I have spent some time editing and tweaking this deck to a point where I feel it is very strong. In my casual group it has only lost one of many many games. Its strength is that it does not rely on the quest to win, although it definitely is the quickest and most sufficient win. Anyways, here ya go. I am posting it because I would like some advice at the end.
Explanation: So it goes without saying I used almost all creatures for charging the quest. Grand Architect is really an essential creature here hence the 3 drift of phantasms to transmute into it with. With a gemstone array out, I can store up mana for casting biggies and grand architect allows me to store mana on the gemstone array with any blue creature I have out.
Grand Architect + Gemstone array + Puresight Merrow basically means unlimited scry 1
Grand Architect + Pili-Pala is infinite mana for casting monsters. Definately the least fun combo in the deck but is essential for winning.
Grand Architect + Other blue creatures means a turn 4 Inkwell Leviathan
Mindshriker + Augury owl, puresight merrow, or halimar often means a flying attacker that attacks for at least 10 damage / turn.
Once thing I would love to add is some form of creature bounce. Judge's Familiar is a great 1 mana drop and I don't like the idea of taking any out but I don't see where else there is room for some control. Lorthos is in there for flavor purposes but I guess it could go. I would love to have room for a 4th gemstone array as well. What would you guys recommend for a creature that can come in a bounce/ somehow control the board. Stormtide does a nice job of this, but not always. Feel free to make any other suggestions on the deck as well. It has been the most effective way I have ever been able to drop multiple leviathans in mono blue, and I am always open for feedback.
Then use a card like Abundance and say land to rearrange the library and set up draws for the rest of the game. Of course these draws would be easily cast with all of your lands being on the battlefield so you would want to put something on top that lets you draw a lot of cards, like blue sun. I don't know an effective way of making this all happen consistently enough. Tutor like crazy I guess?
Grand Architect allowed blue smaller creatures to tap and cast Inkwell Leviathan and Grand Architect Pili-Pala was infinite mana to cast my hand as an alternative way to cast leviathans if quest never hit battlefield. In addition, I included in the deck:
Mindshrieker : Removing a big leviathan off my top deck meant big damage or taking cards that someone placed on top of their's was brutal.
Then I included all the different birds that let you scry your library and halimar depths of course. It is a brutle deck. Big creatures included four of the Inkwell Leviathans, Stormtide Leviathan, Grozoth of course for putting the inkwells in my hand. Then any other big fatties that float your boat, or more like sink it!
What I loved about the deck was that it didn't completely rely on the quest and while it was an awesome turn one drop guaranteed win if not dealt with, I win a lot of games off of infinite mindshrieker tops with the mana as well as hard casting leviathans with grand architect mana and pili-pala. Also the deck is only creatures and land (- 4 of the quest of course) so it makes for good odds with the quest and scrying birds.
Seeing your post made me think about pili-pala and the posibility of a scarecrow sub theme. Here are my thoughts
Reaper King is simply a Fun Card! and easily cast with the mana from grand architect and friends. With Repaer King we then could include Scarecrone to bring back dead pili-pala from the grave or inkwell if someone manages to get past its shrowed/ any other scarecrow artifacts.
Shell Skulkin is just too synergetic! Grand architect can even make our not blue artifacts blue to be able to protect them when necessary! Any thoughts of this? Would it just hurt the deck more or make it more interesting? I do not know
Maybe add sudden spoiling to the list? No black deck will hurt with that in their hand. And when combined with cards like volcanic fallout it simply becomes 2 card board wipe.
Love reading the posts on here and figured I'd share my favorite casual deck combo in the different decks that I own. It starts with a Mindslaver in hand or in grave. Master transmuter on battlefield (pref. hasty with boots to also protect it or people will kill it on sight) and Sharuum the Hegemon in hand. Bounce an artifact, drop hegemon, and return mindlsaver to take a turn. Once hegemon is out there, the transmuter can just use its ability to bounce the hegemon back to your hand put it back into play to recur the slave and take someones turn from there on out.
