maybe winter orb with that



nop, it would be frustating as hell, and LD doesn't work as good in multiplayer (there is too many targets, and you lose tempo, you would need infinite mana and turns, but if you manage to set that up you could win with just anything, I don't think that it's worth the effort)

And why no tundra? you have flooded strand in there

We don't ban certain decks in my playgroup, because FFA is self balancing (if someone pulls a heavy lock or combo in the first game, he may not survive a turn in the next one), and almost half of the table always play some counters in their decks (or swords to plowshares, that's why dragon has never won a game in my playgroup)

I have seen only one mishra's workshop in chile (mine ) so we don't face ultra fast lockdown decks around

thanks for the tip st00mie, I will when I have time (right now I'm at a cyber coffe in the beach ), excuse me if I don't writte to well (you know I'm from chile and we speak spanish, so my english is kinda rusty   )

Would you like to help me to edit this kind of posts? (I can send them to you via e-mail, you help me editing and we both get credit for doing this serie   )

My name is Felipe Budinich I'm 18, and I'm a carboard crack addict  

I've been playing since 1996, when there were selling the last revised packs here in Santiago of Chile, I would really enjoy to play more competitive Type 1, but there is no place to play in Chile... (I runned a tournament, but you can read the sad story at the casual forum)

Now I'm about to start my Art studies at "Universidad del Desarrollo" (they offered me such a juicy discount that I just had to say no to the statal universities), some day you will see my expositions in a Art Gallery near you!  

Also I work as a Dj in my spare time and I really like to mix music (maybe if I suck at painting I will be mixing music around the world in Raves), I'm an avid roleplayer and GM (my favorite games are Mage and Vampire, and I'm working in a game of my own design)

well if you are in chile and you wan't to play Type 1, Free-4-All chaos, or just share a beer, you can send me an e-mail to: fbudinich@hotmail.com (well and that is also my msn account)

PD: if you come to chile and you need a touristic guide, contact me and I will show you even better places that those shown on "Wild-On Chile" (don't worry I speak english ten times better than I writte it   )

I'm not saying that he has a poor matchup, but he can improve it to make more winneable (is that even a word?)



I stay with the instant speed, it has too many uses, and besides he has a pretty slim manabase, and if he even gets to the necesary mana he is already losing

I think that my thought is a little out of the box..

Why don't you test Drinker of Sorrow? it's kinda good with Rancor.. well that was just a random thought but you could try.





I have an issue with that, it is indeed pretty good agaisnt control, because you have enough time to set it up and go nuts with the drawing if you want, but against combo, you don't have time to set it up, you will see results only the turn after you play it, and you don't have too much time to spare against combo.

well that was my grain of sand

I would Drop the festering goblins, and use instead Sarcomancy, also I would drop 2 cursed scrolls and use 2 more hatred instead to improve your chances of a 2 turn kill, and then I would drop the 2 contagion to put 2 Dauthi Horror (you need more creatures if you pretend to win with hatred)

Well I play a lot of Free for all, it's almost the same that Boilover, but ten times more brutal (you might attack and be attacked by anyone, and global effects mean "global", and you might target anyone with your spells and abilities)

It depends on what kind of game do you want to play, anyway I highly recommend you a recursion strategy since you will not be running out of gas in the middle of the tournament. Also you need some defensive measures like:

No Mercy + Sun Droplet
Winter Orb (obiously with relic barrier in the deck) + Propaganda

Or you can do some kind of synerystic machine of ultimate destruction:

4 Tombstone Stairwell
4 Dross Harvester (it negates the effect from the zomby tokens that hit you)

Magic: The Gathering, the way it was meant to be played Part I

When it was created, magic wasn't about tournaments, DCI ratings, or tournament tunned decks, it didn't even have a format structure, it was about the gathering, it was about a group of friends just playing and interacting with each other, it wasn't about combos or 3 turn clocks, it was about fun.

That's something that took me time to relearn, when I started to play I didn't went to tournaments, my first deck was a green fatty deck, I  mean it in all senses, it  had only large creatures, and it had like 150 cards in it, then I went to my first tournament, and as you can imagine, I got my ass handed by a Prosbloom deck.. so I started to play control, and I headed to the dark side of magic, tounaments, I won a lot, but it wasn't the game I liked, so I left them.

