Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[TheButtonmen]

It costs what I would like to describe as eight bajillion mana.

[TheButtonmen]

Miracles is my least favourite mechanic ever.

It's a failed design in every way that only serves to increase the random aspect of limited.

[TheButtonmen]

Faithless looting boosts vexing enough it's not completely unusable.

[TheButtonmen]

Roughly;

Regular = Deals no damage in the first combat step and deals damage in the second combat step.

First Strike = Deals damage in first combat step but none in the second step.

Double Strike = Deals damage in both first and second steps.

If you give a creature both it doesn't do anything as everything with double strike already has first strike, it's like trying to give a creature double flying.

[TheButtonmen]

Remember to only cheat when you're not being streamed.

[TheButtonmen]

It's a win more card unfortunately.

If a red deck has multiple guys connecting to get value out of that card then they're either already winning or about to get their board cleared by mass removal. Aggro decks want cards that provide pressure (normally aggressively costed creatures but spells such as sulphuric vortex work too), cards that provide reach (so that they can win even if the opponent stabilizes such as burn spells like shock / lightining bolt) or cards that prevent the opponent from stabilizing (such as stone rain, tanglewire or avalanch riders).

Curse of Stalked Prey doesn't provide pressure, doesn't give reach and doesn't deny the opponent resources and it's only strong when you're already in a winning state (multiple dudes connecting a turn) as such it's not worth building a deck around or even running in constructed because aggro decks run so close to the wire that win-more is a luxury they can't afford.

[TheButtonmen]

hexproof

[TheButtonmen]

alternatively kicking their deck in the nads and them watching them fail to actually do anything.

Cards like this, this, this or this are all great for making complicated decks completely fall apart.

The one deck I actually still own is built around Bloodbond March, it laughs at bounce, kill and counters.

[TheButtonmen]

Red elemental blast doesn't counter abilities.

His lighting bolt is countered.

[TheButtonmen]

You are playing paranoid delusions and shadow slice in one deck.

[TheButtonmen]

Alright I'm bored and at work so I'm going to make some budget standard decks and explain my thought process.

Example 1:

First I need to decide on a direction to build in, in this example I'm going to chose combo (because fuck yeah combo).

Step 1: Pick a theme

I now need to find something to build around and a brief scroll through interesting standard playable cards lead me to;

Step 2: Find enablers

Now I need to figure out what enables this card, it's got flashback and it reanimates stuff from the yard so I want cards that fill my graveyard quickly. I went back to the gatherer and ended up chosing;

Step 3: Make it broken

There is a line between combo and synergy, now I need to push this deck past that line. I need something to reanimate that is blatantly unfair!
Keeping my tools in mind (my deck is built around filling my yard quickly and then reanimating something.) I went back to the gatherer and ended up chosing;



Suddenly a single reanimation spell is now massively mutiplied as all the humans in my yard are dumped into play too!

I now have a combo to form the core of a deck and in my next post I'll build a deck around this combo.

[TheButtonmen]

Example 1.1:

Step 1: Choosing colours

In this case it's really quite simple, Unburial is BW, Mulch is G, Salvage is GB and Angel is W.

So my deck is GWB.

Step 2: Picking humans.

I need humans that exploit my decks strength (cheating multiple dudes into play) and that address my weakness (my combo takes a while to go off).
Back to the gatherer I go!

Mana Accel


Enters play abilites


Next post I'll go over the spells the deck wants, amounts of creatures, mana base and how to exploit it.

[TheButtonmen]

Example 1.2

Step 1: Spells?

Other then the obvious Mulch and Salvage there's actually no budget options I'd want to include in this deck.

4x Mulch
4x Unburial Rites
4x Grisly Salvage

Step 2: Amounts of Creatures (Note this is a starting point, playtesting is required

3x Cathedral Sanctifier
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Scorned Villager
4x Fiend Hunter
3x Disciple of Bolas
4x Geist-Honored Monk
4x Angel of Glory's Rise

Step 3: Mana base

I've decided to run 22 lands because I'm running 8 mana dorks and mulch / salvage dig 4-5 deep for a land.

4x Golgari Guildgate
4x Selesnya Guildgate
4x Orzhov Guildgate
6x Forest
4x Plains

[TheButtonmen]

you didnt miss the 1 and 2 drops that shit on your entire concept did you buttons? <_<

Nope but they are sideboard hate cards, thus my cards that deal with them will also be sideboard.

[TheButtonmen]

Example 1.3

Step 1 - Exploit inevitability

Don't go off the second you can! Ideally you want to be in a position where you can shrug off whatever they do.
A) Wraths - Remember that in this deck when you go off that Wrath is actually a 1 for 1. If you hard cast the Rites you're laughing because you just replay it and go off again. If you flashed it back then you might want to hold off on going off until you also have a disciple in the yard because you can just sacrifice the angel to draw 4 cards (which should let you chain into another Rites, Mulch or Salvage).

B) Counters - It doesn't matter how inefficently you play as long as you resolve the Rites so don't be afraid to recklessly play out your hand to bait them into tapping out in order to clear the board or play a blocker.

This deck is extremely resilient, even if they counter a rites or wraith the board after you don't care. All it takes is you drawing or milling into another rites and you just combo out again. This means you don't need to win when you go off, simply burning a rites to gain life, refill the board with blockers and to put pressure on your opponent when you're behind is completely fine.

