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MMD3 posted:I've got some friends that are sort of intimidated by MTG but that I'd like to try to teach it to. I've been thinking of building some super-straightforward budget mono-color decks to illustrate each of the vanilla archetypes a bit. The idea would to be to stick to full playsets of cards as much as possible so they aren't overwhelmed w/ too many cards to learn and to limit it to maybe only a couple of rares in each deck. Why not just buy the preconstructed decks? It is like a $10 investment that gives them everything they need to play a deck including a *shiny* foil card. Grab 1 of each color of the BNG ones and play away. You could even go so far as to buy the Duel Decks as those USUALLY break even cost wise if you want to sell the cards after (at least I know the recent Jace vs. Vraska one does).
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Apr 7, 2014 19:53
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End of Life Guy posted:Im taking breakfast burrito to the SCG Legacy Open in Dallas this weekend, and am heavily considering replacing one Tinder Wall with a third Cabal Therapy in anticipation of all the counterspells i may not be aware of. If you're doing that, you may as well run the Mimeoplasm kill w/2 cabal therapies, since replacing gas with combo pretty much negates the purpose of the Cerberus kill (having one of your combo cards be a cycler). Also, I feel like your goldfishing doesn't quite stress the importance of going off turn 1. Going off a turn later severely reduces your chance of winning, especially after game 1. If they get a land down, there's way more they can do to disrupt you. Without a land, it's just force of will and surgical extraction. With a land, it's spell pierce, daze, stifle, flusterstorm pithing needle, grafdigger's cage, swords to plowshares, lightning bolt, dismember, extirpate, as well as thoughtseize, duress and inquisition of kozilek, which don't immediately kill you, but do send you immediately to frown town. Actually, looking at that list of crap that cerberus has to deal with that mimeoplasm doesn't, I really don't like cerberus at all for the kill.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:02
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bhsman posted:How...? I literally still have the link to my old build in my avatar? Moreover, who the hell is not running copies of Molten Birth in traditional R/B versions of the deck? I think if you were to go more of an over run strategy with tokens this would be the time to move to RW. Using Assemble the Legion and Iroas you have a second wincon in the over run strategy. If you name red then you give that benefit to both the soldiers AND the elementals. You would be losing Tymaret but making each of your tokens a 2/2 that MUST be blocked with 2 or more creatures.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:12
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OssiansFolly posted:I think if you were to go more of an over run strategy with tokens this would be the time to move to RW. Using Assemble the Legion and Iroas you have a second wincon in the over run strategy. If you name red then you give that benefit to both the soldiers AND the elementals. You would be losing Tymaret but making each of your tokens a 2/2 that MUST be blocked with 2 or more creatures. That makes the deck more one-dimensional (not to mention not as efficient as it could be; you would be better running RW Aggro or Midrange at that point) when the point of adding the anthem is to make the deck more flexible.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:19
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Dr. Stab posted:If you're doing that, you may as well run the Mimeoplasm kill w/2 cabal therapies, since replacing gas with combo pretty much negates the purpose of the Cerberus kill (having one of your combo cards be a cycler). But if any piece of the mimeoplasm kill is in my hand, i cant go off. If i draw lab maniac or street wraith, theres still a chance as thise would enter my hand later anyway.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:23
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OssiansFolly posted:Why not just buy the preconstructed decks? It is like a $10 investment that gives them everything they need to play a deck including a *shiny* foil card. Grab 1 of each color of the BNG ones and play away. You could even go so far as to buy the Duel Decks as those USUALLY break even cost wise if you want to sell the cards after (at least I know the recent Jace vs. Vraska one does). I have several sets of duel decks already, including the jace/vraska one and that totally misses the point of what I'm trying to accomplish. People who have never played magic before aren't going to care about foils, rares, card value, etc. also planeswalkers IMHO are about the worst thing you could drop on a newbie from a complexity standpoint. I'm trying to build decks with as few mechanics as possible and 4x of just about everything so they can start feeling familiar with the cards they're drawing by the end of the first or second game. These are people that have never played ccg's and are primarily familiar with strategy board games. What you're suggesting would be akin to trying to teach someone a boardgame by dumping 8 different expansions with all of their new mechanics into the mix on the first playthrough, it would pretty much ensure a confusing and frustrating first impression.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:39
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Try some of Sway's Hyper Budget decks on this page (I think the mono-colored ones will be on page 2 you click through at the bottom): http://www.mtgvault.com/sway/ All of them are 3 CMC or less, all cost less than $5, and I think they don't have rares. And since they're still meant to be relatively competitive, they're very focused on specific goals. No BNG because they're a few months old, but still Standard legal.
