a) Can the deck function without blue, in WGB colors? I mean, yeah, Intuition and Tolaria West add to consistency, but getting Tropicals on top of the other deck pieces is something hard to accomplish for my budget. I understand that it will lose consistency but will it still be a decent and playable deck?
b) If the deck cannot function at all without blue, can Tundra replace Tropical Island as the blue dual land of choice? On a steep budget, can the deck function with three islands instead of dual lands?
Tolaria West tutors for close to 2/3 of the deck. Engineered explosives is also much more powerful if you can put 3 or 4 counters on it.
That said, and to the Tundra question, blue is not the main color of the deck; green is. You want every dual land in the deck to produce green, so that you have green mana available for loam/exploration/manabond/thicket/etc. as often as possible. Think of it as a green deck with a couple small splashes for blue/white/black.
Unfortunately, this deck is as tightly designed as it is versatile. Switching from Trops to Tundras might just ruin the delicate balance that this deck has achieved between consistency and variety.
I like it.
Is it supposed to be a rare? As an uncommon I think it's perfect. At rare it's a bit overcosted on the Blood side, imo. Also flesh would have been too strong as an instant without a non-legendary clause as an uncommon. Over all at uncommon I think it's wonderful.
@pandafarmer
Ok. I don't check release dates, and assumed it would come out sooner than the next set. Oh well, I think it's still a good idea for a FTV set.
Pierre Sommen's list has me thinking Bant will be my new deck. UW stoneforge is missing that extra oomph and I think KOTR is the way to go. It fixes so many issues of SFM decks: finding specific lands.
I'd cut the 1x daze for another snapcaster and possibly reconfigure the flex slots for some countermagic. I think bant needs permission but his list is really appealing because it supports my belief that tarmogoyf isn't necessary any more (and saves me $400)
What would you play for countermagic? Just Counterspell, or something like Spell Snare?
I assume you'd consider the Jitte and the two Ponders flex slots.
I've been introduced to the archetype, and I'm currently researching and picking apart different lists. The more I think about it, the more I feel as though Stoneforge Mystic may be correct for this deck. It gives us another very powerful proactive plan to accompany the Loam Engine. It takes a while for us to set up, why not add a very powerful opening? That being said, I do prefer the Jund manabase over the white splash.
What color would you drop for white? Four colors really is stretching it too far in a format dominated by wasteland, even if we're the kind of deck that likes to abuse it. This deck wins off of the combined power of synergy and consistency. Adding a color to play a non-synergistic sub-plan disrupts both of those strengths.
It is legal, yes. But the ethics of gouging 30-40$ extra for some of these boxed sets or commander decks is horrendous. I find it frustrating that I can't go to a couple different game stores and they all have vastly different prices for some products.
I found a 30$ difference in buying booster boxes from my hometown store to a store in a university town. Obviously there are differences in playerbases, but I don't know how my old LGS can charge that price when a store 1.5 hours away is charging that much less.
Oh well we live in a capitalist world, better get used to it.
How is it unethical to charge the highest price people are willing to pay? If you don't want to pay what a given store charges, you have this little thing called The Ability to Choose to find another store that charges less, or wait until the price drops (which in retail it inevitably does).
Oh, and from the standpoint of economics, putting a price ceiling on something only makes it and related items more expensive overall. Not a good idea.
So is the plan now to just go back to the old build and just run a plethora of 1 drop accelerents?
That does seem to be the most resilient style of build over all... I've got 4 each of Manabond and Exploration, and I see enough to get around Missteps on a regular basis.
I personally want to try to work JTMS into the deck, but I'm not sure what the best way to do so is, and now that I'm back at school, testing time isn't widely available.
Pretty sure this isn't the thread for masturbatory create-a-card Sanctum Ruins, however, so mchainmail's plan actually lets you accomplish your (admittedly inefficient) plan.
I am fully aware of that, and as I said in my post above, I was gonna leave it alone. So please don't chastise me for responding to his responses.
As in play Witness, sac to Tower, put on top with Stronghold? Interesting, but still doesn't fix the efficiency issue, since you've got to play three cards and pay 1GG in order to achieve for the enchantment what Academy Ruins does for artifacts for 1U...
Intuition for Assault, Eternal Witness, Volrath's Stronghold. It still won't be good enough though.
