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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 10:41 am
Looking for advice and ratings on one of my Standard decks.
Planeswalker 1 Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
Creature 23 Flameblast dragon Rakish heir x3 Olivia voldaren Bloodline keeper / Lord of lineage x4 Bloodlord of vaasgoth x2 Mikaeus, the lunarch x2 Stromkirk noble x3 Grand abolisher x2 Stromkirk captain x2 Elesh norn, grand cenobite Markov Blademaster x2
Sorcery 3 Devil's play Red sun's zenith Fireball
Instants 4 Go for the throat x4
Artifact 5 Elixir of immortality x2 Mimic vat Trepantion blade x2
Enchantment 2 Curse of stalked prey x2
Land 23 Clifftop retreat x2 Isolated chapel x2 Mountain x7 Plains x6 Swamp x7
Card count: 62
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:37 pm
wahmbulance Fixed wahmbulance
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:01 pm
The first thing this deck needs is direction.
What you have right now is a mash up of R/B vampire aggro tribal and R/B/W ramp.
You need to choose one of those decks if you want to execute either strategy effectively.
The R/B Vampires has more support in your current build and would probably be the easier of the two decks to build and play.
However, the R/W/B ramp is a more original archetype overall and seems at least potentially doable.
Whatever you go with, there's a few general things I'd do:
Elixir, Druidic Satchel, Norn's Annex, and probably Mimic Vat and Swiftfoot Boots can come out.
The first two are just bad cards. They don't do enough of what you need to make them worth playing.
Annex is a decent multiplayer card but not worth it in 1v1 (which is what standard is. If this is a multiplay deck we need to get Deviant to make a 60 card multiplay forum to put it in.) Vat and Swiftfoot have the same essential problem but their overall power level is higher so they (vat in particular) might be worth keeping.
You mana also needs some pretty desperate help. I advise against playing 2 color decks with nothing but basics. 3 colors, there's no way it's not going to bite you.
Land wise you have Evolving Wilds and rare options. You do care somewhat about things coming in tapped but I would still run 4 Wilds unless you've got money to spend on the rares.
Then there's a few artifact options that would be better for the ramp deck than the aggro deck. Still, Sphere of the Suns or maybe even Myr of one or more of your colors might be worth it for either build.
Traveler's Amulet is also worth a look, though it doesn't actually accelerate anything.
EDIT: So now you've got some multi lands which is good. I would add some Dragonskull Summit as well. They're considerably cheaper than the Innistrad lands so you shouldn't have much trouble getting them.
Artifact mana would still be a plan as you're not quite stable yet.
Satchel and Annex got dropped but Elixir still needs to go and Trepanation Blade isn't a plan either. Too expensive and too random. Also, you're fueling your opponent's graveyard based strategies and in Innistrad block, there's going to be plenty of those.
You still have the basic problem of needing to concentrate on either the tribal or the ramp rather than trying to do both and succeeding at neither.
Alright, I just looked at your thread on the TTG forum and you said you didn't want to cut the white.
I'll assume you don't want to cut the Vampires either since you named the deck after them.
So this is a problem.
To be clear, it's not so much the color white that's the problem as it is the big mana strategy which is what you are pursuing with half or so of the deck including most of the white cards.
Vampires as a tribal strategy want to be aggro. They and their support cards, like Curse of Stalked Prey, work off getting lots of creatures on the field and swinging with them quickly. That means you want to play cheap, quick creatures.
Vampires also need a critical mass of other Vampires to work properly. Bloodline Keeper, for example, is a much better card when you can field the vampires to flip it yourself, letting it attack rather than be stuck tapping all day.
If that deck is what you want to play you need to go for it with the entirety of your 37 or so card slots. Having 10 or 15 of them tied up in big rampy dudes like Elesh Norn, Sheoldred or Flameblast will dilute your vampire horde and make them less good at what they do.
The same goes in reverse. The big rampy dudes want you to accumulate mana quickly (or possibly ditch and reanimate) so you can stick them down and do fun stuff. That's not going to happen if your deck is full of cheap vampires instead of the ramp (or reanimator) pieces to support the big guys.
Either strategy is workable. A version of the Vampire deck that splashes white for a handful of things, like Sorin and Grand Abolisher, might even be workable. What is not workable is the Frankenstein's Monster you've got going here where you try to shove two different decks into the same 60 cards.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:17 pm
Elixir is more amazing then you think were I play as well as the Mimic vat. As for Norn's annex its not even in the deck deck anymore. So its not really a problem. I run tri-colored decks all the time and trust me land is never a problem. So I don't see how land would be a problem I mean there is only six cards that require plains anyway. The only Myrs worth considering is Alloy myr and I still might not even need him. Traveler's amulet is a no go. I personally don't care for the card.
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Posted: Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:30 pm
Elixir is bad. It doesn't affect the board or draw cards, it's just bad. If you see lots of mill then board 4 of them but take it the hell out of your main deck for goodness sake.
If Mimic Vat is good, then run 2-4 of them. It probably is good in the ramp build.
If you think you don't have mana problems, you're simply wrong. Either you're working off too small a sample size or you don't know what not being mana screwed feels like. The laws of statistics dictate that the above deck is going to be mana and/or color screwed most games.
The Myr and Amulet are all bad cards but they're bad cards you may need. When I suggested them I didn't realize you had the budget for actual multi lands.
Incidentally, I edited a couple of times above.
The main issue is you need to decide, are you Vampire or ramp. Until you decide that your deck will have serious issues.
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Posted: Thu Feb 09, 2012 8:51 pm
Oh, would you look at that. Finally posting in the guild. Anyway, I'm rather inclined to agree with epic: Your deck is trying to do too many things, and more often than not you'll find yourself short of where you need to be. Looking at your current decklist, I'd cut the white entirely, as this involves the least gutting of your deck (six cards, as of my current count, lands notwithstanding), and perhaps the dragon as well. In exchange I'd suggest adding one or two more Stromkirk captains, another Noble, if you have the money, and possibly some Vampire Interlopers (A fairly efficient, evasive beater).
Now, the reason I'm suggesting that you cut the white is that the majority of your white cards (Sorin, 2 Mikaeus, Elesh Norn) lend themselves better to a token strategy, while you only have two cards (Sorin, Bloodline Keeper) that actually make tokens. The Flameblast Dragon, while there's nothing wrong with it per se, just feels a bit... out of place.
As far as the artifacts are concerned, I'd also agree that the Elixirs need to go. With Vampires, you want to keep up the pressure, keep playing dudes, and keep attacking, and the elixir seems sort of counterproductive to that. I think you might benefit more from a bit more removal in those deck slots. The Vat and the blades don't exactly seem ideal, either, but the blade, at least, makes your attackers a bit bigger, even if it lacks consistency. Be wary, though: As Epic pointed out, Innistrad is a very graveyard-relevant block, so you do run the risk of giving your opponent vital resources in the process. If you can stand to lose them, though, I still think you'd benefit from some more removal. I feel like only having 4 Go for the Throats will leave you wanting for answers to your opponents' threats.
On the other hand, it'd take a bit more work, but between Sorin, the Bloodline Keeper, and Mikaeus, get some copies of Intangible Virtue, and maybe some Midnight Hauntings and Lingering Souls and you could get a pretty nice Black/White token strategy going. Of course, what you do in the end is up to you, so... as you will.
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