Greeny Meanies

The main intention of this deck is to appear small, as if no threat at all, and then BAM! You power up at the last moment to achieve the final blows of the game.

The majority of the creatures and spells are low costing which enables quick game play; but there are bigger threats should the game turn sour and become long-winded.

 

1/1 tramplers you ask?

Yes, that’s right. 1/1 tramplers have that response from everybody when they first see them played; trample simply means carrying damage over a smaller blocker, thus one damage doesn’t get carried anywhere if it isn’t blocked so what’s the point?

Well, combined with a power-up spell, a 1/1 trample can be better than a 2/2. An opponent will look at the 1/1 and send in at least a 2/2 to block with the utmost confidence it will take out what appears to be a joke of a card. That is until you play “Sudden Strength”.

As a result of this, “Defiant Elf” is a key player within this deck.

“Hungry Spriggan” is another 1/1 trampler until it attacks and boosts to +3/+3, 

and “Slith Predator” is also a 1/1 trampler who can deal combat damage to a player which can get a +1/+1 counter and as such becomes ever-growing, particularly if played at the right time.

Another ability that I have favoured within this deck is the creatures that cannot be blocked by creatures with powers less than their own. The cheapest of its sort in this deck is “Wandering Wolf”. More suited power-up spells are those that have a sense of permanence, for instance “Blessings of Nature”.

                                          

 

Creatures with the ability to power themselves are also a good tool for any deck.

“Darkthicket Wolf”

If in your opening hand you find yourself with the right amount of land, you could be a 4/4 by your third turn. This is never a bad place to be.

Creatures who power others up are often useful too.

“Druid’s Familiar” has ‘soul-bond’ which gives itself and another card +2/+2, which reminds me, where are those 1/1 tramplers...

“Briarpack Alpha” has ‘flash’, so if you’re being attacked and it isn’t looking good, not only have you got an extra 3/3 to block with BUT it will also give a target creature +2/+2.

“Patron of the Wild” has to be played in morph, but when it is turned face up, it gives target creature +3/+3. For one green mana, “Nantuko Disciple” will give +2/+2.

                                              

 

Now with all of these powered up, it would help to have more trample for the other creatures. This is not a problem.

When in the graveyard, “Brawn” will give all of my creatures trample. But because it has to be put into the graveyard, you might find it never gets there. It is a 3/3 trample itself, and if it isn’t being blocked it simple stays in play and you may as well power it up.

I also have a “Primal Rage”.

I think you get the point what with all the spells that are in the deck, so I won’t bother going into details over them because as always the deck list is at the bottom of my blog post.

So what happens if long play kicks in?

I have a couple of cheap Threshold creatures as I will be throwing about a lot of sorceries and instants into the graveyard; because of this I should find hitting the threshold easy enough.

“Metamorphic Wurm” and “Krosan Beast”.

                                             

 

 

This deck is fun and fast to play and that’s all I have to say about it really.

Deck List:

                Green Creatures:

                                Defiant Elf x3

                                Wandering Wolf x3

                                Darkthinket Wolf

                                Young Wolf x2

                                Lone Wolf

                                Nantuko Disciple x2

                                Briarpack Alpha x2

                                Druid’s Familiar x2

                                Hungry Spriggan x2

                                Patron of the Wild x2

                                Slith Predator

                                Branchsnap Lorian

                                Brawn

                                Howlgeist

                                Giant Warthog

                                Krosan Beast

                                Metamorphic Wurm

                Other Green:

                                Travel Preparations x2

                                Incremental Growth

                                Thrive

                                Primal Rage

                                Primal Boost

                                Magnify

                                Vitality Charm x3

                                Ranger’s Guile x2

                                Increasing Savagery

                                Earthbrawn x2

                                Surging Might x2

                                Fistful of Force

                                Blessing of Nature

                                Resize x2

                                Sudden Strength

                Land:

                                Forest x25

Gathering 2.0 – 18/07/2012

This was my second game of Magic: The Gathering for the week! Oh, I’m spoilt!

