A pile of cards is a pile of cards is a pile of cards. It may be a pile of good cards, but a pile is a pile nonetheless. How do your cards help each other? How do they help each other or synergize (and no, being all multicolored doesn't mean they're helping each other, nor does it mean that the cards with cascade improve the overall deck).
For example, I could point you to Knight of New Alara, which does do wonders with a golden deck. You could combine him with the triple mana 2cc blades from Alara Reborn over Infiltrator for the extra +1/+1; I'd think about Esper Stormblade being a good choice because of it's evasion. Again, Quirion Dryad was mentioned. Supply/Demand can tutor for whatever for only 3 mana... very strong. Dragon Arch can totally cheat in a big bruiser...
My main point is, having 5 colors is sort of neat, but you aren't doing anything special with it; unlike 5 color control, you aren't playing the best of every single color ever in a hate-filled wrath of Cruel Ultimatums and Broodmate Dragons, nor are you abusing the golden-ness of your cards by playing with cards that benefit from multicolordness, like the 2-Color Lieges (Creakwood Liege, Deathbringer Liege, Wilt-Leaf Liege, etc), Gloryscale Viashano... this list will give you a good starting point.
Don't mean to come down hard, but firs thing I want to see is a big, juicy game plan for your deck.
Not a bad looking list; my only complaint is... Niveous Wisps? What does tapping a creature for a cantrip do for you? Ever? I'd rather run a straight removal spell there so you don't have to worry about tapping a creature, it's gone! Swords to Plowshares, Oust, or extra Oblivion Ring + Path to Exile there would be more useful.
For something more casual, I'm sure if you did a quick search for 1cc creatures you could do something very silly and degenerate with Aether Vial at 1 counter. I wouldn't know where to start though. Hmmmmm...
Most likely thought I'd try for an aggro deck with 1cc and 2cc cost creatures, or 2cc and 3cc, or at most 1-4cc cost creatures. Or some form of tribal.
Yeah, I gotta say, this isn't going to work out very well...
Without resorting to Jace or anything you can still make something pretty degenerate with the same idea. The goal as I see it is:
- chump indefinitely for defense.
- punish the opponent for killing your men.
The problem I see however is that certain decks, like creatureless or combo decks, will totally ignore what you are doing and also every time you block your bringing yourself down a card, meaning that eventually you'll run out of blockers unless you have a way to CONSISTENTLY bring them back. Plus, the opponent will just simply choose not to attack if it doesn't benefit them.
However, let me throw out there that this deck wants some hard graveyard recursion and possibly some neat sacrifice or graveyard synergy. When chump blocking becomes disadvantageous for the other player, even the greenest player will hold back their Craw Wurm when all they see is that it'll die to Razor Barrier or just get stopped cold by Guard Gomazoa. Therefore, I really think you should invest in a possibly fun or possibly effective alternate win con. Jinxed Idol is a silly one: sacrifice a little creature then you can chump block all day while the enemy takes 2 damage or sacrifices their Craw Wurm, ramping into Banefire can work, Overrun on your little dudes to turn the game around, or a big fat dude who is also on theme and gives you chump blockers: Oona, Queen of the Fae and Mycoloth both fit the theme but are also good enough to attack too.
I have a Grixis Control deck that is tooled for MP and with a single player SB. I found Vampire Nighthawk to be good all the time, and I'm a little dubious about Thraximunder as a finisher, although he does seem fun and also a sudden surprise due to haste.
To expand on the MP sideboard, I found Void and Crosis Charm are both good cards to have since artifact and enchantment problems crop up more in MP. Volcanic Fallout is also good for early sweeping against either group games or aggro matchups. Earthquake is also a cheap and effective board sweeper, although if you can get your hands on Damnation, Black Sun's Zenith, or Barter in Blood those might be good ideas too. You'd probably side out the counterspells since they lose effectiveness in group games. Finally, I'd swap out Thraximunder for Blood Tyrant in a 3+ person game.
(2) What is the opinion of Myrsmith in a deck like this?
