Magic: The Gathering

[cidbahamut]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

So I've been showing up to Friday Night Magic at the local comic shop the past few weeks, mostly as a means of keeping myself sane enough to not indulge the urge to hurl myself off the bridge on the way to work, but also because I just miss playing the game. Drafts and sealed deck tournaments are fun and all, but I've decided I want to take the plunge and get into Standard constructed events. Obviously I don't have the funds for the lands, nor the desire to play much beyond a basic Red aggro deck, so it's time to figure out how to get a solid deck put together on the cheap.

YellowMage you're up to speed on what's going on in Standard, right? What's your take on the environment right now? What money cards am I not going to be able to get away with not having if I want to stay competitive? I figure I can cough up the cash for play sets of things like Burning-Tree Emissary and Rakdos Cackler, but Mutavaults are pretty much out of the question right now.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Just a quick glance online shows that there's a mostly-red variant called Boros Aggro that uses a bunch of red burn spells and Chandra's Phoenix as its core. If you're not running Mutavaults, you at least need an efficient way to deal with them, such as Searing Blood.

The dominant deck type right now is mostly-black and runs Desecration Demon, a 6/6 flyer for 2BB that has the "drawback" of allowing any opponent to sacrifice a creature to tap it at the beginning of combat with an additional +1/+1 counter. So you need an answer for that, too.

Most of the decks I'm seeing are splashing white for Chained to the Rocks, a white enchantment only playable on a mountain that exiles a target creature for as long as Chained to the Rocks stays in play. Given that there's very little enchantment or land destruction in Standard at the moment, that's basically forever.


Icemage

[cidbahamut]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

In my experience Red Aggro's answer to anything outside of burn range is generally "ignore it, keep swinging and hope the other guy falls over first". Alternatively you can use Act of Treason to just grab it for a turn and hit them over the head with their own creature.

Tempting, but that's quite the monkey wrench to add to things. I'd rather keep my mana base a single color because as soon as you start splashing the cost of the deck shoots up a minimum of $40 for all those damn lands because you don't want to have dead mana or be sitting there going "why can't I just draw a plains?" If we're going purely theoretical then yeah that's probably a rock solid plan, but I'm hoping to put together something a little more conservative.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

In my experience Red Aggro's answer to anything outside of burn range is generally "ignore it, keep swinging and hope the other guy falls over first". Alternatively you can use Act of Treason to just grab it for a turn and hit them over the head with their own creature.

Sure, but they get it back next turn, and they play 4 of these guys.

I'll be helpful and point you at Barrage of Expendables.

Enchantment. (R)
R, Sacrifice a creature: Barrage of Expendables deals 1 damage to target creature or player.

Combine with Act of Treason to permanently get rid of the problem, and get some bonus damage in the process.


Icemage

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

There's actually a good chunk of enchantment hate in Standard right now idk what you're talking about (it's kinda necessary lol)


Last I checked, Blue Devotion and Black Devotion decks were still owning it up. Not sure when Journey to Nyx previews are going to start, but I wonder how much standard will change once RTR rotates out.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

There's actually a good chunk of enchantment hate in Standard right now idk what you're talking about (it's kinda necessary lol)

There is, but the mono-black decks that are dominating can't use it effectively because even when they splash white they don't have consistent access to it. Also: Who keeps enchantment hate in against a red deck?

Icemage

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

cid: I actually play a mono-Red burn deck that's enjoyed moderate success, the few times I've been able to play it. It also has 4 Mutavaults and I'd seriously reconsider rejoining Standard without a time machine to pick them up back when they were at $15. No matter what deck you play, you're going to spend a small fortune on Lands, be they dual lands or Mutavaults. FWIW, my deck's main answer to big butts is just 2 copies of Massive Raid (combines well with Young Pyromancer) or simply willingly 2-for-1ing myself just to let me push a few more points through.

There is a steal-and-sac deck, usually splashing Black for Tymaret and other OP Black shenanigans, but I've not seen it be successful yet.

I did play mono-Black Devotion yesterday. Lost 2-1, and given my stance towards Black in general I'm contemplating how to improve my deck against the archetype. Gray Merchant is actually not much of a problem without those stupid Demons backing them up.

