The other day I had a leyline of anticipation in play and after a decently back and forth game, I flashed in an omniscience EoT. Commandeered the opponent's counterspell. Dropped necropotence, drew a ton of cards including acquire. The next turn rolls around, with people utterly failing to destroy either of my enchantments, and I flash the acquire. Score a Venser's Journal.
I won that game.
As for stuff that just made people mad, one time this happened:
t1: Forest, Sol Ring
t2: Azusa, 3x lands, Sylvan Library
t3: Natural Order Azusa into Sylvan Primordial
I was going first and I blew up a guy's ravnica bounceland. Much butt hurt commenced.
Howdy. I build decks around a theme normally. Sometimes the themes are easy, like Nekusar and damage/wheel effects or a tribal deck. However I have a Dralnu deck where the theme is a bit tougher, no creatures allowed.
It started out as a "steal your stuff" deck but gradually moved more towards a general control/rattlesnake deck. Right now, if everyone doesn't scoop against omniscience + capsize, it wins with Bribery or Army of the Damned. While those are technically sorceries, I still have to use creatures to win. Our group frowns upon infinite combos, and I don't like winning with them.
Something like Helix Pinnacle would be perfect, but it's green. I'm also not opposed to something like exsanguinate, but I rarely have the mana to end a game with it. I was just wondering what you guys' favorite alt wincons are, and if you know any neat ones that fit in U/B.
T&N is one of my main wincons with Azusa, lost but seeking and I typically go for one of a few combinations. Here is a list of my favorites in order of how often I do them:
1) Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth: If you have a few creatures out this will typically kill a person. If you have Akroma's Memorial, Concordant crossroads, or an opponent played something that gives everything haste, you will swing for enough to kill the table twice over.
2) Seedborn Muse + Ant Queen: This is my go to "friendly" attempt at winning. Ant Queen may be less good for an Omnath player since your general can serve. After going around the table I'll typically have 20-40 ant tokens which can be used to kill the opponents via an overrun effect or abuse skullclamps and regal forces. Speaking of which:
3) Avenger of Zendikar + Regal Force: This is what I do if I have no haste enabler and no overrun and really need to run out a non-lethal T&N. This draws a ton of cards, and if you build right you should be able to draw a way to recur the T&N and do it again next turn.
4) Seedborn Muse + Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: This is what I go and get if I have helix pinnacle in my hand, since I love winning with that card (although I haven't done it yet!). Since you're running Omnath, Locus of Mana this is actually much better since you won't need the Helix Pinnacle or Ant Queen. In fact, this one could probably replace #2 most of the time.
I've never thought of using T&N to get Eternal Witness like some people are saying. I think it's a good idea, but I don't really like spending 9 mana and not smashing faces.
Art is blatantly stolen from deviantart. The artist's usernames are on the cards in the artist's slot. Hecra is just blatant EDH circlejerk in creature form; the other two are things I would actually really like to play with.
These are my ideas:
1: An "anti-EDH" general. Breaks the rules of EDH by letting you basically ignore color identity while he's your general, and hits a bunch of effects that are common in EDH.
2: My ideal zombie lord. There's a lack of haste enablers in monoblack. The skeleton bit is there because I like reassembling skeleton a lot and I feel like it improves the flavor. His ability is meant to be some cute wrath protection, and I like that its like Balthor but less spammable.
3: I like Exsanguinate and Drain life. Enough said.
I follow modo rules typically, if you own the card, feel free to proxy it in other decks.
I have two decks that have proxies. If anyone complains I offer to pull them out and substitute the real cards in, but they generally don't want to sit there for five minutes while I dig the real cards out of my other decks. I see them as a time saving placeholder. Instead of building whatever deck I want to play that night and leaving my other one half disassembled at home, I bring them all.
I also make my proxies with decent quality. Typically full art and foiled, and to be totally honest, I think they look better than most of my real cards. I have a proxy Azusa that I keep with my real Azusa just because it looks nicer.
