dknight27

Does it actually work anymore? Did it work the first time around?

So very, very, very long ago.

Glissa's best friend is Executioner's Capsule. Automatic reroute to the hand, so you can snipe and recycle.

I've always been partial to [[Wort, Boggart Auntie]]. What a looker

I have literally no experience with premodern, but it looks like a super interesting format from the legality I'm seeing here.

How fitting that the deck that refuses to die would be reanimator.

I love how Dragonstorm synergizes in here. Ditches the big bads, more targets for Atraxa, flips Tamiyo, material regrow from Murktide, Force fodder, solid topdeck. I've been playing around with it myself and find it a fascinating bit of low-ish level tech.

My concern is how it ups this build from a turn 2 missile into a turn 3 grenade. No acceleration means you can't shoot the discard option on Dragonstorm/Bitter Triumph in the same turn as your Reanimate without 3 lands down, which is further complicated by the land count, Wasteland, and Daze making your third land drop a little less reliable. I don't think on it's own that would be a deal breaker, but then you've got all the side math to worry about. If you've gotta wait till turn 3 to send the combo, your Daze is less valuable. If you've got an Animate Dead/Necromancy instead of Reanimate, you're waiting an eternity to send. And you're only running 7 discard options, 4 of which you'd very much like to send against opponent turn 1. All of which makes me wonder if the old [[Careful Study]] doesn't fit the curve better?

I could be way off base here. It's my hope that Dragonstorm keeps getting consideration, as it synergizes so well with blue shenanigans that it makes me smile.

I'm guessing this is version 2, as Acidic Vampires had too much bite...

Are you looking to upgrade the build at all? There are some good/cheap options available, such as how [[Nullpriest of Oblivion]] is essentially Child of Night but with two upgrades, and you can buy four copies for a dollar.

Are you going for a budget casual warrior deck here? Or is the warrior theme just tied into general mardu goodness stuff?

Seeing builds like this makes me ever so nostalgic for the days when you could run a deck off of Stoneforge Mystic and have its material/wincon mechanic be pretty much all you needed to get the W. Long gone, but not forgotten.

That being said, I don't think a build like this can keep up with the tier 1 stuff in modern, but it can definitely hold its own in a tier 2 environment. I would however suggest a few tweaks.

The Urza lands aren't going to consistently work in a build where you've got no ability to fetch lands and you're only running 2 copies of each. You'll get your full set maybe one game in fifty and the rest of the time they'll actively slow you down, so you're much better off with a different land gimmick. We'll come back to this, as it depends on which way you want to go.

The first major decision I'd say you could make is to keep going with the mono-white or do a two color build to take advantage of some of the good red cards that fit with equipments, such as [[Giott, King of the Dwarves]] and [[Raubahn, Bull of Ala Mhigo]]. Going two colors means you'll have to dump some cash into your lands, but if that's not a problem, it's worth considering.

You also want to look at the play pattern you've got here, cause it's sort of a problem with the curve currently. Here are the plays this deck wants to make:

A- turn 1 Sigard's Aid, turn 2 critter, turn 3 equipment auto equipped and swinging, turn 4 and onward free to do something else with your fielded wincon. This plan is good, but it relies on Sigard, and without it you'll be spending turn 3 fielding the equipment and equipping turn 4, at which point you'll be so far behind that it probably doesn't matter

B- turn 1 do nothing, turn 2 Stoneforge, turn 3 cheat the equipment into play. Solid playpattern, but again relies on Stoneforge being in the hand and surviving the turn cycle

C- the slow way (field stuff normally, equip normally, everything is slow)

You've got fifteen 1-drops, but you're really only running eight you actively want to play turn 1. So, this deck is going to always be a turn behind in development, which is further a problem, as you NEED to play one of your critters turn 2 and spend turn 3 either using your cheat abilities to get the equipment into play and equipped, or hardcasting the equipment. The problem being, you're then going to have to spend turn 4 equipping the equipment, and now you're a world behind. You've also got the major problem of all three options (A, B, C) losing to the same sequence, which is basically just [[Lightning Bolt]]. If opponent has a Bolt, option A fails because opponent can bolt the critter in response to the equipment entering, so Aid fizzles and you've got a dead equipment with no critter. Option B fails because opponent Bolts Stoneforge before you can use its ability to cheat the equipment into play, and you've got a dead equipment in hand and nothing fielded. Option C fails for the same reasons and is even more slow. And, in all three options, opponent only had to pay 1 mana to make this happen, so could spend the rest of his turns working on his plan, in which case the game's over. You've got no way to protect your critters or interfere with opponent, so you're basically praying you get the fast sequence and opponent has no spot removal, which is almost certainly gunna see you dropping games, especially games 2 and 3 when opponent subs in the spot removal.

