I would definitely pick either the Scuzzback Scrapper or Scar in this pack. At the prelease, I first-picked -1/-1 counters and wither every draft. It's handles persist, and fat becomes nonpoint when faced up against wither. Honestly, I never lost a single game when I resolved Cinderbones. Wither is busted.
Are these cards playable in sleeves? I don't mean like in tournaments, but can you play with these painted cards in sleeves, and not have the paint mess up, scratch or wear? If so, I'd love to get some Skullclamps made up like Yawg's!
I officially wish to move this deck into Decks for Critique as discussion in the New Card Discussion forum has died. It is a deck I concepted about five minutes after Enchanted Evening was spoiled, and then posted in the forums. Proceed to the New Card Discussion forum to see all of the decklists and posts; but for now, this is the decklist I want to move forward with. What do you think?
The goal of this deck is play Enchanted Evening, and then play a free Patrician's Scorn to blow up the world. We can use Persist creatures early so that we can combo the turn we play Enchanted Evening, or we can play Oversoul of Dusk or Mystic Enforcer and while it's on the stack, respond with Patrician's Scorn with Enchanted Evening already in play to set-off the explosion. With the combo, a Mystic Enforcer on the stack will have Threshold upon entering play. Fracturing Winds can also be gotten from the wishboard if you need a missing combo piece. When you combo, if you have a Flagstones out, you will also be up a land, plus you could potentially drop another, leaving you with 2 lands and a finisher to the opponent's empty board.
I know the manabase looks like hell, and Manamorphose seems lame, but it's an attempt to work in a lot of 3cc Hybrids, Flame Javelin and Tower Above. All of these cards are very good in a stompy type deck. There have been successful decks in the last few years that have had worse manabases. So I'm just going to run with it.
This isn't a RDW post because Sligh is monored variant centering on an abundance of creatures. In this instance, we will be using 24 creatures, 16 burn spells and 20 lands.
The sideboard is setup for different things. Fulminator Mage will help against Villages, Deserts, duals, etc. Smash to Smithereens will be used for anything it can hit, but it's mostly just a placeholder for now. Everlasting Torment will be for anything such as Burrenton Forge-Tender, Paladin en-Vec, Story Circle, what have you. Deathmark is in the board right now, because I have been testing against a lot of Shadowmoor decks, and it picks off anything in that deck. Let me know what you think.
the problem is: patrician scorn is a dead card in the deck until evening comes on.
evening plus wish = harmonic sliver vindicates from the side
Well I wouldn't say dead...People play Bitterblossom in droves here. There will also be people attempting to use some of the new aura's and you can't tell me that nobody is going to be playing some of the new power enchantments from Shadowmoor. Everlasting Torment, Runed Halo, Prison Term, Oblivion Ring, Bitterblossom. Those are but a few of the cards I see people playing now and in the near future.
how d'you count hybrid mana in your division or two?
very helpful!
The value of Hybrid Mana in the Division of Two process for a two-colored deck is equal to 0, as the land base of both Plains or Mountains will cover for it. If it were say a 3-colored deck, however, I count them as such: If I have something that costs 2:symrw::symrw:, I would count that as 1 W and 1 R per card. This also applies to four and five-colored decks, as well.
This post is going to present to you a method I usually use when trying to refine a decklist. I refer to it as my Pool Selection Method. I make certain categories of cards that represent the goal of the deck I'm working on. I also use a similar method to devise my mana bases, which I refer to as Division of Two. First, we'll deal with the PSM.
This deck's goals are:
Ramp mana quickly to destroy the world as fast as possible.
Locate the pieces of our combo quickly and effectively.
Achieve an empty board post-combo, with a finisher on the stack or returning via persist.
Now, we will make a few lists of cards that will help us achieve our goals, and then select cards from those lists that best synergize with the rest of the deck as a whole.
There are a few routes you can go with this. One, is to cast a game-breaking bomb such as the Oversoul or Mystic Enforcer (post combo you will have Threshold) and then blow the world while the creature is on the stack. The other method method hinges on the ability of Persist creatures to return from the grave once the armageddon occurs. Wilt-Leaf Cavliers is in this list merely as a cheap beater that can also trigger Scorn.
