Merfolk Update

I decided to finally post a decklist of Merfolk in its current state. It's pretty much what I've been talking about all along but with a few cards added in after Alara Reborn's release.

Merlark 2.0

Creatures:

3 x Cursecatcher

4 x Merrow Reejerey
3 x Reveillark
3 x Mirror Entity

4 x Silvergill Adept

2 x Sower of Temptation

3 x Stonybrook Banneret

3 x Meddling Mage
3 x Sygg, River Guide

Other Spells:

3 x Sage's Dousing
3 x Path to Exile

3 x Cryptic Command

Land:

4 x Adarkar Wastes

1 x Faerie Conclave

5 x Island

4 x Mutavault

3 x Mystic Gate

2 x Plains

4 x Wanderwine Hub

Sideboard:

2 x Flashfreeze

2 x Glen Elendra Archmage

2 x Jace Beleren

4 x Burrenton Forge-Tender

2 x Celestial Purge

3 x Wispmare

The main changes to the deck consist of the addition of three Meddling Mage and a little tweaking of the sideboard for the post-regionals meta. Since everybody and their mother seems to be running BW tokens lately I decided to add Wispmare to my sideboard because of the abundance of bitterblossoms and Glorious Anthems in the current meta. I also added a couple Flashfreeze to the side because of the ridiculous Bloodbraid Elf that is going to be making Jund decks much more powerful.

You may be asking yourself why I'm running Mirror Entity instead of Wake Thrasher. The answer is simple: It's BETTER!. Wake Thrasher is able to buff itself without using up any of your resources but the versatility of Mirror Entity is much better for a deck like this. Can a wake thrasher save your entire board from a Volcanic Fallout? Can Wake Thrasher make your entire team Merfolk? Can Wake Thrasher let you pump your entire team at the same time? I didn't think so.. It's true that Wake Thrasher is a good card, I'm just not convinced it's better than Mirror Entity. That's pretty much all I have to say about this deck that hasn't already been said. Let me know what you think!

(Links & pictures provided by Mtgfanatic and Wizards of the Coast Inc. respectively)

Silence Fools!!

I found myself looking at the Magic 2010 Core Set preview cards and one of the cards just floored me...


Silence is pretty awesome anyway you slice it. It can literally lock the game down for one side of the board if they can figure out a way to keep playing it. I was thinking about making a mono white control deck with 4 of these and for Isochron Scepters for the next Extended season. Check out the article about 2010 here.That could be fun. More on this after I get back from vacation!!

(Picture and links provided by Wizards of the Coast inc.)

Favorite EDH generals

Right now I'm playing an Esper EDH deck with Sharuum the Hegemon as my general. I guess I just have a thing for artifacts. I'm also building a deck around the popular general; Momir Vig, Simic Visionary. He is incredible with some of the new hybrid cards that have come out in the last couple sets and provides insane card advantage. I'm thinking of making a mostly creature deck with decent abilities so that after you play Momir, pretty much everything you get after that will trigger his ability. Also cheap hybrid cards such as Slippery Bogle will trigger both abilities because of how they are put on the stack. This means that any hybrid card is a tutor for any other creature in your deck. (Let me know if I am mistaken in this regard please!) Should be fun and I will post a decklist as soon as I get done! What generals are you using in your EDH decks and what is your favorite?

(Pictures and links provided by Wizards of the Coast Inc)

Homebrew Decklist: Doran Lark

Since Reveillark is the Homebrew Pick of the Week I tried to find creative ways to utilize its ability. Out of the hoards of great lark targets that are currently type II legal, Doran, The Siege Tower is one of the most efficient and hilarious. Instead of getting back your little 2/2 with some decent ability you are essentially getting a 5/5 with an ability that severely changes the game state. Coupled with cards like the freshly printed Grizzled Leotau and Lorwyn's Treefolk Harbinger it makes your side of the board extremely mana efficient and, at times, just plain scary! Since both of those are also great lark targets it makes sense to build a deck around this idea of putting out low mana creatures with less than two power and huge toughness. That was the idea behind this week's Homebrewed deck: Doran Lark!



