There is another MtG thread, but it has a list of questions instead of general open discussion, so I don't think it really applies.

Anyway, I just started playing MtG a week ago. My sister started playing and totally got me into it, and after my first fnm tournament I got completely and irrevocably hooked. (Even with my mostly starter deck that I lost every single round with). I'm completely unused to hanging out with geeks in real life, and not only is the game fun but the community is super nice (although of course there are the creepy geeks as well; but the nice ones outweigh them by far).

Currently I'm working on a Blue/Red control deck in which all my creatures become (in one way or another) unblockable hexproofs and get +1/+1 counters every single round. It still needs a lot of work, but it gets better with every day. The goal is to get it decent enough that I at least win 1 round at fnm. (Not the loftiest goal, but I hope to get there at least). After that hopefully I'll aim higher. XD

I've only spent $20 so far (starter deck+boosters+sleeves+dice+deck box), but I can see how it's going to add up pretty quick. Especially since I still need to buy 3 Fog Banks, 2 Invisible Stalkers, 2 Rings of Evos Isles, and 1 Redirect, and after I get those I'll probably buy other ones when I see another weakness in my deck...

So, what about y'all? Are there any magic players one this forum anymore? What is your favorite deck? How long have you been playing magic? Have any card suggestions for my deck that may help out with my goal? Plus anything and everything you want to talk about that is at all relative to the game of magic the gathering.

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Been a while since i last played Magic, but i used to play for maybe 2+ years.
I had a lot of cards (200-300 maybe), but my main deck was a pure white deck with a focus on flanking and rushing. Awesome during early game and middle and is still strong during end (if it goes that far; it rarely did) My desk consisted of:
Knight of the Holy Nimbus (my favorite; regeneration and flanking with a cost of only 2. Hurray!!)
Cavalry Master (stacks flanking)
Pentarch Paladin (can destroy any target permanent)
Celestial Crusader (this card is beautiful; split second, flash, and +1/+1 to white creatures)
Valor (grants first strike to creatures I control)
and some other flanking knights, instants (mostly destroy permanent), enchantments, and several lands.
Early game: low cost flanking knights harass opponent's creature cards and prevent build-up. With my KotHN, i can safely suicide.
Mid: I should have a nice, large army of knights with various buffs depending on the cards i draw. Game normally ends at this point.
End: Should the game continue long enough, I have several cards to destroy any strong creatures and permanents.
This deck has worked nicely against most decks. My obvious weakness is my lack of end-game creatures.

Your deck.... I've tried building a similar deck when i used to play, but i never liked it. It takes too long to build-up. How does it defend against a deck like mine?

Last edited by royalon06 at 3:35 am, Sep 18 2012

Used to play in the nineties. Think stuff has gone slightly downhill since then with all the bullshit cards released.

Like you've said, its a pretty slow build up, but that's why I went red/blue instead of pure blue. I have 2 Blasphemous Acts (essentially board wipes all creatures for 1 mana if there are more than 7 of them on the board). If you have a creature that has over 13 defense, I have several ways to enchant it so it comes under my control, as well as World Slayer (Board wipes ALL permanents, including lands, if the creature it is attached to swings. Too bad it's 5 to equip as well as 5 to put down.) I also have counter spells and kill cards; Dissipate, Negate, Essence Scatter, Searing Spear, and Pillar of Flame. So while I still haven't put down any/ only one creature, I can board wipe everything you've put down, leaving you essentially creature less while I kill you with one Invisible stalker (Invisible Stalker + Ring of Evos Isle + Curse of Stalked Prey gives him +2/+2 at the start of every single upkeep. Not to mention he's hexproof, thus immune to your kill cards, and unblockable, just in case you do manage to put something down) Plus I have Elixirs of Immortality, just so I can recover that health I lose at the start while the quicker decks work on me.

Obviously I haven't played enough games yet to truly know how it'll stand up; not to mention that flanking is no longer standard, so I haven't played against it. Mostly I'm basing my response based on the white Vigilance/First strike angel decks I've played against. (Which is only 3 games, admittedly. I won two, got mana blocked on the third and lost it.)

