Instead of green, why not black, the second most populous cleric color? In addition to the regular black support cards like Duress/Thoughtsieze, tutor, you get a couple of great clerics; in particular, Withered Wretch and Rotlong Reanimator.

If you would interpret Monks as a subclass of clerics, Aura of Silence is thematically in. That should cover artifact/enchantment destruction fairly well. Disenchant seems in flavor as well, so unless you're planning to fight against a lot of Counterbalances, why Krosan Grip?

How about Peat Bog from Mercadian Masques for acceleration?
Damnation seems rather good against your deck, since I think the fastest you can attack is turn 5. Instead of Bone Harvest, how about Haunting Misery? (Weatherlight)
Ever considered Innocent Blood? It kills your creatures too, but once you have your army out you shouldn't care that much anymore.
Ever considered Desperate Ritual, Insidious Dreams, or Tainted Pact for search?
This is kind of an oddball idea, but what about Serum Powder?

Recently, I had an idea for a deck. Create a board setup, do something innocuous, then let that action create a chain reaction that leads to the death of one or more players. My personal criteria is the reaction should consist of nearly no optional actions between the initiation and completion.

My current incarnation is this:
In play: Last Laugh, Stalking Vengeance, Boggart Shenanigans, and two 1/1 Goblin Tokens.
In graveyard: Crypt Champion, Mogg War Marshal.

Cast Torrent of Souls, targeting Crypt Champion, which reanimates Mogg War Marshal.
Crypt Champion dies. Last Laugh and Vengeance triggers for 1 damage to all and 4 to target player.
The two original goblin tokens (now 3/1), the Mogg War Marshal, and a 1/1 goblin die from Last Laugh. 4 damage to everything, additional 11 to target player.
1/1 goblin token from Marshal dies, 1 more damage to everything, 1 more damage to target player.
Stalking Vengeance dies, 1 damage to everything.

Total damage? 23.

I think it looks hilarious. Now, here are my problem.
1. I need to build a deck that can actually achieve this board/hand/graveyard state.
2. I usually play 2HG variants, so 40 damage is preferred. Adding more goblins to the initial state is the obvious, and probably easiest solution, but why settle for mediocre? Which leads to...
3. Can anyone expand the combo to make it cuter, i.e. more steps with minimal additions.

A couple of months back a friend challenged me to build a slew of decks, each costing less than 10 dollars. I researched more heavily in combo and control decks, since they seem more difficult to construct with limited funds. Here are some of my researched combo/control setups:

- Sands of Time + Equipoise. Old school combo, both pieces incredibly cheap. Its not particularly difficult to formulate a deck around this combo. Somewhat viable from years and years ago when Visions was in standard. It played somewhat like a mix of Stasis, Parfait, and Stax. I found this deck amazing primarily because I didn't expect a decent lock deck could be built without any money cards.

- Overgrown Estate + Nefarious Lich + Sickening Dreams. Somewhat viable a couple years back in Extended. Again, pieces are surprisingly cheap, and the combo itself is so fun. Who doesn't like drawing 20+ cards then nuking the board and everyone for 20+ damage? In case you're wondering, the game plan usually consists of accelerating with Rampant Growthesque cards, disrupt with discard and/or creature kill, and fish out the combo with tutors (I suggest Idyllic Tutor for its decent price tag, unless that jank jumped the last couple months).

- A couple years back someone (think it was Ben Bleiweiss) posted an article on mtg.com on a super-cheap deck called slushie. Essentially, it casted many Dawn's Reflections and Overgrowth on a land, then repeatedly Twiddled it for mana. It used Tangle Golem and Rush of Knowledge to draw, and it would cripple the enemy board with a Temporal Fissure. In testing, it was lackluster, for it felt like the worst Tendrils deck ever. In case you're wondering why Temporal Fissure, its because the deck can't sustain a high enough storm count to kill with Brain Freeze, and even Tendrils itself was iffy.

