my monowhite soldier tribal deck used to be called...
"soljaz - UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH!!!!!!"
but times have changed, so now it's
"solja boyz tell'em (oh!)"
now i want to build a deck around jace and call it "prettyboy swag".
my BU mill deck is named after a lil' wayne rap song, "a milli"
and i have a monogreen "land attacks" deck originally built around Living Lands an a cool Jolrael, empress of beasts. so what's the name?
yep, it's "LL Cool J."
and then there's my monored "Dragons What" deck.
because it's got Dragons.
What.
cool villains not mentioned: Leshrac, Kaervec, Marisil.
villains that sucked: Oona and all the villains from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Lim-Dul, that chick from Prophecy, The First from Onslaught.... and Heidar from coldsnap-although the way he murked lovissa coldeyes still haunts me.
BTW, have you noticed that we've had villains in every color except Green? Are they saying green can't be evil?
I have two long boxes of cards where I keep my commons divided by color (W, U, G and Artifacts in one box; B, R and multicolor/colorless in another box). My uncommons and extra lands I keep in a fatpack box, once again, divided by color (I also keep all of my favorite utility cards - seals and charms - in the fatpack box, too)
I keep my rares and mythics in a binder, separated by color. I have a bunch of extra sleeves where I store cards for unfinished decks I'm working on.
I like the idea of sorting also by expansion, but I just don't have the time to go through all of my cards like that.
Decks are stored wherever I can find space for them. I have two long boxes for decks: one for "rubberband decks" that don't have a lot of rares or don't win a lot, one for "box decks" that have 5-10 rares in them and are kept int hose old 75-card boxes. for decks where all my cards are in sleeves, I keep those in fatpack boxes, and I have a shoebox for my "top level" decks that are both in sleeves and a deckbox.
for cataloging, i use a combination of Microsoft Excel (where I keep track of all of my decks. I LOVE lists and stats and stuff like that) and the online database essentialmagic.com (where I keep track of most of my individual cards)
just saw the art for the old defender of law and defender of chaos cards, and I started wondering about cards that had opposite art. I'm curious as to what cards had art depicted that way. I know there were a bunch in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, but I can't figure out which cards mirror each other 9aside from the obvious ones)
Saviors of kamigawa was easily the worst set ever. The best card in it was pithing needle, which can easily be picked up now for a few bucks. Not to mention there was not one playable common/uncommon.
yeah, Saviors was pretty bad. That whole "hand size matters" subtheme was very not-fun for me personally because it's counterintuitive to how I play (I don't like hoarding cards, especially good ones I want to use as soon as possible. I know card advantage is important, but that was ridiculous)
The dark and Fallen empires were a bit on the "meh" side, although FE gave me one of my all-time favorite cards, Goblin Grenade.
The only homelands cards I get any use from are the baron (Vampire deck named after him), raksha and hazdur (wg legends deck built around Sisay), the 3-color lands and the ann-hava cards (good for weenie decks, green-matters decks and saproling decks).
I think that does speak to why exactly some of us like to name our decks.
for me, naming a deck is like putting the icing on a cake or naming a ship. it adds that personal flair to it and makes it more mine. i think it also gives my decks some personality, and it's not "just a deck." it speaks to the Vorthos part of me.
Also, if I ever get good enough to win at tournament-level Magic, I will be winning with rogue decks, and when my metagame-shattering deck is copied, netdecked and talked about around the world, I want it to have a cool name like "The Rock."
I thought it was cute when I was running my "Pickle Jar" deck in the MTG class I taught, and as soon as i pulled out my Brine elemental, one of my students yelled out "PICKLES!!!!" I had told him about the combo and how it won so much, but I never told him I had a deck like that. that was a cool moment.
(Hey, why is this called "Red deck wins?"
because it's a red deck. and it wins.)
