This list is designed to build a very powerful attack cannon. Due to the limitations of being mono red I designed the deck to attempt to aggressively win ignoring a lot of whatever else is going on. This deck is designed as a bit of a glass cannon that ignores most everything else in an attempt to go off. Due to the fact that we are a token based deck we can use tokens to try to stall for us but with the overall goal to go off our primary goal is to keep pushing for the win rather than put up defenses.
This deck is designed to be somewhat of a fast exponential aggro deck that pushes for one large wave of damage to kill everyone. While we have a lot of alternate wincons they are there because of how fragile this tactic can sometimes be. This is after all mono red aggro and sometimes you will be required to go all in on a move. If you feel uncomfortable on occasion pushing your deck to the limits like that then this may not be the deck for you. You will make enemies long term playing a deck like this and in the end my consensus has been to just ignore them and go off before it matters.
Welcome to mono red! There are a lot of really interesting commanders to pick from in mono red so you might be interested in some of the reasons I play Marton myself. I will do my best to run through some of what you can expect from playing Marton as a commander. If you are looking for a token based commander there are lots of options out there to choose from. Marton is probably one of the least controlling type of token commanders due to his color options. He is also one of the largest token buffs in the game though and combined with haste he has one of the best out of nowhere glass cannon attacks in the game.
Totally amazing style points. There aren't many really old legends that really stand out as being powerful. Much less mono colored old commanders.
He gives an amazing pump effect that is non tribal based. This means we get to use the best of the colorless and red token producing tactics.
Mono red decks often have a very low threat profile. People often dont worry too much about you if they dont know your deck unless you are playing Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Our plays seem smaller and not as significant until we really get going. Sometimes people dont see our wins coming until it literally happens which is a nice bonus.
His CC is very affordable at 4. Having a low casting cost means that you can easily chain other effects the same turn that you go to utilize him. This can win you the game as I have won plenty of games from a board state of mana stones only to winning that turn and killing 3 opponents in the process off of 12 ish mana and a haste outlet.
Marton is literally one of the most obscene buffs in the game for its mana. On average I am increasing the damage output of my creatures by usually a minimum of 30 or 40 damage and I often end up using him to increase my damage output by a magnitude of hundreds or more damage.
Mono red really has some limitations on good token production, card draw, and removal. Sometimes you will feel like you are using really crappy cards, and sometimes you are.
Marton is frail as a 1/1 creature. Due to this he dies easily to a stiff breeze. You really have to watch what is on the board and what people are playing when you try to push for the win. There are so many things that can stop him from going off so knowing your opponents and watching the board state is important.
This particular build tends to ignore a lot of the problems going on (IE, all in). You dont have to necessarily take it as far as I do in this list but I honestly dont really miss having answers most of the time with this build. You find things like Warp World, Goblin Bombardment, Zelous Conscripts, and several others to function quite well in a variety of roles when needed. As I said though, if you dont care for going all in, you might not like my approach.
Overall I decided to run Marton Stromgald as my commander for my own reasons. Mono colored decks are challenging in nature. One of the biggest things that I love about this deck is how suddenly it can change the game and win. Most decks require you to setup a winning position over several turns. This deck essentially only needs mana and haste to go off on its opponents. Marton Stromgald as a commander is a very unique buff where he gives probably the most potent buff for his mana of all commanders out there. He has great synergy with a lot of elements of red and heads up a very powerful token based deck.
I started playing Marton sometime around October of 2011. My initial thought was that I would just be sort of slowly building big waves of creatures and herp derping it up with slow big fat waves of tokens. As I played it though I kept trying to ramp harder and faster and go from no board presence to killing everyone in one shot. Tokens almost always have problems with wrath effects because you need a lot of them to do anything. Thanks to Marton though this deck can accomplish a lot more off of a lot less. The big downside though is that it is often more difficult to set it up as you need tokens + marton + haste usually.
Initially I built the deck with equipment and lots more control. The problem I was noticing was that it was sometimes hard to find bodies to put a sword on in this deck or if I found a body it was like one of 5 tokens I had so the equipment really wasn't effectively buffing them. The control was having problems as well as control is always conditional as you usually have to hold onto it until the right moment. This deck kept using a lot of mana on most of its turns to do things and I found it was difficult to keep mana up for the control options and when I did my 1 for 1 effects really got outpaced by other color's draw effects. Due to that I had to sort of scale back on the control and equipment. I still have some control but I want it to be multifunctional and work towards me winning the game rather than just being dead cards in hand that poorly trade off.
As I kept playing the deck, I realized that all I really needed was ramp, draw, tokens, and haste. I kept narrowing out the cards I didn't really need or that were just sort of standalone ok cards and adding more cards that interacted with my token tactics.
"The Order of Stromgald began as a sub-movement within the various political movements of Ice Age-era Kjeldor.
On the surface, the Order of Stromgald appeared to be a concerned party that feared the weakened will of Kjeldor's king, Darien. However, under the surface the Order has more malign roots. The Order was formed by former Kjeldoran knight Avram Garrison and the necromancer and archenemy of the people of Kjeld, Lim-Dûl. The true intent of the Order of Stromgald was to assassinate Darien and weaken the political structure of Kjeld, hastening Lim-Dûl's victory over the already assaulted nation. The Order eventually fell apart after the defeat of Lim-Dûl, but various factions that were rumored to exist probably merged with his surviving undead army at Tresserhorn.
The Order of Stromgald took its name from the legendary Kjeldoran general Márton Stromgald."
I felt that the history was sort of cool pertaining to the order. So I did a bit more digging into the matter for actual cards that had tidbits pertaining to such an order and came across the following of which most have some flavor text pertaining to The Order:
Also sort of bouncing off of the last statement of "The Order eventually fell apart after the defeat of Lim-Dûl, but various factions that were rumored to exist probably merged with his surviving undead army at Tresserhorn." We find this last guy:
My name is Brian, I am 27 years old, I live out in South Dakota sort of in the middle of nowhere. I got into playing EDH back in the summer of 2010. Our playgroup started sort of small and we went on and off on EDH play but eventually it took off and most of us sort of started dying off from other formats and only playing EDH. We would get Tuesday Nights where we would get 8-12 guys together down at the shop and just play 4+ hours of EDH every week. I got to be sort of one of the big shot players in my group where a lot of times people would just swing things at me because that's the player I am regardless of what deck I bring to the table. I try to build decks with the mentality that everyone might be attacking me and I might have to fend off more than one opponent. While I love perfecting my decks, I don't particularly like utilizing combos so if I have a combo in my deck it is usually because it has multi purposes that can be utilized to go infinite if it is drawn in that way. I am a spike player and I love getting my cards worth so I play plenty of card advantage style cards and I love comes into play effects.
I moved from my original EDH playgroup to a college town in May 2012. My competition when I moved to this new meta was totally terrible when I got here. Due to this I was playing things like a $1,300.00 Jenara deck against $50-$100 decks. Sadly, I had to push the guys in my meta to proxy decks up so that I could have some competition. Currently they have gone a long ways and give me a much better run for my money.
I have played magic since hummm I guess like 1996 or 1997. I have been playing magic since Ice Age but that was when I was in like 4th grade so obviously I was not the player then that I am now. I picked up on playing standard FNM a lot in high school where I played a lot in the Odyssey / Onslaught blocks. I played into Mirrodin then quit when Kokusho started beating everyone up. I don't hold it against him though, I would love to see him come off of the ban list as I think he is fine in EDH. Perhaps keep him banned as a commander.
I am back to playing magic again and have been playing standard since Zendikar came out. I go back and forth on my thoughts of Standard but regardless I love playing EDH. I recently stopped playing standard again sometime just before Avacyn Restored was released due to my own personal issues with the direction Wizards is trying to push standard away from control. I still dabble at standard a little bit utilizing my friend John's collection, who has been very gracious and allows me to use his cards, but I really have a strong dislike for the current direction Wizards is going with standard. Still, I stay strong as a Commander player.
I have built more EDH decks than I can count up anymore. I am quite good at dropping staple cards into a list which is really unfortunate. I keep the number of decks I have constructed to somewhat of a minimum. I don't like replicating how decks feel so I sort of go with colors / strategies I don't already have. I am sort of an aggro / control player who tends to for the most part not focus heavily on infinite combos. I tend to keep like 3-4 decks together at a time and I usually end up scrapping decks beyond that for lack of regular use reasons.
Well, I always like to acknowledge anything someone else might write up on my deck list that is separate from the thread I create itself. I had the honor of having Sheldon Menery (Rules Committee member often hailed as the father of EDH) spotlight this deck in one of his SCG articles back on 08/08/2012. Sheldon's article can be found here and it takes up the rest of the article after his discussion on his new alter.
My thanks go out to sheldon for such a kind and thorough article. I know the deck itself isnt what he tends to run himself however he did put some effort into evaluating the list and adding some feedback of his own. Publicity for obscure commanders is always a nice thing as well.
To be totally upfront and honest, the deck plays sort of like a combo deck. The whole game you are focusing on setting up to go off and kill everyone. It has the advantage of not really having infinite combos involved in most of what it does. Marton is very synergistic to the build here and while I lean on him as a finisher I have encompassed a lot of backup plans to the deck as well. Most of the game you will focus on developing your manabase and keep rotating cards through your hand as fast as you can. Generally speaking the idea is to go from very very few creatures in play to killing everyone in one turn. Sometimes the deck takes a turn to mass produce creatures then drop marton with haste next turn. The deck has a lot of ways to win though so just dealing with marton usually doesn't keep me from killing people in other ways.
EARLY GAME
Build your manabase as best as you can here. If possible blow your hand as fast as possible if you have a wheel effect just to jack with the people who didn't get as fast of a start as you or just hit the lands and stones as fast as you can. Try to partial Paris the expensive cards out of your hand and keep card draw and ramp in the opening.
MID GAME
Keep ramping when you can and drop your lands but you should be mostly done with the ramp aspects here. Do what you can to keep card draw up and your threat perception down when possible. Try to keep a low board presence unless you are being focused on then drop creatures to stall for you. Don't be afraid to take some damage here but being the low hanging fruit can get you bumped off by someone else so I usually try to keep a high life total and don't bother poking at people for small damage. The small damage rarely matters in the long run and only makes opponents. Swinging back at people who are making you their enemy is perfectly fine but don't start things with poking someone for 4-5 damage here.
LATE GAME
Ideally hand sizes should be a bit smaller by now. To be really explosive you really want a haste outlet. Work on setting up how you will get a big wave of creatures and Marton in one shot or if you have to set them up over a short span of time. Don't be afraid to do an all in move as sometimes that is what it takes to win the game. I cant tell you how many times a flashed back Firecat Blitz has won me the game. I wouldn't push this tactic unless it is a last resort but don't be afraid to drop your landbase to kill someone either if the alternative is dying.
Generally speaking this deck does a lot of pushing things around in an opening hand. Keep in mind that my own experience here comes from playing a "partial Parris" no freebie setup so if you play differently than my setup than I you might need to adjust how you do your mulligans a little. That said, you will still be looking for similar things in your opening hand:
Land - you need the land to play the game first and foremost. Ideally I often like to see something in the ballpark of 3-4 lands in an opening hand just so that I am relying less on topdeck draws. Keep in mind that drawing more lands later is still good, drawing no lands later is bad. Beinig land flooded isnt neccesarily a bad thing as we still want to be landing a lot of land in the long run. The biggest downside of having 5+ lands in an opening hand is that you will probably just be slow rolling out of the gates with no draw / ramp. You will at least have your land drops for a while figured out though.
Draw / Filter / Scry - Landing some land drops and then getting some draw / filter / wheel effect going can be very useful for this deck. If you can drop lands + ramp then wheel it is really golden. Draw gets us out of a stagnant few turns. Generally in the first 4-6 turns we will have done most of what we can productively do for a while other than drop more lands. Hitting up some draw of some sort keeps the fuel going. Sometimes you will help others out who ramp faster than you but the point is that you get to keep dropping more lands, ramp, and have more fuel to go forward. Ideally if you can do it set up a one sided draw but if you have to wheel it is often better to just do it than sit on a dead hand longer than neccesary. Keep in mind that most of your opponents can draw cards a lot better than you can. Hitting up a wheel effect is often a disadvantage to the decks that have good draw because you are ofsetting their advantage of superior draw and giving everyone resources. It benefits those who are the worst at drawing the most.
Ramp - This lets us do everything bigger and faster. If we can ramp our hand into play and then wheel we offset a lot of our opponents cards. We often dont make big plays to try to win quickly so that usually isnt the intent of this so a big downside is if someone whipes the artifacts out as we need our mana. In general I am usually at like 8-12 mana minimum when I make an actual move to seal the game up. If I have to work off of less mana than that I can try to win still but generally it is going to be less explosive and or slow rolling it over several turns.
Other cards I tend to try to keep in an opening hand. These cards are also sort of nice to have in opening hands beyond those three above groups but they dont tend to be my first focus.
Tutors (Imperial Recruiter, Gamble) - the two that I listed in specific are really solid in an opening hand because they are so versatile. Using Gamble into an early Sol Ring or Wheel of Fortune is really solid. The Imperial Recruiter is very versatile as well and can tutor into ramp, filter, and most of my goblin package. These cards can fill most any roll in a lot of situations. The other tutors such as the Moggcatcher and Goblin Matron are good as well but more situational based on what the hand looks like.
Haste - There are a lot of haste outlets in this deck but we really need haste as well. If I can I try to keep the haste outlets when possible because there are a lot of elements in the deck that work off of them. If I am hurting for other more important things though these effects go out.
Vedalken Orrery- It seems sort of silly to single it out but this deck is very vulnerable to removal. Flashing in a guy at EOT plus playing some guys with haste is really solid. Flash is sort of like haste but also stacks amazingly with haste for this deck. Some of our creatures tap to do things and if you can flash them + haste tap + on our turn tap again it can be game over. Using this card + Moggcatcher I have sealed games off in one turn. Flash lets me jump over board sweepers and essentially take 2 turns in a row when I want to. This is one of my favorite cards to have in an opening hand because it just means that I get to react to things and it becomes harder to respond to what I am doing.
It is hard to categorize most everything else. Depending on the hand other cards are largely subject to if I have my land, draw, and ramp figured out. Most of the expensive finisher cards and X mana spawn stuff are pushed out of my opening hands in hope of getting the above options.
If you are used to just flipping your commander willy nilly into play, just stop. Marton isn't the type of commander that you drop in the first few turns because he is our late game wincon. Marton is a huge target, the ability to cast him for 4 mana the turn you want to push for a win is huge. Marton getting tucked is unfortunate but not a game over situation. Keeping him at a low casting cost though so he can win you the game later is very important. There are very few reasons I would cast him outside of needing him to try to swing for some kills.
Try to bank off of a haste outlet whenever possible while playing Marton out. It isnt as though you can't slow play Marton, but you really project what you intend to do when he hits the board. Haste is really key with this deck and if you cant achieve haste with him I usually look for another path or try to flash him in or use an alternate wincon to get to the win. It is up to you as the player to determine if you can get away with playing your haste outlets ahead of time or if you need to play them the same turn as marton. Sometimes a surprise last second haste outlet + marton in the same turn will throw people off as they didnt think you could come out swinging with him. This can allow you to build a larger token force sometimes. Even after all that is said and done, on occasion you might have to slow play him or loose. Just know that slow rolling Marton is far from the ideal situation.
Backup Plans - There will actually be times where utilizing Marton just isnt going to be an option. I deliberately built this deck with fallback plans. I have had to deal with a lot of different issues to get through with this deck before. Some of the worst issues you might encounter are: Fogs, Mass -/- static effects (Crovax, Ascendant Hero), AEther Flash style of ETB or attack based dmg effects like Caltrops, and effects requiring mana per attacker such as (Propaganda). The idea behind this deck is to have alternate ways to win. If one of these effects comes down on you I would usually turn to Warp World, Vicious Shadows, and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to do all of the damage you can to the offender. Don't point out how much of a problem it is for you and try to keep the other players in the game because as long as they are around they might clear this stuff up for you. Keep in mind what your backup plans are and try to bank opponents into solving the issues or the problematic player for you. Zealous Conscripts has on several occasions stolen a Ghostly Prison effect for me to push a win. Keep in mind the multiple ways to get around these effects and do what has to be done to get the job done.
If you have ever played mono red then you should understand that it is extremely difficult to control everything that your opponents do. Your removal and card draw is just too limited to try to react to everything else that goes on in a game. Due to this I tend to try to just ignore a lot of what goes on in the game. By forcing other players to use their answers on other big threats it just makes it easier for us to go off. Remember that you are the mono red player and there might be a few blue, green, and black players that you are facing. Generally speaking a lot of these people sort of regularly draw the hate of the game due to the colors of their commander. Often in a game you can just let the other people draw out the first wave of hate. By the time you are ready to make your move most people will have smaller hands and less answers. Try to let people swing into other people. Don't make a bit fuss over taking 5 damage here and there as only the last bit of life matters. This deck can try to force a win out of nowhere in a lot of ways late in the game. Just sort of roll with the game until the time is right to make a move.
The goal of this deck is essentially to set up a position to eliminate all of the opposition while trying to ignore most of what else is going on. We have some removal such as Goblin Welder, Siege-Gang Commander, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and Goblin Bombardment but the primary goal of the deck is to sort of just kill everyone outright.
I should probably start out by saying that when I originally built this deck it was because combo was frowned upon in my meta. I do have a little bit of combo in the deck but that isn't for the intended purpose of comboing out so much as because the cards just work well in the deck for multiple purposes. Some options when going up against combo:
Wheel Their Hands - there are a lot of combo players who set up their hands with tutors and what not to try to go off quickly. You can interrupt these tutors by wheeling and stripping entire combos out of their hands. Wheel of Fortune, Reforge the Soul, and Chandra Ablaze can all be used very disruptively against tutor and big draw effects.
Control - I purposely run a bit of a glass cannon list with a mostly all in. When playing against combo it is possible to add a little control to the mix but keep in mind that your card draw is usually worse than theirs is. Creature removal, artifact removal, forks, and redirect effects can all screw with a combo player though. One of my favorite cards to use is Grip of Chaos and it is control in a sorts and it does make things really difficult for some control and combo players. Stranglehold can also screw with some players but can be a bit meta dependent.
Kill Faster - Generally I just hope that I end up going off before they do. Often times control decks will be drawing the hate of the other players. We have the advantage of being mono red and dont quote me but "usually" having a little lower threat rating than the Sharuum the Hegemon player. Sometimes you can just race them to the win or if necessary try to build yourself up sooner and just swing with enough to be lethal to a single opponent.
If you come to me and ask: "BUT ISBPathfinder :eek:, I cant find a way to fight a turn 4/5 combo out." My response is going to be, go find another deck. This is mono red after all and while I find the build to be very very solid, it isn't going to fight against turn 5 consistent combo decks. The deck does play really fun though and can fight against a lot of decent combo decks but if they are consistently going off very early, you need to be playing something else.
I myself haven't really ever played much in a LD happy meta but hey it happens and I suppose I will try to give some pointers where I can on the matter. Some sort of basic strategies assuming the LD is a regular in your meta:
Reduce Mana Costs - The higher your mana curve is in the deck the harder hit you will be by someone blowing up the lands. Try to cut out some of the X mana spawning effects and the 6+ mana stuff will help here.
Increase Mana Stone Count - more stones can help against mass LD because it gives you a starting point to get going again. I go back and forth on how many stones I run but in general I run a decent number of them. If you don't see a lot of artifact sweepers or see a lot of mass LD in your meta then the stones get better.
Darksteel Citadel - Considering we are running a mono color deck, it becomes easier for us to fix mana here. An indestructible land can get you jump started on your mana count. There are a few utility lands that tap for colorless in here that aren't as important so bringing this in against a Mass LD meta seems like a good add.
Crucible of Worlds - Generally I like to add a fetchland package as well to the list if you want to run crucible.
Strategy - try to keep at least a land or two in hand once you get up in land count. Having no lands left in hand is a lot worse than not having that extra land or two in play that you could have. It is sometimes hard to remember to do this and difficult to tell when you need to start holding some back but it can make or break a game having those first few land drops after a LD effect.
In general, I wouldn't plan too much around LD countermeasures unless your meta specifically uses it. In my experience a majority of playgroups and players online don't find it acceptable so I would generally wait until you encounter problems before worrying too much about the countermeasures for it. Keep in mind as well that a lot of the plans to recover from a mass LD effect will just be too slow to recover in time. Most people will blow the lands up when they are in a position to win with some good board presence. Your best bet is to try to use a combination of tactics to combat it. If you have mana stones in play with a land recursion method and lands in hand you aren't going to have a problem with it.
The information in this section is a combination of cards in the list, cards that I have tried, or cards that I have considered before. Not everything will have made it in here but I do my best to keep it up to date. The cards that are in the decklist will be bolded.
Creatures:
1 CC Dragonmaster Outcast Man, I really love this guy so he was hard to finally axe. I pulled him out of the list though because there was just never a time when I could slow roll big fat dragon tokens profitably. He is slow in an opening hand / early turns and in the late game I want more than a token per turn regardless of its size / ability to fly. I really like this guy but it didn't fit my needs of big token waves.
Goblin Welder This is an artifact heavy decklist. It is easy to flip an mana stone into a threat later in the game and there are several other cool tricks that can be performed with him. My biggest complaint is drawing him early in the game as he is much better late in the game rather than early on.
2 CC Lightning Mauler yet another haste outlet. I stopped running this guy in favor of other outlets such as Akroma's Memorial and Vedalken Orrery. He works as a haste outlet but reliably you need to drop him like the turn you want to go off or the turn before. I just felt he was one of my worst haste outlets in the deck.
3 CC Goblin Matron goblins have become a bigger and bigger influence in this deck. There are a number of things you can do with this guy when trying to setup. If you are trying to get as many guys into play my suggestion is to Goblin Matron into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, from here Kiki can copy Matron again and tutor into Siege-Gang Commander and start to multiply. This tactic tends to get you wrathed though but nothing ventured nothing gained.
Imperial Recruiter If you can afford this $300.00 ish price tag then absolutely he is a house for this deck. There are a lot of targets in this deck. It is all about versatility and keeping up card advantage when you can. Sometimes this guy can draw hate to you so watch what you tutor for. Grabbing a Solemn Simulacrum can be a nice diplomatic move that doesnt bring everyone down on you off this guy.
Pilgrim's Eye he gives you a flying blocker and keeps the land drops coming. Landing every land drop is very important for this deck as we need some big mana to do some of the game ending multi card setups. He also gives you a great target for Goblin Welder and Trading Post potentially.
