OK, so out of Brian Demars' list I've listed some above that were OP for the format.
On to the cards I've added. And it bears mentioning these aren't replacement cards. I dont replace cards, I just add more.
First, the artifact shortage.
Added
Arcbound Slith: Only Modular card in the list.
Blinding Souleater: Phyrexian mana activated ability affecting precombat decisions.
Armored Transport: Combat damage preventing atacker
Anvilwrought Raptor: First Strike Flyer
Esper Stormblade: 3/2 flyer for 2, not a Delver, but very real similarities
Windwright Mage: 2/2 Flying Lifelink for 3
Tower Gargoyle: 4/4 Flyer for 4
Infiltration Lens: Deal damage or draw cards, two of my favorite things to do.
Viridian Longbow: Your guys trade up in combat or you can plink off weenies
Ensnaring Bridge: Hand size management based on board state analysis. Seen this backfire, very funny to watch
Sarpadian Empires, Vol III: Only card in magic I know of with it's Card Title in italics. Plus make a weenie every turn!
All Is Dust: Colorless board wipe
Add from Pre-Theros:
Slith Firewalker: Aggro strategy star
Memory Lapse: Bonkers in this format! Counter your fill-in-the-blank spell I can't deal with, then I'll draw it!
Splatter Thug: 3/3/ FS for 3
Frost Breath: Perhaps too strong for the format. (on Offense)
Theros adds: (many for two reasons, Scry, Monstrosity, and Bestow)
Hopeful, Baleful, and Entropic Eidolons. Nimbus Naiad. Nylea's Emissary
Swan Song'Returned Phalanx
Ill-Powered Cyclops
Magma Jet (All-star in Standard atm)
Sedge Scorpion
Voyage's End: See your opp's next card! Or yours... very useful
Prescient Chimera: scry on a stick!
Artisan's Sorrow, maybe overkill on the disenchant effect, but really like scry 2
Tymaret Burger King: fun playing effects from your gy
Fleecemane Lion. value... just value.
Pharika's Mender: recursion is good
Dimir Charm: so versatile
Shipwreck Singer: breas loose stagnant boards
Haven't really gone through BOTG yet. Maybe look at it tonight if the draft doesn't fire...
Mind Spring.
"I draw 8, and with my insane grip, find a couple that beat you next turn." Unfair, Out.
Rolling Thunder.
"Here's my combat math, I wreck your board and swing." or... "You have almost half your life... Kill you?" Unfair, Out.
Lumberknot.
Every game it landed, it won. Should change that flavor text to "Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson. That is the sound of inevitability." - Mr. Smith. Out.
OTOH, Quirion Druid is fine.
Forgotten Ancient.
Free, repeatable, permanent, and movable pump counters. What?! Thats's not combat math, might as well be Thermodynamic Partial Differential Quantum Relativity Mechanics... also called cheating. Out.
On Trial, "for each creature in your graveyard" cards. Value is good, but these take it to the next level.
Splinterfright, Spider Spawning, Grim Flowering, Gnaw to the Bone. Of these, Gnaw to the Bone is the least obscene.
New to the thread, happy to discuss Danger Room with you folks. Not new to Danger Room, been playing it for over a year. Started with Brian Demars' first list, played it many times. Very weak list, not bad per se, but overly reliant on getting every incremental advantage possible. A lot of draw, which in a weird twist made it ever better. The best cards you could draw were often card draw cards.
Assembled 95% of his "holodeck" list, and its much stronger. Aggro strategy just almost never worked in the original list without a fireball for turn 10-ish. The new list actually can end before all lands in play, with one player on the back foot most of the game. While not "the point" of DR, I find it acceptable (and a bit refreshing) since the cards used are thus low and add that few points to the winner's victory point total. WRT the point of teaching MTG strategy, aggro is a real thing that players should be able to play, AND learn to play against. Still vast majority of games end due to mana management, board state anlaysis, and combat math. Since (excepting combo-win decks) this accounts for imho the vast majority of magic games, I like this list much better. I'll describe my changes later in this post.
