MTG Salvation

You mean the Dimir intro deck structure?

Quote from Activillain

What about Thrull Parasite? It's 1 mana, so easy on the extort trigger and applies extort itself

On the other hand, you also have Tormented Soul for one mana. It lacks Extort, but I'd still rather ping for unblockable damage early on, since you won't be able to play anything useful to Orzhov for two mana (Vizkopa Guildmage, yes, but paying mana to give creatures abilities is a waste of mana in a deck like this), and at 3 mana you'll have to tap out to play anything.

If anything, Orzhov is a very nice change of pace - it doesn't have to be hyper aggressive, it can just toss out some high toughness white creatures or small fliers and then toss out control spells and Extort. All it has to do is hold its ground to score a win.

The thing about mill is that if you want a mill deck, everything about the deck should be focused on milling, because of how few cards most Standard cards mill for. Your creatures should mill, your spells should mill, even your lands (if at all possible). It's a very difficult win-con to pull off without big cards that mill huge amounts of cards from your opponent's library, such as Jace. It's also difficult to win with a mill deck because decks these days are incredibly fast, to the point where some decks can T3 or T4 kill you outright, whereas milling is a gradual process that takes many turns.

You might just look into a Control/Aggro deck instead. It looks like you're almost there anyway.

Blue was never meant to be used aggressively. The wealth of Blue lies in its ability to counter and negate things, not in its creature base.

I prefer to play Orzhov with more control, rather than as an aggro deck. It's great when your opponent has big creatures that you can lock down indefinitely, while you delicately pick at their life and they're unable to stop you.

The only deck I see this being used in is one where you stall for 20 turns and only maybe win by luck. That sounds like an incredible waste of time and boring to boot.

I wonder why there are reports of the card quality being a little lower than usual? Did they lower it just for the cards printed for the pre-release?

Quote from Caranthir

Sure, whatever.

I saw Mirko Vosk winning a good deal of games when somebody played him at both prereleases I participated. It's not great design, but anybody with even half a brain must see it is a Limited bomb.

In the context of a pre-release sealed draft, yes, he's a bomb.

In the context of a bout between constructed standard decks? He's not even worth the 4 mana he costs.

I didn't bother to attend, as funds were low, and the third expansion of any block tends to be not very fun to draft in.

I'd be nice if mono-colored decks actually stood a chance for once, but I'm not holding my breath.

I somehow doubt we'll be seeing a third return to Ravnica, unless they start seriously grasping at straws for material.

I noticed that too - a lot of Boros cards involve first strike and double strike, which I guess isn't bad against other aggro decks, but I'd prefer to take boosts in power or toughness as an anthem effect. I guess Wizards didn't want Boros to be a Rakdos/Golgari copycat. Red and White have always had a hard time getting along, because White wants to take its time and Red wants to go fast, so you get a lot of wonky cards like enchantments that give minor power boosts to all your creatures.

I'm guessing that Hybridization acts as a means to push early aggro if you have nothing else in hand that will trigger an Evolve? Or perhaps a late-game control option, although I wouldn't advise it.

Quote from loltacular

Ral Zarek is soon to be a $5-10 planeswalker. He's essentially a 4 mana sorcery speed lightning bolt that may get to be used twice.

So he's Tibalt v.2?

Quote from wingxero

hi im new here and want to know whats the meaning of the ff: aggro, control, tempo, midrange... and other things you call on a deck? sorry if im out of topic you can give me a direction also ü im an old player before who plays a red blaster, white winnie, LD's etc...

tnx btw

Aggro - a deck based around the idea of having many creatures on the field and winning through combat damage. The basic premise is get your creatures on the field, turn them sideways, and make sure the opponent has a hard time doing any blocking or damage prevention.

Control - a deck based around the idea of permission. The idea in this deck is to lock your opponent down in any way possible, usually through the use of hand destruction (discard), tapping mechanics (Blue is notable for this), and removal from play effects (White is generally where Exile turns up). If you wish to use creatures, it helps for them to have Enter the Battlefield effects, which will further slow your opponent down.

Midrange - not sure about this one myself. Sounds like it might be a hybrid between the two.

Tempo - the rate at which threats (in the form of creatures or other spells) are issued and answered.