For the sake of argument and testing I listed Fracturing Winds and Spring Cleaning, although the best idea and quickest solution is to cast a free Patrician's Scorn either after the Enchanted Evening resolves or a win condition enters the stack.
The main intention of this segment of cards is to help us stabilize before comboing-out. This will maintain our position so that we are not comboing at three life and walking into a well-timed Shard Volley. Some cards will perform multiple roles. Kitchen Finks as an example has Persist. It will not only provide multiple blocks, it will return to the table post combo and also gain us life to further stabilize our position.
There are many possibilities for the Wishboard, but these are some cards that either help enable the combo, protect the combo, or stall the opponent.
Using the pools above, you can make different configurations of the deck and find out what works best for you. I have already begun testing the deck a few days back and am using this method to test various choices and builds.
The second thing to address is the Div2, or Division of Two. This is the method I use to determine my color distribution so as to better balance my mana sources. Using this method, I am almost always able to perfectly play a deck with any number of colors, from one color all the way to five colors. I am not going to go into a lot of detail on this, as it is fairly simple. For sake of example, here is a simple decklist:
On a piece a paper I make a Column for each color and denote it with its MtG color symbol. WUBGR
For this deck I will make a column for R and a column for W. Then I will count up the instances of each color in the mana costs of my cards. However, for creatures with Evoke, I base their mana costs off of my intentions. For instance, Spitebellows has a single R in its cost, but double RR in its Evoke cost. I almost always will Evoke it, so I count it as double RR.
So for the above list I come up with 20R symbols. Four each from Raging Goblin, Incinerate and Rift Bolt. There are four Siege-Gang Commander each with RR in their cost, for a total of eight R. That makes the grand total of R in the deck 20.
Using this same method, we encounter 27W symbols. It's always better to have more mana available than less mana available, and it's easier to divide by an even number. This is why I call this method Division of Two. To derive the ratio of red mana to white mana needed, I will increase the number of white symbols to a multiple of two. Thus 27 becomes 28.
The ratio as it stands, then, is: 20R:28W
Now divide it down so that one of them is a prime number, without decimals or fractions.
Divide by 2 => 10R:14W
Divide by 2, again => 5R:7W
Now we have 2 prime numbers, 5 and 7. So the approximate ratio of land in this deck should be 5 Mountain per 7 Plains. Ancient Amphitheater produces both, so it counts as neither. After I fulfill my quotas, I add +1 to each land total until the deck is filled out. Variance occurs when I take into account the necessity of the mana. I have a few early drops that require double WW in this deck. I also want a long-game win condition in Urza's Factory. If you look at the land base below, you will see I have used 8 "Duals" and 1 Urza's Factory. Then I will insert 5 Mountains and 7 Plains as dictated by this process. After those additions, there will be 3 spare land slots. I then choose to insert more specialty lands, a la Desert or Quicksand. In this case I will choose 0 specialty lands. Then I add +1 to both land counts to fill out the deck. This leaves 1 extra slot. As I noted above, this deck needs double WW fairly early, so I will give the nod to the extra Plains.
There you have it. Let's work on the deck and use logical steps and discussions to advance this deck into a viable strategy. Sorry for the winded post, but thanks for reading it.
Okay, so I actually think that this deck can be competitive. one thing that i think the deck needs to be able to do is Eve turn three and Shepherd OR Oversoul with Scorn on the stack. That is what can make the deck really explosive.
It's very possible, too...
T1, Forest, BoP
T2, Flagstones, Rampant Growth, Fetching Plains
T3, Forest, Enchanted Evening
t4, Oversoul of Dusk, Patrician's Scorn in Response, leavning you with an Oversoul of Dusk and a Plains to an empty board. Wait an play a 2nd land untill after the explosion, and then you are up 2 land to none.
Spring Cleaning Nitpick: Not sure I like the potential of losing the clash and only destroying one permanent. Having a wincon out and cleaning the rest of the board gives the combo more sting!
Side note: It would be very probable to play Advanced Auramastery in the deck, as two would allow you to blow the combo when you want, and not the let the opponent stop you by casting Krosan Grip on you Evening if you were waiting a turn to play a win condition.
