I will be updating the deck list in this post as I make changes to it.
Thanks for your help
Last updated 12-5-16
I'm not sure if this is posted in the correct section, not all of the cards are inexpensive, but it's a LOT less costly then most of the Vintage decks I've made.
I'm trying to make a deck that isn't a very expensive Vintage deck that can compete with very expensive Vintage decks. I'm not trying to tailor make a deck that will beat the B & U deck shown in my signature, but that is the caliber of deck that I'd like this deck to be able to compete with. In terms of cards I'm considering for this deck, I'm going to keep them all at around $50 or less.
A lot of people seem to think that you can't beat the crazy cards without the crazy cards, but I don't believe that to be the case. With all the cards available, there has to be a way to do it. However it is proving to be difficult. Obviously I'm able to do the most play testing against my own Vintage deck and I've tried a few different kinds of decks against it, most of them get creamed. It's been very hard for me to match the speed of my Vintage deck. Tinker only costs 3 and the Time VaultVoltaic Key combo only costs 4. I run into the same problem against other fully powered Vintage decks, those old artifacts make a deck crazy fast. Even if I get lucky and my opponent doesn't start the game with a few moxes, I'm finding it to be very hard to fight for board position against Mana Drains and Force of Wills. Mishra's Workshops, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, etc. A lot of the Vintage super cards are just sick, they're too good to play against. Most of them were recognized as overpowered mistakes and never reprinted, then a lot of them got restricted on top of that. Theyre really that unfair.
The only strategy that I've had some success with is a discard deck. At it's core, Magic is a card game. If I can't beat the cards I'm playing against, then I have to try and make sure those cards don't get played against me. Let's look at a different card game for a second. If we were playing poker and you had some very powerful cards, like 3 aces, and I had some relatively weak cards, like a pair of twos, I couldn't possibly win. Unless of course there was some way for me to look at your hand and throw out 2 of your aces. By the same token, all of your moxes and other power cards aren't scary at all when they're in the graveyard.
Given the overall theme of this deck, I don't think most of the cards need much explanation, but here are a few thoughts on some of them:
Phyrexian Obliterator. Ha Ha Ha. How can this even be a card? If you block him you're screwed, if you don't block him, he's doing large chunks of damage each turn. With Dark Ritual or some artifact mana he hits the table on turn 2, and he's not even legendary. I'll always love my Juzám Djinns, but you've got to be kidding me with this thing.
Megrim. I'm sure some people will question this choice, but with 20 cards in the deck that make you discard, it seems like a no brainer to me.
Lake of the Dead. This card lets me play a Phyrexian Obliterator on turn 3, as well as giving me bonus mana as the game goes on. The most expensive card in my deck costs 4 to cast, I've usually got a few extra swamps that I can sacrifice before too late in the game.
Mind Twist. You just played an Ancestral Recall or a Timetwister? That's nice. I dont understand how this card doesnt see more play. I think anyone that doesnt realize what a devastating card this is to play against hasn't played against a deck with 4 of them in it. There are so many ways to get fast mana in Vintage. Even with this deck handicapped by my own restrictions, with just 2 lands on the table (1 swamp and 1 lake of the dead) I can take 4 of your cards, which is bad enough. Add in a Megrim, and I'm taking 4 of your cards and doing 8 damage with only 2 lands.
Hypnotic Specter. He's not as awesome as he used to be when compared to some of the newer creatures, thats for sure. But hes still a major threat. With a dark ritual or some artifact mana, he comes out on turn 1 or 2 and he HAS to be dealt with ASAP. If you have some kind of creature removal, swords to plowshares, wrath of god, whatever it is, youd be foolish not to use it on the Hypnotic Specter. If you save it to use on the next turn, when I cast a Phyrexian Obliterator, you might loose it to the specter anyway. Worst case scenario, the Hypnotic Specter is a big enough threat that it will draw attention away from bigger creatures and best case scenario, youre loosing a card at random every turn until you can kill him.
