Bloody hell, Ponder... and with Sigil... that's a cute idea, really :), and you get the draw (x2 with Sigil's duping, and actually if you have the mana and the merfolk you could dupe again).
KingChewie, a fine idea, I'm gonna try that out. Best of all, it's a simple common, just like Spec.
Naw, not just drawing, but fixing the draw - making sure you get what you want. With Scry you can rearrange the order and slap anything you don't want on the bottom of the deck. Dousing gives some actual draw, but if I really want more physical drawing I'd find a way to work in Sage of Fables.
Yes, I see what you mean now, a silly mistake. Could have sworn I heard someone mention being able to use multiple Commerces in play to untap, but that does make sense.
thinking about your deck, i think you must get out your mystic speculatiuon because it seens like a hard cast, and you cant cast it a firsts turns , maybe if you want play it without buyback, and that seens an useless card, maybe you can carry more counters like rune snagg to control or removals
Hmmm... I just hate the idea of not being able to fix my draw, but perhaps it would be best to bounce it in favor of more counter. Maybe 4 Summons is a bit much, 3 maybe, but 2 would make it much harder to draw - it's important to get the horde in play, but as for what would take their place, I don't know. Now I'm starting to think Teferi could be useful here, even though he's not a merfolk, or I suppose you could add in another Sygg. Still, at least 3 schools - you only need one to play with, but you need to make sure you can draw it when its needed, especially if you can't fix your draw.
also, your land is a bit odd and i'm guessing is based on supply
Bingo, I use what I have on hand or can trade for. I am looking to trade a little later to get one more hub and some Adrakar. Nimbus Maze is good too, but even though I'd be pinched for a point, I'd still use the Wastes over the maze - our friend the Judge can get me that life back easily.
also, drop the sigil tracer entirely, they're fun for cute little tricks, but are entirely unnecessary in a primarily creature-based dec
I disagree, the Tracer is good for more than simple tricks. She's there because she can also force tapping, and acts as more of a defensive card - a player who is running heavy burn or kill may think twice if they know their spells can be bounced back at them or their creatures.
i still really don't believe that witsnipers and ink dissolvers are really needed in the deck, they just don't affect the deck enough on their own to matter. on turn 2, i'd rather drop a banneret to allow me to empty my hand on turn 3 or 4 and mill for an assload or a judge to allow me to gain more life than they can deal, than a card that might mill a measly 3 cards a turn
Witsnipers I agree with, and I'm going to rip them out. Probably replace them with the Moths. Mind you, with the Dissolver when you look at that top card it works for multiple Dissolvers in play (folks, correct me if I am wrong), so if two or three are sitting out and you get a card that works with their kinship it applies to all of them. Now, the question is when deck space is limited and you want to run 4 Thieves and 4 Drowners, is putting Dissolvers in there unnecessary? That I think I might be able to agree with, and thus in a finished version of this deck they might be ripped out.
my main problem with story circles and mystic spec is that they aren't merfolk, and can be a bit expensive
I just can't separate from Spec, since I love to be able to fix my draws, but if the Dissolver goes by the wayside, the primary motivator for using it is gone. But in the midgame when you have reduced your costs and have mana sitting around, being able to fix the draw can still be useful. I'm torn on this one.
As for Story Circle... I have to agree for the most part. I really wanted the ability to shrug off damage, but it likely does not have sufficient synergy with the rest of the deck to be very useful, or reliable. It will likely be cut in the final iteration of this build.
summon is definitely in the deck, it's really useful when you can't find the drowner and you have thieves and judges in play and no way to tap them, plus it gives you blockers out the ass
Frankly given the previous combo example I made, Summon is central to the deck, and if you can have 3 bannerets in play, everything in the deck will cost no more than UU or W.
I really think if this deck can be trimmed down to its key essentials it could be very competitive - against critter heavy decks, even big power ones like Warrior, it can stall or control. Against Burn, which is notoriously creature-light, it can be overwhelmed on the ground, and protected from harm by Sygg, Dousings, and Sigil Tracer (I'm telling ya, she can be very useful as a deterent).
