Your deck seems to be built around Kaalia of the Vast, which is an awesome card. From what I'm guessing your plan seems to be getting Kaalia out then dropping some big creatures out, is that right? I see a lot of cards in here that don't seem to have any synergy with any other cards or with Kaalia. I also see your deck is over 60 cards. Your deck seems to be going in a lot of different directions. Two big things that I feel make a magic deck good are synergy and consistency. At the end of the day it's your deck so you can do whatever you want with it, but I would suggest focusing more on your Kaalia theme and reducing your deck to 60 cards for consistency.
If you drop your deck to 60 cards, you'll be much more likely to draw a Kaalia of the Vast. I would consider dropping cards that don't have much synergy with what you're trying to do like Crypt Ghast, Vampire Hexmage, Nyxathid, etc. Really, I would try to limit your creature pool to creatures that you can reliably cheat out with Kaalia, or at least start with that. Pick some of your favorite Angels/Demons/Dragons that you'd like to play with and cut the rest out of the deck for now. From there, you could consider adding some support for Kaalia. Lightning Greaves seems like really nice protection for Kaalia, and it lets you attack with her the turn you cast her. You could also consider adding a few more cards that let you cheat creatures into play, in case you don't draw into Kaalia or she gets destroyed. Something like Quicksilver Amulet can be nice for the deck. I think doing this can help give you a nice foundation/base for the deck and will allow you to branch the deck in a different direction from there (i.e. maybe you could build a nice toolbox/utility deck with big creatures that can take care of any problem).
I'd agree with Bob that your deck needs more focus on Angelic Accord. I don't think Luminarch Ascension really has a place here since life gain does not negate damage taken and you don't really have any cards to reliably prevent you from taking damage.
Other cards that hit the 4 life mark to trigger Accord are Narrow Escape and Pulse of the Fields. They're both instants so you can play them on your opponent's turn to crank out an extra angel with Angelic Accord, since the check is done at the end of EACH turn. Narrow is a little expensive, but it can be nice to have that extra protection. You may not always get to re-cast pulse, so worst case scenario it's a one shot life-gain effect, but it seems pretty nice to have 1 copy of this in the deck for late game. It would give you something to do if you're out of cards and taking a beating, and with Accord out it can swing the game in your favor.
You may also want to consider some other cards that care about gaining life in the event that you don't draw into an Angelic Accord. Since this seems like the kind of deck that wants to be control, I would suggest throwing a few copies of Well of lost dreams in the deck to help keep your hand full and draw into your win condition
What about Gaea's Blessing? If you mill it into your graveyard you get all the cards back to your library, which allows you to play multiple Mesmeric Orb without worrying about milling yourself dry.
Well, considering that I'm aiming to make Psychic Spiral my win condition, I'm not too worried about milling myself
Lots of great suggestions! Things have unexpectedly become a little busy for me lately so I may not have as much time as I thought to work on this deck anymore, but I'm still interested in working something out.
Quote from BladewingX »
I've found Chill of Foreboding to be mostly sub-par. Milling 5 for 2U is most of the time rather meh compared to the continuous mill provided by Mesmeric Orb. 7U for Flashback is far too much to ever see use. I do have a not yet finished "mill everyone"-deck, and when I tried out the Chill of Foreboding, I never once reached 8 mana.
Ghoulcaller's Bell seems like a much more promising option in the long run.
I kind of considered Chill of Foreboding as Mesmeric Orbs 5-8, but as a 1 (or 2) shot effect. My hope with playing them is that with the 5 cards I mill I'd be able to dig deeper into my deck, possibly into a Mesmeric Orb that I could recur somehow. Agree that it looks to be a bit underwhelming, maybe I'll cut it down to 2 copies for now and see how it works. I think Ghoulcaller's Bell would be too slow for what I'm trying to accomplish
Quote from Imovefasteronmyown »
A few questions. Is it mono blue aside from artifacts? Also what's your budget like? If you run alternate colors with dual lands you can run a recursion package with cards like Unburial Rites. Just wondering.
A card you may definitely wish to consider is Muddle the Mixture. It's one of my favorite tutors as it has dual functions in decks that run it. Spellskite may also be considered to protect your orb.
Definitely thinking of adding more colors. I don't have an actual budget, but I try to keep my decks within a reasonable price (i.e. under $500). I wouldn't be buying dual lands for this deck, so it may be difficult for me to extend past 2 or 3 colors. I'm not too worried about the cost of the mana base at the moment though. Unburial Rites is a good consideration. I like your suggestions of Muddle the Mixture and Spellskite. Will definitely try and fit those two cards in the deck.
