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  1. - Top - End - #91
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    If Omnath strikes your fancy then I think you should go for that. One thing to keep in mind with mono green is to have enough cards that provide card advantage, so you don't run out of gas, as making lots of mana is what you are good at.
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  2. - Top - End - #92
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Ninjaman View Post
    Yeah, that's how sacrifice works. The point is he should come down early enough that they don't have good sacs to him.


    And sometimes you don't draw him and that shouldn't be a problem. You don't need card draw to beat your opponent to death with 1/1 spirits.


    The deck should be trying to win fast, that is why Oketra is so much better than Ethereal Absolution. Oketra making every other creature useless except for making tokens is not at all an argument, as they are also useless without Ethereal Absolution, if you accept that premise.

    I'd also much rather play Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants than Ethereal Absolution.


    Anything that costs 2 and swings for 2 is an aggressive creature. Having resilience, in the form of leaving behind a flyer when it dies, only makes it more aggressive.
    But you should probably play Hunted Witness, and quite possibly at least one other 1 drop.
    Haazda Marshal
    Gutterbones
    Pilfering Imp


    And that is why you play removal. Or just swing your guys into it to make spirits and kill him with those.


    Swing with one, keep one back. Your creatures can all double chump block. This should not be a problem.


    All of your creatures trade favorably. Also Celebrant can hit the board turn three for your two drop to swing.
    You don't swing for damage in response. Response is actual magic terminology. Call it backsswing.


    Instead of Ethereal Absolution for an anthem I'd much rather just play Ajani, Adversary of Tyrants.
    The problem is that you are trying to build a mid range deck while most of your deck is two drops. It means you have to rely on a few cards to make your deck work, and if you don't get them, or you do and they get answered, then it doesn't work. The more aggressive you make your deck, the less is that a problem.


    Did you just describe every deck in the history of ever?
    I had to take a while to consider how to respond to this honestly as it had me seriously puzzled for a while.

    Your obviously very experienced as a magic player and that means you must have used and played against aggro decks yet your commentary dosen;t track with that for me. I'm genuinely struggling to understand how your getting from point A to B. In the process you seem to be ignoring some fairly basic concepts and i'm so not used to having to explain them.

    The most basic concepts of an aggro deck are to remove threat to your life and your creatures from the board whilst maximising the number of options to deal damage to your opponents face. And doing the damage to the opponents face rapidly enough to ensure your opponent can't pull out enough midrange threats to stall you out.

    Great examples of good aggressive cards, (all from my rakdos deck), are Footlight fiend, (can kill a 1T creature and then deal 1 damage to another 1T creature or the opponent's face, or block and use the damage to deal with a 2T creature, or combo with other cards to kill a 3T or more ceature), Fireblade Artist, (a 2 mana 2/2 with haste that can also turn redundant creatures into next to unpreventable damage to the face, and being a 2/2 for 2 mana with haste gives it the ability to attack and kill most anything your opponent will have out in their first 2-3 turns without dying in return and haste lets it start swinging right away), Rakdos Guildmage, (another 2/2 for 2 mana this time with a nice direct damage ability for when 2 power becomes not enough that can be used to eek out the last few damage points in a rough spot), Dreadhorde Butcher, (and other 2 mana haste creature, only a 1/1 but gets bigger if allowed through and if blocked deals damage equal to it's power making it a minimum of a hasted footlight fiend and potentially a lot more scary than that if it gets a few counters or has any power buffs in play), Hackrobat, (A 3 mana drop that many aggressive decks can turn into a 2 mana drop that's a 2/3, letting it trade with virtually every early creature amazingly well, can for a little mana get deathtouch to kill tougher stuff or if left unblocked can become a 5/1, if you have any toughness buffs in play and enough mana it can become even bigger than that), Roustabout, (A 3/2 for 3 mana that deals 1 damage to the face when blocked and again cna trade with any early creature and a fair few midgame ones if you need to bust through for the last few points of damage). 2 of the most powerful albeit mono-coloured aggressive cards right now are steel leaf champion, (5/4 for 3 mana), and goblin chain whirler, (3/3 for 3 mana with first strike and 1 damage to everything when it arrives to boot).