4 CC Anger This is a really good haste outlet. One of the best parts of him is that you can cycle him out of a hand and still get his full effect. Sometimes I dont inform others that he is in my graveyard as the bins are public knowledge and they can always look at mine. It might be a little dirty but hey when I announce that I am wheeling I am not required to announce that I throw away a mountain so I sort of leave it to opponents to check on that sort of thing usually. It is best not to play him out unless you have a sac outlet in play. I have seen some Swords to Plowshares and other exile removal used on him before so when possible dont just play him out.
Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician This guy is sort of the definition of all in sir. You have to be really careful when using this to not go overboard. Sacrificing lands is really rough, and while the outcome can be great, it can also be totally suck. I have seen several times where I get foged or someone spot kills Marton as I go for a big assault that should have ended the game. Due to that I dont often go all in on sacrificing land anymore unless absolutely necessary. If you dump all your land and dont finish the game the chances are someone will wrath you and you are out of the game for good. Even then though... Ib is a great addition for the deck. Just don't always assume everything will go according to plan.
Krenko, Mob Boss a fantastic new addition to the deck from M13. Ideally I wouldn't want to have to start with him as the only goblin in play but he can lead to some stupid plays. He capitalizes off of haste as well which is great as the deck loves to find ways to give haste. His immediate impact is a little lower than I like but he is sort of like kiki where the longer he sticks the more stupidity he spits all over the board. He has been great so far in testing. Again starting with him as the only goblin is not ideal but I have done it several times where I build him up to have like 8-16 goblins and win with him.
Mad Prophet he can help you to see more cards. With this deck a lot of times there are some conditional cards that arent appropriate for the moment that this guy can help you move through. He has haste so he works right away and he gives you an extra body to use with your big attacks if needed. He is nicely multifunctional and really nice for discarding some of the flashback cards / anger with.
Moggcatcher one of the best goblin tutors available. There aren't like any other tutors available for red that can put a creature into play at instant speed and be used every turn. The biggest downside I have currently is that there is no good goblin that can give haste to Marton that I am aware of. If you get him set up with mana to use him I like to tutor into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, use Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to copy Moggcatcher and go get Siege-Gang Commander. This will have you set up to potentially win if you have a haste outlet to copy the gang next turn, drop Marton Stromgald, and if you have mana left go get Krenko, Mob Boss on your turn and just turn out bodies everywhere.
Rakka Mar I played her for a while but eventually axed her. This deck needs explosive numbers all at once. Making a single token at a time is too slow to build up. I want to see 4+ bodies from one card immediately when possible. Due to this she got the axe a while back but she is sort of cool as the tokens are decent sized. Still they arent huge and they arent free.
Solemn Simulacrum ramp is always welcome for this deck. We can literally never have enough mana for this deck. He has the upside of drawing a replacement for himself when he dies as well and is an amazing Goblin Welder target as well.
5 CC Emrakul's Hatcher 3 little munchy mana biscuits all rolled up in one package deal. I have dropped this just to eat up the toekns next turn a few times. It is another 4 bodies for 5 mana deal and it is hard to not like it. It is sort of funny because generally I would say it is a terrible card but it is fairly solid in this deck. You might even draw less hate after dropping it if people dont know your deck as it usually turns people to think you are playing jank
Hoarding Dragon He isnt half bad as it is a tutor which red has so few of however I have just found that it is too unreliable in my mind. I dont run a ton of sac outlets and so I can not control him all that well. My problem here is that it is sort of slow and unpredictable. At least on Gamble I can shoot it off right away and know if it backfires or not.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker this is probably to date the best red creature ever printed. Unfortunately he goes infinite like all the time with everything so he draws hate appropriately. Still, he is a really a cool card and worth his weight in gold if he sticks a few turns. Even if he doesn't stick you can usually generate some value from him and remove one more spot removal from your opponents that might otherwise go to Marton. If he sticks to the board, it is usually a good statement that people are low or out of removal.
Siege-Gang Commander I do really like this goblin. He gives me control options and token swarm at the same time. It helps me sort of be able to do whatever is needed. Plus, if you can kick out extra copies through one means or another he gets really abusive.
Urabrask the Hidden another haste outlet. He is good but he dies a lot so he has problems but still I take all of the mass haste I can get. If you get lucky on a Warp World you might land this guy and tap out all your opponents stuff.
Zealous Conscripts he comes in and hijacks a card. Now normally I wouldn't run this sort of card in the deck because it is more control oriented than anything. The thing is that he is really multifunctional for a lot of different uses. Use him with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to go infinite dudes with haste, use him with an opponents titan for some nice profit, use him with marton for a pseudo haste outlet. He essentially gives 2 attacking bodies for 5 mana that can swing the second they hit. The number of uses he can be used for is really big. I even hijacked a Greater Good just to ram him through it once which was fun. He is very versatile due to his own haste + ability to steal anything, untap it, and give it haste.
6 CC Godo, Bandit Warlord I used to use this guy and while he is just sort of a red good stuff creature I found that most of the equipment were really bad for token based decks other than Skullclamp. As much as I like the clamp it wasn't worth having a 6 mana creature in the deck just to fetch it into play. I used to run a larger equipment setup utilizing swords and such as well but it seemed the best to just axe the whole lot of it.
Hellkite Charger This guy is more for if you want to do infinite attacks with Sword of Feast and Famine to be honest. I have not been very impressed with extra attack phases with Marton as if I get one attack phase with him involved people are dying anyways so extra attacks are sort of gimp but if you want more combo you can consider this guy for it.
Inferno Titan He is ok for some removal but I had problems with the fact that he did absolutely nothing for my token tactis. On top of that I had someone Bribery into him a few times and it really hurts when playing tokens.
Moonveil Dragon mass firebreathing would be another way to try to buff into a win. The downside is that even though this gives a buff across the board it still costs 6 mana before you even start buffing. It would be really hard for this to work out unless you had a wave of tokens + the dragon in play for a whole turn already then dumped mana like crazy. I also utilize a lot of colorless mana stones and lands so the red dependance on the buff could be difficult.
Rapacious One This guy is one of the most ridiculous token producers in the deck. Start swinging at people and generate up to 5 tokens per turn. Once you get Marton in on the action he buffs and generates even more tokens in his attack. The tokens can be used for emergency mana or to do bigger things in a turn. He has really been a hell of a tank. He does a lot of dirty work for me. At first glance, people might not understand how powerful he is in here. Let them doubt it and die to it.
Steel Hellkite I like him for his ability to answer random things that I am having problems with but the problem becomes the fact that I have so little ways to reliably go get him whereas he has potential to totally jack me up if stolen out of my deck, rezed into play, or cloned. Due to this I just dont run him.
Thopter Assembly I ran this guy for a while and while there is some decent potential with him, the chance that there will be no return is too great for me to use it anymore. It is really really slow to play with as well so it has some issues. One of the upsides to it though being that it would be really cool to use with Goblin Welder as the tokens it produces can be swapped for artifacts as well.
Wurmcoil Engine A good random beater but I stopped running it due to the fact that it was usually just a random 6/6 creature swinging arround. The fact that it can drop 2 tokens out of it is decent but still it felt a little out of place but if you need some lifegain I suppose this wouldnt be a bad choice.
7 CC Chancellor of the Forge This guy can turn into some stupid turns. Use Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on him in response to his trigger and you probably have enough tokens to kill people regardless of where you were sitting beforehand. All that said, I dislike how he is dependent on my setup to work at all. However he can get you from sort of a middle of the road standing into kill position very quickly.
Darksteel Gargoyle I have caught a lot of flack for supporting this guy but at the end of the day, being alive to drop more lands and draw more cards is more opportunities to win yourself. This guy is purely defensive. He works great against creature and voltron strategies as trample or unblockable are the only evasions that give him trouble. He blocks off random damage and keeps a low threat profile for you. Ideally I want people still swinging at each other and my deterrents to be of low threat origin so they dont need to blow up my blocker. Living another few turns can be all it takes to win.
Dragon Mage I ran him back before they printed Reforge the Soul. I still think this guy is ok but the fact that he needs to connect to trigger makes him sort of unpredictable. If I could just have a creature that did an ETB wheel I would be more cool with that. As it stands, he needs to wait a turn and then connect to someone. More often than not someone tries to stop wheel effects because I usually do them when it is at my best interest. Giving people a buffer time to drop their threats or kill a creature to stop it doesn't work as well for me.
Myr Battlesphere 5 bodies that arrive on ETB is amazing. I love copying this guy with Kiki as he provides one of the highest # of bodies per creature in the list. Plus more Myrs just means more direct damage when I tap and send one of the Battlespheres in or more bodies for Marton to swing with. Either way this guy is easily one of the most amazing bodies due to having huge defense and providing tons of guys on arrival. Remember that he is fat enough to block a titan and live which is very useful on occasion.
8 CC Sundering Titan He is great in mono colored decks but the problem being that he really does nothing to further the objective of the deck. I want to win not just piss people off. This deck doesn't run much control effects so I dont get the feeling that running just this guy is going to get you far. If you see a ton of 5c decks with good manabases though it could increase your chances of wanting to run this. Ohhh ya and update here, he is banned now as well.
9+ CC Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Card draw in mono red is really a problem. I run this guy primarily as a means to draw cards, and eat opponents removal. If I get lucky I can give him haste and eat someone's face as well. He is a plan B strategy, he gives card draw, he breaks through against attack limitation effects, and he doesn't care about most of the issues that plague a token deck. He fits really well so far and if someone jacks him from my deck there are actually some ways in which I could kill him potentially.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre I considered running him a few times as a secondary big beefy alt wincon but Kozilek, Butcher of Truth fits what the deck needs so much better. I like this guy but he is really expensive which pushes up my already high mana curve and doesn't directly benefit the deck nearly as well as Kozilek does.
Artifact
Everflowing Chalice sort of a generic mana stone but I like how I can scale it. I can drop it at 2 mana for it to be another early stone or if I draw it later it could easily tap for 5+ mana. Due to that I find it to be better than Fire Diamond style stones.
Orochi Hatchery this thing can really abuse token spawning. However since it costs 5 mana to activate it I would discourage playing it for less than 3 tokens a spawn. However if you manage to get like 4+ tokens per spawn it is actually really solid. This thing doesnt tend to last all that long due to how crazy it is but this deck has so many artifact threats that it is hard to answer them all. I like to set it up if possible to spawn the tokens in the same turn rotation as I am dropping it but if I really need a big spawner I will just dump my mana in and hope to have a more effective one next turn.
Mana Vault I dont really love the fact that I can only untap it on my upkeep but this deck often needs a big burst of mana in one turn to work things out. Due to that this card is actually probably better later in the game due to giving me a large amount of mana but in general I like to use Grim Monolith over this card unless budget issues interfere.
Meekstone this card is a cool little control outlet but the problem is that they still get to swing at us with their big fatties. I stopped using this because it brought hate down on me and was very conditional. If you want some control though and see a lot of fatties this works decently. The downside is you never really know when someone might Naturalize it at EOT and beat your face in...
Skullclamp this gives some really solid card draw to the deck. My only real issue with it is that I dont normally always have tokens avalible for use in this deck as I build arround having big waves of them. Due to that sometimes I have nothing to clamp which really sucks. Still it is good draw for the deck.
Sol Ring good mana stone. Hard to go wrong with this. It is cheap and taps for 2 mana. It provides more mana then it costs so how can I have anything bad to say about that. No downsides, just win...
Wayfarer's Bauble I like how this is sort a land ramp outlet. The deck suffers a lot when someone blows out all the artifacts so this helps by giving me another land instead of sitting on an artifact mana stone which often do get swept out on me.
Grim Monolith a mana stone that gives a big mana output and is cheap to drop. It can be untapped outside of my upkeep so I find it to be a lot better than Mana Vault which does come down sooner but to be honest 95% of the time the difference in mana doesn't really matter for this deck. The ability to untap it when I feel like it does really matter though and it has the potential to turn into infinite mana with Rings of Brighthearth which could then turn into a really big token wave.
Mind Stone good mana stone that can turn into a card draw in an artifact sweeper. It isnt impressive but it is cheap and can cycle itself off if something would happen to it.
Mortarpod it comes into play with a dude attached and it gives me an option to do a little control if need be. It is sort of like a ghetto Goblin Bombardment with a bad token attached to it.
Nim Deathmantle Evasion + recursion that red has access to. I like this card a lot more if you are running a higher density of sacrifice outlets. Currently I stopped using it in my list because I use up a lot of my mana every turn so this was hard to keep mana up for and I didnt have much for ways to control the triggers if I did keep my mana up.
Spawning Pit it is a decent sac outlet that gives us something to do with things that are dying anyways. I have used it several times in conjunction with Insurection to really beat up opponents by running them over with their creatures then sacing them off to this. It is an alright card but I saw a lot of situations where I could never really use it all that well so I cut it.
Ashnod's Altar a big thing I need to go off in this deck is mana. The ability to turn tokens in play into mana and then spawn a bigger X wave seems solid to me. There are several ways that this can help me to go off so it is nice for that. Having an extra sac outlet on hand is also handy to have.
Coalition Relic a good ramp mana stone. It can provide 2 mana in a turn which is a nice option when needed.
Crystal Ball I run a lot of filter draw just to try to get to the right cards at the right time. This gives me a cheap sort of filter effect where I can push through the crud cards down to what I need when I need it. It is cheap to drop, cheap to use, and it really improves what I draw.
Darksteel Ingot indestructable mana stone makes it really hard to get rid of. I like how it is more robust and hard to loose. It works nicely in metas that run artifact sweepers and mass land destruction as well.
Darksteel Plate I used to use this way back when I would try to slow play Marton. I found out that it was just a whole lot easier to use haste than to assume nothing would happen to him over the duration of a whole turn cycle. People run clones and other such things. When you slow play marton everyone knows what is coming unless they dont even know what your deck does.
Ensnaring Bridge Another control style artifact that is token friendly. It is fun to use but again it stops everyone from attacking anywhere so it makes you the badguy and it can disapear at instant speed leaving everyone to beat on you for the card.
Mimic Vat good recursion. The problems I had with it were that my creature count was going down and I dont run a ton of sac outlets or ways to get creatures on it. I dont run much for opposing creature hate either so all in all it was hard to get things on it and it is a big target.
Rings of Brighthearth it has sort of a lot of random things that it just doubles up with. It can ramp off of a fetchland or double that Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Krenko, Mob Boss, Mad Prophet, Moggcatcher effects. Honestly there were a lot of cards in here that did make me want to use it but the problem is that it requires something fairly good to be any good. In short, it was winmore.
Sword of Fire and Ice I used to run this as some card draw for the deck but honestly it is really difficult to supply a body early on to run with it. Eventually it just ended up being more of a pain in the ass than I think it is worth so I scrapped it.
Worn Powerstone 2 mana producing mana stone for 3 mana is hard to come by. It comes in tapped which sort of sucks but it is great ramp.
Gauntlet of Might an expensive but effective mana doubler. If you can afford the $$$ for it then it is the best of the mana doubles you will get for red. Use it if you have / can afford it. The low mana cost on it makes it sort of easy to micromanage in your turn. I have on several occasions dropped it in and continued to do other things with as much or more mana then before I dropped it.
Skyship Weatherlight sort of a fun toy that I played with for a while. It is cool in the fact that it opens up some tutoring options. My issue was that I wanted to get to 8 mana before dropping it so I could drop and tutor. Even then it takes up like your whole turn to do that. It was fun but in the end I just found it to be a pain in the ass to try to work with.
Slate of Ancestry solid draw for a token deck. Later in the game it can easily draw you a full hand or more in a single activation. This is going to be one of those high profile cards that people will blow up if they can so try to drop it when you can activate it as well in the same turn.
Snake Basket it is slow but realistically it is 1 extra mana to drop and use than Goblin Offensive. Plus it can be reused with Goblin Welder which is sort of cool. I wouldn't likely drop this and pass turn as I would rather force someone to wrath me than use an artifact removal to get rid of the basket. Man I wish the basket could be used at instant speed... really irritates me. One of these days I might be able to replace it but for now its still in the list.
Thran Dynamo 3 mana for 4 is amazing. It comes in untapped and has like no downside other than its mana being colorless. This stone is easy to multi task dropping it and doing something else in the same turn as we are mono colored and it only has a net loss of one mana to drop in. Great stone all in all.
Trading Post this is a new toy that I have been playing with. The fact that it can produce tokens and recover artifacts is really nice. It doesn't do anything explosively but even a token per turn can be useful in terms of blocks and such. The multi functionality of this card is where it is at.
Vedalken Orrery flash is sort of like haste on crack. It gives us the ability to jump in behind opponents wraths and just keep our options up as long as possible. I cant believe how long I went without running this card in this deck but it is really stupidly good. If you can have haste + flash you just have stupid win as things like Mogcatcher, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Krenko, Mob Boss might just run away with the game in that situation.
Eldrazi Monument I used to run this effect and while it is still fairly solid I found that Akroma's Vengeance just worked better for me. Haste is better than indestructible when you are trying to push Marton down the tube.
Gauntlet of Power Another big mana doubler. Gauntlet of Might is much better due to its lower casting cost but is also a ton more expensive to obtain. These cards can fuel some of the big plays especially involving the X mana token producers. Due to red's terrible tutoring running some redundancy is the way to go.
Memory Jar a good card draw trick plus it can be reused with the Goblin Welder which is bad ass. It has a lot of uses but having a whole new hand even if just for a turn is really solid. This deck is all about big mana so it can be somewhat easy to blow a new hand or even just the important parts in a turn. The downside is that you usually want to drop it in and wait to untap before using it opening it up for removal.
Mind's Eye Consistent card draw. If people are letting you sit back and draw cards off of this they will loose the game. Assume it will die within a turn rotation so make sure to drop it when you can actually draw a few cards yet off of it that turn rotation. If it sticks, then you just ride that card draw as far as you can.
Caged Sun another mana doubler effect. The +1/+1 to my creatures is also nice but we have a lot of off color or artifact spawned tokens so the buff is sort of hit and miss. It costs the most mana out of the mana double effects which I dont like but consistency is good in red.
Myr Incubator it spawns lolz tokens. However that said it takes forever to be able to drop and activate in one shot. If opponents don't answer it quickly this sort of thing can be a game ender though. Remember that you can crack this at your opponents end step so it makes it hard to wrath the tokens from this bugger.
Akroma's Memorial haste + flying + 2 color protections + vigilance + first strike + trample + WTF ELSE CAN YOU WANT???? This card does like everything. It is really amazing when someone is putting the screws to you as having vigilant first strikers that are protected from 2 colors really turns away a ton of attackers. It works really well for Marton as well as it turns off a good portion of instant speed removal leaving mostly just counterspells and white spot removal left to catch him. This is probably my favorite haste outlet but the most expensive of them as well.
Enchantment
Goblin Bombardment I like this card as a bit of a board control outlet. It is unlikely that I would end up saccing a bunch of creatures to go at someone's head but it does work great as an Insurrection creature dump or a means to take out really troublesome utility creatures like Seedborn Muse for instance as something like that could shut us down. I don't think that this card is mandatory in this deck however it seems to be a very powerful board control option to burn through opponent's creatures. A lot of people wont even consider dropping some commanders if you have this in play.
Blood Moon these effects are very hit and miss. If you have a meta where it happens to work well then by all means use it. I find it to make enemies and be very uncertain as to what sort of performance it will have. I like it more personally in a red control style of deck than I do here. It can really piss people off and it can have very little effect sometimes. If it works in your meta then go for it though.
Fervor haste is amazing for a deck like this as it just improves the explosiveness of it. The fact that opponents always have to fear Marton coming down and having haste is really good at throwing people off their game. Sometimes I will sit with something like this in hand just spawning some creatures then in one turn drop this + Marton and swing out. It is great for really surprising people as they feel like they know how long until they have to fear us. But this sort of effect always throws them off.
Stranglehold it is a nice hoser for red but it belongs a bit more in a control based deck. This deck ideally doesnt want attention and this brings a lot down. Plus it does nothing to further what the deck is trying to do. If your meta is a combo out style of meta that tutors a ton it might be more advisable. At the best I think this card just buys some time. I like it and it could be a consideration but it doesnt do anything directly for me. It is good though and might be something I need to consider further in the future.
War's Toll another nice hoser. This card is great against the control happy decks and draw / go style of decks because it makes it very difficult for them to stagger what they do. It also opens up some openings for attacks going out by things like Rapacious One or just some random pokes. I have seen a lot of people do less attacking due to this card. This is great in counter heavy metas... assuming it hits play.
In the Web of War Honestly most of the time this is just a worse Fervor, however I do like the fact that this could be a decent plan B option if Marton gets tucked or for some reason wont work. If you were to drop like any of the mass token spawners with this in play it should easily be powerful enough to mostly drop a player as a 10 token spawn would be 30 damage worth of hasted creatures with this in play. This deck can easily spawn 10+ creatures in a turn with all the big mana effects in it.
Grip of Chaos this deck does very very little single targeting. The important part here is that it will give you cover for Marton as spot removal isn't going to work on him. If you get a haste outlet and this in play and drop marton, the game is usually sealed up. In addition, this totally jacks with a ton of removal even things like Acidic Slime just go crazy because they have a hard time targeting. It is a fun bit of chaos that hurts this deck very very minimally.
Vicious Shadows This is another sort of plan B spell. If you already have tokens in play + a sac outlet this can easily take out a few players. Combine this with something like Firecat Blitz or a bunch of Eldrazi Tokens and it is just game over for most people.
Instant
Reverberate similar to Reiterate but due to its lower cost it is easier to keep the mana up to cast it. The downside here is that it is not reusable however the lower mana cost is nice here especially if you want to try to keep the mana up most of the time to keep it as an option. I found that their use is largely unknown. If your meta casts a ton of spells on average it might be useful. I found that going into an unknown meta it is very much hit and miss though.
Starstorm I dont run much for control in this deck because I find it difficult enough to keep up card draw and card advantage. The advantage here is that I can cycle it if I want to and I can wait until the last moment to blow up the creatures in the case they come my way.
Chaos Warp the end all solution for red removal. It deals with anything that is giving you trouble. The problem in my mind though is that it is sort of rare that there is something giving us a lot of trouble. If you see an increase in enchantment hate for your deck or for tokens in general you might consider packing one of these but I found that more often than not I can just go without it. Trying to do 1 for 1 trades in mono red is really rough due to the bad card draw.
