Puschkin

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

Modern ... blerch.
Spoils of the Vault - but when searching for the second Retriever this will kill you quite often I guess.
Only other option I can think of would be Infernal Tutor. At least to fetch the second Retriever, pretty much useless for anything else.

You guys realize that you need TWO Retrievers in order to male the combo work? It says "another artifact" ... and since your 3 card combo is essentially a 4 card combo, that probably means swapping some of the filler cards likes the Probe for things like Entomb.

Sorry if I burst a bubble ...

Link is dead?

Finally I am working on a deck again and am stuck regarding the last dozen empty slots. It's still brainstorming stage, so suggest whatever remotely fits. Deck isn't public yet so only using this link will work:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/hobsons-choice/

For you maybe but my group still playes with mana burn :)

You play the kinky rod? If you need 2 colorless mana every upkeep, there is probably no better card than Thran Turbine.

Thinking about this, Resonator would rock in an Ally deck. Provided you have the mana to pay extra for the Resonator, which isn't easy because you need to activate it after you cast the creature. So, Resonator is probably better with leaves play/dies effects that trigger later when you hopefully have mana open.

Hm - it's a solid, almost typical deck around +1/+1 counters just with Resonators, which is fine but you said you wanted to build a deck around the Resonators. I just think there are better options out there. It copies triggered effects but here all it will ever do is adding another +1/+1 counter or scry 1 which isn't exactly overwhelming for 2 mana. The card in this where the Resonator shines is that Hydra, doubling the number of counters twice is huge. However, you just have to realize what a triggered effect is and how widespread it actually is. Just for starters, any "When XXX enters the battlefield" is a triggered effect! Any "at the beginning of upkeep" is a triggered effect! Any "when this leaves play" or "when this dies" is a triggered effect! You also have to realize that you need to tap Resonator in order to use it - so it's better to have fewer triggered abilities but ones with big effects!

I just realized 2 things:

1) This deck was in "active decks" even though the last comment is from last year 0_o.
2) Northy hasn't created many decks in the last couple of months.

What triggered the above post was mostly the fact that there about 10 or so Northy decks within the first page of "Active decks", which usually means, you know, them being actively discussed. So I thought Northy flooded the board again. They all have comparetively high number of likes and comments. Usually I don't post on his decks and leave the budget crowd alone but in this cases I thought "he probably launched a "deckathon" again ... let's see if it is all chaff or some actual goodies". So I opened the first one, which is this, and realized, no, it's actually a run-of-the-mill deck with a very loose focus which would go down and buried here on Vault without any replies or likes if any author other than NorthernWarlord was attached to it. It's only then when I couldn't resist the urge to comment on it.

So my apologies for claiming you are all about quantity instead of quality. MTGVaults strange algorythms made me think that way.

Later this weekend - lots of events to attend :)

I don't know, I still see lots of sub-optimal mill cards and no game-breaking cards to take advantage of that. As has been said before: Milling opponents is DANGEROUS these days! The graveyard is a resource like cards in hand or library and many if not most decks make use of it in one way or the other. 18 years ago you could expect only a handfull of decks that want cards in their grave but today? In Legacy!? I know this is for casual play, but ... reanimator strategies, threshold, flashback, retrace, cards like Anger, Goblin Welder, Gravecrawler, the list of cards and mechanics that want to have cards in the grave is endless! Heck, Tarmogoyf alone is reason enough why you do not want to randomly mill around!

And what all this trouble for? To play a few spells from the grave? Spells that may or may not fit the current situation? If this deck would run 4 Haunting Echoes (it's pretty cheap meanwhile) I might understand but Spelltwine and Talent of the Telepath just don't cut the mustard (and Talent will almost never have spell mastery active in this deck!). Extract from Darkness is good and together with Fog Bank and Dimir Doppelgänger the only card in this deck that is suited for multiplayer. But Extract from Darkness stands pretty much on it's own and simply doesn't need other mill cards.

Spellweaver Volute - THAT would be a multiplayer card fitting this theme because it's reuseable. Stitcher Geralf - THAT is a good multiplayer mill card would fit this theme. And both are cheap enough for budget. But as it is, this is just another sloppily build deck. It doesn't even have a backup plan in case it mills something it doesn't want to mill. You'd expect a deck like this would have at least a Necrogen Spellbomb or something like this that could be popped any time something nasty hits the grave that you can't snatch, but nooo ...

