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First deck. Need help improving what I have. Give any suggestions. Thanks!
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For a white and black life gain deck there is lots to add and choose from check out mine. Life gain is a secondary focus in my deck, but there is lots of cards ion it that could help this deck. http://www.mtgvault.com/finchar/decks/whiteblacklife-gainloss-removaldestroy/Good luck
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Well, first of all, congratulations on building your first deck! If you want it to continue being Standard legal, though, Congregate has to go, as it's rotated out now. Based on your numbers, I'm going to assume you want this to be a budget build, & that's fair enough. My personal suggestion would be to make your focus more Ally-agro-rally, w/ lifegain as a subtheme; but then again, that's just me. Either way, Kalastria Healer & Retreat to Emeria would both work well for you. Good luck, & thanks for the deck!
My bad...I just noticed you tagged the deck Modern, not Standard. Sorry 'bout that...unless I'm using them to search, I tend not to notice the tags much. :D
That sounds great - I would love my deck to be standard (that was my goal to begin with but it just didn't happen), but am okay with it being merely modern for the time being.I checked out Kalastria Healer and Emeria and as a result they are now in my Amazon cart. If I got 4 or 3 of each, and I edge out Congregate, what else should I edge out? Maybe some of the non-Ally? Or would it be okay if I went a little over 60 in this case?
I would stick to 60, for certain. As for what to edge out, it really depends on whether you decide to emphasize Allies or lifegain more. Expedition Envoy & Kor Whirlblade could both be good for you; the latter has a rally ability that gives your Allies first strike 'til EOT, & the former is a 2/1 for 1 - never a bad thing - which will trigger other rally/lifegain abilities in your deck. March from the Tomb lets you pull Allies directly from your GY to the BF (any #, total CMC 8 or less), so that could pay big dividends for you, too...you could easily get anywhere from 3-6 creatures back (& that many triggers...!!). This is mainly why I was thinking Ally-agro-rally; Allies have always been Tribal, & for the BFZ batch to work well, I think you're best off triggering their abilities as often as possible. Of course, w/ your deck being Modern, you could harken back to the original Allies & other lifegain-oriented creatures, as well...so basically, you've got a LOT of options. (And if going back & looking at all those other options seems a bit much, that's fair enough, too...you can easily have an excellent deck, just working w/ the more current stuff.) It sounds like you're going to end-up w/ a really exciting deck; looking forward to being kept posted! :D
Wow - first of all, thank you so much! I'm loving being able to fine-tune my deck so that the cards work together. Your help is invaluable :)I've made some changes so that the Ally-agro-rally theme you suggested is emphasized. You can see the cards I moved to the sideboard, and the new additions to the deck itself are: Kalastria Healer, Kor Bladewhirl, Lantern Scout, March from the Tomb, and Retreat to Emeria.With my deck as it is, are there any further changes I should make? What would you say are some of the weaknesses to this deck? And what might I change to compensate for those weaknesses or eliminate them altogether?
I would take out surge of righteousness since if you're not playing against a deck with red or black it becomes a lot less powerful. If you're going to use Cleric of the Forward Order, you should have four, if you don't I would just take all of them out. Also you probably don't have enough life gain to get you to 40 life, so the fielder sovereign won't help all that much. You should probably either remove that or add more spells that are just straight life gain, I like meditation puzzle since it has convoke.
Hey! I took your advice regarding what I should take out - I wasn't confident removing Felidar because I was like, "The card seems awesome!" But after reading you comment I feel a lot better about my deck without it.Thanks so much!
