I'm keeping Utopia sprawl over birds for the price, and it fixes mana, unlike Llanowar Elves. Unfortunately Shocklands are really expensive I added mycoloth instead of Sunblast Angel for a finisher, though. Seemed to fit more.
I'm using 3-ofs because I need them to fit it into a 60-card deck. Of course 4-ofs are better, but I can't get all the cards I want. And, it's more fun in casual anyways.
That's totally understandable, as I try to keep most of my casual decks budget as well. How has Utopia Sprawl been working for the deck though? It seems like you'd have a rough time enchanting it, especially on turn 1, with only 6 forests in the deck. Fertile Ground, while a turn slower, can always be enchanted on turn 2, and does a much better job of mana fixing then the sprawl in my opinion. If you're having problems with sprawl, I would suggest checking it out
One other suggestion I can give is to cut blue entirely from the deck. I see you've got some cool creatures/cards with it, but I also don't get some of them (like Nulltread Gargantuan). I understand it's a casual deck, but blue doesn't offer much in the form of token support, and it makes the manabase harder to handle on a casual budget. I think if you cut blue (or at least splash it very lightly) then you can focus more on not worrying as much about the manabase, as well as focus on more token producing/support cards.
Well I've never made a token deck before, but I would suggest a few changes right off the bat.
First, I think you should add a few more lands. You have a lot of cards that are / can be mana intensive (sprout swarm, Vitu Ghazi, and Supply come to mind) so bumping the land count up to 24 should be a priority. You can consider throwing Khalni Garden and Dryad Arbor in the deck since they serve double duty as lands as creatures (though arboy is more vulnerable).
I'm not too familiar with token producers off the top of my head. I know green has access to some great token production in Beacon of Creation and Howl of the Night Pack, but they require a bigger dedication to playing monogreen (although you could try to play around this by using the shocklands Breeding Pool and Temple Garden since they count as forests.
Anyway, the deck concept looks good, I'm sure there are some ways that it could be improved (though this is true for any deck, no matter how good) but I feel considering these changes will give you a better start.
P.S. I really like Stoic Angel and supply//demand in the deck, pretty cool!
dont forget that is casual, and that deck can be used in multiplayer games also, not only 1v1 games.
in a multiplayer *** + CoS really sounds cool, also cairn, again i said, its casual, its gmad, its about fun... ty for your bible above
This is true, and I admit the Cairn could be beastlier in multiplayer. But a lot of cards are better in a multiplayer format in my opinion. What it really boils down to is asking yourself "how much does this card contribute to the deck?"
Cairn was a fine suggestion, but in the end I think an essentially vanilla scarecrow just won't cut it for the deck.
And speaking of changelings, I'm actually starting to have second doubts about Mirror Entity. He's got a great ability, but I just realized we have a lot of big big scarescrows. We would have to pump a lot of mana into his ability to make the most out of it, and that doesn't seem worth it in my opinion. What do you guys think? Maybe at least cut him down to 1 of for the late game?
Changelings for the deck are a good idea, but are there any out there that do more then just be a scarecrow for the deck?
Anyway, I have decided my card suggestion for the deck today. Like Malpheas, I'll only include one copy of it so we don't reach our limit, but I would like to suggest Bloom Tender. It's admittedly a little lack luster in the beginning of the game (though it does at least ramp for green). It seems amazing later in the game though. With reaper king or Scuttlemutt out, we can produce 5 mana, which will be nice since the deck seems like it can get mana intensive later on. I would suggest replacing semblance anvil with it, but that's just my opinion.
EDIT: also, it depends on how the color/manabase works out, but if possible, Bloom Tender could work pretty damn well with the alara borderposts!
EDIT2: also also, I'm voting -1 against semblance anvil in favor of my Bloom Tenders (I know, it's bias, but I really do think Bloom Tender can be an allstar mana accelerator in this deck, but something has to go!)
just a point about cairn wanderer, he checks all grave, its high cmc, but isnt true what you said "4/4 Flyer at best"
with king he is 5/5, but, with all that "destroy permanent" you really think you only see a fly creature in the grave ?
anyway, its removed, and i agree with DLink123, people need to check how the cards works in the deck before do the votes.
Allright, I did overlook the +1/+1 bonus, so I apologize about that. I also didn't notice it cared about all graveyards. My main point though was that it cares about static abilities in the graveyard, and we only have one creature in the deck that has such an ability, that being Birds of Paradise. Even if it does check all graveyards, you have no idea what your opponent is playing, and I for one don't like relying on my opponent.
