Thrash Unreal

I took  this from an Against Me! song. And what we have here is a shamans deck.

2 Sapling of Colfenor
3 Ashling the Pilgrim
2 Flamekin Harbinger
4 Taurean Mauler
4 Wolf-Skull Shaman
4 Rage Forger
2 Fulminator Mage
2 Vexing Shusher
3 Deathgreeter

4 Hit // Run
3 Cauldron Haze
2 Dark Banishing

6 Mountain
1 Jund Panorama
4 Savage Lands
2 Swamp
2 Forest
4 Darigaaz's Caldera
4 Jetmir's Garden

2 Titania's Boon

Let's put some +1/+1 counters on things and swing, right? Make extra wolves, and see what can be done!

Well. Quite a lot, really. So let's have at it.

Sandstorm Complete

So let's catch up since I failed to update the readers on Sandstorm!

4 Shuko

4 Heartfire Hero
3 Manifold Mouse
3 Stirring Hopesinger
3 Valley Questcaller
3 Emberheart Challenger
3 Flowerfoot Swordmaster
3 Seedglaive Mentor

4 Erode
4 Monstrous Rage
1 Loran's Escape
3 Legion Leadership
2 Shelter

2 Glittering Massif
7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Elegant Parlor

There've been two real changes: first, Stirring Hopesinger. An evasive creature that can gain life and give me a boost every time I cast a non-creature spell? This seems pretty good. The card draws a lot of attention when I play it, so clearly I'm doing something right. 

The other change has been to remove Restless Bivouac for Glittering Massif. My reasoning here is that if Massif shows up in the first two turns, great I can use the color fixing. 

If it shows up anytime after I have 3 or more lands, I can cycle it away for another card. 

The spell suite might be a bit more challenging. I've been looking at Adventures, Omens and Prepared spells in hopes of finding something that might add to the spell count while keeping a threat base high but very little fits. Because I would like something that either offers me some removal redundancy. Erode has been a solid card and it wouldn't suck having another. It's possible I should look at replacing a card like Shelter for something more aggressive but I'm not sure at the moment. 

Still; it's a solid deck and for now it's doing well!

Grimlock

A long time ago, I saw a relationship between Fecundity and Mortuary. At least I think I did. It might've been a combo pointed out in a print magazine, just to give readers a sense of how long ago we are talking. However, G/B is one of my favorite combos and letting that pass by was not going to happen.

3 Wall of Blossoms
2 Bottle Gnomes
3 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Quagmire Druid
3 Sadistic Hypnotist
3 Fume Spitter
2 Blastoderm
2 Woodripper
3 Bone Shredder
4 Skullmulcher
2 Vulturous Zombie
4 Fecundity
4 Mortuary
6 Swamp
2 Volrath's Stronghold
4 Llanowar Wastes
7 Forest
4 Blooming Marsh

Now, there are probably some obvious issues here. The first is that the creature selection is ancient, and inconsistent on top of that. That is a space with easy improvement. 

However, the elephant in the room is this; I have a two card combo that 1) Doesn't win the game and 2) doesn't do anything to the board when it arrives. That is a problem--sort of.

I'm not going to lie to ya: I like this combo enough that I'm keeping the deck. It's too much fun as a concept for me to get rid of. This means that I'm already accepting that it isn't going to be a A tier deck. B if I'm lucky. 

But maybe I can get it to a good B+. Heck, creatures are good enough now that A- might even be possible. 

And of course this is named after the leader of the Dinobots.

You Think I Ain't Worth A Dollar But I Feel Like A Millionaire

Woof. This is a great song for a mess of a deck. 

3 Thopter Foundry
3 Sword of the Meek
4 Sapphire Medallion

1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
2 Magister Sphinx
3 Sharding Sphinx
4 Stormscape Familiar
4 Etherium Sculptor
1 Sharuum the Hegemon
1 Sphinx Sovereign

3 Oblivion Ring
2 Engineered Plague

1 Spinal Embrace
4 Thirst for Knowledge

6 Island
4 Seat of the Synod
2 Vault of Whispers
2 Ancient Den
1 Plains
2 Arcane Sanctum
4 Esper Panorama
1 Swamp
2 Dromar's Cavern

So, the original deck idea came from one that was using Time Sieve in order to take multiple, if not infinite turns. 

Where's the Time Sieve, my dude?

