so it's no big deal to get the card even if it does rotate out in a month.
Hyppe is tougher to replace. One option is the new Vampire lord, the other is Arrogant Bloodlord. Ideally, if a bunch of playable artifacts get printed in Scars, I'll play 9 artifacts in the deck alongside 4 Lich.
Even if it is a coincidence how closely the current six abilities on the Sword equipment matchup to the iconic Planeswalker abilities...
The fact that those abilities are iconic to their colors is a good enough reason to reuse those abilities/variations on these swords. Especially now that Wizards already set a precedent of reusing the iconic planeswalker abilities on all the Sword equipments so far, if they can continue the trend for the remaining two sword equipments, why wouldn't they?
Those abilities are on the iconic planeswalkers for a reason, because they are so characteristic of their respective color's strengths. And that's precisely the same reason they can also be on the swords. It'll be too symmetric not to.
Discard and Rampant Growth make too much sense as Sword abilities not to use.
And for the red/white sword... pump + mini Volcanic Fallout/Earthquake make a lot of sense given how symmetric they are, and how white just got Honor of the Pure and red recently got Earthquake/Pyroclasm/Searing Blaze/Volcanic Fallout.
Given how closely the six Sword abilities we do have matchup to that color's iconic Planeswalker, I think that it's all but certain that the remaining two swords will also matchup closely with the iconic Planeswalkers.
Assuming my predictions about the sword abilities are true, which sword equipment will emerge as your favorite?
Discard (possibly at random) seems like a logical ability for the BG sword. For the green effect, maybe putting a land from your hand onto the battlefield? There's a certain kind of symmetry that I like about that.
I do like the symmetry. And it's somewhat similar to Garuuk's first ability so it works.
However, it's a rather useless ability. The earliest you'll be swinging with a creature equipped with a Sword is turn four. And by then, it's almost a certainity that you already dumped all the lands in your hand onto the board.
That's why I think tutoring up a land or even untapping lands is more likely. Plus, the untapping matches up with Garruk's ability even more closely.
As you may recall, I lamented that green is the only color without a Sword equipment and speculated that Wizards will soon print a green/colorless sword to accompany the artifact block a little over an year ago, including the token generating green ability on that sword. I was wrong about the colorless part. But it does seem that Wizards is pairing up all the enemy colors with sword equipments.
As of now there are three Swords equipment of enemy pairs...
Also interesting is that the abilities on these swords are very similar to the ones found on the five iconic/original Planeswalkers (Ajani, Chandra, Garruk, Jace and Liliana)
Sword of Body and Mind (Green/Blue) - Abilities: Make 2/2 Token/Mill Opponent
* It's of note that the token creation is similar to Garruk's second ability and the milling is similar to Jace Beleren's final ability.
Sword of Fire and Ice (Red/Blue) - Abilities: Burn a Target/Draw Card
* It's of note that the card draw is identical to Jace's second ability and the burn is similar to both Chandra's first and second ability.
Sword of Light and Shadow (White/Black) - Abilities: Gain Life/Disentomb a creature
* It's of note that the life gain is similar to Ajani's first ability while the disentomb is somewhat similar to Liliana's final ability.
Two enemy pairs remain...
Sword of Life and Death (Green/Black)
Sword of Order and Chaos (White/Red)
Now lets use a little deductive reasoning to figure out what these abilities will be.
What abilities are left in the iconic Planeswalkers?
Liliana can make your opponent discard, and it can tutor up any card you want. The second ability is rather busted so I think the discard will find it's way onto the black sword.
Ajani can give all your creatures +1/+1 and it can create a massive avatar equal to your life total. The second ability is busted and too similar to green's token creation so giving all your creatures +1/+1 seems most likely.
Garruk can untap lands (indirectly generating mana) and it can give all your creatures +3/+3 and trample. The second ability is busted and similar to white's ability, so I think untapping your lands (or possibly tutoring up a land from your library seems likely).
Chandra can burn creatures and players, and that's about it. So the ability would likely be some variation on that. To me, the two strongest possibilities are that the equipped creature may deal damage equal to it's power to target creature, or perhaps, it deals 1 damage to target player and all creatures he controls.
So here are in my opinion, the most probable abilities on the remaining two swords...
Sword of Life and Death
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from green and from black.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, target player discards a card from his hand and you may untap up to two lands.
Equip {2}
Thus it would have both Liliana's and Garruk's first ability.