Quote from Bobbert Zhubert »
Aphetto Alchemist can be used to untap himself and than you can completely mill yourself than Psychic Spiral for the win.
Someone suggested Basalt Monolith which seems like a better choice with the build I'm leaning towards. Will keep this in mind though if my deck takes a different direction. Thanks for the suggestion!
Quote from slave »
Lookup the deck "Booberry"
FYI;
Mesmeric Orb & Basalt Monolith = Library > Graveyard
3-4x Narcomoeba & Dread Return = Angel of Glory's Rise = Laboratory Maniac & Azami, Lady of Scrolls = WIN!
Build in some Fabricate with typical blue filter and a single Phantasmagorian to drop combo pieces in hand, and you're set.
Have fun.
I've seen that deck before, though with the cephalid/shuko combo instead. No idea it could work with orb/monolith as well. I'm generally not big on netdecking as I prefer to come up with my own original ideas. I'm also not big on combo decks that have key cards that don't do anything for you without the other pieces. I like the idea of the deck though since it's accomplishing the same thing I'm trying to accomplish so I'll look into borrowing some elements from it.
Quote from Greywolf »
In my multi-player group we had one person run a mesmeric orb deck, if you really want to get into all the mill, great cards are some like Fog Bank, Tezzeret the seeker, and Copy artifact. With Copy artifact alone you go from having access to 4 orbs to having access to 8. You will also want to run Elixir of Immortality, you can search it out with Tezzeret and it gains you life. Also, with my experience, you don't want to mill yourself, just hold back and wait till you have a few orbs out, protect yourself and Tezzeret with Fog Bank, and wait out your opponent.
(EDIT) You also want cards like Propaganda so they are forced to tap when they want to attack, only to hit a few Fog Banks.
I thought about making a control build and adding more support for mill with cards like Memory Erosion. At the moment I think I'm more focused on a build that can take advantage of my own graveyard but if I feel it's too clunky for my own taste then I'll probably look into a build more like what you described. Thanks for the suggestions!
Quote from Selvaxri »
I'd say Mind over Matter + Telekinetic Bonds, but that's an absurdly costly combo for basically "1U, discard a card: Mill 2."
Possibly Awakening if you want to add green. Jangling Autmaton, Thundermare, Shrieking Mogg could be interesting against creature based decks.
Turnabout and Breaking Wave could come handy.
Some interesting synergies but I don't like how a lot of them are dependent on Mesmeric Orb. They seem too clunky without it. Awakening could be interesting if I decide to throw in a playset of Chronic Flooding.
Based on some of the suggestions I think I'm going to try and go with a build centered around milling myself and recurring artifacts like Mesmeric Orb, Basalt Monolith, and Spellskite. I'm thinking Life from the Loam can help here with a few copies of Buried Ruin. Not sure how effective it would be in practice. I'll see if I can perhaps get a decklist up later this week.
I really want to make a deck with Mesmeric Orb. I'm a casual player at heart and love building decks with interesting or underused cards, but I also like my decks to be efficient, so I'm really looking to build something that can run fine without Mesmeric Orb in play or can find it efficiently constantly. At the moment I'm leaning towards making a double edged mill deck with Psychic Spiral as the finisher, but I'm still trying to figure out how I can make the deck work consistently. I made an incomplete deck with some cards I have laying around and would love any feedback you guys have. I need some protection and a way to self-mill constantly and use my graveyard as a resource as well as graveyard recursion options.
As you can see it's a little mill focused right now. I'm debating if I want to focus on mill or if it would be better to put this in a control shell and throw in a few cards to tutor for my combo pieces. Any suggestions are welcome. If you guys have a completely different build that you'd like to share using the orb I'm all up for hearing about it.
I agree, you may want to consider bumping the land count up a bit. 24 is usually the standard, but you do have a pretty low curve so you could probably get away with only playing 23 or 22 lands.
Angelic Destiny is an awesome aura, but Armored Ascension is a nice budget alternative for mono-white decks, you may want to consider running one of them.
Some other nice enchantments that run with the life-gain theme are Recumbent Bliss and Faith’s Fetters. Enchantment life gain removal
The nice thing about Nylea, God of the Hunt too is how you can target any creature. Great for multiplayer politics.