But OK fine: I don't have Time Sieve. Budget combo with Sword of the Meek and Thopter Foundry isn't a terrible idea. 

Why is there all this other stuff? I get the idea: I was thinking that four copies of Sapphire Medallion would make it easy to ramp into cards like Sharuum. 

But even if they are, what is Sharuum getting back for me? 

So, there's a bunch of work to do here. 

Sandstorm

Well, now we have a name for the deck! As an added bonus, it's also the name for a Transformer so I'm kinda double-dipping. 

In addition, despite the last decklist working really well, Secrets of Strixhaven gave us a card that I am testing, because I think it's very powerful: Stirring Hopesinger. This is in addition to the new removal spell upgrade, Erode, which is definitely better than Unwanted Remake. 

However that's not all! Hopesinger is a bird, and that means it gets a boost from Valley Questcaller.

Sadly, this means that something has to go, and Mabel is my cut. She's very good-and she creates an additional mana tax with Cragflame. In a deck with so few mana sources, having a flier that could boost the team just seemed better. 

Mice

 I need a name for this deck, but right now it's got it where it counts, kid.

4 Shuko

4 Heartfire Hero
3 Manifold Mouse
3 Valley Questcaller
3 Emberheart Challenger
2 Mabel, Heir to Cragflame
3 Flowerfoot Swordmaster
3 Seedglaive Mentor
1 Feather, the Redeemed

4 Monstrous Rage
4 Unwanted Remake
2 Loran's Escape|
3 Legion Leadership
2 Shelter

7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Elegant Parlor
2 Restless Bivouac

Obviously this started as a riff on the mice deck in Standard-hey, why not build on a proven idea? Without the limits of Standard, Shuko becomes available and the deck can get sick very, very quickly. 

With 20 lands, the deck is running very lean, and I'm absolutely hoping that Elegant Parlor along with Shelter and Loran's Escape can help smooth my draws out, while not slowing me down, despite Restless Bivouac and Parlor entering tapped.

Fast All The Time

So....I don't care about Merfolk.

What about this? 

4 Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student
2 Kutzil's Flanker
3 Sigrid, God-Favored
4 Brineborn Cutthroat
2 Aven Interrupter
2 Merfolk Trickster

4 Fire Nation Occupation

4 Opt
4 Counterspell
4 Path to Exile
4 Consider

4 Tundra
9 Island
6 Plains
1 Swamp
2 Contaminated Aquifer
1 Sunlit Marsh

Flash decks can be a thing and I have seen some neat ones. They're usually UB but I'm wondering if WU with a little Black can work. 

Fire Nation Occupation is one of the obvious rewards but my real goal was to implement a deck that did nearly everything on my opponent's turn. It's a little underpowered: Brainstorm, Meticulous Archive, and Flooded Strand would probably all help. 

Still, a Tamiyo is apparently incredibly powerful, Brineborn Cutthroat is a scaling threat, I highly doubt anyone is goign to see Merfolk Trickster coming so let's see what can be done!

The deck's name is taken from a great track by Nylitia. 

Lurker 2-Son of Night

 But we're just gonna shorten this to Lurker 2. 

4 Jet Medallion

1 Nightmare
1 Myojin of Night's Reach
1 Bringer of the Black Dawn
2 Korlash, Heir to Blackblade
1 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
1 Ihsan's Shade
1 Reiver Demon
1 Visara the Dreadful
2 Magus of the Coffers
1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals
3 Twisted Abomination
1 Stronghold Overseer
4 Scion of Darkness
1 Phyrexian Obliterator

4 Dark Ritual

21 Swamp
2 Cabal Coffers

3 Forced March
3 Drain Life
2 Corrupt

The premise behind this one was to make a big mana/Black legends deck. Obviously, there's a whole lot that can be updated from here, but I'd like to try and keep the premise going-including keeping the Jet Medallions if I can. 

My first thought: cut Stronghold Overseer (shadow OR flying, I do not need both), Bring of the Black Dawn, Myojin of Night's Reach (I can do better for 8 mana now), Ob Nixilis (there really isn't enough land to make this worth my time), Corrupt (same problem), and Scion of Darkness.

That's ten cards that I can replace to make a better deck. Let's go.

You Can't Control Me

Stingerback Terror is a challenge. They can do a lot of damage, but they rely on me casting stuff.  Still, I don't think I remove them: they don't need a ton of time to do their work. 