I like your deck so far. It has a few good things going for it and may i suggest consolidating some of your creatures? I think felidar and defiant bloodlord can be good, but you'll to have more than 1 of each. I never use just 1 copy of a card in a deck as it doesn't have much impact and is unreliable in the draw. Especially with not really having a draw mechanic in your deck, having 1 copy of a creature makes it hard to be consistent. Like the rest of your spells, although i would remove congregate as you could be standard and its not essential anyway. As it has been mentioned i would definitely consider going with an Ally theme as there are some very strong cards that work well together. Another ally not yet mentioned is Lantern scout, once the rally ability on him is activate ALL creatures you control have lifelink that turn. If you swing on that it can be a huge life gain boost. Otherwise take your time building it, especially if your starting a new deck you'll want to make sure you purchase useful cards and limit how much you end up taking out later. Lastly you may want to have some removal as big creatures could cause a problem for you. Here's a deck i built around the ally theme that is completely standard, although I know its not a budget deck it can give you some ideas to your own design! Also a link on some magic card statistics to give you an idea of the chances of pulling a card based on the number of copies across multiple turns. Good luck!http://www.mtgvault.com/voracious/decks/bw-standard-drainngain-allies/http://www.kibble.net/magic/magic10.php
The ally theme has been recommended to me a few times so I am taking your advice and I feel even better about my deck because of it :)Also, looking at my deck with the changes I have just made, how should I tackle problems with big creatures?Also, I really liked seeing your deck. Just seeing how someone else does something kind of helps me have an idea of "okay, this is good" or "that's not so good." That link about statistics is really helpful and is something I'll return to and have in mind regarding what I want this deck to do. Very helpful :)
Thats great! I like the changes you have made as well. The deck is much more consistent now. This is what i would suggest, removing a march from the tomb, emeria, and maybe a foul tongue to put in 3x removal spell. Valorous Stance, Stasis snare, Ruinous path (thats expensive!) and Utter end are all good options. There are even more than that out there! This would help deal with big creatures in your way. Thinking about the cost i would say stasis snare and valorous stance are the cheapest. Both have flash or are instances too so you get that spot removal. Valorous stance has the benefit of also giving indestructible in a pinch and a lower tap. Stasis snare has the benefit of targeting any creature but can be removed as an enchantment (although that doesn't happen too often). The other way to deal with big creatures is just avoid them all together or remove them from the players hand, thats what the deck i linked does with the fliers. Also thanks, feel free to leave a like if you enjoyed the deck haha. Thats the great part about sharing decks is being able to make adjustments. You are most welcome :D
I'd absolutely run Rally the Ancestors. You could even just replace March from the Tomb since Rally the Ancestors can catch all of your creatures by paying 5. What you could do is include Zulaport Cutthroat and something like Nantuko Husk or another creature with mana cost 3 or less that allows you to sacrifice your creatures to leach more life with your Zulaport Cutthroats. It'd be a really neat combo to pull off. If you don't want to rely on the combo you could keep March from the Tomb as it would still work well in your deck. You also definitely want to get some multicolour lands. Ally Encampment is great for you, since you're an Ally themed deck. There are also non-rare multicolour lands you can use to fix your manabase that are from Khans of Tarkir block. I'd also recommend a Shambling Vents or two, as well as some number of Caves of Koilos. One more thing, I would run no more than 22 lands.
The problem I have w/ Rally is the inability to use it to attack, as it doesn't give haste. It provides blockers during your opponent's turn, but since the returned creatures are exiled at the beginning of your next upkeep, its utility in that regard seems somewhat limited here. Nantuko Husk is a great card, but I don't know if it has a place in a deck looking to maximize Ally rally abilities. Agree that dual lands would be a big plus, & that there are budget options available. With the curve topping out at 4-5, though, I don't know that 22 lands would be enough. Not trying to run your ideas down, it just sounds like you're talking about a different (though equally viable) deck...& there are definitely BW Allies that would play well w/ that. Would be great to see what you come up w/, if you decide to build it!
I built a deck similar last standard only it was Constellation rather than Rally. But yeah, definitely get the nonbasics in there. Not getting land drops is one thing, but not getting the RIGHT lands is extremely frustrating. If you don't want to go the route of Rally the Ancestors, you should still run Zulaport Cutthroat as it gives you a lot of staying power and makes combat a bit trickier for your opponent. In general I think you'd want to run more than 18 creatures.