I am sorry for your losses. I used to love playing rakdos aggro. Rakdos cackler turn 1 into madcap skills turn 2 was really fun. You may not have the card, but Valduk, keeper of the flame could be useful since you're using enchantments.
Seems like a cool idea. I would go nissa, steward of elements instead of jace. For your two drop, maybe untamed kavu. You definitely dont want to get blown out by settle the wreckage, so you'll definitely need some counter spells for that. Are you thinking more aggressive gameplan, or more long game?
You need some form of protection and removal. I would start by getting rid of the 4x jhoira's familiar and replace it with either removal, or creature protection. Even with that, it's going to be tough sledding against aggro. Have you had a chance to play this build? You definitely need some form of removal
Interesting design, but not a good card. Bad rare for limited, obviously doesn't work for EDH, and is not constructed viable. By not constructed viable, I mean 1) it does nothing on its own, 2) requires setup, 3) and demands lots of mana to be effective (read: STANDARD). If Pyromancer's Goggles didn't see much play, which is arguably much better excepting only mana cost, this won't see any play. It could possibly find a home in a Delver or Storm modern deck, but what would you take out of the deck to put in a card that does nothing on T3 when you cast it? That kind of tempo loss would be devastating. I could actually see this seeing play if it cost R, but not at 2R...
To be fair, you can only use goggles for red spells. This can target any color. So, apples and oranges.
Yes, I am very for real. Artwork in this set, especially with the monk cards, looks very unappealing to me. Most of it looks childish...which also isn't completely out of whack, because it's also a game that kids play. Regardless, I don't like it.
I agree. The art has been getting consistently worse since Alara.
Another thing which bothers me is that Wizards seems to put a brightness filter over their cards. I first noticed this with Serra angel. Just compare the 9th edition art to M2014. The latter is much brighter. Now, looking at MM spoilers I almost got blinded by looking at Niv-Mizzet. Seriously, his red is so bright compared to the original. Same with Nobilis of war. Or compare the original Helium squirter vs the new one. Why is the new one so bright? Or if you look at Ghost Council. What is grey smoke at the bottom is now a glowing neon-teal fog.
Why do they brighten everything up this much? It looks unnatural and offensive to the eye.
Yeah, the red is much too red now in the art. Also, the water in the Island is too wet looking. I'm also tired of all the trees in the forest arts having leaves. Can't they for once put a dead tree in the art?
I don't really see what Commune accomplishes in this deck over another 4-count of one of mono-red's efficient spells. With only twenty mountains, you're gunning for a kill within the first what, 4-6 turns at the most? You're getting X=2 at the most in that time frame. Commune may give you a bit of long-game reach, but you're better off avoiding the long game altogether by just building a more efficient aggro deck.
I agree with this. You generally don't want to be playing XCC spells in your 20 land deck. You're just not going to be able to cast it for a satisfactory amount on a consistent basis.
Commune could work in a Mono-Red Devotion deck though, which is what I'm currently working on. I haven't got around to testing the Commune yet, but Nykthos is the kind of card that can really allow you to extract the most value possible.
If this sounds appealing to you then I'd be happy to provide a list.
Well if you could somehow build up devotion, exile a bunch of cards on their end step, and then play those cards next turn, that could be devastating. What does your list look like? I've been gold fishing alot on tappedout and the x value is usually 2,3, or 4. Which is fine for this type of deck. I don't really need the x value to be really large. We just need those 2, or three extra cards to finish off the opponent.
The idea of this deck is to get damage in early and finish them off with burn at the end. I could go the midrange route, but I want to stick to a more aggro strategy. Let's say I have six mana open and my opponent is down to 10 life. On their end step, I use commune for x = 4, exiling two lightning strikes, mountain, and stoke the flames. That's the game in that 4 exiled cards assuming we have at least one creature on the board. I realize that's best case scenario, but it's entirely plausible. If I was to go the thunderbreak/stormbreath route, I would probably just play outpost seige. Since we would be playing higher cost stuff, most of the time you couldn't play multiple spells you exiled with commune.
Put your decklists in the thread below. It's dedicated to the assault formation strategy. Using disciple of deceit to tutor for assault formation is a neat idea
I like commune so much, I sort of want to make a deck based around it. I think it provides gas mid to late game. How about making room for 3 Impact Tremors?
Why not play Polukranos, World Eater instead of conifer strider? It's nice it has hexproof, but you only have one spell that gives it evasion to go unblocked. Also since he's hexproof, your flying dragons will take the blunt of the removal. You can also use that extra mana generated from Savage Ventmaw to make him monstrous. Usually the strategy is that if you're going hexproof, you're going all in on the hexproof. That way, your opponents targeted removal is nullified.
I might consider replacing the ram with the 0/4 bird that draws a card if you reveal a dragon. Triton tactics is probably not worth it because it's only useful when assault formation is out. not sure about the land counts
4x llanowar elves
2x Bounty of the luxa
3x Elfhame druid
3x Enter the unknown
3x Gift of growth
3x Grow from the ashes
3x Haze of pollen
3x Opt
2x Blink of an eye
2x Walking ballista
3x Sylvan awakening
2x Nissa, steward of elements
3x untamed kavu
To be fair, you can only use goggles for red spells. This can target any color. So, apples and oranges.
Yeah, the red is much too red now in the art. Also, the water in the Island is too wet looking. I'm also tired of all the trees in the forest arts having leaves. Can't they for once put a dead tree in the art?
Well if you could somehow build up devotion, exile a bunch of cards on their end step, and then play those cards next turn, that could be devastating. What does your list look like? I've been gold fishing alot on tappedout and the x value is usually 2,3, or 4. Which is fine for this type of deck. I don't really need the x value to be really large. We just need those 2, or three extra cards to finish off the opponent.
3 Zurgo Bellstriker
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
3 Lightning Strike
4 Wild Slash
4 Dragon Fodder
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Hordeling Outburst
3 Impact Tremors
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/standard-deck-creation/601073-g-x-defender-assault-formation
4 Zurgo Bellstriker
4 Foundry Street Denizen
4 Goblin Rabblemaster
4 Lightning Strike
4 Wild Slash
4 Dragon Fodder
4 Stoke the Flames
4 Hordeling Outburst
Here's my take on the deck. I know this wont be very competitive, but I think it will be fun
3 Orator of Ojutai
4 Sylvan Caryatid
3 OmenSpeaker
3 Dragonlord Dromoka
3 Dragonlord Ojutai
3 Wall of Frost
3 Anticipate
3 Negate
3 Silumgar's Scorn
4 Flooded Stand
4 Windswept Heath
5 Forest
5 Island
4 Plains
2 Yavimaya Coast