MTG Salvation

Awesome! I can always rely on you two to give great advice!

Hey Forums, I have been trying to build an Azorius deck recently, but I have come across an issue: Which play style is best? I do realize that Azorius is known for it's control decks, or it's Flyers decks, but I don't want to make a hard control deck, nor a totally aggro deck. I also want to stay on theme with the Azorius Senate and their beliefs.

Can anyone give me some advice? Thanks

I'll take a look at finding those mana rocks you mentioned. Sorry I misunderstood your meaning about goblin rabblemaster.

Thanks for the help

Unfortunately, of all things, My LSG is currently out of stock on Rakdos Signets, as well as most of the Planeswalker/creature removal you suggested. I can however, get a lot of widespread destroy effects, a fairly good substitute for Hero's Downfall in Ruinous Path (note, I said "Fairly good", as I am aware of the instant/sorcery difference) and some fairly good Burn spells/opponent sacrifice effects.

I do wish this was not the case and I could get all that you suggested, but bad luck I guess. I do notice the deck becomes quite spell-heavy with all of this. Do you have some suggestions for creatures? I drop Goblin Rabblemaster as I agree with you, that is might pressure opponents into using their Fogs, but what to replace it with, I am unsure.

Thank you for the suggestions! They are amazingly helpful as always!

Oh, and a follow up, I am working around my opponent's most popular decks, not exclusively, but, still making sure.

One opponent uses a Gruul Ramp Hydras, and his best plays are things like double Gargos, Vicious Wathcer into, well, pretty much any hydra. His second deck is Simic ramp/counters. He has substantial counter spells, but does not focus exclusively on them. It Has two Vivien Planeswalkers and Two Jace Planeswalkers, so you can imagine it can be a pretty painful deck to play against. Jaces: Jace, Architect of Thought & Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Viviens: Vivien, Champion of the Wilds & Vivien, Nature's Avenger. Warning, One of these decks holds an Archetype of Endurance, I imagine it is the Simic deck, And I know that same deck also holds an Archetype of Imagination

The other Opponent also has two favorite decks: The first is a G/W Life gain creature-heavy deck. It uses creatures that give him life, as well as things like Fog and Defend the Hearth to stop others from dropping his life total. It is slow to start, but make up for it, as it almost always has a way to recover from a huge fight.
The second deck is a G/B Deathtouch/golgari graveyard style deck. It uses a massive number of small Deathtouch creatures such as Leyline Prowler and Deadly Recluse to discourage attacks and uses Recollect, Disentomb and Rabid Bite to get creatures back as well as remove the more dangerous foes it faces.

So there you go. THAT is all the considerations I had to make/have to make while making this deck. Hope it all is helpful!

Ok, The most common number of players in our playgroup is 3, including me. We play without the legendary rule, and the min cards of a deck is 60, not 40. As far as special rules, FFA, with about 5% of games being 2HG, so I tend to ignore 2HG and aim for a functional FFA deck

I have fair, but not great, access to cards from reasonably stocked LGS. I would put my level of access at about 85% of cards. Most often, as a side note, I will not get cards that are too expensive either. Anything over ten bucks a card seems too much in my eyes, which is why I am always building rather budget decks

I think that is every consideration I needed to make, and every question you asked. If I missed anything, feel free to tell me :)!

Hello Forums.

As some may know, or very well guess, by my username, My favorite creature type is Dragon, and as such, I am always trying to make cool decks with them, explore their uses and really just appreciate how cool they can be. Now of course, dragons being my favorite creature, the best block of Magic released for me was Khans/Dragons of Tarkir, and as such I am always on the lookout for decks that are themed around cards from these sets. I did happen to find a number of decks around mostly Atarka and Ojutai, but one piqued my interest: Dragonlord Kolaghan.

Luis Scott-Vargas created a Kolaghan Rakdos Midrange deck around this magnificent creature...,er... however it is quite an old list. I was hoping to get some help and suggestions on how to improve an update this list, whilst keeping it a little more, budget friendly. We don't all have a spare pair of Thoughtsieze just lying around Luis!

Anyway, here's the decklist, I'll keep trying to improve on it, and I appreciate any feedback/suggestions!! Thanks!

Love the Idea of Transmute. It would give me so many options for finding those required pieces of the puzzle, such as Eternal Scourge using Drift of Phantasms! Great! These mechanics are amazing! I did not even know transmute was a thing! I will draft out a copy of my BUG deck, using a few of these and see if I can chop down the numbers as well! Thanks, I cant say how much I appreciate these epic suggestions!

