When you set this scheme in motion, each player may put a "Format Staple" into play and insist that since its been a while, it must be reprinted in the next set even if the setting doesnt match or its on the reserved list
Did I do it right?
IIW: Design a planeswalker of a Legend's Legend
I was thinking more like:
"Dies to Dismember"
Scheme (C)
When you set this scheme in motion, all creatures that have the newest Standard-legal set's expansion symbol get -5/-5 until end of turn.
This thread is a thread independent of subforums. It moves about somewhat randomly and wherever it lands it will stay for awhile.
It last landed in the CCC&G forum, so they held a card creation contest. Before that it was in Cube and the discussion was on mono-colour oriented cubes.
Whatever subject fits the given subforum is fair game. What you guys choose to do with that is up to you.
So the short version is that this thread will move about the forums and be part of each given forum that it passes through
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
Placeholder for judging entries. I'll have it covered in the next hour or so. Sorry I'm a bit slow; I've been at Ohayocon this weekend and I'm staying at a friend's place right now.
Edit: Fuggles, I'm tired. It's 3:30am. Flamingos win because of actual game mechanics, puns, good art, and hey, flamingos, why not.
Placeholder for judging entries. I'll have it covered in the next hour or so. Sorry I'm a bit slow; I've been at Ohayocon this weekend and I'm staying at a friend's place right now.
Edit: Fuggles, I'm tired. It's 3:30am. Flamingos win because of actual game mechanics, puns, good art, and hey, flamingos, why not.
I thought they were all decent entries, & I'm certainly not ashamed to lose to the kids who are old hands at card creation! Good work Flamingos :gonk::thumbsup:
To open the new season, we'll hold again a Round 0. It is out-of-contest, smaller than a normal round and held in a special place. You have four days to submit decks, and only two will be judged at the end.
You have until the 2nd of February 12pm GMT+1 to submit decks.
Note that alltho Dark Ascension prerelease tournaments were already held, the set is not legal in Vintage until its release, what we don't care about. =P
Good luck to all !!
1) Main rules
- Any member of the MTGSalvation forums can submit a deck for the contest, including judges. - A submitted deck has to contain the card of the current round and has to be built around the card in some way. While no negative points are given for an uncommented deck, giving judges insight on your ideas and tricks improves their understanding of your deck. - Contestants can only submit one deck per round. But as long as judging has not started yet, you can edit your deck, change it alltogether or withdraw it. - This is "Casual". -> Only the cards banned in Vintage, silver bordered & celebration cards are banned. There is no Restricted list. If you want to add four Black Lotus, go for it - it should be noted though, that some of the judges might not be too keen on seeing too many broken cards in decks.
- The cards to build around in all rounds have already been selected.
2) Time - Contestants have six days to build and post their decks for each round.
- Judges consult to select the top decks that will be judged for that round during the next day. - The next seven days, judges will test and rate the top decks. - A ranking of the contestants’ scores will be posted and the winner of the round will be announced.
3) Judging
- There are four judges in each round. Three judges will be participate in each round: DLink123, Discard1119 & PeterRiviera. The fourth judge will either be: G L J, Megiddo or me.
- In each round judges will rate up to eight decks. The number of decks rated is equal to half the decks submitted (rounded up) or eight, whichever is smaller.
- From the time the entry period in a given round ends, the judges have 24 hours to post a number of the decks they want to rate equal to the number of decks going to be rated plus one. - Each deck's judge-scores will be arithmeticaly averaged to determine its score for the round. - Judges cannot rate their own decks. -> If a judge's deck made a round's top 8, he or she will refrain from rating that particular deck and only rate the other decks.
- Judges are out-of-contest for the final-ranking. - Judges are encouraged to add some comments as to why they chose a certain deck for rating or not. - Judges are encouraged to add some comments as to why they gave a certain score to a certain deck.
- Judges are encouraged to add some suggestions how a rated deck could be improved.
Each judge awards up to 25 points to each tested deck he or she is allowed to rate, based on the following system:
Creativity/Originality: 0 to 5 points How creative and original is your deck. Effectiveness/Card adherence: 0 to 5 points How well does it use the selected card? Synergy/Tuning: 0 to 5 points How well do the cards combine in the deck; elegance and card selection. Power/Capacity to win: 0 to 5 points Can the deck deliver the goods? Interaction/Protection: 0 to 5 points How well does the deck interact and deal with other decks.
Format/Thematic: up to 2 points bonus (can't go over 25) 1 point for any format adherence other than Vintage & Legacy; 1 point for incorporation of theme/flavour.
Interpretation of this is up to the judges, individually.
4) Championship rules - Eight rounds will be played. - To be included in the final ranking, a player has to gather scores in atleast three of the eight rounds. (If too few players meet this criteria, it will be lowered accordingly.) - At the end of the season, the player within the final ranking having the highest arithmetical average of top 8 scores becomes the Champion. Example: ExpiredRascalsparticipates in all eight rounds, has his decks scored five times and gets f.e. 23 points each round. Gaea's Regentparticipates in three rounds, gets tested in two of these three rounds and gets twice 24 points. All other players have an average < 23. -> Despite having a lower average than Gaea's Regent, ExpiredRascals wins, because Gaea's Regenthasn't met the criteria of having atleast three scores.
tl;dr: For each round, a card is scheduled. Anyone can enter the contest and submit a deck using that card.
Contestants can post their decks during an entry period of six days. In the following eight days the judges (PeterRiviera, Discard1119, DLink123 and one of G L J, Megiddo or myself) will elect the best decks submitted, to test and rate these decks. After (planned) eight rounds the contest will have a winner.