But even if our Cairn Wanderer does have a bunch of abilities, I think the majority of them won't make a difference since we will be blowing up most of our enemies' creatures, making the static combat abilities near useless (i.e. what's the point of trample if there are no creatures to trample over?). At the end of the day, Cairn Wanderer will be a 5/5 vanilla scarecrow for 5, and I feel we can do better then that. I would rather play an aggressive beater like Lurebound Scarecrow as it will essentially be the same thing as Cairn Wanderer for all intents and purposes of the deck, but costing 3 instead of 5 to cast. Also, lurebound can be recurred with Scarecrone
Having said all that, I can definitely see some scenarios where Cairn Wanderer could be a beast, but truthfully it seems unlikely that most of the time he'll just be an overcosted vanilla beater. Again, if there's a sideboard option for decks, perhaps he could be a 1 or 2 of in sideboard, but I think he's a little underwhelming mainboard.
as a Reminder, we can only add 15 cards over the deck limit. Unless I did my math wrong (very possible, I'm tired) it looks like we can only add 2 more cards to the deck.
I'm not sure what card to add, so I'll make my add for the day later, but I would like to vote against some cards
- Cairn Wandered. From the looks of it, this will be a 4/4 Flyer at best, which is really meh. I'm sure we can do better than this (and I'm sure there are better homes for this card) so I'm voting to remove it. That's 3 votes so the wanderer is out.
- Soul Foundry. This was a hard call between this and semblance anvil, but the truth is, I don't like having 2 cards in the deck that exiles artifacts from our hand. I think 1 or the other is fine, but 2 is too much. Also, we have Sakashima the imposter now, which I think is a really interesting choice as well as cauldron of souls AS WELL AS scarecrone for recursion. I don't think we really need any more card slots dedicated to making scarecrows come back, so 1 vote against the foundry for me.
Note: maybe we can replace anvil with Urza's Incubator?
Those are the 2 cards I'm voting against for sure, but I've had my mind on a few other cards.
- Wrath of God. Good card. Not sure if we want it in this deck. It seems redundant, but at the same time Reaper King sure is a nice follow up to wrath. Thoughts?
- Steely Resolve. This is meant to protect our guys against removal, but might I remind you all that we have cauldron of souls AND scarecrone that recur artifacts and creatures. I dunno. I would like to keep the steely because it's so cheap, but I feel like we don't need it.
- Cauldron of Souls. Same thing with steely. I think we should get rid of one of the two. The pros? DLink mentioned alot of the pros (I completly overlooked the infinite combo, very nice). The cons? It's much more expensive to cast then steely. I think cauldron is pretty decent in the deck, but I really think we should try and provide more support/interactions for it as well. Perhaps we could put emphasis on a recursive sub-theme?
- Heap Doll. Good cheap scarecrow. But I feel that it's ability is somewhat niche. Also, if we do go with more emphasis with cauldron, then persist won't work very well with this critter (thought: unless we got reaper king out). Still, I realize there aren't a lot of good scarecrows, but have we considered all other possibiltiies? If we could have a sideboard for the deck I think this would be great for sideboard, but mainboard I feel it's ok.
Lots of thoughts here, guess I'm just trying to push the deck in a certain direction. The deck does need it, feels all over the place right now.
Here is the deck in its current incarnation. Note we can only add 4 more cards. Choose wisely!
Note: We also need to keep our eye on the mana curve. It looks ok right now, just don't forget about it!
Scuttlemutt seems like the next best scarecrow for the deck. It mana accelerates and provides us color fixing for a possible turn 4 Reaper King. Plus it's also a scarecrow. Plus, that second ability could be useful with (possible) future card additions.
There are already a lot of great suggestions, but here are some things to consider:
- As some people have pointed out, green gives you some great ramp in wall form. Wall of Roots, Overgrown Battlement, and even Vine Trellis can perform double duty by helping you survive AND ramp into your win condition. Any card that does double duty is always a + in my book, but given that this is a budget build, it might be a while before you have triple island to cast Day of the Dragons, even if you're only playing Green/Blue. Having said that, I would advise trying it out and see how it works out. If you have mana troubles, then you could either try splashing a little bit of green for Overgrown Battlement or just dropping the color entirely and sticking with blue white like you originally did.
