Sunday, 28 December 2008

Two Red Decks

I was bored so I decided to share two of the red decks I've designed (no one bothers to read the decks I know). Both are really, really red as you can see soon and that's the reason I find them fun. Nuff said, let's roll...


Totally Red Deck That Doesn't Quite Win

Creatures
4 Karplusan Wolverine R
3 Frostling R
1 Mogg Fanatic R
4 Heartlash Cinder 1R
3 Mudbrawler Cohort 1R
3 Orcish Cannoneers 1RR
1 Orcish Artillery 1RR
4 Spur Grappler 2R
4 Lesser Gargadon 2RR
=27 Creature

Noncreatures
3 Shock R
4 Volcanic Hammer 1R
2 Puncture Blast 2R
2 Burn Trail 3R
=11 Noncreatures

Lands
22 Mountain
=22 Lands

This one's just a boring all-out aggro red deck like my goblin deck. Its built around cards that I own. I think I will do this deck since the total cost of cards that I don't own is just 2,41€

I don't like all-out aggro decks all that much because they don't give the player any options. But there's something that I like in this particular deck. Its all those creatures that hurt me perhaps more than the opponent that make it look fun so. Orcish Cannoneers deals 3 damage to me while dealing 2 damage to any target. I need to sacrifice a land every time I attack or block with Lesser Gargadon. But personal favourite is Spur Grappler. It gets bigger if I don't control any untapped lands. Tapping all my lands and mana burning just to make Spur Grappler bigger is just something I like. This is like a therapy deck. I can just drop lands and play funny creatures and laugh out loud.

Time for the red deck number 2.


Big Red Turn One

Creatures
4 Simian Spirit Guide 2R
3 Arc Slogger 3RR
3 Savage Firecat 3RR
4 Deus of Calamity RRRRR/GGGGG
=14 Creatures

Noncreatures
4 Lotus Petal 0
4 Rite of Flame R
4 Manamorphose 1R/G
4 Desperate Ritual 1R
4 Seething Song 2R
4 Empty the Warrens 3R
=24 Noncreatures

Lands
22 Mountain
=22 Lands


The idea of this deck is to use "rituals" to play a big red fatty or gigantic Empty the Warrens on turn one or two. I just want to see my opponent's face when I play turn one Deus of Calamity and he doesn't have a Terror in his hand. This deck looks sweet in a way and can be powerful but its really vulnerable since just one Terror or Unsummon can ruin its day. But who cares!

This deck was inspired by a deck I saw on the net that was top 8 at worlds 2008. The particular deck played a full set of Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon and the big fatties it used were Deus of Calamity and Demigod of Revenge. The rest of the deck was rituals and Empty the Warrens. So my decklist is kind of a budget version of that deck.


Anyway do you guys know that a finnish guy won MtG Worlds this year? With faeries!

Feel free to comment the two decks above.

9 comments:

Pyry said...

Olli fantastic metaphoras! In my opinion Timmy in a car form is a Truck with custom paintjob.

Olli talk about being a magic nerd and thinking about magic terms. We were playing ristiseiska at school and I started thinking that Joel is much like a lockdown player. He is always holding sevens in his hand as long as possible. And Janne is more like a control player. If he would play magic he would be really good with cards such as Cabal Therapy. Juho (not the Dark Heresy Juho) is a real Timmy. He likes showing the other players what cards he has in his hand and he is always telling puujalka-jokes. Joni is a true spike. He yells when he loses. That's why we like to gang him. To make him yell. Yes, gang! Ristiseiska is like multiplayer magic. When someone is winning all the others gang him.

Oh noes at Ilkka's upcoming deck! I thought that the elfball term refers to the elf aggro-combo decks. I demand Ilkka to switch the name unless he has a combo plan in the deck.

Talking about Elfball, I know a way to do a cool Goblinball deck. Ands its all commons!

ilkka said...

Olli, don't judge the Elves too much . Since I play lots of duels in Magic, I need to have an insane duel deck.

Last time I checked, Glimpse of Nature was 1.50€ in TaT and many were left - but after designing the deck they were 8.00€ and none left. So the deck is not as powerful as it could.

