the magic online forums

http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?t=984938

This is a post from like jan before some delays but AFAIK this is pretty much the plan. The week+ downtime has been mentioned in numerous posts.

edit -- oh yeah this is great too. Seriously these people are short bussers

qfdownie

I suck, 0-2 in my second league. I may have to quit on the account that I can't even be competitive.

Any recommendations? I just went with it. It's a Lorwyn tournie/2xMorningtide booster league. I haven't played since Ice Age and things seem to have gotten a bit more complex.

Are you limited in the number of games you can play? I was under the impression that leagues were play as much as you want, so going 0-2 your first couple of matches wouldn't be 'that' big a deal.

First 5 count as my score rest are tie breakers so going 0-2 reduces my chances of actually earning a prize to about 2 percent.

Ahhh I see.

You can still win 2 of the next 3 matches and have a decent chance at getting a pack if you win some tiebreakers too. My first league is about to end and I'm currently 107th which is good enough for 2 packs since it's double prizes in the release leagues. There's a bunch of people who haven't even played their 5 matches which doesn't make sense to me, but hopefully I can hold my ranking till it ends.

Wow, that is kind of a shafted pool. Tarfire and Necksnap as the only 2 removal spells? You have some decent creatures, but they seem to be spread out across all colors. Your green dudes are pretty damn good. I'm thinking green and.. I guess blue? Not a common combination, but it isn't like you really have any removal in the other colors anyway. Perhaps you could splash for tarfire with the vivid land and the twig.

Here is what I came up with, green/blue splashing one red card and one white card:

Non-creatures(6):
Wanderer's twig - for splashing, or getting the right mana for cloudthresher etc
Wings of Velis Vel
Whielpool Whelm
Faerie Trickery
Scattering Stroke
Tarfire

Creatures (17):
Leaf-glider
Wolf-skull shaman
Wren's run vanquisher
Silvergill Adept
Silvergill Douser
Mothdust Changling
Fertilid
Lys Alana Bowmaster
Rhys the Exiled
Sage of Fables
Pestermite
Avian Changeling
Cloudcrown Oak
Bog-strider ash
Game-trail changeling
Aethersnipe
Cloudthresher

Land (17):
1 Vivid creek
1 plains
1 mountain
7 forest
7 island

Relevant Sideboard:
Neck Snap - if your opponent has some bombs (that attack) that you can't deal with.
Burrenton Bombardiers - To replace Bog-strider ash if your opponent has no swamps (or goblins). Might just maindeck this anyway, and sideboard in the Bog-strider when needed.
Ego Erasure - Good against cards like Thundercloud shaman, anything that relies on tribal stuff.

You might could make this deck work. It is obviously short on removal, but you have 2 counters and a bounce spell to go with your one removal spell.

You have good cheap creatures in the Wolf-skull, Wren's Run, Adept, Douser, Bowmaster, Rhys, Sage, Pestermite, Avian Changling, and a good finisher in Cloudthresher.

You have some pretty good tribal interaction. This is why I splashed the Avian Changeling rather than Burrenton Bombardier, which is usually better. In this case, though, the Changeling interacts with wolf-skull, wren's run, adept, douser, bowmaster, rhys and sage of fables. Worth it IMO. I'd be tempted to actually splash both and lose one of the counters or a creature (mothdust or bog-strider, maybe), but I was trying to minimize the splash cards.

Fertilid will be a surprise MVP in this deck, enabling the splash cards or early castings of your bombs. Fertilid on turn 3, search 2 lands on turn 4 leaves you the possibility of playing a turn 5 cloudthresher, heh. That is usually after attacking with him or blocking someone and stacking damage as well.

Sweet, looks like I run as hot in magic as I do in poker.

I'm outta touch with the game so I'm gonna set that deck up verbatim and try out some practice games with it.

One question, why leave out the thousand year elixir? Seemed like a useful artifact to help with blocking and could mix with leaf gilder if I'm running into mana troubles with something like the cloudthresher.

In any case, thanks alot! I'm anxious to go give this a try now.

Splashing avian changeling is bad idea, you want to drop it turn 3, not wait till turn 6 or whatever.

I think GW splash red for tarfire is infinite better. The blue is pretty poopy, just bounce and counters w/ 2 good creatures and a lot of mediocre ones.