But before that, I need to describe a list one of my friends assembled, he went full-speed. All the best cards, no card is too powerful, although the basic rules of no-ramp and no land destruction are still in effect. For example, he includes Jace 2.0. Curiously, games often still go 20+ turns, and one advantage of his list is it can be a ton of fun to play Consecrated Sphinx or Adarkar Valkyrie and hear your opp say "ugh". We play at most FNMs, each list about half the time.
So back to discussing my current list. Changes are made with one or more of several aims.
1) Value, even extreme value is perfectly acceptable and highly valued for inclusion. ex. Bloodbraid Elf is fine.
2) OP is acceptable only if if does not require an immediate answer (death in 2 or 3 turns).
3) Unfair cards are out. IMHO extra turns, extra draw each turn, doubling your life total/hand size is unfair. Your opp should not have to beat you twice to win.
Repeatable "free" advantage effects and lockout effects are unfair. Tower of Calamities and Huntmaster, along with ALL planeswalkers. The PW discussion I'll save for another post.
4) Brian's holodeck list is too low on artifacts compared to its disenchant effects. Too many value cards that never see their value realized.
5) Teaching players to RTFC is extremely highly valued. Multiple cards with similar but subtly different effects.
ex. Many discard cards in black, Looter/draw cards in blue.
6) No search you library cards. We haven't got all night ya know...
7) Staple cube cards are favorably looked on unless they require deck design strategy. ex. Wing Shards is only Storm card
Some house rules.
1) Max hand size is 10. considering changing this.
2) No mulligans. Period.
3) All hindered and shuffled-in cards are exiled.
4) Multi-player games are discouraged. OMG they can take days. 4 players, pair up.
5) I love the shiny. About a third foiled so far... Time Spiral and 7ED are my favorite sets for this. I realize this isn't a house rule, but oooooo, shiny...
Thanks for reading! Next post is my changes and thoughts on others' changes.
Time will tell, but against competitive standard decks I don't think skittles will stick, survive to attack, and not get chump blocked. That's what I mean by clunky. Yes, one could say that about all fatties, but at least in green you can make 8 mana on turn 5 or even 4. This B 8/4 hasty regenerating you speak of can come out when? Survey says turn 8. That's about 4 turns too late to survive a good aggro deck coming, and a good control deck will never let him stick that late.
I could not disagree with you more on the Vatmother. Despite the self-infection, I'll take the Vatmother over the Hand of the Praetors every day, and twice for FNM. What can I say, I like tough chicks... she can survive blocking non1/1s and she giggles at shock/bolt/incinerate/CHoutrage, any one of which kill the Hand.
All this could be moot as infect as a mechanic was demolished in competitive standard last year, and I don't see much in the way of improvement with the new set... I'll still play it though, see where it goes. Too many of my friends despise it so it must be good?
Cheers,
Tosub
Of course I could be completely wrong about all this. like I was was about ponder.
G Infect
-Groundswell
-Primal Bellow
-Vines of Vastwood
-Expedition Map
-Ancient Stirrings
In nearly every card's case, a "replacement" is worse. Whether it's more worse (??) for the other standard decks?, i don't know. My infect decks were never really competitive vs the Valakuts and ###-Blades, so I guess we'll see.
WRT the decks listed above, I don't see a place for Skittles in a Standard agro deck. A 6-drop (seven if you want him to be a nasty surprise), susceptible to every kind of Mana Leak/Frightful Delusion, and then a host of tappie creatures and artifacts, even if you do give him haste. Too clunky...
The infect "Lord" Hand of the Praetors is another I'd cut. A 3-drop, the half of your creatures susceptible red 1-2 CMC instants are all still going to die from the same spells. I'd replace with another sword and maybe some haste/hexproof boots. If I had to replace it with creatures, Whispering Spectre is IMHO a better 3 drop creature.
I love Necropede! This guy gets through or gets a 2 for 1 almost all of the time. And Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas turns him and his Inkmoth cousins into 5/5s! Still working the details of the new deck, I'll post it as soon as I get there. Pretty sure it's going to be UB, but artifact removal is definitely going to be a problem.
