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Author Topic: Casual CoK Samurai Deck  (Read 1319 times)
Bardo
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ibycus39
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« on: January 11, 2005, 11:48:37 am »

(Yay! My first post in the Casual forum.)

I've been working on this Samurai deck after I got the Samurai pre-constructed deck as a gift. Wow, what a piece of shit. I set out to make it "not necessarily competitive, but fun to play." No simple task given the card pool. I firmly believe that if this deck sucked less than it does, it would actually be better. Rock. Solid. Logic.

Here are my ground rules:
  • Theme > Raw Power. For instance, I can justify running Kami of Ancient Law in the mono-white version (it's even got a Konda quote for flavor text), but couldn't see what Ancient Law would be doing in White/Red. Well, it would require a leap of imagination farther than I'm willing to jump.

  • Legendary stuff can only be included as a '1-of'; I mean, it's Legendary after all. However, 'in-flavor' legendary multiples are fine (e.g. Brothers Yamazaki).[/list:u]
    Here's my list.

    “Täo Të Bardö”
    Mono-White Kamigawa-block Samurai theme deck

    (Warriors)
    4 Devoted Retainer
    4 Samurai of the Pale Curtain
    4 Kitsune Blademaster
    3 Kami of Ancient Law
    3 Mothrider Samurai*

    (Legends)
    1 Isamaru, Hound of Konda
    1 Bushi Tenderfoot* (hard to believe as it is, Tenderfoot is actually worse than Merfolk Of The Pearl Trident; simply astounding)
    1 Sensei Golden-Tail
    1 Nagao, Bound by Honor
    1 Hikari, Twilight Guardian
    1 Yosei, The Morning Star

    (Spells)
    4 Reciprocate
    4 Cage of Hands
    3 Otherworldly Journey
    2 Call to Glory

    (Artifacts)
    1 Sensei's Divining Top

    (Land)
    1 Eiganjo Castle
    21 Plains

    * These cards painfully suck; to be replaced with something better after Betrayers/Saviors are printed.

    About color choice. Going mono-color in a block lacking adequate dual lands is a sensible choice for a deck whose threats are clustered in the 1-3 cc range. This isn't a control deck. But, of course, adding other colors should be considered. Red offers removal and some cool Samurai but that color adds an element of banditry that's really out of theme. Green offers some solid acceleration but 1) is poorly out-of-flavor ('Samurai Tribe-Elder', nope; 'Konda's Reach', 'fraid not); 2) will compete for the cc slots where we want to be dumping our threats onto the board. Blue and Black are just really out-of-flavor, though a collaborative Ninja/Samurai deck is an interesting thought.... Sorta. Summing up, adding more colors can be done, but should be rationalized with a good story.

    So, how would you make this better?
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noitcelfeRmaeT||TeamReflection - .gniyd ysub si ,nrob gnieb ysub ton eH
:nraw ot sevorp ,sdrow detsaw syalp nroh wolloh ehT
Ephraim
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LordZakath
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« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2005, 01:02:13 pm »

Black is not necessarily out of flavour, unless you're interested only in strictly honourable samurai. By splashing black, you could add a much less savoury aspect to the deck without abandoning the samurai theme at all.

If you don't like Mothrider Samurai, you might consider replacing it with Nezumi Ronin. Granted, the rat is easier to kill in combat, but when unblocked it's as dangerous as any other Samurai short of [card]Samurai Enforcers[/card], which costs {4}{W}{W}.

Black doesn't offer anything else particularly worthwhile in the way of creatures, but some of its spells could give the deck a boost. Since samurai have pseudo-evasion, you can bet that people will avoid blocking them until they absolutely have to. Having two or three copies of [card]Dance of Shadows[/card] could ensure that when your opponent would actually want to block, all of your creatures have fear. Since you already have a few Otherworldly Journeys in the deck, Soulless Revival would be pretty good if you find your samurai are mixing it up with your opponents' creatures more often than you expected. If Reciprocate isn't doing the trick for you, Rend Flesh and/or Rend Spirit could be worthwhile.
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Did you know that Red is the color or art and music and passion? Combine that with Green, the color of nature, spiritualism, and community and you get a hippie commune of drum circles, dreamcatchers, and recreational drug use. Let's see that win a Pro Tour.
Upinthe
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« Reply #2 on: January 13, 2005, 04:12:22 pm »

Where is the equipment? There is a lot of cool stuff in CHK to use with Samurai. [card]Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho[/card] is good and comboes with Samurai of the Pale Curtain, [card]Konda's Banner[/card] works well with all of your legendary creatures, and [card]Kusari-Gama[/card] can put an opponent in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation with bushido.
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I know this won't happen in a tournament, but if my opponent has Chaos Orb in his hand while I'm controlling his turn from a Mindslaver, who flips the card if I force him to play it and activate it?

"When I saw the announcement of Temple Garden on wizards.com, I knew that I was going to be out of Type 2 for the next two years" - JDizzle
Bardo
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ibycus39
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« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2005, 10:11:51 pm »

Quote from: Upinthe
[card]Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho[/card] is good and comboes with Samurai of the Pale Curtain.
Could you, or anyone, explain the Oathkeeper/Samurai of the Pale Curtain interaction? I don't see it.
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AceOfJacks
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« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2005, 10:45:20 pm »

Quote from: bardo_trout
Quote from: Upinthe
[card]Oathkeeper, Takeno's Daisho[/card] is good and comboes with Samurai of the Pale Curtain.
Could you, or anyone, explain the Oathkeeper/Samurai of the Pale Curtain interaction? I don't see it.


As far as I can tell, Oathkeeper does not combo with Pale Curtain ... Pale Curtain sees himself dying, so he removes himself from the game.  Oathkeeper never recurs him, becuase he doesn't hit the graveyard.
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