"LL Cool J" based on turning lands into creatures, built around 'LL' (Living Lands) and 'Cool J' (Jolrael) "A Milli" named it after a Lil Wayne song. It's basically every halfway decent mill card I could get my hands on. "Gimmee" steal your creatures, steal your spells, beat you with your own stuff. "Sengir Squad" vampire tribal, built around the Baron "All-Legend Team" 8-post type of deck, full of legendary cards, with Sisay to tutor them. "Treefense" BWG treefolk deck "Help Wanted" RUW infinite creatures/life combo deck. "Quantum Leap" RU deck built around me taking multiple turns in a row. "Instant Army" Saprolings. 'nuff said. "Blue Steel" monoblue artifacts. Can't wait for the Tezzeret duel deck so I can add him to it. "Saddam Hussein" BWR land destruction deck. "Clerical Era" Clerics tribal, and profane prayers to win. "Soulja Boyz tell em" soldier tribal. This used to be called "Soljaz….UNNNNNGH!" but Master P isn't popular anymore. "Goblikazee" and "Humpfrey Boggarts" are my two goblin decks. I've got two boros aggro decks, "Boros kinnnnigits" and "borosamurai" "Da Posse" is my tribal ally/auroch deck. "Fab 5" is my 5-color domain deck "One" is a deck of nothing but one-drops. "Thrullfather" this was an orzhov thrull deck, but I took all of the white out,a nd now it's just mono black thrulls. "Voltron" is a spike/arcbound/+1 counter deck (with no ravager!) "Snow Problem" is a RWG naya/thunderscape deck with lots of snow stuff in it. "Spectre General" a discard deck built around various specters and their general, Nicol Bolas. The deck was originally called "Texas Drop 'em" "Son of Ben" is my rat deck. I had an earlier rat deck, but I used to teach an afterschool magic class, and some brat stole my first rat deck, which is why this is "son of". "auricle" is a monowhite deck based on auras. "Time bomb" is all about suspend and chronozoa "Niv Mizzle for Sizzle" is a crazy combo deck built around my all-time favorite legendary creature.
And my personal favorite… "Dragons What." Because it's effing dragons. WHAT?!?!?!?
I was wondering how you guys go about naming your favorite decks. I've seen some creative ones like "Trix," "The Rock" and "Pickles," but then there are some pretty unimaginitive ones like "boros deck wins."
I try to keep my deck names creative. it helps me remember what they do, and adds a little flavor to the way I play the deck. I've got a w/g/b rock deck called "He Hate Me" built around teneb the harvester and debtor's knell, where everytime i use creature removal i point at it and say "he hate me."
[quote=Avron;/comments/5417253]Have fun finding those if your not there the second they put them on the shelves. I think I'm gonna pre-order 5 or 6 cases of these for my store.
I live in Michigan, where Meijer's is more popular than WalMart. They have a good selection (for retal) of MTG, and they keep the specialty decks in good stock (most of their shoppers buy Yugioh more than MYG anyway). So If I wanted, I could get adeck from there, but I prefer to support my local gaming shops, so I'll be scooping tezz Vs. Els from one of those.
I rarely buy individual cards, so getting two planeswalkers and a bunch of rares for 20 bucks is a bargain.
For me, it's a little of everything.
if a new set drops, and i see a mechanic i like, i'll build a deck around it.
if i find a "build around me" card like niv-mizzet or captain sisay, i'll work with it.
i'm a sucker for tribal decks. new tribe almost always equals new deck.
i prefer building around themes instead of combos, but if i hear about a cool 2-3 card combo, and i happen to have the cards or like the cards., i'll take that combo and see what unused cards in my collexion can compliment it. (i.e: when pickles first came out, i noticed that i already had the two cards for that engine, but instead of going b/u, i went u/w and added loxodon gatekeeper and grand arbiter for added lock-ness. then i got my hands on a stuffy doll, and that got thrown into the deck along with guilty conscience.)
i frimly believe in "use the cards you've got." the only times i go out and buy individual cards are A) when i need one last piece to complete a combo i like and B) when i'm stockpiling cheap rares to trade, give away or use in future decks.
I can think of some scenarios where ther'd be more eldrazi out there. Maybe the blind eternities used to be a lot bigger before the three we know about were imprisoned, but not all of the blind eternities are known (i can't imagine a planar map of it, or anything. it is called the blind ETERNITIES, after all). perhaps there's a corner of the B.E. where the planes are getting devoured left and right by the eldrazi we (and the planeswalekrs we've met) don't know about yet.
Or maybe three eldrazi were all Sorin, ugin and co. could get to follow them to Zendikar. the others either wouldn't take the bait, or could possiby have been imprisoned on other planes by other planeswalkers?
if you get creative enough, you can find a way to make more eldrazi possible. Not saying that's neccessarily a GOOD idea, mind you, but it is possible.