(3) I have a single Lodestone Golem in my sideboard against control. Although the curve is super low, having 4 mana is not undoable and seems like a strong play against a slower control deck. Has anyone tried this?
Sorry if these points were brought up before, I've just glossed the previous pages though and if there's a detailed answer to some of these points already I haven't caught it yet.
Strong cards are strong, questionable choices are questionable, but looks like a combination of lucking out and planeswalkers and good play got you a 1st place FNM. Nice work! I do however think that this deck can be better.
Keep in mind, I just recently entered playing standard again, and am not the best to ask about archetypes or metagame, but I do have a few gut reactions I feel I should share.
I don't understand Mindbreak Trap here, especially when Deprive and cheaper/better counters exist. Also, against your toughest matchups you seemed to side in your counters, then win. I'd say you should consider a maindeck counter deck rather than having to transform when you face a worthy opponent. Also, Glimmerpost lifegain is not worth the loss of consistency, nor is the loss of speed when running Kabiri Crossroads. What's especially noticable is that Glacial Fortress will enter tapped every single time because of the lack of basics, making it strictly worse than Sejiri Refuge in this deck.
Now I think you went overboard on the removal and sweepers in the maindeck, and because you have 7 Jaces worth of library manipulation, you'll be able to manipulate your way into what you need to draw when you need it, so you can cut some sweepers and 1cc white removal (like Pitfall Trap) to make room for some flexibility. 4 DoJ + 3 Phyrexian Rebirth + 4 Rachet Bombs is 11 pieces of sweep; you can afford to cut two Phyrexian Rebirths there. People are right Pitfall Trap is sub-par, you haven't mentioned it pulling any miracles in your report, and is useless against stuff like Kuldotha Red. Have you thought of 1 Brittle Effigy and 4 Trinket Mage? The mages can also get you a Elixer of Immortality if you want, or a Chimeric Mass if you need a finisher. With a few smart cuts, you can make room for a trinket mage toolbox that can serve as a great way to make your card flexible (gets you a spot removal, threat, or lifegain). Revoke Existence could maybe go for the sideboard and you can put counters there instead because Mana leak in that slot will be more relevant more often.
Also, Preordain, 100% of the time. Now and forever.
Mystifying Maze seems like a powerful tech you've stumbled on that works for you. Maybe run two, but you shouldn't colorless yourself too much. With Jaces and Preordain you should be able to get it when you need it.
I'm a player who does a lot of casual and limited, and am returning to Standard due to the fact there are a lot of interesting decks and relatively inexpensive manabases for allied colors, and I've decided to experiment with one of the more interesting aggro decks out there: TemperedOverseer. The idea is partially based off Sam Black's Tempered Steel Paris deck, and partially off JVL's Building on a Budget column, but I also put my own spin on a few things when I took it to the FNM tonight. My main questions are:
- What are some ideas you have about the sideboard?
and
- What is your opinion on some of the more unconventional choices I've made?
I'd like a few more Mox Opals, but one is good enough for now until I manage to trade for more. Anyways, the idea of this deck for those who don't know is to drop 0, 1, and 2 mana artifacts then curve out to Tempered Steel and win hopefully around turn 3 or 4. It's extra aggressive (I got to swing for 18 in one game, pre-sideboard) and the transformative sideboard can turn it into a Quest for the Holy Relic combo deck that can go to town with a cheated argentum armor, should the need arise for it.
I've done a few tricks of my own for this deck. First, the single copy of Myrsmith can help snowball more tokens out and turn artifacts drawn off the top into double the creatures, and also with some careful playing early game get a pair of 1/1's off a mana and a memnite. It was good when I got it in some games, but I think more than one may hurt the deck, and I'm still dubious as to whether it really has a spot or not. Dread Statuary isn't on any versions of this deck I've seen but seems exceptionally solid, as I don't ever trip on white mana ever. I rarely get out 5 lands to turn him on though, yet he doesn't seem to be hurting, and when I do get him on he can dodge all the Day of Jugements and Pyroclasms out there. Finally, I haven't tested this yet but I have a single Lodestone Golem against control that will slow down Doom Blades and Divine Offerings, and hopefully get a large swing or two in before getting nuked.
