Maybe Im way off... but it seems to me that people commenting on a deck (regardless of whether those comments are positive, negative, advice, or otherwise) automatically adds likes to it. I've had decks that were sitting around for weeks with no likes, even ones which were still "works in progress" which were accidentally boosted up into upcoming just by using them to have short conversations with friends in the comments section.
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It's certainly playable in a casual atmosphere. My point is more that it cant handle any form of alternate strategy. A simple burn deck like http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=340973 is likely to just roll over you. It feels like even mill decks would beat you pretty regularly. And a lot of combo decks will just go off without you having any way to stop them.
The effectiveness of this is really going to vary by meta. If all your friends are playing big creature heavy casual stompy decks this is likely to do very well. The problem is that you dont really have any method of dealing with anything else. Hexproof / shroud / indestructible potentially all give you big problems. A lot of weenie or token based strategies are likely going to overrun you with little creatures faster than you can kill them. And most importantly, non-creature based decks wont even flinch. If your opponent doesnt rely on creatures, most of your deck just becomes dead weight.
The 4 of a kind rule is pretty much gospel in even the most casual play groups that I've ever seen. Its not just a tournament rule, its one of the core rules of magic deck creation, along with the 60 card minimum deck size. You are certainly free to make up your own casual game with your friends using magic cards, but nobody else will consider that to be Magic. Even after completely disregarding the game's rules this deck is still pretty weak. Honestly if this is killing all of your friends they probably have some very unfocused decks with lots of single cards. If that were me when I was first starting out I'd be pretty annoyed with you. I'd certainly expect you would at least make your friends aware of what is in the deck before playing it. All that aside, you are admitting to just outright blatantly cheating as well? Why do you even play the game if you are just going to switch out the cards? If anyone tried this on me I'd refuse to play with them ever again. Playing against yourself is going to end up pretty lonely. The sad thing is that you are basically breaking every rule in the game and still doing it so badly that most good decks could beat you easily.
"target opponent loses that much life" - Right there. The loop doesnt just contain a repetitive action that cannot be stopped. It is affecting the game state with each repetition. Your opponent losing the game seems to be a reasonable option for ceasing the combo. Triggers do not continue to go off after the game is over. Seriously, this combo has been blatantly obvious since the instant people first saw Exquisite Blood. Surely there would be some official source somewhere that could be referenced if this wasnt considered a legal play... Instead, every search that I do to find an answer on this one only finds judges saying that it works.
Rule 716.4 explicitly references 104.4b. The wording here is entirely open to interpretation unless there is a source for some official ruling on this. The loop doesnt "only contain mandatory actions" it also contains the opponent's life points dropping below 0. These rules were all created to prevent the game from stalling out due to an unbreakable loop that doesnt actually do anything. Situations like three O-rings repeatedly exiling each other forever if there are no other legal targets in play. There is no reason for them to be applicable to situations which will not cause a game to stall.
Can you provide any source for this? It doesnt even make sense. The loop doesnt stack on itself, its completely incremental. A trigger goes on the stack, active player gets priority, opponent gets priority, then the trigger resolves. This causes a second separate trigger to go on the now empty stack, and then each player gets priority again before that can resolve. A player can lose the game at any point between those triggers resolving. It doesnt matter if its a mandatory trigger, the trigger isnt going to somehow continue looping after your opponent loses the game because losing the game causes the game to end. These threads are all being responded to by rules advisors and judges: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29101759/Exquisite_Blood__Sanguine_Bond_=_Infinite_damage__Life_gain_loop?pg=1 http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29128133/Sanguine_Bond__Exquisite_Blood_--_Rule_Clarification?post_id=519874047#519874047 http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=414833 Here is a blog actually run by Magic tournament judges: http://blogs.magicjudges.org/rulestips/2012/05/exquisite-blood-sanguine-bond-end-the-game-once-your-opponent-loses-life-or-you-gain-any/ Who is saying this is illegal? If it is, apparently most judges dont know they are supposed to stop you from doing it. Rule 104.4b should not be coming into play here because the key phrase is "no way to stop". One of the players losing the game is a clearly definable "way to stop". *104.4b: If a game that's not using the limited range of influence option (including a two-player game) somehow enters a "loop" of mandatory actions, repeating a sequence of events with no way to stop, the game is a draw. Loops that contain an optional action don't result in a draw.