Yeah, I considered and quickly rejected that idea... It doesn't quite qualify as efficient, and certainly not enough so to be competitive. Plus it opens you up to Swords.
Apparently there's a land that has a "Counter target spell" ability. That seems like something that would DEFINITELY shore up the deck, though I might be a little hasty in assuming that it will be playable.
Yeah, Batterskull's done. It's pretty much as mana intensive as Mindslaver and it's a more easily disrupted wincon.
Honestly, if you want to play Seismic Assault, go with Aggro Loam. A triple red enchantment has no place in this deck right now. I guess I could see a RUG build instead of a BUG build (Barbarian Ring, no Confidants from the side, etc), but I don't know.
I did play Aggro Loam for most of this summer, but I just don't enjoy playing that deck as much as this one. And Seismic is most definitely the MVP of that deck. If it hits the table and you have Loam, the game is won.
It's sort of my fantasy Lands deck right now, but when and if they print an Academy Ruins for enchantments I'm definitely going to be playing RUG (or RUGw as the case may be, depending of the cost of the land's ability) with Seismic and Sylvan Library as one-ofs.
It really has no basis in reality at the moment, so I won't dwell on it much more here; I'm just hoping they get around to printing it soon...
What I really want to use as a win-con is Seismic Assault. We can definitely make the mana for it later in the game, and we can definitely fuel it with plenty of lands.
Problem is, there's no efficient way to get it back if it's dredged or countered. Running two isn't gonna be consistent enough when you can't Intuition for it (except something like 2x Noxious Revival +1x Seismic, but that requires too many slots), and three or four seems like wasting slots...
Anyway, Batterskull has turned out to be very similar to Mindslaver as a win-con in many respects, as pointed out in above posts. I've also found that if I have it in my hand early, I tend to want to play it right away, which is bad, since we need to be spending the early turns establishing control, not playing a lone creature.
I'm sticking with this deck for the forseeable future. I'm not that competitive a player anyway, and I love piloting the deck, even when I'm losing. There may even be some useful goodies in Innistrad...
I wasn't able to come to any conclusions on Batterskull tonight. We had a really weak showing, and only half of the normal people showed up, so there was only three rounds. My matchups were pauper-storm/TES hybrid (or so he said), Infect Stompy, and Rock Depths; I won all three rounds, but Batterskull wasn't necessary or pivotal in any of them. Any win-con would have sufficed.
@Malacoda: My meta is usually just like yours, so let me know how Batterskull tests for you.
Here's my list for comparison.
Tolaria West tutors for close to 2/3 of the deck. Engineered explosives is also much more powerful if you can put 3 or 4 counters on it.
That said, and to the Tundra question, blue is not the main color of the deck; green is. You want every dual land in the deck to produce green, so that you have green mana available for loam/exploration/manabond/thicket/etc. as often as possible. Think of it as a green deck with a couple small splashes for blue/white/black.
Unfortunately, this deck is as tightly designed as it is versatile. Switching from Trops to Tundras might just ruin the delicate balance that this deck has achieved between consistency and variety.
Stax
Lands
Enchantress (I think this would go here... I'm not that familiar with it...)
since these are a bit different from traditional control as far as their play styles.
Edit: Oops, just saw Warden's post. Sorry... feel free to disregard my suggestion. Perhaps update the OP with the new idea?
Is it supposed to be a rare? As an uncommon I think it's perfect. At rare it's a bit overcosted on the Blood side, imo. Also flesh would have been too strong as an instant without a non-legendary clause as an uncommon. Over all at uncommon I think it's wonderful.
Ok. I don't check release dates, and assumed it would come out sooner than the next set. Oh well, I think it's still a good idea for a FTV set.
Stuff like:
Yawgmoth's Will
Bridge from Below
Reanimate
Life from the Loam
Tarmogoyf
Tormod's Crypt
Genesis
Snapcaster Mage
Volrath's Stronghold
Academy Ruins
...several more similar.
It would fit into the graveyard theme of this block for the preview card, and give us some variety in card types.
---
Or FTV: Lands or FTV: Enchantments would seem like standard choices, though not very creative...
What would you play for countermagic? Just Counterspell, or something like Spell Snare?
I assume you'd consider the Jitte and the two Ponders flex slots.