I'm definately 100% casual and will say there are some terrible terrible casual players out there. There are also lots of bad competitive players out there but I am always weary of "casual" events in my town because a lot of times it simply means playing bad decks. I have my play group that meets every week and we do build powerful decks, but nothing that would consistently placed competitively. That being said our decks do stand their own typically in a very creative way and in my local shop will often throw peoples legacy/modern builds for a loop.
I think casual can mean poor player, but it also can mean someone that likes to play cards that cost too much mana to ever pull a high price tag and don't look to win by turn 2/3. Our games typically go to turn 6 or beyond but the end games are epic! Ex: Last night I have a griselband dropped on the board from a deathrender bloodspeaker combo, and the rb rakdoos which enabled me to draw and cast handfuls of creatures from my deck. I felt I had a guaranteed win until my opponent top decked warp world and out came a bunch flying haste dragons that my warp world demon drop just couldnt compete with! It was awesome! And is something you would never see outside of a casual game or within a game of poor deck building.
As a casual player I pride myself in creative Johnny deck building and I play competitively within my playgroup but would never look to dominate it with a high price tag quick winning net decks (deck building is one of my favorite parts of the game anyways). Our local shop does scoff at casual players and hates losing to them because I think it is a common misconception that casual means new player/bad player.
My definition of casual player: 1. Someone who likes to play the cards that they own and creatively build around them even if it doesn't reach tournament level competiveness. 2. New players who are just learning to play. 3. Bad players that just enjoy playing the game.
I love pyrohemia. The only reason why I didn't include it is because of my heavy creature base and a lot of low toughness creatures (at least how they start) I know tamanoa is typically placed in decks that don't run a lot of creatures but in this deck there are a lot my own. That being said, even gaining life my doing damage to my own creatures with pyrohemia is pretty cool.
Hello! This is my first deck post. I've been following the forums for a long time and decided I would like to come in here for deck advice. I am trying to put together a casual RWG TamanoaBalefire Liege deck. I know Tamanoa and Balefire Liege don't combo together by themselves but paying for a Boros charm with both out says deal 7 damage to a player and gain 7 life. Also incorporated into the deck is a Sunforger as a sort of toolbox card that also bumps up big lifegainers. In addition, it allows me to control the board to remove blockers and attackers (game stall) and get a rw damage dealing spell at any time. Anyways here it is! Any advice is greatly appreciated! If anything I feel like I have a fairly creative way of playing tamanoa.
More Explanation: The land base is basically what I already own. In testing it has been producing exactly what I need and I have been relatively happy with it. The damage dealing lands work great with tamanoa, 2 tamanoa's out means gain 1 life per tap. Bloom Tender and Trace of Abundance work great together to ramp mana. In addition, with Wild Pair out a late game bloom tender grabs a figure of destiny. Overabundance is amazing with tamanoa and Searing meditation. The Leonin allows me to equip unequip and reequip Sunforger all in combat with the mana from overabundance and allows instant shroud of any creature with lightning greaves.
What I am unsure about is the stack of instant speed spells. I know a lot of people would say 4 lightning helix is a must but I rather enjoy the diversity of options with sunforger and this is a casual deck. If anything, I might add another Boros charm because I love the double strike. Tamanoa and volcanic fallout is amazing.
Another note on Wildpair. It is in their because I own one, I love the card, and double balefire/thoctar, or casting a tamanoa and grabing a balefire makes it very synergetic. Wheel of Sun and Moon is in there to make my instant spells reusable with sunforger. Considering cutting it to a one of though.
Finally, this deck as way more than 60 cards and I just don't know what to cut. In testing it is giving me a lot of life by turn 4 to delay game and without substantial control I have been winning games by turn 7. Thanks for the advice!
Edit: I have been really considering spiteful visions for the deck. For one, it works great with tamanoa and the card draw is great with balefire liege giving me more to cast. The problem with it is with overabundance out it gives my opponent a lot of mana to cast what they draw which makes me very nervous. I would love to hear all of your thoughts on this. It would be soo synergetic with the deck but could really hurt me in the end.
