Hour of Promise looks good to me. Sign me up for a set.
I'm looking at my sets of Gelatinous Genesis, posts, Primetime & ramp....
I don't own many of the large Eldrazi, like Emrakul, so I'm looking at alternatives.
I tend to agree about the *desert* bit. There's no way I'd field a single desert in the same deck as this unless they're going to start printing desert's worth playing.
I missed this one first time around.
Considering what black can do, in the right deck it mightn't be too bad for only 1-cmc. And when you play large FFA games where people tend to field sweepers, this could have a use.
Since then I've tried the card in a few different builds with varying results.
I had the idea to try an *extra-turn* approach after fiddling around with Prid3s' Simic Flying Men deck (tips hat)
Flex slot has been perm-removal lately, but could be draw or anything cheesy you wanna try.
The idea is simple. Mulligan aggressively to catch MS in your grip. Play ramp to land MS early, then take extra turns to spam the field with tokens and swing your beef. For draw, I'll exile MS to refill my hand if needed, play another MS, rinse, repeat & swing until you either win or run out of library.
It's easy and consistent enough, and will have you fielding a ridiculous number of lands compared to your opponents, given your multiple turns.
Considering how full your grave can get, exiling MS is the pseudo-draw here when required, and I have yet to have a game where clutch-exiling MS has been a problem. Obviously this will be game-dependant on whether you expect to see instant-speed-sweepers, but seeing as most sweepers are sorcery's, you should be safe until at least some of your opponents are struggling or finished.
In the past, I had Gonti's Aether Heart & Beastmaster Ascension as an experiment to see how it worked with MS. In short, they're both win-more, and straight up extra-turn cards work consistently enough. Ixidron was interesting too....
I've also tried a bunch of token cards like Pulse of the Tangle etc., which were a bit more situational than I usually like.
I'm yet to try another colour, but white for Cathars' Crusade or Hour of Reckoning are possibilities I'm yet to try out.
So! Any thoughts?
Any other cards I should try? Or any you would take out?
If you are going to run light-on for lands, I'd suggest a Dakmor Salvage or two.
It can be useful when you get mana-screw or your opponents start dropping Wildfire-types.
I'd aim for at least 8 dredgers, but I'd run 12 of GGT, Stinky & Thug. If you do, you should be able to dredge every turn you want to, but another way around this is by using Putrid Imp, which will allow you to drop GGT back in the bin every turn.
Together with Skullclamp it might be interesting...
What sort of deck are you chasing?
And how combo-focussed do you want it?
For example, are you chasing a legacy-style dredge deck that spams zombie tokens?
Are you looking to abuse flashback cards like Dread Return?
Are you looking to play with a ridiculously powerful combo-enabler like Hermit Druid?
If NO to all of these above, are you simply looking to play a fair creature deck?
FWIW, I play Legacy-dredge a lot, one of my fave decks, but maybe my experiences of gravehate has skewed my opinions on dredge. Ichorid & Bridge from below belong in that deck, but here in multiplayer not so much.
The only way to get good use out of Bridge/Icky in MP, is to run Leyline of the Void, which will enable you to spam zombie tokens until you run out of black creatures and library.
Ha ha, well you learn something new every day. FWIW, the way I've described it is how I've seen it played against me at legacy nights, which was all deemed legal by judges. I just assumed they had it right - so it looks like they need to read this too.
I'm not sure we're on the same page here.
Unlike Vesuva, Stage doesn't get counters when you copy DD, that's why many people run it.
When you copy DD with stage you may instantly sac Stage for a Lage token, getting around the legend rule for DD, and keeping your DD for the next stage.
A mate of mine plays a Karlov deck that's Black-White-Green for Forgotten Ancient as well as all the typical white weenies. HE seems to enjoy it, but to be honest I can't remember what else from green is in there.
Given you want to run white, rolling with green for tutor to find Dark Depths & Thespian's Stage is where I would focus.
4 Crop Rotation, 2 Expedition Map & 4 Sylvan Scrying is where I would start, as Stage & DD are my first priority.
Another option is Into the North.
It's easy to put the combo together.