What color would you drop for white? Four colors really is stretching it too far in a format dominated by wasteland, even if we're the kind of deck that likes to abuse it. This deck wins off of the combined power of synergy and consistency. Adding a color to play a non-synergistic sub-plan disrupts both of those strengths.
How is it unethical to charge the highest price people are willing to pay? If you don't want to pay what a given store charges, you have this little thing called The Ability to Choose to find another store that charges less, or wait until the price drops (which in retail it inevitably does).
Oh, and from the standpoint of economics, putting a price ceiling on something only makes it and related items more expensive overall. Not a good idea.
That does seem to be the most resilient style of build over all... I've got 4 each of Manabond and Exploration, and I see enough to get around Missteps on a regular basis.
I personally want to try to work JTMS into the deck, but I'm not sure what the best way to do so is, and now that I'm back at school, testing time isn't widely available.
I am fully aware of that, and as I said in my post above, I was gonna leave it alone. So please don't chastise me for responding to his responses.
Here's a couple of lists from deckDB.com (not sure how similar they are):
http://www.deckdb.com/deck/3424/
http://www.deckdb.com/deck/5605/
And many others here:
http://www.deckdb.com/archetype/243/
As in play Witness, sac to Tower, put on top with Stronghold? Interesting, but still doesn't fix the efficiency issue, since you've got to play three cards and pay 1GG in order to achieve for the enchantment what Academy Ruins does for artifacts for 1U...
Yeah, I considered and quickly rejected that idea... It doesn't quite qualify as efficient, and certainly not enough so to be competitive. Plus it opens you up to Swords.
I did play Aggro Loam for most of this summer, but I just don't enjoy playing that deck as much as this one. And Seismic is most definitely the MVP of that deck. If it hits the table and you have Loam, the game is won.
It's sort of my fantasy Lands deck right now, but when and if they print an Academy Ruins for enchantments I'm definitely going to be playing RUG (or RUGw as the case may be, depending of the cost of the land's ability) with Seismic and Sylvan Library as one-ofs.
It really has no basis in reality at the moment, so I won't dwell on it much more here; I'm just hoping they get around to printing it soon...
Problem is, there's no efficient way to get it back if it's dredged or countered. Running two isn't gonna be consistent enough when you can't Intuition for it (except something like 2x Noxious Revival +1x Seismic, but that requires too many slots), and three or four seems like wasting slots...
Anyway, Batterskull has turned out to be very similar to Mindslaver as a win-con in many respects, as pointed out in above posts. I've also found that if I have it in my hand early, I tend to want to play it right away, which is bad, since we need to be spending the early turns establishing control, not playing a lone creature.
I'm sticking with this deck for the forseeable future. I'm not that competitive a player anyway, and I love piloting the deck, even when I'm losing. There may even be some useful goodies in Innistrad...
I wasn't able to come to any conclusions on Batterskull tonight. We had a really weak showing, and only half of the normal people showed up, so there was only three rounds. My matchups were pauper-storm/TES hybrid (or so he said), Infect Stompy, and Rock Depths; I won all three rounds, but Batterskull wasn't necessary or pivotal in any of them. Any win-con would have sufficed.
@Malacoda: My meta is usually just like yours, so let me know how Batterskull tests for you.
Here's my list for comparison.
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Batterskull
1x Ensnaring Bridge
4x Mox Diamond
1x Sylvan Library (the in-testing 61st card)
4x Exploration
3x Manabond
3x Intuition
2x Entomb
4x Life from the Loam
Lands:
1x The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
1x Glacial Chasm
3x Maze of Ith
1x Creeping Tar-pit
3x Tropical Island
2x Bayou
2x Misty Rainforest
1x Verdant Catacombs
1x Wooded Foothills
1x Windswept Heath
3x Tolaria West
1x Cabal Pit
1x Bojuka Bog
3x Tranquil Thicket
1x Forest
4x Wasteland
2x Ghost Quarter
4x Rishadan Port
1x Academy Ruins
1x Riftstone Portal
2x Dark Confidant
1x Chalice of the Void
1x Engineered Explosives
1x Smokestack
1x Oblivion Stone
1x Crucible of Worlds
1x Null Rod
1x Zuran Orb
2x Tormod's Crypt
2x Surgical Extraction
1x Maze of Ith
1x Karakas