Discussion Forum

- Sideboard is for tournament players, don't worry about it if you're new. Sideboarding is probably the most difficult aspect of magic and requires so much experience that it doens't make sense to worry about it at your level. Even at a tournament you are allowed to have a sideboard of zero cards.

- play 4x farseek, you'll need it.
- Burst of Strength doesn't look very hot, I would play 1 as a surprise effect at most.
- you have 8 creatures that you want to cast with as much mana as possible, that means they are far up your mana curve and 8 is to much. 3xPrimordial Hydra and 2xSavageborn Hydra will probably be more then plenty and with the additional 3 card slots you can take more useful early game cards. Is't there anything in standard that lets you draw cards? that's important to have in your deck.

Personally, I would drop black entirely as the one black card is not worthwhile IMO. Adding blue would be much stronger for the overall deck. That gives you access to things like Fathom Mage for excellent card draw and counter source, Vorel of the Hull Clade to do what the menace does repeatedly and for a lower investment and Master Biomancer to really start getting out of hand. Get a few counters on the Biomancer and you can start playing your hydras for X=0.

I'd also consider Domri Rade and Gyre Sage in the current colors. You may have too many non-creatures for Domri though and he's a bit expensive. Gyre Sage on the other hand becomes a great target to give or remove counters from with Bioshift and can lead to some crazy plays.

I'm looking at your comments, and considering the following:

take out:

x2 Savageborn Hydra
x1 Primordial Hydra
x3 Ranger's Path

Add:
x3 Gyre Sage
x2 Domri Rade

Once I get counters on Gyre Sage, I can use my Burst of Strength to Untap Gyre Sage, basically doubling or even tripling what he adds to my Mana Pool each turn. I could effectively play a Primordial Hydra with 20+ counters on him from my hand if I had 5 counters on Gyre Sage, tap him once for 5 mana, untap him, tap him again for 7 more mana (+2 from Burst of Strength and Corpsejack Menace), pay 11 for Hydra, enters with +18/+18.

That being said, I now have one extra spot, and could possibly take out more. I was thinking about taking out 2x Arbor Elves. I like the ideas from the Master Biomancer, Fathom Mage, and Vorel of the Hull Clade, but I don't know what I could take out to put all three of them in to be effective.

I understand the comment about removing Corpsejack Menace, but I don't know if I'm sold on a mana sink instead of a triggered effect. If you could please explain the deck layout you are suggesting, or provide an example, I may be able to better understand it.

Thank you all for your help.

Are you certain you want to limit yourself to standard legal cards only? If you're not planning on playing at tournaments or FNM any time soon there really is no reason to restrict yourself. You want to invest but not just in random cards, you want a good fun deck. Now whatever you buy if you aren't going to use it for standard tournaments soon it will rotate and won't be legal anyway by the time you do want to start playing competitive magic.
There are plenty of reasons not to stick to standard as a casual player. Standard cards that are any good are expensive as long as they are standard legal, the chance that there is a better and cheaper replacement for what you want is huge when you look beyond standard. Basically you're buying overpriced cards that aren't even that good and you're restricting your card choice. And I know some people will tell you that playing standard is fair and not sticking to standard is cheating, it's bullshit. The only way standard is fair is if you have all the best cards at your disposal and you can brew within the powerlevel of Tier 1 decks. It's true for any tournament format, fight with equal weapons.

Anyway, take that card Fathom Mage for instance, I didn't know about it before Epsilon mentioned it but now that I do I think it's such an awesome card that I want to build a deck around it. In competitive terms it's bad, it's a 1/1 for 4 mana that doesn't do anything game changing immediatly, even in standard thats pretty bad. This is good news for the casual player because with cards from older sets you can totally break this baby and it's dirt cheap (I saw it for 0.75$ at card kingdom).

If it's standard only you want to stick with I can't really help you because I don't know all the cards and I think standard is just silly (sure I played standard myself for a long time but looking at it now it was just a big waste of money). If not I would very much like to help you build a nice deck here that is both budget friendly and strong in casual play.

It's pretty much a matter of preference. Vorel will be able to untap with your burst of strengths and double multiple times per turn while the menace will come out of the gate bigger but has less synergies with the rest of the deck. Sure you'll evolve for 2 immediately but that pretty much puts the gyre sage outside evolve range of everything else in the deck and basically stops the growth there short of a burst. Vorel will evolve it a turn sooner and can then start doubling the counters on that if necessary.

Not to mention using Vorel on a Fathom Mage would just be silly.

Basically, the menace is great and has some powerful synergy with the deck but you're splashing black for one card and one card only that is really just a "win more" since dropping a hydra for 5+ is already overkill by the time it can attack. Switching to blue keeps essentially the same functionality while giving you access to some insane card draw potential and easier access to start growing with the Master Biomancer so you aren't just screwed over by the first spot removal that gets played.

]Are you certain you want to limit yourself to standard legal cards only? If you're not planning on playing at tournaments or FNM any time soon there really is no reason to restrict yourself. You want to invest but not just in random cards, you want a good fun deck. Now whatever you buy if you aren't going to use it for standard tournaments soon it will rotate and won't be legal anyway by the time you do want to start playing competitive magic[/QUOTE]

Since I just started playing Magic, it just seems easier to learn only the current cards in standard, then to learn all of the cards ever created.....ever. As the current Standard goes in to Modern, I will probably go Modern with it. Also, there are only two places where I live that I can play FNM at. One only does booster drafts, and one only does standard tournaments. I've been sticking to the booster drafts. I kind of want to try to other place out, but my Boros deck and my Dimir Mill deck just don't seem strong enough. Since I'm already using Blue, Black, Red, and White, I decided to go for a green deck. You can check out my mill deck and my boros deck on my profile on mtgvault, if you want. I really just want to make a deck I can use at that Standard Tournament, and hopefully win.

This deck is currently a wish. I only own a few of the cards. The other two decks are real.

[QUOTE="_Epsilon_"]Basically, the menace is great and has some powerful synergy with the deck but you're splashing black for one card and one card only that is really just a "win more" since dropping a hydra for 5+ is already overkill by the time it can attack. Switching to blue keeps essentially the same functionality while giving you access to some insane card draw potential and easier access to start growing with the Master Biomancer so you aren't just screwed over by the first spot removal that gets played.[/QUOTE]

ok, I see your point. I can definitely see putting the blue in, and taking the black out now. I think I am going to try to adjust the deck on mtgvault, and see how it turns out. I will leave the original post deck as a reference.

Well, I've made changes to the deck, but now I have too many cards. Not sure what to change.

http://www.mtgvault.com/skidwiz/decks/gruul-counters/