- Tite Sight. It was an Odyssey-Onslaught constructed gem. Its an odd-looking ditty, but the best description I have is the Turboland finisher condensed into 1 turn. Not particularly expensive, and a blast to play. Here's a very old decklist: http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/4532.html. Obviously, the money cards (Cunning Wish) can be cut with minimal losses.

- Dream Halls just got off the honor farm. I'm sure you can think of something to do with that.

- Another oldie that's fun to build around is Oath of Ghouls. Its pretty strong, but I suppose it has always played second fiddle to Oath of Druids and possibly even Oath of Scholars.

I do run Firemane Angel in my stack. It looks worthless, but the lifegain is priceless. Lategame when you're sitting around at low life, there often seems to be a lull, a staring match. The extra 1 life per turn can really pull you out of the death zone. The extra beater/blocker is always nice too. The fact you never play it as your spell per turn is awesome gravy, which makes it overall better than Mist Dragon in my stack.

Oh yes, have to describe my stack again to see why my description works: Low on removal (creature and graveyard), low on combo, semi-low counters, heavy on creatures and creature enablers. Selective stack of about 280 cards.

Quick question. If you have creature(s) in your hand and a Metathran Aerostat in play, can you drop not only the creatures in hand, but also the Aerostat with its ability?

Ah yes, the next "do you run this?" Spike Hatcher. Looks horrible, in experience it works well. Its a decent sized beater, and serves as a decent creature pumper. More importantly, at least to me, is nice interactions with cards such as anything with Persist or even Rings of Brighthearth. Most importantly, it possesses the "wimpy" factor - people really don't want to waste removal on it.

First off, why are you playing Cheatyface?

This is totally off the charts, but I suggest adding penalties to being caught. Losing Cheatyface is pretty weak. Make the cheater get you a sandwich. Maybe forced to play truth or dare. Take 3 shots of tequila. Strip down to undies and play air guitar. Given a suitable drawback for cheating, anything goes. For CMC, it's officially 3, but I say as long as you announce it, you can attempt to cheat. i.e. Kaboom targets you, and a Cheatyface gets thrown into your face. You say, ow, I take 2. No one cares, you're free. You get caught, time to drink.


Totally different question. What are some good graveyard hate suitable for T4?

A different but strongly related question: Do any of you refuse to run super-efficient cards? I love my stack being very Timmy/Johnny oriented. I refuse to run Whispers of the Muse. No Swords to Plowshares for me. I only run low casting cost stuff if they're way cool, like Angel's Grace. Probably this is why I don't have Cremate in my stack.

I used to play with Dark Depths in my T4 stack. I believe I have a relatively low-power stack too. I took it out not because it was too powerful, but because it became a boring 1-trick pony. Indestructible is not a particularly powerful ability on a 20/20, since most ways to get rid of a 20/20 (at least in my stack) doesn't involve damage or destroy. Lack of trample or good evasion means it has trouble swinging through. On the other hand, Soulblast or Grab the Reins is a quick 1-turn combo. Hence, I saw her a 1-trick-pony. This may be more of a symptom of a low-power stack though, since creatures actually survive and spells actually resolve. I'm thinking of adding Tomb of Urami instead. Sure, its weaker, but my guests might get more mileage due to its lower profile.

I tried Controvert for a single day. Not a fan, my guests were horrified by how easy it was to recur it in my stack. Forbid, on the other hand, was simply boring, and although a top tier counter, it wasn't overbearingly powerful. I'm certain Spell Burst is the craziest of the 3 and I never even considered it.

Mist Dragon: Took it out. Way too weak. I've been culling the cardlists for years and now I have a fairly good selection of creatures.

Glarecaster: Took it out. Way to strong. Sounds weird, huh? It's because my stack runs a relatively low number of removal. I want my guests to really conserve their spells instead of blasting everything they see.

Door: Quite powerful when its down to 1v1, but in larger games, the chance of backfiring is just too great. There's always the errant Word of Seizing, Willbender, Time Stop, Voidslime, Voidmage Husher, and even Angel's Grace floating around. I include it since it's hilarious to see people trying to protect it. Same with Phage, the Untouchable.

