You have that backwards. After you play a spell or ability, you have priority immediately. That means that you have to choose whether or not to copy the spell you just played without knowing if your opponent is going to counter it. Now if it is a must-counter spell for your opponent, then you can use the Guildmage for insurance, as you can just copy it in response to any counterspell he plays.

One suggestion that I haven't seen mentioned in the thread yet is Vampire Hounds. Most of the cards you are going to be discarding are creature cards (Squee, Horror, Rootwalla). Replacing Mongrels with Vampire Hounds doubles the damage you're doing and you still have ZI and Bazaar as discard outlets for Death Sparks, etc.

10 proxy tournament at the PTQ on 12/17

registration at noon, play to start at 1pm

prize structure:
1st - unl lotus
2nd - unl emerald
3rd - unl twister
4th - library of alexandria
5th - mana crypt
6th - dci foil vampiric tutor
7th - revised (3rd) underground sea
8th - revised (3rd) tropical island

$25 entry fee

etc etc more details in flier

flier here

Instant speed makes it pretty powerful against Wasteland.

The way its worded right now, the drawback isn't a drawback at all. In response to the CIP remove 3 artifacts from the game ability, you can just tap and sac it to do its thing. You need to write it as an additional cost, or as a Phyrexian Dreadnought like replacement effect.

Clerical Error
1U
Instant

The next time you would draw a card this turn, draw three cards instead.

Is this over powered? Its 1U for +1 card advantage that requires another draw spell to work. Also, should I put in a "You can't play this during your upkeep" clause to prevent you from using it on your normal turn draw?

2U? Why would you be hardcasting it? Turn 1 Bazaar followed by turn 2 fetch (which happens a fair amount of time) means your Logics are online turn 2 for 3 mana, which is probably a hard counter that early. Mana Drain and Bazaar can be online turn 3 at the earliest, unless you luck out and draw your Lotus or Sapphire. I can see your point about needing the Drain mana though. I was going off my experience on playing a similar deck, but that deck didn't play TfK or DA, and it used Zombie Infestation for the kill rather than Replenish, so as a whole it was quite a bit less mana-intensive.

Other thoughts, why do you need 2 Form of the Dragons? It seems like that slot would be better used for your 4th Squee to help Bazaar/Careful Study/TfK become card advantage earlier and more often.

Mana Drain + Bazaar seems like they would interfere with each other. You have to choose between getting your draw engine and your counters online. Have you considered replacing the Drains with Circular Logics?

Sundered Realms 2WU
Enchantment

Continuous effects created by static abilities a player controls do not apply to opponents of the player, or to permanents, spells, or abilities opponents control.

This is kind of a mouthfull, and I'm not sure it really works rulewise. My idea was to make something Null Rod like, but that affects all the things that aren't activated abilities. I made this white and blue because white is the color of isolation (True Believer, Ivory Mask, Solitary Confinement), but blue does all the wierd rules manipulation stuff.

No, the spell would already be on the stack, and not in your hand when the ability is relevant.

Guardian, you're right it should be "instant cards" not "instants". But as for upping the cc to 5, I don't see why it would be necessary. At 4 it is still hard castable in T2 at least. The standard power for counterspells these days is 4cc with a bonus or 3cc with a drawback.

Any ideas for the name? I'm horrible with card names unless I start with it.

Nothing Up My Sleeve
3U
Instant

If you control an Island and have no instants in your hand, you may reveal your hand instead of paying ~THIS~'s casting cost.

Counter target spell.


The name is obviously just a placeholder.

The alt. casting cost is a fair drawback, as it means the card is useless in your hand in multiples. The controlling an Island bit is just so every color doesn't get a free counterspell.

Comments?


Current wording:

Nothing Up My Sleeve
3U
Instant

If you control an Island and have no instant cards in your hand, you may reveal your hand instead of paying ~THIS~'s mana cost.

Counter Target Spell

Would the charge counters put on the RFG'd card actually carry through to the permanent when it comes into play? I thought when permanents came into play they forgot about their previous existences in other zones.

Induce   1U

Instant

Choose a triggered ability of target permanent. That ability triggers.