    Compared to that the various 2/1 drops in my Teysa deck are glacial and awful. a 2/1 cannot trade with anything without dying, only celebrant has the means to deal damage directly to the face, (and is significantly less efficient than Fireblade Artist at it), and none of them have the ability to deal with midrange threats or trade with a creature and deal damage to the face without relying on another card. Yes they leave 1/1 tokens behind in most cases, but those tokens fail the last major requirement of an aggro deck. You might be able to deal with your opponents major threats with your 2/1 and then leave behind a token that they probably can't block, but you need a ludicrous number of them to kill an opponent before they can draw midrange threats and start setting up a board you can;t trade with efficiently and which can kill you faster than your killing your opponent. And you don't begin to have the mana efficiency required to actually achieve that kind of mass innately.

    Afterlife tokens simply put need one or more sources of some kind of buff to their numbers, power, or all round abilities to make them effective, and you can't get that till mid game, so trying to play aggro with an afterlife deck will just get you curb stomped into the ground by every midrange deck out there, as well as most combo decks, and actual aggression decks will laugh at you and proceed to beat you at the very thing your trying to do.


    As for that last line. How many decks can, (as one example of what i mean, there's several situations that can occour), engineer a situation where if your opponent attacks you, you gain life and he loses life, whilst if he doesn't you gain even more and he loses even more.
    Last edited by Carl; 2019-07-16 at 07:27 PM.

  3. - Top - End - #93
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    I just had an Arena match against someone named "Dathremar" and lost catastrophically. I'm sharing this because there was one thing I did manage to accomplish in it: I used the "nice" emote while their Ajani's Pridemate reached/passed 69/69.
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  4. - Top - End - #94
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
    Your obviously very experienced as a magic player and that means you must have used and played against aggro decks
    Not just played against them, I've mostly played them.

    Also, I didn't mean to say this was an aggro deck, more an aggressive midrange deck, and that I would make changes to make it more aggressive.

    The most basic concepts of an aggro deck are to remove threat to your life
    No, aggro decks don't care about their life total unless they are playing against a faster deck.

    and your creatures from the board
    Do you mean blockers?

    whilst maximising the number of options to deal damage to your opponents face.
    Making sure all your cards are good aggressively, yes.

    [QUOTE]And doing the damage to the opponents face rapidly enough to ensure your opponent can't pull out enough midrange threats to stall you out.[QUOTE]
    Or win through said midrange threats with some of the reach, (not the keyword), you also see in aggro decks, you even mentioned a couple of examples.

    Great examples of good aggressive cards, (all from my rakdos deck), are Footlight fiend,
    Not that good of an aggressive creature actually. Only swinging for 1 is a serious problem in an aggro deck. If it gets trough twice and pings the opponent that is fine, but if it only does it twice that's not very impressive. There's a reason shock is a bad burn card. The problem with it is that the opponent very much gets to chose, and it does very little when played later in the game.

    (can kill a 1T creature and then deal 1 damage to another 1T creature or the opponent's face, or block and use the damage to deal with a 2T creature, or combo with other cards to kill a 3T or more ceature),
    How often do you actually get to kill two things with it? Not very is my guess. And you stopped talking about an aggro deck the moment you talked about blocking. You're the aggro deck, blocking is not going to be a priority.

    Fireblade Artist, (a 2 mana 2/2 with haste that can also turn redundant creatures into next to unpreventable damage to the face, and being a 2/2 for 2 mana with haste gives it the ability to attack and kill most anything your opponent will have out in their first 2-3 turns without dying in return and haste lets it start swinging right away)
    It's funny that you here mention killing most things for the first turn, but later mention that your 2/1s don't trade with anything.
    This is the reach I mentioned earlier. You don't need to kill your opponent before he gets roadblocks if you can just kill the roadblocks.

    Rakdos Guildmage,
    I'm assuming you're talking about Cult Guildmage.
    Not actually that good of an aggressive creature.

    (another 2/2 for 2 mana this time with a nice direct damage ability for when 2 power becomes not enough that can be used to eek out the last few damage points in a rough spot),
    Being a 2/2 for 2 makes it better, but pingers generally aren't played in aggro decks, because it's just too slow, and this even costs mana and doesn't hit creatures.

