New format - Mana Storm

[Harlequin]

I would love to see some decklists.  I came up with a deck, but I have no one to test it against... and have never actually played out a game with an opponent.  At least I can get a guage of how much counterspells + distruction + win-prevention cards ppl are running.  I'm kinda out on a cloud with what I think would be a good deck.

[carlossb]

What about Carpet of Flowers?

Some cards that may be played...

Land Equilibrium
Limited Resources
Primal Order
Ritual of Subdual
Sacred Ground
Mishra´s Helix
Amnesia
Last Stand
REPROCESS

EDIT:

Don't forget High Tide!

Don´t forget Bubbling Muck! 

[Harlequin]

A while back we discussed the way SDL's worked with [card]No Rest for the Wicked[/card]
Because of that interaction ... I'm not sure we can alow Sacred Ground.  It either works and returns the card to play FACE UP, or it doesn't do anything at all (unless the card is a land on the other side)

Any thoughts on the rules surrounding Sacred Ground and an Akroma Turned SDL that gets Sinkholed by an opponent?

[Mr. Type 4]

I think we have to do a little more research on what Sacred Ground actually does, No Rest is a Slightly different situation in that it triggers when the land goes to the yard instead of checking when the No Rest is activated..  I'm not really sure how that will be resolved, or even if the official rules of Magic have a way of clearing it up, we may have to make a ruling, but we'll need to do a bit research.  I would argue that the sacred ground works, but I'm really not sure. 

I kind of hope it does for the sake of the rest of you, cause land destruction sounds pretty savage. 

Primal order doesn't work because the "super duals" aren't technically nonbasics, unless you want to play it just to hose Boseiju.  

There's some real solid cards on that list that I haven't seen anyone talk about yet.  Land Equlibrium sells it for me, I'm going to have to get some sort of land destruction theme.  I think I might mix it with another theme, as well.  LE would actually be really good in Steve Menendian's control deck, since he has a lot of "Mana Leak" counterspells, so controlling the land on the table would be huge.  I'd like to have at least two to exhibition the format with at Rochester anyway.
As far as decks go, Harlequin, I haven't enough of them to figure out what the big archtypes are going to be yet, it seems like almost any strategy is viable at this point.  I do have the following analysis:
Lord Homer's combo deck was really good, but as I think about it, there's like a billions ways to build combo, which makes it the most obvious deck.  I expect to see a number of interesting combo mirror-matches where both players are trying to combo out in significantly different ways.  I think the combo decks actually have a solid weakness to some sort of aggro with a decent disruption set.  Everytime I run my combo deck I realize that most cards in my hand are critical, and that getting a few things hit would really slow my game.  The Smmenen vs Lord Homer game has a lot of disrupting and it went on for a good while.  Steve actually would have probably won if he had focused on sending his guys aggro sooner instead of holding back for so long.  Of course it was the first game ever, and both players had no idea of what the pace of the game should be.  I would say that the control strategy is definitly a solid option.  
Doug Linn says he has an aggro deck worked up that is very good, and I have no doubts that it is.  Doug always comes up with some break-out-of-the-box ideas for these casual formats.  
Land destruction allows the following cards:
Sundering Titan
Land Equlibrium
Uba Mask
Limited Resources
Ritual of Subdual
 Â        and that's the tip of the iceberg.  There is definitly a deck in here somewhere, I imagine some sort of 'vore could be an awsome kill condition.

So, if you're going to Rochester, and want to play MS, look for me.  I'll be hanging out with fellow Meandeckers.  If you wonder what I look like, I look kind of like my avatar, as it is a picture of me.

[LordHomerCat]

I'm not sure if the "sacred ground returning a not-always-a-land card to play" issue has ever come up in Magic.  Are there ANY cards that turn non-lands into lands, until end of turn or otherwise?  Off the top of my head I can't think of any...  I wonder what SCG's Ask the Judge would say haha.

