Complete guide at: http://www.playhaven.com/guides/360/magic-the-gathering-duels-of-the-planeswalk ers/duels-of-the-planeswalkers-2012-guide/9BTpSAjYWUrU/ -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Oo*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-oO || Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 guide || || Magic: The Gathering - Duels of the Planeswalkers || Oo*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-*=-oO Written by: robvalue (http://www.playhaven.com/profile/robvalue/) Last updated: 2011-08-31 14:10:38 =============================================================================== Table of Contents =============================================================================== - Introduction - Differences between D09 and D12 - Getting started - Choosing your deck for online play - Deck building and playing strategies - Chandra Nalaar - Unquenchable Fire - Garruk Wildspeaker - Apex Predators - Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis - Gideon Jura - Wielding Steel - Jace Beleren - Realm of Illusion - Kiora Atua - Ancient Depths - Koth - Strength of Stone - Cerebral Eruption Analysis - Nissa Revane - Guardians of the Wood - Sarkhan Vol - Dragon's Roar - Sorin Markov - Blood Hunger - Tezzeret - Machinations - Bouncing and tapping - Rules differences to full Magic - Analysis of artifact and enchantment control - Bugs and issues - Changes Log =============================================================================== Introduction =============================================================================== I have written this guide to help players get the most out of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012 (D12). I play on the Xbox 360, but everything should apply just as well to other formats. I will note the changes between this and the original Duels (D09), and for each deck I will discuss each card, give general strategies, and give example decklists that I recommend using. I've added additional sections after this for more information about the game. Please use the "Guide Index" on the right hand side of the screen (on Playhaven) to jump to the section you want to read. If you haven't already, I suggest first reading my other guide "Improving your playing skills": http://www.playhaven.com/guides/360/magic-the-gathering-duels-of-the-planeswalk ers/improving-your-playing-skills/mjCV2Dnb5ntz/ This was written for D09 but almost everything in it still applies. Of course the examples given are all from D09, but the points are still relevant. Please note that the card analysis and deck-building tips in this guide are aimed at one on one matches, although I will comment briefly on cards that may be useful in Two Headed Giant and Archenemy. Free-for-alls are a totally different matter, and I am the worst in the world at them! At the end of the guide, I have included a changes log where I will note any alterations I make to the example decklists over time, and other changes. I'll give credit where due for corrections etc. I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who has written to me to say they have found my guides useful! I highly value such feedback and really appreciate it. I hope this guide will be as helpful! If you try my decklists or ones based on them, I'd love to know how you get on. Everything I write about the cards is only my opinion and advice. I am never saying I know better than anyone else or that these things are just facts. Everyone's play style differs, and people place different values on different things. You will probably find you disagree with some of my commentary and parts of the suggested decklists, and that is fine! You should follow your own path and judgement. This is just meant to be a starting point for new players, and some food for thought for more experienced ones. You can view all cards in the game at the website below, hover the cursor over each card name to see a picture of it come up. It may be helpful to view this while reading my guide. http://www.wizards.com/magic/digital/duelsoftheplaneswalkers.aspx?x=mtg/digital /d12/decks If you want to discuss this guide on the official Duels of the Planeswalkers forum, there is a topic for it here: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/27971365/My_new_Duels_2012_gu ide?pg=15 Or send me a message: robvalue (at) yahoo.com I'd love to hear how you get on using my guide and decklists! =============================================================================== Differences between D09 and D12 =============================================================================== > * Improved graphics and user interface. Much more of play area is visible as the "turn bar" which shows what phase you are in is much smaller and is near the life total for each player. > * New cards and new decks. Not every card is new, but a good percentage are. Out of the ten decks you can play, eight of them are roughly based on decks from D09 but are far from carbon copies. Many have had quite a makeover. Two are brand new original decks, for new Planeswalkers Kiora Atua and Koth. Also Karn appears as the new non-playable boss, and Gideon Jura takes over the role of primary white Planeswalker. > * Core deck editing! You can now remove cards from the core deck after adding unlocked cards. This means you have much more control of your deck and can personalize it, taking it in many different directions. It also means that for some multicoloured decks you can cut out some of the colours completely by removing all cards of that colour. Lands in your deck are calculated automatically, and corresponding lands disappear if you take out all cards of a colour. > * Large amounts of bugs and issues have been fixed. Props to Wizards and Stainless, they seem to have pretty much taken into account everything on my bug list for cards in this game. Only a few coding issues remain, and Wizards seem much more determined to sort things out this time round. Update- in fact there is quite a large number of bugs that have come to light, I have a section for this near the end of the guide now. > * Archenemy mode! You and two other players (or AI players if you are on your own) team up against one super-powered opponent who gets to use a card from a seperate oversized deck every turn for free. Cards from this deck (called Schemes) are extremely potent and can swing the momentum of the game hugely. They also get 40 life. > * You can now play Two Headed Giant online with a team mate who is not physically sat next to you. > * In my opinion the decks are much more balanced. I would rate Blood Hunger as the best, and Strength of Stone as the worst, and the others somewhere in the middle. The spread is not as great as before. > * There has been new terminology introduced for the Magic 2012 core set, which has been implemented in this game. The phrase "When this creature dies..." is now shorthand for "When this creature is put into the graveyard from the battlefield..." > * In general, the decks feel more coherent with less sore thumbs. > * Deathtouch has been corrected when facing multiple blockers. Only 1 damage has to be put on each blocker now from a creature with deathtouch. If the creature also has trample, remaining damage can be assigned to the opponent. This is now in line with the main Magic rules. =============================================================================== Getting started =============================================================================== Most of what I've written in "Improving your playing skills" will help you get started with this game. The options set up is virtually identical, and I recommend following the same configuration as before. You do not now have the option of using custom duel as an easy option to unlock cards, since it won't let you change the starting life totals and hand sizes as in D09. But you can win cards by repeatedly beating the same opponent over and over in campaign mode (or custom duel), with difficulty set to Mage if you want to do so as fast as possible. This makes the AI play badly, and doesn't stack the deck in their favour like it does on higher difficulties. To have a one on one duel outside of campaign, select Custom Duel from the main menu, then Free For All, and pick just one AI opponent before starting the duel. I found the easiest opponents to unlock cards against are: Koth: Probably the weakest overall deck. Has few flying creatures, good for decks with lots of fliers and/or strong creatures. Jace: Lots of Illusion creatures that die when they are targeted by a spell or ability. Any deck that has lots of ways to target (even with things that don't normally kill creatures like helpful Auras) can exploit this. To save time, if a duel is going badly or you have had to mulligan several times, just pause the game and select Restart Duel. The AI doesn't mind! It's quicker to play out your stronger hands and not spend a lot of time on the defensive, if you just want to get the cards most quickly. Every time you win a duel with a deck, you unlock a new card for it. It's best to then go back to the Deck Manager on the main menu, and see if you actually want that card in your deck! If you don't like it, take it out right away. If you do, then choose your weakest card and remove that to keep your deck at 60 cards. Refer to my individual deck guides to help you decide what to keep and what to take out. Take out cards I list as "bad" from your core deck as soon as possible, and don't add any that you unlock. Add in all the cards I list as "good", and even "OK" ones if they can replace something worse. If you're beating up on the same opponent again and again to unlock cards, you can alter your deck accordingly. For example you may include life gain cards against direct damage, or remove artifact control against a deck with no artifacts. Sometimes you unlock multiple copies of a card at once, in which case remove the same number of cards if you wish to keep them in. The golden rule for having a good deck is always, always stay at 60 cards. If you are taking things seriously, this is the way to proceed. My 15+ years of Magic have taught me this time and time again. There are several reasons for this: > * The fewer cards you have, the more consistent your draws will be. You have a better idea of what you expect to draw, and will see each card the maximum amount of the time. > * Each card you add over 60 effectively decreases the number of every other card in the deck. All you are doing is diluting your deck and spreading your power across it. And if you instead choose and remove the weakest cards, you achieve the most potent combination. A lot of cards in this game are simply much better than others, and you only want the best available. > * You will more regularly get the amount of land you need, and the right colours, with fewer cards. A draw with too little or too much land is much more likely to self-correct in a smaller deck. You will find that initially victories can be difficult as the core decks contain a lot of poor cards, but as you manage each win it will get easier and easier with that deck as you add in powerful unlocks and remove the weaker core cards. You unlock decks as you progress through the campaign as before, by beating certain opponents. You get all the decks in the initial campaign, the Archenemy and Revenge parts do not give you any extras. You only have to beat each opponent once to progress and get the decks, but to get cards you can play any of them as many times as you want. As Koth is the first opponent, you may find it a good idea to repeatedly beat him with one of the two starting decks and unlock all its cards. You should then sail through the campaign quite easily with either of them. You will find it easiest with Wielding Steel, being the stronger of the two. You may wish to switch to Realm of Illusion or Blood Hunger when they become available as they are in my opinion the strongest. You can go back to beating up Koth to earn cards for them. For the boss Karn, I found the best decks to use are Ancient Depths or Realm of Illusion for their bouncing and stealing, or Wielding Steel for lots of tapping. If anyone's having any more trouble with any of the campaign, please let me know and I'll offer help! Note that you will have unlocked all the available decks once you've beaten Nissa Revane and Sorin Markov in the standard campaign. When unlocking cards for each of the decks, I suggest repeatedly taking on the opponent as detailed below as being the past of least resistance if beating up Koth isn't working out: Unquenchable Fire: Machinations. You should have no trouble burning out his more important little creatures and preventing metalcraft bonus. He doesn't have a lot of kill spells to stop your creatures. Apex Predators: Unquenchable Fire. Your bigger creatures should prove too much for Chandra to keep burning up, and your hexproofs are easy gamewinners. Wielding Steel: Realm of Illusion. Gideon's Lawkeeper and Kor Hookmaster can easily wipe out the Illusions that die by being targeted. Being even quicker than Jace, you should outspeed him, along with your equipment providing bonuses. Realm of Illusion: Ancient Depths. By the time Kiora gets going, you'll probably have a huge army of unblockable and flying creatures. She doesn't do much to intefere with your growing Illusion population. You can counter any really big spells she builds up to later on. Ancient Depths: Apex Predators. You should be able to stall all the ground creatures long enough to get to your big spells, and Apex is surprisingly slow off the mark. Strength of Stone: Apex Predators. Koth's Courier has forestwalk, when pumped up she will end the game quickly. Also it has no answer to a creature enchanted with Claws of Valakut. Guardians of the Wood: Ancient Depths. Kiora won't interfere much with you building up a fast army of Elves and you should be able to overwhelm her before she gets going too much. Your Heedless Ones will get huge fast, and they even count Kiora's Coiling Oracle's for more bonus, since they have Elf in their creature type! Dragon's Roar: Apex predators. You can hold off the ground creatures with Goblins and Scorpions until your Dragons dominate his poor flying defense. Blood Hunger: Strength of Stone. Stick with beating on Koth here. Your creatures are far superior, and you have more creature removal. Your plentiful life gain stops him winning with direct damage easily. Machinations: Ancient Depths. You have lots of cheap fliers, they are lethal against Depths. It has almost no way to defend against them, and Steel Overseer makes the job even quicker. For the Archenemy campaign, you can pick both your deck and both your AI partners' decks if you are playing on your own. I suggest either all 3 playing Blood Hunger, or picking the AI to both be Blood Hunger and you pick Ancient Depths. Depths has some great cards which will help both your allies in this mode: New Frontiers and Edric, Spymaster of Trest. See the Depths section for more hints on those cards. The Revenge campaign is the same as the original campaign, but the opponents now have a few different cards in their deck which you can't unlock at present, generally making them a bit harder. I suggest using Blood Hunger for this campaign, and again Ancient Depths, Realm of Illusion or Wielding Steel for Karn at the end. =============================================================================== Choosing your deck for online play =============================================================================== You will get enjoyment playing with every deck, and by doing so you learn about how each of them works and will then be able to play better against them. I highly recommend doing this. If you would prefer to stick with one deck, at least initially, then there are several things to consider. I have split them into the following categories for simplicity. I have overgeneralised, but it is a good starting point. Power: The decks are better balanced this time, but some are still stronger than others. They all have a chance, but in the long run some tend to do better and some worse, even with skilful play. I have split them into high (most powerful), medium (average) and low (weaker). Difficulty: This is the amount of experience and skill needed to play the deck well. Of course every deck will perform better with more skilful play, but some decks are much more likely to go totally wrong if you make some bad decisions. I have labelled such decks as high, the rest as low. Those somewhere inbetween I've labelled medium. Mana Problems: This is how likely you are to run into problems with the land you draw, either by not drawing enough or in multicolour decks not drawing the right types of land. High indicates a lot of risk of this, medium means less of a risk, and low means fairly safe. For Machinations and Dragon's Roar, I put two difficulties depending on whether you play 1-, 2- or 3- colours. Strategy: The decks vary in how they play, and they may work better or worse for you depending on your play style. Generally speaking decks are either aggressive, which means they go for the throat and try to win quickly, or defensive, in which case they play more for the long term by controlling the game. I have split the decks into these categories, adding 'very' to the extreme cases. Choose one which fits your own play style. Nemesis: The deck that exploits its weaknesses the most, the hardest one for it to play against. +============+============+============+============+============+============+ | | Power | Difficulty | Mana | Strategy | Nemesis | | | | | problems | | | +============+============+============+============+============+============+ | Blood | high | low | low | very | Unquenchab | | Hunger | | | | aggressive | le Fire | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Realm of | high | high | low | aggressive | Wielding | | Illusion | | | | | Steel | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Unquenchab | high | low | low | defensive | Apex | | le Fire | | | | | Predators | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Wielding | high | mid | low | very | Guardians | | Steel | | | | aggressive | of the | | | | | | | Wood | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Guardians | medium | low | medium | very | Unquenchab | | of the | | | | aggressive | le Fire | | Wood | | | | | | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Ancient | medium | high | medium | very | Machinatio | | Depths | | | | defensive | ns | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Machinatio | medium | mid | 3-high | aggressive | Unquenchab | | ns | | | 2-medium | | le Fire | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Apex | low | low | low | very | Strength | | Predators | | | | aggressive | of Stone | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Dragon's | low | low | 2-high | aggressive | Blood | | Roar | | | 1-low | | Hunger | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ | Strength | low | low | low | defensive | Blood | | of Stone | | | | | Hunger | +============+------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+ =============================================================================== Deck building and playing strategies =============================================================================== Below I will discuss each of the ten playable decks. I will split all the available cards into three groups, according to my opinion of them: > * Good- The better cards in the selection. This is either because they are very powerful card in their own right, or they fit and complement the deck in general very well. These should be highly considered for every decklist. > * OK- A decent card for providing support, filling holes, and rounding out themes, but does not excel. Some powerful cards will drop to just OK because they don't fit particularly well in the deck. > * Bad- The poorer cards in the selection, either just because they are awful or they are totally in the wrong kind of deck. I recommend avoiding all these cards unless you have a particular reason to include them in a deck design. Under each heading, I have also put the cards for each deck in roughly what I consider to be order of power and usefulness. So the very best cards are are at the beginning of the "good" section, and the worst at the bottom of the "bad". Those near the top of "OK" are often going to be serious contenders and necessary to round out a deck. Don't assume that sticking all the good cards together is always going to be the best deck. You may find that two cards are competing for the same mana cost slot, and it doesn't always make sense to include both. There are also many other factors to consider when putting together your 60 cards: Mana curve You want a reasonable spread over different mana costs throughout your deck. Too many cheap cards will leave you lacking in power late game; too many expensive ones can clog up your hand early on. Too many spells of the same mana cost can cause a bottleneck, where you can't cast a group of them in your hand until you hit that much mana, and are left casting them after your mana has gone to higher amounts, or they get left behind as you go up the curve. Generally the more land and land-fetching cards in the deck, the more you should move the distribution towards higher mana cost cards. A smooth mana curve is most important for creatures than for other spells, as you tend to cast creatures right away and more often hold other spells back. But a range of other spell costs is good too. You can press Y when in the deck manager to see an overall graph of your mana costs. Synergy The cards in a deck don't exist in a vacuum, they must cooperate with every other card in the deck. This doesn't mean they have to all be part of "combos", but they should be making each other stronger whenever possible. Look for little ways in which cards can help each other, and that work well together. Theme The deck as a whole should have some sort of purpose, a way in which it plays to achieve victory. This could be such things as aggression, direct damage, fast mana, using certain creature types, etc. Decks may have a mix several different themes. Try to make sure that every card is pulling in the same direction and achieving what you want from your overall plan and themes. A card that may usually be very good on its own may prove much less useful if it doesn't fit in with what you're trying to do with the deck. With core card removal each deck can be taken in some different directions, so for your particular build think what you're trying to do. Be sure to test your deck thoroughly, since what looks good on paper sometimes doesn't pan out in a game. Don't be too hasty to make changes, don't let one bad deal make you give up on a card. Give it a few games at least, and see how the deck is working together. Then go back to your deck manager and see what you have learned, and how you can improve your deck. Make as few changes at a time as possible, as it will be easiest to see whether or not this is an improvement. The decklists I offer are not meant to be "the best", they are just an example of what I have come up with during my experience with the game, and to provide a starting point for those who are overwhelmed by all the different choices. They have been working well for me in testing, but everyone's play style is different and you may find particular cards don't work so well for you. Allow your creativity to flow and build on the decks, taking them in your own direction. To help build them quickly, I've included the list of cards you need to exclude under each decklist. I have included the lands in the decklists for completeness. You don't need to chose lands for your decks, they are calculated automatically based on the cards you pick. If you use the cards I suggest, you will get the amount of land I show. The only exception so far is Machinations, where you can put in up to 3 Terramorphic Expanse to help you search for other lands. These are chosen from your list along with the spells. Note that when I refer to things such as "artifact control" I mean "the ability to deal with artifacts on the battlefield". Also, I have discussed the life-gain artifacts and why I hate them in my Improving your Playing Skills guide, so please see that for why I dismiss these cards. I won't repeat it all here, I'll just write "I hate life gain!" =============================================================================== Chandra Nalaar - Unquenchable Fire =============================================================================== Summary This is an aggressive mono red direct damage deck, loosely based on Heat of Battle from D09. It has also borrowed the Kiln Fiends and Wheel of Fortune from Root of the Firemind, but only has one Pyroclasm now. It's a nasty deck that can deal a lot of damage quickly, and can often finish you off from quite a high life total with direct damage. Strategy The aim of this deck is to do a lot of quick damage with creatures, using damage spells to remove blockers, and get the opponent into a range where direct damage can finish them off. Kiln Fiends are huge early on, as they can provide an extra 3 damage each time you burn out a blocker on your turn. If things are going badly, you use your creatures and spells to kill the biggest creature threats until you can get something good into play. Don't use your direct damage spells immediately on the opponent unless you feel you have enough to finish them off in short order. It's usually best to save them to have the option of killing creatures, both to keep yourself alive and to remove blockers to do repetitive damage with your own creatures. You can always use them later on the opponent when they are closer to death. Your creatures are pretty much expendable as far as getting your opponent's life total down is concerned, they don't need to get it all the way there. Sometimes you can make bad trades just to keep the damage getting through if you have more creatures on the table. Pros > * Huge amounts of direct damage to kill creatures and hurt players > * Nice creatures that interact well with the deck's other spells > * Potential to finish players from high life totals with a combination of direct damage cards > * Punishes life gain with Punishing Fire > * Mono deck so no colour problems Cons > * No artifact or enchantment control > * Few evasion creatures > * Can struggle against huge creatures as it relies on direct damage to kill them Example decklist 24 Mountains Creatures (17) 2 Goblin Arsonist 3 Kiln Field 1 Chandra's Phoenix 4 Fiery Hellhound 1 Prodigal Pyromancer 1 Flametongue Kavu 2 Fire Elemental 1 Fire Servant 1 Flameblast Dragon 1 Inferno Titan Other spells (19) 1 Banefire 1 Blaze 2 Flame Slash 2 Incinerate 2 Punishing Fire 1 Pyroclasm 4 Volcanic Hammer 1 Wheel of Fortune 3 Chandra's Outrage 1 Lava Axe 1 Flame Wave Cards to exclude to build this deck 2 Cinder Wall 2 Flamekin Brawler 3 Dragon's Claw 2 Goblin War Paint 2 Sizzle 1 Relentless Assault 2 Lava Axe 2 Ember Shot Alternate super speed decklist From the above list, remove 1 Lava Axe and 1 Flame Wave, and add 2 Flamekin Brawler. This focuses more on creatures and speed, and less on reliance on bigger mana spells. Later in the game the Brawlers can still pack a mean punch. However this list runs the risk of crossover redundancy from Brawlers and Hellhounds. Good cards Wheel of Fortune: This really needs a new category of it's own; broken. I think it was a mistake to include cards like this in the game, they are unbalancing. But here it is! It's now in the right deck as well unlike in D09, making it even more scary. The important part is not so much drawing 7 cards each, as both players discarding their whole hand. If you use this when your opponent has more cards in hand than you, you gain card advantage by using this. At it's best, if the opponent has 7 cards in hand and this is your last card, they discard 7 cards and you discard none, this has given you a 6 card advantage (you used the Wheel for this effect) making it especially effective against slow decks. So always try to use this when your opponent has more cards. Late in the game if you have a lot of mana you can use it regardless, expecting to be able to cast a lot of burn spells that you draw to finish off your opponent, or crazily pump up a Kiln Fiend. As this deck is so fast, you will normally have less cards in your hand than your opponent, and if you have this in hand at the start of the game you may wish to empty your hand super-fast to get maximum advantage from this. Banefire: Damage spells that deal unlimited amounts depending on mana input are always powerful. This is one is especially useful for its extra ability. It means that you kill a big creature or finish off your opponent without worrying about counterspells. The "damage can't be prevented" part isn't going to be relevant very much in this game, as they don't include many damage prevention spells or abilities. Creatures killed by this can still be regenerated. You should usually save this for killing big creatures that can be out of reach of your other small direct damage, or as part of a big finish, especially after using instants on your opponent at the end of their turn before you untap. Note that X spells can be cast with X=0, just to kill Illusions, or pump up your Kiln Fiends cheaply. Blaze: This is just the same as Banefire, but without the extra bonus. Certainly worth including as well. Incinerate: All the way from Ice Age, it's one of the best direct damage spells ever. It does efficient damage for it's cost, at instant speed, and stops regeneration. It doesn't have to kill a creature outright to stop regeneration, as soon as a creature has been hit by this it can't regenerate that turn so you can finish it off in other ways. Take advantage of this being an instant. You can use it in response to Giant Growth, to kill the creature before it gets pumped and take out 2 cards for 1, and in all sorts of similar situations. It's often best used during combat, it can suddenly make a blocker disappear when the opponent has ganged up 2 blockers on your big creature, allowing your creature to survive. Flame Slash: Insanely efficient, and even though it's just against creatures, the sheer power of this card is worth it. Save this for your opponent's medium size creatures, often they will have to spend a lot of mana getting out a creature with 4 toughness and you gain momentum by taking it out for just 1 mana. Pyroclasm: This is your best sweeper spell, and a "panic button" against a weenie assault. If your opponent has got off to a quick start with lots of small creatures, after waiting as long as possible to lure more creatures onto the board, cast this and reset the game, gaining lots of card advantage. Don't worry about killing your own creatures as long as you kill more of your opponent's. It can also help get rid of a big creature at the same time in combination with another spell, for example use this to clear the weenies then hit the remaining 6 toughness creature with Flame Slash to finish it off. Volcanic Hammer: An obviously weaker version of Incinerate, but still efficient and worth including. Use this before Incinerate when you have a choice, to save the better card for later. Being a sorcery there are much less tricks you can do with it. Inferno Titan: This guy is huge, and with his immediate damage he gets you card advantage even if he is killed right away. It makes you pick 3 targets, and then does 1 to each of them, but you can pick the same target more than once. Usually you'll want to cast this as soon as you can, taking out whatever creatures you can, and putting the remaining damage onto your opponent. If they can't deal with it they are probably going to lose very quickly as you continue to either hack their creatures down or burn their face when you attack! And as if that wasn't enough, you can pump up his attack up as well. Flametongue Kavu: This is an awesome creature, having stats that are a decent threat while taking out anything up to a 4 toughness creature for free. Don't cast it however if the opponent has no creatures, as you will be forced to target one of yours! Think of this as a Flame Slash with an added creature. It usually swings the momentum of the game heavily. If things are going badly for you, just cast it as soon as you can and kill the best thing possible, then you have another blocker to help keep you alive. Flameblast Dragon: If you can get this out and keep it out, usually you will easily win the game. Being a big flying creature he is hard to stop, and every attack you can usually kill a creature. Unless you can finish off the opponent in very short order, I'd