Has anyone tried the incarnations from Judgement?  Anger if playing mountains, Wonder if playing islands, Brawn if playing forests.  It seems to me that adding an anger or two can speed up dredge if you can consistently keep a mountain in play.

-Phil

Izzet Guildmage
2U: Copy target instant spell you control with converted mana cost 2 or less. You may choose new targets for the copy.
2R: Copy target sorcery spell you control with converted mana cost 2 or less. You may choose new targets for the copy.

Wee Dragonauts
Whenever you play an instant or sorcery spell, Wee Dragonauts gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

Do spell copies (i.e. from Izzet Guildmage) count as spells played for the purposes of Storm or a card like Wee Dragonaughs?


Thanks,

Phil

In the past, I have toyed with decks similar to yours and believe that you have overlooked a couple of key cards.  They are as follows:

Lightning Greaves - Acts as extra crossroads with the equip cost of zero.  Untargetability is a bonus.

Elvish Spirit Guide - Provides fast mana.  More on this later.

Birchlore Rangers - Allows excess elves to provide mana and allows access to mana of other colors.

Genesis Chamber - More creatures, especially useful with Birchlore Rangers.  Benefit to opponent is negligible.


In tinkering with elves decks in the past, especially in Type 1, I have come to the following conclusion: Your fundamental turn is one.  You must drop as much mana (or mana producing dudes) on turn one to be successful.  Turn one is your setup for turns 2 and 3, which is where you will need mana the most.  Thus I would heavily suggest you play creatures like Birchlore Ranges and Elvish Spirit Guide, as they accelerate your turn one (or avoid summoning sickness).  This also necessitates the use of Crop Rotation (Crop Rotation -> Cradle on turn 2 or replace a cradle with a cradle).

Another point of note: Do not rely heavly on crossroads.  There is no easier way to lose a game than being so reliant on a single spell that is disrupted or undrawn.

Also for suitable draw power I would include at least 8 cards, because you want to see 1 (or more) in your opening 2 turns (8-9 cards).  For card drawing I would suggest: Skullclamp, Glimpse of Nature, or Collective Unconsciousness.

Now for some questions of my own....

1. Has anyone tried a Wirewood Hivemaster, Genesis Chamber, Caller of the Claw massive creature build with a Pandemonium/Kyren Negotiations/Flame Fusillade kill?

2. What do you think of Food Chain as an elf combo enabler?

3. Can you give me a more descriptive explanation of why Sylvan Messenger didn't make the cut?



Thanks,

Phil

From the Comprehensive Rulebook:

408.1c The active player gets priority at the beginning of most phases and steps, after any game
actions are dealt with and abilities that trigger at the beginning of that phase or step go on the
stack. No player gets priority during the untap step and players usually don’t get priority during
the cleanup step (see rule 314.3). The player with priority may play a spell or ability, take a
special action, or pass. If he or she plays a spell or ability, or takes a special action, the player
again receives priority; otherwise, the next player in turn order receives priority. If all players
pass in succession (that is, if all players pass without taking any actions in between passing), the
top object on the stack resolves, then the active player receives priority. If the stack is empty
when all players pass in succession, the phase or step ends and the next one begins.


Am I correct in saying that I can cast a spell x, retain priority, and cast a split second spell... effectively making spell x uncounterable?  Could I also cast spell x, retain priority, instant y, retain priority, and cast a split second spell making x and y uncounterable?




Thanks,

Phil

Some thoughts off the top of my head:

-Have you thought of using Crop Rotation as a tutor for Stripmine / Wasteland?
-What about the threshold lands Centaur Garden / Cabal Pit?
-If you plan on using/abusing dredge would the threshold creatures make sense to play, more specifically Nimble Mongoose?

I'd like to point out that your deck seems weak to darkblast.  9 of your 13 creatures (omitting ESG) die to it, and it recurs to kill the next one.

I like the deck.

-Phil

I noticed you have a mountain (plus fetchlands) in the deck, plenty of discard outlets but no Anger.  Did you test Anger?  If so what made you opt to remove it from the deck?

-Phil

I can personally vouch that the type 1 scene in West Lafayette / Lafayette is nonexistant.  I'm an undergrad EE (almost a senior) at Purdue.  If you want type 1 you have to go towards Chicago and Wisconsin.  On the plus side Indy is an hour away, chicago is 2 hours away, and U of I is about 1.5 hours away.  Most of Ohio is decently close too (3 hours for Cincinnati, 4 for Columbus). Basically if there is a event in the area, you can get to it in a decent amount of time.

Purdue is an excellent school, although anything to do in this town is run by students.  If you are into sports you'll probably wanna get football or basketball tickets, as both sports are awesome (yes I said awesome... as in entertaining, not as in good).