Step 2 - Sideboard

Your main concerns are people shutting down your combo or people killing you before you can go off so your sideboard should cards which fit your decks theme and help deal with this.

Cards that deal with enchantment or artifacts stopping you


Cards that help you surivive until you go off

Spells:
4x Mulch
4x Unburial Rites
4x Grisly Salvage

Creatures:
3x Cathedral Sanctifier
4x Avacyn's Pilgrim
4x Scorned Villager
4x Fiend Hunter
3x Disciple of Bolas
4x Geist-Honored Monk
4x Angel of Glory's Rise

Lands:
4x Golgari Guildgate
4x Selesnya Guildgate
4x Orzhov Guildgate
6x Forest
4x Plains

Sideboard:
4x Acidic Slime
4x Devout Chaplin
2x Gnaw to the Bone
5x Anything you want

In total this deck will run you about $15 to make ($20 if you need the basics/gates but you can get those for free at drafts).

[TheButtonmen]

That deck needs Champions of the Parish.

This is not an aggro deck (champions doesn't stall, has no enters play ability and doesn't fill the yard so it does nothing this deck wants) and a playset of Champions costs more then this entire deck.

If anyone has questions about any of the cards I added / didn't add or my thought process as I made the list I'd be happy to answer.

[TheButtonmen]

Note that this is all entirely theory crafted and it would need playtesting (especially the mana base as 22 is pretty low and colour distribution might need fixing).

[TheButtonmen]

I wanted to keep it under $20 so I couldn't afford the mana base to pull red off sadly because it has a lot of nifty human tribal stuff.

[TheButtonmen]

Cheap fun not constructed viable decks you say?

Sounds an excuse to toss together another $20 deck list to me!

[TheButtonmen]

Ban list?

[TheButtonmen]

Off the top of my head ideas I want to play around with for this MYOS format:
Read the Runes / Chain of Smog / Fact or Fiction + Oversold Cemetary
Weathered Wayfarer + Urzatorn
Explosive Vegetation / Harrow + Annex
Patriarch's Bidding / Wizards
5 Colour Creatureless

[TheButtonmen]

Deck thinning is mathematically irrelevant.

Not quite.

Off a single set of fetches you're looking at a 2-5% better chance of drawing a spell (rather then a land) and it goes up from there. However you're trading life and mana fixing ability for it so there's a trade off but if your deck can afford to bleed itself for 2-4 damage a game and it's mana base isn't extremely stretched then yes there is some advantages to deck thinning (ignoring the obvious ones of being able to shuffle).

[TheButtonmen]

I've added 8 fetches to RDW before even when plated geo wasn't in it as the life lose was nearly irrelevant, the mana fixing was irrelevant and having a 4-8% better chance of drawing a spell over a land each turn in RDW is extremely nice. It's narrow sure but I woudn't disregard it however that was with true fetches which bypassed the CITP tapped clause. At no point is the deck thinning worth a tempo trade off so the guildgate vs evolving just comes down to how often in playtesting you have trouble hitting all three colours.

[TheButtonmen]

Congrats Fate!

[TheButtonmen]

I would be more cool with this change if Jitte wasn't a card. The fact that Jitte no longer removes Jitte is going to make some match ups incredibly dumb.

[TheButtonmen]

Crackling Perimeter doesn't hit creatures so probably never.

[TheButtonmen]

My current list I'm happy with the mana base now so I'm starting on the sideboard, I know I want cremates but I've got no clue what else.

Creatures (20):
4 Gatecreeper Vine
4 Archaeomancer
4 Saruli Gatekeepers
4 Ubul Sar Gatekeepers
4 Mist Raven

Spells (17):
4 Dead Weight
4 Ghostly Flicker
4 Devour Flesh
1 Gravepurge
4 Forbidden Alchemy

Lands (23):
4 Dimir Guildgate
4 Golgari Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Swamp
4 Island
3 Forest

[TheButtonmen]

The issue with cloudshift is that it isn't ghostly flicker, why do it once when you can do it infinite times?

[TheButtonmen]

The test match vs BUG flicker had no winners, only losers.

[TheButtonmen]

Cremate / Beckon Appiration work wonders, hit their ghostly in response to the Archomancer trigger.Much more reliable then trying to add beatdown / contimained grounds.

[TheButtonmen]

Spoiler: Rough 30 second list

Creatures (14):
1x Vaporkin
1x Leonin Snare caster
1x Observant Alseid
2x Triton Fortune Hunter
1x Breaching Hippocamp
1x Coastline Chimera
1x Horizon Scholar
1x Celestial Archon
1x Heliod's Emissary
2x Setessan Griffin
1x Silent Artisan
1x Nimbus Naiad

Spells (6):
1x Voyage's End
1x Lost in a Labyrinth
1x Triton Tactics
1x Griptide
1x Divine Verdict
1x Battlewise Valor
1x Ray of Dissolution


Enchantments (2):
1x Heliod, God of the Sun
1x Aqueous Form]Rough 30 second deck list

I'd ideally like to cut a spell and add another creature though, probably the Ray or Lost in a Lab.

[TheButtonmen]

current climate w/dead lesbians

did innestrads new topography cause the forecasters to predict a dearth of dead lesbians?

[TheButtonmen]

new emrakul seems fairly underwhelming compared to the past one but that is probably on purpose, that extra turn though really removes the haste aspect of mindslaving so im not really sold with its limited protection and somewhat lacking etb (for its cost).

new g/r guy is going to win tons of drafts then sit in a trade binder forever it seems