nice deck. is there a place for cards such as Watchwolf or Kitchen Finks? both are pretty solid cards and fit your deck well. other spells such as Armadillo cloak are brilliant in your deck's colours, and can swing the game. one last thing. instead of cultivate, go for sakura-tribe elder. it's a land-grab spell with a body. very useful!
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i'd still suggest running aether adept over the merfolk spy. consider this: you're not running any mana acceleration... so you'll be at least 8 turns before you can put the leviathan into play. 8 turns of needing to survive against aggro decks with only 2 negate and 2 mind control..... trust me you need to be delaying your opponent as much as possible. 4x "creature that's useless until turn 9 or later" has no point in this deck. it's at best a throw-away chump blocker. honestly, if you've actually managed to get a leviathan in play, it should be game over by that point for your opponent. feeling the need to squeeze an extra 1 or 2 damage in with frankly dodgy creatures is a bad way to build a deck. much better off putting some solid counters or tempo-stalling cards in there to set up for your slow-rolling leviathan victory. otherwise you're just leaving yourself open for 8 long turns while you play bad islandwalk creatures and desparately try to block goblin siege commanders, leatherback baloths, elves with overrun, whatever. if you're actually going to pay money for this, i would seriously recommend taking out merfolk spy and enclave elite for some more cheap and efficient cards which secure your early game and keep you alive. counterspells such as mana leak seem like a good plan, or perhaps efficient game swingers like the adept or maybe perilous myr (which can do a good job of staving off weenie decks all by itself). Air servant is a great card, strictly much better than the sphinx in this deck because it not only comes out a turn earlier (very important to this deck because of your lack of acceleration) but it can lock down fliers once the leviathan hits play if your opponent has any.... a very useful thing when you need to protect yourself as well as push damage through. a final card to consider is perhaps Guard Gomozoa. it doesn't really have any offensive capabilities but as a blocker it's fantastic. it can stall the early game for at least a couple of turns which may be all you need before you can start laying down your threats. but yes. this deck needs way more disruption to stall the early game. my green-white creature deck would flatten this in three turns without even trying. stick some counterspells in there and i'd have much more of a hard time getting any threats on the board. the theme is good though.
out of interest, what's merfolk spy for in this deck? surely you'd be better off with... say... Aether adept?
another potential board sweeper for tokens is Infest. i think it'd work pretty well. play infest and then attack with grave titan. oh look! i've got three creatures and you've got none. lol
also, ezuri does double time because he can both protect your elves as well as pump them up in the late game. good stuff
hey, this looks like a really strong deck =). i've got a couple of suggestions for some deck tech to make this a bit more stompy. ezuri, renegade leader joraga treespeaker oran reif the vastwood those three can add some serious aggressive tempo to any aspiring elf deck. the only card i'd take out would be immaculate magistrate. this could make way for ezuri perhaps. but i like this deck! it's pretty strong i can see.
heyhey again. just like to say that for a casual deck this actually looks pretty fun. my suggestions were in line with a more competitive casual setting, where you're playing to have fun but also being the guy with "the deck to beat". ultimately though, to have such a deck would necessarily require some colour splashed in there. i spent some time today just re-reading cards from the new set and i've changed my mind about grindclock. it's a pretty powerful card in casual, but to use it you're going to be wanting to get every last droplet of abuse from voltaic keys and cards like twiddle. then you'd be looking at some serious recurring mill without the need to keep constantly expending spells to do your milling. wrap it up with a pinch of mind funeral and hey-presto you've got a deck. haha. anyway what i'm trying to say is yes, i can see how grindclock could be fun in this deck. same with prototype portal although i think the portal will be a dead card in your hand more times than the clock. perhaps if you fancy the clock as a win condition, you should up the voltaic key count to 4.... that way your steel overseers look meaner as well. you can mix proliferate effects with untap effects to get those two cards just ramping everything up insanely. and i'm surprised you haven't stuck a planeswalker in there =D. tezzeret?
drop ornithopter for perilous myr and you'd have a more consistent board presence. the flying on ornithopter is relevant but if you don't draw the steel overseer you've basically just got a flying chump blocker. that's what i've found anyway. nice deck though. you didn't fall into the trap of running loads of expensive artifacts.
ah yes, 12 slots not 8... meh i was multitasking. anyway yes. i didn't really explain any reasons for dropping the artifacts i suggested. so here's my reasoning: contagion engine: fantastic card if you've got a solid threat-curve leading up to it. but in this deck all of your major threats lie at the top of the curve (steel overseer is good utility with other cards but by itself isn't a threat). ultimately this card costs too much for this deck, in my opinion, and could be replaced with cards which more directly interact with your opponent. i.e. threats. something like Lodestone Golem would be a pretty decent alternative. grindclock: for this card to "work" in a deck, you really need to be building a deck around it. The problem with mill is that unless you maximize the effect into a win condition, you're not actually affecting the board or your opponent in any direct way. you are denying your opponent some cards but the chances are they have 4 copies of their important spells, and mill doesn't stop them from drawing. ultimately this is another card which would be better off if it was replaced with some more threatening, less mana intensive cards. prototype portal: great card but like most of your deck, it requires the right cards to be in your hand for it to work. most of the time this is a dead draw and you'll be floundering against decks which reliably interact with your board position and place threats. replacing this with a steel-overseer target is probably a good idea. ornithopter: yes, flying is valid. it's wonderful when it works, but from experience, unless you've got some other way of turning this into a solid threat rather than a one-use chump-blocker then relying on potentially drawing a steel overseer means that this is often a throw-away card which doesn't benefit your board position. memnite is more valid because it can at the very least swing for 1 damage or trade with a llanowar elf without any help from other cards. and with regards to your comment about prototype portal abusing mindslaver...... just one activation of mindslaver should seal you the game or get you 95% of the way there. if it doesn't, that tells you something about the deck you're using. abusing mindslaver with prototype portal is just a "win more" effect. you shouldn't need to take it that far to have the game under your belt. it's much better to use this slot for threats and damage. anyway i hope i've helped. my parting advice would be to flesh out the deck with threats and cards which function effectively by themselves without relying on other cards to work. the ultimate goal is to have cards which work great by themselves but work better when combined. be ruthless editing your deck. really look hard at all of the cards and remove the ones which rely too much on other cards just to work. all the best.
