Magic

[Neptune]

Deserted Temple + Cabal Coffers is good, so why not Temple + Nykthos?  Almost the same thing, really, but Nykthos can tap for colors other than black.  Need an Expedition Map, or something, to tutor them up.

My point about paying mana for lands (Promenade and Rupture Spire) is that they're always bad.  Turn one, can't play them, so you almost don't want them in your opening hand.  Turn two, you tap out to play a land and can't do anything.  On turn three, you can play a one drop and pay for a land.  By turn 5 or 6, you can leave mana open for an answer, but play no threats AND that's assuming that you haven't missed a land drop.  It puts you at least a turn and and half behind your opponents and that's just too much of a hit, especially if you're Block Constructed.  I feel the same thing about bounce lands (Boros Garrison and the like), but those can still have a purpose, like if you're bouncing Cloud of Faeries and can get extra mana out of the deal.

If lands come into play tapped, you're not slowed down THAT much, at least.  I mean, yeah, Spire and Promenade can tap for any color, but that doesn't mean that they're worth it.  They can either bring your early game to a halt or make you spend your late game paying mana for things that don't impact the board.

[at0m]

Ah, makes sense. I hadn't thought of it that way, mostly because I don't generally think that way when it comes to list construction in any game (Infinity, Warmachine, Warhammer 40,000, MTG). I generally go for flavor over function, then try to figure out how to make what I built functional after the fact. I was so focused on 'any color' that I didn't do the deep analysis into which cards would be more efficient, which is a huge part of EDH.

[Neptune]

For the last three Magic tournaments I've played in, I'm 14-1-2.  Last Friday, went 6-0 with a sick draft deck.  Yesterday, 4-0-1 with a deck that was almost as good and tied in the last round with the only other undefeated (as per the usual).  Today, played Legacy.  3-1 in regular rounds, other guys forced the top four to play instead of split.  In the first round of top 4, the two Elf decks beat the combo decks.  Me and the other elf player split the top two spots just to feel good that elves won a legacy tournament.

*nerd flex*

In other news, Atom inspired me to make block constructed EDH decks.  I planted that idea in a friend's head, too.  To challenge myself futher, I went with Autumn Willow and I'm using cards from Fallen Empires and previous as my "block".  This includes cards printed in Revised for my core set.  The deck is super janky, but I'm having fun playing cards like Giant Spider, Forethought Amulet, and Hurricane.  Cards in the deck are from their original printing, if I can find them.  Playing a Green Mana Battery from Legends has it's charm.

[The Generic Name]

Oh man I wish we could use Chromanticore as a commander. I was largely unimpressed by BNG. A few nice big stompy krakens and leviathans for my Jhoira EDH but the only useful things I really got out of it were Spirit of the Labyrinth for white weenies and Bile Blight for RBW midrange.

But spm, look at all these fun options for 5 color generals:
MAGIC!

Except for slivers cuz no one likes when you play slivers.  Ever.

[at0m]

I'm glad that I influenced someone to do something ridiculous, that turns out to be a lot of fun.

I need some help with this: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/thelons-thallids-1/

[Neptune]

The one time Harrow gets countered, you'll hate it forever. Replacements:
~Cultivate
~Kodama's Reach
~Sylvan Scrying
~Rampant Growth
~Farseek
~Explore

Satyr Wayfinder isn't even limited playable.  Replacements:
~Sakura Tribe Elder
~Any mana dork (Birds of Paradise, Llanowar Elves, etc)
~Yavimaya Elder

Painful Quandry would be better if you had more discard.  Really force them to lose the life, instead.

Mugranda Petroglyphs don't work when you cast Overrun or Triumph of the Hordes.  Trample and Infect are abilities.  You might just have won the game at that point, though, so it might be moot.

Caress of Phyrexia is fine for drawing some cards, but Harmonize, Sign in Blood, Read the Bones, Phyrexian Arena, Staff of Nin, and others all do it better.

Vampiric Link seems random.  Just play Whip of Erebos if you want lifelink.

The infect dudes are at odds with the non-infect dudes.  Usually, you want to win one way or the other instead of having to deal with two types of damage that don't work with each other.  However, having two infect-based wincons is OK (Triumph of the Hordes and Flesh-Eater Imp).  This way, it's more like they are supported your token strategy instead of having playing two different decks at once.  I've played both of these cards in decks before and I've been very pleased with the results.

Executioner's Hood doesn't do anything.  If all your tokens are the same, then which do you equip?  If you're going to sac them all to one big dude, then you're telegraphing your strategy.  Just swing and sac tokens during combat.  Cut it for literally any other card.

I can see Plague Boiler really backfiring on you.  Play more targeted removal.

Omen Machine is funny for the first couple of games.  Then you'll hate it.

Cards that you're thinking about and could play:
1x Bane of Progress
1x Barter in Blood
1x Doubling Season
1x Dread Return
1x Fade into Antiquity
1x Krosan Grip
1x Mycoloth
1x Nemata, Grove Guardian
1x Night Soil
1x Parallel Lives
1x Sprout Swarm
1x Tainted Strike (3rd infect wincon, play on unblocked dude.)
1x Thelonite Hermit
1x Verdeloth the Ancient

In this list, you have 14 cards.  You also have 9 infect creatures that don't belong.  Seems to be an easy switch.  Finding room for the other 5 shouldn't be hard.

