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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Overrun Deck
Recently,
a Pojo.com reader sent me this E-mail in response to
an article I had submitted previously:
Hi, I've been playing
magic for a few years now and have been pretty terrible
with my decks. They don't seem to do too well most of
the time except against pre-constructed decks. I've made
a deck that I know can be improved quite a bit but I
think i'm off to a really nice start. Do you think you
could give me some suggestions or some ideas of
improvement, adding/taking out of cards?
Overun Deck:
Land: 11 forest
10 island
Creatures:
1x Muktani, Maro
Sorcerer
3x Gaea's Skyfolk
3x Glade Gnarr
2x Penumbra Kavu
3x Penumbra Bobcat
1x Gorilla Titan
1x Scaled Wurm
1x Vizzerdrix
Pump Up Cards:
1x Yamimaya's Embrace
3x Monstrous Growth
1x Giant Growth
2x Elephant Guide
1x Shimmering Wings
Life Gain Cards:
3x Blossoming Wreath
1x Soul Net
1x Wooden Sphere
Survival/Hold Off
Cards:
1x Regeneration
1x Opt
2x Omen
1x Bamboozle
1x Tangle
1x Boomerang
2x Fog
1x Rhystic Deluge
Main Focus Card:
Library of Leng
The focus is mostly
on Library of Leng, and Multani, Maro Sorcerer, Because
the more cards you have in your hand and all opponent's
hands, the beefier Multani gets. Multani can't be
effected by spells and abilities, so I tried to find a
way around that. Theres some cards in there to help hold
off opponents while i get my bigger guys out, theres a
few life gains in there for when i need, I've got some
tokens, but not just 1/1 tokens, I call these cards
Second Chance cards, because once they go to the grave
yard they're replaced with tokens. Yamimaya's Embrace, i
can add another in there, It's used mostly on my
opponent's creatures.
Glade Gnarr gets
pumped up when I use blue spells, and gaea's skyfolk is
just an affordable quick and easy 2/2 flying.My focus is
more on the big guys though.
There are a lot of cards in here that I feel don't
really belong. Any Suggestions would be greatly
appreciated.
I sent him this response:
Well, Scott, let me just thank you
for coming to me for help. I'm quite flattered, and
I'll be happy to assist in any way.
Now, you said the focus of your deck
is mostly Library of Leng/Multani, Maro-Sorcerer,
plus lots of big creatures. The trouble is, you
only have one copy each of Library of Leng and
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer. A general rule of thumb is
that if your deck is built around a card, you need
four copies of it. I know it can be hard to get
four copies of older cards like that, but usually
you can use other cards with similar effects.
Library of Leng is similar to Spellbook or
Graceful Adept, and Multani is similar to
Maro, Masumaro, First to Live, and
Soramaro, First to Dream. Basically a Gatherer
search for "maro" will turn up plenty of creatures
that would go great in your deck. In the meantime,
I'll keep the focus of the deck "big
creatures-handful of cards". Green is good at big
creatures and Blue is good at drawing cards, so this
shouldn't be too hard.
I also noticed that you have 15 cards
devoted to life gain and holding off
your opponent. This tells me you're having trouble
staying alive long enough to get your big creatures
out. The solution is that your deck isn't fast
enough. Green decks normally get their speed from
having more mana than just one land per turn, with
cards like Llanowar Elves, Sakura-Tribe
Elder, and Kodama's Reach. Any of these
cards would help you play your expensive spells
earlier. Blue, on the other hand, likes to draw
lots of cards, and with Multani in your deck, you
should be drawing cards like crazy. Right now, Omen
and Opt are the only things really helping you in
that respect, so I would advise getting cards that
draw cards, like Telling Time, Tidings,
Petals of Insight, and Lore Broker.
Lore Broker especially combos nicely with Library of
Leng, since your opponent will have to discard while
you can just put a card on top of your library.
There’s also Jungle Barrier, a green and blue
Wall that draws you a card when you play it. My
very first deck was green/blue, and used Jungle
Barrier quite well, so I know what I’m talking
about. Once you can reliably fill your hand with
cards, you’ll be much more likely to have the card
you need when you need it.
Also, you should realize that having
only one copy of a card is a bad idea. In a typical
game, you only draw about half your deck. If you
only have one copy of a card, you will only draw it
in half your games. And even in some of those
games, it may be too late or you may not even need
it. As far as making room for the cards I’ve
suggested goes, I suggest you take a hard look at
each card you only have one of and ask yourself: is
it worth adding more copies? If so, then do that.
Otherwise, it probably isn’t good enough for your
deck, unless of course you can “tutor” for it.
“Tutors” are just cards that let you
search your library for another card. You can get
away with only having one copy of a card if you have
ways of searching for it, since the tutor card
essentially acts as a second copy of the card. Most
tutors, however, restrict what type of card you can
get with them. Green, for example is good at
tutoring for lands but not much else. The only card
in your deck I see worth adding tutors for is
Multani, Maro-Sorcerer, and I have just the tutor to
search for it: Time of Need, which searches
for a legendary creature card. If you had a few of
those, you could add a few more big nasty legendary
creatures, like Masumaro and Soramaro. Also
consider Seek the Horizon, which searches for
three lands. Putting three lands in your hand would
help Multani and the Maros(if you add them), plus
give you plenty of land. Searching for land is
better than most people think: the more land you get
out of your deck, the less likely you’ll draw one
later when you need a spell.
Also, as far as your “pump up” cards go, you’re definitely on the right track. Monstrous Growth isn’t nearly as good as Giant Growth, simply because “+X/+X until end of turn” should always be an instant, that way you can wait until your opponent blocks and then decide which creature to pump up. Yavimaya’s Embrace overcomes this because it steals a creature, and Elephant Guide does give you a “second chance”, so that’s all right too I suppose.
That should be plenty for you to
think about, so I’ll wrap up here. I’ve listed a
lot of cards for you to consider adding, but please
realize I don’t mean you shopuld add ALL of them,
I’m just trying to provide options. You might find
better cards that I’ve forgotten, and that’s okay
too because it’s your deck and you have to play the
cards you like. You can find plenty more options at
gatherer.wizards.com,
a comprehensive card database containing every Magic
card ever printed, with a search function. Thanks
again for letting me share in the fun of building
your deck, and good luck to you.
I feel this makes a good
demonstration of what goes on in the thought
processes of building and modifying a deck. Anyone
else who would like my help with their deck can
reach me at
bemore4096@yahoo.com.
Thank you, BMoor
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