If you're just joining me, bmoor has forwarded a number of deck fix requests to me since he gets more than he's able to fill! That said, I defer all positive comments made in this request to bmoor since he's the one who deserves them!

 

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Hey Bmoor,

 

I just got into deck building rather recently. I've been doing a lot of homebrews, just playing around with ideas and trying to make them into fun decks. Lately I've been leaning more towards standard, especially with the release of M14.

 

For both the prerelease and release of M14, I found myself drafting the same combination over and over again: Deadly Recluse and Trollhide. I loved the idea of having a deathtouch that would just never go away, and it got me thinking on what ways I could use it to my advantage. A few days later, I ended up pulling a Jace, Memory Adept, and everything started to become a little clearer.

 

I decided to make the deck into the mold of a Scavenging Ooze power-up deck. Mill my opponent, then sack his or her creatures from their graveyard to create a monstrous titan, the hope being that Deadly Recluse regenerators could hold my opponent off long enough to bring out the big guns as well as slowly but steadily amass a vast stockpile of mana to take advantage of my flashback cards. 

 

Unfortunately, the deck has not been doing well, coming close in every match it's been in, but only barely stalling out an aggro Red deck. I know the potential is there, though. It's an amazingly fun deck, even losing, because it leaves my opponents just sitting there for a minute just wondering what to do about this insane person with a regenerating deathtouch. 

 

I'm beginning to worry that the deck is just too slow at the moment. It hasn't been efficient, even though I feel like every card is contributing to the purpose of the deck. I want to do everything I can to take the scraps of this deck and let the essence flow out, making me stronger and heartier.

 

One part of the deck that I've enjoyed but am not completely sold on yet is the synergy between Nightshade Peddler and Scavenging Ooze. Giving Ooze deathtouch has been wicked fun, but I'm not certain yet it's the right way to go. I'll leave that for you to decide.

 

Hoping you can work you "Wizard"ry,

Adam 

 

P.S. Thanks for looking at so many peoples' decks. It was really insightful for when I started trying to build decks of my own.

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Creature

3x Arbor Elf

2x Nightshade Peddler

2x Scavenging Ooze

3x Scroll Thief

4x Deadly Recluse

3x Trained Condor

 

Lands

4x Breeding Pool

7x Forest

4x Hinterland Harbor

8x Island

 

Instants

3x Cyclonic Rift

4x Simic Charm

3x Think Twice

 

Planeswalkers

1x Garruk Relentless

1x Jace, Memory Adept

 

Sorcery

4x Increasing Confusion

 

Enchantment

4x Trollhide

 

 

 

Adam,

 

I enjoy hearing about people just getting into deckbuilding. It's an exciting time, and I believe that half the fun of Magic is in coming up with your own decks. So Adam, I salute you for venturing into the world of creative deck building!

 

Unfortunately, since it's been a while, this deck won't work for standard anymore, but I'm going to stick to the spirit of the deck and make this into something that would work in standard now. I hope I can do justice to your deck the way that bmoor would have.

 

To start off with, the main offensive creature in the deck is Scavenging Ooze. He is a bit of a pricey card to come by, but if you're going to build around him, you need 4.

 

+2 Scavenging Ooze

 

Secondly, let's take out things that are not Standard anymore:

 

-2 Nightshade Peddler

-3 Think Twice

-1 Garruk Relentless

-4 Increasing Confusion

 

Let's replace those with Standard cards that should serve the same purpose. Wasteland Viper can come in and replace the peddler. Most of the time, he's just a 1/2 deathtouch blocker, but his bloodrush ability can be a very unpleasant counter-surprise when your opponent does a surprising combat trick. Instead of Increasing Confusion, the quickest way to get a whole bunch of cards in an opposing graveyard is Traumatize - it'll put half of their remaining cards there for the Ooze to scavenge away!

 

+4 Wasteland Viper

+4 Traumatize

 

I like your creativity of the Trained Condor to make Scroll Thief or the Ooze flying. However, I'm afraid this just isn't the most efficient use of your resources. The condor is going to die if they have any type of flying creatures. I'd like to suggest the Bident of Thassa. This gives you the Scroll Thief ability on all of your creatures! Also, if you have a regenerating deathtoucher, you can force your opponent to attack into it. Hopefully this will clear the way for your Ooze to come through for the big attack. In place of the condor, I'd recommend Horizon Chimera. He provides an additional +1/+1 over the condor for added durability, and with the extra cards you are drawing, you can gain a little more life! Also, the ability to flash him in as a surprise is hard to overestimate.     

 

-3 Scroll Thief

-3 Trained Condor

+3 Bident of Thassa

+3 Horizon Chimera

 

This seems like a fun deck idea, and now I think it might run a little better. If you made these changes, here's what we would have:

 

18 Creature spells

3 Arbor Elf

4 Scavenging Ooze

4 Deadly Recluse

4 Wasteland Viper

3 Horizon Chimera

 

19 Other Spells

3 Cyclonic Rift

4 Simic Charm

1 Jace, Memory Adept

4 Traumatize

4 Trollhide

3 Bident of Thassa

 

23 Lands

4 Breeding Pool

7 Forest

4 Hinterland Harbor

8 Island

 

Until next time, happy deckbuilding!