The Deckhelp Alliance

Zaklax13 has deleted this comment.

Congratulations on completing the deck. I unfortunately don't play commander, but I know some other members on here are good with it

I like commander! I'll give it a look over soon...in the meantime...I've updated an older deck of mine as well. I believe this is going to be the next deck I buy so all criticisms are welcome!

http://www.mtgvault.com/granflux/decks/bamdragons-2/

Haven't posted in a while, but I finally got around to posting this. Standard Selesnya.
http://www.mtgvault.com/kjsj3/decks/nothing-to-see-here/
Eventually when I get around to (and build) it, I'll post zur and domia. Zur has been doing well, but it feels like something is missing.
I'll take a look at the decks. (Nothing guaranteed)

Ah, that's for me :)

Love your innovation!

I wouldn't mind playing that deck. I might not have played it, but I do know how it runs. It's a fun combo/control deck.

I've also never played it, however I've lost to it many many times. I'm going to contact my buddy and get his version (he's not on vault) and put it up for you.

I have played it, it can be awesome, although the combo can sometimes be slow and unwieldy

I would love the list granflux!! That's what I've seen on video gothy, looks a little crazy but I like the style. Seems closer to legacy storm than most modern storm lists honestly

As it turns out he plays a version very close to Ruben Snijdewinds' deck from Worlds 2011...only difference is preordain over serum visions.

http://www.mtgvault.com/granflux/decks/ad-nauseam/

Hope this helps!

So for your case you'd need to use serum visions for Modern.

I'll help out if that's fine. I love the idea of beating on edh players

Love me some EDH, I'll take a look at it when I have the chance. Been really busy as of late and December is never an easy month for me =/

http://www.mtgvault.com/drakeraenes/decks/forged-in-steel/

new EDH im tinkering with. let me know what you all think

My most recent project is http://www.mtgvault.com/amberoth/decks/harvested-life-force/

The details of what I need assictance with has been written in the how to play section

Update: Most of the deck is in place. Now I just need to find the right ammounts of what to have. This deck has become a passive W/B (no attack) lifegain deck of seeming potential. Please do check it out and all appliable reccomendations are welcome. My biggest problem is finding Auras that can easily tap my inspire creatures for effects that benefit the theme. (All I have now is Ephara's radiance)

Lifegain on its own isn't really something you should look at, because they can be like... cool, you'll run out of resources before my creatures have to stop attacking

What are these things that you call creatures??? :)

Those things that you always have to scoop to because you run outta kill spells ;) I think that's called 'Thug lyf' ;)

And I assume you play Ojutai or Silumgar!

True, lifegain isn't something by itself to look at, thats why I have things in the deck like Felidar sovreign, Souls of the Fautless, Walls, Exploding wall of limbs, and various enchantments that help turn my lifegain into a lifeloss for the opponent. I sure hope they do swing their creatures (unless they are some sort of op creatures) I would love to have my blockers block. Only thing is I need to stabilize this deck so hopefully it does exactly what I intend it to.

Above all, I want to dabble in this lifegain business because it seems fun and slightly challenging with the indirect attack method I am trying to get it made through. I know my cousin had one that was able to wreck some havoc at FNM, though his was G/W and attacking was involved, and that made me wanna try out my very own.

I appreciate your concern however, I will keep it in mind if my deck doesn't cut it for me

Figured you'd have a joke Gothy.
Amberoth, Selesnya has an inf life gain combo with melira and Finks (I'm sure there are more). Adding black will give you ways to kill with that combo and also give you the ability to run saffi and champion.

Thats a pretty nice point, I also checked out Puschkin's W/G lifegain deck and am considering to make mine a W/G with black splashed into it, like you are suggesting.

And part two of my experimenting. Again, anyone who wants to test it out is welcome. Even if you don't fully understand PAL, any feedback is welcome =]

http://www.mtgvault.com/surewhynot/decks/broken-crown-in-testing/

I'm not really sure what to say about those decks, other than I'm glad I don't frequent tournaments and therefore won't be unlucky enough to sit across from someone (presumably you) playing it

Not sure what PAL is or how this engine works, can I get some detail?

Poxtraction aggro lock if memory serves. He has a description in a deck somewhere on his profile.

KJSJ3 has got it. PAL is terrible if you can get it right. Having never built a deck myself I don't know exactly what you need though. I'd say of the two decks you have, If thou gaze... would probably be closer to what you want. That being said I haven't tested either one of those, just thoughts from a glance.

Yes, check the comments above yours :)

Yes I think its a mix of Pox, extraction whilst being aggressive locking you opponent out the game

Hmm I see, interesting

And it was made to beat the SECAM deck :D

SECAM deck? There are some abbreviations I haven't heard of it seems xD I'm guessing that the SECAM deck must be pretty powerful and that is why this PAL was made, to make it not so powerful?

I was joking ... I just realized too late that you are probably all too young to get it AND that SECAM wasn't a thing in the US ... so just ignore me, I was trying to make a bad joke.

It was a bad joke, but I laughed.