What I brought to FNM was a little different than this list here, but I found that my biggest enemies are now the very popular pyroclasm and heavy removal. Myr Sire, Perilous Myr, and Glint Hawk Idol all are good against sweepers, although I'm thinking a Chimeric Mass could warrant a slot too. Red decks can also race a little faster, plus kuldotha red and boros both have access to sweepers that would wreck me. I didn't get to play against Valakut tonight, but it's a matchup I'd like to see myself go against with this list.
So my main question is that I have a quest for the holy relic plan B in the sideboard, but tonight I was fairly unsure about when to side it in; it seems like against heavy control getting a doom blade in response to saccing quest is a really bad thing for me, as is getting quest bounced along with any number of nightmares. I don't know the quest for the holy relic deck as well and don't know what decks it accells against, which makes sideboarding hard. Also, is the quest plan the best plan even? The Paris deck splashes blue for pseudo-control, and I've also heard suggestions for splashing black for removal, but I'm unsure about either of those plans. Finally, if I ditch the holy relic plan, I may consider putting in Origin Spellbomb, more Myr Sire, and other cards that are resilliant against sweepers and control. Maybe even some straight white removal!
It's all about balance. The best thing is to make it less profitable to attack you, and more profitable to attack someone else. What I found best in multiplayer is having high blockers or defensive cards that make it awkward to attack you, whether it's an early game Wall of Omens or something like No Mercy or even Pattern of Rebirth. Ultimately, being a nice guy or turtling up won't get rid of problems, only stall them, so you should also have plenty of answers ranging from creature killers like Terminate to things like Acidic Slime or Naturalize, and definitely sweepers ranging like Day of Judgement. I don't think howling mine + friends is useless, but you should be sure to do it in moderation, and not just rely on people's goodwill (which people don't have at all when playing Magic).
Some of these I'm still trading for, some are secretly Mind Spring's instead, and it's not quite supposed to be Standard Tourney Tempered Steel quality but it seems about the right power level and fun level for kitchen table play. But if you got any suggestions for funner or more powerful cards (and hopefully still standard) I'd like to hear them. Mostly the plan is the tempered out a beatdown with Myr and tokens, but you can go infinite with either a Golem Artisan or a Blue Sun's Zenith with double Galvanizer and mana myr. Also drawing a lot off Zenith is good funs too.
MUC always had a rought time in multiplayer, but there are some cool things that actually stand out from EDH that you can use in Multiplayer.
Bribery is a really neat spell when you got 2 to 3 other players. It's part politics, part "I got your Progenitus!", and part gamble.
If you don't have Nevvy Disk on hand try for an Oblivion Stone.
Commandeer is a bit hefty in either cost, but is amazing in multiplayer EDH. Although faster than EDH, multiplayer 60-card magic is still slow enough where a single copy can do some good things when spells start stacking.
Caves of Koilos is your best option for budget. Vivid Meadow and Vivid Marsh are also excellent budget options, and I've used them extensively in my casual decks.
So just to break it down: there are allied colors in magic and opposing colors, which I'm sure you might know already. The thing is that more dual lands have been printed for allied colors than the latter, so there are cycles of mana-lands that exist only for the allies (G/,W/,U/,B/,R/) than for the opposing colors.
For example, I could point you to Knight of New Alara, which does do wonders with a golden deck. You could combine him with the triple mana 2cc blades from Alara Reborn over Infiltrator for the extra +1/+1; I'd think about Esper Stormblade being a good choice because of it's evasion. Again, Quirion Dryad was mentioned. Supply/Demand can tutor for whatever for only 3 mana... very strong. Dragon Arch can totally cheat in a big bruiser...
My main point is, having 5 colors is sort of neat, but you aren't doing anything special with it; unlike 5 color control, you aren't playing the best of every single color ever in a hate-filled wrath of Cruel Ultimatums and Broodmate Dragons, nor are you abusing the golden-ness of your cards by playing with cards that benefit from multicolordness, like the 2-Color Lieges (Creakwood Liege, Deathbringer Liege, Wilt-Leaf Liege, etc), Gloryscale Viashano... this list will give you a good starting point.