I can't imagine the eldrazi cards being a one-time deal from WIzards. they're going to find a way to come back to this. It's too big a concept not to.
Wouldn't it be funny if it happens that they finally get to Karn then the Eldrazi pops up out of nowhere (after having destroyed most of the Hedrons) and obliterates him?
It could be like that "ran over by a bus" running joke in the Final Destination movies.
1. Random character/planeswalker is doing his or her thing.
2. eldrazi appear out of nowhere and maul the dude.
Nicol Bolas' connection to the ELdrazi is really pretty arbitrary. He wanted them out, so he set it up so they could get out. You don't really need to know much more than that.
However, if you ever get the urge to find out more about MTG's alpha bad guy, here are the books you should read.
Then, Read the Legends Cycle. This is the storyline that established Bolas as an alpha-level baddie.
take a detour to Kamigawa and read Saviors of Kamigawa, for a little insight int where Bolas's rival from Legends actually came from.
the next books you should read are the Time Spiral books, where Bolas in unleashed on the multiverse once again (and pwns two planeswalkers in some pretty cool battles, while he's at it).
Control guys are a pain to play against. My brother started using control because he got tired of me beating him wth my aggro-styled decks. But they can still be beat, especially if you know you're playing 'control deck guy' and can adequetely prepare.
I see everyone's points about having stories told from the perspectives of Oldwalkers neowalkers and legends. Most of the stories I read involving the oldwalkers was really told from the perspective of the normal (albeit legendary) characters they dealt with on a regular basis. Urza had Xantcha, Barrin and Jhoira as his foils. Freyalise and the Ice Age planeswalkers had Jodah, Teferi had Jhoira in Spiral, untl his spark was stripped, in which case he became the human perspective for Jeska.
In fact, one of the things Spiral got right was how they treated Teferi's character, In losing his spark and omnipotence, then seeing firsthand how hard it was to reason with beings that powerful and out of touch, and losing something he held dear to a planeswalker's arrogance and inhumanity.
the plane-centric novels are what they are. Yeah, they're formulaic, but they can still be entertaining reads if handled well (ie Kamigawa and ravnica). I haven't read the walker-centric books but I like Wizards having some main characters that they can build around and "franchise" a la some of the classic comic characters, or Harry Potter or Drizzt. maybe we can now get a MTG movie based on one of these guys. Maybe have James Earl Jones be the voice of Bolas, or something.
As far as the game being about creatures is concerned, I do remember MaRo mentioning that creature battles are an essential part of MTG and they NEVER want that to diminish. I always liked that there were other ways to play, though (if I want creaturecreaturecreature card games, I'll play Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon. Which I won't.).
Kamigawa is one of MTG's most beloved stories for a reason (actually, many reasons). Toshiro is a well-written, likeable antihero, and the war between Konda and O-Kagachi is suitably epic in scope. the books also do a great job of incorporating many of the cards from the set into the story.
Not to mention, much of the flavor text on the cards allude to a history of the war that the books can only scratch the surface of telling. It was a masterpiece, and this synopsis is a great way to bring those that missed the books up to speed.
my monowhite soldier tribal deck used to be called...
"soljaz - UNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH!!!!!!"
but times have changed, so now it's
"solja boyz tell'em (oh!)"
now i want to build a deck around jace and call it "prettyboy swag".
my BU mill deck is named after a lil' wayne rap song, "a milli"
and i have a monogreen "land attacks" deck originally built around Living Lands an a cool Jolrael, empress of beasts. so what's the name?
yep, it's "LL Cool J."
and then there's my monored "Dragons What" deck.
because it's got Dragons.
What.
villains that sucked: Oona and all the villains from Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Lim-Dul, that chick from Prophecy, The First from Onslaught.... and Heidar from coldsnap-although the way he murked lovissa coldeyes still haunts me.
BTW, have you noticed that we've had villains in every color except Green? Are they saying green can't be evil?
I keep my rares and mythics in a binder, separated by color. I have a bunch of extra sleeves where I store cards for unfinished decks I'm working on.
I like the idea of sorting also by expansion, but I just don't have the time to go through all of my cards like that.