Here's wording for the original ability that should work. I'm not going to try to cost the artifact because I have no idea what it should be.

When ~THIS~ comes into play, choose target opponent.
If that opponent would add any amount of mana to his or her mana pool, you may pay 1. If you do, that opponent adds that amount of mana to his or her pool of a color of your choice instead.

EDIT: Added the crucial "instead".

I think everyone is overlooking a big difference when comparing the turnout of west coast tournaments to east coast ones. That difference is the fact that there a lot more stores holding regular power tournaments within reasonable driving distance of any given point. A person on the east coast may have five different store that he or she can drive to, a person on the west coast is lucky if he or she has two.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that if you compare a single store in the east to a single store in the west, you find the frequency of power tournaments to be approximately equal. It is just the close proximity of many stores that allows people to go to more tournaments than they could in the east. My point is that the larger attendance of tournaments in the east is not just more people going to tournaments, but also people going to more tournaments. That makes the difference between player bases in the east and west appear to be larger than it really is.

What?! Out of 9 tournaments, they couldn't do *one* on the west coast? Come on SCG, there's T1 players out here too!

Fine, but now you have a win condition that is dependant on what your opponent has out. That seems like it would be a bad thing.

Umm... Dragon returns cards to play under their *owner's* control. You are going to have to actually get rid of the Platinum, unless you plan on just beating down with it.

Perhaps I'm missing something. How exactly are you killing with Memnarch?

What do you need Memnarch for? Platinums can be dealt with simply by boarding in Oxidizes. Go off with Witness and you can play as many Oxidizes as you want.

I play Apprentice under Virtual PC all the time. It works perfectly fine as long as you have the right version for the right OS you are running (98 or 2000).

Washington:

Mirkwood (2 Locations)

8715 271st St. NW
Stanwood, WA 98292
(360) 629 1760

402 South 1st St.
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
(888) 419 7032

We play T1 (5 proxy) every Sunday at the Stanwood store starting between 12:00 and 1:00. We also play T1.5 at the Mount Vernon store on Thursdays starting at 4:00 and Saturdays starting at 1:00. We also occaisionally (every 2 months or so) hold power tournaments at the Mount Vernon store.

Have you considered Juntu Stakes instead of Cursed Totem? It doesn't get Shamans, but it gets all their attackers.

Congrats on winning the Beta Ancestral (er I mean lotus ), but I'm pretty sure I played you 3rd round, not 4th.  Perhaps you got your notes mixed up.

Where:
Mirkwood Mount Vernon
402 South 1st St.
Mount Vernon, WA 98273
(888) 419-7032

When:
August 28th
3 PM (I hope to start by then)

Entry Fee:
$20 USD

Format:
Type 1

Proxies:
10 allowed (not including cards you own and have with you)
Must have full card name and oracle text on it.

Prizes:
1st Unl. Ex Ancestral Recall
2nd 4x BB Sinkhole EX+ - NM
3rd UNL EX+ Berserk
4th-8th Prizes TBD by attendance

Deck registration is required, so please bring a previously typed or (legibly) written out deck list.

Hope to see a bunch of you there!

First off, let me preface this post with some disclaimers. I don't believe this deck to be Tier 1. It possibly could evolve into a Tier 1 deck, but I doubt it. It is in some ways a hate deck. It is designed to outdraw and outcounter control in most forms (fish, landstill, 4cc, etc.) and it can pretty easily deal with most combo, but the tradeoff is that it dies a horrible death to any sort of fast aggro. Also, please note that this is deck is quite rough and several of the card choices are open for debate (especially in the board).

Now that the cover-my-ass-from-flames portion of this is over, lets go on to the deck presentation. A good place to start would be a decklist.