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Apr 7, 2014 20:42
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You can still go off. You'd just have to therapy yourself. The difference is that for the cerberus, there are 2 cards that absolutely can't be in your hand, versus 4 for the mimeoplasm. However, Cerberus can't go off if two cards are in hand, while mimeoplasm needs 3. You get the bad hand 1.2% of the time in cerberus, versus .4% of the time in mimeoplasm. e: If you make the cabal therapy substituion in both cases, you wouldn't be able to lose this way in cerberus, but you'd need to draw 4 of 4 in mimeoplasm, which is a very negligible chance of occurring, and is probably outweighed by the bunch of weird corner case hands that are difficult to calculate that cerberus loses with and mimeoplasm doesn't. Dr. Stab fucked around with this message at 20:49 on Apr 7, 2014 |
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Apr 7, 2014 20:43
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End of Life Guy posted:But if any piece of the mimeoplasm kill is in my hand, i cant go off.
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Apr 7, 2014 22:03
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A friend of mine once did a similar thing by making 40-card 'intro decks' with one non-evergreen mechanic each. So pick either five monocolour mechanics or a couple of two-color mechanics (teaching players about using a second colour to make up for the deficiencies of the first helps everyone feel more balanced) and build decks for them, avoiding more than a few rares each for complexity reasons. I can ask him which mechanics he went with, if you'd like.
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Apr 8, 2014 00:25
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a dozen swans posted:A friend of mine once did a similar thing by making 40-card 'intro decks' with one non-evergreen mechanic each. So pick either five monocolour mechanics or a couple of two-color mechanics (teaching players about using a second colour to make up for the deficiencies of the first helps everyone feel more balanced) and build decks for them, avoiding more than a few rares each for complexity reasons. I can ask him which mechanics he went with, if you'd like. yeah, that'd be helpful... I'm assuming it'd be something like: Green: Trample White: Lifelink (or First Strike) Black: Deathtouch Red: Haste (?) Blue: Flying (?)
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Apr 8, 2014 01:07
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^^^ he mentioned it was non-evergreen, so it would probably look something like: Green: Evolve White: Exalted Black: Infect Blue: Scry Red: Devour
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Apr 8, 2014 01:58
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I took the advise that this thread gave me a few weeks back and as a newer player getting back into Magic after about a decade built myself a Boros Aggro deck instead of trying to play around with W/U Control or B/U Mill right off the bat. This deck has been doing fairly well, and I just went 3-1 at a Standard Skins Tournament. I'd still appreciate any advice on how to make it better however. For reference, I am looking at playing this deck regularly at FNM and other standard events: Boros Aggro Deck Also, I am thinking about making myself an Unglued / Unhinged deck just for the hell of it. After reading some articles on interesting combos with those sets, I came up with this deck, and would like some feedback. I really just want to either get somebody stuck in an infinite damage loop, pull an infinite/infinite artifact creature, or combine the R&D Land and Ashnod's Coupon for a free drink. Unhinged / Unglued Deck Mef989 fucked around with this message at 02:13 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 02:10
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Mef989 posted:I took the advise that this thread gave me a few weeks back and as a newer player getting back into Magic after about a decade built myself a Boros Aggro deck instead of trying to play around with W/U Control or B/U Mill right off the bat. This deck has been doing fairly well, and I just went 3-1 at a Standard Skins Tournament. I'd still appreciate any advice on how to make it better however. For reference, I am looking at playing this deck regularly at FNM and other standard events: I might recommend doing 4 chains/2 hammers over the 3/3 split you have now. Does the hammer come in useful often enough that youre glad you drew it? Normally people would run spear of heliod where youre going hammer but it depends on the results youve been getting. Might also suggest madcap skills over titan strength, but again thats up to you and your results. Sounds like youve been doing ok. I'm sure people have said for you to get some shocklands/scrylands but thats usually a budget issue if youre new.
