Is there a website or community where people can borrow a deck in order to get started in MTGO without having to invest a bunch of money up front to get a deck?
I am looking to find a modern merfolk deck like i play in paper but I don't want to spend X tickets on mtgo right out of the gate just to get a deck I already have in paper
Hopefully that makes sense and any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
My meta is littered with U/W control. I have been playing U/W control for a while now and lately everyone in my shop is playing it now. I was wondering if anyone had any techy cards that are good against... well us. What cards would you fear an opposing UW Control playing casting on you.
For instance last week I won the first UW control matchup by getting luminarch online. So I attempt to do it against another UW control deck but he is running SGO in the main and resolves the oracle the turn before I get to four counters on luminarch. I was talking to some people at the shop and they suggested I side in my kor firewalkers for the UW matchup and just go aggro on them while they hopefully side in counters and luminarchs and take out some removal. Is this really the correct way to go?
Ya at first it seems really cool the things you can do but you have to think about it like this. You have to play 4 of them which take away from 4 spells that actually do something by themselves, also you have to think how many times you are going to need a spell that does something when you draw it on turn 5 and you draw this when you already have one.
I think that is the core problem with it, it is very cool but does nothing to help you when you draw multiples and isn't good unless you start with it on turn zero. Which naturally implies that you have to play multiples of it to better you chances of having it on turn zero which loops us back to the original point of it not helping when you draw multiples.
I'm pretty sure he can not, since the M10 rules update says damage no longer goes on the stack. I know this would work pre-M10, but I think it is cheating now. Ask a judge!
He can, you are correct that damage no longer uses the stack but first strike damage and normal damage are still done at seperate times as they always have.
All he has to do is make sure you know the timing of the everything. So you block and he goes okay first strike damage which kills one creature, and then he says before normal damage I will sac to remove counters.
BSA was expensive because there wasn't M11 to even out the supply. Also, in an aggro filled meta like Shards Standard, BSA didn't live very long in the world of Terminate, Maelstrom Pulse, and Path to Exile.
In a less aggro meta, she gains value as she won't automatically eat an eot Terminate, but she just isn't as scary as ANYTHING else right now available to U/W. Again, U/W should already be crushing aggro with Condemn, Oust, JtN, DoJ, Gideon. I don't see why BSA is a neccessity in the deck when (a.) we should already be winning the aggro matchup without her, (b.) she does nothing in the control mirrors and (c.) doesn't help as much as other cards in the Primeval Titan matchups.
You started off with saying how good baneslayer is and then switch to how bad she is? And your reasoning for how bad she is aren't even good ones.
(a.) we should already be winning the aggro matchup without her
Not sure what this really means, just becuase we have some cards that are good against aggro means that we shouldn't have a couple more to solidify that we don't just auto lose game ones to RDWs or the like?
(b.) she does nothing in the control mirrors
She does nothing in the control mirrors? Did you read that after you wrote it? You realize if your opponent doesn't have the answer for baneslayer or if they do and you can counter it you just auto win that game? I have won plently of games off of a turn 7 baneslayer with negate backup and just win that game because my opponent doesn't have multiple answers to baneslayer.
(c.) doesn't help as much as other cards in the Primeval Titan matchups
This is the same as the (a.). What "other" cards are you talking about that you would either maindeck or side in for baneslayer? I cannot think of any becuase in the primeval titan matchups typically wall of omens among other things are coming out, baneslayers are def not coming out.
In the end I think baneslayer is a great creature. Everyone is trying to talk her down about how bad she is and that all the titans just beat her. I get so confused by this, obviously she can't block a titan but what titan is going to be blocking her. The only one that she would lose to in a race is Frost Titan, but everything loses to Frost Titan unless you can deal with it.
It is fine to argue if baneslayer is good or not and I can see some reasons that she could be bad. But she is still the if I untap with baneslayer I probably win that game.
Garruk: creates 3/3 beast tokens for -1 loyalty
Sarkhan: create 5/5 flying dragon tokens for -2 loyalty and you have to sac a guy
Garruk: untaps 2 lands for +1 loyalty
Sarkhan: draws a cards for -X loyalty
Garruk: overruns the whole team for -4 loyalty
Sarkhan: "overruns" just dragons for -4 loyalty
So clearly when you actually lay out the abilities are it isn't that obvious. For instance sarkhan's ultimate is pretty irrelevant and will most likely never be used while garruks ultimate is usually game ending and can threaten it the turn after being played. Also while sarkahn does create 5/5 dragons you have to sac a creature to do it, though this can be an upside because you can get rid of a baneslayer or sac your own thrinax etc. And for the first ability while everyone wants to draw cards I think that garruk and come in handy when you get a land light draw and you need to play those broodmates or bit blasts.
