Discussion Forum

if you want to mill you should not be destroying your opponents land. They are not compatible strategies. It's extremly difficult to mill your opponent before he beats you to death so you really need to focus every cardslot either to milling or defense (spot removal, counterspells, maybe something like damnation/wrath of god...).

I think you'll find most milling cards in U or UB and not in UW.

something like Archive Trap is very good

Tome Scour has almost no effect at the cost of a card, it's just a very bad card.
Dream Twist is Tome Scour but actually even worse.

PS: milling means trying to get cards from a library into the graveyard. If you want to attack handcards it's called discarding and it's yet another strategy altogether. The more things you try to do the worse your deck gets because you're doing a little bit of everything but you're not doing any of these things very well.

you should also use increasing confusion, to mil its very good later game and whenever really. maybe go after trepination blade and invisible stalker.

[QUOTE=Seth]if you want to mill you should not be destroying your opponents land. They are not compatible strategies. It's extremly difficult to mill your opponent before he beats you to death so you really need to focus every cardslot either to milling or defense (spot removal, counterspells, maybe something like damnation/wrath of god...).

I think you'll find most milling cards in U or UB and not in UW.

something like Archive Trap is very good

Tome Scour has almost no effect at the cost of a card, it's just a very bad card.
Dream Twist is Tome Scour but actually even worse.

PS: milling means trying to get cards from a library into the graveyard. If you want to attack handcards it's called discarding and it's yet another strategy altogether. The more things you try to do the worse your deck gets because you're doing a little bit of everything but you're not doing any of these things very well.[/QUOTE]

My apologies on the misuse of terminology. Forcing my opponent to discard their hand was going to be the primary focus. As each deck in the tournament is supposed to have a 'creature' theme, I plan on using Spirits. From what you say, I should focus on the discard aspect, and possibly mix in some cards that punish the caster for being tapped. With most land destruct cards costing 3plus mana, I didn't think i could throw a decent deck together that would just do that.

Innistrad, M11 and M12 are the majority of cards that I own. I do have some Ice Age cards as well.

Thanks Again for any suggestions!

[QUOTE=Zombiewolf49]My apologies on the misuse of terminology. Forcing my opponent to discard their hand was going to be the primary focus. As each deck in the tournament is supposed to have a 'creature' theme, I plan on using Spirits. From what you say, I should focus on the discard aspect, and possibly mix in some cards that punish the caster for being tapped. With most land destruct cards costing 3plus mana, I didn't think i could throw a decent deck together that would just do that.

Innistrad, M11 and M12 are the majority of cards that I own. I do have some Ice Age cards as well.

Thanks Again for any suggestions![/QUOTE]

I wasn't sure if the tournament you were attending was just you and friends or an actual sanctioned tournament. My suggestion for archive trap is only good when every one plays real tournament decks with lots of fetch land.

Discard is usually good against control decks but really bad against aggro decks. If everyone is playing a creature theme you might not want to play discard as it's not the best option. It all depends on how fast your opponents decks are.

WB spirit tokens with some equipment and lots of spot removal seems like something that could work.

It's just a friendly tournament. A box of the latest cards as a 1st place prize, 2nd place and best themed deck split a second box :D

I know the decks I am going against are:

1 Werewolf deck
1 Zombie Deck
1 "undead recycle" deck
2 "sorcery" decks
1 Humans/Soldiers deck.

This being said, in your opinion, what type of deck should I go with?

you are playing modern legal right? it's impossible to say which tribal deck will be the best without actually seeing the deck lists. tribals all share the same weakness: the rely on getting multiple creatures of the same type into play at the same time. this means they can't hold many cards in reserve, they have to go all in.
play something like

