Awesome read this week. Like the first commenter said, I'd also love to see you build that Seshiro deck sometime.
I also requested this last week, but I figured I'd suggest it again to see if anybody else is interested in something similar. I'd love to see a deck using cards like Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty Throne to pump out an army of 4/4 flying angels.
War PreparationsWG5
Instant
Divide 13 +1/+1 counters among any number of target creatures on the battlefield.
Flashback WWGG5 The residents of Gavony grew more enranged with every experiment, attack, and abduction that took place within their walls. When that rage erupted, the people reminded all the besieging horrors that humans were more then just fragile little toys
Hey guys. I'm rather new to this whole 'custom card' thing, but I think this is where I would go to show off a little bit of what came from me having a little bit too much spare time on my hands. If you'd like to see me make more, feel free to let me know how I did and I'll be more then happy to keep it going. Who knows? If enough people like my stuff, I might just have a whole Gundam set done someday, that would be awesome. Anyway, here's what I've got for you guys.
Ooh man, I knew Master Transmuter was a lovely little lady when I first laid eyes on her back in the day, but I was still new to the game at the time, so I had no idea just how insane she was at the time.
To think they accidentally mis-printed her rarity as Gold instead of Red...
Anyway, I was thinking that it would be fun to run a predominantly white flight of the angels deck. Obviously, Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty throne would both be at home in this deck, as well as the shiny new Geist of Saint Traft, Angelic Destiny combo, but what else would be at home in a deck where angels rule?
Here's what I plan to build once I've got the resources for it. Any feedback is very welcome and encouraged. In case you couldn't tell, I figured that a good fallback plan for in case I don't get my Angelic Saint is to instead focus on Token Generation, with the end result being me having a bunch of 2/2 vigilant fliers.
EDIT: after talking a look at the OP, I'm now thinking of replacing Invisible stalker with the Grand Abolisher, and running Honor of the pure instead of Intangible virtue. If I decide to go that route, I'm going to also take out the entire token strategy, and go a route more similar to what I see that everybody else is trying to do with this deck.
So I just got a warning from a mod for putting up this in a thread after not seeing this one already existed. Well, whatever, I suppose I'll try my luck here and see if anybody wants to pitch in.
So this is the basic prototype for the WU deck I'm going to be building once I've got the resources for it. The idea is that if I'm able to put down Geist of Saint Traft, and then enchant him with Angelic destiny, that there's very little an opponent can do as my 6/6 flier leads the way with a 4/4 flier following shortly after. Since the Saint would have first strike, not even a titan could answer him. If this doesn't happen, I've also got the resources for an entire army of flying spirits to take over the attack. I'm certain that there are cards that could be improved here, and ways to run this deck more efficiently, so I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it. One of the changes I'm considering making is getting rid of the invisible stalkers, so that my entire creature base would be entirely white, and I could swap my intangible virtues out for Honor of the Pure, which I think would mix better with this deck, since it doesn't specifically specialize around generating tokens.
So this is the basic prototype for the WU deck I'm going to be building once I've got the resources for it. The idea is that if I'm able to put down Geist of Saint Traft, and then enchant him with Angelic destiny, that there's very little an opponent can do as my 6/6 flier leads the way with a 4/4 flier following shortly after. Since the Saint would have first strike, not even a titan could answer him. If this doesn't happen, I've also got the resources for an entire army of flying spirits to take over the attack. I'm certain that there are cards that could be improved here, and ways to run this deck more efficiently, so I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it. One of the changes I'm considering making is getting rid of the invisible stalkers, so that my entire creature base would be entirely white, and I could swap my intangible virtues out for Honor of the Pure, which I think would mix better with this deck, since it doesn't specifically specialize around generating tokens.
If you wanted to splash in a little bit of green, you could make incredible use of Gavony Township.
It's even better at buffing up your creatures then ol' mythic Mickey (Mikaeus), if you have the mana to cough up for it once per turn. Then again, with white weenies, why wouldn't you?
