Jan 29 2012

Zombie Tokens deck

dastels @ 8:22 pm

I was elated when Innistrad cards started spoiling.  I love the horror motif, and especially zombies!  As more cards were made known, I evolved this deck. After getting some time playing it I tweaked it further and ended up with this.  It’s nowhere near being overly competitive, but it’s fun, especially when using Inkwell Looter’s zombie tokens.

Depending on your metagame, you might want to consider moving the Phyrexian Crusader to the main deck or swapping the Doom Blades and Go for the Throats.

Dec 28 2010

There Be Dragons

dastels @ 2:38 pm

This is a fun deck that I built and played back in late 2008. I took the deck to Worlds and played it against a couple of the gunslingers. Specifically I beat Matt Place and lost to Mark Rosewater and his elvish horde. As proof of (and reward for) my win, I got to sign the gunslinger banner:

So, here’s the list:

The deck has a nice 3 color manabase (BRG) with various pain, tribal-dual, and filter lands, as well as sets of birds and pools. The tribal-duals are enabled by the colossus and mauler. These two shapeshifters also leverage the effect of the crucible, as does the Mutavault.

The mauler proved to be a very useful card. Dropping it on turn 3 lets it grow into a formidable threat. The colossus is an instant threat that only improves with age. The fact that he shrugs off black removal, and can pump repeatedly (and geometrically!) makes him very handy. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, these are both changelings, as as such are dragons.

Speaking of dragons, Broodmate Dragon is an MVP. Six mana for a couple of flying 4/4s is powerful. The overlord is a classy finisher: flying, hasty, trampling, regenerating, and pumped by the crucible. Sarkhan Vol lets you get up to all sorts of shenanigans: pumping & hasting, stealing blockers (or threats to throw in their face), and of course spewing forth 5 dragons. Ideally you want to use his +1 ability a couple times, then go ultimate to create some dragons. What’s really sweet is having another Sarkhan Vol in hand when you pop him for the dragons. Play that and +1 to make them bigger and able to attack RIGHT NOW. I’ve managed that a few times and it’s impressive. “Guess what, you have 25 flying damage coming your way.” That’s without other dragons (or changelings) in play, and without any crucibles on the battlefield.

The crucible is a nice extra in the deck. It makes your dragons (and hence changelings) bigger. It also stacks so you can get +3/+3, or +6/+6 or even +9/+9 or better. Mix that up with the colossus: Say you have a couple crucibles out and attack with the 10/10 colossus. Pump … he’s 20/20. Oh .. got another 2GG? Pump … he’s 40/40. Nice.

The crucible also plays well with Mutavault. When you activate it, Mutavault is (surprise) a 2/2 dragon. I remember one game where I had 3 crucibles on the table, and attacked with a couple 11/11 vaults. Fun times.

I’ll leave you with this battlefield pic:


Nov 25 2010

BG Infect

dastels @ 2:51 am

So I’ve gotten back into Magic after a very brief hiatus. Part of that hiatus involved selling my not insignificant collection of paper magic. Coming back, I’ve focused on Magic Online. I love it. I can have a game whenever I want. Without leaving home. I can switch decks without having multiple playsets of cards or wasting time resleeving (actually I got smart when I was playing paper magic and bought black Dragon Shields in bulk) or searching decks for cards.

I played in one event post-Zendikar, I went to GP Oakland and drafted some ZZW and bought a Worldwake fatpack. That was all the Worldwake I ever got. I was away for Rise of the Eldrazi and M11 releases. I like the timing of my return, coming back as Scars of Mirrodin was released. I’ve been enjoying Scars. I love the new Infect mechanic. Like Mark Rosewater, I’m a big fan of poison. I played slivers during Timespiral block and Virulent was my MVP. I also really liked Wither. Infect is two of my favorite mechanics mashed into one. What’s not to like?

So naturally when I started playing standard online I built a deck around infect. Here’s the deck I’ve been playing & tuning. It’s pretty much full of infect creatures, pump, and removal. The idea that you can fairly easily attack with a Plague Stinger for 12 by turn 5 is pretty cool. I’ve won on turn 4 before. The deck can be very explosive.

The Verdant Catacombs serve to smooth your colors as well (if you can hold them in reserve) as providing a source of landfall for Groundswell if land dries up on you. The color balance is the way it is because you can get by on 2 Swamps, but you need a lot of Forests for casting multiple pumps.

Plague Stinger is the real MVP of this deck. More often than not it’s this little guy that takes the game. Tangle Angler is a good blocker that can pick at attackers. Hand of the Praetors is just sick. If you can drop some cheap Plague Stingers after getting one or two of these on the board, you’re doing great.