Btw Pyry, you probably are familiar with Buried Alive (card): it is - oddly enough - more expensive in TaT than Safehaven.

Anyways, I gave Olli a few very basic Naya uncommons for two Buried Alives and an Enlightened Tutor. Awesome scam!

ilkka said...

And Pyry, I don't call my deck Elfball. Olli does. He is so unfamiliar with combo decks.

Here's the decklist. (it's a very basic deck, don't expect awesomeness.)

Elves of Deep Shadow x3
Boreal Druid x4
Heritage Druid x4
Nettle Sentinel x4
Llanowar Elves x4
Fyndhorn Elves x4
Overrun x4
Regal Force x4
Elvish Promenade x4
Hunting Triad x4
Harmonize x3
Forest x18

You think it could use Manamorphose/Druid of the Anima and Roar of the Crowd?

Pyry said...

Oh noes. I was about to trade that Enlighted Tutor.

Ilkka I designed similar Elf Deck some time ago. It was basically your deck with Overruns swapped for Collective Unconscious for some nice card draw and Manamorphose instead of Hunting Triad and a single Fireball as a kill-card (using red mana from Manamorphose). So it was pure Elfball. I was thinking of using Roar of the Crowd but I thought Fireball is cooler and it works in multiplayer too.

I wouldn't take Druid of the Anima but I would consider taking a set of Manamorphose even if the deck was mono Green. If you took Roar of the Crowd would it be a combo finisher or just a good card in an elf deck?

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Pyry said...

Proper tourney Elfball doesn't have red-green rare dual lands. It uses black-green duals just because it has a set of Thoughtseize in the sideboard. It uses Birchlore Rangers to make red mana.

I agree with the lands. Its annoying that if I want to go to tourney and do it cheap I need to use mono-coloured deck. And in addition to that I need to have a rogue deck since all the rares they use in the tournament decks are so expensive. Someday I will do it. Use a mono-coloured rogue (combo) deck to qualify top 8. :P

Heh. I took the first Zoo deck I could find and calculated its cost (using T&T prices) just for the fun of it. I'm also trying to prove how stupid is that rare lands are so expensive.


1 Blood Crypt
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Forest
1 Godless Shrine
1 Plains
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Steam Vents
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
21 lands
Lands total cost: 219€

4 Dark Confidant
3 Figure of Destiny
4 Kird Ape
3 Mogg Fanatic
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Wild Nacatl
26 creatures
Creatures total cost 172,8€

4 Lightning Helix
2 Oblivion Ring
4 Tribal Flames
3 Umezawa's Jitte
13 other spells
Noncreature spells total cost: 48€
Maindeck total cost: 439€

Sideboard
4 Ethersworn Canonist
2 Jund Charm
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Krosan Grip
2 Ranger of Eos
Sideboard total cost: 68,5€

The whole deck costs 508,3€
Lands are 43% of the total cost of the deck for fucks sake!

I believe Zoo is the most expensive deck in the extended format.

Pyry said...

The reason is that most the Elfball decks cast Chord of Calling to search for Predator Dragon and it doesn't even need red mana that way. And as I said Birchlore Rangers is another way to pay the red mana. Maybe that's just enough. They don't want to have a shitloads of painlands, shocklands and fetchlands to help the Zoo deck to deal that 20 damage. And having nothing but filterlands in play is annoying too.

The Narrator said...

I couldn't be bothered to read the article or the comments, but decided to comment anyway just so you guys would look and go "Hey a new comment!" and be dissapointed since it has nothing to do with anything.

Meeri said...

:D for me these articles are quite a lot of nonsense. "...Orcish Cannoneers deals 3 damage to me while dealing 2 damage to any target. I need to sacrifice a land every time I attack or block with Lesser Gargadon..." Like WHAAAT.

And again, "yeey new comment!" which really has nothing to do with the topic.

Pyry said...

*Laughs at Sakari's comment*

Let us have fun. At school we can't talk about MtG since there aren't anyone to talk with. Well, I got Tony but I don't want to torture him. And talking about MtG on fridays makes everyone angry. :D