You can keep that. Zendikar block brought so many good cards. I have little faith in Innistrad if it keeps up like this. Werewolves are a joke they only work in limited where it is slow as hell, mostly all the red vampires blow, spirit creatures with no synergy minus a lord that gives +0/+1 and a overcosted Angel that brings them back? Speaking of Angels... are MYTHIC angel that depends on a human to get its power? Speaking of dumb stuff: Creepy Doll, Back to the Brink and Charmbreaker Devils? Good lord this set has a big pile of poo poo!
I'm with everybody else on this one. Standard has gotten too absurd, and too out of hand. The slow down is a very welcome change of pace from all the hellish combos, lightning fast assaults, and overall relentlessness of the last few sets.
Remembering every single turn whether a player cast two spells is a pain. It is very easy to forget that a spell was cast in combat and then a creature in the post combat main phase.
Well, I'll relent that it could be a bit of a pain, if you're playing high speed magic, but when my beloved Howlpack of Estwald was on the line, I was counting spells like none other, as was my opponent.
Yeah, I'm not arguing the fact that they're bit of a hassle to use, as they most certainly are, but people are bound to find ways around that, such as making a photocopy of the transformed card, and then just pulling out the copy and laying it over the original when it pops.
I just had my transformers in the regular sleeves where my opponent couldn't see what they were, and when I put them in play, I took them out of the sleeves and just set them on the table.
Sure, it was a little bit of a hassle, but it was better then just using those godforsaken checklist cards. As far as in game firepower though, Werewolves are awesome, you'll be happy with your deck when you build it.
I just returned from a day of mana tapping like none other, as me and several of my friends were some of the first to welcome in the incoming block of Innistrad. This prerelease event, which was followed afterwards by a draft of Innistrad as well, because our store owner rules today taught me a very huge lesson about innistrad, and the cards within it, being this. Please, skeptics and those who feared for this set, listen carefully to these words:
Transforming cards do not suck. Quite to the contrary, they rule.
... well, they rule in limited, anyway, as for their performance in constructed? Well... we'll just have to wait and see, now won't we? Anyway, onto the details about how the actual draft went down.
If you talked to me before I walked into my local card shop this morning, I would have told you that the stars had to align against me, and the infinite powers of Christ had to follow shortly after in order for me to even consider running transforming cards, I wanted to run white weenies so bad...
Well, the lord had spoke, and I ended up running a G/B deck that focused around... well... the fact that I had black and green cards. Sad, the way that I pulled an Army of the damned and didn't even have it in the deck. Well, what were my VIP cards, you may ask? Villagers of Estwald and Trepanation Blade. As far as blockers go, it really didn't get any better then my Villagers, since it forced them to cast spells before they wanted to, and then all I had to do was spend a turn doing stuff not considered to be a spell, such as card abilities on my other guys, or equipping my creatures, and pow, 4/6 blocker, likely with something strapped onto it with good measure. As for how the Blade? Well, no surprises here, it did a lot of damage to a lot of people. One particular instance I remember was when I had my blade on my transformed villagers, and I did my opponent 11 damage with a single attack. In limited, that's incredible.
Another instance that showed off Trepanation blade was when it was used against me, in combination with Feral Ridgewolf... I don't even need to go into detail to tell you how much that hurt... yeah... I lost to that guy.
I may have walked away from the actual pre-relase with a W/L ratio of 5 wins and 6 losses, but the transform cards pulled their weight and then some, there was no getting around that. Were it not for my werewolves, I'd have placed FAR lower down the line.
And then the draft kicked up...
Let me tell you something, people. Transform cards do wonderful things to draft. I walked away with six rare cards, six!!! Only when you offer more then one rare in a pack is that possible, only in Innistrad is that possible.
In all honesty, the Bloodline keeper and the parallel lives never even saw play, and I took home second place, the only guy who beat me was the guy that walked away 8 & 0.
