Morbid Slip, Geth's Verdict/Tribute to Hunger, Vapor Snag, Revoke Existence when you don't get the haste, Fiend Hunter or Leonin Relic-Warder and continue the beats, Sever the Bloodline... so many ways to deal with Blightsteel as your only win condition (besides Inkmoths, but those are just as easily dealt with). I don't see this deck working in the current metagame.
How about Red Overrun for some late-game reach instead of Hellrider (or in addition to)? It requires you to overextend but if you're using Bonfire or Gisela it probably means the board's clogged up anyway. With the anthems, if you don't have blockers to deal with, only a few small swings is game anyway.
Thanks for the help, guys. I am a fan of Treasure Mage because he holds a Pike and puts value in my hand. On a side note, do I usually want to be targeting myself with the Thought Scour?
I don't like Thought Scour here. The only thing it does here is pump Pike, since you don't have Snapcasters or other graveyard-relevant cards. Instead I'd put in another Treasure Mage (you have four tutor targets and only one tutor), another Gitaxian Probe, and two Dissipates or Negates. Depending on how your mana is I might even drop a Steel Hellkite for an Island (I ran 23 lands in my Architect build and still had a little bit of trouble getting to 6 lands for Wurmcoil or keeping open counter mana).
Let's use your example of a turn 4 Wurmcoil. It's possible, but you sacrifice quite a bit to do it. Here we go.
Turn 1: Island, Tap, Delver.
Turn 2: Flip Delver, Island, Tap out for an Invisible Stalker or Spined Thopter in my case.
Turn 3: Here's the problem. Do you play an Architect or a Treasure Mage? Architect will let you play that Wurmcoil if it's in your hand, but you sacrifice 5 damage if you want to bring out Wurmcoil. Otherwise you wait til the next turn. I just think a Turn 3 Architect play is a much stronger play.
Architect also lets you throw a Runechanter's Pike out there. Now you need to start filling up the graveyard with stuff, so you start Thought Scouring, Probing, etc. etc. Turn 4 you can toss out your Treasure Mage, and throw the Wurmcoil out if you didn't in Turn 3. Once again though, you're all tapped out leaving yourself open to removal and counterspells. You also haven't filled up your graveyard at all, meaning your Pike is still weak.
Moral of the story: Swords/Pike wins these games, and if you're too busy trying to get a fast Wurmcoil out, you'll lose sight of the equipment + Invisible Stalker/Flyer combo.
You're sacrificing 5 potential damage to get out a Wurmcoil Engine, a potential 12 point life swing, and a very big threat that is resilient to kill spells. But what if your Delver doesn't flip? What if you don't draw any equipment for the Stalker? What if you don't draw Grand Architect? Are you going to beat him to death with maybe-flipped Delvers and 2/1 Spined Thopters?
Here's another example:
T1, island, Delver.
T2, delver doesn't flip, island.
T3, Delver doesn't flip, Grand Architect, Spined Thopter pay 2 life.
T4, Swing for 3 from the Thopter, Treasure Mage, tap three to play Wurmcoil Engine.
Or another:
T1, island, Delver.
T2, delver flips, swing 3, island, invisible stalker.
T3, grand architect, tap 3 for Wurmcoil Engine. Your aggro opponent is stopped dead in his tracks.
Grand Architect decks absolutely must run Treasure Mage/Wurmcoil Engine. The Wurmcoil lets Architect compete with fast aggro decks while remaining resilient to sweepy control decks. It's by far his best card. The Treasure Mage also lets you get out Steel Hellkite, which deals with tokens and Delver. If you're not running Treasure Mage/Wurmcoil Engine, what are you doing with a Grand Architect deck? Just for a durdly free Runechanter's Pike or an unexciting Spined Thopter interaction? For a weak lord? If you're going to focus on evasion+equipment why not just play Blighted Agent and some Mutagenic Growths for faster kill power, or splash red for Galvanic Blast/Arc Trail to remove blockers?
Think of control effects like layers of wallpaper. Bob puts up a layer of wallpaper, i.e. casts Blantant Thievery, that says, "Bob controls Blightsteel Colossus." Alice then puts up her wallpaper, Mind Control, over Bob's that says, "Alice controls Blightsteel Colossus." If Bob tears down Alice's wallpaper what does it say underneath? "Bob controls Blightsteel Colossus."