Sword of Order and Chaos
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from white and from red.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, Sword of Order and Chaos deals 1 damage to target player and each creature he controls and you may put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
Equip {2}
Thus it would have Ajani's second ability and something similar to Chandra's final ability. And as a bonus, both abilities complement each other rather well.
Isn't the point of soul sisters the 8 soul wardens? Without those you won't be getting the explosive lifegain they generate which pumps up Serra's Ascendant etc. It ain't the same without 'em tbh
Most current builds of the deck only play 6 Soul Wardens.
Post rotation, you still have 4, and between the lifegain lands, the broken Rest for the Weary and even the Survival Cache which draws you two cards while gaining you four life, the deck still has plenty of raw life gain power in it.
Actually, I think the biggest hit for the deck is Ranger of Eos, which I agree with you is a huge loss and may make the deck not competitive.
I really do hope they reprint Soul Warden and Ranger of Eos though, because it's too awesome a deck idea for Wizards to allow to fade away.
I recommend it. I think you'll do well. Let me know how it goes
Assuming budget isn't a concern, I would move the 2 maindeck Black Knights to the sideboard and play 2 Bloodghast in their place. I might even cut 2 Sign in Blood to play the 3rd and 4th Bloodghast. But that's really the only thing I can think of that might improve the deck.
Dark Tutelage is the other card I would love to play in place of Sign in Blood. It's too bad the curve is soo 3cc heavy already.
As for the sideboard, I would make room for Duress somehow (to deal with control and combo decks like Runeflare Trap).
Update: I edited the above list to make room for Duress in the board. It seemed neccesary against combo/control. I didn't add Bloodghast though because it's too expensive and not great without Highborne which in turn would change the deck completely. I didn't swap Sign in Blood for Dark Tutelage though because the curve is already too heavy on 3cc stuff and then you have to wait two turns for Tutelage to generate as much card advantage as Sign, and for an aggressive deck, two turns is a long time.
I'm not talking about taking broken banned decks and bringing them back in such a way that they will be broken again.
I'm talking about either dead decks that can either be brought back to viability in such a way that they wouldn't break magic in half, or decks that are on the cusp of being viable, but just need a card or two to do it.
For example, there are plenty of tribal decks on the verge of being as playable as elves and goblins, but just need a card or two to pull it off.
A 2 mana Vampire lord is exactly what Vampires needs to be viable. All the good Vampires cost three mana and are stand alone creatures which screws up the decks curve. A two mana lord would be the perfect fix.
And Kithkins likewise is really powerful, and very fun, but missing just a few key cards. Knights too.
What other decks (especially old school decks like reanimator and pox) can you think of that can be brought back without breaking magic?
Reanimator (one of the most old school and funnest strategies in the game) was revitalized by them unbanning Entomb and printing Iona, and then subsequently killed again by the banning of Mystical Tutor. However, all it would take for Wizards to reanimate Reanimator again without making the archeatype too powerful or unbalanced is to print another Careful Study. That's it, a one casting cost card that immediately both draws a couple of cards and acts as a dicard outlet will make the deck playable. Just that one card is all that stands between a viable strategy and a dead one.
And then I thought back to other decks that Wizards revitalized just by printing one or two cards...
Pox as an archeatype was revitalized for quite sometime when they first printed Smallpox and Phyrexian Totem. Now, the archeatype is dead again due to black's inability to deal with artifacts/enchantments. But that too could be fixed in theory.
Merfolk was revitalized just a few years ago with the printing of a few playable Merfolk. Now it's one of the best decks in magic.
Survival was revitalized by Vengevine (far too well actually, but that's fine, I'm still glad that Survival got some much needed love)
Kavu Predator was revitalized somewhat by the printing of Nature's Claim to supplement Invigorate and Swords to Plowshares.
Elf based decks have been revitalized recently due to the printing of some really powerful elf lords. Now, I see them everywhere, and have seen them take quite a few victories in the local scene.
Workshop Aggro is on the verge of being revitalized due to the unbanning of Grim Monolith and Metalworker, and the printing of stronger artifact creatures.
There are actually dozens of other such examples of dead decks that Wizards brought back to life by printing or unbanning just a few cards.
So this begs the question, what old school decks and archeatypes can you think of that are on the cusp of being playable, and can be made viable just by printing or unbanning one or two cards? To me, the biggest decks that come to mind are Reanimator and Pox. But there's clearly others. So I want to hear from you guys.
Here is my currently developing Mono Black Aggro deck. Suggest for me ways to improve it...