Did I mention the price for the Champ?
For those interested in the contest's history:
- The [official] CDCC 5 general discussion thread. - The current season's rounds: {}
- Past seasons 1, 2, 3 & 4.
Credits for the contest banner go to Rivenor.
I started off with Moonfolk Tribal, but that quickly proved unfeasable, there just weren't enough of them at CMCs lower than 4 (stupid kamigawa block). About 6 iterations later, I ended up with what you see above (btw, I came up with weirding as a component piece before MagicProfessor28 posted his intentions).
This deck is based around a heavy toolbox and tutor approach to setting up the meloku + glimmerpost + zur's wierding lock.
Pay attention to the wishboard (all the singletons are the wish targets, the springs are legitimate SB material) and the intuition piles (3 of a single card is standard, but x of a card + eternal witness(es) or living wish(es) works too) Remember to time your intuitions. On your turn or on their end step is always fine, but don't forget that you can exploit your opponent's state of mind as they cast something by playing your intuition in response.
Future sight acts as both a draw engine and a way around wierding.
I'll try to get a more detailed write-up up later, but I needed to get this posted.
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
Takes advantage of the lifegain provided by Glimmerpost and other lifegain cards > Searing Meditation, that needs a lot of mana > Cloudpost + Glimmerpost that let me cast huge fun spells > Enduring Ideal which works well with enchantments > Whole list of them.
Also the lands can still come into play with the Ideal active if you want to cast it. Gain life to stall. The deck actually has 16 pieces of removal, not counting the Searing Meditation, and the lifegain to stall. I made this as a casual deck and decided to make it only use new card frames, like modern, although Cloudpost is banned there
I know cloudpost is the easy route, but it's not the center of the deck (the Mana isn't). The lifegain is, making Glimmerpost the wanted cousin for once. Too bad he isn't repeatable.
Also, I gain virtual card advantage due to no creatures worth killing.
How many decklists can I submit, I've got a UG one in mind?
Built Around - Glimmerpost Format - None (designed for MTGO's Classic). Single games, no sideboarding. Theme - None Type - All-in Combo Playtest Amount - :rate3::rate0: as of latest post edit.
Glimmerpost - Not your usual "build around me" card. Basically, it's just a land that gains you life, and traditionally nothing but a good addition to any Cloudpost deck, but let's not go that route. So, in order to win the game on life gain you need some shenanigans. In this case, I'll use Test of Endurance (and some help from the easier-removed Felidar Sovereign). So, all I need is to get a lot of Glimmerposts hitting the battlefield, while having lots of Glimmerposts already out (the fun thing is that it doesn't matter who controls the loci, so this is where it gets interesting). And if you know me, I'll take the wacky out-of-the-box route of animating lands and making copies of them!
Combo pieces:
Test of Endurance - Many decks are built around this card, but not this one. In here, I like to think that this card has the function to turn Glimmerpost into a win condition. There's a difference, even if slight.
Felidar Sovereign - With an easier to hit life mark, I consider this card a backup for Test of Endurance, since (unlike the enchantment) it can gain life by itself, while also being able to win by damage. It's easier to remove, so I only considered it as a fourth ToE.
Lifespark Spellbomb - Easily found with Trinket Mage you use this to turn a Glimmerpost already on the battlefield into a 3/3 Locus.
Mirrorweave - Once you have a 3/3 Locus, you turn each creature into an unanimated Locus. You might have a few critters, but your opponents might have lots of them! Even so, having a total of 3 creatures and 2 loci, for example, is enough to gain a fair amount of life. Your opponent is playing 12-post? Even better.
Scapeshift - The final surprise. You sacrifice enough lands to fetch every Glimmerpost and Vesuva left in your library, in order to gain a nice amount of life. You need just enough to survive another turn with over 50 life. By your next upkeep, the game is yours.
Vesuva - Glimmerposts 5-8, if you have one in your opening hand it might be a better idea to use it for color fixing.
Getting it to work:
Sakura-Tribe Elder - Ramping is important, in order to get your protection online, and to have the needed amount of lands to sacrifice to Scapeshift. Mr. Chump Sacrifice is one of the best for the job!
Trinket Mage - Mainly, it tutors for the Spellbomb, but it can also find an Expedition Map to get that first Glimmerpost out, or ramp a bit with Sol Ring. The usual stuff.
Foresee - This is, in my opinion, the best way to dig your combo pieces out. An earlier version of the deck had tutoring in the form of Planar Portal, but that kept getting hated out before I could find more than one card, and this is a combo with lots of pieces!
Sol Ring - On your "going-off" turn, you need at least 9 mana. Handy.
But I don't want to die in the mid time:
Propaganda - With only 8 dudes available for chump-blocking, this provides the necessary stall to keep swarm decks in check.
Leyline of Sanctity - Burn and discard are your greatest archenemies. With the ability to start the game with you for free, this baby hits those Duress guys really hard.
Negate - Hate out the hate. I chose this over Counterspell for the splashy-ness. This deck tends to make games longer, so Mana Leak's drawback mattered in this card choice.
Elixir of Immortality - Helps a little with the life-gain, its function is to recover combo pieces from the yard.