The indestructible creatures though have been champs. Thrun in particular as a late game uncounterable threat is VERY good but even Bark-Knuckle Boxer has been creating a little problem.

I'm pretty happy with where this one ended up. 

4 Talisman of Impulse

4 Rukh Egg

4 Brindle Shoat

3 Fanatic of Rhonas

2 Incubation Druid

3 Stingerback Terror

2 Bark-Knuckle Boxer

2 Thrun, Breaker of Silence

4 Stomping Ground

2 Mountain Valley

6 Mountain

6 Forest

1 Gruul Turf

4 Cragcrown Pathway

3 Jaya, Fiery Negotiator

3 Obliterate

3 Jokulhaups

2 Harmonize

2 Explore

Paranoid Android

 Alright, so I abandoned a deck because I said I had an idea. That idea starts with this deck, which wants to do some recursion things with artifacts and is named after a Radiohead song.

2 Chromatic Sphere
1 Dispeller's Capsule
2 Executioner's Capsule
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Skeleton Shard

2 Extruder
4 Disciple of the Vault
2 Nova Cleric
3 Perilous Myr
3 Gorilla Shaman
2 Junk Diver
3 Myr Retriever
3 Salvage Titan

4 Shrapnel Blast

4 Ancient Den
4 Glimmervoid
4 Great Furnace
1 Swamp
4 Mountain
4 Vault of Whispers
2 Plains

First, we have the classic old me deckbuilding problems of trying to solve every problem: Nova Cleric, Executioner's Capsule, Gorilla Shaman. Next, for a three color manabase, there just isn't enough versatility there. Glimmervoid is a neat card, but there's just too much pressure on that card alone to solve all the mana issues. 

Now, obviously I think I can do much better than before--and it might all be due to Weapons Manufacturing. 

Piranacon

Don't worry folks, I'm not quite done with Kingbreaker but I need more time to test. So instead we have a true callback, we have:

2 Lord of Atlantis
3 Tidal Courier
1 Wake Thrasher
2 Galina's Knight
4 Judge of Currents
2 Merrow Harbinger
3 Merrow Reejerey
3 Stonybrook Schoolmaster
3 Jolting Merfolk
2 Sejiri Merfolk
1 True-Name Nemesis

4 Plumes of Peace

2 Toils of Night and Day
3 Ghostway
3 Akroma's Blessing

7 Plains
3 Wanderwine Hub
4 Tundra
8 Island

That's right. Merfolk. Before they decided that Green was a better pairing than white. 

Originally, this deck was using a Merrow Commerce/Drowner of Secrets combo to mill the opponent out. 

That...did not work. There wasn't enough control to give the deck time to mill sixty cards, and the win conditions were vulnerable to the most common removal in the format; creature removal. 

This new version is more midrange, with the idea being that I can tap down my opponent's creatures long enough to do 20 damage, with boosted Merfolk. Let's see what happens--especially since this deck hasn't seen an update since Llorwyn. 

The deck is named after the Transformer, of course. 

Kingbreaker

 Once upon a time, I had an idea. This is what I turned it into.

Named after The Armed's song, thanks to Rebecca for the song idea. 

3 Dark Confidant
4 Tifa Lockhart
4 Veteran Explorer
3 Voice of Victory
3 Elvish Reclaimer
2 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Scythecat Cub

2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Fatal Push
4 Crop Rotation
3 Berserk

2 Swamp
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Forest
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Plains
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Temple Garden
1 Bayou
1 Godless Shrine

4 Cabal Therapy
3 Scale Up

This is what I ended up going with. It took some refining, as I didn't have Berserk to start with. Turns out you can do a lot with this deck just using cards like Royal Treatment.  

However, I really wanted this to work, so I started cannibalizing other decks for a Bayou, and I happened to open a Godless Shrine from my Edge of Eternities pre-release!

With an appropriate level mana base, I want to test this out. 

Note: no posts until the 25th, I'm out of town!

Shallow Ground

I've been holding off on this one, but it's time. I named this after the Corrosion of Conformity song, just to give y'all a sense of how long ago I first started on this deck.

2 Talisman of Unity

3 Quirion Elves
3 Terravore
3 Werebear
3 Watchwolf
3 Soltari Champion
3 Mother of Runes
2 Titania, Protector of Argoth

2 Seal of Cleansing

3 Wild Might
4 Swords to Plowshares

8 Forest
1 Havenwood Battleground
4 Windswept Heath
2 Flagstones of Trokair
6 Plains
2 Horizon Canopy

4 Armageddon
2 Catastrophe

Why have I been resisting playing this deck? 