What was my bread and butter, you ask? Thraben Sentry. Hell yes, Thraben Sentry. This guy was amazing. If I had to give out Olympic medals for which cards were most useful in this deck, Gold would go to the Sentry, Silver would go to Spidery Grasp, and bronze would go to Gavony Township. Honorable mentions go to Darkthicket Wolf and Ambush Viper. Needless to say, it was a team effort. One of the more memorable moments in the match was when I used my Sentry in conjunction with Cloistered Youth. Because by that point, I was beating him down with a 3/3 in the form of Unholy Fiend, and when I dropped the Sentry, I wanted her to die so that I could get my Thraben Militia. Seeing as how he was running a white weenie deck the best he could with his pulled Mikaeus, the Lunarch, and he got off to a poor start, he just wasn't prepared for that kind of abuse. It only got worse a little later, when I dropped my Gavony Township, and started making both beaters stronger. I was hitting him with a 5/5 with vigilance, and a 6/6 for the win, and Thraben Sentry wasn't even transformed for that!
Tragically, I was knocked off my cloud when the last game came around, and I was greeted by a 1st turn Reckless Waif with only 2 plains in my hand. When you're running tri colors, having only 1 color to choose from isn't a good thing. In retrospect, it was stupid of me to keep, but I was 6 & 0 at the time, and I was feeling invincible...
I wasn't.
having never been able to get myself off the ground, I was able to just barely deflect his Merciless Predator's constant onslaught, made worse by his Furor of the Bitten. After looking at it later, no one card in my entire deck had enough starting firepower to deflect his 5/4. The game was just about over when he put a Armored Skaab on the field to defend his homefront, and then slapped down a Makeshift Mauler the next turn.
The second game didn't go much better, as I was greeted by my old favorite combo from the tournament earlier that day: Feral Ridgewolf + Trepanation Blade. That R/U deck he had was KILLER, it was no wonder he went home 8 & 0 at the end of the night.
Still, that being said, I walked home with the silver medal, and a shiny ratio of 6 & 2, which is a whole lot better then I usually do for draft. Anyway, moral of the story is that Innistrad is going to be an incredible block for drafting, and Transformers are going to be absolute limited bombs.
Well, that was my experience today. If you'd like to tell me how Insane/stupid I was for running 3 colors in a draft, go ahead. And also: if you'd like to share your own Innistrad pre-release experience, you're more then welcome to do that as well. Let's share with the world how much fun we had today, because I know for a fact that I had a great day, even when the opponent was dancing on my tombstone.
I also requested this last week, but I figured I'd suggest it again to see if anybody else is interested in something similar. I'd love to see a deck using cards like Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty Throne to pump out an army of 4/4 flying angels.
2 & 3) That's a good thing to bring up, and I appreciate you saying something. I'll try harder in the future to make my cards less 'parasitic'.
Instant
Divide 13 +1/+1 counters among any number of target creatures on the battlefield.
Flashback WWGG5
The residents of Gavony grew more enranged with every experiment, attack, and abduction that took place within their walls. When that rage erupted, the people reminded all the besieging horrors that humans were more then just fragile little toys
Think of it as Travel Preparation's big brother.
(Taken from: http://cdn.myanimelist.net/images/characters/10/72646.jpg)
(Taken from: http://sharetv.org/images/gundam_zz_jp/cast/large/judau_ashta.jpg)
(Taken from: http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/_img/chars/char_17794.jpg)
To think they accidentally mis-printed her rarity as Gold instead of Red...
Anyway, I was thinking that it would be fun to run a predominantly white flight of the angels deck. Obviously, Luminarch Ascension and Sigil of the Empty throne would both be at home in this deck, as well as the shiny new Geist of Saint Traft, Angelic Destiny combo, but what else would be at home in a deck where angels rule?
4 Glacial Fortress
9 Plains
9 Island
Creatures: 15
4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Sun Titan
4 doomed traveler
3 invisible stalker
2 Geist-Honored Monk
3 Angelic Destiny
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Intangible Virtue
Instants & sorceries: 10
4 Mana leak
3 Dissipate
3 Midnight haunting
2 Mask of Avacyn
3 Trepanation blade
Here's what I plan to build once I've got the resources for it. Any feedback is very welcome and encouraged. In case you couldn't tell, I figured that a good fallback plan for in case I don't get my Angelic Saint is to instead focus on Token Generation, with the end result being me having a bunch of 2/2 vigilant fliers.
EDIT: after talking a look at the OP, I'm now thinking of replacing Invisible stalker with the Grand Abolisher, and running Honor of the pure instead of Intangible virtue. If I decide to go that route, I'm going to also take out the entire token strategy, and go a route more similar to what I see that everybody else is trying to do with this deck.
