Magic: The Gathering

[Marik_Duelist]

Hi. I just started with Magic. I bought the Master Blaster and Speed Scorch decks. What cards should I get to make them better?

[Korey]

i still play magic online and at tournaments. If u want to fight me, my name is Weebodekar. may the best wizard win ( i plan to

[Korey]

[quote name='Marik_Duelist']Hi. I just started with Magic. I bought the Master Blaster and Speed Scorch decks. What cards should I get to make them better?[/quote]

Okay try to find a lot of artifacts. then try to get a card called MYR INCUBATOR. it has a hefty mana cost, but it brings out a ton of 1/1 myr tokens if you have a Ton of artifacts

[rata]

I play magic the gathering, right now I'm really into it, i had a pewerful deck but can't play online, I got some serius cards in my deck like an Avatar of Might, Visara the Dreadful, Silvos Rogue Elemental, and Rhox, eventhoudh I tend to loose a lot I\ll try to make a counter spell deck soon, and maybe a discard deck also.

[Darius_Stomu]

Every weekend, I go to a friend that helps me in many situations. anyways, he has a powerful direct damage deck that he come 1 life close to killing me with before I pummel him back down to his level. I made a weak *** Lifegain deck once and challanged him with it and won! He kepts on hitting me for one damage with a Dainamo Goblin as i healed for 5 each turn with the Mutant cleric. If you ever get these two cards, Wall of Faith and Spirit En Kor, use them in the same deck. He couldn't hurt me unless it WAS direct damage.

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

Actually folks, there has always been a very underplayed but insanely useful card out there to stop direct damage decks: Energy Field (blue rare from Urza's saga: 1 colorless 1 Blue to cast, enchantment, reads "Prevent all damage dealt to you from sources you do not control. When a card is put into your graveyard, sacrifice Energy Field.") The trick to using it is

a) get it out early, which means if you don't draw it you better hope you splashed in White and drew an Enlightened Tutor.
b) make sure Energy Field is the most vulnerable card you have on the table. That way, only enchantment destruction, land destruction, or discard cards can get rid of it.
c) don't over-rely on the card, but use it to buy some time and bring out some real defense, like an ensnaring bridge, Teferi's moat, or Story Circle. Or something even deadlier, whatever.

If you guys want I can give you the card list for my Blue/White control deck, which flattens pretty much any deck that doesn't revolve around discard or land destruction.

[Darius_Stomu]

That would sound like a fun card to use...except for one tiny thing: I don't use blue decks. I, personly, do best with my G/U and R/B decks. *drools at their powers* I've managed to make the G/U deck so as when even the opponent would play a spell, if I have thresehold, I play a creature (Hunting Grounds). THEN, when I play a creature, I can destroy an enchantment or artifact (AUra Shards)! It's and awesome deck, and even MORE so when I get out [I][B]Treva![/B][/I] It even has some awesome old cards that everyone knows and loves like Disenchants, Uktabi Wildcats, Sabertooth Nishoba, Nut Collecter, Squirrel Wrangler, ect. I even have a combo that makes it so as I can block ever single non-flying, non-blockable creeture an opponent has and the blocking creature isn't even killed! It gets better when I summon...KROSAN COLLOSUS (Green, 9/9, 6GGG) and put Rancor (G, Enchant creature, Target creature gains +2/+0 and Trample) on it. I'll make a card list for that deck with Treva when I have the time.

[Darius_Stomu]

Here's my G/W deck of which I call...

INFINITE FOREST (No reason...just to give it a name...)

Mana:
[COLOR=Wheat]Plains X 10[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Lime]Forests X 10[/COLOR]
Creatures:

[COLOR=Lime]Green:
Gaint Spider X 2
Skyshroud Troll
Chlorophant
Uktabi WildCats
Cockatrice
Quirion Dryad
Taunting Elf
Nut Collecter
Krosan Colossus
Wild Elephant
Rabid Elephant
Squirrel Wrangler[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Wheat]White:
Longbow Archer
Ironfist Crucher
Soltari Lancer[/COLOR][COLOR=DarkOrange]
Gold:
Treva, The Renewer
Sabertooth Nishoba
Llanowar Knight
Scalebane's Elite
Mystic Enforcer[/COLOR]

Sorceries:
[COLOR=Lime]Green:
Overrun
Stream of Life[/COLOR]

Enchantments:
[COLOR=Lime]Green:
Call of the Wild
Game Preserve[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Wheat]White:
Angelic Renewal X 2[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkOrange]Gold:
Aura Shards
Hunting Grounds[/COLOR]

Enchant Creatures:
[COLOR=Lime]Green:
Rancor[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Wheat]White:
Ward of Lights
Sandskin X 2
Seeker
Pacifism
Inviolability
Unquestioned Authority[/COLOR]

Instants:
[COLOR=Lime]Green:
Predator's Strike
Vitalize
Giant Growth[/COLOR]
[COLOR=Wheat]White:
Disenchant X 3
Humble X 2
Divine Offering[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DarkOrange]Artifacts:
Mana Prism X 2
Mind's Eye[/COLOR]

Not once have I lost with this deck.

