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My Friend let me start by telling you about my magic career. i started playing about 10 years ago around the release of 3rd edition anyway. i think about 10 anyway they don't have the date on the cards so im pulling strictly from memory. Anyhow i have 2 decks im working on, but with all these new cards out iv lost me self in a crazy world of echo and scry and copy craziness. My 1st deck was my baby back on the school yard playground but now i can not seem to catch a win. im pretty sure it is because over the years it has grown to way over 60 cards but here it goes.

 

  My point with this deck is mainly focused around the good old royal assassin and completely anger the opponent.

 

4X Royal Assassin

4X Icy Manipulator

2X Nettling Imp

4X Nightmare

2X Sorccress Queen

4X Sengir Vampire

2X Krovikan Vampire

4X Feast of the Unicorn

4X Bad Moon

4X Drain Life

4X Terror

4X Dark Ritual

2X Animate Dead

 

27X Swamp

4X Strip Mine

2X Ebon Stronghold

 

Iv always used the imp to force a creature to attack then use assassin's ability to kill it right away same w/ the icy, what im looking for i guess is a good way to slim it down get more cards out at a faster time. also if there is anything out new that works like the icy does would be nice to know about as well. I also used to rock 4 paralyze's but cut them for deck reducing.

 

       As for my 2nd deck now, this is where i have some frustration fun. I have been picking up some booster packs when i see them here and there and have realy grown found of this new guild pack theme going on. For starters i always had a straight red burn deck growing up full of ball lightning , fireballs , and incinerates. and who never loved to fork a 10 point fireball? Well i did but i lost the forks i think i sold them around 1998. With all this new copy and counter spells out i need to get some of this again. my point here was no creatures and all counters and burn reds

so here it is.:

 

2X Boomerang

1X Confiscate

1X Puppeteer

2X Prodigal Sorcerer

4X Remove Soul

2X Psychic Venom

2X Counterspell

2X Mana Leak

2X Unsummon

4X Lightning Bolt

2X Lightning Blast

2X Shock

3X Fierball

1X Spark Elemenental

3X Disintergrate

1X Blaze

2X Incinerate

1X Barber Lightning

1X Sol Ring

1X Wand of Elements

 

11X Island

11X Mountain

 

what i want to do here is what i like to call damdasap do as much damage as soon as possible. iv seen a few new cards out to "copy" instants and sorcerys I NEED THIS help me godfather! i want to own again.....

 

 

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Well, I don’t normally do two decks at once, but since you’ve made me an offer I can’t refuse, I’ll give it a shot.  I’ll start with Deck #1, the Royal Assassin deck.  For ease of discussion, let’s reprint the decklist here:
 

4X Royal Assassin

4X Icy Manipulator

2X Nettling Imp

4X Nightmare

2X Sorccress Queen

4X Sengir Vampire

2X Krovikan Vampire

4X Feast of the Unicorn

4X Bad Moon

4X Drain Life

4X Terror

4X Dark Ritual

2X Animate Dead

 

27X Swamp

4X Strip Mine

2X Ebon Stronghold

 

            The deck’s strategy, as listed above, is to use Icy Manipulator and Nettling Imp to tap creatures and them shoot them down with the Assassin.  So then, what is the purpose of Sorceress Queen and the various Vampires?  My first advice is to take out Nightmare, Krovikan Vampire, and Sorceress Queen.  Leave Sengir Vampire in, however, because even after you assassinate all the opponents’ creatures, you’ll need something to kill them with.  And Sengir Vampire makes a good finisher for this deck.  While normally getting the Vampire bigger than 4/4 is a challenge, Nettling Imp can coax creatures to attack hopelessly into Sengir’s waiting fangs.

            Next, drop Feast of the Unicorn.  Any Enchant Creature that goes on your own creature needs to be either extremely awesome, or have a way of reducing the possibility of your opponent killing the creature and the Aura on it with one card, thus putting you at a disadvantage.  In its place, try either Contaminated Bond or Nettling Curse.  These go great on something you want to force to attack, and they help you attack your opponent’s life total instead of just wiping out his creatures.  They also work very well on creatures with Vigilance, since making them attack won’t help Royal Assassin kill them and tap effects are pretty rare in Black.

            One more card to remove is Dark Ritual.  I know, the Assassin and Nettling Imp both cost 3 mana, but getting them out on Turn One isn’t that much of an accomplishment unless your opponents’ creatures come out that early as well.  And playing them via a Dark Ritual means if the creature gets countered or destroyed, you lost two cards while the opponent lost only one (assumedly).  That’s the same problem with Enchant Creature cards.  In their place, try some Diabolic Tutors to help you get all the pieces of the combo you need.  Really you should have 4 Nettling Imp, but if you can’t get any more Imps, the Tutors can be like Imps 3 and 4.  Zombify could do a similar job if you prefer.

            These adjustments have left you with 36 spells, which is a good number because it leaves you with 24 lands to get to 60, and that’s a good land-to-spell ratio.  Currently you’ve got 33 land, which is probably part of the reason you’re having difficulty.  Strip Mine doesn’t produce Black mana and doesn’t really support the theme of the deck, and Ebon Stronghold comes into play tapped, which could be one of the reasons your deck isn’t quite fast enough.  Neither of them will really do better than a Swamp would so go with Swamps.  If you can manage it, use a few Forbidden Orchard as well— it makes Spirit tokens you can Nettle into becoming Sengir food, and it can produce Red mana for Nettling Curse’s ability.  But Forbidden Orchard is also an expensive card to acquire— much more so than anything else I’ve suggested— so I certainly don’t blame you if you would rather just use 24 Swamps.  You don’t need the Orchard anyway if you use Contaminated Bond instead of Nettling Curse, and the Bond costs a mana less.  That should do you just fine.

 

 

 

 

            Now let’s move on to the second deck— the R/U counter burn deck.  The decklist again:

 

2X Boomerang

1X Confiscate

1X Puppeteer

2X Prodigal Sorcerer

4X Remove Soul

2X Psychic Venom

2X Counterspell

2X Mana Leak

2X Unsummon

4X Lightning Bolt

2X Lightning Blast

2X Shock

3X Fierball

1X Spark Elemenental

3X Disintergrate

1X Blaze

2X Incinerate

1X Barber Lightning

1X Sol Ring

1X Wand of Elements

 

11X Island

11X Mountain

 

            Oddly, this deck was described as “creatureless”, yet it does contain creatures—Prodigal Sorcerer and Puppeteer.  I’m glad to read that, since the focus of the deck is meant to be “DAMDASAP” and copy effects, and most good copy effects are creatures.  First, we’ll run through and see if there’s anything we can pull out.  This helps make room for all the ideas I typically have swirling around in my head.  Unfortunately, all I can see that doesn’t help enough is the Puppeteer, the Sol Ring, and possibly Remove Soul.  But there’s so many good copy effects:

Izzet Guildmage: While Izzy here doesn’t get much respect, he could really shine in this deck.  Most Ravnica block decks simply don’t have enough low cost instants or sorceries for Izzy to target, but this deck has Boomerang, Counterspell, Mana Leak, Unsummon, Lightning Bolt, Shock, and Incinerate!  I know, copying counter spells is of limited usefulness, but everything else on the list would absolutely love to be copied a few times by ol’ Izzy.

Uyo, Silent Prophet: Uyo’s cost to copy a spell is a bit steeper, but she can copy anything and preserve the X-value, which is useful in a deck with Fireballs.  Granted, getting more out of copying a Fireball with Uyo than just putting all your mana into the Fireball requires a lot of mana, but the concept remains valid.  And if nothing else, Uyo is a 4/4 flyer, and that alone wins games.

Twincast: This is the sweet spot, the mandatory 4-of for this deck.  This not only lets you double any burn or bounce spell, it also acts as a sort of “soft counter” for your opponent’s spells—like Mana Leak, they still get their spell, but at a price.  Get four of these.  Seriously, do it.

Izzet Chronarch: The Chronarch doesn’t actually copy a spell, it brings one back for a second casting.  Which is sort of like copying it.  And with so many instants and sorceries in this deck, the Chronarch is basically Eternal Witness for a bit more mana.

            Aside from that, the deck seems pretty good.  A few one-ofs, yes, but that one Blaze is acting as a fourth Fireball, so it doesn’t really count.  And with all the redundancy of cards in this deck, you’ll find the deck should perform well despite its “unfocused” appearance.  One thing that would help though, is some more sources of card advantage.  Cards like Electrolyze, Invoke the Firemind, Pyroclasm, or anything that helps you draw cards (or negate multiple cards of your opponent with only one card from you) will go a long way towards ensuring that you don’t run out of cards before your opponent is dead—the bane of burn decks and the most likely reason yours isn’t performing as it should.  If you find yourself with no cards in hand as you play this deck, then you need to be able to gain card advantage one way or another.

            And that’s about all I have to say about that.  With these techniques, your decks should be able to carry you back to the heights you have fallen from.  Good luck to you, and don’t hesitate to contact me again if you need further help, or simply want to tell me how well my advice worked.

 

~BMoor