Michael's Magic: The Gathering Madhouse

[Kiratze]

Hey everyone. Since Magic: The Gathering is one of my passions, I thought it'd be cool to see if other Cohhilition members play. I already saw two in chat today that I had a small discussion with but having a forum thread for MTG stuff would be nice .

MTG is a trading card game for those who don't know. It's been growing lately and has been around since the early 90's!

Feel free to leave deck lists, discuss tournaments, have card discussions, etc. Or, if you're interested in playing the game I encourage you to ask questions on how to get started and such and myself and hopefully others will lend you a hand.

[Calumut]

I have an event going on on the 22nd for MTG I've been told it's going to be Standard Legal only using some kind of Match pairing system called Swiss?

Anyhow the problem is I haven't played Standard since the first set from Innistrad and I'm not very good at making Decks. So I have used the whims of the internet and google to search up a deck to use that I kind of like. I found two decks that gave me a little inspiration the first found here (http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/mono-blue-reloaded/) and one called the Dirt cheap Dirty blue deck.

In the end this is what I have come up with thus far:

Creatures

4x Triton Shorestalker.
4x Ornithopter.
4x Battlefield Thaumaturge.
4x Master of Waves.
4x Hypnotic Siren

Enchantment

x4 Ensoul Artifact.
x2 Military Intelligence.
x1 Bident of Thassa

Artifact

x2 Hall of Triumph

Instant

x2 Hour of Need
x2 Icy Blast
x3 Stymied Hopes
x3 Dissolve

Land
x1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx

Together this comes to 36 cards and I still need room to add in the Lands later so here are my many questions and general musings. :p

1: Would it be better for me to change Stymied Hopes for Thassa's rebuff or to include both? In the end of the day Stymied Hopes will give me Scry early which is nice and as I remember it's ability is basically negate? While Thassa's Rebuff looks like it could be an incredibly useful card to use later on as I'm just using all Mono blue and stacking devotion for Master of Waves anyway.

2: Quickling...Quickling if I read it right is a card I could use at any time at all as long as I have the mana like an Instant. So in theory could I not use Quickling to protect a card like Master of Waves from something like a Doomblade? Or if I have Hall of Triumph out with blue named bounce Master of Waves into my hand and bring him back out to summon extra tokens? (Then use Hour of Need with Battlefield Thaumaturge for example to turn them all into 4/4 flyers.)

3: Should I take Thassa, God of the Sea and if so how many. :p

4: I would absolutely love to include the Daring Thief, Springleaf Drum + Triton Tactics (Tap thief for mana, untap with Tactics to activate passive to trade Permanent for Permanent) combination to steal vital cards from my opponent to use myself but I'm really not sure if it would work in this deck or if I would have the room for it. I don't know what do other people think?

5: It seems I could make scry a thing for this deck in which case Chasm Skulker could be incredible especially if I have Bident of Thassa on the board I could force a confrontation to lose Chasm and get those Islandwalk Squids so I'm pretty sure I should be taking these but I'm not sure in what numbers...

6: Special lands o_O Okay so I've been told to take Darksteel Citadel so are there a lot of things around that can take out my land at the moment or is it just because it is an Indestructible land? And I've been thinking of Dual color lands like Swiftwater Cliffs for Lifegain or Temple of Deciet for Scry but I worry that having them come in tapped might slow down the deck which is already looking to be rather aggressive again what do you guys think?

7: Okay this isn't really a question but really Ornithopter on turn one and turn two Ensoul Artifact can give you a swinging 5/5 flyer right at the start why is that a thing. o_O

[Kiratze]

Wow! Whatta post . I'll try and help as much as I can

[QUOTE="calumut, post: 20251, member: 21361"]

1: Would it be better for me to change Stymied Hopes for Thassa's rebuff or to include both? In the end of the day Stymied Hopes will give me Scry early which is nice and as I remember it's ability is basically negate? While Thassa's Rebuff looks like it could be an incredibly useful card to use later on as I'm just using all Mono blue and stacking devotion for Master of Waves anyway.