- As others have pointed out, ETB triggers seem good for this deck. If you decide to go green and run Overgrown Battlements, then I would focus on other walls with ETB abilities, such as Wall of Omens or Wall of Blossoms. Otherwise, consider other ETB triggers. noodle suggested Mulldrifter, which is a great draw card and I think could fit nicely into this deck. It beats Deep Analysis in my opinion.
- Finally, if you don't end up going green, then I think you can still pull this off by using the best blue/white walls. Plumeveil, Wall of Denial, Wall of Frost. These are all cards that have been mentioned in this topic many times, and I think they should all be in the deck. These aren't really expensive, a wall of denial will cost $2 at most. Just save up when you get the chance, or trade with someone who has them (*coughMEcough*).
Oh, and may as well suggest 2 more walls for consideration. Wall of Tanglecord and Wall of Shards. Gotta be careful with the Shards though, you shouldn't play it too early unless you absolutely have to, but for its cost, it's pretty damn efficient, and hopefully your opponent will only gain 3 or 6 life at most before it's replaced by a dragon
The deck looks pretty good. Some of the creature choices could be changed though. Two of the best cards for any white weenie deck are Figure of Destiny and Student of Warfare. They're a little on the expensive side, but definitely worth the addition. I would try to fit playsets of both if I were you.
Also, I would consider removing Ghostly Prison from the deck. The reason being you're deck is aggressive and offensive, but Ghostly Prison is defensive, and therefore the exact opposite of what your deck wants to do. You want to try and win the game as fast as possible, not stall it!
I would suggest the following
-4 Deftblade Elite
-4 Ghostly Prison
+4 Figure of Destiny
+4 Student of Warfare
There are other cards to consider for the deck, such as Isamaru, Hound of Konda and Savannah Lions but it's a harder call as to what else, if anything, should be cut from the deck.
Well I see you've got a lot of supporting cards for the token theme, and it's good to see that you are also considering many different card choices.
If you're playing a mono green token deck, then I think you should be really aggressive about it. Cards like Jaddi Strider and Blunt the Assault should be cut for other token producing cards or cards that help your tokens win you the game, like Overrun. The reasoning behind this is that your deck will be more consistent with your theme (you're being more aggressive with it) and consistency is key for a deck to be good.
Another problem I see is not alot of early game ramp. Mono-green is all about ramping! Llanowar Elves are a mono-green staple! Other cards such as Nature's Lore and Wood Elves could also work out well in this deck. But there are so many ramp options for green, so find what works best for you and stick with it!
As for token generation, you seem to have a variety of it. Some seem fine, but others seem very slow. I'm looking at you Sarpadian Empires! I would try to find a few token generators that are good enough to be playsets in your deck for consistency. Perhaps they could tie together somehow too. For example, Howl of the Night Pack, Beacon of Creation, andAvenger of Zendikar are all great
token producing cards for mono-green. They also all care about the number of lands you control. It would make sense then to make a deck that ramps lands into play since the ramp effect is synergestic with these token producers.
Like I said, there are many token producing cards for green, so there are many directions you can go. But I think your biggest problem right now is that your deck lacks direction somewhat. You've got the theme, but you're not executing it as well as you could with your card choices. Some cards produce many tokens, others produce only 1 every 3 turn. Find a game plan that you can stick to and run with it!
EDIT: Also, you should really cut your deck down to 60. It will really help make your deck more consistent!
My friend has a very casual Honden deck that inspired me to make my own. They were fairly similar, though mine was geared more towards duels, while his was a bit slower but better suited for multiplayer. His deck also had a bigger WOW factor which I think you would appreciate so I'll post the decklist from memory and talk about it a bit. Feel free to take from it what you will:
Note: I don't remember the manabase very well and I might be off by card copies a bit, but this is to give you an idea if anything of how the deck works.
To be honest, I'm probably forgetting a card or two, but I remember all those cards being in the deck, and I'm certain the card count was very similar.
Anyway to explain the deck, the main win condition of course is with the hondens.
The Early Game: Turns 1-3
You've got some early game ramp and mana fixing that also serves to help thin the deck. I guess Terramorphic Expanse does this as well. Sakura-Tribe Elder is especially notable here for helping you block in the early game too. Ghostly Prison helps stall the game against aggro decks while you try to assemble the combo pieces.
The Mid Game: Turns 4-6
Mid-game you've hopefully got a couple of the hondens in hand and can start plopping them down. Search for seeing winds with the tutor when you can and start drawing cards. When you draw Enduring Ideal, cast it.