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

Heh, that's not a bad deck. It reminds me of when I had just begun playing and had 1 of everything. You gotta go with what you can, though.

I'm sure many of you guys have played with or against land destruction before, but have you guys played against one that had no red cards in it? I never have, so I put together a LD deck that is black/green/white. It wins the majority of games I play with it, and completely annihilates certain decks.

Here's the decklist (it's Type 1 because of the Demonic Tutor and because I mostly play casual Magic, but it's easily modified for Extended or 1.5):

GREEN:
[COLOR=DarkGreen]4 Winter's Grasp
4 Plow Under
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Creeping Mold
1 Restock[/COLOR]

BLACK:
4 Dark Ritual
2 Befoul
1 Demonic Tutor

WHITE:
[COLOR=SlateGray]2 Armageddon[/COLOR]

GOLD:
[COLOR=SandyBrown]4 Vindicate
4 Spiritmonger
4 Pernicious Deed[/COLOR]

ARTIFACT:
[COLOR=DimGray]3 Eater of Days[/COLOR]

LAND:
[COLOR=Sienna]4 City of Brass
1 Bayou (my only dual land .:sniffle:.)
4 Brushland
4 Llanowar Wastes
2 Caves of Koilos
4 Swamp
4 Forest[/COLOR]

The true power of the deck lies in two facts:
a) Nobody expects a B/G/W land destruction deck. Nobody. And nobody should, honestly, because people don't make them. Also it's a bother to gear a deck against it because it becomes so narrowly focused.

b) It's extremely versatile. Only 4 cards in the deck qualify as pure "land destruction" -- the Winter's Grasps. Vindicate destroys any permanent, Befoul destroys a land or a nonblack creature, Creeping Mold destroys a land, enchantment, or artifact, and the two other land-focused cards--Armageddon and Plow Under--work against any deck, even one which already has as much land as it needs. In addition, Plow Under and Armageddon work as magnificent insurance when it comes to surviving Eater of Days's frightening drawback (when he comes into play, skip your next 2 turns).

The deck's only real weakness is its "no plan B" when it comes to killing the opponent. Only 7 cards in the deck function as real offense--the Spiritmongers and the Eaters of Days. Both are so ridiculously fast and huge (especially with the Elves, Birds, and Rituals), however, that they pretty much always get the job done. They're also a pain to kill.

Tell me what you think, and also tell me of any decks that YOU've made that are "original" but still tournament level (so no "rhinoceros decks" or "horror movie titles decks").

[Thaylien]

Personally, I'm an avid Magic.com visitor, although I never have opted into the online game.

I read up on what people are playing and either adapt it or try and beat it. I've ended up now with a Darksteel deck that's pretty much a good copy of the deck Beatstick from a week ago. (Damn my insistent money spending on cards).

2 Plains
4 Stalking Stones
8 Island
4 Ancient Den
4 Seat of the Synod

1 Darksteel Colossus

4 Talisman of Progress
4 Fabricate
1 Isochron Scepter
4 Sun Droplet
4 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Nuisance Engine
4 Thunderstaff
4 Mana Leak
4 Raise the Alarm
1 Goblin Charbelcher
4 Proteus Staff

The whole idea of this deck is to abuse the Proteus Staff. You get it out, create a token creature from any one of the token spells, use the two to fetch out the Darksteel Colossus and beat them to death with it.
The other victory ideas in here are (if they've gotten rid of, or can easily block the colossus) to use the Staff to stack your deck conveniently and then to use the Goblin Charbelcher to smite them with lethal damage.
I've even used an army of Pest tokens from Nuisance Engine, pumped them up with two Thunderstaffs and swung in with swarm of 2/1 pests. You should have seen his face.

The deck play is realtively simple, you defend early on with the Thunderstaffs and Sun Droplets (I've tried attacking into those and it's not easy, I'll tell you), ocasionally you'll pull out the Isochron Scepter and when you do imprint Raise the Alarm on it immediately, that way you'll always have chump blockers and Proteus Staff fodder.
If you don't draw a Staff then Fabricate, while slow, gets the job done of fetching it, and it's *allways* fun to hard-cast the Colossus if the game drags a bit.
There's extra defense and some emergency fodder in the Stalking Stones as well as some nasty with the Mana Leak.
And finally, the Thirst for Knowledge gives you a little help in digging for cards.