4 lightning bolt
4 lightning helix
4 path to exile
3 wrath of god

and chances are you'll win that tournament. but you'll have a hard time convincing them your deck is a tribal deck:)

a solution might be to play RW elementals as a theme. most of your deck will be burn and control and your kill will be something like 'hostility'. playing lorwyn block elementals or lorwyn block goblins is probably faster and stronger then any of these more recent tribals has to offer. that and since noone plays lorwyn anymore the cards are dirt cheap.
mono red elementals should be very aggresive as well and probably the strongest real tribal you can play. try and dig up some old lorwyn standard elemental decks, combine that with other elementals that are legal in the format. slap a list together on paper, post it. we'll help tweak it and then buy it and go win that tourney ;)

you should also have a side board to play against madness decks (i havent heard of any but there are a few in legacy)

[QUOTE=mtglord]you should also have a side board to play against madness decks (i havent heard of any but there are a few in legacy)[/QUOTE]

madness decks? really :)
I'm pretty sure noone plays madness bro

Here is what I have thrown together in the last 2 days:

4 - Promise of Bunrei - Enc - white
2 - Ribbons of the Reikai- sorcery arcane-blue
2 - Toils of night and day- instant arcane- blue
3 - Murmurs from Beyond - instant arcane- blue
2 - Martyred Rusalka- Creature Spirit- white
2 - Sire of the Storm- creature spirit- blue
2 - Twilight Drover- Creature Spirit - White
1 - martyr's bond- enc - white
2 - long forgotten gohei-- artifact
2 - ooyobi who split the heavens- legendary creature- white

2- Evolving Wilds - Land

I have several other creatures from Innistrad that could go in as well:

Battleground Geist
Sturmgeist
Invisible Stalker
Lantern Spirit
Gallows Warden
geist-honored monk
Mauseleum Guard
Voiceless Spirit
Doomed Traveler
Chapel Geist

I love the idea of mixing in the lightnings, wraths & paths; just not sure what to throw in from here.

What do ya' think?

it's not very competitive. Those cards don't do much before turn 3 and even then they don't turn the game around. It's a slow strategy.

A fast tribal aggro deck should be able to goldfish (=kill when unopposed) in 5 turns or less. If your friends are playing real fast deck you won't have much fun sitting there getting slaughtered. On the other hand if they do play slow decks as well it doesn't matter what you play.

Do know that there is a serious powercreep when you look at magic. Most cards these days, commons and uncommons in particular are far stronger then your avarage common and uncommen of a few years back.
This means that a recent tribal deck like werewolfs is probably better then an old tribal like kithkins. I'm not saying this is a fact, it's just something you need to be aware of. Those Champions of Kamigawa cards you'd like to use for instance are really underpowered compared to the cards they print now.

There have been powerful spirit cards in the past like Kokusho, the Evening Star and Yosei, the Morning Star. These are the cards that find their place in control decks and can win games.

Ended up finishing 3rd of 9, After your suggestions, I ended up going White, Blue and red. I mixed in Lightning bolts, Lightning helix and a few other direct damage instants. I also put some 1 and 2 mana creatures (invisible stalkers, etc) to bring my mana curve down a bit.

Next month I have to create a deck that is only Innistrad and dark Ascension..

Thanks for all the suggestions :)

[QUOTE=Seth]you are playing modern legal right? it's impossible to say which tribal deck will be the best without actually seeing the deck lists. tribals all share the same weakness: the rely on getting multiple creatures of the same type into play at the same time. this means they can't hold many cards in reserve, they have to go all in.
play something like

4 lightning bolt
4 lightning helix
4 path to exile
3 wrath of god

and chances are you'll win that tournament. but you'll have a hard time convincing them your deck is a tribal deck:)

)[/QUOTE]


to make it tribal just stick a bunch of goblins in there...then burn the crap out of everything and stick a few goblin nades in there just for shits and giggles :p.
that would make a pretty fun burn deck with which to troll any and all decks.

Here is the deck that I ended up running:

4 Lightning Helix
4 lightning bolt
3 Flame Slash
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Mana Leak
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Invisible Stalker
3 Geist-Honored Monk
3 Doomed Traveler
2 Twilight Drover
2 Unruly Mob
1 Midnight Haunting
1 Mauseleum Guard
1 Gideons Avenger

9 plains
7 Islands
6 mountains