Doran Lark


Creatures:

3 x Doran, the Siege Tower
4 x Grizzled Leotau
4 x Tidehollow Sculler
4 x Birds of Paradise
4 x Treefolk Harbinger
3 x Ranger of Eos
2 x Reveillark


Other Spells:

4 x Crib Swap
2 x Behemoth Sledge
4 x Captured Sunlight
4 x Maelstrom Pulse


Lands:

2 x Brushland
2 x Fetid Heath
2 x Forest
3 x Llanowar Wastes
4 x Murmuring Bosk
3 x Plains
1 x Swamp
2 x Treetop Village
1 x Twilight Mire
2 x Wooded Bastion

The general idea of this deck is to get highly efficient creatures out quickly along with Doran to seal the deal. Tidehollow Sculler keeps their big threats at bay or at least forces them to use a path on your Sculler instead of Doran later on. Birds of Paradise is the main fixer for the deck and allows a turn two Doran which is blisteringly fast. It also can swing for one flying damage if once you get your Doran on the field. Treefolk Harbinger both tutors up Doran and can beat for 3 once he is out. It can also grab a forest if you find yourself up against a wall or getting mana screwed. All for one green! Grizzled Leotau is both a great lark target and a great card to pair with Doran both early and late game. Ranger of Eos is good in this deck because he can grab both your Birds and your Harbinger for yet another explosive play.


Maelstrom Pulse and Crib Swap are your main removal cards in the deck. The Pulse keeps tokens and basically any non-land permanents from becomming a problem. These are going to be especially good against the even stronger post ARB Black/White tokens match up. You may be asking yourself why I'm using Crib Swap instead of Path to Exile. Two reasons: 1) With a deck this efficient I'm not worried about spending the extra two mana to get a card with a lesser drawback 2) It can be tutored with a Treefolk Harbinger. This gives those Harbingers a viable target (besides a forest) if you already have a Doran in your hand or on the field.


The last two cards are fresh off the printing press and are especially fun/awesome in a deck like this. The first is Behemoth Sledge which is basically a colored Loxodon Warhammer. It is far superior to the Hammer in this deck because once Doran hits the field, the sledge remains equally useful while the Hammer loses quite a bit of its potency. It seems to be made for Doran and is very fun/funny to play in this deck. Cascade has brought a wave of useful cards to the meta and one of the most fun and great in this deck is Captured Sunlight. It mitigates the hurt of your numerous pain lands and can pretty much cascade into anything in the deck besides your Ranger.


Wait!!!!! What about Reveillark?


This deck probably seems like more of a Doran deck than a Reveillark deck and well...it is. Lark brings back most of the cards in the deck and makes for explosive middle and late game plays. It's the card that inspired me to build the deck and it is what makes it all the more potent against a slew of decks full of various types of spot and mass removal. It is the glue that holds the deck together, its foundation, its very life force!! OK enough with the metaphors already! I think you get the point! I'm still working out the kinks so let me know what you think of the decklist and how you think I can improve on it.

(Links and pictures provided by mtgfanatic.com and magiccards.info respectively)

Homebrew Pick of the Week

So after reviewing my "Card of the Day" posts (or lack there of) I decided to just do a weekly post about a card and then do another post about building a deck around that card. This week's card is one of the most built around cards in the current standard and is probably one of the most fun cards to play in the last few sets. Without further delay I present: Reveilark!

Reveillark is an amazingly versatile card that can be useful and abusable in a hundred different situations. You can pretty much do anything you want to it or with it. Many people will be sad to see it go when the Lorwyn block rotates out of standard in October.

Strengths:

-4/3 Flyer for 5 with a strong ability

-See "Ways to Abuse" section for more

Weakness:

-Used best in decks that don't ramp (however there would be no need to ramp into it because you would have no target for its ability)

-Can only run 4 of these per deck :)

Ways to Abuse:

-Evoke- Can evoke it to instantly gain the advantage of it's ability.