Pink Eye

Draw
4x Bazaar of Baghdad
4x Standstill
2x Intuition
1x Library of Alexandria
1x Ancestral Recall

Kennys
4x Squee
3x Krovikan Horror

Counters
4x Force of Will
4x Circular Logic
2x Daze/Forbid/Foil/Stifle

Kill
4x Zombie Infestation

Utility
2x Wonder
1x Time Walk
1x Demonic Tutor
1x Strip Mine

Mana
4x Underground Sea
4x Volcanic Island
4x Polluted Delta
5x Island
1x Black Lotus
4x Moxen (-Pearl)

Sideboard
4x Fiery Temper
3x Wasteland
2x Teferi's Response
2x Rack and Ruin
2x Misdirection
2x Daze/Forbid/Foil/Stifle

The deck's name "Pink Eye" is a reference to the South Park episode of the same name. The Squees and Horrors just seemed so much like Kenny (die every turn and come back the next one) that the reference to turning Kenny into a Zombie was too good to pass up.

The basic game plan of the deck is to draw ginormous amounts of cards with Bazaar and your 7 Squees and then build up Zombie tokens the same way while countering enough of your opponents spells. If you can stabilize and get in control, this deck can out draw pretty much any other deck. I was routinely drawing 2-4 extra cards *every* turn, and often I would have over 10 cards in my hand by the end of my upkeep.

Anyway, lets go on to specific card choices:

Bazaar: This functions as both a huge card advantage machine and a discard outlet for Logics and Tempers. This card is essential to the workings of this deck.

Standstill: Since, once you've laid an Infestation, none of your proactive goals are spell-based, this card has amazing synergy.

Intuition: This card lets you set up your draw engine. Intuitioning for 3 Squees is some good with a Bazaar or Infestation on the table.

Library of Alexandria: This card is an auto-include simply because you will almost always be at 7 cards sometime in the beginning phase once you've got going.

Ancestral Recall: Is explanation needed?

Squee/Horror: These are the heart of the deck. I think 3 is the right number for Horror because it is a little harder to use than Squee. Squee can be discarded with madness spells without losing it to oblivion. However, Horrors do come back twice as often as Squee.

Force of Will: Duh.

Circular Logic: Once you have a discard outlet and 3 or 4 cards in your graveyard, these are effectively 1 mana hard counters.

Daze/Forbid/Foil/Stifle: I'm not quite sure which of these is the best in this slot. I've been running Dazes and I'm not impressed. They are pretty much dead after the first couple turns. I think Dazes are a run 4 or run 0 card. Stifles are cool for the random first turn striping a fetch, but on the whole are rather unflexable and narrow. Foil and Forbid are two options that I haven't really tested, but they seem promising. Foils would be more free counters for the early game if you have a Squee. Forbid would be a great way to prevent miraculous late game recoveries by your opponent. Some input on this issue would be greatly appreciated.

Zombie Infestation: The kill. This too is a great permanent way of generating card advantage, although it doesn't come in the form of actual cards in your hand.

Wonder: This is mainly for the Fish matchup. Not being able to block two thirds of their creatures is a bad thing. You could probably shuffle these to the sideboard or out of the deck altogether if you aren't expecting much Fish.

Time Walk, Demonic Tutor, + Strip Mine: More duh cards.

Sideboard cards:

Fiery Temper: Creating a Zombie Token to block and madness bolting the blocked creature at the same time is a really strong play against the aggro-control decks. If you have a Wonder in the graveyard, you can kill Exalteds with it too. This might belong in the maindeck, but I'm not really sure what to swap them for.

Wasteland: These are boarded because the Bazaars already squeeze the manabase somewhat. I included them pretty much for the Landstill matchup where the lands are threats too.

Teferi's Response: Wasteland counter/Bazaar protection.

Rack and Ruin: Artifact hate. Perhaps I should have more? Only two cards to hate out artifacts seems kind of low.

Misdirection: More free counters. Also you can do fun tricks like stealing Fish's Curiositys.


Well, I hope I provided enough information for an engaging discussion. Overall, I feel this deck is quite fun to play, and has some serious merit.

Oh, credits:

This deck was evolved from decklists posted on this TMD thread and (though I'm ashamed to admit it) this Brainburst thread. My contributions to the deck have been the additions of Standstill, Forbid, and Wonder.

Spellweaver Helix will not trigger off spells played from a Panoptic Mirror. Read the card, it only triggers whenever a *card* is played. That means no copies of spells.