PAL stands for Poxtraction Aggro Lock, though it's sort of just become its own thing. As Gothy said, it's a type of extraction deck that works more on the aggro side of things, whilst harassing your opponent and locking them out of any way to deal with the threats. As it is now, the opponent has no way to stop the threats from coming out and the threats themselves can't really be dealt with either.

It is very hard to play, and even harder to play right. You have to know how your deck works, but more importantly, you have to know how your opponent's deck WON'T work. A little less so with PAL than, say, Iso-Seek or Iso-Pox since you mainly just drop a Plunge/Pox followed by Ordeal and rip out half their deck XD

Oh a hard to play deck that is potent? Sounds pretty fun!

Yes, I had the most fun in Magic tournaments in the good old days with Keeper style decks in Vintage. So versatile and nasty but also very difficult to play and build! But to this day I haven't met a deck that was as personal as Keeper - such a deck grows with his owner and matches his personanlity. I miss those days.

I wish I knew magic to experience those days.

If I only had the money to build some of those decks... -evil smile-

Same here. I had the option to learn and pick it up back in the mid to late 90s, but I was too into yugioh like the rest of my age group was. It makes me feel dumb for missing out on all the great sets since I officially started with Rise of the Eldrazi

I only found out about magic with Mirrodin in full swing and Darksteel about to drop. Even then I looked back at the older cards with wonder and awe....still do.

Same here. So much crazy good stuff

While there were many powerful cards, the average powerlevel has risen constantly. Power Nine, Mana Drain, Balance and all that stuff is what you know because they are famous, however, those were more or less mistakes because they didn't know better and there weren't actually many of them. For each powercard there is at least a dozen cards so weak you would laugh at them. Merchant Ship, Purelace, Mammoth Harness, Island Fish Jasconius, Pit Scorpion, Quarum Trench Gnomes, Rakalite, Jedit Ojanen, Mold Demon, Prophecy, Farmstead, Erosion, Hidden Path ... those are the cards you will never see or hear of but cards like these made the mayority of our card pool back then! Please note that most of the cards I just listed were rare (imagine opening this garbage in a pack!).
Or, let me put it this way: Ernham Djinn was so strong that it dominated Type II ("Standard") for a long time, it had it's own deck ("Ernham-Geddon") which was played by roughly every third guy on any given Type II tournament. Ernham Djinn! You wouldn't touch a 4/5 guy with a drawback for 4 mana with a ten foot pole but back then it was the best deal you could get! Basically, the stuff you DON'T play these days because it's too weak is still stronger than the average card people played in tourneys back then! It's just a handful of exceptional cards that are insanely powerful and those are the ones you hear of, but let me tell you that the average game of Magic back then meant summoning Craw Wurms and keeping them alive with Healing Salves.

*pats Jedit on the head as he sits in a corner drawing circles on the floor with his finger*
It's ok buddy. He didn't mean it.

Huh! interesting I'm gonna look at that

Gothy lost?? What deck were you playing?

But isn't that a good way to lose?
Many years ago when I was still playing in the german premiere league my teammate was paired against Kai Budde (who was world champion at that time). He lost in constructed but beat him in limited. He said this was his "best loss" losing to the reigning WC isn't shameful, losing to random scrubs is.

I once beat the guy that invented the original TnT deck (Vintage), but got my ass handed to me the other times we've met, yet, I still have fond memories. First, it's always great to play against celebrities, secondly you learn a lot and in this case he was also a genuinely nice guy. Damn, I forgot his name, though!

I lost in draft, it was origins, I'd drafted G/U tempo but hangarback walker with solid B/R took me down quite effectively, I ended up getting screwed by my own Elf herald as it found no elves and put a Claustrophobia to the bottom!!!

Hand disruption is always better

Agreed. Maybe hitting a good card is ok but sniping a key card will always slow someone down. That's predominantly why I like black control, because it's cheaper and easier to hit a few things than just constantly counter everything and pray you don't get mana screwed

Always disrupt the hand because Delve, Mill basically means turn 1/2 Angler/Tasigur

Mill doesn't affect board position at all. In fact it doesn't accomplish anything besides giving your opponent more options - it's not only delve. Flashback, threshold, unearth, the list of abilities is endless. You also fill the grave with creatures which means targets for reanimation. Then there are cards that work from the grave like Wonder.

Unless you mill the last card, milling the opponent only HELPS him! So, if you mill, then either add enough mill to finish him off OR add other cards that take advantage of it (like Haunting Echoes).

Traumatize + Haunting Echoes is a thing. It's expensive, but as effective as it is vile

Alright guys thanks for the Input, it is valuable and makes sense. I will go remove mind sculpt from my B/U deck now and add some other controll, maybe more duress

Thoughtseize is currently selling at an all time low- alongside inquisition of kozilek they are the best hand disruption spells available to modern, duress is probably best for standard and Legacy you probably want Thoughtseize and Hymn to Tourach- all my opinion

Now that everyone has had their say, I'd call for mill AND disruption. My alltime favorite "removal" has always been surgical extraction, and it works well with discard, or can replace it if you use a lot of turn 1 mill. It's the only card still a stable in my grixis deck, and the deck started out as a mill-deck. I use it either to cut down on heavy critters, killing a combo or as alternate landdestruction.