As you can see, I've spent too much money and too much time on this deck. But it works like hell, and I've even made it stand up to the traditional 1-turn-win decks, but only because of some emergency play and sheer luck.
If you've got the cards then go for it. I've even tried it without the Colossus and put in an extra Charbelcher and that works too, but less often.

Have fun if you can make this. CFN

[Darius_Stomu]

I'd like to share a hilarious experience I went through when I was using my blue, anti-artifact deck. There was this one kid in my school that would always use this artifact deck that could destory any deck, even when he doesn't have that many artifacts in play. With that deck was a...Broodstar something or other, who's power and toughness was equal to the number of artifacts in play...here's the thing, with the new artifact lands, that sucker was at 20/20 when it came into play! Even worse, it had flying! So there was only one option for me when I used my anti-artifact deck...the Kill Switch!As long as it is tapped, all other artifacts are tapped! Even artifact lands! Then I had to rid of his Broodstar, so I "Unsummon"ed it! After that, I just pummeled him with Vessadrix a few times. It was so GREAT! All of his lands where artifacts and he couldn't do a damn thing to stop me!

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

Yeah Kill Switch is a devastating card against pretty much anything from the Mirrodin block. And there really isn't a failsafe against it, as far as I know; you just have to save a couple of counterspells for it. Luckily all the new artifact decks are blue....

I have a pretty funny story, too. A couple of years ago I went to Origins (it's in my hometown) and did a very large trade there. Apocalypse (the set) had just come out, and I wanted to get my hands on some Spiritmongers. So I traded this dude 4 Wraths of God for one. Yeah, I knew what I was doing, and I didn't care. Anyway this dude was a professional at ripping people off, and it was pretty amusing to watch him try to screw me over. He'd pull out a bullcrap price guide he got off the internet which priced my cards really low (and he'd take into account their condition, marking the price down even further even though my cards were all mint), and then he'd just make up random prices for his own cards. It was hilarious. Anyway I traded him the cards I didn't need for a few cards I wanted, and he felt like he had gotten me real good.

Later that day, I was just wasting time playing random Magic games against people, and the same dude walked up to me. He forgot that he had traded with me earlier, and asked if I wanted to trade with him. I said no, but I told him I'd like to play a game vs. him. He agree, and whipped out some pathetic deck I don't even remember what the heck it was. Anyway around turn 6 I got out my ONE Spiritmonger and it killed him without any trouble whatsoever. It reduced the guy to tears, I swear. "It's such a broken card," he said while sniffling. "You traded it to me, you idiot," I said. "Now you got what you deserved." He just got up grabbed his cards and left the building right then and there.


Another time I was playing against a friend and got him to forfeit on the first turn because I cast Dark Ritual, Funeral Charm (one black, target player chooses and discards a card...) targeting an Akroma in my hand, and Exhume to bring her into play. First turn Akroma, see ya later.

[Darius_Stomu]

With the new Mirrodin set out, I found a card I LOVE when it comes to direct damage decks...Extraplaner Lens. With the new Imprint ability, it makes it so when you tap an Imprinted mana, you'd make a another of that type! So let's say I use this with...Fireball! You'd be dealling double the damage for the same amount of mana you're putting in it! Now imagine...if you had 4 of those out! With some of the basic direct damage decks with Firballs and Disintigrates, you have 20-25 red mana. You'd deal 80-100 damage a spell!

Another great Imprinting combo is Soul Foundry and anything monster that is powered from it's own type, like a Reckless One (4R,Goblin Avatar,Haste, Power and toughness are equal to the number of goblins in play). So you imprint Reckless One on the Soul Foundery, tap it, cough up 5 mana and you have a copy of it! Doing this once per turn can give your opponent a REALLY good pummling.

Being that these are the only cards I have with Imprint, besides Isicron Septer (4, Imprint: Any Instant with mana cost lower than 2.), that's all I have for now...

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

There's a cool imprint card in Darksteel called Panoptic Mirror (it's like a super Isochron Scepter). 5 to cast artifact. Says
"imprint - X, tap: remove an instant or sorcery card from your hand with casting cost x (that card is imprinted on this artifact)

At the beginning of your upkeep, you may copy an imprinted instant or sorcery card and play the copy w/o paying its mana cost."

Pretty sweet, isn't it? Although it's a bit slow and costly, so I wouldn't use it in any deck although it would be pretty interesting in a tinker deck, as you could imprint Tinker on it and then cycle some mean artifacts, swapping out stuff like Triskelion and Pentavus and even Portcullis or whatever. I doubt it will see serious tournament play, but then again I'm not really into the whole tournament scene anyway. Though whenever I do look at the top 8 finishers in a tournament I think to myself, [i]man those decks are like crappy versions of decks I made and then took apart to make better ones![/i] Just goes to show you that luck of the draw (and of the opponent) matter a lot, too.