-Beat for 4 until someone blocks or uses a spot removal and then get 2 creatures from the graveyard into play

-Use to Path to Exile to make use of its ability and ramp at the same time

-Use Fulminator Mage to decimate your opponents land and then get him back via lark to do it all over again ( good vs most decks in standard because they all run tons of non-basic land)

-Ranger of Eos to Flamekin Harbinger to Reveillark and equivalent strategies make decks like boat brew insanely powerful/efficient

-Use Turn to Mist to blink your Lark in and out of play to keep it on the field but also gain the advantage of its ability ( this was even better when Momentary Blink was still in standard).

-Brings back Figures of Destiny or equivalant buffable beater and then pump them for an efficient beatdown strategy

-Brings back token producers like Siege-Gang Commander

So basically there are numerous ways to abuse the power of Reveillark making it one of the most used cards in the current standard meta. I think that after Alara Reborn this card has only gotten stronger in blue white decks and possibly green white as well. It will be interesting to see how the meta changes as Alara Reborn starts to be incorporated into current type two decks with the abundance of great lark targets in every color. I'm especially interested in seeing how the meta changes in October when the new set causes the Lorwyn block to phase out. It is definitely going to change the face of standard significantly.

Card of the Day: Wall of Denial

When I was opening up my packs for the Alara Reborn two headed giant prerelease I happened on this card and was very pleased to see that it fit into the esper deck that I was currently constructing. It is a pretty powerful card because of its relatively low cost and powerful abilities. It is also somewhat abusable though not as much as yesterday's card (Path to Exile). It only has one big drawback: defender. But since it is a 0/8 it really wouldn't be that much better of a card without it. It's also hard to remove because of shroud so unless they counter it when you play it, its most likely not going anywhere.

Strengths
-Low mana cost (CMC=3)
-8 Toughness
-Flying
-Shroud (Doesn't die to path :):):))

Weaknesses
-0 Power
- Defender (though as mentioned before there is little this card could do even if it could shed this ability)

Ways to Abuse:
-Reveillark- This card can be brought back with your lark and it fits with the coloration of most popular Lark decks
-Play early against pretty much any aggro deck in the current meta and they will have a hard time getting past it

Overall a very fun card to play and I'm glad I managed to get it in one of my packs during the prerelase (saved my ass more than once!)

(Picture Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast inc.)

Card of the Day: Path to Exile

So I really didn't get off to a very good start with my daily "Card of the Day" posts but I'm going to attempt to keep up with it better in the future. Anyway, on to today's card: Path to Exile! Arguably one of the most powerful cards in the current standard. For just one white mana you can permanently remove a creature from the game. At instand speed!! In a standard dominated by decks running white as one of their colors I just have one word for this card: Overpowered! While there is the inevitable drawback of letting the creature's controller fetch a basic land and put it into play it is still a rediculously strong card. You can actually use this to your advantage with a card like Knight of the White Orchid. Aggro and control decks are actually having their mana bases altered to include basic lands just because of this one card!

Strengths:

-Low mana cost (W)

-Instant speed

-Creature is removed from game

-White card in a standard dominated by decks running white spells

-Highly Abusable

Weaknesses:

-Gives land advantage to opponent

-Can only run 4 of them per deck :P

Ways to Abuse:

-Knight of the White Orchid: Path their creature and then play the Knight nulling the land advantage of your opponent!

-Tidehollow Sculler: Path your Sculler as it comes into play. It's leaves play ability goes on the stack above its comes into play ability before you even look at your opponents hand. This allows you to permanently remove a non-land card in your opponents hand from the game and get land advantage at the same time!

-Reveillark: Path your own Lark to get it to leave play quickly and gain land advantage at the same time!

(Picture Courtesy of Wizards of the Coast inc.)

Updated "Artifatties" Decklist

Artifatties!