Okay, so it does work as a layer. Is there any way to remove Blatant Thievery's layer aside from blinking the Blightsteel or putting up another "permanent" layer?
Let's say I play a Blightsteel Colossus. My opponent then casts Blatant Thievery, taking control of my Blightsteel indefinitely. Next turn I play Mind Control, targeting my Blightsteel Colossus. If the Mind Control is Naturalized, who now controls the Blightsteel? Is Blatant Thievery's effect "remembered" through the playing and destruction of Mind Control?
Reconfigure your deck to take better advantage of vast amounts of Black mana. Run Pestilence Demon over Massacre Wurm, for example, or Skeletal Vampire over Grave Titan, or Stronghold Overseer over Windborn Muse. Play more cards with three or four Black mana symbols in their casting cost, and less with double White/Green. You can't just ram a single-colour engine into a three-colour deck and expect it to perform to the same standard as a mono-Black deck.
My deck is pretty heavily black/green (for the graveyard play and the various ramp packages), which is normally okay, but sometimes I just want to cast and sac my general three times a turn, which requires a ton of G/W mana. I probably do need to reconfigure my manabase, since I have at least five to ten ways to tutor for Urborg, and I'm not sure if I'm running filters. Garruk Wildspeaker will probably find a slot again, and the Magus could be interesting if I find a slot for him.
Outside of Prismatic Lens effects, there isn't much. Especially not for unlimited amounts.
Your best bet is probably filter lands, they can shift 2 each.
Farrelite Priest could work. Death is typically not an issue for this deck at all. Two to three B->W conversions per turn may be good enough anyway. I'll see if I can't reconfigure the manabase enough so that this guy can find a slot. Aforementioned Gemstone Array looks good - not efficient, but with Coffers, who cares, really?
Mycosynth Lattice is cool but I've avoided putting artifacts in this deck to avoid another avenue of hate. Worse, it makes my lands vulnerable (sac outlets, coffers/urborg, fixing). I think I will avoid this for now. Celestial Dawn would have been nice if it was "Plains in addition to other land types", i.e. Urborg for white. Oh well.
It's part of a fun Havengul Lich/Heartless Summoning combo (I played this deck last night at Draft, it was surprisingly fast) but outside of combo it doesn't have a place in constructed. It's basically a card for a free 2/1 dude that doesn't do anything in a red deck.
I've been playing my Karador deck a lot lately and between Cabal Coffers+Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth and Crypt of Agadeem, I find that I have a ton of ways to make black mana but always end up needing W or G mana. I'm looking for ways to efficiently (so, either one for one or X+1 for X, or something to that effect) and repeatedly (so no Chromatic Sphere, or evenMana Cylix) convert black mana to other colors. Does what I'm looking for exist?
To all of you who have issues with token decks. Just run ratchet bomb. It ain't that hard to add 2-3 in the sideboard depending on your local meta. Also, talking in all bold letters is cool for cruise control
Ratchet Bomb also kills your own flipped Delvers, so consider if tokens is a big enough threat that adding them is a net benefit. Arc Trail may be good enough instead.
I'm interested in the interaction between two Soulbound creatures.
2. If you control a Soulbond creature, but it isn't currently paired (lets say the original paired creature was destroyed), and a Soulbond creature enters the battlefield under your control (lets say Tandem Lookout), they may not both pair with each other. Only 1 pair may be established.
Would both be able to pair with each other? Is the "unpaired" part checked on trigger or resolution? I like the Paladin's interaction with Nightshade Peddler but I'm not sure if it works the way I think it does. Nevertheless I'm really excited for Soulbound, it seems like a really cool mechanic.
Am I the only one who thinks this may be an alternate choice than Elesh Norn in the Chancellor Rites deck?
No, Elesh does well in Chancellor's Rites because that deck has a lot of tokens, and with Elesh's double anthem makes them very scary hasty/flying tokens.
She's no Akroma, and she's no Elesh Norn... honestly not sure if she's constructed playable. Her effect is cool but not really all that relevant in Standard. Great for EDH, though!