For me, it would have to be Tephraderm and Spear of Heliod. I thought Tephraderm to be underwhelming in my beasts tribal at first, but I then realized that he can basically take out any creature and can really swing combat in your favor. His ability has nice interactions with other mechanics like life link and fighting (Contested Cliffs. As for the spear, I initially didn't consider it for my Darien, King of Kjeldor deck, as I felt it was just another anthem effect and the extra ability didn't really do much for me. After a little playtesting though I realized that it's a great backup plan again anyone looking to remove Darien after I've declared no blockers.
I’ve been wanting to make a discard deck around Waste Not myself. Though I have no idea how it actually plays out, it seems good enough to warrant playing 4 copies of in a discard deck since the discard trigger occurs for each copy of the card you have in play. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting multiple zombies, mana, or card draw for each card your opponents discard.
Is there any reason you’re running Dark Ritual and Lake of the Dead? It doesn’t seem like you have anything really exciting or degenerate to ramp into and they seem like dead draws in the late game. Though a turn 1 hippy or necro is cool when you get the hand for it I guess. Maybe you could consider adding a card or two that you can fuel your extra mana from ritual/swamp/waste not into for the mid/late game.
Also wouldn’t hurt to maybe throw in a little removal for anything that does happen to slip through. Liliana Vess seems like a great fit for this deck as she covers multiple roles for you. +1 for the discard, -2 for your demonic tutor, and her ult serves as a nice win condition
I agree that mono-green is the best way to go. The other colors don't really have anything too great or anything that helps support ooze tribal. I think the best thing to do is to make this into a traditional mono-green ramp deck and have a bunch of big ooze spells to play such as Mitotic Slime, Gelatinous Genesis, Ancient Ooze, Acidic Slime, and Bioplasm. There's also Riptide Replicator to help you crank out an ooze every turn. You could also consider throwing in some of the lower cost oozes like Experiment One and Scavenging Ooze.
Actually, looking at gatherer, if you're ok with playing Changelings, you might be able to put together a more aggressive ooze deck that's green red. Maybe something like this:
You could throw in some generic burn/pump spells to make the deck a little more aggressive. Maybe some tribal support as well with cards like Steely Resolve and Descendant's Path.
That's what I was thinking. You could probably replace the Elves with Into the North. The only thing you'd be missing is a turn 2 fires of yavimaya, but you still have the birds as a 1 drop accelerator. Could always play around with the numbers too, maybe only run 2-3 into the north. Just try some goldfishing and see what works best for you.
Glad to see you're still working on this deck. I think it's shaped up a lot since I last helped you with it. I'd like to make a few suggestions.
- I don't think Browbeat and Blazing Salvo are a good fit for this kind of deck. They're good in red decks because you're burning everything there anyway, so the choice the opponent makes almost never matters. But here you're hoping that they will help you clear the way for Aurochs or draw into more Aurochs, so why give them a choice? I would play Harmonize and Skred in their place. This way you'll ALWAYS be able to draw when you run dry on cards. Skred will also be able to take care of many more problem creatures than Blazing Salvo since it's damage scales throughout the game.
- I would also advise running a playset of Into the North since you're already using snow lands anyway. If you throw in a single copy of Mouth of Ronom and/or Scrying Sheets, then the card becomes even more versatile, allowing you to fetch Highland Wealds in the early game, and creature removal/card draw in the late game should you need it.
Regarding Cavern of Souls, that's really up to you. If your playgroup is very control heavy then that seems like a no brainer. But make sure that your manabase can handle them since they are essentially green mana for Aurochs only, and colorless for all your other spells
If you are looking to optimize the performance of the deck a bit I would suggest replacing the 2x Eternity Vessels with 2 more forests. This will ensure that you hit your land drops more consistently. As it is, your deck is effectively only running 21 lands (Eye of Ugin is useless in the early/build up phase) which from my experience with running mono-green-fatties.deck is dangerously low. The last thing you want to be doing in a fatty deck is spending mana to cast ramp spells to compensate for the land drop you missed.
On a more personal preference, I would replace the 4x Khalni Garden with forests as well. No reason to slow yourself down.
Apologies if it's been discussed before, but I haven't seen any mention of it in any of the other threads. What happened to this guy? He used to be $2-$3 for the longest time. I remember him slooooowly creeping up, but now he's suddenly in the $5-$6 range on tcgplayer. What's driving up his price? Is it just casual/commander appeal or is goblins making a comeback somewhere in the tournament scene?
Have you considered splashing black to play Glimpse the Unthinkable? It's by no means budget friendly, but it's the most efficient, straight-forward mill spell there is. Playing black would also give you access to Mind Funeral and creature removal if you think your deck needs it. I'm sure your deck could get a big boost by replacing some of its more underwhelming cards (Though Scour, Increasing Confusion, etc) with these powerhouse mill staples.