Why would you ever need mill in modern? The amount of graveyard interaction is just going to fuel them, never use mill unless you're a dedicated mill deck or tarmogoyf is going to slap you

I could actually imagine an aggro mill-"shell" with stuff like chancellor of the spires and surgical extraction as the core. Chancellor can be quite a beater once it's in play :D

I'll investigate such a deck once I'm done with my almost mill-less grixis.

that style is already available, but it isnt aggro, it is lantern control

Well, I've built an aggro lantern variant halfway through my grixis project, and I might go back and develope it into a really nasty decktype at some time in the future. (2 years time I think)

Commented!

BTW, did you hear what the new judge reward foil is? Somebody gotta steal a bus and run over R&D ...

What what? What is it?

Well, I hinted at it ... One Magic developer had this to say, "The entire R&D team would have to be hit by a bus before we'd reprint Mana Drain." Well ...

https://youtu.be/_ddy88PzElc

To sum this up, we the players are vegeta, and r&d is Goku. Enjoy

I am so in, I have a few brews in mind

Not me - I loathe Type II, sorry. But I guess Vault will be flooded with (budget) standard decks anyway ;)

If I wasn't working and was more impressed by oath, then I would probably help. Sadly I'm not all that wowed by it sadly. Zendikar was my favorite block and this last set just didn't really impress me much, both card wise and lore wise

Alright Zak, brew and post as many decks as you can and then post them with the tag, open the gates :)

http://www.mtgvault.com/gothy/decks/ur-prowess/

It would be public then. There is a reason this "deck" is private. Ideally, something like the DHA isn't needed - people should check out other decks voluntarily. If you post this in the forum, we'll get, like, 100 people that want to join. This causes various problems:

* You cannot comment/critique dozens of decks per day => you start cherrypicking => you'll comment less.
* People can join just to ask for help without ever contributing => we'll never notice because we cannot track 100+ guys
* You'll get members of unknown quality. While I am always open to teach newbies as long as they are civil and actually listen, however, I can only handle a few at times and it's a certainty that we'll end up with a lot of idiots.
* It'll become a logistic nightmare. And if I start kicking idiots out they'll call me out being an elitist, powerhungry snob that favours certain kinds of people yaddayadda ...

That's why I wanted this to grow slowly but naturally. Personally invite the people that you think are worth adding but don't spam invitations in the Barrens chat ...

I wasn't really suggesting going the route of recruiting members in a forum, just having a kind of open secret about our group and trying to help people. As for people wanting to join, we can just simply state that new members are by invite only and preferably regularly contribute to the community, but that this does not guarantee am invite. In that way we aren't accepting just anyone into our "club" while still being helpful. Plus not everyone would need to view everything that got posted. You could just drop a line saying "hey i got this" on a request so that way we can see that someone took the time to look at it. Also if you do ever need to kick someone out and they start mouthing off like that, then they don't deserve to be in here in the first place. We all care (at least I hope we all do) about seeing other people improve and have a great time. Just some thoughts on what you said Puschkin.

Oh, and WoW reference for the win. I miss barrens chat lol

Okay, we could do that. If the others agree, of course.

I understand drakeraenes point, but I also agree with puschkin...

Lol Barrens chat...

I think what we have now is perfect, yes we may be gathering a bit too many comments and we may get noticed at some point...but that person may be deserving of an invite... I honestly don't know where to draw the line. I invite people who have an earnest draw to knowledge for the game and who will contribute equally. Whether or not to make it public will need to be answered by a greater person than I...

Hey guys, sorry for the absence. School is rampantly consuming my time, but I have been following up on the posts here. I definitely can agree with Granflux that both of your perspectives make sense and have value. I am fairly confident that we can attempt to reach out to other members of the forum in a way that will be efficient and have minimal issues. I mean, if we can organize some pretty tight decks, can't we do the same with a general forum such as the one being discussed? However, I say that this is your guys' call

Commented.
I'd like to revive my Obscure Card Challange:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/obscure-card-challenge-occ/

Re-reading the first entries I realized I forgot to invite DedWards! Or maybe I did and he didn't want to join :P Anyway, I just invited him.

Nope, I don't remember being invited.

Then it was an unfortunate oversight. Welcome now, then :) Would be nice if you introduced yourself a bit.

Now that you mentioned it...

tell him to put some decks on here!

Woop woop! I'm working on a few ideas as well. Don't know when I'll finish them though

Thinking of building sultai hugs edh. (Not sure if I want to play zur or damia at my local edh...)

Sultai aren't usually known for Hug, so I'll be interested to see how you pull this one off.

http://www.mtgvault.com/surewhynot/decks/neverwhere/

Here's the first one.

I am not planning on introducing them to combo decks and tri-color decks just yet. Is this a bad idea?

Keep it 1 or 2 colors to start. Tribal would also be something that they could start on. After they get hang of the basics, you can have them play different types of control, combo, etc. (Currently 12:00 PM local time.)

I always ask new players just what kind of play style they would like to try, or their preferred method of winning and then base a deck off that. Favorite animals, colors, and such are always a fun place to start, or a general theme like knights or zombies.

