Magic: The Gathering -- Vampires, zombies and werewolves! (Oh My!)

[kickan]

That's not really how my deckbuilding process works. And there are way too many legends that look interesting, choosing between them is the problem in the first place.

[illisid]

build a bant turbo fog deck! it's what I have always wanted to do.

Also, just got back from the grand prix, it was freaking awesome! got to the second to last round of day one before I was knocked out . 5-2 was my best record, ended up 5-4 (no more than 2 losses to make day 2). Friend went 6-3, and another friend actually got 12th place and 600 bucks! Also, traded for my other 3 tundras and 2 wastelands... :O

Is anyone interested in a tournament report?

[absoluteCertainty]

So

uh

I'm excited...

"MSRP: $39.99"
hahahahahaha NO

also

chorus of the conclave + omen machine
it would have a lot of creatures, and things like boneyard wurm and ghoultree and such
when you find?????/get omen machine your commander gives you something to do with your mana~
so all your creatures are cast for nothing, but not really because you tap all your mana to make them gigantic
of course, nobody can use card drawing spells, but everything that goes into play is free, so.......
o wo
but getting the omen machine into play is the hard part

also have you tried putting eldrazi monument into your tokens deck? i want to know how well it works, but i don't know anyone who has... o wo

[illisid]

"MSRP: $39.99"
hahahahahaha NO

Hopefully! You can probably preorder them from online vendors for that price.

You know what I just learned? If you want to get to know someone better, play magic with them. You learn a TON by interacting with them on that level. I know the guy who will jump on every shiny new planeswalker excitedly, who has to have the latest and best tech. The guy who stubbornly holds on to his favorite deck regardless of whether or not it's good. The guy who refuses to play with a net deck because he values his own ideas over taking advice from anyone else. The guy who doesn't know how to build a deck and ONLY netdecks. The guy who's general is niv-mizzet...

[godFish]

Don't forget people who only play the same color decks, or only use one deck and just shift a few cards in every so often.

[Miff]

Commander always makes me feel like I'm on one of those animes that has "monsters" somewhere in the title. Everyone has their own "signature" 'mon that defines the rest of the play style.

[kickan]

"Rasputin Dreamweaver, I choose you!"

[kickan]

Okay, I think I'm going to settle on a Nin, the Pain Artist deck, with themes of punishing opponents for drawing cards (Cerebral Vortex, Runeflare Trap, etc.), forcing them to draw cards (Howling Mine, etc.) and bouncing their stuff. Seems like it should be a pretty fun and interesting project.

[dynamicEquilibrium]

That does sound pretty good
One of my friends plays a Psychosis Crawler/Skyscribing/Consecrated Sphinx deck for irl multiplayer and it's pretty strong, but it seems like something much more suited to EDH, plus of course the red gives you a lot more options for punishing them

[kickan]

To really maximize that sort of deck you'd need access to black too, for things like Underworld Dreams. But there are no Grixis-colored legendary creatures that have particular synergy with that strategy... and besides, I really like Nin. She's so cheap to cast, and very flexible in how you use her.

I also wanted to use the combo of Tradewind Rider and Crackleburr. Bounce all the things!!

[dynamicEquilibrium]

Black seems like it would help, but there are only two punishment cards in black: Underworld Dreams and the Kekerdret creature, and since you can only have a singleton of each it doesn't do much for you.
Honestly you'd be better off just going two-color to increase the chance of getting multiple blue and red mana to play the powerful combo components in those colors.

[kickan]

You're forgetting Spiteful Visions, Phyrexian Tyranny, and Seizan, Perverter of Truth. Layers upon layers of draw-induced pain. And black has more options for lifegain, to help recoup some of the damage you'd be inflicting on yourself in the process.

[Miff]

Niv-Mizzet + Curiosity?

And back when I ran a deck like that it was UBR with Nicol Bolas as general, the idea was using him to clear out opponent's hands so that they can't put their newfound card advantage to good use.

[kickan]

That'd be a similar sort of deck but it would need different tools. You can use the same card-draw punishment stuff but you'd want stuff to make discard hurt more, like Megrim and Liliana's Caress. My intention here was going to be more along the lines of Cerebral Vortex and Runeflare Trap, with copy effects and instant/sorcery recursion to make each of those spells more than just a one-hit wonder. But I suppose using both draw and discard is less risky too, since you have more stable sources of damage and you're giving your opponents fewer resources to try to disrupt you.

That reminds me of another deck I've seen, with Kaervek as commander. It had a lot of "punishment" effects, stuff along the lines of Manabarbs, Underworld Dreams, and Spellshock, to lay down the hurt on everyone (especially your opponents) for doing just about anything. Not in a lockdown/prison sort of way, but to chip away at everyone's life totals and accelerate everyone towards their demise. Adding blue to that basic idea might open up some additional options.

[aggrievesTemulence]

I feel like this is a good enough picture to warrant me finally introducing myself in this thread!


Heh, my Kaalia deck is by far my best Commander deck, and by far my oldest. I was playing Oros way back before the precons were even announced because I love this color combination so much. When I saw this panel going through the SBaHJ archives, I knew what I had to do!

