Shadows Over Innistrad Redemption Status Part 2

Link to Part 1

Items in blue I just got (bottom feeding).

April 28 update: got the rare lands and a few other of the less expensive cards, all in blue. $94.43 for the rest of the cards I am missing.

April 30 update: $10 (including  a play set of Sigardas for fun plays). I am down to the ten money cards.

May 6 update: $16 for additional bottom-feeding.
May 11 update: time to buy some rare lands for play (Port Town and Choked Estuary) and five money cards. I am down to five cards.

May 21 update: $12 to take myself to only two cards.

Basic Lands are the workhorses of Magic, and I never focus on them. I should. Here are the ones for this set. I now am only really missing Nahiri and Avacyn.

June 7, 2016: Nahiri, after the hype. If it tanks more I may go for more to see it cast Emrakul in Modern. If not, then this is the only copy I need for Redemption. Now I am only missing Avacyn.

[Standard] SOI Learner Decks in Blue/Green (Simic) and Bant

These two decks are for learning how many of the casual Investigate cards work. Both decks lose approximately 2/3 of the time, and that's why they are learner decks. Here is the Simic one.

First, a message from our sponsors, tournament practice players who use casual players as punching bags in Just for Fun. Here is a Vampire deck.

And here is a deck featuring the new Jace.

Here is a win. I landed three Erdwal Illuminators.

And could use all those clue tokens to draw extra cards.

And to play tokens generated by me sacrificing clue tokens.

In this game I got wiped out.

But then I was able to cast a flyer and hit for the win. Look at those clue tokens. My opponent gave up on this one.

Here is a game against Thopter tokens I came very close to losing.

At this stage I had no flyers and was getting drained quickly.

I was able to take out one of the tokens with this format's Naturalize, which is one mana drop heavier and generates a clue token.

My opponent played Blessed Reincarnation for a Prowess trigger.

But this move turned out as a backfire that yielded me the game. I now had a flyer.

And after cleaning out the Thopters I had enough of an advantage to go for the win. My opponent gave up but I wish they hadn't, because I will never know if I indeed could win this game.

Here is White/Blue/Green (Bant) version of the Investigate learner deck. Its a lot of fun, but it needs Tireless Tracker really bad, and also to replace some of the Investigate spells with stronger spells. Otherwise, I lose the game with a bunch of clue tokens I was unable to trigger.

Here I played against a better deck abusing Investigate. It uses Tireless Tracker and The Great Aurora. Because you get to cast all of your lands in one bang, Tireless Tracker generates as many clue tokens as you had lands to drop after The Great Aurora.

My opponent had the better creatures at the end of the game.

In this win I was able to swing with a flyer thanks to Invocation of Saint Traft. Its a great enchantment, but it should be better in Modern, where it can enchant creatures that have Hexproof.

I had this one.

Shadows Over Innistrad Redemption Status

Its way early, planning to redeem this one. Here is what I am missing after getting all the cards that are cheap right now.

April 19, 2016 update: $142.05 to get all the cards I am missing (31). I need to not pay that much, and I know (more like hope!) some of the mythics are at their all-time high.

Link to Part 2

[Standard] White Blue Investigate Casual

I like Investigate, but it makes decks a little slow. Also, in this deck, I have fun with the equipment theme; and 'having fun' is code for losing lots of games to over-powered decks, which I did. Oh well, at this stage in the game, I am just learning how the new cards play. Here is the deck.

I lost against a mono-blue deck I liked a lot. Its based on the theme on stalling until you can drop a bunch of Zombies with Rise from the Tides. Pieces of the Puzzle gets you tappers. Jace's Sanctum is a Scry filterer.

Grip of the Roll is very useful in this deck.

Disperse is a less powerful Boomerang.

Here comes the first batch of zombies. By this time my opponent has a graveyard full of instants an sorceries.

After the second batch my opponent has 14 2/2 Zombies. I am done.

Here is a game I won against someone playing the new Sorin. I had Odric on the battlefield making all of my creatures flyers.

Eventually my opponent chump blocked with their lone flyer.

Playing Remorseless Punishment would have been effective against me earlier in the game.

But after it I still had a field I could win with. My opponent gave up.

[Standard] SOI First Pass is Bant (White, Blue, Green)

I ran a bunch of Solitaire games with singles of all of the affordable cards, and right now, and especially based on my prerelease experience, I am really into Investigate. Here are some of the Solitaire plays that I enjoyed the most.

Odric looks like will be a lot of casual fun. I see why its a penny rare: it requires a lot of setting up, and playing multiple cards for an effect, such as your limited jank battle tricks. Still, casual constructed? sure!

Gryff's Boon is a lot of fun, but it is getting pricey and I will skip it for now.

Thraben Inspector had me at Investigate.

There is a fun white/red equipment deck in this set. I am leaving that one for later.

There are additional fun flyers and a Spirit theme, also leaving those for later.

Equipments I am doing now. Got me all of them and plan to build various variants.

There's also Delirium, triggered below, which I will get better at triggering as I play more of this set.

Here is Odric doing his thing.

Erdwall Illuminator is a ton of fun. Eventually all those Clue tokens add up to a lot of late game card draw.

Catalog is very good for Delirium.

Ongoing Investigation is great too, part of a Blue/Green or any additional color combination using Investigate.

Here is Daring Sleuth transformed after I sacrificed a Clue token. I also have Trail of Evidence and Drownyard Explorers for maximum Investigate fun.

I tried black, and there is a really good Black/Red vampire deck in this format, but not now for me.

Red also is cool, but I am leaving it for later. I don't want to tire of this format so quickly.

Green has tons of Investigate and great ways to trigger Delirium. I am planning to make lots of green decks in my initial scan of this format. No need to show them here, I am basically getting every green card that does not blow up in price and playing it.