Don't mean to come down hard, but firs thing I want to see is a big, juicy game plan for your deck.
For fast soldiers, also check out Goldmeadow Harrier. I think it's a little more useful than Cenn's Tactician. I also notice a lack of Elite Vanguard, and if you include Hada Freeblade you might get better allies overall and a cool little subtheme going. Icatian Javilineer is actually pretty strong, Loyal Sentry is also a neat dude, and Soltari Foot Soldier is unblockable... worth considering with all the pumps you have.
Nomads' Assembly, Knight-Captain of Eos, Cloudgoat Ranger, and Conquerer's Pledge also make interesting finishers (although you do want to watch the mana curve).
For something more casual, I'm sure if you did a quick search for 1cc creatures you could do something very silly and degenerate with Aether Vial at 1 counter. I wouldn't know where to start though. Hmmmmm...
Most likely thought I'd try for an aggro deck with 1cc and 2cc cost creatures, or 2cc and 3cc, or at most 1-4cc cost creatures. Or some form of tribal.
Don't forget to pair him with Tinker Mage, btw.
Just for the schenanigans
Without resorting to Jace or anything you can still make something pretty degenerate with the same idea. The goal as I see it is:
- chump indefinitely for defense.
- punish the opponent for killing your men.
The problem I see however is that certain decks, like creatureless or combo decks, will totally ignore what you are doing and also every time you block your bringing yourself down a card, meaning that eventually you'll run out of blockers unless you have a way to CONSISTENTLY bring them back. Plus, the opponent will just simply choose not to attack if it doesn't benefit them.
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker was a good suggestion for the graveyard recursion. Let me also throw out there Wall of Kelp, Spiny Starfish, Fog Bank, Guard Gomazoa, Goblin Arsonist, Mudbutton Torchrunner, Perilous Myr, Hornet Harasser, Festering Goblin and Reassembling Skeleton.
However, let me throw out there that this deck wants some hard graveyard recursion and possibly some neat sacrifice or graveyard synergy. When chump blocking becomes disadvantageous for the other player, even the greenest player will hold back their Craw Wurm when all they see is that it'll die to Razor Barrier or just get stopped cold by Guard Gomazoa. Therefore, I really think you should invest in a possibly fun or possibly effective alternate win con. Jinxed Idol is a silly one: sacrifice a little creature then you can chump block all day while the enemy takes 2 damage or sacrifices their Craw Wurm, ramping into Banefire can work, Overrun on your little dudes to turn the game around, or a big fat dude who is also on theme and gives you chump blockers: Oona, Queen of the Fae and Mycoloth both fit the theme but are also good enough to attack too.
Some ideas for this deck overall:
- Token makers like Bitterblossom (out of budget), Awakening Zone + Kozilek's Predator + Nest Invader + Emrakul's Hatcher, Marsh Flitter, Imperious Perfect, Jund Battlemage, Wall of Kelp, or whomever.
- Grave Pact + Sacrifice Outlets, like Bloodthrone Vampire or Goblin Bombardment. Every time you lose a creature, so does everyone else, and if people aren't attacking, then sacrifice a Festering Goblin or Mudbutton Torchrunner and kill two or three things at once.
- Or you can combine Eldrazi Tokens and sacrifice and play 4 Furnace Celebration. Sacrifice Mogg Fanatic, an eldrazi spawn token, or sacrifice something to Bloodthrone Vampire and then fire off a ton of damage to someone's face. The only problem is that while Eldrazi Spawn are good chump blockers, Furnace Celebration only triggers when you SACRIFICE something, not when something simply dies.
To expand on the MP sideboard, I found Void and Crosis Charm are both good cards to have since artifact and enchantment problems crop up more in MP. Volcanic Fallout is also good for early sweeping against either group games or aggro matchups. Earthquake is also a cheap and effective board sweeper, although if you can get your hands on Damnation, Black Sun's Zenith, or Barter in Blood those might be good ideas too. You'd probably side out the counterspells since they lose effectiveness in group games. Finally, I'd swap out Thraximunder for Blood Tyrant in a 3+ person game.