recommend using his ability to hit a creature each time. This is hard for the opponent to come back from, and clears the way for your other attackers. He is not as useful on defence as he can't use his ability, but he can still block and kill most creatures in the game, providing a lot of cover until you are in a position to attack again. Prodigal Pyromancer: A 'pinger', a 'Tim', what do you call him? You will always be happy to see this guy, his ability to do 1 damage to a specific target every turn is really powerful. He can be used to pick off 1 toughness creatures, or to provide extra damage after one of your spells to kill a large creature. When you have attacked, he can finish off any creature that requires just 1 more damage. Unless you are removing blockers, it's best to not use him in your turn, and wait to see what your opponent does on their turn. You can always use it near the end of their turn with no penalty if no other interesting possibilities arise, hitting the opponent if there's nothing you can kill. Keep him out of combat whenever possible as his ability is far too valuable to lose him. Punishing Fire: You can generally use this as a less powerful Incinerate, with the same strategies. But it comes into its own in any situation where the opponent gains life. I have found a great way to use this card is cast it in response to a spell or ability that will give your opponent life. (You may need to turn auto resolution off to make best use of the timing for this). Your spell resolves first, and then when their ability resolves, you can pay one mana to get this card back. You can then use it again that turn if need be! This way you can take out a 4 toughness creature with this one card by piggy-backing your opponent's life gain. It's great against lifelink creatures, sometimes turning them into a liability. If a lifelink creature is going to deal damage, cast this in the blocker's phase before damage is dealt, then when the lifelink guy hits you will get the chance to restock this and use it again! Chandra's Phoenix: I love this creature, it seems almost unfair. It fits the aggressive nature of the deck perfectly, being able to smash away for 2 damage every turn, including the one you cast it. You'll usually want to keep up the pressure with this guy, using your ground creatures for defence if need be. You'll normally want to kill any big fliers the opponent casts as general strategy anyway, which clears the way for him to continue. He can suicidally attack even if the opponent has a big flier, as you will probably have an instant or sorcery to do the rest of the damage after combat if it gets blocked. When the opponent has finally stemmed the bleeding and killed it, all you have to do is hit them directly with a damage spell and he's back to your hand ready to be cast again. Or use Chandra's Outrage on one of their creatures, and the side-effect damage will get the Pheonix back. Chandra's Outrage: This is a bit expensive, but still effective. Again make use of the fact that it's an instant to full advantage. The 2 damage dealt to your opponent is very helpful for this deck. When you can spare the mana for this, use this ahead of other direct damage to kill a creature so that you retain your cheaper ones for crucial situations later. Fiery Hellhound: Although 2/2 for 3 isn't that good, his ability to pump up indefinitely makes him a scary creature for the opponent to be looking at. If there's no blockers you can do as much damage as you like, and even if there are, he can usually be pumped up to kill whatever blocks him. It's not always best to pump him up as much as you can; if it's just to do damage, put what you can spare into him, but continue to cast other creatures to develop your position. Of course the closer the opponent is to death, the more important it is to get damage through, and you can do so without having to use any further cards. This saves them for the big finish. Usually your opponent either has to spend a card taking this guy out or swap it for a big creature, as you'll likely burn away any smaller ones that could stop him. Otherwise, they'll be snacking on hellfire and dead pretty quickly. Kiln Fiend: Borrowed from the Firemind deck in D09, these fit in perfectly here. The deck is full of instants and sorceries to fire him up. Often the strategy for this deck revolves around getting this out, and then using spells to kill each blocker that appears, pumping this up to 4/2. Keeping this up for even a few turns is devastating and will probably put the opponent into serious worries about being finished off easily with direct damage. You can pull some tricks off with him too, if he blocks or is blocked by a 7/7 creature say, in the blockers phase Incinerate the 7/7. This puts your Fiend up to 4/2, which is enough to fell the foul beast! Goblin Arsonist: This is the perfect 1 drop for this deck, he needs no further investment and is almost guaranteed to end up doing his damage to something. Hopefully early on he can attack freely for a bit of damage, and as soon as other creatures turn up he can still make a nuisance of himself. If the opponent has cast a 2/2, you can attack with this, and if they block you can use his ability after he dies to finish off the 2/2. Of course his ability can also pick off any 1 toughness creature, or if there's nothing better just hit the opponent. You can combine it with your spells to take down a bigger creature too. If the opponent has a 1/1 creature with a good ability, by keeping this on defence you make the opponent unlikely to attack since you can block with this and then kill their 1/1! Currently the best choice for a 1 drop in my book. Fire Servant: Although his stats are not very good for his cost, his ability is awesome in this deck. It's not hard to finish your opponent with direct damage anyhow, and this makes it even easier. X spells become double X, Incinerate becomes 6 damage, it's all rather crazy. This also makes it much easier to kill big creatures as damage to them is doubled too from your sorceries and instants. You have no shortage of these, and he can also be applying some beats while you remove blockers. Keep him alive unless you desperately need to block with him to save yourself. Flamekin Brawler: This is very nice for 1 mana, 2 toughness is notable and helpful against initial weenies, and unlimited pump from turn 1 sounds great. I have found in my testing that he is not as effective as I had hoped though. Firstly, on turn 2 I almost always want to spend my mana either on another creature like Kiln Fiend, or on some burn to kill something. Rarely am I happy to spend 2 mana just to do 2 damage, it's not very efficient at such an early stage. And also he is heavily competing with the similar Fiery Hellhound. As soon as you get one of those out as well, this becomes almost redundant, except for being able to split the mana between them. As this deck is always hungry for mana, I'd rather rely on the 4 Hellhounds which can do some damage even if I can't spare mana, and to leave these guys out. He's worth considering for a speedy build though, and has the flexibility to provide a lot of punch for a small creature later in the game. For a speed compromise, you could go with 2 of these and 2 Hellhounds, for example. OK cards Flame Wave: 7 mana is a stretch for this deck, which is why I don't rate this card higher, but I think this is just about worth it. It's one card that will make a real difference in a long game or a stalemate situation. It will most likely win you the game right away, knocking your opponent further into direct damage range and removing probably a lot of blockers at once. The game can go on a bit if you are burning out lots of creatures and your creatures are being killed too. But a case could certainly be made for leaving it out and concentrating more on speed. Fire Elemental: He's not amazing, but there are very few 5 mana creatures available at the moment and he's good enough. The 5 power is too much for the opponent to ignore with the amount of firepower you have in this deck. Lava Axe: It's a reasonable amount of damage for the mana, and for a total burn strategy is a reasonable finisher. But I personally do not get along with cards like this, simply because they are inflexible. They are only any good if you are winning, and don't affect the board at all. If you're losing, this pretty much does nothing at all. I prefer to stick to cards that can kill creatures too, as they are always useful. You can't assume you will always be winning! For now I have included just one copy for lack of a better card. Relentless Assault: This is quite a cool card, but doesn't work as well in the deck as I initially thought. The Kiln Fiends will only get the bonus once since you cast it after the first combat, and it won't help clear blockers. And it doesn't combine well with Flamekin Brawler or Fiery Hellhound as it takes mana away from them. Goblin War Paint: This is an alright Aura, but suffers from the usual problem of possibly losing both cards to one kill-spell. At least the haste means you will often get some damage in before that can happen, especially if the opponent is tapped out. I feel that the deck doesn't need this for one on one, the creatures are strong enough and I'd prefer to have direct damage to back them up. Bad cards Cinder Wall: I feel this deck is too aggressive to be mucking about with walls. It has 4 aggressive one drops, and I would much rather have any of them than this. It can never damage your opponent, and can't be used offensively to remove blockers. It also is never a surprise. Dragon's Claw: I hate life gain! Ember Shot: I don't know why this was brought across from D09, it must have been the butt of the most jokes of all the cards. It's hideously overpriced, and 7 mana is a lot for this deck anyhow. Flame Wave is a much better choice. Avoid! Sizzle: In one on one, this is totally stupid. 3 Damage for 3 mana is poor, and it can't hit creatures either. This isn't any good for Archenemy either, unless you were the Archenemy which isn't possible at the moment! It's only use would be in Two Headed Giant, where it would hit both opponents for a total of 6 damage. =============================================================================== Garruk Wildspeaker - Apex Predators =============================================================================== Summary This is a mono green aggressive creature deck based loosely on Teeth of the Predator from D09. It has lost all parts of the Troll Ascetic/Blanchwood Armor/Loxodon Warhammer combo, which I am personally glad of, but has become much more well rounded with a stronger creature base instead of relying almost entirely on that one combo. It does however have some new creatures with "troll shroud", which has been given the new name hexproof, meaning you can target it with spells and abilities but your opponent cannot. Note that hexproof and shroud do not stop a creature being countered while being cast. This deck still uses 2 Overrun as big finishers, and has gained a little creature control with 2 Serrated Arrows and some cards that let you draw multiple creatures at once from your deck. Strategy This deck relies entirely on creature damage to win. You want to get out as many creatures are possible, as fast as possible, and keep the pressure on. Giant Growth can help you break through against bigger creatures, as can Elephant Guide. It is often better not to trade creatures if you have the choice, unless it helps you get more damage through in short order. This is because if you draw an Overrun, the more creatures you have the better, as they all get the +3/+3 and trample. This is what you will rely on late game and in stalemates to get your win. The deck does have some excellent higher mana creatures which can break through as well. If things are going badly, Cudgel Troll is an excellent blocker, having 4 power and being able to regenerate. You also have Serrated Arrows to pick off weenies if you are getting overwhelmed, to fix fights in your favour or stop the bleeding to some extent from a flier that is beating you up. Pros > * Some of the most efficient creatures, some of which are hard to counter or kill > * Mana acceleration from Nature's Lore and extra land from Borderland Ranger > * Excellent surprise value and fight fixing from Giant Growth > * Good ways of drawing cards and adding more creatures from your deck > * Mono deck so no colour problems Cons > * No artifact or enchantment control > * Little creature control > * Vulnerable against fliers > * Relies entirely on creatures to win Example decklist 24 Forest Creatures (24) 2 Garruk's Companion 2 Runeclaw Bear 3 Borderland Ranger 2 Centaur Courser 1 Dungrove Elder 1 Leatherback Baloth 2 Cudgel Troll 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 1 Wolfbriar Elemental 2 Garruk's Packleader 2 Stomper Cub 1 Craw Wurm 1 Multani, Maro-Sorcerer 1 Terra Stomper 1 Engulfing Slagwurm 1 Gaea's Revenge Other spells (12) 3 Giant Growth 2 Nature's Lore 1 Elephant Guide 2 Lead the Stampede 2 Serrated Arrows 2 Overrun Cards to exclude to build this deck 2 Wall of Vines 3 Grazing Gladehart 2 Rites of Flourishing 2 Beast Hunt 2 Giant Spider 1 Hunted Wumpus 3 Hunters' Feast 1 Craw Wurm Good cards Terra Stomper: This is insanely efficient and easily your best high mana creature. It's stats are terrific, trample makes it hard to stop and not being able to be countered makes it a headache for blue as well. For those of you who remember Force of Nature, compare and contrast. Serrated Arrows: Finally some real creature control! Coming all the way from the Homelands expansion, this is really handy for either picking off several weenies, slowly killing a medium size creature, or using during combat to fix fights. While it's untapped, it can be used to quickly get rid of a 2 toughness creature your opponent casts. Activate it near the end of their turn targeting the creature, then when you untap you can target it again and finish it off. Note that creatures can't regenerate from having their toughness lowered to zero, so three counters from this will kill Cudgel Troll outright. But this doesn't combine with damage. Although the game displays damage and toughness reduction as the same thing, they are in fact different. If Cudgel Troll has taken 2 damage and then gets a -1/-1 counter, he is really 3/2 with 2 damage and can regenerate, staying at 3/2 but removing the damage. The game displays the damage as the toughness going down which is misleading, it doesn't actually make the toughness go down. Giant Growth: One of the best surprise combat spells, this is brutally efficient. Even when your opponent suspects it is coming, there is often not much they can do about it. If they have tapped out to cast a 4/4 creature and see you attacking with three 2/2 creatures, they know you are going to Giant Growth whichever one they block, but their only alternative is to let them all through! The best time to use this is during the blockers phase, after blockers have been declared. Don't use it earlier as you only make the opponent's decisions easier. Save it for when it really matters, don't use it to keep a lowly creature alive. Be wary of opponents using direct damage or a kill-spell in response to your Giant Growth. The damage will resolve first before the bonus takes effect. Dungrove Elder: Showcasing the new hexproof, this is a really nasty creature. For 3 mana he is 3/3 at the very least, which is nice stats, and then grows just by playing land. If he's not big enough to beat your opponent's largest creature, you need only wait a few turns until you have more land. He's unlikely to die in the mean time thanks to hexproof. You can still use your beneficial spells such as Giant Growth and Elephant Guide on him, making him even less likely to die! Thrun, the Last Troll: Similar to the above, but with fixed stats and added regeneration. 4/4 is hefty for 4 mana, and he's probably never going away thanks to his abilities. A terrific blocker and attacker. Watch out for your opponent pulling their own combat trick like Giant Growth on a small creature while you are tapped out. Leatherback Baloth: With crazy amounts of beef for your buck, this guy just looks wrong when he hits the table on turn 3. Sadly you can't get him out any quicker than that, but it's still quick enough. He'll likely tower over anything else around at that stage and can keep on attacking until the opponent finds an answer. Wolfbriar Elemental: Again 4/4 is great for 4 mana when you need it, even without the kickers. If you need him right away, don't feel you have to hold him back, sometimes it is better to cast him especially if you are short on other creatures or need a blocker fast. But when you can afford to hold him back and cast other things in the meantime, or pick him up late game, spend a whole turn paying as many kickers as possible. He's the new and more effective Howl of the Night Pack, and is amazing when followed up by Overrun next turn. Often you'll have enough tokens to overwhelm your opponent by just attacking with them all anyway. Nature's Lore: I'm glad to see them make the swap from Rampant Growth which made no sense for mono green. This works exactly the same, except the Forest comes in untapped. When using it on turn 2 to accelerate your mana this probably won't make any difference, but it becomes more useful later on. If you have an extra land available you don't need that particular turn, you can use it to your advantage with this card. Say you have just played your fourth Forest, and you have in hand Nature's Lore, another Forest, a 3 mana creature and a 6 mana creature. At first glance you are choosing between casting the 3 mana creature and casting Nature's Lore to get the 6 mana creature out next turn. But in fact you can do both. Cast Nature's Lore first, and the new untapped Forest will leave you with 3 still to use. Then you can cast the 3 mana creature. Next turn you'll get to play your Forest and cast the 6 mana creature, so you have made use of the spare mana to be able to get both creatures out without losing anything. Overrun: This is your big play card, and you should normally hold this back until it is likely to win you the game. You want to get as many creatures in play as possible, no matter how small, as they will all become big threats once you cast this, and it's an extra 3 potential damage per creature. They all gain trample, so it becomes a matter of comparing how much total power your creatures will have after casting this with the total toughness of your opponent's creatures. If the difference between these is equal to or higher than their life total, you will probably win by using this. Watch out for your opponent interfering if they have mana available by using spells to boost their creatures or kill yours. You can sometimes use this even if you can't win outright with it just to force your opponent to make lots of awkward blocks costing them many creatures. If you cast it when they will lose unless they block with almost everything, they will often lose a lot more creatures than you will, leaving you in a powerful position. Garruk's Packleader: A new very useful addition to the deck. His stats are only average for his cost, but his strength is in his card drawing. Get him out as soon as you possibly can, so that you get maximum card draw from further creatures. Most creatures in the deck will net you a card, even the very cheap Garruk's Companion. If not dealt with, this amount of card advantage will be quickly overwhelming. You even get a card for the token from Elephant Guide. Note that the power of the creature is checked as soon as it enters the battlefield, so don't try and use Giant Growth on a 2/2 creature you just cast to try and get the Packleader to count it! Cudgel Troll: I really like this guy, he has decent stats and a cheap regenerate cost. This makes him hard to stop as an attacker, and a brilliant defender when you need one. When pumped with Giant Growth he will kill almost anything and survive, and if you have at least 6 mana he is brilliant in combination with Overrun as he can regenerate even if ganged up on. Remember, don't use his regenerate ability "just in case", only ever do it in response to a spell or ability that threatens to kill him, or in the blockers phase just before a creature is about to deal enough damage to kill him. Using it at other times is a waste of mana. Garruk's Companion: Runeclaw bear on steroids, you might say. Incredible stats for the cost, he is a big threat as early as turn 2. His trample makes him combine really well with Giant Growth, not only can he grow and kill the blocker but he will deal any excess damage as well. An excellent target for Elephant Guide on turn 3! Lead the Stampede: A quite amazing new spell for mono Green, out performing Beast Hunt quite considerably. You may not want to cast this on turn 3 in case you draw more creatures than you can keep on your hand, but if your hand isn't too strong you may not care about dumping the weaker cards to get more firepower. Later in the game this is really strong as you may be able to cast one or more of the creatures you get right away. Unfortunately it's down to chance how many creatures you get, but you'll be very unlucky to get none at all and with such a high creature percentage in this deck you'll get at least 2 quite a lot. Currently it's bugged so that you don't see all 5 cards, just the creature cards that you draw. See the next section, "Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis" to help you find out the number of cards you would expect to draw. Elephant Guide: A reasonable alternative to the unfair Blanchwood Armor which was almost unstoppable along with Troll Ascetic. I'm glad they made the switch, as Blanchwood on one of the new Hexproofs would be just as unfair. This gives a static bonus, but still a very nice one. You can put it on any creature and it will be effective, but trample ones will be the best. It gives you some protection against 2 for 1 losses by giving you a token when the creature dies, but note that if the opponent kills your creature in response to you casting Elephant Guide, you won't get a token since the Aura won't be on the battlefield yet. For that reason it's at its best cast when the opponent is tapped out. This is a lot weaker against Realm of Illusions and Ancient Depths, as they can return the creature to your hand quite easily and then you lose the Aura without getting Gaea's Revenge: Haste is rare in green, and this one packs quite a punch. Along with Terra Stomper, this makes blue mages quite infuriated by being uncounterable. This can also hardly be targeted by anything, only from green sources, which are unlikely to kill it. Only the low toughness lets it down, but if needed you can still use Giant Growth etc. on it. Since it has haste you may not need to for its first attack as the opponent won't be prepared for it and may not have any blockers available. It may also be the only attack you need. Ancient Depths is the biggest threat to this card, as it can return it to your hand with Aether Mutation, and even worse steal it with Yavimaya's Embrace. Engulfing Slagwurm: A nice top end creature to make use of all your mana, and very hard to stop. The creature he destroys can still regenerate, but you gain the life regardless of whether the destruction works. He's great on defence if needed as well. Since the creature is destroyed as soon as he blocks or is blocked, it doesn't get to hit him at all with any damage, making him almost impossible to kill apart from with an indestructible creature. He will even kill a creature with protection from green that blocks him since his ability doesn't target the creature, and you'll get the life bonus from Illusions that block it for the same reason. The opponent can't even gang up to kill this, since all blocking creatures will be eaten! And since he eats creatures before damage is dealt, the creature disappearing may impact play, for example if it was an Illusion then all Krovikan Mists will instantly drop by 1 power and toughness before damage is dealt. Multani, Maro-Sorcerer: Obviously intended to be great for Archenemy, and is cool for two headed giant, but for now he's decent enough to take a 6 mana spot in one on one I think. I'd rather use him than a Craw Wurm, and against a slow deck he is going to be lethal, especially as they can't target him with kill-spells. Between you and your opponent you will probably have enough cards to make him a reasonable threat, and you can allow him to grow just by holding back cards while your opponent may be forced to chuck stuff out prematurely just to keep him lower. Watch out for your opponent using cards up during combat causing him to shrink. Remember you can't target him either with Giant Growth etc. If a better 6 mana cost creature turns up, he'll probably be replaced. OK cards Borderland Ranger: He's not ideal and I would rather have something else that actually accelerates your mana rather than finding you more, but he does the job. You can think of him as a creature that gets you a free land, or another land that you pay for and get a free creature. He effectively raises the land count in the deck, making the higher casting cost creatures viable, so some of them have to be kept in for that reason. At least he builds up your creature base ready for Overrun. When you can afford to, cast him and then play the land afterwards, rather than playing it first, to reduce the amount of information your opponent has about your hand. Stomper Cub: A very aggressive card that sits fairly well in the deck. His low toughness is a shame, but the trample is great. A surprise Giant Growth may keep him alive against a medium size blocker and deal a lot of damage at the same time. Centaur Courser: Decent stats for the mana, but compared to the heroes of the deck he doesn't excel. He's worth it to fill the mana curve at the moment. Runeclaw Bear: Bog standard, but at the moment just about worth including to keep the speed of your deck up. At least being fast he helps you get more creatures on the board ready for an Overrun. Also gives you an early target for Giant Growth or Elephant Guide if the opponent drops something nasty early on. Bad cards Giant Spider: Too defensive for this deck, and wimpy for his cost. Although this deck is vulnerable to flying creatures, it's best to concentrate on pounding your opponent into keeping their fliers back than having this guy waving his legs around trying to scare them off. There are much better reach creatures that could have been included, I don't know why they insisted on keeping this. If you do use him, he can at least take out a big flier by surprise with a Giant Growth while blocking. Grazing Gladehart: In the wrong deck, again. Oopsey! Life gain is not important for this deck, it's about finishing off the opponent as quickly as possible with efficient creatures. This is not efficient at all, and is not part of your strategy. If you do want to play him, you can hold back lands you don't need later in the game to benefit from his landfall ability should you draw him. Craw Wurm: Why they insist on keeping crud like this in the game, I don't know. Green is meant to have the biggest and best creatures, and this is a shrivelled-up counter example to that. Really un-scary stats and no abilities. Doesn't really compare well to Terra Stomper in this deck huh? With that and Multani Maro-Sorcerer you don't need these unless you need something big to make up the numbers. Beast Hunt: I'm glad they moved this over to this deck where it makes much more sense. Strange how they then included a strictly better card in Lead the Stampede. Cast it when you can spare the mana and need some more threats. See the next section, "Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis" to help you find out the number of cards you would expect to draw. I would not recommend using this card after doing the analysis, the amount of cards you expect to draw is very low for 4 mana. Hunted Wumpus: This is way too risky in one on one, as your opponent could easily put out a huge creature that this deck has no way to deal with and lose you the game on the spot. Even if they put out something average, you are giving away serious momentum, especially if they then hit your Wumpus with a kill-spell which is quite likely. This is great however for Archenemy, where both your allies get a creature too, giving you 3 good creatures for just 1 to the big bad man. Wall of Vines: Better than Wall of Wood, but still hopelessly in the wrong deck. This deck is pure offence, and this card is pure defence, it doesn't fit. It can never damage your opponent, can't even kill an attacker without help, and sits by idly when you cast your Overrun. A good aggressive ground-based deck wins by keeping the pressure on the opponent and forcing them to defend with their flying creatures, not wasting time with half-baked defensive cards. Rites of Flourishing: I wouldn't recommend using this in one on one, it gives your opponent the same advantage as you and they get to use it first. It's just too risky, and it will mean a bigger threat coming out for you to deal with than you would normally face, and you don't have enough creature control to handle it. This is really good however in Archenemy, since you and your allies all get the benefit, 3 cards a turn and only one for the Archenemy, plus you all get to play another land. Hunters' Feast: That may look like a lot of life, but it's still not worth it in one on one, especially in an aggressive deck. You'll draw this when you need either another attacker to seal the game or a much needed blocker, this will only serve as a stall. Save it for Archenemy or Two Headed Giant if you're going to use it. =============================================================================== Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis =============================================================================== I have done some rough calculations to estimate the number of creature cards you would expect to draw, on average, with Beast Hunt and Lead the Stampede. It depends on how many creature cards you have in your deck, as this increases the chance of drawing more. These are my results: +=========================+=========================+=========================+ | Number of creature | Average number of | Average number of | | cards in deck | creatures drawn with | creatures drawn with | | | Beast Hunt | Lead the Stampede | +=========================+=========================+=========================+ | 18 | 0.98 | 1.61 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 19 | 1.04 | 1.70 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 20 | 1.09 | 1.79 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 21 | 1.15 | 1.88 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 22 | 1.20 | 1.96 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 23 | 1.25 | 2.05 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 24 | 1.31 | 2.14 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 25 | 1.36 | 2.23 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 26 | 1.42 | 2.32 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 27 | 1.47 | 2.41 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 28 | 1.53 | 2.50 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 29 | 1.58 | 2.59 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 30 | 1.64 | 2.68 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 31 | 1.69 | 2.77 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 32 | 1.75 | 2.86 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 33 | 1.80 | 2.95 | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ If you're interested in knowing how I arrived at these figures, I assumed that I have cast Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede, and have the 4/3 land required respectively, leaving 55/56 cards between my hand and my deck. Assuming these are randomly distributed, I calculated the probabilities of getting different numbers of creatures from the 3/5 cards you draw by considering the possible combinations. I then used this to calculate the average. I'm happy to send anyone a copy of the spreadsheet I used to speed up the calculations on request! This is only a simplified estimate, but I hope it gives a good indication of overall usefulness. The amount you expect to draw would go up very slightly each time you remove a non-creature card from your deck, such as pulling out a land with Nature's Lore or Borderland Ranger. This means that the inclusion of Nature's Lore as a non-creature card is ever so slightly better than other non-creature cards for the effectiveness of Beast