Djinn: Relatively to other stacks I've seen posted, mine has a very low power level. I never even considered Djinn, esp. since I run a large number of burn.

Blast from the Past: Tried it for 1 game, took it out forever. Whispers of the Muse on crack. If you can't counter it, it will usually kill someone in 1 or 2 rounds. (I usually play 5-8 player).

Tower of Fortunes: I've been rather hard on combo cards, leaving pretty much only Rube Goldberg style combos. Therefore, the power of Tower is lessened. A strong card most definitely, but fine in my stack.

Homura: Never considered it, never will. To me, firebreathing kills the fun of T4, unless tacked on an otherwise hilarious creature (i.e. Dragon Tyrant, which we errata to not have firebreathing)

Chorus: See Homura.

Greater Morphling: I tried Morphling. Not too fond of it, since it was too small to compete and ended up either as a infinite blocker, which was fine, or infinite life with Miren, the Moaning Well. Not so fine. I suppose G.M. will have a similar effect, except it beats really well. If I can errata it to (a) not instant kill with bushido stacking, and (b) not go infinite with Miren, I might as well include it.

Richard Garfield: Gives too much advantage to experienced players, and massively delays turns. I have a lot of fairly experienced players playing as well, so I would rather not antagonize them.

Tutors: I actually run quite a few. Mystical Teachings, Tooth and Nail, Chord of Calling, Riptide Shapeshifter, Citanul Flute, and maybe one or 2 I forgot. Never found them too broken, since as I said before, the combos in my stack are very inefficient.

Whipser of the Muse: When I did run it, it was really great, but not utterly broken. I still removed it, since the 1 mana cost really turned me off. I found Pulse of the Grid an interesting replacement.

Sway of the Stars: Its board removal + burn. Great card, except leaves you a bit vulnerable. Great in team games as a gigantic burn.

I think it's Vampiric Dragon and not Volcanic. No biggie.

Aladdin's Lamp + Beacon of Tomorrows is always funny. Dollar rares both.

Sneak Attack is like combo central, works too well with Hoverguard Sweepers and Arcanis and a whole bunch of stuff. Chainer is too.

A quirky favorite of mine is Spike Hatcher + Rings of Brighthearth. Not truly instant kill, but cute.

Hmm... how to address gameplay? Let me note some of the drawbacks of this format.

First off, you know how T4 is to magic as super smash bros. is to fighting games? Yea... T4 is definitely more of a party game than a traditional magic format. Bang style makes it even more like a party game than traditional magic. Normal gaming etiquettes is blindingly obvious, but there's always that one guy that screws it up. In particular, there's the guy who decides to go on tilt against someone else that offended him, regardless of role. Yep, it's a roleplaying game!

Perhaps it's a peculiarity of mine, but I intensely dislike simple combos in T4. Every time a mediocre card turns into a broken 2-card win combination, I immediately take it out. If a combo becomes too effective and well-known in the stack, I take it out as well. I have a stack of about 250 and a reservoir of T4 rejects equally large. I don't mind Rube Goldberg combos or ones that don't immediately win you the game. Nevertheless, I believe my stack became well-suited for Bang style T4, since the dearth of good combos mean the players have to work together to get the win. I would imagine a stack rampant with instant win 2-card combos would be less fun for Bang rules.

Another obvious problem is the decks themselves. I don't know other people's stacks or drafting habits, but the power level of the decks are probably not equal. Since roles are shuffled around quite often... actually, do I need to go any further? Imbalanced decks allows players to munchkin their way out of roleplaying. Personally, and out of popular demand among my friends, decks are doled out by random shuffling after each game.

Finally, the Renegade's complaint. The Renegade has to be the last survivor. This is hellishly difficult. Let me run through the process required to win.

1. Take out most of the Outlaws, so they don't swarm the Sheriff for a quick win.
2. Take out the Deputies, so you have a clear shot of the sheriff, then reduce the game to a 1v1 against the Sheriff.
3. Beat the sheriff.

