Magic the Gathering

I'd like to come back into the game but I have been away for a while... like, since Return to Ravnica while. I heard Mono-Black is the current king of the hill-- I was happy to hear about this because it's been a minute since Innistrad Zombies made a splash and even longer before that since Mono-Black was any kind of competitive viable (even in the days of Phyrexian Obliterator and Dismember, which was universal).

But anyhow, I'm not really interested in Standard if I can't attend FNMs reliably... so I decided to make a casual counter-burn deck. Really classic and fancy with no SUPER expensive cards. So far I stacked sets of Bolts, Remands, Leaks, and Brainstorms as the core of the deck-- some sort of mass fire removal like Mizzium Mortars, some sort of reset button like Oblivion Stone, and then I need a few bombs to close the game out. I have no idea, though. I'm open for suggestions. :>

Mono-Black in Standard is good, but Mono-Blue tops more. To be honest though, Mono-Blue only tops more because almost everyone plays it.

If you are trying to go the Modern route, UR Delver is a thing. A really good deck IMO. Delver, Gitaxian Probe, Remand, Bolt, Snapcaster, Vendillion Clique, Cryptic, and the sorts.

If you want Legacy, URx is really good as well due to True-Name Nemesis and the rest of good UR cards in Legacy, as well as the Dual Swords, Batterskull, Jitte, and Sword of the Meek.

Mono-B is certainly quite dominant right now, and it's getting even better with the new set. It's quite solid, too, it doesn't have as many of the problems the other colors of devotion has (since it doesn't need to overextend nearly as far).

This configuration seems fine, but what's your win condition? Just throwing the burn at their face if there's nothing else for it to kill?

That's the kind of feedback I'm looking for-- because I don't have the slightest ideas of what bombs could be useful to the synergy of the deck other than Rite of Replication + Titans. I was thinking about that one shroud Sphinx from Zendikar, or that one sphinx that lets you draw 2 cards for each one they draw, or maybe even invest in a few Mind Sculptors and keep the board clean while building up his ultimate. I also have that 6-coster from Izzet that lets you copy spells on top of your library. I realize I need a finisher, but I just don't know what, yet.

Vendillion Clique. All you need in Modern Ux deck to finish off someone.

You could run Pyromancer Ascension. It's a similar deck I'm thinking of building for Modern. It makes all your cards have double the effect, and thus, turns your burn into something that really, really hurts. An active Ascension turns Lightning Bolts into one mana for six damage.

But by then, I'd rather run Ascension Storm

I do want to go big... despite having only few players around me, haha. I started looking at UWR Geist and the more I look at the list, the happier I get. Dat manabase is a ginormous chunk of change, though... it will take me a good round of paychecks to invest, lol. If I take too long, the fetches and shocklands will only keep increasing in price... ugh

Storm is more explosive, for sure, but Ascension Counterburn seems real because it lets you be a passive control deck, and turn any burn into a reliable win condition, since each and every burn spell will deal so much, which will be a good portion of the deck.
It won't be like the really slow control decks that have to rely on a land like Creeping Tar Pit or Celestial Collonade to win all their games, something they can only play four-of.
And, unlike Storm, you don't need to overextend to win. In case something horribly wrong happens, you can still be in the game, rebuilding gas since you won't need to find a critical mass of rituals.



That deck's awesome. I don't know why some RWU (or other control decks for that matter) run so few win conditions that games drag on forever. Sometimes, a turn three Geist can just take over the game immediately. Six-you, Six-you, Six-you, burn you, your dead. It forces specific answers from your opponent as soon as it hits play.

What other decks have made a splash in Modern and Legacy? I heard Dredge got super hard to play after that one white enchantment came out (cleans graveyards and keeps them clean). I thought dealing with Leyline was hard enough already, another enchantment you have to dedicate resources to clean up for your combo to go off...