4 Glacial Fortress
9 Plains
9 Island
Creatures: 15
4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Sun Titan
4 doomed traveler
3 invisible stalker
2 Geist-Honored Monk
3 Angelic Destiny
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Intangible Virtue
Instants & sorceries: 10
4 Mana leak
3 Dissipate
3 Midnight haunting
2 Mask of Avacyn
3 Trepanation blade
So this is the basic prototype for the WU deck I'm going to be building once I've got the resources for it. The idea is that if I'm able to put down Geist of Saint Traft, and then enchant him with Angelic destiny, that there's very little an opponent can do as my 6/6 flier leads the way with a 4/4 flier following shortly after. Since the Saint would have first strike, not even a titan could answer him. If this doesn't happen, I've also got the resources for an entire army of flying spirits to take over the attack. I'm certain that there are cards that could be improved here, and ways to run this deck more efficiently, so I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it. One of the changes I'm considering making is getting rid of the invisible stalkers, so that my entire creature base would be entirely white, and I could swap my intangible virtues out for Honor of the Pure, which I think would mix better with this deck, since it doesn't specifically specialize around generating tokens.
Thoughts?
4 Glacial Fortress
9 Plains
9 Island
Creatures: 15
4 Geist of Saint Traft
2 Sun Titan
4 doomed traveler
3 invisible stalker
2 Geist-Honored Monk
3 Angelic Destiny
3 Oblivion Ring
2 Intangible Virtue
Instants & sorceries: 10
4 Mana leak
3 Dissipate
3 Midnight haunting
2 Mask of Avacyn
3 Trepanation blade
So this is the basic prototype for the WU deck I'm going to be building once I've got the resources for it. The idea is that if I'm able to put down Geist of Saint Traft, and then enchant him with Angelic destiny, that there's very little an opponent can do as my 6/6 flier leads the way with a 4/4 flier following shortly after. Since the Saint would have first strike, not even a titan could answer him. If this doesn't happen, I've also got the resources for an entire army of flying spirits to take over the attack. I'm certain that there are cards that could be improved here, and ways to run this deck more efficiently, so I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it. One of the changes I'm considering making is getting rid of the invisible stalkers, so that my entire creature base would be entirely white, and I could swap my intangible virtues out for Honor of the Pure, which I think would mix better with this deck, since it doesn't specifically specialize around generating tokens.
Thoughts?
It's even better at buffing up your creatures then ol' mythic Mickey (Mikaeus), if you have the mana to cough up for it once per turn. Then again, with white weenies, why wouldn't you?
I'm with everybody else on this one. Standard has gotten too absurd, and too out of hand. The slow down is a very welcome change of pace from all the hellish combos, lightning fast assaults, and overall relentlessness of the last few sets.
Innistrad is a welcome and proud addition to MTG.
Well, I'll relent that it could be a bit of a pain, if you're playing high speed magic, but when my beloved Howlpack of Estwald was on the line, I was counting spells like none other, as was my opponent.
Yeah, I'm not arguing the fact that they're bit of a hassle to use, as they most certainly are, but people are bound to find ways around that, such as making a photocopy of the transformed card, and then just pulling out the copy and laying it over the original when it pops.
Sure, it was a little bit of a hassle, but it was better then just using those godforsaken checklist cards. As far as in game firepower though, Werewolves are awesome, you'll be happy with your deck when you build it.
Just refer to the narrative I wrote in this thread for how mine went, since I don't think it would be nice to copy/paste the entire post and consume the screen.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=359494
Transforming cards do not suck. Quite to the contrary, they rule.
... well, they rule in limited, anyway, as for their performance in constructed? Well... we'll just have to wait and see, now won't we? Anyway, onto the details about how the actual draft went down.
If you talked to me before I walked into my local card shop this morning, I would have told you that the stars had to align against me, and the infinite powers of Christ had to follow shortly after in order for me to even consider running transforming cards, I wanted to run white weenies so bad...
