In all honesty id pick the most important cards to you and drop the rest. Having just one copy of each card breeds inconsistency and that's a problem.
Id drop all your non basic lands and add in dimir guildgate and add the rest in swamp and island
don't have the time to build a deck atm but ill try to get on later tonight and ill take another look
The non-basic lands have a purpose actually. My Peat Bog and Saprazzan Skerry are one of my responses to the slow start thing. Since each one, though temporary, provides 2 colored mana (black and blue, respectively), it allows me to get some of my higher cost cards out a bit quicker, often I use them to get out a No Mercy or another one of my stall cards out early, which is critical to my gameplan
The Urza's mine/tower/plant also serve a purpose in that I often manage to get all 3 out, and they provide a lot of colorless mana to fuel my dregs of sorrow late game and fulfill my win condition by cleaning up the field
Bad River takes a turn delay to untap it, but allows me to search my deck for either an island or a swamp, whichever one I have less of and/or need, so it helps balance my land draws (I'm sure we've all had games where we got only one color of land and our cards were the other color of our deck)
However I do think your suggestion of a dimir guildgate is a good one, I'll look into getting one or two of those (maybe those can replace my bad rivers)
As for multiple copies of cards, I think it's a good idea to have multiple copies, but I'm not sure if it's possible for all my best cards. I know for a fact that some of them I only own a single copy, and others it may be impractical to have numerous copies due to their high casting cost.
I'll look into that suggestion as well though, thanks to the both of you (only quoted one of you, but I noticed both posts).
On reflection, I think that all in all my deck flows pretty well, I think currently my biggest problem is actually the cards themselves. I'm noticing as I research other decks that my cards, especially my creatures, seem to be simply outclassed. Where I have card that does one thing, others have a different card that does the same job but better
So my main question is I suppose, what cards should I invest in for a deck like mine? I'd like to keep my same overall strategy (stack my own deck, stall opponents with enchantments, clean out the field, and maintain creature dominance) And I think that right now my TOTAL budget is going to be somewhere around $50, at least until I find a job
I posted my deck in vintage, it's a homebrew that I've been playing casually with for years against friends and family, it beats them with ease, but I'm looking to transition to more competitive play now. I received a recommendation to post it here, since my cards aren't good enough to compete in vintage yet. So here I am.
I'll give all the information here that I did there
The strategy of this deck is long term, in the short run it frustrates opponents by shutting down their offensive options via No Mercy , Energy Field (usually combined with Library of Leng), Walls, and regenerating monsters. This allows for a buildup to a Dregs of Sorrow (preferably preceded by a mana short to prevent counters) to clean out the opponent's field and clear the path for a large attack (buffed by endless scream or feast of the unicorn). Intimidation provides an easier, riskier way to dish out damage if Dregs is unavailable or was countered.
Soothsaying, and the Demonic/Mystical Tutor allows for stacking the deck and ensuring optimal draws.
of course, I have some additional removal in Sever Soul, Terror, and the disk, as well as deck removal with Jester's Cap getting some serious threats from the opponent's deck out of the game (as well as allowing me to see what's IN the deck while I'm at it)
Isochron Scepter combined with Terror allow for the selective elimination of key targets, or the maintaining of field control after a Dregs of Sorrow. It can also double as an easy source of counters for Sphinx Bone Wand to dish out major damage.
Big problems this deck faces are a very slow start (tried to mitigate it with low cost regenerate monsters and fodder), sometimes difficulty with drawing the right land types, and there's little actual synergy or combos.
Budget-wise, I don't have a set in stone budget, but I'm not willing to spend a lot of money at once, preferring to pick up a cheap card or two every now and then and slowly upgrading.
Also I have access to a large number of other old cards that currently don't make the cut, they might not be the cards most people use now, but if I need an interrupt that counters spells or some more removal I can probably find a card that does the job.
Well man I don't want to absolutely kill your vibes, but you may want to repost this deck in the casual section of the forums.
Firstly, though this deck is clearly well thought out by you, the cards just aren't powerful enough for the vintage tournament scene. If you do want to play a blue type of control deck in vintage you will want to look at investing into cards like Force of Will, Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Underground Sea and Mox Sapphire. Now I'm going to just assume that some of these are out of your price range (and they are definitely out of mine,) in which case you will want to start looking for tournaments which let you use a certain amount of proxies (fake cards) to participate in the tournament. A budget deck you would want to look at would be something like Merfolk (just google "vintage Merfolk decklists.")
I am not a huge vintage player myself, but you will definitely want to look into saving funds and reading articles on smart investments to get right into the tournament scene. Either way, it's good to see people still making home brews, and welcome to the scene of competitive magic. Don't let the sharks scare you off.
Thanks for the advice, yeah those cards are WAY out of my price range (by god... 100 bucks for a single card? TCGs never cease to amaze me). I could probably substitute cards (maybe not quite as effective) for most of the ones you listed, except that planeswalker. Yeah there's no way I can face off against cards like that and expect to win, at least not with this deck.