    Dreadhorde Butcher, (and other 2 mana haste creature, only a 1/1 but gets bigger if allowed through and if blocked deals damage equal to it's power making it a minimum of a hasted footlight fiend and potentially a lot more scary than that if it gets a few counters or has any power buffs in play)
    A great aggro creature. Slith Firewalker was OG, and this is a better version. You do need to remove blockers reliably, but this is exactly what you want to be doing as an aggro deck.

    Hackrobat, (A 3 mana drop that many aggressive decks can turn into a 2 mana drop that's a 2/3, letting it trade with virtually every early creature amazingly well, can for a little mana get deathtouch to kill tougher stuff or if left unblocked can become a 5/1,
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but it becomes a 4/1.
    It's still good if you can play it for 2 reliably, not that good if you can't.

    if you have any toughness buffs in play and enough mana it can become even bigger than that),
    You're playing a rakdos aggro deck, you don't have toughness pumps.

    Roustabout, (A 3/2 for 3 mana that deals 1 damage to the face when blocked and again cna trade with any early creature and a fair few midgame ones if you need to bust through for the last few points of damage).
    Rakdos Roustabout is a limited aggro card, it is not good in constructed. It only swings on curve, doesn't have haste, trades down, and deals little direct damage.


    Compared to that the various 2/1 drops in my Teysa deck are glacial and awful. a 2/1 cannot trade with anything without dying,
    Except for 1/Xs it trades with the same things the fireblade trades with.
    Also this is one of the reasons I suggested Ajani, Adversery of Tyrants.

    only celebrant has the means to deal damage directly to the face,
    You don't need more. I've played aggro decks with no direct damage.

    (and is significantly less efficient than Fireblade Artist at it),
    It is significantly more efficient than the Fireblade at it. It triggers off your creatures dying, so if you just swing into blockers they can either block and take damage, or not block and still take damage. And your creatures then leave behind spirits that are hard to block, and drain even if they do block them.

    and none of them have the ability to deal with midrange threats
    Plaguecrafter does. Why are you not playing that card?

    or trade with a creature and deal damage to the face without relying on another card.
    You're a synergy deck, that means relying on synergy between your cards. That does not mean you can't be an aggro deck.

    Yes they leave 1/1 tokens behind in most cases, but those tokens fail the last major requirement of an aggro deck.
    There is one major requirement in an aggro deck. Killing the opponent. 1/1 tokens do that just fine.

    You might be able to deal with your opponents major threats with your 2/1 and then leave behind a token that they probably can't block, but you need a ludicrous number of them to kill an opponent before they can draw midrange threats and start setting up a board you can;t trade with efficiently and which can kill you faster than your killing your opponent.
    You don't need many tokens, swinging with your creatures already brings the opponent down, even if you only bring him down to 15, which is a lot less than you should bring them down to, 3 spirits still kills them in five turns, which is less than most midrange fatties can win through chump blockers for days and removal.

    And you don't begin to have the mana efficiency required to actually achieve that kind of mass innately
    What are you talking about? You play a creature per turn, sometimes two. The mass of tokens happens naturally.

    Afterlife tokens simply put need one or more sources of some kind of buff to their numbers, power, or all round abilities to make them effective, and you can't get that till mid game,
    I've played standard with Lingering souls. 1/1 fliers don't need anything when you have enough of them.

    so trying to play aggro with an afterlife deck will just get you curb stomped into the ground by every midrange deck out there,
    Not if you build it properly.

    as well as most combo decks,
    I don't know anything about the current standard, but there doesn't tend to be a lot of combo decks flying about.

    and actual aggression decks will laugh at you and proceed to beat you at the very thing your trying to do.
    Are you trying to tell me that decks of 2/2s are good against decks of 2/1s that leave 1/1s when they die? And you play lifegain? And Teysa? How is that a bad matchup?

    As for that last line. How many decks can, (as one example of what i mean, there's several situations that can occour), engineer a situation where if your opponent attacks you, you gain life and he loses life, whilst if he doesn't you gain even more and he loses even more.
    Every deck that plays anything with lifelink. But that wasn't the important part. You "engineer a situation" one way, other decks do it another way, but that doesn't change the fact that they do it. When an aggro deck keeps sending threats at you that you can't answer, and control removes all your threats until you have no way of winning. both create situations where the opponent has no winning move.


