I just put her in my GR Omnath deck. You could go with a parallel lives/doubling season heavy token generation deck with purph to just generate tons of punishing tokens.
It's powerful because it's effectively a repeatable 1: Draw a card and it does so while being on a mana source, so early you can use it for mana, and late as a mana sink. Most of the value though is because it's RL'ed it's not played very heavily.
Never saw this before, will have to add to my EDH, fun interactions to be had with Omnath, Locus of Rage and Mina and Denn, Wildborn. Ensuring at least 3 landfall triggers a turn sounds good IMO
Teia, no matter how many times I see that linked passed around, I still people argue over using them for just 100% 'deck thinning'. They swear they notice a difference but the math says otherwise.
Seems odd that I see a lot of lists on here with pack rats and crawlers, but they are not running any Mutavaults to take advantage of those synergistic advantages. Also gets around boardwipes(got some control in my area so your mileage may vary) and gets around abrupt decay removal.
No one(at least from what I have skimmed) has seemed to guess them bringing back Totem armor. It makes the most since, imo, of a mechanic to bring back in a set supposed to be filled with legendarys and enchantments...
TBH, at least in my local meta, if it wasn't for Thragtusk, it would of most likely been overrun with nothing by weeny aggro. Is he annoying to play against? sure, but so is R/G or Naya blitz when they drop their entire hand by turn 2/3 and win before you can even get a board presence.
In a deck that is loaded with tons of instants/sorc, and trying to go a 'aggroish' route, I was wondering why there was a lack of trying for Delver of Secrets?
I understand the current list is just Rakdos, but with the current mana fixing available, I am sure you could go Grixis, or "RakDDoSu", and keep about same consistency while gaining tons of flexibility/utility cards.. With the way you are playing, gives you a 1 drop since you don't want to be want to be casting your 1 cmc's right away anyway. Also, while Izzet and Dimir aren't the best guilds, they do have some options you may want to consider instead(looking at charms mainly).
For Example, Izzet Charm instead of ultimate price. Or 2 less MB ultimate price and looting and kind of got both effects in this, along with a 'counter'. Dimir Charm is another possible counter, slight creature removal, or possible deck manipulation(yours or theirs).
Let's not forget that blue also would open you up to Snapcaster Mage and Think Twice which works wonderfully with this plan.
Usually that's good advice, but at $250 a box for Modern Masters, the EV of cracked packs is higher than that.
Yes, for people that deal in mass selling/ebaying, and nickle/dime every card they pull. However, for the average person, the time you would have to spend to get the 'EV' of every pack may not be worth the time it takes to move all those commons/uncommons.
After seeing the deck list I had to try my own variant, have had a blast playing it past couple weeks. here is the list that I have been playing, I have added a rare or two to MB and SB, but for most part nothing really big on $$ and you can easily not use depending on your local meta;
Loving the possible 'regenerate' of using zameck guildmages with any of my undying creatures. Also, with as much possible bouncing and being able to drop several creatures at once, several games ive been able to swing in full lethal because of champion and not having to worry about their 6 tokens on the other side :P.
Sideboard choices 2 deathrite while alil on pricey side, add in those 2 with militants and you are really hurting re-animator, almost worth splashing alil black to also be able to deal with sorcery/instants in case militant isnt out. Switcheroo is a halarious way of dealing with a lot of the late game creatures of jund/reanimator/aristocrats etc. Here, take my 2/2 young wolf for your 5/5 flying dragon please!
No offense, but the comment complaining about having to dish out more then $50 a year for a hobby, just seems like maybe you don't have the funds at the moment to do any hobbys? I am not trying to troll/make an inflammatory comment, but I cant think of any hobby that you can do that costs that little per year, outside of something like hiking/running, and even though depending on how hard you are on shoes, those will still end up costing you $100+ a year.
Here is what I do to keep up with standard, go to ebay each set, spending $20-40 and get full play sets of every common and uncommon, so about $80-$120 a year and you have 90% of the cards out there for standard. If you cant put out more than that, that is fine, however you shouldn't expect to go into tournaments and win $$/product versus other people that have put more money/effort into being able to build/acquire more powerful cards/decks.
Also, you can easily still win local FNM's with decks that cost less then $100. At the moment I run a simic aggro that the only rares in it are the lands. And I still can place and win in tourneys with 30-40 people. It does suck when you want to play a certain deck/card but you are priced out of it due to secondary market prices, however that is part of being grown up, realizing your limits and setting reasonable goals.
If you cant afford to play competitive magic, that is fine, a lot of people cant. However, you should realize you may need to reanalyze your limits and focus more on finding a casual playgroup. At least until you can get to a point of affording to keep up with standard, at least on a local level.
Which is why I've traded about $1500 worth of cards for legacy staples in the past two months.
Just because someone else is fine with what they spent $20 15 years ago dropping back down to $20, but what about the person that got them last Saturday? If he's fine with his cards being worthless, then he should send them to me, someone who's been paying a high price to get them.
