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BMoor's Magic
The
Gathering
Deck Garage
Black Equipment deck
July 25, 2007
I have only been
playing Magic for a short time and I would like to know
how I could make this 60 card deck work better. The idea
is to use equipment to create super-powerful units. It
seems to work alright part of the time, but sometimes it
just flops around and dies if the opponent uses enough
battle spells. I would really appreciate some advise
about what cards to get to make it better. The only
change I came up with was to add a Nightmare once I get
one.
Mana:
18 black
Black Creatures:
Scuttling Death
Ebon Drake
Emissary of Despair -2
Iname, Death Aspect
Dross Crocodile -3
Cyclopean Giant
Thief of Hope
Gravedigger
Artifact Creatures:
Steel Wall
Pewter Golem
Leaden Myr -4
Arachnoid -2
Myr Quadropod
Yotian Soldier -2
Artifacts and Equipment:
Vulshok Gauntlets (btw, when would the creature untap if
not in untap phase?)
Ensouled Scimitar
Loxodon Warhammer
No-Dachi
Long-Forgotten Gohei
Kusari-Gama
Whispersilk Cloak
Slagwurm Armor
Vulshok Morningstar
Spells and such:
Horror of Horrors
Pull Under
Dance of Shadows
Deathmark
Consume Spirit -2
Devour in Shadow
Murderous Spoils
Plunge into Darkness
Dark Banishing
Swallowing Plague
Frequent readers of my
column know my stance at using a lot of single copies of
cards in your deck. So I must be really cheesed off about
this one, right?
Actually, no. I'm fine with it. You see, the problem with
using a single copy of a card is that it reduces the chance
of you drawing it when you need a card that does what that
card does. But if you have several cards that do the same
thing, it's okay if they're technically "singletons".
You're just as happy to see an Earth Elemental as a Fomori
Nomad if all you need is a big creature, right?
Well, that's what this deck does. Every creature
essentially serves the same purpose (to get equipped and
charge into the Red Zone), every equipment serves the same
purpose (to grant creatures neat abilities), and every other
spell... well, we'll come back to those.
So what's wrong with this deck to the point that I deserved
its own article?
(Incidentally, if you E-mail me a deck and don't get a
response, it usually means your deck was already good enough
that I couldn't talk about its flaws for several
paragraphs). Well, the card choices are wrong. Many
of the creatures and the Equipment are sub-par, and
everything else is even worse. Horror of Horrors? Yes,
that's a good description of the deck as it stands. I think
it'll be easier to just rebuild the deck entirely-- I'll go
through each category of spells and tell you about some much
better cards for your strategy. And since you're
just starting out, I'll do my best to keep it budget. I'm
always looking out for those who can't afford expensive
rares.
We'll start with your lands, since you listed them first.
Eighteen Swamps isn't enough for a 60-card deck. You need
about 23. This is not negotiable. You will lose games
because you don't have enough mana if you don't add more
lands. Also, they're called Swamps, not "black lands".
They're also not even black themselves; they just provide
black mana. All lands are colorless.
Now, we'll work on your creatures (black and artifact at the
same time). In an equipment deck, you usually are happy
with small creatures but you like them to have nice,
combat-relevant abilities like flying or regeneration, so
that when they get +X/+X, they'll be quite scary. You're on
the right track with Yotian Soldier, Ebon Drake, and
Emissary of Despair, but from there it gets dicey. It also
looks like you're going for some sort of Spirit subtheme,
which is a bad idea because it will only istract from your
true objective: armed brutality. For your purposes, try
Plague Beetle, Drudge Skeletons, Ornithopter, Severed
Legion, Ravenous Rats, Knight of Dusk, or Nekrataal. Any of
those, really. And that Nightmare you mentioned?
Definitely throw that in if you can get it. Also, Steel
Wall can stay, just because it's so cheap. Which reminds
me, take out the creatures here that cost any more than
three mana (that means you, Iname, Death Aspect!). You want
little guys that come down early, then wear a big piece of
Equipment into battle. Except Yotian Soldier. He can
stay. All totalled, you should have around 20 to 23
creatures for a deck like this.
Now, for your Equipment. First, let me address you question
of when a creature equipped with Vulshok Gauntlets would
untap if not in the untap phase. There's several times a
creature coudl untap:
~If you control a Seedborn Muse, then it will untap during
everyone else's untap step, but not your own.
~If the equipped creature is Gelectrode, it will untap
whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell.
~If the equipped creature is Horseshoe Crab, then you could
pay U to untap it whenever you wanted.
But in the majority of cases, the creature just won't untap
as long as it's wearing the Gauntlets. Black isn't good at
untapping creatures, so your options are limited. You could
attack with the Gauntletted creature, then equip the
Gauntlets to an untapped creature during your second main
phase each turn. You could add in some copies of Brass
Gnat, and pay 1 during each upkeep to have a 5/3 flyer (not
a bad deal). Or you could just use the Gauntlets on a
creature you don't intend to tap, like Steel Wall or Yotian
Soldier.
That of course assumes you leave the
Gauntlets in the deck. Which you could; they're not too
bad. Some other powerful Equipment: Bonesplitter,
Skullclamp, Dead-Iron Sledge (works great on a Drudge
Skeleton; you can just regenerate it), Cranial Plating,
Banshee's Blade, Mask of Memory, Grafted Wargear (Drudge
Skeleton can't save itself from this one though), Loxodon
Warhammer, Nightmare Lash, Neko-Te, Vulshok Battlegear.
Don't feel like you have to use all of those, now. I'm just
throwing out suggestions. You probably want around ten
Equipment cards, so pick your favorites/the ones you can get
most easily. Also, take out Long-Forgotten Gohei. We're
getting rid of the Spirit/Arcane theme.
Now for the rest of your spells. Can I be brutally honest?
The only cards I see here worth playing are Dark Banishing
and Consume Spirit. And maybe Swallowing Plague. Possibly
Devour in Shadow too, but that's on the fence. At this
point, I think it'd just be easier for me to list a bunch of
good black cards that are useful in almost every deck.
Terror, Agonizing Memories, Cruel Edict, Diabolic Tutor,
Head games, Mind Rot, Recover, Underworld Dreams, Midnight
Ritual.
Get some of those, and you should be fine. Some might work
better in certain decks than others, but at least they're
all good enough so that you can play them and they'll have a
good impact on the game whenever you can cast them. At this
point, you're just filling in the empty slots anyway I
guess.
When you've got those issues fixed, try the deck out and get
comfortable with it. There's tons of cards out there you
might be tempted to put in, but here's a tip: having good
cards in your deck isn't as important as being a good
player. Take my advice on the deck, and then leave it that
way for a while and play some games. Get some practice
under your belt. Eventually, you'll get to know the deck
well enough that you'll know yourself what cards need to be
pulled and which ones you find yourself relying on.
Good luck!
~BMoor
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