DailyMTG: Sealed Deck Builder!

Well, it has been a while, but anyway... I've become increasingly interested in Sealed and Draft, so for the fun of it, and to test out my deck-building skills, I tried out the Sealed Deck Builder on Daily MTG.

Here's what I came up with:
Land (18)
9 Mountain
9 Plains

Creatures (16)
1 Angelic Skirmisher
2 Court Street Denizen
3 Daring Skyjek
2 Ember Beast
1 Firefist Striker
1 Foundry Street Denizen
1 Nav Squad Commandos
1 Skinbrand Goblin
1 Skyknight Legionnaire
1 Spark Trooper
1 Towering Thunderfist
1 Wojek Halberdiers

Other Spells (6)
1 Act of Treason
1 Angelic Edict
1 Holy Mantle
1 Madcap Skills
1 Mugging
1 Skullcrack

I like this card more than I probably should...

As far as I could see, Black was absolute junk, and Blue didn't fare a whole lot better in general. I was sold on White and Red as soon as I saw Angelic Skirmisher, Wojek Halbediers and Spark Trooper all in there, not to mention all the other Battalion guys and generally good cards.

I'm a bit disappointed in the lack of one-drops, but then there wasn't really any in the entire pool except Experiment One and Spire Tracer (and Foundry Street Denizen, both of which are decent enough (in fact, I run Experiment One as a 4-of in my Constructed deck...), but not worth messing around with the mana base for, especially with only one dual land available in the right colours (and one that enters tapped at that). Besides, it's 2 cards and if I don't get them first turn, along with a Forest, they're a complete waste, and that also shuts down any chances of a turn 2 Wojek Halberdiers, so I decided splashing for green just wasn't worth it, not even for the other RG cards available. Not when there were so many good cards in just White and Red, anyway.

So I'm interested in hearing your thoughts. I'm pretty new to building Sealed decks honestly. The last time (and first) I did it was at the Gatecrash Pre-release, but I'm getting there. Feel free to post up your results in the comments as well!

Golgari Aggro

It has been a little while since I last posted anything about Magic, but since my last post I've made a few steps forward in terms of knowing what's good and what's not, and I've moved away from trying to run a BUG deck and right now I've just been focussing on a BG Aggro deck. I prefer to call it "Golgari Aggro" personally. Others like "Kibler's BG Aggro", but naming after one (albeit quite famous) guy that did well with the deck, even though it was around before him, doesn't seem very fitting to me. Then over on MTG Salvation they've been calling it "The Plague", and that's fair enough, but I reckon "Golgari" is a pretty sweet name, and if we can have "Bant Control", "Jund Midrange" or "Naya Humans" then why can't we have "Golgari Aggro"?

Anyway, names aren't too importat I guess. What matters is that it's all the same thing really, and it all works the same.

The Loltroll

The decklist below is made of cards that I currently own. There are still a few cards that I need, and I'll run through those later too, but even without them I'm very happy with the deck.

Golgari Aggro
Land (22)
8x Forest
4x Golgari Guildgate
4x Overgrown Tomb
2x Swamp
4x Woodland Cemetery

Creatures (26)
4x Arbor Elf
3x Deadbridge Goliath
1x Deathrite Shaman
4x Dreg Mangler
4x Experiment One
4x Lotleth Troll
4x Strangleroot Geist
2x Wolfir Avenger

Instants and Sorceries (8)
2x Abrupt Decay
2x Increasing Savagery
2x Tragic Slip
2x Ultimate Price

Other Spells (4)
4x Rancor

Sideboard (15)
2x Dryad Militant
3x Duress
2x Golgari Charm
1x Ground Seal
1x Murder
1x Pithing Needle
2x Silklash Spider
3x Vampire Nighthawk

The main point of the deck is to set up an aggro, but very resilient creature base. Against other aggro decks this gives you the opportunity to either race or play a little more like a control deck, using your creatures to block but not losing any of them mostly thanks to Regenerate/being bigger than most aggro decks can handle, as well as having a bunch more removal than your standard RDW deck. After you take control of the board, creatures like the Lotleth Troll can cause some serious problems and you can usually beat them down in a couple of turns. Against control decks, the deck can come swinging quite easily early game but has a dangerous late-game too, and cards like Supreme Verdict really are quite sub-par against this kind of a deck. Control decks usually just can't handle such a resilient board.