Decks are stored wherever I can find space for them. I have two long boxes for decks: one for "rubberband decks" that don't have a lot of rares or don't win a lot, one for "box decks" that have 5-10 rares in them and are kept int hose old 75-card boxes. for decks where all my cards are in sleeves, I keep those in fatpack boxes, and I have a shoebox for my "top level" decks that are both in sleeves and a deckbox.
for cataloging, i use a combination of Microsoft Excel (where I keep track of all of my decks. I LOVE lists and stats and stuff like that) and the online database essentialmagic.com (where I keep track of most of my individual cards)
can anyone help me?
yeah, Saviors was pretty bad. That whole "hand size matters" subtheme was very not-fun for me personally because it's counterintuitive to how I play (I don't like hoarding cards, especially good ones I want to use as soon as possible. I know card advantage is important, but that was ridiculous)
The dark and Fallen empires were a bit on the "meh" side, although FE gave me one of my all-time favorite cards, Goblin Grenade.
The only homelands cards I get any use from are the baron (Vampire deck named after him), raksha and hazdur (wg legends deck built around Sisay), the 3-color lands and the ann-hava cards (good for weenie decks, green-matters decks and saproling decks).
Didn't really like Coldsnap, but there were a few decent cards in there. I liked seeing more aurochs, for instance.
for me, naming a deck is like putting the icing on a cake or naming a ship. it adds that personal flair to it and makes it more mine. i think it also gives my decks some personality, and it's not "just a deck." it speaks to the Vorthos part of me.
Also, if I ever get good enough to win at tournament-level Magic, I will be winning with rogue decks, and when my metagame-shattering deck is copied, netdecked and talked about around the world, I want it to have a cool name like "The Rock."
I thought it was cute when I was running my "Pickle Jar" deck in the MTG class I taught, and as soon as i pulled out my Brine elemental, one of my students yelled out "PICKLES!!!!" I had told him about the combo and how it won so much, but I never told him I had a deck like that. that was a cool moment.
(Hey, why is this called "Red deck wins?"
because it's a red deck. and it wins.)
"LL Cool J" based on turning lands into creatures, built around 'LL' (Living Lands) and 'Cool J' (Jolrael)
"A Milli" named it after a Lil Wayne song. It's basically every halfway decent mill card I could get my hands on.
"Gimmee" steal your creatures, steal your spells, beat you with your own stuff.
"Sengir Squad" vampire tribal, built around the Baron
"All-Legend Team" 8-post type of deck, full of legendary cards, with Sisay to tutor them.
"Treefense" BWG treefolk deck
"Help Wanted" RUW infinite creatures/life combo deck.
"Quantum Leap" RU deck built around me taking multiple turns in a row.
"Instant Army" Saprolings. 'nuff said.
"Blue Steel" monoblue artifacts. Can't wait for the Tezzeret duel deck so I can add him to it.
"Saddam Hussein" BWR land destruction deck.
"Clerical Era" Clerics tribal, and profane prayers to win.
"Soulja Boyz tell em" soldier tribal. This used to be called "Soljaz….UNNNNNGH!" but Master P isn't popular anymore.
"Goblikazee" and "Humpfrey Boggarts" are my two goblin decks.
I've got two boros aggro decks, "Boros kinnnnigits" and "borosamurai"
"Da Posse" is my tribal ally/auroch deck.
"Fab 5" is my 5-color domain deck
"One" is a deck of nothing but one-drops.
"Thrullfather" this was an orzhov thrull deck, but I took all of the white out,a nd now it's just mono black thrulls.
"Voltron" is a spike/arcbound/+1 counter deck (with no ravager!)
"Snow Problem" is a RWG naya/thunderscape deck with lots of snow stuff in it.
"Spectre General" a discard deck built around various specters and their general, Nicol Bolas. The deck was originally called "Texas Drop 'em"
"Son of Ben" is my rat deck. I had an earlier rat deck, but I used to teach an afterschool magic class, and some brat stole my first rat deck, which is why this is "son of".
"auricle" is a monowhite deck based on auras.
"Time bomb" is all about suspend and chronozoa
"Niv Mizzle for Sizzle" is a crazy combo deck built around my all-time favorite legendary creature.
And my personal favorite…
"Dragons What." Because it's effing dragons. WHAT?!?!?!?
I try to keep my deck names creative. it helps me remember what they do, and adds a little flavor to the way I play the deck. I've got a w/g/b rock deck called "He Hate Me" built around teneb the harvester and debtor's knell, where everytime i use creature removal i point at it and say "he hate me."
what cool deck names have you come up with?