I played around quite a bit with the slot that Corpse Cur currently occupies. I was running Putrefax there for a while. In the end I found the recursion effect of the Cur to be more useful. It’s also useful for blocking fear guys.

Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon is the bomb at the top end. If you’ve been using a Stinger to get a few poison counters out earlier in the game, this bad boy can wrap things up quickly.

Grasp of Darkness is very nice removal, and well worth the BB cost. In this format (i.e. we’re on Mirrodin, remember) 4 copies of Naturalize just makes sense.

Now for the key to the deck: 12 pump spells. Vines of Vastwood is simply lovely. For G you get instant speed protection from burn, removal, theft, or Planeswaker abilities. Kick it with G and you get a +4/+4 pump. Insane. Likewise for Groundswell: a +4/+4 for G (assuming you dropped a land or popped a fetch). And a set of Giant Growth to round it out.

The Tel-Jilad Fallen are in the sideboard for punching through artifact flyers. Slice in Twain serves as another set of Naturalize effects. Another Grasp for removal. Wing Puncture for extra flyer removal, expecially for clearing the way for a pumped Plague Stinger or Skithiryx.

Oct 25 2010

My early FMN decks

dastels @ 7:08 pm

When I started learning/playing Magic: the Gathering, I did so by buying a Simic Mutology precon deck from Dissension. Before long, I was stomping, howling, and grafting up a storm.

Before long, as I think all new players without strong guidance are wont to do, I was visiting the local shops, flipping through binders of singles looking for cool cards to add to my deck. Green seemed especially attractive. Green is great for new players: green is fairly simple mechanically. So I added elves and growth effects and some Fog. Of course I never took any cards out. That would be insane. So what began as a reasonably cohesive 60 card deck turned into a monstrosity that creeped to a staggering 125 cards at one point.

It was then that we started reading and learning about the theory behind deck building. Especially useful was the Saturday School column on the Magic site. (It’s not a current column and isn’t easily accessible from the site with searching as the previous link does.)

We were in the middle of the Timespiral block at this time and I took interest in Thallids. At least the Timespiral and Planar Chaos incarnations.

One aspect of Thallids that reached out and grabbed my inner Timmy (and also here)(I’m now more of a Jonny/Timmy) was the idea of amassing an overwhelming force of saproling tokens.

With this in mind, along with lessons learned from our reading, I set out to build my own deck. I went through several incarnations, all primarily green but with splashes of white or black. Along the way I discovered cards like the Urza lands (tower, mine, and power plant), Doubling Season, and Supply/Demand before ending up with this:

I got infamous at FNM at Gametronics for my frustrating saproling decks. I never really did all that well, but nobody liked playing me. I had fun. The idea of the above deck is to generate a horde of tokens, then drop a coat of arms and send the swarm into the red zone. There are many ways to make tokens, including the basic spore counter route. Additionally there is Scatter the Seeds, Verdeloth the Ancient, Thelonite Hermit, and Supply/Demand. The key to using this deck effectively is to get a ton of mana available, through Urza lands, and Saltcrusted Steppe, have one or more copies of Doubling Season on the battlefield (still getting used to saying that) and casting a massive Verdeloth or Supply.

The final game I played with this deck is worth telling the tale of. I was playing a friend at FMN, Bubba … great guy and skilled player. It was the last game of the last match of the night. Bubba was also playing a green/white token deck, but a very different one. He had four copies each of Soul Warden and Essence Warden. I think he had Call of the Herd and some other token generators. We got ourselves into a stalemate situation where we both had some tokens out. His life total was creeping up with each token due to several copies of both wardens. I was avoiding generating tokens so as to not give him life, so I had charge counters piling up on my Steppes and spore counters piling up on my Thallids. I should mention that I had two Doubling Seasons on the battlefield. We eventually got to the point where we switched to keeping track of my various counters and his life total on paper.

The stalemate continued for some time. We were at the 45 minute mark. I drew. Finally! Yes! Coat of Arms at last. I cashed in all the spore counters, and poured all available mana into Supply, resulting in 101 saproling tokens on the battlefield, dwarfing is line of a couple dozen guys. Pass turn. I distinctly remember that Bubba was at 512 life. One of the kids yelled out “Bubba’s at 512 life!!” Everyone else at FNM came over to see what the commotion was (ours was the last game running and the rest of the folks were hanging out, trading, and such). He stared in amazement and passed the turn, not able to do anything. I untapped and put Coat of Arms on the table. “I attack you with” … the sound of math happening … “101 101/101 … saprolings.”

That’s something I love about this game, the memories of epic games and plays with friends.