See, I dont get this mindset about when it comes to people against removal of the RL. It basically screams, to me at least, of someone who hasn't moved out into the real world. When you buy a car for X amount of money, you dont expect to be able to maintain its value. In fact most things in life, after you have bought it, lose value as you use it. The exception to this is thing's that gain equity such as land/houses.
These are pieces of cardboard, while people have made lots of money based off of these, it was due to rare baseball cards, that are scarce because of the fact of how fragile they are. If you are holding onto these to hold thier value as an investment, that is fine. However, that should mean that you have no plans to ever use them, that you plan to get them graded and put into protective cases. Which then furthers the scarcity of ones being used in tournaments, leading to even less in rotation of playable cards.
Also, here is a fun fact you can look up, those really pricey baseball cards, are still worth a ton of money. Even after baseball companys have made reprints! Guess what, the true collectors still valued the original cards due to their scarcity. Look at the current shocklands, the return to rav/gatecrash ones really didn't diminish the value of the old ones that much.
The reason for the caverns is a control heavy meta, so I was going to play-test first with those; if they are not needed, I would/will take them out for 2 Mountain. And I disagree with aristocrat, while a great card, it doesn't belong in every single BRx deck. I could put in diregraf, it would go in the dryad slot most likely, but still wouldn't resolve any of the mana issues. Finally, I have a feeling that while the first strike and trample are decent on the legion trigger, it is the token evasion that is going to put it over the top with this deck.
Not everything in this deck can revolve around Varolz, Legion can be an easy thing to hold back(remember it also has haste) to use on a turn that you can use to trigger its battalion while you also have a searing spear and/or clan in hand. This has the potential of an blow-out, if your opponent doesn't play around it correctly.
As soon as I saw Varolz I knew I would want to build a list around him, here is one I am thinking about trying if I can get last few cards together for it if I can.
I had originally also though about doing the slumbering dragon thing, but after noticing how many 1 and 2 drops this list has, the potential punch of the legion loyalist is like a mini-Hellrider. Less needing to wait/dump into one card. Also, first strike+trample, and evasion from tokens till end of turn? seems good to me, call this a sleeper rare if this deck or similar ones take off.
This deck is also built around also being able to dump a whole lot into lotleth for an alpha strike+blood rush.
Rancor: Always kind of a easy choice for building an quick aggro deck that you want a card that can help get that early dmg through.
Same for Searing spear, helps either get that last bit of damage through, adds combat tricks, or clears the way.
Sideboard:
Abrupt decay: see easy removal. Yes its aggro, doesnt mean you dont need to pack forms of removal for things like spheres, seals, or the odd pithing needle even!
Skullcrack; last thing we need is for our opponent to just need to gain 2+ life to stabilize, decent SB choice IMO.
Domri; just a test atm, but when over half your deck is creatures, seems good.
Creeping Renaissance; just a test atm, but again, against control seems like if you got this off, it could be a blow out if they didnt see it coming.
Blood Scrivener; Control/mid range card, helps us fill our hands after we quickly dump it and fill it some more! possible MB card.
Duress; take your poisons, this, Appetite for brains/etc, to fit the meta, always a good choice.
Sure it does, all it takes is a simple Chromatic Lantern, Prismatic Omen, or Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth type effect on board
I understand the current list is just Rakdos, but with the current mana fixing available, I am sure you could go Grixis, or "RakDDoSu", and keep about same consistency while gaining tons of flexibility/utility cards.. With the way you are playing, gives you a 1 drop since you don't want to be want to be casting your 1 cmc's right away anyway. Also, while Izzet and Dimir aren't the best guilds, they do have some options you may want to consider instead(looking at charms mainly).
For Example, Izzet Charm instead of ultimate price. Or 2 less MB ultimate price and looting and kind of got both effects in this, along with a 'counter'. Dimir Charm is another possible counter, slight creature removal, or possible deck manipulation(yours or theirs).
Let's not forget that blue also would open you up to Snapcaster Mage and Think Twice which works wonderfully with this plan.
Yes, for people that deal in mass selling/ebaying, and nickle/dime every card they pull. However, for the average person, the time you would have to spend to get the 'EV' of every pack may not be worth the time it takes to move all those commons/uncommons.
4 Young Wolf
4 Experiment One
4 Dryad Militant
4 Strangleroot Geist
3 Zameck Guildmage
2 Champion of Lambholt
4 Wolfir Avenger
4 Rapid Hybridization
3 Simic Charm
4 Spell Rupture
Enchantments
4 Rancor
Lands
4 Hinterland Harbor
4 Breeding Pool
3 Island
9 Forest
3 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Negate
1 Simic Charm
2 Clone
2 Syncopate
3 Switcheroo
2 Deathrite Shaman
Loving the possible 'regenerate' of using zameck guildmages with any of my undying creatures. Also, with as much possible bouncing and being able to drop several creatures at once, several games ive been able to swing in full lethal because of champion and not having to worry about their 6 tokens on the other side :P.