The Mid-Late Game: Turns 7+
At this point you may or may not have had Honden of Seeing Winds serving as a small card advantage engine. Combined With Wheel of Sun and Moon, you don't have to worry about milling yourself. This is a fine engine of card advantage on its own, but the REAL fun starts when you cast Enduring Ideal.
Getting to tutor up an enchantment and put it into play every turn is pretty sweet. But in this deck, it gets out of hand, overwhelming your opponent with card advantage never seen before! What you search for at this point is entirely up to you! Paradox Haze, an already amazing enchantment, becomes even more ridiculous with Enduring Ideal, and is probably one of the first enchantments you want to search up. After that? Greater Auramancy For the protection. The missing hondens to complete the combo. And of course, there's the super awesome tech Meishin, the Mind Cage, which turns that "disadvantage" of not being able to play spells anymore into a synergestic effect that gives all of your opponents creatures -7/-0. This is because you're going to be drawing many cards, so you'll always have at least 7 in your hand.
The great thing about the enduring engine is just that! It literally is enduring and will never end. Every turn you'll search out a couple of enchantments, draw a ton of cards, wreak havoc with the hondens, and discard your hand (down to 7) to wheel of sun and moon, which will recylce the cards back into your library. It's the vicious circle of life (and death, for your opponent).
Phew! That was quite a mouthful there. As you can tell, I love talking about decks! I really enjoy my friend's build, but of course it is by no means perfect. There are plenty of other good cards to consider for an enchantment build such as Fertile Ground and Oblivion Ring. If you're not restricted on a budget, you can get even better support cards for the deck like Sterling Grove.
Anyway, I hope these suggestions have helped. I would definitely consider at least trying to make an enchantment build out of the deck, I think the deck's really asking for it
As for Homelands... I really liked the setting while hating the cards, so going back would actually be an awesome idea. Of course, they won't take us back to Ulgrotha straight after taking us back to Mirrodin (gotta keep it fresh), but I think they will one day send us there. Baron Sengir should still be around (vampiric immortality and all) and they could in fact give us "Ravi, Grandmother Sengir" as a planeswalker if they wanted one. Maybe also get a new one in, like a minotaur or dwarf or whatever, someone who just ascended and wants to kick Sengir butt now. Their recent dropping of hints like Barony Vampire or Elixir of Immortality makes a return really plausible.
This isn't anything conclusive, just speculation, but I found it interesting to say the least. The setting in Baron Vampire's artwork really seems to match that of the art preview though.
EDIT: it's also always interesting to see how cards have evolved over the years. Compare the talisman to Braidwood Cup and Paradise Plume. It's not strictly better than Plume, but it is a common and I think it does a better job overall than the plume.
Being a perfectionist, I've been working on a searing meditation deck for the past 3 years, so I've done lots of playtesting and tried lots of card choices. It's only recently that I'm finally content with the deck, as there are lots of synergestic cards, each one filling multiple roles.
Granted, I built this deck for casual, so it probably wouldn't work out too well in legacy, especially some of the "weaker" card choices like Quiet Disrepair, but I though I'd post the decklist up anyway. Perhaps you'll see some new card interactions you could apply in legacy?
As you can see, this deck is really geared against creature based decks. Wall of Reverence and Recumbent Blissserve double duty as creature control and life gain triggers. Sun Droplet soaks up early aggro damage to help us survive a little longer while we get the combo set up, but also works great with the painlands when we need some more life gain triggers. Lightning Helix doesn't really need any explaining.
Armillary Sphere keeps the lands coming since this is a mana hungry deck.
With all of these lifegain triggers stacking during upkeeps/end of turns, Ajani's Pridemate can get out of hand very fast.
And finally, There's the zendikar refuge lands. Pretty nice for a land drop
The biggest problem with this deck is that it is too slow for the legacy format, and there aren't any ways to stop storm/combo. In earlier versions I tried making the deck more competitive (for the old extended format) and I used cards like glittering wish to help me out against specific matchups.
Anyway, personally I feel searing meditation is just too slow for the format, but who knows, maybe you can get it to work out. I'm really rooting for ya, as I love the card and I like your deck concept. Hopefully my deck has given you a few ideas, even if it is just a casual deck. Good luck!