Creatures:
1 x Grim Poppet
1 x Platinum Angel
1 x Scarecrone
1 x Inkwell Leviathan
4 x Master Transmuter
4 x Merfolk Looter
4 x Tidehollow Sculler
1 x Magister Sphinx
1 x Sharuum the Hegemon
4 x Sphinx Summoner


Other Spells:
4 x Mind Stone
3 x Sculpting Steel
4 x Thousand-Year Elixir
3 x Makeshift Mannequin
2 x Tezzeret the Seeker


Land:
3 x Island
2 x Mystic Gate
3 x Reflecting Pool
2 x Sunken Ruins
4 x Arcane Sanctum
4 x Vivid Creek
2 x Vivid Marsh
2 x Vivid Meadow


Added the Makeshift Mannequins back in because they are more consistent than running just scarecrone. 2 more sculping steels got added into the mix because they are extremely versitile cards when paired with the Transmuter. It basically adds three more of each non-land card to the deck. Updated the mana base a little and added Tezzerets to the mix because he strengthens the deck considerably. Still needs some work as far as spot removal and aggro control but its getting there!

(Links and picture provided by MTGfanatic.com)

Artifatties!

As I opened my Conflux booster box I opened several ( 3 in fact) Master Transmuters and thought that her ability would be extremely fun to build around. Shortly after I managed to get distracted by a building my Druids! and Merfolk decks ( see earlier posts) and forgot all about the idea. Sometime later I happened upon an article on the Wizards website talking about a budget version of the deck I had already been thinking about making. I decided it was time to build the deck and after purchasing the cards that make up the main engine of the deck I decided to try and take it a few steps further. I made the mana base smaller and more efficient (though much more expensive) as well as adding more fatties from Conflux and Shards. I then proceeded to troll the Alara Reborn spoiler in search of cards from the upcoming set that would make the deck even more fun when the new set came out. Here is what I have right now:

Creatures:
4 Master Transmuter
4 Merfolk Looter
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Plumeveil
4 Sphinx Summoner
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
1 Sen Triplets ( Alara Reborn)
1 Filigree Angel ( Alara Reborn)
1 Ethersworn Adjudicator
1 Platinum Angel
1 Scarecrone
1 Grim Poppet
1 Magister Sphinx
1 Inkwell Leviathan

Other Spells:
4 Thousand-Year Elixir
4 Mindstone
2 Tezzeret the Seeker
1 Sculpting Steel

Lands:
3 Reflecting Pool
2 Vivid Marsh
4 Vivid Creek
2 Vivid Meadow
4 Arcane Sanctum
2 Sunken Ruins
2 Mystic Gate
3 Island

I'm not sure how stable the deck is in its current form and I'm still messing around with the creatures and numbers of cards right now so please feel free to give me suggestions! The way the deck works is by getting your Thousand-Year Elixir and Master Transmuter into play and then use the Sphinx Summoner to tutor up whatever you need for the situation you are currently in. Merfolk Looter is another key utility card because it thins your deck out quickly to get your key cards into play faster.

I decided to take out the Makeshift Mannequins that were originally in the deck in favor or Scarecrone because it has the potential to be better in most match ups (especially against control). Scarecrone is especially good with Sharuum because you can tap four colorless and tap it to return Sharuum and with its ability on the stack tap one colorless and sac it to draw a card returning both it and Sharuum to play and gaining valuable card advantage in the process. Inkwell Leviathan is amazing because once you transmute it into play it is nearly unstoppable (save for a Wrath). Filigree Angel is going to be fun because you can pop it in and out of play with your Transmuter gaining 3x the number of artifacts you control of life each time! Sen triplets is just plain good against control decks because even if they try and bounce or path it you can just use your Transmuter to keep it in play!

The deck stands up pretty well against any spot removal because you can just use your Transmuter to bounce things in and out of play (including itself!) causing your opponent's removal spells to fizzle on resolution because of a lack of valid targets. I'm also thinking of trying to replace something with Glassdust Hulk (Alara Reborn) because it has awesome synergy with Master Transmuter and the rest of this deck. I might end up putting Sen Triplets in the sideboard for control matchups and replacing it with Glassdust Hulk in the main deck. The sideboard isn't complete so any thoughts on that would be appreciated as well! The rest is pretty self explanatory and it is an extremely fun deck to play and tweak! Please let me know if you have any ideas about how to make the deck better or just more efficient!

