So, which playstyle do you like? It sounds to me that you don't really love big creature decks or simply decks that need to go to the red zone. Is that true?
Anyway, you can play different styles with both colors. Here are some nice examples (all of them work really well):
- Jaya Ballard, Task Mage can be a nice mono red control deck. You can focus more on artifacts and giving here protection from red. I once played a burn version which was actually quite nice. I used many "mass" burn spells to get rid of creatures and then finished off with some damage doublers and mana doublers.
- Ilharg, the Raze Boar could be build as a nice ETB deck. I'm quite certain you don't need big fatties and can play a similar game as most Feldon of the Third Path.
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker can give you this combo-feeling you might have been looking for.
- Zada, Hedron Grinder gives you a super glass cannon combo deck which can even be built quite cheap if you have some concerns about the budget.
- both mono red Nehebs are also really nice and can give you this "card drawing"-feeling that many blue based decks can give. And both of them can get out of hand quite easily.
- Etali, Primal Storm looks quite boring at first but I can assure you that this dinosaur is super cool in a multiplayer setting. Just use some haste enablers and go to town.
- If you like some kind of pillowfort strategies then you can use Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs. There are many cool old enchantments that work reasonably well with him.
- If you are looking for some hyper competitive deck then there's a pretty nasty list called "Godo Helm" with Godo, Bandit Warlord.
- Last but not least, there are many tribal options, e.g. Goblins, Dragons, etc.
For green, many strategies revolve around creatures. But also there are many nice options:
- Omnath, Locus of Mana can easily overpower the table if not he's not answered early enough. There are many mana doublers out there that work nicely with him. I even player a mill versions once, and even that worked!
- Titania, Protector of Argoth gives you a really nice lands based strategy. You can go more on a token route or even a very controllish list. But many cards in such a deck are quite expensinve (concerning the budget).
- Reki, the History of Kamigawa is pretty much a "legend ball" style deck and get's new cards in almost every set. It works quite nice and you can use many cool legends and legendary permanents (Planeswalkers, Artifacts, etc.).
- Seton, Krosan Protector offers a cool tribal deck that can get out of hand on turn 3/4 quite easily. But it usually doesn't have a lot of interaction.
- Ghalta, Primal Hunger can be build in different style. You can use elves and use him as a big finisher, big creatures beatdown or even combo with Food Chain. For example, I have a big creature Stompy deck with him. It's slow but when it gets going then it's just super fun. Now there are even nice new cards, I'm looking forward to Finale of Devastation for X>=10 and get God-Eternal Rhonas making my commander's power over 40 :).
For me it has always been a question of "how much interaction do I want?". A nice green control deck (there's a super cool primer with Nissa around here) can give you a very satisfying game in which you did a lot of "answering" whereas a Stompy style deck is "simple" and plays a lot of cool creature but almost no interaction (but that depends on your build entirely).
I'm not quite sure why you are even asking the community if it's okay to lie about cards. You should already know the answer to this. Rather ask yourself what's forcing you into such a thinking in the first place, hence the community could come up with some solutions which might suit your problem.
As for the second question: I don't mind proxies, even if someone is crushing a table with a proxied deck. As long as it was a cool gaming experience I'm fine with it (there is much more to a game than just slamming cards around, at least for me).
What kind of feedback would you have liked to get?
Questions about the deck, I suppose? Compliments? Delight at seeing odd cards find a home in a cool way? Mostly the sort of feedback I get when I play the decks at my LGS, mostly. People there are always interested in my decks and vice versa.
So, I have never posted a decklist up to now but get a lot of comments on my deck as well at our LGS. But those comments are, well, very personal to some extend. I have a very special playmat which is emotionally linked to my kids, and so I tell them my story and "how/why I build this deck". This usually leads to nice comments and well, a good quality conversation. So for me a good feedback is a good conversation starter. This is, more or less, the thing you said in a very specific case. So I can totally understand what you would have liked to hear.
But I guess, this is the internet and not a real life conversation (yeah stating the obvious, I know...:)). But I need to tell this myself many times whenever I drop by and check out some threads.