[Thaylien]

I remember the one time that luck of the draw did something right for me.

I'd just won a single (only one, note) booster pack from a casual game with the guy who ran our club. It wasn't anything serious, but hey, it was an extra fifteen cards.

This was at the Torment release just before the main tournament (constructed, not draft), so we had things like the mana T-shirts still hanging around too, but we were still at the point where a lot of the Oddesy cards were worth a lot of money.
The only good card in the pack turned out to be a... foil Battlefield Forge, I traded this thing straight back to him for another three boosters (english prices, I hate them). I then proceeded to claim a foil Laquatous Champion, a full set of wild mongrels (broken, yes, incredibly versatile in this set? Definitely.), and two other rares that bought me enough smaller cards to build a proper black-green threshold deck that annhialated me through to win the tournament.

The guy I won that pack from was the guy I beat in the finals, the look on his face when I slapped down three Grotesque Hybrids against his white-green deck was something spectacular.

But since then... luck of the draw basically told me to go whistle.

[Darius_Stomu]

Okay, time to share an awesome experience I've had. You know my Infinite Forests deck? Well, I fought a white deck that had Akroma(Forgot casting cost, Legend Angel, Haste, Flying, First Strike, Trample, and a few other abilities, 6/6) and PLatnium Angel (7, Artifact Creature-Angel, You cannot lose the game. Your opponent cannot when the game. 4/4). He managed to get them out on the VERY same turn. At this time, I had my Treva, My Krosan Colossus with Rancor and Aura Shards. As soon as he summoned PA, I used Divine Offering and gained 7 life. Then, he attempted to attack useing Akroma...you should of seen the look on the guy's face when I "Humble"d it and blocked with Krossan Colossus! With the rules we use at our school, seeing as my KC had trample, I did 11 damage to him when he blocked and killed him!

[Guest ScirosDarkblade]

Haha sorry it's just that I never read your last post. You guys use weird rules at school. Tournament rules would say that trample damage from a blocking creature doesn't carry over to anything, so your system is really weird. It makes trample 100 times better. But I guess it's a funny story. Most of the time Akroma wins games though. But the dumbest thing about it is the Legend rule. So if some bastard casts Akroma before you, you can't cast yours. It's a real bummer when it happens (it's only happened once to me, so it's rare, but still it was ultra annoying).

I use Akroma exclusively in a reanimator-type deck (used to be Survival/Recurring, now it's just flat-out reanimator). I suppose she'd be alright in a green deck with Defense of the Heart, but you'd have to play several Akromas in case you drew one, because hard-casting her is a pain.

Hey guys who are you favorite Magic artists? I've noticed that they're really getting rid of the crap ones over time, and holding on to (or hiring) the good ones. My favorites are Kev Walker, John Avon, and Christopher Moeller. Todd Lockwood and Rebecca Guay are awesome, too. Guay's elves are the best; I wish she drew all elves, so I'd have a very "pretty" pastel-colored elf deck. Avon is just great hyperrealism. And Kev Walker has cool lighting and great detail in his work. Moeller... well he uses very high-contrasting colors in his works, and it works great for the stuff he draws (mostly red cards I think).

[Darius_Stomu]

Mine would have to be Ciruelo (Treva),Gary Ruddel (Mystic Avenger,Sabertooth Nishoda), John Avon (Chlorophant) and Terese Nielson (5th edision Stream of Life). Though I can't forget Kev Walker, illustrator of the Krosan Colossus.

[THE EVIL EYE]

Hello, I just started collecting MTG cards and have no idea how to play, I have built up a deck which is the Devastation deck from the Onslaught series with a few extra cards. So my deck is

Creature cards

[COLOR=DarkGreen]Llanowar Behemoth
Giant Spider
Wirewood Savage x3
Venomsprout Brackus x2
Snarling Undorak x5
Wirewood Elf
Elvish Pioneer x3
Barkhide Mauler x2
Towering Baloth
Krosan Groundshaker x2[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkRed]
Shaleskin Bruiser x2
Snapping Thragg x7
Battering Craghorn x4
Charging Slateback x3
Tephaderm x3[/COLOR]

Instants
[COLOR=DarkGreen]Primal Boost x2[/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]Solar Boost x2
Chain of Plasma x2[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkGreen]Naturalize[/COLOR]


Sorcery & Enchantment
[COLOR=DarkRed]AEther Charge x2[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkGreen]Wing Snare
Explosive Vegetation x2[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkRed]Erratic Explosion [/COLOR]

Land-
[COLOR=DarkGreen]Tranquil Thicket x5[/COLOR][COLOR=DarkRed]Mountain x Many[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkGreen]Forest x Many[/COLOR]
[COLOR=DarkRed]Forgotten Caves x5[/COLOR]

Artifact
Cryptic Gateway