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Author Topic: Help Improve my Control Deck with T1 cards!  (Read 2525 times)
blia
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« on: March 04, 2004, 10:06:46 am »

hi... can u guys help improve my deck by adding T1 Cards?? my school friends (about 50 of them) usually play casually. They don't really care if it's T2, T1 etc etc... i was hoping to gain an edge over them by including some T1 cards into my deck.. ( i have cash, but i can't afford Powered Cards..  Crying or Very sad  )


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Mana Producers (21)
8x Plains
4x Tundra
4x Islands
4x Coastal Tower
1x Sol Ring

Instants(6)
2x Boomerang
2x Sword to Plowshares
2x Orim's Chant

Artifacts(6)
4x Isochron Scepter
2x Copy Artifact

Draw(13)
2x Enlightened Tutor
3x Impulse
4x Cunning Wish
4x Mystical Tutor

Counters(4)
4x Counterspell
4x Force Of Wills

Win Condition(6)
3x Morphling/DoJ
3x Brainfreeze


"External Cards" (for use with cunning wish)
2xCounterspells
2xBoomerang
2xAbeyance/Gilded Light
2xHoly Day/Sword to Plowshares
2xDisenchant
2xStifle
2xBrain Freeze
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i know this deck is not T1 competitive.. but is it okay???
how can i improve it?? my budget isn't that big. My deck relies on getting my scepters+instants out, to lock the whole game down til i can get a win condition. =)  Surprised  

THANKS!! have heard alot about u guys' deck skills..
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Matt
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« Reply #1 on: March 04, 2004, 11:36:05 am »

No, it's not okay. If you're going to try this against competetive tournament-caliber decks, you should get smashed by literally everything.

Problem #1: If you take this to a tournament, you will lose every game by default, because Enlightened Tutor and Mystical Tutor are restricted. ;D So, the first change: -1 Enlightened Tutor, -3 Mystical Tutor.

Problem #2: No good deck can't break out of a Scepter-Chant lock, given enough time - and you give the opponent a LOT of time, this is a very slow deck. I would drop all the Chants entirely, and drop to only one or two Scepters - they're slow, fragile, and you don't have most of the best cards to imprint ([card]Fire/Ice[/card] specifically). Chant is just plain weak in a control deck (which this plainly is). -2 Chant, -2 Scepter

Problem #3: You don't have [card]Balance[/card]. It's like a $3 card (reprinted all the way up through fourth edition!) and it's the most powerful white card ever made. Run it, without question. +1 Balance

Problem #4: Brain Freeze. Why? "Milling" cards does nothing to help you win the game unless you actually mill their entire deck. If you Freeze them for 20-30 cards but kill with Morphling anyway, you've wasted a LOT of time doing what amounts to nothing (and you may have even helped them draw [card]Squee, Goblin Nabob[/card]s, or achieve Threshold, or cast a game-ending [card]Yawgmoths Will[/card], or pump [card]Psychatog[/card] even more). Brain Freeze needs to go. -3 Brain Freeze

Problem #5: Boomerang just isn't good. It's horrible trash unless you get it on a Scepter, and it's not very good even then. -2 Boomerang

Problem #6: You have only 21 mana sources. While this is fine for a very aggressive deck, your style of deck wants all the mana it can muster, for Morphling, Decree, Cunning Wish, and the occasional Scepter. We need to increase this to something like 24-26 mana sources.

Also, Coastal Tower is far too slow. These should be fetchlands ([card]Flooded Strand[/card]). They are sort of pricey ($6 each, maybe?) but a) they're incredibly good, and b) they're useful in all sorts of decks, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future.

Third, you don't have nearly enough sources of blue mana to support Counterspells & co. -4 Coastal Tower, +4 Flooded Strand, -2 Plains, +5 Island. [card]Adarkar Wastes[/card] may also be of use over some of the basic lands, but that's less obvious, and something you'll have to figure out for yourself.

Problem #7: Consistency. Your deck is trying to do many, many things at once, and sometimes you'll draw the wrong cards at the wrong times. +4 [card]Brainstorm[/card], which is also a nice card to Scepter up, and becomes one of the best draw engines in the game when paired with Flooded Strands (put your least-desireable cards on top, then shuffle them away).

Problem #8: Copy Artifact sucks when you only have one artifact to Copy (and should have even less after this). -2 Copy Artifact

Lastly, you'll want to add another Swords to Plowshares maindeck (I would add two more, but you need one to Wish for). +1 Swords to Plowshares

So, all told, here's what we have:

Mana Producers (24)
6x Plains
4x Tundra
9x Island
4x Flooded Strand

1x Sol Ring

Instants(3)
0x Boomerang
3x Sword to Plowshares
0x Orim's Chant


Artifacts(2)
2x Isochron Scepter

Draw(13)
1x Enlightened Tutor
3x Impulse
4x Brainstorm
4x Cunning Wish
1x Mystical Tutor

Counters(8)
4x Counterspell
4x Force Of Wills

Win Condition(3)
3x Morphling/DoJ
0x Brain Freeze

So now we're up to 53 cards. We need some card advantage, and badly, or you'll lose to everything under the sun. Let's add a [card]Future Sight[/card], a [card]Fact or Fiction[/card], and, for kicks, the [card]Accumulated Knowledge[/card] engine:

+1 Future Sight
+1 Fact or Fiction
+4 Accumulated Knowledge


And the final slot can be left to personal preference. Personally, I'm fond of [card]Zuran Orb[/card] and maybe a [card]Nevinyrrals Disk[/card] (good targets for Enlightened Tutor). In fact, if you don't fill this slot with a utility artifact or enchantment, you should cut Enlightened Tutor entirely. Other good choices include:

[card]Humility[/card], maybe two of them (dropping probably an Wish, because it's expensive to add 2U to the cost of something when you need it RIGHT NOW). This would preclude Morphlings, but with a Humility in play, Decree of Justice becomes INSANELY good. You could also run one Humility and one [card]Orims Prayer[/card] (or [card]Caltrops[/card]) for a total creature-lock.