One Final Edit: Just because I didn't point it out, in case someone reading this doesn't recognize it, basilist collar is in their primarily to make balefire liege a linlinking sniper. I intentionally chose it over Scourge of the Nobilis. That being said Scourge is a great card, just didnt have room for it and I liked the basilist collar combo more. Plus I can instant speed equip it to a flyer to give it lifelink and then equip it back to balefire.
I have had a lot of success using norin with cards that deal damage whenever a creature attacks like raid bombardment. Norin leaves combat so can't be blocked, hence a guaranteed at least 1 damage plus whatever other goblin army comes across that turn, won me a lot of games.
I have been playing magic for about 3 years now, starting to get more and more creative with decks, and have a developing budget deck idea that thus far has proven itself to be very strong in game and just needs some card tweeks and adjustments I believe.
I wanted to build a deck using the Quest for Ulas, but prior had never been very successful with that card, as one disenchant and blammo I lose. My thoughts were, if I can come up with multiple differemnt ways to get every leviathan, kraken, serpent, etc... that I use into play, then the deck would become much more difficult to deal with. The idea is to use 4 inkwell leviathan as the artifact creature type makes it able to come into play with ula, grand architect, and master transmuter. Grozoth, and deep sea-kraken can either come in with suspend, come in from the ulas, or lest me transmute into an inkwell. Steel hellkite and the platinum's purposes are pretty obvious.
When coming up with support cards, I started with the typical blue ie: boomerangs, ponder, etc... The issue was, quest did not charge quick enough with these cards, and grand architect did not have enough to work with. Hence birds. Augury for the scry, dream thrush to grant me islandwalk/ control lands on the bored to prevent someone from casting, and keeper of the nine gales to bounce cards. Neurok is there for granding shroud to critical players ie: architect or transmuter or other leviathan aside from inkwell. I like the neurok because I can bounce it around at instant speed. Also mindshreiker is there as an alt. win condition - knowing I have big creatures on top, he can be pumped like crazy.
Running only 20 lands has caused problems every once in awhile, but being able to scry for a land and most birds costing only 2 mana has helped. I chose 20 because I wanted more creatures for the quest, and only really need 3 land for a successful game.
So, as I said, this deck has had a lot of success sense entering the birds who have controller a lot of games for me. The cards I currently am considering are...
Adding another platinum and steel hellkite
Adding one or two kathari Remnant to cascade into more birds (although this may dump big guys into my graveyard which I may not want
3 Drift of Phantasms
4 Grand Architect
3 Grozoth
4 Inkwell Leviathan
4 Judge's Familiar
1 Lorthos, the Tidemaker
2 Mindshrieker
3 Pili-Pala
4 Puresight Merrow
4 Stormtide Leviathan
3 Gemstone Array
4 Halimar Depths
17 Island
Explanation: So it goes without saying I used almost all creatures for charging the quest. Grand Architect is really an essential creature here hence the 3 drift of phantasms to transmute into it with. With a gemstone array out, I can store up mana for casting biggies and grand architect allows me to store mana on the gemstone array with any blue creature I have out.
Grand Architect + Gemstone array + Puresight Merrow basically means unlimited scry 1
Grand Architect + Pili-Pala is infinite mana for casting monsters. Definately the least fun combo in the deck but is essential for winning.
Grand Architect + Other blue creatures means a turn 4 Inkwell Leviathan
Mindshriker + Augury owl, puresight merrow, or halimar often means a flying attacker that attacks for at least 10 damage / turn.
Once thing I would love to add is some form of creature bounce. Judge's Familiar is a great 1 mana drop and I don't like the idea of taking any out but I don't see where else there is room for some control. Lorthos is in there for flavor purposes but I guess it could go. I would love to have room for a 4th gemstone array as well. What would you guys recommend for a creature that can come in a bounce/ somehow control the board. Stormtide does a nice job of this, but not always. Feel free to make any other suggestions on the deck as well. It has been the most effective way I have ever been able to drop multiple leviathans in mono blue, and I am always open for feedback.
