Challenge of the Week, Revisted: Ooze Garden is strong!

4 ooze garden
4 rampant growth
4 sprouting thrinax
3 maelstom pulse
4 blightning
2 sarkhan vol
4 bloodbraid elf
4 abyssal persecutor
2 bituminous blast
4 stone idol trap

3 forest
3 mountain
3 swamp
3 raging ravine
4 verdant catacombs
3 dragonskull summit
4 savage lands
2 oran-rief, the vastwood

sideboard
4x goblin ruinblaster
4x mark of mutiny
4x jund charm
3x terminate


edited 03.08.2010 300pm

Challenge of the Week: Death's Shadow

Should be easy enough.

Hagra Diabolist

I have a dumb idea. Build a deck on Hagra Diabolist. No back talk, just do it.

Challenge of the Week: Luminarch Ascension

4x Silence
4x Path to Exile
4x Harm's Way
4x Disfigure
4x Doom Blade
4x Journey to Nowhere
4x Luminarch Ascension
4x Day of Judgment
3x Martial Coup
3x Baneslayer Angel
4x Teramorphic Expanse
4x Swamp
12 Plains
2x Emeria, The Sky Ruin

Sygg, River Cuttthoat. UB Control

4x Cursecatcher
4x Sygg, River Cuttthroat
4x Smolder Initiate
4x Painter's Servant
4x Agony Warp
4x CounterSquall
4x Cryptic Command
4x Mulldrifter
4x Ponder

24 UB Lands

Idea:
I've always wanted to play an initiate + Servant Deck and Sygg gave me a reason too!

Draw a lot of cards and get +1 damage in for +1 mana! Countersquall now reads:
1UB
Counter target noncreature spell. Its controller loses 3 life. At EOT draw a card.

sygg challenge deck

Oona's Prowler x 4 1B 3/1 flying, discard -2/0
prickly boggart x 4 B 1/1 fear
cloak and dagger x 4 2 rogue comes into play may equip +2/0 & shroud
Bitterblossom x 4 1B lose 1 life at upkeep put 1/1 fly rogue in play
Infiltrator x 2 BB 2/1 unblockable

Sygg River Cutthroat x 4 BB 1/3 if opp loses 3 life, you draw card.
Morsel Theft x 4 3B or prowl 1B opp loses 3 life, you gain 3 life draw a card.
Blightning x 4 1RB deals 3 to opponent and they discard 2
Incinerate x 4 1R deals 3 to target
Aphotic Wisps x 4 B target gets fear till end turn, draw a card.

12 black 10 red land

not great, but should be consistent - aphotic wisps may seem like an odd choice, but playing rogue decks in the past, nothing makes you more angry than not being able to get your damage through for chump blockers, so fear plus draw for one B sounded good.

t1 B prikly boggart 1/1
t2 BR Oona's Prowler 3/1 attack for 1 opp at 19
t3 BRB Sygg attack with both oona and prickly opp 15 draw card
t4 BRB Blightning attack with both oona and prickly opp 8
t5 BRBR Incenerate draw card, attack get 1 through for prowl morsel theft, draw 2 cards opp. is either -2 or 2
t6 BRBR crimson wisps haste on on a infiltrator critter, draw and attack for win

Above is best case if they didn't run into any wonderful removal - This is a heavy sideboard deck, where bank on putting your answer board control or removal in if you didn't just out pace them the first go through. In that case you probably used cloak to protect sygg, tried to use your burn while waiting on bitterblossom to do something fun.

so after a rethink, no -4 aphotic wisps +4 crimson Wisps = R instant target becomes red gains haste, draw a card.

Stupidest Challenge of the week evah!

Enchantments:
3x Sigil of the Empty Throne
4x Hoofprints of the Stag
4x Bitterblossom
4x Goblin Assault
4x Fertile Ground
4x Cryptic Command
4x Mulldrifter
4x Ponder
4x Path to Exile

25 lands (5 color stuffs)

Impossible deck challenge

Sigil of the Empty Throne.

Go!

