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[CryCold]

Consecrated Sphinx
Mind's Eye
Psychosis Crawler

Amy not exactly fit into your theme but these seem mean enough to be worth it.

[kickan]

Psychosis Crawler certainly fits. I mean, it's a brain-in-a-jar with robot legs.

[Miff]

Any suggestions for creatures for a Nin, the Pain Artist EDH deck with a theme of "Mad Science"? Lab assistants, test subjects, monstrous creations, that sort of thing.

In terms of flavor, your best bets for sets to source from would be Innistrad (blue science thingies), Guildpact/Dissension (Izzet and Simic cards specifically, but a lack of green really limits what you can do with Simic), and New Phyrexia (weird science!).

In terms of gameplay, RU's two main strategies seem to be Instants/Sorceries and card drawing. Nin fits more in the card draw category, so you could throw in a lot of stuff that works with card draw, plus drawing cards and millling yourself both cooperate towards a similar goal (especially if your main endgame condition is Laboratory Maniac).

[Bobster]

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I'm really liking this card. The cogs are already turning for how I can implement this in a White/Green deck, but I need to tell myself that there are more cards coming and I shouldn't settle on any strategies I like right now.

[CryCold]

Feed the pack, The new Doubling Season, and pretty much any token-gen ever. Maybe go B/W/G so you get Lingering Souls?

[Bobster]

Was thinking about splashing black for Lingering Souls, not sure what else I would use black for besides maybe some spot removal. I like Parallel Lives but I feel like its hard to run sometimes, most of the time I feel like I'm wasting my turn instead of putting out tokens I could use at that moment. Didn't think about Feed the Pack to be honest, might be hard to use at 6 mana but I can always ramp into it. Reminds me of my Feed the Wild deck I played on Cockatrice for a while, that would be a fun deck to actually build and bring down to FNM. Lemme dig it up.

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24 Forest

4 Essence of the Wild
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Tree of Redemption
3 Dungrove Elder
3 Skinshifter
3 Wall of Tanglecord

21

4 Feed the Pack
4 Rampant Growth
3 Druidic Satchel
3 Strata Scythe
1 Doubling Chant

15
(dunno why I had that Doubling Chant in there now tbh)

Edit: Ooh, Pentavus would be interesting, a bit pricy manawise but brings in plenty of tokens. Plus its easily abusable with the new flickerers and some of the cards that bring lots of +1/+1 counters.

[MIster Scurvy]

A group of my friends are really into Magic, and I'm wondering. What's the best way I can start?

[Bobster]

That depends. Ask your friends what format they usually play. If its Standard, pick up an Event Deck, they're fairly cheap and and its pretty good for the cost. If they play EDH/Commander, pick up one of those pre-con decks. If its another format it might be a bit harder to get into.

[illisid]

Ive been told the easiest way to learn is by playing Duels of the Planeswalkers. Try that thing out, let us know how it goes!

[aggrievesTemulence]

DotP might be a good way to learn the rules and how to play (I have no opinion on the matter, never having played the game) but it's worth keeping in mind that it increases your barrier of entry by the cost of the game in addition to whatever cards you want to buy. My suggestion is to find a store near you that does Friday Night Magic. Here's a link to Wizards' event locator. Use that, find a store near you (and hope one exists) then show up and say, "Hey, I want to get into this game, but I don't really know where to start. Can you help me out?" If your area isn't infested with douchebags, there should be people willing to help you out, either with buying advice or just straight-up giving you cards. If the proprietor is worth his or her salt then they may try to foist product onto you, but don't automatically discount their advice juts because they have a vested interest in selling you cards. I know that the store I play at is very good at getting newer players into the game and providing a less-hardcore playing environment but not all stores are like that. Give it a shot, and good luck!


So, recently deciding that 6 Commander decks is not enough, I've decided to tackle a Sedris, the Traitor King deck utilizing one of my favorite abilities: phasing. In case you need to bone up on your obscure ability combinations: phasing interacts with unearth by not allowing you to sacrifice phased-out creatures due to the end-of-turn trigger that Unearth creates. As long as a creature is not in play at the end of your turn you don't have to sacrifice it, and that ability never triggers again. Unfortunately, the "if this creature would leave play, exile it," trigger stays around forever but there are other ways around that. Namely, this is a replacement effect that replaces all leaves-the-battlefield triggers, except for other exile triggers. This means that if you try to exile a creature with, say, an Oblivion Ring then the creature does get exiled and, critically, comes back once the Oblivion Ring leaves play. Once it comes back into play it is a new creature and can now leave play without being exiled due to the Unearth effect.

This deck is focused on exploiting these interactions. It is primarily a U/R/B reanimator style deck that gets fatties into the graveyard and then unearths them on the cheap and uses various tricks to keep the creatures for longer. The most important sub-themes for me are Phasing (just sooooooo cool) and Obscure Cards. Seriously. I hadn't even heard of some of these cards before I went digging around in the Gatherer. Carrionette? Seriously? This thing is awesome! The best part is that exiling Carrionette is part of the effect not the cost, which means you can use the ability multiple times in quick succession as long as you have the mana for it.

So yeah. Here's the deck. I really want some suggestions and advice for this, at the moment it's just a very rough sketch. I think at the moment it might be too overboard on the Unearth-savers (Wormfang Drake is probably my favorite of the bunch, though Portcullis is pretty dang sweet as well) and I'm missing out on a lot of good answers and removal. There's some good counterspells I want to play as well but I can't remember what they're called. There's the one that hard counters a spell but allows its caster to put a creature into play. Stuff like that that sort of blunts the blow a bit. This should play off a bit like a combo deck that wants to protect its investment; if I were ever to play a Force of Will (hah!) in Commander, this might be the deck.