So here is what I am thinking for the final build:
In this build I limited the Judge and Mothdust to 3 because they hold a support importance to the deck, while the pairs offer a background role (copying, fixing, and deflecting - all important roles, but secondary to the main goal of milling and launching tokens)
Edit:
@KingChewie
The problem I see with your math is that Summon the school is a sorcery and consequently can't be played between the resolutions of the different Merrow Commerce
Okay, this is usually where I get confused when a lot is going on in the stack. You cast the Summon and then use the Reejereys to untap the land used, right? Then you can tap 4 Merfolk you control to retrieve it. Merrow Commerce then kicks in to untap the Merfolk, right? Can you not cast Summon again since it is still your turn and everything on the stack has resolved? And if another Commerce is present, its effects would untap the Merfolk again after you used them to fish the Summons out of the graveyard once more. If I am getting something wrong, let me know, I want to make sure I understand this strategy completely before I would attempt it.
Mothdust, honestly I never really looked at it, but it would be a much better fit over all than the Witsniper. As to the three Drowners, I just couldn't part with anything else, and I wanted to stay at 60 cards :). It's a key card for the deck, but three has seemed to work, but if I kick Story Circle in the end I might drop in another Drowner.
EDIT: Actually, now that I think about this logically, what does this deck really try to do?
1: Shred the opponent's deck while
2: Making sure they can't harm you
3: Make certain you get what you need, when you need it
How is this accomplished?
1: Having the highest concentration of cards that allow you to Mill - more milling the better (In order of important - Grimoire Thief, Drowner, and Dissolver)
2: Having a means to deflect enemy damage from your creatures and yourself, or to simply have so much life it is not as relevant if you do take a bad hit (accomplished most easily by a combination of counter spells, Judge, and Sygg, and Sigil Tracer can make casting that kill spell a little less appealing if you can just dupe it and, god forbid, cancel their own spell with a Dousing)
3: Having the means to push out as much stuff as possible, as quickly as possible (best ways to do this - Banneret and Reejerey, and Merrow Commerce)
4: Getting as many Merfolik into play as possible to either chump block or be used in the tapping abilities of other cards (Summon and Schoolmaster)
5: Making sure you get everything you need, and can do so reliably (Mystic Speculation is a favorite of mine)
So when I consider all this, I guess the key points of the deck are to press this out quickly and get the combo working.
An ideal combo, which could work by turn 5-6 or so would have you with 2 Bannerets, 2 Reejereys, a Sygg, a Commerce or two, and a pair of Thieves and then yank a Summon the School. By cutting the fat and giving yourself the highest chance to draw these cards, you can rip and tear fiercely. What I was thinking was this:
With the Bannerets the cost of Summon becomes 1W, and the moment it is cast you can untap those lands.
Then you can tap the thieves and any two of the others, get the Summon back, untap your critters with Commerce, do it again, and then again (assuming two Commerces are in play), and again one more time, this last time using the Reejereys to untap the Thieves.
You then have 24 of their cards removed and, if you so wish, you can sac the Thieves with two U and in all likelihood their deck will be neutered at that point, if it hasn't been wasted entirely. And in the end you are out UUW and 1 of any other color. And if all else fails, you now have 8 3/3 Merfolk Wizards in play.
Okay, I was tinkering with this a bit and found one thing right away - the Ambassador doesn't work with this particular combo for a few reasons.
1: Leaving some mana on stand buy for my Sage's Dousings is necessary
2: Leaving mana for Sygg to play with is more important
3: Story Circle also competes for mana
So in the end there isn't enough to go around. So here is the build I have so far, but it has yet to be tested competitively. This is also my first stab at using this board's deck format, so let's see if this works as well.