Oct 25 2010

A Plainswalker deck rebuild

dastels @ 1:44 pm

When I started getting back to Magic: the Gathering, it was mainly with Duels of the Planeswalkers (when it became available on the PC (by way of VMWare Fusion)). I found myself especially liking the Eyes of Shadow deck, so when I started using Magic Online more I picked up the Planeswalker decks & expansions to use in the beginner room while learning the system.

Here’s the original Eyes of Shadow deck in MTGO (note that the paper version of the deck is a bit different):

Eyes of Shadow

Basic Lands (24)
Creatures (16)
Artifacts (2)
Enchantments (6)
Sorceries (9)
Instants (3)

While I found this deck to be fun, it is a little unfocused for my tastes. The Racks, Megrims, and Mind Rots made me think about a discard rebuild. The available cards in the Planeswalker pool gave me what I needed to come up with this:

Since the focus is moving away from creature damage to discard related damage, out go the Nightmare, Severed Legion, Sengir Vampire, Unholy Strength, Final Revels, and Raise Dead. This gives some room to play with. I bumped up removal by going to 4 copies of Terror. To really penalize a small hand I added 2 Racks to max out with 4. To beef up the discard focus, I went to 4 Megrims and added a Mind Shatter. Unfortunately Mind Shatter is restricted in Planeswalker constructed. I added 2 additional specters and a Cunning Lethemancer to further drive discard.

Eyes of Discard

Basic Lands (24)
Creatures (15)
Artifacts (4)
Enchantments (6)
Sorceries (7)
Instants (4)

Being a monoblack deck, mana color isn’t an issue. The mana curve is quite low, allowing you to play pretty much anything after a few turns. If anything, I might be tempted to add an additional Swamp to give a bit of protection against missing land drops with Consume Spirit and Mind Shatter sitting at the high end.



It’s a fun deck to play. The skeletons and rats provide early game defense and maybe even some beats. The rats, of course, start trimming your opponents hand. You can wait a while before worrying about putting out the racks, but some Megrims and Dreams are good to get out as early as possible. Don’t worry about having Megrims in play before casting your Mind Rots, especially against a blue deck. You want to strip out as many counters as possible as early as possible. If you can empty their hand and keep it empty, you have a serious advantage.

So far it’s done fairly well, albeit in the beginner’s room.

Dec 24 2009

EDH Angels

dastels @ 10:44 pm

I just got this sleeved up and am ready to test it.

My plan was to call it “Holier Than Thou”, but at least over the holidays, I’ve dubbed it “Angels We Have Heard On High”.

The Curve looks good. Lots of life gain & damage prevention in the 1-4 slots, heavy at 4. Then the angels start showing up.. plenty at 5, a few at six and a showing at 7, 8, & 9.

I picked Reya Dawnbringer for the general, mainly for her recurring resurrection effect. Sure she costs 9 to play (the first time) but you likely won’t have many angels in the graveyard until turn 10 anyway.

I built the deck using plains from Urza’s Saga, 8 of each art. The images of Serra’s Realm are a natural fit for the theme of the deck.

The approach is simple: early game fog and life-gain effects. Sweepers to control the board. Angels to beat with, and a few ways to resurrect them. A bit of pump thrown in for good measure.

Just a note. The deck looks way nicer than is shown above. As I said, I used Urza’s Saga plains. Also, all cards are original printings (except for the WoG)… it just a sweet looking deck.

Merry Christmas, y’all.

Dec 13 2009

EDH Artifacts

dastels @ 5:54 pm

Here’s a fun deck I’ve just gotten into good shape.

General (1)
Land (39)
Mana Artifacts (7)
Creatures (16)
Equipment (18)
Artifacts (19)

The main core idea is to get some creatures out, slap a pile of equipment on them and bash.

Karn can make extra, beefy attackers. I’ve used an animated Gilded Lotus as a 5/5 attacker when I didn’t need those 3 mana.

Arena of the Ancients is especially handy to lock down your opponent’s general, as you seldom want to attack with karn. It does duty as a 3/3 attacker as well.

Nov 28 2009

EDH Slivers

dastels @ 3:19 am

I started working on this deck after last Christmas. I’ve finally gotten it in pretty good shape.

General (1)
Basic Lands (8)
Lands (32)
Creatures (53)
Artifacts (2)
Enchantments (1)
Sorceries (3)

The mana is incredibly strong and stable: a couple ‘any color’ lands, 10 fetches, 10 shocklands, and 10 oldschool duals, with a few basics to take the total up 40. It’s not uncommon to be able to being the Overlord in on turn 5 or 6. The collection of slivers gives you a literal toolbox at your displosal once the Overlord or Homing Sliver is in play. Wild Pair gives another way to pull out more slivers.