    I think you need to get out of your head what an aggro deck is. This is an aggro deck.
    Last edited by Ninjaman; 2019-07-17 at 03:45 AM.
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  5. - Top - End - #95
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by enderlord99 View Post
    I just had an Arena match against someone named "Dathremar" and lost catastrophically. I'm sharing this because there was one thing I did manage to accomplish in it: I used the "nice" emote while their Ajani's Pridemate reached/passed 69/69.
    You're doing gods work Enderlord *salute*

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    I'm kinda 'reheating' old Tier 1.5-2 decks including Izzet Drakes, Selesnya Token and Dimir Midrange (tho I netdecked that one). Theyre surprisingly fun and easy since people on MTGA 'forgot' how to play around those.

    I want to prepare a few budget decks for casual play to get out of my shell and into paper already.

    I aim at mono blue, Izzet Drakes and maybe a budget white weenie deck. Or do you feel that is too oppressively tier one? I dont really enjoy jank but i feel i should have some low tier thing to play vs some more casual stuff.

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    My current Arena deck has many ways to win, but the one that occurs the most is, for some reason, my opponent conceding.
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  8. - Top - End - #98
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    I'm going to guess if your main win-con is concession it has one or more of the following cards: Mass Manipulation, Teferi, Narset, Wilderness Reclamation, or Nexus of Fate.

    These cards are incredibly powerful, and serve to remove some aspect of playing Magic: The Gathering from your opponent. This makes them incredibly polarizing cards that some people don't enjoy playing against.

    For instance, I basically snap concede match to a resolved Curious Obsession, particularly if I've attempted to remove the offending draft dork and got met by a dive down or similar.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Techwarrior View Post
    I'm going to guess if your main win-con is concession it has one or more of the following cards: Mass Manipulation, Teferi, Narset, Wilderness Reclamation, or Nexus of Fate.
    Nope, nope. nope, nope, and nope.

    None of those are in my deck at all.

    Incidentally, all of my (alternate) win-cons have (I think) occurred at least once, but the second-most common victory is just... reducing their Life to zero with attacking creatures.

    Of course, I lose about half the time, so that's the real most common outcome.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
    I had to take a while to consider how to respond to this honestly as it had me seriously puzzled for a while.
    Dont be, here, take the second place of an SCG Open on the same colors:

    https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetyp...vampires#paper

    checking out decks online let you get out of your pre-conceived notions and see how things with actual results work. Theory is nice and all, but you cant argue with tournament wins.

    and for a mono color version:

    https://www.mtggoldfish.com/archetyp...-w-89172#paper

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Many, if not most people will concede if they're reasonably certain they're going to lose. (I certainly do.) It doesn't have to involve any of the aforementioned "miserable to play against" cards. (None of which should really elicit an instant concession on their own, at least if you have a decent board.) I'm not sure that's at all remarkable. I certainly wouldn't count it as a separate win condition - whatever would have killed them if they hadn't conceded still counts as the thing that killed them.

    For instance, I basically snap concede match to a resolved Curious Obsession, particularly if I've attempted to remove the offending draft dork and got met by a dive down or similar.
    Ha, I usually sit at the other end of concessions like that. It can certainly make sense, especially if sideboards are a thing. Sometimes I am relieved when that happens, though. Me drawing cards doesn't always mean I draw useful cards, like counterspells to stop whatever degenerate crap your deck is doing.

    Keep in mind that if your removal spell can also hit enchantments (e.g. Mortify), you can and should hit the Curious Obsession, to force me to have Spell Pierce instead.
    Last edited by Silfir; 2019-07-17 at 05:24 PM.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Silfir View Post
    Many, if not most people will concede if they're reasonably certain they're going to lose. (I certainly do.) It doesn't have to involve any of the aforementioned "miserable to play against" cards. (None of which should really elicit an instant concession on their own, at least if you have a decent board.) I'm not sure that's at all remarkable. I certainly wouldn't count it as a separate win condition - whatever would have killed them if they hadn't conceded still counts as the thing that killed them.
    Oh.

    Then I've won a lot of different ways.