(Will go back to edit if this is screwed up format wise)
What I question is the use of the Witsniper, since after its ability is used, it's just a chump, and this deck can produce plenty of tokens. I find Summon the School VERY useful, especially with Merrow Reejerey and Stonybrook Banneret - once two Bannerets and two Reejereys are in play, this spell is basically free - you can just untap the two lands used to play it, and if you have two more Merrow Commerce out, you can tap and untap four more merfolk twice and do this again, and in the end nothing will be tapped and you'll be six merfolk wizard tokens richer.
Some might be wondering what Story Circle is doing in here. Answer: I like to be well defended, holding off the opponent as long as possible, and if I can't stop a flier or knock down a burn spell, I'd like to be able to absorb it. Only one is in here because it is not 100% necessary, but I like having the option.
Now, I love Grimoire Thief to death, but I found that both the Dissolver and the Thief can co-exist in the deck nicely, especially when the Drowner hits the table. And when all three are present, the deck chew is nasty, and with Mystic Speculation, as long as I can keep buying it back every few rounds, I can fix my draw, which has helped immensely.
Sigil Tracer can be very nice here, especially with Grimoire Thief. Also even though the land was limited to 20, I never felt pinched except very early on, but that didn't last long, especially since the most expensive spell in the deck is 3W, and that can be whittled down by the Banneret.
Admittedly, I don't know if I should keep Story Circle in, but it has already worked for me once to hold off the horde until I could get the milling really going, but if I found something else to replace it, I might rip it out. I seriously considered dropping a non-Mer wizard in here, Teferi, to further increase my speed and slow down the enemy, but I'm not sure there either. I don't even own a Teferi right now (and all the lands in the deck are what I happen to have - might trade for another Wanderwine, and some Adarkar Wastes would be good to, since life isn't generally an issue with this build - thank you, Judge).
One Reejerey lets you tap, or untap, one permanent of your choice. You can do this once for each Merfolk spell played, for each Reejerey you control. You can, indeed, untap one of the lands you tapped to play the spell. The combination of Reejerey and the Banneret is just sick
Ok, thanks, I just needed to make sure that I wasn't completely off my nut and reading things wrong, but I was just sitting there looking at my Reejereys, my bannerets, and Summon the School and my Merrow Commerce and saying to myself "this just seems... wrong somehow."
That is sick, and now that I was reading about LoA I think I'm going to dump him - I haven't run aground of the wrath of the Chameleon Colossus yet, but now that I see how that would work it looks like that LoA will hurt me more than help me in some cases.
Also with the Bannerets I guess it is best to look for cards that have as little U in the cost as possible, and LoA cannot benefit from Banneret.
As for the Ambassador, I dunno, it's true the Mill-Folk deck isn't big on mana production, but I'm just wondering if the ability to mill three cards for the 3 mana would be worth him taking up a slot. Only way to know is to test, of course. I'm going to tinker with this a bit and I'll post my own version once I've a chance to test it. Thanks for the answer to my rules question Weatherguy.
Edit: Oh, what about Ink Dissolver? I was using him in conjunction with Mystic Speculation and having good luck, but what does everyone think of Kinship? You need to reveal the card in question, but is it worth milling three cards from each opponent's deck? I've only been playing casually, but would this be a bad idea for competitive play?
This brings to mind what may very well be a silly question, but with the Reejerey it states that when you play a merfolk spell you can tap or untap target permanent, so were I to cast summon the school could I then untap one land I just used to cast it for each Reejerey I have in play? I have a deck very similar to the one above and I want to make sure I'm not doing anything screwy.
Oh, and how about tossing in Ambassador Loquatous? I figured he'd be a great one for a Mill-Folk deck.
I was rather disappointed by the first Lorwyn novel, and this one doesn't sound much better. The actual skill of the writing was mediocre at best, and their editor must not be that attentive, I lost count of the errors in the last book. I was not compelled to pick this one up, and if I was it would only be because I actually liked Ashling.
