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Author Topic: Help with my new deck.  (Read 1014 times)
Colossus
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CyanMerdonna
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« on: August 01, 2004, 09:45:32 pm »

I need a little help getting my semi low budget Type I deck running, and have been looking for a deck to use that can handle control, combo and aggro and uses the money cards I have to their best effect, so here is my current scheme:
 
 Win:
 4 Triskelion
 3 Arcbound Ravager
 4 Goblin Welder
 
 Control:
 4 Counterspell (though ideally these would be mana drain)
 4 Force of Will
 
 Draw:
 4 Skullclamp
 4 Myr Servitor
 3 Thirst For Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
 1 Memory Jar
 1 Frantic Search
 1 Wheel of Fortune
 1 Windfall
 1 Ancestral Recall
 1 Tinker
 
 Mana:
 4 Seat of Synod
 4 Great Furnace
 4 Volcanic Island
 2 Mishra's Workshop
 1 Sol Ring
 1 Mana Vault
 4 Windswept Heath
 
 The basic idea of the deck is to get out a triskelion, clamp him up, swing then pull off the counters and draw the cards, weld him back in and repeat.  Pushing counters onto the triskelion from the Ravager is also a secondary plan.  The Skullclamp is meant to be the primary draw engine, with the Myr.  I have the 2 workshops and the volcanics, and the ancestral already, but have only about 50-100 dollars to finish the deck in the next few month's so I'd like to keep any more expenses for it under that.    

As far as matchups go, I haven't been able to playtest against anything but 4 color control (the only other player with any power ONLY plays control.)  Its a tough matchup, and Wasteland really hurts this deck.  I think I like the ability to run Force of Will to help win against combo decks, but I need to test it some more.

The obvious additions are subbing in moxes and the lotus, and the mana drains.  In 5 proxy I probably need the saphire and the Mana Drains the most, though I am hopefully working towards getting a mox in the next couple of months.  Do you think Lion's Eye Diamond would work in this deck?  What about Ancient Tomb?  I also considered Intuition in place of one of the draw spells.

 Any thoughts or help would be appreciated.
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Marton
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« Reply #1 on: August 02, 2004, 01:24:06 am »

.... 4x windswept heath ????????? WTF. Obviously you meant to polluted delta/flooded strand. Your mana base lacks the single island. Also, you don't really have much accelerants in the deck, only 2x workshop, sol ring and mana vault. Your mana base is EXTREMELY weak versus null rod (no you cant tap the artifact lands for mana under a null rod). Also, in the case of your deck, damping matrix will also kill you. If you play on a budget, you definately should look for these accelerants:

mana crypt (why isnt it there?)
grim monolith
gilded lotus
lotus petal (perhaps)
ancient tomb
city of traitors
voltaic key (perhaps, if you play the full set of sol ring, mana crpy, mana vault, grim monolith and gilded lotus (more than 1))

I understand you want as many artifact lands for the ravagers, but the hard truth is that ravager and artifact lands gets hit a bit too hard by null rod.

Myr servitor isn't the great thing it looks in paper. I know I tried it in all the configurations (artificers intuition, survival of the fittest, welder, intuition, even buried alive), and they all pretty much sucked. The problem that you will notice very very shortly is that your opponent only needs to kill the last one remaining and it's a done deal. The problem is that it is VERY sub-par when you draw/play it, and you can immediately feel it. It's nice to intuition for 3, then play one, but the problem is that it's too slow for an effect that is sub-par. If you want a token generator, try pentavus. I do know it's not the best when combined with ravager, but at least the pentavus is good ALONE and doesn't requires you to sac all your artifacts to be decent.

You probably should cut some triskelion for more ravager. Triskelion and ravager are great together, because once you attack with a big ravager, you can sac it and move the counters to triskelion, then remove the counters for more damage.

It's not very clear what are the welder doing there. Other than jar, I don't exactly see any noticeable mind-blowing tricks you can pull off with it. It's not like triskelion costs that much to play. Sure getting back/exchanging a triskelion is funny, but it's not exactly a force by itself. Returning a sundering titan IS noticeable.

The deck has problems in it:

1-The deck really lacks focus. The BIG problem with skullclamp is that the ONLY target it has is myr servitor and triskelion (and, god forbid, welder). The myr servitors are very easy to deal with for an opponent, and so are welders. The myr servitors are only realistically 'decent' once you have 2/3, but you don't have tutors to get them. Remember "there are no bad threats, only bad answers". But your threats are all very sub-par or easy to deal with ! If you only draw a triskelion, it's good but really pales in comparison to what your opponent is likely to pull off.

2-The other problem is that your deck has many weak points to it, making it easy to be disrupted. Fish will really, really kill you at probably a 90/10 win ratio. Fire/ice hurts you bad. Lack of acceleration and strip/waste gives even more time to your opponent to build himself. Null rod is really your kill card. You see, fish has all those cards, and fish is one of the most played deck at the moment.

3-frantic search. What is it doing here? frantic search is card disadvantage *and* is only good turn 3+. In your case you can't even play it before turn 3 because you don't pack any acceleration.

4-Where is tolarian academy? You might also want to put strip mine/wasteland.

There are many other small details which I could pick on. The important thing to remember is that your threats are not good enough and that your deck is very vulnerable to many cards.

Heres a few cards you should look for, considering your budget:
1-tolarian academy. this is a must.
2-mana crypt.

other suggestions (that you need to test to see if it fits in the deck):
1-grim monolith
2-gilded lotus

You really ought to check other artifact decks. There are many many key differences between the other decks and yours so that you can pinpoint the weak points. Analyse them and you will better understand what I mean.


In case you still don't know what to look for, you can always check my list for card ideas:
http://www.themanadrain.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18568
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