One Idea I have actually had though is this:
Scouting Trek to put all your lands on top of your library
Treasure Hunt to draw all of the lands
Manabond to play them all
Then use a card like Abundance and say land to rearrange the library and set up draws for the rest of the game. Of course these draws would be easily cast with all of your lands being on the battlefield so you would want to put something on top that lets you draw a lot of cards, like blue sun. I don't know an effective way of making this all happen consistently enough. Tutor like crazy I guess?
Ready for my awesome quest for ula's temple strategy? I love that deck here is what I do:
Grand Architect and Pili-Pala
Grand Architect allowed blue smaller creatures to tap and cast Inkwell Leviathan and Grand Architect Pili-Pala was infinite mana to cast my hand as an alternative way to cast leviathans if quest never hit battlefield. In addition, I included in the deck:
Mindshrieker : Removing a big leviathan off my top deck meant big damage or taking cards that someone placed on top of their's was brutal.
Then I included all the different birds that let you scry your library and halimar depths of course. It is a brutle deck. Big creatures included four of the Inkwell Leviathans, Stormtide Leviathan, Grozoth of course for putting the inkwells in my hand. Then any other big fatties that float your boat, or more like sink it!
What I loved about the deck was that it didn't completely rely on the quest and while it was an awesome turn one drop guaranteed win if not dealt with, I win a lot of games off of infinite mindshrieker tops with the mana as well as hard casting leviathans with grand architect mana and pili-pala. Also the deck is only creatures and land (- 4 of the quest of course) so it makes for good odds with the quest and scrying birds.
Seeing your post made me think about pili-pala and the posibility of a scarecrow sub theme. Here are my thoughts
Reaper King is simply a Fun Card! and easily cast with the mana from grand architect and friends. With Repaer King we then could include Scarecrone to bring back dead pili-pala from the grave or inkwell if someone manages to get past its shrowed/ any other scarecrow artifacts.
Shell Skulkin is just too synergetic! Grand architect can even make our not blue artifacts blue to be able to protect them when necessary! Any thoughts of this? Would it just hurt the deck more or make it more interesting? I do not know
I think casual can mean poor player, but it also can mean someone that likes to play cards that cost too much mana to ever pull a high price tag and don't look to win by turn 2/3. Our games typically go to turn 6 or beyond but the end games are epic! Ex: Last night I have a griselband dropped on the board from a deathrender bloodspeaker combo, and the rb rakdoos which enabled me to draw and cast handfuls of creatures from my deck. I felt I had a guaranteed win until my opponent top decked warp world and out came a bunch flying haste dragons that my warp world demon drop just couldnt compete with! It was awesome! And is something you would never see outside of a casual game or within a game of poor deck building.
As a casual player I pride myself in creative Johnny deck building and I play competitively within my playgroup but would never look to dominate it with a high price tag quick winning net decks (deck building is one of my favorite parts of the game anyways). Our local shop does scoff at casual players and hates losing to them because I think it is a common misconception that casual means new player/bad player.
My definition of casual player: 1. Someone who likes to play the cards that they own and creatively build around them even if it doesn't reach tournament level competiveness. 2. New players who are just learning to play. 3. Bad players that just enjoy playing the game.
4 Battlefield Forge
4 Brushland
2 Clifftop Retreat
3 Copperline Gorge
2 Forest
4 Jungle Shrine
3 Karplusan Forest
Creatures:
4 Balefire Liege
4 Bloom Tender
4 Figure of Destiny
2 Firemane Angel
2 Leonin Shikari
4 Tamanoa
2 Woolly Thoctar
4 Overabundance
3 Searing Meditation
3 Trace of Abundance
2 Wheel of Sun and Moon
1 Wild Pair
Instants:
1 Boros Charm
1 Fight to the Death
1 Lightning Helix
1 Master Warcraft
1 Volcanic Fallout
4 Faithless Looting
Artifacts:
2 Basilisk Collar
2 Light Greaves
3 Sunforger
More Explanation: The land base is basically what I already own. In testing it has been producing exactly what I need and I have been relatively happy with it. The damage dealing lands work great with tamanoa, 2 tamanoa's out means gain 1 life per tap. Bloom Tender and Trace of Abundance work great together to ramp mana. In addition, with Wild Pair out a late game bloom tender grabs a figure of destiny. Overabundance is amazing with tamanoa and Searing meditation. The Leonin allows me to equip unequip and reequip Sunforger all in combat with the mana from overabundance and allows instant shroud of any creature with lightning greaves.
