vYzion

Total War? Goes well with Hissing Miasma. May as well punish them for not attacking also.

Lots of stuff happening here...And you'll never know what's gonna happen with each game.

Yeah...I'm not sure how "burn" deck this has. My thinking is:

You can't cast your pyroclasm or slagstorm until around turn 3 (best case scenario), or your creatures will die (you must cast creature, cast equip and then equip).

Unless you get a superb draw hand, (3 memnites or 3 shields) then you can't reap the full benefits of Galvanic Blast early on.

Arc Trail is nice...but nicer if they have a couple of monsters out and nicer still if you can follow it up with an attack directly afterwards...so once again around turn 3 before you get the full benefits.

Which leaves you with 4 burn spells available in the first 3 turns...but you actually have to draw them. And it'd probably be wisest to actually save them, however, in case an early creature drop occurs...

So, I think it will be turn 3'ish before you can start the burning process...

Of course, my math may be wrong.

I know it's kind of pricey...but why not Traumatize? Surely being able to put half their deck into the graveyard deserves at least a Sideboard mention.

And Memory Erosion...Defintiely seems like it deserves a sideboard shout as well.

As for defense, I don't know.
--Memory Plunder could be convenient (against certain decks), but costs 4 mana.
--Misinformation (though it's uses an anti-mill strategy) could buy you some time and it's only 1 mana. (Just put the most harmless cards you can find on the top of their deck.)
--Ashen Powder steals one of their dead creatures (w/out the activation cost of Geth...and w/out the
milling)

Just some thoughts. But I defintiely like the idea :)

I think your deck should be called "Gambler's Anonymous." I like it...

(I know this is against the theme, but some proliferate would go nice with that Goblin Bomb.)

I'm not really a fan of Sphere of the Suns in general (I think it's use is too specialized). But, especially in this deck I think it's out of place. You only have 10 colored spells AND you have Mox Opal (which is more or less an unlimited Sphere for 0 mana). I guess I just find it redundant, at best.

I think the Sylvok Lifestaff is sort of pointless as well. I mea your deck revolves around wiping oou creatures on teh board (except your own). So, if actually got decent use out of the Lifestaff, that means your deck plan isn't working out very well. If it was the +1/+0 you were after....well there are tons of better equipments, like Sword of Vengeance (Equipped creature gets +2/+0 and has first strike, vigilance, trample and haste) which would be a nice follow up to any creatures that survive you slagstorm or whatever. (Loxodon Warhammer would be nice (you even get to keep the life gain)...if only it were a T2 card...). In any case, I'm sure there are better equipment cards than Lifestaff for your deck.

But, I really like the idea that you're working with, so I'll give it the thumbs up :)

Please comment on some of my decks if you'd be so kind :)

I'm not exaclty sure what the "theme" of this deck is. What is it you want to do? RIght now it just looks like a whole bunch of elf cards thrown together. Granted, the cards have useful effects, but they dont really work together all that well.

I'm sorry, I just can't offer much advice till I know what you want to do. You should pick an objective (what you want your deck to accomplish) and then find cards that help accomplish it. You have lots of "create token" cards...do you want to overun your opponents with lots of little creatures? You have lots of mana ability cards, do you want to mana ramp for that big creature drop (though you have no big creatures). Maybe you want to use all that mana to cast Genesis wave and put lots of creatures from your deck into play for free (which once again you should have a big creature in there since it will take a pretty big X to make this work...so you may as well get the big drop also).

This is just to uncoordinated and unfocused for me to do much with.

Sorry...

I like the idea...lots of damage...very quick, very cheap.

I just don't think you can win before turn 3 or 4 (since you can only put one land out per turn and each card only deals 2 or 3 damage). I'd be worried mana ramp decks that drop huge creaures on turn 2 or turn 3. A couple of counters to your burn spells, and some creature drops would be devastating to you, I think. Even if you can deal with the first big creature, I think your card supply will be depeted by it (and you only get to draw one card next turn) and I'm not sure how you deal with the second...or third.