I'll go to casual for now to work this deck up a bit, and see if I can get my hands on Jace sometime in the future when my deck is better (and I have money)
Of course if other people have tips in this forum, I'll be keeping tabs here too
Alright, I've been a casual player for years, playing mostly with friends or in some cases family. I have a deck that works great against them, but I'm doubtful that it'd hold up competitively
I want to start transitioning into being a more serious player, maybe go to tournaments. So I am starting in vintage, since almost all of my cards ARE vintage except for 2 recent additions that aren't even critical to the deck.
The strategy of this deck is long term, in the short run it frustrates opponents by shutting down their offensive options via No Mercy , Energy Field (usually combined with Library of Leng), Walls, and regenerating monsters. This allows for a buildup to a Dregs of Sorrow (preferably preceded by a mana short to prevent counters) to clean out the opponent's field and clear the path for a large attack (buffed by endless scream or feast of the unicorn). Intimidation provides an easier, riskier way to dish out damage if Dregs is unavailable or was countered.
Soothsaying, and the Demonic/Mystical Tutor allows for stacking the deck and ensuring optimal draws.
of course, I have some additional removal in Sever Soul, Terror, and the disk, as well as deck removal with Jester's Cap getting some serious threats from the opponent's deck out of the game (as well as allowing me to see what's IN the deck while I'm at it)
Isochron Scepter combined with Terror allow for the selective elimination of key targets, or the maintaining of field control after a Dregs of Sorrow. It can also double as an easy source of counters for Sphinx Bone Wand to dish out major damage.
Big problems this deck faces are a very slow start (tried to mitigate it with low cost regenerate monsters and fodder), sometimes difficulty with drawing the right land types, and there's little actual synergy or combos.
Budget-wise, I don't have a set in stone budget, but I'm not willing to spend a lot of money at once, preferring to pick up a cheap card or two every now and then and slowly upgrading.
Any suggestions for how to improve this deck? (as well as any legality issues, I'm unfamiliar with ban-lists and format rules)
Edit: Turns out both of my cards that I thought were NOT vintage are, in fact, legal in vintage
The non-basic lands have a purpose actually. My Peat Bog and Saprazzan Skerry are one of my responses to the slow start thing. Since each one, though temporary, provides 2 colored mana (black and blue, respectively), it allows me to get some of my higher cost cards out a bit quicker, often I use them to get out a No Mercy or another one of my stall cards out early, which is critical to my gameplan
The Urza's mine/tower/plant also serve a purpose in that I often manage to get all 3 out, and they provide a lot of colorless mana to fuel my dregs of sorrow late game and fulfill my win condition by cleaning up the field
Bad River takes a turn delay to untap it, but allows me to search my deck for either an island or a swamp, whichever one I have less of and/or need, so it helps balance my land draws (I'm sure we've all had games where we got only one color of land and our cards were the other color of our deck)
However I do think your suggestion of a dimir guildgate is a good one, I'll look into getting one or two of those (maybe those can replace my bad rivers)
As for multiple copies of cards, I think it's a good idea to have multiple copies, but I'm not sure if it's possible for all my best cards. I know for a fact that some of them I only own a single copy, and others it may be impractical to have numerous copies due to their high casting cost.
I'll look into that suggestion as well though, thanks to the both of you (only quoted one of you, but I noticed both posts).
On reflection, I think that all in all my deck flows pretty well, I think currently my biggest problem is actually the cards themselves. I'm noticing as I research other decks that my cards, especially my creatures, seem to be simply outclassed. Where I have card that does one thing, others have a different card that does the same job but better
So my main question is I suppose, what cards should I invest in for a deck like mine? I'd like to keep my same overall strategy (stack my own deck, stall opponents with enchantments, clean out the field, and maintain creature dominance) And I think that right now my TOTAL budget is going to be somewhere around $50, at least until I find a job
I'll give all the information here that I did there
Here is my deck as it is now
9 Swamp
9 Islands
1 Saprazzan Skerry
1 Urza's Mine
1 Urza's Tower
1 Urza's Power Plant
1 Peat Bog
1 Revenant
1 Phantasmal Fiend
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Living Wall
1 Ornithopter
1 Wall of Shadows
1 Drudge Skeletons
1 Chameleon Spirit
1 Blizzard Elemental
1 Sage Owl
1 Krovikan Sorcerer
1 Hollow Dogs
1 Wall of Air
1 Flymarid
1 Dread Specter
1 Python
1 Cadaverous Knight
1 Drowned
1 Hyalopterous Lemure
1 Air Elemental
1 No Mercy
1 Recall
1 Raise Dead
1 Soothsaying
1 Soar
1 Sphinx-Bone Wand
1 Library of Leng
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Mana Short
1 Jester's Cap
1 Victimize
1 Snap
1 Feast of the Unicorn
1 Animate dead
1 Energy field
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Launch
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Sever Soul
1 Dregs of Sorrow
1 Endless Scream
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Terror
The strategy of this deck is long term, in the short run it frustrates opponents by shutting down their offensive options via No Mercy , Energy Field (usually combined with Library of Leng), Walls, and regenerating monsters. This allows for a buildup to a Dregs of Sorrow (preferably preceded by a mana short to prevent counters) to clean out the opponent's field and clear the path for a large attack (buffed by endless scream or feast of the unicorn). Intimidation provides an easier, riskier way to dish out damage if Dregs is unavailable or was countered.
