It's fine. It's got its own weaknesses and strength, and since multiplayer games run longer the further a game goes along the more easy it is to pay for it's cost. The only problem is if the rest of your playgroup doesn't play with good cards, doesn't know how to deal with cards like prison, and if your overall deck quality is better than theirs in such a way they start complaining because your decks are "broken". In that case, help them make better decks and be better players
I personally find it to be an adorable build. It's actually very controll-y looking for a red deck: you burn out all their utility creatures and early drops, deathtouch their later ones, then finish the game off with Chandra or Inferno Titan. It's not going to be fast, but it looks to be fun.
Gorgon Flail also gives deathtouch, just in case you need a couple of "pseudo collars".
Spikeshot Elder is also great with the equipment, because he can go off multiple times a turn with enough mana and ping several guys at once. Top that off with Inferno Titan to win the game for you (about 2 or 3 will do), he's absolutely nuts with deathtouch since he can just ping 3 guys every time he swings in.
Heh, I'm in a similar situation. I got 2 copies and took out a few cards so I could get things for my Cube, get some extra Lightning Bolts, etc. The best gains I think are having 4xJackal Pup (unless you already have Goblin Guides), and I'd try to flesh out a playset of Boggart Ram-Gangs. Keldon Mauraders is excellent and you should definitely run the 4 of them too. The rares and Chain Lightning I put in my trade binder but dual Grim Lavamancer and Figure of Destiny are pretty intimidating, and Fireblast is not so expensive that getting 2 oldschool copies and rounding out a playset should be an issue. Seems like scouring the legacy list for budget cards can lead to a very powerful casual decklist.
I'm against removing the manlands as they are perfectly good beaters and powerful cards. The curve is dangerously high for Dark Confidant though, and I'd maybe throw in a couple Sarkhan the Mad instead; he's not great but he's not bad either.
Well, I seem to find Bitterblossom to be good in pretty much anything honestly, and I wish I had a spare playset. If I could I would put them in various EDH decks, Mono Black Control, Jund Tokens, BW Tokens, some silly deck involving Paradox Haze + Goblin Assault + Awakening Zone, or whatever
They're like white truffle oil: very expensive, very premium, very versatile ingredient in a lot of top-tier recipes.
From there, ask if you want to be more control based or aggro-burn based. Say you want to be incredibly controlling, winning out of attrition, permission, card advantage, and keeping all creatures off the board, then you'd up the counterspells and burn, include some card advantage, and ride out on big burn spells and lots of mana.
Here you want to avoid slower spells and use your burn to either burn out your opponent's blockers or burn their face. Because of the dual colors, Ball Lightning and other red-intensive beaters become poor picks, but you want to eschew card advantage and control for tempo, using counterspells to set them back. Daze in this context becomes very good, as does Remand.
I hope that gives you some ideas. Pick a plan, and build around it all the way.
Rating: On a scale from -19357348 to Q, I give it a hotdog.
You told me to rate it ;P
No seriously though, it seems good but slow. Unless your teammate can help save your skin early game, expect a lot of early game hate as your first real defenses come out T3. T4 Wrath effects help, but I agree Soulscour is very slow (but so is multiplayer sometimes, so maybe you can get away with one). One solution is to reduce your highest mana cost creatures to singletons, since any Sphinx Summoner can find the one copy you need (although I'd still keep two Sharuum).
Wall of Omens is a great early game defense card. But you can also go the route of Prophetic Prism, which you can perpetually bounce with Master Transmuter for card-drawing shenanigans (bounce it to hand, then you can put it into play for free (yes you can do that)).
I personally like running Sen Triplets with Exotic Orchard so you can cast enemy spells more easily, or at least Vivid Lands.
Holy singletons batman! That's a lot of random singleton creatures! They don't synergize at all with the rest of your deck, each other, and as a result just seem like a random mish-mash of cards compared to your relatively straightforward spells. Here, what you want to do is frame your deckbuilding like this: what does your deck want to do? If it's counter-bounce-kill things until you can play a big bad creature, then you want to have creatures that support that strategy. What creatures do you have that do that?* Otherwise, if you want to burn your way through the game as fast as possible, then Quicksilver Gargantuan and Sphinx of Jwar Isle are not really doing that to the best of their abilities unlike say, Hellspark Elemental and Wee Dragonauts. If you want a strong midrange deck with consistent pressure but neither too fast nor slow, then find your best creatures at every point of the mana curve and cut all your subpar ones and only run those creatures: If you can run up to 4 of a good card, why would you run one copy of a bad one in it's place?
