You've got some really good weenies in this Budget boros deck, i think with some tweeks and a solid know-how of the board situation it could be playable and fun. The Kitties (Steppe Lynx) are always solid, and i'd recommend losing the four goblin assults for adventuring gear. With 4 kitties, 4 adventuring gears, and probably losing vanguard for 4 Kor duelists, you have a high probablity of always being able to beat for 5/6 damage on turn 3 with consistency.
8 1/2 drop creatures (fast beaters; CITP ability creatures;River boa survives mass removal)
^Ardent plea into
7 Three drops (Rhoxy is a champ in this slot)
^ Bloodbraid into (you really only need 4 jungle shrines to splash the red)
4 five-drops (recommend flyers, if you can't afford BSA, then toss in Serras)
^ Enlisted Wurm into
Even if your creatures are getting 1for1'd, because it runs a very structured cascade design you can usually maintain CA. just play smart, and don't overplay your hand. just make sure your mana base is focused to support your turn 1-3 mana needs. after that it should be gravy.
*Thornling is solid, just don't ever play him in agro without the mana to activate any of his abilities.
Was wondering about the mana base, and any better hate cards/ways to speed it up (Path to Exile is out as not a fan, and can't afford)
As Almost grown stated, you're looking at a pretty drastic overhaul. Simply, your mana curve is way too high to maintain control any time before T8. Without knowing how you want to play your control, i'd recommend starting with the 3x cruels, and find a couple of solid 4-6 drop flyers, then build the rest of your deck down from that mana cost. Most control decks won't run more than 4or5 Wincon creatures, you listed 10.
What do you think of the deck I just posted(well the link)?
Since you're looking to developing this for competative, i'll state as such:
I don't see any WinCon? The deck doesn't have a strong early game push to get in for aggro damage, and it lacks any late game finishers. No Double dragons or other flyers, no cruels.
As far as the white spash goes, Skuller doesn't stand much of a chance of making it through a turn. most decks are packing enough removal/burn that the turn after it steals a spell they'll either blast it, or ignore it, and continue swinging in with beefy creatures.
I'd recommend looking at the FNM boards, and checking out the basic skeleton builds being tossed around, and making your own personal deck tweeks based on those. It's very hard to develope anything 'new' in conpetetive play that hasn't already been postulated.
People have thought of doing Sphinx of the Steel Wind vs. Jund. The problem lies in its casting cost, as you've probably figured out...
So much potential, but against any other MU than jund, StWnd will most likely take a path/deathmark/DoJ/Purge to the face, and you're tapped out 8 mana. Like BSA though, when it hits the board, you can bet your opponent's eye will never stray from it. It's a monster threat that cannot be ignored.
I think that Manabarbs' best spot would be in a sideboard for very fast decks, since you don't really want to have it played against a deck that's just as fast as yours.
it's a tricky card to try and use, any dedicated control deck will most likely be running 4 esper charms, that's 3 damage you're dealing on your turn 4 that you could have used to play Garruk or BBE on instead. any turns later, and it will probably just get countered.
Against other aggro decks, they probably won't be playing much over 3 drops anyways. 1 pulse, and you're back to the same situation as the control set-up. one of the reasons the card doesn't lend to very much popularity.
just beat the 1st place jund deck using in the pro tour, beat it 2-0, and i beat a bushwaker deck 2-1.
If it's the jund decklist running 4 bit-blasts, 2 pulses, 2 terminates, then yeah, that's a fairly large hand-full of dead cards they'd have sitting in that hand, any super-secret sideboard tech sided in against you on game 2's?
just thought this up. its an esper mill deck, looks kinda fun, ima try it after i finish studying for my trig test T_T.
My concern with your Decklist is you don't have any way to 2for1 your opponent. if they get tokens or BBE or any thing that's going give them board position you'll quickly find yourself treading water. Without some crazy land accelleration, a-la Harrow, etc, your mill crab won't be putting up much of a fight.
...i only used 12 slots for mill. 4 archive trap, 4 mind funeral and 4 hedron crabs....rest of the build was pretty much control... DoJ,Paths,Jace,identity crises (main rocks), negates...
And this is just such a strategy. Granted when conditions are right, you can archive trap someone into oblivion, but that requires 3/4 of them filtering up to your top 12 cards for the turn 5 kill?
I try to play a mill strategy consisting of cheap control in the early game (I.E. Path, purge, O-ring, Etc) then ramp up with card draw after turn four, keep htting the board with as much mass removal as possible, then use Mind Funeral, Traumatize and Haunting echoes to finish off their deck.
