Tokens are fun and powerful in multiplayer, and I think you have a good start. Here's what I would change if it were my deck: Cut the following: *Angel's Mercy - Life gain is an inherently weak mechanic on it's own; it doesn't solve problems, but rather just puts off dealing with them. If you get some life as an added bonus off a different effect, that's great (think Faith's Fetters). But if you cast Angel's Mercy to ward off a creature attacking you, the creature is still going to be there, punching you in the face every following turn, while you're now down a card and in hand. I would play some form of removal instead. *Timely Reinforcements - You have a token deck, so I don't see your opponents having more creatures than you. As such, I don't think it's going to actually make soldiers for you. That leaves this as mostly just a life gain spell, which I already expressed my disdain for. *Doomed Traveler - Not a bad card in duels, but this is multiplayer; you want more powerful effects in order to kill your multiple opponents. You don't need to curve out like you do against a single opponent, dropping a dude every turn from the beginning of the game. In most multiplayer games, it's fine to just drop lands/ramp for the first few turns, then just start dropping bombs. I don't see a single 1/1 making an appreciable difference in a game. * Pollenbright Wings - This card has a few things working against it. One is that it's an aura, and aura's are begging to create card disadvantage for you--if your opponent kills the guy it's on, you lose your creature and the aura itself along with it. The other problem is it's mana cost. I'm not sure it does enough for six mana. You play a lot of small creatures, and because of that, the Wings are only going to be generating one or two tokens a turn. You want more for your mana. If you must use an aura, Verdant Embrace is much better. * Curse of Exhaustion - unless you play against a lot of combo decks, I just don't see this card being very relevant. Even then, there are better ways to fight combo. I would look to add the following cards/effects to the deck: *Removal is important! How would you deal with a card like Ensnaring Bridge, or Night of Soul's Betrayal? You often will have to interact with your opponents in order to keep them from wrecking your gameplan. Having a few flexible removal spells can save a lot of games you otherwise would have lost. Something like Faith's Fetters, Oblivion Ring, or Beast Within would be useful. Aura Shards can be downright evil in a token deck! *Some card draw would be great. You're in this game for the long haul, and you want to have enough resources to carry you throughout a protracted game. Card draw helps you hit late-game land drops, and helps you bounce back from Wrath of God-type effects. I'd run something like Skullclamp, Mentor of the Meek, Fecundity, Slate of Ancestry. *Run a few splashier and/or repeatable token-producing cards. As I said earlier, cards like Doomed Traveler just don't amount to much. One of my favorite token-makers is White Sun's Zenith--it's an instant, it makes 2/2's (the extra power adds up quick), it's really efficient, and it reshuffles itself to be used again. With three or four of these in your deck, it will give you an extremely potent late game. Increasing the count of Geist-Honored Monks and Rhys the Redeemeds would also be beneficial.
Permalink
You should have some good draw effects, no doubt. Here are just a few good cards for that in U/B: Fact or Fiction Mystic Remora Necropotence Phyrexian Arena Rhystic Study But don't discount tutors, either. You can search up a draw engine early on, or one of your lock pieces later, when you're ready to start assembling your combo. Because you want to see several specific cards that allow you to win, finding them directly more reliable than trying to draw into them. I think you should have a balance of both draw effects and tutors. Counterspells are a good idea to protect your lock pieces. Depending on the rest of the list you decide on, I'd probably run anywhere from 6-10 of them. The more recursion for and redundancy of your lock pieces, the fewer counters you'll need. Narrow and efficient counterspells are preferable in this context, as you'll want to be able to drop a lock piece with enough mana still up to fight removal and opposing counters. More versatile counters (Cryptic Command, Dissipate, Hinder, Spell Crumple, ect) are great cards, but their higher cost makes them harder to play in the same turn as your win conditions. A few would be fine as panic buttons, but you don't need the robust arsenal of a dedicated permission deck. Some ideas: Arcane Denial Counterspell Countersquall Muddle the Mixture <- Also transmutes for Stasis & Chronatog Negate Force of Will and Pact of Negation are also great for this purpose, but they're getting pretty expensive these days. In then end, all you really care about is that you find Stasis, and get it to stick on the board. Cheap tutors and counters are the best way to ensure that it happens.