Also, you said something very important:
Quote from »
... and vice versa.
DirkGently pointed exactly this out. I usually show interest in other people's decks as well and hence, assuming the person I'm talking to doesn't lack basic social skills, they show interest in my stuff. But again, a real life conversation is much easier and "quicker" than one on the internet. It even took about 15min for me to write this up :p...
Anyway, I gladly check your decks out and leave a comment at some point;).
Well, upon reading your comment I checked your decks out. I thought your Unesh list had quite some feedback, but maybe you expected a little bit more? Whenever one invests time into something it's quite common the expect at least some responses, I can understand that. But the amount one expects is certainly a very individual thing.
Anyway, I can understand your concerns to some extend. But then one has to remember a few things: There are only a "couple" of people on these forums that could give you the feedback you need for a very tuned decklist. You put a lot of thinking into your deck, so I guess other people need to think about your choices even more. But that feedback is only concerning the tuning of your deck. There are other options: praising the deck, simply giving a "high 5" for playing the same deck, etc.
What kind of feedback would you have liked to get?
Anyhow, more information about the deck (maybe adding some pictures, writing a story "why did I build it in the first place?", etc.) yields more comments as more people can join in to message you, not only the ones that give constructive advice on cards choices to make the deck more potent. That's at least reasonable claim, but please prove me wrong - I'm a long time lurker (very long time...) but I'm only starting to get involved in the forums now (at least from time to time). So my knowledge about all this is very limited and are more assumptions than anything else.
First one was a guy playing pir + toothy, had pir out with a couple counters on him. I have Kaervek out and am doing my "he who casts the spell chooses the targets" thing, and I also have wound reflection out. Player 2 blows up all artifacts (which destroys a lot of my stuff, and pir+toothy players stuff) and swings at pir with a 12/12 while pir player is at 28. He doesn't block and takes a total of 24 after the wound reflection, which makes me think "ok, so he must be about to win the game with the pir, otherwise why would he go for 4 to avoid chumping, especially when I have kaervek on board?" Player 3 casts a spell, and I suggest targeting pir, and the pir player says "if you do that, I scoop". The guy chooses to target something else.
I guess it was quite reasonable to assume that the Pir player was about to win and so targeting his Pir is certainly a play I would have made myself. But then, one cannot assume that others think the same way. Sometimes I let that much damage go through as well to simply smack someone with my general next turn, even though it's certainly not the smartest/best way I could have played (sometimes hitting some for "showing them the teeth you have" can be fun). But that's another topic, I guess. To me it seems that understanding his reaction would have solved the problem for later games. But then, many players I meet at the local store are not really there to talk and want to play the game they want to play (with their "rules" in mind). Maybe the Pir players has such an attitude as well?
He says he's not going to tell me.
He wanted to smack you ;). So your reaction was understandable and the correct political solution in that situation.
I think both cases went decently.
Yes, after reading your comment I thought exactly the same thing. Your reaction towards this (more or less) toxic play was good and you even play your Kaervek deck very player friendly.
I would actually argue against simply running both. I depends a lot on the composition of your land base. So let's assume you run 12 utility lands, e.g. Ancient Tomb, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, some that grant haste etc. You will easily have 10 to 14 utility lands. Now assume you run 38 lands in total. So what's the probability of drawing at least 2 utility lands until turn 5 without extra draw effects?
for 10 utility lands: 34.8%
for 11 utility lands: 39,7%
for 12 utility lands: 44,5%
for 13 utility lands: 49,1%
for 14 utility lands: 53,5%
I think if you run 12 utility lands the probability is rather high of drawing such a land and thus making Extraplanar Lens rather bad - you still need to exile an existing land on the field! I guess there are better options in that case that might suit the deck better, e.g. more control elements and interaction. But then again, it depends on the meta - if you run into a lot of artifact hate you should forget about the lens. It sets you back too much. Otherwise, sure, you can test it out and see how it suits your playstyle.