Prepare for a long game
I like to play on the draw, and keep a hand with 3 lands or 2 lands that can cast Sakura-Tribe Elder. You will hopefully have the Leyline in play at the beginning of the game, and it's also nice to cast Propaganda as soon as possible, if facing an aggressive deck. Then you need to drop lands. The best is to have at least one Glimmerpost and 6 or 7 other lands. You can cast Test of Endurance/Sovereign one turn before going off. Must of the time people don't pay attention to it, because you haven't gained much life, and depending on how things went down you're likely near 10 life.
Going off
With ToE and the Spellbomb on the battlefield, you need 4GGG:symwu::symwu: to crack the spellbomb, turn a Glimmerpost into a creature, then cast Mirrorweave on it to get a decent amount of loci on the battlefield, and Scapeshift into 4+ Glimmerposts/Vesuvas. Depending on how low your life had gone, and how many creatures are turned into loci, you can be well above 60-70 life. They have a turn to get you bellow 50 or remove your enchantment (having an additional 1U open and Negate in hand would be the best scenario), otherwise, GG.
How the decks works:
Get out: Fastbond, Amulet of Vigor and Trade Routes, with having 2 Glimmerposts out you get infinite life from this (which is nice, but doesn't win you games) So you need to get the one Cloudpost out which will give you lots of mana so you can Stroke of Genius to kill your opponent.
Edit: Thanks Blut, forgot the Amulet of Vigor... (kind of important :))
The primary goal of the deck is to combo either locus with Glimmerpost, Trade Routes, and Zur's Weirding to lock the opponent from drawing any future cards. This is fundamentally damning for them because your threats once they are on board like Jace, Gideon or Elspeth are left largely unanswered. One thing to note is the lack of countermagic but in practice, the deck simply did not need it since against control/combo all you really needed to do was assemble the combo and get a threat and just grind them down from there. Also of note is the option of also combining Zur's Weirding with the one of Convalescent Care which is an equally abusive lock. So now you might be saying, "But it's a Zur's Weirding deck... not Glimmerpost!" And to that I respond first and foremost that the deck has a key combo with Glimmerpost which the deck works towards. Further, there is a minor lifegain theme in the deck with cards like Ajani Goldmane to serve as an alternate win condition. But if you feel like the deck is not "Glimmerpost"y enough for you, then I encourage you to try it out because you'll be surprised by how helpful and powerful the Glimmerpost can actually be.
Really. That's about all there is to it. We are going to kill our opponent through gaining life. Specifically, our main goal is to quickly get to 30 life so we can activate our MOON LASER DEATH CANNON! flip our Chalice of Life. Once we have the Death Chalice, our opponents lose a quarter of their life per hit, meanwhile, you should be very difficult to kill.
Since 100% of our mana comes into play tapped, and its important to have defense (so we don't lose our hard earned life!), our defense consists of rather cheap dudes, who also gain us more life. Since our dudes are low power, Mentor of the meek provides cantripy draw to them, as a secondary draw engine (see below).
The key engine here is to use the Well of Lost dreams to be able to quickly cycle through the deck, both with our lands, which gain us life as they enter the battlefield, and as a sweet combo with Words of Worship (especially with sanguine bond out). Once the worship hits the field, you can draw/gain life insanely quickly.
Backup plans include Sanguine Bond to continue the the gain life = you die idea, and Serra Ascendants in case we need to hold the air, or could use a 6/6 flyer of doom.
SIDEBOARD
The sideboard is primarily geared towards answers, with 6 slots dedicated toward giving your artifacts(and enchantments) shroud, in case the opponent has heavy artifact removal. It also has another alternate win in Celestial convergence, in case the opponent goes invulnerable somehow.
THEME
Our theme card does two things: 1) provides colorless mana, and 2) gains life. While the deck evolved to having a lot more color in it then when I started designing it, I always assumed it would to a degree; as soon as you focus on life gain, you typically end up at least a little bit in white.
Land Cycle - I really wanted the lands to be a key theme to really include the glimmerpost thematically, rather than it being sideline or assistant, but the typical land theme to go with Glimmerpost is the ever popular 12 post blah... No, we weren't going to have any of that. Remembering the refuge cycle of lands, I decided to follow up on that idea a lot more, and really embrace the lifegain aspect of glimmerpost's ETB ability and incorporate that idea into the deck.
Life Gain - Trying to win with lifegain is always a bit difficult. There are plenty of "I win" cards, but I always feel those to be so unsatisfying... I did include a sideboard copy of Celestial Convergence, mainly because its funny, but I really wanted to win through life gain, not as a side effect to it. Sanguine Bond fits this role to the letter, but I relegated it to a side role as backup plan/support, since I think its a bit overdone. Gaining life needs to be a goal. This led me to the card that amused me the most in the DKA pre-release: Chalice of Life/Chalice of Death. Turning our lifegain into a death cannon it just far too awesome.
Card Draw - As always, card advantage plays an important role. When you have lifegain, Well of lost hope immediately sticks out like a sore thumb. You still need a bit more to get there. I initially put in a phyrexian arena set, as a kind of life/death thing, but it didn't sit well with me, especially with the double black, and it being counter thematic. Trying to find a more mono-white solution (ha!), I came across the mentor, and realizing that my defenses were all low power creatures, he fit in quite well, to provide the needed draw to reach the powerhouse that is the Well.
Price
A quick eyeball over mid-line prices shows that while the deck has a few $5 cards, most are support, and in low number. Overall the deck is about $70 total, most cards under $.25.
Major offenders are Serra Ascendant and Sanguine Bond, our alternate wins, and Auriok Champion our sideboard cards. At $5 each, these 3 2-of's contribute about half of the cost of the deck ($30), and are all optional. Also, I just added a handful of tutors to increase the consistency of the deck. These also make up another $20 to the value, but the consistency they give more than makes up for that.