This is a jumping off point to incorporate some of the ideas that have been tossed around. It is not as efficient as it could be, but that's what we're going to work on. Rebuff the Wicked in the board is actually an effective counterspell to Spring Cleaning, because Clash is part of the resolution, so once placed on the stack, you can Rebuff it.
I am very interested in Prison Sentence as a card, but I'm just not sure it'll be all that important in this deck. Don't get me wrong it's playable in this deck, it just might not be important. I'm developing an Academy Researchers deck that can put this into play on the Researchers if need be on turn 3, then transfer it to an opponent's creature.
You forgot Riftwing Cloudskate in your U/W deck; its way better than the Emphemeron considering you can bounce lands with it. Throw down a Scorn with 1 counter left on the Cloudskate, if they play a land you can bounce it. Nasty.
My one qualm with the Cloudskate is that if its the only thing coming in, it bounces itself. Bouncing your own win condition with an otherwise empty board on both sides seems like EPIC FAILNESS!
I'd try Lash Out, if possible. I know it can't just burn directly to the face, but if you get 3 -1/-1 counters on a creature and deal them 3? That's hawt sawce!
I would definitely pick either the Scuzzback Scrapper or Scar in this pack. At the prelease, I first-picked -1/-1 counters and wither every draft. It's handles persist, and fat becomes nonpoint when faced up against wither. Honestly, I never lost a single game when I resolved Cinderbones. Wither is busted.
04 Llanowar Elves
04 Kitchen Finks
03 Mystic Enforcer
03 Oversoul of Dusk
Spells
04 Rampant Growth
04 Wrath of God
04 Patrician's Scorn
04 Harmonize
03 Glittering Wish
03 Enchanted Evening
Lands
09 Forest
05 Plains
04 Flagstones of Trokair
04 Horizon Canopy
02 Brushland
03 Rebuff the Wicked
03 Runed Halo
02 Harmonic Sliver
01 Firespout
01 Enchanted Evening
01 Fracturing Winds
01 Mystic Enforcer
01 Oversoul of Dusk
01 Sun-and-Moon Wheel
01 Vexing Shusher
The goal of this deck is play Enchanted Evening, and then play a free Patrician's Scorn to blow up the world. We can use Persist creatures early so that we can combo the turn we play Enchanted Evening, or we can play Oversoul of Dusk or Mystic Enforcer and while it's on the stack, respond with Patrician's Scorn with Enchanted Evening already in play to set-off the explosion. With the combo, a Mystic Enforcer on the stack will have Threshold upon entering play. Fracturing Winds can also be gotten from the wishboard if you need a missing combo piece. When you combo, if you have a Flagstones out, you will also be up a land, plus you could potentially drop another, leaving you with 2 lands and a finisher to the opponent's empty board.
04 Llanowar Elves
04 Tattermunge Maniac
04 Boggart Ram-Gang
04 Troll Ascetic
04 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
02 Chameleon Colossus
04 Call of the Herd
04 Tower Above
04 Flame Javelin
04 Manamorphose
Lands
05 Forest
04 Karplusan Forest
04 Gemstone Mine
04 Fire Canopy
03 Mountain
02 Treetop Village
I know the manabase looks like hell, and Manamorphose seems lame, but it's an attempt to work in a lot of 3cc Hybrids, Flame Javelin and Tower Above. All of these cards are very good in a stompy type deck. There have been successful decks in the last few years that have had worse manabases. So I'm just going to run with it.
04 Mogg Fanatic
04 Tattermunge Maniac
04 Keldon Marauders
04 Blood Knight
04 Boggart Ram-Gang
04 Ashenmoor Gouger
Spells
04 Shock
04 Rift Bolt
04 Incinerate
04 Flame Javelin
11 Mountain
04 Auntie's Hovel
02 Sulfurous Springs
02 Ghitu Encampment
01 Keldon Megaliths
04 Fulminator Mage
04 Smash to Smithereens
04 Deathmark
03 Everlasting Torment
The sideboard is setup for different things. Fulminator Mage will help against Villages, Deserts, duals, etc. Smash to Smithereens will be used for anything it can hit, but it's mostly just a placeholder for now. Everlasting Torment will be for anything such as Burrenton Forge-Tender, Paladin en-Vec, Story Circle, what have you. Deathmark is in the board right now, because I have been testing against a lot of Shadowmoor decks, and it picks off anything in that deck. Let me know what you think.