couple of things: 1) you've got an awful lot of very high-cost artifact spells in this deck. the foundry only triggers when you CAST artifacts rather than just put them into play, so on the basis of that, you're looking at a very slow deck. 2) master transmuter and prototype portal don't trigger the foundry. they may be handy, but you're better off sticking in something that has synergy with the foundries. 3) i'd suggest that distortion strike (while awesome) is potentially a dead card about 75% of the time in this deck, until you're completely set up for a big swing. and with the slow nature of this deck and lack of removal or counters, you can't afford to swing until you can outright kill your opponent, because let's face it, you'll get overwhelmed by conventional creature decks. 4) with this in mind, perhaps a card like venser (as the other guy suggested) could have a place here, with its added versatility. 5) relying in cards like semblance anvil to get your expensive cards out (such as platinum emperion) opens you up for a huge 3-for-1 if your opponent has any artifact removal. you lose the card you exiled, you lose the anvil and you also lose the ability to cast the big artifacts before turn 8 (which is sloowwww). my suggestion would be to drop the anvil completely in favour of some more general acceleration. 6) low-cost cards for putting the pressure on your opponent include: - perilous myr (amazing damage potential for mana. can 2-for-1 your opponent) - contagion clasp (perfect with the foundries and venser, also functions as removal) - lodestone golem if you're not worried about playing standard, how about these: - myr retriever - myr enforcer anyway. hope i've been of help. the deck's ok, just needs some focusing before it's good enough to play
20 lands are just right. the last thing you need is to draw lands instead of burn on the 5th or 6th turns. and book burning is the only one that doesn't fit, because your opponent will always drop the cards from their library.... and with a deck like this you're never going to be playing the long game (i.e. mill is not a viable strategy) so ultimately it's a wasted spell. skullscorch is perfect though. discard is powerful stuff.
drop the following cards: contagion engine grindclock prototype portal ornithopter that should give you 8 slots to play with. fill those with more efficient and aggressive or techy artifacts that can 2-for-1 your opponent. 4x perilous myr 4x ???? perilous myr is an astounding weenie. two of them on the battlefield can take out a 6/6 or 4 separate small creatures in one combat phase. not to be sniffed at. for the second slot you need a creature. something with either very good board presence/utility or just some serious staying power. perhaps darksteel sentinel? it's certainly good for surprising your opponent because it has flash and indestructibility. it's probably one of your best protective options now that oblivion ring has rotated.
oh wait mox opal is the new one =D. haha my bad. but still, my suggestions would turn this deck into a powerhouse in casual.
what.... no green? =O oh and there must be some way to fit pizza in here somehow. are there any cards that resemble pizza?
gold! always believe in your soul. you've got the power to know! you're indestructible! always belieeeeve iiiiiiiiit.
needs more land, and seeing as you're clearly not worried about standard (mox opal ftw) there's a few changes you should make. drop all the mana-producing myr. add in some lands. remove 4x mountain and replace with 4x Great Furnace remove 4x island and replace with 4x Seat of the Synod remove 4x swamp and replace with 4x vault of whispers that way you've got a higher concentration of artifacts in your deck to go with this: 4x metalworker and then once you've got the metalworker down, you REALLY need this guy 4x golem artisan and there you go. mega uber mana generation, and something to stick all the mana into.
also, upon consideration, i think cultivate is better in this deck than harrow. harrow nets you an additional one land (and effectively untaps two lands) for 3 mana. cultivate can net you two (one tapped, one untapped) in a single turn, which can really bring the pain in the late game. i guess it needs testing to be sure about the way both cards affect the deck.
hihi. if you're also wanting to play casually with this, definitely grab 4x Sakura Tribe elder. the card's a powerhouse in a deck like this. probably drop the artifact and a couple of other things for Cultivate as well (which in turn is a functional reprint of Kodama's reach). cultivate or reach really work with explore and the oracle. hope these help. getting those lands out is fun =D.
interesting idea for sure. i'd like to know how font of mythos works for you. my experience is that 4 mana is generally too much for such a card, but there we go. runeflare trap is an interesting card, i like the possiblities it throws up, however you'll most likely be doing 4-5 damage if you're facing an aggressively costed deck. 4-5 damage is not bad for one mana, but it's pretty situational, and it requires using 16 slots in your deck just to make it work (4 for the spell itself, then 12 for card draw). maybe just dropping it for some more burn or some direct draw/damage spells such as browbeat. i understand that you wanted to build a deck around it, so perhaps changing the deck concept will work. currently i'm not sure it's competitive. time warp is a great card to have, especially in a burn deck. i can really see it swinging a game for you.
i actually mentioned this in the deck description, lol.
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