Hunt and Lead the Stampede. I think it's pretty clear that Beast Hunt isn't worth it. Considering Lead the Stampede for my current setup of 24 creatures, here are the probabilities of drawing different number of creatures out of the 5 cards: +=========================+=========================+=========================+ | Number of creatures | Probability | Probability of drawing | | drawn | | at least this many | +=========================+=========================+=========================+ | 0 | 5.3% | 100% | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 1 | 22.6% | 94.7% | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 2 | 35.8% | 72.1% | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 3 | 26.3% | 36.3% | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 4 | 8.9% | 10% | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ | 5 | 1.1% | 1.1% | +-------------------------+-------------------------+-------------------------+ =============================================================================== Gideon Jura - Wielding Steel =============================================================================== Summary This is a mono white aggressive weenie swarm style deck that uses lots of Equipment, loosely based on Weapons of the Warrior from D09. It has become more focused, and has addressed a lot of the decks weaknesses to both creatures with nasty abilities and to artifacts and enchantments. It has a lot of creatures that get better simply by being equipped, which are very cheap, and so a powerful offence can launch very quickly. Strategy This deck needs to get out lots of creatures quickly, and then back them up with equipment to help them break through or give them evasion. It has ways to sabotage the opponent's creatures, by tapping them or making them useless with Arrest. They should be used both to help your creatures keep attacking, and when things are going badly to stop yourself getting beaten up. Move the equipment around when you have spare mana, so you can take it off your creature that attacked and put it on an untapped creature ready to defend. Later in the game your 5 and 6 mana spells will help you break through. Pros > * Very fast, aggressive and efficient creatures > * The best artifact and enchantment control in 2 Revoke Existence > * Fair amount of creature control/disruption > * Lots of quick and powerful equipment Cons > * Can sometimes stall if equipment doesn't show up or gets destroyed > * Lack of mid range creatures, reliant on mainly small creatures > * Creature control relies on cards remaining on the battlefield Example decklist 24 Plains Creatures (23) 4 Elite Vanguard 2 Gideon's Lawkeeper 2 Kitesail Apprentice 2 Kor Duelist 3 Kor Outfitter 1 Puresteel Paladin 1 Stoneforge Mystic 2 Sunspear Shikari 1 Gideon's Avenger 3 Kor Hookmaster 1 Baneslayer Angel 1 Captain of the Watch Other spells (13) 1 Brave the Elements 1 Infiltration Lens 2 Trusty Machete 2 Kitesail 3 Arrest 1 Pennon Blade 1 Strider Harness 1 Sword of War and Peace 1 Conqueror's Pledge Cards to exclude to build this deck 3 Angel's Feather 4 Glory Seeker 2 Revoke Existence 2 Congregate 1 Harmless Assault 2 Serra Angel 1 Argentum Armor 1 Archangel of Strife Good cards Arrest: This card mostly sorts out the biggest problem that Weapons of the Warrior had, which was annoying ability creatures. Sadly it still doesn't stop continuous effects like Captivating Vampire giving all other Vampires +1/+1, or triggered abilities like with Goblin Arsonist. Use this sparingly to either nullify huge threats, remove a blocker if victory is close, or to stop a creature with activated abilities. Watch out for the opponent destroying this during combat, suddenly making another blocker available for them. Baneslayer Angel: Along with the other Angels, this is really nothing to do with the deck and its strategy. But it's too strong to ignore, one of the best creatures of all time, sickeningly overpowered. It will most likely win the game if the opponent can't kill it, it's usually that simple. Amazing on attack and defence, and really hard to kill thanks to first strike. Some of the huge fliers that might have done the job are dragons, and they can't even block it or use their abilities on it thanks to protection. The life gain means you can usually just keep attacking and can afford to take damage back, it's hard for the opponent to keep up in that race. Stoneforge Mystic: Unbelievably awesome, I think I read that this is even banned now in standard play. It's probably best there is only one in the deck for balance. This essentially gives you an extra copy of every equipment in the deck, along with a way to get them on the battlefield at a reduced cost for the expensive ones. Note that it doesn't have to be the one you fetched that you put onto the battlefield, you can use it for any equipment in your hand, and multiple times over several turns. If you don't have the mana to equip what you're going to play anyway, it can be better to hold back your mana and activate his ability near the end of your opponent's turn. This puts the equipment in as a surprise ready for you to untap, rather than letting your opponent plan their strategy around it by putting it down on your turn. When you cast him, the equipment you fetch will depend on the situation and the cards in your hand. Plan your next few turns mentally, looking at what your opponent has, and decide what best fits your mana curve. Revoke Existence: The best artifact and enchantment control in the game. It ignores being indestructible, and regeneration. Also, the targeted card can't be retrieved from the graveyard. Unfortunately, 4 of the top 5 decks don't have more than 1 card that needs removing and some have none, so it can often be useless. Puresteel Paladin: If you play with 6 or more equipment cards, this is an awesome creature to include. He turns all your equipment into "free" cards, replacing them instantly with another card. And if you're lucky enough to cast several in a row this way and get 3 or more on the battlefield, his other ability then lets you equip them all for free. And at 2/2 he's capable of handing out the beats with the rest of them. Keep him alive is a priority for his abilities. Cast him before any equipment cards. Gideon's Lawkeeper: This is in my opinion the best of the 1 drops in the deck, and in the game. Tapping creatures is a very powerful ability. If you use it offensively, make sure you tap a creature before the opponent chooses their blockers in your turn. Once a creature has blocked, tapping it will make no difference. If you're using it defensively, you need to tap a creature before the opponent declares their attackers, which will be in their first main phase. Again, once a creature has attacked, trying to tap it makes no difference. If this creature is untapped during your opponent's turn you can also use it extra-offensively by tapping one of their creatures during their turn, then untapping and tapping another creature in your turn. This way he can clear 2 blockers out of the way. Trusty Machete: The most efficient and dangerous of the equipment in the deck. It comes out quickly, the only drawback is the slightly annoying equip cost which can be awkward early on. It helps your smaller creatures punch through. Once you have a reasonable amount of mana it becomes a permanent boost for any available creature. Very nasty on Kor Duelist or Kitemaster Apprentice. Kor Outfitter: These are essential to the deck strategy. They enable you to continue to get a creature into play while equipping your gear, and sometimes to avoid paying a large equip cost. You'll usually want to save these until you have some equipment in play that you want to equip to something. Cast other creatures and equipment first, then cast this guy. Attach something to one of your other creatures and it can attack holding the gear right away. If you have no other creatures to play first, play your equipments and then cast this so he can at least pick up the equipment himself. Sword of War and Peace: This equipment is a bit mental. Although slightly on the expensive side, its benefits are worth it. Protection from red and white has a fair chance of being relevant. Note that protection from white stops the creature being targeted by your own abilities such as Kor Outfitter. The life gain can really hurt direct damage decks, and the damage is harsh against slower decks. Perfect for putting on Kitesail Apprentice, as it will be harder for the opponent to avoid these effects by chump blocking. This works really well in combination with Infiltration Lens if you get them both on the same creature. The opponent is then damned if they block, damned if they don't. They let you get 2 cards if they block, or else take extra damage and let you gain life. Kitesail Apprentice: I really like this one, he gives you a way to easily get some evasion damage from flying. This guy takes to the air with whatever you put on him, plus a +1/+1 bonus, to keep on doing damage even if the ground has become clogged up. This can help break stall situations. Kor Duelist: He becomes scary very quickly, even with just a Trusty Machete he can deal 6 damage thanks to double strike. After testing, I've found it's worth including these along with the Kitesail Apprentices if you are using 7+ Equipment cards, as they make the most of the theme. If he gets hold of multiple Equipments, he's usually unstoppable. Sunspear Shikari: He is a bit of a mental case, going ape when he gets hold of some equipment. He's got decent stats anyhow, and lifelink and first strike make him really hard to deal with, especially after stat boosts. Getting him out with something on him is a priority, since the life gain will help you be able to keep attacking recklessly, and not much will be able to stop him early. Neither ability will be redundant since none of your equipment offers either of them. Elite Vanguard: To my knowledge this is only the second ever 1 mana creature with 2 power and no drawback, the first being Savannah Lions. It's ridiculously unfair, and should be a green creature! But since no one cares what I think about it, it's here in white, and it's a Soldier too. A great creature to cast first, getting maximum power on the table. He can trade with most 2 drops, and gets even more scary once he gets hold of equipment. He would be higher on the list, except for his lack of interaction with Equipment. Still well worth including. Kor Hookmaster: This guy can look a bit wussy on first glance, but I have found him to be quite effective. He doesn't permanently deal with a creature, but he gets it out of the way for an attack both on this turn and the next. You can deal a lot of damage in that time if you pick your moment. After that you may have another Hookmaster to lock it down again, or a diferent way to deal with it. While he does this he provides another reasonable creature and a target for your equipment. Gideon's Avenger: This guy is a lot more effective than he looks. He acts as a deterrent against your opponent attacking with anything. Right away he gets a counter for each attacking creature, and then has the option of blocking after that, potentially now big enough to kill something. Also he combos well with the Lawkeeper and Hookmaster, gaining a counter each time you tap an opponent's guy. He often gets big enough to demand an answer fairly quickly, or at least makes your opponent hold up on their attack. Conqueror's Pledge: Forget the kicker which is unlikely to ever happen. Just the standard effect of this card is very strong. 6 creatures for 5 mana is really good (anyone remember Icatian Town? That was in a tournament deck once...) and gives you huge amounts of targets for equipment, and the ability to overpower your opponent with huge attacks. Or a bunch of chump blockers if things are going badly while your flying creatures do some damage. My favourite 5 mana spell for this deck, after the infamous Baneslayer. If you are choosing between this and Serra Angel, I'd go with this, because the 5 creatures are harder to kill in just one spell, and this fits the theme of the deck better. Serra Angel: Not quite as good as Baneslayer, but good enough to hold a 5 mana slot, at least for now. The age old creature which can attack and then still defend thanks to vigilance. If you're going to cut a 5 mana spell for speed, I'd cut this one. Brave the Elements: A very useful cheap spell, and one of your few combat tricks. You can use this in several ways, by choosing the appropriate colour- > * By casting before blockers are chosen, no creatures of the chosen colour can block your creatures this turn. Against a mono deck, this means all your creatures are essentially unblockable. > * By casting in response to a spell or ability that targets one or more of your creatures, you make the targets invalid and the spell or ability will fail. This will also prevent any extra side effects that would have happened, such as gaining life from Corrupt. > * By casting in response to a spell or ability that deals damage to one or more of your creatures but doesn't target them (such as Pyroclasm), all the damage will be prevented. > * No combat damage will be dealt from creatures of the chosen colour to your creatures. This is useful if your opponent plays an unexpected Giant Growth or similar during combat, to save your creature. > * It makes any nasty Auras your opponent has put on your creatures, such as Arrest, fall off. This spell is no use against untargeted effects that don't deal damage, such as Damnation or Evacuation. Also it's usually bad to cast this "just in case". For example, say I cast this with the idea that I don't want the opponent to Incinerate any of my creatures this turn. If my opponent does have an Incinerate he can use it in response and it will resolve first killing my creature. If I'd have waited and an Incinerate does come, I can cast this in response to save my creature. Captain of the Watch: This is my favourite top-end spell for the deck. It has an immediate impact, pumping up all your Soldiers (which is most of your creatures) and vigilance allows them to defend as well after attacking. This is best cast when your opponent is tapped out so they can't kill this guy and make you lose the bonus mid combat. But even if he does die right away, you get to keep the 3 tokens which give you plenty of targets for equipment. Keep him out of combat if he's likely to die, to keep his bonus in operation. Infiltration Lens: I find this equipment very useful, mainly because of its really cheap mana and equip costs. Since you have as many as 6 creatures that get a bonus just by being equipped, this makes getting those bonuses very easy. It also fits the strategy of the deck perfectly. You want to keep attacking, and this makes one of your creatures undesirable to be blocked. Your opponent has the choice between taking the damage, or letting you draw 2 cards. You can attack recklessly with the creature it's on, even if the opponent can block it with a bigger creature and survive. Gaining 2 cards for your 1 creature is great. Your opponent can't handle this kind of cheap card advantage, and an experienced player will most likely let your creature through each time until they can do something about the situation. OK cards Strider Harness: Although initially a little expensive, once on the table it's easy to use. You can equip it to the new creature you cast each turn, allowing it to attack right away along with everything else. You can also cheaply move it around after combat to provide a suitable blocker. Very nice for keeping the pressure on, and lethal on a big Angel! You can also use this nicely with a Gideon's Lawkeeper that you just drew. You can cast him, attach the Harness, then use his tap ability right away to tap a potential blocker. Then put the Harness on something else, and attack! Kitesail: I used it to keep the equipment count up, although I'd like to replace it if DLC offers something better. A little bit pricey for what it does, it can be hard to use early on in the game, so I only like using 1 of these. It does help keep the damage going through a stall situation, and for when need a blocker against the opponent's flying creatures. Pennon Blade: Although on the expensive side, I've been including this to keep the equipment count up again, and as a late-game breakthrough since this deck can stall. Hopefully a Kor Outfitter can save you the big equip cost. Great in combination with the token generation cards in the deck. Could possibly be cut for speed. Argentum Armor: I feel that this is just slightly too expensive for this deck with its current setup. When it works it's going to be great, but I think the risk and the cost may be too much. It will be amazing if you get both a Stoneforge Mystic and Kor Outfitter to avoid paying both the big costs, but with only one Mystic you can't rely on this. And if the creature you go to equip gets killed in response you're stuck with a huge equipment you won't be able to use again without another Outfitter for some time probably. And played from your hand it will take a whole turn to get it out, once you finally reach 6 mana, and unless you've been holding back an Outfitter (clogging up 2 cards in your hand) another turn to equip. You risk that creature being killed in response leaving you very vulnerable after such a big commitment. You may decide it's worth all this risk for the times it works, but I would rather stick with Captain of the Watch for its immediate impact as my 6 mana spell and leave it at that. For a compromise, Pennon Blade has a big effect and for more manageable mana. Glory Seeker: Your standard grunt, who becomes totally surplus to requirements as you unlock the 2 cost 2/2 creatures with abilities. Bad cards Congregate: Life gain is no good for this really aggressive deck, although this one does give you quite a lot of life. I still wouldn't bother, concentrate on nailing your opponent. It'll be more useful in Two Headed Giant or Archenemy where there will be huge amounts of creatures. Archangel of Strife: This is too expensive for this deck, and not game clinching enough for the stretch. It can also backfire quite badly. Save it for Archenemy where all 3 of you can choose attack and wreak havoc! Angel's Feather: I hate life gain! Harmless Assault: This is well overpriced anyway for what it does, and it's still in the wrong deck. This is a very aggressive deck, and doesn't want to be standing around trying to fix fights on the defence or fogging the opponent. Steer clear! =============================================================================== Jace Beleren - Realm of Illusion =============================================================================== Summary This is a mono blue Illusion based deck. It's vaguely like Thoughts of Wind from D09, but has had a complete makeover. A lot of its Illusion creatures die just from being targeted by a spell or ability, which I'll refer to as "shy" creatures. They make up for it with generally very good stats for their mana cost. It has plenty of countermagic, and much improved support cards, making it a competitive deck at last. It is also able to tap out much more safely with more reliable bounce options (returning cards to their owners' hands). Strategy This can be a very aggressive deck, and you want to try and swarm the opponent with Illusions, right from turn 1 if possible. You expect some of the shy ones to die, but it will usually still cost the opponent a card, and you have plenty more where they came from. The Krovikan Mists are big hitters early on, so keep the number of Illusions in play high. Keep on the offensive whenever possible, and use your bounce spells such as Repulse to return expensive creatures to the opponent's hand to slow them down. Use your countermagic to stop big threats, and to protect your important cards like Lord of the Unreal. He is the bomb for this deck if you can keep him out, making your shy creatures untargetable and thus removes their disadvantage. Press for the win with flying creatures, aided by unblockable Phantom Warriors. Read carefully: don't ever try to stop one of your shy creatures from getting killed by countering the spell that targeted them. It won't work! Their own ability to kill themselves exists independently and it doesn't matter what happens to the spell after that. There is only one way to save them from their own ability, and that is to use Evacuation in response to whatever has targeted them. You must have auto-resolution set to Off, otherwise the self-kill abilities resolve instantly. This works because Evacuation doesn't target anything, so doesn't set off their ability like trying to save them with Repulse would. Pros > * Beefy creatures can dominate the board from early on > * Lots of countermagic and bounce spells > * Plenty of fiers and unblockables > * Good card drawing > * Some nice creature stealing > * Mono deck means no colour problems Cons > * Relies on just one card for enchantment and artifact control, and that is by bouncing them (Quicksilver Geyser) > * Shy creatures obviously very vulnerable without Lord of the Unreal > * Cannot destroy creatures, only steal/bounce them Example decklist 24 Island Creatures (19) 4 Phantasmal Bear 4 Krovikan Mist 2 Lord of the Unreal 2 Aeether Adept 3 Blind Phantasm 2 Phantom Warrior 1 Phantasmal Dragon 1 Sower of Temptation Other spells (17) 1 Fleeting Distraction 2 Counterspell 2 Cancel 2 Divination 3 Repulse 1 Concentrate 1 Summoner's Bane 2 Jace's Ingenuity 1 Mind Control 1 Quicksilver Geyser 1 Time Warp Cards to exclude to build this deck 1 Prosperity 1 Aeether Figment 3 Kraken's Eye 1 Mind Spring 1 Wall of Air 1 Disorient 3 Phantom Beast 2 Air Elemental 1 Drake Umbra 1 Evacuation 1 Mahamoti Djinn Good cards Counterspell: Ouch! Banned from standard for being too good, for some reason it's back again. The counterspell that all other counterspells are named after, and probably the third best of all time after Mana Drain and Force of Will. But enough with the history lesson... This is your best counterspell in the deck, and the only one that requires just 2 mana. My rule of thumb with counterspells is the more you have in your hand, the more sparing you can be with them. And the less you have, the more careful you have to be with each one. So with a handful of countermagic it can be worth countering even a lowly 2/2 creature if it's going to help your game plan. But when you just have one in your hand, you can't assume you're going to draw more any time soon. Save it for something you really can't cope with any other way, or that will seal your victory. When you can afford to, use your other countermagic first so that you save this more efficient one for later. Mind Control: This is a huge game changer, and you want to make it count. By stealing your opponent's huge creature, you've not only removed the threat to yourself but turned the tables by making your opponent have to find an answer to it. Knowing the decks well helps a lot to decide what to steal. Take into account whether the deck you are facing has enchantment control too. If it does, it may be better to wait until you have enough mana to defend this with countermagic. Otherwise, you can tap out to steal the creature quite safely. Cancel: Exactly the same as Counterspell, but costs one more. Still very powerful and worth including. Sower of Temptation: Stealing the opponent's creatures is one of the most powerful things you can do in Magic. To add more injury to the insult and the injury, you get a 2/2 flier out of the deal as well. Although it's not an Illusion and doesn't fit the theme particularly, it's too good to ignore. It's generally easier to kill than Mind Control being a small creature, but it's also cheaper. And if the opponent can't deal with it, they are in big trouble. If you cast this when they are tapped out, even if they can untap and then kill this right away, the creature you stole will regain summoning sickness. Later in the game, you may have enough mana to cast this and then protect it with countermagic. Lord of the Unreal: This is your boss guy, who makes everything alright. 2/2 for 2 mana is unusually efficient for blue anyway, and his ability works wonders for this deck. As long as he remains on the battlefield, all your shy creatures suddenly lose their disability since they can no longer be targeted by anything. And your other Illusions becomes similarly shielded. Short of mass destruction, the opponent has to deal with this card before he can do anything about your Illusions. Early in the game he can provide a quick boost to your guys before the opponent gets round to removing him, but later on, at only 2 mana, you can fairly easily cast him and then protect him with countermagic. If you can do this, the sheer size of your Illusions should win the game. Along with Krovikan Mist, he gives a reason to use as many Illusion-type creatures as possible. Repulse: This is so much better than the bounce spells in the old Jace deck which almost always lead to card disadvantage. This spell means you can tap out much more safely, knowing that even if a big creature comes down, you can at least bounce it. If you also want to counter it, make sure your opponent can't cast it again the same turn if you don't have the mana to counter it. If they can you may have to wait until your turn and untap all your lands. This card has all sorts of uses: > * To play with your opponent's momentum by making them cast an expensive creature again, and make it have to go through summoning sickness again. > * To get rid of any counters or Auras on a creature, and make it drop any Equipment it has. > * To stop a creature that has been pumped with Giant Growth etc. from killing your creature by bouncing it before damage is dealt. > * To temporarily get rid of the bonus a creature is providing, for example bouncing Captivating Vampire in the middle of combat so all the Vampires suddenly drop their +1/+1 bonus before damage is dealt. > * To kill creature tokens, since they cease to exist when they are put back in your opponent's hand. > * To save your own creature, by casting in response to something that will kill it, or in combat before damage is dealt. You can block an attacker, and then Repulse your creature. The attacker then won't deal you any damage unless it has trample. > * To get rid of nasty Auras that your opponent has put on your creature by being able to recast it. This includes things that steal it such as Mind Control. Phantasmal Dragon: This is the best of the shy creatures, quite amazing stats and also flying just for 4 mana. Unfortunately he's going to be a prime target as well. You may want to throw out Phantasmal Beasts first if you have both in hand, if you suspect the opponent will likely have something to target them. Left unchecked, this guy is going to rule the air and probably the game, especially early on. Krovikan Mist: This can prove to be one of the most effective parts of your offence, and the main reason to use as many Illusions as possible in your deck. He counts all Illusions, including himself and other Krovikan Mists, quickly growing very large and becoming hard to deal with. It's a good play on turn 2, even if the opponent has something to kill it, that's one less for use on your shy creatures. And if it remains, every Illusion you cast next turn will pump him up before he attacks. Along with Air Elementals, he can often provide the finishing touches to your win. Late in the game, in any stalled position, he's likely to come out huge and you'll have the mana to protect him. Divination: Very simple and effective card drawing. Useful both early and late in the game. Always put a lot of thought into whether you should commit your mana to card drawing, casting creatures, or holding it back for countermagic. Each situation is different, try to imagine what your opponent has in their hand, and what will happen over the next few turns. As you gain experience in the game this will become easier, but in the end you often have to rely on intuition and rough probabilities. Pay careful attention to the number of cards the opponent has in their hand at all times. Concentrate: This is the same as Divination, but one more card for one more mana. Really great for refilling your hand if you've cast a lot of cheap illusions early. Jace's Ingenuity: Although at first glance this just seems worse than Concentrate, its power lies in it being an instant. For the other card draw spells in this deck, you have to decide on your turn whether you want to commit the mana to getting the cards. With this card, you don't have to decide. In fact, unless you have enough mana to make use of the cards you draw, or desperately want another land to play, it's best to not cast this in your turn at all. Leave your mana open, and see what the opponent does. Wait until at least after they have attacked, and if they appear to have finished you can go ahead and cast it. If they do something awful and you decide you must counter it, then you have kept your options open to do that, which you wouldn't if you cast this in your turn. Be wary of people "baiting" you though, pretending they have finished their turn when they haven't. If you cast this on their turn, they can then start casting creatures etc. and you may not have the mana to counter them. You have to decide whether this is worth the risk. How many bounce spells are in your hand will help with this decision. You can even cast this in response to a spell, and if you draw any counterspells from this and have the mana, use them to counter the spell. Mind Spring: This is very flexible, and normally I'd recommend putting this in as it's a great card, but the sheer number of other efficient card drawing spells makes me think this isn't needed. If you want to concentrate even more on card drawing though, this is the way to go. At least you can be fairly safe tapping all your lands with this deck with bounce spells in hand. At other times, you can play it more safely, leaving some mana back for countermagic. If you haven't played a land this turn, and all you have is Cancel for countermagic, you could risk tapping all but 2 Islands, hoping to find another Island in the cards you draw. Phantasmal Bear: Although the smallest, this is my favourite shy guy. He absolutely owns the field by coming out 2/2 on the first turn, and he can be followed by another or even 2 more the next turn. Even if the opponent uses something to kill it, it will usually be a card for a card, and since you only put 1 mana into this guy you're not going to be too worried. Use him to pound the opponent early, getting them low enough for your eventual bigger creatures and fliers to finish the job, and to force the opponent onto the defensive. Phantom Beast: Although not as good as the Dragon, this is still very hefty. He's likely to be bigger than anything else out on turn 4, and if the opponent can't swipe him then he'll be able to bully them quite badly. Also a huge blocker if needed. You may find that against some decks his big mana cost makes him a liability if the opponent has a lot of cards that can target him easily. I would say when facing Unquenchable Fire, Wielding Steel, Strength of Stone and Dragon's Roar you would be better off using Blind Phantasm. This is 4 out of the 10 decks, so it comes down to which you expect to face and how scary you find each matchup. You can even use a mixture of the two to hedge your bets, if playing against an unknown deck. Time Warp: This is the "fair" Time Walk, and I'm glad to see it make an appearance in Duels. Once you hit 5 mana you can't go wrong by casting it, as at the very least it will replace itself in your hand. But you want to cast it when you can get maximum advantage. If you have more than 5 lands, it lets you use the remainder without having to worry about being tapped out since you will get to untap again before your opponent does. It will let you play an additional land in your extra turn. You can attack recklessly without worrying about blocking since you get a full untap. The later in the game you use this the better usually, but look out for any situation where you can gain a big advantage, or even kill your opponent just by attacking twice with flying and unblockable creatures. This is amazing in Two Headed Giant or Archenemy, since it gives your whole team another turn! Summoner's Bane: Although narrow in focus, it's worth including as every deck uses creatures and there's always going to be nasty ones you want to stop. Use this in preference to any other counterspell when you get the chance, to save the others for more flexible targeting. The token you get counts as an Illusion as well, which helps your theme, and gives you another attacker or blocker. Phantom Warrior: This fits much better here than it did in the old Jace deck. Because this is much more aggressive, you're more likely to want to keep attacking with this and not having to keep it as an overpriced blocker. If the game gets stalled he's the perfect card to keep applying damage since almost nothing can stop him. Plus he's an Illusion! Quicksilver Geyser: I feel this card, although a little expensive, is an essential include because it is the only way you can do anything about artifacts and enchantments on the battlefield. And on top of that, it can be used as a mini-evacuation against your opponent, leaving your own creatures in place. This can cost them a lot of momentum. It can be used in many dual-purpose ways, such as bouncing your own creature which just got targeted by a kill-spell, while returning their annoying creature/artifact/enchantment to their hand ready to counter. Use carefully and sparingly. Aether Adept: Although it's a shame he's not an Illusion, his ability is very strong. It's worth considering as they play havoc with your opponent's momentum and complement nicely the other bounce effects in the deck. Follow the same strategies as with Repulse, although of course this can't be used as an Instant. He allows you even more to be able to tap out with the knowledge you can bounce anything that gets cast. Air Elemental: Not an Illusion, but I feel he is strong enough to fill out the top of the creature mana curve and provide some late game punch. 