I experienced that as well, but not very often. Usually, the people who are doing exactly such a thing as you described are not really the ones I like to play with (they often whine about every decision against their board anyway 0_o). Hence my answer is usually a very clear "Well, then go ahead if you think that's the right move for you." - that usually makes them think about their decision again and the "problem" is solved.
@DirkGently: How did you respond to this situation you described? How did you "solve" it?
I would say it's the cube, but it really depends on your build. If you have a few XR spell which can use all the mana then the cube is certainly nice but somehow needs Neheb, the Eternal out to function. Let's make some calculations:
1) Assume you have n mountains out and you already imprinted a mountain on the lens during the last turn. Then you get 2n mana with the lens. With the cube you get 2(n-3). In that sense, n needs to be bigger than 4, otherwise the cube doesn't yield anything.
2) Assume you have m mountains, n utility lands and l mana from Neheb. For the lens (still assuming that a mountain is imprinted) you still get 2m mana. But for the cube you get 2(m+n+l-3). So the difference between those is 2n+2l-6. So if n+l>3 then you're good to go! I would suppose, with Neheb out, this is often then case.
Let's say you play 7 utility lands, which is not a very high number even in mono color decks, and 38 lands in total then the probability of drawing one such land in the first 5 turns is around 60,7%. So more than every second game you should get a utility land in the first 5 of your turns (without drawing additional cards!). Playing some rocks in addition you should have Neheb out on turn 4 or 5, so on turn 5 or 6 you can get a value for l which is certainly higher than 2, which makes the cube better.
I guess Boros is certainly not one of the "best" color combinations out there, as many pointed out already. Also, most of the commanders in that color combination are very combat focused. But for me Depala, Pilot Exemplar, Firesong and Sunspeaker and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight have always been kind of interesting to build - I simply don't have a very good Boros card pool.
For MLD one needs a very focused and dedicated deck. For example, taking a look at other formats: old extended white weenie lists were playing Armageddon on turn 4 to simply win with evasive creatures. In a 4 player ffa commander game this is much harder to achieve and needs certain setups. Otherwise a MLD spell might simply cause a stall.
Look to the sunforger, for he shall lead us to glory.
This, at least for me, has always been the exact idea one has to think about. One needs good deck building skills to make Boros work well. For other colors it's always been easier to get a decent deck without too much skill.
1) It's not particular fast. Tends to be more mid-range agro based, I think there's a definite window it can dominate mid to early late game but if game goes on really long I remember falling dead to a lot of blue control decks and G/B/x recursion engines that will get like... some graveyard/Greater Good engine going and go retarded and get a million lands in play, or some Child of Alara decks that ramp and can blow up the board and drop planeswalkers and ult, these are just examples where as a Red/White you don't have the same engine and will fall to those kind of decks if you allow them to get their enchantments and broken engines going.
2) Lack of tutoring and recursion. You can't guarantee to be able to get the cards you want, this limits the type of decks you can really construct, if you're putting together a lot of combo pieces or synergies you can't you need to rely more on redundancy to ensure it'll operate consistently.
3) There's not a lot of just ridiculously "unfair" creatures and spells, Boros tends to be very straightforward removal, sweeps, and combat based. There's just not a lot of Tidespout Tyrants, Memnarchs, Avenger of Zendikar into haste KO's, Praetors and such as much as some of the other Colors, exeption maybe Iona but there's reasons she's shunned so a lot of people don't play her.
4) The format itself. This is just my experience in past, but people play so pillow fort that the style of Boros agro ends up being the decks that takes out 1, 2, or 3 players and loses-- it's because so many decks these days don't have aggro in mind, Boros wants to attack and play tempo and so many decks just want to Propaganda/Ghostly Prison and defend so just by the nature of the deck you will always be the guy with Inferno Titans and angels up that the lazy playgroup sees as a threat, group cucks you most of the game, then the control player that everyone ignored much of the game swoops in at end unchecked and wins it like you warned people he would. This is more of the psychological side of the game that I feel is a flaw, but I'm afraid will always be there, in Commander there's sort of a stigma in aggressive decks that swing for damage where there is none (amazingly) for everyone turtling for an hour and losing in one turn to someone "going off", it's become the sad nature of this format.
