Recently played a game where I blocked a 10/10 trample with a 2/1 deathtouch weenie. I had less than 10 health left and was fairly certain at the time that once combat damage was assigned to creatures (and his 10/10 died) the remaining 9 damage that WOULD'VE trampled over no longer existed since the source was dead. Thinking back on it I'm not so sure.
Does the trample damage go through even though the creature dies due to state-based effects? Does a creature source need to be surviving through the entire step to assign damage?
Hypothetical: Say you want to cast your commander and your opponent uses Counterspell, and in response you use Sundial of the Infinite before the counterspell resolves.
The sundial has the effect of exiling all spells on the stack, which would effectively exile the counterspell and your commander. Since you have the option of putting your commander in the command zone instead of the exile pile (and say you do), would that make your commander cost 2 more mana next time? Or is that only for when he hits the graveyard?
Enlightened Tutor will get you Stuffy Doll.
That is the first thing that came up in a gather search. Since you mentioned scroll rack I'm assuming your deck is not a modern deck. Hoarding Dragon also came up but he costs 5 and isn't good. My second gather search in R/W brought up Imperial Recruiter.
No, it's very much a modern deck.. I edited that out because I forgot that it and sensei's aren't legal.
Neither is Enlightened Tutor, no? Imperial recruiter wouldn't work anyhow since Stuffy Doll CMC is 5.
I was curious about this particular randomization technique and whether or not it's legal in tournament play. Essentially seeding is done by separating deck into 2 piles (land and nonland) and putting them facedown in a land-nonland, nonland-land-nonland,nonland, etc order until you have a even spread of land cards.
My question is - if I sufficiently shuffle after this and before a match (say - 10 mashes and present for cut), is this legal to do in between every match? The WOTC site isn't clear - it states that it's fine as long as you sufficiently randomize afterward, but it doesn't explain if its legal in between matches, or if I have to prove that my two piles are what I say they are (land and nonland).
A new idea for a burn deck I came up with. I have no idea whether or not this will work in even a semi-competitive setting.
Basically, you pull out Balefire Liege and then cast cheap 1 or 2 CMC spells that would normally be utter badness but in this deck become 3/3 dudes who also gain you 3 life and do 3 damage to opponent when cast (or a lightning helix that does 6 damage and gains 6 life for 2 mana LOL). In other words, if you pray to almighty magic gods that your opponent's draw didnt give him the cards to kill you before turn 5 it seems like you would pretty much have a win in hand given that you could almost instantly kill them next turn if your liege lands.
Anyways - could this work? Or am I just brewing garbage?
I could use some suggestions fixing this... It's a soldier deck based around heroic mechanic and pump spells - the basic idea is to aggro hard with plenty of cheap creatures and overwhelm with numbers and pump them all up. I don't think Anax and Cymede is a very good card (or is it?) and I'm unsure as to what I should add in or take out. Does this deck have decent enough synergy?
Preeminent Captain + Spark Trooper and Boros Charm combos incredibly well but it doesn't fit the heroic thing at all. Should I just work with that and dump the heroic focus entirely?
@Azadan Thanks for all the help - I really appreciate it. I think because I started playing magic in the EDH format maybe I was brought into some bad habits that don't work in other formats like modern and standard. I got some researching to do
So I tested this setup today several times against what I guess I'd call moderately budget versions of "real" top decks. It did fairly well.
i would recommend cutting down on the 2 ofs to get some 4 ofs for the deck. With that many different style of cards, you will almost always be inconsistent with your gameplan
You called it. Going to restructure to have fewer creatures for a more consistent game.
gilded lotus costing too much mana
Gilded Lotus does basically nothing in this deck since the most expensive card is 5 mana
Yep. Didn't pull it out once. I'm going to drop those entirely.
You probably need 24 lands
Yes I do I feel dumb now for only including 20 originally.
based on a mechanic that is mostly a joke in modern
Could've been more tactful, but yeah I realized detain isn't a good enough mechanic to build around. I'm going to turn this into a U/W control deck now.
I've been playing Magic for like 8 months, and if at the beginning I had gotten a comment like that from anyone, I'd be a lot less inclined to keep playing. Thankfully most of my locals are super nice and supportive and, you know, helpful. Christ.
That's because locals don't have a keyboard barrier between the other human being they're denigrating
I love the detain mechanic and how versatile it is. But I also like to beat down opponents fairly quickly. I created this little lovechild as a combination of both, and call the deck "Mass Incarceration" (a little dramatic, I know).
I want to get into competitive Modern play and this is my first attempt at a deck that isn't one of the dime-a-dozen decks that usually pop up (twin, storm, burn, token, etc etc) in tourneys that could also potentially be good enough to not get countered. Twin/storm/beater decks would probably be easier for me to deal with since detain mechanics do so well against combos and large creatures. Also, Detention Sphere effectively ruins token-based mechanics since all tokens would be exiled with it. Burn would be a little more difficult for me to play against but I would try to get out Aegis of the Gods and counter any attempts to take him out (this is where my sideboard would come in handy).