Thank you guys, you both make a fair point. I will propose to them examples of play-style/creatures/colors and ask them which one they prefer. Alrighty, time to get building!

You could always proxy up one of surewhynot's pal builds. I'm sure that they'd have fun with that. ;)

I would do the following:
Build 2-colour decks (so colour IS a factor but not too complicated). They should all be of roughly the same build:
- one third lands, one third creatures, one third support cards
- the support cards should cover the basic things (removal, life gain, creature pumpers, some recursion) and some spells that are iconic for the given colours, so, direct damage for red, discard for black etc.
- spells and creatures should have a mid-range mana curve with a few exciting high casting cost creature that act like "bosses"
- simple, predominantly combat oriented creatures with mostly common (keyworded) abilities like flying, trample, haste etc.
- give the deck either a simple theme/focus or non at all.
- mana base should include 4 identical duallands (doesn't really matter which) and one non-basic land that has a special ability, the rest should be basic lands
- only use cards of low value that you don't mind giving away. Players should play with different decks. After some time let them pick a deck and tell them they can keep it.

Do NOT use tribals, block mechanics, control, combo, lock etc. - they have to grasp the basics first. That could be a problem, though, since these days tribes and block mechanics are so dominating and it would be good to build the decks with cards o current sets, however, if they want to learn the high art of deckbuilding, they shouldn't be spoiled with concepts they don't really understand yet.

Alternatively go to your LGS and they can give you 2 free 30 card decks that are perfect for teaching the basics and then the new player gets to keep all 60

Thanks Puschkin for the in dept advice, it is good. And that's interesting Gothy, I didn't know that the LGS would do such a thing, but thanks for the heads up!

Not all of them do. One of my local ones do. Sometimes shops have booths comic etc events and will have them there as well.

They absolutely should do, its a totally free service that Wizards run the LGS don't pay a penny, if you see them charging then report it to wizards!!

LGS? Lesbian Gay Sex?

Local Game Store, although don't google it

My shop has them. Wizards doesn't charge us a penny, we give em out for free.

As it should be :)

Hey Puschkin, did I ever get back to you on that deck you asked me to look at? I feel like I didn't...

I forgot, too ... currently I don't have any deck that needs help urgently. Maybe check out one of my fun but overlooked decks, for example http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/cpt-eminem-his-big-soldiers/

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

Later this weekend - lots of events to attend :)

Have fun :)

Link is dead?

The name was changed. Should be able to get there from comments.

I commented Puschkin, hope it helps

No, for some reason I have already overeaten Fog and couldn't stand another of those lists :)

ive built a few fog lists... none have cut the bill. I feel they can win, but ive gone to rounds as many times as ive won/lost

I think the most interesting fog deck I've seen was a mazes end fog deck. It worked surprisingly well

Ok having actually looked at said fog deck, it's definitely interesting. I can see it possibly working, but not as a budget deck. It needs the better mana base and leyline of sanctity desperately

yea the budget build is a mediocre fnm deck, but it has potential. personally I love tuning tier 2-3 fnm decks into playability

Reworked the idea some. Now it's just RW

http://www.mtgvault.com/dedwards/decks/nahirikul/

I might have been interested if it wasn't for this:
"By submitting an article to Eternal Central (the ‘Publisher’), you (the ‘Author’) agree that Eternal Central has unlimited commercial license of the submitted and published content, and that this work may not be reproduced anywhere else without the expressed written consent of Eternal Central."

It's one thing to not get paid anything for your hard work. But it's a whole level different when you also have to forfeit all your rights on your work.

You only forfeit work published ON the central. If we create a post in here to support oldschool magic then there's no hindrances. It's only if you publish at the central first and then in here that there's a legal twist :D

Didn't you ask me to write for that site?
And why would I write such an article here? Nobody here would appreciate it because nobody has the cards or knowledge for that. Don't forget, this site is the Casual Emirates of Budget Schlubs, the average reader here gets an allergic reaction if the price tag of a deck goes beyond 50$ (something a 93/94 deck achieves with a single card).
Besides, the forums here are still down so I can't even format it and have to post it as a deck.
No, thanks. It would be casting pearls before the swine if you know what I mean (dunno if this saying is used in other languages as well)

Heh!

First line:
Would anyone be interrested in the creation of a 93/94 related post in here?

Which translates into, "does anyone want to join a 93/94 forum post if I make it.

Second line:
(Join this one PUSCHKIN :D )

This indicates that I think you would be interrested in me making such a post.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Overall point:
If I make a post about the insanely oldschool format covering from alpha to legends, do you think people would join it?

I have been searching the forum and it turns out that 3 persons are already involved in the format.

The most interresting aspect is that it will be the first format that does not expand, meaning that the decks created will enter a much more intense warfare than usually seen in other formats.

Here's the link to the 93/94 forum, since I made it anyways...
http://www.mtgvault.com/wickeddarkman/decks/9394-format-forum/

It's hardly the first. There was (or still is?) this format that works like reverse Modern where you can play all cards with the old layout (so, Scourge and older), it was called Type A if I remember correctly and was sophisticated enough to have it's own established Bannded & Restricted list. This was way before Modern was a thing, though.

