Magic the Gathering

Joo~ Lighting Angel minus 1 toughness for one less mana cost. Dunno what I want to play anymore with all the new releases. :P

I have an unreasonable attraction to the card Veilborn Ghoul, ever since I played that wacky combo in the previous Standard with Sphinx of the Chimes.

That looks like a good one. All these recurring creatures with good discard outlets.



ooooooh~

Fetches, fetches.

5 color zoo here we come?!

It already existed, lol. Domain Zoo is pretty explosive. That said, it's probably gonna get more consistent with the allied fetches.

I'm mostly happy about Polluted Delta. It'll let me more easily think of a nice UB deck in Modern.
Plus, it makes Legacy just that little bit more accessible~ There's a bunch of things I wanna play, but lands are always a big issue in any format.

Some dumb plays tonight. Same list as last weekend, no changes at all:



But holy shit Jeskai Charm.



Looks like I'm playing UWR for a while longer.

That's a great charm. All of them look sweet, but I think that one is already one of the better ones.

The more I look, though, the more I wanna play Temur. It's everything I could ever want: Good creatures backed up by good control elements. Control with aggression, right in my comfort zone~<3 That 3 mana 4/4 is insane, I really like the charm, and I'm seeing some other interesting stuff.
That, or maybe Abzan or Jeskai as a fallback. I like the defensive nature of Abzan, since I like me interesting drawn out games, and I also enjoy the wacky stuff you're encouraged to do as Jeskai. I love me wacky synergies.
It also looks as though I could possibly piece together the Grixis deck I've wanted... It could potentially happen...

Here's a list that I've been working on for the past couple of days when spoilers are coming out :


Thinking of replacing the Necro Fiend from the main board with the new Delve Instant, Murderous Cut, due to it feeling like a better spell in general over the creature.

Yo, guys, hold on, hold on.



Am I the only one feeling the busted vibes off this card?

Am I the only one that sees 3 Serum Visions in a row? 3 Lightning Bolts in a row? 3 Stoke the Flames in a row?! I mean, Turn 1 something, Turn 2 Goblin Electromancer, Turn 3+ burn face face burn? Let's brew, guys.

I've been really wanting to give this game a shot, but I don't really have anybody to play with. I often reminisce about the old days of Yu-Gi-Oh! and wish I could do something related to cards again.

The local Coliseum of Comics holds little tournaments like four times a week, but I don't want to go there and try to play with a starter deck and only basic knowledge of the rules. Maybe I'll give them a call and see if they have a day where we're free to just trade/play without the pressures of the tournament going on.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/mvoweBn72tE.*?[/youtube]

Dropped some Modern yesterday and today. Yesterday I wanted to try out UWR Kiki-Resto and I was able to steal a thid-place finish, but today I switched my list again because we were playing a larger tournament for a Khans booster box as top prize. I got off to a good start, but...

Round 1 vs. UB Robots
-This guy had an unhealthy obsession with Ensoul Artifact, but every thing he tried to put it on was met by Path. Game 1 was relatively easy because we went to value town with Electrolyze and he wasn't as pressuring without Master of Etherium, Etched Champion or ARcbound Ravager. Game 2 was more of the same but this time, a Miracled Bonfire of the Damned made him concede. 1-0

Round 2 vs. RB Sligh
-This guy's game plan was pure aggression counting to 20 but with more Thoughtseize, Go for the Throat and Doom Blade. I took game 1 on the back of Celestial Colonnade, then game 2 I got SUPER mana screwed and mulled to 4, never being able to come back. Game 3 was insanely close: I dropped a Geist and started whacking him while he tried to whittle my life, but 2 Helixes kept me afloat. When he was at 5 life, I was at 2 and I swung with Geist: his last card on hand was a Combust, which I responded with Snap-Helix (I didn't play it because I thought it would be Skullcrack). 2-0

Round 3 vs. BGW Rock
-Holy shit this guy was annoying. I was on the draw. He had a perfect curve draw of T1 Seize, T2 Bob, T3 Liliana, T4 Resto, T5 Goyf/Scooze. Game 2 was considerably slower, but I mulled down to 4 as well due to lack of lands. Ugh. 2-1

Round 4 vs. Boros
-Game 1 we were pretty even, but I couldn't answer Blood Moon or Assemble the Legion and his Helixes kept him out of range to finish him. Game 2 I mulled down to 5-- by this point I'm extremely annoyed at the landless openers, so I'm not at my best status... then he pulls a Resto-Kiki combo on me! I was under Blood Moon so no Path... 2-2

I dropped out at that point. I wasn't going to continue playing feeling the way I was... I got a lot of tweaking to do with this damn manabase. :c

Shaun McClaren's list from Pro Tour Born of the Gods is the only RWU control deck I've seen with a bundle of basics, and thus, resilience to Blood Moon. I'm not sure exactly how many exactly, but it looks like somewhere between 9-10. Otherwise, the most I see, still, is 5, which does not seem like nearly enough if you want a chance after it lands. How many do you run?
On the note of RWU vs. Blood Moon, there was a guy I met at the card shop who arrogantly declared that it wasn't a problem since he said that he'd counter it every time, then lost every time I managed to resolve one with my Skred Red, which has 8 copies of Moon (The other 4 being Magus of the Moon).