Also, Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker is pretty fun.
(1) Has anyone tried the Quest For the Holy Relic plan in the sideboard, and how has it worked for them (sb 4 Quest for the Holy Relic, 2 Argentum Armor, and then get there with glint hawks)? If so, against which matchups?
(2) What is the opinion of Myrsmith in a deck like this?
(3) I have a single Lodestone Golem in my sideboard against control. Although the curve is super low, having 4 mana is not undoable and seems like a strong play against a slower control deck. Has anyone tried this?
Sorry if these points were brought up before, I've just glossed the previous pages though and if there's a detailed answer to some of these points already I haven't caught it yet.
Keep in mind, I just recently entered playing standard again, and am not the best to ask about archetypes or metagame, but I do have a few gut reactions I feel I should share.
I don't understand Mindbreak Trap here, especially when Deprive and cheaper/better counters exist. Also, against your toughest matchups you seemed to side in your counters, then win. I'd say you should consider a maindeck counter deck rather than having to transform when you face a worthy opponent. Also, Glimmerpost lifegain is not worth the loss of consistency, nor is the loss of speed when running Kabiri Crossroads. What's especially noticable is that Glacial Fortress will enter tapped every single time because of the lack of basics, making it strictly worse than Sejiri Refuge in this deck.
Now I think you went overboard on the removal and sweepers in the maindeck, and because you have 7 Jaces worth of library manipulation, you'll be able to manipulate your way into what you need to draw when you need it, so you can cut some sweepers and 1cc white removal (like Pitfall Trap) to make room for some flexibility. 4 DoJ + 3 Phyrexian Rebirth + 4 Rachet Bombs is 11 pieces of sweep; you can afford to cut two Phyrexian Rebirths there. People are right Pitfall Trap is sub-par, you haven't mentioned it pulling any miracles in your report, and is useless against stuff like Kuldotha Red. Have you thought of 1 Brittle Effigy and 4 Trinket Mage? The mages can also get you a Elixer of Immortality if you want, or a Chimeric Mass if you need a finisher. With a few smart cuts, you can make room for a trinket mage toolbox that can serve as a great way to make your card flexible (gets you a spot removal, threat, or lifegain). Revoke Existence could maybe go for the sideboard and you can put counters there instead because Mana leak in that slot will be more relevant more often.
Also, Preordain, 100% of the time. Now and forever.
Mystifying Maze seems like a powerful tech you've stumbled on that works for you. Maybe run two, but you shouldn't colorless yourself too much. With Jaces and Preordain you should be able to get it when you need it.
I'm a player who does a lot of casual and limited, and am returning to Standard due to the fact there are a lot of interesting decks and relatively inexpensive manabases for allied colors, and I've decided to experiment with one of the more interesting aggro decks out there: Tempered Overseer. The idea is partially based off Sam Black's Tempered Steel Paris deck, and partially off JVL's Building on a Budget column, but I also put my own spin on a few things when I took it to the FNM tonight. My main questions are:
- What are some ideas you have about the sideboard?
and
- What is your opinion on some of the more unconventional choices I've made?
4 Contested Warzone
2 Dread Statuary
15 Plains
Creatures (30)
4 Memnite
4 Ornithopter
3 Vector Asp
4 Signal Pest
4 Glint Hawk
4 Ardent Recruit
4 Steel Overseer
2 Myr Sire
1 Myrsmith
1 Mox Opal
4 Glint Hawk Idol
4 Tempered Steel
4 Quest for the Holy Relic
2 Argentum Armor
4 Perilous Myr
2 Refraction Trap
2 Kor Firewalker
1 Lodestone Golem
I'd like a few more Mox Opals, but one is good enough for now until I manage to trade for more. Anyways, the idea of this deck for those who don't know is to drop 0, 1, and 2 mana artifacts then curve out to Tempered Steel and win hopefully around turn 3 or 4. It's extra aggressive (I got to swing for 18 in one game, pre-sideboard) and the transformative sideboard can turn it into a Quest for the Holy Relic combo deck that can go to town with a cheated argentum armor, should the need arise for it.