The only real way around this is to hybridize the deck to play around this with some control mechanics to protect your critters, or dramatically attempt to speed up the build like the old Hammertime shells that were popular a few years ago. So, I'd advise sort of shifting plans to either make the build wicked fast, slower but more control oriented, or an all-out combo build that wants to field the big critter/big stick combo.

To that end, and regardless of which way you'd want to go, I'd advise checking out some staples of the sub-genre like [[Lavaspur Boots]], [[Shadowspear]], [[Lion Sash]], and [[Kemba, Kha Enduring]], as well as Urza's Saga, which we'll get to with an asterisk below.

Urza's Saga is obviously super expensive, but it would work wonders in a build like this. This deck needs equipments and critters to put them on, and the Saga does both and nets you MASSIVE advantage as long as you've got the time to do it. If you invest 3 turns into Saga, you get two 3/3's and an equipment, so opponent can't spot removal the threat away basically at all. It also lets you get the equipment you need to fix the problem at hand, which is extremely helpful. I'd highly recommend putting in two or three copies here, especially if you want to keep this mono-white, but obviously only if that's in the budget.

I'd also recommend in general cutting some of your higher cost/lower impact cards and streamlining the whole thing for speed, regardless of what you choose. Settlement Blacksmith is too slow, too low impact, and is only conditionally useful. Stroke of Midnight is too slow and helps opponent either survive another turn or start a slow clock, and just isn't worth it, especially mainboarded. Your equipment choices either need to be strong 1-drops (see above), huge heavy hitters (basically just Kaldra), a few tech toolboxes (Lion Sash), and a middleground like Bustersword that you run 1 copy of and take advantage of only if you get into the middle game and can afford to sink a two-turn cycle into fielding and equipping it.

Lot's of thoughts, I know. Take em for what they're worth, leave the rest behind.

I'll preface this by admitting that my knowledge of pauper is negligible, but you can't get away with only 15 lands, especially when 4 of them are gunna come in tapped and useless most of the time. I'd advise kicking it up to at least 20 and cutting the curve a little so you've got more 1-drops.

So much for Roko's Basilisk

Are you going for budget casual here?

Hot damn do I enjoy the wizards build. There's just something about sticky little critters with synergy in the control shell that makes me smile.

Plus, there are so many fun little interactions.

Traditional wisdom in the build focuses on [[Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student // Tamiyo, Seasoned Scholar]], as it's a banger card on its own, is a 1-drop wizard, gets flipped by Flame of Anor, and a wincon to boot. It also uses stuff like [[Thundertrap Trainer]] for cheap card advantage.

Your build seems a little too top heavy to me. Fourteen 3-drops means a lot of clogged hands, even if Wizard's Lightning is conditionally a 1-drop. Stock up is a great card, but you've got no mana ramp to take advantage of it consistently, and without the abundance of free permission spells that rule legacy, you don't want to cast it turn 3 and let opponent run wild without the ability to do anything else in that turn cycle.

Ephemerate will devastate when it connects with an ETB critter if done correctly, but you've only got six of those and two Ephemerates, so that interaction's not likely to come up consistently. It's also a counterspell against spot removal, but it doesn't do anything at all on its own, so it's a terrible top deck.

I can't really see the place of Orim's Chant beyond generically 'taking a turn' from opponent, and even then they can still respond to it so it's not going to work against all builds.

Running Elegant Parlor also seems a bit much, as you're running 2 other Surveil lands and you really don't want a red/white land when the deck craves blue and only wants a little bit of white.

A lot of initial thoughts. Take em or leave em.

I love a good exalted build, especially one that wants to be low to the ground. I do see a couple areas in this build that are sort of working against each other, so there's some potential room for improvement.

The basic model of what you're shooting for is a bunch of exalted weenies and some payoff critters to take advantage of the exalted boost. Thus, you ideally want lots of cheap critters all around, as you need lots of critters fielded to make the plan work, and your payoff critters would rather be faster than stronger, as they're gunna get strong thanks to the exalted boost. The good news is that Aven Squire is a little bit of both, so you can get away with running 4 copies of it and then 4-6 other payoff critters and have the rest be exalted with some control elements.

Right now your payoff critters are going for bigger is better, which (see above) doesn't fit super well.

Raffine isn't worth the juice in here, as you only want to attack with one critter per combat, so you don't get the connive avalanche you want. Glastlord is going to be a bitch and a half to cast in here with only 19 lands, no acceleration, and 7 of them coming in tapped. Niko is slow and conditional, and you can get much better value out of other cards for the cost.

Instead, what you're looking for here in terms of payoff is something like [[Faerie Dreamthief]], [[Mockingbird]], and [[Momo, Playful Pet]]. You ideally want to cast a 1-drop turn 1, then turn 2 cast something with exalted and start swinging with the critter you cast turn 1, netting you damage and starting the clock. Alternatively, you could go for some bigger payoffs that hit with a bang like [[Sublime Archangel]].