I think this price distribution is about normal, as whenever you go with an odd-ball strategy, its the solid support that's going to cost you a bit more.
-Added 2 enlightened tutors for consistency. While it buffs the price, I feel it strengthens the theme, and ups consistency considerably.
I decided to use the mana advantage of 8 post for creating a deck that wants to win through the interaction of essence of the wild + eldrazi 0/1 tokens which will be hopefully online as soon as possible using ramp + post.
- The deck is rather defensive, eldrazi tokens are not necesserily kept for pumping huge spells, but to chump block early threats. Once essence is out - awekening zone, Growth Spasm, Khalni Garden and rest of the team become real threats.
- glimmerpost - the card could be basically read as " draw a card" as it gives important life for a sylvan library additional draw while minimizing damage.
- Though a mono G deck, fetches are used to shuffle away sylvan library draws.
- creature base supports land draw and provides effective blockers for early threats.
- the deck runs reasonable amount of ramp though - crop rotation can possible find a killer 6/6 khalni garden should essence be online. Commands life gain is a great 2nd choice abillity to support library draws, or keeping me alive.
Last note - once essence is online eldrazi tokens produced from nest invader, kozileks predator (read creatures) dont hit the board as 6/6 - they dont come to the board at all. This is the reason why I preffered awakening zone and the rest of the cards as token producers as opposed to the creature variants.
Glimmerpost - Not your usual "build around me" card. Basically, it's just a land that gains you life, and traditionally nothing but a good addition to any Cloudpost deck, but let's not go that route. So, in order to win the game on life gain you need some shenanigans. In this case, I'll use Test of Endurance (and some help from the easier-removed Felidar Sovereign). So, all I need is to get a lot of Glimmerposts hitting the battlefield, while having lots of Glimmerposts already out (the fun thing is that it doesn't matter who controls the loci, so this is where it gets interesting). And if you know me, I'll take the wacky out-of-the-box route of animating lands and making copies of them!
Combo pieces:
Test of Endurance - Many decks are built around this card, but not this one. In here, I like to think that this card has the function to turn Glimmerpost into a win condition. There's a difference, even if slight.
Felidar Sovereign - With an easier to hit life mark, I consider this card a backup for Test of Endurance, since (unlike the enchantment) it can gain life by itself, while also being able to win by damage. It's easier to remove, so I only considered it as a fourth ToE.
Lifespark Spellbomb - Easily found with Trinket Mage you use this to turn a Glimmerpost already on the battlefield into a 3/3 Locus.
Mirrorweave - Once you have a 3/3 Locus, you turn each creature into a 3/3 Locus. You might have a few critters, but your opponents might have lots of them! Even so, having a total of 3 creatures and 2 loci, for example, is enough to gain a fair amount of life. Your opponent is playing 12-post? Even better.
Scapeshift - The final surprise. You sacrifice enough lands to fetch every Glimmerpost and Vesuva left in your library, in order to gain a nice amount of life. You need just enough to survive another turn with over 50 life. By your next upkeep, the game is yours.
Vesuva - Glimmerposts 5-8, if you have one in your opening hand it might be a better idea to use it for color fixing.
Getting it to work:
Sakura-Tribe Elder - Ramping is important, in order to get your protection online, and to have the needed amount of lands to sacrifice to Scapeshift. Mr. Chump Sacrifice is one of the best for the job!
Trinket Mage - Mainly, it tutors for the Spellbomb, but it can also find an Expedition Map to get that first Glimmerpost out, or ramp a bit with Sol Ring. The usual stuff.
Foresee - This is, in my opinion, the best way to dig your combo pieces out. An earlier version of the deck had tutoring in the form of Planar Portal, but that kept getting hated out before I could find more than one card, and this is a combo with lots of pieces!
Sol Ring - On your "going-off" turn, you need at least 9 mana. Handy.
But I don't want to die in the mid time:
Propaganda - With only 8 dudes available for chump-blocking, this provides the necessary stall to keep swarm decks in check.
Leyline of Sanctity - Burn and discard are your greatest archenemies. With the ability to start the game with you for free, this baby hits those Duress guys really hard.
Negate - Hate out the hate. I chose this over Counterspell for the splashy-ness. This deck tends to make games longer, so Mana Leak's drawback mattered in this card choice.
Elixir of Immortality - Helps a little with the life-gain, its function is to recover combo pieces from the yard.
Prepare for a long game
I like to play on the draw, and keep a hand with 3 lands or 2 lands that can cast Sakura-Tribe Elder. You will hopefully have the Leyline in play at the beginning of the game, and it's also nice to cast Propaganda as soon as possible, if facing an aggressive deck. Then you need to drop lands. The best is to have at least one Glimmerpost and 6 or 7 other lands. You can cast Test of Endurance/Sovereign one turn before going off. Must of the time people don't pay attention to it, because you haven't gained much life, and depending on how things went down you're likely near 10 life.
Going off
With ToE and the Spellbomb on the battlefield, you need 4GGG:symwu::symwu: to crack the spellbomb, turn a Glimmerpost into a creature, then cast Mirrorweave on it to get a decent amount of loci on the battlefield, and Scapeshift into 4+ Glimmerposts/Vesuvas. Depending on how low your life had gone, and how many creatures are turned into loci, you can be well above 60-70 life. They have a turn to get you bellow 50 or remove your enchantment (having an additional 1U open and Negate in hand would be the best scenario), otherwise, GG.