In fact, she was the only character that I liked in the first book. The Vendilion Clique was funny sometimes, but the rest was rubbish. I outright hated Brigid, Rhys I just didn't care about, and I wanted to beat Teeg about the head viciously. And the continuing lack of planeswalkers irks me - there are so many cards in the set, and they've only touched on the barest handful.
The best build I ever had focused on WG and relied upon Gemhides to get me BUR, but one card I couldn't do without and made sure to have at least 2-3 in my deck was Root Sliver. In combination with Crystalline Sliver it was nasty - Can't counter a sliver spell once it's cast ("Split Second" essentially) and then with the Crystal can't target it with a spell when it comes into play.
Also, since building power was priority 1, I tended to stick to creatures that gave me power boosts, so full playsets of Sinew and Muscle were present, Necrotic was there to deal with hard targets (needed Gemhide to get him out, but usually wasn't a problem), and then one card most people poo-pooed for its high cost, but that I found invaluable:
Akroma's Memorial. Yes, many of its abilities can be obtained through other sliver types, but getting all that at once and half the time finishing the game by the next round unless they could knock it out was great.
I also used Gaea's and Glorious Anthem in order to give me a power advantage vs. other sliver decks, same deal with Akroma's - my creatures get the goodies, but if they run slivers or Hivestone, I want to keep some of those abilities to my critters alone.
I would agree the Treefolk are perhaps the best developed, and the art is more striking, though I also like the fairies - they're just a very different kind of fae.
And I agree the Flamekin are a bit ill-defined all-told - it's just like they needed to come up with a more low-rent elemental species to make it work.
But I really do dislike the Kithkin - they're ugly, I can't stand halflings, and they're weak and even in the Lorwyn novel they're obnoxious - nothing to like about them really.
I was just recently tinkering around with a Soldier deck concept, and I wish I had some Mobilizations on hand, but what I had available in my collection was Marshalling Cry, and I've used it to good effect in other decks, so what about in a deck like this?
It costs the same as mobilization, though its 1WW rather than 2W, and of course is a Sorcery vs. Enchantment and lacks the ability to kick out tokens, but both give Vigilance, and Marshalling Cry also gives a +1/+1 to all your critters, plus it can be flashbacked and even if it isn't useful for its primary purpose right away, it can be cycled so you can draw something potentially more useful.
And what about Dolmen's Gate? Since a deck like this is meant to be on the offensive and is usually made up of comparatively brittle critters without outside modifications, it reduces the fear of them being killed on the attack, so that they could wash over the enemy's lines and maybe whittle it away somewhat and not suffer any damage in the attempt, and if they are Vigilant (through either Mobilization or Marshalling Cry) then there is little reason not to do so.
And whenever I make a deck centered on smaller W or G creatures, I try to introduce more global bonuses. Could Glorious Anthem find a home in this deck?
Hello everyone, I'm an old player who has recently returned to the game. I started out in Unlimited, bailed at Mirage, sold my multi-thousand card collection for peanuts, then jumped back in with TS and felt marvelously stupid for getting rid of my collection.
And so here I am again with a few thousand more cards, but I just play casually anymore. Being a grad student I very rarely find the time to play much anymore.
I'm not married to any particular color, though I prefer black by and large, but my two favorite decks at the moment are my UW Merfolk deck, and my RG Warrior deck. I am also a reformed Sliver junkie - after a while my friends refused to play if I pulled out the Sliver deck I had. It was just between the new slivers and the old (which were new to me when I returned to the game), it was hard not to try it.
Well, that's enough for now, I'll see you all around.
KingChewie, a fine idea, I'm gonna try that out. Best of all, it's a simple common, just like Spec.
Yes, I see what you mean now, a silly mistake. Could have sworn I heard someone mention being able to use multiple Commerces in play to untap, but that does make sense.