I also fail to see how an not expanding format would mean "much more intense warfare" whatever that means because a format that never gets new cards means especially one thing: stagnation. Bannings aside the metagame will see less and less change with every day that passes.

I enjoyed Type A as a CASUAL format because it makes a cut exactly where Wizards went crazy with block mechanics and creatures. Some combo BS aside games weren't decided by turn 3-4 unless you played a very agressive resource wasting aggro deck which is something you don't want in multiplayer. So there was a fine balance. Never played tournaments with this but it's basically the same as Type 1.5 was in 2003 which was rough but playable.
93/94 however is a different beast. With a few exceptions creatures back then sucked. Which means it's down to control because combo didn't really exist the way we know it today (any infinite something or autowin combo would be of way too many cards). And control was typically very VERY expensive to build because you needed virtually every expensive card there is (5-colour-control aka "Keeper"). And in either way, most decks centered around the same bunch of cards. There may have been more variety in actual viable decks but they all used the same staples. Which isn't surprising because cards weren't well balanced - some super powerful cards alongside utter chaff.

What I want to say: It's cool to look back and to fling the ancient spells the game stated out with but it is not a fun format, at least not tournament wise, which seems what you are focussing on. I turned my back on tournaments and play casual only, albeit with Type I construction rules, simply because I want to make use of my collection. But time and again I realize that I am about a unicorn for doing so.

And here's where I hand you the deck of mine that is more fun (for me) than any other deck I own.

http://www.mtgvault.com/granflux/decks/good-luck/

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but I got some interesting card choices going on and it's fairly consistent.

Also I'm suggesting you go for grixis.

Well, to get the mobs to look at it, we need to get it onto the front page. I'm going to hit the like button to help.

Hah it made it! Let the noob arguments about tapping lands not being an ability begin!!!!!! ROFL

Wow, that was fast, thx!
Seems like those darn "likes" are worth more than comments regarding the hot page ...
So, if you want me to check any pet decks of yours, let me know.

I realised a while ago, you reach front page because of likes, nothing else.

I actually have two Modern ideas I'm looking at working towards:

Oh The Horror:
http://www.mtgvault.com/dedwards/decks/oh-the-horror/
Uses Thing in the Ice and Hunted Horror.

Nahirikul:
http://www.mtgvault.com/dedwards/decks/nahirikul/
Is a single track deck meant to fetch Nahiri, then Ulti her to fetch Tentacruel :P

you just broke the format, congrats

The same friend and I often look for ways to "break the format". Sadly, I regret not stumbling on the Eldrazi thing before the tournament that made it popular, could have made so much by selling it to people who wanted to run it.

I think it's too soon to call it format breaking :D

Has there been any tests done with it?
And specifically, tests with gravehatred in focus?

You could use my shrieker deck as a random example of how a random deck would hate it, as
I play 2 surgical extraction and 3 dimir charm in maindeck to hate the ordinary living end deck.
I would also board in 1 grafdiggers cage, 1 rakdos charm, 1 invasive surgery, and during play I could kill my own sages to play shriekmaws for 1B prepairing for when living end hits the table.

And I'm just random noise :D

No tests as of yet, still accumulating all the cards for it. Combating the grave hate is something I'll look at after I've got the main idea working.

Also, you know that a LOT of FNM decks are net decks used by people who don't quite grasp what the deck is capable of. I'm the quirky builder in my club, so I'm the one that is forced to face the "normal" decks (net decks).

My friends and I have reworked the deck some. New version can be found here:

http://www.mtgvault.com/dedwards/decks/dredge-end-v2/

I was making a joke, although I think it is very good... downvotes really?

Sounds cool. You know things are bad when you see people arguing about basic deck construction rules... Hopefully my comment cleared up any "confusion" that the deck owner had... Deck name was Mana raking...

Worm Harvest could produce a good number of tokens. Retrace actually sounds like a good idea with the Frog.

You'll need some good ways to recur your lands too. Life from the loam goes without saying, but you might also look at things with additional costs that bounce lands, like the sweep keyword and kicker costs. I don't know exactly what all there is in regards to those effects, but it's a start. Shame you can't use blue. The moonfolk from kamigawa would be perfect here, and then there's my favorite underappreciated blue draw spell, Gush.

I didn't mention the graveyard recursion for the lands as I thought it was a given that it'll be needed.

I also want to add another suggestion: landfall. The Frog does allow you to play an additional land a turn.

I was actually going with field recursion. Graveyard recursion is a serious given and can easily be remedied with Crucible of Worlds, but getting land back from the field is another story. Landfall would indeed be a good thing to look into what with the built in Exploration.

(Please note that Gitrog draws you a card for any land that goes to your graveyard from ANYWHERE which includes discarding and milling!)