I think your deck has two bottlenecks: The first is playing the lands (only one per turn...a handful of 1 mana burns dont do all that much with only 2 or 3 lands in play) and second is maintaing a healthy card supply (cheap mana means less damage per card (except of course lightning bolt)) to do damage where it's needed. Maybe think about putting in some more Fireball's, or maybe Red Sun's Zenith, to deal with big threats when they appear.

I'll give it the "like" because I'm digging the idea, but I think the execution needs some tweaking. You need a way to keep a healthy hand size.

If you'd be so kind, please comment on my own burn deck :)

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=151968

I don't know about the Galvanic Blast. You only have 4 artifacts in totals which means that only rarely will you reap the extra damage.

Maybe replace the Galvanic Blast with Forked Bolt (Sorcery: 2 damage distributed as you see fit) and then take out the memnites and maybe add Red Sun's Zenith and/or some other instant of choice.

I like the creature choices.

I like the sidedeck (esp. Burn the impure...in fact, I've decided to add it to my own Burn deck's sidedeck). I'm not so sure about Tectonic edge, however. It just seem out of place in this deck. Maybe add some other threat specific burn cards instead (I have three suggestions in my own burn deck).

My own burn deck: http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=151968

How about Kalastria Highborn? I think all vampire only decks should have a couple in them.

If you cared (which I think you don't as you said this is for casual) you could probably replace Mind Twist with Mind Sludge and get pretty much the same effect. It's kind of pricey, but I think it's somewhat of a waste to use Mind Twist if they have fewer than 4 or 5 cards anyway, especially since you have so many other single discards in the deck.

Maybe just sideboard it for a Blue draw-heavy deck or something.

Actually, I think the Tempting Wurm card is poorly worded. It says "each opponent" which can be plausibly be interpreted differently from "each of YOUR opponents" or "each OTHER opponent" or "each other player." I mean, I would make the argument that I am AN opponent...just not my own (unless I'm playing a suicide black deck).

Anyway, from a lingusitic standpoint, "each opponent" does not exclude you...My opponent(s) must also have an opponent by default, I should think. So if I'm not my opponent's opponent (in a 2-palyer game), then who is?

But I'm sure no one here cares about any of this...

Very "nice" deck...compared to your usual work.

And how do you deal with e.g., Naturalize? Lots of green decks have it...
Blue decks have umpteen ways to deal with artifacts and enchants as well.
Certain red decks will devour your artifacts and lands both and deal you and/or your creatures direct damage in the process (i.e., you won't even have the chance to infect their creatures (if they even use creatures)). And you no way to stop any of it.

You seem to think that attacking with creatures is the only thing your opponents can do.

If you're just going to play your friends, then sure, tailor a deck to meet your needs there. But you did mention that this was tournament legal, which leads me (and others, I'm sure) to believe that you may want to play in tournaments with it. In tournaments, this is not going to work more than it is going to work..

Even without being an aggro deck, green decks are amazingly fast. They could pretty easily drop a that big creature on turn 3 (or sooner...long before you can play that enchant) and then Naturalize your attempt at enchanting it (once you're finally able to play it) or your contagion artifacts ...and you have nothing to stop the Naturalize. Good blue decks aren't even gonna let you cast any of your money-maker spells to begin with (and you have no way to stop them) and NO deck is going sit back while you pump out "lots of 9/9 Titans." It takes 3 turns per Titan, unless you can untap artifacts...which you have no way of doing.

For things like Titan forge to work, you have to build a deck around it, specifically for the purpose of pumping out Titan after Titan. You can't just throw these things in there on a whim and expect results.

If you don't like to play aggressive, then black is really not your color. Black is balls to the wall I'll kill myself before I let you beat me!! If you wanna sit back and chill while your opponent flounders around, you should look into white, if you want to control the pace of the game, then blue, but black is most likely not going to be able to deliver the type of game play you want.

Touche.

:)

P.S. Put in some Lotus Cobras and you also get rid of all those mana ramp cards (Dark Ritual). I mean 3 black mana for 1 black mana is nice....but pretty pale compared to infinite mana of ANY COLOR whenever you want.