Essentially what I am trying to say is you generalized it way to much and there is a very big difference between the two but the choice is not "obvious".
I mean I'd remove Trace all together to be honest but I didn't know if you had it in there for a reason. It makes for a pretty silly BBE cascade...
Trace is in there as on turn 2 you either want to be ramping or playing wall of omens. The idea here is that you can hit a 4 drop on turn 3 or a 5 drop on turn 4. The goal is to land acidic slime and ajani vengeant as soon as possible to lock the opponents land down and make their plays awekword. So yes the cascade into a BBE isn't awesome but it isn't terrible because as I mentioned before on a stalled board a trace on a raging ravine is game changing.
Honestly no room. I could cut the number of O rings but bolt is quickly losing its power because of wall of omens and O ring is strickly better against planeswalkers. Bolt is a good card but I don't think it solves any problems here.
I'd say -2 Ajani Vengeant and +2 Garruk Wildspeaker. Mana fixing is great in a deck like this. Getting to cast what you want with a +2 mana open is great.
So I was bored playing jund every week and decided that I would try to get back into deck creation. I was just looking for some constructive critism about my new deck and see if anyone had any suggestions for the sideboard. I was thinking it would be cool to have a transformative sideboard into the vengevine naya.
Basic idea is the first 3 or 4 turns are either playing a wall or ramping for the turns 4 through 6. On these turns you want to be casting bloodbraid, acidic slime, oring, or ajani to try and start locking down the board. At this point you can either be killing your oponent with beats to just sitting back and blocking and being control untill you can land a Terastodon where you can get whatever is causeing you problems on their side. Also get rid of your lands since you have atleast 8 at this point most likely and wont need them again for the rest of the game and make them 3/3's.
An interesting thing I found playing this deck is that ajani vengeant can just win games for you. Also a raging ravine with a trace of abundance on it is pretty much game ending once you start attacking with it.
Let me know what you think or if you have any questions. Thanks!
Iona > Emrakul g1.
Jace >>>> See Beyond
Garruk > Awakening Zone (curve be damned)
Im not entirely sure about that... i do tend to agree with your iona call... but I would not say Jave >>>> See Beyond. Its like people don't care that to be the most effecitive in this deck you want to spend your first 3 turns either making a token, countering spells, taking a peek at your opponents hands, or fixing your own hand to build the combo. You would ideally have a turn 4 polymorph every game, this gives you the best chance of having a clear board and enough time so man lands don't just crush you. What do you want to spend your turn 4 playing jace when the only relavent ability is brainstorm and that is just to put iona back in your deck. Which ** surprise ** see beyond does that as well. The only reason you don't combo on turn 4 is if you are waiting to get enough lands to poly and have counter magic or you don't have the combo at all.
Now I can understand the people who have bought jace either in paper or online are going to play him no matter what but just because you wasted your money on an over priced planeswalker for this format don't say it is better than a certain card in this deck. Now jace may be better in general and in other decks but for this deck see beyond does the same thing but in the early turns, not the same turn you want to be comboing off.
Just my thoughts, i have been playing this deck a ton lately. Mainly the U/B version because I feel it is the best situated right now in the format because it gives you good cheap removal for the early turns and also hand disruption so you can see if it is safe to combo off.
Angelsong prevents combat dmg (dmg dealt by attacking, blocking creature) only, doesnt matter if ceatures attack you or jace
Safe Passage prevents ANY KIND OF DMG to you, but protects Jace only from Burn spells that have to be targeted at you and redirected to him, while combat dmg hits him directly.