Dawnstrider, Crop Rotation, Groundskeeper, Sylvan Safekeeper, Harrow, Titania, Protector of Argoth, Worm Harvest, Harvest Wurm, Tireless Tracker, Dark Heart of the Wood, Zuran Orb, Constant Mists, Gurzigost, Centaur Vinecrusher, Dust bowl, Wasteland, Ghost Quarter, Strip Mine, Quicksand, Strands of Night, Lodestone Bauble, Reprocess, Squandered Resources, Life from the Loam, Heartwood Giant, Heart of Yavimaya, Lake of the Dead, Explorer's Scope, Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord, Terravore, Realms Uncharted, Nantuko Cultivator.

Then the usual suspects of:
- Landfall
- Fetchlands
- Man-lands
- Retrace

And of course cards that can be taken for granted like Exploration, Life from the Loam, Crucible

I guess out does read like that doesn't it? That's pretty cool. Might look into doing one myself

These are all awesome ideas thanks guys. I have some pretty dirty tricks in mind as well that I think will be cool, but these definitely helped me get in a direction I enjoy.

The Gitrog Monster EDH is complete! Thanks for the suggestions guys, it helped get the creative juices flowing for sure.

Commented =]

Sadly, while I play Standard at fnm every second week, a lot of my group don't play the 'normal' decks, so I doubt I can be much help (but I'll try). We do need to understand what you may come across to build a decent deck.

White weenie humans is a thing. They tend to run Avacyn and / or splash a second colour (often blue) for one or two cards (like Reflector Mage).

Bant Company is seeing play. A decent number of etb effects on creatures Collected Company can bring in (including Reflector Mage), but they do have some higher cmc creatures because their abilities are too good to ignore. Luckily, little to no noncreature spells to increase the effectiveness of CoCo. So, depending on the build, little to no counter spells.

I played against a Werewolf deck last night. Very, VERY, aggressive (for Standard), but also creature heavy. Beware of enchantments that boost all his creatures, I lost game one because of Stensia Masquerade granting first strike (couldn't trade off favourably). Also beware of Howlpack Resurgence. Flash, +1/+1,and trample makes it quite a threat.

Lucky for me, BR Vampire Madness hasn't picked up in my group, but it's worth mentioning as it's potentially very aggressive. Most of the best discard outlets for Madness is in BR (like Lightning Axe), and a good number of the Vampires have Madness, or can gain Madness from Falkenrath Gorger. Stensia Masquerade is even more dangerous here as the creatures are Vampires, so they'll gain +1/+1 counters if they deal damage to you.

BG Seasons Past control did well recently, well enough for it to pop up on my radar. This one is spell heavy, using a shit ton of removal, discard, and mass removal, capping out with Dark Petition fetching Seasons Past to refuel on control spells.

I personally play RG landfall ramp, capping out with Omnath and / or Chandra, Flamecaller. But the 'normal' RG ramp decks tend to cap out on the big Eldrazi. These are normally mid range decks, as they spend the first few turns ramping with Nissa's Pilgrimage and Explosive Vegetation.

Some one may try UR Prowess, though without Monastery Swiftspear and Temur Battle Rage, it's not as explosive as it used to be. It's still possible to play it, but it'll win over a number of turns instead of all at once.

Hmm... Can't think of any other archetypes at the moment.

With all of this in mind, you should be able to build a deck that can survive, and hopefully beat, the decks you may come up against. Without knowing what you have on hand, I can't offer any more assistance.

Thanks for the input. Don't have a lot of cards rare wise in standard. Built a random grixis madness from a box of SOI. Slimming it down to rakdos is most likely my best option at this time. I like playing control and decks light on creatures...
http://www.mtgvault.com/kjsj3/decks/game-day-soi/

Went to a modern tournament with my grixis shriekers.
Have been testing forever and never actually played with the deck before now, so it actually turned out quite well.

lost 0-2 three times, 2 due to insuficient knowledge, 1 to a double manascrew.
got 1-1 three times against other decks, won 2-0 and lost 1-2.

Read it all here:
http://www.mtgvault.com/wickeddarkman/decks/tourneyreport-grixis-shriekers/

what format?

You should start the deck so we can have the discussion there. Up until then:

Skulk isn't the way to go - you would first have to have Vraska, then pump her up until you can create the tokens, then somehow give them skulk and THEN buff the opponent's creatures? So, you are adding a fourth step, one that isn't useful in any other situation ... why don't you make the token strictly unblockable instead? I mean, all you need is a single token get through once, so anything goes. My pick, not knowing the rest of the deck, would be Shadow Rift. If you don't wnat to run blue and/or have other creatures that would greatly benefit from connecting with the opponent next best thing would be Whispersilk Cloak which also protects the token.

But I'll warn you, no matter how well you build this deck, it will be a very rare case that you win the way you intended to. You'll either not get all pieces together (I mean, planeswalkers using their ultimate is a rare thing to begin with and this one produces tokens that can die to a million of things) or you will have won with something else that you made unblockable.

