Permanent Links to my decklists

As some of you have discovered, I’ve been working on a set of pages for my decks, proposed or existing. It’s up there, and the main page has links to all my decks, what’s in them, and how they’re supposed to work. If you hover over the main page link, you’ll also get a dropdown showing the sub-pages (which hopefully will be self-explanatory).

I’ll be updating those pages every now and then, especially when cards go on or off the Wantlist and Watchlist (which will be available for each deck… eventually.) When I make changes to the decks I’ll still post here, but I’ll also update the decklists on these pages.

 

Quick hit: Jaya and Kitsune Mystic decklists

(well, links)

I updated the deck lists for my Kitsune Mystic and Jaya Ballard decks last night; here they are if’n you want to look at them. There’s a common problem with both of them that I’ll leave all y’all to figure out….

Jaya Ballard, Task Mage

Kitsune Mystic

 

Game Reports: Blech

(Decks I’m playing in italics)

Game 1:

Karn, Glissa and Merieke vs Kaalia

I scoop in response to my fourth creature getting killed/taken control of before I can swing with it. That game goes another hour and apparently it’s my fault because they don’t have their own creatures to use

Game 2:

Isperia, Tolsimir, Sliver Legion (5 colour angels)

I pull out Isperia one last time before it gets ripped apart and rebuilt (see General Damage Control). Isperia actually pulls out the win, but not before all three decks get into a horrible creature stall. Pride of the Clouds is a 24/24, and that’s after the angel deck is taken out of the game!

Game 3:

Nin, Child of Alara (5-colour tokens), Jaya Ballard

Nin gets turn 2 Kami of the Crescent Moon. 12 turns, 24 spells and 6 FREAKING LAND later, I die.

 

I hate EDH…..

 

Game Report: Garza Zol (again)

Made some small changes to the deck before taking it out for a whirl, since I was short on blue sources last time out:

-1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
-1 Forgotten Cave
-1 Altar’s Reap

+1 Halimar Depths
+1 Vivid Creek
+1 Urge to Feed

Ended up being a 6 person free-for-all – I was quite enjoying it, but I think most folks got sick of this one before the end, as you’ll see later on.

The Table:
Intet, (my) Nin, Scion of the Ur-Dragon, Garza Zol, (my) Tolsimir, (my) Jaya Ballard

Intet: Land, go
Nin: Land, Sol Ring, Signet, go.
Rest of Table: Oh shit….
Me: How come I never get that start with my own decks!

As it turned out, Nin didn’t actually have a whole lot to do, and his turn two, with 5 mana (another land) was Kami of the Crescent Moon and Darksteel Myr. The Kami of the Big Buttcrack keeps everyone with full hands, and most of us end up discarding a few cards – I get a Crystal Ball into play, and I remember keeping a Condescend for something important but then forget to use it on Intet’s Scroll Rack, and instead keep the ultra important, uh, something from Scion (the player to my right) just to get the card out of my hand and scry before I draw my next two cards.

Highlights of the early-mid game:

• Tolsimir gets an early Suture Priest
• Jaya gets an early Spellshock
• Intet gets Scroll Rack
• Nin gets…. Nin. And by my count, four of the six counters which are in the whole deck, which he uses to counter most of Intet’s stuff.
• Scion gets…. well it’s a Dragon deck. It doesn’t get much early on
• I gets a Crystal Ball, and a Bloodlord of Vaasgoth, although that dies before it does anything.
• Tolsimir discovers a very well hidden combo in Seed the Land and Suture Priest (bwahahaha)
• Jaya starts throwing her weight around, for some reason latching onto Scion and attacking him with burny burn spells (like Meteor Shower), usually fueled by Mana Geyser. This turns into a bit of theme, for some unknown reason. The spellshock – which lasts for as long as Jaya does!!! – in conjuction with the Suture Priest is keeping everyone’s life down, so pretty much everyone is in the mid-20’s before anything really useful starts happening. Tolsimir is ahead of most people due to the Suture Priest working for him.
• I gain some life from a Falkenrath Noble, when the inevitable happens and creatures die. For a 2/2 for 4, he’s surprisingly good.
• Intet sticks a Body Double, choosing the Iona in Scion’s graveyard, naming blue. Luckily for me I only have one blue spell in my hand (Dream Leash), but it shuts Nin down for a while.