The Elixir just doesn't do enough unless you have a ton of tapping related creatures. As it is, you have a douser and a leaf-glider, and that just isn't enough. Too often it would sit on the board and do nothing, or sit in your hand when you'd rather have a land or a creature. If you had a merfolk deck full of tapper types, it might see play.

Let me know how the deck works. It actually has a lot of interesting creature interactions, it will be interesting to see how they work out. I think basically you will try to get tempo/advantage in the early game with your strong 2- and 3-drops (Wolf-Skull, Wren's Run, Sage of Fables, Rhys, Pestermite, etc), and then drop Aethersnipe/Cloudthresher to finish them off if you need to go to the late game.

Trying to think of any tips, since you are new to this block...

Pestermite. This guy is better than he looks. His comes-into-play ability can be used for the following:
-Tap a land of theirs on their upkeep on turn 3, especially if they haven't played a creature yet and you have, or they seem to be short on land. This can be huge for tempo. The game could easily go like this: You play a 2-drop. Turn 3 stunt his mana and play Pestermite. Turn 4 swing for 4, scattering stroke on whatever he plays. Turn 5, swing for 4 and play 2 or 3 guys with the stroke mana. That is pretty much game over.
-Tap their only creature end of turn on turn 3, allowing you to get a nice attack.
-Tap a troublesome blocker late in the game to get a final attack through
-Untap one of your guys during combat as a surprise blocker
-Untap your Silvergill douser during combat in order to use him twice (Also the Pestermite is a faerie, which counts towards Douser ability)
-Untap your own land on say, turn 4, so that you can play the pestermite and a 2-drop in the same turn.

Well, blue def. has more than 2 good creatures, but I can see your point. I only chose Changeling because it just works with everything in the deck. It is still best on turn 3, but it isn't bad on turn 4 or 5 or 6 either. It helps you cast Wren's Run and Adept, etc too.

I just didn't think white was deep enough to fill out the deck. I guess you do gain Bombardier, Neck Snap (mediocre removal, but removal at least), etc.

One More - Last One for a while (this is addicting). I've only been playing a week, so I know nothing and it will show.



I really don't want to play white, green with a splash of black (maybe red) again. I relied heavily on tricks. Countermagic seems like a factor during end game. I feel like I have cards that can allow me to be a little out there for splashing. The Springleaf Drum, Fertlid, Elvish Harbinger, Vivid Crag.

Blue/white makes sense in some ways. Fair amount of fliers, countermagic, etc. This may play, but having the tactician and Harrier limit my mana options for counter/growth (I think)

Maybe I'm way off. I'm going on memory since the server is down. I don't have any real 'solid' interactions that I noticed. I feel like I have ok small guys. Not much towards the middle/end. Probably looking at something like

I'm thinking I can get away with 16 lands, 16 creatures, 8 spells, but I may be way off base.

Spells/Artifacts (alot seem fairly useful to me)
Neck Snap, Soaring Hope, Hunting Triad, Gilt-Leaf Ambush, Deglamer. (Violet Pail x2 against non-black decks) Needle Drop, Roar of the crowd.

The springleaf to splash, the runed stalactite for Alchemist/Sniper.

Creatures:
First Phase (1-3 mana):
1. Cenns Tactician (just because he can be a pain)
2. Goldmeadow Harrier (board control)
3. Shinewend (enchantments)
4. Fertlid (basically a land sacrifice)
5. Elvish Harbinger (mana splash potential)
6. Springjack Knight/Harpoon Sniper (attack/defense)

Second Phase (I feel real weak here 4-5 mana drops (feel like my pool is incredibly weak here)
7. Kinballe Balloonist (evasion)
8. Meadowboon (not sure what this does honestly)
9. Burrenton Shield Bearers (attacking defensive help)
10. Nath's Elite (I like him)
11. Oakgnarl Warrior (helpful if I get the mana acceleration from fertid)
12. Nath of the Gilt Leaf (card removal - should be minimal cards in hand unless playing a blue deck)
(Ok, I'm struggling)

Possibles:
Battletide Alchemist
Elvish Warrior
Everbark Shaman

I think green/black + splashes might work out better here. You have some OK white, but not enough for a primary color I think.

I will give some comments on the cards you listed and then try to come up with a suggested list.

