Personally, I like Wicked Akuba, because it allows you, unlike the shade, to wait with committing your resources until after the combat-phase, on the other hand, not being able to pump it makes it easier to kill with something as simple as F/I, so it's a 50/50 situation...

the idea is sound, but the deck you've created isn't exactly fool-proof...

Personally, I'd forget the Gifts Ungiven and use intuition instead, also cutting both chains and btb down to three... that also makes space for three cunning wish (only 3 intuition, 4 is overkill).

As for the manabase, I think Toad's forgetting what one of my friends said a little while back:

"In the current meta, BASIC LANDS are TECH!"

and he's right, the blood moons, the wasteland-crucible-exploration decks, blood moon, etc are forcing people to rethink all their expensive duals...

yeah, but marked sleeves and a piece of beat-up cardboard aren't the same things- as long as the card is inside new sleeves in a newly-sleeved deck, its condition dosen't matter (unless it's bent in such a way that it stands out compared to the other cards in the deck, which is extremely rare, even for busted-up cards...)

well, at least in my metagame (denmark), slavery's beeing played very little- I actually belive, that I was the only slavrey-player at the last tournie (2 weeks ago), and it all went well until I got mana screwed 2 duels in a row, and then met a friggin crucible-deck that did a turn-2 crucible+stripmine-combo on me

I think the deck is still there, people are just trying out other things as well as working on tuning the decks to the newer metagem 8especially crucible around these parts... I'm actually mainboarding one and sideboarding another to deal with the cruci-decks I keep meeting)

the series holds an awesome amount of good cards for T1- I mean, Artificers Intuition is great (already mentioned, I believe) and the salvagers have the potential to be fun as well, and it looks like you guys are on the right track. I'm also curious 'bout a card such as Eternal Witness- I mean, one extra amana gets you a 2/1 beater along with your restricted regrowth, that's gotta count for something, right?

No, but it solves more problems than it creates- and with only two in the deck, it isn't all that much trouble, you'd usually have a Bargain out by then and it wouldn't matter too much if that was the case :-/

Well, after testing it yesterday, I made these changes:

- 1 Wheel of Fortune
- 1 plateau

+ 2 Serum Powder

Despite their appearance, these things really shake up the deck and got it working a lot better!

Apart from that, I first played against a stompy Deck (powered)- I won. The second game I sideboarded in the other two Oath of Druids, which effectively won the game before I even played Sneak

Then it was fish- 2-2 so nothing really good happened there, however, it DID do better than I'd expected, which was cool

I then played against an old-school stasis-deck, you know, the kind that has more coutner-spells and stuff than anything else I'v ever experienced. Fortunately, it allows you to take time, which made me go 2-1 against it.

Finally I played against an Underworld dreams deck. Not top-notch, I know, but interesting. Needless to say, I won though ;P

Next time I'll be trying 'gainst welder and 'Tog, the two decks that really make me the most nervous

Well, I looked at Ninja's deck and drew some inspiration, cutting a few cards (fastbond, 1 Bloodstained Mire (you don't need all that land anyways ), 1 Oath of Druids, 2 Dragon tyrant and Balance in favour of 2 Duress and three Orim's Chant and a ground seal)- it actually works quite fine now, however, I still need to test it of course The side-board has been altered dramaticaaly due to this, so it now reads:

1 City of Traitors
1 Wasteland (getting rid of mazes which can be a hazzle otherwise)
2 Dragon tyrant (for the kill, or sideboarding in agaisnt random non-counter decks)
1 Academy Rector (to get enchntments)
1 False Prophet (to kill big, badies)
1 Crater Hellion (to kill smaller problems and get 6 dmage through)
1 Wood Ripper (to get artifacts, silly!)
1 Aven Cloudchaser (to get rid of pesky enchantments)
3 Red elemental Blast (agianst fish especially)
2 Oath of druids (also against fish and other creature-heavy decks)
1 Ground Seal (against dragoin, 2 is better than 1!)

The biggest changes being losing rack'n ruin and gaining some situation-dealers in form of oath and seal. I'm gonna see if anybody feels like helping me playtest later tonight

2 Rat's Feast

Sera Avatar<Darksteel Colussus. Pure and simpel. Colussus may be smaller (t times, but once you start using bargain, SA becomes tiny). also, DS prevents you from being milled and has trample.