My counter argument of "Why don't you just use the cheaper stuff until you can upgrade it like the rest of us"
Not everyone plays with a group using cheap cards. Where I play, $20-30 cards are the rule, not the exception. Using "replacements" just guarantees your quick loss and two hours spent on the couch waiting for the game to end.
I'm taking apart my Jund Zombies deck (It's not working as well as I'd hoped) and I think that for the first time, I'd like to build a top tier deck. I'm looking at Bant control/midrange and Jund Midrange. I have a rule for my decks, that at least half the cost has to be absorbed by selling old cards and I can meet this requirement with both of the two decks. (Assuming I ignore some sideboard stuff in the bant deck, 4 giests sideboarded seems a bit much?)
I would snap build Jund since I have the lands already. I feel like the bant cards have more staying power (jace doesn't rotate, snapcaster will always be good, and it only looses tamiyo as the money card. Compare to jund loosing huntmaster and olivia) I also have 2 snapcasters, a restoration angel, and armada wurm, supreme verdict, and sphinx's revelation so I guess the card difference isn't as great.
I keep talking up bant, but I've always been more a fan of the b/r and r/g aggressive types of decks. Which deck do you guys think is best when considering both power and card price stability?
Yes. The saccing a creature is just a cost so you can do it whenever you have priority. On resolving, the ability will complete as much as it's able to, so Grimgrin will get the counter even though he's already untapped.
EDIT- Beaten to it, that's what I get for proofreading.
My local shop is basically all aggro decks. I play against RDW, zombies, and white weenie every week with maybe one frites deck or control deck every few weeks. Which decks are best in this type of metagame? I was thinking some sort of midrange strategy.
Once I was called in at the last second to do a formal debate competition because the person who was doing it wasn't able to go. I'm not even on the debate team, but I was suggested to them anyways. It was a night and next morning type of thing. I had to borrow a suit jacket from the debate team's advisor, and away we went. We finished around 8:00 friday.
I went straight from the debate to play magic. I was stressed as hell from all of the rules and work I had to cram into the last four hours that I just went straight to play magic and didn't really care. I missed signup but I played EDH between and after rounds in a full suit and tie with my hair pulled back (I normally have it a little messy and down). It was a good night and I don't really see anything wrong with what I did, sure I probably should have changed but meh.
There's a guy on youtube (boogie somethingother) who shows videos of his stores and events, and every time there's a player dressed like Uncle Sam. Flag suit, hat, everything. A suit seems far less distracting, but also far less funny.
I play at a small shop called Prime Time Sports Collectibles. I like it because it's not crowded at all and I know people there. It's pretty much the same crowd every week with a few extras that show up, and it's nice for someone like me who dislikes big crowds of strangers.
Plus the owners are more than fair with their prize pools and such. It's a quality over quantity type of shop.
I haven't tried the Goat yet because there was a guy promoting it that I knew (He was a fat, smelly, obnoxious dude) and every time I mentioned Prime Time, he would butt in to say the Goat was better. It turned me off to the shop, and I know that's unfair (every place has a few tools I guess) but I really don't want to deal with that guy again and I know I would see him there.
I won that game.
As for stuff that just made people mad, one time this happened:
t1: Forest, Sol Ring
t2: Azusa, 3x lands, Sylvan Library
t3: Natural Order Azusa into Sylvan Primordial
I was going first and I blew up a guy's ravnica bounceland. Much butt hurt commenced.
It started out as a "steal your stuff" deck but gradually moved more towards a general control/rattlesnake deck. Right now, if everyone doesn't scoop against omniscience + capsize, it wins with Bribery or Army of the Damned. While those are technically sorceries, I still have to use creatures to win. Our group frowns upon infinite combos, and I don't like winning with them.
Something like Helix Pinnacle would be perfect, but it's green. I'm also not opposed to something like exsanguinate, but I rarely have the mana to end a game with it. I was just wondering what you guys' favorite alt wincons are, and if you know any neat ones that fit in U/B.
1) Avenger of Zendikar + Craterhoof Behemoth: If you have a few creatures out this will typically kill a person. If you have Akroma's Memorial, Concordant crossroads, or an opponent played something that gives everything haste, you will swing for enough to kill the table twice over.
