Time to bring new life to duels, the theme of this week is Lifegain, not much support in our cardpool but let's see what our deckbuilders brewed. Here's the rules: viewtopic.php?p=573891#p573891 Anyone can join this poll, by building all these decks and testing them. Then you can vote up to 2 decklists, the one with the best record and if you want the one with the second best record or a decklist that you enjoyed particularly. It will be nice if you can also post the record for any decklist and leave feedbacks for the decks you enjoyed. Only the best decklist will win, but having feedbacks for all the decklists is appreciated and also a reward for people who joined this contest. Let's see the options:
I have to say that i'm disappointed nobody is using Kambal, Consul of Allocation, i think it's one of the best cards for this theme and he made me win tons of games by himself. The poll will be open for 9 days. Here's the list of the deckbuilders: Black Barney, CardboardNomad, Cucho Lambreta, Haven_pt, The Secret of TIMH, Wintervoid. As always have fun testing these lists, don't forget to shame the greediest ones and let's see who can use life at his favor.
Joker, I'm totally fine with Nomad's changes to "my" deck submission, would you mind making those changes? I plan on playtesting it with the changes he recommends. I'm sorry I didn't send you a PM with the changes, I didn't think of it.
I'm so happy Wintervoid is participating! Yay for new blood in these contests.
Nice to see the regulars of Cucho, Haven, Timh in this mix but is anyone else as disappointed in Elk as I am? He should have gone for the trifecta!! You gotta defend your title, yo.
Anyway, this contest couldn't come at a better time, i was getting back into GTA V, but I'm thrilled to be building these decks tonight instead. Good luck everybody
also i LOVE that all deck submissions are different colour combinations. Very cool and unique, adds a lot of diversity when we don't put colour restrictions sometimes.
Joined: Feb 29, 2016 Posts: 2899 Location: Portugal
Lots of fun decks to try out... Shame I can't right now.
Totally off-topic, but I just noticed elder scrolls legends has an android version, so I'm trying that out right now. Seems ok, but lacks the strategic depth of Magic to me... At least there's no mana screw...
I had him in my first serious version, but when I realized Cucho's build was largely identical I decided to go another direction just to keep variety in lists.
#1 Tip = be aware of the way the game is wanting to auto tap your mana when you have Gift of Paradise enchanting a land. If your spell isn't needing the double color from it and/or isn't requiring all your mana to cast, the game likes to tap the land for a single mana rather than the 2 mana the enchantment ability grants. This can screw you if you're needing the extra mana to hold up an instant.
General Piloting Tips: Depending on the draw the deck can have aggressive starts, like T2 Lone Rider into T3 Gift of Paradise. Outside of that type of opening, the deck wants to play defensively until you can get your Bloodlord combos rolling.
There are several ways to recur creatures (Pulse of Murasa, Greenwarden of Murasa, Ever After, both Lilianas), so don't worry about losing doods along the way. You've got a ton of lifegain in this build so your focus is staying alive until Bloodlord combos or planeswalker ultimate win you the game.
Depending on the situation, you may not want to trigger Greenwarden's card recursion on death, since you can get him back with other GY recursion spells and get more than two total triggers off him through the course of a game. If you don't need some spell to keep you alive when he dies, it's often better to not use the ability that exiles him - so put thought into that decision before you pull the trigger.
It's ok to cast Nissa on curve just to make sure you're hitting your land drops (very important with this deck as it has a lot of high end spells). You can recur her later when at 6+ lands to flip her, and you want to draw out removals to help your Bloodlord stick later anyways.
Pulse of Murasa on Lone Rider with mana to cast both is a nice play.
Obviously you don't want Bloodlord to die, but he's a high priority target when he drops so he invariably will draw out removal. That's why there are several ways to recur creatures. Ever After fetching back Bloodlord + Arborback Stomper is a nice combo. EA can put a metric **** ton of power toughness on the board fetching back a pair of Caracals, and can auto flip Lone Rider fetching him back plus an Arborback.
Don't forget Shambling Vent has lifelink. Unless multiple GoP's got you to cast Bloodlord, you should have 6 mana to get Sylvan Advocate's buff when you untap, so Vent can help you close out quick in those situations.
Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim can get her 2nd ability going in this deck, and deck has ways to generate zombie tokens for expendable removal/sac fodder. Remember that Lone Rider has 1st strike, so if he's going to die in combat, you can trigger her first or second ability targeting Rider after he gains you 4 life but before other damage resolves. Use her abilities to gain life or kill things when your other creatures are targeted with temoval - ESPECIALLY if Bloodlord is being targeted with exile removal. You can do nifty things with her in this deck - and she's one way to quickly close out a game when you cast Bloodlord (sacing creatures to gain life for a single mana). If you are planning to do this with more than one creature using a GoP enchanted land, remember #1 Tip and manually tap GoP to generate 2 mana first.
In testing, this deck didn't lose to AI ever so it's at least that good. I went 3-0 on xbone ladder with this exact version, and total games with other versions in testing process were better than 50% wins so it's not total garbage there. Probably will be rough on Steam ladder at higher ranks tho... def a deck built more to have fun with Bloodlord than to steamroll opponents. Requires a good deal of thought with what to cast your removal on, what to recur from graveyard, and what to do with your planeswalkers. But when you get those sick Bloodlord combos going it Feels Good Man.