Oh, as Ninja discovered, I too am working on a deck like this

Ninja:

Why not the Living wishes? I see them as much more viable than what you have! 4 wishes instead of four creatures allows you to get EXACTLY the card you need for whichever situation you're in.

Orim's Chant: I'd, personally, take it over duress, but then again, that's just me. I'm currently trying to figure what to lose in favour of this baby

Also, as mentioned, Pandemonium does wonders in this deck, so please, play it! It's also great with the treefolk, ensuring a two-turn kill in 90% of the cases! (once you get pandemonium and sneak into play of course )

I'd also forget about the empaths and just put in more "good" creatures instead, for exmple the four weatherseed, seeing as they keep coming back for more and are superior to the pheonix (except, they don't fly :-/). Nether void is another rector-target that hurts most people like hell An oath or two would also work really well 8note: I still haven't tested this version, but the fact that it's an alternative to sneak attack should help quite a bit)

OK, here's the backstory: Around a year ago, I managed to trade for a playset sneak attack and dragon tyrants and thus started my first T1 deck. It consisted of 4 Weatherseed Treefolk, 4 Sneak Attack and the normal mana-accelerants (no P9 back then) along with 4 academy rectors (got me stuff like The Abyss and Nether void, Yawgmoth's bargain, etc) and 4 dragon tyrants plus my duals and stuff. In short, it was one hell of an expensive deck that was incredibly fun to play.
The deck was later stolen, which sucked. the insurance money was great, as they got me 6 pieces of P9, including Black Lotus
Anyways, to the point: I've been trading for Sneak Attack stuff and have now created my deck with what cards I now have, and it looks like the following:

Land (lots of fetches due to 4-mana deck):

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Bloodstained mire
4 Taiga
4 Plateau
3 Badlands
1 Library of Alexandria


Enchantments:

4 Sneak Attack (pretty important in this deck... )
2 Oath of Druids (new idea, I figure it as an early drop for free creatures and sideboard it out against creatureless decks)
1 Fastbond (a good opening hand=fast mana)
1 Pandemonium (big creatures=lots of pain)
1 Nether void (this'll disrupt most decks once my sneak is out)
1 Yawgmoth's Bargin (usually the first enchantment to get, this gives huge card-advantage)


Creatures:

4 Darksteel Colossus (great guy, this'll wreck serious havoc on an early drop and is leagues beyond Serra Avatar)
4 Weatherseed Treefolk (these are self-explanatory)
3 Academy Rector (drop early as a deterrent blocker, drop through sneak attack to get bargain and void)
2 Dragon tyrant (how can you not like this guy?)


Tutors:

4 Living wish (check the sideboard)
1 Demonic tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Enlightened Tutor (I need either accelerataion or sneak attack, thus this card rules!)
1 Spoils of the Vault (a litle dangerous, but hasn't kileld me yet)


Mana Acceleration:

1 Black Lotus
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Pearl
1 Lotus Petal (will be Mox Ruby once I get one, but it's better than chrome or diamond)
1 Mana Vault
1 Grim Monolith
1 Sol ring
1 Mana Crypt


Random:

1 Wheel of Fortune (I'm unsure about it, but 7 cards=usually enough creatures for the kill)
1 Balance (this is fun in this deck )


Sideboard:

4 Red Elemental Blast (sideboard in against keeper and 'tog)
3 Rack and ruin (d'uh!)

the rest is for "fetching" with Living Wish

1 City of Traitors
1 Wasteland
1 Dragon tyrant (for the kill)
1 Academy Rector (to get enchntments)
1 False Prophet (to kill big, badies)
1 Crater Hellion (to kill smaller problems and get 6 dmage through)
1 Wood Ripper (to get artifacts, silly!)
1 Aven Cloudchaser (to get rid of pesky enchantments)



When drawing, there are three categories you need at least two of: Tutors, Sneak Attack and /or Mana Accelration. If you only have one, you mulligan. It's essential, that Sneak Attack gets down FAST!mulliganning to 5 crds isn't a problem, usually

Depending on the opposing deck, rectors should fetch either Nether Void or Yawgmoth's Bargain the first time, but this depends on the individual situation. The wishes are used to get creatures to deal with individual situations. Once you get pandemonium into play, you're almost sure of a win.

