Deck Concept: Like Fdtori's thread, the recent GMAD inspired me to build an interesting deck around Maelstrom Nexus. Fdtori focused around Wheel of Fate, and I wanted to focus on Restore Balance. As such, the deck runs on the Invasion Sac-Lands, which easily allow big spells to be played off Glittering Wish and Wargate, which is great as an early mana-accelerator, and late-game fetcher for Double Maelstrom Nexus or Twilight Shepherd. Fdtori also convinced me on Manamorphose as a good card choice for this type of deck, and I took it a step further with Terrarion + other 1-CMC artifacts. These all guarantee a Cascade into Restore Balance.
Individual Card Explanations:
- Twilight Shepherd - I thought this would be a fun card to fetch off a huge Wargate - to return all of the sacrificed lands or Restore Balanced stuff back to my hand.
- Restore Balance - Discard, Creature Control, Land Control all rolled into 1-card.
- Wargate - Fetches a lot of good stuff here. Sac-Lands are important to fuel the big X.
- Glittering Wish - One of the reasons I'm running this Wishboard is for the interaction between Restore Balance and Dream Salvage. Play Salvage w/ Maelstrom Nexus, Cascade triggers, hitting the only 0-CMC card in the deck. Restore Balance makes opponent discard, and Dream Salvage allows you to draw that many cards. Of course, the other Wish targets provide defensive support and win-conditions as well.
Deck Fixes:
Unlike Fdtori's win-condition of Wheel of Fate, Restore Balance doesn't really benefit from multiple cascade triggers, which is quite dissapointing. It's not a win-condition in itself which is also problematic, and only serves as a good control card until I can safely drop my win-conditions off the Sideboard. I'm not sure if I should have another 'Casacadeable' win-condition. I'm possibly considering 2 copies of Wheel of Fate since it does work well with Dream Salvage, Stormbind and Lord of Extinction, but I'm not sure.
Other suggestions to deck/wishboard are welcome as well. Thanks for reading!
I really like Dream Salvage in here + it also adresses a tiny problem in the deck in that you otherwise wouldn't have a lot of instants to abuse Nexus each turn.
Speaking of planewalkers that don't die to Restore Balance, Gideon Jura would be quite cool to play, it's ultimate just seems tailored for the deck (though you can't really put it in your wishboard :-/).
...Man, your deck is pretty tight.
I'll try to comment some more tomorrow as I'm dead tired right now.
Primary and only casual rule: "any rule that is fine for the most part of the playgroup, is a fine rule". So any further thread with: "if somebody uses/does .... in a casual game, is it ethical/ok?", read the answer above.
- Being a "Johnny/Spike" means you like self-torture. You win often in casual, so everybody hates you; you loose often in competitive, so you hate yourself.
The issue you bring up regarding the Instants was/is a concern. I like the thought of being able to surprise the opponent with an Instant-Speed Restore Balance off a 1-mana instant, but there's only 5 multicolor 1-mana instants
I liked a lot of things about your deck - especially and Time Warp and Naya Charm. I question if Stitch in Time is actually worth it here.
Regarding Terravore. - I did at one point have the similar Knight of the Reliquary as a fetchable Sideboard card, but it seemed too weak as it only counted my own graveyard and I couldn't abuse its ability.
Interesting list but one question... is this deck for a tournament? Otherwise, I don't see why you're limited to 15 cards in your wishboard.
It's not for a tournament, but I think it's a little unfair of me to have a sideboard of every single multicolored card ever printed. I don't think it makes sense for me in a Casual game to fetch an obscure multicolored card that's just right for the current board state. As there are 999 multicolored cards in existence right now, I consider it a testatment to my deckbuilding skills if limit myself to the proper 15.
4 Irrigation Ditch
4 Tinder Farm
4 Sulfur Vent
3 Ancient Spring
1 Geothermal Crevice
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Gemstone Mine
Creatures 8
4 Trinket Mage
3 Maelstrom Archangel
1 Twilight Shepherd
3 Maelstrom Nexus
Artifacts 9
4 Terrarion
3 Executioner's Capsule
1 Elixir of Immortality
1 Sensei's Divining Top
Spells 16
4 Restore Balance
4 Manamorphose
4 Glittering Wish
4 Wargate
2 Dream Salvage
1 Hull Breach
1 Dueling Grounds
1 Stormbind
1 Anurid Brushhopper
1 Glissa, the Traitor
1 Stoic Angel
1 Thought Hemorrhage
1 Lord of Extinction
1 Teferi's Moat
1 Maelstrom Nexus
1 Debtors' Knell
1 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
1 Progenitus
Deck Concept: Like Fdtori's thread, the recent GMAD inspired me to build an interesting deck around Maelstrom Nexus. Fdtori focused around Wheel of Fate, and I wanted to focus on Restore Balance. As such, the deck runs on the Invasion Sac-Lands, which easily allow big spells to be played off Glittering Wish and Wargate, which is great as an early mana-accelerator, and late-game fetcher for Double Maelstrom Nexus or Twilight Shepherd. Fdtori also convinced me on Manamorphose as a good card choice for this type of deck, and I took it a step further with Terrarion + other 1-CMC artifacts. These all guarantee a Cascade into Restore Balance.