(I want to see this as a 3-4 of)

Progenitus Win - Challenge o'f the Week

1x Progenitus
2x Primal Command
2x Dramatic Entrance
4x Cryptic Command
4x Negate
4x Firespout
4x Ponder
4x Mulldrifter
4x Path to Exile
4x Pollen Lullaby
3x Wrath of God

4x Reflecting Pool
4x u/g Filter
4x Mystic Gate
4x Yavimaya Coast
4x Adarkar Wastes
2x Vivid Creek
1x Vivid Grove
1x Vivid Meadow

Blightning Deck Challenge

4 Bitterblossom
4 Mulldrifter
4 Blightning
4 Ponder / Thoughtseize
4 Incinerate
4 Agony Warp
4 Sedraxis Specter / Sygg, River Cuttthroat
4 Grixis Charm
4 Flame Javelin

4x Crumbling Necropolis
4x B/R Pain
4x Underground River
4x Graven Cairns
4x Sunken Ruins
4x Reflecting Pool

Challenge of the Week

Ok here is a card I saw and immedeately wanted to use. It is one of my favorite color combos. It is only three converted mana, and just two colors. It features direct damage, which isn't my typical approach. It features discard, which I love. It's an instant.

Yup, it is Blightning!


















I love this card for so many reason, and yet I have never included it in any decklists. So I'm going to try to build a BR deck that focuses on the theme of blightning--damage and card advantage. Ok, here goes.

4x Mogg Fanatic
4x Thoughtseize
4x Raven's Crime
4x Lash Out
4x Incinerate
4x Manamorphose
4x Bitterblossom
3x Sygg, River Cutthroat
4x Blightning
3x Flame Javelin

4x Sulferous Springs
3x Graven Cairns
8x Swamps
7x Mountains



Adding blue for some puppeteer clique and vendilion clique makes good sense (make your opponent discard kitchen finks, sower of temptations, and murderous redcaps, then use them against them). Also, I'd like some grixis charm in there. Basically, take the focus off of burn and put it into control. Bring in the burn from the board, if necessary.

From conflux you can play with Nyxathid. If your opponent isn't holding many cards, it is a huge turn three creature.

Nyxathid 1BB
Creature - Horror
As Nyxathid comes into play, choose an opponent.
Nyxathid gets -1/-1 for each card in the chosen player's hand.
7/7

So there you go. I finally build my blightning deck. Anyone else?

Was I supposed to be Fixing Sean's Charm deck? Oops

3 x bird of paradise

4 x llanowar elves

3 x Rhys the Redeemed

4 x Elvish Visionary

3 x Wolf-Skull Shaman

3 x crib swap

4 x Mirror Entity

4 x Elvish Harbringer

4 x Imperious Perfect

2 x Gilt-Leaf Archdruid

1 x Nath of the Gilt-Leaf

looks like a 35 card 25 land?

Ever get one of those moments where you look at a card and get an idea that you feel is really funny and then when you're done looking at it, you realize how dumb of an idea it was. Well welcome to the 'prowess of the fair' inspired elves. I originally thought hey persist elves would be hillarious, but guess what there aren't that many of them, then I thought ok cauldron haze elves with prowess, then I saw it would be way easier just to pump out other tokens.

So basic win concept is Harbringer for a Gilt-leaf Archdruid, hopefully you've tokened to 7 creatures and a mirror entity then you tap 7 and woopie you have all the opponents lands, and swarm into them. If you haven't done this by turn 6 you should have muliganed into a llanowar and a harbringer or at least a visionary.

T1 land llanowar

T2 land Elvish Harbringer

T3 land rhys the redeemed, imperious perfect, bird of paradise

T4 land mirror entity, wolf-skull

T5 Gilt-Leaf Archdruid tap 1 - 4 mana make creatures druid 1/1 to 4/4 tap 7 of them and steal opponents lands

T6 tap your and their lands to make all creatures your 4 lands plus all theirs up to 5 equals potentially 7 creatures at 6/6 to 9/9.

That's on god draw, and assuming you didn't get firespouted, or wrathed or jund charmed in the mean time. If you did, you're screwed game over cause this is a one trick pony.