Well I wouldn't say dead...People play Bitterblossom in droves here. There will also be people attempting to use some of the new aura's and you can't tell me that nobody is going to be playing some of the new power enchantments from Shadowmoor. Everlasting Torment, Runed Halo, Prison Term, Oblivion Ring, Bitterblossom. Those are but a few of the cards I see people playing now and in the near future.
The value of Hybrid Mana in the Division of Two process for a two-colored deck is equal to 0, as the land base of both Plains or Mountains will cover for it. If it were say a 3-colored deck, however, I count them as such: If I have something that costs 2:symrw::symrw:, I would count that as 1 W and 1 R per card. This also applies to four and five-colored decks, as well.
This deck's goals are:
0 Birds of Paradise
0 Llanowar Elves
0 Rampant Growth
0 Edge of Autumn
0 Search for Tomorrow
This is a good list to start with for fixing and accelerating our mana to quickly achieve enough mana to execute the combo.
0 Glittering Wish
0 Harmonize
We have but a few choices in to locate our combo pieces. Work with what we have and make it excel.
0 Mystic Enforcer
0 Wilt-Leaf Cavaliers
0 Twilight Sheperd
0 Kitchen Finks
0 Safehold Elite
There are a few routes you can go with this. One, is to cast a game-breaking bomb such as the Oversoul or Mystic Enforcer (post combo you will have Threshold) and then blow the world while the creature is on the stack. The other method method hinges on the ability of Persist creatures to return from the grave once the armageddon occurs. Wilt-Leaf Cavliers is in this list merely as a cheap beater that can also trigger Scorn.
0 Fracturing Winds
0 Spring Cleaning
0 Patrician's Scorn
For the sake of argument and testing I listed Fracturing Winds and Spring Cleaning, although the best idea and quickest solution is to cast a free Patrician's Scorn either after the Enchanted Evening resolves or a win condition enters the stack.
0 Condemn
0 Kitchen Finks
0 Martyr of Sands
0 Oblivion Ring
0 Prison Term
The main intention of this segment of cards is to help us stabilize before comboing-out. This will maintain our position so that we are not comboing at three life and walking into a well-timed Shard Volley. Some cards will perform multiple roles. Kitchen Finks as an example has Persist. It will not only provide multiple blocks, it will return to the table post combo and also gain us life to further stabilize our position.
0 Vexing Shusher
0 Harmonic Sliver
0 Fracturing Winds
0 Mystic Enforcer
0 Enchanted Evening
0 Sun-and-Moon Wheel
There are many possibilities for the Wishboard, but these are some cards that either help enable the combo, protect the combo, or stall the opponent.
Using the pools above, you can make different configurations of the deck and find out what works best for you. I have already begun testing the deck a few days back and am using this method to test various choices and builds.
The second thing to address is the Div2, or Division of Two. This is the method I use to determine my color distribution so as to better balance my mana sources. Using this method, I am almost always able to perfectly play a deck with any number of colors, from one color all the way to five colors. I am not going to go into a lot of detail on this, as it is fairly simple. For sake of example, here is a simple decklist:
04 Raging Goblin
04 Silver Knight
04 Paladin en-Vec
04 Siege-Gang Commander
04 Wrath of God
04 Incinerate
04 Rift Bolt
03 Obilvion Ring
On a piece a paper I make a Column for each color and denote it with its MtG color symbol. WUBGR
For this deck I will make a column for R and a column for W. Then I will count up the instances of each color in the mana costs of my cards. However, for creatures with Evoke, I base their mana costs off of my intentions. For instance, Spitebellows has a single R in its cost, but double RR in its Evoke cost. I almost always will Evoke it, so I count it as double RR.