Individual Card Explanations:
- Trinket Mage - fetches all the 1-CMC artifacts in here, which then guarantee the Restore Balance cascade.
- Maelstrom Archangel - A big hitter that allows the Glittering Wish Sideboard to be more liberal with the card choices. Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is a nice card to play off this as it doesn't get hit by Restore Balance.
- Twilight Shepherd - I thought this would be a fun card to fetch off a huge Wargate - to return all of the sacrificed lands or Restore Balanced stuff back to my hand.
- Terrarion - Manafixing + Cantrip.
- Executioner's Capsule - Fetchable Removal.
- Elixir of Immortality - Reuse everything, put something back to fetch via Wargate
- Sensei's Divining Top - Reusable Cascade? Oh yes.
- Restore Balance - Discard, Creature Control, Land Control all rolled into 1-card.
- Wargate - Fetches a lot of good stuff here. Sac-Lands are important to fuel the big X.
- Glittering Wish - One of the reasons I'm running this Wishboard is for the interaction between Restore Balance and Dream Salvage. Play Salvage w/ Maelstrom Nexus, Cascade triggers, hitting the only 0-CMC card in the deck. Restore Balance makes opponent discard, and Dream Salvage allows you to draw that many cards. Of course, the other Wish targets provide defensive support and win-conditions as well.
Unlike Fdtori's win-condition of Wheel of Fate, Restore Balance doesn't really benefit from multiple cascade triggers, which is quite dissapointing. It's not a win-condition in itself which is also problematic, and only serves as a good control card until I can safely drop my win-conditions off the Sideboard. I'm not sure if I should have another 'Casacadeable' win-condition. I'm possibly considering 2 copies of Wheel of Fate since it does work well with Dream Salvage, Stormbind and Lord of Extinction, but I'm not sure.
Other suggestions to deck/wishboard are welcome as well. Thanks for reading!
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
Didn't you want to play Terravore as well?
I really like Dream Salvage in here + it also adresses a tiny problem in the deck in that you otherwise wouldn't have a lot of instants to abuse Nexus each turn.
Speaking of planewalkers that don't die to Restore Balance, Gideon Jura would be quite cool to play, it's ultimate just seems tailored for the deck (though you can't really put it in your wishboard :-/).
...Man, your deck is pretty tight.
I'll try to comment some more tomorrow as I'm dead tired right now.
The issue you bring up regarding the Instants was/is a concern. I like the thought of being able to surprise the opponent with an Instant-Speed Restore Balance off a 1-mana instant, but there's only 5 multicolor 1-mana instants
I liked a lot of things about your deck - especially and Time Warp and Naya Charm. I question if Stitch in Time is actually worth it here.
Regarding Terravore. - I did at one point have the similar Knight of the Reliquary as a fetchable Sideboard card, but it seemed too weak as it only counted my own graveyard and I couldn't abuse its ability.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
It's not for a tournament, but I think it's a little unfair of me to have a sideboard of every single multicolored card ever printed. I don't think it makes sense for me in a Casual game to fetch an obscure multicolored card that's just right for the current board state. As there are 999 multicolored cards in existence right now, I consider it a testatment to my deckbuilding skills if limit myself to the proper 15.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus
http://magiccards.info/query?q=c%3Am&v=scan&s=cmc
This apparently includes special unplayable cards like 1996 World Champion though.
R: Copypasta Sauce {Browbeat}
UR: Mana Cache , One Spell to Bind them All {Magnetic Theft}
UG: Epic Struggle , All-In-Poison {Metamorphosis}
UW: Planar Overlay , Decree of the Bailiff {Saprazzan Bailiff}
BG: Thought Gorger , Dark Chroma {Umbra Stalker}
UBR: Dwarven Shrine
WUBRG: Dissipation Field , Maelstrom Nexus