My friend runs a very similar build with Spellweaver Helix. With all the digging his deck does, he's usually able to imprint Crush of Wurms with some other cheap sorcery like Deep Analysis or Chatter of the Squirrel and just go to town with his wurm army. You might have to adjust your deck a bit to work with the Helix by adding in more sorceries, but it's certainly a fun way to spice things up and it works well with what the deck is trying to do.
Edit: Just to echo on a few things others have said: Intuition would be sick in this deck, but then again it's sick in a lot of decks. Roar of the Wurm is a good fit in this deck, my friend also plays it in his build and it gives spellweaver helix more options if you choose to go that route.
If you drop your deck to 60 cards, you'll be much more likely to draw a Kaalia of the Vast. I would consider dropping cards that don't have much synergy with what you're trying to do like Crypt Ghast, Vampire Hexmage, Nyxathid, etc. Really, I would try to limit your creature pool to creatures that you can reliably cheat out with Kaalia, or at least start with that. Pick some of your favorite Angels/Demons/Dragons that you'd like to play with and cut the rest out of the deck for now. From there, you could consider adding some support for Kaalia. Lightning Greaves seems like really nice protection for Kaalia, and it lets you attack with her the turn you cast her. You could also consider adding a few more cards that let you cheat creatures into play, in case you don't draw into Kaalia or she gets destroyed. Something like Quicksilver Amulet can be nice for the deck. I think doing this can help give you a nice foundation/base for the deck and will allow you to branch the deck in a different direction from there (i.e. maybe you could build a nice toolbox/utility deck with big creatures that can take care of any problem).
If you're looking to go the blinking route, then Lone Missionary is much more reliable over Cathedral Sanctifier.
Other cards that hit the 4 life mark to trigger Accord are Narrow Escape and Pulse of the Fields. They're both instants so you can play them on your opponent's turn to crank out an extra angel with Angelic Accord, since the check is done at the end of EACH turn. Narrow is a little expensive, but it can be nice to have that extra protection. You may not always get to re-cast pulse, so worst case scenario it's a one shot life-gain effect, but it seems pretty nice to have 1 copy of this in the deck for late game. It would give you something to do if you're out of cards and taking a beating, and with Accord out it can swing the game in your favor.
Oh yeah, and there's also Faith's Fetters.
You may also want to consider some other cards that care about gaining life in the event that you don't draw into an Angelic Accord. Since this seems like the kind of deck that wants to be control, I would suggest throwing a few copies of Well of lost dreams in the deck to help keep your hand full and draw into your win condition
Well, considering that I'm aiming to make Psychic Spiral my win condition, I'm not too worried about milling myself
I kind of considered Chill of Foreboding as Mesmeric Orbs 5-8, but as a 1 (or 2) shot effect. My hope with playing them is that with the 5 cards I mill I'd be able to dig deeper into my deck, possibly into a Mesmeric Orb that I could recur somehow. Agree that it looks to be a bit underwhelming, maybe I'll cut it down to 2 copies for now and see how it works. I think Ghoulcaller's Bell would be too slow for what I'm trying to accomplish
Definitely thinking of adding more colors. I don't have an actual budget, but I try to keep my decks within a reasonable price (i.e. under $500). I wouldn't be buying dual lands for this deck, so it may be difficult for me to extend past 2 or 3 colors. I'm not too worried about the cost of the mana base at the moment though. Unburial Rites is a good consideration. I like your suggestions of Muddle the Mixture and Spellskite. Will definitely try and fit those two cards in the deck.
Someone suggested Basalt Monolith which seems like a better choice with the build I'm leaning towards. Will keep this in mind though if my deck takes a different direction. Thanks for the suggestion!
I've seen that deck before, though with the cephalid/shuko combo instead. No idea it could work with orb/monolith as well. I'm generally not big on netdecking as I prefer to come up with my own original ideas. I'm also not big on combo decks that have key cards that don't do anything for you without the other pieces. I like the idea of the deck though since it's accomplishing the same thing I'm trying to accomplish so I'll look into borrowing some elements from it.
I thought about making a control build and adding more support for mill with cards like Memory Erosion. At the moment I think I'm more focused on a build that can take advantage of my own graveyard but if I feel it's too clunky for my own taste then I'll probably look into a build more like what you described. Thanks for the suggestions!
