MTG Salvation

I am a fan of Kaervek.

My version runs additional enchantments, particularly Last Laugh, Exquisite Blood, and Rain of Gore.

Ramp is common in my meta, so I have responded by adding Tunnel Ignus, Ankh of Mishra, Acidic Soil, and Zo-zu the Punisher.

Your targeted discard is vicious in a duel, but might be better as something else for multiplayer.

Oh, giving infect to Kaervek really irritates people.

I like Midnight Banshee and Grim Poppet alongside Kulrath Knight and will be stealling that idea.

Cheers!

Ah, the joy of multiple decks!

I have about the same amount, and the fixings for a dozen more.

The biggest challenge I have had is forcing myself to not use the same cards over and over. While this has been fun, it has not always been tactically sound.

Cheers!

Good point on Pandemonium being win-more. For what it is worth, your explanation actually has me thinking that a better reason to run Red in my monogreen Lurking Predators decks is for the delicious creatures I have needing a home.

Still, I like the thrill of the potential backfiring. We shall see.

Cheers!

You are right - it can be a great way to get fleeced.

So I go into it with eyes open, and given my tendency to keep lots of decks (80+ at this point), I don't worry too much about trading away or selling what I've gotten.

The key is to ask for a LOT of cards - especially those that have recently fallen out of Standard legality - for the chase card. Monetarily, you may still lose, but card-wise, it is a great way to quickly build up a collection of decent cards, especially for multiplayer formats.

Still, some cards never really lose value, and sometimes only appreciate. These are almost always lands. I twitch when I trade them off, as I know the power of EBuntapped lands, but still, they go. Selling off my set of Revised dual lands put me in a new mindset (and also financed a FN-FAL for my rifle collection!) regarding Magic cards and pricing.

In short, if the goal is to continually break even (or profit) monetarily, then a player should only trade staples for staples. If the goal is to build a collection or to acquire LOTS of cards, I maintain that trading staples for piles does this. Just be aware of the relative value of the cards involved.

Cheers!

While not one-sided, some enchantments that I have seen used to good effect include Mana Flare, Furnace of Rath, Oath of Lieges, and Rites of Flourishing.

Yes, these are group-huggish in nature, and the caster of them can and will have them backfire at some point, but are still worth considering in some metagames.

This post makes me realize that I have a playset of Defense of the Heart, as well as copies of Dense Foliage and City of Solitude going unused. Hmmm....

Out of curiosity, would you consider adding Pandemonium to a Lurking Predators deck to be too dangerous?

Cheers!

This post made me chuckle, as I have consciously felt that switch come on and the MAD commence. Although, I've always referred to this thinking as 'Kingmaking' - I won't win the game, but neither will you.

Does blowing up everyone in one fell swoop (68-point Earthquake, for example) count as MAD, or is that something else?

I ask, because I often play red that way (even without Glacial Chasm to hide behind) and believe that it is a different (still suicidal) mindset.

Cheers!

There are a large number of monored decks in my primary metagame, and some of them aren't even mine! I won't lie - some are duel decks forced into MP games. These effectively work as kingmakers. The rest, though, are geared for MP games.

Red is also a popular choice to be paired with any color, for any number of reasons. A growing reason is for 3-4 Demolish, as our meta now contains several artifact-heavy decks, as well as a number of key fancy lands, to include 8post and at least two Urzatron decks, alongside the ubiquitous Glacial Chasm (in three different decks, only one of which is mine, and that one without lifegain).

For us, while the Earthquakes and such make regular appearances, it is the Red enchantments like Furnace of Rath and Mana Flare that have proven to be the most popular at our table. This is because they speed up games.

Red also provides a number of potent hand reloaders: Wheel of Fortune, Wheel of Fate, and Reforge the Soul. While these affect everyone, canny red players get the most advantage from playing these cards; at the very least, the game speeds up because people are back out of topdeck mode.

Generally speaking, the mindset of myself (and a few others) is that while winning is nice, ending games spectacularly and quickly is ideal. Red can end games (or force a draw) in spectacular fashion.

The color least represented as a monocolored deck in my meta is Blue. There is one Blue countermagic heavy deck (it just added a Guile, so should be more entertaining), a Blue theft/copy deck, and a Blue Mesmeric Orb deck. All others use Blue to supplement other strategies or just draw cards.

The use of life gain for nothing but a shield is common in my group as well, from the lucky charms (Angel's Feather and company) to cards like Angel's Mercy. Infect was tried half-heartedly as a cure, but went nowhere. I have a handful of enchantments that prevent life gain, but they don't appear in every single game. So we just target those players first, IF we can tell that the deck they are playing is full of lifegain.

Cheers!

Of these 6, the only one I do not follow is number 1: I enjoy having many decks with subtle (and not so subtle) variations on a theme. While this leaves my best cards scattered across decks, it does make use of the cards I have on hand.

That many decks also means that many are monocolored or dualcolored decks running basics and a playset of either Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse. For my (and I suspect many) metagames, that is ample.

Aside from that, trading Standard chase cards for piles of nonStandard fun stuff, checking dollar binders/boxes, and even combing through the .10 boxes (commons and uncommons) regularly yields lots of useful cards for myself and my meta (I am the source of cards for many of them).

As I do not play tournaments, I want to recommend the virtue of turning one awesome card (like the numerous Snapcaster Mages I opened) into a pile of other cards. Yes, that one card IS potent, but only helps one deck. The pile I get for it helps many decks... or so my logic goes.

Cheers!