That's a pretty hefty challenge. Outlaws win? You lose. Outlaws die off too fast? You lose. Kill the Deputy and face off the Sheriff half-dead? You probably lose. The Renegade is the booby prize of all role assignments. The only improvement I can think of is to declare all ties as a win to the Renegade, which does help, but not enough.

If you can accept these drawbacks, Bang Style T4 is fun.

The past 3 years, I more or less quit constructed magic. However, I am still deeply interested in Type 4 and I really love my T4 stack. As most people know, Type 4 is horrid for duels. Simple free-for-all is generally the preferred method of play. I'm not too fond of FFA, so I developed (or rather, incorporated from another game) a sister set of rules to spice up my T4 circle. After playing with these rules for around an year, I believe it is superior than just FFA.


The inspiring game is Bang!. In essence, each character is assigned a role facedown, and play accordingly. Search wikipedia if you want to learn more about Bang!

Roles:
Sheriff - Deputy - Outlaw - Renegade
I sleeve cards of different colors to represent roles. The easiest way is probably to find a couple of notecards and write the corresponding role on each.

Outlaw - Outlaws collectively win if the Sheriff is dead.
Sheriff - the only one to reveal his role in the beginning. The sheriff wins if all Outlaws and all Renegades are dead.
Deputy - shares victory with the sheriff, but isn't penalized if killed early
Renegade - wins if he is the last man standing. this means he must kill the Sheriff last regardless (else Outlaws win, even from beyond the grave)


Assignment of roles:
Assignment is random since each player's role is hidden. Alternatively, the sheriff can rotate, since that's the only role which isn't hidden, and being the sheriff multiple times in a row sucks.
I find this style of play excellent for 5-8 people.
5s - 1 sheriff, 1 deputy,   2 outlaws, 1 renegade
6s - 1 sheriff, 1 deputy,   3 outlaws, 1 renegade
7s - 1 sheriff, 2 deputies, 3 outlaws, 1 renegade
8s - 1 sheriff, 2 deputies, 3 outlaws, 2 renegade
9+ can be done, and I'm sure you can figure out a good role distribution by yourself as well.


Additional Rules:
- Turn order is clockwise, with the sheriff starting first.

- Sheriff has additional life (In my stack, he starts at 30 and everyone else starts at 20).

- If a player kills an Outlaw, he or she draws 3 cards.

- If the sheriff controls kills the deputy, the Sheriff has to discard all cards and sacrifice all permanents. I would also recommend stopping all existing effects and remove-remove stuff like spelljacked spells and phased out Mist Dragons. (Deters the Sheriff to go rambo and makes masquerading as a deputy a powerful play. I would say countering a spell that saves the Deputy from death doesn't count as killing the Deputy)

- At any point in time you may label a player as an ally or an opponent. New labels do not retroactively apply to existing effects.
(the retroactive rule is mostly to prevent ridiculous Teferi exploits like allowing a player to cast just because you want him to counter something on the stack)
If you call John an opponent and he calls you an ally, you can still attack him, because he's your opponent. In short, your stuff only care about your declaration.


Basic strategies so you can get started:
- Sheriff
Survival. Your primary goal is to survive. Early on, leave the fighting to your deputy and only kill when you're sure of the target. Do remember if you kill your Deputy, you lose everything.

- Deputy
If you attack an unknown player, more often than not you'll hit an outlaw or a renegade. Dying as Deputy doesn't mean you lose, so aggression is often the best solution. Notice the Renegade is often your ally to start with due to number or roles, and prematurely killing him puts you at a bad disadvantage.

- Outlaws
Outlaws have strength in numbers, and should start off guns blazing before defensive measures can be put up. As long as the Sheriff dies you win, so kamikaze attacks are valid. Stockpiling is often the wrong strategy, because Deputies generally start the round attacking blindly and statistically eliminates you or an allied Outlaw first. However, if your Outlaw buddies die really early before you revealed yourself, masquerading as a Deputy may then be a good strategy.

- Renegade
In most scenarios, Renegade is forced to be the Sheriff's ally early on because the Outlaws have a numerical advantage. Start attacking the Deputy when the Outlaws are very weak. And don't forget to accuse the Deputy as being the renegade as you do this. Renegade is the hardest role to play, wins very rarely, and is mostly there to muddle up the game politics.