    Most recently, I won technically by Vrazka, Golgari Queen's emblem... but my opponent was down to 3 life anyway, and I was at least halfway to another two conditions (specifically, I had 6(/10) Treasures from Revel in Riches and my Simic Ascendancy had 10(/20) Growth counters.)

    So, yeah. I'm glad they didn't concede, because it meant I got to show off.

    The deck also contains the self-mill Jace and Etrata the Silencer. I'm going to add Lilliana's Contract once I have access to both it and a few more demons.

    ...

    I named the deck "I Need Six Eggs!" because it absolutely does not put all its eggs in one basket! I made sure all the win-cons are relatively well-supported; many cards contribute and synergize with multiple of them at once.
    Last edited by enderlord99; 2019-07-17 at 05:37 PM.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Simic Ascendancy usually isn't worth much in constructed, but I once got it in a draft and built the deck for it. I actually got it to trigger once, too, with a Biogenic Upgrade for the win against an opponent who still had a pretty substantial batch of creatures.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    On the aggro discussion: Aggro divides into multiple archetypes and defining them helps understanding what the deck actually is doing. They are divided by the concepts of threat density, card advantage, and tempo.

    Rush-Aggro/Burn: This deck tries to win by having all threat density. Every card damages the opponent, and you throw away card advantage by casting all of your cheap creatures first before they can cast more expensive and efficient blockers, then burning the blockers away, and finally just burning face for lethal. This will never go away, but is very weak to life gain, combo, and very answer heavy control decks. Usually Red.

    Tempo: Tempo decks lower their threat density in order to put in very cheap answers. Tempo decks play evasive (hard or impossible to block) creatures, protect them with counterspells, and have card draw that allows them to survive the card disadvantage of playing all 1-2 drops. Usually Blue.

    Midrange decks: Midrange decks have low threat density, and use a mixture of better creatures and removal to wear down aggro decks, while switch hitting to a tempo deck to try and kill control. Where tempo lands a threat and then protects it, midrange usually kills a threat and then plays a creature on turn 3-4. Usually Black.

    Spirit tokens naturally lead to either tempo or midrange style decks, and perform poorly as rush aggro. They have evasion and opponents cannot trade favorably, but they kill more slowly then RA/Burn. If you look at BW Tokens in modern you see it as a midrange deck with anthem effects which make the spirits better, and discard to protect them and slow down the opponent. The curve is kept low, and the card advantage comes from getting multiple creatures with each threat card.

    So if I have a hand of fatal push, thoughtseize, and lingering spirits and they had a hand of fatal push, thoughtseize and Dark Confidant I have the advantage. If they take my thoughtseize I can push their confidant, but they can't effectively push my tokens. If they take my push I can thoughtseize them, same thing. If they take my lingering souls I still get 2 spirits, get to push their bob and still have thoughtseize in hand.

    In your case you need to choose whether you are tempo and are going to disrupt them to protect your guys, or midrange and take away their blockers using kill spells. Either way you aren't rush aggro.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Silfir View Post
    Ha, I usually sit at the other end of concessions like that. It can certainly make sense, especially if sideboards are a thing. Sometimes I am relieved when that happens, though. Me drawing cards doesn't always mean I draw useful cards, like counterspells to stop whatever degenerate crap your deck is doing.
    i remember when sphinx revelation was in standard, many would concede when it was cast with x = 7, but I've won through that several times when they've drawn 5+ lands.
    Concede when you know you can't win, not when you think you can't win.

    but is very weak to combo
    Now this is just not at all something you can claim.
    Very fast, non-interactive aggro decks have a bad matchup against faster combo decks, but they have good matchups against slower combo decks.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Ninjaman View Post
    Now this is just not at all something you can claim.
    Very fast, non-interactive aggro decks have a bad matchup against faster combo decks, but they have good matchups against slower combo decks.
    I'll concede that line to you.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Ok i think i'm getting a bit better where the disconnect between us is coming from, (Pseudo edit:also tvtyrant made a nice post). 5 turns after getting 3 afterlife tokens out in arena is glassical for an aggro deck in my experiance. I couldn't get 3 tokens earlier than my turn 4, that means a kill turn 9 earliest. (And thats assuming i can get them down to 15 by that point, which isn't highly probable). Thats getting into deep combo territory from my perspective. The good aggro deck's have you dead or a massive board you can't kill, (without a full board wipe), by turn 6 latest, with good luck some can kill you turn 4. Thats why my rakdos deck is packing 4 copies of glass of the guildpact, whilst it's fairly aggressive it can run into midrange issues still if i don't draw great. Similar deal with cult guildmage Being able to tap him for damage is great for spectacle triggers and last gasp pings and the like. He's not amazing for direct swinging early on compared to some but he's ok and he can do little things on the side if i don't draw perfectly.