First, Magic has largely moved on. Armageddon was once a terrible spell to witness. Now, it barely registers. Mana has gotten a lot better since Armageddon's heyday, the game has sped up significantly and losing all your lands doesn't sting like it once did.. 

Second, Armageddon creates unfun game states. That's just a fact and it's why WorC hasn't printed a Standard legal version of this card in literal decades. 

But now; now I'm wondering if this should still exist--and if it does, should it just be combined with Xnoybis. 

Burn To Shine

 Taken from the delightful Ben Harper song, I started off with this R/W Liege deck:

4 Cursed Totem

4 Balefire Liege
3 Hearthfire Hobgoblin
2 Boros Swiftblade
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
3 Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
4 Boros Recruit
4 Swiftblade Vindicator

4 Squee's Embrace

4 Lightning Helix
3 Chance for Glory

4 Scabland
7 Plains
7 Mountain
4 Needle Spires

Years ago, this started off as a Cursed Totem deck, if you can believe that. Inspired by a writer at Starcity Games, who used the Totem to remove the drawbacks to cards like Glittering Lion and Flailing Manticore, while also serving as a way to pre-emptively deal with other problem cards at the time (notably the Rebels deck) this deck was an easy one to morph into a Balefire Liege deck. The tech was SO old, why not make it a fun aggro deck? 

But here it languished until a card I've had for years but had forgotten about was brought to my attention via a Thraben U video: General Ferrous Rokiric. 

Let's get going. 

Let's Take A Trip Together

Taken from the groovy Morphine song, this deck is based off the OLD Astral Slide decks

    

2 Venerable Monk
4 Tilling Treefolk
4 Phantom Centaur
2 Phantom Flock
2 Disciple of Grace
3 Titanic Bulvox
2 Bloated Toad

1 Darkwatch Elves
2 Peacekeeper
1 Disciple of Law
1 Krosan Colossus
1 Pale Recluse

3 Aura Shards
4 Astral Slide

2 Drifting Meadow
3 Slippery Karst
4 Secluded Steppe
2 Tranquil Thicket
1 Grasslands
2 Plains
2 Forest
4 Scattered Groves
4 Overgrown Farmland

4 Edge of Autumn

So what is the plan here? Get out an Astral Slide, then use cycling cards to turn cards like Titanic Bulvox from morph creatures into beaters, or reset the counters on Phantom Centaur, gain life via Venerable Monk, or just lock out my opponent's combat step with Peacekeeper, while still being able to attack myself. 

Astral Drift was printed back in Modern Horizons 1 so I think it's high time to give this deck an update. 

Bruticus

 Are you ready for a weird one? This one, named after the most brutal Combaticon, is coming from the wayback machine, as you can see by the card choices.

3 Anvil of Bogardan
4 Necrogen Spellbomb
4 Noetic Scales

4 Guiltfeeder

4 Gibbering Descent
4 Oppression
3 Seal of Fire
3 Megrim

4 Dead // Gone
3 Skeletal Scrying

1 Keldon Megaliths
4 Tainted Peak
4 Mountain
12 Swamp
2 Rocky Tar Pit

1 Demonfire

Obviously, there are some very old cards here! But for people who don't see how the deck works, the idea is to use Noetic Scales to keep creatures off the table, and Guiltfeeder to freely attack and do outsized levels of damage.

Oppression is there to help keep cards out of my opponent's hand, and then there's some removal to take care of the early creatures, and Skeletal Scrying to draw me cards and help me find what I need. 

Gibbering Descent is probably the glory of cool things, but we shall see!

Nature's Candy

I think I've come to the end of the road with Peaches--and I mean this in a good way!

It was in a game against Rebecca that she pointed out that the ninjas could get huge in a way that she couldn't interact with. In another against Noah, I had multiple copies of Ronin Warclub that had to sit in my hand because I was using all my mana to recast my creatures. 

I don't need Ronin Warclub to help accelerate my victory anymore: that's what Silver-Fur Master and Kaito are for!