The reason why I suggest this, is that it means you don't need tutor for both parts of your combo, only one type of tutor. With such a large amount of tutor in there looking for lands you could afford to run multiple Glacial Chasms and sac them regularly.
Some Eternal Witness &/or Ramunap Excavator might be an option, if you feel like re-using Glacial Chasm's after your attack phase.
The typical DD deck runs Vampire Hexmage but I'd drop it here given the BB cost can be hard to achieve.
White covers the same job and demands much less cash for your manabase.
Given Lage likes to actually connect, I'd consider some Wrath of God-type sweeper to clear the way for your 1-hit-wonder.
I've had a few pre-packaged decks given to me over the years, event decks and the like, and I've bought a few too.
They're always suboptimal.
I look at the actual value of the cards. If there's a set I'm keen on, I'll do the math and work out whether I can buy the cards I want (in the set) for cheaper as singletons or not and work out which way to jump.
Skirk Prospector for me is a risk/reward kind of card. In my list, I run Lackey & Winstigator, so I don't actually need 4 or 5 mountains to land my SCG or Krenko, whereas if I wasn't running them I could consider some more SP in there. Saying that, for the times I do want it I can use Matron to fetch it up, I only ever want to see it once, as it's an utterly terrible topdeck once you have 5 mountains in play.
Another option to make sure you hit 5 mana for SCG might be Sandstone Needle.
EDIT: Just so we're on the same page - I would look at the storm version as a duel-focussed way of playing. You will never be able to land enough goblins to be able to take down a whole table with Empty the Warrens. In all my days of playing competitive legacy mtg, I've only ever seen someone (myself included) land more than 10 goblins in a turn a handful of times. Considering those goblins can drop from turn1 or 2 in the right build....
Serenity is a great card in certain builds, but I've not tried it in an Eldrazi Displacer strategy.
My ED/blink deck focusses on Panharmonicon in a W/G build for perms to bounce like Sylvan Primordial etc etc., but I do like Ashen Rider and black so very much, so I think I might just give it a shot.
Here's my version of a landfall deck.
The main aim is to land either Veteran Explorer or Viridian Emissary early, then use Primal Growth on either of them.
I usually have double the lands of everyone else by turn 6, but you will have to mull aggressively with this list.
For the typical goblin approach, I like to spam the field with loads of goblins and attack, or cause damage to everyone on entry.
Core goblins are Matron, Ringleader, Warchief. After that you can do what you like, budget permitting. The reason is, even if the opponent plays a sweeper, all you need is either a ringleader or a matron (fetching up ringleader) in hand to refill your hand and start again. This will only work consistently when ringleader hits goblins, so your deck has to be pretty much exclusively goblins (or goblin tribals like Tarfire).
My list does well in both MP and duels, but some of these cards are a bit expensive...
Sure.
Just bear in mind my list is compromised. It's not as strong as Prid3's given I'm lacking Time Warp. My group tends to play a lot of mass removal, counter usually isn't enough to stop multiples in the larger games. So far Skulker has been just okay in offering me a quick reset so long as I sandbag a draw option.
I'm liking Cloud of Faeries in there, if you pick up multiples in your initial grip you can vomit your hand out quick, especially if you get multiple Miscreant's too. This helps get the most out of a draw option or BA on T3, before most wipe's usually appear on T4 or 5.
I'm looking at my sets of Gelatinous Genesis, posts, Primetime & ramp....
I don't own many of the large Eldrazi, like Emrakul, so I'm looking at alternatives.
I tend to agree about the *desert* bit. There's no way I'd field a single desert in the same deck as this unless they're going to start printing desert's worth playing.
I missed this one first time around.
Considering what black can do, in the right deck it mightn't be too bad for only 1-cmc. And when you play large FFA games where people tend to field sweepers, this could have a use.
Anyone field this one?
Thoughts?
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/multiplayer/759635-metallurgic-summonings-ideas-and-card-suggestions
Since then I've tried the card in a few different builds with varying results.
I had the idea to try an *extra-turn* approach after fiddling around with Prid3s' Simic Flying Men deck (tips hat)
5x Forest
4x Hinterland Harbor
4x Yavimaya Coast
2x Jace's Sanctum
4x Metallurgic Summonings
4x Frantic Search
4x Rampant Growth
3x Cultivate
2x Rite of Replication
4x Notorious Throng
3x Walk the Aeons
4x Trade Secrets
Flex slot has been perm-removal lately, but could be draw or anything cheesy you wanna try.