I think this is a very good comment and I can support most of the things said here (at least what I experienced myself and others told me). Especially the last point is well put - but this is not really a problem for Boros only. But as Boros tends to be quite combat focused, one needs to deal with this issue more often.
In a playgroup with friends this "combat issue" is usually not a real problem, they know the deck, they know you and how you play. But in a "random" playgroup where new players drop by quite often point 4 is certainly an issue I experience all the time.
For the spellslinger type deck, maybe try to find small creatures with flying and some sort of draw effect (drawing, scry, ...) or with some prowess effect. Then you could add some Swords of X & Y and go to town.
Another option would be some kind of blue devotion subtheme, adding Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
It seems like noone wants to piss off anyone else so they dont attack.
Did you already talk to the players about this particular problem? I'm just asking because you wrote that "it seems".
If it's a fact that many of the people you play regularly with (say about 2/3) think that attacking causes feelings like "why are you always targeting me? You did it last game already!" and maybe even anger to some extend, then this is an issue of communication. How do people usually react in group group when they are targeted?
Just a reminder from a game I had about two weeks ago: I was playing a Ghalta Stompy deck that's super slow, super casual and really more of an old-school kitchen table deck a kid at the age of 10 would play (I mean, remember those times? Slamming 8/8 everywhere and opening a booster with some big monster? No one really cared about rarity or money value.). Anyway, long story short, on turn 4 I had my first dude out and started attacking on turn 5. I randomly chose someone because I didn't know a single person or deck I was playing against. Well, turned out the guy was quite pissed off by that and no one really wanted to attack him because of this attitude. He won because no one touched his board state properly or attacked him. I thought: "Well, first game - let's see how the second one turns out!"
During the second game I was targeted from the beginning until the end by that exact same player. He took me out on turn 6 or 7, normally I would be fine with that - but this attitude was quite unnecessary and "childish" in some way. His board state was even worse during the second game and again, no one dared to attack him. Next time I will be in such a situation I would talk to the person nicely and try to get a hint why he's doing that.
But still, there's always the possibility that you meet people that simply don't want to talk and get pissy just by touching anything on their board. One has to move on in such a situation ;).
Here are some questions that you can ask yourself:
- why is everyone pissed off after being attacked?
- what does happen if someone executes a game winning combo?
- do you/others enjoy long games?
Some "solutions":
- communication is key when someone is getting pissy
- play a general that doesn't focus directly, let's say Kaervek the Merciless
- you want to attack first but don't know who's going to get hit? Roll a die.
- play a bit more risky
- think ahead what you want to do during your next turn
- ...
Some things that slow the games down:
- tutoring (without shortcuts)
- complicated synergy decks
- not being actively present during a game (with the mind)
- playing to much control and not enough action cards
- durdling
- stax
- too much jank
- ...
I have seen quite a few "different" ramp decks, let's start with two different green based ramp decks. Let's take a "typical" Azusa ramp deck which tries to get a big Eldrazi online in the first couple of turns or simply tries to take advantage of having a lot of lands. I wouldn't say that having 10+ lands on turn 5 is problematic, as the poster of the thread already noticed:
...therefore spending more mana over the course of the game is the single biggest predictor of winning...
Having lands is one part, but you need to spend the mana otherwise there's not much of a big deal. So you need some kind of card advantage, in Azusa it's certainly some form of card draw or maybe Stax piece. So the problematic cards are the ones that give you an advantage. So, in the case of Azusa counter spells seem to work quite well, because if the cards are already on the field it might be too late.
Let's take another example: Seton.
Assume one builds something like a Druid/Elf Ball kind of deck. Here the mana comes mostly from creatures and using Seton. But not having a payoff in form of a big draw spell, or let's say a Craterhoof Behemoth, doesn't yield anything. So what does Seton need:
- quite a few Druids on the board
- maybe Seton to generate mana
- some payoff
You can tackle this deck with wraths, counter Seton or simply counter the draw spell. There are certainly more angles to attack such a deck. Here attacking the mana base, which is based on mana dorks, is certainly efficient.