Sideboard choices 2 deathrite while alil on pricey side, add in those 2 with militants and you are really hurting re-animator, almost worth splashing alil black to also be able to deal with sorcery/instants in case militant isnt out. Switcheroo is a halarious way of dealing with a lot of the late game creatures of jund/reanimator/aristocrats etc. Here, take my 2/2 young wolf for your 5/5 flying dragon please!
Here is what I do to keep up with standard, go to ebay each set, spending $20-40 and get full play sets of every common and uncommon, so about $80-$120 a year and you have 90% of the cards out there for standard. If you cant put out more than that, that is fine, however you shouldn't expect to go into tournaments and win $$/product versus other people that have put more money/effort into being able to build/acquire more powerful cards/decks.
Also, you can easily still win local FNM's with decks that cost less then $100. At the moment I run a simic aggro that the only rares in it are the lands. And I still can place and win in tourneys with 30-40 people. It does suck when you want to play a certain deck/card but you are priced out of it due to secondary market prices, however that is part of being grown up, realizing your limits and setting reasonable goals.
If you cant afford to play competitive magic, that is fine, a lot of people cant. However, you should realize you may need to reanalyze your limits and focus more on finding a casual playgroup. At least until you can get to a point of affording to keep up with standard, at least on a local level.
See, I dont get this mindset about when it comes to people against removal of the RL. It basically screams, to me at least, of someone who hasn't moved out into the real world. When you buy a car for X amount of money, you dont expect to be able to maintain its value. In fact most things in life, after you have bought it, lose value as you use it. The exception to this is thing's that gain equity such as land/houses.
These are pieces of cardboard, while people have made lots of money based off of these, it was due to rare baseball cards, that are scarce because of the fact of how fragile they are. If you are holding onto these to hold thier value as an investment, that is fine. However, that should mean that you have no plans to ever use them, that you plan to get them graded and put into protective cases. Which then furthers the scarcity of ones being used in tournaments, leading to even less in rotation of playable cards.
Also, here is a fun fact you can look up, those really pricey baseball cards, are still worth a ton of money. Even after baseball companys have made reprints! Guess what, the true collectors still valued the original cards due to their scarcity. Look at the current shocklands, the return to rav/gatecrash ones really didn't diminish the value of the old ones that much.
The reason for the caverns is a control heavy meta, so I was going to play-test first with those; if they are not needed, I would/will take them out for 2 Mountain. And I disagree with aristocrat, while a great card, it doesn't belong in every single BRx deck. I could put in diregraf, it would go in the dryad slot most likely, but still wouldn't resolve any of the mana issues. Finally, I have a feeling that while the first strike and trample are decent on the legion trigger, it is the token evasion that is going to put it over the top with this deck.
Not everything in this deck can revolve around Varolz, Legion can be an easy thing to hold back(remember it also has haste) to use on a turn that you can use to trigger its battalion while you also have a searing spear and/or clan in hand. This has the potential of an blow-out, if your opponent doesn't play around it correctly.
4 Dryad Militant
4 Gravecrawler
4 Legion Loyalist
4 Vexing Devil
4 Lotleth Troll
4 Spike Jester
4 Varolz, the Scar-striped
3 Ghor-Clan Rampager
3 Searing Spear
Enchantments(4)
4 Rancor
Lands(22)
4 Blood Crypt
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Dragonskull Summit
4 Overgrown Tomb
2 Rootbound Crag
4 Stomping Ground
4 Woodland Cemetary
3 Abrupt Decay
3 Skullcrack
2 Domri Rade
2 Creeping Renaissance
3 Blood Scrivener
2 Duress
I had originally also though about doing the slumbering dragon thing, but after noticing how many 1 and 2 drops this list has, the potential punch of the legion loyalist is like a mini-Hellrider. Less needing to wait/dump into one card. Also, first strike+trample, and evasion from tokens till end of turn? seems good to me, call this a sleeper rare if this deck or similar ones take off.
This deck is also built around also being able to dump a whole lot into lotleth for an alpha strike+blood rush.
Rancor: Always kind of a easy choice for building an quick aggro deck that you want a card that can help get that early dmg through.
Same for Searing spear, helps either get that last bit of damage through, adds combat tricks, or clears the way.
Sideboard:
Abrupt decay: see easy removal. Yes its aggro, doesnt mean you dont need to pack forms of removal for things like spheres, seals, or the odd pithing needle even!
Skullcrack; last thing we need is for our opponent to just need to gain 2+ life to stabilize, decent SB choice IMO.
Domri; just a test atm, but when over half your deck is creatures, seems good.
Creeping Renaissance; just a test atm, but again, against control seems like if you got this off, it could be a blow out if they didnt see it coming.
Blood Scrivener; Control/mid range card, helps us fill our hands after we quickly dump it and fill it some more! possible MB card.
Duress; take your poisons, this, Appetite for brains/etc, to fit the meta, always a good choice.