Reiterate it can be sort of fun due to the fact that you can piggy back someone else' early ramp spells or jump on board for a Tooth and Nail cast. The big downside is that these cards work best in a draw / go style deck as you need to keep up a lot of mana to cast them. This deck itself doesnt run much for spells that I would copy with this sort of card so you are really relying on opponents to do some dirty work for you.
Tears of Rage this is a great plan B pump spell. It can sort of take the place of Marton if the deck needs it to. The biggest disappointment would be if someone were to fog you when you did this as it would kill all your creatures still. Even then though people don't tend to pack fogs all that much in EDH.
Sorcery
Faithless Looting sometimes in red its all about having the right card for the right situation. There are a lot of situations where I just need something other than what is in my hand so having some nice looting effects allows me to push cards arround and dig through my deck faster to what it is that I do need. The ability to dig through potentially 4 cards for 4 mana off of one card is fairly solid.
Gamble Considering it is one of the few tutor options in mono red it definitely makes the cut. If you draw it with no other cards in hand then you can always go for Anger or Firecat Blitz. There isnt really any single card that I always go for but with this deck utilizing Gamble in the late game I often go for Insurrection or Warp World. In the early game you might be best with some sort of ramp or card draw effect.
Firecat Blitz It is a good token spawner due to the fact that they have haste by default and the flashback is very very useful here. I have thrown it away on several occasions to wheel effects and then I will surprise people later with a cheap flashback.
Wild Guess Cheap card draw / card filter is always appreciated in this deck. There are always cards I dont want at a particular time that having cheap filter around to move is always handy. I have a few cards that are good to be discarded as well so this helps with them too.
Goblin Offensive Another big wave of creatures effect. It has a relatively low cost as it is only 3 and x. The tokens stick around, and they are goblins which actually have some synergy with other aspects of the deck such as Krenko, Mob Boss. I sort of have this issue where I dont like casting it until I have the ability to cast it for big + have haste + have marton so I might be too defensive in just casting it out but it is good.
Wheel of Fortune Red's card draw often turns into everyone draws sort of effects. The key is to use it when it is the best for you. I love using a wheel effect to screw with a tutor or right after someone draws a ton of cards. If possible ramp hard and dump your hand then wheel and watch as others loose out on some of the momentum.
Mana Geyser This is sort of the de facto big turn maker. It can easily generate 15-25 mana in the mid to late game. This can result in much larger plays than you would normally be able to make. This deck is often about how much mana you can muster to push for the win.
Reforge the Soul another wheel effect and while it is more expensive, it is still a reasonable casting cost. Generally speaking in red I can never get enough card draw so this was a welcome replacement for Dragon Mage
All Is Dust generic sweeper effect that hits enchantments but leaves a lot of our artifact stuff alone. I used to run it but I am not running a control deck. Generally I just try to divert things away from me with a low profile + tokens when possible.
Insurrection This card is a huge wincon. Remember that you can drop Marton + this to give him haste. I have won a lot of games off of this + Marton alone. It gives you a haste outlet as well as a lot more creatures with generally no opposition on your swing. This card can turn into some big blowouts.
Warp World Since we are token based we generally flip this card for a lot more profit than our opponents. Plus only a little over 10% of the cards in this deck are a miss with Warp World so generally speaking this is going to flip quite profitably. I have managed a lot of wins right off the same turn as a Warp World due to the fact that it can flip haste + tokens everywhere. I can tell you that nobody flips Warp World nearly as well as a token deck.
Skittering Invasion another decent option to flip 5 guys into the field. What I dont like about this though is that it is a static 5 guys for 7 mana so it is sort of expensive to drop and we have no way to abuse it. It isn't off of an artifact so I cant flip some of the creatures we can do a bit more with and the spell effects that spawn usually scale with mana so while this is sort of expensive it doesn't scale which doesn't make me that impressed by it.
Planeswalker
Koth of the Hammer I played him in the deck early on. The big problem is that most of the time this deck defends itself by use of low profile or chumping with tokens if neccesary. Koth is best when you ramp into him or even just drop him by turn 4. Beyond that I find him really lacking. This deck isnt about poking for 4 dmg so that is largely not productive. Really the only thing I do like from him in here is his ultimate and playing a walker for their ultimate really rarely works in EDH.
Chandra Ablaze Generally speaking I use her as a hand reset. This can really screw with people who tutor / draw a lot. However dont forget about her direct damage option as that can really get you out of a pinch consider how little dedicated removal I run.
Karn Liberated considering we are running mono R this could be a decent option for some repeatable removal against really anything. Considering red has to pay 5 mana for a Doom Blade equivalent I would say this is a decent option. We dont really have a good way to defend him though especially against flyers. I would say it is better to leave him to a control style of red deck.
Land
Buried Ruin Considering I have almost 30 artifacts in this deck this is a great land. Sure we loose it to activate its utility ability but it allows us to regrowth any artifact which is amazing. I am almost tempted to run Crucible of Worlds for this land.
Homeward Path I am running this currently as sort of a counter to Insurrection, Bribery, and just other generic theft effects. I cant say if this is going to stay in the list or not but it is alright if those kind of effects become a problem for you.
Keldon Necropolis A sac outlet with some control options in it. This lets us kill some troublesome utility commanders if need be such as Gaddock Teeg and some tutoring commanders. It might not be cheap to use but it is a utility land after all so it isnt taking up a slot in our deck as removal which is nice.
Kher Keep It spawns dudes at the cost of 3 mana on a land... You really cant ask for more in a token based deck.
Scrying Sheets Potential card draw in red is fairly suck. The fact that this is on a land is quite nice as an option for the deck.
Snow-Covered Mountain These are run for Scrying Sheets, Mouth of Ronom, and Skred if you run andy of them. I think that overall I have found Mouth of Ronom to be the most useful but Scrying Sheets can also be nice to burn some extra mana. There is really no downside in running snow covered lands unless someone actually runs anti snow land tactics which in my mind is very very narrow. If you want to spend the $$$ to get them it is mostly all positive.
Strip Mine Generic land hate options. Things like Cabal Coffers and Emeria cannot be allowed to stick to the board. Even though I am removal light I wouldnt skimp on some land hate options.
Tectonic Edge Another Strip Mine effect. This could be Wasteland if you have it however I honestly dont see the need to invest in a $30.00 land hate when I own Tec edges which are quite a bit cheaper and operate just as well in EDH.
Terrain Generator This can give us extra ramp. We have a lot of wheel effects so getting more lands out of hand quickly can mean we loose less cards in that wheel effect as well. It is a good way to blow extra mana at an end step and it is very nonthreatening in nature.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle Some nice hate packed onto a nonbasic land. It comes in tapped and it draws a lot of hate... however it is a nice option if it lasts. It doesn't often matter or it gets blown up before it can go active though.
Winding Canyons This gives us the option of flashing in creatures. If you flash Marton in it is as good as giving him haste plus we will be untapped on our turn to do other broken things. This land feels really promising to me so I need to get it some testing yet.
I figured for anyone interested in sort of seeing who my competition was for playtesting means / how my games sort of went I will do my best to report games and enter them here for a record for anyone who might be interested in finding some of them without having to sort through this entire thread. If someone else wants to keep track of some game reports as well I am fine with adding their game rundowns here as well.
Sorry I started up the change log well after starting this deck so some of the older changes are a bit rougher on their entry in here. I will do what I can to get everything updated eventually but for now this is what I have pulled from just the posts I have in this thread.
10/24/11
- Dreamstone Hedron -> Everflowing Chalice dreamstone was too slow of ramp. This change just speeds the deck up a bit giving me a more versatile ramp package. To be honest I have a hard time sitting behind mana in this deck so keeping 6 up to possibly sac the Hedron and draw cards like never happened when it needed to.
- Blood Moon -> Mind Stone control out for ramp. This deck cant keep up with trying to hinder other decks with control. Plus nonbasic land hate is very hit / miss depending upon your meta. Mine just didnt happen to be impacted enough by it.
- Goblin Assault -> Akroma, Angel of Fury the slow tokens from the assault just ran off to die every time. Akroma is a big wincon so I will try her out and see how she goes. (swapped out in a later post that day.)
- Comet Storm -> Rally the Horde control out for a token spawn effect. Hopefully the Rally will pan off big.
- Reiterate -> Pentavus control out for token spawning.
- Ruination -> Darksteel Ingot control out for ramp.
- Wake of Destruction -> Emrakul's Hatcher control out for token spawning / ramp.
- Mountain -> Mystifying Maze adding some nonbasics and seeing how much basic land I really need.
- Mountain -> Temple of the False God adding some nonbasics and seeing how much basic land I really need.
- Akroma, Angel of Fury -> Vicious Shadows Shadows kicks off of the token theme quite well. Use it with a sac outlet and just gun your opponents down.
10/25/11
- Shield of Kaldra -> Nim Deathmantle The shield was really really bad. In its place the deathmantle can rez a lot of creatures for me including token spawners. It is really nice to get an Eldrazi Monument set up with the Deathmantle in play. Indestructible just wasn't cutting it anymore.
- Pentavus -> Myr Incubator ohhhh man Pentavus costs so much mana to drop in and then even more to manipulate. I swapped it out for Myr Incubator which literally just wins games instead of being cute.
- Citanul Flute -> Mogg Infestation The Flute is really mana intensive to work with. I cut it for a situational wrath that might spawn an army for me. The versatility of Mogg Infestation seems interesting to work with.
10/27/11
- Sword of Light and Shadow -> Mimic Vat The sword had too slow of a startup time. I liked the Mimic Vat instead due to its ability to abuse a creature every turn and steal some utility that my deck lacked.
- Sundering Titan -> Dragon Mage Land Destruction just wasnt really working as part of this deck. This deck has a very strict goal of what it is trying to do and poping a few lands didnt really fit in with the overall strategy. The Dragon Mage gives me more draw outlets which is good. It is fun when you have haste as well.
- Goblin Marshal -> Wayfarer's Bauble I really really didnt like how slow the tokens came in from the Marshal. If it would give them all to me upfront I would like him a lot more. Unfortunately it was just a little to hard to work with. More ramp especially in land form is nice to get me going and let me play the big game finisher effects.
- Rally the Horde -> Reiterate Rally was wayyyyy too unpredictable. Generally speaking I would end up with like 2-3 tokens for 6 mana which just wasn't working out. If I could have expected more tokens on average I would be for using the card but it was just wayyyyy too random.
- Ghitu Encampment -> Tectonic Edge I never really used the getto camp for anything and it comes in tapped. Swapped it out for some basic land destruction.
10/31/11
- Mogg Infestation -> Chaos Warp there are a lot of problematic cards that I really cant deal with well especially enchantment based. This should hopefully give me some answers to them. Also the mogg wrath was really hit and miss. It didnt work on my own board very often and I play against a lot of token decks where it is really not so great either. It just wasnt working out as well as I had hoped.
- Reiterate -> All Is Dust I have a hard time keeping my mana up for the copy effect. I found that a wrath that would take out enchants and creatures while leaving my stones to be very productive for this deck.
- Rakka Mar -> Steel Hellkite I found Rikka to be painfully slow to produce tokens. I want my tokens in big waves rather than one at a time. I felt like the Hellkite might give me some anti token opposition setup as well as being able to answer enchantments and able to firebreath for some good damage if need be.
11/7/11
- Mountain -> Winding Canyons Winding Canyons gives me another sort of haste option for my creatures and commander. The ability to flash in behind wrath effects or just surprise someone with my commander at EOT sounds like fun.
- Mountain -> Homeward Path I had some issues with opposing Insurrections with Marton in play so I figured I might try to swap into homeward and see if it does anything for me. I don't entirely know what point is too many nonbasics however I am playing with it a bit to see how it works out.
- Mystifying Maze -> Keldon Necropolis The maze was hard to keep mana up for and really didnt turn much away. This deck has better things to do as it is sort of an all in style of deck. The Necropolis gives me a sac outlet as well as some removal that doesnt eat up a spot in my deck really. In a pinch, 2 dmg can be a lifesaver.
- Spinerock Knoll -> Snow-Covered Mountain trying to keep my nonbasics in check. I like the nonbasics for utility but I need to keep the most important ones. This deck really doesn't output damage itself until it goes off so something like Spinerock Knoll sort of sucks because I was relying on opponents to trigger it for me. If I operated more on an incremental damage to opponents route I would be more for it but I just found that it didn't quite work with what I was doing.
- Temple of the False Gods -> Snow-Covered Mountain Keeping basic land count high. I didnt like when this card wasn't active and if I drop a mana doubler then it is really just sort of a meh land. Trying to keep the nonbasic lands I need around and drop those I don't really need.
11/21/11
- Added the snow land package as well as Scrying Sheets / Mouth of Ronom package to the deck. Basic mountains swapped out for snow.
11/23/11
- Darksteel Plate -> Grip of Chaos I really needed a means to protect Marton and my valuable artifacts. Grip of Chaos just fits amazingly with the few targeting spells I run in here. People just sort of cry with their spot removal when I drop it in.
12/05/11
- Hoarding Dragon -> Moggcatcher the dragon was giving me some trouble as I dont run a ton of sac outlets in the deck and to be honest people were using some good removal to stop me from getting good artifacts sometimes. I had to always sort of weight if I could get away with different targets. Moggcatcher on the other hand gives great value over time considering how big of a goblin package I run in here. The only downside is it is easy to overextend using this buddy.
02/07/12
- Confusion in the Ranks -> Relic of Progenitus I have needed to add some grave hate for a while now. This should be fairly nice as I have very little that really actively uses the grave and it cantrips off for cheap. I can move through it quickly without much of an issue which I like.
- Jar of Eyeballs -> Squee, Goblin Nabob I have meant to give Squee a try for a bit now. He can give me chump blocks and pick up some value off of some of the filter effects that I am trying to pick up of late. He is fun with Skullclamp as well and just sort of nice to cycle around a bit. Squee opens up my goblin theme a bit more as well giving Moggcatcher / Goblin Matron more targets to tutor into.
4/23/12
- Dragon Mage -> Reforge the Soul: the results from the Dragon Mage were spotty to say the least. It was sort of fun if I had haste but outside of that he was very hit and miss. Plus he costs a ton of mana for a sort of bad threat / uncertain value.
- Squee, Goblin Nabob -> Zealous Conscripts squee is amusing but I think the possibility to hijack a titan / grant marton haste pans out better. Plus there is the Kiki-Jiki combo with the Zealous to consider even though it is unlikely in here.
4/26/12
- Homeward Path -> Haunted Fengraf I have moved to using Marton almost exclusively with haste in some way or another. Even if I dont it is really hard to keep Homeward untapped so I am moving it to a land I think I will be able to use a bit more.
5/28/12
- Ensnaring Bridge -> Lightning Mauler The bridge just hasnt been cutting it for me of late. When this deck was in its earlier configuration it wouldt execute quite as fast but now I need to answer the combo decks sooner and use marton more and to do that I often need more haste. I like what the Mauler brings to the table as I could easily pay 6 mana for marton + the mauler.
- Squee, Goblin Nabob -> Beetleback Chief I know that it is a bit early for this one yet however I have had some success with my goblin package already and the fact that this is 3 goblins for 4 mana seems great to me. I have some goblin support already in the deck and I have plenty of ways to abuse extra bodies.
- Eldrazi Monument -> Akroma's Memorial I sort of feel like I draw about the same attention with either card. The big differeence being that I need haste with Marton to do much of anything. Between dropping him in and hoping haste will cover him and dropping him in with haste + flying + 2 color protections I think I like Akroma's a bit more in theory. The Eldrazi Monument seems good on paper but slow playing off of it rarely pans out for me.
5/30/12
- Godo, Bandit Warlord -> Reverberate I always got the impression that godo was sort of a goodstuff add to the deck. I like him with a sword in hand however the swords just werent really working out that great in the deck. He doesnt further the token tactics and I have found drawing into Sword of Fire and Ice to be a bit troublesome in this deck at times. I dont always have the creatures needed to swing arround with it so.... meh. I like the idea of some spell copying though as it lets me piggyback some of the stupid big cards in the late game, grab some card advantage, ramp in the early game, really sort of whatever I need. I figured I would give them a bit of time in the list and see if they worked out for me or not.
- Wurmcoil Engine -> Reiterate I love the Wurmcoil when I can manage to play with the Goblin Welder as well however I just havent been feeling this creature in the deck of late. It is sort of slow and while I like the life pickup it doesnt nicely do much for token work here. I have ended up drawing it and feeling a bit clunkey several times now. I dont think it is the worst offender of what is getting cut but I want to try to do without for a bit and see where it brings me. I havent decided yet if the addition here should be Fork or Reiterate but I figured as I am already running Reverberate I will try 2 different effects and see which I usually prefer and if it turns out that the extra mana cost behind this doesnt pan out I will swap to fork.
- Spawning Pit -> Omen of Fire I have seen a few more blue combo decks than I really like seeing online so I figured I would give this a spin and see how it pans out. It seems like most every game I get 2+ opponents running some blue in their colors and this screws with white as well so I figure it seems like fairly win to try out. Normally I dont like resorting to this sort of tactic but seeing as how it has sort of 2 functions I wanted to give it a spin for a bit.
- Sword of Fire and Ice -> Ruination I have been seeing a lot more 3+ color decks online as well so I figured I would give some light LD a spin. I figured considering this isnt a full land destroy effect perhaps people wont get as pissed about it but still... It seems to be one of the few tools to use in mono color vs so many multicolor decks running so few basics.
- Incendiary Command -> Mad Prophet ohhh man the command has not been working well at all for me. I think ideally it works best in a deck that actually has some good draw power to it and then when you hand sits at like 15 cards you rotate a large hand into another large hand. When I am sitting at 0-2 cards in hand I hate drawing it. When I have a full hand I usually hate to part with a card or two in hand and go down in CA. The big problem here is that most of the functions dont work well because the 2 dmg kills a lot of my stuff and I have a hard time taking card disadvantage and shifting the rest of my hand with this. The prophet can be used for attacking and it comes in and lets me choose and rotate things as I want.
- Haunted Fengraf -> Mountain I have felt like my nonbasic count is a bit higher or I am just getting a bit unlucky so I figured I would cut one. Especially with Ruination coming into the list keeping a check on the nonbasic count seems like a solid idea.
6/11/12
- Beetleback Chief -> Krenko, Mob Boss Beetleback Chief just wasnt giving me enough bodies per card as I like seeing. I wanted something else most every time I saw him so meh. He has little to no abusability which I also didnt like. Krenko seems like a huge threat and can run away with the game easily. I look forward to seeing how this swap affects the deck.
- Teferi's Puzzle Box -> Rings of Brighthearth unfortunately puzzle box was hard for me to abuse. I run it in my mono white deck and it works there because I have a lot of things to buff my hand larger with lands and such. In this deck though I usually have a smaller hand. I just got the impression here that I would be drawing less cards than my opponents and it was giving them better benefit than it was to me.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Arid Mesa fetchlands in to hopefully ramp off of Rings of Brighthearth. The downside of them is very small and even though the upside is unlikely the downside is not likely to hurt much.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Bloodstained Mire same as above.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Scalding Tarn same as above.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Wooded Foothills same as above.
6/16/12
- Relic of Progenitus -> Imperial Recruiter to be honest the Relic was in the deck more to just keep cards moving in the deck for cheap than it was for the graveyard hate aspects of the card. I would encourage anyone playing this deck that can afford it to obtain an Imperial Recruiter. The only reason not to run him here is due to his cost. I myself dont have one yet however I wanted to keep this deck up to date with what it should be and with some testing online I can back this move 100% if you can afford it for the deck. I dont forsee him ever coming out of the deck unless they ban him.
- Defense Grid -> Vedalken Orrery I sometimes felt like drawing the grid was loosing my draw for the turn. I like the Orrey because it has more uses overall to it. If I can flash in my stuff at EOT I dont have to stumble into wrath effects and what not. I can maximize the potential of my cards when opponents are tapped out. It is sort of like having another haste outlet in my mind.
- Caged Sun -> Gauntlet of Might again this is probably just a matter of if you can afford it then go for it. I wanted to maximize the potential of the list and through online testing I can back this swap. The decrease in mana cost here means you can possibly drop it and keep going with your turn or just drop it earlier in the game. Sure its a pain in the ass to buff the other red mages but seriously how often do you sit down with a bunch of red mage opponents??? The cheap cost to this card is where its at and while I dont have one yet it seems like it at least solidly replaces Caged Sun.
- Nim Deathmantle -> Mortarpod I was having a lot of issues with the deathmantle where I wasnt having enough creatures regularly enough and or I just didnt have that sort of mana to spend on it on a regular basis. It was better when I had more sac outlets in the deck. I was hoping that Mortarpod might give me a little bit of control while still sort of helping witht he token thing by giving me a body and an artifact that I can manipulate. While it isnt as effective as Goblin Bombardment I still think it might be worth testing out. There are a lot of annoying utility creatures that just need to die and this gives me an option to do that with and still play with it in other ways such as my Welder.
6/21/12
- Mortarpod -> Pilgrim's Eye this gives me a body and more lands to keep dropping. I always need more mana with this deck so getting a land to drop and a guy to block for me or be used Goblin Welder fodder works just fine for me.
- Fetchlands -> Snow-Covered Mountain I axed the fetch package. There just isnt enough reason to be running it in my mind. The only interaction in the deck was with Rings and I have run into Stranglehold more than I have used the fetchland + rings setup.
6/29/12
- Hoarding Dragon -> Darksteel Gargoyle Hording dragon was really hard to work with and hard to get the tutor out of him. The gargoyle gives me a good devensive measure and deters random attacks as well as some voltron style attacks away from me.
- Grim Monolith -> Ashnod's Altar I ran into problems with the fact that monolith didnt untap on its own. I love the burst of mana but I dont like spending the time to untap it. The alter gives me a sac outlet, mana generation, and lets me canibalize tokens to make an even bigger wave of tokens at times.
- Mimic Vat -> Trading Post the vat has problems getting something worthwhile onto it and it is a high priority target even then. Trading Post has multiple uses and it is usable right away as well as possibly drawing less hate??? I dont know time will tell on that part. It does a lot of things that I want to be doing in this deck though.
7/11/12
- Dragonmaster Outcast -> Starstorm when I do drop the outcast it is usually as a means to try to stall. He is really bad at that though. I figured if I just add Starstorm I always have the cycle option to it which is really solid. It lets me fight other creature heavy decks if they turn on me and wait until they turn on me to do so. Normally in this list I am against control that is so narrow as a creature only wrath for instance however I like the fact that it has a cycle option and can be used at instant speed here.