    My point with 2/1 vs 1/2 vs 2/2 is that there's a lot more things that can block or be blocked by a 2/2 and die but not kill it. A 1/2 deals damage very slowly on the attack and can't trade effectively with anything with more than a 1/1, a 2/1 can trade directly with most things in the 2-3 mana range, but it tends to die to most of them too. A 2/2 trades efficiently, (as in it survives the trade and the opposing creature doesn't), with a lot more low mana drops. Coming out of being blocked with a 2/2 is a lot more valuable than coming out with a 1/1 for future turns as it gives you more options and just plain more damage throughput. Yes a 2/1 trades directly with a 2/2, and if it's got afterlife it's at least semi-efficient. but it trades very inefficiently with a number of 1 mana drops, and some 2 mana drops, (mostly spells that generate tokens), are also inefficient or direct trades at best. I think the concept i'm coming at is there's a lot of stuff that would be chump blocking a 2/2 that would be hard blocking, (i.e blocking and killing) a 2/1. Now a 2/1 for 1 mana is a whole different deal where you can manage it as thats a potential mana advantage, you can play it on turn 3, (or 2 turn 2, though do note what i'm going to say about mana in a little bit), in addition to a 2 mana drop and get a 2 for one. 2 threats in one turn, something aggro decks tend to be good at. Incidentally thats why footlight fiend is such a handy, (not amazing overall but decent within the colour combo), B/R aggro card, it can function as a 2/1 for 1 mana easily, and can do other stuff if thats what you need.

    Regarding celebrant vs other options. Don't get me wrong it can be amazing under the right circumstances, but if your just playing 1 card per turn it can quickly reach the point where deliberately getting one of your creatures killed to trigger celebrant ends up favouring your opponent, (usually via said creature on the backswing), this ties into my point about glassical, and my mention of hackrobat, (your right it becomes a 4/1 brain fart, sorry). Toughness 3 creatures commonly start turning up around turn 4, they can turn up earlier, but given mana factors, and a few other things turn 4 is probably the better cutoff point. It's a similar situation with flyers though they ten to average a tough later still. 9 turns from start is going to be very rough in a deck where everything aggressive is unable to cope with a Toughness 3 creature and where a single Toughness 2 flyer shuts down your secondary aggression path. Similar thing with Plaugcrafter. Most opponents will let you chew some of their life without blocking, (and if they can going for the backswing), if they can't get a favorable trade. giving them somthing thats a redundant early game card to throw under plaugecrafters bus. In heavy removal decks he's amazing and annoying as all hell because your opponent probably won't have anything to throw under him but their nastiest threat, but in creature heavy deck's he's a bit less efficient, (though still very much a nice card, and in recursion he can be downright infuriating too).


    Regarding deck type, this may be a case of a misunderstanding between us, but i'd definitely describe my deck as midrange atm but what i more meant is the current crop of afterlife creatures are inherently midrange creatures. Regardless of how aggressively stated they are your never really going to kill an opponent with them and their tokens before they start pulling midrange threats out so they inherently only really work in midrange or combo decks being your early board presence cards that then transition into your midrange threats, you can go aggressive in some cases, (and i've actually done the aggressive all in attack every turn use tokens to kill thing on the odd occasion), but more often you using your early cards to spar for time and space to pull out the midrange options that seal the deal.

    I'd also note by nature multi-colour decks tend to play a few tap lands so they're mana does not curve up sharply enough for a full aggro.