I live in Michigan, where Meijer's is more popular than WalMart. They have a good selection (for retal) of MTG, and they keep the specialty decks in good stock (most of their shoppers buy Yugioh more than MYG anyway). So If I wanted, I could get adeck from there, but I prefer to support my local gaming shops, so I'll be scooping tezz Vs. Els from one of those.
I rarely buy individual cards, so getting two planeswalkers and a bunch of rares for 20 bucks is a bargain.
if a new set drops, and i see a mechanic i like, i'll build a deck around it.
if i find a "build around me" card like niv-mizzet or captain sisay, i'll work with it.
i'm a sucker for tribal decks. new tribe almost always equals new deck.
i prefer building around themes instead of combos, but if i hear about a cool 2-3 card combo, and i happen to have the cards or like the cards., i'll take that combo and see what unused cards in my collexion can compliment it. (i.e: when pickles first came out, i noticed that i already had the two cards for that engine, but instead of going b/u, i went u/w and added loxodon gatekeeper and grand arbiter for added lock-ness. then i got my hands on a stuffy doll, and that got thrown into the deck along with guilty conscience.)
i frimly believe in "use the cards you've got." the only times i go out and buy individual cards are A) when i need one last piece to complete a combo i like and B) when i'm stockpiling cheap rares to trade, give away or use in future decks.
Or maybe three eldrazi were all Sorin, ugin and co. could get to follow them to Zendikar. the others either wouldn't take the bait, or could possiby have been imprisoned on other planes by other planeswalkers?
if you get creative enough, you can find a way to make more eldrazi possible. Not saying that's neccessarily a GOOD idea, mind you, but it is possible.
I can't imagine the eldrazi cards being a one-time deal from WIzards. they're going to find a way to come back to this. It's too big a concept not to.
It could be like that "ran over by a bus" running joke in the Final Destination movies.
1. Random character/planeswalker is doing his or her thing.
2. eldrazi appear out of nowhere and maul the dude.
However, if you ever get the urge to find out more about MTG's alpha bad guy, here are the books you should read.
First of all, you need to look up the elder dragon wars. (http://www.wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Dragons)
This is the story where Bolas first ascended to Planeswalker status.
Then, Read the Legends Cycle. This is the storyline that established Bolas as an alpha-level baddie.
take a detour to Kamigawa and read Saviors of Kamigawa, for a little insight int where Bolas's rival from Legends actually came from.
the next books you should read are the Time Spiral books, where Bolas in unleashed on the multiverse once again (and pwns two planeswalkers in some pretty cool battles, while he's at it).
You already know about the role he plays in the Alara saga, but his connection to the Eldrazi is revealed exclusively in this webcomic:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Multiverse/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature2/87a
for other books you might want to read to understand the MTG saga, check out this forum.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=246582
hope this all helps.
I see everyone's points about having stories told from the perspectives of Oldwalkers neowalkers and legends. Most of the stories I read involving the oldwalkers was really told from the perspective of the normal (albeit legendary) characters they dealt with on a regular basis. Urza had Xantcha, Barrin and Jhoira as his foils. Freyalise and the Ice Age planeswalkers had Jodah, Teferi had Jhoira in Spiral, untl his spark was stripped, in which case he became the human perspective for Jeska.
In fact, one of the things Spiral got right was how they treated Teferi's character, In losing his spark and omnipotence, then seeing firsthand how hard it was to reason with beings that powerful and out of touch, and losing something he held dear to a planeswalker's arrogance and inhumanity.
the plane-centric novels are what they are. Yeah, they're formulaic, but they can still be entertaining reads if handled well (ie Kamigawa and ravnica). I haven't read the walker-centric books but I like Wizards having some main characters that they can build around and "franchise" a la some of the classic comic characters, or Harry Potter or Drizzt. maybe we can now get a MTG movie based on one of these guys. Maybe have James Earl Jones be the voice of Bolas, or something.
As far as the game being about creatures is concerned, I do remember MaRo mentioning that creature battles are an essential part of MTG and they NEVER want that to diminish. I always liked that there were other ways to play, though (if I want creaturecreaturecreature card games, I'll play Yu-Gi-Oh or Pokemon. Which I won't.).