Final Comments
- Bang! style provides a streamlined game structure, yet alliances are constantly shifting. There is also "political intrigue" because you have to figure out who's who.

- Bang! style is really easy to integrate into a normal T4 game, since all you need is a way to assign a role randomly and secretly. Poker cards probably work, but I recommend sleeved cards of different colors. Personally, I use pink sleeves, and I use a Worship as Sheriff, Nimble Mongoose as Deputy, Orzhov Euthanist as Black, and Form of the Dragon as red.

- Totally off topic - lots of people have different rules for ACCs. For my stack, I say any spell you play without paying a mana cost doesn't count for your spell per turn. Force of Will, spells obtained by Mindleech Mass or Guile, or even Mind's Desire are free. Morphs, and Bringer ACC are not free.

- You should try Chaos stack with Bang! style. Bang! itself has a chaos stack, and I use those rules to determine how they work. Starting from the 2nd round (a round being each player takes his/her turn), the Sheriff reveals a card from the Chaos stack randomly. This action is taken before the Sheriff's turn starts and cannot be responded to nor countered. If it's a static effect, the Chaos card itself cannot be affected or removed.

One of my friends started Magic years and years ago, quit around Exodus, and just started Magic again. One thing I've been doing is trying to build classic decks and show it to him. I've always found Parfait to be one of the most unique decks out there.

So, the question that bugs me is how do you build a modern day Parfait that captures the spirit of the deck?

My requirements for this deck is rather simple. Obviously, the deck is not Vintage competitive. I have no intention to try to make it competitive. I am more interested in capturing the original intentions of the deck. Newer cards from newer sets are fine, as long as it doesn't change the playstyle or the marquee cards in the deck.

So, my definition of Parfait is a deck using the Land Tax and Scroll Rack draw engine, and controlling your land count via Zuran Orb. Cheap stall is given by StP, Orim's Chant, and Abeyance. Panic button in the form of Wrath of Gods and Balance. Long Term control via a few Aura of Silences, Ivory Mask, and Humility. Some recursion via a Soldevi Digger and a few Argivian Finds. Kill is either Goblin Charbelcher or Sacred Mesa. Other random stuff like Enlightened Tutor and Planar Birth. And artifact mana.

So lets see... what do I have?

4 Land Tax
4 Scroll Rack
2 Zuran Orb

4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Abeyance

2 Wrath of God
1 Balance

2 Aura of Silence
1 Ivory Mask
1 Humility
1 Island Sanctuary

1 Soldevi Digger
4 Argivian Find

1 Sacred Mesa
1 Goblin Charbelcher
1 Planar Birth
1 Enlightened Tutor

1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Diamond
2 Talisman of Progress / Marble Diamond
18 Plains
1 Black Lotus (interchangeable with plains for budget casual)
1 Mox Pearl (interchangeable with plains for budget casual)

I think that's 59 cards. Basically, what are good inclusions? (i'm staying away from a sideboard, this is more for demonstration than practicality, honesty. which is why this is definitely in casual.)

So, how would you change this deck to make it spiritually closer to the original Parfait decks? And oh yeah, what are some other very unique classic decks that can be easily built?

Cunning Wish has several things going for it. Unlike Merchant Scroll, it is highly unlikely your opponent has counterspells in your sideboard. Stifles in the board, however, can be annoying. The ability to search for answers can compensate for its higher casting cost.

This portion is probably better suited for Rules Forum. But since all the questions are about the deck I'll just throw it here for now.

Given that I have Cabal Therapy in the graveyard and Academy Rector in play, if I sacrifice the Rector for the flashback, will Eye of the Storm remove Cabal Therapy from the game? The comp rules state that "remove this card from the game instead of putting it anywhere else any time it would leave the stack,� so I take it that EotS will remove Cabal Therapy and will create additional copies in the future.

If EotS has a Cunning Wish removed and I cast Turnabout, can I wish for the Cunning Wish? the Turnabout? If I wish for either spell, would EotS still create copies of the spells in the future, or does EotS function like imprint?