(Pictures Courtesy of Coolstuff.com, diver.com & trollandtoad.com)

PTQ Ravinity

Here is the decklist for the Ravinity deck I've chosen to run in this saturday's Pro Tour Qualifyier tournament in Mesa, Az:

Creatures:
4 Ornithopter
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Myr Enforcer
4 Frogmite
3 Master of Etherium

Non-Creature Artifacts:
4 Cranial Plating
4 Chromatic Star
4 Springleaf Drum

Other Spells:
4 Thoughtcast
3 Soul's Fire

Lands:
4 Ancient Den
4 Seat of the Synod
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Great Furnace
2 Blinkmoth Nexus

Sideboard:
3 Thoughtseize
3 Relic of Progenitus
3 Ethersworn Canonist
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Path to Exile
1 Krark-Clan Shaman

This is not by any means an original idea but I tailored the deck to fit my purposes and it is a blast to play!

Fixing Merfolk

Originally I built my merfolk deck along the same lines as my druid deck; quick to hit but little defense. When I decided to run this deck at last weeks Friday Night Magic tournament I added in some control and mill cards to give me more options mid and late game. I added 2 Remove Soul, 2 Negate, 2 Coordinated Barrage, 3 Drowner of Secrets. I kept 2 or 3 Judge of Currents in the main deck just in case and he was a welcome sight against several Red/Green Beatdown variants. I also added in 2 Silvergill Dousers to keep cards like Chameleon Colossus at bay until I could manage to overrun them with tokens or mill them out. A couple games I managed to mill my opponents deck down without the addition of Grimoire Thief (which I forgot to add in before leaving my apartment :S). Oblivion Ring seemed to be the card of the night and I spent most of my negates trying to keep my Drowners and Merrow Reejerey in play. All in all my favorite card of the night was Mirrorweave. It saved my hide countless times especially against aggro decks. I would just wait until they swung out with all of their 3/3s and bigger, Mirrorweave one of my tokens and wipe their side of the board by blocking with my tokens. A perfect example of how good this card really is happened during the last match of the night:

I have a ~5 1/1 tokens, a Douser, Drowner, and two Merrow Commerce out and I'm trying to mill my opponent before he has time to beat me down with red/green goblins. I'm staring down the business ends of two Boartusk Lieges and a Boggart Ram-Gang who looked mighty hungry and my Merfolk seemed to be on the menu. A quick check of my hand showed a shiny Mirrorweave and enough mana to play it. I checked my side of the board and then his. I did some mental math estimating I needed to stall him for just one more turn to be able to mill him out. As I figured he turns his board sideways declaring that he was attacking me with everything he had. I quickly tapped four and Mirrorweaved my Douser and tapped 3 of my creatures to reduce their enemy's power to zero. I then waited for him to finish his turn and for my creatures to return to normal. After untapping, tapping to mill, untapping for one of my Commerce, re-tapping to mill, untapping for the other Commerce, re-tapping to mill again I had just enough to mill him out.

To make a long story even longer adding control elements to the deck went a long way towards increasing its effectiveness and resilience. Even though my record wasn't the greatest (2 Wins-2 Losses-1 Tie) I was very pleased with the performance of the deck in it's current form and with my play throughout the night. I will add "before" and "after" decklists when I get home tonight!

EDH-ification

EDH or Elder Dragon Highlander is a form of constructed magic that my play group is getting involved in and its been pretty fun to think of deck ideas. Basically an EDH deck consists of a "General" creature which starts out the game removed from game and can play it any time you normally could as if it was in your hand. You can only put cards in your deck that share colors with your general. The other limitation on construction is that your deck must have a minimum of 100 Vintage-legal cards and cannot contain multiple copies of the same card (besides basic lands). If you play your general throughout the course of the game and it is killed, instead of putting it into your graveyard you remove it from game again. You can play it again once it has hit RFG but every time you do, the cost increases by two colorless. It leads to some interesting deck building strategies and some out of the box thinking! I threw together a mono white soldier deck with Akroma, Angel of Wrath as my General. I'm also toying with the idea of a blue/black deck with Circu, Dimir Lobotomist as the General or a Red/White/Green deck with Rith, the Awakener as the General. I will post a decklist or two tomorrow after Ive had a few hours of sleep and a few cups of coffee..