Tuesday, March 31, 2015

[Standard] White Black Erebos Version 2

This is a fun deck, and one that I think will have enough Dragon hate.






I lost the match against the following competitive deck in Just for Fun, but I can lucky on the draws during the first game. Here I take out a bunch of Hornet's Nest tokens.


My opponent buffs up his Goblin Rabblemaster...


...and I take it out with Reprisal for the win!


Sunday, March 29, 2015

Blog Posts in PDF format at Scribd

I love Scribd. It is a great way to distribute publications, such as these blog posts aggregated into PDF books.

Volume 1: Various Magic the Gathering Decks from this blog

https://www.scribd.com/doc/260288679/01-MTGA-Blog-Decks-v01-20150319



Volume 2: Various Magic the Gathering Decks from this blog

https://www.scribd.com/doc/260288717/02-MTGA-Blog-Decks-v01-20150319


Volume 3: Various Magic the Gathering Decks from this blog

https://www.scribd.com/doc/260288762/03-MTGA-Blog-Decks-v01-20150319



Thursday, March 26, 2015

The April 2015 Play Plan

I have opened dozens and dozens of booster packs online, mostly from Mirage, Tempest and Urza block, but have not played with most of these cards. I also have a ton of Vintage Masters and Modern Masters cards, cards waiting to be redeemed for several recent complete sets, and many other cards, including awesome staples like Snapcaster Mage that I seldom, if ever play. This is a shame, and the core of my April 2015 Play Plan is to put to use as many of the cards I have as possible, beginning with the ones I find most interesting and/or playable, and, time permitting, moving down the list to cards that were not even designed to be good in Constructed, the so-called 'Limited Chaff.'

Here are the steps to form the plan (as I develop it, each step will get its own set of posts):

1. Catalog what I have.
2. Set up a sequence by which I will pick a small number of cards and make a deck with them.
3. Track cards that I have already played using a coverage metric.

This is a big fun task, as I now have 5,624 distinct cards by name, and a total of 17,483 cards.

1.


2. Modern needs to be the first format, followed by Legacy, followed by Vintage, and only because of how many people play these formats in Just for Fun goes in that order from most to least. There are many themes, or archetypes, and I will play to those archetypes (tribal, milling, and so on).

3. The cards I have played with a lot are off the list for now. Some are staples that need to go in almost every deck of a type. How could you not play Ponder or Path to Exile if you can, right? They will be in the decks, but only because I need a reasonably working deck that does not lose every single game-that's no fun.

Here are the counts of the heavy play cards. I came across a total of 609, or 10.8 percent of all of the cards I have by name.


When I look at the rarities, excluding four promos and the three Moxen, here are the counts by set. The counts are about equal for common, uncommon, and rare.


April 14 update: OK, I lasted two weeks, time to buy some cardz!

[Standard] Warriors with Reprisal

I am preparing this deck for when everyone starts playing with the new Dragons of Tarkir cards. I have given myself the challenge of not buying any more cards until May 1st. That means I will only be running DTK hate decks in Standard. Here is my warriors Standard deck now adapted as such a hate deck. Reprisal is a key card. I will eventually likely add Pacifism.





Here is a match I won against a spanking new Dragons deck. Game 1 Atarka won the game for my opponent.


Second game Reprisals come in from the sideboard and take out all dragons.



Game 3 I despised a Dragon and my opponent got mana screwed. I hit early and fast with my warriors before they could be board wiped with Anger of the Gods.


Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Seven packs of Invasion online

Just for fun. Some nice pulls: two Obsidian Acolytes, Overabundance, Urza's Rage, Rith, the Awakener, Blurred Mongoose, and Saproling Symbiosis. Five out of seven rares have some value, and that's great.















Sunday, March 22, 2015

[Modern] FRF Build: Sage's Reverie

I tried several Standard builds that just didn't work. The deck works in Modern but it is not a strong deck. It is playing three colors and it could use some of the Fetchlands I don't have.





Here is a game I won.


And here is another game I won.


Of course, the deck can choke if you do no critters for several turns. 


Wednesday, March 18, 2015

[Standard] White Green Shell version 2

Now it has two flyers and better critters over-all.



Here are two wins. With the right early drops the deck can be fast.


 And against a deck with only a few flyers, it can win.


That's a buffed up flying Ajani's Pridemate.


Monday, March 16, 2015

[Standard] Two Birds with One Shot ahead of Dragons of Tarkir

I built a White Green shell in preparation for DTK and lost against the sacrifice creature shell I was planning to build also in preparation for DTK. Here is my deck:



The sacrifice creature deck is BUG, black/blue/green, or Sultai. The game ended up being a 21 turn marathon. Here is turn 16. By this turn my opponent has killed off my two big critters (Mistcutter Hydras both) to draw extra cards out of Abzan Beastmaster.


By turn 18 I landed an Ajani's Pridemate that I was boosting pretty good. Here is a Gods Willing neutralizing a Sultai Charm and then a second Gods Willing neutralizing a Grim Contest to force the Ajani's Pridemate to fight Keepsake Gorgon with Deathtouch.


Turn 21 my opponent unleashes his sacrifice creature combo for-the-win (FTW): sacrifices a Keepsake Gorgon and three Sultai Flayers ('Whenever a creature you control with toughness 4 or greater dies, you gain 4 life') to trigger massive lifegain and the double 'Whenever a creature you control with toughness 4 or greater dies, each opponent loses 2 life and you gain 2 life' triggers on Kheru Bloodsucker.


The total damage of these sacrifices is 16, and that takes me down to 4. The final sacrifice is of Archer's Parapet and that is the final damage needed for my opponent to win the game.