The mana base is still being tweeked a little. I'm mostly trying to work out whether I need the swamps or not and how many Guildgates I should be running. Right now I'm quite happy with the Guildgates, they haven't caused me any issues thus far and it's another dual-land, which is really helpful. The only reason I'm running any swamps at all is because of the Nighthawks and Murder in the sideboard, which both have double-black casting costs.

The creatures, as mentioned, are mostly chosen because of their resilience. The only exceptions to this are those that bring major utility to the deck, like Arbor Elf and Deathrite Shaman. Those that aren't resilient and that have no utility in this deck have the added benefit of being useful in the graveyard because of Scavenge, which is an incredibly powerful and relevant late-game mechanic.

Of the creatures, I've been extremely impressed with all of them except Wolfir Avenger. Sure, he has Regenerate which is what this deck wants, but that's about it. Flash is hardly very useful on him and generally the best that happens is that I Flash him in at the end of my opponent's turn, swing next turn for 3 and then feel obliged to leave 2 mana open so I can Regen him. He's only still in the deck because I have nothing better to do with those slots.

I still need to get myself 4x Predator Ooze, who really is the main creature card in this deck. It's almost impossible to remove, and it doesn't even require mana left open for it. The Avengers will be cut when I get the Oozes, and I'll have to find a couple of other cards to drop too. I also wouldn't mind another Deathrite Shaman or two, and I'm still thinking on Ulvenwald Tracker as a 2-of.

The spells are mostly about the removal. Black has access to some of the best removal around and Abrupt Decay is, in my opinion, the best removal in standard. Rancor is an obvious inclusion. It provides evasion and better swinging potential. Increasing Savagery is just something I'm trying out in the deck. Its Flashback makes it incredible if the game drags on or you get mana flooded and it's basically a Deadbridge Goliath with haste. I'm not 100% on it though, because I haven't tested it a whole lot, but I think it'll work out nicely.

My sideboard is still a little awkward. Murder is there because it's the only removal without any restrictions that I have access to, but it's still a toss-up between that and another type of removal. The only cards I'm completely sold on thus far are the Vampire Nighthawks, Duresses and Golgari Charms. The Nighthawks are incredible against aggro and the other two are beyond useful in control match-ups. A bit of the sideboard is dedicated to Unburial Rites match-ups and the Silklash Spiders were suggested for when I run into some trouble flying creatures, as well as being fat bodies and making for some nice blockers. I'm not sold on them yet though because I haven't found a match in which I'd want to side them in.

"Hey there sexy..."

 
I also want to try out some Grisly Salvages. I might try a pair over the Wolfir Avengers and see how they go.

So there are still some bumps to iron out and whatnot, but even now the deck is really solid. Golgari Aggro is a serious thing, I reckon.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

Gatecrash Pre-release Results and Rundown

Walking into the store for my first pre-release was certainly quite the exciting experience, and the day did not disappoint.

Cracking open all the boosters and searching for some solid Simic cards, I must say I did come up a touch short. I probably could've made a pretty solid Boros deck out of what I pulled, but this wasn't for competition and I came to play Simic, so that's what I did.

My main issue was that my deck was too slow for Evolve to really trigger effectively, and Extort and Battalion just dominated me. I ended up going 1-3, with my one win being against a Gruul deck.

Aside from the one game against the Orzhov player, who has to be one of the most boring guys I've ever had to sit across from, the rest was good fun, losses and all.

All that out of the way, let's get into some of the nicer cards I got on the day!

That flavour text is a little dirty...

 A fair few people don't seem to like this card, but it really is a ticking bomb on the right creature, in the right deck (which just happens to be mine). Throw it on an Experiment One for the easy access to regen or, better yet, on a Master Biomancer so that all your creatures enter exponentially larger each turn. It has some nice spots, I think. Enough to run two in the least.

Corpsejack + Increasing Savagery = insane ramp

 My only issue with this card is its speed. It doesn't give you early mana like Farseek or help you out as much as Arbor Elf in the early game, but from what I managed with it it's extremely capable of turning your mid-game into the late-game in terms of your mana. It puts you ahead very, very fast. The best thing is that casting Increasing Savagery on this means that you can tap it for even more mana than you actually spent on it, getting instant ramp turn 4 that lasts well throughout the game. Not to mention a very beefy body.