In their place, removal is going in. That leaves me with this:

4 Will-o'-the-Wisp
1 Higure, the Still Wind
2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
3 Mistblade Shinobi
3 Silver-Fur Master
3 Biting-Palm Ninja
1 Ingenious Infiltrator
1 Fallen Shinobi
4 Silent Hallcreeper
1 Prosperous Thief

4 Standstill

4 Long Goodbye
3 Collective Nightmare

4 Polluted Delta
7 Swamp
7 Island
4 Choked Estuary
1 Creeping Tar Pit

3 Kaito, Bane of Nightmares 

The one change to note comes from a lesson I learned in last night's game against Noah and Matt: Collective Nightmare seemed like a solid idea. A cheap removal spell hardly ever seems bad, right?

But the limitation of Long Goodbye (which has been doing it's job very well!) means that I need something to take care of creatures that avoid Long Goodbye. I think that I'm going to have to switch Collective Nightmare out for Hero's Downfall. 

But otherwise: I'm happy with this deck. 

 

Peaches

"Movin' to the country...."

3 Ronin Warclub

4 Will-o'-the-Wisp
3 Throat Slitter
1 Higure, the Still Wind
2 Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
3 Mistblade Shinobi
2 Okiba-Gang Shinobi
4 Escape Artist
3 Cavern Harpy
1 Thalakos Sentry
3 Dauthi Horror

4 Standstill

3 Into the Roil

4 Polluted Delta
8 Swamp
8 Island
4 Choked Estuary

As a result of me tweaking Weapon of Choice, I had to snag some Cavern Harpies from this deck--so why not give it an entire facelift!

Note to future me; first change -2 Cavern Harpy +2 Silver-Fur Master

Weapon Of Choice

This is one of my favorites:

3 Sword of Light and Shadow
4 Birds of Paradise
2 Necravolver
3 Rakavolver
3 Shivan Emissary
1 Sunscape Battlemage
3 Thunderscape Battlemage
3 Thornscape Battlemage
2 Sylvan Caryatid

1 Sterling Grove
4 Aluren

4 Eladamri's Call

4 City of Brass
1 Windswept Heath
2 Wooded Foothills
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Bayou
3 Savannah
3 Reflecting Pool
4 Thran Quarry
4 Gemstone Mine

4 Cataclysm

While I named this after the Fatboy Slim song I also named it after the toolbox effect that we were going for when we built this deck.

That's right! So let me set the stage: it is Summer, 2001 and I am living alone in a small apartment on 50th. 

That fact alone is almost mythological to today's people. Sigh.

ANYWAY: Jason calls me and asks a simple question: Can you pay Kicker costs under an Aluren?

No, I tell him. Of course you can't! That's an extra cost and you're not paying for that.

Are you sure? Because the card says...

And we go round and round on this for about ten minutes before I have a small revelation:

You should help your friend, because you're kinda being a dick right now. 

So at a break in the argument I tell him: Let's find out if it works, first. Because if it does, there's a whole host of possibilities. 

(If you clicked that link then I want you to pretend that half those cards don't exist yet.)

And, as it turns out I am wrong, Jason is right and you absolutely can pay additional costs while under an Aluren.

Well. THAT is a thing, ennit?

So, in addition to this being one of the oldest decks I have ever made, Aluren also became the keystone of another deck by itself! One that has evolved using cards from the D&D set, to enter the dungeon and combo the opponent out.

That isn't what I want to do. However, what is clear is that there have been a bunch of cards printed and this deck deserves an upgrade! So let's go.

The Retired: Intolerance

This one gets filed under; Neat idea, but the game has passed it by.

4 Humble Budoka
2 Blurred Mongoose
4 Jolrael's Centaur
4 Nimble Mongoose
4 Pincher Beetles
3 Elvish Lookout
1 Kodama of the North Tree
3 Hawkeater Moth

3 Wrap in Vigor

2 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood
19 Forest
2 Slippery Karst

4 Overrun
2 Titania's Boon
1 Overwhelming Stampede

2 Doubling Chant

I really like the concept here; play creatures that cannot be targeted by removal, creating dead cards in your opponent's hand. The fact that I can't target them either isn't a problem and cards like Wrath of God are just passe now. But if they are running (most) Wrath effects, Wrap in Vigor solves that problem! 

Unfortunately for me-but really better for the game-the Shroud ability has been replaced by Hexproof. And sure, there are green creatures to make that deck with there isn't anything particularly powerful happening if I do that. And if I'm going to play around with an off-beat concept, I'd at least like there to be some powerful interactions. 

So it's time to let it go.