wickeddarkman

Tangent! Tangent! Tangent!

Hello there, jmax.
You must be new in mtgvault :)

In this place, likes happen very slowly for a couple of reasons.

1: in the past people were so hungry for likes, that a number of people created several accounts to like their own stuff.
That meant the system got broken, and people stopped focusing on likes, which means that very few people like stuff anymore.

2: each day a number of new decks are built, but even more decks are updated or commented on.
New decks, updated decks and decks commented on float to the top of "active decks".
A lot of users constantly updates decks a lot, which sort of generates spam no matter their intentions.

3: Facebook created a cultural segment of the population that puts stuff "out there" in the Hope's that everyone loves it, but when everyone just creates output and noone is willing to listen, it sort of just creates static.

So if you want people to "like" your stuff you have three options.

1: being exceptional. Not only must you build a deck, but you must describe it as well, put it in a context that makes it shine and sort of tell a story about the deck that makes peoples mind blow up. If you are not exceptional, you are just static.

2: being more visible in the long term. Learn how to use decktags to increase the odds of people discovering your deck.
I've made an article about that. Search for the decktag: wdm intro

3: engage in the community. Talk to people to show them your value, and remember you are much more than magic decks.
Once people realise that, they might start to take an interest in your decks.

I'm sort of the cool but grumpy grandfather that's been playing the game since the beginning.
(Almost. I started at the end of unlimited)

I know an extreme amount of stuff about magic and is very competitive, and have trained at least two players to reach professional play.

I'm also trying to make this place work a lot better, but there's just so many people going static :)

Boros Reckoner is also very good on the defense if paired with a few other first strike creatures.
In my current research of my RW prison I have had some nice games where thalia and Reckoner held back any chance of a counterattack.

The trick is to react to a discard by discarding everything else, so they will be forced to discard one of those three :)
That means you get two big creatures for two mana, but will probably only have lands left in hand. Still I can see this being strong enough to use the snake as a sideboard card.

Consider [[noose constrictor]]
If an opponent plays a discard card you may be in a position where you want that turn 2 loxodon or wilt-leaf alongside a big snake.

The idea of remembering a very few cards to track during a tournament, and use a notepad to do it directly actually never crossed my mind. I've always gone big scale on projects, so I sort of blocked myself from going with a simple way of evolving decks.

I must admit than when thinking about it, a simpler way to use evolution will be so much easier to use for the masses, so I'm joining in on it at some time in the future.

I'm not sure being a judge is a good thing anymore.

Hasbro/wotc has announced that it will focus less on professional magic in the future to support a larger number of fans. It turns out only 9% of magic players have a dci number, and this includes one time players, which sort of means professional play is grusomly rare (more like mythic)

These news have been covered by youtubers.

When I was messing around with glimpse of nature I was suggested scapegoat.
This deck may be able to support both glimpse of nature and scapegoat.

Have you ever tried out bruvac as the commander with lots of cheap mill ?

You've seen fractured sanity?
It's in modern horizons 2, so don't know if it'll be commander legal.

UUU
each opponent mills 14.
Cycle 1U
If this is cycled each opponent mills 4.

Deck is up.
Titled "black modern [nostalgia]

You should consider 4 chancellor of the dross.
It gives you 3 life per opponent and sort of sets the tone :)

Add more cards like geth's verdict, black sun's Zenith for instance :)

I got an old multiplayer deck lying around that's like that.
I could list it if you are interested in utterly destroying the board while enraging your friends.

You should add gnarled professor to the mainboard :)

I'm currently testing out and eldrazi scapeshift deck, WITH treefolk.
I got treefolk harbinger and gnarled professor and have been thinking about
Dun grove elder.

I can report that gnarled professor is a really nice beater and can get two lessons that might be usefull to you.
Introduction to annihilation
Contamination breach

Other lessons are possible.

Why would you copy a deck list with just 6 cards in it ?
:)

Cute and cuddly, boys, cute and cuddly...

Yeah, it's fun how people being so defensive can seem so aggressive :s

Meh, I was just about to go full scale witch on you :)
Cards like [[presence of gond]], [[sanitarium skeleton]] and many others could create a fine loop of sacrifice.
There are even cards that can get you the witch much faster.

I had a pretty good past with the witch against legacy, so when you described a witch setup as "ideal but will never happen" I got defensive :)

I remember that what made oldschool phyrexians great was their -1/-1. There was a lot of them that had the ability and their combined numbers was what did it.
Phyrexian rager should be 4 of.