Joined: Sep 29, 2015 Posts: 1220 Location: Bend, OR
I will make some of the decks an stream them tonight. Thinking of running 3 games each. I intend to do at least 1-2 decks tonight, maybe more depending how the night goes. I will start at the top and work my way down.
As far as my deck, a few points. The deck obviously center's around Monument. The main lifegain comes from the Priests and Monument tokens. The main threat is actually swarming your opponent. You have some potential fatties and some evasion, but it is just as likely that you swarm your opponent in true weenie fashion.
One combo that is quite fun is double Mechanics. Just use one mechanic to return the other one to hand. With a Monument out, each W mana gets you a 1/1 token. With Bishop out, 4 mana to draw a card. It can get crazy when you have a bishop, priest, monument out. 3 mana for a Token, a life and a card.
This deck has a decent ability to stabilize at low HPs and finish at 30+ life. It is a bit vulnerable to Mardu Vehicles or good Burn on the play. Also, Ramp is a bit more difficult if you have a slow start. It can be pretty resilient to sweepers though since many card replace themselves, and with a monument out, your board is much more developed than the actual number of cards you have committed to it. Not to mention Dusk/Dawn can refill your hand quickly.
It has been a fun deck to play. The 'real' version that is not focused towards lifegain is -2 Blighted, -2 Pious +1 Plains, +3 Avian Wind Guide
Can we all agree that Havens deck list title is the worst?
I had a GW Human Midrange Lifegain deck queued up in the event I couldn't get the Bloodlord built to a passable state - my title for that would have been just as bad as Havens, lol. It was a decent build that most likely would fair better on the ladder but was so uninspiring I couldn't think up a better name than the vanilla descriptive one
Was happy to delete it once I was satisfied enough w/ Defiant Jank. Boring as **** to pilot - like vehicle boring but not as powerful as Boros/Mardu vehicles. Big thanks to DCG-MTG for pwning me on the ladder w/ Jeskai Control when I got randomly matched against him. That loss spurred me to commit to making Defiant Jank the deck I wouldn't submit. Got me to realize if I was going to submit a deck that wasn't T1 quality (maybe not even T2), I might as well submit one that's fun to pilot.
Joined: Nov 10, 2013 Posts: 17752 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ok here goes round one
The Kitchen drain wins its first match against a rank 29 90 card ally fat stack. Took a while Too. 1-0
Time to build cardboards life comes at you fast next..solid win against rank 7 Orzhov Zombies that mulled to 4/5 into cryptbreakers. T2 lone rider, T3 trial which flips the rider, gets Anguished. I then play Lone Rider and slap an Angelic Destiny on him , yay. 1-0
Havens mono black up next, need to build it first and test vs AI. Hope we make a drunk guy happy...huge win against a rank 2 sonic deck. Listen to this... T2 siphonner, T3 demon croc, t4 kalitas, t5 sky sovereign lol. 1-0
Time to build Cuchos Grim Nemesis... I'm getting hungry tho...after testing the deck proper against the AI, we come up against a scary rank 1 with a fat stack who doesn't seem to like his many mulligans and gives us a t0 concede which we'll gladly take since i think I should make some supper. 1-0, congrats Cucho , the deck is a beast
We will build Winters deck after dinner, more to come
Last edited by Black Barney on Tue Aug 01, 2017 6:55 pm, edited 2 times in total.
also i LOVE that all deck submissions are different colour combinations. Very cool and unique, adds a lot of diversity when we don't put colour restrictions sometimes.
I agree - love that we have Golgari, Azorius, Mono Black, Orzhov, Bant, and Abzan represented with no duplicates among the 6 submissions. Little bummed nobody else tried Bloodlord, because I'd have loved to see other takes on trying to do something around the card - see if there were good angles I didn't consider. I think mine is the only one that has a win con tied to lifegain. I'd bet money now (pre-testing) that my build is the worst performing, but at least I can hang my hat on mine being the only one that uses lifegain as win con. Wish I could have gotten SuperLadMans Tainted Remidy list to submit so that card would be represented in the challenge (plus I'm sure that list would perform worse than mine).
I wrote my pilot tips post with you in mind. I'm doing all I can to help you not lose your first game with it
Joined: Nov 10, 2013 Posts: 17752 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Ugh Winters deck comes up against a UGW superfriends deck that planar outburst me early on when I had 4-6 guys out, too bad. I had no solutions against 5 planeswalkers. 0-1 BELETED
Joined: Nov 10, 2013 Posts: 17752 Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
It was fun against the AI though
Ok I just finished ONE game versus the AI with Tims deck. Man, it's so hard to play. Those GoPs are hell with the AI autotap. I was overwhelmed with options once I got 6 mana. I had a huge board and could snipe guys with Ayli or play greenwarden, or Sorin, it was nuts. My Kaliyah's was huge too. Ok time for a ladder match...
Omg what a match!! Against mono white who got a vigilant guy out with nimbus wings after getting a dec in stone on both my Advocates in one shot and on a Lone Rider after that. But our hero was unfazed and got out another line rider with GOP to flip. He's hitting me for eight in the air each turn but I'm playing pulses to get my rec sage back and eventually I hit my blood lord. Now he sees what's going on and he starts swinging with everything. I get down to 8 and then I get double bloodlird out with flipped Lone Rider which is more than enough. Scary match. 1-0!
Round one has ended and only Wintervoid has fallen victim to being alone in last place.
Can't wait for round two maybe tomorrow. These decks are fun. Lifegain is fun cuz I can let lots of damage through as I gather my forces
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