The biggest problem with the deck is the dependancy of Sneak Atack and without it, you're basically screwed. I'v considered playing Sterling Grove, it also works as a tutor, but I'm not sure wht to cut to put it in :-/ The deck is also in deep troiuble against especially keeper, which leaves me with the final words: HELP! What should I do to make it better? I know it's not gonna win tournaments, but I want to make it strong enough for people not just to be able to trample over it

in other words, it allows you to sort out two useless cards for bringing back later on when you need them

suggestions:

-4 Willbender- they're just not good enough
-4 Unstable mutation- if you're killing with 'tog, why waste prcious space on these???

+4 Brainstorm- essential. period. and you use fetch wich makes 'em broken!
+4 Accumulated Knowledge- more card-draw is good!

I'm also worried about daze, I'd probably cut them for something like 2 counterspells and 2 Intuition...

also, consider going red as well- adding 4 Volcanic Islands isn't tough, but it will allow you to run HGrim Lavamancer. I know he has terrible synergy with 'tog, but using him once or twice to get rid of other pests is a good idea, and he can also be used along with Voidmage Prodigy (seeing as he's a wizard )

Apart from that, nice thought, but I doubt that the deck'll have very large chances wqithout power nine :-/ Good luck though!

Like I said, I have no clue as to your metagame. However, in thes eparts, people like playing fish and stuff (mainly due to the tournies being sanctioned=lots of people don't have P9). This in turn means tons of mazes making wastelands necessary. Also, the mana-denial they sometimes allow you is NOT to be underestimated!

As for deed, I play tweo main and one SB, but again, that's largly due to the fish-type decks (and gayred and all that kind of stuff). If your metagame does not contain significant numbers of mass-creature decks, I'd probably just have one or two SB...

depending on the version of mask you're playing, you might wanna run three in  the SB- against welder-decks, welders come bouncing along incredibly fast and if you don't have much card-draw, you need to be sure you draw the damn things...

Usually, yes, but I do knjow of a certain elf-deck that a friend converted from being extended to T1- my fully-powered tog can't do shit against it, my friends' STAX is helpless agfainst it and generelly anything less than plague is useless against itr T4 or 5 kill, bounces elves and stuff around until then, so decay would also be useless against it- wonder how he's faired iwth it after he put in skullclamp though...

@ firebird:

I don't know his current meta, but usually wastelands are crucial! They allow for mana-denial in multicolored decks but, most importantly, allow you to take out Maze of Ith's and Mishra's Factoris and that kind of stuff. Especially killing the mazes is a huge priority when playing tog!

Try Chalice of the Void, once you get welder out it kicks ass and wrecks havoc...

yup, little things=ebay. I got my four quirion dryads for the same amount og $ (that'd be 4!).

Anyways, buying cards? Use Ebay! I've bought via MOTL as well, but Ebay usually granys you the best cards (bought FoW on ebay for $48 for a playset. they were mint. then bought two on MOTL for $28. they were like EX- )

Anyways, I trade a lot on a Danish rading-forum and then on MOTL. I trade for T1 cards on MOTL and get twice their value locally (poeple here will give their mom, dad AND siblings for a played playset of FoW's or duals! and they'll give you their dog as a throw-in...)

But do try Magictraders.com with the new search feature you can search for specific cards and the auctions also give you some really neat cards sometimes (that's how I get berserks, duals, bazaars, libraries and later traded them up for a few pieces of power ). But using MOTL takes patience, but is often well worth it as well. Check out my list here:

http://www.magictraders.com/ubb//Forum2/HTML/178056.html

what can I say? YOU RULE!

~a very grateful person without home-internet

I agree with the others, you need AK and more wishes. Here're my suggestions:

Also, if you can, lose the counterspells and add Mana drain- I'd personally lose the three counterspells and a misdirection in favor of them, also consider losing the remaining two misdirections in favour of a Mindtwist (wreaks havoc after a drain!) and a fourth Cunning wish.

Mainboard:

Lose:

3 Sleight of Hand (ugh!)
3 Merchant Scroll (why? it's sorcery and rarely easy to use)
1 Fast Bond (with only 1 gush, this baby won't help you- use tyhe gush for giving your 'Tog +6/+6!)
1 Misdirection (3 is still overkill, I find I rarely use them and actually cut them completely)

Add:

2 Intuition
4 Accumulated Knowledge
2 Cunning wish


I'd also consider losing a swampand a tropical islandin favour of a Stripmine and a Wasteland and filling the last two slots with two more wastelands.