Well, the lord had spoke, and I ended up running a G/B deck that focused around... well... the fact that I had black and green cards. Sad, the way that I pulled an Army of the damned and didn't even have it in the deck. Well, what were my VIP cards, you may ask? Villagers of Estwald and Trepanation Blade. As far as blockers go, it really didn't get any better then my Villagers, since it forced them to cast spells before they wanted to, and then all I had to do was spend a turn doing stuff not considered to be a spell, such as card abilities on my other guys, or equipping my creatures, and pow, 4/6 blocker, likely with something strapped onto it with good measure. As for how the Blade? Well, no surprises here, it did a lot of damage to a lot of people. One particular instance I remember was when I had my blade on my transformed villagers, and I did my opponent 11 damage with a single attack. In limited, that's incredible.
Another instance that showed off Trepanation blade was when it was used against me, in combination with Feral Ridgewolf... I don't even need to go into detail to tell you how much that hurt... yeah... I lost to that guy.
I may have walked away from the actual pre-relase with a W/L ratio of 5 wins and 6 losses, but the transform cards pulled their weight and then some, there was no getting around that. Were it not for my werewolves, I'd have placed FAR lower down the line.
And then the draft kicked up...
Let me tell you something, people. Transform cards do wonderful things to draft. I walked away with six rare cards, six!!! Only when you offer more then one rare in a pack is that possible, only in Innistrad is that possible.
And so I, with my new gear, put together a W/B/G deck that I thought would focus around token generation, what with 2 copies of Intangible virtue, a Bloodline Keeper, and a Parallel Lives. Needless to say, I tossed in my Midnight haunting as well.
In all honesty, the Bloodline keeper and the parallel lives never even saw play, and I took home second place, the only guy who beat me was the guy that walked away 8 & 0.
What was my bread and butter, you ask? Thraben Sentry. Hell yes, Thraben Sentry. This guy was amazing. If I had to give out Olympic medals for which cards were most useful in this deck, Gold would go to the Sentry, Silver would go to Spidery Grasp, and bronze would go to Gavony Township. Honorable mentions go to Darkthicket Wolf and Ambush Viper. Needless to say, it was a team effort. One of the more memorable moments in the match was when I used my Sentry in conjunction with Cloistered Youth. Because by that point, I was beating him down with a 3/3 in the form of Unholy Fiend, and when I dropped the Sentry, I wanted her to die so that I could get my Thraben Militia. Seeing as how he was running a white weenie deck the best he could with his pulled Mikaeus, the Lunarch, and he got off to a poor start, he just wasn't prepared for that kind of abuse. It only got worse a little later, when I dropped my Gavony Township, and started making both beaters stronger. I was hitting him with a 5/5 with vigilance, and a 6/6 for the win, and Thraben Sentry wasn't even transformed for that!
Tragically, I was knocked off my cloud when the last game came around, and I was greeted by a 1st turn Reckless Waif with only 2 plains in my hand. When you're running tri colors, having only 1 color to choose from isn't a good thing. In retrospect, it was stupid of me to keep, but I was 6 & 0 at the time, and I was feeling invincible...
I wasn't.
having never been able to get myself off the ground, I was able to just barely deflect his Merciless Predator's constant onslaught, made worse by his Furor of the Bitten. After looking at it later, no one card in my entire deck had enough starting firepower to deflect his 5/4. The game was just about over when he put a Armored Skaab on the field to defend his homefront, and then slapped down a Makeshift Mauler the next turn.
The second game didn't go much better, as I was greeted by my old favorite combo from the tournament earlier that day: Feral Ridgewolf + Trepanation Blade. That R/U deck he had was KILLER, it was no wonder he went home 8 & 0 at the end of the night.
Still, that being said, I walked home with the silver medal, and a shiny ratio of 6 & 2, which is a whole lot better then I usually do for draft. Anyway, moral of the story is that Innistrad is going to be an incredible block for drafting, and Transformers are going to be absolute limited bombs.
Well, that was my experience today. If you'd like to tell me how Insane/stupid I was for running 3 colors in a draft, go ahead. And also: if you'd like to share your own Innistrad pre-release experience, you're more then welcome to do that as well. Let's share with the world how much fun we had today, because I know for a fact that I had a great day, even when the opponent was dancing on my tombstone.