Soaring hope shouldn't be played, it is just too expensive to be worth it. Deglamer is probably only for the sideboard.
Roar of the crowd is really iffy, but it might work since you have some elf token generators.
Needle Drop is kinda filler, usually won't make the cut.
Violet Pall should be maindecked and only taken out if your opponent is reaally heavy in black.
Gilt-leaf ambush is good, and Hunting triad is awesome.
For white, you left out Surge of Thoughtweft, which is really good as long as you have a few kithkins. It is especially good with token generator cards.

I agree on springleaf, especially since I can see playing at least 4 colors counting splashes. Runed Stalactite is really iffy for me.
Shinewend should really only be sideboard for extreme cases. Enchantments aren't a big part of the block, really. Springjack knight is also iffy, but Sniper can be played even if you don't have that many merfolks.
Elvish harbinger is awesome, as he fixes/accelerates mana but also puts Nath, hunting triad, any good changeling on top, etc.
Meadowboon - definitely good. You either play him normally, and he is a 3/3, and when he dies, all of your remaining creatures get a +1/+1 counter. Alternately, you can evoke him, which makes him die immediately, giving the +1/+1 counters right away. Another card that is good with your token elves.
Burrenton Shield Bearers don't really do enough for their high cost. Anything 5 mana and more should really be strong.
Nath of the Gilt Leaf is a bomb.
Elvish warrior is a pretty solid early drop.

Other cards you didn't consider (in green/white) that could be good:
Kithkin Daggerdare: This guy doesn't look like much, but is great in an aggro deck, helping your 2/2 and 2/3 type guys keep punching through in the mid-game.
Kinsbaile Balloonist: This guy also helps the mid/late game for a green/white type deck that doesn't have a lot of evasion. He can send Nath or someone through the air.
Jagged-Scar Archers: These guys are very good. With only one other elf in play, they can kill 80% of the flyers you will see. With Ambush/hunting triad, they can kill the other 20% and do some beating.

Here is a build I came up with. Basically 5-color Red/Green elementals.

Non-creature spells (6):
Final Revels (Mass removal or a finisher, awesome card)
2 Violet Pall (Solid removal)
Hunting Triad
Gilt-Leaf Ambush
Springleaf Drum

Creatures (17):

2cc
Oona's Prowler
Brighthearth Banneret
Smokebraider - mvp, this guy makes elemental decks work
Soulbright flamekin - staple in elemental decks, can accelerate stuff out, especially good to get hostility out
Sunflare Shaman - creature early, removal later

3cc
Elvish Harbinger
Fertilid
Rage Forger
Inner-flame Acolyte

4cc
War-spike changeling - These 3 guys all come out on turn 3 with smokebraider
Turtleshell Changeling
Meadowboon

5cc
Warren Pilferers - solid body + card advantage
Mulldrifer - This guy should be played in 95% of decks regardless of color
Nath's Elite
Hostility
Nath of the Gilt-Leaf

Lands (17):
Primal Beyond - 12 of our dudes are elementals, inc. the splashed cards
Vivid Crag
7 mountain
5 forest
3 swamp

Other relevant cards:
Blades of Velis Vel - this is a nice trick (and an elemental). Could possibly play this over Nath's Elite since you have so many 5-drops already. I dunno

I played MTGO loads back in the day, mainly when Onslaught was the current block and quit after Darksteel as I was just getting into poker. Then about two years ago I fired it up again and goofed around in a load of drafts parlaying my 1800 rating down to about 1630. Best quote, said during the first match of my first Time Spiral draft (I had never seen any of the cards before):

"No offence, but did you buy this account on Ebay?"

That name sure rings a bell. Does #mtgwacky mean anything to you?

You guys in the leagues, don't play 5-10 matches and start another one. Try multiple configurations of your decks. Do whichever you think is the best build, then try 3-4 more color combinations. Try the U/W and the G/R and the B/U and the R/B, etc. Get your money's worth, and exercise your skills because it's cheap to lose. And don't get frustrated that you are 0-3. Your opponents have probably been playing mtg for years. You can't expect to pop in and be awesome. Would you expect to go to a chess tournament after not playing for 5 years and beat people who attend them every weekend?

I just played my first practice match with the deck. It went great. I was facing some guy who had some sort of a constructed 34 card token spam deck and my sealed deck did very well. I ended up going down in the 11th round, but was happy with how the deck worked out. I also made at least two mistakes in those few rounds.