Sometimes, to avoid problems, i play safe passage on their upkeep. So even if they draw good cards they cant dmg me for the whole turn
This is very untrue. Safe passage does not prevent damage that would go to jace from anything. Safe passage does nothing to help jace period. All safe passage does it prevent damage that would be dealt to you. But lets say you cast safe passage on your opponents upkeep and it resolves. Your opponent play lightning bolt on their main phase, they can redirect it to jace and it will damage him. Safe passage only prevent damage being done to you, but before the prevention the damage is being redirected. Now having said that most people do not understand how safe passage works. Often on mtgo I will cast safe passage before my opponent declares attacks when I have jace out and they will just skip past combat because they assume it will prevent damage to jace but this is not the case.
Essentially you cannot protect jace unless you have angelsong or counter spells.
Now, Safe passage should protect jace from any dmg, except from attacking creatures.
If they play Runeflare trap or L.Bolt or whatever targeting jace they have to dmg you and redirect dmg to Jace
This is why cards read "Do X dmg to target Creature or player. Jace is neither so he CANNOT BE TARGETED. If somehow you get protection from Red, they cant play any red spell targeting jace.
Safe pasage prevents any dmg to you, so nothing to redirect.
Sorry you are incorrect. Jace still gets dealt damage because they redirect it. Trust me, unless MTGO doesn't know the rules (which I doubt). I think the issue is I prevent all the damage dealt to me but before the damage gets prevent they redirect it to jace. Makes sense to me now I just didn't think about it when it happened.
its pretty hard to win against it... any thoughts about it ?
I just played against this deck online. I can record the match with commentary if you guys are interested. We only played 1 game and it was game 1 because he left. That deck is really bad, not only does it lose to all of the fast aggro decks in the format but it has terrible game against us. We have 4 MD counter spells that wreck them (negate or flashfreeze). The only real way they have to win is the rune flare traps so just counter those or just do what I did and just counter the ascensions. I didn't even know what deck I was playing against and still destroyed him, I even made a few play mistakes because I wasn't sure how safe passage worked with rune flare trap. For future reference if you have a jace down and they rune flare trap you, safe passage doesn't help jace. I thought that maybe since it prevents the damage being dealt to me they couldn't redirect it since it was prevented but I guess that they can.
Anyways it is easier to explain in video, if want it let me know. Also I have done it in the past with lorwyn block when I was playing merfolk, if you want me to I can record my online tournaments with jacerator. I like to do it because I take the feedback to improve my play and I like to think that the people that watch it take something away about how I play to help them out. Let me know if this interests you.
I think this list is pretty good definition of the archetype. From here you can change things like negate for flash freeze if you feel in your meta flash freeze is better. Or Sunspring for Path or Rest for the weary. Also you can add in another font if you like it or the 4th day of judgement and just have ot take out 1 sunspring expedition. You can change the deck to however your play style is pretty much. You just don't want to change the 4 howling mine, 4 jace, no less than 2 archive traps and no less that 3 font of mythos and I would keep in all 8 fogs, some people are trying to cut them but drawing a fog is almost never bad. And then of course the SB is completely up to you based on what you will play against, like 4 wall of denial and 4 kor firewalker if you are going to play rdw all day etc.
I am looking to find a modern merfolk deck like i play in paper but I don't want to spend X tickets on mtgo right out of the gate just to get a deck I already have in paper
Hopefully that makes sense and any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
For instance last week I won the first UW control matchup by getting luminarch online. So I attempt to do it against another UW control deck but he is running SGO in the main and resolves the oracle the turn before I get to four counters on luminarch. I was talking to some people at the shop and they suggested I side in my kor firewalkers for the UW matchup and just go aggro on them while they hopefully side in counters and luminarchs and take out some removal. Is this really the correct way to go?
Thanks for any help.
I think that is the core problem with it, it is very cool but does nothing to help you when you draw multiples and isn't good unless you start with it on turn zero. Which naturally implies that you have to play multiples of it to better you chances of having it on turn zero which loops us back to the original point of it not helping when you draw multiples.
He can, you are correct that damage no longer uses the stack but first strike damage and normal damage are still done at seperate times as they always have.
All he has to do is make sure you know the timing of the everything. So you block and he goes okay first strike damage which kills one creature, and then he says before normal damage I will sac to remove counters.
This is a completely legal play.
You started off with saying how good baneslayer is and then switch to how bad she is? And your reasoning for how bad she is aren't even good ones.
Not sure what this really means, just becuase we have some cards that are good against aggro means that we shouldn't have a couple more to solidify that we don't just auto lose game ones to RDWs or the like?