4/4 flying is always going to be big, and there's nothing else to challenge him at this mana range. But it doesn't fit the theme of the deck, and you'll often leave yourself, and this creature, vulnerable tapping out to cast it. Evacuation: A very nice card, and it's the only way to save your shy creatures once they have been targeted (make sure you have auto resolution turned off for this to work). I personally prefer dropping this for Quicksilver Geyser, since I feel that is the more important card, and since this deck is very fast I don't like how it halts your own momentum as well. I feel this is the weakest of the 5 mana spells available and is too negative for the overall strategy. If you do use it, save it for when your opponent has a large number of creatures in play, and preferably when they have tapped out so they can't cast any again that turn. Use it during their turn when you can, leaving your mana untapped to start casting yours again. Mahamoti Djinn: A good old fashioned huge flier back from the mists of time! He is nice, but I feel he's not quite needed in this deck. You already have 2 Air Elementals for big finishers, and this is just a bit more of a stretch so I'd prefer them and wouldn't want another expensive non-Illusion. You'd probably also rather be spending the mana on card draw when you get to the stage you can cast this. He could be useful if you plan for a really long, drawn out game. OK cards Fleeting Distraction: This is a baby version of Disorient, which is much better. It can be used to either reduce the combat damage that will be dealt to you, or fix a fight, such as dropping a 2/2 to 1/2 so it falls to your Phantasmal Bear. Even when you don't have a particular use for it, cast it on anything (except your shy creatures!) just to draw a card whenever you have a spare mana. I like including this to complement the card draw, and it effectively reduces the deck size. Blind Phantasm: This is OK to start with, but doesn't quite pack enough punch to hang with the rest of the potential unlocks. It does have quite nice stats and is an Illusion that's not shy, but it tends to just sit around after the first few turns. The impact of Aeether Adept is much better for the mana, and Phantom Warrior is preferable. You'll often be wanting to hold the mana for a counterspell if you don't have either of these rather than casting this. However, he can provide an alternative to Phantom Beast if you are worried about him being too vulnerable to targeting. He can then more reliably defend and help pump up your Krovikan Mists. Because he is cheaper, changing a Beast for one of these can also smooth out your mana curve. Wall of Air: This would have been good in the old Jace deck, but here it is too defensive. Plus it's not an Illusion. You have plenty of fliers which can defend if need be, and better things to play on turn 3 that fit your strategy. Bad cards Aeether Figment: I just can't like this card, it's not a good deal with or without the kicker. 1 damage a turn is puny, and for 5 mana you have much better spells. Phantom Warrior is much better in my opinion. And at the 2 mana slot, you have 4 Krovikan Mist and 2 Lord of the Unreal which are both much better than this. Drake Umbra: An Aura this expensive has to be really good, and this isn't. Plus you can't use it on your shy creatures without killing them, and a lot of your creatures have flying already. And if they kill the creature in response to casting the Aura, the totem armor effect won't kick in. Too clumsy for this deck. Prosperity: This is no good in one on one without something particular to combo it with, and this deck has nothing suitable. Your opponent gains the same amount of cards as you, and will probably get to use them first if you put a lot of mana into this. The deck has plenty of other reliable card drawing, you don't need this. Save it for Archenemy, where it will be really good, letting your team draw X cards each against just one lot of X for the Archenemy. Kraken's Eye: I hate life gain! Disorient: The Firemind deck from D09 gave this card to Jace as a joke, and he mistakenly put it in his deck. Don't make the same mistake! Remove this as soon as possible and keep it out. It's stupidly overpriced for what it does, and it doesn't guarantee you will kill a big creature with your one since you still need enough power to do the job. As a one-shot way of stopping damage against you, it's a terrible deal too. This deck is aggressive, and this is a silly defensive kind of card. =============================================================================== Kiora Atua - Ancient Depths =============================================================================== Summary This is a brand new blue/green deck, which is quite different to anything else you will have seen in D09. It is capable of getting out huge numbers of lands very quickly, and then uses them to cast powerful expensive spells that you would normally never even consider trying to use, including two Eldrazi! On the way it draws lots of cards, messes with and steals your opponent's creatures. Strategy In the early game your goal is to get as much land into play as possible while keeping yourself alive. You don't have much to defend yourself with early on, 2 Kraken Hatchling are your best hope. If you're getting beaten really bad you have Coiling Oracles as chump blockers. Once you get a bit of mana on the table, Ondu Giant can be really useful for keeping the lands coming while giving you a blocker. Once you have lots of mana, you then want to start using your expensive spells to draw lots of cards and get huge creatures out. The situation will dictate the priority of all of this, and the most important thing is to manage your mana effectively. If you can stay alive long enough, you will usually win just by the sheer power of the threats you put into play. If you have enough mana to play both a land fetcher and a card draw spell, consider which order you should play them. If you want to draw more non-land cards, use your land fetcher first to thin out your library. If you're trying to draw lands, use your card draw first. Pros > * Insane mana development leading to awesome spells early in the game > * Good card drawing > * 2 creature stealing spells which can turn the game around Cons > * Can't easily destroy creatures > * Vulnerable in the early game when trying to develop lands, especially to fliers > * Little artifact and enchantment control > * Can get stuck on not enough mana to get going, or sometimes far too much and not enough to do with it > * Two colours can cause problems, especially if you don't draw Forests early Example decklist 13 Island 12 Forest Creatures (14) 4 Coiling Oracle 2 Ondu Giant 1 Primeval Titan 1 Isleback Spawn 2 Simic Sky Swallower 1 Lorthos, the Tidemaker 1 Inkwell Leviathan 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth 1 Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre Other spells (21) 4 Explore 1 Compulsive Research 3 Cultivate 2 Explosive Vegetation 1 Polymorph 1 Rite of Replication 2 Skyshroud Claim 3 Aether Mutation 1 Mind Control 2 Tidings 1 Yavimaya's Embrace Cards to exclude to build this deck 2 Kraken Hatchling 2 New Frontiers 1 Treasure Hunt 1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest 2 Assault Zeppelid 1 Elvish Piper 2 Giant Octopus 1 Levitation 3 Living Destiny 1 Tidal Kraken I created this alternate list as I was unhappy with the performance of the original list after a lot of testing. This version concentrates less on early defence, and much more about getting your own big creatures into the game as soon as possible. 2 Kraken Hatchling and 2 Assault Zeppelid make way for 2 Explosive Vegetation, Isleback Spawn and Inkwell Leviathan. Although these are not great creatures, in fact the Spawn is pretty bad, at least they have shroud and you can count on them staying in the game after all the investment of cards into ramping up. I felt Elvish Piper is a slight underachiever, early in the game he hogs mana away from your ramping and is extremely vulnerable; and useless if you don't also have a big creature to go with him. Later in the game you usually have enough mana to cast anything anyway, and he isn't a lot of help. So in this version I cut him for Polymorph, which I don't generally like, but now there are only 6 smallish creatures and 8 huge ones. And the 6 small ones at least either give you a card back (Coiling Oracle) or fetch another land (Ondu Giant). I've been quite pleased with this version. Good cards Mind Control: This deck doesn't have a lot of ways to directly remove creature threats, so this is an immensely important card when you draw it. Save it for the biggest threat you are likely to face (knowing the decks well helps), or something that is beating you up really badly. It will help buy you time until your own huge guys turn up. Explore: This is a brilliant card, and perfect for this deck. This is usually the priority spell for turn 2. You will likely have a third land in hand, and you get to draw a card and then play your land. Even if you don't have one, it is often worth the chance of casting this and hoping you draw one, and then playing it. Even if you don't, you've replaced the card and got closer to the next land in your deck. Later on, you can sneak this in if you have exactly one more mana available than you need to cast the spell you want to, and a land in hand. Cast this first, then play your land, and that will leave you with exactly the mana you need to cast your spell as well. Primeval Titan: A huge threat, and not even that expensive by this deck's standards. Even if he dies right away, unless he is countered, you get to keep the 2 extra lands you fetched. If he doesn't die, he can quickly start emptying your deck of land and pumping up your mana to ridiculous proportions. It's sometimes worth attacking with him even if he will die, just to squeeze out some more land. That's a judgement call for each situation. He is an insane choice, in a good way, for Rite of Replication. Each copy also fetches you land upon entering the battlefield, so if you copy him 5 times that's a bucketload coming out at once! Rite of Replication: This is a way of sort-of dealing with an opponent's scary creature by making a copy of it, which can normally either block it and survive or trade with it. You get any entering the battlefield abilities, they will trigger just as if you had cast the creature you copied. Paying this with the kicker is not out of the question for this deck, and when you can, it's worth holding back until you can do this. It's often a game ending play. Note that if you copy a legendary creature, the creature and all the copies will go to the graveyard because of the "legend rule". For this reason, don't copy your own legendary creatures! But by copying an opponent's one, this effectively becomes a kill spell. No need to kick it in that case, there's no point. For a list of interesting creatures you can copy with this spell, see the posts by Eonblueapocalypse1 on the forum topic below: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28078581/Ancient_Depths_Deckl ist_and_Strategies?pg=2 Cultivate: This gives mana acceleration and card advantage, all at one low affordable price. You normally want to cast this on turn 3, unless you can happen to have ramped up to 4 mana for Skyshroud Claim or Explosive Vegetation. You can play the land that gets put into your hand if you haven't played one already, or if you also cast an Explore. Later in the game, cast this when you have the spare mana to keep ramping up the lands. Skyshroud Claim: This and Explosive Vegetation perform similar roles. I slightly favour this one, because the lands come in untapped. Explosive Vegetation obviously has the advantage that you can fetch Islands as well as Forests. The 2 Forests coming in untapped essentially makes the spell cost 2 mana, as long as you have the 4 mana to play it in the first place. So by casting this first, you can often cast another spell that turn that uses those two Forests, either on their own such as for Explore or with other lands for something more expensive. Explosive Vegetation: This can provide more mana acceleration and also can get exactly the land types that you want. If you have both this and Skyshroud Claim in hand, play this one if there is nothing you can do with the 2 untapped lands you'd get from Skyshroud Claim. That way, you save them for when you can use them. Compulsive Research: This is efficient and cheap card drawing, and perfect for this deck. It's at its best when you already have a land in hand that you can afford to discard to guarantee you the full card draw. But even if you haven't you can be reasonably sure you're going to draw at least one land in your 3 cards. Tidings: This is vital for the deck, helping you rake back cards for all the resources you put into developing your mana. With lots of land, you can often make use of at least some of the cards you draw right away. As soon as your hand is getting a bit low and you can afford the time to spend the mana on this, normally it's a good idea to do so. Coiling Oracle: An excellent complement to Explore, and quite similar. He always replaces himself, and is an excellent chump blocker. Early in the game, if you trade him for a 1/1 or 2/1 attacker, that's a great deal for you. On turn 2, if you have a choice between this and Explore and have no land in hand, play this. If the card you draw is a land it will be played for you, just as if you'd got it with Explore. If it isn't a land just draw it, as you would with Explore. Either way, you get the same result but a free 1/1 into the bargain. Later in the game, he is a cheap way to keep ripping through your deck to find the cards you need. Simic Sky Swallower: The big daddy of the skies, and one of your most reliable creatures. The great thing about him is the shroud, which means you can cast him and hardly need to worry about him suddenly getting killed after putting your resources into him. 7 mana is reasonably cheap for a big creature in this deck too, and he is an excellent blocker while you are developing your position. Once you're ready to start attacking, he's really hard to stop thanks to flying and trample. I'd always keep both of these copies in the deck. Yavimaya's Embrace: Even though the cost of this spell looks outrageous, it's not that hard to achieve with this deck. It has the same strategies as Mind Control, but of course you get an additional bonus of +2/+2 and trample making it even harder for your opponent. You can also cast this on your own creature just to boost it up, although you better be certain that's really worth it! It could win you the game giving a huge creature trample, if the opponent is tapped out and unable to interfere with a kill-spell. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth: He's a walking Tidings with a rocket launcher, or something like that. He's one of the best ways to spend all that mana you've built up, since you get 4 cards just for casting him, even countering him doesn't stop you drawing the cards. Note that you don't get any cards if he's put onto the battlefield another way such as with Elvish Piper. Although he doesn't have trample, this hardly matters since annihilator is even more effective. If your opponent can't stop him from attacking even a few times, they will not have enough permanents left to stop you doing anything. Even if they can team up to kill it, it's usually worth attacking anyway, since they'll probably lose 2-3 creatures in battle plus 4 permanents to the annihilator, that's a lot of attrition. His graveyard shuffling ability can be useful if you're running low on cards in your library due to putting almost your whole deck onto the battlefield as land. If you use Tidings to get to 8 cards, discard him at the end of your turn when prompted and he'll shuffle your graveyard into your library, saving you from running out of cards. Note that Eldrazi are not artifact creatures, just colourless creatures. Lorthos, the Tidemaker: Sometimes even more devastating than the Eldrazi, this octo-plus can totally lock down all your opponent's permanents. It's usually most important, if you can, to lock down the opponent's lands. Tap all the lands, then use any of the remaining 8 targets on their best creatures. This way you totally stunt their development and they can't increase their board position hardly at all. Of course, sometimes you need to tap more creatures, either to get your guys through or to stop them beating you up. Use your judgement as to what's best to tap in each situation. You can choose targets that are already tapped, just to stop them untapping next turn. There's no penalty for choosing all 8 targets, even if you don't intend to pay the 8 mana, you are not forced to do so when the time comes. And the permanents still count as targeted so this kills any of the die-by-target Illusions for free. It may take almost all your mana to pay the 8, but you should find that you can continue to develop by playing more lands and mana development spells. So you can carry on casting things while your opponent keeps getting locked down and can barely move. This is an excellent card in Archenemy, if you can keep the big man locked down in this way, often the Schemes aren't even enough to dig them out of that hole. Please note that when he attacks and you are asked to pick 8 targets, it's not asking you which land to pay the ability with! It's asking what you want to tap. So don't select your own lands by mistake. You get asked afterwards if you want to pay or not, and then your land is tapped for you automatically. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre: Similar to Kozilek, except this time your reward for casting him is destroying a permanent. Again this ability can't be stopped even by countering him, and only applies if you actually cast him. This is one of the few ways this deck can directly destroy a permanent. Being indestructible means that you can send him crashing in to attack each turn and not worry about any amount of blockers stopping him. Only a very few cards can deal with him, most of them being in the Wielding Steel deck. He is very expensive, but I feel he is worth it, and you will often achieve this amount of mana. Aether Mutation: Although this is essentially a stall card and I generally don't like those, this is an uber-stall and has other applications as well. It plays with your opponent's timing by returning hopefully a huge creature to their hand, and adding a nice army of 1/1 creatures for you to chump block with. Apart from fliers, these can usually keep you going for a really long time, helping you develop your mana while hiding behind them, until you can put out threats of your own. The deck just doesn't have hardly any other way of dealing with creatures, and I feel these are needed. Sometimes the army of little guys can join in your attack and prove overwhelming to an opponent that has developed slowly. And if there's nothing worth using this on and you desperately need more cards, you can use this on your own Coiling Oracle so you can cast him again. Or if you need more mana, bring back your Ondu Giant for another use. It can also be used to get stolen creatures back to your hand, such as from Mind Control. It will kill a token since they disappear after going to a player's hand. Usually you won't get any Saprolings as tokens have zero mana cost by default. But if the token is a copy of a creature, such as from Rite of Replication or Mirrorworks, the mana cost is copied also. Then you will get Saprolings as usual. Ondu Giant: You often have to make difficult decisions about when to cast a creature for defence, and when to press on with mana development. This guy offers a useful way to do both at once. His high toughnes makes him a great roadblock, and even if he does get killed by a spell right away you get to keep the land, maintaining card advantage. Elvish Piper: You can use this chap as a way to "cheat" in your huge creatures without bothering to pay the cost. Although he is very fragile, I feel it is worth the risk, and at the very least your opponent has to stop what they are doing and deal with this card. It's often best not to use his ability in your turn, instead waiting to see what your opponent does. Let them declare attackers, and if they do choose any, use his ability in the attackers phase to drop down something huge. It can then be used to block, probably making a mess of one of the attackers. Even if they don't attack, which they may well not if they know what you're up to, you can still use the ability near the end of their turn once you've seen what they wanted to cast. Kraken Hatchling: This is the kind of card you would normally expect to see me scoffing at and moving to the bottom of the list. But I make an exception, because this fits well into this deck. You are very vulnerable in your first few turns, and apart from chump blocking with Coiling Oracles you have nothing to protect you. This can soak up a huge amount of damage for you. Even for a pansy defensive card 4 toughness is impressive. You have nothing else you can cast on turn 1, so he doesn't interfere with your mana curve. Later on, you only have to find one spare mana to cast him. He is worth considering for extra ground defence. OK cards Inkwell Leviathan: He looks good and talks big, but I feel that he's a bit expensive for what he offers. He is certainly hard to stop, but not that much harder than the cheaper Simic Sky Swallower, and not as devastating as the Eldrazi or Lorthos. If you are looking for another big threat that can look after itself though, you could do worse. Polymorph: I can see the idea with this card, but I find it too risky. You're meant to cast it on something menial like a Coiling Oracle or a token generated by Aeether Mutation and turn it into one of your big nasties. The problem is, the deck has quite a few support creatures, like loads of those Coiling Oracles, Kraken Hatchling, and various 4 mana creatures which would make you facepalm if they got turned over. When it works it may be really good, but I'd rather use cards I can count on. If you are playing a version with much less of the smaller creatures, then it would be much more viable, being quite likely to turn up a monster. You can of course use it on your opponent's creature. This can be risky, but you may consider it an option since the deck is so lacking in creature control. Note that if the creature you target doesn't get destroyed, like if it's indestructible or saved by a totem armor, the second part about searching for a creature to put into play will still go ahead regardless. So using this on your own Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre will just fetch you a free creature! Assault Zeppelid: With this deck being low on creatures, this provides a reasonable mid-range attacker and defender. The deck is vulnerable to flying, and this helps with that somewhat. It's easy to cast colour wise. Judging when to cast this and when to keep going with the mana building is difficult. It depends on what the opponent has out, what your life total is and what is in your hand. Plan your next few turns out mentally, and what your opponent is likely to do. Unfortunately it doesn't fit in with the overall theme of the deck. Isleback Spawn: I've never much cared for this card. It's just way too expensive for what it does. It's usually a huge, untargetable defender, which sounds great, but at 7 mana you want something better than that. Its boost ability isn't something you can rely on either. Some games you may deplete your library really heavily by land searching and drop it to 20, but by that time you'd have the mana to cast any big nasty in the deck and there's plenty more scary that this. However, at least having shroud means it is likely to stick around and help keep you alive. This is its only redeeming factor. Tidal Kraken: He looks really cool, and when you start playing the deck he's a reasonable threat to use after getting all your mana out. But once you unlock other types of big threats, you'll see they are much more efficient and this guy is a bit overpriced for what he does. He doesn't even compare favourable to Simic Sky Swallower which already starts in the deck. Replace him with one of the better huge cards, and then you shouldn't need him anymore. Bad cards Levitation: You don't have enough creatures in this deck that you plan to attack with, that don't already have flying, for this to make much of a difference. For 4 mana, you'd much rather be developing your lands or casting a creature than this. It does help with chump blocking, your Coiling Oracles can get in the way of big fliers, and this deck does have an overall weakness to fliers. But I still don't think it's worth a whole card slot. I would rather use the 4 mana for an Assault Zeppelid which can block and kill small flying creatures without relying on anything else. Edric, Spymaster of Trest: This doesn't work well in one on one, simply because you don't have enough fast creatures to make use of his ability, nor ways of clearing blockers early. He'll likely get out-muscled, and not achieve much. Late in the game when you have your huge buddies, he may start getting you cards, but that defeats the point of him being so cheap and you may as well have had another giant threat. He is wonderful however in Archenemy! When played aside 2 Sorins busting out Tormented Souls on turn 1, he turns them into crazy card machines, and your Vampire friends will be loading up on goodies. Even the Archenemy will have trouble keeping up with all the firepower they will draw. Treasure Hunt: I initially thought this looked great, but I've decided it's not necessary. Early in the game, with the deck having around 42% land, you are about 58% likely to just draw 1 card, and for 2 mana that's not good. The rest of the time you'll usually draw 1 land, which is good, and sometimes more. But I'd rather not gamble like this, as Coiling Oracle and Explore are really important to cast early on and are more reliable. Later on in the game, you're likely to have stripped a lot of land from your deck, and the chances of just drawing 1 card get even higher. The deck has better more reliable card draw, I'd leave this out. Giant Octopus: Just about acceptable to begin with, certainly nothing special. As soon as you unlock the 2 Assault Zeppelid, they are clearly better and should replace these. Those, along with the 2 Ondu Giant, are all you should need at the 4 mana creature range, so these can stay in the box. Living Destiny: This is rather expensive, relies on having a big creature in hand which you don't always, and is at best only a stall tactic. There's too many other important things to do for 4 mana, mainly boosting your land up quickly to get something really scary into play that will make a real difference. That's better than mucking around like this and giving away card advantage. I'd stay clear. New Frontiers: I don't recommend using this for 1 on 1, even though the mana acceleration is great, you give the same advantage to your opponent. And they get to untap and make use of it all before you do. It's just too risky, I'd stick to all the more reliable ways that don't help your opponent. However, this is an absolute bomb for Archenemy play! For any amount of X, even as little as 1 but hopefully more, you are boosting all 3 of your allies' land supplies, while only boosting the Archenemy once. And they often get loads of free land from their Schemes and have more than enough, a few more often doesn't make that much difference. But it will raise the curves of all your team, and help them get bigger threats out early. =============================================================================== Koth - Strength of Stone =============================================================================== Summary This is a new mono red deck, which is quite hard to describe as it doesn't seem to have any coherent theme or strategy. It's got a bit of direct damage, a bit of creature pumping, some temporary creature-stealing tricks, and some haste creatures. It's not very good at all, and is easily the worst deck in the game. I'm really hoping to see it get some good DLC cards to fill in some of the gaps and give it some direction. Strategy Unfortunately, this amounts to just doing the best you can with what you've got. Save your direct damage for really important creatures, as your creatures are poor and will not likely match up to your opponents' very well. You have a few fatty creatures that can prove a menace if you can survive long enough to get them out, and Spire Barrage can be a good finisher if you can get enough damage through to your opponent somehow. Claws of Valakut often provides your best threat, making a creature having a huge power and first strike. Pros > * Has a bit of direct damage, and a couple of 1 mana creatures that can deal damage > * Good artifact control with 2 Oxidda Scrapmelter Cons > * Poor creatures and notably no mana cost 2 creatures at all which wrecks the curve > * Relies too much on pumping up creatures > * Not effective enough to make use of many of the themes the deck tries to have > * No coherent strategy Example decklist 25 Mountain Creatures (22) 3 Goblin Mountaineer 1 Grim Lavamancer 1 Spikeshot Elder 2 Koth's Courier 2 Molten Ravager 2 Vulshock Heartstroker 1 Hero of Oxid Ridge 1 Lavaborn Muse 2 Oxidda Scrapmelter 1 Vulshok Berserker 1 Flowstone Overseer 1 Magma Phoenix 2 Tephraderm 1 Conquering Manticore 1 Earth Servant Other spells (13) 2 Darksteel Axe 1 Fault Line 3 Spitting Earth 2 Volcanic Strength 2 Claws of Valakut 1 Cerebral Eruption 2 Spire Barrage Cards to exclude to build this deck 1 Assault Strobe 3 Golden Urn 2 Act of Treason 2 Rockslide Elemental 1 Vulshok Berserker 4 Earth Elemental 2 Flameborn Hellion 1 Bloodfire Colossus Good cards Fault Line: I want to follow the "Fault Line" to find out who's fault it is that this deck is so messed up. The most powerful card in the deck, and your best defence against a weenie rush. With enough mana, it can even clear the board of medium size creatures. It's an instant speed Wrath of God against ground creatures, often best used in your opponent's turn either after they have tapped lots of their land to cast creatures or have pulled a combat surprise you don't like. Use very sparingly, it's a nuke but you can only use it once. Don't worry about killing your own creatures, which you most likely will, as long as you kill more of your opponent's. Hold out on casting it as long as possible, in the hope that the opponent will commit more creatures that you can kill. Use what you have to chump block, faking that they are getting the upper hand before levelling the playing field. You may want to hold some creatures back ready to cast in your turn after using this in your opponent's turn. The damage is really just a side effect, but occasionally you may be able to combine it with your other direct damage to kill the opponent, so keep a close eye on their life total. Spire Barrage: A hugely improved Lava Axe that can also deal damage to creatures, and can go beyond 5 damage. Save this for killing your opponent's biggest, scariest creatures, or to finish the opponent off. Spitting Earth: Very useful for getting rid of an annoying little creature early on, or a bigger one later in the game when you have more land. This can't hurt players, so your only decision is how long to hold this back before killing something. Spikeshot Elder: My favourite creature in the deck, and what you want to see in your opening hand. He can get some quick damage in, and then once blockers arrive he can sit back and start pinging things for you. Excellent for taking out weenies, and can combine with other direct damage once you have enough mana to take out bigger things. He can finish off creatures that are nearly dead after combat, or just do damage to your opponent. If you're desperate, he can kill a 2/2 creature on his own by blocking it and dealing it 1 damage in the blockers phase, causing them both to die when damage is dealt. But keep him alive whenever you can, his ability is very valuable. He combos well with Volcanic Strength, Claws of Valakut and Darksteel Axe, increasing his power and the damage his ability deals. Grim Lavamancer: Similar to the above, but cannot operate without fuel from the graveyard. Early in the game there may not be any for a while, but later in the game he'll probably be able to keep firing for several turns. 