SideBoard:

Lose:

1 Smother (edict gets morphling which is sometimes necessary)
2 Naturalize (why three???)
1 Coffin Purge (you only need one! it works twice!)
1 Duress

Add:

1 Berserk (wishing for it is often easiest)
1 Oxidize (cheaper, so with 4 mana you can wish and play it the same turn- also, it can't be regenerated and has a different casting cost than naturalize which gets around things like chalice)
1 Diabolic Edict (gets around morphling)
2 Ground Seal (great agaianst dragon and welder-decks, as they rarely have any way to get rid of enchantments- and it's a Cantripp!)

thanks for the applet, it's nice to be able to go in there while being at school However, why can't I change my nick in there?

well, you could play along and actually DO close the entire budget-forum Or first, suggest everyone running 4 mountaingoats because they are, as we all know, completely broken   Anyways, I think I'd better just shut up now...

*strolls down the forum-lane, tripping over a few threads that died in the middle of the road*

April Fools or for real? If it's for real, bad day to post it

Yeah, like I said in my last post, I threw it out. I then put in Future Sight (scary card, 3 specific mana? However, the advantage that card gives you 3 out of 4 games is just too much to stand for Especially with the quition dryads).

anyways, thanks for the response guys, nice to hear a little more than just "other players don't play it, so why would you want to?" I like discussion, sometimes the results surprise people and end up in favour of the non-dominant opinion. This wasn't that case though... ;P

'aight, point taken, out she goes :-/

@Razvan: that's why you feed your entire graveyard to the lovely 'tog before you play the twister

I'm playing a version of gor-atog/hulk which has 4 Quirion Dryads and two Psychatogs as kill-conditions. The rest of the deck is comprised of draw-spells and counterspells (4FoW, 4 Drain, 4 Breainstorm, etc). Now, here's the trick: I have the necessary power to play the deck, and I like Timetwister. I'll be the first to admiot the card is chancy at best, letting your opponent get 7 new cards can be the most stupid thing done since... well, I don't what!

However, playing a twister allows you to empty your graveyard of left-over cards, feeding them to Psychatog. You can then discard most of your hand (except for a counterspell) and then play twister, get 7 new cards and discard most of them (saving a counter-spell to keep the little fellow safe) and make him even bigger. with a little luck, you also draw cunning wish and can get a lovely berserk.

I like the idea, and it works. My friend (Malte in here) hates the idea and wants to borrow the twister for his Draw7.dec

My question is: Am I right? Is Twister completely playable in the current metagame (we have a few fish and gayred around, another gro-a-tog or two and a keeper beng the decks packing massive amounts of counterspells), or am I just a wee bit crazy to even think of including it in my deck?

I really can't see why you're complaining??? I mean, they let you guys use PROXIES FOR TURNAMENTS!!! You guys don't realise how lucky you are!

Explanation: I'm from Europe (Denmark to be exact) and proxies are NOT a thing in our T1 tournaments (all sanctioned, that might be the reason? Or do they allow proxies in DCI-sanctioned tournaments in the US?). It's annoying, since less people play with proxies, resulting in a massive amount of decks like fish and landstill in the metagame (you know what to fight, which is a good thing, but I still hate spiketail hatchlings and cloud of faeries!!!). People here like T1 and the popularity of the format is, like everywhere els in the world, currently going up! Duals and other T1 staples have gone up nearly 100% in value during the last year, thnak god I finished my dual-playsets last year!

Whoa, sideline there... anyways, as long as you get to use proxies, I don't see why you're complaining. Once you try a non-proxie environment, come back and tell me how you fell when THAT happens, until then: consider yourselves blessed, lucky and generally better palced than us on the european continent

true, but they cost around 40-50% more than things on ebay as well- I'd rather take the small risk and get my stuff several hundreds of dollars cheaper

hey, that charm is definitelybetter than the old Coffin Purge I'm keeping my STOP to one due to the fact that I rarely needit and if I o, there's always a cunning wiash to pick it form my graveyard. However,I like a rack and ruin in my sideboard, so now it looks like this:

2 Hyrkul's Recall
2 Gorilla shaman
2 Rack and ruin
1 Ebony charm
1 Disenchant  
1 Stifle
1 Counter Spell
1 Orim's Chant
1 Diabolic Edict
1 fire/Ice
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Abeyance <--this baby's hard to find, I've been using a proxie the last year or so!