What I am unsure about is the stack of instant speed spells. I know a lot of people would say 4 lightning helix is a must but I rather enjoy the diversity of options with sunforger and this is a casual deck. If anything, I might add another Boros charm because I love the double strike. Tamanoa and volcanic fallout is amazing.
Another note on Wildpair. It is in their because I own one, I love the card, and double balefire/thoctar, or casting a tamanoa and grabing a balefire makes it very synergetic. Wheel of Sun and Moon is in there to make my instant spells reusable with sunforger. Considering cutting it to a one of though.
Finally, this deck as way more than 60 cards and I just don't know what to cut. In testing it is giving me a lot of life by turn 4 to delay game and without substantial control I have been winning games by turn 7. Thanks for the advice!
Edit: I have been really considering spiteful visions for the deck. For one, it works great with tamanoa and the card draw is great with balefire liege giving me more to cast. The problem with it is with overabundance out it gives my opponent a lot of mana to cast what they draw which makes me very nervous. I would love to hear all of your thoughts on this. It would be soo synergetic with the deck but could really hurt me in the end.
One Final Edit: Just because I didn't point it out, in case someone reading this doesn't recognize it, basilist collar is in their primarily to make balefire liege a linlinking sniper. I intentionally chose it over Scourge of the Nobilis. That being said Scourge is a great card, just didnt have room for it and I liked the basilist collar combo more. Plus I can instant speed equip it to a flyer to give it lifelink and then equip it back to balefire.
1x Deep-sea kraken
2x Mindshrieker
4x Keeper of the Nine Gales
4x Inkwell Leviathan
2x Grozoth
4x Tidehollow Strix
4x Augury Owl
4x Dream Thrush
2x Master Transmuter
1x Steel Hellkite
1x Sphinx Summoner
4x Grand Architect
1x Platinum Emperion
4x Quest for Ula's Temple
Equipment
2x Neurok Stealthsuit
Land
3x Darkslick Shores
3x Halimar Depths
7x island
7x swamp
First poster her, hello everybody!
I have been playing magic for about 3 years now, starting to get more and more creative with decks, and have a developing budget deck idea that thus far has proven itself to be very strong in game and just needs some card tweeks and adjustments I believe.
I wanted to build a deck using the Quest for Ulas, but prior had never been very successful with that card, as one disenchant and blammo I lose. My thoughts were, if I can come up with multiple differemnt ways to get every leviathan, kraken, serpent, etc... that I use into play, then the deck would become much more difficult to deal with. The idea is to use 4 inkwell leviathan as the artifact creature type makes it able to come into play with ula, grand architect, and master transmuter. Grozoth, and deep sea-kraken can either come in with suspend, come in from the ulas, or lest me transmute into an inkwell. Steel hellkite and the platinum's purposes are pretty obvious.
When coming up with support cards, I started with the typical blue ie: boomerangs, ponder, etc... The issue was, quest did not charge quick enough with these cards, and grand architect did not have enough to work with. Hence birds. Augury for the scry, dream thrush to grant me islandwalk/ control lands on the bored to prevent someone from casting, and keeper of the nine gales to bounce cards. Neurok is there for granding shroud to critical players ie: architect or transmuter or other leviathan aside from inkwell. I like the neurok because I can bounce it around at instant speed. Also mindshreiker is there as an alt. win condition - knowing I have big creatures on top, he can be pumped like crazy.
Running only 20 lands has caused problems every once in awhile, but being able to scry for a land and most birds costing only 2 mana has helped. I chose 20 because I wanted more creatures for the quest, and only really need 3 land for a successful game.
So, as I said, this deck has had a lot of success sense entering the birds who have controller a lot of games for me. The cards I currently am considering are...
Adding another platinum and steel hellkite
Adding one or two kathari Remnant to cascade into more birds (although this may dump big guys into my graveyard which I may not want
Adding some Sage Owl for obvious reasons.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated!