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BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage
R/W/U Flyers Deck
May 17, 2007

Once again, my reputation has brought correspondants from all over the globe.  Today, a gentleman from Portugal has asked me for help with his deck, and I'm always happy to help a friend overseas.  I just wish I could type his name...

João Gonçalves wrote:
Hello from Portugal!
I love this site and especially this section of it. I love to build decks to and i come here a lot for some ideas i have doubts about my new deck so i thought "why not giving it a try?"
   It needs some changes...but what changes? I'm hopping you'll tell me :P
  I play with this deck in an simple every increasing friendly just for the fun of it T2 own ideas for decks magic community so it's not a big deal, it's just for fun, but i have this thing....i don't like to lose and i dig on winning :)
  Last week i went on and built this 3-collored deck based on this concept of holding on the opponent's game on the first turns with cheap counter spells, and then simply giving a beating with some bad ass creatures.
  I achieve quite a good rating of wins against most decks but something's not right.
It doesn't feel solid enough for my taste. I would like to ear your opinion.


Lands

    4 [RAV] Sacred Foundry
    4 [DIS] Hallowed Fountain
    4 [TSP] Island (4)
    4 [9E] Adarkar Wastes

Creatures
    2 [PLC] Numot, the Devastator
    4 [TSP] Serra Avenger
    2 [DIS] Isperia the Inscrutable
    2 [DIS] Grand Arbiter Augustin IV
    2 [GP] Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind
    2 [PLC] Calciderm

 Spells
    1 [RAV] Privileged Position
    4 [DIS] Supply/Demand
    1 [TSB] Teferi's Moat
    4 [TSP] Lotus Bloom
    4 [RAV] Remand
    4 [9E] Mana Leak
    4 [CS] Rune Snag
    2 [9E] Reverse Damage
    4 [TSP] Ancestral Vision

One thing pisses me off, i always take a lot of damage from my own lands. maybe i should compensate with artifacts.
What do you think? Hope to hear from you! Cheers!!!!!
 
Well, there is one thing that jumps out at me pretty early about this decklist.  You've only got 16 lands!  In a 60-card deck, you should almost always run 20 lands at the least.  The only decks that can run on fewer are decks full of spells that only cost one or two mana, three at the most.  Your deck has cards like Numot, the Devastator; Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind; and Isperia the Inscrutable, and thus needs more mana.  Speaking of 60-card decks, I noticed your deck is only 58 cards.  We'll fix that too.
 
The first thing that needs to be done is we need to cut some superfluous cards in order to make room for more land.  You can easily do without Reverse Damage, Privileged Position, Teferi's Moat, Lotus Bloom, and 4 of your 12 counterspells (I'll let you pick which 4).  That leaves 14 empty slots (counting the two you were short originally).  If we fill all of them with land, you'll have 30 land, which is too many.  I will, however, recommend 4 Nimbus Maze, since you seem to have no trouble getting the good duals.  Nimbus Maze makes a good fixer that won't deal damage to you, and it'll bring you up to 20 lands.  You should have a few more than that, preferably 4 Mountains to even things out.  You can fine-tune the mana ratio after playtesting if you need to.
 
After that, there's the issue of your creatures.  Now, your main goal is to play control until you can get some decent creatures out.  If you had some cheaper, faster creatures, then you could start your switch from control to aggro that much faster.  I won't try and push your strategy too far, but I will say that Calciderm and Grand Arbiter Augustin IV don't look on-theme here.  They could be replaced with either Skyknight Legionnaire or Azorius First-Wing to give your deck a little more bite against an opponent who gets a slow start.  Or, if you really want to stick to your strategy of a late-game flier coming in and bashing the other guy around, look no further than Lightning Angel!
 
Now, you've still got some slots to fill.  Allow me to remind you that counterspells aren't the only way to control the game.  I'd say what you need is a set of four Lightning Helix, to take out a creature that slips through your countermagic and an extra life pad.  Electrolyze could be of similar help.  And a small part of me wants to bring up Odds//Ends; even though it doesn't exactly support your deck, it is all the right colors and it is pretty useful.  Finally, since Numot already destroys lands, maybe a set of Stone Rain would make sure you're opponent can't cast his fire when he needs to.
 
That covers all the main problems.  After that, it's just a matter of playtesting and practicing, to get a feel for what cards aren't pulling their weight.  Reach for the skies!
 
~BMoor



 

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