- Chancellor of the Forge -> Wild Guess I want to bring my mana curve down a bit and I like this sort of situational fixing effect. I don't know how it will pan out entirely yet but I like the idea of bringing down my curve some and increasing my ability to draw / filter my hand. It does work really well with my flashback / incarnation stuff as well. As I stated earlier the fact that chancelor looks at my board position has made him mostly just winmore so far. I don't want to have to double my board position so much as have him just drop a good amount of threats on his own.
2/11/2013
- Darksteel Gargoyle -> Hellkite Tyrant the Gargoyle was cute, but I will admit that it was entirely situational. It was fun but essentially it worked against aggro decks with little spot removal. The Tyrant is not just removal for the deck but potentially also nets us other's resources. This deck is really big on needing big mana and such to go off.
- Urabrask the Hidden -> Hellraiser Goblin generally speaking, I drop my haste outlet as I want to make a big move. This cuts into the cost of my haste outlet and adds the goblin tribal to a mass haste outlet. Its annoying to have to attack with the goblin however most of the time when you would drop him, you will be doing something a lot bigger with haste.
2/11/2013
2/23/2013
- Keldon Necropolis -> Thespian's Stage I like what Necropolis does but sadly it costs entirely too much to do what it does. I dont really have a lot of consistent token spawning either so a lot of the time I have to tap out for a big wave of tokens making it a bit harder to work with. The Stage has really impressed me so far in my Thrun deck so I think its worth playing with.
- Scrying Sheets -> Mistifying Maze I just never find myself wanting to utilize the sheets. I figure the maze gives me a better utility option.
- Mana Geyser -> Sculpting Steel I love the Geyser when I am going off but its too situational on mostly just that one instance to be utilized. I have had to mulligan it away a lot in the early game. The steel is something I am actually utilizing in my list until I can obtain an Imperial Recruiter as it stands but I have been impressed with it enough to include it in the list over the Geyser which seems to be a lot more situational.
- 1 Snow-Covered Mountain -> Cavern of Souls this gives just one more resilient way to smash marton through some of the decks weaknesses. Its not a cheap card to obtain but I think its worth the investment for him to push through counter magic.
4/23/13 Hellkite Tyrant -> Staff of Domination Tyrant was sadly just too large of a liability for me in here. I am always worried that someone will Bribery for him or clone / rez him and smash me with it. I love what he does but there is just too much room for it to backfire on me in this deck. Staff works incredibly well with the deck's huge mana ramp package so I think it will give me a nice array of control. This opens up some control elements to the deck but also gives me more draw options. Overall, it seems like a good card to test here. I think a lot of people are adding it into decks that it doesn't necessarily fit into but this deck could use further control options that can also draw cards and utilize its big mana nature so I think this is a good fit for it.
5/16/13
- Wild Guess -> Heat Shimmer I like the Guess but it feels like its packing a lot less power than all my other draw. The shimmer only costs one more but can give me access to a clone. Cloning something like a simulacrum is plenty good enough for me to be happy with this but there are tons of other goodies like thinking of cloning a Rune-Scarred Demon or Sphinx of Uthuun that I would be more than happy to do for three mana. This doesnt screw with warp word as its a sorcery for a sorcery. It is a more situational card which is a downside however it seems like it could clone a lot of the creatures in this list quite profitably still so I am willing to try it.
9/11/13
- Akroma's Memorial -> Hammer of Purphoros I love the memorial but its primary function is to supply me with haste. While the other options are by no means irrelevant, its very difficult to drop the memorial as I am trying to go off so it often turns into me spending an entire turn on the memorial and hoping it stays around long enough to matter. The hammer offers another cheap artifact based mass haste outlet and the fact that it can sac lands for tokens is occasionally useful when going off.
- Heat Shimmer -> Purphoros, God of the Forge ahhhhhh Heat Shimmer..... this card got a lot worse when the legend rule changed and it has been sort of noticeable with the functionality it lost since then. Also, somehow I seem to always get the dang thing after Grip of Chaos is in play already making it sort of awkward... While I enjoy the random utility now and then, I think I will be happier with something a bit more focused on my game plan. Purphoros is really scarey looking and I could see him doing crazy things for this deck especially if I flip into him in a Warp World.
10/21/13
- Goblin Offensive -> Tempt with Vengeance The offensive has some cool synergy with Krenko but its too niche not to make the change. Outside of Krenko, Tempt costs 2 less mana and ANYONE who is masochist enough to use the tempting offer just insures that everyone dies that much harder. I think this should be mostly just an improvement. The goblin synergy is the only reason not to make the change and outside of Krenko, Siege-Gang Commander is the only other goblin specific utility I run. I think I will see better results regularly by making the change.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Part of the apeal of Marton is indeed the fact that he is far more obscure... but even then I wouldn't really consider Urabrask The Hidden as the substitute for the commander as I don't see how Urabrask really ties to a token themed deck as much as just a hastey commander who slows opponent's blocks down.
If anything a slightly less obscure token commander would probably be Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician. Even then though he just doesn't have the nostalgic feel of Martin.
I had Pentavus in my original build but I pulled it out for Thopter Assembly... To be honest though last night I was considering pulling it back in in the place of something else. I need to focus on token production first and foremost and it is a great token producer to bank off of Goblin Welder
Triskelavus feels like it just has too little possibility of spawning tokens. It can double as control as well... but I just dont like it that much for how much it costs.
Vesuva ehhhh I guess I could add it to the list... I just dont really see it ever happening considering I have like no land tutoring in here currently. I could add Expidition Map but I just am not that big of a fan of the card. I guess it is low on my priorities currently.
Emrakul's Hatcher ehhh not a half bad idea. It feels strictly a little inferior to Siege-Gang Commander but I like how the tokens can be saced for some mana so that's cool. I will see what I can do about it... no promises though.
Strip Mine I could probably add it but I find that Ruination and Blood Moon already do a fine job at fixing this problem. I am sort of wondering if I should bother much with any of these effects though. I sort of thought about substituting Chaos Warp for one of these sort of effects considering it is a broader answer. I have had games where Blood Moon effects like 1/5 players so I go back and forth on these effects. Plus for every nonbasic land I add I sort of have to consider that they don't produce double mana when I have my Gauntlet of Power effects in play. I will consider it going forward but I want to see how the list continues to do without it for now.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
I have officially moved to MTGNexus. I just wanted to let people know as my response time to salvation decks being bumped is very hit or miss.
I've read you will be posting update soon, but what are your thoughts on Monkey Cage and Yuan Shao, the Indecisive? In my version, which I'm still acquiring the last 10 or so cards for, I have a place for both (which Magnus did too) and the cage interacts very favourably with the welder plan. I also noticed you have a heavy preference for artifacts, so surely Sculpting Steel has opportunity to be any number of good targets, let alone their swords too.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Doing a bit of an update. I tried a few games with my list and it did surprisingly well... I have to admit though I have been playing it in the more casual games I play as I can forsee some problems running it with the big guns just due to the likelihood of Marton recieving a lot more spot removal and or being tucked. However in my test games I have been very impressed by him. He is a lot of fun to play and definately a bit of a dumb down from my usual game. Tons of fun to play though.
OUT:
Dreamstone Hedron I need to ramp sooner. Plus these big 3 mana stones can bring down a lot of hate. While I love that it can sac to draw 3 I need to get up to mana faster. So I am dumbing this down a little bit.
Blood Moon I had tons of issues with this because it was so hit and miss. If I planned on using this deck in high end play I could see this panning out again but in the games I was playing with it I would turn like 2-3 lands in a 4 player game into a mountain.... I guess this is a meta call at best. It wasnt really working out but I know if I were to play this competatively in my group it would turn off a lot more. When playing the usual scrubs though it was sort of meh...
Goblin Assault I had a big problem with the goblins just dying here. I want a bigger output faster so while I think it is cute it was just a bit too slow.
Comet Storm I am turning down some of my answers and increasing my threats. This is just my own personal preference in how I want to play the deck but I am increasing threats as much as I can and pushing for the kills. This is multiplayer so I can bank on some of the threats being answered by other players as well. And when I am lucky I dont draw all of the hate considering I am running sort of an obscure red commander.
Reiterate It is cute but too random on its payoff. I could see it coming back in potentially but for now it is out in favor of a mana stone.
Ruination Too random in its results. I had a 5 player game and only one player lost land on like turn 10... Granted that one player went from like 8-10 lands to 3 which was funny I just see it being a meta call on how it pays off. In a higher level of play I can see it becoming better but that isnt really where I am primarily running this deck so it is goin out.
Wake of Destruction Honestly if I am going to have an answer to something I would rather it be someone's threat than shutting them down before they get going. This is a great card... It just isnt primarily how I want to run this deck. Out of the jacking with land stuff this one is probably the most likely to come back in as there is a lot of basic lands among the decks I play against with this however I found it to be a bit harsh to just drop on someone early game. Bottom line is it just wasnt something I felt like I needed for this type of deck.
IN:
Emrakul's Hatcher A bunch of tokens spawn on ETB which is good. I can use those tokens to mana up quickly or use them as an extra buff for Marton. I like him and feel like I should give him some testing.
Pentavus I brought him back because he does have potential to spwan a bunch of guys. The downside being that I am likely to have to tap out to drop him so there is a turn where I dont have his tokens yet and he is killable in one body. I guess I would remove him if I could get another Myr Battlesphere or something but for now he will work I guess...
Akroma, Angel of Fury I wanted to give her a home to try her out for a bit. I like how she can be a wincon in herself even if nothing else is working for me. If I could find more token support I really like though I would cut her. I figure she deserves at least some testing though.
Everflowing Chalice I like how this mana stone sort of scales. I can drop it at 2 or 4 or 6 mana depending on when I drop it and how I need it to operate.
Mind Stone Fast mana stone that can sac for a card is nice.
Darksteel Ingot it doesn't die in an artifact wrath which is nice.
Rally the Horde This is in more for testing. I guess on average you should likely get like 6 or so tokens. It has potential to be huge and it has the potential to be 3 tokens for 6 mana... either way it seems like it could be fun.
Let me know what you think... This deck has been tons of fun so far and I enjoy playing it.
Both Maze of Ith and Mystifying Maze as well as Expedition Map to fetch them seem pretty important here since I doubt a 4 mana 1/1 is going to survive many attack steps without some help. Also Savage Beating is pretty savage.
if Marton is attacking... multiple people are dying and it doesnt matter if he dies at that point.
Mystifying Maze cannot hit your own creatures so that doesnt work except against opponent's creatures. I might consider adding it anyways since I removed the nonbasic land hate I had been running though...
Maze of Ith doesnt tap for land which is a problem in a deck that doesnt ramp nicely or draw cards nicely. If I needed to attack with Marton more then I wouldnt worry about it as much. Generally speaking though when Marton attacks... I win though the last like 4 times he attacked it was with a big army. Once was with a 15 pt Firecat Blitz + 8 pt flashback which killed 4 opponents in one shot. The other recent game was with an army of 10 goblins off of Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician + Anger which I saced to bombardment.
EDIT: I thought about Savage Beating and it just feels a bit of winmore in here. If Marton gets to attack with 10 tokens then I already win... If I am just attacking with 10 tokens... then I am not as impressed by them possibly doing 40 damage which is enough to kill one player but I would rather use Tears of Rage and just blow several players out. If I do add some multiple attack phases it will be Savage though... I need to toy with the idea a bit more.
I've read you will be posting update soon, but what are your thoughts on Monkey Cage and Yuan Shao, the Indecisive? In my version, which I'm still acquiring the last 10 or so cards for, I have a place for both (which Magnus did too) and the cage interacts very favourably with the welder plan. I also noticed you have a heavy preference for artifacts, so surely Sculpting Steel has opportunity to be any number of good targets, let alone their swords too.
Sorry you snuck your comment in as I was trying to do my own addition:
Monkey Cage I dont like this as it can be hard to drop it + something big yourself in the same turn so in all liklihood you leave this to your opponents to trigger. If your meta doesnt have low mana critters and commanders then it can be good but I guess it is sort of a meta call... I would hate to pay 5 mana to get 2 2/2s off of a Tribe Elder though... It is sort of hard to call how it will work though... I dont like leaving things to my opponents to trigger though.
Yuan Shao, the Indecisive I think he is interesting... It really depends on how much blocking you expect to see. I tend to just run over my opponents with sheer power and ignore blocking issues. If it is lethal damage outside of the blocks I dont care if Marton is going to die. He could be decent if you expect a token army blocking you though.
Sculpting Steel it could be good I will try to keep an eye out and see if it would be a good add or not. I have also noticed my heavy artifact dependance in here and yes it could be good.
Right I always forget about Mystifying Maze. Maze of Ith doesn't take up a land slot and is pretty good on it's own but if you swing with him once and win then clearly it doesn't matter if he is dying in combat. I've never been a fan of Shield of Kaldra and they have similar functions.
It sounds like Vicious Shadows or Stalking Vengeance has a place in the deck if saccing becomes a common end game. SV would be especially brutal if you get to attack and then sac to finish someone off.
I agree on the removal of the hedron, it seemed way overcosted. You're playing Scrying Sheets, surely Coldsteel Heart is a valid mana rock?
I understand your reducing spot answers, although i think I want to test Skred and Aftershock first, most of deck is pure aggro and it needs some game against certain guy.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
The Shield of Kaldra is a bit clunky but I like that I can drop and equip Marton and it becomes hard to wrath / spot remove him. If I have the Shield in an opening hand I usually wait for Marton until he can drop in and equip but yes it is a bit slow... for now it works alright but I will keep an eye on it as it is far from perfect.
It sounds like Vicious Shadows or Stalking Vengeance has a place in the deck if saccing becomes a common end game. SV would be especially brutal if you get to attack and then sac to finish someone off.
I agree on the removal of the hedron, it seemed way overcosted. You're playing Scrying Sheets, surely Coldsteel Heart is a valid mana rock?
I understand your reducing spot answers, although i think I want to test Skred and Aftershock first, most of deck is pure aggro and it needs some game against certain guy.
DECK CHANGE
I could definitely see Vicious Shadows being a great add to the list... I think Akroma might go out for that as it is just so brutal and similarly costed but much more likely to kill someone. Thanks I sort of forgot about it for this list. The vengeance is cool too but I think it is better for a Kresh deck whereas for tokens I think the Shadows is a great call.
Coldsteel Heart is a good option as well... as of right now I dont have the snow lands though so that is sort of a in the future it should be done sort of deal. I will consider this a bit more when I get the snow lands updated.
I could consider some removal options but for now I am trying to keep them low... Chaos Warp would probably be the first strict answer card I add just because it can hit anything. Skred and Aftershock are good options as well. I will consider Skred if and when I get the snow lands squared away.
EDIT: I finally got my list updated with the changes I had proposed... I also noticed I had Lightning Greaves in my list which I had not been running so I swapped it to be Orochi Hatchery which I have in my list but forgot to put in my list here. I have found I have enough haste outlets between the like 4 other options I have.
The Shield of Kaldra is a bit clunky but I like that I can drop and equip Marton and it becomes hard to wrath / spot remove him. If I have the Shield in an opening hand I usually wait for Marton until he can drop in and equip but yes it is a bit slow... for now it works alright but I will keep an eye on it as it is far from perfect.
I could definitely see Vicious Shadows being a great add to the list... I think Akroma might go out for that as it is just so brutal and similarly costed but much more likely to kill someone. Thanks I sort of forgot about it for this list. The vengeance is cool too but I think it is better for a Kresh deck whereas for tokens I think the Shadows is a great call.
Coldsteel Heart is a good option as well... as of right now I dont have the snow lands though so that is sort of a in the future it should be done sort of deal. I will consider this a bit more when I get the snow lands updated.
I could consider some removal options but for now I am trying to keep them low... Chaos Warp would probably be the first strict answer card I add just because it can hit anything. Skred and Aftershock are good options as well. I will consider Skred if and when I get the snow lands squared away.
You have snow lands listed, so I assumed you did, but yeah, it is a poor rock when you have no chance of getting it free and skred is worthless without it.
I know the deck is still newish, although hopefully not once more people see he is viable, he still needs to attack. I can see some LD helping the cause against artifacts or any number of maze lands. Just an idea for future.
I don't think there is any isue with Marton dying if his army does a lot of damage in the same turn, it's one reason maybe Swiftfoot Boots wouldn't be a terrible inclusion (and Maze can still target him).
EDIT: Saw the Greaves were taken out, point still remains.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Another part about it though is that I find the help Marton survive cards to be centralized on Marton as the only wincon. I have been trying to broaden the list a bit so he isnt the only wincon. It is fairly easy to tuck a commander if an opponent is running a good list so I like having some decent plan B options.
Also... I don't care much for all of the boot options as if we have haste for our whole army already they don't do much. If someone has the spot removal they will just respond to the equip and shoot him down anyways.
The Maze of Ith effect is an interesting idea at the least. I have to say I like it more than I do the stupid Dolmen Gate which I have seen in a few other lists. I will keep it in mind as I do own 2 Maze of Ith and I could consider it later.
There's also Fissure as a removal option. Shivan Harvest looks like a decent land hate option.
Both good options as well... I think Fissure is probably a bit lower down on the list though just considering I am not using several of the cheaper options but yes it works just fine. If I find I need more removal Skred and Chaos Warp are probably the first adds then probably Aftershock.
Shivan Harvest is a fun card as well... I dont know if I like it more or less than Ruination though. It is definately something I will keep in mind. Also I added Strip Mine to the list since I pulled out some of the land hate already.
Another part about it though is that I find the help Marton survive cards to be centralized on Marton as the only wincon. I have been trying to broaden the list a bit so he isnt the only wincon. It is fairly easy to tuck a commander if an opponent is running a good list so I like having some decent plan B options.
Also... I don't care much for all of the boot options as if we have haste for our whole army already they don't do much. If someone has the spot removal they will just respond to the equip and shoot him down anyways.
The Maze of Ith effect is an interesting idea at the least. I have to say I like it more than I do the stupid Dolmen Gate which I have seen in a few other lists. I will keep it in mind as I do own 2 Maze of Ith and I could consider it later.
Marton being tucked is a misery for this style deck, one could simulate his effect with shared animosity perhaps or up the punish them for creatures dying plan. I was toying with Curse of Stalked Prey, which could work if you don't want to rely on Marton, but I've taken it out for now until i see have too much equipment. It sounds right up your alley though.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Marton being tucked is a misery for this style deck, one could simulate his effect with shared animosity perhaps or up the punish them for creatures dying plan. I was toying with Curse of Stalked Prey, which could work if you don't want to rely on Marton, but I've taken it out for now until i see have too much equipment. It sounds right up your alley though.
Shared Animosity my biggest problem with this is that we have a lot of creature spawning that dont share creature types with each other. I think it might be worth looking into at the least but I like Tears of Rage even more due to the fact that it isn't a permanent so it is harder to Naturalize or something before you attack and it has a bigger payoff usually. I think this one definately has some potential but the fact that we are spawning a bit of everything makes it harder to use.
Curse of Stalked Prey I think this is just going to take way to long to stack up. It is cute but meh I don't know. I see it having some issues.
Dolmen Gate is cute and all but I just feel like it is more support that only really matters when Marton is out and working properly anyways which I would call winmore as if Marton is out and working opponents are likely dying anyways. I think it works well with Goblin Assault but I was having issues with that card anyways.
EDIT: I could also see Coat of Arms being a bit similar in role to Shared Animosity... Both have some issues though as we dont focus heavily one one creature type but the downside of Coat is that it could ruin you if someone else is going tribal or token based.
Coat of Arms could be an option, although only so many types share a tribe. I agree with your scepticism.
For Dolmen Gate it works on idea you want to attack more than once with a given creature force assuming no wraths. I don't think it's winmore, so much as much part of the combo piece to keep Marton rolling. You won't KO someone in one hit every time, so you need precautions.
This is just my view and it will seem really bad in isolation, just when attacking with even a battlesphere horde, it could mean the difference between having to take out a second player.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
I still don't really know about Dolmen Gate... I feel like I would rather have Maze of Ith for its versatility instead but I guess if you need to attack people with 3-5 tokens on a regular basis I can see the Gate being decent. Generally speaking if I am attacking someone with a Battlesphere I am either doing so with Marton in play so I swing with them all or I just attack with the Battlesphere and tap the other myr friends.
EDIT: does anyone have any feelings towards Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs??? I thought he might be interesting in this deck as it is sort of a political reason not to attack us. Sort of a bit like a Ghostly Prison effect for red but it spanws us potential blockers / attackers instead.
EDIT 2: Also I have been considering finding room for Mogg Infestation as it also seems amazing but I need to find something to cut. I like how it can be an answer to scary things and give someone 2-4 goblins instead lol. If I can find room for it I will be sure to add it.
EDIT 3: I was also thinking of adding Mouth Of Ronom to the list once I finally get the snow lands established. I looked at some venders ant it looks like it might cost me about $20 for all the snow lands... nothing unimaginable but still sort of a pain in the ass.
I still don't really know about Dolmen Gate... I feel like I would rather have Maze of Ith for its versatility instead but I guess if you need to attack people with 3-5 tokens on a regular basis I can see the Gate being decent. Generally speaking if I am attacking someone with a Battlesphere I am either doing so with Marton in play so I swing with them all or I just attack with the Battlesphere and tap the other myr friends.
EDIT: does anyone have any feelings towards Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs??? I thought he might be interesting in this deck as it is sort of a political reason not to attack us. Sort of a bit like a Ghostly Prison effect for red but it spanws us potential blockers / attackers instead.
EDIT 2: Also I have been considering finding room for Mogg Infestation as it also seems amazing but I need to find something to cut. I like how it can be an answer to scary things and give someone 2-4 goblins instead lol. If I can find room for it I will be sure to add it.
EDIT 3: I was also thinking of adding Mouth Of Ronom to the list once I finally get the snow lands established. I looked at some venders ant it looks like it might cost me about $20 for all the snow lands... nothing unimaginable but still sort of a pain in the ass.
I already run Mouth of Ronom and would agree it's a good choice to add, since you can still run a lot of basics.
Mogg infestation would be alright, the list is quite tight, but it interacts very nicely with Anger in graveyard (or even in play at times), web and fervor if done to self.
I get the feeling Kazuul would be too slow, but it would be worth playing the deck a few times to test if it would make a difference then see how games go with it. As is, it may not even yield profit.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
I figure I should probably do a quick watch list. There are a few cards that I need to keep an eye on and I suppose through playing more games I can try to iron them out a bit but these cards need to be examined in the future:
Rakka Mar really cool but only one token per turn is sort of a pain in the ass. The fact that it is a 3/1 with haste isnt that impressive for this deck... I sort of wonder how it would change if I were to change her out for something like Throne of Empires which feels a bit less fragile to wrathing and produces tokens for the same cost. Regardless for now I am simply watching her but I don't like slow rolling token production that I have to pay for every turn.