Hm, I like the mirrorweave combo aspect of the deck. Really tickles my funny bone. How has it done so far in playtesting (if you don't mind my asking)?
I like how you made the glimmerpost itself the win.
Hm, I like the mirrorweave combo aspect of the deck. Really tickles my funny bone. How has it done so far in playtesting (if you don't mind my asking)?
I like how you made the glimmerpost itself the win.
I want to put more ramp in it, but I'm really having trouble deciding what to cut. All of the protection seems needed (I could even use some more counters/O-ring), so when (if) I get the time, I'll test some variants. So far I've only played 3 games. First one was really close, but I lost. Won the second one and got crushed in the third (not counting a fourth where the guy scooped at Leyline because his was Valakut and had no removal).
Just got to say, you've definitely earned distinction as an MTGS hero
Quote from Stardust »
Because he's the hero MTGS deserves, and the one it needs right now. So we'll global him. Because he can take it. Because he's not just our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. An expired rascal.
Quote from LuckNorris »
ExpiredRascals you sir are a god-like hero.
Quote from Lanxal »
ER is a masterful god who cannot be beaten in any endeavour.
It's fairly untuned, but the point should be fairly straightforward, capitalizing on the blinking capabilities of Venser, Ruin Ghost, and Flicker to gain massive amounts of life every turn. It runs cloudpost but the deck really cannot abuse the mana! The deck wins with Sovereign, Test of Endurance, or just Serra Ascendant beatdown.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Can we have Megiddo removed from the forum forever please?
i'm pretty sure i can find your ***** online within 3 minutes
I was thinking more like:
"Dies to Dismember"
Scheme (C)
When you set this scheme in motion, all creatures that have the newest Standard-legal set's expansion symbol get -5/-5 until end of turn.
So, DKA sealed. . . sloooooooow or slooooooooooooooow?
LOL
I am confused as well.
I saw this thread when I was high and thought it didn't exist.
scumbag
Want Higher Level Card Evaluation? Visit Diestoremoval.com
I figure I'll quote the reply to macius from earlier:
So the short version is that this thread will move about the forums and be part of each given forum that it passes through
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
إن سرقت إسرق جمل
Level 1 Judge
My Cube for use with 6th ed. Rules
LOL
Edit: Fuggles, I'm tired. It's 3:30am. Flamingos win because of actual game mechanics, puns, good art, and hey, flamingos, why not.
Aww. I really liked "The Mafia Subforum".
To open the new season, we'll hold again a Round 0. It is out-of-contest, smaller than a normal round and held in a special place. You have four days to submit decks, and only two will be judged at the end.
You have until the 2nd of February 12pm GMT+1 to submit decks.
Note that alltho Dark Ascension prerelease tournaments were already held, the set is not legal in Vintage until its release, what we don't care about. =P
1) Main rules
- A submitted deck has to contain the card of the current round and has to be built around the card in some way. While no negative points are given for an uncommented deck, giving judges insight on your ideas and tricks improves their understanding of your deck.
- Contestants can only submit one deck per round. But as long as judging has not started yet, you can edit your deck, change it alltogether or withdraw it.
- This is "Casual". -> Only the cards banned in Vintage, silver bordered & celebration cards are banned. There is no Restricted list. If you want to add four Black Lotus, go for it - it should be noted though, that some of the judges might not be too keen on seeing too many broken cards in decks.
- The cards to build around in all rounds have already been selected.
- Contestants have six days to build and post their decks for each round.
- Judges consult to select the top decks that will be judged for that round during the next day.
- The next seven days, judges will test and rate the top decks.
- A ranking of the contestants’ scores will be posted and the winner of the round will be announced.
- There are four judges in each round. Three judges will be participate in each round: DLink123, Discard1119 & PeterRiviera. The fourth judge will either be: G L J, Megiddo or me.
- In each round judges will rate up to eight decks. The number of decks rated is equal to half the decks submitted (rounded up) or eight, whichever is smaller.
- From the time the entry period in a given round ends, the judges have 24 hours to post a number of the decks they want to rate equal to the number of decks going to be rated plus one.
- Each deck's judge-scores will be arithmeticaly averaged to determine its score for the round.
- Judges cannot rate their own decks. -> If a judge's deck made a round's top 8, he or she will refrain from rating that particular deck and only rate the other decks.
- Judges are out-of-contest for the final-ranking.
- Judges are encouraged to add some comments as to why they chose a certain deck for rating or not.
- Judges are encouraged to add some comments as to why they gave a certain score to a certain deck.
- Judges are encouraged to add some suggestions how a rated deck could be improved.
How creative and original is your deck.
Effectiveness/Card adherence: 0 to 5 points
How well does it use the selected card?
Synergy/Tuning: 0 to 5 points
How well do the cards combine in the deck; elegance and card selection.
Power/Capacity to win: 0 to 5 points
Can the deck deliver the goods?
Interaction/Protection: 0 to 5 points
How well does the deck interact and deal with other decks.
1 point for any format adherence other than Vintage & Legacy; 1 point for incorporation of theme/flavour.
- Eight rounds will be played.
- To be included in the final ranking, a player has to gather scores in atleast three of the eight rounds. (If too few players meet this criteria, it will be lowered accordingly.)