I'd probably only play 2 Archive traps and keep the other 2 in the board in the event that the match-up wasn't playing any searches.
That's what I need to replace in the deck >.< but I'm not too sure what to replace those cards with.
I.E. those are placeholder cards you're looking to fill in with current standard cards eh? Well if your focus is fill their yard quicky, then i say check your curve and punish them for discarding anything relevent with 3x Haunting Echoes
*On a side note, you need to play more than 18 lands. you're going to be sorely missing land drops without at least 22 in a mono-deck
Bant's CA... Hm, if your not in budget:
Baneslayer
Rafiq
Day of Judgement
Ajani
Elspeth
conquerer's pledge
Honor of the pure
garruk
i could go on
I'd have to argue Bant has amazing Card Advantage over Jund, consider:
8 two-drops (river Boa is great for surviving DoJ)
^ Ardent Plea into
7 three drops (Rhoxy and jenara are solid)
^ Capture Sunight into
^ Bloodbraid Elf into (splash some jungle shrines into your manabase)
4 Five drops (maybe get lucky on those Baneslayers)
^ Enlisted Wurm into
Bant has a very strong cascade, and short of DoJ the only thing a pyroclasm or fallout is going to do is wipeout your 2-drops.
And if Jund is using all it's remove to 1-1 your creatures, you're still likely to draw into a new cascade and replenish your stocks.
...How important is it to run planeswalkers in a deck?...
This question feels akin to asking 'how important is it to run creatures in a deck?'
It all comes down to the deck build. Some good things about plainswalkers: they take hits for you; buy you turns; grant you re-usable abilites; they cost on par $-wise the same would any other popular utility card that would be played in their stead.
In the end they're just card types like instants and creatures. The better they fit into the mass of puzzle pieces that is your deck, the more you should be considering playing them.
ajani vengent. this thing is amazing for control, can win games completely of his own accord, and creates problems for other control players as well as aggro. plus, blowing up lands=lulz lulz lulz, true. but is also a relevantly game changing ability if you get it to go off.
Jace is the best card draw in standard right now, period. best walker? meh. he's going in pretty much everything playing blue, so I suppose that says something right?
While not really making a strait up list, i would rank a few plainswalkers for choosing to play them.
I'm really seeing both Ajani V and Jace as solid for control in this currently turmoilus meta. Ajani V can bolt most of the aggro threats, and against control mirrors does a great job at tapping down mana. I've been playing around with putting Elspeth in control too, but i prefer Ajani V. in her slot.
playing with Jund, having Garruk make the board T4 is always solid. if your opponent DoJ's the next turn, you get a free 3/3 to start over with + BBE, Thinax, or whatever was still sitting in your hand.
While not a rockstar, I'm looking into a pyromancer Ascension deck running mostly burn with Chandra ablaze late game. With the right build there could be some amazing synergy in a spell-based RDW.
The real issue here is that comparing Blightning to Kiss of the Amesha in a vacuum ignores the big picture.
Can I compare Path to Exile with Fiery Fall and say "why does red have overcosted removal whereas white has removal far above the curve?" ...Rather, I would compare Bligtning with Esper Charm. Both are 3 mana and color restrictive.
Granted both of those cards are relative in power level, (I see Blighting responded to with Esper charm fairly often, to make sure the discard effect isn't dehibilitating) but they are both functionally different. Blighting is all about the duel effect you get from two colors, where as the charm cycle is about having options and answers (I play esper charm for the destroy enchantment effect just as much as the card draw).
Blighting, like lightning bolt, is above the curve, not sure why so much over Kiss, but maybe wizards could answer that...
As usual the most expensive thing is the mana base and the mana enablers...
Too true. The thing about Magic as a game, is it's a giant money suck. If you're trying to piece together decks to play competatively, then you're going to have to shell out.
Personally i enjoy ripping packs, even if it's opening things like Skill Borrower, yeckt. but after rolling through enough cards it's pretty much a case of shelling out for your mana fixers. I'd say expect to be spending 100+ on anything you're looking to compete with. Casual play is always nice and cheap though.
Kitties and Kor Duelist + Adventuring gear: $1.5
Getting those awesome t3 casual kills: priceless
I'm building my tournament deck starting with a shards of alara grixis intro pack, and I need card suggestions, especially creatures that are 1 or 2 mana.