Also, who plays Commander? My last deck used Sakashima the Impostor as the general, and the entire deck was steal/trade/copy effects with mana ramp and a ton of mass removal. I loved being able to Spelljack that one spell that gives you 1/1 fliers equal to your life total...

Well for Modern, the usual suspects are Jund (or Junk), Pod decks of various kinds, and RWU control decks of various kinds.
A new innovation lately was a five-color reanimator deck that cheats out Griselbrand or Emrakul with Fist of Suns, Through the Breach, or Goryo's Vengeance.
However, with the recent banning, Jund is getting less and less good, having lost Deathrite Shaman, and Naya aggresive strategies are gonna probably pick up after Wild Nacatl was unbanned, as well as Faeries, as Bitterblossom was unbanned.

Legacy... I don't know what the metagame looks like currently. The last big things I heard from Legacy is Death & Taxes (A white weenie and prison style deck), and various types of Delver decks, with True-Name Nemesis making the format awkward for everyone.

I'm very excited to play Domain Zoo in modern with the recent un-banning of Wild Nacatl.

As for Legacy, I think UR just been popping up more and more, especially with Young Pyromancer, and True-Name Nemesis.

Was only gonna go four colors if I made a Nacatl deck. Naya-spash-blue for counterspells. Catfish, as it was called by someone, somewhere (forgot exactly)

Naya-splash-Blue seems good, especially cause you can play Geist of Saint Traft. :D

Definitely. Just all the cheap, efficient creatures, and countermagic to back them up and protect them.

TBH, though, I'd rather be building a Bitterblossom deck (probably a typical UB faeries deck, maybe with a splash of red or green for either burn or tarmogoyf), except goddamn, Bitterblossom is 80 bucks, and the green path is probably just kissing goodbye to all savings.

If I would run Zoo, it'll have to run something like this :

Where's the black mana? o_o So Tribal Flames has maximum effect.

I'd probably be using the World Championship ChannelFireball Zoo deck from 2012, probably replacing the Steppe Lynxes or Loam Lions with Nacatls. It ran all five colors, except its black mana could only cast the flashback of Lingering Souls, which was in their sideboard (though, one team member randomly played Maelstrom Pulse, too).

It didn't run counterspells, though, I believe. I like the idea of having counters. So, maybe one of the Japanese player's shell is better (it's hurts my brain to make a good manabase for anything more than three colors. It's very hard), it was a four-color-no-black tempo deck.

Yeah, added a Blood Crypt and removed a Stomping Ground for max effect from Tribal Flames.

I love this deck so far. 3/3 games so far I've won on Cockatrice, against a Jund Aggro, Splinter Twin, and UW Control. It's so good!

Nacatl is definitely a powerful card. There was a reason it was banned. Hopefully, though, the format is ready enough for it to stick around, I quite like the card.

Does that Blood Crypt actually cast anything, though? It may be awkward to have an off-color land just for domain.

In any case, I oughta work on a shell of my own to try out. You're already getting positive results.

I play commander...exclusivly.

I play my Mimor Vig steal yo lands .deck (prophet of kruphix broke that deck),

I also use a Tolsmir elves/angels deck (a fun deck that turned out being badass)

...and I'm making a Rahda elves/dragons deck (meant to be a different take on Tolsmir, but it's not looking nearly as good...).

I had a glissa deck, but i scrapped it once i found out my combo was a no go....

There is a guy in our playgroup that might play alot like you do. He plays Jeleva . He just sits there and constantly snags people's stuff, or he proceeds to warp the game state to the point were we're not even really playing magic anymore. His deck doesn't even really have a win con. It's just extremely annoying to play against, lol. Actually, no lol. It's not funny. His deck is a douche. q_q


Oh (since you guys are talking about zoo) have you seen that kitten zoo deck? It's one of the coolest things i've seen in a while. It's a pauper deck that uses nylea's presence to get domain effects off.
inb4 who cares, no one here plays pauper.