Theres also an enchantment that let you get back a creature from the graveyard for 2 mana.
Phyrexian revival maybe ?
Just a second.
Ah, it's [[phyrexian reclamation]].
It was a suicide type of deck, let you get all the -/- phyrexians to board wipe and soon you'd start attacking with more and more creatures. There were some drain life type cards in the deck to drive it.
[[Corrupt]]
[[Drain life]]
[[Syphon soul]]

It depends on the meta you are in :)
There is a lot of difference between pauper and old fashioned legacy, but do consider the power level I was up against. Decks must be capeable of "something" in legacy, both then and now.
I guess part of why my witchbrews were successfull might be because they were capeable of messing with dredge which was playing bridge from below at that time period.

But the overall gameplan for witchbrews today will be the same.

Have a backup plan for when the witch doesn't show up, be able to halt any aggro with a way to slowly rob them of their creatures.

Stinkweed imp doesn't have to be sacrificed every turn, as tokens can do that.
Usually having 2 stinkweed in play let me attack with one and hold back the other.
Their ability to come back usually made aggro players slow down long enough for me to get a witch into play.
When you don't get the witch in the opening try to hold back a discard card to cast before you play it, to probe for removal.

I'm pretty sure I could build a much better witch deck with all the cards that exists now.
So many new cards support this style of deck.

Already back then there was material for close to 20 different designs.
I had about a 100 different variations of the deck on paper.
Back then all my deck evolving was purely based on "card packages" I would spend a lot of time at tournaments to test out groups of cards that worked well together. Then once I'd found such a card group I'd get it on paper and endlessly would try to improve on its efficiency.

I usually would throw a bunch of packages together to see the results in other tournaments.

The black/red deck had such a package of cards.
All the black cards were part of a "discard package" I used frequently.

It was that approach that led me to invent the "half deck" concept
Search for the decktag: halfdeck

If you want it I could search for cards to build a better witch deck.

If you have a clear idea about the pauper meta you could give me some input and I'll
Try to disassemble the meta :)

Brings back memories :)
You can tag the deck with nostalgia
And take a look at some other decks from way back in time :)

I used to have a lot of thoughtpicker witch brews at a time where I was trying to beat legacy with commoncards.
Part of the fun with witch brews were that the opponent would mostly ignore thoughtpicker witch, because it seems so far fetched that it is the major threat.

You will face two problems, 1 is to set up the lock as soon as possible, because the longer you are not having a lock in place, the higher their chances will be of removing the witch with a removal spell. You need to be able to either get them to use their removal on something else, so they spend it fast, or you must have a lock in place at turn 2.

Having the lock turn 2 means you need to cast the witch turn 1 and then play a creature for 1 and sacrificing it for 1 at turn 2.
That means you need about 9 cards costing 1 mana, that somehow puts creatures into play.
From there you must feed the witch every turn or the opponent will break lose.

I know that I had a setup where the witch locked down their draw, then I'd play a powerfull but cheap beater to kill them with, usually one costing just 2 mana. I also had stinkweed imp which could be sacrificed each turn to keep the lock in place while building up a lot of emergency sacrifices on the board, which could also end the game.

Once the lock would be in place I'd usually start using discard to snuff out any lategame comeback from the opponents.

The second problem in design, will be to have a backup plan for when you haven't drawn the witch or it got killed at turn 1.
The solution I used was both to generate a swarm of future sacrifices, then I'd use discard to prevent combo, and large cheap critters to attract removal, and then cards like stinkweed imp would put up a wall against their aggro.

I remember having a serious number of deckbuilders with the witch trying to set up a perfect blend.
They were mostly two-colored because that's within the limits of what's possible to run the witch with.

I also had a black green variant that was powerfull enough that it could actually take out legacy merfolk at the time...

I remember a couple of cards being in the list, but I'll have to google them up for their names.
It'll take me 5 minutes.

[[Dripping-tongue zubera]] sac-tokens.
[[Fists of ironwood]] sac-tokens.
[[Putrid leech]] aggro.
[[Shambling shell]] aggro + protects the witch.

That's probably what I used back then.

The removal I played was also very cheap, costing 1 black mana at the most
(One spell could be cast for free by having a Swamp in play)

It was able to gain the respect of some legacy pro's back then,
So it should be possible for you to actually make it into a nasty build.
We've gotten plenty of support cards for the deck since then :)

If you search for the decktag: nostalgia
One of my thoughtpicker decks should be at the top right now.
It's a black/red variant but it comes with some meta details to put things in perspective.
I often think my bg variant was the better build, but the br build put up the best results on the scoreboard, and is rather simple to play, making it easier to understand.