Side board Cauldron haze in, along with elvish champion, and prowess of the fair against mass board removal, and now you might have a chance, cause you cauldron haze, if you have a prowess in play you get 1/1 equal to the number of creatures you lost, and then cauldron haze gets you them back and if you had a imperious perfect or elvish champion in play, all your creatures get to stay in play (I think, Drok will probably let me know if I'm wrong), and even if you don't have either of those in play, so long as you have a prowess of the fair, then they come back into play gets a -1/1 counter and then leaves play again giving you double the number of creatures you originally had in play.

Woopie for answers. other sideboard elves, elvish hexhunter (G, tap sac. destroy enchant), elvish eulogist (sac. gain 1 life per elf in graveyard), oracle of nectars (2G, pay X tap, gain X life), oblivion ring, maybe heartmender for the cauldron, don't really know.

So this is what I did when I couldn't figure out what to do for Sean's Charm deck. I figure Drok will cover that one for me.

I Challenge Thee to Fix this Tenth edition Pariah Deck

So I've been wanting to do something different for awhile, I get annoyed with having to rebuy cards everytime a new set comes out. I wondered if a moderately competitive tenth edition only deck could be built using the pariah I've tried to build before in standard. Also I thought it would be a good change of pace to put the challenge and our side conversations in the 'comments' section, full bore into the spectrum of full fledged rebuild posts. Oh yeah your builds don't need to be tenth only.

4 x holy day
4 x bird of paradise
3 x condemn
4 x howling mine
2 x millstone
2 x mobilization
3 x recollect
3 x nomad mythmaker
4 x pariah
4 x Troll Ascetic
4 x Cho-manno Revolutionary

7 instants, 3 sorcery, 6 artifact, 6 enchantment, 15 creatures = 37

10 forests, 9 plains, 4 brushlands

Helix Pinnacle Challenge of the Week

So if you are wondering why there isn't a decklist it's because in trying to build a helix deck, all I found is all the reasons to be building something else, it seems like if you can either make enough mana to make helix work or double enough counters on it, there are soooo many other faster ways to have gotten the win by the time you are still a couple turns from the win with helix.

So I'm going to just say cut and paste Drok's blue white board control build, adding gilder bairn and springleaf drum, so that somewhere along the way to you don't have to wait 20 turns of pumping into helix before it might go off. and springleaf gives you the chance to use gilder over and over while cheapening his cost to use.

But this is really more of a gilder combo, and if I was doing that, it would be closer to a plainswalker deck than helix cause you could get what you want to win from the walker in 2 turns rather than like 5 or 6 from a helix.

Challenge of the Week: Helix Pinnacle

Ok, here's the challenge of the week. (It's a bit early. We have all weekend to think about it.)

Here are some hints on what my build will look like:

Ponder
Heritage Druid
Nettel Sentinel
Skullmuncher
Mirrorweave



Have fun!

Fable of Wolf and Owl Challenge of the Week

I really don't know what I'm doing ha - with that in mind, and because I don't do control or blue easily. I decided to just avoid it all together and build something much crappier - NOW INTRODUCING SHAMAN WOLVES! ta daa (chirp chirp - crickets) yeah that's what I think too, but it's different.

4 x Elvish Visionary
4 x Wolf-Skull Shaman
4 x Troll Ascetic
3 x Vexing Shusher

4 x Snakeform
3 x Loxodon Warhammer
2 x Blanchwood Armor
4 x Leaf-Crowned
2 x Masked Admirers
2 x Garruk Wildspeaker
2 x Wren's Run Packmaster
2 x Fable of Wolf and Owl

