Hobson's choice

by Puschkin on 05 January 2016

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (4 cards)

Instants (1)

Submit a list of cards below to bulk import them all into your sideboard. Post one card per line using a format like "4x Birds of Paradise" or "1 Blaze", you can even enter just the card name by itself like "Wrath of God" for single cards.


Deck Description

This is a casual deck I will play in my multiplayer group of oldschool regulars. Format is usually Pentagram or 2vs2 team games (but not 2HG).

It's a theme oriented deck with as many cards fitting the theme as possible. And the theme is: Making the opponent choose between two or more options that he all doesn't like, hence the title. In my language the saying would translate into "the choice between pestilence and cholera".

Most cards force the opponent to sacrifice creatures, discard or pay life. As soon as he runs out of creatures he'll have conseriably less options and once he life is low, he'll be at your mercy.

What you currently see is the current version I played past weekend. It did okay and was fun, even my opponents admitted it was fun because the deck always gives you options instead of straight removal. However, it has a few problems:
- I realized I need lifegain
- If my opponent runs any kind of token generation or has an easily recurring creature like Gravecrawler, then most of my tricks don't work.
- I can't handle artifacts and enchantments which surprisingly didn't bite me yet but that's probably because the games we played were in modes where I had a team partner

So if you have some suggestions that fix this and ideally also fit the theme I would be more than happy!

As always:
Cards in the sideboard are cards I consider adding respectively cards that should be mainboard but I have to trade for them first. No need to comment an the mana base which will change depending on which kinds of duallands I have left that aren't in other decks.

How to Play

You can play this straight forward. Don't be shy to accelerate your demons, the earlier they come, the less likely the opponent will be to sacrifice anything to them.

The deck has a lot of card draw, so also don't worry about emptying your hand. Even though most of that carddraw can be denied by your opponent, the sheer amount of them will eventually guarantees that they'll net you cards eventually - there are only that much life to spend and cards to exile until they have no other option left :)

Gravestorm seems to be weak in mid- and late game, however, you get to pick the opponent and the Grave Consequences complement them quite well.

The Menacing Ogres are just there for the fun factor, the deck would probably be stronger if it had more copies of Mogis instead but I want to make use of my collection and that's what I have.

Deck Tags

  • Casual
  • Multiplayer
  • Fun
  • Sacrifice
  • VaultHelp
  • Rakdos

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

7
Likes

This deck has been viewed 3,280 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

0039190

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Not Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Not Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Hobson's choice

tyrant's choice from conspiracy? some of the conspiracy cards. like the councils judgement, fit theme well

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Posted 16 March 2016 at 20:07

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Yes, something like this. I didn't boost Conspiracy at all, though.

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Posted 16 March 2016 at 20:13

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Added 2 Tyrant's Choice. White didn't make the final cut.

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Posted 23 May 2016 at 17:19

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How about cards with the tribute mechanic, Such as Flame-Wreathed Phoenix or Oracle of Bones? How about the Vexing Devil? I like the deck idea, in fact I once wanted to make something like this 2 years back but didn't dig deeper into the idea. It's neat to see such an idea in the progress now :). If I can remember or find any more cards in theme, I'll suggest them. That is all I have for now.

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Posted 17 March 2016 at 23:13

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It's been a popular theme lately shouldn't be too hard to find decks to base it on. You could also search "unless" and sort through

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Posted 18 August 2016 at 22:01

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I don't run them because, well, most of them suck. In most cases I'll just get the counters and end up with a creature that is slightly stronger (p/t wise) than it should be for that mana. Not particularily exciting in multiplayer. Oracle of Bones is about the best of tribute creatures in black/red. Opponents will just pay tribute and it'll be a 5/3 haster for 4 mana. I could run Skizzik instead or, for just one more mana, Warchief Giant (budget) or Thundermaw Hellkite (non-budget).

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Posted 19 August 2016 at 05:28

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Backlash is always an interesting one. I tried to do a deck like this a couple years back, but it just ended up being a regular r/b aggro burn.

Good luck with this one!

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Posted 27 May 2016 at 12:47

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Backlash doesn't really give him an option, though. Backlash and Delirium are, however, a good choice in general these days because it's easier than ever to get ridiculous fatties into play.

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Posted 27 May 2016 at 14:06

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Consuming vapors for some lifegain? As for tokens sideboard blood seeker? Grave crawler and artifacts ... umm ... surgical extraction and smash to smithereens. Lol. I honestly don't know anything that fits the theme for grave crawler or artifacts and consuming vapors and blood seeker are borderline. Just some ideas if you hadn't considered them already.
This actually looks like a lot of fun to play in a 2v2 +1

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Posted 26 August 2016 at 05:22

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Consuming Vapors is close enough, thanks! I have one and am trying to fit it in. However, this is yet another card that doesn't work properly against an opponent that has a continous token production going :(

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Posted 26 August 2016 at 07:02

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While playing this I tend to run out of cards alot. This usually happens because almost all of my carddraw can be denied by the opponents. I thought, the sheer number of carddrawers would overload them at some point (there is only that much life and stuff you can give up), but apparently, that's not the case. I knew beforehand that Browbeat isn't ideal in this, but it fitted the theme perfectly. Now I sold a few cards and ordered a playset of Combustable Gearhulks, which are not only insane by themselves, they also match the theme of this deck perfectly! And while the carddraw could be denied as well, I really doubt that anybody would risk that ... so:
-2 Browbeat
+2 Combustable Gearhulk
I think this change will fix a lot of problems, for example running out of creatures (blockers).

I could easily run all 4 in this, but the other 2 just HAVE to go in this deck:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/pyromania/
I guess you understand why :)

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Posted 27 March 2017 at 23:01

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