There are two problems that I encounter with the land base -- 1) I need to keep lands that add a versatile combination of mana so that I minimize the number of lands required in my SB to "transform" the deck; and 2) I want to keep the cost of the deck low because that is one of my favorite qualities of your original design. It is absurdly effective for having such a low budget. It's amazing when you can regularly beat a nearly $1k deck with a $70 one :P City of Brass was a consideration; however, most games I win are with 2-4 life left (which is why the deck is so fun). City of Brass will cost me ~5 life over the course of a game. The best option I think is the modern zoo land base with pain fetches and shock lands, but you're talking about $10 per fetch and $20-40 per shock land.
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http://cockatrice.de/ It's a program like MWS and Apprentice, that allows you to play MtG games online. I haven't used MWS yet, I understand it's a complicated process unpacking card images, and understand Apprentice has not been updated since WotC bought it. Btw, check out Stronghold on Red, now known as Stronghold Transformation. I dropped red (logged the cards in the description) and added green & blue.
My original plan was just to turn Doubling Season into a creature and make copies with Followed Footsteps, but then I thought.. the goal is to make big numbers happen, all at once. So I went with Precursos / Rites of Replication instead. Btw, this deck costs about as much as the United State's GNP squared if you own a physical Golem token for each token produced (assuming $0.10 per token). Just a little food for thought :P
I have been testing a U/G transformer shell on top of the W/B Stronghold shell. I like it, a /lot/ more than the current red version. They are essentially the same deck, just with more control vs more fog. I just really dislike the land base as opposed to the G/R transformer shell. Thoughts?
I know Doom Blades, et al., would kill every token. This deck is only playable within a vacuum, and even then only because I wanted to type out absurdly large numbers, the likes of which saproling decks have never seen. I would put in Parallel Lives, but honestly.. I'd have to rewrite the entire deck description over to accommodate 2^40 tokens rather than 2^36. Don't make me do more maths :( Also, I find it funny that this of all my decks would make it to front page XD
Well... unless you're playing against a comatose opponent... the odds are about 1in 94,447,329,658,217,537,994,754, which incidentally is how many golems you'll have it it works.
I just changed this and ran it on Cockatrice. It's was the funniest game I've played with this archetype. Turn 1: Plains Turn 2: Glacial Fortress, Suture Priest Turn 3: Isolated Chapel, Suture Priest, Sleeper Agent Turn 4: Suture Priest, Sleeper Agent, Darkness Turn 5: Forbidden Orchard, Hunted Phantasm. GG. The SB tech here counters specific decks I've had problems against. Stony Silence and Trickbind counter affinity (Cranial Plating, Arcbound Ravager, and Signal Pest's trigger), Proteus decks that use Proteus Staff to put Sleeper Agent or a Spirit token onto the bottom of my library, and allow them to cheat out Emrakul, and landfall Maelstrom Archangel decks that cast Emrakul from hand without paying his casting cost. So far I think this is the most promising design, however I'm not giving up on the transformer SB idea, though I'm almost 100% certain it's going to be green turbo fog (main) and blue control (transform) now. Red just isn't consistent enough to cut it.
Scratch that! I'm a frickin' genius ^-^ I dropped red for green and redesigned the land base so there would be no need to run any lands in the SB. Now I have more room in the SB for other cards :D
I was actually thinking the exact same thing -- some way to put more fogs in the SB, but maintaining the "transformer" SB. I'd almost /have/ to run one of my colors as green then in order to keep enough relevance within the 15 card limit to actually replace one color entirely. Plus, Hunted Troll is just as good as Phantasm with regards to dishing out 1/1's. I rather enjoy the unblockable on Phantasm, but an 8/4 with regenerate is just as mean. My only problem with it (and why I haven't built Stronghold on Green) is that Troll's power guarantees the opponent will keep creatures open to chump block, and I want them to attack. At least with a single mana regenerate they won't likely commit all 4 creatures to block it, but still.. is somehow seems to contradict itself.
Well, if you check "Stronghold on Red" you'll see that this deck (which I was ready to abandon) has just become very relevant :) My consideration for Nettling Curse was that it'd be in addition to the Bonds, and would allow me to (with the help of Forbidden Orchard) force an attack if circumstance allowed it. That's okay though, I've already abandoned the idea in favor of running Countersquall. More life loss and it helps me to counter the control threats that cause problems for me.