24 forests

So obviously I didn't use most of the creatures I posted, but that was the more obvious pure creature build of G/U - they entered my mind as potential better alternatives but seems like you can have fun with a Wolf-skull earlier than the Fable Wolf. Use the kinship mechanic with the rest of the shamans for synergy. Elvish Visionary early to a snake form trade gives 2 card advantage, followed by Wolf-Skull who hopefully will help maintain creature advantage, turn 3-4 troll that hangs out looking for a loxodon or blanchwood. then 4-5 turn Leaf-crown getting free shamans from the library directly into play. Hopefully a Wren pack master to pop off a few token wolves with death touch to maintain some level of board control until Garruk can blow big. Fable is just there late game to maintain creature advantage against wrath or the like. and Masked is there to maintain late game card advantage by playing a creature at plus 2 mana and getting mask back and a card draw (essentially 2 cards for 2 mana) (also good with Wren's who needs to champion an elf)

Over all not very competitive but has some funny elements of draw for playing creature, play a creature for nothing, and get a creature and card draw just for playing a creature.

Fable of Wolf and Owl/Skullmuncher/control splashing combo

4x Ponder
4x Familiar's Ruse
4x Cancel
4x Snakeform
4x Selkie Hedge Mage
4x Cryptic Command
3x Scattering Stroke
3x Skullmuncher
4x Mulldrifter
2x Fable of Wolf and Owl
4x Yavimaya Coast
4x Flooded Grove
10xIsland
6x Forest

An ideal game would be land first four turns (card draw with ponder/mulldrifter) then turn four scattering stroke your opponent, win the clash, then play fable of wolf and owl turn five with your extra mana. Then use your creature advantage to control the board, and use of counterspells to win the game. Skullmuncher (a card I've been wanting to find a use for) isn't great, but he is ok for this deck. True, you'd probably be better off with the guy you tap and draw three cards with, or even the u/g */* guy who is big depending on the cards in your hand...but when you get to sac crappy tokens and draw counterspells to win the game with, while protecting your hopefully 5/5 or so skullmuncher, hooray.

Are all Planes the Place to Be?

Challenge Deck Version:
3 x Elspeth
3 x Ajani Goldmane
2 x Ajani Vengeant
4 x Wrath

2 x Holy Day

4 x Angel's Song
2 x Srakhan

1 x Jace Beleren

1 x Garruk Warspeaker

1 x Liliana Vess
1 x Chandra Nalaar
4 x Painter's Servant

4 x Scuttlemutt

4 x Rings of Brighthearth

Lands 24

4 x Savage Lands (green, red, black)
4 x Wooded Bastion (white/Green)

4 x Rugged Prairie (white/red)

12 x Plains

Non-Challenge Version:

3 x Elspeth
3 x Ajani Goldmane
3 x Ajani Vengeant
4 x Wrath

3 x Holy Day
4 x Angel's Song'
3 x Story Circle
3 x Srakhan
2 x Chandra Nalaar
4 x Rings of Brighthearth
4 x Painters Servant

Lands 24
4 x Jungle Shrine (red, green, white)
3 x Wooded Bastion (white/Green)
3 x Rugged Prairie (white/red)
14 x Plains

So I'm not going to really explaining the concept for the Challenge build because I can't come up with justifiable reasons to keep or be using some of the planeswalkers when it feels wrong to me to put them in - the non-challenge build is all about stall with angel song, holy day, story circle - get the mana for any planeswalker and a Rings of Brighthearth into play and effectively double all your planeswalker abilities for 2 mana each. 2 chump blockers a turn, 4 life a turn, prevent 2 from untapping or better yet do 6 damage and gain 6 life, or my personal favorites instant kill 20 damage with chandra, or ten 4/4 flying dragons

Painters servant is just for story circle or if I dont' get the right land drops early game, and it is a small blocker if necessary.

Well let me know you guys thoughts on it, Sorry I feel like I really fell short on the whole 5 color thing.

Big questions, Planeswalkers are Permanents in Play right?

So if I'm reading the comprehensive rules list right, Planeswalkers are put into the in play permanents section, meaning anything that reads 'target nonland permanent' is able to target them directly, yes? Awesome.

I feel a big revamp to this Planeswalker thing, I wasn't thinking clearly it was so late last night, I've found something humorous that I can't resist messing with.

How would you like to double the counters on your Planeswalker every turn, it's possible, takes 2 combo cards and a minimum 4 mana - I'll let you see if one of you finds what I'm talking about before I post it.