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Ok, your deck would probably defeat mine . I might be able to pull through if my starting hand is good and i had some idea of your deck beforehand. I have never bought individual cards tho (got my cards when my friends got bored and gave them to me for free ; they were mostly standard decks) . My deck is far from ideal. Preferably, i would have Wraith of God and Knight Examplers (other Knights +1/+1 and indestructible) alongside others.
Mind if i ask your number of creature, land, and spell cards?

If these are most of your cards, then your deck is reliable. I'm just worried about the number of creature cards you have. Have you ever played against a blue spell-counter (forgot what its called) deck with cards that can bypass your hexproof?

My current deck build is like this;

x21 Land (12 Blue, 9 Red)
CREATURES
x3 Elgaud Shieldmate
x1 Tarland, Sky Summoner
x2 Invisible Stalkers
x2 Archaeomancers
x1 slumbering dragon
x1 Frost Titan
x1 Stormtide Leviathan
x2 Latch Seekers
x1 Fog Bank
INSTANTS
x1 Turn to Frog
x1 Battle Hym
x3 Searing Spear
x2 Pillar of Flame
x2 Essence Scatter
x2 Dissipate
x2 Negate
SORCERY
x2 Blasphemous Act
x1 Traitorous Blood
ENCHANTMENTS
x2 Curse of Stalked Prey
x2 Tricks of the Trade
x2 Mind Control
ARTIFACTS
x2 Swiftfoot boots
x2 Elixir of Immortality
x1 World Slayer
x1 Ring of Evos isle
total; 64

Once I get the cards I need, I'm going to have to decide what to remove, but that's currently my build.

The spell-counter is actually what I am; control. One of the angel decks I played against had some blue counter cards, but all I did was use my counters (Negate & Dissipate) to cancel her counters. XD I've never played against a full control deck like mine, though.

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My friend just buys all the cards necessary for whatever Tier 1 decks are currently in standard, and he lets me borrow one of them whenever I go to FNM. Recently, he's also been buying the cards for tier 1 legacy and modern decks.

When he's not around, I usually just draft. <3 drafting. It's higher in both luck *and* skill than standard, which is 99% money.

Before Return to Ravnica (an awesome set) comes out, I am playing a Naya (Red/White/Green) Pod Deck. However, that is gonna change when RTR comes out. Blue/Red Agro seems like a really good choice.

That's not full control, but rather aggro if you rely on many creatures and power them up. Here you made it kind of aggro-control, though.

Just be careful, Magic deckbuilding is one hell of a complicated stuff, but I personally find it even funnier than the games themselves.

Just giving you some tips : first, do not buy many different cards like that. You have 64 cards, and only 1 or 2 of each... 1/32 or 1/64 to pick the good one on a given situation. To plan strategies, you must be "sure" to draw cards that will be useful to it - in other words, less than 20 differents cards (I'm not even sure 20's alright), and don't hesitate to have 3 or 4 of them. Research is also a must, since you must know against what kind of decks you'll have matches and have some knowledge about cards. It will help to find useful cards / recognize bad cards and of course find what are the better cards in each category of effects - for example, Searing Spear is but a lesser Incinerate or Lightning Bolt. Inspiration will be easier if you look for deck lists similar to yours, of course.

Elgaud is your main card, if I got it. Your deck focus on getting +1/+1s on your hexproof creatures to blow up the opponent without being countered - once your creatures are put on the table and if he doesn't have Wrath of God or Damnation, at least (I'm mentioning classic cards for warning, but they are many others "AoE" cards that do not target). Careful about counters and these ! I think you should have more counters. Also, to casual weenie decks, Slumbering Dragon might be a threat, but against a control or a combo which may not cast creatures (or a 8/8 to kill you in 3 attacks), it will become useless. Frost Titan, on the contrary, is a kind of popular end-game creature for control decks because of it's effect of control (tapping permanents), it's strength (6/6) and resistance (it counters for itself) which are all effective in much more situations. Don't forget lands ! Especially as a bicolor, you should have some like Steam Vents, and of course some others with interesting properties.