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Apr 8, 2014 02:16
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Fingers McLongDong posted:I might recommend doing 4 chains/2 hammers over the 3/3 split you have now. Does the hammer come in useful often enough that youre glad you drew it? Normally people would run spear of heliod where youre going hammer but it depends on the results youve been getting. Might also suggest madcap skills over titan strength, but again thats up to you and your results. Sounds like youve been doing ok. I'm sure people have said for you to get some shocklands/scrylands but thats usually a budget issue if youre new. I do plan on getting a few Temples in the near future, but shocklands are just too expensive for me. Most of the expensive cards here like Brimaz I was lucky enough to pull on my own. Would you recommend replacing the Boros Guildgates with the Temples entirely, or should I run 4 and 4? I do like Madcap Skills looking at it, so thank you for pointing that out. Titan's Strength has been ok sometimes for a surprise +3/+1 to avoid getting knocked out by or to kill a blocker, but I think I'd rather have the consistency and permanency. I've been liking the hammers, and they did really help out in a few games during the Skins tournament. I really enjoyed having Haste on the field, and those golems really helped in a few close games where I just needed a little bit more damage output. That said I do have the Spears, so I'll try them out to see how they work. I'll also try 4 chains / 2 Hammers or Spears to see how that ration plays.
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Apr 8, 2014 02:36
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Dungeon Ecology posted:^^^ he mentioned it was non-evergreen, so it would probably look something like: She, and yeah. I remember most of the decks having some sort of removal, and most had either flyers or ways to interact with them. His decks were two-coloured, and Dungeon Ecology's suggestions seem pretty reasonable for monocolour decks (though I'd put Infect in a two-colour deck so as not to confuse new players into thinking it's fundamental to Black). I also remember he had Landfall as the WR mechanic (powering Plated Geopede and Steppe Lynx), Evolve for UG, and the UB deck was a Morsel Theft / Prowl deck. Honestly, I think that as long as you're providing everyone with removal that typifies their colour (i.e. no Sunlance for white), pick two or three rares that work for the deck you're envisioning, and have everyone play each other, you can't really go wrong. If they lose, let them get another in-colour rare to power up their deck and teach them about subbing out old cards for new ones.
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Apr 8, 2014 03:07
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Does Wizards still make 30-card monocolored intro decks? Last summer at Magic Celebration Day my LGS did a side event where you bought in for $1, picked a random colored deck of this variety and played a few rounds of Swiss or whatever. Maybe look into picking up a bunch of those, let people choose one and play around with it, and then let them shuffle in a second colored deck to make your typical 60-card, two color deck. I've wanted to try this for a while but never got the chance.
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Apr 8, 2014 03:39
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Mef989 posted:I do plan on getting a few Temples in the near future, but shocklands are just too expensive for me. Most of the expensive cards here like Brimaz I was lucky enough to pull on my own. Would you recommend replacing the Boros Guildgates with the Temples entirely, or should I run 4 and 4? I would replace the guildgates, only because its an aggro deck and you cant risk having 8 tapped lands. Brimaz is awesome but you might be able to find someone online who would trade that one brimaz for a full set of sacred foundries, or close to it at least. The foundries won't lose too much (if any) value after rotation and having those plus the scrylands opens you up to having the correct manabase for more options. You could always sell them later. Or keep brimaz because he's super solid and will be seeing quite a bit of use in standard for a while, just an idea. Edit: wow dang sacred foundries have gone up a bit in price lately. I guess the rise of r/w burn bumped them, they are avg price of $13 on tcgplayer, glad I got some when they were under $10. Fingers McLongDong fucked around with this message at 03:57 on Apr 8, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 03:54
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a dozen swans posted:She, and yeah. Sorry about that. 