2 damage is a lot for such a cheap ability, and you may sometimes want to engineer ways of getting more cards into your graveyard (such as suicidally attacking with other creatures) just so you can use it to kill a vital creature. It currently has a bug on the Xbox version where the targeting lines for his ability don't appear while it is resolving. I've reported this and hopefully it will be fixed soon. Flowstone Overseer: One of the few truly scary creatures in the deck. Not so much because he can pump the attack of your creatures, although that can be helpful, but because he can kill creatures. He will easily pick off smaller ones, and after combat he can lower the toughness of any that are nearly dead, and at that point increasing their power won't matter. You can combine with a Spitting Earth to take out something huge. He is also not too shabby at 4/4 and can hand out some pain while you clear the board of your opponent's creatures. Darksteel Axe: I like this because it's likely to stick around for the whole game. Only two cards can currently do anything about it directly once it's on the table, Revoke Existence and Quicksilver Geyser. Everything else will bounce harmlessly off it, unless you are forced to sacrifice it to an Eldrazi. It makes your undersized creatures more competitive, and will be good to put on almost anything in the deck. Conquering Manticore: One of the best creatures in this deck, 5/5 flying is good for 6 mana, and you get to borrow a creature. You'll usually want to cast him whatever the situation, and just nick the best creature the opponent has. He's too good to be holding back. Ones that can somehow kill themselves are good targets, such as Vampire Aristocrat or Prodigal Pyromancer, so you can do them in once you've finished with them rather than giving them back. Magma Phoenix: One of the few fliers in the deck, and offers another way to protect against an overgrown enemy creature population. If you need to clear the way, just block with him and get him killed to trigger his ability. When you can spare the mana, pay to get him back in your hand, and eventually he'll be useful as an attacker once you're in a better position. He's hard to stop permanently, unless he's disabled by Arrest or similar. Even then you have the option of killing him yourself to get him back in your graveyard. Oxidda Scrapmelter: A very nice way to deal with artifacts, giving you a decent size creature as well. If the opponent is using a deck that doesn't have artifacts or you just really need a creature, you can cast him without there being an artifact on the battlefield. Even if you're forced to target your own Darksteel Axe, that doesn't matter since he won't destroy it. Hero of Oxid Ridge: A clearly better version of your Vulshok Berserker, who also pumps up any other attackers you have. Good for making those 1/1 creatures more worthwhile on the attack, and the 4 damage he deals is a nasty surprise for an unprepared opponent. Battlecry can be very useful for Two Headed Giant and Archenemy, since the bonus applies to all attacking creatures. So it pumps up your allies' attackers too. Claws of Valakut: One of the few Auras I'm fairly happy to play with. This instantly turns even the crummiest of your creatures into a virtually unstoppable powerhouse, with hugely inflated attack and first strike. This ability is relevant to every one of your creatures, except Rockslide Elemental which has it already. Even a first turn 1/1 can be pumped to 4/1 first strike on turn 3 with this, and will probably be able to kill anything around. Later in the game the stats can get just silly. If you have enough mana and your opponent has just attacked with all their creatures, you can cast one of your haste creatures and then immediately enchant it with this and attack for massive damage. OK cards Molten Ravager: 4 toughness is pretty high for 3 mana, shame about the 0 power. But you often only need to put enough mana into him to kill what blocks him, as the opponent may be scared of letting you pump it to the max. If he does get through, consider how much it's worth pumping him, as getting more threats on the table can often be more important than a bit of damage. He makes a good blocker as well. Lavaborn Muse: A Hill Giant with a fairly nasty ability. It can at make the opponent choose between taking damage and holding their cards back. If you cast it when their hand is empty, it's pretty nasty. Koth's Courier: Reasonable stats for his mana makes him a fairly good attacker and blocker. Forestwalk is just a nice bonus when it applies. Tephraderm: A better version of Earth Elemental, with two alright abilities. Nice against direct damage decks, as they suffer if they try to burn him out. And he tends to kill whatever he fights, giving them a low blow after the fight is done. Even if something with first strike and 5 power takes him down, he will still hit back for 5 and probably kill them too. Earth Elemental: The fatty from Hands of Flame, nothing special about him but he's alright. The high toughness makes him annoying to get rid of. As the worst of the 5 mana creatures available, I have found he's not needed. Goblin Mountaineer: Not one of the best 1 drops, but the deck is so slow and relies on some Auras and Equipments, so it needs something quick to put them on. The mountainwalk is only good against 3 of the 10 decks, but handy when it happens. Vulshok Berserker: One of the better cards in the deck's mini-theme of haste, but still not great. He would be fine except for the puny 2 toughness, but if you can find your opponent with no untapped blockers, it doesn't matter so much. Volcanic Strength: It's OK, not quite good enough for the risk of being an Aura, but it does the job for the moment. It goes some way to making up for the missing 2 cost creatures by instead putting this on a 1 cost creature making it a more impressive size. The mountainwalk is just an added bonus if it happens to apply. I'd want to replace this when better cards become available, but for now it helps your weaker creatures to try and compete. Best used when the opponent is tapped out to force them to either block and lose a creature or take a lot of damage. Vulshok Heartstoker: With few evasion creatures, there's often not much to use this on that's going to be much of a threat. No 2 cost creatures is a problem, meaning on turn 3 you're probably using this on a 1 cost creature at best. The opponent get to see this all coming, and can either just take a little extra damage or block accordingly. At least it can make your 1/1 creatures able to muscle through bigger blockers for a turn. Rockslide Elemental: Really puny initially, but if you can get him to survive, he can grow to annoying proportions. His problem is that currently there isn't enough ways for you to kill creatures in this deck to reliably let him sit around growing big. Keep him out of combat where possible so he doesn't get killed early, and let him benefit from creature trades and by killing things with your spells and abilities. He can be tricky in combat, if two creatures of the same size as him try to gang up and kill him, they will fail. Say he is 4/4 and gets blocked by two 4/4 creatures, the opponent thinking one will die to first strike and the other will kill your Rockslide. But he deals his damage to one of them, and straight away gets his +1/+1 counter after the first strike damage, but before normal damage is dealt. He's then 5/5 when the other 4/4 hits him back, and he'll survive. Earth Servant: For this much mana you want something that will make a decent impact, and this isn't very scary for your opponent. It will have an insanely high toughness though, and if you are concentrating more on defence up this will at least help keep ground creatures at bay. Flameborn Hellion: Unimpressive for 6 mana. The stats aren't good, but hopefully you can surprise your opponent with this and knock them down to a range where they may fear direct damage finishing them off. If you need this as a blocker, at least for one turn, cast it after combat so that it doesn't have to attack and will remain untapped. You could replace with Earth Servant to go more defensive. Cerebral Eruption: I tend to include this as another come-back card, although it's far from ideal. When it works it can be great, but it can also totally miss the mark if a land is turned over so you can't rely on it. You get the card back, but it uses up a lot of time and resources to cast it again. I'd happily replace this if some better control cards become available. I don't like using hit and miss cards very much, but for now there's not much to take its place. You could just use another creature if you don't like it. Please see the section after this one, "Cerebral Eruption Analysis", for how effective this is against each of the 10 decks. Act of Treason: A pretty good card, but it's in the wrong deck. This deck isn't fast, powerful or aggressive enough to make good use of this. It amounts to some extra damage against the opponent, and doesn't help when you are losing, which you normally are with this deck. Bad cards Assault Strobe: Only any use when you are winning, being a sorcery it is purely offensive. Seeing as you will usually be struggling to stay alive with this deck, this won't help you dig your way out of a hole. Also the deck has a lack of evasion creatures, so your double striker will be seen coming a mile away and probably chump blocked. Golden Urn: I hate life gain! Similar to and not much better than the standard life-gain artifacts. Bloodfire Colossus: He is just too expensive for this deck, even with 25 lands. You won't get him out consistently, he'll mostly sit in your hand for ages. Even if you do eventually get him out, he could have been something cheaper to have an effect on the game many turns before. =============================================================================== Cerebral Eruption Analysis =============================================================================== I have done a study to estimate the average amount of damage you would expect from this card against each of the 10 decks, and the percentage chance you have of it working. This is based on the total converted mana cost of all the cards in each of my decklists, and the number of land/non-land cards. For the ones with multiple decklists I used the average total cost. The numbers will vary for different lists, but it probably won't be too far off. The maximum and minimum possible damage is based on all available cards for the decks. Here are my results: +==============+==============+==============+==============+===============+ | Opponent's | Percentage | Average | Minimum | Maximum | | Deck | chance of | damage dealt | damage | damage | | | working | | | | +==============+==============+==============+==============+===============+ | Unquenchable | 60 | 2.25 | 1 | 7 | | Fire | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Apex | 60 | 3.64 | 1 | 7 | | Predators | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Wielding | 60 | 2.42 | 1 | 7 | | Steel | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Realm of | 60 | 2.94 | 1 | 6 | | Illusion | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Ancient | 58 | 4.26 | 1 | 11 | | Depths | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Strength of | 58 | 3.14 | 1 | 8 | | Stone | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Guardians of | 60 | 2.92 | 1 | 6 | | the Wood | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Dragon's | 58 | 3.17 | 1 | 7 | | Roar | | | | | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Blood Hunger | 60 | 3.08 | 1 | 7 | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ | Machinations | 60 | 3.17 | 1 | 7 | +--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---------------+ =============================================================================== Nissa Revane - Guardians of the Wood =============================================================================== Summary This is a black/green aggressive Elf deck, quite similar to Ears of the Elves from D09. It has thankfully lost the Elvish Champions which gave it such an unfair advantage against green decks from all the forestwalk. Also gone are the cheap and nasty Coat of Arms. In their place, the deck concentrates more on a swarm strategy with cards like Elvish Promenade that doubles your elf population, and Heedless One who grows stronger with each Elf you have. It's one of the best decks in the game in my opinion. Strategy You generally win with this deck by getting a lot of Elves into play quickly, which pump up a huge Heedless One who tramples through. Churn out as many creatures as you can, stopping to kill creatures only if really needed. The ideal play would be a turn 4 Heedless One, followed by Elvish Promenade next turn which will make him pretty unstoppable. Otherwise it's a fairly simple deck, keep attacking whenever you can to keep the pressure on. Pros > * Lots of fast, nasty Elves with good abilities > * Good creature, artifact and enchantment control > * Lots of ways to gain card advantage > * Good combat tricks with Might of the Masses and Epic Proportions Cons > * No evasion (only Elven Riders which is rubbish) > * Sometimes you end up with more land than you need, and not much at the top end of the mana curve > * Relies on keeping large numbers of Elves in play Example decklist 17 Forest 7 Swamp Creatures (23) 1 Joraga Warcaller 2 Elvish Visionary 4 Nissa's Chosen 2 Sylvan Ranger 3 Viridian Emissary 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader 1 Imperious Perfect 1 Jagged-Scar Archers 1 Viridian Shaman 4 Heedless One 1 Lys Alana Huntmaster 1 Wildheart Invoker 1 Nath of the Gilt-Leaf Other spells (13) 3 Might of the Masses 2 Eyeblight's Ending 2 Maelstrom Pulse 2 Elvish Promenade 3 Essence Drain 1 Epic Proportions Cards to exclude to build this deck 3 Elvish Euologist 1 Elvish Lyrist 2 Ezuri's Archers 4 Norwood Ranger 1 Plummet 1 Viridian Emissary 2 Titania's Chosen 1 Wildheart Invoker 1 Elven Riders Good cards Maelstrom Pulse: One of the best control cards ever, this deals with almost anything. Most of the time you'll only expect to kill one card, but that's plenty good enough since you can pick from anything your opponent has. If you can afford to wait and cast some things in the mean time, you might get lucky enough that they'll drop a duplicate of a card and you can sweep both at once. This is great for getting rid of loads of tokens, as it will wipe out all of the same type. It doesn't matter if the tokens were created by different cards, as long as they have exactly the same name. Eyeblight's Ending: Amazing creature control, useful in every matchup except the mirror match. Save it for your opponent's best creatures. It is also counted as an Elf spell by Lys Alana Huntmaster giving you an Elf token. Imperious Perfect: I always liked this more than Elvish Champion, it is always really good, can't backfire and can win the game on its own. Also it's easier to cast. You'll usually want to create tokens rather than attack with this, for more damage over time, and they will stick around after this dies. Until he does, he pumps up the tokens too making them formidable 2/2 guys. You can use this ability in your opponent's turn after they declare attackers, dropping your token ready to block, or wait until near the end of their turn if you want to keep your mana open for other things you might want to cast. Joraga Warcaller: A nice replacement for Elvish Champion, and sometimes even stronger. You can play him as just a 1/1, although I'd almost never recommend doing that. Hold back until you can play the kicker once, preferably twice. He can turn the smallest of your Elves into considerable threats. Might of the Masses: A fairer replacement for Giant Growth, but which can sometimes be even more effective. Keep an eye at all times on the number of creatures you have, and the bonus this will give. Be wary of your opponent killing something in response to this, which will reduce the bonus it gives. Awesome after you've flooded the screen with Elvish Promenade, and on your tramplers like Heedless One. Essence Drain: A bit expensive, but handy anyway to take out small or medium size creatures, finish off a creature after your combat phase, or provide some direct damage for the win. Sylvan Ranger: Along with the card below, he provides your land fetching abilities. After lots of testing, I have come to prefer this one. He is more reliable, you always get your land. You don't have to get him killed first like the Emissary, so he helps your Elf population more. He doesn't accelerate, but then this deck doesn't have a very high mana curve so it's not too important. I feel that a total of 3-4 land fetchers, between this and Emissaries, is enough to find what you need if you don't want to include them all. Viridian Emissary: I love this guy, although he looks more like an Elf Zombie to me! You can attack recklessly with him, happily swapping him for a 1/1 or just running him into a bigger creature, because you want him to die so you can accelerate your mana. Your opponent faces the tough choice of letting you sucker punch them each turn with him, or taking him down and risking you coming out with scary things much quicker. He's also a brilliant blocker, again your opponent might think twice about giving you the chance to get him killed. His only drawback is when the opponent refuses to kill it and you really want a particular land, usually a Swamp. But unless your opponent is using primarily flying creatures, this isn't too much of a problem since to kill you they're probably going to have to let you block with this sooner or later. Most of the time one Swamp is enough for this deck, so if you have one in hand or on the battlefield already, I'd recommend fetching a Forest since the deck sometimes needs a lot of green mana. Nissa's Chosen: Almost the same as Elvish Warrior, except this goes back to your library rather than the graveyard. This doesn't generally make a lot of difference, but it does stop graveyard triggers for your opponent such as Sangromancer. There's also a chance it'll get shuffled to the top again when you search for a land card with one of the 2 cards above. Still an awesome beat stick, and hard to compete with at the 2 mana range. Elvish Visionary: An excellent way to boost your Elf population without even costing you a card. Easy to cast and always replaces himself. Great early or late in the game. Heedless One: This is often your big winner, and rewards all your hard work making lots of little Elves. He can get huge in a hurry, and hard to stop with trample. Follow him up with Elvish Promenade when possible. Watch out for your opponent killing one of your other Elves during combat, suddenly lowering his stats. Try to cast lots of other Elves before you cast this, getting him out too early sometimes makes him not too scary and vulnerable. Nath of the Gilt-Leaf: Back from Ears of the Elves, one of my favourite creatures. It's pretty hard to get rid of, although there are more ways in this game and less non-black restricted kill-spells. The discard is really nasty, especially being random. If you can get this out quickly using Viridian Emissary, you may clean out quite a few cards. That's normally too much to come back from, and the extra Elf tokens help your strategy really well. Also once the opponent's hand is empty, they are forced to either use every card they draw right away or lose it on your turn. This means they often have to play non-creature spells prematurely that they may have usually held back, and counterspells will all be lost. If they draw cards they don't have the mana to cast, they will have to be discarded. In this way, you stop the opponent building up their hand for the future. Elvish Promenade: Along with Heedless One, part of the main combo of this deck, although it's really good anyway to make a huge number of Elves. Hold it back until you have at least 3 to make it worthwhile, but of course the more the better. With anything that pumps them up like Imperious Perfect, the tokens become more scary. It counts Elf tokens you already have as well. Jagged-Scar Archers: A mini-Heedless One that has the bonus of taking care of fliers for you. That's a good bonus, since this deck doesn't have any flying creatures to block them. It can really put a flying heavy deck on ice until they can deal with this, it just can't cope with losing a creature every turn. Viridian Shaman: A great way to get rid of an artifact while adding to your Elf population. If the opponent is using a deck that doesn't have artifacts or you just really need a creature, you can cast him without there being an artifact on the battlefield. Ezuri, Renegade Leader: A very handy mid range creature which can help keep all your other guys alive, and replaces the previous Overrun in the deck with his second ability. Also that ability can be used anytime, so save it for after blockers have been assigned and you can even use it on the defence. As long as you have some Forests untapped, your opponent is usually going to have to kill this before he can kill any of your other Elves. Lys Alana Huntmaster: This is back from Ears of the Elves, and I still recommend using it. It really helps build up your Elf numbers to pump your Heedless One up. It can also provide a near endless supply of chump blockers or extra attackers, depending on how the game is going. Normally the opponent will try and take this out quickly, as if they don't they are usually in trouble. If you cast Elvish Promenade while you control a Huntmaster, its ability will put an Elf token into play before the Promenade resolves. The token then gets counted by Promenade, giving you an extra Elf token on top of all the others you would receive! Epic Proportions: Not really in fitting with the deck, but since this is the only 6 mana spell available and it's pretty good, I think it's worth including. Especially as you'll probably be running 4-6 Elves that fetch you extra land and you usually end up with a lot. The flash means you can cast this as if it was an Instant, so use it either in the blockers phase as a permanent-super-Giant Growth, or in response to direct damage that would kill your Elf. Wildheart Invoker: Pretty good stats, and a nice ability although I wouldn't count on getting enough mana to use it regularly. I find it is competing directly with Heedless One at the 4 mana slot. You may feel like playing one of these anyhow, just in case you can't find any other Elves, he will still be 4/3 rather than a 1/1 Heedless. Elvish Lyrist: Useful extra backup against nasty enchantments. Following my analysis on enchantment control at the end of the guide, I'd be inclined to leave him out, but it depends on what decks you expect to face the most. Ezuri's Archers: Pretty crazy abilities for a 1 mana creature! As well as a fast and efficient guy to get your Elf population started, he's a really good defence against fliers, able to take down even an Air Elemental. Possibly a bit too defensive for such an aggressive deck. OK cards Elvish Eulogist: The classic 1 drop from Ears of the Elves, still decent although I feel there are better 1 drops available now so this isn't needed. If you do use it, don't sacrifice him until he's just about to die, either from a spell, ability or combat. Doesn't work well with Nissa's Chosen which won't be in the graveyard when it dies. Norwood Ranger: A nice little weenie, but outclassed by Ezuri's Archers, and there are better 1 drops in the deck. Plummet: This will be good when it works, but a bit of a gamble to include. Not every deck has flying creatures, and some only have a few and they might not come out. It's a tough call as to whether to stick with this anyway, but I feel there's enough control in the deck that will work against virtually anything, so I'd rather leave this out and concentrate on the attack. However, if certain decks like Blood Hunger are running rampant, it would be worth including to pick on their numerous fliers. Bad cards Elven Riders: Your only evasion creature, sadly it's stats are too rubbish to consider using. I'd rather rely on my Heedless Ones to break through the defences than put a lot of mana into this guy. Just not good enough for his cost. Titania's Chosen: This is only going to be any good in 2 headed giant or Archenemy where you are all playing this deck or Apex Predators so it benefits from loads of spells. Too wimpy and slow for one on one play. =============================================================================== Sarkhan Vol - Dragon's Roar =============================================================================== Summary This is a black/red Dragon style deck, loosely based on Scales of Fury from D09. Obviously green is gone, and in its place there are a lot more Goblins, making it a sort of strange mix of big Dragons and weenie Goblin rush. There is a crossover card, Voracious Dragon, which can eat the Goblins to inflate itself and do damage. There isn't a lot of black in the deck and because of this not many Swamps are added, and this causes problems since you often don't draw any. Strategy There's two ways you can go with this deck. You can go mono red and drop every black card, which makes the deck focus more on the fast Goblins. You lose some creature control but tend to do more damage early on, and lose the mana colour problems. Otherwise you can keep black/red, in which case I tend to cut down on some of the Goblins, using them mainly to keep alive until the Dragons show up, playing as more of a control deck. Either way the deck is fairly simple, you aim to survive long enough to get out big Dragon creatures which will be how you usually win. Your creature control will normally be used to kill threats early in the game, or sometimes blockers later on when you are in attack mode. Which build is better is a close call. Black/red gives you more powerful spells, but relying on just 6 Swamps is very risky. You often get either Swamps and no black spells, or black spells and no Swamps, causing you a lot of problems. I'd give the slight edge to mono red for now just for its consistency. You can get more Swamps in your deck by adding more black cards, and removing red ones, particularly those with more than one red mana in the cost. Pros > * Good, cheap creature control > * Lots of big, powerful flying Dragons that must be dealt with or they win for you in short order > * Ways of reducing the cost of your Dragons to get them out faster with Ruby Medallion and Dragonspeaker Shaman > * Artifact control, although just one card Cons > * No enchantment control > * Problems with getting black mana > * Early Goblin creatures aren't generally very good Example decklists Red/black version: 18 Mountain 7 Swamp Creatures (21) 1 Dragonmaster Outcast 2 Festering Goblin 2 Slavering Nulls 2 Dragonspeaker Shaman 2 Giant Scorpion 1 Manic Vandal 2 Furnace Whelp 2 Gravedigger 2 Voracious Dragon 1 Flameblast Dragon 1 Hellkite Charger 1 Rorix Bladewing 2 Volcanic Dragon Other spells (14) 2 Burst Lightning 3 Disfigure 3 Dragon Fodder 1 Pyroclasm 2 Ruby Medallion 2 Assassinate 1 Crucible of Fire Cards to exclude to build this deck 3 Raging Goblin 3 Dragon's Claw 2 Goblin Piker 1 Goblin Wardriver 1 Goblin Offensive 2 Rally the Forces 1 Furnace Whelp 2 Volcanic Dragon 1 Furyborn Hellkite Mono red version: 25 Mountain Creatures (24) 1 Dragonmaster Outcast 3 Raging Goblin 1 Goblin Piker 1 Goblin Wardriver 2 Slavering Nulls 2 Dragonspeaker Shaman 1 Manic Vandal 3 Furnace Whelp 2 Voracious Dragon 1 Flameblast Dragon 1 Hellkite Charger 1 Rorix Bladewing 4 Volcanic Dragon 1 Furyborn Hellkite Other spells (11) 2 Burst Lightning 3 Dragon Fodder 1 Pyroclasm 2 Ruby Medallion 2 Rally the Forces 1 Crucible of Fire Cards to exclude to build this deck 3 Disfigure 2 Festering Goblin 3 Dragon's Claw 1 Goblin Piker 2 Assassinate 2 Giant Scorpion 1 Goblin Offensive 2 Gravedigger Good cards Burst Lightning: Amazing direct damage, which can be used to take out a small annoying creature, or finish something off, very cheaply. But when you can afford to, it can kill a medium size creature with the kicker. The key is deciding which way to use it. Also 4 damage is considerable against the opponent, when you have them on the ropes this can be a nasty finisher. Assassinate: Very useful because it can target and destroy any type of creature. It will have to have attacked you already to be tapped so you've taken damage or chump blocked it, but getting rid of the threat for good is what's important. Save this for your opponents best creatures. Pyroclasm: This is your one comeback card against a weenie rush from the opponent. You can often maximize it's impact early in the game by continuing to chump block with anything you have out, trying to tempt the opponent into casting some more creatures before pulling the trigger. Hold back creatures in your hand to cast afterwards. You can combine with Burst Lightning to take down a larger creature at the same time. Flameblast Dragon: One of the best creatures in the game, and fits the control theme perfectly. Usually you'll want to take out your opponent's creatures instead of damaging them directly with his ability, unless you can finish them off. Killing one a turn is usually enough to turn the momentum of the game. Hellkite Charger: This guy is a bit crazy, 5/5 flying haste is good enough for 6 mana. When you can afford to pay for his ability it is probably worth it. If he got through once he'll likely get through again. Add any other attackers to that scenario and it's probably close to game over. Rorix Bladewing: Another nutcase of a Dragon, his mana cost is a little demanding but since the land base is almost all Mountains it shouldn't be a problem. He hits hard and fast, and wants to put the opponent down in just a few attacks. Voracious Dragon: This is the combo centrepiece of the deck, and a good creature in its own right. 