- At the end of the season, the player within the final ranking having the highest arithmetical average of top 8 scores becomes the Champion. Example: ExpiredRascals participates in all eight rounds, has his decks scored five times and gets f.e. 23 points each round. Gaea's Regent participates in three rounds, gets tested in two of these three rounds and gets twice 24 points. All other players have an average < 23. -> Despite having a lower average than Gaea's Regent, ExpiredRascals wins, because Gaea's Regent hasn't met the criteria of having atleast three scores.
For each round, a card is scheduled. Anyone can enter the contest and submit a deck using that card.
Contestants can post their decks during an entry period of six days. In the following eight days the judges (PeterRiviera, Discard1119, DLink123 and one of G L J, Megiddo or myself) will elect the best decks submitted, to test and rate these decks. After (planned) eight rounds the contest will have a winner.
Did I mention the price for the Champ?
- The current season's rounds: {}
Credits for the contest banner go to Rivenor.
and in such an awesome thread too
3 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Eternal Witness
Enchantments: 12
4 Exploration
3 Propaganda
2 Future Sight
3 Zur's Weirding
Instant: 16
4 Brainstorm
4 Intuition
4 Rune Snag
4 Accumulated Knowledge
4 Living Wish
Land: 23
4 Glimmerpost
1 Cloudpost
4 Tropical Island
2 Breeding Pool
4 Misty Rainforest
1 Forest
2 Island
3 Hinterland Harbor
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Polluted Delta
3 Temporal Spring
1 Soratami Savant
1 Soratami Mirror-Mage
1 Mystic Snake
1 Acidic Slime
1 Vesuva
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Eternal Witness
1 Hinterland Harbor
1 Primeval Titan
1 Venser, Shaper Savant
1 Magus of the Future
1 Maze of Ith
I started off with Moonfolk Tribal, but that quickly proved unfeasable, there just weren't enough of them at CMCs lower than 4 (stupid kamigawa block). About 6 iterations later, I ended up with what you see above (btw, I came up with weirding as a component piece before MagicProfessor28 posted his intentions).
This deck is based around a heavy toolbox and tutor approach to setting up the meloku + glimmerpost + zur's wierding lock.
Pay attention to the wishboard (all the singletons are the wish targets, the springs are legitimate SB material) and the intuition piles (3 of a single card is standard, but x of a card + eternal witness(es) or living wish(es) works too) Remember to time your intuitions. On your turn or on their end step is always fine, but don't forget that you can exploit your opponent's state of mind as they cast something by playing your intuition in response.
Future sight acts as both a draw engine and a way around wierding.
I'll try to get a more detailed write-up up later, but I needed to get this posted.
Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
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4 Lightning Helix
4 Swords to Plowshare
Sorceries (6)
4 Idyllic Tutor
2 Enduring Ideal
Planeswalkers (3)
3 Ajani Vengeant
Enchantment (17)
4 Spirit Link
2 Ajani's Mantra
4 Recumbent Bliss
4 Searing Meditation
1 Words of Worship
1 Honden of Cleansing Fire
1 Honden of Infinite Rage
4 Cloudpost
4 Glimmerpost
1 Springjack Pasture
8 Mountains
7 Plains
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Serra's Sanctum
Takes advantage of the lifegain provided by Glimmerpost and other lifegain cards > Searing Meditation, that needs a lot of mana > Cloudpost + Glimmerpost that let me cast huge fun spells > Enduring Ideal which works well with enchantments > Whole list of them.
Also the lands can still come into play with the Ideal active if you want to cast it. Gain life to stall. The deck actually has 16 pieces of removal, not counting the Searing Meditation, and the lifegain to stall. I made this as a casual deck and decided to make it only use new card frames, like modern, although Cloudpost is banned there
I know cloudpost is the easy route, but it's not the center of the deck (the Mana isn't). The lifegain is, making Glimmerpost the wanted cousin for once. Too bad he isn't repeatable.
Also, I gain virtual card advantage due to no creatures worth killing.
How many decklists can I submit, I've got a UG one in mind?
edit: oh hullo :symg:. post a deck ^^
*tries to retrieve brain from werewolf-land*
4 Glimmerpost
4 Seaside Citadel
4 Vesuva
4 Forest
2 Island
2 Plains
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Trinket Mage
1 Felidar Sovereign
Trinkets
2 Lifespark Spellbomb
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Expedition Map
1 Sol Ring
4 Propaganda
4 Leyline of Sanctity
3 Test of Endurance
Other Spells
4 Mirrorweave
4 Foresee
4 Scapeshift
4 Negate
Glimmerpost - Not your usual "build around me" card. Basically, it's just a land that gains you life, and traditionally nothing but a good addition to any Cloudpost deck, but let's not go that route. So, in order to win the game on life gain you need some shenanigans. In this case, I'll use Test of Endurance (and some help from the easier-removed Felidar Sovereign). So, all I need is to get a lot of Glimmerposts hitting the battlefield, while having lots of Glimmerposts already out (the fun thing is that it doesn't matter who controls the loci, so this is where it gets interesting). And if you know me, I'll take the wacky out-of-the-box route of animating lands and making copies of them!
Combo pieces:
Test of Endurance - Many decks are built around this card, but not this one. In here, I like to think that this card has the function to turn Glimmerpost into a win condition. There's a difference, even if slight.
Felidar Sovereign - With an easier to hit life mark, I consider this card a backup for Test of Endurance, since (unlike the enchantment) it can gain life by itself, while also being able to win by damage. It's easier to remove, so I only considered it as a fourth ToE.
Lifespark Spellbomb - Easily found with Trinket Mage you use this to turn a Glimmerpost already on the battlefield into a 3/3 Locus.