-Phil

Where in Indiana are you from?
Indy hosts Gencon in the summer with tons of T1 support and the T1 Worlds event.  If you want to look for sanctioned tourneys (if people still host sanctioned T1) I believe the wizards or DCI site has a search engine for local tournaments.  I haven't checked it in a long time though so it may not be very good, or be nonexistent.


-Phil

In regards to the judges having rules text and oracle text, when I was at Origins 2 years ago the head judge for a couple of the T1 events had a PDA with full oracle text on it (maybe it was DAngelo rulings?).   It proved very useful in solving many rules issues, especially since the tournament had a couple of Mask-Naught decks that provided judging headaches.  (I think this is one of the first places that people became exposed to Mask, so the judges were able to easily field the many rules questions/interactions)

Having this firsthand experience I do believe that it is very important (especially for T1 with all the complicated cards) that oracle texts be available to the judges, in an easy access manner.  It keeps the tournaments flowing smoothly, keeps the players happy, and cuts down on insane errors. Implementation of this becomes complicated though...


-Phil

Have you ever considered using a different variant of mask that would be less vulnerable to artifact hate?  Something like Venguer Masque uses shapeshifter as another way to get dreadnoughts into play.

A decklist can be found here:
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6182#vengeurmasque

I think the way you are approaching an Ironworks combo deck is flawed.  Instead of building a combo deck around Ironworks, you are actually sticking Ironworks in to other combo decks.  The reason I believe this is a problem is that I think Ironworks is a win-more card (in this situation).  You initially have to spend 4 mana to cast Ironworks.  I think this 4 mana would be better spent drawing cards, rather than gaining mana.  Another point to be made is that Ironworks only produces colorless mana, and most combo decks have a greater need for colored mana.  So do you really want to spend 4 colored mana to create colorless mana you don't need?

Combo decks of this time period should focus on easy one card combos for kills (such as Belcher or Tendrils) because testing has shown that these decks are much more efficient than the older multiple card kills.  So rather than spend 4 mana on a card that will produce more colorless mana, wouldn't you rather just draw more cards, lay some artifacts, and win?

That being said I do think that a combo deck can be made from Ironworks.  This combo deck is going to need to be built around the card and will look more like an affinity deck, killing with disciple or large artifact creatures.  I think Gimbles is more on the right track.

Cleaned this up a bit.
- Kowal[/color]

How do you plan to deal with the immense amount of artifact hate in the environment?  Your deck has no way to remove Null Rod or Damping Matrix, which totally shuts your deck down.  You also have to deal with oxidize, naturalize, welders, rack and ruin, or any targeted removal.  Right now your game plan looks to be win before your opponent can do anything.  This again leaves something to be desired because you have to swing twice with a dreadnaught to kill and wait a turn for summoning sickness.  This is a combined 3 turns where you opponent can do any to stop you or just plain ignore you and win.  

A splash of another color could also go along way in giving you deck more power.  There are hardly any decks in the format that need to be mono color, and this is definitely a deck that gains from a splash.

Vengeur Masque and Ninja Masque are different variants of mask that you should look into.

-Phil

If the Exalted Angel or any of the other creatures are not what you were looking for I would suggest any of the following creatures (keep in mind that these are just ideas, very untested ideas):

Furnase Dragon: Evasion, decent size, artifact hate.
Penumbra Wurm: Stays around, good with recurring nightmare.
Darksteel Colouss: Stays around, searchable, trample.
"Gating Creatures": while sub-optimal they add tricks to the deck.

Those are all that I can think off the top of my head.

I'm curious what creatures you have tested that didn't work out.  If you could share that information it would be much appreciated.

Phil

When I first looked at your deck it seemed to me that you are not playing R/G beats, but more of a R/G aggro-control type of deck.  I used to play something similar and had a lot of success with it.  

The first thing I would say would be to focus your deck more... if you are going for beatdown then remove the slow elements in the deck.  If you are going for more of a controling deck then you need to go for more of a mana denial theme.  Here is what I would do for control.

- Add some gorilla shamans, they are amazing at creating tempo and mana denial.
- Remove the Spiritmongers, they are way to slow.
- Look into adding River Boas, excellent creature that can regenerate through deed.
- Look into adding Dwarven Miners / Blastminers.... in an enviroment with many non-basics they can destroy your opponent.
- Get the scrolls, they are just plain amazing.
- You could try Null Rods, Root Maze, or Damping Matrix but those require a restructuring of the deck.

There is another problem I see with your deck.  You have very few first turn plays.  This is really where you have to establish the mana denial, or else the game is going to be over.  You also are lacking second turn plays if you don't have birds.

I really like the ideas you have going here.  I am interested to see what happens with the deck, so please keep posting your results.

Phil