What level of tournament are you building for? As far as Grixis is concerned, Cruel Ultimatum is the greatest card to emerge from their shard.
I think that deck is solid, but I'm not a fan of the Sphinx of Lost Truths. Casting it as is is usually a fairly weak play, and waiting until turn 7 is a pretty long time and isn't really a great "tap out and drop it" threat. I'd rather they be 1 more Sphinx of Jwar Isle and 1 more Wall of Denial, which are huge problems for Jund (or any aggro deck, really)...
Most definately. What the current state of Jund aggro has given us, is a benchmark. I'm hoping I don't see jund aggro keeping the sweeps through standard for next year, not at least without wrestling with other, stronger deck builds.
currently I'd bet on 4cc appearing to be very viable. Jwar Isle Sphinx is solid against just about every match-up, and though diminshed, Cruel Ultimatum still gets the job done. With no/or/shrouded permanents, Bit-blast, Terminate, and Pulse give Jund a handful of silly, dead cards.
You've got some really good weenies in this Budget boros deck, i think with some tweeks and a solid know-how of the board situation it could be playable and fun. The Kitties (Steppe Lynx) are always solid, and i'd recommend losing the four goblin assults for adventuring gear. With 4 kitties, 4 adventuring gears, and probably losing vanguard for 4 Kor duelists, you have a high probablity of always being able to beat for 5/6 damage on turn 3 with consistency.
Bant can have an amazing Cascade set-up:
8 1/2 drop creatures (fast beaters; CITP ability creatures;River boa survives mass removal)
^Ardent plea into
7 Three drops (Rhoxy is a champ in this slot)
^ Bloodbraid into (you really only need 4 jungle shrines to splash the red)
4 five-drops (recommend flyers, if you can't afford BSA, then toss in Serras)
^ Enlisted Wurm into
Even if your creatures are getting 1for1'd, because it runs a very structured cascade design you can usually maintain CA. just play smart, and don't overplay your hand. just make sure your mana base is focused to support your turn 1-3 mana needs. after that it should be gravy.
*Thornling is solid, just don't ever play him in agro without the mana to activate any of his abilities.
As Almost grown stated, you're looking at a pretty drastic overhaul. Simply, your mana curve is way too high to maintain control any time before T8. Without knowing how you want to play your control, i'd recommend starting with the 3x cruels, and find a couple of solid 4-6 drop flyers, then build the rest of your deck down from that mana cost. Most control decks won't run more than 4or5 Wincon creatures, you listed 10.
*Edit: comment
Since you're looking to developing this for competative, i'll state as such:
I don't see any WinCon? The deck doesn't have a strong early game push to get in for aggro damage, and it lacks any late game finishers. No Double dragons or other flyers, no cruels.
As far as the white spash goes, Skuller doesn't stand much of a chance of making it through a turn. most decks are packing enough removal/burn that the turn after it steals a spell they'll either blast it, or ignore it, and continue swinging in with beefy creatures.
I'd recommend looking at the FNM boards, and checking out the basic skeleton builds being tossed around, and making your own personal deck tweeks based on those. It's very hard to develope anything 'new' in conpetetive play that hasn't already been postulated.
So much potential, but against any other MU than jund, StWnd will most likely take a path/deathmark/DoJ/Purge to the face, and you're tapped out 8 mana. Like BSA though, when it hits the board, you can bet your opponent's eye will never stray from it. It's a monster threat that cannot be ignored.
it's a tricky card to try and use, any dedicated control deck will most likely be running 4 esper charms, that's 3 damage you're dealing on your turn 4 that you could have used to play Garruk or BBE on instead. any turns later, and it will probably just get countered.
Against other aggro decks, they probably won't be playing much over 3 drops anyways. 1 pulse, and you're back to the same situation as the control set-up. one of the reasons the card doesn't lend to very much popularity.
If it's the jund decklist running 4 bit-blasts, 2 pulses, 2 terminates, then yeah, that's a fairly large hand-full of dead cards they'd have sitting in that hand, any super-secret sideboard tech sided in against you on game 2's?
My concern with your Decklist is you don't have any way to 2for1 your opponent. if they get tokens or BBE or any thing that's going give them board position you'll quickly find yourself treading water. Without some crazy land accelleration, a-la Harrow, etc, your mill crab won't be putting up much of a fight.
Agreed. The trick to mill is seeing it as an alternate win condition, and reformulating your strategy to fit that.