4/4 flying for 5 mana is good, especially unusual in red which often has notoriously bad creatures at that cost. You can feed any number of your creatures to him as he comes into play, and gets a +1/+1 counter for each. And you get to target a creature or player for damage equal to twice the number of Goblins he ate. You can still choose a target to kill an Illusion even if you don't devour anything. It's usually worth eating at least one Goblin for this purpose, more if you can take out a decent creature or if you think your opponent cannot handle a huge Dragon. If they are playing red and relying on direct damage to kill creatures, it may put it out of blast range. Disfigure: A nice way to take out small annoying creatures, or finish off bigger ones. It can also fix fights, use it in the blockers phase before damage gets dealt to suddenly lower the stats of your opponent's creature. Lowering toughness also stops regeneration, but only if it's completely lowered and not combined with damage. So two Disfigures will be needed to take down a Cudgel Troll so it can't regenerate, a Disfigure and Burst Lightning won't do the job. But a Disfigure could combine with Festering Goblin's ability successfully. Dragonspeaker Shaman: Poor stats, but an amazing ability for this deck. A reduction of 2 mana for your Dragons make them come out scarily fast, especially in combination with Ruby Medallion. Your opponent will probably have to kill this very quickly or else face serious fiery wrath. Definitely worth it if you're playing with a lot of the expensive Dragons. Dragonmaster Outcast: A weenie creature with an overwhelming ability that won't turn on until you have 6 lands. You can either risk casting it and getting early damage in and hoping it will survive, or hold on to it until you have 6 lands, hoping your other creatures will have drawn away the kill-spells. This will depend on the rest of your hand. I'd usually favour casting it, unless I have a Pyroclasm in hand in which case I'd hold onto it until after I've had to use that. If you can get the ability going, you should win in short order. Volcanic Dragon: Feels a little bit weak for the expensive cost, but it will prove an important part of your offence. Hopefully you will be enough in control of the game to be able to attack and not have to keep it back as a blocker. If you can't afford to attack yet, cast another Dragon first in you can, so that you can hopefully make use of the haste ability this has by the time you cast it. Ruby Medallion: With the beef of the deck being huge Dragons, this is very nice for helping them come out early. It can also help you cast several spells in one turn, for example two Dragon Fodders will only cost you 2 red mana. It can also reduce the cost of the kicker on Burst Lightning, you'll only have to pay 4 mana total. It can't reduce coloured mana, so can never help with Goblin Wardriver for example. Manic Vandal: The deck's only artifact control, and although totally out of theme he's important to keep in. A red rip-off of Viridian Shaman, shameless really. He's good at what he does, which seems to be smashing things. If the opponent is using a deck that doesn't have artifacts or you just really need a creature, you can cast him without there being an artifact on the battlefield. It can cause a problem if you really need a creature and have to cast him while the only artifact on the battlefield is your own Ruby Medallion, since you will be forced to target it for destruction. Slavering Nulls: It's Goblin Piker with an ability, and a scary one at that. Early in the game this can be a real threat as you use your cheap spells to remove blockers. Causing a discard each turn will really hurt and is hard to come back from after a few turns. The opponent has to find an answer to this quickly. In mono red it's just a Piker again, but your opponent won't know for sure you're playing mono red and may freak out and kill it anyway. Furyborn Hellkite: He's very expensive, but with 4 cards in the deck making him easier to cast he is just about worth the stretch. Of course try and get the bloodthirst bonus when you can, which will make him almost unstoppable in creature combat and probably too big to kill by direct damage. You my consider cutting him to keep costs down. Festering Goblin: This guy is good for controlling the pace of the first few turns. If the opponent has two 1 toughness creatures out and you just have this, they will be forced to hold back or else you can block one and use his ability to kill the other. He can also kill a 2 toughness creature by using his ability on it after it kills him. If your position is good enough to attack, he can often to do recklessly, particularly if you have your eye on a 1 toughness creature you'd like to be rid of. Be careful about his ability, since it's not optional. If only you have creatures when he goes to the graveyard, you have to use his ability on one of those. So if you have him and a Goblin Piker and the opponent has a 1/1 creature, you don't want to trade him for the 1/1 as your Piker will bite it too. To take down bigger creatures, you can combine with Burst Lightning to kill even a 6 toughness creature. Goblin Wardriver: This is a nice creature, but it fits much better with lots of smaller creatures to pump up and not so much with the Dragons and a control setup. It's mana cost can sometimes pose a problem on turn 2 if you're playing red/black, but is easy if you go mono red. Battlecry can be very useful for Two Headed Giant and Archenemy, since the bonus applies to all attacking creatures. So it pumps up your allies' attackers too. OK cards Furnace Whelp: These are not great due to their low intial stats, but are the only mid range creatures you have at the moment. They usually make you vulnerable when you cast them, since they are just a 2/2 and you probably can't pump them much. Even smaller creatures will probably get sent in against you, happy to trade with him. Keep this alive when you can, using all your little creatures for defence, and use this for its damage which is its strength. Sometimes when things are going badly you don't have a choice, you may have to trade it for a small creature if you are being overwhelmed. Giant Scorpion: He's not much to look at, but he fits the control theme perfectly. 3 toughness is handy for surviving against the common 2/2 creature stats, and deathtouch will take out just about anything even if it kills him too. You'll rarely want to attack with this as it works much better on defence. Crucible of Fire: This is more useful here than it was back in Scales of Fury, because this deck has more actual Dragons in it. It is mainly of benefit to your Furnace Whelps and Volcanic Dragons which are lacking in stats for their mana costs. The other Dragons are generally big enough, but the boost certainly doesn't hurt and will help you win quicker. It's no help to all your Goblins, but as long as you're using a fair number of Dragons this is worth including. Dragon Fodder: This is handy even for the control version, providing at the very least 2 chump blockers for 1 card. Works well with Voracious Dragon, and they can take down weenies that are bothering you early in the game. Don't feel bad about using both tokens to kill a 2/2 creature, sometimes that's better if you have no other way to deal with it at that time than chump blocking it twice if you're doing badly. Gravedigger: He is OK, although not greatly efficient for his cost. He can be useful for digging up one of your better Dragons for another round, but not much use early in the game. Rally the Forces: The effectiveness of this depends on how many small creatures you are using. The bigger creatures generally don't need this as much, and you want it to affect as many creatures as possible. Cast it in the blockers phase after blockers have been chosen for maximum surprise value. Raging Goblin: A pure aggression creature that doesn't really fit into this deck. It's more about winning with huge Dragons while holding on for the early game. I feel red/black plays more like a control deck and these don't fit, but mono red has to use more cards and these make it more aggressive. Goblin Piker: Your bog standard creature, who you are only going to include if there's nothing better. In red/black you have plenty of other options, but running mono red you may be forced to consider them to make up the numbers. Bad cards Dragon's Claw: I hate life gain! Goblin Offensive: I have found this is just too expensive. You need 5 mana to get 2 tokens, compared with 2 mana for Dragon Fodder. Whatever you spend, it's not an impressive amount of smelly Goblins you get and since they only interact with Voracious Dragon it's not worth the investment. =============================================================================== Sorin Markov - Blood Hunger =============================================================================== Summary This is a mono black aggressive Vampire deck, quite like Master of Shadows from D09. It has a new focus which is bloodthirst, creatures which get a bonus if the opponent has been damaged the turn you cast them. That's not hard to achieve with this deck as it's very fast and has a lot of evasion creatures. It also tends to gain plenty of life through spells and lifelink creatures, which allow you to ignore counter-attacks to some extent. Certainly the best deck in my opinion, with the strongest card selection on offer. Strategy You should be always on the offensive with this deck. Hopefully you have Tormented Soul for your first turn, and he can keep attacking, providing you your bloodthirst bonus for anything else you cast. Keep casting creatures, unless you need the mana to take out a blocker or a threat. You should gain enough life in a variety of ways to not worry too much about defending unless things are going badly. Keep the pressure on, and hopefully you will finish the opponent with flying creatures and direct damage from Corrupt. When things are going badly, you may have to cast bloodthirst creatures without getting the bonus if you can't afford to attack but need the defender. Pros > * Lots of lifelink and evasion creatures > * Plenty of creature control > * Good threats all the way up the mana curve, fast and deadly creatures > * Lots of incidental life gain > * Mono deck so no colour problems Cons > * No enchantment or artifact control Example decklist 24 Swamps Creatures (24) 3 Tormented Soul 1 Bloodghast 2 Child of Night 2 Gatekeeper of Malakir 2 Ruthless Cullblade 3 Bloodrage Vampire 1 Captivating Vampire 2 Vampire Nighthawk 1 Mirri the Cursed 1 Sangromancer 1 Vampire Nocturnus 2 Vampire Outcasts 1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief 1 Sengir Vampire 1 Skeletal Vampire Other spells (12) 1 Blade of the Bloodchief 2 Feast of Blood 2 Urge to Feed 2 Vicious Hunger 3 Spread the Sickness 2 Corrupt Cards to exclude to build this deck 2 Quag Vampires 2 Vampire's Bite 3 Demon's Horn 3 Duskhunter Bat 2 Barony Vampire 2 Vampire Aristocrat 1 Stalking Bloodsucker 1 Repay in Kind Pure Vampire alternative decklist 24 Swamps Creatures (24) 2 Quag Vampires 1 Bloodghast 2 Child of Night 2 Gatekeeper of Malakir 2 Ruthless Cullblade 2 Bloodrage Vampire 1 Captivating Vampire 2 Vampire Aristocrat 2 Vampire Nighthawk 1 Mirri the Cursed 1 Sangromancer 1 Vampire Nocturnus 2 Vampire Outcasts 1 Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief 1 Sengir Vampire 1 Skeletal Vampire Other spells (12) 1 Blade of the Bloodchief 2 Feast of Blood 2 Urge to Feed 2 Vicious Hunger 3 Spread the Sickness 2 Corrupt Cards to exclude to build this deck 3 Tormented Soul 2 Vampire's Bite 3 Demon's Horn 3 Duskhunter Bat 2 Barony Vampire 1 Bloodrage Vampire 1 Stalking Bloodsucker 1 Repay in Kind This version takes full advantage of the Vampire synergy within the deck, making even more sure you have 2 in play to cast Feast of Blood. Also every creature then benefits from Captivating Vampire, Urge to Feed, Vampire Nocturnus and gets full counters from Blade of the Bloodchief. This comes at the expense of the Tormented Souls, which makes your offence slightly less reliable and bloodthirst harder to achieve. For this reason, I take out one of the Bloodrage Vampires as well. The Quag Vampires are at least versatile and can get counters from Spread the Sickness. The Aristocrats offer flexibility too, being able to instantly grow to big amounts, feeding off your lesser Vampires. It's been testing pretty well, I'm undecided as to which is the better list. Good cards Urge to Feed: Incredibly efficient, instant speed removal. The first part is good enough, getting the counters on your Vampires is just an amazing bonus. Even if this doesn't kill a creature outright, you can still use it either just for the counters, or in combination with another spell or combat damage to finish it off. You can pull off some tricks with this when on the defence. Let things advance in combat until you have blocked whatever you need to, and then cast this on a creature. You can now tap all your Vampires, even the ones that have blocked. They will still damage the attackers as normal, but with an added +1/+1. This could make your 2/2 blocker take down a 5/5 creature that you target, and survive. Otherwise use it to remove blockers or take out key ability creatures. Note that you can tap vampires to get a counter even if they have summoning sickness, so it may be worth casting some first if you can. Feast of Blood: Having 2 Vampires out isn't at all difficult for this deck, and this spell can target any kind of creature without the normal black kill-spell restrictions. You just have to control two Vampires, no matter if they are tapped, untapped, or under Arrest. Save it for the scariest of your opponent's creatures, or to make way for your attack if you can smell blood for the finish. The life gain will help get back any beatings you have taken while holding on to this card. You can, in dire situations, target your own creature just to gain life, but this is probably hardly ever going to occur. Vampire Nighthawk: This has to be one of the best stand-alone creatures ever, the fact that it's also a Vampire is just gravy on the cake. It pretty much does everything you could ever want. Usually he can just keep attacking, slowly winning you the game and gaining you life to cover possible counter-attacks. It will take something with flying and either first strike or protection from black to not get taken down as well. When things get tough he can block and kill almost anything. Even something pumped with Giant Growth is still going to die. The 3 toughness makes him not that easy to bring down, he's an amazing powerhouse. Vicious Hunger: Simple and effective removal, either for killing a small annoying creature or finishing off a bigger one after combat or another spell. You can make what looks like a stupid attack when the opponent has a bigger blocker you really want to kill, then do the final 2 damage with this in your second main phase. Use this to take out your opponent's key ability creatures, which are often small enough to be killed by this. As usual, the life gain is a handy side-effect. Vampire Nocturnus: He's back from Master of Shadows, and still as dangerous. That difficult looking mana cost is no problem for mono black, and as soon as he hits the table he has the chance to boost up all your Vampires to ridiculous amounts. It will be pure luck whether or not you have a black card on top of your deck. When you do, you should normally be able to attack with almost everything right away unless the opponent has a lot of big fliers. The next turn he can join in the assault if he has the bonus, 5/4 flying is awesome for his cost. When he doesn't give the bonus he's best kept out of combat if he may die as he's so valuable. Having the top card of your library on show is a double edged sword. Your opponent can plan for your next move, and so can you. Make sure you take it into account when you plan your strategy. Corrupt: This is my choice pick for the 6 mana slot, and it's quite likely to win you the game by the time you get to cast it. You can use it as a finishing blow if your offence has been running well, or if a big creature is getting in the way or threatening to do you in, you can kill that instead and reap the life benefit. Normally 6 damage is enough for either purpose, but you can hold onto it until you've played more Swamps if you need a bigger blast. If you're concentrating on pure speed, you could consider dropping 6 mana spells altogether, but I think it's worth having 1 or 2 of these for games which go the distance. Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief: Even more powerful than Sengir Vampire, this is just deadly. 4/4 flying is decent for 5 mana, and her ability is going to rip through your opponent's creatures once you have enough mana to keep using it. You can even use it multiple times a turn to kill several creatures if you can afford to. Since it lowers toughness the creature can't regenerate either. You can use it when you are attacking to remove a blocker and have her do more damage. On the defence you can kill an attacker and then she is more powerful that turn if she needs to block and kill a huge creature. Keep her alive whenever possible as she will usually win you the game just by killing creatures one by one. You can even use her ability on herself or one of your other creatures just to pump her power up. For example, you may do this when your opponent has no creatures so you can do more damage, or to help her kill a big untargetable creature like Simic Sky Swallower. Note that you can pump more mana into this than is needed to kill a creature, just to raise her power even more. Captivating Vampire: His stats are not great, but he has two amazing abilities. Since almost all your other creatures are Vampires, they all get boosted up, making it really hard for your opponent to keep up with your already efficient creatures. And if you can get enough Vampires on board, you can start stealing your opponent's creatures! You can use this ability as soon as you cast him as it doesn't require tapping. But sometimes it will be better to wait and do it in your opponent's turn, particularly after you have assigned blockers. You can block with whatever you like as normal, then use his ability (note that he can be one of the 5 Vampires you tap) and steal a creature. If it's an attacking creature you steal, it is removed from combat and won't hurt you. The fact that some of your blockers tap won't stop them dealing damage. Because he is so valuable you want to keep him out of combat if there's a chance he will die. Gatekeeper of Malakir: He has 2/2 for 2 mana which is good enough, but you'll almost always want to pay the kicker too. He is best used when the opponent has just one creature that you want to get rid of, since they must sacrifice that one. This ability even kills indestructible creatures, they can't regenerate, and it gets around hexproof and shroud also. If the opponent has lots of creatures they will just sacrifice their weakest one, but you are still getting card advantage. If the opponent has 2 creatures one of which is small, you can pick off that little one with Vicous Hunger for example, then cast this with the kicker to kill the bigger one. He's a must have for the 2 mana slot. Mirri the Cursed: This is a crazy efficient scary creature. It flies, attacks right away, and hits first, making it a really nasty aggressive creature that's hard to see coming. You'll usually want to keep attacking with this unless you're in a very bad way and need the blocker. It can be tricky in combat, as it gets the +1/+1 counter right away on dealing damage. Say this blocks a 2/4 creature- it deals its 3 first strike damage, and then gets a counter and goes up to 4/3. Then the other creature hits it for 2, and this ends up surviving. It didn't kill the attacker, but has got stronger and can kill it next turn. Because this deals it's damage before your other creatures, it can put the opponent below 10 life suddenly raising your Ruthless Cullblade to 4/2 before it deals its damage. Spread the Sickness: This is somewhat pricey, but it is effective as it can target any creature. Save it for big threats, or for clearing the way for a victory in short order. Try to plan around it so that you get best use of the proliferate. For those who haven't seen it before, I'll explain how it works. For each player or permanent that has a counter on it, you may add another counter of the same type. For the purposes of this game, it's usually +1/+1 counters on creatures, and it automatically adds them to your (and your allies') creatures but not your opponents'. If the opponent has a creature with a -1/-1 counter on it (like from Serrated Arrows) then this adds another of those counters, but wouldn't do so to your own creature. In one on one, this is mainly going to benefit your creatures that got their bloodthirst bonus, or counters from Blade of the Bloodchief or Urge to Feed. Sengir Vampire: The classic Vampire which has survived through the ages. Just like Vampires will do given half the chance. He's always been good and efficient, and can kill the opponent very quickly on his own. The extra counter gain is a bonus, making the opponent pay for chump blocking him. He will usually be best on the attack, but if you do need him for defence he is great since if he can survive an attack he will get stronger. Also once he has a counter, he qualifies for an extra one when you cast Spread the Sickness. Bloodghast: This guy is going to really annoy your opponent by coming back time and time again. He gives you a reason to hold back lands whenever you have enough already just in case you draw him. You can use him recklessly, even suicidally as part of a big attack just to overload blockers. You know you can bring him back, even on the same turn by playing a land after combat. Not being able to block doesn't matter too much since this deck is so aggressive and you have plenty of better blockers. Having haste as well makes him even more of a threat when the opponent is on 10 life or less. Blade of the Bloodchief: This is really cheap to cast and equip. Although it doesn't do anything on its own, creatures always die in games and you also have loads of creature removal. You can put this on anything really, whenever you have the mana to do so. Of course a Vampire will gain the most counters from it, but even 1 counter per death on your Tormented Soul can be very effective since he's guaranteed to get his damage through every turn. When put on a lifelink creature it makes them gain even more life as they get bigger. I'd recommend equipping this to a creature that isn't likely to be targeted for destruction by the opponent at that particular time. If you keep putting it on your best creature, when they kill it you get no bonus. By putting it on a second best or lower, you force them to choose between killing the one with the Equipment or killing your better one and letting you get counter(s) on the equipped one. If you're going to kill something, and before a battle likely resulting in casualties, make sure this is on something first if you have the mana! Tormented Soul: Even though it's not a Vampire, this works so amazingly well in this deck that I would always keep it in regardless. Being totally unblockable means you can just peck away every single turn no matter what is going on, and it provides an ever decreasing timer for your opponent. Often they are forced to eventually use a card just to take out this guy, which is hilarious for you. Even if things are going badly, keep attacking with him anyway, there is no point keeping him back as he can't block at all. His greatest achievement however is how easy it makes it to get your bloodthirst! If you get one of these early, you are almost guaranteed to get all your bloodthirst creatures coming out with their bonus. Child of Night: A simple and effective 2 drop. It can trade with most other 2 drops in the game, but gives you 2 life in the process. If the opponent has nothing to block it, your life total goes up while theirs goes down, making it a steeper climb once they get back in the game. A good chump blocker as well if needed thanks to the extra life gain. Sangromancer: A bit of a strange card to be in this deck since it has no discard whatsoever. Even without this, it's a decent enough card, having a reasonable amount of power for an evasion creature, and giving you yet more life as opponent's creatures die around her. Try to keep her alive for this reason, her life gain will probably be more worthwhile than a single chump block unless you are in serious danger of being killed right away. Normally she can keep attacking along with your other guys, racing your opponent's life total down. Note that you gain the life even if dies trading with an opponent's creature in combat. She will become more useful in free for all or 2 headed giant where her discard ability may come into play, and she will count all other players' casualties for life gain. Note that her ability will resolve too late to save you if she kills something while you take enough damage to finish you off. For example, if you're on 1 life and two 1/1 creatures attack you, you can block and kill one with this creature. Her ability will trigger, but doesn't get the chance to resolve since the game checks if you are on 0 life first. Vampire Outcasts: At first glance this doesn't look very good when you see the 2/2, but if you've played this deck you'll have seen how easily the bloodthirst bonuses come. It almost always comes out at 4/4 for this reason, that is really good stats for 4 mana, plus the lifelink is outrageous. He can normally keep attacking and gaining you lots of life, and the opponent will have trouble doing you enough back to even keep up. If the opponent gets bigger creatures out (and you can't kill them) then he is an excellent blocker while your evasion creatures do the business. Skeletal Vampire: This is quite good, and the best 6 mana creature available at the moment. You get an overall 5 attack power with flying creatures for 6 mana, and split up so that one card can't usually deal with them all. He's very hard to kill, since he can regenerate for no mana by sacrificing one of the bats you get. If you attack or block with him and the bats, after blocking you can sacrifice a bat that's going to die in combat anyway to regenerate the Skeletal Vampire. This works well on blocking especially, meaning you've lost just one bat token to block two attackers. If you have the mana, you can instead pay to turn the bat that's about to die into two bats and use one of those to regenerate the Vampire. If things are going well, you can just keep making more and more bats. You can also sacrifice Duskhunter Bats to his abilities if you use them. If one of your bats is blocking (alone) or blocked by a creature with lifelink and you want to stop the opponent gaining the life from it, you can sacrifice that bat to regenerate the Skeletal Vampire before damage is dealt. Then the opponent's creature doesn't deal any damage so they gain no life, and your Vampire gets a regeneration shield at the same time. OK cards Bloodrage Vampire: With the amount of aggressive 1 and 2 drops in this deck, the chances of getting bloodthirst on turn 3 is pretty good. This gives 4/2 for 3 mana, which is a nasty early threat. I feel this earns his place for the moment. Even without the bloodthirst, 3/1 isn't too bad although not ideal. You may need to play him anyway if you need a blocker or have run out of other attackers. Vampire Aristocrat: Although 2/2 for 3 mana is not very good, his ability to self pump is handy. He is competing against a lot of great creatures for 3 mana, and the only one he could replace is Bloodrage Vampire. It's close, but I feel that I'd rather have the extra power, and more often than not two power with the bloodthirst, than the need to pump him up. Especially as your creatures are really strong and you probably don't want to sacrifice any of them to this if you can avoid it! If you use him, make sure you don't use his ability until blockers have been declared, so your opponent has to make their decision blind and you can then decide whether or not to pump him. Or else in response to direct damage that threatens to kill him or another creature you control. You can also use his ability to eat himself, or any of your other creatures, to avoid them being stolen by something like Mind Control. If one of your creatures is blocking (alone) or blocked by a creature with lifelink and you want to stop the opponent gaining the life from it, you can sacrifice that creature to your Aristocrat before damage is dealt. Then the opponent's creature doesn't deal any damage so they gain no life, and your Aristocrat gets bigger at the same time. Ruthless Cullblade: This is the weakest of the two mana creatures I would recommend using, but still just about good enough to make it. 2/1 isn't too bad early on, and late game it's likely to come out as 4/2 which is good value. Dispensable extra offence. Vampire's Bite: This deck normally hammers down your life totaly very quickly, and the threat of these can make it even more scary. Be wary of the opponent using an instant to kill your guy in response to this, so it's best used when they are tapped out if possible. It can also be used in a desperate situation to fix fights, allowing your smaller creature to kill one of their big ones. And if you can afford the kicker, the extra life can keep you ahead in an aggression race or against direct damage. Don't both paying the kicker if you are using it on a creature that already has lifelink, since double lifelink doesn't get you any more life. I found this effective for a while, but decided in the end to cut it because it's not great when you're losing, usually at best giving you a 2 for 1 trade in your opponent's favour and/or some life. But it's certainly worth considering for extra-aggressive strategies. Barony Vampire: Reasonable stats for a standard grunt Vampire, but with so many good creatures already demanding the three mana slot, this doesn't quite make the cut. Quag Vampires: This is alright, but not great whatever amount of kickers you use. The swampwalk is handy but is only relevant against 3 out of the 10 decks. However, 2 of those are this deck and Guardians of the Wood which are the best decks in my opinion, so you may consider including him just to pick on those deck types. I feel overall Tormented Soul is better for the one slot though, and the other Vampires out-perform this guy. For a really fast swarm strategy and his flexibility, you may consider including him. Duskhunter Bat: He is OK and may have just about made the cut, except for the fact he's not a Vampire so doesn't help the overall theme. He is highly aggressive and efficient when he works though. I feel he's not quite good enough to justify taking away a Vampire, and you can't always count on getting a bloodthirst bonus on turn 2. Bad cards Stalking Bloodsucker: This guy has weak original stats, and with every card being so effective in this deck I'd rather play them out than chuck them to him for an extra 2 damage. He's hopelessly outclassed by the other creatures in this deck, and by the other 6 mana spells. Demon's Horn: I hate life gain! Repay in Kind: This is way too expensive for one on one, considering this deck is so aggressive it's most likely your opponent will have a lower life total than you. This is only any use in Archenemy for bringing down the big man's life total! =============================================================================== Tezzeret - Machinations =============================================================================== Summary This is a blue/black/white artifact deck, and is sort of like Relics of Doom from D09. The cards it uses are almost all new however. Its main theme is metalcraft, which grants bonuses for having 3 or more artifacts on the battlefield under your control. To this end, every creature in the deck is an artifact creature like in Relics. This deck has quite a range of interesting cards. Strategy You want to get your metalcraft bonus as soon as possible, so this means getting out artifacts quickly. Hopefully you will have an Etherium Sculptor to play on turn 2, he will speed everything up by reducing the cost of all artifacts you cast by 1. You basically just keep getting out artifacts and hope you can overpower the opponent with your weenie fliers and some bigger ground creatures at the 5-6 mana range later on. Use countermagic to protect your most important artifacts and stop threats, and the white and black support cards to remove creatures. When you have a creature with a metalcraft bonus such as Razorfield Rhino, be wary of the opponent removing your other artifacts in the middle of combat, dropping your artifact count below 3 and making it lose its bonus at a crucial point. It's possible to cut out either black, white, or both from this deck once you have all the cards unlocked. At the moment I'm slightly favouring just taking out white. Although it has some strong cards, it messes with your land setup quite badly and I think the consistency may be worth the slight drop in power overall. It's a close call though. Pros > * Good countermagic and reasonable creature control > * A lot of fliers/potential fliers > * Can be quite fast with Etherium Sculptor Cons > * No artifact or enchantment control > * 3 colours can lead to mana problems > * Creatures a bit on the weak side overall Example decklists Tri colour version: 6 Plains 11 Island 4 Swamp 3 Terramorphic Expanse Creatures (24) 4 Etherium Sculptor 2 Gust-Skimmer 2 Steel Overseer 2 Tidehollow Strix 1 Etched Champion 1 Master of Etherium 2 Pilgrim's Eye 3 Snapsail Glider 1 Sanctum Gargoyle 2 Stone Golem 2 Razorfield Rhino 1 Wurmcoil Engine 1 Magister Sphinx Other spells (12) 2 Go for the Throat 1 Darksteel Plate 2 Dispense Justice 3 Stoic Rebuttal 1 Undermine 1 Seer's Sundial 1 Sleep 1 Mirrorworks Cards to exclude to build this deck 2 Signal Pest 2 Alpha Myr 3 Golem's Heart 1 Hunger of the Nim 1 Dead Reckoning 1 Snapsail Glider 1 Shape