However, you should have gotten at LEAST one, most likely much more, card from a curious Spiketail (unless you are just a terrible fish player).  Spiketail is usually more useful than Daze simply because 1) Daze is a spell, while Spiketai's ability is not, and 2) as said previously, creatures are good both because they are threats and because of Curiosity.

Still, Daze is very good in its own right.

Like everyone else, congratulations on the birth of your daughter and on your win (gotta prioritize here ).



In general, yes Crucible is usually better, but we ARE talking about R/G Beatz here...in which case, Bloodmoon is usually more than enough.

Also, StP kills regenerators.  Far too many people forget plow removes the creature from the game; it's considered the greatest creature removal for a reason!

Well, since at that time everyone was mentioning how powerful (broken) Workshop -> Trinisphere, Crucible is, I figured that I can leave out prison variants from the list.  We all agree that workshop-based decks are definitely considered among the top decks in the format.  Still, I admit that I should have included workshop just to avoid confusion.

Also, every deck that runs Mana Drain will first run Force of Will, but not vice versa, so that's why I just mentioned Force.



Once again, we were talking about the sheer strength of workshop (since it's over 1/3 of the meta!), so I did not include that.  Here is the statement:

"If you do not play Force of Will, Null Rod, or Workshop in your deck or do not play combo, you will not do well in type 1."

Since Food Chain Goblins is not among the competitive decks anymore (and does include both a combo and often sideboarded Null Rods), I stand by my point until examples make my statement null and void.

If you do not play Force of Will, Null Rod, or combo in type 1 you pretty much deserve to lose regardless.  Force also answers said Trinisphere.

Yawgmoth's Will, Mind Twist, and Balance are all restricted.  The argument here is that Crucible is just as powerful as any of these cards and hence deserves restriction.  Playing the card is almost like splitting your library into lands and non-lands and drawing a card from each stack every turn.

The top 3 decks in the format all use (or is it must use?) Crucible now, both because the card is good in the respective decks and because every other viable non-combo deck seems to run the card.  A Lin-Sivvi caliber card is usually not good for the format.

Misdirection is really good, and I certainly would run one (but only one) copy.  However, Misdirection does NOT affect Animate Dead or its kin.  Read the cards.

Daze usually is fine as a 2-of; good (or at least decent) players will play around Daze with their more powerful spells anyways, so it's often used as an intimidation factor.  After all, the threat of daze is as strong as the card itself.

Have you tested this thing?  You will get something along Orgcandman's hand very often, except the Sapphire might be a manland or strip.  You actually mentioned why the mana base in WTF/r is BARELY passable while yours does not - Brainstorm.  Standstill does not smooth your mana base.

Lotushead, will you please stop mentioning that you cannot acquire 50 cent commons and 2 dollar uncommons?  Brainstorm, Tinker, Enlightened Tutor, and Memory Jar combines for less than $8.  Just post your optimal decklist and work towards it by acquring the cards.  Posting an inferior deck simply because you do not "own" such common cards simply defeat the entire purpose of this forum.

I'm amazed how inexperienced you seem for an "oldschooler" like you.  Why would you care about creatures in your deck?  If you rely on beating with a 2/2, you have probably lost the game already.  Your primary (and only) concern should be getting your combo out, so both AI and Fabricate are superior to Trinket Mage.

As people have already said, cut the off-color (Gorilla Shaman?!) and excess (Shared Fate...) stuff and focus on getting your combo to work.

3 mana + equip cost means Mask isn't going to be drawing cards until turn 4 at EARLIEST, which means Curiosity will have drawn 2-3 cards by then.  This alone is enough to play Curiosity over Mask, but the other stuff people already mentioned just hurts mask more.



You either never played fish or never played type 1.  Fish needs mana to activate lavamancers and manlands, keep Voidmage Prodigy active if needed, and eats up land drops by using strips.  You have a lot less mana than you think.

There's more decks with green than you think, but this point is mostly irrelevant.

Having Scrying means that you cast less spells per turn.  This is because 1) It costs 1 more to start with, and 2) To make it big, you tap out.  This means that the Brainstorm you get from the Scrying isn't even castable.  With Night's Scrying, it's very easy to cast several spells when Dryad is already out and attack.

Skyfolk was actually the first creature I thought of, but I dismissed her because 1) The deck has enough at 2cc, 2) multicolored cards strains the mana base (though this point isn't too important), and 3) She just doesn't DO anything except carry Curiosity, as task more suited for Lavamancer or River Boa anyways.  Still, she is probably a decent filler when all else fails, though I still think Call of the Herd is superior.

Cloud of Faeries is good because of Standstill.  Without Standstill, there really isn't a good reason to run them anymore.

I share Kerz's concern over the mana base.  White seems like a tempting color to splash into gay/r (for Meddling Mage, Swords, and Seal), but the main concern is the unstable mana base.  Furthermore, green seems weaker than white.

Also, this should be too obvious to need stating, but one of the ways to combat Hulk's draw engine is with REBs.  Night's Whisper, like Scrying, does not have this weakness.

Besides, AK by itself is terrible.

The off color moxen are still needed to facilitate the first turn dryad.  Also, due to the low island count, that decklist will have a hard time supporting Daze if it does not get Fastbond.

Which is why Incinerators are around.  They're also great against welders.

Null Rod doesn't look so tough now...

Didn't this appear on the front of a pre-con?  That would be insane...

In place of what?  The deck is already loaded with colorless mana producers; blue mana is still important.

Good job at the tourney.  It didn't face the fiercest of opposition, but ah well.

By the way, what does that sliver deck look like?  I'm geniunely interested...

I have contemplated on replacing Conclaves with, say Shivan Reef (or Yavimaya Coast for WTF) for the extra off-color mana, seeing as Conclaves never did anything for me.  Maybe I need to face Landstill to see its uses, but for the large part I never had trouble finding beats to put under Standstill, leaving the Conclave with just powering the cheaper Factories or leaving them open for Kai.

Having more than a few lands out signify that your opponent likely has them too, making the tempo counters extremely weak.  The goal is not to stall to ride Conclave for the win, but to use the mana for beats and disruption early on.  Gay/r already has many 1-drops, especially if you include the moxen.

Stray bolts are VERY bad for Aquamoeba, which are much worse here than in T2 and extended (where they were considered weak as well).  Is there any hope for this deck against some decent Goblin/Sligh/FCG that are bound to pop up in every tournament?  Sword of F/I seems to be the only hope.