I personally wouldn't run many (if any) counters in the mainboard. At it's core, you're playing an aggro deck. You just want to bash in for damage and kill them as fast as you can. Most of the time you'll be spending your mana each turn and you don't want to be holding mana up. The sideboard is for your counters since there's only certain matchups you would want to bring counters in. If I were to run counters I would run Stubborn Denial. It only works for non-creature spells but that's all this deck should care about since you want to protect your creatures from kill spells/board wipes. In the sideboard you can run some other counters for matchups with problematic creatures.

2: Quickling...Quickling if I read it right is a card I could use at any time at all as long as I have the mana like an Instant. So in theory could I not use Quickling to protect a card like Master of Waves from something like a Doomblade? Or if I have Hall of Triumph out with blue named bounce Master of Waves into my hand and bring him back out to summon extra tokens? (Then use Hour of Need with Battlefield Thaumaturge for example to turn them all into 4/4 flyers.)

Yes Flash allows you to play creatures at instant speed so you can respond to a kill spell to save a creature . The Master of Waves trick would work also as well since Hall of Triumph will save the old tokens.

3: Should I take Thassa, God of the Sea and if so how many. :p

YES. One of the best Gods. She's best the longer she's out so I would personally take three. Two is do-able though too. She can make creatures unblockable, become a 5/5 indestructible herself, and scrying every turn before drawing is INSANE.

4: I would absolutely love to include the Daring Thief, Springleaf Drum + Triton Tactics (Tap thief for mana, untap with Tactics to activate passive to trade Permanent for Permanent) combination to steal vital cards from my opponent to use myself but I'm really not sure if it would work in this deck or if I would have the room for it. I don't know what do other people think?

It's a neat combination but it's a bit too gimmicky. Again, being an aggro deck you shouldn't be having many tricks like that since you're just trying to push through damage. Spending the mana, time, and resources to do that combination would be better spent making one of your 5/5 creatures Unblockable with Thassa, or casting a Master of The Waves. Maybe for a different deck though!

5: It seems I could make scry a thing for this deck in which case Chasm Skulker could be incredible especially if I have Bident of Thassa on the board I could force a confrontation to lose Chasm and get those Islandwalk Squids so I'm pretty sure I should be taking these but I'm not sure in what numbers...

Chasm Skulker just gets better the longer it's out. Makes removal worse, and becomes a late game threat. I would run three if I were to run it.

6: Special lands o_O Okay so I've been told to take Darksteel Citadel so are there a lot of things around that can take out my land at the moment or is it just because it is an Indestructible land? And I've been thinking of Dual color lands like Swiftwater Cliffs for Lifegain or Temple of Deciet for Scry but I worry that having them come in tapped might slow down the deck which is already looking to be rather aggressive again what do you guys think?

As an Aggressive deck it's best not to have come in tapped lands and you're not splashing any other colours so not worth it purely for the life-gain or scry. This goes for most decks. DarkSteel Citadel is amazing because you can attach Ensoul Artifact to it, making a 5/5 Indestructible creature on turn two. It's a land that is an additional target for Ensoul Artifact . Run 4 of them. I would also run two Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx to increase your chances in getting it.

7: Okay this isn't really a question but really Ornithopter on turn one and turn two Ensoul Artifact can give you a swinging 5/5 flyer right at the start why is that a thing. o_O

It just is

[/QUOTE]

[Calumut]

Okay this is now what we have and I guess we'll see how it goes on Saturday.

Creatures

4x Triton Shorestalker
4x Ornithopter
4x Battlefield Thaumaturge.
4x Master of Waves.
3x Hypnotic Siren
3x Thassa, God of the Sea (I sometimes have terrible draw so better safe)
3x Chasm Skulker

Instant

x2 Stubborn Denial
x2 Hour of Need

Artifacts

x2 Hall of Triumph

Enchantment

x4 Ensoul Artifact
x2 Military Intelligence
x1 Bident of Thassa

Land

x4 Darksteel Citadel
x2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
16x Islands

Side Board

x2 Quickling
x1 Tormod's Crypth
x2 Polymorphous Rush
x2 Icy Blast
x1 Hypnotic Siren
x2 Stymied Hopes
x2 Disdainful Stroke
(Room for more as I think of it :p )