"Hover Barrier? Thanks, I wouldn't mind the extra defender."

Only rated something like 2.9 on Gatherer, and I can kind of see why some don't like it, but in my experience this is an amazing card against certain decks. It's definitely not maindeck worthy because it can't handle everything and can be a straight-up waste against creatureless decks, but it certainly has a place in the sideboard in my opinion.

Nothing more enjoyable than drawing half your deck!

Unfortunately I didn't crack Zegana in my own packs, but my friend was kind enough to trade it to me for some cards, so she now sits in my proper deck. Last game I used her I had a Corpsejack on the field as well as a 14/14. She dropped with 28 counters on her and I proceeded to draw half my deck. I won the game, in case you were wondering.

A BGU aggro deck is currently in the works, still being tweeked, but I'll post it up as well as some results when I feel it's closer to finished.

Thoughts? Comments?

MTG: 15/13 With Trample Turn 4? I think so!

After some thinking, I realised that I can get a Deadbridge Goliath to 15/13 with Trample by turn 4, and I thought that was just a little insane.

In fact, I think it's more than a little insane, because if one had no removal in hand at the time I'd probably just be scooping. In any case, it's all good fun and would make for a good, maniacal laugh when pulled off.

Giant Insect Rhino Fungus

 First turn, we play a Forest and then slap down an Arbor Elf.

Turn 2 throw down our second land, then tap both for a Farseek.

Turn 3 we play another land and then place our Giant Insect Rhino Fungus, then we tap Arbor Elf to untap a Forest, then retap afforementioned Forest and throw Rancor onto the Deadbridge.

Finally, at turn 4 we play another land, making for 5 in total, then play a Corpsejack Menace, use the 5th land for a Bond Beetle and putting the counters onto the Goliath, then we swing with the Goliath, pray they attempt to lower the damage coming from the currently 9/7 Trampler running at them and, if they do, we slap a Hunger of the Howlpack right onto our already-massive creature after untapping a Forest with our Arbor Elf for a total of 6 +1/+1 counters placed on him.

So there you go, a 15/13 creature with trample on turn 4.

Viable? Well, I don't really know, but against anything not black or blue, I'd say so. Definitely kitchen table friendly in the least.

Fun? Oh god yes!

As long as your opponent doesn't have any cheap removal you'll be set and it's pretty much game over right there. If they do, well, at least your Rancor comes straight back to your hand, your Corpsejack is down and you've got a bunch more mana than you should, plus a couple of chump blockers until you can more buffs and bodies down.

Thoughts? Comments?

G/B Golgari BIG Monsters Decklist For Standard

As promised in my last post, I'm posting up my first decklist after much deliberation and changes made. The entire idea behind the deck is pretty simple: create the biggest creature possible and punch my opponent's face in. There are a variety of ways I can achieve this though, so it's not like if one card doesn't pop up the whole deck is screwed. More on that after the actual deck, though...

Land:
4x Swamp
8x Forest
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Woodland Cemetery
4x Rogue's Passage
(24 total)

Creatures:
2x Slitherhead
2x Bond Beetle
2x Strangleroot Geist
2x Predator Ooze
4x Corpsejack Menace
4x Deadbridge Goliath
2x Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
3x Soul of the Harvest
(21 total)

Planeswalkers:
2x Vraska the Unseen
(2 total)

Spells:
3x Rancor
3x Farseek
3x Essence Harvest
4x Increasing Savagery
(13 total)

60 total

So how does it win? Well, as I said, there are a good number of ways this deck can pull off a win.

Ideally, a Corpsejack Menace will be down, and an Increasing Savagery thrown onto something like the Deadbridge Goliath or Soul of the Harvest.

From there, we can cast Essence Harvest and depending on whether or not Increasing Savagery was cast with its Flashback we could very well insta-gib our opponent.

Or we could sacrifice the creature with Jarad's second ability.

Or we could make the creature unblockable with Rogue's Passage.

Or we could simply Trample straight over whatever creature's the opponent has with Rancor/Soul of the Harvest.

Without making anything big, we could also make one of Vraska's tokens unblockable and win the game simply because they can't stop our 1/1 assassin.

And there are plenty of other combinations that ultimately lead the deck to victory.