[card]Intuition[/card], which fetches Accumulated Knowledges very well.

[card]Stifle[/card], which is just generally good.

[card]Mishras Factory[/card], though this would lead you into Landstill territory.


Speaking of which, you should check out the Landstill archetype, an example of which can be found here. If you don't have Volcanic Islands, a U/W version could still be quite strong.
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blia
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« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2004, 03:02:01 am »

lol... i play in a very casual environment.  My friends all don't care if the cards are restricted or not. That's why i can play so many tutors.

I don't play competitively, 90% of my friends play rogue variants of T2 Decks.

If i remove Brain Freeze. DoJ/Morphling will be my only win condition. Is that okay???  

I was hoping to put my Impulse, or Tutor onto my sceptor, to draw more each turn..

yups. my mana base is abit bad. gonna add chrome mox and fetchlands.
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blia
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« Reply #3 on: March 05, 2004, 11:53:26 am »

any more opinions?? plz people i need help. pls remember i play non-competitive, and most of my friends are T2. i just want to improve my deck with T1 cards.
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Razvan
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« Reply #4 on: March 05, 2004, 04:46:29 pm »

Quote
lol... i play in a very casual environment. My friends all don't care if the cards are restricted or not. That's why i can play so many tutors.


Okay...

Quote
I don't play competitively, 90% of my friends play rogue variants of T2 Decks.


The deck that Matt suggested is still good though. If it's THAT casual, your original was fine.

Quote
If i remove Brain Freeze. DoJ/Morphling will be my only win condition. Is that okay???


Yes.

Quote
I was hoping to put my Impulse, or Tutor onto my sceptor, to draw more each turn..


Fine. Still 4 scepters is too many. Try 3.

Quote
yups. my mana base is abit bad. gonna add chrome mox and fetchlands.


Fetchlands should be enough. Chrome Mox is very unreliable. You don't really have many business spells to waste. Heck, Mox Diamond is better.
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Matt
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« Reply #5 on: March 05, 2004, 06:43:41 pm »

If your group doesn't care about restrictions, feel free to show them why certain cards are restricted:

4 Mishra's Factory
4 Tundra
4 Flooded Strand
3 Island
1 Plains

1 win condition of your choice

4 Balance
4 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
3 Swords to Plowshares
2 Disenchant
2 Tinker
1 Enlightened Tutor
4 Cunning Wish
1 Stifle

1 Future Sight
1 Zuran Orb
4 The Rack
3 Isochron Scepter
1 Grim Monolith
3 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Mox Diamond
2 Talisman of Progress
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« Reply #6 on: March 05, 2004, 07:55:07 pm »

Oh come on.  If they don't play with a restricted list, time to bust out Academy!  PM JP with a cheap Type 0 list.
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Matt
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« Reply #7 on: March 05, 2004, 08:56:11 pm »

Yeah but he's on a budget.
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blia
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« Reply #8 on: March 06, 2004, 05:28:03 am »

can someone post the "Type 0" academy deck list here?? haha. if restricted cards can be abused. i want to abuse every single part of it.  :lol:

my friends say restricted or not, it'll make no difference..  Confused
help prove him wrong??
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blia
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« Reply #9 on: March 09, 2004, 08:27:27 am »

Mana Producers (17)
5x Plains
4x Tundra
4x Islands
4x Sol Ring
 
Removal( 11)
3x Sword to Plowshares
4x Orim's Chant
4x Balance

ToolBox(12)
4x Isochron Scepter
4x Cunning Wish
1x Future Sight
3x The Rack

Draw(9)
1x Enlightened Tutor
4x Mystical Tutor
4x Brainstorm

Counters(8)
4x Counterspell
4x Force Of Wills

Win Condition(3)
3x Morphling/DoJ
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Xenophon
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« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2004, 10:07:49 am »

You can actually make a decent budget academy.  Just look around, they're everywhere.  And if you don't pay attention to restrictions....hehehe.

The base combo cards in Academy decks aren't outlandishly expensive, and the artifacts that are can be replace for lesser ones that are restricted if your (mana vault, lotus petal, sol ring, etc...)
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« Reply #11 on: April 05, 2004, 03:51:02 pm »

A few things I noticed in the second list you posted.
Quote
3x The Rack

Im not sure how you like playing the deck but it seems to me your main goal is to get orims chant on a scepter then look for morphling and win with him. If this is the case why would you want to play the rack? If you are chanting them every turn they will never play cards so their hand will stay pretty full in theory, so perhaps Black Vice would be better in these slots if restrictions are not an issue id replace all 3 racks for vices... And because you are running 4 cunning wish I think moving one of the Orims chants out to the sideboard would be a good idea as well, so that you can get a chant with atleast 11 cards in the maindeck, 4 mystical tutors, 4 wishes, and the 3 chants themselves. Also it seems to me that your deck is based around the scepter itself, so I think because you do not have to worry about restrictions playing 4 enlightened tutors would help out quite a bit as well. If you moved the 4th chant to the SB you could replace its slot with an Enlightened, then Id take out 1 black vice (if you replace racks with them) and 1 morphling for the 3rd and 4th tutors, because once you get chant on a scepter you have theoretically as much time as you need to find a kill condition so playing 4 should be more than enough.
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