The main areas that I'm weakest at and would like suggestions with are 1) Mana ramp and 2) Draw mechanics. So far, my only source of mana ramp (as you can see) is the two Gilded Lotus and the only draw I have is Azorius Charm. Are there any auras that allow draw when creature deals damage to player? My average CMC is 2.88 so I'm not to worried about ramping but generally speaking I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Gilded Lotus is too expensive of a ramp card to play competitively.
Friendly neighborhood spike dropping by to say that Voltron is bad and so are Uril and Bruna k bai.
Edit: To not seem like I'm trolling, I'll also say that Zur and Narset are very good "Voltron" generals because they do stuff besides just turn sideways AND don't require you to play cards from your hand and so generate card advantage. Uril is better than Bruna, but both are far out-classed and in my opinion, obsolete. My Shu Yun deck uses Shu as a win condition but is really just a control deck (shh don't tell anyone )
I would love to play against you with my deck. You ever make trips up to Alaska?
The manabase and ramp package should explain why that deck is bad on their own without any explanation from me. No control elements, no way to draw cards. It's basically all-in on putting a bunch of pants on things and crossing your fingers.
I get that it's budget but it could still include more than a 10% chance of Bruna dropping before turn 6, and maybe some likelihood of hitting your land drops and colors. Practically no fixing at all.
Meh.
Might as well look at the deck before you make false criticisms.
Mana ramp package doesn't matter and has never affected me. I can tutor much of it if I need to and Thada Adel, Acquisitor lets me steal mana rocks. Also, look at my commander. Enchantment cards attach for free. 25/67 non land cards are enchantments. Believe me, mana is the least of my issues game to game.
I've added Flickerform, Vanishing now to avoid getting cloned or have my hexproof and then Bruna destroyed in one step. All in all it's about $80 now.
Lots of tutors. My tutor progression is this - Hexproof , flickerform/vanishing , indestructibility , Assault Suit if there's a deck in the game that can force sac , lifelink , everything else. I don't pull her out anymore unless I have a form of haste ready to go due to a couple games where, as people have mentioned, she's essentially target #1 and has been spot wiped a few times.
Also, this deck isn't reliant on Bruna at all I've noticed. What tends to happen now more often is I'll just leave her in the command zone sometimes and use sovereigns of lost alara with daxos of meletis or medomai the ageless and tutor myself some things I need. Since people don't even pay attention to my deck until Bruna is out I can usually blow the game open with Worldslayer and Indestructibility and finish it off without even using her.
As an update - My playgroup has started to pull out their blue decks every time I play this deck. I've played 5 more games with her and nearly lost once when I was prevented from pulling bruna out until the very end due to a planeswalker (can't remember his name) one of my friends had whose up ability was stunning a permanent, which I knew he would've used as soon as I pulled her out and I had no haste in hand at the time. With a little politicking I got someone else to kill him, pulled her out and wiped the board :P.
Does the trample damage go through even though the creature dies due to state-based effects? Does a creature source need to be surviving through the entire step to assign damage?
The sundial has the effect of exiling all spells on the stack, which would effectively exile the counterspell and your commander. Since you have the option of putting your commander in the command zone instead of the exile pile (and say you do), would that make your commander cost 2 more mana next time? Or is that only for when he hits the graveyard?
Seems like seeding prior to shuffling is superior to only shuffling. I'm going to test it out and try.
No, it's very much a modern deck.. I edited that out because I forgot that it and sensei's aren't legal.
Neither is Enlightened Tutor, no? Imperial recruiter wouldn't work anyhow since Stuffy Doll CMC is 5.
Unfortunately all the great artifact tutoring is generally in blue, and my deck is red/white. I'm kind of lost.
My question is - if I sufficiently shuffle after this and before a match (say - 10 mashes and present for cut), is this legal to do in between every match? The WOTC site isn't clear - it states that it's fine as long as you sufficiently randomize afterward, but it doesn't explain if its legal in between matches, or if I have to prove that my two piles are what I say they are (land and nonland).
4x Balefire Liege
4x Boros Recruit
4x Boros Swiftblade
4x Duergar Assailant
4x Figure of Destiny
4x Wojek Halberdiers
4x Boros Charm
4x Lightning Helix
2x Martial Glory
4x Wear // Tear
22x Undecided Lands (ignore for now)
A new idea for a burn deck I came up with. I have no idea whether or not this will work in even a semi-competitive setting.
Basically, you pull out Balefire Liege and then cast cheap 1 or 2 CMC spells that would normally be utter badness but in this deck become 3/3 dudes who also gain you 3 life and do 3 damage to opponent when cast (or a lightning helix that does 6 damage and gains 6 life for 2 mana LOL). In other words, if you pray to almighty magic gods that your opponent's draw didnt give him the cards to kill you before turn 5 it seems like you would pretty much have a win in hand given that you could almost instantly kill them next turn if your liege lands.