Mirrorweave - Once you have a 3/3 Locus, you turn each creature into an unanimated Locus. You might have a few critters, but your opponents might have lots of them! Even so, having a total of 3 creatures and 2 loci, for example, is enough to gain a fair amount of life. Your opponent is playing 12-post? Even better.
Scapeshift - The final surprise. You sacrifice enough lands to fetch every Glimmerpost and Vesuva left in your library, in order to gain a nice amount of life. You need just enough to survive another turn with over 50 life. By your next upkeep, the game is yours.
Vesuva - Glimmerposts 5-8, if you have one in your opening hand it might be a better idea to use it for color fixing.
Getting it to work:
Sakura-Tribe Elder - Ramping is important, in order to get your protection online, and to have the needed amount of lands to sacrifice to Scapeshift. Mr. Chump Sacrifice is one of the best for the job!
Trinket Mage - Mainly, it tutors for the Spellbomb, but it can also find an Expedition Map to get that first Glimmerpost out, or ramp a bit with Sol Ring. The usual stuff.
Foresee - This is, in my opinion, the best way to dig your combo pieces out. An earlier version of the deck had tutoring in the form of Planar Portal, but that kept getting hated out before I could find more than one card, and this is a combo with lots of pieces!
Expedition Map - As stated, you need at least one Glimmerpost already out. This helps you find it.
Sol Ring - On your "going-off" turn, you need at least 9 mana. Handy.
But I don't want to die in the mid time:
Propaganda - With only 8 dudes available for chump-blocking, this provides the necessary stall to keep swarm decks in check.
Leyline of Sanctity - Burn and discard are your greatest archenemies. With the ability to start the game with you for free, this baby hits those Duress guys really hard.
Negate - Hate out the hate. I chose this over Counterspell for the splashy-ness. This deck tends to make games longer, so Mana Leak's drawback mattered in this card choice.
Elixir of Immortality - Helps a little with the life-gain, its function is to recover combo pieces from the yard.
Prepare for a long game
I like to play on the draw, and keep a hand with 3 lands or 2 lands that can cast Sakura-Tribe Elder. You will hopefully have the Leyline in play at the beginning of the game, and it's also nice to cast Propaganda as soon as possible, if facing an aggressive deck. Then you need to drop lands. The best is to have at least one Glimmerpost and 6 or 7 other lands. You can cast Test of Endurance/Sovereign one turn before going off. Must of the time people don't pay attention to it, because you haven't gained much life, and depending on how things went down you're likely near 10 life.
Going off
With ToE and the Spellbomb on the battlefield, you need 4GGG:symwu::symwu: to crack the spellbomb, turn a Glimmerpost into a creature, then cast Mirrorweave on it to get a decent amount of loci on the battlefield, and Scapeshift into 4+ Glimmerposts/Vesuvas. Depending on how low your life had gone, and how many creatures are turned into loci, you can be well above 60-70 life. They have a turn to get you bellow 50 or remove your enchantment (having an additional 1U open and Negate in hand would be the best scenario), otherwise, GG.
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3x Cursecatcher
3x Wall of Blossoms
Artifacts: 8
4x Expedition Map
4x Amulet of Vigor
Enchantments: 8
4x Trade Routes
1x Fastbond
2x Propaganda
1x Pendrell Mists
4x Dizzy Spell
2x Stroke of Genius
4x Crop Rotation
2x Voidslime
3x Daze
2x Sylvan Scrying
4x Glimmerpost
1x Cloudpost
10x Island
6x Forest
Really glad we get a warm up round.
How the decks works:
Get out: Fastbond, Amulet of Vigor and Trade Routes, with having 2 Glimmerposts out you get infinite life from this (which is nice, but doesn't win you games) So you need to get the one Cloudpost out which will give you lots of mana so you can Stroke of Genius to kill your opponent.
Edit: Thanks Blut, forgot the Amulet of Vigor... (kind of important :))
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2x Consecrated Sphinx
Enchantments – 11
1x Convalescent Care
2x Greater Auramancy
1x Leyline of Sanctity
1x Oblivion Ring
1x Planar Collapse
3x Trade Routes
2x Zur’s Weirding
4x Path to Exile
4x Swords to Plowshares
Lands – 24
2x Celestial Colonnade
3x Cloudpost
4x Flooded Stand
4x Glimmerpost
4x Hallowed Fountain
4x Island
3x Plains
1x Ajani Goldmane
1x Elspeth Tirel
2x Gideon Jura
2x Jace, Memory Adept
Sorceries – 9
2x Idyllic Tutor
1x Martial Coup
2x Replenish
4x Wrath of God
The primary goal of the deck is to combo either locus with Glimmerpost, Trade Routes, and Zur's Weirding to lock the opponent from drawing any future cards. This is fundamentally damning for them because your threats once they are on board like Jace, Gideon or Elspeth are left largely unanswered. One thing to note is the lack of countermagic but in practice, the deck simply did not need it since against control/combo all you really needed to do was assemble the combo and get a threat and just grind them down from there. Also of note is the option of also combining Zur's Weirding with the one of Convalescent Care which is an equally abusive lock. So now you might be saying, "But it's a Zur's Weirding deck... not Glimmerpost!" And to that I respond first and foremost that the deck has a key combo with Glimmerpost which the deck works towards. Further, there is a minor lifegain theme in the deck with cards like Ajani Goldmane to serve as an alternate win condition. But if you feel like the deck is not "Glimmerpost"y enough for you, then I encourage you to try it out because you'll be surprised by how helpful and powerful the Glimmerpost can actually be.