Aaaactually.. I really like this idea. I will have to contemplate this further.. so long as my main deck is the stronger of the two, and the "transformer" side-board compliments the main deck's weaknesses, the idea is completely plausible. Will have to see if I can pull that off :)
Hah! That's freakin' awesome. Speaking of which, there's another change I was thinking about making -- throughout many games it's seemed like I could have used one or two more Holy Day / Darkness in the deck. A lot of the games I lost were either because I was completely snuffed out by control, or because I couldn't mitigate my opponent's tempo. Btw, what do you think of that side board? I don't think it's going to stay, but it's still a pretty neat idea :P Oh, you switched around some SB tech? Surprise! It's a new deck! :D
I can agree there, I've played aggressively against control, trying to give them too many spirits at once which makes it too easy for them to remove my answers to them and win. Control likes to play a slow game, if they don't start the clock ticking fast I should just sit back and wait until I have 2-3 answers built up instead of relying on just one or two cards. Also, having played a few matches with this deck, I've found War's Toll to be incredibly useful. Using that and Contaminated Bond et al as the primary win condition over Stronghold.. what do you think about -1 Stronghold +1 Toll? Or do you think something else should go to make room for Toll?
I haven't tested the new version yet, I went back to your original Stronghold build for a few matches to compare its performance to mine. The differences really do change how the deck plays -- a lot. I am predicting, though, that War's Toll will fix a lot of the problems I've faced against control. The other problem, which I didn't mention before, is also how people pilot control as opposed to aggro. Aggro will want to swing all in, maybe leave just one spirit open to block; whereas, control doesn't mind sitting on a bunch of creatures and letting just enough swing through to speed their clock up just a tick faster than mine. Between Hissing Miasma, Contaminated Bond & Lust for War, and Batwing Brume, Toll adds an entirely new win condition over Stronghold Discipline. So much that, I think it could even replace it in the deck o.o
It is very counter productive. Every game I've won with this deck and its counterparts has been with 5 or less life. If I'm sending creatures to my opponent's battlefield, they won't even have to do anything except swing them back my way and let me damage myself by tapping my lands. It would create the same kind of circumstance I talked about above, with control decks.
That is one of the only problems I've had, I typically do not run fewer than 22 lands but cannot find room for them in here. By the time I'm ready to cast something CMC 4, though, I usually do have enough lands. I did not mean that the problem control poses is that they do not run creatures for me to use against them, its that since they do not run so many creatures they have more card advantage, counter spells, and spot removal in their decks -- enough that they easily mitigate the cards I'd use to turn the creatures against them. Therefore they're not only maintaining card advantage, but also battlefield advantage. And I hope you're just joking back ;) But the frowny face makes me think otherwise. Sorry if I offended..
Also: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=et+al Not to be a dick, I just love that site and relish every chance I get to post it ^-^
I also think that a pair of Nettling Curses would fit well in this deck as well. Forbidden Orchard can pay the activation cost to force an attack if I have nothing else to do, and they'd provide an additional two enchantments for me to copy, which I think may be just enough to give Copy Enchantment the umph it needs.
For card advantage I'd run Betrayal. Even if I don't get a Bond or Pillory on Sleeper Agent, losing 3 life and drawing a card while the opponent loses 2 life seems highly relevant. Only problem is that Betrayal isn't modern legal, and I'm trying to build these decks for modern. Aside from that, I'd much rather run baby Jace instead of Howling Mine. I do love Howling Mine, but I'd rather have the option to avoid giving my opponent CA if they're gaining the edge in a match. Plus, he gives proxy life for opponents to swing at if they don't like what you're doing.
Something occurred to me, and I'm going to try something slightly different. I agree that Hunted Dragon is a bit too risky -- 2/2's can out pace Hissing Miasma, even though the dragon himself presents an entirely new threat. Hunted Lammasu fits with a straight W/B design, but the 4/4 it creates requires you to cast Mercy Killing or Pillory to make it manageable. Hunted Horror, while my favorite Hunted creature, provides creatures with protection from black -- which makes Pillory and Contaminated bond worthless. The only two viable hunted creatures are Phantasm and Troll. With that being said, I'm dropping the Dragon from the deck, and changing the strategy a bit. This deck seems to suffer from control builds which lack a creature presence. They have an abundance of answers and all this deck does is give them battlefield advantage as well. Ergo, War's Toll. Forcing them to tap all of their lands when they want to cast something will disrupt their control, and Lust for War will force them to swing all in. I'm going to toy around with the numbers a bit more, I'm thinking a pair of Nettling Curses will fit nicely as well. War's Toll seems to justify the cost to activate it. But for the meantime this is what I'm testing.
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