Another green based example: old Zegana.
She's certainly not super popular but having a big creature/ramp deck with her at the helm works quite well in more casual groups. You basically need two things to go "off": a reasonably big creature and then cast Zegana. You get so many cards of just casting her that basically have a full new hand with a lot of answers threads.
Wraths only work to some extend but countering Zegana is backbreaking for this deck. MLD might do the job as well, but I would say that a counter is more versatile.
Last example: some red based artifact deck, e.g. Daretti
These decks don't ramp a lot with lands but with mana rocks. The advantage usually comes from artifacts drawing you cards, Stax pieces, recurring form the grave, etc. So in the end MLD does almost nothing, countering is an option but it doesn't yield you much (1 counter answers 1 of their cards), but blowing up some artifacts sets these kind of decks totally back (there are enough spells that blow up more than 1 artifact).
At the end of the day, I would say combating ramp is totally dependent on your opponents decks and how they use their resources to get card advantage. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but:
- Counterspell work quite well against the typical "I ramp with Cultivate and stuff"-decks, e.g. ramping and casting one big payoff spell
- Wraths work well against creature based ramp
- Artifact destruction works well against red based ramp decks
But there are certainly more suitle things I didn't cover and there are certainly different styles of ramp (for example with mana doublers). This were just the things I face the most. Oh, and don't forget: ... getting the ramp player from 40 to 0 works always quite well...;)
Fun is somewhat an overused word and is certainly dependent on local things like the playgroup and your own definition of fun. After a long time playing I realized that "fun" is something that changes a lot and sometimes even depends on your mood. What worked for me is always something that can interact with the table, e.g.
- UB Silumgar theft deck (most of the time you win with cards you got from the table). This scales very well with the other players decks and is therefore not overpowered, hence let's call it "fair". But sometimes it might be a bit frustrating for other players to lose their stuff to you, at least I experienced it. But all the players always enjoyed that the decks plays differently every time.
- a TapOut Bant control list with Jenara. Somewhat like the Azorius Titan lists in Modern. This is interactive for all players and scales quite well in multiplayers settings.
What I play today is a Big creature Stompy with Ghalta (over 40 Fatties), it totally lacks interactions (except for things like Terastodon) and simply plays my old favourite creatures. The fun simply comes from facts like "I remember that card! I got it form a booster 20 years ago!". So it's fun for me and for the table as well because I can tell the younger players stories about how it was quite a few years ago and how everything changed over time. This is certainly a very personal view on what's fun.
Anyway, you can play different styles with both colors. Here are some nice examples (all of them work really well):
- Jaya Ballard, Task Mage can be a nice mono red control deck. You can focus more on artifacts and giving here protection from red. I once played a burn version which was actually quite nice. I used many "mass" burn spells to get rid of creatures and then finished off with some damage doublers and mana doublers.
- Ilharg, the Raze Boar could be build as a nice ETB deck. I'm quite certain you don't need big fatties and can play a similar game as most Feldon of the Third Path.
- Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker can give you this combo-feeling you might have been looking for.
- Zada, Hedron Grinder gives you a super glass cannon combo deck which can even be built quite cheap if you have some concerns about the budget.
- both mono red Nehebs are also really nice and can give you this "card drawing"-feeling that many blue based decks can give. And both of them can get out of hand quite easily.
- Etali, Primal Storm looks quite boring at first but I can assure you that this dinosaur is super cool in a multiplayer setting. Just use some haste enablers and go to town.
- If you like some kind of pillowfort strategies then you can use Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs. There are many cool old enchantments that work reasonably well with him.
- If you are looking for some hyper competitive deck then there's a pretty nasty list called "Godo Helm" with Godo, Bandit Warlord.
- Last but not least, there are many tribal options, e.g. Goblins, Dragons, etc.
For green, many strategies revolve around creatures. But also there are many nice options:
- Omnath, Locus of Mana can easily overpower the table if not he's not answered early enough. There are many mana doublers out there that work nicely with him. I even player a mill versions once, and even that worked!