I actually wanna guess that your last opponent was actually a non-blue version of Spinter Twin. I remember trying out that build for a while since it had good midrangey threats, but could stil randomly win from EOT Village Bell-Ringer into Twin, or Resto-Kiki.

Unrelated note:
I'm getting excited for Khans, but I'm still not 100% sure what I'd want to play. I had a thought to play some sort of MonoU control deck with 4 maindeck Radiant Fountains (a card I've had some obssession with lately), but Temur still looks sweet to me, with all their awesome midrangey threats and tempo cards to back them up. I'm also seeing some Black cards that could be great, despite the fact that I want to be that MonoU control deck I mentioned. I could always just splash for them, but it might make my mana really awkward.

Also, for prerelease, despite wanting to be Temur, every other clan seems fun enough for me to wanna try out, too...

I've spent the whole last week doing research on all the cards in the Standard pull and trying to come to a decision of what to play... then I just decided I'm going to play big, dumb, resilient Temur. The creatures are all so huge that all the red in the format is not going to save you, but the main question I'm still asking myself is whether I want to add a Chord package with Impersonator and Genesis Hydra, or if I just want to go the full aggression route with Knuckleblades, Polukranos and Stormbreath/Sarkhan. Sagu Mauler and Surrak are honorable mentions but I'm also considering if I want to split Caryatids and Mystics or if I want to rush Generator Servants for the hasty T3 6-drop shenanigans (in which case I could run Scuttling Engine with Ugin's artifact and Shrapnel Blast).

Holy shit so many decisions.

Generator Servant only lets you play 5-drop Turn 3 beasties unless you play a Mystic turn one. But, regardless it seems worth it. Surrak seems incredible to me, especially if you turn 3 him, but even then, having a big, surprising uncounterable threat on turn 5 seems sweet. I'm probably gonna go down the route of a more all-in aggro deck if I build Temur, using that Force Spike and other random things to tempo my opponent out.

I still am doing research, myself, as to how exactly I'd build my decks, but I can already see some nice shells coming together. My initial thought was to make a more midrangey deck with Prophet of Kruphix, so I might expand on that if the more aggro-y shell doesn't look as spicy as I imagine it to be.

Some manner of counterspells will be needed because an infinite combo is coming to Standard and it will need to be fought. Reason to go full Lightning Strikes and Denials-- they can also go off as soon as turn 2 which is horrendous:

-T1 Ornithopter -> Land -> Springleaf Drum -> Springleaf Drum

-T2 Land -> Jeskai Ascendancy -> Astral Cornucopia (0) [Thopter untaps] -> Retraction Helix [Thopter untaps] -> tap thopter to bounce Cornucopia, replay, replay, replay, replay... 20/22 flying Ornithopter. gg

Meanwhile I'm casting Mystic off a Confluence hoping to hit a T2 Knuckleblade. I mean, c'mon...

This is my WIP list:

It is a four card combo... The last two infinite combos in Standard never really broke out because of how gimmicky it was. That said, this one is much faster, given the right draw, but that's the thing: You need the right draw. Also, you'd need to run some pretty janky cards...

The only piece of a shell I have for Temur so far is a set of Savage Knuckleblades because that card is insane, a set of Rattleclaw Mystic as both ramp and a half-decent 2-power beater if nothing else, perhaps a set of Generator Servant because I think it's actually pretty broken (except that it's probably awkward in a 3-color brew), and probably a bunch of copies (3-4) of Surrak Dragonclaw at the top of my curve to support my game plan of spamming creatures and making them hard to deal with. Maybe a couple of higher drops, but the cards I just mentioned are most likely making the deck at least.

After I posted the list I wanted to change things up a little bit to be able to run Xenagod and sneak some wins. Also planning to make the deck potentially faster by not forgetting Fanatic of Xenagos: he has no interaction with Temur Ascendancy because the ascend already gives it haste (thus no one would pay tribute) but having so many strong T2 or T3 plays can put an immense pressure on the opponent... especially if they can't answer our 4s and 5s.

Now it's something like this:



Might have to settle in some scry lands to help the lack of draw until Ascendancy hits the field but once it does, it should just be brutal. We shall see...

Since the deck is beatdowny, I don't actually like Caryatid. I think the Rattleclaw Mystic would be better in this strategy just because he attacks for two, if nothing else. The Caryatid just sits there awkwardly, bad if you need to little bit more pressure. At least, that's what I'd assume.

Fanatic is a really good idea, even with it's sort of anti-synergy with Ascendancy. I'm still trying to decide whether the Ascendancy is good enough to forgive the fact that it forces you to take a turn off of applying pressure to cast it, though.

Changed my list just a bit for Sultai Reanimator :

I'm feeling that the towershell might be better off as something that lets you interact with the opponent more, like more Coursers, Charms or removal. Hyper-aggression will be super common during the first month and it's important to live through it somehow, especially since the reanimator plan takes a bit to get going. >: But that's just my opinion, I hope it works out for you, man. o/

EDIT: I'm totally playing the first Engine list while my Temur deck gets built!!!