Then, almost 6 years later, a trading card game store opened near my house, and I started to organize Type 1 tournaments, we had a pretty cool metagame, there was about 20 people every week, with almost 16 different decks (4 Sligh decks ), and every one of them had a chance of winning.

Everything was going fine, but then the administrator of the mall raised the rent.. not a 10%, not a 20%.. not a 50%.. it raised it to the double, you know why? because it's was going to be christmas soon.. asshole..

So that's was my position one year ago.. my Type 1 league had nowhere to play, I was short on money so I couldn't play Type 2.. and I just can't stop playing, I mean it's in my blood, I started to play when I was ten years old, now I'm eighteen... but then I had a great idea, I called all my playmates, then I called Pizzahut, it was going to be multiplayer night at my house.

Some friends brought beer and nachos, then we played like 6 hours.. and damn, it was the most fun magic related evening in my life, so now we do it every other week, we are playing the game the way it was meant to be played, and it is just too fun.

That's my advice to every player out there, relearn how to have fun with magic, you will feel more rewarded if you have fun with your friends than if you win a booster box at a tournament (well... winning a booster box is not bad, but with all the effort that you must do to achieve it, you might as well buy it)

And it's been a year since that, and I have learned a lot, free-for-all magic is totally different to duels, you might say that it's all in the politics, or that it's all in the deck you are playing, but you can't build a deck that is going to win 99% of the time because FFA is too random and self-balancing, and politics do matter but there is always going to be a newbie or a mindless suicidal in the group.

Anyway there are some guidelines that might help you to be prepared for a multiplayer carnage:

An eye for an eye:
it doesn't work, you will only start borderline wars if you do mindless retaliation, if someone beats you with a Hundroog, just take the damage and whine, but if you play like Anthhony Alongi and throw the whole game for the window just to take revenge you are never going to win, you will always take some damage or will lose certain permanents in a multiplayer game , and this takes me to the next guideline;

And this too, shall pass:
for every permanent you play, for each threath that you put in the table, there will be at least one answer waiting around the table, that's why recurssion is a great strategy in multiplayer, so remember that you can't rely in just one plan for the victory, you need a plan B, C and D, in duels you need a totally focused deck, with a straight path to victory, but there are a lot of things that count on duels that doesn't count in multiplayers;

And you thought that you knew it all
Card Advantage, Board Advantage, Tempo Advantage. Those are the pilars of magic theory, if you get any of this advantages in a duel is pretty probable that you are going to win (if you have tempo advantage you are going to win in the early game, if you have board advantage you are going to win in the midgame, and if you have card advantage you are going to win the late game)... but in multiplayer those pilars crumble because they don't apply as well as they do in duels

Let's do some math:

Your starting hand: 7
Your opponent(s) starting hand(s): 7

if you are playing a duel you and your opponent are tied in card advantage, but add just more opponent and you are 7 cards behind, and each time that the table goes one time around you are going to be one more card behind (for each opponentbeside the first).

Technically it's not card disadvantage, but there is a card disparity, that's why if you have a deck filled with spot removal you are going to lose every single time, you can't keep up with the card disparity. And it get's worse if you try to win tempo advantage, because tempo advantage is often related to card disadvantage so just don't do it.

You might try to add some card drawing, but you need to spend time to set it up, and you are going to lose because you are not developing your board side, so everyone is going to gang up on you (unless you are a master at diplomatics... and if you are, go to work in the ONU to stop the wars around the world, don't waste your time playing magic).

(Anyway there are two cards that break part of this guideline; Minds Eye and Rhystic Study, they allow you to maintain card parity, but not to get card advantage)

I know that I just said that board advantage doesn't exist in multiplayer, again let's do some math:

your creatures in play: 2
your opponent(s) creatures in play: 1

if you are playing against one opponent you have board advantage, if you are playing against two you are tied, against three you are down.. anyway no one is going to attack you, even if every one at the table knows that if they gang up on someone, he may have a great board position, but he/she is going to lose anyway.