- Titania, Protector of Argoth gives you a really nice lands based strategy. You can go more on a token route or even a very controllish list. But many cards in such a deck are quite expensinve (concerning the budget).
- Reki, the History of Kamigawa is pretty much a "legend ball" style deck and get's new cards in almost every set. It works quite nice and you can use many cool legends and legendary permanents (Planeswalkers, Artifacts, etc.).
- Seton, Krosan Protector offers a cool tribal deck that can get out of hand on turn 3/4 quite easily. But it usually doesn't have a lot of interaction.
- Ghalta, Primal Hunger can be build in different style. You can use elves and use him as a big finisher, big creatures beatdown or even combo with Food Chain. For example, I have a big creature Stompy deck with him. It's slow but when it gets going then it's just super fun. Now there are even nice new cards, I'm looking forward to Finale of Devastation for X>=10 and get God-Eternal Rhonas making my commander's power over 40 :).
For me it has always been a question of "how much interaction do I want?". A nice green control deck (there's a super cool primer with Nissa around here) can give you a very satisfying game in which you did a lot of "answering" whereas a Stompy style deck is "simple" and plays a lot of cool creature but almost no interaction (but that depends on your build entirely).
As for the second question: I don't mind proxies, even if someone is crushing a table with a proxied deck. As long as it was a cool gaming experience I'm fine with it (there is much more to a game than just slamming cards around, at least for me).
But I guess, this is the internet and not a real life conversation (yeah stating the obvious, I know...:)). But I need to tell this myself many times whenever I drop by and check out some threads.
Also, you said something very important: DirkGently pointed exactly this out. I usually show interest in other people's decks as well and hence, assuming the person I'm talking to doesn't lack basic social skills, they show interest in my stuff. But again, a real life conversation is much easier and "quicker" than one on the internet. It even took about 15min for me to write this up :p...
Anyway, I gladly check your decks out and leave a comment at some point;).
Anyway, I can understand your concerns to some extend. But then one has to remember a few things: There are only a "couple" of people on these forums that could give you the feedback you need for a very tuned decklist. You put a lot of thinking into your deck, so I guess other people need to think about your choices even more. But that feedback is only concerning the tuning of your deck. There are other options: praising the deck, simply giving a "high 5" for playing the same deck, etc.
What kind of feedback would you have liked to get?
Anyhow, more information about the deck (maybe adding some pictures, writing a story "why did I build it in the first place?", etc.) yields more comments as more people can join in to message you, not only the ones that give constructive advice on cards choices to make the deck more potent. That's at least reasonable claim, but please prove me wrong - I'm a long time lurker (very long time...) but I'm only starting to get involved in the forums now (at least from time to time). So my knowledge about all this is very limited and are more assumptions than anything else.
He wanted to smack you ;). So your reaction was understandable and the correct political solution in that situation.
Yes, after reading your comment I thought exactly the same thing. Your reaction towards this (more or less) toxic play was good and you even play your Kaervek deck very player friendly.
for 10 utility lands: 34.8%
for 11 utility lands: 39,7%
for 12 utility lands: 44,5%
for 13 utility lands: 49,1%
for 14 utility lands: 53,5%
I think if you run 12 utility lands the probability is rather high of drawing such a land and thus making Extraplanar Lens rather bad - you still need to exile an existing land on the field! I guess there are better options in that case that might suit the deck better, e.g. more control elements and interaction. But then again, it depends on the meta - if you run into a lot of artifact hate you should forget about the lens. It sets you back too much. Otherwise, sure, you can test it out and see how it suits your playstyle.
@DirkGently: How did you respond to this situation you described? How did you "solve" it?
I would say it's the cube, but it really depends on your build. If you have a few XR spell which can use all the mana then the cube is certainly nice but somehow needs Neheb, the Eternal out to function. Let's make some calculations:
1) Assume you have n mountains out and you already imprinted a mountain on the lens during the last turn. Then you get 2n mana with the lens. With the cube you get 2(n-3). In that sense, n needs to be bigger than 4, otherwise the cube doesn't yield anything.