For the first game I opened with my “Make way for the Big Boys” deck. Low and behold it worked again! I can only imagine it is because it had been shuffled out a bit by now, ensuring the cards are aligned in a more satisfactory way. 

Pete was in a strong position, and other than having “Cathedral Sanctifier”  he also had two tokens. 

James was playing with a Goblin deck that proves to be a force to be reckoned with, particularly as he hit Pete with fourteen blows of damage in one turn.

I thought I was going to be taken out quickly as I struggled with land; if anything this probably helped me because I wasn’t seen as much of a threat. Once I had established four mana, I was able to play “Lumberknot”.

With my death-touch creatures, I combined a few enchantments to deal one direct hit of damage to my opponent’s creatures. I was powering “Lumberknot” up very nicely. By this point, James and Pete had beaten each other down to a point where I was able to swoop in and take the rewards.

“Greeny Meanies” was on the menu for game two. I started with a nice “Wandering Wolf” 

so while attacking with it, it powered up, therefore could not be blocked by anything smaller. James had chosen to strike me first with a 2/2 zombie that costs only one mana to play. I felt that this was an invite to attack relentlessly at him. With James down, I only had Pete to worry about. He played a card which gave him protection from one creature type of his choice for his other creatures. As I had nothing but wolves in play, he wisely chose a wolf. However, he had forgotten that my “Wandering Wolf” power is far greater than anything of his, thus he cannot block; rendering his protection useless. This led to my second win of the night. 

It was time for game three and this meant it was necessary to break out “Call for Reinforcements”. I played “Rhys the Redeemed” as my first card;

knowing Pete’s style I knew it wasn’t going to last long, but hey that is just the name of the game. During this game I managed to play not one, but TWO “Parallel Lives”.  

   
                                           

This meant I was no longer making just double the amount of tokens, but more!

So, when I played “Grizzly Fate” I receive two tokens, 

and with “Parallel Lives” I receive four; but with two in play, I get double the amount, meaning I get eight tokens!  

Likewise when I played “Hunting Triad”, instead of gaining just three 1/1 green elf tokens, I got twelve.

I will mention that Pete had played his “Liliana Vess” card,

but the nature of my deck meant that I was not too worried about it because without being big-headed, most of my deck is formed of token making spells. I suppose that with my “Rhys the Redeemed” card being in the graveyard, it could have some interesting consequences.

Being that I had twenty creatures in play, I felt it was time to play “Epic Struggle”. 

This of course meant that I had painted the biggest target on my own forehead. However, if Pete and James could not take me down, I would win the game in my next upkeep.

Pete went all out and attacked me in the hope that I would defend to drop my creature count. I decided to take the damage like a man; this resulted in me being on a life count of four. At this point James had two 1/1’s in play, so I was feeling confident.

It was James’ turn and he drew a land which was of no help to him, but then he remembered he had the ability to discard a card and draw another.

It was just what he needed.

Four blows of damage to the target player and one damage to all of their creatures. Well I was gone before my army needed killing off. It was a well earned defeat.

Pete would go on to win this game with his newly made vampire deck, which worked very nicely indeed.

Game four saw the use of my Vanguard cards. For this we all picked our decks then at random chose a Vanguard card that we would then use for the entire game. 

James had “Takara”.

Pete had “Karn”

I had “Rofellos”

 

I think the only person who felt the benefit of their character was Pete because his “Angel Tomb” didn’t have to wait for a creature to come out to be a 3/3, and once he’d played “Call to Serve” with it, he was unstoppable. This was merely due to the way in which he drew these cards so quickly.

The last game of the night and I suggested that we play a sped up format, where you play all of the lands in your opening hand  then you draw that amount of cards so that you start with a full hand.