EDIT: someone earlier suggested using Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing Fire. I think if you could fit it in, it would be great for the deck, as it fills a similar role to what you're trying to do with the meditation and well, it's always good to have another way to deal repeatable damage.
yes, you do need to be careful with Endless Horizons. The way I play it usually depends on the state of the game as well as the colors my opponents are playing. Black/Red has little to none enchantment removal, and I can't think of much for blue either, so it's really only white/green you gotta watch out for.
Glad you guys are liking infernal tribute
And wellspring is pretty lulzy, yes, but EDH is about having fun and being casual, it's cards like that that make me love playing the format.
Anyway, I was trying to build a white/red equipment deck in workstation when I stumbled across this little beauty. Soltari Guerrillas.
This seems pretty good for equipment decks since he's pretty much always going to get through. His second ability seems pretty nice with equipment power buffs as well.
That's totally understandable, as I try to keep most of my casual decks budget as well. How has Utopia Sprawl been working for the deck though? It seems like you'd have a rough time enchanting it, especially on turn 1, with only 6 forests in the deck. Fertile Ground, while a turn slower, can always be enchanted on turn 2, and does a much better job of mana fixing then the sprawl in my opinion. If you're having problems with sprawl, I would suggest checking it out
One other suggestion I can give is to cut blue entirely from the deck. I see you've got some cool creatures/cards with it, but I also don't get some of them (like Nulltread Gargantuan). I understand it's a casual deck, but blue doesn't offer much in the form of token support, and it makes the manabase harder to handle on a casual budget. I think if you cut blue (or at least splash it very lightly) then you can focus more on not worrying as much about the manabase, as well as focus on more token producing/support cards.
Oh, and Seaside Citadel says hello!
First, I think you should add a few more lands. You have a lot of cards that are / can be mana intensive (sprout swarm, Vitu Ghazi, and Supply come to mind) so bumping the land count up to 24 should be a priority. You can consider throwing Khalni Garden and Dryad Arbor in the deck since they serve double duty as lands as creatures (though arboy is more vulnerable).
I would drop utopia sprawl and replace it with 4 Birds of Paradise or Llanowar Elves as they also serve double duty.
I'm not too familiar with token producers off the top of my head. I know green has access to some great token production in Beacon of Creation and Howl of the Night Pack, but they require a bigger dedication to playing monogreen (although you could try to play around this by using the shocklands Breeding Pool and Temple Garden since they count as forests.
Anyway, the deck concept looks good, I'm sure there are some ways that it could be improved (though this is true for any deck, no matter how good) but I feel considering these changes will give you a better start.
P.S. I really like Stoic Angel and supply//demand in the deck, pretty cool!
This is true, and I admit the Cairn could be beastlier in multiplayer. But a lot of cards are better in a multiplayer format in my opinion. What it really boils down to is asking yourself "how much does this card contribute to the deck?"
Cairn was a fine suggestion, but in the end I think an essentially vanilla scarecrow just won't cut it for the deck.
And speaking of changelings, I'm actually starting to have second doubts about Mirror Entity. He's got a great ability, but I just realized we have a lot of big big scarescrows. We would have to pump a lot of mana into his ability to make the most out of it, and that doesn't seem worth it in my opinion. What do you guys think? Maybe at least cut him down to 1 of for the late game?
Changelings for the deck are a good idea, but are there any out there that do more then just be a scarecrow for the deck?
Anyway, I have decided my card suggestion for the deck today. Like Malpheas, I'll only include one copy of it so we don't reach our limit, but I would like to suggest Bloom Tender. It's admittedly a little lack luster in the beginning of the game (though it does at least ramp for green). It seems amazing later in the game though. With reaper king or Scuttlemutt out, we can produce 5 mana, which will be nice since the deck seems like it can get mana intensive later on. I would suggest replacing semblance anvil with it, but that's just my opinion.
3 Mirror Entity
3 Reaper King
3 Heapdoll
4 Skuttlemutt
4 Scarecrone
4 Grim Poppet
4 Birds of Paradise
1 Tatterkite
1 Bloom Tender
1 Sakashima the Imposter
2 Steel Resolve (-1)
Instants(7)
4 Brainstorm
3 Capsize
Sorceries(4)
4 Wrath of God (-2)
Artifacts (8)
2 Soul Foundry (-2)
4 Semblance Anvil (-1)
2 Cauldron of Souls (-1)
4 Reflecting Pool
20 Lands
73 / 75
EDIT: also, it depends on how the color/manabase works out, but if possible, Bloom Tender could work pretty damn well with the alara borderposts!