2) Assume you have m mountains, n utility lands and l mana from Neheb. For the lens (still assuming that a mountain is imprinted) you still get 2m mana. But for the cube you get 2(m+n+l-3). So the difference between those is 2n+2l-6. So if n+l>3 then you're good to go! I would suppose, with Neheb out, this is often then case.
Let's say you play 7 utility lands, which is not a very high number even in mono color decks, and 38 lands in total then the probability of drawing one such land in the first 5 turns is around 60,7%. So more than every second game you should get a utility land in the first 5 of your turns (without drawing additional cards!). Playing some rocks in addition you should have Neheb out on turn 4 or 5, so on turn 5 or 6 you can get a value for l which is certainly higher than 2, which makes the cube better.
So, in conclusion, I'd say stay with the cube.
For MLD one needs a very focused and dedicated deck. For example, taking a look at other formats: old extended white weenie lists were playing Armageddon on turn 4 to simply win with evasive creatures. In a 4 player ffa commander game this is much harder to achieve and needs certain setups. Otherwise a MLD spell might simply cause a stall.
This, at least for me, has always been the exact idea one has to think about. One needs good deck building skills to make Boros work well. For other colors it's always been easier to get a decent deck without too much skill.
I think this is a very good comment and I can support most of the things said here (at least what I experienced myself and others told me). Especially the last point is well put - but this is not really a problem for Boros only. But as Boros tends to be quite combat focused, one needs to deal with this issue more often.
In a playgroup with friends this "combat issue" is usually not a real problem, they know the deck, they know you and how you play. But in a "random" playgroup where new players drop by quite often point 4 is certainly an issue I experience all the time.
Otherwise the following creatures come to mind:
- Vexing Sphinx
- Argent Sphinx
- Curator of Mysteries
- Undead Alchemist (He might be pretty cool with the unblockability and could get ugly quite fast!)
- Shorecrasher Elemental
Do you want to play Artifact creatures as well? Then you might find a few more options.
Anyway, for bigger creatures the following come to mind:
- Angler Turtle
- Benthic Behemoth
- Breaching Leviathan
- Goliath Sphinx
- Great Whale
- Nephalia Moondrakes
- Quicksilver Gargantuan
- Sphinx of the Final Word
- Trench Gorger
- Windreader Sphinx
- Sphinx of Magosi
- Torrential Gearhulk
And on the "lower" end of the curve:
- Aberrant Researcher
- Docent of Perfection
- Guile
- Glyph Keeper
- Kefnet the Mindful
- Ludevic's Test Subject
For the spellslinger type deck, maybe try to find small creatures with flying and some sort of draw effect (drawing, scry, ...) or with some prowess effect. Then you could add some Swords of X & Y and go to town.
Another option would be some kind of blue devotion subtheme, adding Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.
Did you already talk to the players about this particular problem? I'm just asking because you wrote that "it seems".
If it's a fact that many of the people you play regularly with (say about 2/3) think that attacking causes feelings like "why are you always targeting me? You did it last game already!" and maybe even anger to some extend, then this is an issue of communication. How do people usually react in group group when they are targeted?
Just a reminder from a game I had about two weeks ago: I was playing a Ghalta Stompy deck that's super slow, super casual and really more of an old-school kitchen table deck a kid at the age of 10 would play (I mean, remember those times? Slamming 8/8 everywhere and opening a booster with some big monster? No one really cared about rarity or money value.). Anyway, long story short, on turn 4 I had my first dude out and started attacking on turn 5. I randomly chose someone because I didn't know a single person or deck I was playing against. Well, turned out the guy was quite pissed off by that and no one really wanted to attack him because of this attitude. He won because no one touched his board state properly or attacked him. I thought: "Well, first game - let's see how the second one turns out!"
During the second game I was targeted from the beginning until the end by that exact same player. He took me out on turn 6 or 7, normally I would be fine with that - but this attitude was quite unnecessary and "childish" in some way. His board state was even worse during the second game and again, no one dared to attack him. Next time I will be in such a situation I would talk to the person nicely and try to get a hint why he's doing that.