Bubbling Muck!  Holy crap, I honestly didn't even know that card existed (I was thinking of the one that let you sac off lands for B).  That thing is going in, Mana Generation cards are the hardest to come by (theres 10 million draw spells).  Savage!

I really want to see a solid aggro deck, I was kinda brainstorming one, but had no idea how many threats / draw / disruption and such to run and which of each to run, hand destruction vs. LD vs. counters, etc. etc.  It seems pretty complicated (which is AMAZING).  There seems like there's so much depth to this format!

Oh, on a side note, whats the status of Mana Storm 'limited'.  As in, grab a stack (pre-built or not) or commons and such and just play shared deck?  It seems like it would be a lot of fun, like Mental Magic but a little less broken.

[carlossb]

I would love to see some decklists. 

It probably would be better not to show any, as we´re in the beginning of this format, and no decklists = more reasons to test and find new decks by yourself = more surprises when lists are shown

You have a lot of tips in this topic of what cards are/may be powerful! 

@LordHomerCat
I thought you knew that many years ago some high-tide decks transformed into dark-tide, with a little help of our loved Yawghmoth´s Will.

[LordHomerCat]

I stopped playing from around the end of Mirage block until the tail end of Onslaught block, so I basically missed out on all the Current Events of those times.  I know most of the histories and such, but there are some niche decks and things that I've never heard before.  I always thought bubbling muck was Rain of Filth, I didn't realize for some reason that they were two different cards.

This format being brand new, it does make me wary of posting a list, rather than just discussing different cards.  I mean, even discussing "techy" cards makes me wary, but then I remember that this is a casual format and that we should all share (Carpet of Flowers?  Holy crap how insane)!  So, decklists seem like they aren't needed, rather just discussions and suggestions of powerful cards for various decks and ideas.  There's so many insane things, and everyone's decks will be unique and probably contain some ridiculous cards no one else even considered!  Man, I'm so excited about this format, I need to get to some more tournaments or something and play more ><

[Mr. Type 4]

@LordHomer Yeah, you definitly should come out more.  I had just assumed you had Muck, it's a no-brainer.

Personally, I'd rather not know all tricks people have up their sleeves just yet, it keeps it exciting.  I have plenty of tech I can't wait to surprise people with.  ALTHOUGH, in the case of potentially confusing things like Sacred Ground, we probably should share so we can address those issues. 

The format is comming along well.  There are lots of amazing cards that are unidentified at this point.  What's great is that there's very little risk in including some experimental cards, because if they suck you can just play them as land.  Although, let's face it, at this point it's all experimental.

[carlossb]

A few cards discovered:

Mana Breach
Desolation
Omen of fire (another manaflare + manashort)
Planar Overlay?

[Mr. Type 4]

wow, now there's some obscure cards that people probably thought would never see play.  When Planeshift was new, we decided that Planar Overlay was the worst rare in the set, and if you opened one the card store guy would let you trade it in for a Coke.  Then he would staple it to the wall with all the other planar overlays, he probably had a good 50+

[Mr. Nightmare]

Rochester gives me about a week to come up with a deck for this format.  I think I can swing it, since my Skittles deck is all set.  I'll look you all up, and we can possibly even try to get the first ever MS side event in history.  I'll be hanging out wherever there's a place to stand, you'll recognize me by my resemblance to my avatar, as it is a picture of me.

[LordHomerCat]

A few cards discovered:

Mana Breach
Desolation
Omen of fire (another manaflare + manashort)
Planar Overlay?

Wow, I had to look up every single one of those cards (Omen of Fire?  what the hell).  I still have to test out Sunder, if its solid though, Omen of Fire is basically a second copy of it (with a possible benefit too!).  Awesome!

[Matt]

I tried the first-ever variant of Mana Storm recently. I had sixteen Guildpact boosters sitting around so my buddy and I drafted them, only to realize we had nothing to use for land. So we tried Mana Storm, except we tried playing this variant: a card played as a land can only tap for the colors that card is. That makes Signets nigh-useless and the Nephilim very very good (I even won a game with a 10/10 trampling, first strike, [card]Infiltrator's Magemark[/card]-ed Witch-Maw Nephilim!). It was good fun, and the bouncelands were pretty good too.