Goblin Marshal This guy takes a ton of mana to drop and half of his buddies come in another wave. He just feels really slow at spawning 4 tokens... I almost never want to pay the echo cost either... I wouldnt mind something a bit more explosive or lower costed.
Pentavus expensive to drop and it is unlikely that I will be able to spawn the tokens until next turn unless I have lolz mana. I dont like how it is an investment of like 11 mana to get 5 bodies... Still it doesnt seem that there is better token production out there so it is currently still in.
Shield of Kaldra expensive to drop and expensive to equip. This thing is outclassed by Darksteel Plate in like every way... However I sort of wonder if I need a second copy in here... I have started packing more haste and more plan B options as well... for now I am just watching but it is a potential cut.
Snake Basket I love being able to spawn x tokens but the limitation of sorcery speed makes it feel sort of like a more expensive Goblin Offensive... still it isnt half bad. I think this one is a lot less likely to go off the list than several of the other options I mentioned in here. I dont think I would ever drop this thing and not pop it in the same turn just in case someone has the naturalize. I would rather force a wrath than have someone just kick this thing off the board because I cannot activate it.
Citanul Flute We have added a lot of plan B options to the deck and this is in almost solely to tutor for Marton if he is tucked... I got it in play once and was not impressed by it however I did up my 1 drop creatures since then...
------------------------------------------------
Cards I could see having some potential for us, I am not going to explain why as I think that is sort of obvious. Currently though I have a hard time seeing them worthy of a spot though:
Cards I could see having some potential for us, I am not going to explain why as I think that is sort of obvious. Currently though I have a hard time seeing them worthy of a spot though:
I really liked your idea for Welder and adopted heavy artifacts, which means I like could use Hoarding Dragon when I work out what is least needed. have any ideas?
Hopefully this helps give you my take on deck, so far.
Edit: I dont have gauntlet of might, it is a wishlist card, I will rpelace it with lens or a mana rock though until I have it. I'm pretty keen on this deck idea so I may save up though.
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Weiss Schwarz Sets
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
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Banner by Rivenor
Marton: CHARRRRGEE TROOPS CHARR...
Soldier 1: Wait... What happened to Marton?
Soldier 2: I believe a Squire killed him as we Charged...
Introduction
This list is designed to build a very powerful attack cannon. Due to the limitations of being mono red I designed the deck to attempt to aggressively win ignoring a lot of whatever else is going on. This deck is designed as a bit of a glass cannon that ignores most everything else in an attempt to go off. Due to the fact that we are a token based deck we can use tokens to try to stall for us but with the overall goal to go off our primary goal is to keep pushing for the win rather than put up defenses.
This deck is designed to be somewhat of a fast exponential aggro deck that pushes for one large wave of damage to kill everyone. While we have a lot of alternate wincons they are there because of how fragile this tactic can sometimes be. This is after all mono red aggro and sometimes you will be required to go all in on a move. If you feel uncomfortable on occasion pushing your deck to the limits like that then this may not be the deck for you. You will make enemies long term playing a deck like this and in the end my consensus has been to just ignore them and go off before it matters.
Why Play Marton?
Welcome to mono red! There are a lot of really interesting commanders to pick from in mono red so you might be interested in some of the reasons I play Marton myself. I will do my best to run through some of what you can expect from playing Marton as a commander. If you are looking for a token based commander there are lots of options out there to choose from. Marton is probably one of the least controlling type of token commanders due to his color options. He is also one of the largest token buffs in the game though and combined with haste he has one of the best out of nowhere glass cannon attacks in the game.
- Totally amazing style points. There aren't many really old legends that really stand out as being powerful. Much less mono colored old commanders.
- He gives an amazing pump effect that is non tribal based. This means we get to use the best of the colorless and red token producing tactics.
- Mono red decks often have a very low threat profile. People often dont worry too much about you if they dont know your deck unless you are playing Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker. Our plays seem smaller and not as significant until we really get going. Sometimes people dont see our wins coming until it literally happens which is a nice bonus.
- His CC is very affordable at 4. Having a low casting cost means that you can easily chain other effects the same turn that you go to utilize him. This can win you the game as I have won plenty of games from a board state of mana stones only to winning that turn and killing 3 opponents in the process off of 12 ish mana and a haste outlet.
- Marton is literally one of the most obscene buffs in the game for its mana. On average I am increasing the damage output of my creatures by usually a minimum of 30 or 40 damage and I often end up using him to increase my damage output by a magnitude of hundreds or more damage.
Marton's Cons:Overall I decided to run Marton Stromgald as my commander for my own reasons. Mono colored decks are challenging in nature. One of the biggest things that I love about this deck is how suddenly it can change the game and win. Most decks require you to setup a winning position over several turns. This deck essentially only needs mana and haste to go off on its opponents. Marton Stromgald as a commander is a very unique buff where he gives probably the most potent buff for his mana of all commanders out there. He has great synergy with a lot of elements of red and heads up a very powerful token based deck.
Deck History
My Experience with "The Order":
I started playing Marton sometime around October of 2011. My initial thought was that I would just be sort of slowly building big waves of creatures and herp derping it up with slow big fat waves of tokens. As I played it though I kept trying to ramp harder and faster and go from no board presence to killing everyone in one shot. Tokens almost always have problems with wrath effects because you need a lot of them to do anything. Thanks to Marton though this deck can accomplish a lot more off of a lot less. The big downside though is that it is often more difficult to set it up as you need tokens + marton + haste usually.
Initially I built the deck with equipment and lots more control. The problem I was noticing was that it was sometimes hard to find bodies to put a sword on in this deck or if I found a body it was like one of 5 tokens I had so the equipment really wasn't effectively buffing them. The control was having problems as well as control is always conditional as you usually have to hold onto it until the right moment. This deck kept using a lot of mana on most of its turns to do things and I found it was difficult to keep mana up for the control options and when I did my 1 for 1 effects really got outpaced by other color's draw effects. Due to that I had to sort of scale back on the control and equipment. I still have some control but I want it to be multifunctional and work towards me winning the game rather than just being dead cards in hand that poorly trade off.
As I kept playing the deck, I realized that all I really needed was ramp, draw, tokens, and haste. I kept narrowing out the cards I didn't really need or that were just sort of standalone ok cards and adding more cards that interacted with my token tactics.
The Order of Stromgald:
So I did some digging into Marton and I came across a tidbit about The Order of Stromgald as I did my digging. Straight from MTGSalvation's own wiki:
I felt that the history was sort of cool pertaining to the order. So I did a bit more digging into the matter for actual cards that had tidbits pertaining to such an order and came across the following of which most have some flavor text pertaining to The Order:
Also sort of bouncing off of the last statement of "The Order eventually fell apart after the defeat of Lim-Dûl, but various factions that were rumored to exist probably merged with his surviving undead army at Tresserhorn." We find this last guy:
My Bio
My name is Brian, I am 27 years old, I live out in South Dakota sort of in the middle of nowhere. I got into playing EDH back in the summer of 2010. Our playgroup started sort of small and we went on and off on EDH play but eventually it took off and most of us sort of started dying off from other formats and only playing EDH. We would get Tuesday Nights where we would get 8-12 guys together down at the shop and just play 4+ hours of EDH every week. I got to be sort of one of the big shot players in my group where a lot of times people would just swing things at me because that's the player I am regardless of what deck I bring to the table. I try to build decks with the mentality that everyone might be attacking me and I might have to fend off more than one opponent. While I love perfecting my decks, I don't particularly like utilizing combos so if I have a combo in my deck it is usually because it has multi purposes that can be utilized to go infinite if it is drawn in that way. I am a spike player and I love getting my cards worth so I play plenty of card advantage style cards and I love comes into play effects.
I moved from my original EDH playgroup to a college town in May 2012. My competition when I moved to this new meta was totally terrible when I got here. Due to this I was playing things like a $1,300.00 Jenara deck against $50-$100 decks. Sadly, I had to push the guys in my meta to proxy decks up so that I could have some competition. Currently they have gone a long ways and give me a much better run for my money.
I have played magic since hummm I guess like 1996 or 1997. I have been playing magic since Ice Age but that was when I was in like 4th grade so obviously I was not the player then that I am now. I picked up on playing standard FNM a lot in high school where I played a lot in the Odyssey / Onslaught blocks. I played into Mirrodin then quit when Kokusho started beating everyone up. I don't hold it against him though, I would love to see him come off of the ban list as I think he is fine in EDH. Perhaps keep him banned as a commander.
I am back to playing magic again and have been playing standard since Zendikar came out. I go back and forth on my thoughts of Standard but regardless I love playing EDH. I recently stopped playing standard again sometime just before Avacyn Restored was released due to my own personal issues with the direction Wizards is trying to push standard away from control. I still dabble at standard a little bit utilizing my friend John's collection, who has been very gracious and allows me to use his cards, but I really have a strong dislike for the current direction Wizards is going with standard. Still, I stay strong as a Commander player.
I have built more EDH decks than I can count up anymore. I am quite good at dropping staple cards into a list which is really unfortunate. I keep the number of decks I have constructed to somewhat of a minimum. I don't like replicating how decks feel so I sort of go with colors / strategies I don't already have. I am sort of an aggro / control player who tends to for the most part not focus heavily on infinite combos. I tend to keep like 3-4 decks together at a time and I usually end up scrapping decks beyond that for lack of regular use reasons.
Deck List
1 Márton Stromgald
CREATURES (19)
1 Goblin Welder
1 Goblin Matron
1 Hellraiser Goblin
1 Imperial Recruiter
1 Pilgrim's Eye
1 Anger
1 Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician
1 Krenko, Mob Boss
1 Mad Prophet
1 Moggcatcher
1 Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Emrakul's Hatcher
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Zealous Conscripts
1 Rapacious One
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
ARTIFACT (25)
1 Everflowing Chalice
1 Orochi Hatchery
1 Skullclamp
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Mind Stone
1 Ashnod's Altar
1 Coalition Relic
1 Crystal Ball
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Staff of Domination
1 Worn Powerstone
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Slate of Ancestry
1 Snake Basket
1 Thran Dynamo
1 Trading Post
1 Vedalken Orrery
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Memory Jar
1 Mind's Eye
1 Caged Sun
1 Myr Incubator
1 Staff of Nin
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 Fervor
1 Hammer of Purphoros
1 In the Web of War
1 Grip of Chaos
1 Vicious Shadows
INSTANT (2)
1 Starstorm
1 Tears of Rage
SORCERY (8)
1 Faithless Looting
1 Gamble
1 Tempt with Vengeance
1 Firecat Blitz
1 Wheel of Fortune
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Insurrection
1 Warp World
PLANESWALKERS (1)
1 Chandra Ablaze
LAND (38)
1 Buried Ruin
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Kher Keep
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Mouth of Ronom
27 Snow-Covered Mountain
1 Strip Mine
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Terrain Generator
1 Thespian's Stage
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Winding Canyons
Deckstats for this list can be found here. (last updated 10/21/2013)
In the Spotlight
Well, I always like to acknowledge anything someone else might write up on my deck list that is separate from the thread I create itself. I had the honor of having Sheldon Menery (Rules Committee member often hailed as the father of EDH) spotlight this deck in one of his SCG articles back on 08/08/2012. Sheldon's article can be found here and it takes up the rest of the article after his discussion on his new alter.
My thanks go out to sheldon for such a kind and thorough article. I know the deck itself isnt what he tends to run himself however he did put some effort into evaluating the list and adding some feedback of his own. Publicity for obscure commanders is always a nice thing as well.
Strategy
Deck Objectives:
To be totally upfront and honest, the deck plays sort of like a combo deck. The whole game you are focusing on setting up to go off and kill everyone. It has the advantage of not really having infinite combos involved in most of what it does. Marton is very synergistic to the build here and while I lean on him as a finisher I have encompassed a lot of backup plans to the deck as well. Most of the game you will focus on developing your manabase and keep rotating cards through your hand as fast as you can. Generally speaking the idea is to go from very very few creatures in play to killing everyone in one turn. Sometimes the deck takes a turn to mass produce creatures then drop marton with haste next turn. The deck has a lot of ways to win though so just dealing with marton usually doesn't keep me from killing people in other ways.
Opening Hands:
Generally speaking this deck does a lot of pushing things around in an opening hand. Keep in mind that my own experience here comes from playing a "partial Parris" no freebie setup so if you play differently than my setup than I you might need to adjust how you do your mulligans a little. That said, you will still be looking for similar things in your opening hand:
Other cards I tend to try to keep in an opening hand. These cards are also sort of nice to have in opening hands beyond those three above groups but they dont tend to be my first focus.
It is hard to categorize most everything else. Depending on the hand other cards are largely subject to if I have my land, draw, and ramp figured out. Most of the expensive finisher cards and X mana spawn stuff are pushed out of my opening hands in hope of getting the above options.
Using Marton:
If you are used to just flipping your commander willy nilly into play, just stop. Marton isn't the type of commander that you drop in the first few turns because he is our late game wincon. Marton is a huge target, the ability to cast him for 4 mana the turn you want to push for a win is huge. Marton getting tucked is unfortunate but not a game over situation. Keeping him at a low casting cost though so he can win you the game later is very important. There are very few reasons I would cast him outside of needing him to try to swing for some kills.
Try to bank off of a haste outlet whenever possible while playing Marton out. It isnt as though you can't slow play Marton, but you really project what you intend to do when he hits the board. Haste is really key with this deck and if you cant achieve haste with him I usually look for another path or try to flash him in or use an alternate wincon to get to the win. It is up to you as the player to determine if you can get away with playing your haste outlets ahead of time or if you need to play them the same turn as marton. Sometimes a surprise last second haste outlet + marton in the same turn will throw people off as they didnt think you could come out swinging with him. This can allow you to build a larger token force sometimes. Even after all that is said and done, on occasion you might have to slow play him or loose. Just know that slow rolling Marton is far from the ideal situation.
Backup Plans - There will actually be times where utilizing Marton just isnt going to be an option. I deliberately built this deck with fallback plans. I have had to deal with a lot of different issues to get through with this deck before. Some of the worst issues you might encounter are: Fogs, Mass -/- static effects (Crovax, Ascendant Hero), AEther Flash style of ETB or attack based dmg effects like Caltrops, and effects requiring mana per attacker such as (Propaganda). The idea behind this deck is to have alternate ways to win. If one of these effects comes down on you I would usually turn to Warp World, Vicious Shadows, and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth to do all of the damage you can to the offender. Don't point out how much of a problem it is for you and try to keep the other players in the game because as long as they are around they might clear this stuff up for you. Keep in mind what your backup plans are and try to bank opponents into solving the issues or the problematic player for you. Zealous Conscripts has on several occasions stolen a Ghostly Prison effect for me to push a win. Keep in mind the multiple ways to get around these effects and do what has to be done to get the job done.
Don't Sweat the Small Stuff:
If you have ever played mono red then you should understand that it is extremely difficult to control everything that your opponents do. Your removal and card draw is just too limited to try to react to everything else that goes on in a game. Due to this I tend to try to just ignore a lot of what goes on in the game. By forcing other players to use their answers on other big threats it just makes it easier for us to go off. Remember that you are the mono red player and there might be a few blue, green, and black players that you are facing. Generally speaking a lot of these people sort of regularly draw the hate of the game due to the colors of their commander. Often in a game you can just let the other people draw out the first wave of hate. By the time you are ready to make your move most people will have smaller hands and less answers. Try to let people swing into other people. Don't make a bit fuss over taking 5 damage here and there as only the last bit of life matters. This deck can try to force a win out of nowhere in a lot of ways late in the game. Just sort of roll with the game until the time is right to make a move.
The goal of this deck is essentially to set up a position to eliminate all of the opposition while trying to ignore most of what else is going on. We have some removal such as Goblin Welder, Siege-Gang Commander, Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, and Goblin Bombardment but the primary goal of the deck is to sort of just kill everyone outright.
Playing against Combo:
I should probably start out by saying that when I originally built this deck it was because combo was frowned upon in my meta. I do have a little bit of combo in the deck but that isn't for the intended purpose of comboing out so much as because the cards just work well in the deck for multiple purposes. Some options when going up against combo:
If you come to me and ask: "BUT ISBPathfinder :eek:, I cant find a way to fight a turn 4/5 combo out." My response is going to be, go find another deck. This is mono red after all and while I find the build to be very very solid, it isn't going to fight against turn 5 consistent combo decks. The deck does play really fun though and can fight against a lot of decent combo decks but if they are consistently going off very early, you need to be playing something else.
Playing against Mass Land Destruction:
I myself haven't really ever played much in a LD happy meta but hey it happens and I suppose I will try to give some pointers where I can on the matter. Some sort of basic strategies assuming the LD is a regular in your meta:
In general, I wouldn't plan too much around LD countermeasures unless your meta specifically uses it. In my experience a majority of playgroups and players online don't find it acceptable so I would generally wait until you encounter problems before worrying too much about the countermeasures for it. Keep in mind as well that a lot of the plans to recover from a mass LD effect will just be too slow to recover in time. Most people will blow the lands up when they are in a position to win with some good board presence. Your best bet is to try to use a combination of tactics to combat it. If you have mana stones in play with a land recursion method and lands in hand you aren't going to have a problem with it.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
The information in this section is a combination of cards in the list, cards that I have tried, or cards that I have considered before. Not everything will have made it in here but I do my best to keep it up to date. The cards that are in the decklist will be bolded.
Creatures:
1 CC
Dragonmaster Outcast Man, I really love this guy so he was hard to finally axe. I pulled him out of the list though because there was just never a time when I could slow roll big fat dragon tokens profitably. He is slow in an opening hand / early turns and in the late game I want more than a token per turn regardless of its size / ability to fly. I really like this guy but it didn't fit my needs of big token waves.
Goblin Welder This is an artifact heavy decklist. It is easy to flip an mana stone into a threat later in the game and there are several other cool tricks that can be performed with him. My biggest complaint is drawing him early in the game as he is much better late in the game rather than early on.
2 CC
Lightning Mauler yet another haste outlet. I stopped running this guy in favor of other outlets such as Akroma's Memorial and Vedalken Orrery. He works as a haste outlet but reliably you need to drop him like the turn you want to go off or the turn before. I just felt he was one of my worst haste outlets in the deck.
3 CC
Goblin Matron goblins have become a bigger and bigger influence in this deck. There are a number of things you can do with this guy when trying to setup. If you are trying to get as many guys into play my suggestion is to Goblin Matron into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, from here Kiki can copy Matron again and tutor into Siege-Gang Commander and start to multiply. This tactic tends to get you wrathed though but nothing ventured nothing gained.
Imperial Recruiter If you can afford this $300.00 ish price tag then absolutely he is a house for this deck. There are a lot of targets in this deck. It is all about versatility and keeping up card advantage when you can. Sometimes this guy can draw hate to you so watch what you tutor for. Grabbing a Solemn Simulacrum can be a nice diplomatic move that doesnt bring everyone down on you off this guy.
Pilgrim's Eye he gives you a flying blocker and keeps the land drops coming. Landing every land drop is very important for this deck as we need some big mana to do some of the game ending multi card setups. He also gives you a great target for Goblin Welder and Trading Post potentially.
4 CC
Anger This is a really good haste outlet. One of the best parts of him is that you can cycle him out of a hand and still get his full effect. Sometimes I dont inform others that he is in my graveyard as the bins are public knowledge and they can always look at mine. It might be a little dirty but hey when I announce that I am wheeling I am not required to announce that I throw away a mountain so I sort of leave it to opponents to check on that sort of thing usually. It is best not to play him out unless you have a sac outlet in play. I have seen some Swords to Plowshares and other exile removal used on him before so when possible dont just play him out.
Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician This guy is sort of the definition of all in sir. You have to be really careful when using this to not go overboard. Sacrificing lands is really rough, and while the outcome can be great, it can also be totally suck. I have seen several times where I get foged or someone spot kills Marton as I go for a big assault that should have ended the game. Due to that I dont often go all in on sacrificing land anymore unless absolutely necessary. If you dump all your land and dont finish the game the chances are someone will wrath you and you are out of the game for good. Even then though... Ib is a great addition for the deck. Just don't always assume everything will go according to plan.
Krenko, Mob Boss a fantastic new addition to the deck from M13. Ideally I wouldn't want to have to start with him as the only goblin in play but he can lead to some stupid plays. He capitalizes off of haste as well which is great as the deck loves to find ways to give haste. His immediate impact is a little lower than I like but he is sort of like kiki where the longer he sticks the more stupidity he spits all over the board. He has been great so far in testing. Again starting with him as the only goblin is not ideal but I have done it several times where I build him up to have like 8-16 goblins and win with him.
Mad Prophet he can help you to see more cards. With this deck a lot of times there are some conditional cards that arent appropriate for the moment that this guy can help you move through. He has haste so he works right away and he gives you an extra body to use with your big attacks if needed. He is nicely multifunctional and really nice for discarding some of the flashback cards / anger with.
Moggcatcher one of the best goblin tutors available. There aren't like any other tutors available for red that can put a creature into play at instant speed and be used every turn. The biggest downside I have currently is that there is no good goblin that can give haste to Marton that I am aware of. If you get him set up with mana to use him I like to tutor into Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, use Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to copy Moggcatcher and go get Siege-Gang Commander. This will have you set up to potentially win if you have a haste outlet to copy the gang next turn, drop Marton Stromgald, and if you have mana left go get Krenko, Mob Boss on your turn and just turn out bodies everywhere.
Rakka Mar I played her for a while but eventually axed her. This deck needs explosive numbers all at once. Making a single token at a time is too slow to build up. I want to see 4+ bodies from one card immediately when possible. Due to this she got the axe a while back but she is sort of cool as the tokens are decent sized. Still they arent huge and they arent free.
Solemn Simulacrum ramp is always welcome for this deck. We can literally never have enough mana for this deck. He has the upside of drawing a replacement for himself when he dies as well and is an amazing Goblin Welder target as well.
5 CC
Emrakul's Hatcher 3 little munchy mana biscuits all rolled up in one package deal. I have dropped this just to eat up the toekns next turn a few times. It is another 4 bodies for 5 mana deal and it is hard to not like it. It is sort of funny because generally I would say it is a terrible card but it is fairly solid in this deck. You might even draw less hate after dropping it if people dont know your deck as it usually turns people to think you are playing jank
Hoarding Dragon He isnt half bad as it is a tutor which red has so few of however I have just found that it is too unreliable in my mind. I dont run a ton of sac outlets and so I can not control him all that well. My problem here is that it is sort of slow and unpredictable. At least on Gamble I can shoot it off right away and know if it backfires or not.
Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker this is probably to date the best red creature ever printed. Unfortunately he goes infinite like all the time with everything so he draws hate appropriately. Still, he is a really a cool card and worth his weight in gold if he sticks a few turns. Even if he doesn't stick you can usually generate some value from him and remove one more spot removal from your opponents that might otherwise go to Marton. If he sticks to the board, it is usually a good statement that people are low or out of removal.
Siege-Gang Commander I do really like this goblin. He gives me control options and token swarm at the same time. It helps me sort of be able to do whatever is needed. Plus, if you can kick out extra copies through one means or another he gets really abusive.
Urabrask the Hidden another haste outlet. He is good but he dies a lot so he has problems but still I take all of the mass haste I can get. If you get lucky on a Warp World you might land this guy and tap out all your opponents stuff.
Zealous Conscripts he comes in and hijacks a card. Now normally I wouldn't run this sort of card in the deck because it is more control oriented than anything. The thing is that he is really multifunctional for a lot of different uses. Use him with Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker to go infinite dudes with haste, use him with an opponents titan for some nice profit, use him with marton for a pseudo haste outlet. He essentially gives 2 attacking bodies for 5 mana that can swing the second they hit. The number of uses he can be used for is really big. I even hijacked a Greater Good just to ram him through it once which was fun. He is very versatile due to his own haste + ability to steal anything, untap it, and give it haste.
6 CC
Godo, Bandit Warlord I used to use this guy and while he is just sort of a red good stuff creature I found that most of the equipment were really bad for token based decks other than Skullclamp. As much as I like the clamp it wasn't worth having a 6 mana creature in the deck just to fetch it into play. I used to run a larger equipment setup utilizing swords and such as well but it seemed the best to just axe the whole lot of it.
Hellkite Charger This guy is more for if you want to do infinite attacks with Sword of Feast and Famine to be honest. I have not been very impressed with extra attack phases with Marton as if I get one attack phase with him involved people are dying anyways so extra attacks are sort of gimp but if you want more combo you can consider this guy for it.
Inferno Titan He is ok for some removal but I had problems with the fact that he did absolutely nothing for my token tactis. On top of that I had someone Bribery into him a few times and it really hurts when playing tokens.
Moonveil Dragon mass firebreathing would be another way to try to buff into a win. The downside is that even though this gives a buff across the board it still costs 6 mana before you even start buffing. It would be really hard for this to work out unless you had a wave of tokens + the dragon in play for a whole turn already then dumped mana like crazy. I also utilize a lot of colorless mana stones and lands so the red dependance on the buff could be difficult.
Rapacious One This guy is one of the most ridiculous token producers in the deck. Start swinging at people and generate up to 5 tokens per turn. Once you get Marton in on the action he buffs and generates even more tokens in his attack. The tokens can be used for emergency mana or to do bigger things in a turn. He has really been a hell of a tank. He does a lot of dirty work for me. At first glance, people might not understand how powerful he is in here. Let them doubt it and die to it.
Steel Hellkite I like him for his ability to answer random things that I am having problems with but the problem becomes the fact that I have so little ways to reliably go get him whereas he has potential to totally jack me up if stolen out of my deck, rezed into play, or cloned. Due to this I just dont run him.
Thopter Assembly I ran this guy for a while and while there is some decent potential with him, the chance that there will be no return is too great for me to use it anymore. It is really really slow to play with as well so it has some issues. One of the upsides to it though being that it would be really cool to use with Goblin Welder as the tokens it produces can be swapped for artifacts as well.
Wurmcoil Engine A good random beater but I stopped running it due to the fact that it was usually just a random 6/6 creature swinging arround. The fact that it can drop 2 tokens out of it is decent but still it felt a little out of place but if you need some lifegain I suppose this wouldnt be a bad choice.
7 CC
Chancellor of the Forge This guy can turn into some stupid turns. Use Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker on him in response to his trigger and you probably have enough tokens to kill people regardless of where you were sitting beforehand. All that said, I dislike how he is dependent on my setup to work at all. However he can get you from sort of a middle of the road standing into kill position very quickly.
Darksteel Gargoyle I have caught a lot of flack for supporting this guy but at the end of the day, being alive to drop more lands and draw more cards is more opportunities to win yourself. This guy is purely defensive. He works great against creature and voltron strategies as trample or unblockable are the only evasions that give him trouble. He blocks off random damage and keeps a low threat profile for you. Ideally I want people still swinging at each other and my deterrents to be of low threat origin so they dont need to blow up my blocker. Living another few turns can be all it takes to win.
Dragon Mage I ran him back before they printed Reforge the Soul. I still think this guy is ok but the fact that he needs to connect to trigger makes him sort of unpredictable. If I could just have a creature that did an ETB wheel I would be more cool with that. As it stands, he needs to wait a turn and then connect to someone. More often than not someone tries to stop wheel effects because I usually do them when it is at my best interest. Giving people a buffer time to drop their threats or kill a creature to stop it doesn't work as well for me.
Myr Battlesphere 5 bodies that arrive on ETB is amazing. I love copying this guy with Kiki as he provides one of the highest # of bodies per creature in the list. Plus more Myrs just means more direct damage when I tap and send one of the Battlespheres in or more bodies for Marton to swing with. Either way this guy is easily one of the most amazing bodies due to having huge defense and providing tons of guys on arrival. Remember that he is fat enough to block a titan and live which is very useful on occasion.
8 CC
Sundering Titan He is great in mono colored decks but the problem being that he really does nothing to further the objective of the deck. I want to win not just piss people off. This deck doesn't run much control effects so I dont get the feeling that running just this guy is going to get you far. If you see a ton of 5c decks with good manabases though it could increase your chances of wanting to run this. Ohhh ya and update here, he is banned now as well.
9+ CC
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth Card draw in mono red is really a problem. I run this guy primarily as a means to draw cards, and eat opponents removal. If I get lucky I can give him haste and eat someone's face as well. He is a plan B strategy, he gives card draw, he breaks through against attack limitation effects, and he doesn't care about most of the issues that plague a token deck. He fits really well so far and if someone jacks him from my deck there are actually some ways in which I could kill him potentially.
Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre I considered running him a few times as a secondary big beefy alt wincon but Kozilek, Butcher of Truth fits what the deck needs so much better. I like this guy but he is really expensive which pushes up my already high mana curve and doesn't directly benefit the deck nearly as well as Kozilek does.
Artifact
Everflowing Chalice sort of a generic mana stone but I like how I can scale it. I can drop it at 2 mana for it to be another early stone or if I draw it later it could easily tap for 5+ mana. Due to that I find it to be better than Fire Diamond style stones.
Orochi Hatchery this thing can really abuse token spawning. However since it costs 5 mana to activate it I would discourage playing it for less than 3 tokens a spawn. However if you manage to get like 4+ tokens per spawn it is actually really solid. This thing doesnt tend to last all that long due to how crazy it is but this deck has so many artifact threats that it is hard to answer them all. I like to set it up if possible to spawn the tokens in the same turn rotation as I am dropping it but if I really need a big spawner I will just dump my mana in and hope to have a more effective one next turn.
Mana Vault I dont really love the fact that I can only untap it on my upkeep but this deck often needs a big burst of mana in one turn to work things out. Due to that this card is actually probably better later in the game due to giving me a large amount of mana but in general I like to use Grim Monolith over this card unless budget issues interfere.
Meekstone this card is a cool little control outlet but the problem is that they still get to swing at us with their big fatties. I stopped using this because it brought hate down on me and was very conditional. If you want some control though and see a lot of fatties this works decently. The downside is you never really know when someone might Naturalize it at EOT and beat your face in...
Skullclamp this gives some really solid card draw to the deck. My only real issue with it is that I dont normally always have tokens avalible for use in this deck as I build arround having big waves of them. Due to that sometimes I have nothing to clamp which really sucks. Still it is good draw for the deck.
Sol Ring good mana stone. Hard to go wrong with this. It is cheap and taps for 2 mana. It provides more mana then it costs so how can I have anything bad to say about that. No downsides, just win...
Wayfarer's Bauble I like how this is sort a land ramp outlet. The deck suffers a lot when someone blows out all the artifacts so this helps by giving me another land instead of sitting on an artifact mana stone which often do get swept out on me.
Grim Monolith a mana stone that gives a big mana output and is cheap to drop. It can be untapped outside of my upkeep so I find it to be a lot better than Mana Vault which does come down sooner but to be honest 95% of the time the difference in mana doesn't really matter for this deck. The ability to untap it when I feel like it does really matter though and it has the potential to turn into infinite mana with Rings of Brighthearth which could then turn into a really big token wave.
Mind Stone good mana stone that can turn into a card draw in an artifact sweeper. It isnt impressive but it is cheap and can cycle itself off if something would happen to it.
Mortarpod it comes into play with a dude attached and it gives me an option to do a little control if need be. It is sort of like a ghetto Goblin Bombardment with a bad token attached to it.
Nim Deathmantle Evasion + recursion that red has access to. I like this card a lot more if you are running a higher density of sacrifice outlets. Currently I stopped using it in my list because I use up a lot of my mana every turn so this was hard to keep mana up for and I didnt have much for ways to control the triggers if I did keep my mana up.
Spawning Pit it is a decent sac outlet that gives us something to do with things that are dying anyways. I have used it several times in conjunction with Insurection to really beat up opponents by running them over with their creatures then sacing them off to this. It is an alright card but I saw a lot of situations where I could never really use it all that well so I cut it.
Ashnod's Altar a big thing I need to go off in this deck is mana. The ability to turn tokens in play into mana and then spawn a bigger X wave seems solid to me. There are several ways that this can help me to go off so it is nice for that. Having an extra sac outlet on hand is also handy to have.
Coalition Relic a good ramp mana stone. It can provide 2 mana in a turn which is a nice option when needed.
Crystal Ball I run a lot of filter draw just to try to get to the right cards at the right time. This gives me a cheap sort of filter effect where I can push through the crud cards down to what I need when I need it. It is cheap to drop, cheap to use, and it really improves what I draw.
Darksteel Ingot indestructable mana stone makes it really hard to get rid of. I like how it is more robust and hard to loose. It works nicely in metas that run artifact sweepers and mass land destruction as well.
Darksteel Plate I used to use this way back when I would try to slow play Marton. I found out that it was just a whole lot easier to use haste than to assume nothing would happen to him over the duration of a whole turn cycle. People run clones and other such things. When you slow play marton everyone knows what is coming unless they dont even know what your deck does.
Ensnaring Bridge Another control style artifact that is token friendly. It is fun to use but again it stops everyone from attacking anywhere so it makes you the badguy and it can disapear at instant speed leaving everyone to beat on you for the card.
Mimic Vat good recursion. The problems I had with it were that my creature count was going down and I dont run a ton of sac outlets or ways to get creatures on it. I dont run much for opposing creature hate either so all in all it was hard to get things on it and it is a big target.
Rings of Brighthearth it has sort of a lot of random things that it just doubles up with. It can ramp off of a fetchland or double that Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Krenko, Mob Boss, Mad Prophet, Moggcatcher effects. Honestly there were a lot of cards in here that did make me want to use it but the problem is that it requires something fairly good to be any good. In short, it was winmore.
Sword of Fire and Ice I used to run this as some card draw for the deck but honestly it is really difficult to supply a body early on to run with it. Eventually it just ended up being more of a pain in the ass than I think it is worth so I scrapped it.
Worn Powerstone 2 mana producing mana stone for 3 mana is hard to come by. It comes in tapped which sort of sucks but it is great ramp.
Gauntlet of Might an expensive but effective mana doubler. If you can afford the $$$ for it then it is the best of the mana doubles you will get for red. Use it if you have / can afford it. The low mana cost on it makes it sort of easy to micromanage in your turn. I have on several occasions dropped it in and continued to do other things with as much or more mana then before I dropped it.
Skyship Weatherlight sort of a fun toy that I played with for a while. It is cool in the fact that it opens up some tutoring options. My issue was that I wanted to get to 8 mana before dropping it so I could drop and tutor. Even then it takes up like your whole turn to do that. It was fun but in the end I just found it to be a pain in the ass to try to work with.
Slate of Ancestry solid draw for a token deck. Later in the game it can easily draw you a full hand or more in a single activation. This is going to be one of those high profile cards that people will blow up if they can so try to drop it when you can activate it as well in the same turn.
Snake Basket it is slow but realistically it is 1 extra mana to drop and use than Goblin Offensive. Plus it can be reused with Goblin Welder which is sort of cool. I wouldn't likely drop this and pass turn as I would rather force someone to wrath me than use an artifact removal to get rid of the basket. Man I wish the basket could be used at instant speed... really irritates me. One of these days I might be able to replace it but for now its still in the list.
Thran Dynamo 3 mana for 4 is amazing. It comes in untapped and has like no downside other than its mana being colorless. This stone is easy to multi task dropping it and doing something else in the same turn as we are mono colored and it only has a net loss of one mana to drop in. Great stone all in all.
Trading Post this is a new toy that I have been playing with. The fact that it can produce tokens and recover artifacts is really nice. It doesn't do anything explosively but even a token per turn can be useful in terms of blocks and such. The multi functionality of this card is where it is at.
Vedalken Orrery flash is sort of like haste on crack. It gives us the ability to jump in behind opponents wraths and just keep our options up as long as possible. I cant believe how long I went without running this card in this deck but it is really stupidly good. If you can have haste + flash you just have stupid win as things like Mogcatcher, Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, and Krenko, Mob Boss might just run away with the game in that situation.
Eldrazi Monument I used to run this effect and while it is still fairly solid I found that Akroma's Vengeance just worked better for me. Haste is better than indestructible when you are trying to push Marton down the tube.
Gauntlet of Power Another big mana doubler. Gauntlet of Might is much better due to its lower casting cost but is also a ton more expensive to obtain. These cards can fuel some of the big plays especially involving the X mana token producers. Due to red's terrible tutoring running some redundancy is the way to go.
Memory Jar a good card draw trick plus it can be reused with the Goblin Welder which is bad ass. It has a lot of uses but having a whole new hand even if just for a turn is really solid. This deck is all about big mana so it can be somewhat easy to blow a new hand or even just the important parts in a turn. The downside is that you usually want to drop it in and wait to untap before using it opening it up for removal.
Mind's Eye Consistent card draw. If people are letting you sit back and draw cards off of this they will loose the game. Assume it will die within a turn rotation so make sure to drop it when you can actually draw a few cards yet off of it that turn rotation. If it sticks, then you just ride that card draw as far as you can.
Caged Sun another mana doubler effect. The +1/+1 to my creatures is also nice but we have a lot of off color or artifact spawned tokens so the buff is sort of hit and miss. It costs the most mana out of the mana double effects which I dont like but consistency is good in red.
Myr Incubator it spawns lolz tokens. However that said it takes forever to be able to drop and activate in one shot. If opponents don't answer it quickly this sort of thing can be a game ender though. Remember that you can crack this at your opponents end step so it makes it hard to wrath the tokens from this bugger.
Akroma's Memorial haste + flying + 2 color protections + vigilance + first strike + trample + WTF ELSE CAN YOU WANT???? This card does like everything. It is really amazing when someone is putting the screws to you as having vigilant first strikers that are protected from 2 colors really turns away a ton of attackers. It works really well for Marton as well as it turns off a good portion of instant speed removal leaving mostly just counterspells and white spot removal left to catch him. This is probably my favorite haste outlet but the most expensive of them as well.
Enchantment
Goblin Bombardment I like this card as a bit of a board control outlet. It is unlikely that I would end up saccing a bunch of creatures to go at someone's head but it does work great as an Insurrection creature dump or a means to take out really troublesome utility creatures like Seedborn Muse for instance as something like that could shut us down. I don't think that this card is mandatory in this deck however it seems to be a very powerful board control option to burn through opponent's creatures. A lot of people wont even consider dropping some commanders if you have this in play.
Blood Moon these effects are very hit and miss. If you have a meta where it happens to work well then by all means use it. I find it to make enemies and be very uncertain as to what sort of performance it will have. I like it more personally in a red control style of deck than I do here. It can really piss people off and it can have very little effect sometimes. If it works in your meta then go for it though.
Fervor haste is amazing for a deck like this as it just improves the explosiveness of it. The fact that opponents always have to fear Marton coming down and having haste is really good at throwing people off their game. Sometimes I will sit with something like this in hand just spawning some creatures then in one turn drop this + Marton and swing out. It is great for really surprising people as they feel like they know how long until they have to fear us. But this sort of effect always throws them off.
Stranglehold it is a nice hoser for red but it belongs a bit more in a control based deck. This deck ideally doesnt want attention and this brings a lot down. Plus it does nothing to further what the deck is trying to do. If your meta is a combo out style of meta that tutors a ton it might be more advisable. At the best I think this card just buys some time. I like it and it could be a consideration but it doesnt do anything directly for me. It is good though and might be something I need to consider further in the future.
War's Toll another nice hoser. This card is great against the control happy decks and draw / go style of decks because it makes it very difficult for them to stagger what they do. It also opens up some openings for attacks going out by things like Rapacious One or just some random pokes. I have seen a lot of people do less attacking due to this card. This is great in counter heavy metas... assuming it hits play.
In the Web of War Honestly most of the time this is just a worse Fervor, however I do like the fact that this could be a decent plan B option if Marton gets tucked or for some reason wont work. If you were to drop like any of the mass token spawners with this in play it should easily be powerful enough to mostly drop a player as a 10 token spawn would be 30 damage worth of hasted creatures with this in play. This deck can easily spawn 10+ creatures in a turn with all the big mana effects in it.
Grip of Chaos this deck does very very little single targeting. The important part here is that it will give you cover for Marton as spot removal isn't going to work on him. If you get a haste outlet and this in play and drop marton, the game is usually sealed up. In addition, this totally jacks with a ton of removal even things like Acidic Slime just go crazy because they have a hard time targeting. It is a fun bit of chaos that hurts this deck very very minimally.
Vicious Shadows This is another sort of plan B spell. If you already have tokens in play + a sac outlet this can easily take out a few players. Combine this with something like Firecat Blitz or a bunch of Eldrazi Tokens and it is just game over for most people.
Instant
Reverberate similar to Reiterate but due to its lower cost it is easier to keep the mana up to cast it. The downside here is that it is not reusable however the lower mana cost is nice here especially if you want to try to keep the mana up most of the time to keep it as an option. I found that their use is largely unknown. If your meta casts a ton of spells on average it might be useful. I found that going into an unknown meta it is very much hit and miss though.
Starstorm I dont run much for control in this deck because I find it difficult enough to keep up card draw and card advantage. The advantage here is that I can cycle it if I want to and I can wait until the last moment to blow up the creatures in the case they come my way.
Chaos Warp the end all solution for red removal. It deals with anything that is giving you trouble. The problem in my mind though is that it is sort of rare that there is something giving us a lot of trouble. If you see an increase in enchantment hate for your deck or for tokens in general you might consider packing one of these but I found that more often than not I can just go without it. Trying to do 1 for 1 trades in mono red is really rough due to the bad card draw.
Reiterate it can be sort of fun due to the fact that you can piggy back someone else' early ramp spells or jump on board for a Tooth and Nail cast. The big downside is that these cards work best in a draw / go style deck as you need to keep up a lot of mana to cast them. This deck itself doesnt run much for spells that I would copy with this sort of card so you are really relying on opponents to do some dirty work for you.
Tears of Rage this is a great plan B pump spell. It can sort of take the place of Marton if the deck needs it to. The biggest disappointment would be if someone were to fog you when you did this as it would kill all your creatures still. Even then though people don't tend to pack fogs all that much in EDH.
Sorcery
Faithless Looting sometimes in red its all about having the right card for the right situation. There are a lot of situations where I just need something other than what is in my hand so having some nice looting effects allows me to push cards arround and dig through my deck faster to what it is that I do need. The ability to dig through potentially 4 cards for 4 mana off of one card is fairly solid.
Gamble Considering it is one of the few tutor options in mono red it definitely makes the cut. If you draw it with no other cards in hand then you can always go for Anger or Firecat Blitz. There isnt really any single card that I always go for but with this deck utilizing Gamble in the late game I often go for Insurrection or Warp World. In the early game you might be best with some sort of ramp or card draw effect.
Firecat Blitz It is a good token spawner due to the fact that they have haste by default and the flashback is very very useful here. I have thrown it away on several occasions to wheel effects and then I will surprise people later with a cheap flashback.
Wild Guess Cheap card draw / card filter is always appreciated in this deck. There are always cards I dont want at a particular time that having cheap filter around to move is always handy. I have a few cards that are good to be discarded as well so this helps with them too.
Goblin Offensive Another big wave of creatures effect. It has a relatively low cost as it is only 3 and x. The tokens stick around, and they are goblins which actually have some synergy with other aspects of the deck such as Krenko, Mob Boss. I sort of have this issue where I dont like casting it until I have the ability to cast it for big + have haste + have marton so I might be too defensive in just casting it out but it is good.
Wheel of Fortune Red's card draw often turns into everyone draws sort of effects. The key is to use it when it is the best for you. I love using a wheel effect to screw with a tutor or right after someone draws a ton of cards. If possible ramp hard and dump your hand then wheel and watch as others loose out on some of the momentum.
Mana Geyser This is sort of the de facto big turn maker. It can easily generate 15-25 mana in the mid to late game. This can result in much larger plays than you would normally be able to make. This deck is often about how much mana you can muster to push for the win.
Reforge the Soul another wheel effect and while it is more expensive, it is still a reasonable casting cost. Generally speaking in red I can never get enough card draw so this was a welcome replacement for Dragon Mage
All Is Dust generic sweeper effect that hits enchantments but leaves a lot of our artifact stuff alone. I used to run it but I am not running a control deck. Generally I just try to divert things away from me with a low profile + tokens when possible.
Insurrection This card is a huge wincon. Remember that you can drop Marton + this to give him haste. I have won a lot of games off of this + Marton alone. It gives you a haste outlet as well as a lot more creatures with generally no opposition on your swing. This card can turn into some big blowouts.
Warp World Since we are token based we generally flip this card for a lot more profit than our opponents. Plus only a little over 10% of the cards in this deck are a miss with Warp World so generally speaking this is going to flip quite profitably. I have managed a lot of wins right off the same turn as a Warp World due to the fact that it can flip haste + tokens everywhere. I can tell you that nobody flips Warp World nearly as well as a token deck.