Unfortunately, though I'm a control deck player, I'm not much of a help about the kind of deck you want to play (never seen one IRL, and recently I've not stalked much Magic sites, so...).

Still, I think I can give you some advice, if you ask ^^" but now I'm tired. =P

Last edited by Felin_noir at 9:27 pm, Sep 18 2012

Good, point, I guess it's more aggro-control than full control. Actually, Elgaud isn't even supposed to be my main creature (invisible stalker is supposed to be); my sister just happened to have 3 of them, so since I have yet to buy any cards (except for my starter and 2 boosters) my deck is just made up of whatever I could get my hands on. I actually just have slumbering dragon to scare off the weeny decks; it makes them hesitant to attack.
Steam Vents are a good point; I'll put them on my to-buy list.
Do you know another card that has the ability Archeomancer has but at a cheaper mana cost? I definitely want that ability, but paying 4 is pretty annoying for it, and I don't really need the creature.

Yeah, I haven't ever played against a control deck either, so it's pretty hard. Currently Mono Black or Black/White or Black/Green combos are all the rage. I know a couple red/green players as well, but I haven't actually played against anyone that has used blue more than a few times as a backdrop. (Whereas I'm mostly blue with a red backdrop.)


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So, you need brainstorming deckbuilding, and then to buy Try to get opinions on sites first, because if you buy everything you want to try, you're gonna... Wait, I think you won't be able to pay everything (I went easily 180 € / 220$ for my latest budget casual deck and one buy is almost definitive) except if you're rich - but that would be helping, in fact ! \o/

I don't think you should pick cards individually (I didn't show a good example because now I'm kind of busy for an incident stuff) but rather explain a global strategy quoting synergies between cards. Here is one example, but you might get 6 or 7 times bigger plans (answers included - and always read them, the debate is where most knowledge is shown !). Some times, a card would be not as good as another but would be the only one to form a specific combo (with it's negative side) ; too bad I lack an example now but, I'll come up with one another day.

Still, I'll answer (nah, I don't feel trolly) : if you really want the same effect, I'm unfortunately not able to bring you a name (damn). However, there's still Call to Mind which is very close (one less mana and instant but no creature). A great classic might do the work (or ten times the work, if used well) : Isochron Scepter. One hell of a fun and strong card. But I don't feel like it's really great for your deck.

Could you tell me how do you think it (not as of it is now, but rather like you would want it to be) ?

How do I think of what? How I want my deck to be?

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I'm a long time (10+ years) on and off Magic player. It's definitely a fun game and every time I quit the game I seem to come back after a few years.

I highly recommend drafting, it's a great way to play games while obtaining cards. Much better than just opening booster packs. I'm sure you're local FNM will have some drafts running; if not, you could always download Magic Online.

As for deck construction, instead of recommending specific cards I'll just give you a few general deck building tips. Try to keep your deck to 60 cards unless you have very specific reasons for not doing so (Battle of Wits). You want to see your best spells more often and running the minimum amount of cards helps you to do that.

Also, 24 lands is generally considered to be the baseline for a 60 card deck. If you have an extremely low "mana curve" (aka most of your spells cost less than 4 mana) than you can run less, or if you're a control deck that needs to play a land every turn, you can play more. As you get more advanced, you'll see that there are exceptions to this rule (for example if you run a deck with a critical mass of cantrips) but for now, try and stick to this rule.

Good luck and have fun!

For those just starting magic, I suggest you use proxies if your fellow players allow it. If you don't know what a proxy is, it's basically you use paper to substitute actual cards so you won't be limited by budget. Proxies are usually used to test out deck builds and my friends and I used to do it quite often before deciding what cards we want to buy. Sometimes we even make decks completely out of proxies because it was fun to try out wacky decks without having to spend money. This also motivates research since you can look for the best cards for your deck knowing you can use it without restraint. Of course, you shouldn't go overboard and fill your deck with op cards like Moxes, Black Lotus, etc.