I also fail to see how this should work as advertised. Where are the cards that make this deck "exceeds well in political multiplayer games"? Fog Bank is a good deterrant, but there isn't a single card that is particualrily good playing multiplayer politics. Fact or Fiction is because you can agree with someone to give you a good split if you promise to use the stuff you get to his liking. Icy Manipulator is because you can tap blockers here or potential attackers there. But this deck has no political power.
Or what about "allowing you to choose sides"? Which of the cards does that!?
And of course "scare the s**t out of those who dare to rise against you" - with what!? Random milling only scares noobs and even those will most likely not die from it. Everybody else is happily making use of the additional options you give them.


This sounds like a lot of salt and in some way it is but I am doing this for a reason: Northy started out with good intentions and I applauded that but meanwhile he has become a shadow of his former self! The quantity of the decks you release has risen and with that the quality has declined. I now you can do better, you just don't need to, because your fans eat up anything anyway.
Which reminds me of the other thing I need to get off my chest: This budget thing ... do all you guys realize what is happening to Magic right now? It's like a big bargain sale. Every single card that's relevant for any format gets a reprint in regular or irregular sets. Commander, From the Vault, Modern Masters (and now Eternal Masters!), Conspiracy and what not ... reprints everywhere. And the regular sets are heavily overboosted (because people open so many packs just to get these stupid expeditions), so heavily that any card besides the most powerful mythic costs just a few cent! I am neither joking nor exaggerating when I say that you can get most cards, inclduing rares, for just a few cents. Which kindof beats the whole budget thing - everything is budget these days except the various duallands, the best planeswalkers and a select few exceptional rares.
And THAT means that building cheap decks isn't complicated for quite some time now. Or, in other words, Northy should stop rsting on his laurels and instead step up on his game! Building budget decks is as easy as it ever was, consequently I expect a little bit more from the sitting champion of budget.

I would have expected the Sylvan Library/Abundance combo somewhere in here. Sylvan Library combos with Words of War, too, BTW. And Enlightened Tutor for that matter. What's that single Dryad Arbor for!?

What's there to say for me on an illegal turn 1 combo insanity? "Add 4 Black Lotus!" ???
And drop those Divining Tops. Why stick to puny half assed library manipulation that digs just three cards deep if you don't care for rules or restrictions? Play 4 Wheel of Fortune instead.
I am also worried why you run more Lava Bursts than Banefires. Or, why you would run Lava Burst at all. It should be 4 Banefire + 3 Kaervek's Torch.
It also hurts my feelings that you try to pull a channel-ball that is already 600 dollars and run only basic lands ...

Forum? It's been dead (defunct) since I joined this site ...

The creator or this deck hasn't responded for ages and the few times he actually did where oneliners, essentially spam. I don't get why you still post on it.

No, FoolishDeckbuilder, like I explained MULTIPLE TIMES in this goddammed deck:
YOU DON'T HAVE THE TIME TO FOOL AROUND!

If you have Dark Ritual, Shared Fate is out on turn 3, otherwise it's turn 5. That means your opponent drew 9 respectively 11 cards from his own library before he uses your deck. That typically translates into 3-4 lands, 3-4 creatures and 2-3 spells. And he'll be able to play those, even if the creatures cost 4-5 mana, because he'll get lands from your library. And THAT means, he'll have creatures out by the time Shared Fate resolves. Having walls of your own may slow him down but they also slow YOU down when you make the switch. You are on a clock. And the big difference is, the opponent, using your deck, will play all the other draw cards until he gets a wall ... he'll be pumping them out faster than you get creature from his deck (plus the matching mana), a race he will win since he has already other creatures from his starting hand.

The only wall worth adding is Quicksilver Wall because no matter who controls it and no matter who activates it's ability, it will bounce to YOUR hand. That's why I had it in my version but even that wasn't worth the trouble and later versions played with nothing but mana sources, carddraw and Shared Fate, which turned out to run the best.

You realize that the opponent will get those Walls once Shared Fate is out, no?

I didn't mean to cut the Devils, I just pointed out that it doesn't really count as a creature and that your general creature count is already quite low. I mentioned hom as another justification to replace the Blessings with creatures.

So, what does it say?