I think Mutagenic Growth has a place in any infect deck as a combat trick, even the UB deck.
On to the cards I've added. And it bears mentioning these aren't replacement cards. I dont replace cards, I just add more.
First, the artifact shortage.
Added
Arcbound Slith: Only Modular card in the list.
Blinding Souleater: Phyrexian mana activated ability affecting precombat decisions.
Armored Transport: Combat damage preventing atacker
Anvilwrought Raptor: First Strike Flyer
Esper Stormblade: 3/2 flyer for 2, not a Delver, but very real similarities
Windwright Mage: 2/2 Flying Lifelink for 3
Tower Gargoyle: 4/4 Flyer for 4
Infiltration Lens: Deal damage or draw cards, two of my favorite things to do.
Viridian Longbow: Your guys trade up in combat or you can plink off weenies
Ensnaring Bridge: Hand size management based on board state analysis. Seen this backfire, very funny to watch
Sarpadian Empires, Vol III: Only card in magic I know of with it's Card Title in italics. Plus make a weenie every turn!
All Is Dust: Colorless board wipe
Add from Pre-Theros:
Slith Firewalker: Aggro strategy star
Memory Lapse: Bonkers in this format! Counter your fill-in-the-blank spell I can't deal with, then I'll draw it!
Splatter Thug: 3/3/ FS for 3
Frost Breath: Perhaps too strong for the format. (on Offense)
Theros adds: (many for two reasons, Scry, Monstrosity, and Bestow)
Hopeful, Baleful, and Entropic Eidolons. Nimbus Naiad. Nylea's Emissary
Swan Song'Returned Phalanx
Ill-Powered Cyclops
Magma Jet (All-star in Standard atm)
Sedge Scorpion
Voyage's End: See your opp's next card! Or yours... very useful
Prescient Chimera: scry on a stick!
Artisan's Sorrow, maybe overkill on the disenchant effect, but really like scry 2
Tymaret Burger King: fun playing effects from your gy
Fleecemane Lion. value... just value.
Pharika's Mender: recursion is good
Dimir Charm: so versatile
Shipwreck Singer: breas loose stagnant boards
Haven't really gone through BOTG yet. Maybe look at it tonight if the draft doesn't fire...
Cheers,
-Tosub
"I draw 8, and with my insane grip, find a couple that beat you next turn." Unfair, Out.
Rolling Thunder.
"Here's my combat math, I wreck your board and swing." or... "You have almost half your life... Kill you?" Unfair, Out.
Lumberknot.
Every game it landed, it won. Should change that flavor text to "Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson. That is the sound of inevitability." - Mr. Smith. Out.
OTOH, Quirion Druid is fine.
Forgotten Ancient.
Free, repeatable, permanent, and movable pump counters. What?! Thats's not combat math, might as well be Thermodynamic Partial Differential Quantum Relativity Mechanics... also called cheating. Out.
On Trial, "for each creature in your graveyard" cards. Value is good, but these take it to the next level.
Splinterfright, Spider Spawning, Grim Flowering, Gnaw to the Bone. Of these, Gnaw to the Bone is the least obscene.
Assembled 95% of his "holodeck" list, and its much stronger. Aggro strategy just almost never worked in the original list without a fireball for turn 10-ish. The new list actually can end before all lands in play, with one player on the back foot most of the game. While not "the point" of DR, I find it acceptable (and a bit refreshing) since the cards used are thus low and add that few points to the winner's victory point total. WRT the point of teaching MTG strategy, aggro is a real thing that players should be able to play, AND learn to play against. Still vast majority of games end due to mana management, board state anlaysis, and combat math. Since (excepting combo-win decks) this accounts for imho the vast majority of magic games, I like this list much better. I'll describe my changes later in this post.
But before that, I need to describe a list one of my friends assembled, he went full-speed. All the best cards, no card is too powerful, although the basic rules of no-ramp and no land destruction are still in effect. For example, he includes Jace 2.0. Curiously, games often still go 20+ turns, and one advantage of his list is it can be a ton of fun to play Consecrated Sphinx or Adarkar Valkyrie and hear your opp say "ugh". We play at most FNMs, each list about half the time.