Hmmm... I just hate the idea of not being able to fix my draw, but perhaps it would be best to bounce it in favor of more counter. Maybe 4 Summons is a bit much, 3 maybe, but 2 would make it much harder to draw - it's important to get the horde in play, but as for what would take their place, I don't know. Now I'm starting to think Teferi could be useful here, even though he's not a merfolk, or I suppose you could add in another Sygg. Still, at least 3 schools - you only need one to play with, but you need to make sure you can draw it when its needed, especially if you can't fix your draw.
I disagree, the Tracer is good for more than simple tricks. She's there because she can also force tapping, and acts as more of a defensive card - a player who is running heavy burn or kill may think twice if they know their spells can be bounced back at them or their creatures.
Witsnipers I agree with, and I'm going to rip them out. Probably replace them with the Moths. Mind you, with the Dissolver when you look at that top card it works for multiple Dissolvers in play (folks, correct me if I am wrong), so if two or three are sitting out and you get a card that works with their kinship it applies to all of them. Now, the question is when deck space is limited and you want to run 4 Thieves and 4 Drowners, is putting Dissolvers in there unnecessary? That I think I might be able to agree with, and thus in a finished version of this deck they might be ripped out.
I just can't separate from Spec, since I love to be able to fix my draws, but if the Dissolver goes by the wayside, the primary motivator for using it is gone. But in the midgame when you have reduced your costs and have mana sitting around, being able to fix the draw can still be useful. I'm torn on this one.
As for Story Circle... I have to agree for the most part. I really wanted the ability to shrug off damage, but it likely does not have sufficient synergy with the rest of the deck to be very useful, or reliable. It will likely be cut in the final iteration of this build.
Frankly given the previous combo example I made, Summon is central to the deck, and if you can have 3 bannerets in play, everything in the deck will cost no more than UU or W.
I really think if this deck can be trimmed down to its key essentials it could be very competitive - against critter heavy decks, even big power ones like Warrior, it can stall or control. Against Burn, which is notoriously creature-light, it can be overwhelmed on the ground, and protected from harm by Sygg, Dousings, and Sigil Tracer (I'm telling ya, she can be very useful as a deterent).
So here is what I am thinking for the final build:
4 Wanderwine Hub
4 Adarkar Waste
2 Vesuva
4 Plains
6 Islands
4 Stonybrook Banneret
4 Drowner of Secrets
4 Grimoire Thief
2 Sygg, River Guide
2 Sigil Tracer
3 Judge of Currents
3 Mothdust Changling
4 Merrow Reejerey
4 Sage's Dousing
4 Merrow Commerce
4 Summon the School
2 Mystic Speculation
In this build I limited the Judge and Mothdust to 3 because they hold a support importance to the deck, while the pairs offer a background role (copying, fixing, and deflecting - all important roles, but secondary to the main goal of milling and launching tokens)
Edit:
@KingChewie
Okay, this is usually where I get confused when a lot is going on in the stack. You cast the Summon and then use the Reejereys to untap the land used, right? Then you can tap 4 Merfolk you control to retrieve it. Merrow Commerce then kicks in to untap the Merfolk, right? Can you not cast Summon again since it is still your turn and everything on the stack has resolved? And if another Commerce is present, its effects would untap the Merfolk again after you used them to fish the Summons out of the graveyard once more. If I am getting something wrong, let me know, I want to make sure I understand this strategy completely before I would attempt it.
Mothdust, honestly I never really looked at it, but it would be a much better fit over all than the Witsniper. As to the three Drowners, I just couldn't part with anything else, and I wanted to stay at 60 cards :). It's a key card for the deck, but three has seemed to work, but if I kick Story Circle in the end I might drop in another Drowner.
EDIT: Actually, now that I think about this logically, what does this deck really try to do?
1: Shred the opponent's deck while
2: Making sure they can't harm you
3: Make certain you get what you need, when you need it
How is this accomplished?