Anew 1 Psychosis Crawler 1 Venser's Journal 1 Razorfield Thresher 1 Soulquake 1 Darksteel Colossus Blue/black version: 14 Island 7 Swamp 3 Terramorphic Expanse Creatures (25) 1 Alpha Myr 4 Etherium Sculptor 2 Gust-Skimmer 2 Steel Overseer 2 Tidehollow Strix 1 Etched Champion 1 Master of Etherium 2 Pilgrim's Eye 4 Snapsail Glider 1 Psychosis Crawler 2 Stone Golem 2 Razorfield Rhino 1 Wurmcoil Engine Other spells (11) 2 Go for the Throat 1 Darksteel Plate 1 Dead Reckoning 3 Stoic Rebuttal 1 Undermine 1 Seer's Sundial 1 Sleep 1 Mirrorworks Cards to exclude to build this deck 2 Signal Pest 1 Alpha Myr 3 Golem's Heart 1 Hunger of the Nim 2 Dispense Justice 1 Sanctum Gargoyle 1 Shape Anew 1 Venser's Journal 1 Magister Sphinx 1 Razorfield Thresher 1 Soulquake 1 Darksteel Colossus Good cards Go for the Throat: Amazingly efficient creature control, and at instant speed. Be very sparing with this! I'm glad to see them ditch Terror due to its non-black requirement making it a dead card in so many games. Sadly this is still dead in the mirror match. This kills anything except artifacts, but note that you can regenerate from it. For those creatures use it only when the opponent is tapped out and can't regenerate, unless you are happy for it just to end up tapped. This card is mainly going to be used on big creatures or little ones with really good abilities, and provides a safety net for creatures getting past your counterspells. A must include. Stoic Rebuttal: It's a cross between Cancel and Counterspell. Either way you need two Islands untapped for this, so manage your mana carefully. This is your only way of stopping artifacts and enchantments, so consider that when the opponent drops a really nasty one of these. It may be better to counter that, and rely on your creatures and kill-spells to deal with the opponent's creatures. Obviously sometimes a creature is just too much of a threat and if you have nothing else in hand to deal with it, go ahead and counter it. Getting to metalcraft quickly means you don't need to leave as many lands behind, and you can use this offensively to protect your most valuable creatures. It's more important to keep your land untapped for this spell if you hand is poor and anything that hits the table could go unchecked for a while. Undermine: Same strategy as the above, except of course you always need a Swamp too making it a bit more fiddly to use. If you're just playing blue/black this should be no problem though. The 3 life lost can be handy since this deck is quite aggressive when it's running well, and gets you closer to the finishing line. Dispense Justice: Without metalcraft this is handy but not wonderful, since to be useful it requires your opponent to have just one creature or several good ones so that they can't just sacrifice a weenie to it. Once you get metalcraft though, two creatures lost for 1 card is devastating in most situations so try and hold on for this. Along with Sanctum Gargoyle this is the main reason to keep white in. Wurmcoil Engine: This is an insane creature for any deck! It puts your Razorfield Rhinos to shame. You can probably just keep attacking with this, and the lifegain you get will help deal with any damage you get back from your opponent. If they do have something big enough to kill this and they end up trading, theirs will die and you get two more tokens! It's rather unfair, so this is a must include. Steel Overseer: This is a new "boss" of the artifacts, being even cheaper than Master of Ehterium and able to indefinitely keep pumping up both himself and all your creatures. You'll most likely want to keep him out of combat unless you need him for a final attack, or are desperate for a blocker. If you do need to block with him, block first and then use his ability in the blocker's phase. This may make him big enough to kill the attacking creature, or even survive as well. And if not, at least you get some counters on your other creatures before he dies. He's a prime target to get back with Sanctum Gargolye and Dead Reckoning. If you follow my strategies, you will know that I recommend normally casting creatures after combat to reduce the amount of information your opponent has. When you have this guy out and ready to use his ability though, it is often best to cast them before combat if you intend to attack. This is because you will want to use his ability to make your attackers stronger, and you won't want your other creatures to miss the chance to get a counter to by not being around when you use the ability. Master of Etherium: One of the survivors from Relics of Doom, and still as deadly. Just the one now, but still a must include. He instantly boosts up all your guys, and he gets ludicrously bigger and bigger the more artifacts (not just creatures) you churn out. Keep him out of combat unless he is sure to survive, as he is too valuable to lose that way. He is often big enough to attack though, and if the opponent has to combine two blockers to kill him you can always use Go for the Throat after they declare blockers to take one out, leaving the Master to kill the other and survive. Sometimes he will just be a huge blocker for you while the fliers do the work on the offence. Etherium Sculptor: An essential part of the deck, you hope to always have one of these for turn 2 and it should be your priority play. You will then be able to get much more for your mana as long as he sticks around. You'll achieve metalcraft very quickly, and also get out your big mana artifacts a turn earlier than usual. Note that he can't reduce the coloured portion of costs, so he does nothing to help cast Tidehollow Strix. His 2 defence makes him handy as a blocker for early 1/1 creatures. Tidehollow Strix: This is your premium small flier, excellent on both offence and defence. He can keep pecking away for 2 while the opponent has no fliers, and if you get in trouble you can keep him back and his deathtouch will kill almost anything. The exceptions are things that can regenerate and indestructible creatures. I feel this is a must include. Etched Champion: This is pretty poor until it gets its metalcraft, at which time it becomes awesome. Protection from all colours means that, except from artifacts and artifact creatures, it can't be blocked by anything, killed by damage, have any nasty enchantments put on it (neither can you put any on it!) or be the target of any spell or ability. Also any Auras on it will fall off. This all makes it almost invincible, aside from non-targetting mass effects like Evacuation and Damnation. If you have other artifacts cast them first, so that ideally this gets its metalcraft bonus as soon as it hits the table and will then be harder to get rid of. If you cast this first, it can be picked off quite easily. Of course if you're low on resources you may have to cast it anyway and hope it survives. Once it has its bonus it is virtually a free 2 damage on the attack each turn, or else a perfect ground defender, letting only trample damage through from coloured creatures. Sanctum Gargoyle: The other big reason to have white in the deck, this is really useful to get easy card advantage and provide another decent attacker. Obviously don't cast it until there is something worth retrieving from your graveyard, unless you desperately need another attacker/blocker. He can fetch any of your many artifacts, both creature and non creature, giving you two towards your metalcraft once you cast it again. You will probably bring back a key creature most of the time like Steel Overseer or Master of Etherium, but if you're getting really beat up you may need a Tidehollow Strix. If you have loads of land you may want the card advantage from Mirrorworks or Seer's Sundial. Mirrorworks: If the game doesn't finish quickly one way or the other, you can often end up with more land than you need with this deck. This card along with Seer's Sundial gives you an excellent way to use that extra mana for card advantage. The tokens will act as exact replicas with all the abilities, including entering the battlefield abilities. So it can double up things like Master of Etherium for twice the bonus. It gets quite crazy when you have the mana, and it becomes hard for the opponent to keep up. Use Mirrorworks' ability whenever you can, but sometimes you just need to cast something huge or several things at once, so don't always force yourself to use it. Don't cast this until you can afford the mana, since it doesn't do anything on its own. Think of it as a payment towards a big future payoff, once your board position is stable. Seer's Sundial: A pure card drawing engine, I find this a really great way to get an advantage mid/late game. You can make it part of your general strategy to hold back some lands when you have as many as you need, either in case you draw this or if you already have it in hand. Once it's out, pay the cost whenever you can afford to, the card advantage will put you way ahead if you can manage it. Of course it might not be possible every turn, so again don't feel obliged. You can use Terramorphic Expanse to get two for the price of one. You can activate the Sundial when you play it, then wait until next turn to activate the Expanse, and use the Sundial again when it fetches the land. You can then play another land that turn, and pay for another card! Darksteel Plate: A really handy bit of Equipment that not only makes one of your creatures really hard to get rid of, but is itself indestructible making it resistant to almost all the removal in the game. The only things that can do anything to it once it's on the battlefield are Quicksilver Geyser which can return it to your hand, and Revoke Existence which can exile it. You can use this to make a really hard to stop attacker, or a solid blocker, particularly good on Tidehollow Strix. Once you have enough mana you can do both, move it from the attacker to another creature ready to defend, then move it to the attacker again next turn and so on. It can also be great for keeping your key creatures alive that normally die such as Master of Etherium or Steel Overseer. Be careful because the opponent can respond to the equip ability and kill the creature before the Plate takes effect. But you can then just put it on another creature! This really helps with Metalcraft as it's likely to stick around for the long haul. Razorfield Rhino: The theory with this creature is that by the time you can cast it, you are likely to have at least 2 other artifacts on the battlefield so it comes in at 6/6. That's a pretty good deal for 6 mana, especially 6 of any colour(s). Obviously without the bonus he's pretty poor, so do everything you can to keep him pumped up. He can often dominate the board, especially if he comes out quickly using Etherium Sculptor, and will demand an answer before he batters the opponent to death. Magister Sphinx: This guy is very expensive, even for a big flier, but his effect is quite game changing and I think it's just about worth the stretch. By setting your opponent to 10 you can effectively do 10 damage to them if you've got off to a slow start and haven't done any damage yet. He then only has to attack twice for the win. Alternatively by setting your own to 10, you can gain some life if you've been badly beaten and are close to death. If you're more focused on speed, there is an argument for removing him as he doesn't help with quickly getting metalcraft going and is never going to come out particularly quickly so can clog your hand up early. Obviously if you drop white (or black) you lose him too. He can be great for Archenemy since he can drop that big 40 life total down to 10! Terramorphic Expanse: This is an amazingly helpful card, especially if you are using all 3 colours. It can find whatever land you need in the circumstances, and it can be played penalty-free on turn 1 since there's nothing to cast anyway (besides Signal Pest if you use it). Later in the duel, play one whenever you don't need mana right away from an additional land. There's no point activating it right away on your turn since you can't use the land as it comes in tapped. It's better to wait until near the end of your opponent's turn to use it. This avoids giving away early what your choice is, and you may want to change your mind once you've seen what the opponent has done on their turn. I still recommend keeping these in if you drop to 2 colours, especially since the game doesn't replace them with other lands if you remove them. This is the only way in the whole game you can effectively drop your land count in fact, you could in theory make the deck have 21 lands if you took them all out. Finding enough worthwhile cards, and cheap enough for the low land count, to fill the gaps is another matter! OK cards Pilgrim's Eye: Although he's puny, he is very handy in this deck, particularly if you are playing all 3 colours. He is easy to cast, but fetches whatever land you need. He then provides either a little attacker or a chump blocker, and helps towards metalcraft. Great if copied by Mirrorcraft as you get a land for the token too! Certainly worth including. Gust-Skimmer: This is the Alpha-Alpha Myr! If the opponent doesn't have creatures just roll him in on the ground, and if you need him to fly make sure you activate his ability before blockers are declared. Doing so after he's been blocked doesn't stop him being blocked. And if you want him to block a flying attacker, again activate the ability before it gets to the blocker's phase. Make sure you don't spend a blue mana on him when you desperately need it for a Stoic Rebuttal. Along with all your permanent fliers, he can help peck away at your opponent. Sleep: This may look like a defensive card at first glance, but in fact it's more of an aggressive card. It effectively gives you two free attacks, both the turn you cast it, and next turn after they haven't untapped anything. Save this for when you have enough muscle on the table to finish the opponent with these two attacks. If the game reaches a stalemate with lots of creatures around and you draw this card, it's likely to be a game winner. If you're badly losing and need some breathing room, go ahead and use it just to stop the opponent attacking you next turn; this isn't ideal, but it may just keep you in the game. Attack them anyway after you cast it since they can't attack back, but then don't attack on your next turn, hold for defence. I rate it as only OK because it's not very good when you're losing and needs you to have several creatures out to be effective. But I think it's worth including at the moment. Stone Golem: Not a wonderful card, but he does his job, and is easy to get out. You should reach 5 mana fairly easily with both Etherium Sculptors helping you and Pilgrim's Eye getting more land. He can either be a fat blocker to keep the attackers away while your fliers peck at the opponent, or if you have a good board position and life total he can smash in with the rest of them. Psychosis Crawler: He can be a little inconsistent, but I think he just about makes the cut at the moment. If you're off to a slow start, he's probably going to be quite big. Even if he comes out small, you can hold back cards for a few turns allowing him to grow. His insulting life loss can be handy for finishing off an opponent in a stalemate situation. Be very careful with your cards in hand when you have him out, it's very easy to play a land without thinking about it and have him drop in stats when you really need him big. Don't play anything before combat unless you really need to so he stays as big as possible. Works nicely with Pilgrim's Eye since it replaces itself in your hand and he doesn't get smaller. Snapsail Glider: This is a bit crappy really, but I grudgingly find it a necessary part of the offence with the current card selection. At least it's easy to cast not needing any particular colours, and 2 damage a turn from him flying in isn't bad once you've got 2 more artifacts out. He can be considered disposable though, don't worry about trading him for a 2/2 ground creature if you are getting beaten up. If you really, really hate him and want something quicker you could go for Golem Hearts to play more defensively, or Alpha Myrs or Signal Pests to play more aggressively. But I find him just about adequate for now. Dead Reckoning: This is quite handy and duel purpose, giving your important creature a second chance (although it costs you a draw) and hopefully killing something annoying your opponent has out. Since Steel Overseer and Master of Etherium tend to get killed very quickly, these are good candidates as they help you so much. The card is held back by the fact that you can't use it until something is dead, and because it's limited to the power of the dead creature. I'd include only if you are dropping white, especially because the two black mana required can be a pain for 3 colours and low Swamp count. It's because of the mana cost that it's lower on the list than it would otherwise be. Alpha Myr: Bog standard artifact creature, 2/1 is alright but obviously he is outclassed by Gust-Skimmer. The 2 mana slot already has Tidehollow Strix, Steel Overseer and Etherium Sculptor. But he can be used as a filler if you cut out one of the colours. Signal Pest: This guy seems like he might be a good idea for a few reasons. He's the only 1 mana artifact you have so he gets metalcraft off to a fast start and you have nothing else to play anyway on turn 1, and he can normally attack safely while pumping up your other guys as long as the opponent has no fliers/reach creatures. This almost sounds tempting, but I would rather go with something more reliable and that can deal damage on its own. Obviously if you have no other creatures this is useless. And once fliers hits the table he's no good unless you can keep killing them all. But if you are interested in pure speed and swift metalcraft, he may be worth considering. Battlecry can be very useful for Two Headed Giant and Archenemy, since the bonus applies to all attacking creatures. So it pumps up your allies' attackers too. Bad cards Venser's Journal: At least this can offer a reasonable amount of life, but I still don't think it's worth the big mana cost. You're rarely going to need more than 7 cards in your hand anyway as the deck is quite quick and you're racing out artifacts to get your metalcraft bonus. I'd only recommend using this while unlocking cards if you're playing against direct damage, I found it helpful against Koth. Soulquake: This is a cool looking and interesting card, but I think it's too expensive and not right for this deck. There's no reason to expect you will have any more dead creatures than the other player, so you can't count on raking the graveyards for an advantage. As for returning everything in play to your hand, you lose your metalcraft bonus and you're probably completely tapped out. Your opponent gets to play everything again first and will have control of the game. You'll rarely have enough mana left to counter anything they cast. For 7 mana I think the Sphinx is far better. Hunger of the Nim: The fact that this is a sorcery means you can't use it for surprise value in combat, making it limited to trying to finish your opponent off. But they can then either kill the creature you pumped up or block it. It's main use is going to be on a flier when your opponent doesn't have any. I don't like the card because it's useless when you are losing, and relies on having lots of things in play to be any good at all. Only worth considering if you are insanely focused on a quick attack. I mistakenly thought it was an Instant to begin with! That would have made it much better. Golem's Heart: I hate life gain! Shape Anew: This is an interesting card, but unreliable. You're probably going to want to cast it on your own cheap artifact and hope that something big churns out. Sometimes you'll get something else small that wasn't worth your 4 mana and two cards to fetch. I prefer not to gamble like this, but if gambling is your thing, go for it! It can be cast on the opponent's artifact, probably a big one, in the hope that they churn out a little one. There may be some value in this, but again I don't like the risk and you're still spending a lot of mana and giving away card advantage. Razorfield Thresher: I don't understand why they make cards like this. It's obviously terrible stats for its cost, and has no point to it whatsoever. Why it's been included in this deck I have no idea, all your 6 mana creatures are better than this. The flavour text is quite funny, making it officially a joke card, I guess. Darksteel Colossus: This is just not right for this deck, I would never include this. It will be extremely rare, even with the help of Etherium Sculptors, that you will get enough mana to cast this. The only other way to get it onto the battlefield is with Shape Anew, which I don't recommend using, and even if you try that there's very little chance you'll actually hit this. =============================================================================== Bouncing and tapping =============================================================================== Since there are a lot of cards in this version which can tap creatures or bounce them (return to owner's hand) I thought I'd write a little extra strategy about this which may not be obvious. When bouncing/tapping creatures , usually you'll want to hit the biggest creature. But not always. Say you're in a situation where you have a 4/4 creature, the opponent has a 3/3 and a 1/1, 4 life, and no cards in hand or anything else that could help them. You have a card that can bounce/tap a creature. In this situation I would prefer to bounce/tap the 1/1. The opponent is going to have to block with whatever they have, and it will die either way, and they take no damage. So you may as well leave the 3/3, force them to block with that, and they lose a better creature than just a 1/1 which they would if you bounced the 3/3. Even better if the 3/3 has a regenerate ability and they are tapped out and can't use it this turn. If the opponent has cards in hand and other things on the battlefield which may interfere it gets more complicated, but try to think through what the opponent will do, and which creature it is good to leave untapped as well as tapped. =============================================================================== Rules differences to full Magic =============================================================================== This is (hopefully) a comprehensive list of the main differences between playing Magic on DoTP, and full, "real" Magic which I shorten to RM. It should help you bridge the gap if you have learned the game through DoTP, since some things are quite a bit different. If you find any errors or omissions, or have any questions, please let me know! Simplifications These are ways DoTP has been made simpler than the full Magic rules, in an attempt to allow a gentle introduction. ---Planeswalker cards do not currently appear in DoTP at all. These are a different type of card that represent powerful personas comparable to another "player", although they aren't actually a player. They have their own abilities, usually 3 or more, but only one can be played each turn. They can be attacked instead of the player who controls them, and can be killed this way. For more information see this link: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/article.aspx?x=magic/rules/planeswalkers ---The turn structure in DoTP is simplified. It consists of these phases: Start- Incorporates untap, upkeep and draw steps from RM. Neither player gets to act in this phase unless an ability is triggered. In RM both players get to act in upkeep and draw steps. Main- Same as for RM. Combat- Beginning of combat step from RM is absent, so if you wish to tap a creature to stop it being able to attack you must do so in the first main phase. Players cannot act in the end of combat step(s) unless an ability is triggered in DoTP, in RM you get to use spells/abilities in this extra step, after combat damage is dealt, before moving to the second main phase. Main- Same as for RM. End- Incorporates end and cleanup steps from RM. Players are not allowed to act in this phase unless an ability is triggered, so you cannot generally play instants and abilities “at the end of the opponent's turn”. You are forced to play them in their second main phase, and they can then continue in that phase to cast creatures etc. In RM the end step is a last chance to use just Instant spells and abilities, and cleanup is where damage is removed from creatures and the active player discards down to 7 cards. In the normal course of the game, you won't even be aware that the Start and End phases exist in DoTP as the game rushes past them unless something triggers in them. ---In DoTP land is always tapped for you to pay for spells and abilities, you get no choice in the matter. In RM you make your own decisions about what land to tap to get the mana you need. ---There is no mana pool in DoTP. Land is always tapped to immediately pay for spells and abilities. For this reason, there are almost no non-Land cards which produce mana. There are also only very few non-Basic Lands, and they don't produce mana. The mana pool is an imaginary place where mana can be drawn into by tapping your lands (or by other means) and it stays there until you either use it to pay for a spell or ability, or the step or phase you are in ends. ---A lot of optional choices are made for you in DoTP, when it's fairly obvious what you would choose. For example, when an effect says you "may gain 1 life" or "may put a 1/1 Elf Creature token onto the battlefield" the game automatically makes you choose "yes". In RM, you could decline such choices, even if it would seem to be to your disadvantage. ---When making decks in DoTP, you get a small card pool to choose from for each deck, and can use cards only in the quantities present in that pool. In RM, you can build your deck using up to 4 of any card you like, except Basic Lands which you can include any number of. Banned/restricted lists may limit your card choice if you are playing in a particular format or tournament. ---The amount of each Basic Land used in your deck is calculated automatically for you in DoTP based on the mana costs of the cards you put in your deck. There's no way to change it manually. In RM, you are free to include whatever amount of each Basic Land you see fit. ---When multiple creatures block your attacker and you choose the order they will receive damage, in DoTP the damage is then assigned automatically. It never puts more on a creature than is needed to kill it. In RM, you are free to assign as much as you want to each creature, which will then reduce the amount of damage left for the remaining blockers. ---In RM, there is a coin toss/dice roll at the start of the match, and the player who wins that can choose to play first or second. In DoTP, it is assumed that whoever wins the toss (which you don't actually see) has chosen to go first. Design differences These are deliberate ways in which rules have been changed for DoTP from RM. ---The priority system works totally differently in DoTP. Instead of an ordered system of passing priority and waiting your turn to act, any player can press a button to “jump in” to play a spell or ability. This means that a player can pre-empt your chance to play a Land or cast a Sorcery by suddenly casting an Instant, and you won't be able to use your card until that has resolved. In RM, the active player (the player whose turn it is) gets to act first and cannot be interrupted like this. When there are one or more spells or abilities on the stack, a timer counts down. Any player can press a button to jump in, and if no one does and the timer expires the top spell/ability on the stack resolves. In RM players have to pass priority in a strict order before anything resolves, and there is no time limit. It is almost always the active player who gets to act first. When the active player has indicated they wish to finish the current phase, a timer also counts down. Any player can jump in again, including the active player. In RM the active player cannot go back on their decision to pass priority, they only get to act again if another player does something. Again a strict order is followed to see if anyone wants to act, and there is no time limit. ---Your abilities are put on the stack automatically If you have multiple abilities trigger at once in RM, you get to decide what order to put them on the stack. This will then decide the order they resolve, which is last-in-first-out, so in the reverse order that you put them on the stack. In DoTP the game decides for you what order any abilities that trigger go on the stack. ---You get an extra mulligan in DoTP In RM, if you don't like your starting hand of 7 cards you can "mulligan", which means you shuffle your hand back into your deck. You then receive another smaller hand of 6 cards. You can then, if you wish, mulligan again, this time receiving 5 cards. You can repeat this right down to 1 card. In DoTP, you get a "free" mulligan, meaning the first time you decide to mulligan the hand you get back is still 7 cards. If you mulligan again it goes down to 6, then 5, etc. This means DoTP is slightly more forgiving than RM! Visuals These are ways in which the game displays some information which is intended to be helpful, but can sometimes be misleading as well. ---When something is reducing the mana cost of a card in your hand, such as Etherium Sculptor, the card in your hand is displayed with that reduced cost in the top right corner as if that was its "new" mana cost. This shows you the cost you will pay, but be aware that the actual mana cost, and converted mana cost, remain the same if anything else refers to them. You are just being shown the cost after reductions. ---When a creature takes damage in DoTP, it is shown as its toughness reducing. This is very misleading, as damage does not in fact lower toughness at all. A 4/4 creature with 3 damage is not 4/1, it is simply 4/4 with 3 damage. If a spell then gave you life equal to its toughness, you would gain 4 and not 1. The damage is counted seperately to toughness, and once the damage on the creature reaches or exceeds the toughness, the creature is destroyed. This is a particular problem in this game, because there are ways that cards actually reduce toughness, and the game displays this in exactly the same way as damage so you can't tell the difference. Reducing a creature's toughness to zero results in it being put directly into the graveyard, not being destroyed, so regeneration and even being indestructible can't save it. The game does handle all this correctly, it just presents it in an often misleading way. ---If you attack with a creature, you get an orange line pointing towards the opponent showing that the creature is attacking them. This line remains for any creatures the don't get blocked, showing they are going to damage the opponent. If one of your creatures gets blocked, this line is redirected to the blocking creature showing that it will deal its damage to that creature instead. But if the blocker is then removed, the game unfortunately puts the arrow back pointing to the opponent. Although it is still an attacking creature and is "attacking that player", it will not deal any damage in that combat. A blocked creature remains blocked, regardless of what happens to the blocker. The exception is a creature with trample, which will deal all its damage to the opponent if its blockers are removed. ---If a creature's power drops below zero, which it can do in both DoTP and RM, it is still displayed as zero on DoTP. The game does treat the creature correctly though, for example a creature that has -2 power is displayed as 0 but if you use Giant Growth on it, the power only goes up to 1. A creature with negative power deals 0 damage in combat though, which equates to not dealing damage at all. Debatable differences These are “rules differences” that I consider more to be an error of judgement or programming, and am awaiting confirmation as to whether these are intended or not. Previous items that would have been on this list have been corrected such as lifelink and deathtouch. ---In DoTP the point at which you order multiple blockers to take damage from a single attacker is different. You make this choice just before combat damage is dealt, after the blockers step, with no chance to act afterwards. In RM, you make this choice right after blockers are declared, and then all players get the chance to act in the blockers step before combat damage is dealt. ---In DoTP triggered abilities being put on the stack do not follow the correct order as in RM. If