Your support cards are a little underperforming and/or don't fit as well in here due to the mana curve. The two charms are too weak and too color-specific to be justified over other options, Counterspell is useless unless you have 2 open mana and the mana to field your other cards at the same time, plus it's UU specific, so only 12 of your 19 lands can cast it, Void Rend is nice but costs too much compared with something like [[Prismatic Ending]] unless you're using it against a very specific threat and/or you need it to be uncounterable.

I'd also advise upping the lands to 20 and cutting all the tapped lands, as you very much want the speed to use your early turns, and the bonus colors and extra frills just aren't worth the hassle. Ideally you'd run some shock lands like [[Hallowed Fountain]], some fetch lands like [[Flooded Strand]], and a basic land of each color, but that can be a bit pricy and that might be out of the budget range.

Just some thoughts, not trying to hate on the build.

I don't think I've seen a horrors tribal deck before, bravo for the novelty.

I do, however, think there's a bit of a synergy problem going on here, as your horrors don't actually help each other at all, so you don't really get any benefit for running horror-only cards. Your horrors also run on the expensive side, and mono-blue is notoriously bad at mana ramp and being able to stall out a game with spot removal until you can cast big things, so you've got a double synergy problem.

I'd advise cutting out the big nasty horrors and just running 4 copies of Chasm Skulker and Thing in the Ice and then check out [[Silent Hallcreeper]] which synergizes perfectly with your two other horrors, as it wants to be a copy of Skulker and gives you draw material to help flip Thing. Plus it powers itself up, so you've got a 3/3 unlockable clock going on its own, which is extremely nice.

Some of your instants aren't really high impact enough to justify their spots, but the good news is that there are plenty of good options to think about. I'd recommend cutting Cerulean Wisps (too low impact, better cantrips available), Clockspinning (does next to nothing and is expensive and slow), March of the Swirling Mist (not high impact enough to justify the cost), Rain of Revelation (too expensive), Twiddle (not high enough impact), and probably Exclude (3-drop counters are usually too expensive cause they slow you down in vital early turns).

Check out [[Remand]], [[Essence Capture]], [[Preordain]], [[Stern Scolding]], [[Hard Evidence]], [[Mental Modulation]], [[Grip of the Roil]], [[Counterspell]], [[Consider]], and [[Dismember]].

Just some thoughts, not trying to hate on the build.

I gotcha.

That opens up some really interesting (and relatively cheap) card options then. I'm gunna assume this is a budget build, please correct me if I'm mistaken. Some of the best options for a build like this are unfortunately expensive, such as [[Grave Pact]], [[Bitterbloom Bearer]], [[Orcish Bowmasters]], and other vintage staple cards. But that's ok, you can still build a dynamite build on a budget.

First and foremost, builds like this are crying for 4 copies of [[Skullclamp]]. They net you material like crazy and perfectly synergize with what you're doing to the point of lunacy. You're also allowed to run a copy of [[Sol Ring]], which would help speed things up quite a bit if you tweak the deck some (which I'm advocating) so it's not just all black mana pips.

You'd also very much like to run some recursion critters so you've got fodder to sacrifice, such as [[Bloodghast]], [[Marionette Apprentice]], [[Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia]], [[Forsaken Miner]], [[Timeline Culler]], [[Infestation Sage]], [[Bloodsoaked Champion]], [[Genesis Chamber]], and [[Ghoulish Procession]].

The best combo possible in this type of build is the [[Carrion Feeder]] and [[Gravecrawler]] combo, which would slot in very nicely with some of the sac fodder as well.

Then there are the payoff cards that benefit from you sacking, such as [[Zulaport Cutthroat]] and [[Grim Haruspex]], though you don't want to run too many of them, especially since you'll want to run Skullclamp which is your major payoff.

[[Case of the Stashed Skeleton]] would be a fun addition in here, as it gives you critter fodder and a followup [[Demonic Tutor]] kicker, which should go a pretty long way in the build.

I'd also advise cutting down the curve quite a bit, as you really want to be able to play a 1-drop turn 1 and keep accelerating from there. You've got fourteen 3-drops, and that's gunna clog up a lot of opening hands. Cutting Breathe Your Last helps, and you don't really want to mess with it anyway, as it will only net you a tiny bit of life and there are much better spot removal options available. Fain is also pretty slow/lower impact for the mana cost, and there are cheaper and better sac outlets available.

Just some ideas, not trying to throw shade at the build.

What format are you going for here?

I tried getting in touch via facebook and have had no response. If anyone knows another way, let me know

I probably won't either. Sixteen years or so into deckbuilding on here. I was a completely different person when I started. Hell, I played [[Dragonstorm]].

What legality and budget are you going for here?