I think black gives you a lot of options; I'm not entirely sure you'd need an additional color beyond it, even. In U/B, you have tutors to find your prison pieces: Beseech the Queen Demonic Tutor Diabolic Tutor Lim-Dul's Vault Vampiric Tutor Cards that exile eldrazi titans: Jester's Cap Leyline of the Void Praetor's Grasp Sadistic Sacrament And Stax elements: Braids, Cabal Minion Frozen Aether Glacial Chasm Lethal Vapors <- Chronatog #2 Nether Void Orb of Dreams Smokestack Tanglewire Also, be sure to run Magosi, the Waterveil for a third Chronatog effect!
I love Pox. One of the many virtues of the card is that it plays as well in multiplayer as it does in duels (if not even better in the latter). So I think you have a solid deck idea already. The one thing I would change about the deck is the splash of red. I just don't know if it's adding anything to the deck that black can't already do. It probably doesn't hurt consistency that much, due to your tuned manabase. But I don't think that it helps nearly enough to really matter. Black deals direct damage pretty well, and has the second-best draw power in the game (next to blue). The only new territory red opens to you is for copying spells. However, how often are you going to profitably double an Exsanguinate after saccing lands to Pox? I would simply drop the Reverberates to cut down closer to the optimal sixty-card deck size; I doubt you'll miss them at all. Fewer total cards in the deck will increase the chances of drawing multiples of any given card. And you won't ever topdeck a Reverberate with an empty hand (which is about the worst thing, ever). It seems you're sticking to the Vintage restricted list, from what I can tell. If you are, I'd strongly consider running a Necropotence--that card is broken in half! I'd then drop the other Browbeats for Phyrexian Arenas. Both cards are powerful, and have the added bonus that Pox doesn't interact with them (being enchantments, and all). The deck is a bit heavy on the spot removal. I would run the full count of Innocent Bloods, but running six single-target kill spells is redundant; Your seven poxes also kill creatures, after all. It would probably be safe to cut the Doom Blades. If you have Badlands, I would think that you can afford Bloodstained Mire. Fetchlands + Crucible of Worlds is a strong synergy for ensuring you make your land drops. It's not going to add a whole new dimension to the deck, but if you can run them, there is little reason not to.
Cool idea, and I hate to be the one to bring news, but... the combo doesn't work. Smallpox is a sorcery, and Isochron Scepter only imprints instants. Of course, Kiki-Jiki + Bell Ringer is still infinite hasty dudes--that should be enough to beat down your opponents.
I love this deck! It has layers of overlapping synergy, with powerful cards that hit everyone. I have only a few suggestions as to what I would change, if it were up to me. If you have two Sol Rings, you're not playing by any conventional banned/restricted list. Why not four Sol Rings, then? I assume it's the limits of your actual collection. But if you are able to run four, it's worth it. The deck could benefit from running more mana-producing artifacts of any kind. Whether it's Dimir Signet, Talisman of Dominance, Mistvein Borderpost, or something similar, having non-land mana sources is great to play around your own Orbs and Cauldrons. I'd want about six mana rocks total (including the Sol Rings) in a deck such as this. 22 lands sounds about right with such a configuration--remember that you have many high-cmc cards. I don't think Ludevic's lizard is the best win condition for such a deck; the lizard is relatively expensive to 'turn on', fragile as an 'egg', and interacts poorly with your own Pendrell Mists. Wheel of Torture seems like a much better choice--it's cheap, efficient, and hits all your opponents. It will be difficult for your opponents to worm their way out from under the wheel. I'd find room for a playset of them. Jwar Isle Spinx suffers from a similar lack of synergy. I think you can cut back on the number of Sunders you're running. It's expensive, not terribly useful in multiples, and redudant when you have your Orbs and Cauldrons down. I can see it helping come back from a very slow start, but not a card you'll always need to have a copy of in hand. You could probably get away with running a single copy; two at absolute most. You can probably also drop both Tidehollow Strix. The strix do nothing that Orb + Propaganda doesn't cover, and you're probably not worried about taking a few hits early on; you can recoup early life loss via Polluted Bonds. Cutting down to on the total number of cards is also going to increase your chances of seeing your better defensive cards. How useful is Arcane Lab? If you have a lot of mana denial, your opponents probably aren't casting a whole lot of spells each turn. At that point, the card loses its purpose. I think it's another card for the chopping block. Rhystic Study seems amazing in this deck (it's amazing in most mulitplayer decks, but this one even more so). Drawing extra cards is always good. I don't think I need to explain any further =) In summary, I'd change the following: -1 Jwar Isle Sphinx -1 Mana Web -2 Tidehollow Strix -2 Ludevic's Test Subject -3 Sunder -3 Arcane Lab +4 Dimir Signet/Talisman of Dominance +4 Wheel of Torture +4 Rhystic Study That's what I would do, at least. Hopefully, you'll find my two cents helpful.