Wouldn't Cunning Wish be a better win condition than Twiddle?

It took me a while to think of how to go off with Cunning Wish, so I'll just write it down.


You have 4 Cunning Wishes main, 1 Turnabout side, and 1 Brain Freeze side.

With Eye of the Storm out, cast Cunning Wish for Turnabout. Eye of the Storm triggers before Cunning Wish resolves, Cunning Wish removing itself is irrelevant. Cunning Wish is removed by EotS, and you get Turnabout.

Cast Turnabout, and Eye of the Storm will get you an additional Cunning Wish. Cunning Wish for Cunning Wish, which will active Turnabout.

I'm not absolutely sure about how Cunning Wish for Cunning Wish affects Eye of the Storm, whether by returning it to your hand will make Eye of the Storm cease make copies of Cunning Wish or not. But it does not matter - You have mana again via Turnabout, you have Cunning Wish in your hand, and Turnabout is again in the RFG zone.

As you can see, this is an infinite loop assuming turnabout nets 4 mana back. Is this kill valid? or is Twiddling more useful?

Here's an fun minicombo i use occasionally to get a solid multicolor manabase.

Gaea's Balance + Planar Birth

Not only does it get you all 5 colors,  it gives you 1 more card advantage than Ancestral Recall with the same net cost   .

I actually seen a Sliver deck with the manabase of 4 CoB, 4 Thran Quarry, 4 Gemstone Mine, 4 Archeological Dig, 4 Reflecting Pool, 2 Undiscovered Paradise, and 2 Grand Coliseum.  To make a long story short, it sucked not because the manabase was weak (you don't see that many wasteland in casual play), but because you really needed to punch out a lot of slivers to present a threat.

Since you already have a Sliver Toolbox set up, why don't you diversify your slivers? A lot of the older slivers are amazing under certain circumstances,  such as Acidic Sliver and Victual Sliver. I would suggest running them as 1-ofs.

Horned, Plated, and Blade Slivers always felt really weak. Slivers generally are exceptionally weak with amazing abilities granted by the Legions slivers, so why don't you make them scary disablers instead of mediocre attackers? I find a combination of Hunter, Toxin, and Synapse Sliver to be better. Plus Shifting Sliver makes Horned look bad.

If you do choose to use the combo i listed above, why don't you consider Spectral Sliver? Instead of giving minor boosts here and there via Plated and Hunter, Spectral makes them into mini Nantuko Shades.

Do you really think this is blah?

When Lion's Eye Diamond first came out, I'm sure a whole bunch of people ran around screaming "HOLY SHIT LOTUS IS BACK." Why? Because a fundamentally broken card seems to be reprinted.

When Mox Diamond came out, people were also screaming "HOLY SHIT it's a mox! " The hubbub eventually died down, but the fact is people will be worked up and will be thinking of the possibilities when a throwback of old school brokeness is printed. Similar reactions were provoked when Foil and Disrupting Shoal was printed.

People also tend to go nuts when an incredible card comes with an extremely low casting cost. For instance, people love Phyrexian Dreadnaught because it seems so cheap for so much. Other examples of this include Grinning Demon and Fireblast.

I see my card as a continuation of that series. I believe I managed to get away with an impossibly low initially costed card by attaching an amusing drawback, while keeping it rather elegant as well as flavorful.

Although I don't profess too much knowledge in Legacy, as far as I know Solidarity isn't tier 1 yet.  If this card was actually usable, how improved do you speculate Solidarity will become?

I have always liked the card Necrologia. To me, that card was revolutional. It changed a completely busted card (Necropotence) into a fair yet casually powerful card. In the spirit of that card, I would like to introduce



Miser's Folly.
B.
Instant.
Play Miser's Folly only during your end step.
Draw 4 cards. Target opponent gains control of your next turn. (He or she see all cards that you could see and make all decisions for you. you do not lose life because of mana burn.)