[carlossb]

Are you preparing some decks to play at Rochester?

It´s amazing, it´s like watching the growth of a new format from the very beginning! 

All decks will be new, and all strategies valid!

How many cards will we see "banned/in the watch_list" after this weekend? 

I predict a growth in popularity, as we had with Type4, and maybe an article in mtg.com, like Limited Infinity by Smmenen and Mr.Type4.
At least we´ll have The Second Constructed Mana Storm Game - EVER! 

[Evenpence]

Yeah, I deleted my post Matt.  Thanks buddy.

We banned three cards in our mental magic games:

Fastbond (obvious)
Library of Alexandria (sort of obvious)
Ice Cave (this card wrecks all if it comes down)

Ice Cave needs to be banned immediately.

I see you guys have banned Horn of Greed (good).  Anything that abuses land drops is obviously absurdly broken in this game.  You might want to ban Sunder as well, just on the basis of making an absurd amount of mana production.

So many good 3UU spells.

[Harlequin]

Keep in mind that its Legacy Ban list as well... so Library and FB are off the list.

[Matt]

Fastbond is also completely useless, as you already have infinite land drops. Ice Cave might need looking into.

[Mr. Type 4]

I can't see how you can break Ice Cave, since it's symmetrical.  I challenge anyone to do it. Prove me wrong.

I have been trying Sunder, and it doesn't seem too unfair in comparison to other cards which are also allowed.  The card I am watching most closely at this point is Trade Routes - which may be just too good.  You should probably all be playing Trade Routes in your Mana Storm deck if you aren't already, it's auto-include like Black Lotus.  Basically, I see Rochester as the first real gathering of Mana Strom decks, so I basically just want to see how it goes.  Anyone who plays should share their experiences here and we can discuss if anything needs banned.

I'm sure we'll see some interesting strategies that we may not have thought of yet, and play naturally leads to new innovations for next time.  I have an interesting idea of something that could work, but I'm not sure I'll have time to put it together for Rochester.  I will have my regular MS deck with me, of course. 

How many cards will we see "banned/in the watch_list" after this weekend?

I actually expect the list to hold up.  Trade Routes might have to go, but I don't expect us to find something on the Goblin Charbelcher/Horn of Greed level, but you never know.  I am still under the opinion that the Banned list was too easy to come up with and we may have missed something.  Good-luck breaking this format, I expect some surprises. 

Carlossb - Thanks for plugging my old Type 4 article, lol   God, that play scenario in the beginning doesn't work under the new Legend rule.  It's so old school.

[Mr. Nightmare]

I threw a deck together so I'll be looking to get in a few games this weekend.  I've got some tech to share, but you'll have to see it in action first!  I'll look for you all in Rochester.

[Mr. Type 4]

I'd rather see it in action than you ruin the surprise.  I'll be leaving in about an hour.  See you all there!

[Mr. Nightmare]

I don't know if Paul plans to put together a more involved description of our games, but I did want to share a little about them.

First off, this format is sooooo much fun.  We ended up playing like 7 games in a row, after I won on turn 1 and 2 games 1 and 2.  Then Paul started going nuts, and won the next 5 games in a row.  Now, granted, he kicked my ass around a bit, but my deck didn't even have Mana Flare in it, and I didn't realize proxying was cool, so I ran a bunch of crap that i found in my commons boxes.  On the other hand, the Texorz I found in my commons box was amazing. 

The sweep mechanic.