I think this deck has potential, but it's a bit lacking in focus. You have the combo which ends games instantly once put together, and it makes the expensive dragons and devils you're running unnecessary. If you focus more on the combo, you'll probably win more games. I'm going to assume you're keeping this Standard legal. If you want to include older cards, I can offer even better suggestions as to what could work for the deck. I'd drop the Geosurge, Infernal Plunge, and all the cmc 6 creatures. You're base combo--Crank + Ascension--is dirt cheap, and it doesn't need big beatsticks to enable it. If you toss out the creatures, you no longer need to use up space for the rituals. I'd run 24 lands to keep away from the occasional mana screw, but that's all the mana sources this deck should need. I'd also remove the Alpha Brawls for additional Blasphemous Acts--BA will usually cost less than AB, kills more creatures, and won't have much impact on your own board; Your creatures come back from the grave, anyway. In place of what you've taken out, I'd add in four Exsanguinates and four Diabolic Tutors (Increasing Ambition could also work, though I like it less for it's higher cmc). Exsanguinate is an amazing mulitplayer card--it helps out the Bloodchief Ascension, buys you some time with extra life points, and can be a win condition in the late game. Diabolic Tutor is, well, a tutor. You want to see your combo ASAP, and DT is the cheapest way to search for either combo piece in Standard (that I can think of). I'd probably cut the Devil's Plays in favor of something less mana-intensive, too. Expensive single-target burn is usually pretty bad in multiplayer games. Slagstorm seems perfect for this deck, as it can either trigger your Ascension, or deal with an early aggro rush, as needed.
The deck is a fairly typical board control deck -- it uses cards such as Crypt Rats, Innocent Blood, Abyssal Gatekeeper, and Pestilence to keep from being overrun by the opponents' creatures. Playing a single Rat / Gatekeeper / Pestilence usually encourages opponents to attack someone other than me, as if I am the target, I can threaten to kill whatever comes my way. My opponents will attack each other, depleting each others' cards and life totals, while I have to invest very little resources of my own; It's all politics. These removal spells are certainly capable of wiping the entire board of creatures, but it's even better when they can stick around and encourage others to do my work for me. I should also mention that Innocent Blood and Abyssal Gatekeeper are not used for sacrificing my own creatures. As you pointed out, the deck has very few creatures, which breaks the symmetry of the removal spells I play; If I'm the only player without a creature when Innocent Blood is cast (which is almost always the case) I'm the only player who loses nothing to the card. Occasionally, I will want to sac and Abyssal Gatekeeper to my own Innocent Blood, but even then it's forcing my opponents to lose more permanents than myself. While my creature destruction is stalling the game, the rest of the deck is focused on building up mana to a point where Exsanguinate, Crypt Rats, and Pestilence can knock players' life totals down to nothing. Any of the aforementioned cards can easily do at least five damage each--a generous fourth of a player's starting life total. Pestilence often sticks around for a few turns, too. This deck has no difficulty killing multiple opponents simultaneously.