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Apr 8, 2014 07:49
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So Keranos has been revealed as has a really cool if clunky Enchantment in Dictate of the Twin Gods and I'm already thinking about a counter-burn U/R deck that utilises both, am I crazy or does this look not the absolute drizzling shits: //Creature (4) 1 Ętherling 3 Keranos, God of Storms //Instant (21) 1 Counterflux 4 Dissolve 3 Izzet Charm 4 Lightning Strike 2 Magma Jet 2 Negate 2 Syncopate 3 Turn // Burn //Planeswalker (6) 4 Jace, Architect of Thought 2 Ral Zarek //Enchantment (1) 1 Dictate of the Twin Gods //Sorcery (4) 4 Anger of the Gods //Land (24) 7 Island 4 of the U/R Scryland 7 Mountain 2 Mutavault 4 Steam Vents SB: 2 Counterflux SB: 1 Hammer of Purphoros SB: 2 Essence Scatter SB: 2 Fated Conflagration SB: 1 Gainsay SB: 1 Pithing Needle SB: 1 Ratchet Bomb SB: 3 Searing Blood SB: 1 Turn // Burn SB: 1 Dictate of the Twin Gods My main issue I'm seeing so far (other than it being janky as gently caress) is card draw, but the options are either adding to our bulky top end in Thoughtflare/Opportunity, or operate at sorcery speed in Divination/Jace. It's hard to get a sense of the balance between counters and burn spells until the cards come out and I can start play-testing it but I'm certainly excited.
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Apr 8, 2014 12:55
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LightReaper posted:So Keranos has been revealed as has a really cool if clunky Enchantment in Dictate of the Twin Gods and I'm already thinking about a counter-burn U/R deck that utilises both, am I crazy or does this look not the absolute drizzling shits: Inspiration costs 1 more than Divination and is instant speed card draw.
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Apr 8, 2014 13:14
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End of Life Guy posted:Im taking breakfast burrito to the SCG Legacy Open in Dallas this weekend, and am heavily considering replacing one Tinder Wall with a third Cabal Therapy in anticipation of all the counterspells i may not be aware of. I've been running Mimeoplasm Burrito a lot recently at various Legacy events, including GP Sunday side events, and I thought of this too, but really the plan Game 1 is different enough from the plan for Games 2/3 depending on matchup that the main should be just 2 Therapies. You bring in the extra copy to adapt to what they bring in, solely to increase your chance at casting one from your hand prior to milling (e.g. Crop Rotation, Surgical Extraction, multiple counterspells, etc.) but there are enough matchups you don't want to draw one so in a wide meta like an SCG Open stick to the plan.
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Apr 8, 2014 17:42
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Is it worth dropping the 4th Narcomoeba from the sideboard for a 3rd Therapy? EDIT: Going by the earlier 'primer' posts
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Apr 8, 2014 17:49
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bhsman posted:Is it worth dropping the 4th Narcomoeba from the sideboard for a 3rd Therapy? Yes, the Mimeoplasm SB should be something like: 4x Leyline of Sanctity 4x Leyline of the Void 4x Chancellor of the Annex 1x Giant Solifuge 1x Serra Avatar 1x Cabal Therapy
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Apr 8, 2014 18:01
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^^^^ Well, speak of the devil. Thanks!
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Apr 8, 2014 18:03
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AnacondaHL posted:Yes, the Mimeoplasm SB should be something like: Awesome, but why Serra Avatar over, say, Worldspine Wurm?
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Apr 8, 2014 18:12
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Wouldn't you rather just bring in Chancellor of the Annex in its place if you need it in the hand? I feel like you would only want to bring it in for counter heavy decks (to flash it back pre dread return) rather than against instant speed graveyard hate.bhsman posted:Awesome, but why Serra Avatar over, say, Worldspine Wurm? Worldspine wurm gives them turn to disrupt your board while they still have an emrakul. Serra Avatar requires that they either die or chump with emrakul before it comes back around to their turn.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:15
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bhsman posted:Awesome, but why Serra Avatar over, say, Worldspine Wurm? It's effectively impossible for your life total to be lower than a Show and Tell deck's life total on turn 3, so if you live the dream and actually have the card in your hand when SnT is cast, you can swing with Avatar and force them to block, and Avatar will survive.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:16
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tzirean posted:It's effectively impossible for your life total to be lower than a Show and Tell deck's life total on turn 3, so if you live the dream and actually have the card in your hand when SnT is cast, you can swing with Avatar and force them to block, and Avatar will survive. Dr. Stab posted:Worldspine wurm gives them turn to disrupt your board while they still have an emrakul. Serra Avatar requires that they either die or chump with emrakul before it comes back around to their turn. Fair enough; for some reason, I though Emrakul could be blocked by the 3 5/5 tokens produced by the original being sacrfied, killing Emrakul as a result. 