She does nothing in the control mirrors? Did you read that after you wrote it? You realize if your opponent doesn't have the answer for baneslayer or if they do and you can counter it you just auto win that game? I have won plently of games off of a turn 7 baneslayer with negate backup and just win that game because my opponent doesn't have multiple answers to baneslayer.
This is the same as the (a.). What "other" cards are you talking about that you would either maindeck or side in for baneslayer? I cannot think of any becuase in the primeval titan matchups typically wall of omens among other things are coming out, baneslayers are def not coming out.
In the end I think baneslayer is a great creature. Everyone is trying to talk her down about how bad she is and that all the titans just beat her. I get so confused by this, obviously she can't block a titan but what titan is going to be blocking her. The only one that she would lose to in a race is Frost Titan, but everything loses to Frost Titan unless you can deal with it.
It is fine to argue if baneslayer is good or not and I can see some reasons that she could be bad. But she is still the if I untap with baneslayer I probably win that game.
Not sure how it seems obvious?
Garruk: creates 3/3 beast tokens for -1 loyalty
Sarkhan: create 5/5 flying dragon tokens for -2 loyalty and you have to sac a guy
Garruk: untaps 2 lands for +1 loyalty
Sarkhan: draws a cards for -X loyalty
Garruk: overruns the whole team for -4 loyalty
Sarkhan: "overruns" just dragons for -4 loyalty
So clearly when you actually lay out the abilities are it isn't that obvious. For instance sarkhan's ultimate is pretty irrelevant and will most likely never be used while garruks ultimate is usually game ending and can threaten it the turn after being played. Also while sarkahn does create 5/5 dragons you have to sac a creature to do it, though this can be an upside because you can get rid of a baneslayer or sac your own thrinax etc. And for the first ability while everyone wants to draw cards I think that garruk and come in handy when you get a land light draw and you need to play those broodmates or bit blasts.
Essentially what I am trying to say is you generalized it way to much and there is a very big difference between the two but the choice is not "obvious".
Civil
Trace is in there as on turn 2 you either want to be ramping or playing wall of omens. The idea here is that you can hit a 4 drop on turn 3 or a 5 drop on turn 4. The goal is to land acidic slime and ajani vengeant as soon as possible to lock the opponents land down and make their plays awekword. So yes the cascade into a BBE isn't awesome but it isn't terrible because as I mentioned before on a stalled board a trace on a raging ravine is game changing.
Not sure about necessary because he doesn't really do much, he might be good sure but I don't think that taking out trace is right, but it may be.
Honestly no room. I could cut the number of O rings but bolt is quickly losing its power because of wall of omens and O ring is strickly better against planeswalkers. Bolt is a good card but I don't think it solves any problems here.
Hmm... Might be kind of risky with the nombo between Garruk Wildspeaker and Trace of Abundance. Or is that not usually a big concern?
So I was bored playing jund every week and decided that I would try to get back into deck creation. I was just looking for some constructive critism about my new deck and see if anyone had any suggestions for the sideboard. I was thinking it would be cool to have a transformative sideboard into the vengevine naya.
Basic idea is the first 3 or 4 turns are either playing a wall or ramping for the turns 4 through 6. On these turns you want to be casting bloodbraid, acidic slime, oring, or ajani to try and start locking down the board. At this point you can either be killing your oponent with beats to just sitting back and blocking and being control untill you can land a Terastodon where you can get whatever is causeing you problems on their side. Also get rid of your lands since you have atleast 8 at this point most likely and wont need them again for the rest of the game and make them 3/3's.
An interesting thing I found playing this deck is that ajani vengeant can just win games for you. Also a raging ravine with a trace of abundance on it is pretty much game ending once you start attacking with it.
Let me know what you think or if you have any questions. Thanks!