Looks like fun! The first thing I'd look at is running a slight difference in the ratio of Plains to Forests that you're running -- Green has all your mana ramp, so you want to see them earlier and more often. Having Forests means you can probably get access to your Plains. It might also be worthwhile to add a few Vivid Meadows to the deck, as entering the battlefield tapped won't hurt too much in a slower multiplayer game, and having early access to some of your off-color spells could be beneficial. The other thing to consider would be making your deck more able to find an Enduring Ideal. Have you considered running Wall of Blossoms / Omens? Either card would dig you a little deeper, while also synergizing with your Overgrown Battlement. You can also help find your Ideals by trimming down your deck's size. I would cut the Painful Quandries and Worships -- the Quandry really isn't a legitimate win condition, as by the time you cast your Ideal and then fetch it out, your opponents will have had plenty of time to build up a strong board position; they won't need to cast many spells at that point. Worship is great when you have a tough-to-kill creature on the board, but this deck is running no such cards. You have pretty strong defensive measures with FotD and Dovescape + NoSB, and I think that will be enough. Trimming these cards will help you hit the select few that you always want to see. How about running Mystic Decree or Humility? Either one would keep all creatures from attacking you in conjunction with FotD. Also, Humility + Dovescape is an extremely difficult lock to break for most decks (no more killing your Dovescape with Acidic Slime, et al!).
Thanks for the praise. I really love deckbuilding, and I've been playing for a long time (though you've been in the game since at least Tempest, so maybe not much longer than you). I speak from my experience, but it's only my experience -- hopefully, it will work out for you as well. But if I'm wrong about something (it happens), I still like to discuss why things didn't work for others. Talking about deckbuilding is the next best thing to actually sleeving up the cards.
Ha, I remember facing down my friend's modified version of that precon with my own tweaked "Flames of Rath" deck! The funny thing is that that same friend went on to build a Mists deck of his own; I guess it's a card that has universal appeal to the control players out there. You're kind to only play the deck once in a while. I've had to learn the hard way how to play around the strategy :(
I was going to suggest Lightning Greaves to protect your creatures, but it seems you already arrived at that idea! The other rout you might go is to use one of black's strengths: creature recursion. Cards like Phyrexian Reclamation, Haunted Crossroads, Grim Harvest, and Volrath's Stronghold are great re-usable methods to fight removal, and work even better when the creatures are cheap to re-cast. You may be right that cards like Rackling will take a bit of time to come online. I was envisioning them along with some of the mass discard I mentioned. Still, even without all that, having a few to clench the late game might not be a bad thing. They are fairly cheap to cast, but I see them more as finishers once you've whittled everyone's hand size down to nothing. That they hit every opponent on their turn, and go directly to the dome, are the reasons why I'm so fond of Rackling and Wheel of Torture in multiplayer. It's up to you what you think is best for the deck, but I think finding space for a few is worth trying out.
Sure thing; I love discussing deck construction. Fellwar Stone is a solid card, so that could find a home in your deck at some point. But I just realized your deck is five cards larger than it needs to be. Since that's the case, I'd simply drop the Iron Myr and get closer to the minimum size limit; you'd be cutting a few mana-producing creatures, but decreasing the deck size is going to improve the land-to-spell ratio. Creatures and artifacts will both only last so long with your deck, so making consistent land drops will be the most important factor in powering out your more expensive spells. I think Cerebral Eruption can also be trimmed. It only targets one opponent, and it's fairly unreliable too. Between Starstorm, Pyroclasm, and Chain Reaction, you already have this role covered. If you do get ahold of some Glacial Chasms, I would not cut mana-producing lands for them. The Chasm needs to be treated as a 'spell' card because it cannot make any mana itself.
I like where this deck is going! I think this deck could really use Forbidden Orchard and Glacial Chasm. The Orchard is great for added redundancy with Varchild's War-Riders, as Red is really lacking in the tutor department. The Chasm is great for saving you from your own War-Riders with Repercussion out. Or most things your opponents throw at you. Chasm is a greatly underappreciated card, and it can buy you several turns for little cost. I would drop Iron Myr for a non-creature mana artifact. The Myr, whether or not it's under the penalty of Repercussion, will just die to some mass removal spell. Darksteel Ingot might work for you, as it survives Shatterstorm and Nevinyrral's Disk. If you start running Orchards and / or Chasms, Expedition Map could be another solid replacement option.