Skittering Invasion another decent option to flip 5 guys into the field. What I dont like about this though is that it is a static 5 guys for 7 mana so it is sort of expensive to drop and we have no way to abuse it. It isn't off of an artifact so I cant flip some of the creatures we can do a bit more with and the spell effects that spawn usually scale with mana so while this is sort of expensive it doesn't scale which doesn't make me that impressed by it.
Planeswalker
Koth of the Hammer I played him in the deck early on. The big problem is that most of the time this deck defends itself by use of low profile or chumping with tokens if neccesary. Koth is best when you ramp into him or even just drop him by turn 4. Beyond that I find him really lacking. This deck isnt about poking for 4 dmg so that is largely not productive. Really the only thing I do like from him in here is his ultimate and playing a walker for their ultimate really rarely works in EDH.
Chandra Ablaze Generally speaking I use her as a hand reset. This can really screw with people who tutor / draw a lot. However dont forget about her direct damage option as that can really get you out of a pinch consider how little dedicated removal I run.
Karn Liberated considering we are running mono R this could be a decent option for some repeatable removal against really anything. Considering red has to pay 5 mana for a Doom Blade equivalent I would say this is a decent option. We dont really have a good way to defend him though especially against flyers. I would say it is better to leave him to a control style of red deck.
Land
Buried Ruin Considering I have almost 30 artifacts in this deck this is a great land. Sure we loose it to activate its utility ability but it allows us to regrowth any artifact which is amazing. I am almost tempted to run Crucible of Worlds for this land.
Fetchlands (Arid Mesa, Bloodstained Mire, Scalding Tarn, Wooded Foothills) When looking at fetchlands in a mono colored deck these provide utility support for cards such as Sensei's Divining Top and Scroll Rack to shuffle the deck for more options. They also work with Crucible of Worlds to provide more land drop options and Rings of Brighthearth as ramp.
Homeward Path I am running this currently as sort of a counter to Insurrection, Bribery, and just other generic theft effects. I cant say if this is going to stay in the list or not but it is alright if those kind of effects become a problem for you.
Keldon Necropolis A sac outlet with some control options in it. This lets us kill some troublesome utility commanders if need be such as Gaddock Teeg and some tutoring commanders. It might not be cheap to use but it is a utility land after all so it isnt taking up a slot in our deck as removal which is nice.
Kher Keep It spawns dudes at the cost of 3 mana on a land... You really cant ask for more in a token based deck.
Scrying Sheets Potential card draw in red is fairly suck. The fact that this is on a land is quite nice as an option for the deck.
Snow-Covered Mountain These are run for Scrying Sheets, Mouth of Ronom, and Skred if you run andy of them. I think that overall I have found Mouth of Ronom to be the most useful but Scrying Sheets can also be nice to burn some extra mana. There is really no downside in running snow covered lands unless someone actually runs anti snow land tactics which in my mind is very very narrow. If you want to spend the $$$ to get them it is mostly all positive.
Strip Mine Generic land hate options. Things like Cabal Coffers and Emeria cannot be allowed to stick to the board. Even though I am removal light I wouldnt skimp on some land hate options.
Tectonic Edge Another Strip Mine effect. This could be Wasteland if you have it however I honestly dont see the need to invest in a $30.00 land hate when I own Tec edges which are quite a bit cheaper and operate just as well in EDH.
Terrain Generator This can give us extra ramp. We have a lot of wheel effects so getting more lands out of hand quickly can mean we loose less cards in that wheel effect as well. It is a good way to blow extra mana at an end step and it is very nonthreatening in nature.
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle Some nice hate packed onto a nonbasic land. It comes in tapped and it draws a lot of hate... however it is a nice option if it lasts. It doesn't often matter or it gets blown up before it can go active though.
Wasteland tecnically better than Tectonic Edge and worse than Strip Mine. Personally I wouldnt drop the cash on one of these over just using Tectonic Edge though.
Winding Canyons This gives us the option of flashing in creatures. If you flash Marton in it is as good as giving him haste plus we will be untapped on our turn to do other broken things. This land feels really promising to me so I need to get it some testing yet.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
Game Reports
I figured for anyone interested in sort of seeing who my competition was for playtesting means / how my games sort of went I will do my best to report games and enter them here for a record for anyone who might be interested in finding some of them without having to sort through this entire thread. If someone else wants to keep track of some game reports as well I am fine with adding their game rundowns here as well.
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
10/26/11
3 games of 6 player Emperor
Result 2/1
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7493715&postcount=41
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
11/2/11
2 games of 4 player FFA
Result 1/1
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7520921&postcount=65
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
11/9/11
1 games of 5 player FFA
Result 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7549032&postcount=81
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
11/14/11
2 games of 5 player FFA
Result 0/2
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7570558&postcount=82
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
11/23/11
1 games of 5 player FFA
Result 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7603997&postcount=90
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
12/5/11
1 games of 5 player FFA
Result 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7646971&postcount=98
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
2/22/12
1 games of 4 player FFA
Result 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=7999525&postcount=129
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
4/25/12
1 games of 4 player FFA
Result 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8308609&postcount=133
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
5/25/12
1 games of 3 player FFA
4 games of 4 player FFA
Result 4/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8450424&postcount=137
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
5/28/12
1 games of 4 player FFA
Result 0/1
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8461633&postcount=138
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
5/30/12
3 games of 4 player FFA
1 game of 3 player FFA
Result 2/2
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8473692&postcount=139
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
6/2/12
2 games of 3 player FFA
5 games of 4 player FFA
Result: 5/2
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8483699&postcount=143
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
6/15/12
1 game of 4 player FFA
Result 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8545020&postcount=150
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
6/21/12
6 game of 4 player FFA
Results 2/2/2 (2 games lost to server crash)
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8575388&postcount=153
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
8/31/12
1 game of 3 player FFA
Results 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8934972&postcount=191
Game Pilot=ISBPathfinder
09/16/2012
1 game of 4 player FFA
Results 1/0
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=9034880&postcount=202
Changelog
Sorry I started up the change log well after starting this deck so some of the older changes are a bit rougher on their entry in here. I will do what I can to get everything updated eventually but for now this is what I have pulled from just the posts I have in this thread.
10/24/11
- Dreamstone Hedron -> Everflowing Chalice dreamstone was too slow of ramp. This change just speeds the deck up a bit giving me a more versatile ramp package. To be honest I have a hard time sitting behind mana in this deck so keeping 6 up to possibly sac the Hedron and draw cards like never happened when it needed to.
- Blood Moon -> Mind Stone control out for ramp. This deck cant keep up with trying to hinder other decks with control. Plus nonbasic land hate is very hit / miss depending upon your meta. Mine just didnt happen to be impacted enough by it.
-
Goblin Assault -> Akroma, Angel of Fury the slow tokens from the assault just ran off to die every time. Akroma is a big wincon so I will try her out and see how she goes.(swapped out in a later post that day.)- Comet Storm -> Rally the Horde control out for a token spawn effect. Hopefully the Rally will pan off big.
- Reiterate -> Pentavus control out for token spawning.
- Ruination -> Darksteel Ingot control out for ramp.
- Wake of Destruction -> Emrakul's Hatcher control out for token spawning / ramp.
- Mountain -> Mystifying Maze adding some nonbasics and seeing how much basic land I really need.
- Mountain -> Temple of the False God adding some nonbasics and seeing how much basic land I really need.
- Akroma, Angel of Fury -> Vicious Shadows Shadows kicks off of the token theme quite well. Use it with a sac outlet and just gun your opponents down.
10/25/11
- Shield of Kaldra -> Nim Deathmantle The shield was really really bad. In its place the deathmantle can rez a lot of creatures for me including token spawners. It is really nice to get an Eldrazi Monument set up with the Deathmantle in play. Indestructible just wasn't cutting it anymore.
- Pentavus -> Myr Incubator ohhhh man Pentavus costs so much mana to drop in and then even more to manipulate. I swapped it out for Myr Incubator which literally just wins games instead of being cute.
- Citanul Flute -> Mogg Infestation The Flute is really mana intensive to work with. I cut it for a situational wrath that might spawn an army for me. The versatility of Mogg Infestation seems interesting to work with.
10/27/11
- Sword of Light and Shadow -> Mimic Vat The sword had too slow of a startup time. I liked the Mimic Vat instead due to its ability to abuse a creature every turn and steal some utility that my deck lacked.
- Sundering Titan -> Dragon Mage Land Destruction just wasnt really working as part of this deck. This deck has a very strict goal of what it is trying to do and poping a few lands didnt really fit in with the overall strategy. The Dragon Mage gives me more draw outlets which is good. It is fun when you have haste as well.
- Goblin Marshal -> Wayfarer's Bauble I really really didnt like how slow the tokens came in from the Marshal. If it would give them all to me upfront I would like him a lot more. Unfortunately it was just a little to hard to work with. More ramp especially in land form is nice to get me going and let me play the big game finisher effects.
- Rally the Horde -> Reiterate Rally was wayyyyy too unpredictable. Generally speaking I would end up with like 2-3 tokens for 6 mana which just wasn't working out. If I could have expected more tokens on average I would be for using the card but it was just wayyyyy too random.
- Ghitu Encampment -> Tectonic Edge I never really used the getto camp for anything and it comes in tapped. Swapped it out for some basic land destruction.
10/31/11
- Mogg Infestation -> Chaos Warp there are a lot of problematic cards that I really cant deal with well especially enchantment based. This should hopefully give me some answers to them. Also the mogg wrath was really hit and miss. It didnt work on my own board very often and I play against a lot of token decks where it is really not so great either. It just wasnt working out as well as I had hoped.
- Reiterate -> All Is Dust I have a hard time keeping my mana up for the copy effect. I found that a wrath that would take out enchants and creatures while leaving my stones to be very productive for this deck.
- Rakka Mar -> Steel Hellkite I found Rikka to be painfully slow to produce tokens. I want my tokens in big waves rather than one at a time. I felt like the Hellkite might give me some anti token opposition setup as well as being able to answer enchantments and able to firebreath for some good damage if need be.
11/7/11
- Mountain -> Winding Canyons Winding Canyons gives me another sort of haste option for my creatures and commander. The ability to flash in behind wrath effects or just surprise someone with my commander at EOT sounds like fun.
- Mountain -> Homeward Path I had some issues with opposing Insurrections with Marton in play so I figured I might try to swap into homeward and see if it does anything for me. I don't entirely know what point is too many nonbasics however I am playing with it a bit to see how it works out.
- Mystifying Maze -> Keldon Necropolis The maze was hard to keep mana up for and really didnt turn much away. This deck has better things to do as it is sort of an all in style of deck. The Necropolis gives me a sac outlet as well as some removal that doesnt eat up a spot in my deck really. In a pinch, 2 dmg can be a lifesaver.
- Spinerock Knoll -> Snow-Covered Mountain trying to keep my nonbasics in check. I like the nonbasics for utility but I need to keep the most important ones. This deck really doesn't output damage itself until it goes off so something like Spinerock Knoll sort of sucks because I was relying on opponents to trigger it for me. If I operated more on an incremental damage to opponents route I would be more for it but I just found that it didn't quite work with what I was doing.
- Temple of the False Gods -> Snow-Covered Mountain Keeping basic land count high. I didnt like when this card wasn't active and if I drop a mana doubler then it is really just sort of a meh land. Trying to keep the nonbasic lands I need around and drop those I don't really need.
11/21/11
- Added the snow land package as well as Scrying Sheets / Mouth of Ronom package to the deck. Basic mountains swapped out for snow.
11/23/11
- Darksteel Plate -> Grip of Chaos I really needed a means to protect Marton and my valuable artifacts. Grip of Chaos just fits amazingly with the few targeting spells I run in here. People just sort of cry with their spot removal when I drop it in.
12/05/11
- Hoarding Dragon -> Moggcatcher the dragon was giving me some trouble as I dont run a ton of sac outlets in the deck and to be honest people were using some good removal to stop me from getting good artifacts sometimes. I had to always sort of weight if I could get away with different targets. Moggcatcher on the other hand gives great value over time considering how big of a goblin package I run in here. The only downside is it is easy to overextend using this buddy.
02/06/12
- Steel Hellkite -> Helm of Possession Information on this change can be found on post #124.
- Thopter Assembly -> Confusion in the Ranks Information on this change can be found on post #124.
- Meekstone -> Incendiary Command Information on this change can be found on post #124.
- Chaos Warp -> Faithless Looting Information on this change can be found on post #124.
- All Is Dust -> Jar of Eyeballs Information on this change can be found on post #124.
02/07/12
- Confusion in the Ranks -> Relic of Progenitus I have needed to add some grave hate for a while now. This should be fairly nice as I have very little that really actively uses the grave and it cantrips off for cheap. I can move through it quickly without much of an issue which I like.
- Jar of Eyeballs -> Squee, Goblin Nabob I have meant to give Squee a try for a bit now. He can give me chump blocks and pick up some value off of some of the filter effects that I am trying to pick up of late. He is fun with Skullclamp as well and just sort of nice to cycle around a bit. Squee opens up my goblin theme a bit more as well giving Moggcatcher / Goblin Matron more targets to tutor into.
4/23/12
- Dragon Mage -> Reforge the Soul: the results from the Dragon Mage were spotty to say the least. It was sort of fun if I had haste but outside of that he was very hit and miss. Plus he costs a ton of mana for a sort of bad threat / uncertain value.
- Squee, Goblin Nabob -> Zealous Conscripts squee is amusing but I think the possibility to hijack a titan / grant marton haste pans out better. Plus there is the Kiki-Jiki combo with the Zealous to consider even though it is unlikely in here.
4/26/12
- Homeward Path -> Haunted Fengraf I have moved to using Marton almost exclusively with haste in some way or another. Even if I dont it is really hard to keep Homeward untapped so I am moving it to a land I think I will be able to use a bit more.
5/28/12
- Ensnaring Bridge -> Lightning Mauler The bridge just hasnt been cutting it for me of late. When this deck was in its earlier configuration it wouldt execute quite as fast but now I need to answer the combo decks sooner and use marton more and to do that I often need more haste. I like what the Mauler brings to the table as I could easily pay 6 mana for marton + the mauler.
- Squee, Goblin Nabob -> Beetleback Chief I know that it is a bit early for this one yet however I have had some success with my goblin package already and the fact that this is 3 goblins for 4 mana seems great to me. I have some goblin support already in the deck and I have plenty of ways to abuse extra bodies.
- Eldrazi Monument -> Akroma's Memorial I sort of feel like I draw about the same attention with either card. The big differeence being that I need haste with Marton to do much of anything. Between dropping him in and hoping haste will cover him and dropping him in with haste + flying + 2 color protections I think I like Akroma's a bit more in theory. The Eldrazi Monument seems good on paper but slow playing off of it rarely pans out for me.
5/30/12
- Godo, Bandit Warlord -> Reverberate I always got the impression that godo was sort of a goodstuff add to the deck. I like him with a sword in hand however the swords just werent really working out that great in the deck. He doesnt further the token tactics and I have found drawing into Sword of Fire and Ice to be a bit troublesome in this deck at times. I dont always have the creatures needed to swing arround with it so.... meh. I like the idea of some spell copying though as it lets me piggyback some of the stupid big cards in the late game, grab some card advantage, ramp in the early game, really sort of whatever I need. I figured I would give them a bit of time in the list and see if they worked out for me or not.
- Wurmcoil Engine -> Reiterate I love the Wurmcoil when I can manage to play with the Goblin Welder as well however I just havent been feeling this creature in the deck of late. It is sort of slow and while I like the life pickup it doesnt nicely do much for token work here. I have ended up drawing it and feeling a bit clunkey several times now. I dont think it is the worst offender of what is getting cut but I want to try to do without for a bit and see where it brings me. I havent decided yet if the addition here should be Fork or Reiterate but I figured as I am already running Reverberate I will try 2 different effects and see which I usually prefer and if it turns out that the extra mana cost behind this doesnt pan out I will swap to fork.
- Spawning Pit -> Omen of Fire I have seen a few more blue combo decks than I really like seeing online so I figured I would give this a spin and see how it pans out. It seems like most every game I get 2+ opponents running some blue in their colors and this screws with white as well so I figure it seems like fairly win to try out. Normally I dont like resorting to this sort of tactic but seeing as how it has sort of 2 functions I wanted to give it a spin for a bit.
- Sword of Fire and Ice -> Ruination I have been seeing a lot more 3+ color decks online as well so I figured I would give some light LD a spin. I figured considering this isnt a full land destroy effect perhaps people wont get as pissed about it but still... It seems to be one of the few tools to use in mono color vs so many multicolor decks running so few basics.
- Incendiary Command -> Mad Prophet ohhh man the command has not been working well at all for me. I think ideally it works best in a deck that actually has some good draw power to it and then when you hand sits at like 15 cards you rotate a large hand into another large hand. When I am sitting at 0-2 cards in hand I hate drawing it. When I have a full hand I usually hate to part with a card or two in hand and go down in CA. The big problem here is that most of the functions dont work well because the 2 dmg kills a lot of my stuff and I have a hard time taking card disadvantage and shifting the rest of my hand with this. The prophet can be used for attacking and it comes in and lets me choose and rotate things as I want.
- Haunted Fengraf -> Mountain I have felt like my nonbasic count is a bit higher or I am just getting a bit unlucky so I figured I would cut one. Especially with Ruination coming into the list keeping a check on the nonbasic count seems like a solid idea.
6/11/12
- Beetleback Chief -> Krenko, Mob Boss Beetleback Chief just wasnt giving me enough bodies per card as I like seeing. I wanted something else most every time I saw him so meh. He has little to no abusability which I also didnt like. Krenko seems like a huge threat and can run away with the game easily. I look forward to seeing how this swap affects the deck.
- Teferi's Puzzle Box -> Rings of Brighthearth unfortunately puzzle box was hard for me to abuse. I run it in my mono white deck and it works there because I have a lot of things to buff my hand larger with lands and such. In this deck though I usually have a smaller hand. I just got the impression here that I would be drawing less cards than my opponents and it was giving them better benefit than it was to me.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Arid Mesa fetchlands in to hopefully ramp off of Rings of Brighthearth. The downside of them is very small and even though the upside is unlikely the downside is not likely to hurt much.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Bloodstained Mire same as above.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Scalding Tarn same as above.
- Snow-Covered Mountain -> Wooded Foothills same as above.
6/16/12
- Relic of Progenitus -> Imperial Recruiter to be honest the Relic was in the deck more to just keep cards moving in the deck for cheap than it was for the graveyard hate aspects of the card. I would encourage anyone playing this deck that can afford it to obtain an Imperial Recruiter. The only reason not to run him here is due to his cost. I myself dont have one yet however I wanted to keep this deck up to date with what it should be and with some testing online I can back this move 100% if you can afford it for the deck. I dont forsee him ever coming out of the deck unless they ban him.
- Defense Grid -> Vedalken Orrery I sometimes felt like drawing the grid was loosing my draw for the turn. I like the Orrey because it has more uses overall to it. If I can flash in my stuff at EOT I dont have to stumble into wrath effects and what not. I can maximize the potential of my cards when opponents are tapped out. It is sort of like having another haste outlet in my mind.
- Caged Sun -> Gauntlet of Might again this is probably just a matter of if you can afford it then go for it. I wanted to maximize the potential of the list and through online testing I can back this swap. The decrease in mana cost here means you can possibly drop it and keep going with your turn or just drop it earlier in the game. Sure its a pain in the ass to buff the other red mages but seriously how often do you sit down with a bunch of red mage opponents??? The cheap cost to this card is where its at and while I dont have one yet it seems like it at least solidly replaces Caged Sun.
- Nim Deathmantle -> Mortarpod I was having a lot of issues with the deathmantle where I wasnt having enough creatures regularly enough and or I just didnt have that sort of mana to spend on it on a regular basis. It was better when I had more sac outlets in the deck. I was hoping that Mortarpod might give me a little bit of control while still sort of helping witht he token thing by giving me a body and an artifact that I can manipulate. While it isnt as effective as Goblin Bombardment I still think it might be worth testing out. There are a lot of annoying utility creatures that just need to die and this gives me an option to do that with and still play with it in other ways such as my Welder.
6/21/12
- Mortarpod -> Pilgrim's Eye this gives me a body and more lands to keep dropping. I always need more mana with this deck so getting a land to drop and a guy to block for me or be used Goblin Welder fodder works just fine for me.
- Fetchlands -> Snow-Covered Mountain I axed the fetch package. There just isnt enough reason to be running it in my mind. The only interaction in the deck was with Rings and I have run into Stranglehold more than I have used the fetchland + rings setup.
6/29/12
- Hoarding Dragon -> Darksteel Gargoyle Hording dragon was really hard to work with and hard to get the tutor out of him. The gargoyle gives me a good devensive measure and deters random attacks as well as some voltron style attacks away from me.
- Grim Monolith -> Ashnod's Altar I ran into problems with the fact that monolith didnt untap on its own. I love the burst of mana but I dont like spending the time to untap it. The alter gives me a sac outlet, mana generation, and lets me canibalize tokens to make an even bigger wave of tokens at times.
- Mimic Vat -> Trading Post the vat has problems getting something worthwhile onto it and it is a high priority target even then. Trading Post has multiple uses and it is usable right away as well as possibly drawing less hate??? I dont know time will tell on that part. It does a lot of things that I want to be doing in this deck though.
7/11/12
- Dragonmaster Outcast -> Starstorm when I do drop the outcast it is usually as a means to try to stall. He is really bad at that though. I figured if I just add Starstorm I always have the cycle option to it which is really solid. It lets me fight other creature heavy decks if they turn on me and wait until they turn on me to do so. Normally in this list I am against control that is so narrow as a creature only wrath for instance however I like the fact that it has a cycle option and can be used at instant speed here.
- Chancellor of the Forge -> Wild Guess I want to bring my mana curve down a bit and I like this sort of situational fixing effect. I don't know how it will pan out entirely yet but I like the idea of bringing down my curve some and increasing my ability to draw / filter my hand. It does work really well with my flashback / incarnation stuff as well. As I stated earlier the fact that chancelor looks at my board position has made him mostly just winmore so far. I don't want to have to double my board position so much as have him just drop a good amount of threats on his own.
2/11/2013
- Darksteel Gargoyle -> Hellkite Tyrant the Gargoyle was cute, but I will admit that it was entirely situational. It was fun but essentially it worked against aggro decks with little spot removal. The Tyrant is not just removal for the deck but potentially also nets us other's resources. This deck is really big on needing big mana and such to go off.