    Also what @TvTyrant said here is a big part of what i'm driving at here:

    Spirit tokens naturally lead to either tempo or midrange style decks, and perform poorly as rush aggro. They have evasion and opponents cannot trade favorably, but they kill more slowly then RA/Burn.
    When i say aggro i'm very much thinking that style of deck. In fact here's skybilz current red aggro deck, (variants on which make up a good percentage of arena's aggro decks atm): https://www.streamdecker.com/deck/Zaws8tMotQ


    Regarding that last line thing again,. let me give you an example that is fairly similar to a few turn 5-7 situations i've experienced vs mono-green:

    My board has 1x Celebrant, 1x teysa, 4 afterlife tokens and a Seraph of Scales, i have a black mana to spare. opponent has probably a few different smaller mana generating creatures, but the two they decide to sign in with are Ghalta and Steel Leaf champion.

    I block steel leaf with the 4 tokens and Ghalta with Seraph after tapping black to give her deathtouch. After blocked but before triggers Ghalta deals 9 damage to my face and everything that attacked or blocked on both sides is dead. Then my Lifelink kicks in and gives me 4 life back so at this point i've taken just 5 damage to the face. Then Celebrant triggers 5 times followed by Teysa doubling ti up to 10. Opponent loses 10 life and i gain 10. That puts me 5 ahead of where i started and my opponent is down 10 life. Then my Seraph's afterlife goes off for 2 1/1 tokens and Teysa doubles that up. My finial board state after everything has resolved leaves me down one Seraph but with 5 more life whilst my opponent has lost 10 life and their steel leafand Ghalta. But if they don't attack i can swing next turn for 9 damage to their face, gain 4 life and if i tapped a white mana for Seraph still have everything available to block. Thats the very definition of lose lose for them.

    @LansZero: B/W vampires is a completely different deck to afterlife creatures.
    Last edited by Carl; 2019-07-18 at 01:42 AM.

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
    I'd also note by nature multi-colour decks tend to play a few tap lands so they're mana does not curve up sharply enough for a full aggro.

    @LansZero: B/W vampires is a completely different deck to afterlife creatures.
    taplands? Arent all 10 shocklands and also checklands in standard? Why are you ever playing taplands?

    also, then something like this?

    http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/23-02...s-aristocrats/

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by LansXero View Post
    taplands? Arent all 10 shocklands and also checklands in standard? Why are you ever playing taplands?

    also, then something like this?

    http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/23-02...s-aristocrats/
    Until the next set release, yes, at which point checklands will rotate out.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Yes they're available but i have more of the tap lands of various flavours, the ravnica guild shocklands being the exception.

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    but why would an agro deck that needs to not miss drops on curve ever play tapped lands?

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    Quote Originally Posted by LansXero View Post
    but why would an agro deck that needs to not miss drops on curve ever play tapped lands?
    When i say available i mean you can have them atm, not that i actually have them, i don't and i don't have enough rare wildcards to be overly heavy on grabbing them. Thats the general downside of a multi-colour aggro, your mana curve is going to be less aggressive than a mono-aggro deck, because you either have to play various form of tap lands or run just mono lands and hope your draw's don't hate you with the ratio you get.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
    When i say available i mean you can have them atm, not that i actually have them, i don't and i don't have enough rare wildcards to be overly heavy on grabbing them. Thats the general downside of a multi-colour aggro, your mana curve is going to be less aggressive than a mono-aggro deck, because you either have to play various form of tap lands or run just mono lands and hope your draw's don't hate you with the ratio you get.
    or... just get a better landbase? Sorry but its one thing that you dont have them, fine, and another claiming that its an 'aggro issue' as if they didnt have a choice. Agresive manabases have been around for agro for a long time; fixing with taplands is very, very rarely a thing in standard.

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    Quote Originally Posted by LansXero View Post
    or... just get a better landbase? Sorry but its one thing that you dont have them, fine, and another claiming that its an 'aggro issue' as if they didnt have a choice. Agresive manabases have been around for agro for a long time; fixing with taplands is very, very rarely a thing in standard.
    Great what happens when you can't do that. Unless we get another cycle of shock lands your going to have a grand total of 1 shockland after set rotation. Tap lands are vastly more common than shocklands so please don't act like it's allways been possibble to field a better mana base because it hasn't and we both know that.