The idea behind the deck is hilarious! However, I think there are a few details to be tweaked that could make it run smoother. I think the Living Death / Buried Alive setup is unnecessary for your present build. If you really wanted to use that combo, and keep your hand-size reduction theme, you may as well just reanimate Jin-Gitaxias. But that's taking things in a completely different direction. You don't need to reanimate Gnat Miser to make him work, as four mana isn't that much in the slower format of multiplayer (you should probably run a few more lands to hit your fourth drop, though). You could make good use of Rackling and Wheel of Torture in this deck. Global damage effects are at a premium in multiplayer, where they drastically speed up your victory. I'd strongly recommend a playset of at least one of these cards. I honestly think that Dash Hopes, Duress, and Dark Ritual can all safely be cut from your deck. Here are my reasons: Dash Hopes never does what it is supposed to do, as the opponent will always choose the less hindering option available to them.You can only rely on Dash Hopes giving you the worse of two potential outcomes. A good Magic deck is more than an amalgam of beneficial effects; a good deck defines the terms the game will be played upon, and then seeks to enforce them. You can't be proactively enforcing your gameplan with any of the "punisher" mechanic cards. Besides all that, Counterspells are relatively weak in multiplayer to begin with. Duress is also weak in multiplayer. Trading one-for-one, like you would in a duel, isn't as effective when there are several other opponents to deal with; it is impossible to control a multiplayer game trading card-for-card like that. You want mass discard to get the desired effect here -- Liliana's Specter, Words of Waste, and Syphon Mind are some great candidates for this. Dark Ritual is also less useful in multiplayer. If you are expending a lot of resources to speed up your game, you need to make sure that whatever you're powering out has the ability to kill all your opponents. Otherwise, you may take out a single player, and perhaps damage another, but you'll run out of resources before someone finds a way to deal with your Nyxathid. Most creatures don't scale well to the number of damage they have to deal (Rackling is one exception to this), so it becomes less meaningful to get them out a turn earlier. A 5/5 needs four attacks to take down one opponent, but with three opponents, that's twelve swings -- when you get down to the second or third opponent, the small head start Dark Ritual provided is meaningless, and you'll wish you had that card in your hand back. Unless you're playing combo, speed is less important than card advantage in multiplayer. I would replace the Dark Rituals for lands, as you'll be able to re-use lands for the long game.
I like the premise of this deck. However, there are some cards that I'd change to make it even more effective. Death Watch seems weak when compared to other cards black has at it's disposal. I'd drop it for Exsanguinate, and never look back. Exsanguinate serves the same role, but is better in almost every way; it's one of the most ridiculous multiplayer cards printed to date. Speaking of ridiculous multiplayer cards, Pestilence is very powerful, too. I would run the full count, as it is very useful, and it tends not to last a long time. I doubt you'll run into redundant copies of the card ever. I can't see what purpose Mesmeric Fiend serves. Single-target discard is pretty weak in multiplayer, and the Fiend seems it will die to most anything and hand back the card it stole. I would take it and Phyrexian Rager, and replace them with Syphon Mind. That way, you are consolidating your discard and card draw into one convenient package. You need some solid card draw to replace the cards you burn by Ritualing out big spells, and Syphon Mind does this much better than Phyrexian Rager.
Mists of Stagnation is a nasty, evil card. You will win some games with this deck, but your friends may grow to hate you for it. That said, here are a few things to consider. Run more Mists of Stagnation! The card is the focal point of your deck, so you want to see it in a timely manner. Besides that, Mists is an enormous removal magnet; you can bet it will be the first card on the board to get Disenchanted. You may not need all four, but I'd at least run one more than your presently have. Run more Webs of Inertia. This is multiplayer, and you want to focus more on global effects. I'd swap the numbers of Web of Inertia and Lost in Thought. The Web will protect you against a greater number of creatures, and yet will still allow those creatures to swing at your opponents -- let the opponents do as much of your work for you as they are willing! The Web can't handle activated abilities, but it is still a much more powerful card than single-target removal in this format. You should run the entire playset that you're allowed. Run more cards that fill your graveyard. Your deck is largely comprised of permanent cards, which is rather non-synergistic with your Mists. I see Sage of Epityr and Sage Owl, and think you'd be better off with Brainstorm, Ponder, and / or Preordain. You have Webs of Inertia to protect you, so you don't need the weenies for chump blocking. Also, you could easily swap out some Islands for fetchlands -- Onslaught / Zendikar or Terramorphic Expanse / Evolving Wilds -- depending on what your budget is. You may also want to add a few Bojuka Bogs as 'free' graveyard hate. You can afford to run several colorless-producing lands in your mono-colored deck. If your group would allow it, Mana Vault is great with Mists of Stagnation. You can simply choose to untap the Vault with the Mists, and you completely circumvent the artifact's drawback. If you play with the Vintage restricted list, it should prove useful without being consistently broken. Finally, 21 lands is fairly low. Playing 24 in a 60-card deck is pretty standard, especially when you're trying to drop several four- and five-mana cards. Find room for three more lands, as it is much better to run into mana flood than mana screw.