The artifact mana. There are 10 "mana rocks" that i believe belong in almost any Vintage deck. 7 of them dont go in this deck because they are too expensive. The other 3 I put in, but Im not sure about them. The Lotus Petal is probably staying because why not? It produces B, and just makes the deck one turn faster when it comes up. The other 2 I'm less sure of. Sol Ring and Mana Vault only produce colorless mana, and a lot of the cards in the deck can't use colorless mana. Those 2 artifacts are mostly in there to help power Mind Twists. If everything is going smoothly, when I use the Mana Vault to help power a Mind Twist, it's 3 additional cards, and 6 extra damage, assuming I have a Megrim out. If I were to take out the artifact mana, I would probably replace them with Swamps.
The downside of having these artifacts in the deck is that I NEED B to do anything. With 4 Lake of the Deads and these 2 artifacts, I basically have 6 mana sources that are useless to me on the first turn.
The main issue is that this is a coin-flip deck against most of the format; it loses on the draw a lot. On the play, less so, but even still, you're generally not getting a ton of gas over the course of the game, so the other decks are decently likely to recover (if remotely necessary) at least enough to get more of a threat than you.
Yes, I agree, I need a little luck to win against powerful Vintage decks, but I was expecting that, since I'm cutting myself off from a lot of the most powerful cards in the format. I feel that Vintage games are kind of a crap shoot to some degree anyway, so I'm not really too worried about that. Keeping in mind the restrictions I've placed on the deck, and that I want to keep it primarily a discard deck, do you have any suggestions about how to make it work better?
Liliana's Caress . Thank you, you're right it's just a better card, I didn't know about it. I'm taking out four Megrim and adding 4 Liliana's Caress .
Other things I've been thinking about:
The artifact mana. So many of the cards in the deck cant use colorless mana at all, and I have a bunch of mana ramps with dark ritual and Lake of the Dead. I took out the Sol Ring and the Mana Vault.
The Rack. It's a good card for this deck, but maybe not a great one. I was planning on going down to 3 instead of 4, because it's really not super helpful until a few turns into the game at least. But now that I know about Liliana's Caress , do I drop all of The Rack and run a combination of Liliana's Caress and Megrim?
It's hard for me not to include some tutors when playing black. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are some of the best cards ever printed, who am I not to use them? Generally speaking they are auto includes for me, but in this deck, almost everything is a 4 of, do I really need use the slots for tutors? Sometimes I do find myself wishing I had a Megrim or Lake of the Dead or a Mind Twist to really hammer someone with all 3 cards in play.
Right now, I'm leaning towards replacing the 2 artifacts with the 2 tutors, and taking out 1 The Rack and adding 1 more Swamp to bring me up to 18. The Lake of the Dead really chews up land, which is fine as long as I have a Swamp to drop and sacrifice almost every turn. I get 5 B, each time I sacrifice a Swamp, which is more then enough for me each turn.
I'll be updating the deck list in the first post of this thread, if you want to take a look as I make changes.
thanks again for your thoughts
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My decks. Feel free to make suggestions. The Precious B___U___G___R___W
I don't play Vintage, but isn't Demonic Consultation better than Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor? I don't remember exactly, but it has like .007% chance of killing you if you name a 4-of. It's also <$1.
The biggest problem ive been having is defense against creatures. People seem to get at least a few out early on before I can trash their hands. Oddly enough, this deck does better against my super powerful combo control deck then it does against some of my other creature based decks.
Damnation is the obvious answer to all of black's creature problems. I try to play it before I play a Phyrexian Obliterator, and if I have to loose a Hypnotic Specter to clear out all of my opponents creatures, so be it. Plus I said AROUND 50 bucks. Close enough. Beseech the Queen works pretty well in this deck, only 6 cards in the deck cost more then 3, so by the time I usually cast Beseech the Queen, it works to get me almost any card in my deck.
Other things I'm considering:
going down to 3 Liliana's Caress, and maybe 3 Lake of the Dead and adding one or 2 more Swamps. Even though it seems like I have a lot of mana sources, I sometimes find myself short on actual Swamps to play early on. Liliana's Caress is a nice bonus later in the game, but early on, I usually find myself attacking the hand rather then playing Liliana's Caress. and sometimes I wind up with too many Lake of the Deads in my hand.
thanks in advance for your thoughts
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
My decks. Feel free to make suggestions. The Precious B___U___G___R___W
Thanks for your help
Last updated 12-5-16
I'm not sure if this is posted in the correct section, not all of the cards are inexpensive, but it's a LOT less costly then most of the Vintage decks I've made.