Scry ultimately is used a lot in stuff like Pyromancer's Ascension or combo decks that want to get certain cards as soon as possible, or in control decks that are very answer reliant. Look at any tournament level deck running preordain right now for a good idea of where you'll find scry.
It's not a linear mechanic but more of a modular one: it supports a whatever kind of deck its in by helping control draws or set up strategies or find combo pieces or other such things. However, Scry and rearranging effects can be good for "fixing the dice" on certain effects that care about the top card of your library. Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top is one of the defining combos in Legacy, and swapping out the top with some instant speed Scry can help keep your opponent indefinitely locked down (however, in legacy most spells generally curve out at 3 or 4 mana total, meaning in casual counterbalance is actually weaker since a wider range of mana costs are played). Again, Skill Borrower and Conundrum Sphinx were mentioned, and Sindbad is a hilariously old-school example. Also neat with Kinship cards like Leaf-Crowned Elder or whomever if you want to make a tribal deck. Clash and The Kamigawa Decievers also are worth a look.
However, the best way I've used it is just splashed into a straight U/X control deck or in a combo deck that needs to dig for its combo pieces or answers.
Well the obvious thing to do is go tokens. So the question is: What color of Tokens? Do you want a hodgepodge, or do you want to focus on a specific type like Soldiers, Elves, Squirrels, Goblins, Zombies, etc. Being an artifact means anything is pretty much open...maybe artifact tokens?
From there you can think of doing colorless mana ramp (urzatron or Locus-ramp) and then find a lot of cool artifact synergy with stuff like Myr Retriever or Sharuum of the Hegemon
Don't worry, Green is still pathetic and measly :3 4/5 for 3 mana is nothing to worry about, but I'd be worried about a 5/4 for 3 mana, or god forbid a 5/5 flying shroud for 6 mana. Terrifying.
Also, are you interested in a creatureless mono-black build? If you are, I can post my list for you later. Basically, it keeps creatures constantly off the board, gains you tons of life, and eventually kills everyone else with things like Consume Spirit or Corrupt. Good stuff.
Well, Chain Lightning is going for about $8-$15 now, which is less than usual but.. you know. I think there are plenty alternatives to Shock already brought up. Anyways, decklist tagged:
We've pretty much got a great list of burn going on, and there's a lot of stuff mentioned already that you should look into. Remember, that certain spells have certain requirements, whether that's getting a certain land count out, hitting metalcraft, having a creature in play, or what have you. Therefore, when you build a deck you have to think of each card's limitations.
For example: Assault Strobe and Fling require you have a creature out in play to get full use out of them. You only have 12 creatures total in your deck, and Ball Lightning only sticks around for one turn, meaning if you want to assault strobe him or fling him you have to do it the turn he's out, meaning it's also a higher mana requirement too. Having creatures usually isn't a limitation, but in this case you'll find yourself more often with an "unusable" card because you lack a high concentration of permanent creatures (especially with your sweepers). Mudbutton Torchrunner also only does 2 damage with double strike and 1 + its death damage if flung. Not very exciting.
Does your red deck want to be aggressively creature based? Or does it want to eschew creatures entirely? What kind of possibilities open up if you push either direction? Or you can stick to the center and be very balanced.
For example, if you play only creatures that die at end of turn like Ball Lightning or Hellspark Elemental, then you get to play around a lot of sorcery speed answers but are still vulnerable to Walls, instant speed removal, and especially first strike. This however gives you the freedom to play a lot of cool effects like Earthquake and Volcanic Fallout which can sweep the board and deal damage, plus those kind of creatures can race for damage faster and more efficiently.
If you do play more creatures that stick around like Goblin Guide, Jackal Pup, Keldon Mauraders, Mogg Flunkies, Kiln Fiend, Chandra's Spitfire, and so forth then cards like Sulferous Blast, Volcanic Fallout, etc. all risk killing off your own army, but you have less risk of running out of gas. They can also get incredibly powerful with things like Assault Strobe, Double Cleave, Fling, and more creature reliant ways of getting damage through: for example Trigon of Rage and Assault Strobe is quite the combo from Scars of Mirrodin that I personally love. You back this up with all the best burn spells like Magma Jet and Lightning Bolt and you still have a very fast and vicious deck.
Historically, the former is stronger than the latter but personally I find it more fun to play something closer to the latter. But the real question is: what do you want to play?
Your list is pretty nice, and it looks very effective. My concern is mostly that Swerve and Countersquall are more "cute" than effective, and aren't as versatile: going for something like Mana Leak will more often be effective and be able to answer more problems. Undermine might be worth a look.
