[Deck] Help and Discussion: Casual Misery

[Genju of the Wicked]

This is my third deck attempt after just getting into Magic several months ago (the first 2 attempts seemed to be dismal failures, and thus I thought I would sit and observe the general vintage meta and decks before throwing my hat into the ring again).   As I said in my original decks posts, I am against netdecking as I think the best part of any CCG I’ve played (Lot5R, etc) is deckbuilding/fixing – not just jacking someone else’s deck….so please keep that in mind before you flame me for my lack of skills (If you do, I’ll whip out my mad kung-fu skills and kick my dog in the face).  I did, however, (obviously) look at other similar decks this time around, as just taking certain cards suggested in the various articles I’ve read, and then going through the oracle sheets to find cards which seemed decent didn’t work out so well….

I’ll give the general rundown of the deck, and identify the general problems I see.  Any suggestions (with explanations, if you don’t mind) or observations regarding either those problems I identify, or problems with the logic of my explanations would be greatly appreciated (and of course general deck fixes would be nice).



The Deck

Creatures
4x [card]Iname Death Aspect[/card]
2x [card]Revenant[/card]
2x [card]Elvish Spirit Guide[/card]
2x [card]Kokusho the Evening Star[/card]
2x [card]Teardrop Kami[/card]
2x [card]Nether Shadow[/card]
2x [card]Ashen-Skin Zubera[/card]
3x [card]Bile Urchin[/card]
2x [card]Floating-Dream Zubera[/card]

Spells
3x [card]Haunting Misery[/card]
2x [card]Reanimate[/card]
1x [card]Exhume[/card]
1x [card]Entomb[/card]
2x [card]Buried Alive[/card]
2x [card]Careful Study[/card]
2x [card]Thirst for Knowledge[/card]
1x [card]Vampiric Tutor[/card]
1x [card]Necropotence[/card]
1x [card]Demonic Tutor[/card]
2x [card]Crainial Extraction[/card]
2x [card]Mana Drain[/card] (proxy)

Mana Sources
3x [card]Dark Ritual[/card]
1x [card]Black Lotus[/card] (proxy)
1x [card]Mox Jet[/card] (proxy)
1x [card]Mox Sapphire[/card] (proxy)
4x [card]Underground River[/card]
4x [card]Underground Sea[/card] (proxy)
3x [card]Swamp[/card]
2x [card]Island[/card]

The Deck/Win Conditions

Primarily (and probably obviously) the deck is a sort of combo/reanimator build, relying mostly on Iname, Death Aspect for the win (although not relying solely on it).  I splashed in blue for its draws, counters and spirits and sprits, but many seemed to be dropped in fine tuning.  I would consider dropping blue altogether if I could find a decent draw engine in black that would fit the deck…..

Iname, Death Aspect + Haunting Misery – can be a first turn win (although that is not highly likely) or can bring pain later in the game. 
Revenant /or/ Kokusho, the Evening Star + Reanimate /or/ Exhume [+ Buried Alive /or/ Entomb /or/ Iname, Death Aspect]  -- fairly obvious, I think.

Draw Engines

Necropotence (obs I think).  Thirst for Knowledge and Careful Study allow for decent milling through my deck, as well as getting creatures in the GY.  I would have used 4 TfKs, however since there are so many high cost cards in the deck (Iname, Misery, Revenant, etc) I figured Careful Study would help out the general curve, while still being functional (adding to a potentially high curve is the fact that I think my mana source(s) are fairly weak, especially for blue).

I believe both of the black tutors belong here (Vampiric and Demonic), however Diabolic might be a little pricey and I’m not sure if Mystical is worthwhile with how weak my blue section is, and the fact that it can’t bring creatures into hand, correct me if I’m wrong….

Protection

I think Cranial Extraction might be the best protection Black offers, since it seems to be able to effectively disable most any deck.  Many have told me that it should only be run as a side, and brought it after you see exactly what deck your opponent is running.  However, I would argue from my great lack of experience that it could easily be used effectively even in the first if one is observant (and with how rampant netdecking and cookie cutters are).