EDIT2: also also, I'm voting -1 against semblance anvil in favor of my Bloom Tenders (I know, it's bias, but I really do think Bloom Tender can be an allstar mana accelerator in this deck, but something has to go!)
Allright, I did overlook the +1/+1 bonus, so I apologize about that. I also didn't notice it cared about all graveyards. My main point though was that it cares about static abilities in the graveyard, and we only have one creature in the deck that has such an ability, that being Birds of Paradise. Even if it does check all graveyards, you have no idea what your opponent is playing, and I for one don't like relying on my opponent.
But even if our Cairn Wanderer does have a bunch of abilities, I think the majority of them won't make a difference since we will be blowing up most of our enemies' creatures, making the static combat abilities near useless (i.e. what's the point of trample if there are no creatures to trample over?). At the end of the day, Cairn Wanderer will be a 5/5 vanilla scarecrow for 5, and I feel we can do better then that. I would rather play an aggressive beater like Lurebound Scarecrow as it will essentially be the same thing as Cairn Wanderer for all intents and purposes of the deck, but costing 3 instead of 5 to cast. Also, lurebound can be recurred with Scarecrone
Having said all that, I can definitely see some scenarios where Cairn Wanderer could be a beast, but truthfully it seems unlikely that most of the time he'll just be an overcosted vanilla beater. Again, if there's a sideboard option for decks, perhaps he could be a 1 or 2 of in sideboard, but I think he's a little underwhelming mainboard.
I'm not sure what card to add, so I'll make my add for the day later, but I would like to vote against some cards
- Cairn Wandered. From the looks of it, this will be a 4/4 Flyer at best, which is really meh. I'm sure we can do better than this (and I'm sure there are better homes for this card) so I'm voting to remove it. That's 3 votes so the wanderer is out.
- Soul Foundry. This was a hard call between this and semblance anvil, but the truth is, I don't like having 2 cards in the deck that exiles artifacts from our hand. I think 1 or the other is fine, but 2 is too much. Also, we have Sakashima the imposter now, which I think is a really interesting choice as well as cauldron of souls AS WELL AS scarecrone for recursion. I don't think we really need any more card slots dedicated to making scarecrows come back, so 1 vote against the foundry for me.
Note: maybe we can replace anvil with Urza's Incubator?
Those are the 2 cards I'm voting against for sure, but I've had my mind on a few other cards.
- Wrath of God. Good card. Not sure if we want it in this deck. It seems redundant, but at the same time Reaper King sure is a nice follow up to wrath. Thoughts?
- Steely Resolve. This is meant to protect our guys against removal, but might I remind you all that we have cauldron of souls AND scarecrone that recur artifacts and creatures. I dunno. I would like to keep the steely because it's so cheap, but I feel like we don't need it.
- Cauldron of Souls. Same thing with steely. I think we should get rid of one of the two. The pros? DLink mentioned alot of the pros (I completly overlooked the infinite combo, very nice). The cons? It's much more expensive to cast then steely. I think cauldron is pretty decent in the deck, but I really think we should try and provide more support/interactions for it as well. Perhaps we could put emphasis on a recursive sub-theme?
- Heap Doll. Good cheap scarecrow. But I feel that it's ability is somewhat niche. Also, if we do go with more emphasis with cauldron, then persist won't work very well with this critter (thought: unless we got reaper king out). Still, I realize there aren't a lot of good scarecrows, but have we considered all other possibiltiies? If we could have a sideboard for the deck I think this would be great for sideboard, but mainboard I feel it's ok.
Lots of thoughts here, guess I'm just trying to push the deck in a certain direction. The deck does need it, feels all over the place right now.
Here is the deck in its current incarnation. Note we can only add 4 more cards. Choose wisely!
Note: We also need to keep our eye on the mana curve. It looks ok right now, just don't forget about it!
3x Mirror Entity
3x Reaper King
3x Heap Doll
4x Scuttlemutt
4x Scarecrone
4x Grim Poppet
4x Birds of Paradise
1x Sakashima the Impostor
2x Steely Resolve
Instants: 7
4x Brainstorm
3x Capsize
Sorceries: 4
4x Wrath of God (-1)
Artifacts: 8
2x Soul Foundry (-1)
4x Semblance Anvil
2x Cauldron of Souls (-2)
4x Reflecting Pool
20x Land Placeholder
Total cards: 71/75 before we can only make cuts
One of my friend's has just pages and pages of this terrible, terrible card in his trade binder, all of them from opening packs.