Deck list, if anyone's interested: (I really am quite proud of this deck eheheh)

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General:
Kaalia of the Vast

Lands:
Command Tower
Forbidden Orchard
Rupture Spire
Evolving Wilds
Terramorphic Expanse
Ghost Quarter
Vivid Meadow
Secluded Steppe
Kabira Crossroads
Snow-Covered Plains
3x Plains
Marsh Flats
Orzhov Basilica
Isolated Chapel
Caves of Koilos
Bojuka Bog
Barren Moor
Swamp
Jund Panorama
Rakdos Carnarium
Dragonskull Summit
Lavaclaw Reaches
Spinerock Knoll
Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
Forgotten Cave
2x Mountain
Arid Mesa
Naya Panorama
Boros Garrison
Clifftop Retreat
Ancient Amphitheater
Hall of the Bandit Lord
Vault of the Archangel
Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
Tectonic Edge

Artifact Mana:
Sol Ring
Expedition Map
Fellwar Stone
Rakdos Signet
Orzhov Signet
Boros Signet
Prophetic Prism
Darksteel Ingot

Angels, Dragons, and Demons, oh my!:
Baneslayer Angel
Hunted Dragon
Bloodgift Demon
Steel Hellkite
Two-Headed Dragon
Moonveil Dragon
Flameblast Dragon
Reaper from the Abyss
Balefire Dragon
Ancient Hellkite
Kilnmouth Dragon
Knollspine Dragon
Rune-Scarred Demon
Bladewing the Risen
Angel of Despair
Bogardan Hellkite
Scourge of Kher Ridges
Razia, Boros Archangel

Other Creatures:
Stoneforge Mystic
Sun Titan
Artisan of Kozilek

Equipment:
Basilisk Collar
Lightning Greaves
Swiftfoot Boots
Loxodon Warhammer
Sunforger

Tutors/Card Draw:
Sensei's Divining Top
Phyrexian Arena
Diabolic Tutor
Dragonstorm
Decree of Pain

Mass Removal:
Hallowed Burial
Austere Command
Final Judgement
Phyrexian Rebirth

Spot Removal:
Path to Exile
Shattering Pulse
Mortify
Unmake
Oblivion Ring
Wing Shards
Orim's Thunder
Return to Dust

Reanimation/Recursion
Reanimate
Undying Evil
Marshal's Anthem
Cauldron Dance
Debtor's Knell

Remaining Spells:
Master Warcraft
Reiterate
Warstorm Surge
True Conviction
Decree of Justice

It's not quite complete yet. I'm obviously missing ABU duals and Ravnica shocklands, and some of my worse Dragons can be upgraded to some harder-to-acquire Angels, like Reya Dawnbringer. If anyone has some critiques or comments about my deck I'd love to hear them, but I will say that if a card is in there it's probably in there for a good reason.

Now I could go into this whole wall of text about how I built and play the deck and talk about which are my favorite cards, and which ones I'm thinking about cutting but I have to leave somewhat soon, so I'll just leave you with a funny anecdote from last night's game.

Opponent (Karador, Ghost Chieftain):
"Okay tap 14 mana for...
wait
That Sunforger equipped?"
Me:
"Yeah."
"Hmm.
...
Alright whatever, Genesis Wave for 11."
"Ooh, thanks.
Red White, unequip Sunforger fetch Reiterate.
Pay 3 for buyback.
One Red Red for Reiterate, 3 for the buyback.
Thanks!
Okay I take mine first..."

My first 11 mostly hit lands (not that that is a bad thing by any means! At the very least I hit a karoo land and got to reset my Spinerock Knoll), but the next one hit a bunch of Dragons and an Angel of Despair to kill his massive Lord of Extinction. He and the other opponent conceded almost immediately once his Genesis Wave resolved into a bunch of mediocre stuff that couldn't win him the game immediately.

[kickan]

So it seems like there won't be an Innistrad block novel, if anyone here reads MTG books. No confirmation yet on whether that means no more Planeswalker novels too; I really hope not, those books were of a MUCH higher quality than the block novels had become.

[illisid]

wow really? any idea why? Those things have just always been around, I assumed they were necessary for the game.

[kickan]

It seems that they probably just weren't worth the cost of production any more. They've never had a very big audience, and they'd already been scaled back to just one book per block instead of a trilogy every year. It was a matter of time until they were killed off for good. Sucks for those of us who were still fans (of the good ones at least) but there just weren't enough of us buying.

Best-case scenario, I think, is that the new MTG comic books from IDW help get more people interested in MTG fiction again, and sometime down the road there can be a big enough audience to make it worth the financial investment in making new books again. That's pretty optimistic, though.

[chimaeraUndying]

Aw, I loved the MTG books They really help with developing a plane's lore, as well as making for some neato reading.

[Bobster]

Didn't they used to include the books in the older fat packs? I'm pretty sure my brother has one or two MtG books on his sci-fi/fantasy bookshelves...

[kickan]

They stopped doing that a while back, because not enough people were actually reading them and it was a waste of money to keep including them in the fat packs.

If you can't get people to read your books even when they're bundled with cards and other nice stuff, that's a bad sign.

[chimaeraUndying]

The newer fatpacks (Ravnica onwards) were basically more useful than the older ones, as they cane with two nigh-indestructible boxes to store swag in. They also had books, so I'll postulate that Ravnica had the best fatpack of all time, ever.

Except maybe the Unhinged "rocket", but that turned out to be a lie as far as I could tell.

[illisid]

oh man have you seen the AVR ultrapro gear? this set is totally going to be angels vs demons.

[kickan]

oh man have you seen the AVR ultrapro gear? this set is totally going to be angels vs demons.

I know right?? I'm betting it's going to have some similar elements to ROE, encouraging you to play defensive in the early game to build up to a giant flying holy/unholy beatstick. The two sets have the same lead designer and both have the same "large third set, drafted alone" format too. ROE was awesome, so this is a good sign I think.

[dynamicEquilibrium]

Oh yessss
I think RoE was my favorite Limited format ever
Even if it's not the same defensive play leading to win condition type of format, the mere fact that the block is designed similarly bodes very well