Actually, I am playing some pretty classic overpowered combo pieces already (Mind Over Matter, Palinchron) it might not be too bad to throw in a few creature-based combos. My playgroup is just the right mix of casual and cutthroat that we don't usually mind "Oops, I win" sort of combos. At least the first time. Any thoughts?

[illisid]

I have a terrible time looking over EDH lists but I love the idea. Sedris has always been a favorite of mine, I just wish you could put astral slide in the deck

e: no consecrated sphinx or inferno titan? Surely you can make room for them, I'm not sold on the demon of deaths gate, or some of the other lackluster fatties. Also, assuming you're putting griselbrand in here when he comes out?

[aggrievesTemulence]

I just... do not like Inferno Titan. And I've actually got a surprising number ("surprising" here being about 2) Consecrated Sphinxes lying about, but I'm not sure I actually want to put one of them in this deck. URB is already a good hate-generating shard as its proclivity for "Group Mug" (The opposite of Group Hug) decks is well known, at least among the people I play with. I don't really want to draw the kind of aggro that Consecrated Sphinx brings with it. The Sphinx is certainly powerful, and maybe it does belong in the deck, but it's a card we've been looking at recently as perhaps being too swingy and imbalanced.

Griselbrand is almost certainly making it in, yes, but the first copy I'm getting goes straight to Kaalia, and I don't see myself getting a hold of two copies of a probably moderate-to-high demand Mythic Rare for quite awhile after release.

Demon of Death's Gate (I'm not too sure what you mean by other lackluster fatties. Every other creature in the deck does something) is in there because one of the main modes of winning for this deck is probably going to be just one big alpha strike with a lot of unearthed creatures. It's kind of hard to beat 9 hasty power for 3 mana. But yeah he is really uninspired, I admit. A lot of the slots in the deck are fluid for now, though, and I've still got about 10 unused spots before I start filling in land. Sometimes a deck just needs a big fatty. Not always, but maybe this is that deck.

And yes Astral Slide would be so amazing in this deck. Oh man. I kind of can't handle how good that idea is.

[kickan]

How do y'all like my new avatar for MTGS?



Nibalt OTP

[illisid]

I especially like it along with this particular avatar of yours.

<NO MAKE US

[kickan]

Haha, I didn't even notice that! Izzy does not approve of their union.

[CryCold]

How do y'all like my new avatar for MTGS?



Nibalt OTP

Yeah when I first read his description I immediately thought of this. I hope she ends up in as storyline with him.

[KilroyWasHere]

So I got my first real life deck. Bant Allies, they're very shenanigansy. I can't wait for Avacyn Restored to release so I can get Ghostly Flicker.

[kickan]

Ooh, flickering is good in an Allies deck. If we're really lucky, maybe Ghostway will be reprinted! :O

[GG7]

Question: Should I go to Avacyn Restored Pre-Release event, or use the money to buy part of a booster box with my friends?

[Bobster]

Its your call really. At the prerelease you'll usually get a minimum of 8 packs (assuming your initial 6 and the minimum of 2 packs for prize, dunno if every store does that) for 25 bucks (so a little over 3 bucks a pop), but you'll get some promo stuff too. The stuff in the Helvalt is supposedly (HUGE SPOILERS!)

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An AVR lifecounter die, Angel/Demon tokens, and Jumbo promos of the Legendary Angels and Griselbrand

On the other side, if you get a booster box packs are usually like 2.50 each, so you'll get like 10 packs for the $25 you'd spend at the prerelease. So you're trading some promos for 2 packs basically.

But I personally love sealed events so I would go for that :P But I dunno what your friends are doing with their box, most people usually draft a box when they pool to buy it. Also yay complete spoilers now!

[Zombiitwo]

Going to build an EDH deck, can't decide between Sen Triplets, Riku of Two Refelections, or Mayael The Anima as my commander.

[CryCold]

Well what kind of player are you? Are you a fan of attacking with fatties, winning by locking down the game, or combo shenanigans? Also is this for multiplayer EDH, one on one, or both?

[Zombiitwo]

It's for both, but I'll probably be doing 1v1 more than multiplayer. I'm leaning towards Sen Triplets just because of how hilarious it looks, but I really like the art and stuff for all three cards. :/

EDIT:
Decided to go with Sen Triplets. Any good suggestions for B/U/W cards that deal with shenanigans/big or cool creatures?

[CryCold]

It's for both, but I'll probably be doing 1v1 more than multiplayer. I'm leaning towards Sen Triplets just because of how hilarious it looks, but I really like the art and stuff for all three cards. :/

EDIT:
Decided to go with Sen Triplets. Any good suggestions for B/U/W cards that deal with shenanigans/big or cool creatures?

Problem with that is you're screwed if you go up against anything that uses Green or Red predominantly since the rules of EDH stipulate that you can't produce that mana if you do it through artifacts.

Sen Tripletts is kind of vulnerable. It's an artifact, a not very tough creature, and it's expensive which leaves it open to counter magic. I guess to combat this maybe get a Leonin Abunas. You might want to go all out and out Esper with an Ethersworn Adjudicator, Lux Canon, and other good artifacts. Still this is kind of vulneable and I can't think of a good way of taking advantage of a hand you can see but may or may not be able to cast spells from. :/

[dynamicEquilibrium]

Sen triplets is still the funniest deck ever though
My only suggestions on the list are to just build Esper control, but don't use draw spells
Mana artifacts are good, but draw is pointless since you have all the spells you need in other players' hands