I swear though...some day I'll break that card.
Someday...
3 Reaper King
4 Scarecrone
4 Scuttlemutt
- As some people have pointed out, green gives you some great ramp in wall form. Wall of Roots, Overgrown Battlement, and even Vine Trellis can perform double duty by helping you survive AND ramp into your win condition. Any card that does double duty is always a + in my book, but given that this is a budget build, it might be a while before you have triple island to cast Day of the Dragons, even if you're only playing Green/Blue. Having said that, I would advise trying it out and see how it works out. If you have mana troubles, then you could either try splashing a little bit of green for Overgrown Battlement or just dropping the color entirely and sticking with blue white like you originally did.
- As others have pointed out, ETB triggers seem good for this deck. If you decide to go green and run Overgrown Battlements, then I would focus on other walls with ETB abilities, such as Wall of Omens or Wall of Blossoms. Otherwise, consider other ETB triggers. noodle suggested Mulldrifter, which is a great draw card and I think could fit nicely into this deck. It beats Deep Analysis in my opinion.
- Finally, if you don't end up going green, then I think you can still pull this off by using the best blue/white walls. Plumeveil, Wall of Denial, Wall of Frost. These are all cards that have been mentioned in this topic many times, and I think they should all be in the deck. These aren't really expensive, a wall of denial will cost $2 at most. Just save up when you get the chance, or trade with someone who has them (*coughMEcough*).
Oh, and may as well suggest 2 more walls for consideration. Wall of Tanglecord and Wall of Shards. Gotta be careful with the Shards though, you shouldn't play it too early unless you absolutely have to, but for its cost, it's pretty damn efficient, and hopefully your opponent will only gain 3 or 6 life at most before it's replaced by a dragon
Good luck with the deck!
Also, I would consider removing Ghostly Prison from the deck. The reason being you're deck is aggressive and offensive, but Ghostly Prison is defensive, and therefore the exact opposite of what your deck wants to do. You want to try and win the game as fast as possible, not stall it!
I would suggest the following
-4 Deftblade Elite
-4 Ghostly Prison
+4 Figure of Destiny
+4 Student of Warfare
There are other cards to consider for the deck, such as Isamaru, Hound of Konda and Savannah Lions but it's a harder call as to what else, if anything, should be cut from the deck.
If you're playing a mono green token deck, then I think you should be really aggressive about it. Cards like Jaddi Strider and Blunt the Assault should be cut for other token producing cards or cards that help your tokens win you the game, like Overrun. The reasoning behind this is that your deck will be more consistent with your theme (you're being more aggressive with it) and consistency is key for a deck to be good.
Another problem I see is not alot of early game ramp. Mono-green is all about ramping! Llanowar Elves are a mono-green staple! Other cards such as Nature's Lore and Wood Elves could also work out well in this deck. But there are so many ramp options for green, so find what works best for you and stick with it!
As for token generation, you seem to have a variety of it. Some seem fine, but others seem very slow. I'm looking at you Sarpadian Empires! I would try to find a few token generators that are good enough to be playsets in your deck for consistency. Perhaps they could tie together somehow too. For example, Howl of the Night Pack,
Beacon of Creation, andAvenger of Zendikar are all great
token producing cards for mono-green. They also all care about the number of lands you control. It would make sense then to make a deck that ramps lands into play since the ramp effect is synergestic with these token producers.
Like I said, there are many token producing cards for green, so there are many directions you can go. But I think your biggest problem right now is that your deck lacks direction somewhat. You've got the theme, but you're not executing it as well as you could with your card choices. Some cards produce many tokens, others produce only 1 every 3 turn. Find a game plan that you can stick to and run with it!
EDIT: Also, you should really cut your deck down to 60. It will really help make your deck more consistent!
Note: I don't remember the manabase very well and I might be off by card copies a bit, but this is to give you an idea if anything of how the deck works.
2x Tendo Ice Bridge
4x Terramorphic Expanse
4x Seaside Citadel
4x Forest
4x Plains
4x Island
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
2x Honden of Infinite Rage
2x Honden of Cleansing Fire
2x Honden of Life's Web
2x Honden of Night's Reach
3x Honden of Seeing Winds
4x Ghostly Prison
2x Wheel of Sun and Moon
2x Greater Auramancy
2x Paradox Haze
1x Meishin, the Mind Cage
4x Sakura-Tribe Elder
4x Kodama's Reach
2x Enduring Ideal
4x Idyllic Tutor
To be honest, I'm probably forgetting a card or two, but I remember all those cards being in the deck, and I'm certain the card count was very similar.