Pestilence is such a great card in multiplayer; you can always assume someone building a deck based around it is heading for some success. The list you have is a good start, but in general, I'd drop some of the one-shot effects for more permanent options. Disentomb, Raise Dead, and Ghoulcaller's Chant can all be replaced with a few copies of Phyrexian Reclamation. The Reclamation will serve you for the entire game, yet won't take up nearly as much space in your deck. Death Cultist has a negligible effect in multiplayer -- even if you reuse it several times, you won't do a significant amount of damage with it (or gain a lot of life) relative to the total amount of life several opponents possess. I'd highly recommend playing Exsanguinate instead, for a much greater potential impact on the game. This is a Pestilence deck, so Pestilence should be included in full count. It's your primary win condition, and it's prone to dying, so you'll never be swamped with redundant copies for long. I also suggest running the full count of Stuffy Dolls. The Doll will chump block for you all day, and keeps your Pestilences from dying. It seems to be an important piece of the deck.
I am usually bored by vampire decks, but this is a really novel approach to the theme; I like this deck. Plus, it has Exsanguinate -- anything with that card has a good starting point for being viable in multiplayer. I think the one card this deck really wants is Bloodchief Ascension. Themeatically, it's perfect. I would swap it in for Circle of Affliction, as there's a bit of mechanical overlap, but BA is generally a better card. Opponent's cards hit the graveyard a lot in multiplayer, so you should get a lot more benefit from BA. How about dropping Ashes to Ashes for Barter in Blood? BiB just simply scales better in a multiplayer environment, and has synergy with the Bloodchief Ascension I suggested. The fact that you can save yourself five life with each casting is not insignificant, either. In addition to all that, it has the word blood in the title, so it can be considered to pertain to vampires. I would strongly advocate running more permanent-based mana sources. It's ok if you're killing multiple opponents with Exsanguinate, but you really don't want to burn several cards to ramp into a Sorin's Vengeance that only kills one opponent -- you'll run out of resources to finish off the others that way. You could use disposable mana sources to burn out the opposition with Bond of Agony (of course, that's getting off theme) in addition to Exsanguinate, but I would not use those sources for single-target finishers. With only 20 lands, it will be hard to get up to the five you'll need for Sanguine Bond -- You may not have the mana sources afterward to cast spells which trigger the Bond at that point. I think adding a few more lands, along with some artifacts, would be much more beneficial for longer multiplayer games. Another card I highly reccomend is Glacial Chasm. This card is seriously underrated by most players out there, but it's absurdly powerful. Since it's a land, many decks simply aren't equipped to handle it. If the opponents' deck can win only though damage, they have to answer it before they can do so. It will buy you plenty of time as you build your board position, and your life gain should allow you to pay the upkeep for a long time.
I always liked Toshiro, though he really is a hard general to work with for this format; being constrained to mono-black hurts him. I applaud your effort to take a shot at building around him. I'm sure the deck is fun to play. Here are some instants I'd consider adding: Ad Nauseam Betrayal of Flesh Chill to the Bone Corpse Dance Entomb (if you have the cash) Makeshift Mannequin!!! Moonlight Bargain Ravenous Trap Sudden Spoiling Treacherous Urge Vampiric Tutor (once again, if you have the cash)
1-20 of 57 items