Only if you can afford the slots and if stopping their 1-drop is more helpful than another spell slot for you. Personally I don't think there are many decks that can afford the slot.
Idea: Wizards could be printing a paper Cube product - they'd only need to make them gold border and different backs. Wondering if many people would buy it and how much would it need to cost... Anyway I'd absolutely love cube drafting to become more popular.
I believe Maro has said even gold-bordered reprints of Reserved List cards will not happen.
I don't like Thought Scour here. The only thing it does here is pump Pike, since you don't have Snapcasters or other graveyard-relevant cards. Instead I'd put in another Treasure Mage (you have four tutor targets and only one tutor), another Gitaxian Probe, and two Dissipates or Negates. Depending on how your mana is I might even drop a Steel Hellkite for an Island (I ran 23 lands in my Architect build and still had a little bit of trouble getting to 6 lands for Wurmcoil or keeping open counter mana).
You're sacrificing 5 potential damage to get out a Wurmcoil Engine, a potential 12 point life swing, and a very big threat that is resilient to kill spells. But what if your Delver doesn't flip? What if you don't draw any equipment for the Stalker? What if you don't draw Grand Architect? Are you going to beat him to death with maybe-flipped Delvers and 2/1 Spined Thopters?
Here's another example:
T1, island, Delver.
T2, delver doesn't flip, island.
T3, Delver doesn't flip, Grand Architect, Spined Thopter pay 2 life.
T4, Swing for 3 from the Thopter, Treasure Mage, tap three to play Wurmcoil Engine.
Or another:
T1, island, Delver.
T2, delver flips, swing 3, island, invisible stalker.
T3, grand architect, tap 3 for Wurmcoil Engine. Your aggro opponent is stopped dead in his tracks.
Grand Architect decks absolutely must run Treasure Mage/Wurmcoil Engine. The Wurmcoil lets Architect compete with fast aggro decks while remaining resilient to sweepy control decks. It's by far his best card. The Treasure Mage also lets you get out Steel Hellkite, which deals with tokens and Delver. If you're not running Treasure Mage/Wurmcoil Engine, what are you doing with a Grand Architect deck? Just for a durdly free Runechanter's Pike or an unexciting Spined Thopter interaction? For a weak lord? If you're going to focus on evasion+equipment why not just play Blighted Agent and some Mutagenic Growths for faster kill power, or splash red for Galvanic Blast/Arc Trail to remove blockers?
Okay, so it does work as a layer. Is there any way to remove Blatant Thievery's layer aside from blinking the Blightsteel or putting up another "permanent" layer?
My deck is pretty heavily black/green (for the graveyard play and the various ramp packages), which is normally okay, but sometimes I just want to cast and sac my general three times a turn, which requires a ton of G/W mana. I probably do need to reconfigure my manabase, since I have at least five to ten ways to tutor for Urborg, and I'm not sure if I'm running filters. Garruk Wildspeaker will probably find a slot again, and the Magus could be interesting if I find a slot for him.
Farrelite Priest could work. Death is typically not an issue for this deck at all. Two to three B->W conversions per turn may be good enough anyway. I'll see if I can't reconfigure the manabase enough so that this guy can find a slot. Aforementioned Gemstone Array looks good - not efficient, but with Coffers, who cares, really?
Mycosynth Lattice is cool but I've avoided putting artifacts in this deck to avoid another avenue of hate. Worse, it makes my lands vulnerable (sac outlets, coffers/urborg, fixing). I think I will avoid this for now. Celestial Dawn would have been nice if it was "Plains in addition to other land types", i.e. Urborg for white. Oh well.
Ratchet Bomb also kills your own flipped Delvers, so consider if tokens is a big enough threat that adding them is a net benefit. Arc Trail may be good enough instead.
Would both be able to pair with each other? Is the "unpaired" part checked on trigger or resolution? I like the Paladin's interaction with Nightshade Peddler but I'm not sure if it works the way I think it does. Nevertheless I'm really excited for Soulbound, it seems like a really cool mechanic.
No, Elesh does well in Chancellor's Rites because that deck has a lot of tokens, and with Elesh's double anthem makes them very scary hasty/flying tokens.
I believe Maro has said even gold-bordered reprints of Reserved List cards will not happen.