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: Mayael the Anima Decklist

Mayael the Anima

 

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.

 

Game Reports: Mayael and Kitsune Mystic (and Animar by proxy)

Played a couple of games tonight..

Game 1 – Mayael the Anima

vs Numot, Rorix Bladewing, (my) Doran, and Kiku

This was a case of my deck firing a little too well. First few turns went:

1) Forest, Birds of Paradise
2) Kodama’s Reach
3) Rampant Growth, Cream of the Crop
4) Fatty (Plated Slagwurm)
5) Fatty (Oversoul of Dusk)
6) Mirari’s Wake
7) Fatty Fatty (I think Mycoid Shepherd and Spectral Force)
8 ) …. etc

Needless to say everyone else freaked a little and went all defensive… then Rorix found a Strata Scythe and double strike and took me out first, just after Kiku played a kicked Sadistic Sacrament on me. 😦 Ah well, you come out that fast and people start targeting you. Unfortunately none of the other decks really got going at the same rate and so I was the obvious target, even though I was careful to only have two creatures (plus Birds) out at once. Cream of the Crop is some good, but I need to find some kind of repeatable card draw (I’m thinking Fecundity?) to pull the card immediately into my hand. This deck really needs a Scroll Rack but I just can’t find one.

As an aside, Sam (hi Sam!) was playing my Doran deck, which is pretty much Treefolk tribal and he’s decided not to play it again… I don’t think it’s that bad (decklist up later) but it is awfully reliant on keeping dudes in play, which didn’t happen a lot.

Game 2 – Kitsune Mystic

vs Damia, Stonebrow, (my) Animar, Glissa the Traitor

This was almost the exact opposite of Game 1 – I had an early Kitsune Mystic with Black Ward on it, but it dies to Fleshbag Marauder (oh the irony!) After that I draw a whole lot of nothin’ – Pacifism, Prison Term, Arrest, Stasis Cocoon, Journey to Nowhere… all of which are negated by infinite Sylvok Replica‘s from Glissa, making me an extremely sad panda.

In fact the deck works so poorly that everyone takes pity on me and leaves me alone, while they deal with each other, and especially with my Animar deck (being piloted by Sam (hi Sam!), who wanted to play a good deck after his Doran experience 😉 ) In one turn Animar goes from 1/1 to 7/7, adding Fierce Empath, Simic Sky Swallower and a couple of friends to the board. That gets wrathed away and he sits for a while too.

Eventually I get a Sigil of the Empty Throne, a couple of Angels, and an Umbra Mystic with Serra’s Embrace and one of the Angels picks up Armored Ascension. I get in some beats, then somehow my Lost Auramancers die naturally and fetch up my True Conviction. I go from 22 to 50 in the next attack, taking out both Damia and Stonebrow. Glissa is gone by this stage, so it’s me vs Animar. Unfortunately, Animar has Tidespout Tyrant in play and Mystic Speculation in hand, so by the time he finishes bouncing all my nonland permanents, he kills me in short order. Still, my decks came 1st and 2nd in that game, even if it was through indifference 😉

A couple of decent games, from which the moral seems to be: Don’t get ahead, lest you lose your head!

 

My First EDH Deck: Mayael the Anima

I was introduced to EDH by some friends of mine about 2 years ago. At the time I wasn’t playing a lot of Magic, I had pretty much no interest in playing Magic competitively (and still don’t, really). About the only decks I had made up were EDH-like anyway; I had (and still have) a Singleton Sliver deck (one of every Sliver, and enough land to make it work some of the time), and a Highlander deck which was Black/Green/White.

“You should play EDH!” they exclaimed.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because it’s awesome!” they cried.

“Whatevs.” I was unimpressed.*

However after reading a bit about that format, and how casual it was, and what sorts of cards you could run, and the flavour behind it, I discovered that it was in fact awesome, and ticked all my Johnny/Timmy boxes (If you don’t know who Johnny and Timmy are, read this article by Mark Rosewater.)

Like a lot of people, my first EDH deck involved lots of big stompy creatures. Like a lot of those people, I chose Mayael the Anima as my general, as dumping Akroma into play at the EOT or as a suprise blocker has to be some good, right?

The deck has evolved slightly from there, but at it’s heart it still wants to drop Atomic Bombs every turn after turn 5. Here’s a link to the decklist: Linky and also to the analysis of same: Linky2.

This deck is a BLAST to play, and does crazy things if left alone. I’ve attacked for well over 100 with this bad boy, and have (with the help of someone else’s Dream Halls and my own Greater Good) drawn near my whole deck and killed the table with Stalking Vengeance triggers. Fun times!

I highly recommend a deck like this one if you like attacking with Big Dumb Creatures (some of whom aren’t so Dumb, truth be told).

*I never actually said “Whatevs.” As if…