For this James played “Sisay”,

Pete “Volrath”  

and I had “Mirri”.

Not only did James get a boosted amount of lands in play, they now counted as double. And his first turn saw the appearance of “Nissa Revane”...

An elf deck with double powered land? It was very one sided and gave James the victory that he deserved.

From this week’s set of games it is obvious to me that all of us have grown as Magic: The Gathering players and developed our skills to a higher level. But does this mean that we will be having more fun?

With all the hard hitting combinations built for big and/or quick wins, have we lost the fun little quirks of the game? Only time will tell...

Gathering 1.0.5 - 17/07/2012

Gathering 1.0.5 I hear you ask? Well if you remember a while back I did a break-down of the groups I play Magic: The Gathering with, well it seemed fit to make a new code for the group that was my uncle Mark, Bernard, Lee and of course myself; but hey, enough of this and on with the game reports.

I played “Make way for the Big Boys” for the first game and it worked exactly how it was supposed to; it created a wall of death-touching creatures which meant that my opponents didn’t want to attack. Attached to all of them were enchantments, which if tapped, dealt one blow of damage to a creature or opponent. Being that they have death-touch it simply destroys the creature, this thins the herd and makes way for my big “hitters”. However, the two big hitters I managed to play were destroyed before I could use them effectively. 

This game ended up being very long as I was in a defensive/responsive state of play during the game, which in retrospect put everyone in the same boat. In this retrospective mind frame, I shouldn’t have won because Bernard had managed to build up quite the army, but didn’t do anything to anyone and as such got bored; he then conceded to play on the PS3. This left my uncle and Lee, who I had been keeping at bay by destroying their creatures. Lee was playing with his Golem deck, which if left for too long can over power you with vigorous Golem tokens.

In the end I managed to wear them both down, slowly but surely, to my first win of the night.

From this point on, Bernard would not play any more games.

For the second game I played my new favourite deck, “Call for Reinforcements”. It worked a treat again. I walked straight over both Lee and then my uncle with 20+ token creatures. My uncle was playing with his beast deck and had drawn an opening hand with no lands. He decided to take a risk because if he could draw two lands, all the cards afterwards would be land providing cards, setting the deck up perfectly. Unfortunately this was not the case as he only drew one, and by the time he’d drawn a second I had taken Lee and his zombie deck out.

The third and final game of the night was upon us. It was both a short and sweet game. I played my “Greenie Meanies” deck and again, swiftly powered the quick hitter into the game, I was able to conjure trample and power-up spells which lured the others into blocking and consequently powering my cards up even more! Unbelievably uncle had mana problems again.

My uncle decided to concede once I had taken Lee out; I was hoping for more of a challenge from Lee as is first card was a 1/1 with life link, and if he escalated to a life count over 30, he would then have a flying power. This was not the case, which was a real shame in one sense as I wanted a good fight, but at the same time it proves that my deck works in the way that it was designed to.

All in all it was another good night for me.

Weekly Gathering 2.0 - 11/07/2012

The gathering this week took place at James’. When I arrived, James and Pete were finishing a game; as such I knew these two would be warmed up and ready to do battle.

For the first game I opened with “Make way for the Big Boys”. It would prove to be slow game for me, what with only drawing four lands throughout the entire game, and my only mountain was destroyed by James stunting the main objective of the deck. Pete would then see to both of us with his dragons; this is the third time I have used this deck and not had much luck with it. But I shall continue to test it more to decipher whether it is down to drawing a bad hand of cards.

During the second game, I played “Greeny Meanies”. This deck didn’t prove to enhance my luck, particularly in terms of mana. However, being that most of the creatures and spells are all low cost to play, I pursued fast with small “tramplers”. I took James down first as he was by far the biggest threat. Unfortunately for Pete his deck had stalled and to jump start now wasn’t going to help because James had been working on him for a while now, so all I had to do was knock that last bit of life off.