I've done a few tricks of my own for this deck. First, the single copy of Myrsmith can help snowball more tokens out and turn artifacts drawn off the top into double the creatures, and also with some careful playing early game get a pair of 1/1's off a mana and a memnite. It was good when I got it in some games, but I think more than one may hurt the deck, and I'm still dubious as to whether it really has a spot or not. Dread Statuary isn't on any versions of this deck I've seen but seems exceptionally solid, as I don't ever trip on white mana ever. I rarely get out 5 lands to turn him on though, yet he doesn't seem to be hurting, and when I do get him on he can dodge all the Day of Jugements and Pyroclasms out there. Finally, I haven't tested this yet but I have a single Lodestone Golem against control that will slow down Doom Blades and Divine Offerings, and hopefully get a large swing or two in before getting nuked.
What I brought to FNM was a little different than this list here, but I found that my biggest enemies are now the very popular pyroclasm and heavy removal. Myr Sire, Perilous Myr, and Glint Hawk Idol all are good against sweepers, although I'm thinking a Chimeric Mass could warrant a slot too. Red decks can also race a little faster, plus kuldotha red and boros both have access to sweepers that would wreck me. I didn't get to play against Valakut tonight, but it's a matchup I'd like to see myself go against with this list.
So my main question is that I have a quest for the holy relic plan B in the sideboard, but tonight I was fairly unsure about when to side it in; it seems like against heavy control getting a doom blade in response to saccing quest is a really bad thing for me, as is getting quest bounced along with any number of nightmares. I don't know the quest for the holy relic deck as well and don't know what decks it accells against, which makes sideboarding hard. Also, is the quest plan the best plan even? The Paris deck splashes blue for pseudo-control, and I've also heard suggestions for splashing black for removal, but I'm unsure about either of those plans. Finally, if I ditch the holy relic plan, I may consider putting in Origin Spellbomb, more Myr Sire, and other cards that are resilliant against sweepers and control. Maybe even some straight white removal!
Thanks ahead of time for the feedback.
4 Sejiri Refuge
4 Glacial Fortress
6 Plains
6 Island
Creatures (24)
4 Gold Myr
4 Silver Myr
4 Myrsmith
4 Palladium Myr
4 Myr Galvanizer
1 Golem Artisan
3 Myr Battlesphere
4 Origin Spellbomb
4 Tempered Steel
3 Myr Reservoir
3 Blue Sun's Zenith
2 Myr Turbine
Some of these I'm still trading for, some are secretly Mind Spring's instead, and it's not quite supposed to be Standard Tourney Tempered Steel quality but it seems about the right power level and fun level for kitchen table play. But if you got any suggestions for funner or more powerful cards (and hopefully still standard) I'd like to hear them. Mostly the plan is the tempered out a beatdown with Myr and tokens, but you can go infinite with either a Golem Artisan or a Blue Sun's Zenith with double Galvanizer and mana myr. Also drawing a lot off Zenith is good funs too.
Thoughts?
Bribery is a really neat spell when you got 2 to 3 other players. It's part politics, part "I got your Progenitus!", and part gamble.
If you don't have Nevvy Disk on hand try for an Oblivion Stone.
Commandeer is a bit hefty in either cost, but is amazing in multiplayer EDH. Although faster than EDH, multiplayer 60-card magic is still slow enough where a single copy can do some good things when spells start stacking.
So just to break it down: there are allied colors in magic and opposing colors, which I'm sure you might know already. The thing is that more dual lands have been printed for allied colors than the latter, so there are cycles of mana-lands that exist only for the allies (G/,W/,U/,B/,R/) than for the opposing colors.
Brief List:
Original Dual Lands (Scrublands)
Shock Lands (Godless Shrine)
Fetch Lands (Marsh Flats)
Filter Lands (Fetid Heath)
Pain Lands (Caves of Koilos)
...and then you have the Tri-lands like Arcane Sanctum from Shards that sorta act like a ETBT dual land for B/W.