By limiting this to end of turn, it prevents stupid things like killing with tendrils. It is probably way worse than Spoils of the Vault in Belcher-ish deck, for it has even a smaller chance for success and failure guarantees death.

I think the name aptly describes the soul of this card. It's so tempting to a miser, 4 cards for a single mana. Any greedy bastard will jump for such a bargain. But the drawback is so severe that they would most likely almost die from it. Sort of Faustian, no? Plus, the cards you drew will have a high chance to come back and haunt you, hence the folly of the decision.

I don't see how this is in any way similar to Squandered Resources in terms of gameplay. Squandered Resources basically just added incredible amounts of mana early game, with a negligible cost if you win that turn. Strip Mining is more of a way to get minor acceleration spikes once in a while. You can't get more than 1 mana per turn, and it's not even the same turn you play it.

Nevertheless, I do see problems with this card. It feels too calculated. You are deliberately marking a land so you can get more out of it later. Red wants stuff now, and does not really care about the future. This is definitely thinking about the future. It probably makes more sense black.

What I really like about this card is that it has a built in free recursion that is extremely hard to abuse. I guess it can be put into a really funky TurboEnchantress thingy, but I really doubt that's going to turn heads.

First of all, of all the Masticore creatures, Flowstone Overseer seems like the most amusing one. I'll definitely stick one into my stack for fun. Who knows? Maybe my playgroup will eventually embrace it.

I beg to differ about your statement about getting milled an annoying death. True, death from a Millstone or Mesmeric Orb is rather mundane and annoying.

But a death from multiple Tower of Murmurs activation in a turn, as well as recurring Denying Wind, is nothing of that kind. It is an amazingly brutal and violent death. Admit it, you get sadistic glee from blowing 2/3's of a person's deck to oblivion. And since it's such a quick and violent death, I usually don't find much complaining. It's no more irritating that getting hit in the face by a flung Snow Fortress or Bosh'd Gleemax.

On a sidenote, I usually only pass out enough draft cards so that each deck is 40 cards at maximum. This is to make sure the few crazy card drawing bombs like Armistice, Browse, Mind's Eye, etc. have a significant enough drawback, as well as make milling a credible threat.

On Goblin Game, fine, you win. Nevertheless, I shall always view Goblin Game as the coolest card in T4   .

Out of VGB's card ratings, I must protest 2 of them.

1. Goblin Game. No matter how silly Goblin Game looks, it's incredibly powerful. In games of 4 or more, a single Game will easily deal 30-50 damage early game. In my opinion, it's the 2nd best burn, only losing to Inferno. Yes, it beats out both Urza's Rage and Searing Wind. Kudos to you if you get all 4, of course. Plus there's the amusing factor, and rarely does a player counters it (unless he or she is a dour). You'll never forget Goblin Game + Mindslaver either. Pure fun.

2. Tower of Murmurs. Unless you hid it somewhere, I didn't see it listed in your stack. I find most players tend to draft as many card drawers and library thinners as they can. This totally punishes them, and with some help from Icy Manipulator or Copy Artifact, it pretty much spells game. Denying Wind is some good too.


I also want people's opinion on the way I run my stack. I'm a bit lazy to post the entire thing, because it doesn't really vary that much; I collect whatever I think is good and stuff it in. However, my stack is a bit more creature oriented. I noticed creatures in T4 are usually described as finishers for their decks, because the spell component is just superior by too much.

For example, I run a lot of regenerators, untargetables, and other creatures that have ways to dodge death. I also try to heavily limit creature removal to ones that allows regeneration (so no terror). You'll be suprised how many there really are. I still have a good number of creature removal that can remove regenerators, but you can't count on them that much. I also do not run Masticore-like creatures. My T4 group decided they gum up creature combat too much.

Has anyone tried a heavier creature component to T4? I really recommend it. And just in case anyone infers my stack is built just for timmies, I do have a good number of counters, combo components, etc.

My T4 playgroup handles infinite activations differently.

First of all, my group is full of math, science and engineering nerds.

We basically use L' Hopital's rule, and take in account of the order in which the abilities are activated.