So for the above list I come up with 20 R symbols. Four each from Raging Goblin, Incinerate and Rift Bolt. There are four Siege-Gang Commander each with RR in their cost, for a total of eight R. That makes the grand total of R in the deck 20.
Using this same method, we encounter 27 W symbols. It's always better to have more mana available than less mana available, and it's easier to divide by an even number. This is why I call this method Division of Two. To derive the ratio of red mana to white mana needed, I will increase the number of white symbols to a multiple of two. Thus 27 becomes 28.
The ratio as it stands, then, is:
20R:28W
Now divide it down so that one of them is a prime number, without decimals or fractions.
Divide by 2 => 10R:14W
Divide by 2, again => 5R:7W
Now we have 2 prime numbers, 5 and 7. So the approximate ratio of land in this deck should be 5 Mountain per 7 Plains. Ancient Amphitheater produces both, so it counts as neither. After I fulfill my quotas, I add +1 to each land total until the deck is filled out. Variance occurs when I take into account the necessity of the mana. I have a few early drops that require double WW in this deck. I also want a long-game win condition in Urza's Factory. If you look at the land base below, you will see I have used 8 "Duals" and 1 Urza's Factory. Then I will insert 5 Mountains and 7 Plains as dictated by this process. After those additions, there will be 3 spare land slots. I then choose to insert more specialty lands, a la Desert or Quicksand. In this case I will choose 0 specialty lands. Then I add +1 to both land counts to fill out the deck. This leaves 1 extra slot. As I noted above, this deck needs double WW fairly early, so I will give the nod to the extra Plains.
09 Plains
06 Mountain
04 Ancient Amphitheater
04 Battlefield Forge
01 Urza's Factory
There you have it. Let's work on the deck and use logical steps and discussions to advance this deck into a viable strategy. Sorry for the winded post, but thanks for reading it.
It's very possible, too...
T1, Forest, BoP
T2, Flagstones, Rampant Growth, Fetching Plains
T3, Forest, Enchanted Evening
t4, Oversoul of Dusk, Patrician's Scorn in Response, leavning you with an Oversoul of Dusk and a Plains to an empty board. Wait an play a 2nd land untill after the explosion, and then you are up 2 land to none.
Spring Cleaning Nitpick: Not sure I like the potential of losing the clash and only destroying one permanent. Having a wincon out and cleaning the rest of the board gives the combo more sting!
Side note: It would be very probable to play Advanced Auramastery in the deck, as two would allow you to blow the combo when you want, and not the let the opponent stop you by casting Krosan Grip on you Evening if you were waiting a turn to play a win condition.
04 Birds of Paradise
04 Llanowar Elves
04 Oversoul of Dusk
02 Twilight Sheperd
Spells
04 Patrician's Scorn
04 Wrath of God
03 Rampant Growth
03 Harmonize
03 Glittering Wish
03 Enchanted Evening
02 Advanced Auramastery
Lands
08 Forest
05 Plains
04 Flagstones of Trokair
04 Horizon Canopy
03 Brushland
03 Rebuff the Wicked
02 Gutteral Response
01 Mystic Enforcer
01 Harmonic Sliver
01 Fracturing Winds
01 Enchanted Evening
01 Turn to Mist
01 Safewright Quest
01 Sun-and-Moon Wheel
01 Firespout
01 Mercy Killing
01 Worldpurge
This is a jumping off point to incorporate some of the ideas that have been tossed around. It is not as efficient as it could be, but that's what we're going to work on. Rebuff the Wicked in the board is actually an effective counterspell to Spring Cleaning, because Clash is part of the resolution, so once placed on the stack, you can Rebuff it.
I am very interested in Prison Sentence as a card, but I'm just not sure it'll be all that important in this deck. Don't get me wrong it's playable in this deck, it just might not be important. I'm developing an Academy Researchers deck that can put this into play on the Researchers if need be on turn 3, then transfer it to an opponent's creature.
My one qualm with the Cloudskate is that if its the only thing coming in, it bounces itself. Bouncing your own win condition with an otherwise empty board on both sides seems like EPIC FAILNESS!
Great idea, another card I tried breaking when it came out, but comepletely forgot about. Thanks Chaos! Gush was always a favorite of mine.