2) Seedborn Muse + Ant Queen: This is my go to "friendly" attempt at winning. Ant Queen may be less good for an Omnath player since your general can serve. After going around the table I'll typically have 20-40 ant tokens which can be used to kill the opponents via an overrun effect or abuse skullclamps and regal forces. Speaking of which:
3) Avenger of Zendikar + Regal Force: This is what I do if I have no haste enabler and no overrun and really need to run out a non-lethal T&N. This draws a ton of cards, and if you build right you should be able to draw a way to recur the T&N and do it again next turn.
4) Seedborn Muse + Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger: This is what I go and get if I have helix pinnacle in my hand, since I love winning with that card (although I haven't done it yet!). Since you're running Omnath, Locus of Mana this is actually much better since you won't need the Helix Pinnacle or Ant Queen. In fact, this one could probably replace #2 most of the time.
I've never thought of using T&N to get Eternal Witness like some people are saying. I think it's a good idea, but I don't really like spending 9 mana and not smashing faces.
1: An "anti-EDH" general. Breaks the rules of EDH by letting you basically ignore color identity while he's your general, and hits a bunch of effects that are common in EDH.
2: My ideal zombie lord. There's a lack of haste enablers in monoblack. The skeleton bit is there because I like reassembling skeleton a lot and I feel like it improves the flavor. His ability is meant to be some cute wrath protection, and I like that its like Balthor but less spammable.
3: I like Exsanguinate and Drain life. Enough said.
http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/End_of_Combat_Step
I have two decks that have proxies. If anyone complains I offer to pull them out and substitute the real cards in, but they generally don't want to sit there for five minutes while I dig the real cards out of my other decks. I see them as a time saving placeholder. Instead of building whatever deck I want to play that night and leaving my other one half disassembled at home, I bring them all.
I also make my proxies with decent quality. Typically full art and foiled, and to be totally honest, I think they look better than most of my real cards. I have a proxy Azusa that I keep with my real Azusa just because it looks nicer.
Not everyone plays with a group using cheap cards. Where I play, $20-30 cards are the rule, not the exception. Using "replacements" just guarantees your quick loss and two hours spent on the couch waiting for the game to end.
I would snap build Jund since I have the lands already. I feel like the bant cards have more staying power (jace doesn't rotate, snapcaster will always be good, and it only looses tamiyo as the money card. Compare to jund loosing huntmaster and olivia) I also have 2 snapcasters, a restoration angel, and armada wurm, supreme verdict, and sphinx's revelation so I guess the card difference isn't as great.
I keep talking up bant, but I've always been more a fan of the b/r and r/g aggressive types of decks. Which deck do you guys think is best when considering both power and card price stability?
EDIT- Beaten to it, that's what I get for proofreading.
I went straight from the debate to play magic. I was stressed as hell from all of the rules and work I had to cram into the last four hours that I just went straight to play magic and didn't really care. I missed signup but I played EDH between and after rounds in a full suit and tie with my hair pulled back (I normally have it a little messy and down). It was a good night and I don't really see anything wrong with what I did, sure I probably should have changed but meh.
There's a guy on youtube (boogie somethingother) who shows videos of his stores and events, and every time there's a player dressed like Uncle Sam. Flag suit, hat, everything. A suit seems far less distracting, but also far less funny.
1) zombo-combo
2) zombie hordes
3) wrath and resurrect
Azusa
1) So many lands
2) The fattest fatties
3) Genesis wave etc.
Sharuum
1) Do nothing
2) ???
3) Combo out of nowhere
Crystal Lake, I figured since he was talking about Elgin he didn't just mean shops inside the city.
Plus the owners are more than fair with their prize pools and such. It's a quality over quantity type of shop.
I haven't tried the Goat yet because there was a guy promoting it that I knew (He was a fat, smelly, obnoxious dude) and every time I mentioned Prime Time, he would butt in to say the Goat was better. It turned me off to the shop, and I know that's unfair (every place has a few tools I guess) but I really don't want to deal with that guy again and I know I would see him there.