Don't care about format. I only decided to use skulk because it sounded like a good idea. I know I could easily splash blue and use things like artful dodge. As for the ultimate issue, I can either use something like gilder bairn combos to double the counters, or i I could go the route of doubling season and have her enter with enough to ultimate from the get go, and also get double the tokens from it. I'm more likely wanting to go with that with small bits of blue and black to supplement the deck. Just my thoughts. Honestly I'm ok with not using skulk, it was just an idea

Doubling Season also runs the risk of hijacking the deck. And of course you can add stuff to accelerate counters on a planeswalker, it's just a general piece of wisdom and advice I can tell you according to my experience: It's a rare thing that the ultimate of a planeswalker goes off. The other players are usually hellbound on killing it off or keeping the loyality counters in check or forcing you to use the minus abilities etc.

Please start a deck, it's easier to suggest things when there is a base list of things you want to include. I always put thing you are unsure of in the sideboard. If you are concerned about the public seeing your unfinished deck, you can keep it private and just put the link here, so nobody else sees it until you publish it.

I'll try rising something together and post a link. I usually don't make a deck public until it's done anyways, and even then an unfinished deck doesn't bother me all that much

Welcome to the fold

I see what you did there...

Commented on it, doesn't need much help, though.

BTW, seems like I triggered someone's rage-button really hard in that other LD deck you also posted on ...

People, myself included, can get very defensive at the slightest of things (different triggers for different people). I can't remember how many times I've typed out paragraph after paragraph of hate, just to delete it.

And I would understand that and hadn't said a thing if it wasn't for his endless bragging. In our privacy here, what do you think of his deck? As I said, I am not an expert in modern, but when I saw yours, I knew I saw something that does everything right and IF it loses, then to metagame calls. But his deck looks really inconsistent and trying to do too many things at once. For example not having at least one of each basic land of his colours despite running fetchies ... is a red flag for me.

Remind me which deck you're talking about. I've been commenting so much these last few weeks that not all my recent deck comments are showing. That or I unsubscribed from the deck.

http://www.mtgvault.com/asturonethorius/decks/best-tyr-1-turn-1-kil-lan-dek/

Oh, that deck. I unsubscribed from it when the comments became idiotic. I don't see the need to get upset by idiots that won't listen to reason backed up by hard facts. When I first commented, it looked like it had potential, and that's why I commented. But just throwing in random stuff that got suggested is idiotic.

As for having one of each basic with fetches, modern has an extra reason for it. Where Legacy has Swords to Plowshares, Modern has to settle for Path to Exile. Preparing to get something out of a bad situation is common practice for me. Then, which I probably don't need to point out, there's also the cases of playing against RDW, where you need to be conscious of your life total, at least more so than against most other archetypes.

:D

Played at the WMCQ on the weekend and made it to the Top 8, only to lose to my second Top 8 opponent due to a poor Sideboarding option. Here's the list I ran:

http://www.mtgvault.com/dedwards/decks/mooning-modern/

Gratz! That is great news!
Especially after this discussion with Asturonethorius ...

Maybe we should update with a new sparkly page once in a while :D
I'm currently having a break with my grixis for some weird esper deck.

You know, I still toy with my evolution projects, trying to find the perfect recipy to mutate decks :D

Back then I had two major mechanisms, "number of mutations on ofspring" (pretty easy) and "rate of mutation" which controls the chance an ofspring has to be mutated. I also toyed with horizontal mutations (mutations gained from other decks) where a random deck would chosen to give the mutation, or the deck defeated would give a mutation.

Since discoveries into evolution are pretty fastmoving these days I've included an extra aspect:

Mutation based on age!
It turns out that older human males has sperm with more mutations in them than younger males.
This could explain why males turn to other females later in life, since their first ofsprings are closer to their own dna, and thus almost have the same genes, then children made later in life will have far more mutations and be different or not even born. A successfull male becomes a genetic platform for natural experiments.

So in my experiments I include age to decide rate of mutation :D

I started an evolution project myself. It will see the light of day early march 2017 :)

Oh my!
I can't wait to see what it's about.
I've started printing out some of the old phyrexian posts to extract all of my past insights, and it has been rather fun to see how stumped I've been by so many aspects of something as simple as land, 1ccc, 2cc, 3cc and 4cc.
There are so many of those old posts that I see repeated in my paperstrip methods, but at a more advanced setting.

There are many times in life where I've wondered how the three-colored manalyser would have given me lots of material if my computer hadn't crashed. On the other hand, the crash is what really made me work more and more with paperstrips (I think the eldrazi cycle was where I really started to see the concept's potential) and strips allways perfect my mana for me, and I skip the programming time and follow all the steps involved, so I get a keen sense of how the stuff seems to work, and get more apt at guessing the end quantities of cards ending up in the deck.

Post me as soon as you are done, or give an early outline ;D

Seems like you didn't get it ... in march, I will be a father ;)

Well, I'm a little disappointed, but congratulations are very much in order :D
If it's a girl, tell her ponies are good, and if it's a boy, make him kill koala's...

And teach both that humanity is a devious and lying race, but it's a good thing for our survival.
(They should teach this in kindergarden, really, because at least 90% of humans cheat each others)

It may not seem so, but I've actually cut of from conspiracy theories because I learned that the above is an indirect source of most misinformation in this world, but because I've been an honest man I saw mankind in a much brighter light.

Protect your ofspring my man...

Congrats puschkin! Remember to teach them magic early. It'll help with their mental development and cognitive thinking ability, plus they'll get to have a lot of fun!