Or perhaps my best answer is to build the mono-White deck I've been contemplating. That would open me up to Lifebane Zombie, but if I keep a super-low curve I could easily empty my hand of my most useful plays.

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

There is, but the mono-black decks that are dominating can't use it effectively because even when they splash white they don't have consistent access to it. Also: Who keeps enchantment hate in against a red deck?

Icemage

Someone who doesn't want to deal with Purphoros.

Also the previews for Journey have started, and holy crap the RW God is batshit.





Also these:

[Icemage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

^
Are you seriously suggesting someone is using Revoke Existence in their sideboard instead of Chained to the Rocks to deal with Purphoros or Iroas? Because I don't believe you. Also: Eidolon of Blossons and Hall of Triumph both suck. More to the point, that someone would deliberately sideboard IN Revoke Existence against a red aggro deck?


Icemage

[cidbahamut]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Hall of Triumph is bullshit and I want one. Three mana for global pump that won't hit your opponent's creatures is actually pretty solid. Not as good as other broken things that have been printed, but still useful.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Hall of Triumph is bullshit and I want one. Three mana for global pump that won't hit your opponent's creatures is actually pretty solid. Not as good as other broken things that have been printed, but still useful.

I'm just saying that white in particular has had this mechanic in about five different flavors over the years (Crusade, Jihad, Glorious Anthem, Call to Arms, Divine Sacrament, maybe more that I'm not aware of) and the only one that ever really saw much use was Crusade. An artifact version is sort of neat because it extends the mechanic potentially to other colors (red in particular), but at a cost of 3 it's no better than the other unused white 3CC enchantments of the same ilk. Heck, black had Bad Moon in the original set, and even that never saw much use.


Icemage

[cidbahamut]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Of course White has better shit, White Weenies is a thing for a reason. For other colors that don't have it in such vast varieties it's going to be worth considering even if it isn't game-breakingly good.

[Icemage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Of course White has better shit, White Weenies is a thing for a reason. For other colors that don't have it in such vast varieties it's going to be worth considering even if it isn't game-breakingly good.

Sure, but even white weenie variants didn't use the 3CC boosters effectively. Not in any Standard format, ever. I could maaaaybe see a green deck making use of it by taking advantage of green's natural mana acceleration / land / hand advantage boosters so that you're not losing card advantage to get the extra mana to cast those higher cost spells, but even that wouldn't be a green weenie deck, per se, and I still think there would be a better 3CC drop for a green deck than that.

This is particularly true when black has that stupid 6/6 flying demon I mentioned above (and YM referred to as well). +1/+1 doesn't mean squat when you're looking at a 6/6 flyer across the table.


Icemage

[Yellow Mage]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

I'm just saying that white in particular has had this mechanic in about five different flavors over the years (Crusade, Jihad, Glorious Anthem, Call to Arms, Divine Sacrament, maybe more that I'm not aware of) and the only one that ever really saw much use was Crusade.

Honor of the Pure.

Anyway, as far as Standard is concerned, the only card that looks remotely interesting to me is Satyr Hoplite, since my burn deck already uses Akroan Crusader and the Hoplite is basically a sidegrade from that. I'm beginning to wonder if I should even consider dropping my Guttersnipes (heresy, I know) in the name of lowering my curve.

[Malacite]

Re: Magic: The Gathering

Keeping in mind that RTR is rotating out with the next set, which means bye-bye Desecration Demon (and dual lands, boo...)


the Synergy Iroas has with helion and/or Aurelia is hilarious though. Also IM, you might want to look at the God's more closely; even though it says creature on their card type, they aren't considered creatures unless their devotion requirement is met, and in cases like this where rules conflict, "can't" always wins. So you can not use Chains against them unless they are active (in Iroas' case he'll very likely be active almost every time he's dropped though thanks to guys like Boros Reckoner). Purphoros being active is just gravy most of the time, it's his other effects that he gets played for.

Bestow is in a similar boat - when you play a bestow creature for it's bestow cost, it's considered an Aura spell until the creature it's enchanting dies.


EDIT: What in the sweet tits is WotC thinking allowing this?! (good thing Provoke's no longer a thing)