But as some may have noticed, the deck has no Golgari Decoys or Wild Beastmasters, which I previously considered fairly essential additions to my deck. So what happened? Glad you asked. See, the Golgari Decoy was a fantastic card at first when my deck was mostly the Intro Pack, but as I added more new cards the less useful it became thanks to the abundance of Trample and Unblockable and Jarad and Essence Harvest.

As for the Wild Beastmaster, while she's a solid card I don't feel like she fits into this deck specifically because it focuses more on making one or two massive creatures and I don't often have the number of creatures down to really benefit from her. I feel that a in a token spam deck she's almost mandatory, just not here.

I'm aware that the deck isn't exactly the most powerful deck in the world, but it's a hell of a lot of fun, and it's my first deck too. In the least, I'm proud of it and have fun making the biggest creatures I can. It's also good fun throwing down a Deadbridge Goliath turn 3 after a turn 2 Farseek, but I guess that's beside the point...

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

First FNM: Stomped By a Kid

Last Friday I headed up to my local store to play in my first ever Friday night Magic. It was also the first time I've versed anyone that's not my two MTG playing friends, and the first time I've versed anyone with a decent deck that's not pretty much the Intro Pack + a couple of cards.

It's nice to get some games in against more experienced players and to see what kinds of decks people run in my area.

My deck isn't complete yet, so I wasn't running an ideal set of cards, but I still did reasonably well I think.

My only real issue was actually against a child of about 7 years old. His dad was playing someone else, and as soon as I sat down he said "My mum has the same card sleeves as you" and I was all like "Oh great, a family of MTG players. This'll be fun..."

But it turned out it wasn't. He was playing a Blue/White control deck that his dad had won some tournament with, and the kid obviously had far more experience at the game than I did. I learned a very important lesson that game: playing against control is not fun.

Other than that I played against RB Rakdos aggro and GW token spam. I only just lost to the aggro 1-2, but they were fun games and really could've gone either way. The GW token spam went my way the entire time and I won 2-0. In the first game I had a Corpsejack Menace that I had cast Increasing Savagery and Rancor on which managed to destroy every single token creature in a single attack and still do 3 damage to my opponent.

A fun night all in all and I've had the chance to check out which cards work and which don't in my deck, as well as what I have trouble with so I'll be able to fine-tune my deck a bit. Hopefully I'll be able to post a complete decklist pretty soon, I just need to finish fiddling around with it.

Thoughts? Comments?

Wild Beastmaster

I'm such a dumbass.

You know when you think something sucks, and then later on realise that it's actually the greatest thing ever? Well yeah, this is one of those situations.

Just look at this card:

Completely OP

And then add this into my previous combo and you've got a definite win as soon as you attack. No one can handle multiple 11/11 or higher creatures hitting them all at once, especially when their creatures are all forced to block a 12/12 guy while the rest have free rein to cause whatever damage they can.

Plain OP.

Thoughts? Comments? Abuse for missing this earlier?

MTG Golgari Win Condition

I've been playing around with my deck for a fair while now, and I think I've finally got my win condition down pat.

How do I win?

Well, first of all, I play this:

Double +1/+1 is sooooo good!

Then I play this:

It doesn't really matter who on.

Then it really depends on my opponents life. If they're still sitting at 20, then casting its Flashback on the same (or even a different creature) is a good idea, seeing as it'll bring that creature to over 20/20. If they're around 14-15 or lower, depending on the creature it was played on, then there's no need and we go straight to the next step!

Playing this:

"You can't catch me, fatty!"

Then we attack with everything and they die. Game over.

So let's check it out step-by-step quickly. We play the Corpsejack Menace, who doubles +1/+1 counters placed, then we play Increasing Savagery which normally would get me 5 +1/+1 counters, but because of the afforementioned doubling, we get +10/+10 on a creature (let's just say it's the Menace for now), so we've got a 14/14 sitting around. This is pretty pointless if they can block him though, isn't it? So we throw down a Golgari Decoy and attack with both. They're now forced to block the Decoy and your Menace goes straight in to do 14 damage.

By this point it's usually enough to finish them off, but if it's not then just spend another turn to Flashback the Increasing Savagery and make him 34/34 for some great overkill. Or just Scavenge a whole bunch of creatures if you use them (I'm fond of Slitherheads personally, and 3 of those would get you the 20/20 you need for absolutely no mana cost).

With my limited experience with the game, I'm pretty happy with this to be honest. Now I've just got to work out the rest of my deck...