4 Bloodbraid Elf
3 World Queller
2 Terastodon
4 Acidic Slime
4 Wall of Omens
Spells (16)
2 Day of Judgment
2 Rampant Growth
4 Ajani Vengeant
4 Oblivion Ring
4 Trace of Abundance
4 Forest
3 Plains
4 Arid Mesa
4 Jungle Shrine
2 Mountain
4 Raging Ravine
2 Stirring Wildwood
1 Rootbound Crag
3 Tectonic Edge
Civilmass
Im not entirely sure about that... i do tend to agree with your iona call... but I would not say Jave >>>> See Beyond. Its like people don't care that to be the most effecitive in this deck you want to spend your first 3 turns either making a token, countering spells, taking a peek at your opponents hands, or fixing your own hand to build the combo. You would ideally have a turn 4 polymorph every game, this gives you the best chance of having a clear board and enough time so man lands don't just crush you. What do you want to spend your turn 4 playing jace when the only relavent ability is brainstorm and that is just to put iona back in your deck. Which ** surprise ** see beyond does that as well. The only reason you don't combo on turn 4 is if you are waiting to get enough lands to poly and have counter magic or you don't have the combo at all.
Now I can understand the people who have bought jace either in paper or online are going to play him no matter what but just because you wasted your money on an over priced planeswalker for this format don't say it is better than a certain card in this deck. Now jace may be better in general and in other decks but for this deck see beyond does the same thing but in the early turns, not the same turn you want to be comboing off.
Just my thoughts, i have been playing this deck a ton lately. Mainly the U/B version because I feel it is the best situated right now in the format because it gives you good cheap removal for the early turns and also hand disruption so you can see if it is safe to combo off.
This is very untrue. Safe passage does not prevent damage that would go to jace from anything. Safe passage does nothing to help jace period. All safe passage does it prevent damage that would be dealt to you. But lets say you cast safe passage on your opponents upkeep and it resolves. Your opponent play lightning bolt on their main phase, they can redirect it to jace and it will damage him. Safe passage only prevent damage being done to you, but before the prevention the damage is being redirected. Now having said that most people do not understand how safe passage works. Often on mtgo I will cast safe passage before my opponent declares attacks when I have jace out and they will just skip past combat because they assume it will prevent damage to jace but this is not the case.
Essentially you cannot protect jace unless you have angelsong or counter spells.
If that ruling is true then I agree with you. That would mean there is an mtgo bug.
Sorry you are incorrect. Jace still gets dealt damage because they redirect it. Trust me, unless MTGO doesn't know the rules (which I doubt). I think the issue is I prevent all the damage dealt to me but before the damage gets prevent they redirect it to jace. Makes sense to me now I just didn't think about it when it happened.
I just played against this deck online. I can record the match with commentary if you guys are interested. We only played 1 game and it was game 1 because he left. That deck is really bad, not only does it lose to all of the fast aggro decks in the format but it has terrible game against us. We have 4 MD counter spells that wreck them (negate or flashfreeze). The only real way they have to win is the rune flare traps so just counter those or just do what I did and just counter the ascensions. I didn't even know what deck I was playing against and still destroyed him, I even made a few play mistakes because I wasn't sure how safe passage worked with rune flare trap. For future reference if you have a jace down and they rune flare trap you, safe passage doesn't help jace. I thought that maybe since it prevents the damage being dealt to me they couldn't redirect it since it was prevented but I guess that they can.
Anyways it is easier to explain in video, if want it let me know. Also I have done it in the past with lorwyn block when I was playing merfolk, if you want me to I can record my online tournaments with jacerator. I like to do it because I take the feedback to improve my play and I like to think that the people that watch it take something away about how I play to help them out. Let me know if this interests you.
While somewhat true this isn't entirely helpful. I think if you are looking for a base list this is a good place to start.
4 Jace Beleren
3 Font of Mythos
4 Howling Mine
3 Archive Trap
Removal (3)
3 Day of Judgment
4 Safe Passage
4 Angelsong
Control (4)
4 Negate
More Turns (4)
4 Time Warp
Life Gain (3)
3 Sunspring Expedition
1 Reliquary Tower
10 Island
5 Plains
4 Sejiri Refuge
4 Kabira Crossroads
I think this list is pretty good definition of the archetype. From here you can change things like negate for flash freeze if you feel in your meta flash freeze is better. Or Sunspring for Path or Rest for the weary. Also you can add in another font if you like it or the 4th day of judgement and just have ot take out 1 sunspring expedition. You can change the deck to however your play style is pretty much. You just don't want to change the 4 howling mine, 4 jace, no less than 2 archive traps and no less that 3 font of mythos and I would keep in all 8 fogs, some people are trying to cut them but drawing a fog is almost never bad. And then of course the SB is completely up to you based on what you will play against, like 4 wall of denial and 4 kor firewalker if you are going to play rdw all day etc.