Eventually Scion casts Wrath of God, leaving the Spellshock and Seed the Land as the only important permanents remaining. There’s a little jockeying for position, but no one seems willing or able to do anything about the Spellshock, or it’s controller, and so it keeps chip chip chipping away at peoples life totals. I jump into the lead with a Malakir Bloodwitch (more to protect against a Yosei that just hit the table than anything else) which gains me 15 while draining everyone else for 3 (I also had a Viscera Seer and Garza Zol on the table). From that point on everyone starts getting picked off – I’m on close to 40, but Jaya keeps picking on Scion, and to cut a long and not particularly exciting story short, being on three times as much life as everyone else (who are mostly in single digits by now) is enough for me to win the game. Not a particularly satisfying win, but I’ll take it!

MVP: Malakir Bloodwitch
LVP: Crossway Vampire, who I had to discard because I couldn’t find two red sources (obviously still haven’t got the mana right; I think I’ll drop a Swamp and put Shinka back in – it doesn’t come into play tapped, and I have three targets for the First Strike ability)
Close, yet so far away: Crown of Empires in play, Throne of Empires in my hand when the game ended. One day…..

 

My Decks: Power Rankings

Just made this post over on mtgcommander.net, thought I may as well post it here too.

Starting from the bottom in the power stakes:

Isperia
Fun: 7
Power: 3
There’s something about this deck; it just never seems to fire. I have some quality fliers in here now (Baneslayer, Yosei, Glen Elendra Archmage) and a biggish suite of counters (about 9 in total, counting things like Draining Whelk) but I have yet to even get close to winning a game with it. I may have to look at a few other lists to see what they’re running differently, but I’ve been trying to avoid that (to me, it would feel too much like someone else’s deck. Yeah I know, I should get over myself 😉 )

Zedruu
Fun: 6
Power: 4
This is the deck of mine that really needs the most work. It’s basically the Political Puppets precon with a few changes thrown in. I have some ideas for this, but it’ll have to wait until I take a break from actual deck building. Occasionally I’ll trade for some cards for it and chuck them in, but really I should basically redo the whole deck from the word go.

Doran,
Fun: 6
Power: 6
Treefolk Tribal. If I’m honest I went a bit overboard with the theme on this one – too many Treefolk, not enough stuff that deals with other peoples things – I have a Lignify, a Rootgrapple…… and that may be it. I have a Solar Tide that REALLY should go in here, but again this is a deck that needs 15-odd cards taken out, and 15-odd “destroy/exile target X” cards thrown in. Can attack for stupid amounts of damage fairly early on though.

Tolsimir
Fun: 7
Power: 7
Token deck. Somewhat Wrath-resistant given Fecundity, Cobra Trap, and Fresh Meat, but it needs upgrading for things like Dauntless Escort and/or Concordant Crossroads… basically things that let my “little” 3/3 or 4/4 Saproling army actually attack 🙂

Kitsune Mystic
Fun: 8
Power: 6
Mono-White enchantments. I loving playing this deck, but if the the rest of the table is playing “properly” the whole thing is a 2-for-1 waiting to happen. When it goes off (usually with an Open the Vaults or Retether) the board state gets awesome 🙂

Savra
Fun: 7
Power: 7
Savra is all about sacrificing my guys to keep your guys off the table – it’s not a slow grinding control deck (I can’t build – or play – those types of deck properly) but it intends to get massive Lord of Extinctions and Golgari Grave-Trolls and beat face. I’m listing this after KMystic even though it’s less fun to play because it is more powerful. The groans when Mindslicer hits the table make this deck worth playing all by itself 🙂

Nin,
Fun: 8
Power: 7
My latest complete deck that I’ve actually played a game or two with. Nin can do some stupid good stuff, and is lots of fun to play. It plays the political game quite well as it can let other people draw a ton of cards, then when it’s time to pounce it can take those players out quite quickly. In theory 😉