Soothsaying, and the Demonic/Mystical Tutor allows for stacking the deck and ensuring optimal draws.
of course, I have some additional removal in Sever Soul, Terror, and the disk, as well as deck removal with Jester's Cap getting some serious threats from the opponent's deck out of the game (as well as allowing me to see what's IN the deck while I'm at it)
Isochron Scepter combined with Terror allow for the selective elimination of key targets, or the maintaining of field control after a Dregs of Sorrow. It can also double as an easy source of counters for Sphinx Bone Wand to dish out major damage.
Big problems this deck faces are a very slow start (tried to mitigate it with low cost regenerate monsters and fodder), sometimes difficulty with drawing the right land types, and there's little actual synergy or combos.
Budget-wise, I don't have a set in stone budget, but I'm not willing to spend a lot of money at once, preferring to pick up a cheap card or two every now and then and slowly upgrading.
Also I have access to a large number of other old cards that currently don't make the cut, they might not be the cards most people use now, but if I need an interrupt that counters spells or some more removal I can probably find a card that does the job.
Thanks for the advice, yeah those cards are WAY out of my price range (by god... 100 bucks for a single card? TCGs never cease to amaze me). I could probably substitute cards (maybe not quite as effective) for most of the ones you listed, except that planeswalker. Yeah there's no way I can face off against cards like that and expect to win, at least not with this deck.
I'll go to casual for now to work this deck up a bit, and see if I can get my hands on Jace sometime in the future when my deck is better (and I have money)
Of course if other people have tips in this forum, I'll be keeping tabs here too
I want to start transitioning into being a more serious player, maybe go to tournaments. So I am starting in vintage, since almost all of my cards ARE vintage except for 2 recent additions that aren't even critical to the deck.
Here is my deck as it is now
9 Swamp
9 Islands
1 Saprazzan Skerry
1 Urza's Mine
1 Urza's Tower
1 Urza's Power Plant
1 Peat Bog
1 Revenant
1 Phantasmal Fiend
1 Sengir Vampire
1 Living Wall
1 Ornithopter
1 Wall of Shadows
1 Drudge Skeletons
1 Chameleon Spirit
1 Blizzard Elemental
1 Sage Owl
1 Krovikan Sorcerer
1 Hollow Dogs
1 Wall of Air
1 Flymarid
1 Dread Specter
1 Python
1 Cadaverous Knight
1 Drowned
1 Hyalopterous Lemure
1 Air Elemental
1 No Mercy
1 Recall
1 Raise Dead
1 Soothsaying
1 Soar
1 Sphinx-Bone Wand
1 Library of Leng
1 Feldon's Cane
1 Mana Short
1 Jester's Cap
1 Victimize
1 Snap
1 Feast of the Unicorn
1 Animate dead
1 Energy field
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Launch
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Sever Soul
1 Dregs of Sorrow
1 Endless Scream
1 Isochron Scepter
1 Terror
The strategy of this deck is long term, in the short run it frustrates opponents by shutting down their offensive options via No Mercy , Energy Field (usually combined with Library of Leng), Walls, and regenerating monsters. This allows for a buildup to a Dregs of Sorrow (preferably preceded by a mana short to prevent counters) to clean out the opponent's field and clear the path for a large attack (buffed by endless scream or feast of the unicorn). Intimidation provides an easier, riskier way to dish out damage if Dregs is unavailable or was countered.
Soothsaying, and the Demonic/Mystical Tutor allows for stacking the deck and ensuring optimal draws.
of course, I have some additional removal in Sever Soul, Terror, and the disk, as well as deck removal with Jester's Cap getting some serious threats from the opponent's deck out of the game (as well as allowing me to see what's IN the deck while I'm at it)
Isochron Scepter combined with Terror allow for the selective elimination of key targets, or the maintaining of field control after a Dregs of Sorrow. It can also double as an easy source of counters for Sphinx Bone Wand to dish out major damage.
Big problems this deck faces are a very slow start (tried to mitigate it with low cost regenerate monsters and fodder), sometimes difficulty with drawing the right land types, and there's little actual synergy or combos.
Budget-wise, I don't have a set in stone budget, but I'm not willing to spend a lot of money at once, preferring to pick up a cheap card or two every now and then and slowly upgrading.
Any suggestions for how to improve this deck? (as well as any legality issues, I'm unfamiliar with ban-lists and format rules)
Edit: Turns out both of my cards that I thought were NOT vintage are, in fact, legal in vintage