Anyway to explain the deck, the main win condition of course is with the hondens.
The great thing about the enduring engine is just that! It literally is enduring and will never end. Every turn you'll search out a couple of enchantments, draw a ton of cards, wreak havoc with the hondens, and discard your hand (down to 7) to wheel of sun and moon, which will recylce the cards back into your library. It's the vicious circle of life (and death, for your opponent).
Phew! That was quite a mouthful there. As you can tell, I love talking about decks! I really enjoy my friend's build, but of course it is by no means perfect. There are plenty of other good cards to consider for an enchantment build such as Fertile Ground and Oblivion Ring. If you're not restricted on a budget, you can get even better support cards for the deck like Sterling Grove.
Anyway, I hope these suggestions have helped. I would definitely consider at least trying to make an enchantment build out of the deck, I think the deck's really asking for it
and from another topic
This isn't anything conclusive, just speculation, but I found it interesting to say the least. The setting in Baron Vampire's artwork really seems to match that of the art preview though.
Just thought I'd share, feel free to speculate!
And don't even get me started on the fun shenanigans you can have with casual life gain trigger cards.
Searing Meditation? Seems pretty good. Ajani's Pridemate? Sweet!
Well of lost Dreams!?!?! Brooooookeeeeen!
EDIT: it's also always interesting to see how cards have evolved over the years. Compare the talisman to Braidwood Cup and Paradise Plume. It's not strictly better than Plume, but it is a common and I think it does a better job overall than the plume.
Granted, I built this deck for casual, so it probably wouldn't work out too well in legacy, especially some of the "weaker" card choices like Quiet Disrepair, but I though I'd post the decklist up anyway. Perhaps you'll see some new card interactions you could apply in legacy?
4x Ajani's Pridemate
2x Tamanoa
4x Wall of Reverence
//Planeswalker
2x Ajani Vengeant
//Artifacts
2x Armillary Sphere
4x Sun Droplet
1x Stormbind
2x Quiet Disrepair
3x Searing Meditation
4x Recumbent Bliss
//Other Spells
4x Lightning Helix
//Lands
3x Jungle Shrine
2x Kazandu Refuge
2x Graypelt Refuge
3x Brushland
4x Battlefield Forge
2x Rugged Prairie
4x Plains
3x Mountain
2x Forest
Deck Notes:
As you can see, this deck is really geared against creature based decks. Wall of Reverence and Recumbent Blissserve double duty as creature control and life gain triggers. Sun Droplet soaks up early aggro damage to help us survive a little longer while we get the combo set up, but also works great with the painlands when we need some more life gain triggers. Lightning Helix doesn't really need any explaining.
Armillary Sphere keeps the lands coming since this is a mana hungry deck.
Stormbind is super secret plan B tech and works really well with Well of Lost Dreams.
With all of these lifegain triggers stacking during upkeeps/end of turns, Ajani's Pridemate can get out of hand very fast.
And finally, There's the zendikar refuge lands. Pretty nice for a land drop
The biggest problem with this deck is that it is too slow for the legacy format, and there aren't any ways to stop storm/combo. In earlier versions I tried making the deck more competitive (for the old extended format) and I used cards like glittering wish to help me out against specific matchups.
Anyway, personally I feel searing meditation is just too slow for the format, but who knows, maybe you can get it to work out. I'm really rooting for ya, as I love the card and I like your deck concept. Hopefully my deck has given you a few ideas, even if it is just a casual deck. Good luck!
EDIT: someone earlier suggested using Grove of the Burnwillows + Punishing Fire. I think if you could fit it in, it would be great for the deck, as it fills a similar role to what you're trying to do with the meditation and well, it's always good to have another way to deal repeatable damage.
Glad you guys are liking infernal tribute
And wellspring is pretty lulzy, yes, but EDH is about having fun and being casual, it's cards like that that make me love playing the format.
Anyway, I was trying to build a white/red equipment deck in workstation when I stumbled across this little beauty. Soltari Guerrillas.
This seems pretty good for equipment decks since he's pretty much always going to get through. His second ability seems pretty nice with equipment power buffs as well.