I don't understand how this works...Or rather I don't know why you need Strip Mine.

If you sacrifice Strip Mine, it activates the Strip Mine ability which lets you destroy (not sacrifice) a target land. But I don't think you can use the Strip Mine sacrifice "twice," so to speak (Once for Strip Mine and once for Zuran Orb). So how are you activating the Zuran Orb??

What you'd have to do is just Sacrifice any land to Zuran Orb (+2 life), play it from your graveyard (-1 life) and then sacrifice it again. Rinse and repeat.

So yeah...the Strip Mine is unnecessary. You can play any land infinite times.

And all those "destroy land" cards are pretty useless from the viewpoint of the combo. Destroying and sacrificing are not the same thing and you still can't make them do double duty if it were. Maybe you should consider tossing some Landfall creatures ability as you do this (there's a really good suggestion for one that goes along with your "infinite life" theme in my own deck that I'll link).

So, check out my own "infinite deck". You could add a Zuran Orb to it if you wanted and then just sacrifice as many lands as you want without even bother to lose a life each time by brining it back.

http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=149743

P.S.

You might want to look at:
Fuel for the Cause: 2U+{2}; Counter target spell then proliferate.
Core Prowler: {4}; 2/2, infect, When Core Prowler is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, proliferate.

...and yes, I don't see the point of Grafted Exoskeleton with this deck as it is. Now, If you were to add some creature with a useful affect that doesn't already have infect, then I think it'd be pretty useful. Examples might be Black Knight (2/2 First Strike; 2B) or maybe Zulaport Enforcer (1/1; 1B and at level 3 it's 5/5 and can't be blocked except by black creatures).

Maybe Accorder's Shield...but it's not aggressive enough for my tastes (although the vigilance could be useful). I would prefer something that contributes more directly to the goal of an infect deck, which is poison counters.

Infect basically gives you twice as much life as your opponent. If you're going to play black, you should really get use to the idea of losing life yourself. Having twice as much life should make that pill easier to swallow. Not having vigilance probably wouldn't make me consider holding back a creature for defense. I would just take the damage from my opponent's attack feeling warm and fuzzy inside knowing that now he has one less blocker when it's my turn to attack.

I hope this doesn't sound overly critical or condescending...but this is just how I see things. I'm somewhat of a noob MTG player myself so some more experienced players might tell you to forget everything I'm about to say...and then you can make fun of me for being retarded :)

I think you're missing the point (of a couple things).

Virulent wound isn't to kill the creature...it's to put another poison counter on the player. So, it would work best once you have a few infect creatures out. Give the wound to target creature, then if it blocks and dies...poison counter. If it doesn't block...poison counter. If it's played on turn 1 on a */1 creature, then so much the better.

Personally, I think you're kind of land heavy. Nearly half your deck is land. And then on top of that you have 4 Everflowing Chalices.

I think you're being too harsh on Spread the Sickness. If for whatever reason you just can't bring yourself to use spread the sickness, at least put some sort of "destroy target creature" or "counter target [creature] spell." Black and Blue are FULL of these cards. If you go up against a a green deck that drops huge creatures on turn 3 or so...or buffs up a small creature even sooner, your simply not going to have enough time to proliferate it to death and it will just eat your creatures 1 by 1. So, they've used one spell to kill 3-5 of your creatures whereas you've used 3-5 spells to kill one of theirs and you are no closer to winning (i.e., you've added no poison counters...)

Which is my final point...The power of proliferate + infect isn't the ability to kill creatures, if the ability to add another poison counter to your opponent (the creature deaths are just icing on the cake). So, you should take all the proliferate spells you can get. If they also destroy creatures in the process, so much the better. Multi-tasking is a good thing. And with all the mana production you have (30 cards...literally half your deck) you shouldn't really be whining about the cost of anything.

Why not throw in Gideon Jura-Planeswalker?

+2: During target opponent's next turn, creatures that player controls attack Gideon Jura if able.

Unless it's a cost issue, but I think you have enough mana...