sandrew26

Sorry, I didn't see the competitive tag, and there weren't any specific requests for things to comment on.

Those two only protect you until they're hit with removal, and they don't really contribute to actually winning -- they just slow down your draws of game-winning cards, giving the opponent more time to draw an answer, or to lock down your board.

I'm pretty sure that artifact creatures are still spells, and thus would be countered. Regular creatures are spells (they're summon - creature). Sculpting Steel gives you additional Metalworkers so that you can tap more than one to cast more than one creature per turn once you already have your first metalworker in play.

With so many singles, I feel like the deck could use more tutoring to find the correct big creature for the situation. Alternatively, with so many elves that have duplicate effects (arbor, fyndhorn, llanowar, mystic), you could make a singleton deck and not really lose any efficiency.

Also, personal experience, Liege of the Tangle is a terrible card. It takes three turns for it do do anything. That doesn't make it any less fun to play, though. Terastodon is a good replacement, if you're not playing this for the fun factor of having 8/8 forests. You'll also get more mileage out of Harrow and Boundless Realms than Skyshroud Claim.

Lightning Greaves might be a good unexpected card, too.

What about Parallel Lives and Doubling Season?

What was your reasoning behind Platinum Angel and Platinum Emperion?

If you want faster mana, Tolarian Academy is good in this deck, and there's a bunch of others that tap for more than one (city of traitors, mana vault, urzatron, loci).

Nullstone Gargoyle seems like it counters your own efforts in this deck, since you'll likely only have the mana to cast one spell per turn, and don't have any spells that you can recur to continually get around the effect. With 4x Sculpting steel to increase your likelihood of having more metalworkers in play, or some tutoring to add extra copies of mycosynth golem, it should be less of a problem if you wanted to keep it in.

What suggestions or comments did you want on this? It sounds like it's all pretty well thought-out, and you even did well with it.

I respect avoiding the easy picks. What about taking that concept further and adding things like Colossus of Akros and Fling? For 11 mana, you can swing then fling and win in a turn.

In terms of sideboarding, the only thing I'd recommend is some plummets or something to deal with fliers.

Ah, in standard then there can't be that many to pick from anyway.

Adding Vesuva and Thespian's Stage will give you 8 more urza lands, but then you'd have to be sure to get an urborg for your coloured needs. You could also Sculpting Steel them if you transmute them to artifacts, but that seems like overkill. In terms of other lands, a Gaea's Cradle gets you both more mana and G mana. Lake of the Dead will give you some fast accel in lieu of Dark Ritual, or you could go for the Cabal Coffers route. There's a land similar to Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors that taps for four, but I can't find it quickly or remember the name. Mana Vault and that one that you flip a coin to tap for 3 or take 3 damage can be made consistent, but that might be too much work. You might be able to run Metalworker in this deck with some adjustments to your creature picks.

However, I think your solution of using the ghast and revenant are probably better than trying to utilize lands for accel -- going with Cabal Coffers and trying to drop as many swamps on the field as possible seems good. I think there's some enchants that make lands produce double mana, probably in green.

Ah, Beseech the Queen! I just found that on gatherer when looking for tutors; it's a great card. I don't think Urborg works with the urzatron if you wanted to tap for 7*B, though.

Mana accel into stompy creatures, I like it. However, I worry about how fast the accel is going to work without Dark Ritual. If you're splashing G to add in ramp, then going with Harrow or Rampant Growth some other more efficient ramp spell seems better. Realms Uncharted will let you tutor nonbasics more efficiently, too -- if you throw in some lands you can recur (I think you can pull Ghost Town and that other similar one from the grave), then you basically get four lands for 2G. Adding in a dual and a shockland are an easy upgrade, too. Actually, lands that enter tapped aren't that bad in this deck, since you're not casting much early on anyway.

The new ulamog is a good counter to Emrakul, and it exiles rather than destroys; in that sense it's probably better than the old ulamog, so I'd agree with your judgement.

I see no reason to put a tarmogoyf in this deck.

It was printed in Planechase, so unless it's banned, I think it's legal? But apparently nope. I put it in a modern-legal deck and it turned the thing on the side red.

That makes sense. Do you have a standard menu of hate cards that you constantly reuse, or is it always different?

I don't know what a Tron deck is; I don't netdeck. Did you mean urzatron?

That's a really good approach. I wish I knew things about the metagame so I could do the same, but I don't often get to play with new folks and drafting isn't my thing. Do you ever try to make decks that can protect against everything, or just most things?

I'll check it out then, certainly. Crypt Ghast looks like a very efficient card -- two enchants and a body for 4cmc, nice. Efficient firebreathing and more mana accel on the Revenant is a great combo, too, and casting it earlier with the help of Crypt Ghast is great. T1 swamp, dark ritual, sol ring, crypt ghast is a nice play into T2 swamp, Revenant. T3 swing to basically win or cast whatever control you still have in your hand. I bet you could win T3 with the right combo... 3 swamps to make it a 9/9, and 2B left over to cast something that doubles your damage. Inquisitor's Flail is too expensive until a turn later, but there might be something. If they couldn't block the crypt ghast on its t2 swing and can't block anything t3, then I think the flail works. But anyway. Actually, no, you have an extra BB or BBB from the revenant's effect, so there's plenty of mana for the flail even if the ghast didn't connect, and even possibly some left over for evasion to make sure you connect.