Oh, and maybe add two more lands.  36-38 is just about right.

[at0m]

Vampiric Link does double duty as ersatz removal, since I gain the life, not the creature's controller.

I'll be taking a look at your suggestions later today. There's a massive pool of cards I wanted to put in that deck, I just couldn't refine the concept enough. It ended up getting split into two cardpools, one of Thallid stuff (original concept) and the other is definitely more of a Golgari/Dredge/Mill thing.

I feel I managed to do a pretty good job with these two, though, and had fun playing them both yesterday: Mono Brown Karn: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/karns-return/ Esper Clone + Control: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cloned-control/ . Both of them are a lot of fun to play, I know the control deck could use some more tweaking (like wedging in a Perplexing Chimera for even more disruption), but the brown one is probably pretty well finalized at this point.

[FlyingMongoose]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCzLf2MTt3c <-- this just gets funnier and funnier as it goes on .

[spm201]

Anyone playing standard anymore? Here's what I'm playing around with at the moment

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/oros-burn-1/

[at0m]

I don't play Standard because it's not a casual format and non-casual players have been what has driven me away from MTG the many times I've gotten into it in the last 20 years.

Also, you're a terrible person for dodging the requirement for a deck description by simply putting a period in the description box for all of your decks.

[Neptune]

Anyone playing standard anymore? Here's what I'm playing around with at the moment

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/oros-burn-1/

Play Legacy like a man.

Top 4'd a tournament again, tonight.  Highlight of the night: the, I dunno, 10 year old (?) beating the piss out of our local try-hard in round one.  That meant that I got to play the 10 year old in round two.  And then I traded for his AEther Vial.

[at0m]

Gotta love showing Try-hards what's what. My favorite MTG moment/anecdote is when I played a mini-master's tourney, where you start with a deck that contains three of each land and a booster. If you win, you add another booster for round 2. If you make it to round 3, you can add another booster, and trim your deck to 40 cards if you so choose. I was facing up against a super picky player, who spent more than 30 minutes hemming and hawing about which cards to cut out of his deck. I opened my third booster, pulled out the counter and the land, and shuffled it in without looking at the rest of the cards. Dude's jaw dropped. Then I beat him 2-0, giggling every time I drew a card from the new pack.

Sealed is definitely my favorite format, although EDH is growing on me. I find Duplicated Sealed interesting, there's a whole different layer of meta going on there that I kinda dig. Plus nobody can bitch about being screwed with what's in their packs. Backdraft is another interesting approach to that, but I just hate drafting so much that I'll probably never play it.

[Neptune]

Gotta love showing Try-hards what's what. My favorite MTG moment/anecdote is when I played a mini-master's tourney, where you start with a deck that contains three of each land and a booster. If you win, you add another booster for round 2. If you make it to round 3, you can add another booster, and trim your deck to 40 cards if you so choose. I was facing up against a super picky player, who spent more than 30 minutes hemming and hawing about which cards to cut out of his deck. I opened my third booster, pulled out the counter and the land, and shuffled it in without looking at the rest of the cards. Dude's jaw dropped. Then I beat him 2-0, giggling every time I drew a card from the new pack.

Sealed is definitely my favorite format, although EDH is growing on me. I find Duplicated Sealed interesting, there's a whole different layer of meta going on there that I kinda dig. Plus nobody can bitch about being screwed with what's in their packs.

Three lands?  Fancy.  Love mini-masters between rounds.  I should do that more often.

[at0m]

3 of each basic land, not 3 total.

[Neptune]

3 of each basic land, not 3 total.

I know.  I'm just used to 2 of each.

[at0m]

[quote author=at0m link=topic=4446.msg277667#msg277667 date=1397405527]
3 of each basic land, not 3 total.

I know.  I'm just used to 2 of each.
[/quote]Tough to play more than a round or maybe two with only ten, even if you trim the deck to 40 it'll be on the light side. We did 3(?)-round single-elimination brackets, was a lot of fun.

[Neptune]

[quote author=Neptune link=topic=4446.msg277673#msg277673 date=1397419606]
[quote author=at0m link=topic=4446.msg277667#msg277667 date=1397405527]
3 of each basic land, not 3 total.

I know.  I'm just used to 2 of each.
[/quote]Tough to play more than a round or maybe two with only ten, even if you trim the deck to 40 it'll be on the light side. We did 3(?)-round single-elimination brackets, was a lot of fun.
[/quote]

I'm sure it's different if it's a tournament.  I'm just buying two packs and having someone play one of them.  More fun than just opening them.

[The Generic Name]

guys....I dont know whether I wanna go White, Green, or Blue for the Journey into Nyx Prerelease  :'(


However, I do know that I want dat new Ajani  *insertcreepysmileyfacehere*



dat 100 life ult

[at0m]

I haven't done either of the other two prereleases in the block, but I did buy all ten of the packs on Massdrop. I need to get around to cracking those someday.

[spm201]

Play Legacy like a man.

I'm getting there. Need to finish up UWR Delver and Takin' Turns in modern first, then I'm going to start picking up pieces for Esper Miracles/Landstill