And this is just such a strategy. Granted when conditions are right, you can archive trap someone into oblivion, but that requires 3/4 of them filtering up to your top 12 cards for the turn 5 kill?
I try to play a mill strategy consisting of cheap control in the early game (I.E. Path, purge, O-ring, Etc) then ramp up with card draw after turn four, keep htting the board with as much mass removal as possible, then use Mind Funeral, Traumatize and Haunting echoes to finish off their deck.
I'd probably only play 2 Archive traps and keep the other 2 in the board in the event that the match-up wasn't playing any searches.
I.E. those are placeholder cards you're looking to fill in with current standard cards eh? Well if your focus is fill their yard quicky, then i say check your curve and punish them for discarding anything relevent with 3x Haunting Echoes
*On a side note, you need to play more than 18 lands. you're going to be sorely missing land drops without at least 22 in a mono-deck
I'd have to argue Bant has amazing Card Advantage over Jund, consider:
8 two-drops (river Boa is great for surviving DoJ)
^ Ardent Plea into
7 three drops (Rhoxy and jenara are solid)
^ Capture Sunight into
^ Bloodbraid Elf into (splash some jungle shrines into your manabase)
4 Five drops (maybe get lucky on those Baneslayers)
^ Enlisted Wurm into
Bant has a very strong cascade, and short of DoJ the only thing a pyroclasm or fallout is going to do is wipeout your 2-drops.
And if Jund is using all it's remove to 1-1 your creatures, you're still likely to draw into a new cascade and replenish your stocks.
Did you post the wrong cards? Dimir stuff hasn't been in standard in ages.
This question feels akin to asking 'how important is it to run creatures in a deck?'
It all comes down to the deck build. Some good things about plainswalkers: they take hits for you; buy you turns; grant you re-usable abilites; they cost on par $-wise the same would any other popular utility card that would be played in their stead.
In the end they're just card types like instants and creatures. The better they fit into the mass of puzzle pieces that is your deck, the more you should be considering playing them.
A solid assessment.
While not really making a strait up list, i would rank a few plainswalkers for choosing to play them.
I'm really seeing both Ajani V and Jace as solid for control in this currently turmoilus meta. Ajani V can bolt most of the aggro threats, and against control mirrors does a great job at tapping down mana. I've been playing around with putting Elspeth in control too, but i prefer Ajani V. in her slot.
playing with Jund, having Garruk make the board T4 is always solid. if your opponent DoJ's the next turn, you get a free 3/3 to start over with + BBE, Thinax, or whatever was still sitting in your hand.
While not a rockstar, I'm looking into a pyromancer Ascension deck running mostly burn with Chandra ablaze late game. With the right build there could be some amazing synergy in a spell-based RDW.
It just seems odd, that with Wizards' design love for cycles of cards, that Blightning/Kiss are so disproportional from one another.
T3-blighting: usually a solid play
T7-Kiss: probably going to be tapped out, with 2+ cards in hand, and praying on solid board position.
Granted both of those cards are relative in power level, (I see Blighting responded to with Esper charm fairly often, to make sure the discard effect isn't dehibilitating) but they are both functionally different. Blighting is all about the duel effect you get from two colors, where as the charm cycle is about having options and answers (I play esper charm for the destroy enchantment effect just as much as the card draw).
Blighting, like lightning bolt, is above the curve, not sure why so much over Kiss, but maybe wizards could answer that...
Too true. The thing about Magic as a game, is it's a giant money suck. If you're trying to piece together decks to play competatively, then you're going to have to shell out.
Personally i enjoy ripping packs, even if it's opening things like Skill Borrower, yeckt. but after rolling through enough cards it's pretty much a case of shelling out for your mana fixers. I'd say expect to be spending 100+ on anything you're looking to compete with. Casual play is always nice and cheap though.
Kitties and Kor Duelist + Adventuring gear: $1.5
Getting those awesome t3 casual kills: priceless
What level of tournament are you building for? As far as Grixis is concerned, Cruel Ultimatum is the greatest card to emerge from their shard.
Most definately. What the current state of Jund aggro has given us, is a benchmark. I'm hoping I don't see jund aggro keeping the sweeps through standard for next year, not at least without wrestling with other, stronger deck builds.
currently I'd bet on 4cc appearing to be very viable. Jwar Isle Sphinx is solid against just about every match-up, and though diminshed, Cruel Ultimatum still gets the job done. With no/or/shrouded permanents, Bit-blast, Terminate, and Pulse give Jund a handful of silly, dead cards.