1: Having the highest concentration of cards that allow you to Mill - more milling the better (In order of important - Grimoire Thief, Drowner, and Dissolver)
2: Having a means to deflect enemy damage from your creatures and yourself, or to simply have so much life it is not as relevant if you do take a bad hit (accomplished most easily by a combination of counter spells, Judge, and Sygg, and Sigil Tracer can make casting that kill spell a little less appealing if you can just dupe it and, god forbid, cancel their own spell with a Dousing)
3: Having the means to push out as much stuff as possible, as quickly as possible (best ways to do this - Banneret and Reejerey, and Merrow Commerce)
4: Getting as many Merfolik into play as possible to either chump block or be used in the tapping abilities of other cards (Summon and Schoolmaster)
5: Making sure you get everything you need, and can do so reliably (Mystic Speculation is a favorite of mine)
So when I consider all this, I guess the key points of the deck are to press this out quickly and get the combo working.
An ideal combo, which could work by turn 5-6 or so would have you with 2 Bannerets, 2 Reejereys, a Sygg, a Commerce or two, and a pair of Thieves and then yank a Summon the School. By cutting the fat and giving yourself the highest chance to draw these cards, you can rip and tear fiercely. What I was thinking was this:
With the Bannerets the cost of Summon becomes 1W, and the moment it is cast you can untap those lands.
Then you can tap the thieves and any two of the others, get the Summon back, untap your critters with Commerce, do it again, and then again (assuming two Commerces are in play), and again one more time, this last time using the Reejereys to untap the Thieves.
You then have 24 of their cards removed and, if you so wish, you can sac the Thieves with two U and in all likelihood their deck will be neutered at that point, if it hasn't been wasted entirely. And in the end you are out UUW and 1 of any other color. And if all else fails, you now have 8 3/3 Merfolk Wizards in play.
If I did all the math right there, then wow.
1: Leaving some mana on stand buy for my Sage's Dousings is necessary
2: Leaving mana for Sygg to play with is more important
3: Story Circle also competes for mana
So in the end there isn't enough to go around. So here is the build I have so far, but it has yet to be tested competitively. This is also my first stab at using this board's deck format, so let's see if this works as well.
3 Wanderwine Hub
2 Vesuva
1 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
8 Islands
Creatures
3 Merrow Witsniper
3 Drowner of Secrets
3 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
3 Stonybrook Banneret
3 Grimoire Thief
3 Ink Dissolver
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Judge of Currents
2 Sygg, River Guide
2 Sigil Tracer
3 Sage's Dousing
3 Summon the School
2 Mystic Speculation
1 Story Circle
3 Merrow Commerce
What I question is the use of the Witsniper, since after its ability is used, it's just a chump, and this deck can produce plenty of tokens. I find Summon the School VERY useful, especially with Merrow Reejerey and Stonybrook Banneret - once two Bannerets and two Reejereys are in play, this spell is basically free - you can just untap the two lands used to play it, and if you have two more Merrow Commerce out, you can tap and untap four more merfolk twice and do this again, and in the end nothing will be tapped and you'll be six merfolk wizard tokens richer.
Some might be wondering what Story Circle is doing in here. Answer: I like to be well defended, holding off the opponent as long as possible, and if I can't stop a flier or knock down a burn spell, I'd like to be able to absorb it. Only one is in here because it is not 100% necessary, but I like having the option.
Now, I love Grimoire Thief to death, but I found that both the Dissolver and the Thief can co-exist in the deck nicely, especially when the Drowner hits the table. And when all three are present, the deck chew is nasty, and with Mystic Speculation, as long as I can keep buying it back every few rounds, I can fix my draw, which has helped immensely.
Sigil Tracer can be very nice here, especially with Grimoire Thief. Also even though the land was limited to 20, I never felt pinched except very early on, but that didn't last long, especially since the most expensive spell in the deck is 3W, and that can be whittled down by the Banneret.
Admittedly, I don't know if I should keep Story Circle in, but it has already worked for me once to hold off the horde until I could get the milling really going, but if I found something else to replace it, I might rip it out. I seriously considered dropping a non-Mer wizard in here, Teferi, to further increase my speed and slow down the enemy, but I'm not sure there either. I don't even own a Teferi right now (and all the lands in the deck are what I happen to have - might trade for another Wanderwine, and some Adarkar Wastes would be good to, since life isn't generally an issue with this build - thank you, Judge).
That is sick, and now that I was reading about LoA I think I'm going to dump him - I haven't run aground of the wrath of the Chameleon Colossus yet, but now that I see how that would work it looks like that LoA will hurt me more than help me in some cases.
Also with the Bannerets I guess it is best to look for cards that have as little U in the cost as possible, and LoA cannot benefit from Banneret.
As for the Ambassador, I dunno, it's true the Mill-Folk deck isn't big on mana production, but I'm just wondering if the ability to mill three cards for the 3 mana would be worth him taking up a slot. Only way to know is to test, of course. I'm going to tinker with this a bit and I'll post my own version once I've a chance to test it. Thanks for the answer to my rules question Weatherguy.
Edit: Oh, what about Ink Dissolver? I was using him in conjunction with Mystic Speculation and having good luck, but what does everyone think of Kinship? You need to reveal the card in question, but is it worth milling three cards from each opponent's deck? I've only been playing casually, but would this be a bad idea for competitive play?
Oh, and how about tossing in Ambassador Loquatous? I figured he'd be a great one for a Mill-Folk deck.
In fact, she was the only character that I liked in the first book. The Vendilion Clique was funny sometimes, but the rest was rubbish. I outright hated Brigid, Rhys I just didn't care about, and I wanted to beat Teeg about the head viciously. And the continuing lack of planeswalkers irks me - there are so many cards in the set, and they've only touched on the barest handful.
Also, since building power was priority 1, I tended to stick to creatures that gave me power boosts, so full playsets of Sinew and Muscle were present, Necrotic was there to deal with hard targets (needed Gemhide to get him out, but usually wasn't a problem), and then one card most people poo-pooed for its high cost, but that I found invaluable:
Akroma's Memorial. Yes, many of its abilities can be obtained through other sliver types, but getting all that at once and half the time finishing the game by the next round unless they could knock it out was great.
I also used Gaea's and Glorious Anthem in order to give me a power advantage vs. other sliver decks, same deal with Akroma's - my creatures get the goodies, but if they run slivers or Hivestone, I want to keep some of those abilities to my critters alone.
And I agree the Flamekin are a bit ill-defined all-told - it's just like they needed to come up with a more low-rent elemental species to make it work.
But I really do dislike the Kithkin - they're ugly, I can't stand halflings, and they're weak and even in the Lorwyn novel they're obnoxious - nothing to like about them really.
It costs the same as mobilization, though its 1WW rather than 2W, and of course is a Sorcery vs. Enchantment and lacks the ability to kick out tokens, but both give Vigilance, and Marshalling Cry also gives a +1/+1 to all your critters, plus it can be flashbacked and even if it isn't useful for its primary purpose right away, it can be cycled so you can draw something potentially more useful.
And what about Dolmen's Gate? Since a deck like this is meant to be on the offensive and is usually made up of comparatively brittle critters without outside modifications, it reduces the fear of them being killed on the attack, so that they could wash over the enemy's lines and maybe whittle it away somewhat and not suffer any damage in the attempt, and if they are Vigilant (through either Mobilization or Marshalling Cry) then there is little reason not to do so.
And whenever I make a deck centered on smaller W or G creatures, I try to introduce more global bonuses. Could Glorious Anthem find a home in this deck?
And so here I am again with a few thousand more cards, but I just play casually anymore. Being a grad student I very rarely find the time to play much anymore.
I'm not married to any particular color, though I prefer black by and large, but my two favorite decks at the moment are my UW Merfolk deck, and my RG Warrior deck. I am also a reformed Sliver junkie - after a while my friends refused to play if I pulled out the Sliver deck I had. It was just between the new slivers and the old (which were new to me when I returned to the game), it was hard not to try it.
Well, that's enough for now, I'll see you all around.