several abilities trigger at once, in RM the active player first puts their abilities on the stack, and then the non-active players in turn order put theirs on. The result is that the non-active player's/players' abilities will always resolve first. In DoTP being the active player makes no difference, some abilities always resolve before others. This has been put on the official bugs/issues list. =============================================================================== Analysis of artifact and enchantment control =============================================================================== In this section I will try to come up with an estimate of the overall effectiveness of artifact and enchantment control against all of the 10 decks. This will hopefully be a good guide as to how important it is to include such cards. For each deck, I will list the artifacts and enchantments that I consider worth worrying about, and then rate the effectiveness of control cards against that deck that affect- > * A - Artifacts only (such as Viridian Shaman) > * E - Enchantments only (such as Elvish Lyrist) > * B - Both artifacts and enchantments (such as Revoke Existence) And I give each a score: > * 0 - Not at all effective or barely effective, not worth including > * 1 - Effective to some extent, worth including > * 2 - Very effective, big advantage to including Unquenchable Fire- None A - 0 E - 0 B - 0 Apex Predators- Elephant Guide, Serrated Arrows A - 1 E - 0 B - 1 Wielding Steel- 3 Arrest, Lots of Equipment A - 2 E - 2 B - 2 Realm of Illusion- Mind Control A - 0 E - 1 B - 1 Ancient Depths- Yavimaya's Embrace, Mind Control A - 0 E - 2 B - 2 Strength of Stone- 2 Darksteel Axe, 2 Claws of Valakut, 2 Volcanic Strength A - 0 E - 2 B - 2 (Note that I rate A as zero because none of the artifact control only cards currently in the game have any effect on Darksteel Axe) Guardians of the Wood- Epic Proportions A - 0 E - 0 B - 0 Dragon's Roar- 2 Ruby Medallion, Crucible of Fire A - 1 E - 1 B - 2 Blood Hunger- Blade of the Bloodchief A - 1 E - 0 B - 1 Machinations Every non-land permanent in the deck is an artifact A - 2 E - 0 B - 2 Results The totals between all decks are: A - 11 E - 8 B - 13 This gives average scores of: A - 1.1 E - 0.8 B - 1.3 It seems clear that artifact control is more important than enchantment control, and that the effectiveness of enchantment control is questionable. =============================================================================== Bugs and issues =============================================================================== This is a list of bugs and issues that I have personally confirmed on Xbox 360 and can replicate easily. I have put a status at the end of each (with regard to Xbox 360): > * Reported: I've noted it in the official bugs and issues thread but it's not been acknowledged yet. > * Acknowledged: It's been added to the official list of bugs and issues. > * Fixed: Issue has been corrected. > * Bad fix: Issue has attempted to be fixed but has only partially worked or created new problems. If anyone has any specific issues they can replicate and think I have missed, please let me know. I'm not trying to collect general system malfunction type issues, more "rules errors" and issues with particular cards. > * Archangel of Strife: Since multiple players are making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. Also when multiple Archangels are on the battlefield, it's impossible to tell which is granting war/peace for which players. Reported. > * Blocking: The sequence of ordering gang blockers against one creature to receive damage is wrong in this game. It should happen right after blockers are declared, giving you the blocker's phase to use instants and abilities before damage is dealt. But presently they are ordered right before damage is dealt, giving you no chance to act inbetween. Reported. > * Captivating Vampire: Using Brave the Elements in response to his ability (and choosing black) should make the ability be countered due to an illegal target. However it resolves regardless. Reported. > * Chandra's Phoenix: If the opponent steals this with Mind Control and then I kill it, it fails to trigger in my graveyard when I damage them with instants/sorceries. Reported. > * Colossus of Sardia: (Karn, campaign) His untap ability is treated like a triggered ability, as if it said, "At the beginning of your upkeep you may pay 9..." It's an activated ability, so should just be presented as a choice without first using the stack, since the game doesn't halt in the upkeep to allow you to stop the timer and activate it. Reported. > * Curfew: (Realm of Illusion, revenge campaign): Since multiple players are making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. Reported. > * Dead Reckoning: This uses the creature's power when it was last on the battlefield (if it has been) rather than the printed value, to calculate damage dealt. Acknowledged. > * Dead Reckoning vs Master of Etherium: If the Master is discarded from the hand, and then chosen as the graveyard target by Dead Reckoning, it always deals 0 damage. It should deal damage equal to the number of artifacts you control, since this is the Master's power in all zones. By using Duplicant against the Master I verified that the Master's power and toughness are generally correct in other zones, as Duplicant tracks this properly. I concluded it is Dead Reckoning getting this wrong somehow. Reported. > * Duplicant: (Karn, campaign) You are forced to use his ability, which means if only you control creatures you have to exile one of yours. The ability should be optional since it can clearly be detrimental. Also, it can wrongly target tokens created by Rite of Replication, and takes on their power and toughness. Reported. > * Dragonspeaker Shaman: You continue to get the cost reduction bonus even if another player takes control of the Shaman, say with Sower of Temptation. Reported. > * Gate to the Aether: (Karn, campaign) If the top card of the library is not put onto the battlefield, it doesn't get revealed, instead it just goes into the player's hand. Reported. > * Faceless Butcher: (Archenemy challenge- Seek No Longer) If you have a Butcher that has previously exiled a creature, and its controller loses the game, this causes the Butcher's second ability to trigger as it leaves the battlefield along with the rest of their permanents. But a player who has left the game cannot put triggered abilities on the stack, so it should never resolve. It does resolve however in this challenge, also making the intended solution invalid under correct rules. Reported. > * Fresh Meat: (Apex Predators, revenge campaign): This is counting lands that have been put into the graveyard as well as creatures. It also counted Elephant Guide, so it may well be counting all card types. Reported. > * Giant Scorpion: If this is gang blocked and then has its power reduced to zero (say by Disorient) it is still killing creatures. For 2 creatures, it says "0 damage to assign" for the first, and then even more weirdly "-1 damage to assign" for the second. After this, the first one gets destroyed which obviously it shouldn't. Reported. > * Grim Lavamancer: When using his ability, no arrows appear to show what has been selected as a target. Acknowledged. > * Hunted Wumpus: Since multiple players are making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. The chosen cards remain hidden until all choices are made though. Reported. Without access to the card code it's impossible for me to verify this 100%. > * Last known information: The game is using default values instead of last known information for permanents no longer on the battlefield which it requires information from. For example, Spikeshot Elder is 9/1 thanks to Claws of Valakut and I activate his ability. In response, someone kills the Elder. When the Elder's ability resolves, it should use the last known information of 9, but instead reverts to just 1 damage. The same applies to the victim of Engulfing Slagwurm's ability, if it's no longer on the battlefield when it resolves it doesn't take into account modifications to the toughness that were on it such as Giant Growth. Reported. > * Lavaborn Muse: This should only be able to deal damage to the opponent whose turn it is when it triggers. Presently it checks every opponent's handsize during every opponent's upkeep and can deal damage to all of them. Acknowledged. > * Lead the Stampede: The non-creature cards are not shown to you before being put on the bottom of your library. Acknowledged. > * Lord of the Unreal: The hexproof bonus is applied to your partner's Illusions in Two Headed Giant as well as your own. Reported. > * Malfegor: (Dragon's Roar, revenge campaign) Since multiple players are making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. Reported. Without access to the card code it's impossible for me to verify this 100%. > * Magister Sphinx: If the opponent uses the Sphinx's ability to set their life total to 10 when they have less than 10, this is failing to trigger Punishing Fire in my graveyard. Reported. > * Multikicker: (Quag Vampires, Wolfbriar Elemental, Joraga Warcaller) The game does not display how many times the spells have been kicked while they are resolving. You can only work it out by counting up all the tapped lands which is hard to do when there are many bunched up, and subtracting all other mana paid this turn. Reported. > * New Frontiers: Since multiple players are making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. The chosen cards remain hidden until all choices are made though. Reported. Without access to the card code it's impossible for me to verify this 100%. > * Nissa's Chosen: Still using the pre-M12 wording. It should read, "If Nissa's Chosen would die..." Acknowledged. > * Oblivion Ring: (Archenemy challenge- Seek No Longer) If you have a Ring that has previously exiled a permanent, and its controller loses the game, this causes the Ring's second ability to trigger as it leaves the battlefield along with the rest of their permanents. But a player who has left the game cannot put triggered abilities on the stack, so it should never resolve. It does resolve however in this challenge, also making the intended solution invalid under correct rules. Reported. > * Phyrexian Tyranny: (Archenemy challenge- Seek No Longer) The dialogue prompt asks you to pay 2 life or pay 2 mana. However, it should be lose 2 life which is not the same as paying 2 life. Reported. > * Punishing Fire: This can be returned to your hand when 0 life is gained, such as from having no cards in hand when Venser's Journal triggers. This should only happen when you gain 1 or more life. Acknowledged. > * Punishing Fire versus optional life gain: There is no way to stop "you may gain life" abilities from giving you life, forcing players to trigger an opponent's Punishing Fire in the graveyard. Either Punishing Fire needs to go, or we need the choice of when to use optional abilities. Reported. > * Rotted Ones, Lay Siege: (Scheme) There is no way to tell which Zombie token has to attack which player. Reported. > * Show and Tell: (Karn, campaign) Since multiple players are making choices at the same time, it should follow active player/non active player order. This means that the player whose turn it is should pick first, and all other players made aware of this choice. Then the next player in turn order, and so on. Currently all choices are made simultaneously. The chosen cards remain hidden until all choices are made though. The dialogue prompt box asks you to choose a creature to put onto the battlefield, but you have more choice than that. And if you pick an Aura, you are allowed to then cancel it. If there is a legal permanent to attach it to, you should be obliged to once you've committed to that card. Reported. > * Slagstorm: (Strength of Stone, revenge campaign): The chosen mode, either dealing damage to players or creatures, should be displayed/communicated to all players upon casting. Presently you are left to guess which has been chosen while responding. Acknowledged. > * Sower of Temptation: When the same player controls multiple Sowers, say by using a kicked Rite of Replication, there's no way to tell which Sower took control of which creature once all their abilities have resolved. Reported. > * Spell targets: With simplified targeting turned off, the default target for any spell is chosen to be the opponent even when the spell is clearly beneficial (Time Warp, Congregate etc.) It should default to the same target that would have been chosen with simplified targeting on, that being the most likely target, to save always having to change it and accidents happening. Reported. > * Spread the Sickness: The two parts, destroy target creature and proliferate, are being conducted simultaneously instead of sequentially. For example, my opponent has used Sower of Temptation to steal my creature that has +1/+1 counters on it. I use Spread the Sickness on the Sower. I should regain control of my creature before the proliferate happens, giving me another counter. But I don't get a counter presently. Reported. > * Summoning Sickness: Cards which gain control of an opponent's creature such as Mind Control and Yavimaya's Embrace occasionally cause the creature to lose "summoning sickness", and you can attack right away with them as if they had haste. I can't replicate this at will as it only occurs very occasionally, but I have witnessed it happening several times. Acknowledged. > * The Stack: When multiple abilities trigger from different players' permanents, they should be put on the stack in active player/non active player order. Presently they are seemingly resolving according to an "ability hierarchy". For example, if Festering Goblin dies while another player's Rockslide Elemental is on the battlefield, the Rockslide's ability will always resolve first regardless of whose turn it is. I have many other examples to support this theory, and AP/NAP order is certainly not being followed except by coincidence. Acknowledged. > * Two Headed Giant: You can only attack the opponent opposite you, you should be able to attack either. And for one-shot effects like Eldrazi's annihilator, you should be able to choose which defending player is affected as it resolves. Currently you have to choose the one you are attacking. Reported. > * Wurmcoil Engine: If this is gang blocked and then has its power reduced to zero (say by Disorient) it is still killing creatures. For 2 creatures, it says "0 damage to assign" for the first, and then even more weirdly "-1 damage to assign" for the second. After this, the first one gets destroyed which obviously it shouldn't. Reported. > * Zone Changes: When a card moves from one zone to another, for example from the battlefield to your hand or the graveyard, it should lose all memory of its previous existence. However, I have found cases of this not happening. If a creature uses its own ability to pump itself up (such as Furnace Whelp, Kiln Fiend) and is then returned to its owner's hand and recast that turn, it comes back with the pump up still in effect. And if I attack with Lorthos, the Tidemaker and Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Forests that get targeted by Lorthos and then sacrificed to the annihilator ability retain their "do not untap" icon when in the graveyard. Acknowledged. =============================================================================== Changes Log =============================================================================== 31.08.2011 Made some corrections and clarifications, thanks to Ladenswallow for reporting these. Added Summoning Sickness problem to "bugs and issues" section. 30.08.2011 Added to Two Headed Giant problem in "bugs and issues" section. Added to commentary for Garruk's Packleader. Corrected some mistakes in the tri-colour Machinations decklist and Wielding Steel decklist. Thanks to premiersoupir for pointing these out to me. Added Giant Scorpion and Blocking problems to "bugs and issues" section. 29.08.2011 Added to the Fresh Meat problem in "bugs and issues" section. Removed Psychosis Crawler from tri colour Machinations deck, added another Razorfield Rhino. Over time I've found the Crawler less than impressive, often coming out too small if you have got off to a speedy start. For lack of better cards I'm keeping it in the blue/black version for now, it will be on the chopping board come DLC! Removed Furyborn Hellkite and 1 Volcanic Dragon from Dragon's Roar, and added another Gravedigger and Dragon Fodder. This puts the Swamp count up to 7, slightly helping the mana situation. The Furyborn wasn't coming out as often as I would like, and the Volcanics are very slow and cumbersome so this speeds it up while providing backup to the other dragons. Added Wurmcoil Engine problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to Maese_Leo for reporting this on the forum. Added Two Headed Giant problem to "bugs and issues". Well done to Ladenswallow for noticing this. 28.08.2011 Added to commentary for Vampire Aristocrat and Skeletal Vampire. Thanks to Ladenswallow for these suggestions. 25.08.2011 Added to commentary for Counterspell, thanks to JonnyUtah for prompting me to think about it more. Deleted my original Wielding Steel decklist as I feel the second one is much superior. Made the alternate Blood Hunger decklist into it's own seperate list to make it easier to create. 24.08.2011 Added Faceless Butcher problem to "bugs and issues", thanks to Ladenswallow for noticing this. Also added Phyrexian Tyranny problem. Moved around the order of some of the cards in Ancient Depths card analysis and altered some commentaries to allow for my opinions after lots of playtesting and to bring it in line with my new decklist. Added "choosing your deck for online play" section. Thanks to Eternal21 for prompting me to add this. 22.08.2011 Added multikicker problem to "bugs and issues". Also added Oblivion Ring problem, credit to JaxsonBateman for noticing this. Added to the commentary for Time Warp. 21.08.2011 Added Chandra's Phoenix problem to "bugs and issues". Thanks to DanRock for reporting this on the forum. 16.08.2011 Added Colossus of Sardia and Gate to the Aether problems to "bugs and issues". Added Sower of Temptation problem to "bugs and issues". Credit to NarcolepZZZZZZ for reporting this on the forum. 15.08.2011 Renamed Master of Etherium problem to Dead Reckoning problem, as I found that it's definitely Dead Reckoning that is causing the problem with their interaction. 14.08.2011 Added clarification to the commentary for Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and deleted my original Ancient Depths decklist as it was performing poorly. Thanks to Nantes for prompting me to do this. Added Master of Etherium problem to "bugs and issues". Changed the commentary for Explosive Vegetation. 13.08.2001 Added more to the Show and Tell and Duplicant problems in "bugs and issues". Added captivating Vampire problem to "bugs and issues" section. Credit to Monion_2804 for finding this bug. Added to the commentary for Lorthos, the Tidemaker. 12.08.2011 Added to the strategy section for Ancient Depths. Added to the commentary for Polymorph. Added a new section, "bouncing and tapping". Added Duplicant problem to "bugs and issues" section. 11.08.2011 Added Archangel of Strife, Hunted Wumpus, Malfegor, New Frontiers, and Show and Tell problems to "bugs and issues" section. Also for the scheme Rotted Ones, Lay Siege. 10.08.2011 Added Magister Sphinx problem to "bugs and issues" section. Added Punishing Fire vs. optional life gain problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to PugPug and JohnSelden for highlighting this. Put "bugs and issues" section in alphabetical order. Added to the commentary for Punishing Fire and Flamekin Brawler. Added alternative decklist to Unquenchable Fire. 9.08.2011 Added to the commentary for Mirri the Cursed and Banefire. Added in statuses in the "bugs and issues" section. 8.08.2011 Added Dragonspeaker Shaman problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to lporiginalg for reporting this on the forum. Added Lord of the Unreal problem to "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to Toonio who reported this on the forum. Added to the commentary for Urge to Feed. 7.08.2011 Added to the commentary for Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief and Strider Harness Added a bit more about Dragon's Roar, with regard to improving the Swamp count. Added to the "getting started" section about choosing which decks to play against to unlock cards faster. 6.08.2011 Added to and modified the "getting started" section. Added last known information problem to the "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to PugPug who reported about Spikeshot Elder on the forums which lead me to this conclusion. 5.08.2011 Added Dead Reckoning problem to the "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to Minus Prime who first reported this on the forum. Added about DoTP not displaying negative power on creatures in the "rules differences" section. 3.08.2011 Added to Sangromancer's commentary, thanks to ladenswallow for this suggestion. Added a link to the official decklist page in the introduction, thanks to premiersoupir for prompting me to add this. 2.08.2011 Added another "con" to Guardians of the Wood. 1.08.2011 Added "bugs and issues" section. Thanks to the following for reporting issues on the bugs/issues thread on the DoTP forum: extendoman: Spread the Sickness Eonblueapocalypse1: Spell targets ladenswallow: The stack Brodo: Punishing Fire Tweakee: Lavaborn Muse 31.07.2011 Added to Lorthos, the Tidemaker's commentary about not tapping your own lands. Thanks to Ladenswallow for this suggestion. 30.07.2011 Reversed the order of the changes log so that new changes appear at the top, to save everyone scrolling down each time to check on it! Added an alternative decklist to Ancient Depths under the current one. Thanks to fma for prompting me to think more on this. Also altered the order the cards commentary appears in, in line with my new opinions of the cards. Added to the commentary for Gaea's Revenge. 29.07.2011 Added a link to Eonblueapocalypse1's post about interesting targets for Rite of Replication. Added a link in the introduction to the discussion thread on the DoTP forums. Added alternative decklist for Blood Hunger. Thanks to hydramarine and fma for prompting me to think more about this. 28.07.2011 Corrected a mistake in the commentary for Goblin Mountaineer, thanks to Hydramarine for pointing this out. Added maximum and minimum damage to the Cerebral Eruption analysis, thanks to Hydramarine for this suggestion. 25.07.2011 Added to the "rules differences" section about automatic calculation of your Basic Land numbers. Strength of Stone: Removed 1 Flameborn Hellion and 1 Vulshok Berserker, added 1 Earth Servant and 1 Vulshok Heartstroker. Also fixed some errors in the "exclude" list. Thanks to AceMathias for pointing these out and prompting me to think about my decklist changes. The Hellion is too offensively focused I've found for such a slow and defensive deck, the Earth Servant is still not great but at least holds with the defensive theme, being able to block nearly anything on the ground. The Berserkers aren't great for their mana, so to speed up the deck a bit another Heartstroker can provide a bit of punch to help your creatures break through, or at least trade with an opponent's better creature. 24.07.2011 Realm of Illusion: Removed 2 Phantom Beast, added 2 Blind Phantasm After much thought and testing, I've decided I agree with Gegliosch that the Blind Phantasm is the better overall choice, despite being only an average card. It is cheaper and more robust, and the matchups in which the Beasts are better are not quite worth the extreme vulnerability it has for the bad matchups. Thanks to him for prompting me to think more about this. I've added a new decklist variant to Wielding Steel under the current one. Added about choosing to go first/second in the Rules Differences section. Added to the commentary for Repulse, Engulfing Slagwurm and Jace's Ingenuity. 23.07.2011 Added about simplified combat damage assignment in the Rules Differences section. 19.07.2011 Added another column to the second part of the Lead the Stampede/Beast Hunt analysis showing the probabilities of drawing "at least" each number of cards. Thanks to Lorenzo for this suggestion. 18.07.2011 Used a more accurate method to calculate the figures for the first part of the Lead the Stampede/Beast Hunt analysis, updating the commentary accordingly. This has caused all the figures to go up slightly. 17.07.2011 Added more explanation to the "Rules differences to full Magic section", and added another part to it, visuals, which describes how the game can often be misleading. Added to Sword of War of Peace's commentary to note how it works in combination with Infiltration Lens. Thanks to LadenSwallow for this tip. Moved Cerebral Eruption down in the ratings, thanks to feedback from Lorenzo. Fixed probabilities on the second part of the Lead the Stampede/Beast Hunt analysis, thanks to Lorenzo for pointing out my error. 16.7.2011 Corrected my analysis on Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede, I'd been multiplying by the wrong number for Beast Hunt. Thanks to Lorenzo for pointing out my error. Added more explanation as well. I moved Beast Hunt down to the bad cards section, as it is even worse than I thought. Also added more detail about how Nature's Lore and Borderland Ranger interacts with these calculations, thanks to DEMIURGO83 for feedback which helped me add more to this. I added an analysis of Lead the Stampede based on 24 creatures, calculating estimates for probabilities of drawing different numbers of creatures. Altered the order of several cards due to my changing opinion of them. Under each example decklist I've included the cards you would exclude to build that deck. Thanks to Socram_SuR for suggesting this. Added "Cerebral Eruption Analysis" section underneath the Strength of Stone section. Thanks to Lorenzo for suggesting this. Changed layout of "Analysis of artifact and enchantment control" section to make it more readable. 15.7.2011 Moved the example decklists above the card commentary for each deck so you don't have to scroll so far to quickly look at them. Added "Beast Hunt/Lead the Stampede Analysis" section below Apex Predator section to show how many cards you can expect to draw from each based on the number of creature cards in your deck. Apex Predators: Removed 1 Beast Hunt, added 1 Craw Wurm. Much as it pains me to include such a rubbish creature, I decided that Beast Hunt had to go and this at least gives another high mana creature which are a little lacking, and gets a card from Garruk's Packleader. After doing my analysis, I found that you can only expect to draw 1.53 cards on average from the 23 creature setup that I had which isn't worth 4 mana. This change increases the effectiveness of the 2 Lead the Stampede. Expect the Wurm to go as soon as anything better becomes available from DLC. You could go with Giant Spider if you wanted but I think it's too defensive and you have more 4 mana creatures already than 6. Added to Lys Alana Huntmaster's commentary about the combo with Elvish Promenade. Added to Manic Vandal's commentary about problems with your own Ruby Medallions. Thanks to Destruction3402 for pointing this out. 14.7.2011 Added commentary to my deck alterations in the changes log. Guardians of the Wood: Removed 2 Ezuri's Archers, added 2 Viridian Emissary. I feel the Archers are too defensive, and the effectiveness of 1 drops in this deck aren't good enough to justify the extra speed. I put back 2 of the more aggressive Viridian Emissaries again, which will also make the mana more reliable. Definitely feels stronger in this build. 13.7.2011 Added about "free mulligan" in DoTP to the Rules Differences section. Thanks to zammm for pointing out I had missed this. Realm of Illusion: Removed 2 Air Elemental, added 2 Aeether Adept. Thanks to Gegliosch for prompting me to analyze this. Updated their commentaries. You can more reliably tap out with the Adepts, knowing you have more bounce as backup. The Elementals usually require tapping out, leaving it vulnerable to removal and you unable to counter. The Adepts fit in with the rest of the deck much more. I really like the change. Added a new section, "Analysis of artifact and enchantment control". Guardians of the Wood: Removed 1 Elvish Lyrist, added 1 Heedless One. After doing my analysis, I decided Enchantment removal isn't quite so effective, so the 2 Pulses should be enough. The last Heedless One helps provide more threats, and round out the top end of the mana curve. 12.7.2011 Fixed a typo (Cerebral Explosion -> Cerebral Eruption) in Strength of Stone example decklist, thanks to Lorenzo for pointing this out. Added to the introduction, and created a new section, "Rules differences to full Magic." Thanks to feedback from Ladenswallow that helped me cut out an unnecessary section from this. Wielding Steel: Removed 2 Elite Vanguard, added 2 Kor Duelist. I decided it's more important to concentrate on the equipment theme, and although the Vanguards are amazingly efficient the Duelists can end up dealing more damage with a lot of equipment in the deck. 11.7.2011 Added correction to Aether Mutation's commentary with regard to using on tokens that are copies of creatures. Added that battlecry creatures are useful in Two Headed Giant and Archenemy. Thanks to Ladenswallow for pointing these out to me. Guardians of the Wood: Removed 3 Viridian Emissary, added 2 Sylvan Ranger and 1 Wildheart Invoker. Updated commentary on these three cards. I decided the Rangers were more reliable, and help keep the Elf population up. I dropped the overall number of mana fetchers as I felt there would still be enough, to put in another big threat. Realm of Illusion: Removed 1 Phantom Beast, added 1 Blind Phantasm. Updated commentary on these two cards. Thanks to Gegliosch for prompting me to analyze this more. Since roughly 4 out of the 10 matchups are bad for the Beast, I replaced one with a Blind Phantasm to "sit on the fence". 10.7.2011 Added another tip to the commentary for Chandra's Pheonix, that Chandra's Outrage can get it back for you. 7.7.2011 Thanks to Cardio for asking me to elaborate on which build I prefer for Dragon's Roar, I have done so. 6.7.2011: Corrected some errors, and added to Aether Mutation's and Repulse's commentary. Added to Polymorph's commentary and moved it up to OK. Thanks to NLi10 for this feedback. Changed and added to the commentary on Nath of the Gilt-Leaf, thanks to Orthanc_eb for prompting me to elaborate. Added about deathtouch to the Differences from D09 to D12 section. Realm of Illusion: Removed 1 Aeether Adept, added 1 Phantom Beast - Thanks to Lorenzo for pointing out I had overlooked there actually being a third Beast available! Unquenchable Fire: Removed 1 Relentless Assault, added 1 Lava Axe. I changed commentary on Relentless Assault and moved it down to bad. Thanks to Gegliosch for pointing out my error. I had mistakenly thought you could get a double hit in with your Kiln Fiend at +3/+0! The Lava Axe is not ideal but there isn't much better at the moment. While writing guide, published 5.7.2011 Blood hunger: Removed 2 Vampire's Bite, put in 1 Spread the Sickness and 1 Skeletal Vampire I found I was holding on to the Bites for so long they may as well have been a higher mana, more powerful spell. Strength of Stone: Removed 2 Act of Treason, added 2 Volcanic Strength Removed 1 Rockslide Elemental, added in 1 Vulshock Heartstroker The Act of Treasons are only useful for dealing extra damage against the opponent and are no help if you are losing or dealing with threats. The deck is on the back foot too much to capitalize on the aggressive nature of the card I feel. I dropped the Rockslide as the deck is a bit too low on creature control to pump it up reliably. Machinations: Tri colour: Removed 1 Snapsail Glider, added 1 Gust-Skimmer Blue/black: Removed 1 Hunger of the Nim, added 1 Alpha Myr The lower cost of the Skimmer I think is worth the drawback of having to pay for him to fly, which you don't always need to pay anyway. I mistakenly thought Hunger of the Nim was an Instant and therefore just about playable, when I realized it's a Sorcery I decided it's rubbish as you can't use it in combat. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- This guide was created at http://www.playhaven.com/. See the full guide here: http://www.playhaven.com/guides/360/magic-the-gathering-duels-of-the-planeswalk ers/duels-of-the-planeswalkers-2012-guide/9BTpSAjYWUrU/