The other thing is that Mind Spring is a great card drawer late game, but is not as powerful early game. Having some good cards that come down early for card advantage is good too (and you got them with Blightning, but that's a different kind of card advantage) so think about spreading them out potentially a little more.
It's fine. It's got its own weaknesses and strength, and since multiplayer games run longer the further a game goes along the more easy it is to pay for it's cost. The only problem is if the rest of your playgroup doesn't play with good cards, doesn't know how to deal with cards like prison, and if your overall deck quality is better than theirs in such a way they start complaining because your decks are "broken". In that case, help them make better decks and be better players
Just beware of Sphinx of Jwar Isle and Darksteel Colossus, but if you start pointing your guns at the enemy you can probably outrace the sphinx.
Spikeshot Elder is also great with the equipment, because he can go off multiple times a turn with enough mana and ping several guys at once. Top that off with Inferno Titan to win the game for you (about 2 or 3 will do), he's absolutely nuts with deathtouch since he can just ping 3 guys every time he swings in.
I'd cut down on the Prodigal Pyromancers, Forked Bolt (Arc Trail is better) and think about Flame Javelin and definitely upping the amount of Flame Slash and Burst Lightning.
Sprouting Thrinax is one of the cards that "made" tournament jund, alongside Blightning and Bloodbraid Elf. Putrid Leech might be the 2 drop you are looking for.
They're like white truffle oil: very expensive, very premium, very versatile ingredient in a lot of top-tier recipes.
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Flame Slash
2 Mana Leak
2 Negate
4 Counterspell
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra Nalaar
From there, ask if you want to be more control based or aggro-burn based. Say you want to be incredibly controlling, winning out of attrition, permission, card advantage, and keeping all creatures off the board, then you'd up the counterspells and burn, include some card advantage, and ride out on big burn spells and lots of mana.
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Flame Slash
2 Mana Leak
2 Negate
4 Counterspell
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra Nalaar
Deliciously stally creatures
4 Guard Gomazoa
Card Advantage
4 Fact or Fiction
4 Mulldrifter
3 Earthquake
3 Volcanic Fallout
Big Bad Finishers
4 Banefire (Fireball for budget)
Counter their big spells, burn their creatures and eventually them. Block their dudes or earthquake them out.
Maybe you want to be more aggressive:
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Flame Slash
2 Mana Leak
2 Negate
4 Counterspell
1 Koth of the Hammer
1 Chandra Nalaar
Speedy little Buggers
4 Goblin Guide (Jackal Pup is good budget replacement)
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Man-o'-War
4 Burst Lightning
Better Counters
2 Daze
2 Remand
Here you want to avoid slower spells and use your burn to either burn out your opponent's blockers or burn their face. Because of the dual colors, Ball Lightning and other red-intensive beaters become poor picks, but you want to eschew card advantage and control for tempo, using counterspells to set them back. Daze in this context becomes very good, as does Remand.
I hope that gives you some ideas. Pick a plan, and build around it all the way.
You told me to rate it ;P
No seriously though, it seems good but slow. Unless your teammate can help save your skin early game, expect a lot of early game hate as your first real defenses come out T3. T4 Wrath effects help, but I agree Soulscour is very slow (but so is multiplayer sometimes, so maybe you can get away with one). One solution is to reduce your highest mana cost creatures to singletons, since any Sphinx Summoner can find the one copy you need (although I'd still keep two Sharuum).
Wall of Omens is a great early game defense card. But you can also go the route of Prophetic Prism, which you can perpetually bounce with Master Transmuter for card-drawing shenanigans (bounce it to hand, then you can put it into play for free (yes you can do that)).
I personally like running Sen Triplets with Exotic Orchard so you can cast enemy spells more easily, or at least Vivid Lands.
But really: what does your deck want to do?
*some ideas: Man-o'-War, Aether Adept, Riftwing Cloudskate, Flametongue Kavu, Enclave Cryptologist, Spitebellows, Mulldrifter, etc.
It's not a linear mechanic but more of a modular one: it supports a whatever kind of deck its in by helping control draws or set up strategies or find combo pieces or other such things. However, Scry and rearranging effects can be good for "fixing the dice" on certain effects that care about the top card of your library. Counterbalance and Sensei's Divining Top is one of the defining combos in Legacy, and swapping out the top with some instant speed Scry can help keep your opponent indefinitely locked down (however, in legacy most spells generally curve out at 3 or 4 mana total, meaning in casual counterbalance is actually weaker since a wider range of mana costs are played). Again, Skill Borrower and Conundrum Sphinx were mentioned, and Sindbad is a hilariously old-school example. Also neat with Kinship cards like Leaf-Crowned Elder or whomever if you want to make a tribal deck. Clash and The Kamigawa Decievers also are worth a look.