This is wrong. The combo only results in a draw if your opponent controls a Platinum Angel, Phyrexian Unlife, or some other effect that prevents them from losing the game. Losing the game from having 0 or less life is a state based effect. It is checked for every time a player gain priority, which will occur before each trigger resolves. The stack looks like: You make an opponent lose life Exquisite blood trigger goes on the stack trigger resolves, causing you to gain life Sanguine bond trigger goes on the stack trigger resolves causing opponent to lose life Exquisite blood trigger goes on the stack trigger resolves, causing you to gain life etc, etc There arent multiple triggers on the stack at once because the resolution of each trigger is what causes the next trigger to go off, not the placement of it on the stack. The loop wouldnt be infinite because at some point your opponent will drop under 0 life. Then they will lose the game as a state based action unless some other effect prevents that from occurring.
Here's something I put together based on your theme of stealing stuff from your opponent. http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=343238 Keeping it under $20 wasnt easy, there are a lot of great cards for this kind of a deck as higher price ranges. Basically I designed it around enchanting your opponent's creatures with enchantments that can really only benefit you and then stealing them.
The deck is kind of all over the place, though I do think the basic theme of it looks fun. Most importantly though, your mana curve is waaaay too high. Even most casual decks will be fast enough to kill you before you get to use most of your cards. If you'd like, I can go through each card in detail and explain the pros and cons of it, but in very simple terms, most of the cards in here arent very efficient. You need more lower mana cost cards and some way to speed up your mana generation and/or card draw. Despite everything I just said, I would like to introduce you to a different high mana cost effect that fits your theme: Telemin Performance. In addition to stealing the next creature from your opponent's deck, it immediately mills out any creatureless deck, causing you to win at the start of their next turn.
Piranha Marsh is the win condition.
The Warhammer is good but I dont think it gives as much utility as the other equipment, it just didnt make the cut. Umbra Mystic is an interesting one, it might fit in here, I just need to look over the cards again. Aurification just seems unnecessary. To be honest, even if the deck were to go in a more defensive direction I just dont think Aurification would be very good.
Way too much overcosted and redundant hate. Just run humility.
ok, I dropped Elbrus for Leonin Shikari because it was the only card not advancing the primary objective and it conflicted with two other cards. Im looking to see if anything else can be squeezed out for maybe 1 or 2 more lands.
The Helm is already in there somewhere. CoP's arent necessary here, you literally only care about quickly protecting Isamaru as much as possible. I actually considered the Dragon, but Im of the opinion that what a white EDH deck really needs is Land Tax and Weathered Wayfarer, and white has plenty of ways to tutor for Land Tax which makes it far more reliable. I think the best bet for fighting Condemn effects is using the instant speed protection spells to counter them. Once he gets put in the library, shuffling only lessens the extent to which you are screwed. Unfortunately the only tutor in here that can grab Isamaru is Planar Portal. It is worth noting that there are other potential win conditions, Kor Spiritdancer and Elbrus can both go for a kill if Isamaru does get shutdown somehow. They'd just be slower. And really any creature could be a beast if a late game Replenish loads it up with enough enchantments. I actually forgot all about Leonin Shikari, he's a pretty good fit here, I'll have to figure out what can be dropped to squeeze it in.
This design is either crazy or genius, I cant decide which. Probably crazy. I tried to keep the cost down but ended up going a little higher than I had planned to get it right. There are a few places you could cut corners to drop the price though. Its still the cheapest EDH deck I've designed lol. Basically Isamaru is the deck, the intended win condition is commander damage so anything else would be a waste. You can start out early game just trying to rush someone with Isamaru. The ideal endgame is an indestructible hexproof puppy with protection from basically everything, vigilance, and the ability to block any number of creatures. Plus if someone kills your academy rector you can just turn the dog into an eldrazi. The biggest weakness is vs other white decks. You can give him protection from white if it becomes necessary, but that stops you from using most of the enchantments on him. You could still get him through for a win with just equipment though. The worst possible scenario is having Isamaru put on the bottom of your library with something like Condemn as that would pretty much shut down the whole deck. He needs to get hexproof on him fast.
Yeah, I had to do something with my Iso-scepters, I cant just have all of them lying around. This just kind of came together when I started working out what all I could build with them.
lol, well they dont all belong on the front page, especially some of these untested ones.
I actually think that might slow this build down. The objective I had here was really to burst the landfall using sprouting vines and fastbond.
This is the pure definition of a "land" deck :P It kills you with an actual land instead of creating tokens to do the dirty work lol.
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