My first victory of the night was a sweet taste considering I had such a low count of mana in play.

Game three saw my “Call for Reinforcements” deck make another appearance. It looked as though it may have ended before it had even started. I had to mulligan down to four cards; but with my first draw, my game was set.

“Soul’s Attendant” for life gain, 

“Quirion Elves” for extra mana, 

“Grizzly Fate” for tokens, 

"Parallel Lives” to double any tokens that come into play

and “Rhys the Redeemed” to double the amount of tokens in play.

 

Once my doubling mechanic took action, there was nothing anyone could do to stop me. I ended up throwing fourteen 2/2 grizzly bears at James, to which he only had two creatures that were able to block. He was done for.  Once again Pete’s deck had failed to take off and by the time he had a dragon in the game play ready to attack, I was over the fifty life count, and had twenty-eight grizzly bears at my disposal.

The next game saw the return of my old-school first deck, “Mana Munching Monsters”. I don’t think I’ve had such a sweet set up for a game with this deck before.

Turn two, “Copper Myr”. 

Turn three, “Fyndhorn Elder”.

Turn four, “Elvish Aberration”. 

With this I was set for mana.

I began by drawing only low level creatures, though this started to concern me. When all hope was nearly lost, the gods of Magic: The Gathering handed me “Decree of Savagery” which boosted my creatures up nicely. 

This was also just in time to stop James as he had developed into a threat. Pete, again, was struggling and was taken out without a fuss. James was left with a life count of 2 when he was able to stop me in my path with an ever-growing 13/13 which was powered by how ever many creatures he has on the battlefield. Fortunately, I had played “Shape of the Wiitigo” which gave me a 13/13 too.

I couldn’t get through his 1/1 tokens though as I had no trampling creatures. But once again the gods were on my side, giving me “Lone Wolf”.

It can deal its damage as if it wasn’t blocked!

It’s a 2/2! James was on a life count of 2!

Content with my winning streak, I thought I’d play a deck I have only used twice in the past. It is my least favourite deck and I had made it purely for the sake of making a deck. It is called “Faerie Fun” and the name says it all really. Gay.

Anyway, I played this deck with no hope in hell; atleast that is what I thought. I played the Flash mechanic to my advantage, using it to take care of low level attackers that thought they had a clear path to me. Making small but quick hits on James in the air, he was gone in no time. Now time for Pete; he was playing his Dragon deck again.

He drew three Dragons that he could play this game, but I made him put one to the bottom of his library from his hand because I had “Vendilion Clique”.

The next two that made it into the game were destroyed by “Dark Banishing” and “Violet Pall”.  

 

With this I kept hitting him with small flying attacks which eventually concluded in his defeat.

Yes! You heard it here first. A Faerie deck took on a Dragon deck and won. I was genuinely sorry for this.

The last game of the night and I went in with my hit and miss “Artefact Antics”. I was lucky again and drew flying creatures and flying equipment. I had plenty of power increasing equipment and enabled me to aim my creatures at James; this made quick work of him. I didn’t think of Pete as a threat in this game as he was only drawing land, of course this meant that he was not limited to what he could play...

I was doing just fine until he drew a creatures whose main ability was to tap my creatures for 3 mana. He was sat on eleven at this point, meaning he could tap three of my four creatures, to which my damage rating was drastically cut down. He would then play “Seraph of Dawn”. 

Even though he still couldn’t kill all of my creatures, any of the attacks I could deal would only enable him to jump in first and tap my cards, then block with his life-link angel.

At the same time, if I didn’t attack, I still had ample defense from him. He did however have the means to slowly deck me. I weighed it up in my mind and saw that if we continued playing it would be a very slow and drawn out game. This I find takes the fun out of games, as such I conceded. I think Pete would have preferred a clean win rather than me giving up but I had nothing to prove, and did not mind giving the game to him as he had held on so well.

I think this was one of my most successful nights for a long while, and look forward to the next.