I think the Mana Drains should be obvious, however, I’m not sure how well a UU will run with my poor mana setup (hopefully that will be resolved with this post).

Mana Sources

I think this is the weakest portion of the deck, and where I would like the most help.  I had trouble accurately calculating the mana curve, since the only high cost cards I will ever really be attempting to cast are Iname and Haunting Misery (the rest will be reanimated).   It seems to me I might not have enough sources to make the deck run, they are:

Blue/Black:
4x Underground River
4x Underground Sea

Black:
3x Dark Ritual
1x Mox Jet (proxy)
3x Swamp

Blue:
1x Mox Sapphire
2x Island

Colourless
1x Black Lotus
2x Elvish Spirit Guide (green)

Since this deck is so GY heavy, would Cabal Ritual be a good addition?  What about Songs of the Damned?

I’m also not sure if I should’ve (or even could’ve) chosen Lands which offer more than just mana (ie Library of Alexandria).

In one of my last posts, I asked about whether the power 9 were necessary in highly successful decks (to which Bram aptly demonstrated why they were).  I don’t expect this to be a highly successful deck in the least, however, since I am running proxies already, I considered running the other moxen…but it seemed like they wouldn’t help this deck much (especially considering the 3x Dark Rituals).  Wouldn’t the others really just end up taking up valuable space in this particular deck?


Creatures

All are spirits for the Iname win condition.  The only non B/U are the 2x Elvish Spirit Guides for mana.  I considered adding other coloured spirits, but figured sticking with B/U would be best in case the Reanimate/Iname doesn’t work out, and I actually had to bring them out by paying their casting costs.  The small cc sprits are to use as “?chump?� blockers, and to balance out the curve a bit, but still have useful functions in the deck (Teardrop Kami for some control, Nether Shadow can be stacked to be brought out after Iname, the Zuberas for draw and control).

I considered adding a Psychatog or 2, for another win condition (he uses the GY as food, and can help with discards) but couldn’t find room).  I know there isn’t much love for the Tog in Vintage, but if anyone thinks he can be fit, I’d love to hear how.

Sideboard

Haven’t put much though here yet, but help would be great.  Here are some things I was considering:

Cabal Ritual
Songs of the Damned
Psychatog
Psychatog
Yamgmoth's Will

Other Notes

-I would prefer not to run over 10 proxies, I believe I'm at nine now...I'm sure you can guess which cards I'll have to proxy, so please don't suggest too many.

-I could also use some help in rebuilding the deck for non-proxy play (which shouldn't be too hard to do).  Any help there is appreciated.

-simply suggesting what cards to add won't help me much (although it is appreciated) as I had enough trouble getting this down to 60 cards.  So please add and take away.

-being a newb, I would have put this in the newb forum, but the last few times I did that it was moved here, so...


Thanks to all.  More questions are likely to follow.

[asmoranomardicodais]

Okay, first, I disagree with you putting in proxies of power. This is casual, and as such, proxies aren't necessary. If you have the cards, fine, but moxen and mana drains aren't neccessary to build a good casual deck, as long as that is what it is, casual. By putting in power, all your saying is "This is a Type I deck", and this deck could never compete on a Type I level. Therefore, it shouldn't try to compete on a type I level, therefore, it doesn't need power. Power simply makes a deck win faster, it doesn't make a deck any more fun to play, and the reliablility it brings is easily overcome by other stuff (such as painlands, and successful deckbuilding).

Besides, if you wanted to run proxies, you should be runnig Ancestral and Yawgmoth's Will.

Actually, run Yawgmoth's Will. Its not that expensive, and its called YawgWin for a reason.

Having said that, even if you were to keep your proxies, you should drop the mana drains. If you want to run counterspells at all, run four Force of Wills (But please don't proxy them). But seriously, run duress and hymn to tourach, since discard acts as proactive counterspells. Since you are a proactive deck, these would be more helpful to you then counterspells.