"them"? I hope the first one will be the last ...
But of course I'll try to teach Magic. That lucky bastard will inherit my Moxes, after all :) But according to Murphy's law I'll probably have a child that prefers to play football or some shit ...

Congrats Pushkin. Regardless of interests, you'll love the kid anyway.

Murphy can be a bitch, and in the worst of ways.

The secret to manipulation is to give people set up choices, so they know it was their choice, but you made up the situation wherein they made it!

For example, at a later age children will be whiny and annoying, so you need to distract them from their willfull crying. This can be done by tricks like "did you see that cute kitten on that mans shoulder?" "oh, I see him often, he usually walks around that corner and watches the windows. Maybe we will see the kitten. It's a beautifull blue one!"

Children are small computers and will constantly reset their parameters, so confirmed sighting of a blue shoulderclimbing kitten will often have a higher priority than crying because of a mood or lack of candy/doll/actionfigure.

And in next issue of "Wicked Darkmans Tips on Education":
* How to hack into infant minds
* Bug or feature? How to turn unfavourable DNA sequences of your unborn into advantages
* 10 things to look for during your child's beta test years

I'm laughing so hard at you two. Priceless!

Damn, no idea, by themed you mean a deck like http://www.mtgvault.com/sadlk/decks/hillary-clinton/ ?
I think those are quite funny and interesting to develop but I don't know enough about the until dawn to help with that, but I'd love to see it made, themed decks are always fun, whether they are "real" decks or not.

Themed as in TrumpnTribal being walls, Mexican Tribal being human token wave tactics and using Thing in the Ice as the Wendigo, then yes. The idea is frost and murder, suspense, difficult decisions and horror

Speaking of trump! Someone in mexico has created a demonstration of sorts by building a taco-selling-wagon wall in front of one of trumps locations.

Got everything to minimum 70% except for jund.

I could paperstrip some answers for you?

Grizelbrand and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn are a straight NO. I don't know of any others...
As for starting, get one of the preconstructed decks and modify it from there. They usually have a good strategy or cards to help build one

And they often have reprints of old staples like sol ring. The preconstructed decks aren't that bad as they are, but a few tweaks and they become infinitely better. And there's also several legends that while they aren't banned, decks built around them tend to be the first targeted by the table. Take azami, lady of scrolls for example. You'll rarely see her as a commander due to her ability. It doesn't seem too bad, until you start looking at blue wizards. I've only ever seen her once myself. That player was the first to die.

Already answered in the other thread, but here it is again: Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder. Throw in Hardened Scales and you'll get infinite +1/+1 counters on Spike Feeder too.

Spike Feeder + Sunbond.

That works too.

Reminds me of a casual spike deck I made on here that uses hardened scales to buff them up

I'm still trudging around in the shadows lol. Ive been working on some themed EDH decks based around systems of government. First one is Sen Triplets as Democracy, then I have Nekusar the Mindrazer as Communism. Currently working on Queen Marchesa as Monarchy. If you can think of any other fun ruling systems that might make a fun EDH then let me know. I'll toss something together and see how you like it.

Democracy: http://www.mtgvault.com/drakeraenes/decks/sen-triplets-edh-v2/
Communism: http://www.mtgvault.com/drakeraenes/decks/nekusar-the-mindrazer-edh/

How about restarting it from scratch ?
It might be better to involve new recruits than trying to get the lost oldboys back in the fold :D

Post it as "deckhelp alliance 2" and see WHO turns up...

Where is the benefit? I basically start from scratch with Kazzong in this thread and the old fellas can join or unsubscribe. It's less work and has no disadvantage while in a new thread I might miss some old members that want to return.

Either way, I'm still in.

So am I, even though it may not come across as such, but you can still see me comment something on the front page from time to time or make yet another weird budget control deck for modern every now and then.

and of course along with the double post, it didn't keep my entire post... argh...

was hoping to get some help with this deck as well.
http://www.mtgvault.com/kazzong/decks/tainted-champion/

thanks :D

The benefit is a smaller chunk of data and less scrollingtime for those with older computers :D

indeed that is true.

Okay then, I'll start deleting obsolete posts so that Wicked men don't die of old age while scrolling this page on their Windows 95 machines.

much obliged. the load time is killer

Hm, I just realized deleting stuff actually lowers the post count and probably also the Upvotes, so ... maaaaybe I should really make a second "Deck", sigh.

oh crap.. that's not good.

New "Deck":
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/deckhelp-alliance-reloaded/

Please post there from now on.

I feel like it is kinda discarding the legacy that we've built but "meh" It's not like having one less thing to be nostalgic about in 5 years is that big of a deal

Well, I won't delete this deck so nothing is discarded and you can still read old posts.

That I have no doubts about, this post is here to satay till the servers burn, but I meant the old, or obsolete, posts, they are getting deleted, that is why I would be in favor of a new post, though the drawbacks of staying here are minimal, negligible.

I still lurk here and there, and use the site to post up/store decks I am working on, and recently I've been posting up some of my fiance's decks as well. Glad to see a bunch of you are still at the very least lurking

Good to see you too.