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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
Welcome to
another day in the laboratory. Since I've
opened up shop, most of the decks I've been
getting are multicolored, built from Ravnica
and Guildpact cards. And why not? It's
never been easier to play several colors. A
deck's mana base can still be delicate
though, and some mana costs can be such a
pain....
"Hello, I've
been playing Magic on and off for several
years but really haven't seemed to be able
to grasp the idea of a proper deck structure
leading me to lots of good creatures but
just an unbalanced deck. The deck I have now
focuses around Orzhov's deals ability with
cards like Moonlight Bargain, Blind Hunter,
and Ghost Council. Also I've tried to
incorporate Selesenya ability of token
generation (as well as green's overall
ability to produce mana). I think I've
established a good base deck to start off
around but I feel like it could be greatly
improved. Any advice would be greatly
appreciated.
Creatures: 23
3 - Llanowar
Elves (G)
2 - Utopia
Trees (1G)
3 -
Transluminant (1G)
2 -
Sakura-Tribe Elder (1G)
2 - Restless
Bones (2B)
3 - Blind
Hunter (2WB)
1 - Witch-Maw
Nephilim (GWUB)
2 - Ostiary
Thrull (3B)
1 - Ghost
Council of Orzhova (WWBB)
1 -
Poisonbelly Ogre (4B)
2 - Myojin of
Cleansing Fire (5WWW)
1 - Blazing
Archon (6WWW)
Sorcery/Enchantment/Aura/Ins: 13
2 - Farseek
(1G)
1 -
Flickerform (1W)
1 - Ghostly
Prison (2W)
3 - Devouring
Light (1WW)*
1 - Hissing
Miasma
1 - Chord of
Calling (XGGG)*
2 - Seize the
Soul (2BB)
1 - Moonlight
Bargain (3BB)
1 - Final
Judgment (4WW)
Land: 24
5 - Swamp
4 - Plains
6 - Forest
1 - Orzhov
Basilica
1 - Selesenya
Sanctuary
2 - Caves of
Koilos
1 - Godless
Shrine
3 - Vitu-Ghazi,
The City Tree
1 - Temple
Garden
Sideboard: 15
2 -
Suppression Field (1W)
2 -
Manriki-Gusari (2)
2 - Defense
Grid (2)
1 - Chord of
Calling (XGGG)*
1 - Phyrexian
Arena (1BB)
1 - Worship
(3W)
2 - Teysa,
Orzhov Scion (1WB)
1 - Moratorium
Stone (1)
3 - Souls of
the Faultless (WBB)
(#XX)
Representes the casting cost of the card
listed
* represents
that the card has Convoke"
Well, this
deck does seem a bit ragged around the
edges, but it’ll shine with a few tweaks. I
especially like how Anonymous here typed out
the casting costs of the creatures, making
my job that much easier :). As I was
looking through them, I noticed that all the
small creatures seem to be little Green
Elves, then turning white and black at
around four mana. I also saw Witch-Maw
Nephilim, which really threw me for a loop.
My first thought was to search your mana
base for a blue mana source. I didn’t find
it in Utopia Tree until after I found Chord
of Calling, and assumed your gameplan was to
cheat her into play with that. So I may be
a bit slanted in that direction.
Also, your
“Selesnya token” sub-theme seems limited to
Transluminant, Vitu-Ghazi, and Seize the
Soul. That does not make for the token army
the Selesnya envisioned. I’d like to just
abandon that as a focal point of the deck,
though Seize the Soul is certainly a worthy
card to play. Now, with so many enormous
casting costs in your deck, it seems
unreasonable to have to PAY them all, so I’m
going to recommend Vigor Mortis. This way,
you can discard huge creatures like Blazing
Archon and bring them back for cheap. I’d
also like to see a few copies of Debtor’s
Knell, which can grab fresh meat from ANY
graveyard, and replace Witch-Maw Nephilim
with Yore-Tiller Nephilim, who also brings
back dead creatures. That, and moving the
second Chord from the sideboard to the main
deck should allow you to get creatures out
of your library and graveyard, leaving only
your hand to worry about. Elvish Piper can
take those worries away.
So, what do
you drop for all these goodies? Well, you
can start with Transluminant, Vitu-Ghazi,
Flickerform (whose prescence here puzzles me
anyway) and Blind Hunter. Really I want to
reduce the white component of this deck
greatly, but with Utopia Tree and all those
dual lands, there’s no need to remove ALL
the white cards, just the ones that aren’t
worth cheating out. Which means Ghostly
Prison, Final Judgment, and Devouring Light
are all gone. Those are unfortunate drops I
admit, but Ghostly Prison can be exchanged
for another Hissing Miasma, Final Judgment
is likely to hurt you worse than your
opponent, and Devouring Light pales in
comparison to Putrefy. So take out the four
plains. Replace them with a Swamp and a
Forest. This deck should be able to run on
22 lands, what with all the Elf and Elder
mana production, and besides you still have
8 white mana sources. Try one more Farseek
as well, it can search for Temple Garden and
Godless Shrine. Also, Restless Bones is a
bit underwhelming here, take that out too.
And Poisonbelly Ogre is a mistake in such a
creature-heavy deck.
-3
Transluminant
-2 Restless
Bones
-3 Blind
Hunter
-1 Witch-Maw
-1 Poisonbelly
Ogre
-1 Flickerform
-1 Ghostly
Prison
-3 Devouring
Light
-1 Final
Judgement
-4 Plains
+4 Vigor
Mortis
+2 Debtor’s
Knell
+1 Yore-Tiller
+1 Chord of
Calling
+2 Elvish
Piper
+1 Swamp
+1 Forest
+1 Hissing
Miasma
+4 Putrefy
+1 Farseek
Well, I cut 20
cards, and only added 18. Since this new
deck is about getting cards with nightmarish
casting costs out for cheap, those last two
slots should go to the two biggest,
nastiest, most unstoppable creatures you can
get your hands on. Or maybe another Chord
of Calling and another Moonlight Bargain (to
get huge creatures into the graveyard for
future Vigor Mortises). Maybe that
Witch-Maw can come on back. Also, you may
want to replace one of those white Myojin
with her Green counterpart—if you cheat a
Myojin into play, it doesn’t get a divinity
counter, and green is easier to hardcast in
this deck than white now. And what of the
sideboard? Well, a sideboard is where you
put cards that are good against specific
decks, but not good enough against the
majority of opponents to be in the maindeck.
If you never play matches(best of 3 games),
and just play one game at a time, I don't
think you'd need a sideboard at all. If you
do sideboard in things, they should be cards
specifically picked based on a type of deck
you know you have trouble beating. And
since I don't know who your opponents
typically are, then I can't really make
educated sideboard recommendations. I'll
leave that to you, Anonymous.
A final note:
even when you don't always intend to pay
mana costs, juggling several colors of mana
and getting the right amount of each can be
tough. I can't really overvalue cards like
Overgrown Tomb, or even the Signets when it
comes to multicolor decks. Also, keep in
mind that a black/green deck doesn't always
want an even split of Forests and Swamps.
The earlier you need a color of mana, for
example, or the more cards that require at
least two mana in your deck, the more the
ratio should be tilted in that color's
favor. And there will always be that game
where you get nothing but Swamps and green
cards; that's simply a side effect of the
game's inherent randomness and can never be
completely avoided in a shuffled deck. When
building a deck, these are things to keep in
mind. Until next time, you can send decks
in need of fixing to me at
bemore4096@yahoo.com. Good luck, and
may the colors be on your side!
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