For example, Masticore vs a 2/2 generic regenerator.
For every 2 activations of Masticore the regenerator only has to activate once; therefore, the regenerator always wins.

In the case of a 1/1 regenerator vs a Masticore, it gets trickier. Basically, whoever activates first loses.

In the case of 2 Masticores vs a 2/2 regenerator, it gets simplified down to the previous example with the 1/1 regenerator, because we group infinite activations by player, not by individual cards.

My T4 group decided this method makes the most sense, and for every case there will be a distinct answer.

If you don't mind the rules confusion, these cards will make any T4 game hilarious if they come out. (The more the better!)

Goblin Game.
Burning Cinder Fury of Crimson Chaos Fire.
Grips of Chaos.
Confusion in the Ranks.
Psychic Battle.
Shared Fate.
Gate to the AEther.
Timeshifter.

I run these cards in my stack, and so far I haven't seen any complaints (after i explain how everything works together, at least.)

Oh yes, beware of Goblin Game. I've seen it kill one time too many.

If anyone on these forums recognizes me, I'll be in total shock.
Anyways, I've been reading TMD for years and I concluded it to be the best source for magic, both competitive and casual.

Ok, onto my idea.

So far, my idea seems way too complex and bulky to be used. Therefore, I ask the community if there are ways to simplify this.

I always envisioned a keyword / concept I dub void, most likely to be used on creatures.

Void does the following:
- This card cannot be targeted by spells or abilities. (uncounterable + untargetability, in most cases)
- Static(?) and continuous effects do not affect this card. For example, even under Trinisphere this card can cost less than 3. A creature with void will retain its text with Humility in play.  Glorious Anthem will not give a creature with void +1/+1.
- This card does not trigger activated abilities or replacement effects. For example, it will slide through Hesitation.
- A creature with void will still die to damage, wrath of gods, edicts, etc.

As you can see, this is a total nightmare in terms of size and rules. However, I see flavor linking these abilities together (creates a magic-dead zone), and I was wondering if there was a way to template this, or at least salvage parts of this for future card ideas.

While reading random magic posts around the net, I came across an interesting quote - "the B/R list should be a hall of fame for broken cards."

Reflecting on that quote, I realized that most people who calls for the unrestriction of certain cards only suggest the underpowered cards, such as Earthcraft, Mind Over Matter, Entomb, and Fork. Shouldn't the B/R list only contain cards that will seriously destroy the format?

I focus my discussion on the following cards: Dream Halls, Fact or Fiction, and Tinker. These cards are obviously extremely strong, there is no denying that. But are they strong enough to supplant today's format?

Dream Halls. This card was insane several years back. As far as I understand, the deck relies on casting draw spells that draws more than 3 cards for free so eventually your hand is enormous, allowing broken plays. How is this better than draw7.dec? I challenge people to create a deck using 4 Dream Halls that will completely destroy the format. Remember, the deck doesn't just have to be good. It has to screw up the format by eliminating an impressive number of competitive tier 1 and tier 2 decks.

Fact or Fiction. This card was restricted because BBS totally destroyed Rasko's old keeper deck. If there is another reason, I don't know it and would like to know it. Anyways, 4 FoF in BBS was killer back then. Does it still pwn everything that stands in its way? Or is there a more broken way to abuse it? Like the above, can you prove that FoF will distort the game?

Tinker. Tinker was so freaking strong that it allowed extended decks to overpower and outbroken T1 decks. It is arguably the strongest tutor in magic. That being said, I am curious about the full power of this card. Most likely, sticking a few more copies in draw7.dec will add to the consistency of the deck and make the deck just that much scarier. But still, is it THAT stupidly broken? Does it qualify under T1's Hall of Broken Fame? I would like to see a deck that abuses 4 tinkers and make a deck so degenerate nothing can stand in its way. But if such a deck can't be built, we really should question its position on the B/R list.

As a summary, I argue that the T1 B/R List should only embrace cards that totally negate existence of other decks. Do these three cards, Dream Halls, Fact or Fiction, and/or Tinker, qualify? At the very least, I wish my post will allow people to think about creative deck building.