BMoors's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage



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Pojo's MTG MTG Home Message Board News & Archives Deck Garage BMoor Dolf BeJoSe Columnists Paul's Perspective Jeff Zandi DeQuan Watson Jordon Kronick IQ Aburame Shino Rare Hunter Tim Stoltzfus WiCkEd Judge Bill's Corner Trading Card Game Card of the Day Guide for Newbies Decks to Beat Featured Articles Peasant Magic Fan Tips Tourney Reports Other Color Chart Book Reviews Online Play MTG Links Staff 120x90 Ad Space For Rent!		BMoor's Magic The Gathering Deck Garage Nephilim/Dragon deck May 29, 2007 Today's deck comes from a player who not only knows how to build a deck, but how to work on a budget. Check it out! Hey Bmoor! I recently traded two holographic damnations for all of these amazing cards. I built a deck out of it. It dominates my brother, Jeremy's red and white angel deck, but control decks kill it. I have birds of a paradise to get my mana. I have Rites of Flourishing so I can draw the cards I need. Protean Hulk gets me a dragon. Scion and Dimir Doppleganger morph into fallen creatures. The idea of the deck is to overwhelm and outnumber the opponent with strength. I feel my deck needs some tuning up. Please help me Bmoor! --- Petunia Lands 4 Swamp 4 Forest 4 Island 4 Mountain 4 Plain 1 Dimir Aquaduct 1 Azorius Chancery 1 Gruul Turf 1 Selesnia Sanctuary 1 Rakdos Carnarium Creatures 2 Ink-Treader Nephilim 2 Yore-Tiller Nephilim 2 Witch-Maw Nephilim 2 Dune-Brood Nephilim 2 Glint-Eye Nephilim 2 Scion of the Ur-Dragon 2 Teneb the Harvester 2 Vorosh the Hunter 2 Intet the Dreamer 2 Numot the Devastator 2 Oros the Avenger 4 Birds of Paradise 1 Protean Hulk 2 Dimir Doppleganger Artifacts/Enchantments 1 Rites of Flourishing 1 Akroma's Memorial 1 Veilstone Amulet 3 Blessing of the Nephilim Instants/ Sorceries 3 Might of the Nephilim Ahh, the 5-color deck. A dream of every deckbuilder to be sure, at one point or another. But it's a tricky beast, since drawing the right lands to play those tempting 5-color spells is such a risky proposition that you usually end up devoting the entire deck to powerful multicolor spells and mana fixing. Let's see if Petunia found room for anything else. For a 5-color deck, I think the best place to start is the mana base. 25 land seems alright, in an exactly even 5-way split. I like how you have one of each ally-color bounceland, but honestly I think you can do better. Bouncelands are good, but if you're missing blue and red, for example, you won't be happy to draw Selesnya Sanctuary. I'd recommend replacing the five bouncelands with four Terramorphic Expanse. The Expanse comes into play tapped, just like the bouncelands, but can get you exactly the color of mana you need that turn. With the extra searching, you should be able to get all five colors represented sooner. You've also got Birds of Paradise, which while effective, probably aren't the best choice in a 5-color build like this. You're not accelerating to anything Turn Three, and you can't guarantee that green will be one of the colors you draw early on, so you'd be better off here with Prismatic Lens. The Lens is colorless, so you'll be able to cast it off two of any land. You also might try Pillar of the Paruns, another offbeat card that can be picked up cheaply. You've got so many multicolor spells that you should be able to put it to good use. Speaking of which, let's take a look at your multicolor spells. Ten nephilim, ten legendary Dragons, and two Scion of the Ur-Dragon. I had my initial doubts about the Scion, but then I realized it comboes so well with Teneb, the Harvester and Yore-Tiller Nephilim. You can use either Teneb's or Yore-Tiller's ability to resurrect whatever dragon you search up with the Scion's ability! Just don't search up Teneb himself, then use the Scion-copy's ability to resurrect Teneb, because then the legend rule will kill both of them. You've also got a pair of Dimir Doppelganger in there, to cover all your bases. I'd call that unneccesary, but hey-- if you're gonna run 5-color, why not use whatever powerful multicolor spells you've got? The Might of the Nephilim looks okay, but Blessing I have a quarrel with. We all know by now that Auras are disadvantageous, right? So even though they're flavorful, I would want an Aura to do more for you than give a 6/6 flyer +3/+3 or a <4/<4 without an evasion ability +8/+8, only to find said creature on the wrong end of a Dark Withering. Two of the Nephilim do that for themselves anyway. Besides, for a deck like yours, Might of the Nephilim is like Might of Oaks for less mana. If you target Ink-Treader, it's like an Overwhelm! Get a fourth copy of that, definitely. Finally, I like Veilstone Amulet and Akroma's Memorial here. Artifacts are always of use in a 5-color deck as spells that don't care what color mana you use to pay for them. And The Memorial makes a great compliment to your creatures, while the Amulet helps these freaks you just paid an arm and a leg for actually stay in play, as well as guarding your Ink-Treader against any shenanigans your opponent might try to play. With this guy out, Shock becomes Pyroclasm and Dark Banishing becomes.... actually, a good number of your creatures are black, so "nonblack creature" removal isn't so threatening. But still, you work hard to get these golden gods into play, so why not protect them? That should do it. Remember, colorless mana fixers are a plus in 5-color builds, and the more cards you can draw, the better! That's true in all decks, but it bears repreating. Good luck, Petunia! ~BMoor
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