Magic: The Gathering

[Commander Xillian]

Didn't see one, so thought I'd toss one up. Anyone else play Magic?

I am actually in need of some help, namely, I need to know if the Mirrodin cycle is generally a good cycle to use. I'm very much an artifact/black kinda dude, and have recently had the pleasure to play a zombie deck (Which I now want. ). Anyone have any pointers for a relitively new dude?

[lance]

Yes, it is one of the strongest blocks. In fact when it was type 2 its the deck based around its Affinity mechanic basically just got straight ported over to 1.5 and was still one of the top decks. The closest to that happening since then would be Zoos creature base is the same as Nayas+mandatory Goyfs

Are you playing Casually or planning on going to tournaments?

[Agent Sorchus]

I am an old hand at magic, but Mirrodin was one or the last cycles that I was involved in. With Artifacts Mirrodin won't wrong you, but black is not it's favored son. Blue is far more powerful.

For someone new the important thing to do is find a steady place to play. A small crowed of people can only play so often before falling apart. Second, be aware that "Official"Bah humbug events only allow cards from the most recent sets (this really discourages me from playing anymore).

Also Apprentice2 an open source program for playing Magic online.

[Commander Xillian]

I'm not so sure, Agent. Mix'd with some Onslaught zombies, Nim can be hard-friggin'-core. Wail of the Nim is also useful, mostly late game though. But I understand your sentiments. I do not intend to be in tournaments myself.

Like I said, I'm looking for some pre-made Zombie decks I could perchase online, or some such. But yes, a pure Mirrodin deck is not my intent, I'm much more focused on getting an enjoyable, well-mix'd deck with a lot of zombies and some power-house Darksteel cards, such as Reactor should my enemy not be buckling anywhere near soon enough, and one of those beautiful Gargoyles and Colossus.

[Agent Sorchus]

Why yes, black is good enough in Mirrodin, but blue has always covered the weaknesses of Artifacts better. Really good enough for Mirrodin is pretty damn good. But during the cycle artifacts muscled a little into blacks territory, with cheap large creatures and ways to empower creatures for a cost, which is usually redundant in a black deck. But I was always a Johny player, and it sounds like you play more towards Timmy, so we probably have differing preferences for the game. If you don't know what that means, look here.

Anyway Black in mirrodin was a little slow to get started, but had a easy finisher if it could survive. As such I viewed the artifacts as a good defense from faster decks and as a way to support the slower black creatures. Sure nim were good, but easy to force a player to make a hard choice to sacrifice a precious Nim to stop an early play. And that was too much of a weakness during the cycle. Now, I don't know, but if it works for you it is fine.

Back to zombies, Zombies are on the whole pretty balanced for black creatures, with some having powerful offence and others offering good defense. Works best in numbers and using differing zombies to support each other, or to empower Zombies that count the total.

[Commander Xillian]

Thanks for all the help. I guess the question now, is seeing if I can get my deck built. I've already found a deck building program, but what do you suggest as the best, Agent? I really would like to be able to test it out.

[lance]

I'm not so sure, Agent. Mix'd with some Onslaught zombies, Nim can be hard-friggin'-core. Wail of the Nim is also useful, mostly late game though. But I understand your sentiments. I do not intend to be in tournaments myself

Like I said, I'm looking for some pre-made Zombie decks I could perchase online, or some such. But yes, a pure Mirrodin deck is not my intent, I'm much more focused on getting an enjoyable, well-mix'd deck with a lot of zombies and some power-house Darksteel cards, such as Reactor should my enemy not be buckling anywhere near soon enough, and one of those beautiful Gargoyles and Colossus.

One suggestion I have is to not play a tribal deck just to play a tribal deck. Make sure you have a bit of synergies to work with. Don't over do it on creatures, the general rule of thmb is 1/3rd creatures, 1/3 land, 1/3 removal/other. Some decks will have more of one, and less of others. Examples-Goblins/38-43Land/ANT


Are you going to play 1 on 1 or group/team games?

[Agent Sorchus]

The only deck builder I ever used was pen and paper and using gatherer to lookup the cards. Several of my decks came about just from getting a random card in a booster that I just had to use. Mostly though my decks were always constrained by budget, as such I became a great horse trader. At one point I traded a single rare for 4 or 5 rares, including at least one that I wanted especially, only for the person I traded with to come back a week later and trade for one of the cards that he had given me for the card I traded him and another 4 or 5 rares (including the duplicate of the card I had wanted from before). Ha good times.

[Commander Xillian]

I used to play "Empires" games, basically three people taking the same turn on the same team, against three others. But mostly it's one on one.

Also, Agent, mind if I worship the ground you walk on now? I ALWAYS get Conned when I trade, and I can't trade worth a shite ether...

[Serafina]

I have been playing with a poison-deck ever since...well, ever since i started playing.
Weak blackcards with poison, good walls, A couple of regenerators (1) and some ways to make my creatures unblockable.