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Apr 8, 2014 18:22
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bhsman posted:Fair enough; for some reason, I though Emrakul could be blocked by the 3 5/5 tokens produced by the original being sacrfied, killing Emrakul as a result. You wouldn't want to do that, though. The plan with worldspine wurm is: Swing for 15, Sac Worldspine Wurm to Emrakul, take 15, then swing for 15 again on your turn. The difference between worldspine wurm and serra avatar is if they play, say, JTMS on the turn after show and tell, emrakul is already dead if you had dropped serra avatar.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:29
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Dr. Stab posted:You wouldn't want to do that, though. The plan with worldspine wurm is: Swing for 15, Sac Worldspine Wurm to Emrakul, take 15, then swing for 15 again on your turn. I think I'm just confused by the sequencing at this point; if the SnT player has cast it and you have Worldspine Wurm out, how does it not just block the Wurm with Emrakul? Same with Avatar.
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Apr 8, 2014 18:51
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Dr. Stab posted:Wouldn't you rather just bring in Chancellor of the Annex in its place if you need it in the hand? I feel like you would only want to bring it in for counter heavy decks (to flash it back pre dread return) rather than against instant speed graveyard hate. You can do both, or neither, depends on the matchups and cards you see/suspect. It's not about needing it in hand, it's about fudging the numbers to help your win percentage. There are matchups where winning Turn 1 isn't required, not to mention the whole Play/Draw thing, so maybe I want to reduce Chancellor draws, but also Cabal Therapy #3 isn't helpful if they are on the play and try Turn 1 Grafdigger's Cage. Against ONLY Surgical Extraction on the draw then I keep the Negations in and only side in the Therapy for Tinder Wall, since they can throw a bogus spell at the Chancellor trigger (e.g. Veteran Explorer, Deathrite Shaman or any elf, etc.) and you can win the short or long games. If they rely heavily on Counterspells then I'd keep the Chancellors in the sideboard, especially on the draw. But I've also had some Game 3s on the draw with a full set of Chancellors and Negations and Therapies (sided out a Manamorphose).
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Apr 8, 2014 19:06
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bhsman posted:I think I'm just confused by the sequencing at this point; if the SnT player has cast it and you have Worldspine Wurm out, how does it not just block the Wurm with Emrakul? Same with Avatar. Yes, that's the point. Make them chump block with Emrakul. Worldspine Wurm leaves behind three 5/5s, Serra Avatar leaves behind a 20/20. They should probably be boarding out Show&Tell anyways in games 2 and 3, but inexplicably I have yet to run into the matchup.
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Apr 8, 2014 19:13
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bhsman posted:I think I'm just confused by the sequencing at this point; if the SnT player has cast it and you have Worldspine Wurm out, how does it not just block the Wurm with Emrakul? Same with Avatar. emrakul blocks worldspine wurm, they trade, you get 3 5/5s and kill him over two turns. Serra Avatar kills Emrakul and you still have a 20/20
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Apr 8, 2014 19:14
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Dr. Stab posted:emrakul blocks worldspine wurm, they trade, you get 3 5/5s and kill him over two turns. Serra Avatar kills Emrakul and you still have a 20/20 But Emrakul has protection from colored spells; how is he dying to a white creature?
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Apr 8, 2014 20:07
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I think a two-color deck is probably best for beginners and long as you keep the cards simple. Learning how mana costs work is important.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:10
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bhsman posted:But Emrakul has protection from colored spells; how is he dying to a white creature? It's no longer a spell, it's a permanent. Same reason Oblivion Ring can target Emrakul and Baleful Strix is the most hilarious anti-Emrakul card ever.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:10
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Entropic posted:I think a two-color deck is probably best for beginners and long as you keep the cards simple. Learning how mana costs work is important. Yeah, especially if they've played other games it really shows off the potential of the game. I also think nonbasic lands are a nice thing to show off as long as they're simple taplands.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:16
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BaronVonVaderham posted:It's no longer a spell, it's a permanent. Same reason Oblivion Ring can target Emrakul and Baleful Strix is the most hilarious anti-Emrakul card ever. Ah alright, I had to check Gatherer to make sure but apparently it doesn't include permanents. Good to know.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:19
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bhsman posted:Ah alright, I had to check Gatherer to make sure but apparently it doesn't include permanents. Good to know. Emrakul is no Progenitus.
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Apr 8, 2014 20:24
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