4 Ichorclaw Myr
4 Plague Stinger
4 Ichor Rats
3 Skithiryx or some cheaper Infect Creature
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Vampire's Bite
4 Virulent Swipe
4 Unholy Strength
3 Dark Tutelage or Good Pump
I'm mainly curious if you guys can think of any other pump spells akin to Virulent Swipe, Vampire's Bite or Unholy Strength in standard that are worth playing. If not, I'll just stick some equipment there and call it a day.
You accelerate out any one of these...
Play some...
to protect them
Pump them with...
or something else.
And your opponent is dead before they know what hit them.
Best of all, it's mono black, budget, and there's even more Infect creatures yet to be revealed that will undoubtedly make the deck even stronger.
So let's discuss this new and emerging deck shall we?
No rotation discussion.
You use acceleration to laydown anyone of these...
turn one.
Play some...
to protect them
Pump them with...
or something else.
And your opponent is dead before they know what hit them.
Best of all, it's mono black, budget, and there's even more Infect creatures yet to be revealed that will undoubtedly make the deck even stronger.
So let's discuss this new and emerging deck shall we?
You use acceleration to laydown anyone of these...
turn one.
Play some...
to protect them
Pump them with...
or something else.
And your opponent is dead before they know what hit them.
Best of all, it's mono black, budget, and there's even more Infect creatures yet to be revealed that will undoubtedly make the deck even stronger.
So let's discuss this new and emerging deck shall we?
You use acceleration to laydown anyone of these...
turn one.
Play some...
to protect them
Pump them with...
or something else.
And your opponent is dead before they know what hit them.
Best of all, it's mono black, budget, and there's even more Infect creatures yet to be revealed that will undoubtedly make the deck even stronger.
So let's discuss this new and emerging deck shall we?
No don't get Knights for 3 weeks of use. Too much money and trouble for too little benefit.
The card WILL drop in price. Extended and Legacy aren't anywhere near as popular as Standard. Plus, very few legacy decks use Knight. Even Legacy Bant doesn't use it!!
You should never ever ever ever ever ever play less than 4 Gatekeeper in a monoblack deck. It's the best card in the deck. Cut the 4th Shade for it as Shade is a card you don't want to see multiples off any ways and it's not very good early game.
Also 6 artifacts is not enough to support two Lich. With just 6 copies of a card, there is no assurance you will ever see one in any particular game. If I was to abuse lich, I would play 9 artifacts and 4 Lich. It makes the whole thing much more consistent. Also I don't like Demon's Horn, you're the aggro deck in almost every matchup so you only should care about your opponent's life total.
Maybe Mox Opal will be playable in the deck post rotation.
And lastly, Sign in Blood is not a sideboard card. It's a maindeck card that you occasionally sideboard out to make room for other good stuff. I would sideboard Duress so you have something strong to bring in versus control and combo decks.
Otherwise, your list looks solid.
When Tendrils rotates out, I'll play Smother, Urge to Feed or Consuming Vapors in it's place. It's a common so it's no big deal to get the card even if it does rotate out in a month.
Hyppe is tougher to replace. One option is the new Vampire lord, the other is Arrogant Bloodlord. Ideally, if a bunch of playable artifacts get printed in Scars, I'll play 9 artifacts in the deck alongside 4 Lich.
The fact that those abilities are iconic to their colors is a good enough reason to reuse those abilities/variations on these swords. Especially now that Wizards already set a precedent of reusing the iconic planeswalker abilities on all the Sword equipments so far, if they can continue the trend for the remaining two sword equipments, why wouldn't they?
Those abilities are on the iconic planeswalkers for a reason, because they are so characteristic of their respective color's strengths. And that's precisely the same reason they can also be on the swords. It'll be too symmetric not to.
Discard and Rampant Growth make too much sense as Sword abilities not to use.
And for the red/white sword... pump + mini Volcanic Fallout/Earthquake make a lot of sense given how symmetric they are, and how white just got Honor of the Pure and red recently got Earthquake/Pyroclasm/Searing Blaze/Volcanic Fallout.
Assuming my predictions about the sword abilities are true, which sword equipment will emerge as your favorite?
I do like the symmetry. And it's somewhat similar to Garuuk's first ability so it works.
However, it's a rather useless ability. The earliest you'll be swinging with a creature equipped with a Sword is turn four. And by then, it's almost a certainity that you already dumped all the lands in your hand onto the board.
That's why I think tutoring up a land or even untapping lands is more likely. Plus, the untapping matches up with Garruk's ability even more closely.
As of now there are three Swords equipment of enemy pairs...