Kaalia
Fun: 9
Power: 7
I think – when it works – this is by far the most fun deck I have. I guess that speaks more about my inner Timmyness than anything else, but when I’m smashing peoples faces in with Demons, Dragons and Angels it make me very big happy 🙂 Truth be told though, it’s not very powerful and without Kaalia it’s just an overpriced Fatty deck

Jaya
Fun: 8
Power 8
Another fun deck, this one can also take the rest of the table out pretty quickly – very low on creatures so not affected too much by boardwipes. Burn baby, Burn! 😉

There’s a fairly major gap between the previous decks and the other 4 – All of the ones below here are capable of winning pretty consistently, although (as always) there are always improvements to be made

Ghost Council
Fun: 7
Power: 9
This deck more than any of my others has the late game sewn up. It’s all about controlling the board, and plinking away for 5 or 10 or so per combat phase. It has a “blink” theme in it, but I’ve made sure that the creatures that it can blink want to be either leaving or entering the battlefield, like Skeletal Vampire or Cloudgoat Ranger.

Omnath
Fun: 9
Power: 9
One member of our playgroup got to live the dream with Omnath last week; he managed to kill the table by turn 6, using General Damage. Essentially this is a very linear deck – make mana, make Omnath huge, give him trample/make him unblockable (Trailblazer’s Boots is tech!) and SMASH. Add mana doublers, Seedborn Muse and Patron of the Orochi for the huge lol’s. It does have the big dumb green spells like Terastodon and GWave in here, but this deck, more than any of the others is all about the General Damage. Tons of fun, and my fastest deck by quite some margin.

Mayael
Fun: 10
Power: 9
My first EDH deck, and still my favourite. What’s not to like about putting all the bestest creatures in the world in one deck (Blue and Black creatures need not apply)? Mana Mana Mana, big dude, big dude, 2 big dudes…. Love it.

Animar
Fun: 8
Power: 10
Easily my most powerful deck, I built Animar to be flat-out good while at the same time fun. It’s the only deck I purposefully built an infinite combo into (Cloudstone Curio + Animar + two Eldrazi/morphs, for an infinitely large Animar.. add Tidespout Tyrant to bounce every (targetable) permanent on the board), and it’s designed to be able to do it’s thing under duress. Having said that, you can still make a lot of crazy, silly, fun plays with this deck.

Untested
I’ve just finished a Garza Zol deck, and I’m now building Damia. From looking at it I’d say Garza is about 7 fun/6 power, and the way I’m thinking about building Damia will make it about 6 fun/8 power.

 

Game Report: Isperia (and Mayael, and Jaya)

Thought I’d take my newly updated Isperia deck for a tryout; as you’re about to find out, it wasn’t much of a test.

5-player free-for-all; Sisay, Isperia, Intet, (my) Mayael, and (my) Jaya.

The game started off very well, with the newly added Sensei’s Divining Top in my opener, along with some lands and some spells. Hooray! However, that was pretty much the high point of the game. To cut a very long story short, I had to pull through a clump of 5 land in a row, then almost immediately after that, 9 (yes, 9!) land in a row. Needless to say I was never in this one 😦

Intet is basically a RUG goodstuff deck, and after it Tooth and Nail‘ed for Kiki-Jiki and Primeval Titan it got hated out pretty quickly. After that we focussed in on Mayael, as it had Spearbreaker Behemoth and 4 or 5 other big creatures, including Tornando Elemental (having an indestructible Tornado Elemental is pretty good, I guess…). He got taken out with a combination of flying beats from me, and forestwalk from Sisay’s Jedit Ojanen, but not before killing me with a million and two damages. Jaya and Sisay fought it out briefly, but Jaya didn’t find the board wipe it needed and Sisay took it out.

In terms of learning about my deck, this was an awful game. I learned that SDT helps me get through land clumps, until there’s more than 3 land in a row on top of my deck. Shock and Amaze! Ah well. Next time maybe.