The idea is simple. Mulligan aggressively to catch MS in your grip. Play ramp to land MS early, then take extra turns to spam the field with tokens and swing your beef. For draw, I'll exile MS to refill my hand if needed, play another MS, rinse, repeat & swing until you either win or run out of library.
It's easy and consistent enough, and will have you fielding a ridiculous number of lands compared to your opponents, given your multiple turns.
Considering how full your grave can get, exiling MS is the pseudo-draw here when required, and I have yet to have a game where clutch-exiling MS has been a problem. Obviously this will be game-dependant on whether you expect to see instant-speed-sweepers, but seeing as most sweepers are sorcery's, you should be safe until at least some of your opponents are struggling or finished.
In the past, I had Gonti's Aether Heart & Beastmaster Ascension as an experiment to see how it worked with MS. In short, they're both win-more, and straight up extra-turn cards work consistently enough. Ixidron was interesting too....
I've also tried a bunch of token cards like Pulse of the Tangle etc., which were a bit more situational than I usually like.
I'm yet to try another colour, but white for Cathars' Crusade or Hour of Reckoning are possibilities I'm yet to try out.
So! Any thoughts?
Any other cards I should try? Or any you would take out?
Cheers
It can be useful when you get mana-screw or your opponents start dropping Wildfire-types.
I'd aim for at least 8 dredgers, but I'd run 12 of GGT, Stinky & Thug. If you do, you should be able to dredge every turn you want to, but another way around this is by using Putrid Imp, which will allow you to drop GGT back in the bin every turn.
Together with Skullclamp it might be interesting...
What sort of deck are you chasing?
And how combo-focussed do you want it?
For example, are you chasing a legacy-style dredge deck that spams zombie tokens?
Are you looking to abuse flashback cards like Dread Return?
Are you looking to play with a ridiculously powerful combo-enabler like Hermit Druid?
If NO to all of these above, are you simply looking to play a fair creature deck?
FWIW, I play Legacy-dredge a lot, one of my fave decks, but maybe my experiences of gravehate has skewed my opinions on dredge.
Ichorid & Bridge from below belong in that deck, but here in multiplayer not so much.
The only way to get good use out of Bridge/Icky in MP, is to run Leyline of the Void, which will enable you to spam zombie tokens until you run out of black creatures and library.
Other creatures not yet named here of note;
Prized Amalgam, Ashen Ghoul, Narcomoeba, Street wraith.
And of course, if you own them, dredge loves Living Death.
I'm not sure we're on the same page here.
Unlike Vesuva, Stage doesn't get counters when you copy DD, that's why many people run it.
When you copy DD with stage you may instantly sac Stage for a Lage token, getting around the legend rule for DD, and keeping your DD for the next stage.
HE seems to enjoy it, but to be honest I can't remember what else from green is in there.
4 Crop Rotation, 2 Expedition Map & 4 Sylvan Scrying is where I would start, as Stage & DD are my first priority.
Another option is Into the North.
It's easy to put the combo together.
The reason why I suggest this, is that it means you don't need tutor for both parts of your combo, only one type of tutor. With such a large amount of tutor in there looking for lands you could afford to run multiple Glacial Chasms and sac them regularly.
Some Eternal Witness &/or Ramunap Excavator might be an option, if you feel like re-using Glacial Chasm's after your attack phase.
The typical DD deck runs Vampire Hexmage but I'd drop it here given the BB cost can be hard to achieve.
White covers the same job and demands much less cash for your manabase.
Given Lage likes to actually connect, I'd consider some Wrath of God-type sweeper to clear the way for your 1-hit-wonder.
They're always suboptimal.
I look at the actual value of the cards. If there's a set I'm keen on, I'll do the math and work out whether I can buy the cards I want (in the set) for cheaper as singletons or not and work out which way to jump.
