I wanted to build a deck without three and five drops.
There is some ramping to get to spells of 4 and 6 mana.
The underlying idea is that there are no really powerful spells that cost three or five mana (except for exeptions), but that there are a ton of really powerful spells of four and six mana.
It is just for casual kitchen table play.
What do you think? Are there obvious ways to make it better?
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These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
For red artifact ramp, I'd probably play Wildfire over a creature at the top end. It lets you reset land count and wipe the board, while your artifacts continue to give you mana advantage. Valkut leads to ta totally different deck design where you need either green ramp, or wayfarer's bauble and Walking Atlas. In that sort of deck, Browbeat would be an all star.
I don't have a banlist. My playgroup is officially legacy-legal. But what we are actually trying is to avoid overly expensive cards that are too powerful. Mana Drain would be an example of a card that is 'frowned upon'. It is a little difficult to fully follow this strategy because I have been playing for a long time, so I own cards that became expensive.
I understand your comment on Wildfire, but I already have this deck:
My deckbuilding idea is to avoid 3- and 5-drops, and to get maximum value out of the other cards on the mana curve.
Valakut was added as an 'extra' strategy. I thought the deck could support 4 taplands. Ideally to be played on the turns where I know I won't use all the mana.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
I don't have a banlist. But what we are actually trying is to avoid overly expensive cards that are too powerful.
My deckbuilding idea is to avoid 3- and 5-drops, and to get maximum value out of the other cards on the mana curve.
Do you want to skip 2-drops too? Play 4 Sol Ring and then cast 4s on turn 2. They're not expensive! Maybe that will lead to unnecessary power creep though...
Valakut seems weak. A tapland is fine on turn 1, but as a topdeck it really hurts you from curving out 2-4-6. The tempo loss might be significant. On the other hand, the payoff isn't even great. You're unlikely to hit 7+ lands most games. Your goal is to ramp to 6 assisted by mana rocks / Chandra. Even if you hit 7 lands, that's just one free bolt. The real incremental value starts happening at the 8th land and beyond, which may never even happen. You're better off just running Grove of the Burnwillows or an untapped utility land (e.g. Ramunap Ruins, Tectonic Edge, Mishra's Factory).
If you're not running Grove for budget reasons and your meta isn't full of lifegain decks, Punishing Fire starts to look pretty bad. Maybe those should be more 2-to-4 ramp spells like Fire Diamond?
4 Figure of Destiny
3 Pia and Kiran Nalaar
4 Harsh Mentor
3 Flametongue Kavu
2 Inferno Titan
18 Mountain
4 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
2 Myriad Landscape
Artifact
4 Mind Stone
2 Staff of Nin
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Punishing Fire
Planeswalker
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
I wanted to build a deck without three and five drops.
There is some ramping to get to spells of 4 and 6 mana.
The underlying idea is that there are no really powerful spells that cost three or five mana (except for exeptions), but that there are a ton of really powerful spells of four and six mana.
It is just for casual kitchen table play.
What do you think? Are there obvious ways to make it better?
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Do you have a banlist for this?
I understand your comment on Wildfire, but I already have this deck:
4 Goblin Welder
Land
4 Dwarven Ruins
4 Crystal Vein
8 Mountain
Artifact
4 Voltaic Key
4 Great Furnace
1 Spine of Ish Sah
2 Everflowing Chalice
4 Worn Powerstone
4 Basalt Monolith
1 Lightning Greaves
2 Myr Battlesphere
4 Lodestone Golem
1 Steel Hellkite
1 Sundering Titan
4 Wildfire
4 Faithless Looting
Planeswalker
4 Daretti, Scrap Savant
So I would rather not go in that direction.
My deckbuilding idea is to avoid 3- and 5-drops, and to get maximum value out of the other cards on the mana curve.
Valakut was added as an 'extra' strategy. I thought the deck could support 4 taplands. Ideally to be played on the turns where I know I won't use all the mana.
These are the decks that I have constructed, and are ready to play:
01. Ankh Sligh to be exact.
Do you want to skip 2-drops too? Play 4 Sol Ring and then cast 4s on turn 2. They're not expensive! Maybe that will lead to unnecessary power creep though...
Valakut seems weak. A tapland is fine on turn 1, but as a topdeck it really hurts you from curving out 2-4-6. The tempo loss might be significant. On the other hand, the payoff isn't even great. You're unlikely to hit 7+ lands most games. Your goal is to ramp to 6 assisted by mana rocks / Chandra. Even if you hit 7 lands, that's just one free bolt. The real incremental value starts happening at the 8th land and beyond, which may never even happen. You're better off just running Grove of the Burnwillows or an untapped utility land (e.g. Ramunap Ruins, Tectonic Edge, Mishra's Factory).
If you're not running Grove for budget reasons and your meta isn't full of lifegain decks, Punishing Fire starts to look pretty bad. Maybe those should be more 2-to-4 ramp spells like Fire Diamond?