But still, there's always the possibility that you meet people that simply don't want to talk and get pissy just by touching anything on their board. One has to move on in such a situation ;).
Here are some questions that you can ask yourself:
- why is everyone pissed off after being attacked?
- what does happen if someone executes a game winning combo?
- do you/others enjoy long games?
Some "solutions":
- communication is key when someone is getting pissy
- play a general that doesn't focus directly, let's say Kaervek the Merciless
- you want to attack first but don't know who's going to get hit? Roll a die.
- play a bit more risky
- think ahead what you want to do during your next turn
- ...
Some things that slow the games down:
- tutoring (without shortcuts)
- complicated synergy decks
- not being actively present during a game (with the mind)
- playing to much control and not enough action cards
- durdling
- stax
- too much jank
- ...
Having lands is one part, but you need to spend the mana otherwise there's not much of a big deal. So you need some kind of card advantage, in Azusa it's certainly some form of card draw or maybe Stax piece. So the problematic cards are the ones that give you an advantage. So, in the case of Azusa counter spells seem to work quite well, because if the cards are already on the field it might be too late.
Let's take another example: Seton.
Assume one builds something like a Druid/Elf Ball kind of deck. Here the mana comes mostly from creatures and using Seton. But not having a payoff in form of a big draw spell, or let's say a Craterhoof Behemoth, doesn't yield anything. So what does Seton need:
- quite a few Druids on the board
- maybe Seton to generate mana
- some payoff
You can tackle this deck with wraths, counter Seton or simply counter the draw spell. There are certainly more angles to attack such a deck. Here attacking the mana base, which is based on mana dorks, is certainly efficient.
Another green based example: old Zegana.
She's certainly not super popular but having a big creature/ramp deck with her at the helm works quite well in more casual groups. You basically need two things to go "off": a reasonably big creature and then cast Zegana. You get so many cards of just casting her that basically have a full new hand with a lot of answers threads.
Wraths only work to some extend but countering Zegana is backbreaking for this deck. MLD might do the job as well, but I would say that a counter is more versatile.
Last example: some red based artifact deck, e.g. Daretti
These decks don't ramp a lot with lands but with mana rocks. The advantage usually comes from artifacts drawing you cards, Stax pieces, recurring form the grave, etc. So in the end MLD does almost nothing, countering is an option but it doesn't yield you much (1 counter answers 1 of their cards), but blowing up some artifacts sets these kind of decks totally back (there are enough spells that blow up more than 1 artifact).
At the end of the day, I would say combating ramp is totally dependent on your opponents decks and how they use their resources to get card advantage. Maybe I'm stating the obvious, but:
- Counterspell work quite well against the typical "I ramp with Cultivate and stuff"-decks, e.g. ramping and casting one big payoff spell
- Wraths work well against creature based ramp
- Artifact destruction works well against red based ramp decks
But there are certainly more suitle things I didn't cover and there are certainly different styles of ramp (for example with mana doublers). This were just the things I face the most. Oh, and don't forget: ... getting the ramp player from 40 to 0 works always quite well...;)
your own definition of fun. After a long time playing I realized that "fun" is something that changes a lot and sometimes even depends on your mood. What worked for me is always something that can interact with the table, e.g.- UB Silumgar theft deck (most of the time you win with cards you got from the table). This scales very well with the other players decks and is therefore not overpowered, hence let's call it "fair". But sometimes it might be a bit frustrating for other players to lose their stuff to you, at least I experienced it. But all the players always enjoyed that the decks plays differently every time.
- a TapOut Bant control list with Jenara. Somewhat like the Azorius Titan lists in Modern. This is interactive for all players and scales quite well in multiplayers settings.
What I play today is a Big creature Stompy with Ghalta (over 40 Fatties), it totally lacks interactions (except for things like Terastodon) and simply plays my old favourite creatures. The fun simply comes from facts like "I remember that card! I got it form a booster 20 years ago!". So it's fun for me and for the table as well because I can tell the younger players stories about how it was quite a few years ago and how everything changed over time. This is certainly a very personal view on what's fun.
So, what's fun for you?