- Urabrask the Hidden -> Hellraiser Goblin generally speaking, I drop my haste outlet as I want to make a big move. This cuts into the cost of my haste outlet and adds the goblin tribal to a mass haste outlet. Its annoying to have to attack with the goblin however most of the time when you would drop him, you will be doing something a lot bigger with haste.
2/11/2013
2/23/2013
- Keldon Necropolis -> Thespian's Stage I like what Necropolis does but sadly it costs entirely too much to do what it does. I dont really have a lot of consistent token spawning either so a lot of the time I have to tap out for a big wave of tokens making it a bit harder to work with. The Stage has really impressed me so far in my Thrun deck so I think its worth playing with.
- Scrying Sheets -> Mistifying Maze I just never find myself wanting to utilize the sheets. I figure the maze gives me a better utility option.
- Mana Geyser -> Sculpting Steel I love the Geyser when I am going off but its too situational on mostly just that one instance to be utilized. I have had to mulligan it away a lot in the early game. The steel is something I am actually utilizing in my list until I can obtain an Imperial Recruiter as it stands but I have been impressed with it enough to include it in the list over the Geyser which seems to be a lot more situational.
- 1 Snow-Covered Mountain -> Cavern of Souls this gives just one more resilient way to smash marton through some of the decks weaknesses. Its not a cheap card to obtain but I think its worth the investment for him to push through counter magic.
4/23/13
Hellkite Tyrant -> Staff of Domination Tyrant was sadly just too large of a liability for me in here. I am always worried that someone will Bribery for him or clone / rez him and smash me with it. I love what he does but there is just too much room for it to backfire on me in this deck. Staff works incredibly well with the deck's huge mana ramp package so I think it will give me a nice array of control. This opens up some control elements to the deck but also gives me more draw options. Overall, it seems like a good card to test here. I think a lot of people are adding it into decks that it doesn't necessarily fit into but this deck could use further control options that can also draw cards and utilize its big mana nature so I think this is a good fit for it.
5/16/13
- Wild Guess -> Heat Shimmer I like the Guess but it feels like its packing a lot less power than all my other draw. The shimmer only costs one more but can give me access to a clone. Cloning something like a simulacrum is plenty good enough for me to be happy with this but there are tons of other goodies like thinking of cloning a Rune-Scarred Demon or Sphinx of Uthuun that I would be more than happy to do for three mana. This doesnt screw with warp word as its a sorcery for a sorcery. It is a more situational card which is a downside however it seems like it could clone a lot of the creatures in this list quite profitably still so I am willing to try it.
9/11/13
- Akroma's Memorial -> Hammer of Purphoros I love the memorial but its primary function is to supply me with haste. While the other options are by no means irrelevant, its very difficult to drop the memorial as I am trying to go off so it often turns into me spending an entire turn on the memorial and hoping it stays around long enough to matter. The hammer offers another cheap artifact based mass haste outlet and the fact that it can sac lands for tokens is occasionally useful when going off.
- Heat Shimmer -> Purphoros, God of the Forge ahhhhhh Heat Shimmer..... this card got a lot worse when the legend rule changed and it has been sort of noticeable with the functionality it lost since then. Also, somehow I seem to always get the dang thing after Grip of Chaos is in play already making it sort of awkward... While I enjoy the random utility now and then, I think I will be happier with something a bit more focused on my game plan. Purphoros is really scarey looking and I could see him doing crazy things for this deck especially if I flip into him in a Warp World.
10/21/13
- Goblin Offensive -> Tempt with Vengeance The offensive has some cool synergy with Krenko but its too niche not to make the change. Outside of Krenko, Tempt costs 2 less mana and ANYONE who is masochist enough to use the tempting offer just insures that everyone dies that much harder. I think this should be mostly just an improvement. The goblin synergy is the only reason not to make the change and outside of Krenko, Siege-Gang Commander is the only other goblin specific utility I run. I think I will see better results regularly by making the change.
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[Modern] Allies
Also, there are so many mountains, I imagine Temple of the False God or Strip Mine Wouldn't strain deck too badly.
I'll make my own list soonish.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Thank You Rivenor/Miraculous Recovery Studios!
GGGSKamahl's Band of Monstosities SGGG
RRRSFreaki-Kiki, The Goblin DoucheSRRR
BBGGNath, Raper of Hands and Spewer of Tokens!GGBB
BUGDamia, Sage of AnswersBUG
WIPs
BBBXiahou Dun, the Bitter Stax Enabling BastardBBB
On Break
BBBSKagemaro, First to RetireSBBB
BBBThe Walking DeadBBB
UUUSTeferi Combo PrimerSUUU
Entire purpose of chosing Marton is because of his obscurity, other generals may be better but Marton is unique for his partial coat of arts effect.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
If anything a slightly less obscure token commander would probably be Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician. Even then though he just doesn't have the nostalgic feel of Martin.
I had Pentavus in my original build but I pulled it out for Thopter Assembly... To be honest though last night I was considering pulling it back in in the place of something else. I need to focus on token production first and foremost and it is a great token producer to bank off of Goblin Welder
Triskelavus feels like it just has too little possibility of spawning tokens. It can double as control as well... but I just dont like it that much for how much it costs.
Vesuva ehhhh I guess I could add it to the list... I just dont really see it ever happening considering I have like no land tutoring in here currently. I could add Expidition Map but I just am not that big of a fan of the card. I guess it is low on my priorities currently.
Emrakul's Hatcher ehhh not a half bad idea. It feels strictly a little inferior to Siege-Gang Commander but I like how the tokens can be saced for some mana so that's cool. I will see what I can do about it... no promises though.
Temple of the False God I could see it going in here. This deck is all about the big mana.
Strip Mine I could probably add it but I find that Ruination and Blood Moon already do a fine job at fixing this problem. I am sort of wondering if I should bother much with any of these effects though. I sort of thought about substituting Chaos Warp for one of these sort of effects considering it is a broader answer. I have had games where Blood Moon effects like 1/5 players so I go back and forth on these effects. Plus for every nonbasic land I add I sort of have to consider that they don't produce double mana when I have my Gauntlet of Power effects in play. I will consider it going forward but I want to see how the list continues to do without it for now.
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[Modern] Allies
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Doing a bit of an update. I tried a few games with my list and it did surprisingly well... I have to admit though I have been playing it in the more casual games I play as I can forsee some problems running it with the big guns just due to the likelihood of Marton recieving a lot more spot removal and or being tucked. However in my test games I have been very impressed by him. He is a lot of fun to play and definately a bit of a dumb down from my usual game. Tons of fun to play though.
OUT:
Dreamstone Hedron I need to ramp sooner. Plus these big 3 mana stones can bring down a lot of hate. While I love that it can sac to draw 3 I need to get up to mana faster. So I am dumbing this down a little bit.
Blood Moon I had tons of issues with this because it was so hit and miss. If I planned on using this deck in high end play I could see this panning out again but in the games I was playing with it I would turn like 2-3 lands in a 4 player game into a mountain.... I guess this is a meta call at best. It wasnt really working out but I know if I were to play this competatively in my group it would turn off a lot more. When playing the usual scrubs though it was sort of meh...
Goblin Assault I had a big problem with the goblins just dying here. I want a bigger output faster so while I think it is cute it was just a bit too slow.
Comet Storm I am turning down some of my answers and increasing my threats. This is just my own personal preference in how I want to play the deck but I am increasing threats as much as I can and pushing for the kills. This is multiplayer so I can bank on some of the threats being answered by other players as well. And when I am lucky I dont draw all of the hate considering I am running sort of an obscure red commander.
Reiterate It is cute but too random on its payoff. I could see it coming back in potentially but for now it is out in favor of a mana stone.
Ruination Too random in its results. I had a 5 player game and only one player lost land on like turn 10... Granted that one player went from like 8-10 lands to 3 which was funny I just see it being a meta call on how it pays off. In a higher level of play I can see it becoming better but that isnt really where I am primarily running this deck so it is goin out.
Wake of Destruction Honestly if I am going to have an answer to something I would rather it be someone's threat than shutting them down before they get going. This is a great card... It just isnt primarily how I want to run this deck. Out of the jacking with land stuff this one is probably the most likely to come back in as there is a lot of basic lands among the decks I play against with this however I found it to be a bit harsh to just drop on someone early game. Bottom line is it just wasnt something I felt like I needed for this type of deck.
IN:
Emrakul's Hatcher A bunch of tokens spawn on ETB which is good. I can use those tokens to mana up quickly or use them as an extra buff for Marton. I like him and feel like I should give him some testing.
Pentavus I brought him back because he does have potential to spwan a bunch of guys. The downside being that I am likely to have to tap out to drop him so there is a turn where I dont have his tokens yet and he is killable in one body. I guess I would remove him if I could get another Myr Battlesphere or something but for now he will work I guess...
Akroma, Angel of Fury I wanted to give her a home to try her out for a bit. I like how she can be a wincon in herself even if nothing else is working for me. If I could find more token support I really like though I would cut her. I figure she deserves at least some testing though.
Everflowing Chalice I like how this mana stone sort of scales. I can drop it at 2 or 4 or 6 mana depending on when I drop it and how I need it to operate.
Mind Stone Fast mana stone that can sac for a card is nice.
Darksteel Ingot it doesn't die in an artifact wrath which is nice.
Rally the Horde This is in more for testing. I guess on average you should likely get like 6 or so tokens. It has potential to be huge and it has the potential to be 3 tokens for 6 mana... either way it seems like it could be fun.
Let me know what you think... This deck has been tons of fun so far and I enjoy playing it.
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[Modern] Allies
EDIT: Maybe Whispersilk Cloak too?
if Marton is attacking... multiple people are dying and it doesnt matter if he dies at that point.
Mystifying Maze cannot hit your own creatures so that doesnt work except against opponent's creatures. I might consider adding it anyways since I removed the nonbasic land hate I had been running though...
Maze of Ith doesnt tap for land which is a problem in a deck that doesnt ramp nicely or draw cards nicely. If I needed to attack with Marton more then I wouldnt worry about it as much. Generally speaking though when Marton attacks... I win though the last like 4 times he attacked it was with a big army. Once was with a 15 pt Firecat Blitz + 8 pt flashback which killed 4 opponents in one shot. The other recent game was with an army of 10 goblins off of Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician + Anger which I saced to bombardment.
DECK CHANGE
I will add Mystifying Maze and Temple of the False God though.
EDIT: I thought about Savage Beating and it just feels a bit of winmore in here. If Marton gets to attack with 10 tokens then I already win... If I am just attacking with 10 tokens... then I am not as impressed by them possibly doing 40 damage which is enough to kill one player but I would rather use Tears of Rage and just blow several players out. If I do add some multiple attack phases it will be Savage though... I need to toy with the idea a bit more.
Sorry you snuck your comment in as I was trying to do my own addition:
Monkey Cage I dont like this as it can be hard to drop it + something big yourself in the same turn so in all liklihood you leave this to your opponents to trigger. If your meta doesnt have low mana critters and commanders then it can be good but I guess it is sort of a meta call... I would hate to pay 5 mana to get 2 2/2s off of a Tribe Elder though... It is sort of hard to call how it will work though... I dont like leaving things to my opponents to trigger though.
Yuan Shao, the Indecisive I think he is interesting... It really depends on how much blocking you expect to see. I tend to just run over my opponents with sheer power and ignore blocking issues. If it is lethal damage outside of the blocks I dont care if Marton is going to die. He could be decent if you expect a token army blocking you though.
Sculpting Steel it could be good I will try to keep an eye out and see if it would be a good add or not. I have also noticed my heavy artifact dependance in here and yes it could be good.
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[Modern] Allies
It sounds like Vicious Shadows or Stalking Vengeance has a place in the deck if saccing becomes a common end game. SV would be especially brutal if you get to attack and then sac to finish someone off.
I agree on the removal of the hedron, it seemed way overcosted. You're playing Scrying Sheets, surely Coldsteel Heart is a valid mana rock?
I understand your reducing spot answers, although i think I want to test Skred and Aftershock first, most of deck is pure aggro and it needs some game against certain guy.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
DECK CHANGE
I could definitely see Vicious Shadows being a great add to the list... I think Akroma might go out for that as it is just so brutal and similarly costed but much more likely to kill someone. Thanks I sort of forgot about it for this list. The vengeance is cool too but I think it is better for a Kresh deck whereas for tokens I think the Shadows is a great call.
Coldsteel Heart is a good option as well... as of right now I dont have the snow lands though so that is sort of a in the future it should be done sort of deal. I will consider this a bit more when I get the snow lands updated.
I could consider some removal options but for now I am trying to keep them low... Chaos Warp would probably be the first strict answer card I add just because it can hit anything. Skred and Aftershock are good options as well. I will consider Skred if and when I get the snow lands squared away.
EDIT: I finally got my list updated with the changes I had proposed... I also noticed I had Lightning Greaves in my list which I had not been running so I swapped it to be Orochi Hatchery which I have in my list but forgot to put in my list here. I have found I have enough haste outlets between the like 4 other options I have.
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[Modern] Allies
You have snow lands listed, so I assumed you did, but yeah, it is a poor rock when you have no chance of getting it free and skred is worthless without it.
I know the deck is still newish, although hopefully not once more people see he is viable, he still needs to attack. I can see some LD helping the cause against artifacts or any number of maze lands. Just an idea for future.
I don't think there is any isue with Marton dying if his army does a lot of damage in the same turn, it's one reason maybe Swiftfoot Boots wouldn't be a terrible inclusion (and Maze can still target him).
EDIT: Saw the Greaves were taken out, point still remains.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Also... I don't care much for all of the boot options as if we have haste for our whole army already they don't do much. If someone has the spot removal they will just respond to the equip and shoot him down anyways.
The Maze of Ith effect is an interesting idea at the least. I have to say I like it more than I do the stupid Dolmen Gate which I have seen in a few other lists. I will keep it in mind as I do own 2 Maze of Ith and I could consider it later.
Both good options as well... I think Fissure is probably a bit lower down on the list though just considering I am not using several of the cheaper options but yes it works just fine. If I find I need more removal Skred and Chaos Warp are probably the first adds then probably Aftershock.
Shivan Harvest is a fun card as well... I dont know if I like it more or less than Ruination though. It is definately something I will keep in mind. Also I added Strip Mine to the list since I pulled out some of the land hate already.
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[Modern] Allies
If any deck wants Dolmen Gate it's this one.
Marton being tucked is a misery for this style deck, one could simulate his effect with shared animosity perhaps or up the punish them for creatures dying plan. I was toying with Curse of Stalked Prey, which could work if you don't want to rely on Marton, but I've taken it out for now until i see have too much equipment. It sounds right up your alley though.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Shared Animosity my biggest problem with this is that we have a lot of creature spawning that dont share creature types with each other. I think it might be worth looking into at the least but I like Tears of Rage even more due to the fact that it isn't a permanent so it is harder to Naturalize or something before you attack and it has a bigger payoff usually. I think this one definately has some potential but the fact that we are spawning a bit of everything makes it harder to use.
Curse of Stalked Prey I think this is just going to take way to long to stack up. It is cute but meh I don't know. I see it having some issues.
Dolmen Gate is cute and all but I just feel like it is more support that only really matters when Marton is out and working properly anyways which I would call winmore as if Marton is out and working opponents are likely dying anyways. I think it works well with Goblin Assault but I was having issues with that card anyways.
EDIT: I could also see Coat of Arms being a bit similar in role to Shared Animosity... Both have some issues though as we dont focus heavily one one creature type but the downside of Coat is that it could ruin you if someone else is going tribal or token based.
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[Modern] Allies
For Dolmen Gate it works on idea you want to attack more than once with a given creature force assuming no wraths. I don't think it's winmore, so much as much part of the combo piece to keep Marton rolling. You won't KO someone in one hit every time, so you need precautions.
This is just my view and it will seem really bad in isolation, just when attacking with even a battlesphere horde, it could mean the difference between having to take out a second player.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
EDIT: does anyone have any feelings towards Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs??? I thought he might be interesting in this deck as it is sort of a political reason not to attack us. Sort of a bit like a Ghostly Prison effect for red but it spanws us potential blockers / attackers instead.
EDIT 2: Also I have been considering finding room for Mogg Infestation as it also seems amazing but I need to find something to cut. I like how it can be an answer to scary things and give someone 2-4 goblins instead lol. If I can find room for it I will be sure to add it.
EDIT 3: I was also thinking of adding Mouth Of Ronom to the list once I finally get the snow lands established. I looked at some venders ant it looks like it might cost me about $20 for all the snow lands... nothing unimaginable but still sort of a pain in the ass.
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
I already run Mouth of Ronom and would agree it's a good choice to add, since you can still run a lot of basics.
Mogg infestation would be alright, the list is quite tight, but it interacts very nicely with Anger in graveyard (or even in play at times), web and fervor if done to self.
I get the feeling Kazuul would be too slow, but it would be worth playing the deck a few times to test if it would make a difference then see how games go with it. As is, it may not even yield profit.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!
Rakka Mar really cool but only one token per turn is sort of a pain in the ass. The fact that it is a 3/1 with haste isnt that impressive for this deck... I sort of wonder how it would change if I were to change her out for something like Throne of Empires which feels a bit less fragile to wrathing and produces tokens for the same cost. Regardless for now I am simply watching her but I don't like slow rolling token production that I have to pay for every turn.
Goblin Marshal This guy takes a ton of mana to drop and half of his buddies come in another wave. He just feels really slow at spawning 4 tokens... I almost never want to pay the echo cost either... I wouldnt mind something a bit more explosive or lower costed.
Pentavus expensive to drop and it is unlikely that I will be able to spawn the tokens until next turn unless I have lolz mana. I dont like how it is an investment of like 11 mana to get 5 bodies... Still it doesnt seem that there is better token production out there so it is currently still in.
Shield of Kaldra expensive to drop and expensive to equip. This thing is outclassed by Darksteel Plate in like every way... However I sort of wonder if I need a second copy in here... I have started packing more haste and more plan B options as well... for now I am just watching but it is a potential cut.
Snake Basket I love being able to spawn x tokens but the limitation of sorcery speed makes it feel sort of like a more expensive Goblin Offensive... still it isnt half bad. I think this one is a lot less likely to go off the list than several of the other options I mentioned in here. I dont think I would ever drop this thing and not pop it in the same turn just in case someone has the naturalize. I would rather force a wrath than have someone just kick this thing off the board because I cannot activate it.
Citanul Flute We have added a lot of plan B options to the deck and this is in almost solely to tutor for Marton if he is tucked... I got it in play once and was not impressed by it however I did up my 1 drop creatures since then...
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Cards I could see having some potential for us, I am not going to explain why as I think that is sort of obvious. Currently though I have a hard time seeing them worthy of a spot though:
Also... I was just curious if you were going to get a list of your own up and running on here MiffedMoogle?
Signature by Inkfox Aesthetics by Xen
[Modern] Allies
EDH:
:symb::symb::symb: The Horde! :symb::symb::symb:
:symwu::symur::symrw: Zedruu the Greathearted :symrw::symur::symwu:
:symwu::symub::symwb: Zur the Enchanter :symwb::symub::symwu:
I was going to post on my own topic, but here is my provision list. I keep switching out cards.
1 Marton Stromgald
Equipment (8)
1 Darksteel Plate
1 Lightning Greaves
1 Shield of Kaldra
1 Skullclamp
1 Swiftfoot Boots
1 Sword of Fire and Ice
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Sword of Light and Shadow
Mana Rocks (6)
1 Caged Sun
1 Coalition Relic
1 Coldsteel Heart
1 Gauntlet of Might
1 Gauntlet of Power
1 Sol Ring
Other (7)
1 Dolmen Gate
1 Eldrazi Monument
1 Mind’s Eye
1 Monkey Cage
1 Sculpting Steel
1 Snake Basket
1 Spawning Pit
Creatures (20)
1 Anger
1 Chancellor of the Forge
1 Dragonmaster Outcast
1 Emrakul’s Hatcher
1 Goblin Welder
1 Goblin Matron
1 Goblin War Marshal
1 Godo, Bandit Warlord
1 Ib Halfheart, Goblin Tactician
1 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
1 Myr Battlesphere
1 Pentavus
1 Precursor Golem
1 Rakka Mar
1 Rapacious One
1 Siege-Gang Commander
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Urabrask, the Hidden
1 Wurmcoil Engine
1 Yuan Shao, the Indecisive
1 Aggravated Assault
1 Breath of Fury
1 Fervor
1 Goblin Assault
1 Goblin Bombardment
1 In the Web of War
1 Vicious Shadows
Instants (3)
1 Chaos Warp
1 Reiterate
1 Skred
Basics (28)
28 Snow-Covered Mountain
Non-Basics (9)
1 Ghitu Encampment
1 Kher Keep
1 Mouth of Ronom
1 Scrying Sheets
1 Spinerock Knoll
1 Strip Mine
1 Temple of the False God
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
1 Vesuva
Planeswalkers (1)
1 Chandra Ablaze
Sorceries (9)
1 Aftershock
1 Firecat Blitz
1 Gamble
1 Goblin Offensive
1 Insurrection
1 Pillage
1 Rally the Horde
1 Warp World
1 Wheel of Fortune
I'm still acquiring a couple of these cards, making testing a bit difficult although Cockatrice may be option.
As you can see i am running a few cards you just raised, like Monkey Cage and Precursor Golem.
I really liked your idea for Welder and adopted heavy artifacts, which means I like could use Hoarding Dragon when I work out what is least needed. have any ideas?
Hopefully this helps give you my take on deck, so far.
Edit: I dont have gauntlet of might, it is a wishlist card, I will rpelace it with lens or a mana rock though until I have it. I'm pretty keen on this deck idea so I may save up though.
Main Decks
Diaochan, Iroas, God of Victory, Kaalia, Marton, Ulasht, Volrath,
Kaervek, Prossh, Titania
Amusing or Themed
Progenitus
Pauper Guildmages
Azorius Boros Dimir Golgari Gruul Izzet Korozda
Orzhov Rakdos Rix Maadi Selesyna Simic Skarrg Zameck
I also play Weiss Schwarz, Chaos, Vanguard and Wixoss.
Accel World, Angel Beats, Familiar of Zero, Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, Guilty Crown, Kill La Kill, Robotics;Notes, Sword Art Online.
Chaos Partners
Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Iona, Kirishima, Kongou.
Dangan Ronpa: Asahina, Togami.
Freezing: Vibration: Chiffon, Satelizer.
Vanguard Clans Favoured
Angel Feather, Dark Irregulars, Genesis, Neonecter, Pale Moon, Shadow Paladins, Tachikaze.
Wixoss - Just trial decks for now!