Think about it.  1 spell returns all of your land for an extremely small price (Barrel Down Sokenzan and Plow Through The Reito are what I run, as they are good as finishers, too).  I also think all the Soratami should be on the watch list, or at least the ones that have parity in what they return and cost to activate.  The one that bounces a guy and 3 lands for 3 combos savagely with Ovinomancer.  Really, all Mana Doubling effects either win the game that turn, or let your opponent win the game on their turn.  Draw 7s are insane.  Both Paul and I were playing Storm combo, so it was a very fast paces bunch of games, I'm really interested to see a take on an aggro deck, and to play vs. control.  Hope to get some more games in real soon!

[Matt]

Oh, I've long known Sweep was good. Look on the first page:

Player B plays five more lands, taps all ten, and casts Infernal Harvest, returning all the lands! It doesn't do much with only a Fanatic on the table (which goes to his head for 1), it does get him a ton of mana floating and returns all his imprinted cards for use.

[carlossb]

The sweep mechanic.

I hadn´t looked at those new limited cards!
Good discovery, they seem amazing!!

Oh, I've long known Sweep was good.

So, do you think it´s a fair mechanic in constructed ManaStorm?

Both Paul and I were playing Storm combo, so it was a very fast paces bunch of games, I'm really interested to see a take on an aggro deck

I've been doing some prelim testing, and I've found ARRRGO to be simply devastating in this format. I look forward to dismantling combo decks with it in the future.

I thought Hi-Val was going to Rochester. Didn´t you play against Smmenen and his control deck?


Have you considered Hymn To Tourach and Duress in your combo deck?. Shouldn´t they be an auto-include in every deck?

What´s your opinion now on combo versus combo?.
Shouldn´t you have more control-oriented cards (Abeyace, Hymn, Duress, Thwart, FOW,...) to prevent your opponent from going off?,
or was Mr.Type4´s deck simply more broken than yours?

I don't know if Paul plans to put together a more involved description of our games

He should 

[Mr. Nightmare]

I thought Hi-Val was going to Rochester. Didn´t you play against Smmenen and his control deck?

Didn't get a chance to.  It was a pretty busy weekend, I'm surprised I got any games in at all.

Have you considered Hymn To Tourach and Duress in your combo deck?. Shouldn´t they be an auto-include in every deck?

What´s your opinion now on combo versus combo?.
Shouldn´t you have more control-oriented cards (Abeyace, Hymn, Duress, Thwart, FOW,...) to prevent your opponent from going off?,
or was Mr.Type4´s deck simply more broken than yours?

Like I said, I wasn't really prepared with the best cards I could get.  I basically threw some flare effects and untap effects in a deck with a bunch of draw spells and went with it.  Oh, speaking of which, Trade Secrets is insane, and Paul hates the card now.

[AJFirst]

What the hell is Trade Secrets?

Anyway, I'm thinking of building a deck. I'll get my friends to try, and if I think I'm good enough I'll challenge one of you guys at the next Starcity.
-AJ

[Mr. Type 4]

OMG, Trade Secrets is the devil, look that one up for sure, it's a mindf**k.  Mr. Nightmare had some really broken stuff.  The soratami that mills you maight need banned, that guy is totally insane. (what do you guys think?  He's infi mill with Hi-tide)  Sweep was awesome, but I think the best advantage you can have in running combo is to actually run more control cards.  Our disruption cards were extremely powerful, but it's hard to figure that out until you're actually playing. 

Doug couldn't make it, Smmenen was too busy winning, but man, we got in some great games.  Some of the previous suggesions on here were great, especially Planar Overlay, which I used repeatedly. 

High Tide and such can be beaten by keeping mana untapped, because they will power up your lands, too.  Especially mana flare, I lost both my games because I gave him Mana Flare.

[CHA1N5]

The Oboro guys need to be banned.

I win every game where they resolve.

[Matt]

The Oboro guys need to be banned.

I win every game where they resolve.

Wait, what? I guess Breezecaller is infinite mana with a land that taps for 2 or more, but how does Envoy break?

[AJFirst]

I think he means the Soratami milling guy.
-AJ

[Harlequin]

I think he means the Moonfolk in general (some are oboro most are Soratami).  All of them are fairly sick.