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
    Great what happens when you can't do that. Unless we get another cycle of shock lands your going to have a grand total of 1 shockland after set rotation. Tap lands are vastly more common than shocklands so please don't act like it's allways been possibble to field a better mana base because it hasn't and we both know that.
    Wat.

    Guilds doesnt rotate in October, so thats another whole year of at least shocklands. Sure, checklands are rotating with Dominaria, but Im sure something will come out in the new Fairy block. Of course, it might not be available to all color pairings, but we've had enough mana fixing to support 2-color aggresive decks for years, between checklands, shocklands, fastlands and even fetchlands havent been that long ago. Painlands were also a sort of staple in core sets. So Im not sure where you get the idea this hasnt been the case.

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Quote Originally Posted by Carl View Post
    Great what happens when you can't do that. Unless we get another cycle of shock lands your going to have a grand total of 1 shockland after set rotation. Tap lands are vastly more common than shocklands so please don't act like it's allways been possibble to field a better mana base because it hasn't and we both know that.
    All 10 checklands will rotate out, but all 10 shocklands are staying in Standard for another year. 5 are in GRN and the other 5 are in RNA, both of which came after the last rotation and are therefore not rotating out yet.
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    Quote Originally Posted by LansXero View Post
    Wat.

    Guilds doesnt rotate in October, so thats another whole year of at least shocklands. Sure, checklands are rotating with Dominaria, but Im sure something will come out in the new Fairy block. Of course, it might not be available to all color pairings, but we've had enough mana fixing to support 2-color aggresive decks for years, between checklands, shocklands, fastlands and even fetchlands havent been that long ago. Painlands were also a sort of staple in core sets. So Im not sure where you get the idea this hasnt been the case.
    Also sort of replying to douglas here. I'm getting that idea from the ratio multi-colour of lands that enter tapped to other types i've seen in various MTG products i've looked at over the years combined with some comments on the MTG blog in an article a little while back about how good for multi-colour the current environment is.

    As an aside i'm aware the shocklands aren't rotating out, and i actually have 4 copies of blood crypt in my rakdos deck. My point is there's not usually a glut on this level in terms of number of multi-colour lands that don't enter tapped. There's usually some form around but it's fairly limited. Being in a situation where you can stack 8 of them into the deck as currently is the good portion.

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Someone milled me out while I had the version of Jace that makes me win instead of losing from it, but they tried to compensate by getting rid of him at the last second.

    This would have worked, even though the card they used (throw to the wind, or something like that) lets me recast for free, because it really was the last possible moment, right before ending their turn.

    Unfortunately for them, I had an Emergence Zone out, so it didn't matter that it was their turn.
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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    So, I made a deck list. Obviously new to this, so any advice would be appreciated!

    Also, correct me if wrong-Commander format has 1 Commander and 100 Cards total, with NO duplicates (except for basic lands)?
    I have a LOT of Homebrew!

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    Default Re: Magic the Gathering Thread XXIV: *Slaps Roof* This Thread Can Hold So Many Chand

    Your deck appears to have 2 too many cards: one of your cards, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger, is not numbered, so you have 30 lands and 71 non-land cards, plus a Commander, which is 102 cards. You can only play 100 total, including your Commander.

    I would probably play more lands: by statistics, a 30-land Commander deck is equivalent to an 18 land regular constructed deck. You probably want to play at least 35 lands, which is still light by statistics but gets balanced out by all the mana-ramp. Especially if you're playing lots of 3-mana ramp spells, which it seems you are, you need to make sure you'll have a reasonable starting draw with 3 or more lands to play the game. I would suggest playing some non-Forest lands in these last 5 slots, to help make up the fact that you have to cut some of your spells for them. Lands like Myriad Landscape and Blighted Woodland give you lands that act as ramp which is helpful for a big-mana deck like yours, and lands with effects that are useful like Mystifying Maze give you more options. I would also make space for something that destroys enemy lands because many of them are broken *cough Cabal Coffers cough* so you should consider something like Ghost Quarter, Field of Ruin, or Tectonic Edge.

    I can't offer too much specifics on your card choices; most of them seem to be the kinds of green cards I often see played, so you'll probably do pretty reasonably with it. I'd say try it out and see what you like and don't like now that you have a list. Omnath, Locus of Mana is a pretty generally effective strategy.
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