Thoughts? Comments?

So Little Time...

Unfortunately for the past week or so school has insisted on keeping my schedule absolutely packed, leaving almost no time for any real hobby. All I've been able to get done during my weekdays in terms of hobbies and games is posting over on MiniWarGaming and looking into Infinity. Although on the weekend I did get some Fantasy and Magic done, so I'll go into that and Infinity a bit.

"Doomwheels are so OP"

So on Fantasy first, I had a game at 1250 points against a Vampire Counts player. I didn't get any pictures of the game because I didn't have my camera, but my army was only about half-painted and his was almost entirely base-coated, so I don't think many would care too much anyway...

Regardless, the game was over pretty quick. I ran a Grey Seer, some Clanrats, a unit of Slaves, Warpfire Throwers, Plague Censer Bearers, Doomrocket Engineer and 2 Doomwheels. He slapped down a couple of small units of Zombies, a Master Necro, Vampire, Ethereal Hero thing, Ghouls, Crypt Horrors and a Terrorgheist.

Before the game began he was joking a bit about the Terrorgheist, and one of his friends asked what the leadership of Skaven was. When I told them 5, they both had a good chuckle. They also claimed the thing would just scream away my leadership 7 Doomwheels. I was really looking to end the boasting and show them that Doomwheels are not something to be messed with. And I succeeded.

The game went to turn 3, where one of my Doomwheels got S8 on it's Zzzap! and killed the Terrorgheist. I'd fired my Doomrocket at his Ghouls the turn before and pretty much destroyed them, as well as taking out the Crypt Horrors with a Cracks Call and the Plague Censer Bearers. He conceded with a few Zombies and his characters left, whilst I had my entire army minus the Slaves, one Censer Bearer and one Doomwheel was down a single wound.

If I had a dollar for the number of times "Doomwheels are so OP" or something to that effect was said during and after that game, I'd be a very, very rich man.

So very, very sick.

Onto Magic: the Gathering. I'm still a complete and utter n00b, but I did get myself quite a large number of games Friday night and Saturday against the friend I started with and my High Elf playing friend who'd started on Saturday himself with a Blue and Red deck. I've currently beat my R/B friend three more times than he's beat me, and it's nice to put a bit of a gap between our win/loss ratios, if just for bragging rights.

I think I've worked out the kind of deck I want to go for, and I'm pretty much just going to follow on with the theme the starter deck I got has. Golgari Growth. I originally wanted a Zombie Graveyard deck, but I'm really liking buffing monsters to huge levels, and the general thematics of the whole deck appeals to me as well. Dreg Manglers and Corpsejack Menaces are easily my favourite cards in my deck currently.

I'm still building on my deck, but we'll get there eventually, and it will be glorious.

Infinitely awesome.

The last thing I'm going to cover is my interest in Infinity. It looks like an extremely interesting game, and should be one that's quite different to 40k and Fantasy, which should be quite nice. The Factions look incredibly cool, and being a fan of anime and pretty much everything Japanese in general, the style appeals to me even more.

Everything I've heard of the game is extremely positive and it's very cheap to get into (compared to the likes of Games Workshop's games at least), so now it's just down to convincing some friends to grab some stuff with me and I'll be good to go. Naturally, I think I'm going to go with Yu Jing right now, but my opinion may change given a little more research.

As usual, thanks for reading and feel free to give any thoughts and/or advice. I do quite desperately need it for MTG...

There's a First For Everything!

Today I've had a couple of firsts, the first of which is my first follower, which is definitely a boost. Thank you!

The other is my first game of Magic: The Gathering. I've never really been into card games a whole lot, but I must admit I did have quite a bit of fun and have picked up my first Intro Set.

This picture gave me an idea for a Wood Elf Forest Dragon conversion...

I picked up the Black and Green set, and have spent a bit of my afternoon checking out how the game works properly and how I build my deck. To be honest I'm still a little stumped, but I'm definitely looking forward to playing some more with my friend and working the game out.

It's quite the departure from table-top gaming, but it's always nice to have something fresh to do!

Anyway, I guess I'll keep the blog up-to-date with my progress on the game and see if I can work out how to build decks properly...

Any advice is definitely welcome.

And just before I go, the Chaos Space Marines Codex review will be up tomorrow should my Internet permit, otherwise it will absolutely, definitely, 100% be Tuesday!