Anyhow quick question. When should I mulligan? I chose to go first and in my hand I had a couple of cheap cost creatures, a cheap splash spell, 2 expensive creatures/spells and two opposite typed lands (an island and a forest). If I get even one more expensive card in my next two, I could get into alot of trouble (as happened) - but going for a mulligan seemed kind of extreme given that I did have at least a reasonable balance.

Wow, I haven't played MtG consistently for several years now. I think I stopped collecting at the end of Kamigawa (shortly before they introduced guilds).

If enough 2p2ers go on and this MTGO thing is cheap to play, then count me in.

Gotta whip out my infinite life combo cleric deck against y'all.

It rings a bell, but it's over 5 years ago so I don't know the context.

I used to write articles for Star City under this name, so maybe you recognise me from there? I also used to post on the MTGO BBS.

Dire, the build Benholio gave you is pretty bad. Blue is the 2nd weakest color in the pool while black being the worst. Working on a greed/red here (I'm really sad we can't play red/white)


red:10
roar of the crowd
blades of velis vel
tarfire
adder-staff boggart
brighthearth banneret
caterwaulting boggart
fire-belling changeling
giant harbinger
sunflare shaman
thundercloud shaman


green:11
bog-strider ash
cloudcrown oak
cloudthresher
fertilid
game-trail changling
leaf glider
lys alana bowmaster
rhys the exiled
wolf-skull shaman
wren's run vanquisher
woodland guidance

Artifact
cloak and dagger
wanderer's twig

9 forest
8 mountains

This is infinitely better than green/blue. I might be able to try to figure out how to play white/red with this build..

Silvergill Adept
Silvergill douser
Mothdust Changeling
Sage of Fables
Pestermite
Aethersnipe
Wings of Velis Vel
Whirlpool Whelm
Faerie Trickery
Scattering Stroke

What exactly makes those red spells + cloak and dagger better than these 10 blue spells? Thundercloud Shaman has a total of 3 other giants in your deck to work off of, plus kills the majority of your own guys if he triggers for 2. The rest are pretty much filler, with a limited sorcery removal spell.

The blue gives you card advantage, tempo advantage, evasion, board control, combat tricks, and countermagic.

I'm leaning toward mulling in that situation, although if the cheap spells are removal and the expensive spells are very good I might keep if I have a good slow deck or my opponent is terrible.

Really need the exact hand to explain whether or not to mull.

Scattering Stroke and Faerie Trickery are neither amazing and I'd only play Faerie Trickery if I was in blue heavily. Whirlpool whelm is not that great since you can only use it on your opponent's creatures since if you do win the clash on your own creature, it's a huge tempo loss.

Mothdust changling is nothing special really. Besides the fact that its a changeling and a 1/1 for 1 that's pretty much it.

Sage of Fables is ok with this many wizards but would be better with more.

Adept is good with more merfolk

So all we have are 4 good blue cards in:

Aethersnipe
Pestermite
Wings
Douser


Making the blue pool weak.

Whereas the red pool is pretty good and synergy with green quite well.

Roar of the crowd is pretty slow but it has a lot of synergy since there are a lot of elf/warrior/shaman creature types.

blades of velis-vel is basically an auto-inclusion in every red deck. plus it works with thundercloud shaman quite well late game.

tarfire: cheap burn spell

adder-staff boggart: cheap creature that with a winning clash is a 3/2 on turn 2.

brighthearth banneret: makes your elemental spells and warrior spells 1 less which we have a decent number and even if you draw it late game, you can reinforce a creature with +1/+1 counter:

caterwaulting boggart: pretty janky but we have a few elemental creatures plus it on it's own is a 2/2 for 4 that can't be blocked unless by 2 or more creature.

fire-belling changeling: changling creature that goes well with roar and thundercloud and caterwaulting and wren's run. plus it's not that bad either.

giant harbinger: 3/4 for 5 that searchs out either the thundercloud or game-trail. pretty good

sunflare shaman: cheap creature plus removal late game

thundercloud shaman: big creature that comes into play with either a tremor effect or a pyroclasm effect. It'll be a tremor effect 60% of the time and a pyroclasm roughly 40% of the time.

plus my build is a lot more faster. it goes well better and once you drop the opponent down to 10 quickly and then play thundercloud/game-trail/cloudthresher the opponent can't really do much except scoop the cards.

you control the early game, the mid game, and the late game quite well with this build.