It is a bit weak at the start and doesn't have any powerfull creatures. And it has arguably been much better before poison was reintroduced, mostly because no one knew how to deal with it.
It is weak against artifact and black decks (for the latter, there is always swampwalk), but it rules supreme against decks that play for time and/or generate lot's and lot's of lifepoints - you can have as many as you want, you still die of poison.

I have been thinking about mixing in some green cards and have occasionally experimented with it - it would allow me to integrate slivers into my deck AND take the nastiest poison creature there is: once bitten, you get more and more counters each turn. After one bite, you are dead in at least 9 turns, after two in four more and after three in two more - less if you already have markers.

[Terralthra]

If you're going to play zombies, play zombie bidding, from Onslaught block, splashing only Mirrodin. If it's too slow, play goblin bidding, which is ridiculous.

[Terralthra]

If you're going to play zombies, play zombie bidding, from Onslaught block, splashing only Mirrodin. If it's too slow, play goblin bidding, which is ridiculous.

[Commander Xillian]

Your comment made no sense to me, Terralthra.

I'm running a nim/Zombie deck with loads of equipment and a few gauntlets of power, thanks to this simulator I found. Gonna test it out until I get the right score.

[Norade]

Your comment made no sense to me, Terralthra.

I'm running a nim/Zombie deck with loads of equipment and a few gauntlets of power, thanks to this simulator I found. Gonna test it out until I get the right score.

Could you link to your deck builder and simulator?

[KrauserKrauser]

Well there is always Magic Online but that you have to actually pay money to get the cards. As a person with commitments and responsibilities it is really the only place I can go to play competitive Magic as I don't have time to devote entire weekends to tournaments and my Fridays are always otherwise booked.

The free alternatives are Magic Work Station and Cockatrice. I know Magic Work Station is the most well known, so that is probably your best bet for being able to play all the magic cards out there for free. One thing it doesn't do is keep the rules for you, you have to go through all the steps yourself while Magic Online does all that in the background for you.

As far as Mirrodin, it was a completely busted block. The affinity mechanic was banned in Block, Standard and Extended. Luckil enough it isn't fast or consistent enough for Vintage and Legacy.

If you were going to go for a Mirrodin Block black deck, I would start off with something like...

4 Disciple of the Vault
4 Arcbound Ravager
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Skullclamp
4 Aether Vial
4 Nights Whisper
4 Terror
4 Frogmite
4 Cranial Plating
4 Vault of Whispers
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
16 Swamp

But that is using cards that are entirely unfair and expensive. If you want a more budget approach or something a bit more casual, let me know and I'll brew something up.

[Samuel]

I can see what the purpose of everything else is, but what is the job of the Blinkmoth Nexus? It doesn't have the "oh shit how is this legal" feel the rest of the cards have.

Out of curiousity how useful are Darksteel cards? I'm not up to date on the game (and the rules) so indestructible seems rather useful.

[Agent Sorchus]

I used to play "Empires" games, basically three people taking the same turn on the same team, against three others. But mostly it's one on one.

Also, Agent, mind if I worship the ground you walk on now? I ALWAYS get Conned when I trade, and I can't trade worth a shite ether...

First I played mass multiplayer, usually 5 or more people per game all playing independent factions. Delicious. Our speed record with 5 players was 5 minutes for a full game at the very tail end of Lunch.

Go right ahead. The thing that made that guy think he had a deal was that the card had a deck built around it. It wasn't a reliable card, but it carried large threat thanks to the deck it was in. This guy tried to slot it into an old infinite sliver deck and found out exactly why I had to build a deck around it for it to be useful. for reference this is my card, and this is the pair I got off of him and here is whyI wanted them

Out of curiousity how useful are Darksteel cards? I'm not up to date on the game (and the rules) so indestructible seems rather useful.

Indestructible is complete bullshit, or at least it was when it came out. There was only one darksteel card that I didn't feel dirty playing with, and that was a land. It was so bad my best deck from around then was built around eliminating the player as fast as possible. Notable cards included:
Raven Guild Master
Clone
Brain Freeze
Whispersilk Cloak
counter spells
Parallel Thoughts
Mind's Desire
and assorted filler cards

The free alternatives are Magic Work Station and Cockatrice. I know Magic Work Station is the most well known, so that is probably your best bet for being able to play all the magic cards out there for free. One thing it doesn't do is keep the rules for you, you have to go through all the steps yourself while Magic Online does all that in the background for you.

The first of these programs was called Apprentice, but the company that developed it went balls up. I linked above an open source fallow on to Apprentice called Apprentice 2. Work station isn't truly free, yes you get the trial version free, but not the full version. And Cockatrice looks to be similar to Apprentice 2, so it is probably a wash between the two.

[Commander Xillian]

Magic Work Station is good, but it takes a lot of the "using what you have to best effect" out of it, more or less making it more on mini-maxing decks.