Anyways - could this work? Or am I just brewing garbage?
Preeminent Captain + Spark Trooper and Boros Charm combos incredibly well but it doesn't fit the heroic thing at all. Should I just work with that and dump the heroic focus entirely?
2x Aurelia, the Warleader
2x Anax and Cymede
3x Fabled Hero
3x Favored Hoplite
3x Preeminent Captain
3x Spark Trooper
4x Boros Charm
4x Martial Glory
3x Titan's Strength
3x Madcap Skills
4x Lightning Bolt
4x Faith's Shield
You called it. Going to restructure to have fewer creatures for a more consistent game.
Yep. Didn't pull it out once. I'm going to drop those entirely.
Yes I do
Could've been more tactful, but yeah I realized detain isn't a good enough mechanic to build around. I'm going to turn this into a U/W control deck now.
That's because locals don't have a keyboard barrier between the other human being they're denigrating
2x Aegis of the Gods
2x Azorius Arrester
2x Geist of Saint Traft
2x Grand Abolisher
2x Lavinia of the Tenth
2x Lyev Skyknight
2x Silverblade Paladin
2x Stonehorn Dignitary
Enchantments:
4x Detention Sphere
2x Ethereal Armor
4x Prison Term
2x Spectral Flight
3x Azorius Charm
4x Render Silent
Artifacts:
2x Gilded Lotus
2x Glaring Spotlight
Land:
4x Glacial Fortress
3x Halimar Depths
1x Island
12x Plains
4x Faith's Shield
4x Redirect
I love the detain mechanic and how versatile it is. But I also like to beat down opponents fairly quickly. I created this little lovechild as a combination of both, and call the deck "Mass Incarceration" (a little dramatic, I know).
I want to get into competitive Modern play and this is my first attempt at a deck that isn't one of the dime-a-dozen decks that usually pop up (twin, storm, burn, token, etc etc) in tourneys that could also potentially be good enough to not get countered. Twin/storm/beater decks would probably be easier for me to deal with since detain mechanics do so well against combos and large creatures. Also, Detention Sphere effectively ruins token-based mechanics since all tokens would be exiled with it. Burn would be a little more difficult for me to play against but I would try to get out Aegis of the Gods and counter any attempts to take him out (this is where my sideboard would come in handy).
The main areas that I'm weakest at and would like suggestions with are 1) Mana ramp and 2) Draw mechanics. So far, my only source of mana ramp (as you can see) is the two Gilded Lotus and the only draw I have is Azorius Charm. Are there any auras that allow draw when creature deals damage to player? My average CMC is 2.88 so I'm not to worried about ramping but generally speaking I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Gilded Lotus is too expensive of a ramp card to play competitively.
I would love to play against you with my deck. You ever make trips up to Alaska?
Might as well look at the deck before you make false criticisms.
No control elements? Archon of the Triumvirate Grand Abolisher Sphere of Safety Corrupted Conscience Angelic Arbiter Silent Arbiter Render Silent
No way to draw cards? Righteous Authority Unquestioned Authority Sage's Reverie Read the Runes This is also offset by the 10 tutors I have in the deck.
Mana ramp package doesn't matter and has never affected me. I can tutor much of it if I need to and Thada Adel, Acquisitor lets me steal mana rocks. Also, look at my commander. Enchantment cards attach for free. 25/67 non land cards are enchantments. Believe me, mana is the least of my issues game to game.
Meh indeed.
Here it is - http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/30-04-15-bruna-voltron/
I've added Flickerform, Vanishing now to avoid getting cloned or have my hexproof and then Bruna destroyed in one step. All in all it's about $80 now.
Lots of tutors. My tutor progression is this - Hexproof , flickerform/vanishing , indestructibility , Assault Suit if there's a deck in the game that can force sac , lifelink , everything else. I don't pull her out anymore unless I have a form of haste ready to go due to a couple games where, as people have mentioned, she's essentially target #1 and has been spot wiped a few times.
Also, this deck isn't reliant on Bruna at all I've noticed. What tends to happen now more often is I'll just leave her in the command zone sometimes and use sovereigns of lost alara with daxos of meletis or medomai the ageless and tutor myself some things I need. Since people don't even pay attention to my deck until Bruna is out I can usually blow the game open with Worldslayer and Indestructibility and finish it off without even using her.
As an update - My playgroup has started to pull out their blue decks every time I play this deck. I've played 5 more games with her and nearly lost once when I was prevented from pulling bruna out until the very end due to a planeswalker (can't remember his name) one of my friends had whose up ability was stunning a permanent, which I knew he would've used as soon as I pulled her out and I had no haste in hand at the time. With a little politicking I got someone else to kill him, pulled her out and wiped the board :P.