I'm trying to make a deck that isn't a very expensive Vintage deck that can compete with very expensive Vintage decks. I'm not trying to tailor make a deck that will beat the B & U deck shown in my signature, but that is the caliber of deck that I'd like this deck to be able to compete with. In terms of cards I'm considering for this deck, I'm going to keep them all at around $50 or less.
A lot of people seem to think that you can't beat the crazy cards without the crazy cards, but I don't believe that to be the case. With all the cards available, there has to be a way to do it. However it is proving to be difficult. Obviously I'm able to do the most play testing against my own Vintage deck and I've tried a few different kinds of decks against it, most of them get creamed. It's been very hard for me to match the speed of my Vintage deck. Tinker only costs 3 and the Time Vault Voltaic Key combo only costs 4. I run into the same problem against other fully powered Vintage decks, those old artifacts make a deck crazy fast. Even if I get lucky and my opponent doesn't start the game with a few moxes, I'm finding it to be very hard to fight for board position against Mana Drains and Force of Wills. Mishra's Workshops, The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale, etc. A lot of the Vintage super cards are just sick, they're too good to play against. Most of them were recognized as overpowered mistakes and never reprinted, then a lot of them got restricted on top of that. Theyre really that unfair.
The only strategy that I've had some success with is a discard deck. At it's core, Magic is a card game. If I can't beat the cards I'm playing against, then I have to try and make sure those cards don't get played against me. Let's look at a different card game for a second. If we were playing poker and you had some very powerful cards, like 3 aces, and I had some relatively weak cards, like a pair of twos, I couldn't possibly win. Unless of course there was some way for me to look at your hand and throw out 2 of your aces. By the same token, all of your moxes and other power cards aren't scary at all when they're in the graveyard.
Here's the deck as Im running it now:
4 Liliana's Caress
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Mind Twist
4 Duress
4 Thoughtseize
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Dark Ritual
4 Phyrexian Obliterator
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Beseech the Queen
1 Lotus Petal
4 Lake of the Dead
18 Swamp
Given the overall theme of this deck, I don't think most of the cards need much explanation, but here are a few thoughts on some of them:
Phyrexian Obliterator. Ha Ha Ha. How can this even be a card? If you block him you're screwed, if you don't block him, he's doing large chunks of damage each turn. With Dark Ritual or some artifact mana he hits the table on turn 2, and he's not even legendary. I'll always love my Juzám Djinns, but you've got to be kidding me with this thing.
Megrim. I'm sure some people will question this choice, but with 20 cards in the deck that make you discard, it seems like a no brainer to me.
Lake of the Dead. This card lets me play a Phyrexian Obliterator on turn 3, as well as giving me bonus mana as the game goes on. The most expensive card in my deck costs 4 to cast, I've usually got a few extra swamps that I can sacrifice before too late in the game.
Mind Twist. You just played an Ancestral Recall or a Timetwister? That's nice. I dont understand how this card doesnt see more play. I think anyone that doesnt realize what a devastating card this is to play against hasn't played against a deck with 4 of them in it. There are so many ways to get fast mana in Vintage. Even with this deck handicapped by my own restrictions, with just 2 lands on the table (1 swamp and 1 lake of the dead) I can take 4 of your cards, which is bad enough. Add in a Megrim, and I'm taking 4 of your cards and doing 8 damage with only 2 lands.
Hypnotic Specter. He's not as awesome as he used to be when compared to some of the newer creatures, thats for sure. But hes still a major threat. With a dark ritual or some artifact mana, he comes out on turn 1 or 2 and he HAS to be dealt with ASAP. If you have some kind of creature removal, swords to plowshares, wrath of god, whatever it is, youd be foolish not to use it on the Hypnotic Specter. If you save it to use on the next turn, when I cast a Phyrexian Obliterator, you might loose it to the specter anyway. Worst case scenario, the Hypnotic Specter is a big enough threat that it will draw attention away from bigger creatures and best case scenario, youre loosing a card at random every turn until you can kill him.