Also interesting is that the abilities on these swords are very similar to the ones found on the five iconic/original Planeswalkers (Ajani, Chandra, Garruk, Jace and Liliana)
Sword of Body and Mind (Green/Blue) - Abilities: Make 2/2 Token/Mill Opponent
* It's of note that the token creation is similar to Garruk's second ability and the milling is similar to Jace Beleren's final ability.
Sword of Fire and Ice (Red/Blue) - Abilities: Burn a Target/Draw Card
* It's of note that the card draw is identical to Jace's second ability and the burn is similar to both Chandra's first and second ability.
Sword of Light and Shadow (White/Black) - Abilities: Gain Life/Disentomb a creature
* It's of note that the life gain is similar to Ajani's first ability while the disentomb is somewhat similar to Liliana's final ability.
Two enemy pairs remain...
Sword of Life and Death (Green/Black)
Sword of Order and Chaos (White/Red)
Now lets use a little deductive reasoning to figure out what these abilities will be.
What abilities are left in the iconic Planeswalkers?
Liliana can make your opponent discard, and it can tutor up any card you want. The second ability is rather busted so I think the discard will find it's way onto the black sword.
Ajani can give all your creatures +1/+1 and it can create a massive avatar equal to your life total. The second ability is busted and too similar to green's token creation so giving all your creatures +1/+1 seems most likely.
Garruk can untap lands (indirectly generating mana) and it can give all your creatures +3/+3 and trample. The second ability is busted and similar to white's ability, so I think untapping your lands (or possibly tutoring up a land from your library seems likely).
Chandra can burn creatures and players, and that's about it. So the ability would likely be some variation on that. To me, the two strongest possibilities are that the equipped creature may deal damage equal to it's power to target creature, or perhaps, it deals 1 damage to target player and all creatures he controls.
So here are in my opinion, the most probable abilities on the remaining two swords...
Sword of Life and Death
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from green and from black.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, target player discards a card from his hand and you may untap up to two lands.
Equip {2}
Thus it would have both Liliana's and Garruk's first ability.
Sword of Order and Chaos
Equipped creature gets +2/+2 and has protection from white and from red.
Whenever equipped creature deals combat damage to a player, Sword of Order and Chaos deals 1 damage to target player and each creature he controls and you may put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
Equip {2}
Thus it would have Ajani's second ability and something similar to Chandra's final ability. And as a bonus, both abilities complement each other rather well.
Most current builds of the deck only play 6 Soul Wardens.
Post rotation, you still have 4, and between the lifegain lands, the broken Rest for the Weary and even the Survival Cache which draws you two cards while gaining you four life, the deck still has plenty of raw life gain power in it.
Actually, I think the biggest hit for the deck is Ranger of Eos, which I agree with you is a huge loss and may make the deck not competitive.
I really do hope they reprint Soul Warden and Ranger of Eos though, because it's too awesome a deck idea for Wizards to allow to fade away.
You really ought to add a RDW list and a White lifegain decklist to your post rotation no chase rare decklists...
The white lifegain list in particular is gaining a lot of popularity and placing well, and it's mostly unaffected by the October rotation.
Something like this perhaps...
20x plains
4x soul’s attendant
3x soul warden
4x ajani’s pridemate
4x serra ascendant
4x lone missionary
4x conqueror’s pledge
4x rest for the weary
4x oblivion ring
2x condemn
2x brave the elements
2x honor of the pure
2x ajani goldmane
You can replace the Soul Wardens with Survival Cache, Wall of Omens, Student of Warfare or Elite Vanguard to make the deck post rotation legal.
Thanks
Assuming budget isn't a concern, I would move the 2 maindeck Black Knights to the sideboard and play 2 Bloodghast in their place. I might even cut 2 Sign in Blood to play the 3rd and 4th Bloodghast. But that's really the only thing I can think of that might improve the deck.
Dark Tutelage is the other card I would love to play in place of Sign in Blood. It's too bad the curve is soo 3cc heavy already.
As for the sideboard, I would make room for Duress somehow (to deal with control and combo decks like Runeflare Trap).
Update: I edited the above list to make room for Duress in the board. It seemed neccesary against combo/control. I didn't add Bloodghast though because it's too expensive and not great without Highborne which in turn would change the deck completely. I didn't swap Sign in Blood for Dark Tutelage though because the curve is already too heavy on 3cc stuff and then you have to wait two turns for Tutelage to generate as much card advantage as Sign, and for an aggressive deck, two turns is a long time.