Thanks! I really appreciate your acceptance of my decisions. I have trialed a list that holds blue, for card draw and the two other creatures that can be cast from exile, and it manages to draw lands fairly consistently.

If you look on my account you could find the first Sultai draft deck I made. needs a lot of refinement, but the idea is there.
I will try what you suggested and make a straight Golgari version, because I do know II am new to the world of MTG and lack the experience others may share, such as you have.

Ok, Yeah, I see where you are going with this. I do reckon it would be a pain to try and fix Sultai mana. For Now, I will take your advice and stick to Golgari, work with eternal scourge and see how it goes.

*edit: What If I were using Leyline Prowlers, to fix mana a little bit? I mean, they do have deathtouch and can be tapped to add blue mana if need be.

I had a short look at making a first draft of a deck with Pharika, God of Affliction, but I don't know if it is as fun in Golgari as it could be in Sultai, with more card draw options and other creatures such as Torrent Elemental and Misthollow Griffin giving me the chance to start the engine up

An addition this most recent post: Perhaps as a sacrifice outlet, I could run a few Plaguemaw Beasts, since I have plans to play with counters anyway. Could be quite fun. Also things like Razaketh, the Foulblooded, to tutor up the pieces for the rest of the engine, or maybe Kheru Dreadmaw to give me some lifegain. Your suggestion to go for some Sacrifice stuff seems awesome. I do have a question though. Do you suggest I go for a Sultai deck rather than straight Golgari? It would provide me with Misthollow Griffin and Torrent Elemental, for more value.

The Ideas You give are so good! I was doing just what you stated last: Loads of little deathtouch creatures, attack with them. Vraska, Swarm's Eminence gives them counters. If they die by blockers or by blocking attackers, exile them to make some 1/1 deathtouchers to do it all again, and even some 1/1 flyers with Desecrated Tomb, but man, a deck that revolves around more recursion could be amazing!!! I love the idea of eternal scourge! I have a question though: If I am playing the new adventure creatures, say for example, I cast Foulmire Knight's Adventure spell, and it travels to exile. I then cast Foulmire Knight as a creature. It dies and goes to the graveyard. Can I then Exile it with Pharika, God of Affliction, and play the creature from exile again? Or does it need to specifically say "You may cast Foulmire Knight from exile, although, being a card with an adventure, it does say something similar.

I was also thinking, Since Pharika s all about medicines, poisons, and of course, snakes, why not add a little jank into this as well? I think adding some Winding Constrictors and even a Hexdrinker could be real fun. Either the Winding Constrictor adds +1/+1 counters to any deathtouchers that get through, thanks in part to Vraska, Swarm's Eminence, or if both Winding Constrictor and Hexdrinker are on board, I can combo them off, getting two level counters on Hexdrinker per 1 that I pay for it's level up.

Man, to think I was feeling so off about Pharika, God of Affliction before! My opponents are definitely gonna feel Afflicted after they see all this!

OMG I cant believe I hadn't Thought of that! Amazing. Maybe some fun with Archetype of Finality to get some counters on those bats as well, thanks to Vraska, Swarm's Eminence!

Thank you!!!

Oh, Ok, Sorry about the mistakes! I hope this post did not make it look like I don't like Pharika, God of Affliction as much as the other Theros Gods, I really do want to build a deck around her, and in beginning to do so, of course I looked for good cards to synergise with her. I just found it interesting that she: 1. Specifically EXILES cards from the graveyard. 2. Only exiles CREATURE cards.

What I did find is that she synergises well with Vraska, Swarm's Eminence, who can give those cute little snakes counters! I have been working on a deathtouch/Pharika, God of Affliction devotion/golgari goodstuff deck that I found works fairly well, but as I say, just was curious about such a unique ability.

Thank you!

P.S., God of Affliction. Do I smell potential for a flavourful infect/deathtouch deck?

So I have been looking into and tuning my knowledge of Theros block in prep for the release of Theros: Beyond Death, and I came across, well... an interesting card, to say the least.
Pharika, God of Affliction is a god from Born of the Gods, costing 3BG. She is a 5/5 Enchantment Creature - God, which all seems upside, coming with the standard Indestructible ability and the text stating that she is not a creature unless her owner has devotion to black and green at or above 7. This is all well and good, until I read her last ability. For BG she can exile a creature card from a graveyard, and give it's owner a 1/1 black enchantment creature - snake? What? Doesn't this seem to go against what the color combo (Golgari) tend to be all about.

Could someone help shed some light on what we have here, or is Pharika more a god of Confusion rather than of Affliction?