4 GLIMMERPOST
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Graypelt Refuge
3 Sejiri Refuge
4 Akoum Refuge
4 Jwar Isle Refuge
Creatures - 20
4 Goldenglow Moth
4 Perimeter Captain
2 Serra Ascendant
3 Soul Warden
4 Aven Riftwatcher
3 Mentor of the Meek
4 Chalice of Life
4 Well of Lost Dreams
4 Pristine Talisman
1 Elixir of Immortality
Enchantments - 3
1 Words of worship
1 Sanguine Bond
Spell - 2
2 Enlightened Tutor
2 Disenchant
2 Faith's Fetters
2 Recumbent Bliss
2 Spectral Guardian
4 Fountain Watch
2 Auriok champion
1 Celestial Convergence
Strategy
Gain Life.
Really. That's about all there is to it. We are going to kill our opponent through gaining life. Specifically, our main goal is to quickly get to 30 life so we can
activate our MOON LASER DEATH CANNON!flip our Chalice of Life. Once we have the Death Chalice, our opponents lose a quarter of their life per hit, meanwhile, you should be very difficult to kill.Since 100% of our mana comes into play tapped, and its important to have defense (so we don't lose our hard earned life!), our defense consists of rather cheap dudes, who also gain us more life. Since our dudes are low power, Mentor of the meek provides cantripy draw to them, as a secondary draw engine (see below).
The key engine here is to use the Well of Lost dreams to be able to quickly cycle through the deck, both with our lands, which gain us life as they enter the battlefield, and as a sweet combo with Words of Worship (especially with sanguine bond out). Once the worship hits the field, you can draw/gain life insanely quickly.
Backup plans include Sanguine Bond to continue the the gain life = you die idea, and Serra Ascendants in case we need to hold the air, or could use a 6/6 flyer of doom.
SIDEBOARD
The sideboard is primarily geared towards answers, with 6 slots dedicated toward giving your artifacts(and enchantments) shroud, in case the opponent has heavy artifact removal. It also has another alternate win in Celestial convergence, in case the opponent goes invulnerable somehow.
THEME
Our theme card does two things: 1) provides colorless mana, and 2) gains life. While the deck evolved to having a lot more color in it then when I started designing it, I always assumed it would to a degree; as soon as you focus on life gain, you typically end up at least a little bit in white.
Price
A quick eyeball over mid-line prices shows that while the deck has a few $5 cards, most are support, and in low number. Overall the deck is about $70 total, most cards under $.25.
Major offenders are Serra Ascendant and Sanguine Bond, our alternate wins, and Auriok Champion our sideboard cards. At $5 each, these 3 2-of's contribute about half of the cost of the deck ($30), and are all optional. Also, I just added a handful of tutors to increase the consistency of the deck. These also make up another $20 to the value, but the consistency they give more than makes up for that.
I think this price distribution is about normal, as whenever you go with an odd-ball strategy, its the solid support that's going to cost you a bit more.
-Added 2 enlightened tutors for consistency. While it buffs the price, I feel it strengthens the theme, and ups consistency considerably.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
I decided to use the mana advantage of 8 post for creating a deck that wants to win through the interaction of essence of the wild + eldrazi 0/1 tokens which will be hopefully online as soon as possible using ramp + post.
4 glimmerpost
4 cloudpost
4 misty rainforest
2 verdant catacombs
2 Khalni Garden
8 forest
3 essence of the wild
2 sakura-tribe elder
4 Nest Invader
4 Deadly Recluse
Spells: 23
4 crop rotation
4 Growth Spasm
4 vines of vastwood
4 awakening zone
3 sylvan library
2 Primal Command
2 noxious revival
- glimmerpost - the card could be basically read as " draw a card" as it gives important life for a sylvan library additional draw while minimizing damage.
- Though a mono G deck, fetches are used to shuffle away sylvan library draws.
- Essense of the wild, supported on each level. Removal? - vines of vastwood. Discarded, Counterspelled? - noxious revival. Not in hand? primal command.
- creature base supports land draw and provides effective blockers for early threats.
- the deck runs reasonable amount of ramp though - crop rotation can possible find a killer 6/6 khalni garden should essence be online. Commands life gain is a great 2nd choice abillity to support library draws, or keeping me alive.
Last note - once essence is online eldrazi tokens produced from nest invader, kozileks predator (read creatures) dont hit the board as 6/6 - they dont come to the board at all. This is the reason why I preffered awakening zone and the rest of the cards as token producers as opposed to the creature variants.
Hm, I like the mirrorweave combo aspect of the deck. Really tickles my funny bone. How has it done so far in playtesting (if you don't mind my asking)?
I like how you made the glimmerpost itself the win.
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
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Body Count: GRRRUUUUUUUUUUU
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4 Glimmerpost
4 Cloudpost
4 Vesuva
4 Tundra
4 Sejiri Refuge
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Serra Ascendant
4 Weathered Wayfarer
4 Ruin Ghost
4 Felidar Sovereign
Other Spells
4 Expedition Map
4 Path to Exile
4 Flicker
4 Test of Endurance
4 Venser, the Sojourner
It's fairly untuned, but the point should be fairly straightforward, capitalizing on the blinking capabilities of Venser, Ruin Ghost, and Flicker to gain massive amounts of life every turn. It runs cloudpost but the deck really cannot abuse the mana! The deck wins with Sovereign, Test of Endurance, or just Serra Ascendant beatdown.