The artifact mana. There are 10 "mana rocks" that i believe belong in almost any Vintage deck. 7 of them dont go in this deck because they are too expensive. The other 3 I put in, but Im not sure about them. The Lotus Petal is probably staying because why not? It produces B, and just makes the deck one turn faster when it comes up. The other 2 I'm less sure of. Sol Ring and Mana Vault only produce colorless mana, and a lot of the cards in the deck can't use colorless mana. Those 2 artifacts are mostly in there to help power Mind Twists. If everything is going smoothly, when I use the Mana Vault to help power a Mind Twist, it's 3 additional cards, and 6 extra damage, assuming I have a Megrim out. If I were to take out the artifact mana, I would probably replace them with Swamps.
The downside of having these artifacts in the deck is that I NEED B to do anything. With 4 Lake of the Deads and these 2 artifacts, I basically have 6 mana sources that are useless to me on the first turn.
I look forward to hearing you thoughts.
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
The main issue is that this is a coin-flip deck against most of the format; it loses on the draw a lot. On the play, less so, but even still, you're generally not getting a ton of gas over the course of the game, so the other decks are decently likely to recover (if remotely necessary) at least enough to get more of a threat than you.
Yes, I agree, I need a little luck to win against powerful Vintage decks, but I was expecting that, since I'm cutting myself off from a lot of the most powerful cards in the format. I feel that Vintage games are kind of a crap shoot to some degree anyway, so I'm not really too worried about that. Keeping in mind the restrictions I've placed on the deck, and that I want to keep it primarily a discard deck, do you have any suggestions about how to make it work better?
Liliana's Caress . Thank you, you're right it's just a better card, I didn't know about it. I'm taking out four Megrim and adding 4 Liliana's Caress .
Other things I've been thinking about:
The artifact mana. So many of the cards in the deck cant use colorless mana at all, and I have a bunch of mana ramps with dark ritual and Lake of the Dead. I took out the Sol Ring and the Mana Vault.
The Rack. It's a good card for this deck, but maybe not a great one. I was planning on going down to 3 instead of 4, because it's really not super helpful until a few turns into the game at least. But now that I know about Liliana's Caress , do I drop all of The Rack and run a combination of Liliana's Caress and Megrim?
It's hard for me not to include some tutors when playing black. Demonic Tutor and Vampiric Tutor are some of the best cards ever printed, who am I not to use them? Generally speaking they are auto includes for me, but in this deck, almost everything is a 4 of, do I really need use the slots for tutors? Sometimes I do find myself wishing I had a Megrim or Lake of the Dead or a Mind Twist to really hammer someone with all 3 cards in play.
Right now, I'm leaning towards replacing the 2 artifacts with the 2 tutors, and taking out 1 The Rack and adding 1 more Swamp to bring me up to 18. The Lake of the Dead really chews up land, which is fine as long as I have a Swamp to drop and sacrifice almost every turn. I get 5 B, each time I sacrifice a Swamp, which is more then enough for me each turn.
I'll be updating the deck list in the first post of this thread, if you want to take a look as I make changes.
thanks again for your thoughts
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
Nah, exiling a bunch of cards still sucks.
Ive been playing with this deck a bit and have made some changes to it.
- 3 The Rack
+ 1 Beseech the Queen
+ 2 Damnation
The biggest problem ive been having is defense against creatures. People seem to get at least a few out early on before I can trash their hands. Oddly enough, this deck does better against my super powerful combo control deck then it does against some of my other creature based decks.
Damnation is the obvious answer to all of black's creature problems. I try to play it before I play a Phyrexian Obliterator, and if I have to loose a Hypnotic Specter to clear out all of my opponents creatures, so be it. Plus I said AROUND 50 bucks. Close enough.
Beseech the Queen works pretty well in this deck, only 6 cards in the deck cost more then 3, so by the time I usually cast Beseech the Queen, it works to get me almost any card in my deck.
Other things I'm considering:
going down to 3 Liliana's Caress, and maybe 3 Lake of the Dead and adding one or 2 more Swamps. Even though it seems like I have a lot of mana sources, I sometimes find myself short on actual Swamps to play early on. Liliana's Caress is a nice bonus later in the game, but early on, I usually find myself attacking the hand rather then playing Liliana's Caress. and sometimes I wind up with too many Lake of the Deads in my hand.
thanks in advance for your thoughts
The Precious
B___U___G___R___W
But then I start to think crazy and think about Balance, adding white would dilute too much speed and reliability.