It could be a neat deck, but unless I can find a way to do it without blue, I'm probably not going to construct it. Blue makes things too easy.

Alright, thank you for listening, then!

Deck-building is a lot of fun, definitely. My method is to build, proxy+test, rebuild, proxy+test, then buy. Playing with proxies definitely helps to reveal weaknesses (and strengths!) of the deck that aren't always obvious when it's just a .dec. Working on several decks at once can be nice, too, since then you can let your friends play proxy vs proxy with your decks, and it doesn't feel unfair.

I'll check that out. Did you want comment on it, or no?

Hmn, I could see rites of flourishing working with some sort of scouting trek deck. A blue card could allow you to do the same thing to your opponent's deck so you can remove all their lands. With blood moon or land destruction, that could be mean. But anyway.

Were there any other questions you had about this deck?

This looks like a really fun deck! I'm not sure what kind of feedback you wanted on it, so I'll just say that I think it looks pretty good as is. There's some cards that give you lifegain based on toughness that might be useful in a sideboard, and I think there might be some in green. There's also that tree that's a 0/13 or something that allows you to trade your life total with its, which probably has defender. Otherwise, I'll just mention Disintegrate if you want 12x Fireballs, and that some walls in other colours are also good, even if they're not right for this deck: Wall of Souls, Wall of Nets, Wall of Glare, and of course Fog Bank. Order of the Stars also gives you a difficult-to-remove defender that might be good in a sideboard. Sorry so many of those are white.

What specifically did you want comment on?

Welcome! I'm glad to be able to help.

Have you been able to playtest this much? Also, I had one other question. How useful is Keeper of Progenitus? I keep looking at it and wondering if it's amazing or terrible. I just can't figure that card out.

I don't know anything about EDH, but I do love me some big green creatures. So, speaking to that, Harrow and Realms Uncharted are two of my favourite ramp spells. Flagstones of Trokair is a great land card to pair with Realms, as is Life from the Loam. If you want another graveyard recursion card, there's Regrowth.

Privileged Position is a really great pick; Gaea's Herald, Grand Abolisher, and True Believer will also give you some protection.

You've got some good enchantments that buff your entire field; pairing them with Symbiotic Wurm, Wurmcoil Engine, and Myr Battlesphere will both give you more big creatures and protect you from being flanked; I like to combo them with Craterhoof Behemoth. Enlisted Wurm's cascade gives you a free Elvish Piper activation. Roaring Slagwurm might or might not be useful in edh.

If you want something to do with all your extra mana and ramp more efficiently into huge creatures, an Omnath couldn't hurt unless you're playing with mana burn. I think there's also a newer, better version of Wood Elemental for XG with X/X that would be a great last-turn OHKOer.

The only card here I'm not so sure about keeping in is Temur Battle Rage. There's probably a better card that performs a similar function -- I found Power Matrix for +2 cmc: reusable, more benefits, and difficult to counter. And lastly, for a green deck, you have a decent amount of flying protection, so nice work. Adding Entangler to a flier and running an Island Sanctuary might be additional things to do in regards to flying.

You have one fight card, Savage Punch; if you want more fight for more utility, Ulvenwald Tracker is reusable.

Perhaps you could give my deck some feedback, too? http://www.mtgvault.com/sandrew26/decks/my-very-first-tribal-clerics/ I usually make decks similar to yours -- big and green -- but I'm stepping out of my comfort zone to make a tribal deck. It's also a singleton deck, so perhaps I could benefit from your EDH expertise.

Lastly, if you want to see some other land and mana fix/accel options, I have some lists of those things:
http://www.mtgvault.com/sandrew26/decks/list-lands-2/
http://www.mtgvault.com/sandrew26/decks/list-mana-acceleration/

Why are there four Urborgs? Is it to prevent Blood Moon?

What about including something like Augur of Skulls with Cry of Contrition? Liliana's Caress and Quest for the Nihil Stone could speed things up. Also, note that both Thoughtseize and Inquisition specify nonland -- Mire's Toll doesn't.

I don't know if it's more efficient (or even possible) to do something like imprint One with Nothing to continually re-cast it, then use something similar to Balance to keep your opponent's hand size the same as yours, but that's probably a pretty different deck to this one. If you weren't using instants, you could also do something like Ravenous Rats + flicker (Bottled Cloister is one I used in a recent deck, http://www.mtgvault.com/sandrew26/decks/my-very-first-tribal-clerics/).

If you intend to play this before the rotation at all, I suggest adding in some Lure until then. Moar ooze abuse! I could see a variant of your deck working well with peddlers (as others have mentioned), and pyreheart wolf.

Also, maybe you could toss a tip at me? http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=370534