However, the best way I've used it is just splashed into a straight U/X control deck or in a combo deck that needs to dig for its combo pieces or answers.
etc
From there you can think of doing colorless mana ramp (urzatron or Locus-ramp) and then find a lot of cool artifact synergy with stuff like Myr Retriever or Sharuum of the Hegemon
Black isn't only the best because of efficient (if dangerous) creatures, but also because of it's gamebreaking spells: Necropotence, Yawgmoth's Will, Demonic Tutor, Phyrexian Arena... delicious delicious power. Oh yeah, and green can't really kill things. Black can kill a 4/5 in a second, lets see a mono green deck try that.
And hell, green's honestly got nothing on THIS GUY.
don't worry you got nothing to worry about. If green gives you trouble, run these:
What's Green going to do? Lignify you? Plus your card drawing is better. See Sign in Blood and Phyrexian Arena and well, everything.
Players of Black unite! :3
Also, are you interested in a creatureless mono-black build? If you are, I can post my list for you later. Basically, it keeps creatures constantly off the board, gains you tons of life, and eventually kills everyone else with things like Consume Spirit or Corrupt. Good stuff.
Well, Chain Lightning is going for about $8-$15 now, which is less than usual but.. you know. I think there are plenty alternatives to Shock already brought up. Anyways, decklist tagged:
4 Magma Jet
2 Dead // Gone
4 Burst Lightning
2 Fossil Find
3 Fling
2 Sulfurous Blast
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Mudbutton Torchrunner
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Ball Lightning
Enchantments
3 Quest for Pure Flame
2 Assault Strobe
Lands
3 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
19 Mountain
We've pretty much got a great list of burn going on, and there's a lot of stuff mentioned already that you should look into. Remember, that certain spells have certain requirements, whether that's getting a certain land count out, hitting metalcraft, having a creature in play, or what have you. Therefore, when you build a deck you have to think of each card's limitations.
For example: Assault Strobe and Fling require you have a creature out in play to get full use out of them. You only have 12 creatures total in your deck, and Ball Lightning only sticks around for one turn, meaning if you want to assault strobe him or fling him you have to do it the turn he's out, meaning it's also a higher mana requirement too. Having creatures usually isn't a limitation, but in this case you'll find yourself more often with an "unusable" card because you lack a high concentration of permanent creatures (especially with your sweepers). Mudbutton Torchrunner also only does 2 damage with double strike and 1 + its death damage if flung. Not very exciting.
Does your red deck want to be aggressively creature based? Or does it want to eschew creatures entirely? What kind of possibilities open up if you push either direction? Or you can stick to the center and be very balanced.
For example, if you play only creatures that die at end of turn like Ball Lightning or Hellspark Elemental, then you get to play around a lot of sorcery speed answers but are still vulnerable to Walls, instant speed removal, and especially first strike. This however gives you the freedom to play a lot of cool effects like Earthquake and Volcanic Fallout which can sweep the board and deal damage, plus those kind of creatures can race for damage faster and more efficiently.
If you do play more creatures that stick around like Goblin Guide, Jackal Pup, Keldon Mauraders, Mogg Flunkies, Kiln Fiend, Chandra's Spitfire, and so forth then cards like Sulferous Blast, Volcanic Fallout, etc. all risk killing off your own army, but you have less risk of running out of gas. They can also get incredibly powerful with things like Assault Strobe, Double Cleave, Fling, and more creature reliant ways of getting damage through: for example Trigon of Rage and Assault Strobe is quite the combo from Scars of Mirrodin that I personally love. You back this up with all the best burn spells like Magma Jet and Lightning Bolt and you still have a very fast and vicious deck.
Historically, the former is stronger than the latter but personally I find it more fun to play something closer to the latter. But the real question is: what do you want to play?
Your list is pretty nice, and it looks very effective. My concern is mostly that Swerve and Countersquall are more "cute" than effective, and aren't as versatile: going for something like Mana Leak will more often be effective and be able to answer more problems. Undermine might be worth a look.
The other thing is that Mind Spring is a great card drawer late game, but is not as powerful early game. Having some good cards that come down early for card advantage is good too (and you got them with Blightning, but that's a different kind of card advantage) so think about spreading them out potentially a little more.