So back to discussing my current list. Changes are made with one or more of several aims.
1) Value, even extreme value is perfectly acceptable and highly valued for inclusion. ex. Bloodbraid Elf is fine.
2) OP is acceptable only if if does not require an immediate answer (death in 2 or 3 turns).
3) Unfair cards are out. IMHO extra turns, extra draw each turn, doubling your life total/hand size is unfair. Your opp should not have to beat you twice to win.
Repeatable "free" advantage effects and lockout effects are unfair. Tower of Calamities and Huntmaster, along with ALL planeswalkers. The PW discussion I'll save for another post.
4) Brian's holodeck list is too low on artifacts compared to its disenchant effects. Too many value cards that never see their value realized.
5) Teaching players to RTFC is extremely highly valued. Multiple cards with similar but subtly different effects.
ex. Many discard cards in black, Looter/draw cards in blue.
6) No search you library cards. We haven't got all night ya know...
7) Staple cube cards are favorably looked on unless they require deck design strategy. ex. Wing Shards is only Storm card
Some house rules.
1) Max hand size is 10. considering changing this.
2) No mulligans. Period.
3) All hindered and shuffled-in cards are exiled.
4) Multi-player games are discouraged. OMG they can take days. 4 players, pair up.
5) I love the shiny. About a third foiled so far... Time Spiral and 7ED are my favorite sets for this. I realize this isn't a house rule, but oooooo, shiny...
Thanks for reading! Next post is my changes and thoughts on others' changes.
Tosub
Time will tell, but against competitive standard decks I don't think skittles will stick, survive to attack, and not get chump blocked. That's what I mean by clunky. Yes, one could say that about all fatties, but at least in green you can make 8 mana on turn 5 or even 4. This B 8/4 hasty regenerating you speak of can come out when? Survey says turn 8. That's about 4 turns too late to survive a good aggro deck coming, and a good control deck will never let him stick that late.
I could not disagree with you more on the Vatmother. Despite the self-infection, I'll take the Vatmother over the Hand of the Praetors every day, and twice for FNM. What can I say, I like tough chicks... she can survive blocking non1/1s and she giggles at shock/bolt/incinerate/CHoutrage, any one of which kill the Hand.
All this could be moot as infect as a mechanic was demolished in competitive standard last year, and I don't see much in the way of improvement with the new set... I'll still play it though, see where it goes. Too many of my friends despise it so it must be good?
Cheers,
Tosub
Of course I could be completely wrong about all this. like I was was about ponder.
UB Infect
-Duress
-Inquisition of Kozilek
-Vampire's Bite
-Virulent Swipe
-Ponder
-Distortion Strike
G Infect
-Groundswell
-Primal Bellow
-Vines of Vastwood
-Expedition Map
-Ancient Stirrings
In nearly every card's case, a "replacement" is worse. Whether it's more worse (??) for the other standard decks?, i don't know. My infect decks were never really competitive vs the Valakuts and ###-Blades, so I guess we'll see.
WRT the decks listed above, I don't see a place for Skittles in a Standard agro deck. A 6-drop (seven if you want him to be a nasty surprise), susceptible to every kind of Mana Leak/Frightful Delusion, and then a host of tappie creatures and artifacts, even if you do give him haste. Too clunky...
The infect "Lord" Hand of the Praetors is another I'd cut. A 3-drop, the half of your creatures susceptible red 1-2 CMC instants are all still going to die from the same spells. I'd replace with another sword and maybe some haste/hexproof boots. If I had to replace it with creatures, Whispering Spectre is IMHO a better 3 drop creature.
I love Necropede! This guy gets through or gets a 2 for 1 almost all of the time. And Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas turns him and his Inkmoth cousins into 5/5s! Still working the details of the new deck, I'll post it as soon as I get there. Pretty sure it's going to be UB, but artifact removal is definitely going to be a problem.
I think Mutagenic Growth has a place in any infect deck as a combat trick, even the UB deck.
Cheers,
-Tosub