Skirk Prospector for me is a risk/reward kind of card. In my list, I run Lackey & Winstigator, so I don't actually need 4 or 5 mountains to land my SCG or Krenko, whereas if I wasn't running them I could consider some more SP in there. Saying that, for the times I do want it I can use Matron to fetch it up, I only ever want to see it once, as it's an utterly terrible topdeck once you have 5 mountains in play.
Another option to make sure you hit 5 mana for SCG might be Sandstone Needle.
EDIT: Just so we're on the same page - I would look at the storm version as a duel-focussed way of playing. You will never be able to land enough goblins to be able to take down a whole table with Empty the Warrens. In all my days of playing competitive legacy mtg, I've only ever seen someone (myself included) land more than 10 goblins in a turn a handful of times. Considering those goblins can drop from turn1 or 2 in the right build....
My ED/blink deck focusses on Panharmonicon in a W/G build for perms to bounce like Sylvan Primordial etc etc., but I do like Ashen Rider and black so very much, so I think I might just give it a shot.
I hope like hell it's on the cheaper end of the spectrum, I'd like to pick up a couple of these. Hopefully they don't shoot up to stratospheric prices
The main aim is to land either Veteran Explorer or Viridian Emissary early, then use Primal Growth on either of them.
I usually have double the lands of everyone else by turn 6, but you will have to mull aggressively with this list.
23x Forest
4x Veteran Explorer
3x Viridian Emissary
2x Avenger of Zendikar
4x Dungrove Elder
1x Eternal Witness
1x Genesis
1x Grazing Gladehart
1x Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
1x Oracle of Nectars
1x Primeval Titan
2x Rampaging Baloths
1x Sylvan Primordial
1x Thelonite Druid
1x Thragtusk
4x Primal Growth
2x Birthing Pod
3x Nevinyrral's Disk
Actually they do, simply add Purphoros, God of the Forge (cheaper version = Impact Tremors)
For the typical goblin approach, I like to spam the field with loads of goblins and attack, or cause damage to everyone on entry.
Core goblins are Matron, Ringleader, Warchief. After that you can do what you like, budget permitting. The reason is, even if the opponent plays a sweeper, all you need is either a ringleader or a matron (fetching up ringleader) in hand to refill your hand and start again. This will only work consistently when ringleader hits goblins, so your deck has to be pretty much exclusively goblins (or goblin tribals like Tarfire).
My list does well in both MP and duels, but some of these cards are a bit expensive...
4x Goblin Lackey
2x Warren Instigator
1x Skirk Prospector
4x Goblin Matron
4x Mogg War Marshal
4x Goblin Ringleader
2x Goblin Chieftain
4x Goblin Warchief
3x Krenko, Mob Boss
2x Siege-Gang Commander
That's 4 cards short.
I typically use flexible singletons like Lightning Crafter, Goblin Sharpshooter, Goblin Settler, Tuktuk Scrapper.
Since goblins are so well supported there are handfuls of other options out there.
I like Tuktuk the explorer for casual stuff.
BUT! You said storm. Empty the Warrens demands a very specific build if you want to go that way.
One way is frighteningly expensive. http://www.theepicstorm.com/
Another way might be Pyretic Ritual, Desperate Ritual & Seething Song with as many "replacements" like Manamorphose, Gitaxian Probe, Burning-Tree Emissary etc. If you go for R/G, there's other options like Tinder Wall too, aswell as the spirit guides.
Just bear in mind my list is compromised. It's not as strong as Prid3's given I'm lacking Time Warp. My group tends to play a lot of mass removal, counter usually isn't enough to stop multiples in the larger games. So far Skulker has been just okay in offering me a quick reset so long as I sandbag a draw option.
Creatures (24)
4x Mausoleum Wanderer
4x Cloud of Faeries
4x Triton Shorestalker
4x Faerie Miscreant
4x Judge's Familiar
3x Chasm Skulker
2x Military Intelligence
1x Coastal Piracy
1x Bident of Thassa
4x Notorious Throng
3x Beastmaster Ascension
I'm liking Cloud of Faeries in there, if you pick up multiples in your initial grip you can vomit your hand out quick, especially if you get multiple Miscreant's too. This helps get the most out of a draw option or BA on T3, before most wipe's usually appear on T4 or 5.