Harlequin
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« Reply #4 on: January 06, 2009, 02:39:39 pm » |
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Ok first lets talk about your deck alittle:
1) Mana. I'm not going to say its not optimal, because you're on a budget - but there is definatly not enough of it. I would stear clear of the rav-bounce lands they are trouble in this world of wasteland.
2) Concept. You have a loose theme of a 'reanimator' style deck (plan: #1 get huge monster in yard, #2 animate and win). But you don't really seem to be commiting to it. Things like Copy Enchantment are neat... but there are other cards you can run to animate your creatures: Dance of the Dead, Reanimate, and Necromancy are a few that come to mind.
3) Disruption. Its really tough to build a solid vintage deck and get away with running no forms of disruption or spell protection (for example rit-combo runs duress to protect against force of will).
4) Chaff. The deck has alot of cards that are good in 'ground based' formats but are frankly not up to snuff when it comes to vintage. There's a saying that goes: if it costs 4 mana and doesn't win you the game, its not worth playing in vintage. Cost aside, Godsire will win the game in vintage. An 8/8 who makes 8/8's doesn't need flying or lifelink or shroud to just straight win the game. You don't need a 4/4 with fling and lifelink when you have Joten Grunt who is a 4/4 for 2 mana.
New Dirrection:
Lets take a look at some of the cards you already have: 2x Intuition --- Great start. We'll definately use this DT, Vamp, Entomb, Mystical -- again, good tutor base. Yawg's Will -- Doable, but we might find that winning the game with a graveyard deck ultimately is harder than you think with will. Niv Mizzet + Curiosity. Ok we have our win condition. This brings back a deck idea that I was working with for legacy...
The deck is built mostly around -> Shallow Grave, Corpse Dance, and possibly Goro's Vengance. And it uses this in conjuntion with Magus of the Jar. To cycle through your deck. Eventually you can Shallow Grave a Niv Mizzet, and either go crazy with more Jar ativations or just find Curiosity and win on the spot.
It also uses Ill-Gotten Gains (as a better version of Recall).
17 Land 4 Dark ritual 2 Cabal Ritual 1 Lion's Eye Diamond 1 Lotus Petal
4 Magus of the Jar 2 Niv Mizzet 1 Sedris the Traitor King / Body Double 2 Curiosity
4 Careful Study 2 Intuition 2 DT, Vamp 1 Frantic Search 1 Entomb
4 Ill Gotten Gains 2 Dream Salvage 4 Shallow Grave 2 Corpse Dance / Goro's Vengance (*only if you run Sedris)
4 Defense Grid / Leyline of the Void ---------------------------------------
Ok so how to play the deck:
Understanding Multi-Jar
So You've gotten a Magus of the Jar into the yard, and you've floated some mana off Rituals and you're ready to Start the combo. You animate the Jar with either Shallow Grave or Corpse Dance which gives him haste. And now you pop him. As part of the cost Magus goes back to the grave yard. When the ability resolves set aside the remainder of your hand and -Besure you and your opponent BOTH mark this hand as #1!! This is important if for some reason you fizzle and fail to win this turn. Now your draw your next 7 card hand. If all goes well you've got more rituals and another Shallow Grave. You don't need another Magus because the first one is pollitely waiting in the yard. So you cast your mana and run out another animate. Now again you pop the Magus and this time remove this hand with a #2 Marker on it. Lets say that unfortunately you fizzle and now have to end the turn. As the controler of the Jar triggers it is YOUR choice which hand you end with: #1 or #2. Note that BOTH players will have the same # hand, so if you want #1 they get number #1 and #2 is discarded. If you want #2 then they get #2 as well and #1 is discarded. Here's how: You can resolve the triggers in iether order so order of resolution would be either:
Discard current hand and Pick up #2; Discard #2 and pick up #1 - ending with #1 =OR= Discard current hand and Pick up #1; Discard #1 and pick up #2 - ending with #2
If there are more than 2 hands, you can choose which ones end up in the yard, and which # you and your opponent end with in hand.
Understanding Ill-Gotten Gains (IGG) In understanding Jar, you may have noticed one major problem. If you use a 2nd jar you don't get a chance to discard that first hand until EOT. So you may end up locking away a Mizzet or Curiosity out in RFG land. IGG is a great way to dump those new 7 card hands and pick up 3 important cards. So when you pop Jar #2, you have no cards in hand, but rather have stored those cards safely in the graveyard. You can also use IGG to resort your graveyard by picking up a the creature you want on top, an animate spell, as well as something like Careful Study or Frantic Search. Cast your discard spell, and animate. IGG is not without drawback. Your opponent will also get the chance to build the best 3 card disruption hand. And in vintage this means you will have to be able to beat recursive Force of will. There are 2 ways to do this. For a solid quick answer there is always Defense Grid. The much more sinister answer is to run Leyline of the Void. With any luck you can drop a turn-0 Leyline. This turns IGG into a super-threat. Leyline is somewhat unique to other graveyard hate cards because it is a replacement effect. For this reason it actually DOES apply mid-resolution of IGG. So now IGG will cause thier entire hand to be RFGed and therefor they cannot return any cards. This is an obvious beating. It's somewhat less effective with this deck because you are generally planning to pop a draw 7 afterwords so Defense grid may be better anyway. Xantid Swarm or Orims Chant / Abayance are options as well but they require another color. Dream Salvage is another little trick you can use with IGG. Returning Dream Salvage, Dark Ritual, and X, is a great way to draw a ton of cards after IGG. Remember they just discarded thier hand! Now you can likely IGG again, and get even more cards the 2nd time.
Understanding Lion's Eye Diamond (LED).
LED is another crazy good card with both Magus of the Jar, AND IGG. It's your Budget Lotus... that actually helps ensure you don't have cards stuck in the Jar hands. The best times to use it are when an ability that is about to empty your hand is already on the stack. So with a Magus of the Jar activation, or an IGG on the stack - crack your LED and float mana. Now you can return it with IGG.
Sedris the Traitor King and Body Double
One limitation of the deck is that sometimes those pesky Mages get ontop of your Niv Mizzets. And it can be tough to dig them out from a lower point in the graveyard. The concept of both of these cards is the same. They provide easy access to any of the creatures in your graveyard. Body Double is nice because you can keep changing him. If possible you will want to be animating Body Double with every Shallow Grave ... because he can be anyone. However one nice thing about Sedris is that he doesn't require Shallow Graves at all! Just mana. However the drawback of unearth is that it has a special clause that makes it very differant than Shallow grave: Remove it from the game at end of turn or if it would leave play. This means that if you only have one magus in the yard, if you use Unearth to bring him into play he goes to the RFG zone when you crack him. Curiosity x2? Actually you probably don't even need this. If you run Sedris you might even be able to get away with running 1 or none! Remeber your guys have haste, So you get to whomp them one. A 5/5 and a 4/4 plus one draw 7 is 16 dmg total. You shouldn't have too much trouble beating even without infinite damage off curiosity.
World Gorger Dragon...
This deck isn't as amazing without Bazaar.
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