But they don't do it because you have a complex board position, everyone expects to do the most in their respective combat phases, so if you have at least one way to negate part of the effect of their attack, they are going to avoid you. So if you want to have a long life spam you need some kind of moat:

Psychological Moats (these are not moats per se, but they act like one)

1.- No Mercy:
No one is going to spend their creatures like they where burn spells against you (unless you and someone else are the only two still standing), and it has the plus that it's not player unfriendly, it says: "just avoid me and I will not harm you"

2.- Propaganda:
Some people is just too lazy to do the math so they will just avoid you, but this card is not so intimidating, like No Mercy, so don't rely on it

3.- Sun Droplet:
If you have one in play someone is going to attack you to realize that he did nothing to you, and if you have more than one in play your opponent's will need to kill you in just one blow, or they will not be able to. (get this cards while you can, they will be as popular as congregate inside the "lifer comunity")

4.- Collective Restraint:
An excellent card, but it needs no be used in a especific deck, that's why it isn't rated higher. (I use it in a domain/turboland deck, it lets me breath long enough to set up my massive ordered migrations.. I'm going South BEWARE.. I just love to say that)

5.- Nova Pentacle:
One of the most fun cards in multiplayer (and it's even more fun for the polititians, you just need someone that agrees with you about wich creature must leave the table now.. and the fun part is that: "I didn't killed it.. he did"), best played in a creatureless deck or in a deck filled with untargeteables (gigapede anyone?)

6.- Constant Mists:
Use it once and no one is going to attack you when you have 2 mana open, you are going to need a steady suply of lands, so I recomend it with a Weathered Wayfarer or a Land Tax in play (the fun fact about this card is that if you use it too often in your decks everyone is going to use after a while... and it gets pretty boring after some time)

7.- Moment's Peace:
The first one is a surprise, the one waiting in the graveyard is a permament fog (because everyone tries to make the most of their respective combat phases) The trick with this card is to use only when the attack threathens your life spam, dont use it if you are at 20 life and they are attacking you with a bear.

8.- Maze of Ith:
It negates the effect of almost every creature, and it also lets you screw with other dudes combats, and they deal pretty well with one of the most common threaths in kitchen tables around the world: Akroma, normally it spells doom for almost everyone.. but the dude with the Maze of Ith. It also lets you do some interesting plays when you attack (they work pretty good in response to a fog effect)

9.- Avenger en Dal:
It may save you in two ways, you might remove a creature attacking you, or you may remove your own creature if someone throws an ugly spell at it during combat (you still lose the creature but you gain some life in the process)

10.- Kor Haven:
It looks like a bad Maze of Ith at first glance, but then you read “prevent all the combat damage that would be dealt by target attacking creature”  and you notice that it is missing something... yup it can recieve combat damage, funny isn’t it?


[EDIT=TYPOS]

Could it be possible to make a half-decent Psychatog Based deck?

I think that it has some potential due to the fact that both Frantic Search and Windfall are unrestricted.. and fling is common right?

FlingAtog:

4 Frantic Search
4 Careful Study
4 Sleight of Hand
2 Windfall

3 Whispersilk Cloak
3 Psychatog
2 Fling
4 Terror
4 Dark Banishing
4 Crippling Fatigue
4 Diabolic Edict

4 Sulfur Vent
7 Swamps
10 Islands


The idea of the deck is to drop 20 cards in the graveyard, clear the path with a lot of creature removal, attack with the psychatog and then fling it to make a full 20 in one attack (I did put any counterspells because this format is too fast, and because it is creature based I use a lot of creature removal)

You have a crazy weenie deck going on there, may I suggest Spectral Lynx?

if this deck is made with casual purposes you might face a blastoderm someday  

And you say that you are having troubles against aggro.. mmm... may I say Funeral Charm? it's pretty good, it gets rid of pesky river boas, spectral lynxes, it is instant speed hand disruption (and most important of it all: it kills welders)

just my two pesos

I just love decks with personality,



I really like your deck, but I think that it pushes the manabase to the limit, you could use Sol Ring to speed things up instead of the green medallion.

Also you could run Cartographer, and do some serious damage with Strip Mine and Wasteland (And also it can get back those precious Krosan Verges)

just my two cents

Maybe you could consider Oath of Ghouls, its a lot better against creatureless decks, and also you could run Buried Alive to search for the creatures that you really need in the midgame (I would suggest you to run 2).