Some interesting synergies but I don't like how a lot of them are dependent on Mesmeric Orb. They seem too clunky without it. Awakening could be interesting if I decide to throw in a playset of Chronic Flooding.
Based on some of the suggestions I think I'm going to try and go with a build centered around milling myself and recurring artifacts like Mesmeric Orb, Basalt Monolith, and Spellskite. I'm thinking Life from the Loam can help here with a few copies of Buried Ruin. Not sure how effective it would be in practice. I'll see if I can perhaps get a decklist up later this week.
4x Chill of Foreboding
2x Psychic Spiral
2x Mystic Retrieval
1x Increasing Confusion
As you can see it's a little mill focused right now. I'm debating if I want to focus on mill or if it would be better to put this in a control shell and throw in a few cards to tutor for my combo pieces. Any suggestions are welcome. If you guys have a completely different build that you'd like to share using the orb I'm all up for hearing about it.
Angelic Destiny is an awesome aura, but Armored Ascension is a nice budget alternative for mono-white decks, you may want to consider running one of them.
Some other nice enchantments that run with the life-gain theme are Recumbent Bliss and Faith’s Fetters. Enchantment life gain removal
For me, it would have to be Tephraderm and Spear of Heliod. I thought Tephraderm to be underwhelming in my beasts tribal at first, but I then realized that he can basically take out any creature and can really swing combat in your favor. His ability has nice interactions with other mechanics like life link and fighting (Contested Cliffs. As for the spear, I initially didn't consider it for my Darien, King of Kjeldor deck, as I felt it was just another anthem effect and the extra ability didn't really do much for me. After a little playtesting though I realized that it's a great backup plan again anyone looking to remove Darien after I've declared no blockers.
Is there any reason you’re running Dark Ritual and Lake of the Dead? It doesn’t seem like you have anything really exciting or degenerate to ramp into and they seem like dead draws in the late game. Though a turn 1 hippy or necro is cool when you get the hand for it I guess. Maybe you could consider adding a card or two that you can fuel your extra mana from ritual/swamp/waste not into for the mid/late game.
Also wouldn’t hurt to maybe throw in a little removal for anything that does happen to slip through. Liliana Vess seems like a great fit for this deck as she covers multiple roles for you. +1 for the discard, -2 for your demonic tutor, and her ult serves as a nice win condition
Actually, looking at gatherer, if you're ok with playing Changelings, you might be able to put together a more aggressive ooze deck that's green red. Maybe something like this:
4x Experiment One
4x Bloodhall Oooze
4x Scavenging Ooze
4x Predator Ooze (if your mana base can handle it)
4x Adaptive Automaton
4x Taurean Mauler
4x Chameleon Colossus
2x Acidic Slime
2x Mitotic Slime
You could throw in some generic burn/pump spells to make the deck a little more aggressive. Maybe some tribal support as well with cards like Steely Resolve and Descendant's Path.
- I don't think Browbeat and Blazing Salvo are a good fit for this kind of deck. They're good in red decks because you're burning everything there anyway, so the choice the opponent makes almost never matters. But here you're hoping that they will help you clear the way for Aurochs or draw into more Aurochs, so why give them a choice? I would play Harmonize and Skred in their place. This way you'll ALWAYS be able to draw when you run dry on cards. Skred will also be able to take care of many more problem creatures than Blazing Salvo since it's damage scales throughout the game.
- I would also advise running a playset of Into the North since you're already using snow lands anyway. If you throw in a single copy of Mouth of Ronom and/or Scrying Sheets, then the card becomes even more versatile, allowing you to fetch Highland Wealds in the early game, and creature removal/card draw in the late game should you need it.
Regarding Cavern of Souls, that's really up to you. If your playgroup is very control heavy then that seems like a no brainer. But make sure that your manabase can handle them since they are essentially green mana for Aurochs only, and colorless for all your other spells
On a more personal preference, I would replace the 4x Khalni Garden with forests as well. No reason to slow yourself down.
Apologies if it's been discussed before, but I haven't seen any mention of it in any of the other threads. What happened to this guy? He used to be $2-$3 for the longest time. I remember him slooooowly creeping up, but now he's suddenly in the $5-$6 range on tcgplayer. What's driving up his price? Is it just casual/commander appeal or is goblins making a comeback somewhere in the tournament scene?
Edit: Just to echo on a few things others have said: Intuition would be sick in this deck, but then again it's sick in a lot of decks. Roar of the Wurm is a good fit in this deck, my friend also plays it in his build and it gives spellweaver helix more options if you choose to go that route.