Also, if anyone would like to play, I have an okay zombie deck. It's got some nim, and a shiteload of Equipment in it. I'll likely be removing the Nim all together though, they're waaaaay too fragile in practice, meaning that more or less they die on attack against most cards. I have one Eldrazi, whats his face the Butcher of Truth or some such. Useful, thanks to that fancy awesome "When killed, reshuffle your graveyard into deck", which means that my Zombies can (technically) never die.

Anyone want to help me get a reasonable, fun deck built? I use MWS for my building. I currently am doing a zombie/sorcery deck, with a little bit of a demonic tinge to it (Mostly in the magic sense, but I'm not agaisnt a few interesting demon monsters.)

[lance]

once bitten, you get more and more counters each turn.[/url] After one bite, you are dead in at least 9 turns, after two in four more and after three in two more - less if you already have markers.

That card doesn't work how you think it works, it only does 2 poison counters, one when it first hits, and one on the next upkeep unless they pay 2.

I can see what the purpose of everything else is, but what is the job of the Blinkmoth Nexus? It doesn't have the "oh shit how is this legal" feel the rest of the cards have.

Out of curiousity how useful are Darksteel cards? I'm not up to date on the game (and the rules) so indestructible seems rather useful.

Indestructable is garbage, its on too expensive and cost efficient cards and is removed by Path to Exile and Swords.
Tinker into Colossus is the only good use for indestructible things.

[Norade]

I'm running a pretty nasty black and white life link deck right now, let me grab it and post what's all in it.

[Norade]

Lands: 22
10 Plains
9 Swamps
1 Fetid Heath
2 Esper Panorama

Creatures: 21
1 Agent of Masks
1 Teysa, Orzhov Scion
4 Nip Gwyllions
3 Nightsky Mimics
2 Dawnflukes
2 Flickerwisps
2 Mourning Thrulls
3 Voracious Hatchlings
1 Divinity of Pride
1 Deathbringer Liege
1 Stillmoon Cavalier

Spells and Artifacts: 29
4 Double Cleave
4 Tainted Sigils
4 Edge of the Divinity
4 Recumbent Bliss
4 Unmake
1 Traitors Clutch
1 Lightmine Field
2 Batwing Brume
1 Quietus Spike
1 Purify
1 Moonlight Bargain
2 Zealous Persecution

Total Cards: 72

The way this deck plays is that it wants to get double cleaving Nip Gwyllions equipped with Edge of the Divinity out soon, they along with the Thrulls and Mimics make up my early game hitting power and each gains +3/+3 from a one casting cost enchantment. Toss in double cleave giving each creature double strike and you can end games quickly on a good draw. The bloat is mainly due to it being both a single player and a half decent multiplayer deck and some cards are in there mainly for certain decks the guys I play against have.

[Serafina]

once bitten, you get more and more counters each turn.[/url] After one bite, you are dead in at least 9 turns, after two in four more and after three in two more - less if you already have markers.

That card doesn't work how you think it works, it only does 2 poison counters, one when it first hits, and one on the next upkeep unless they pay 2.

Oh, errata, i see.
I actually own the original card, where neither limitation was there. Well, at least i won't have to alter my deck then

[Commander Xillian]

Recently made some alterations to my deck, cut back ont he nim for a few tries, before deciding that they worked far better than my Cadaverous Knights did. I'm still unsure, but hey, cheap, easy, and ramping, or flanking and 2/2 instead of the Nim's 1/1. Tought choice really... Thankfully, Zombie Master works it's magic on my fragile Nim.

Here's my deck. You might find the lands a bit crappy, but hey, it works.

Land:
15 Swamp
4 Vault of Whispers

Creatures"
4 Nim Lashers
3 of each, Undead Warcheif and Dread Specter.
2 of each, Zombie Master, Nim Grotesque, Helldozer, and Gempalm Polluter
1 Dread, Soulless one, and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Magic:
4 Tendrils of Corruption
4 Vampiric Link
3 Dark Banishment

Equipment:
2 gauntlet of Power
2 Whispersilk Cloak
3 Bonesaw
4 Loxodon Warhammer

I'm also thinking of dropping some in favor of a few (something) Sacrifice's or Victimize.

Whatcha lads think? Total of 65 cards.

[Norade]

That deck looks like it can play, I downloaded Cockatrice just now and compiled the deck I listed here in it. I'm not sure how easy the online is to get working, but I'll play somebody later if anybody wants to set up a match. Also as I get more time I'll compile all the decks I have and start tweaking some more.

[KrauserKrauser]

I can see what the purpose of everything else is, but what is the job of the Blinkmoth Nexus? It doesn't have the "oh shit how is this legal" feel the rest of the cards have.

Out of curiousity how useful are Darksteel cards? I'm not up to date on the game (and the rules) so indestructible seems rather useful.

Well, the Nexus is there to take up the counters from a Arcbound Ravager when your opponent kills it. Also, Man Lands are very useful when facing Wrath of God, etc and since the +1/+1 counters stay on the Nexus even after it reverts to a land, it can get to be a pretty big beefy flying threat.

That deck would be banned in anything other than Vintage, and even in Vintage it would not be nearly good enough to be competitive.