What happens if in response to Scapeshift they Demystify your Omens? They're alot more likely to have counter mana back up that you do since you would have already spent 6 mana that turn.
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Chain Lightning, Shard Volley, Rift Bolt and Sonic Seizure. You don't need the "Shock"s, and Valakut is just going to be too slow for you. Needle Drop is bad.
Rings of Brighthearth is good with Pinnacle. For example, with rings you only need 53 mana to put 100 counters on it all at once. 50 mana for X, and 3 mana to copy Pinnacles ability, thus doubling the number of counters.
Mana Leak / Negate. Greater Auramancy to protect Omen?
You're short a card in the MD. I'd add Elixer of Immortality and cut Pierce / Rebuttal for 2 Trinket Mage. That package will hive you a for of invevitability via refilling your deck with good stuff.
Echoes really wants to see some Milling effects to help it's effectiveness. For the Sideboard: Vampire Hexmage (great hate for Planeswalkers) Flashfreeze (hate for Red / Green) Doom Blade (MD Grasp of Darkness, this improves your Game 1 VS B/x decks, which are popular (BR Vampires)) Spell Pierce (good hate for Control / Burn / stopping a Summoning Trap that got cast for i's Trap cost) Duress (see above) Into the Roil (general catch all card if something gets in play that you don't want to see)
EDH is a removal Heavy format. When people realize you're running a deck with only your General as a creature, and only need to deal 10 damage to finish some one, you'll find Skittles will never see play long enough to attack. Why is there no Dark Ritual / Sensei's Divining Top?
Renegade Doppleganger to "cheat" quick uses out of your level up guys. He's better if you grab a few of the level up guys that only need 1 mana to level up, but require really high levels to do anything, such as Transcendent Master. If you splash Red for Lord of Shatterskull Pass, you can usually Wrath the other guy's board, helping your other guys beat face.
Hellkite / Angel is just uneeded. Zealot will give haste to all those Zombies those Bridges should have given you from Ichorid / flashback of Return. I'd think Bloodghast might be better, just because it could give you Ichord fodder / "free" creatures if you Dredge them into the yard then play a land.
Bitterblossom over Tauntings. The only Fae you need are: Scion (4 of them) Mistbind (4 of them) Vendilion (2 of them) Spellstutter (4 of them) Bitterblossom (4 of them) Sower (2 or 3, and only if you feel like it) Everything else you need is countermagic, card draw, and removal. Though, I like to opt for more of a tempo build and run no Sowers, and run Pestermite (4 of them) and Oona's Prowler (4 of them).
I ran (have since moved away) in a meta that was pretty diverse. Lots of Red aggro, but usually 3 top tier UW Control lists, RUG Control, UB Control, WWQuest, BR Vampires, and the occasional Valakut / Pyromancer's Ascension. I consistently top 4'd every week. The only rough match ups seem to be VS Valakut (their clock is hard to match) and RUG (it's a very good list if you know how to play it). My last week there I took 1st, going 2-0 in all but the last round, where I lost my first game of the night (to a Rouge UBR Control list), but still finished 2-1 in that round. 90% of the time, Chalice goes down turn 2, for 1. That lets for a nice Ramp into turn 3 Koth / Cyclops / LoSP. Once I have that, any other Chalice can be made as big as I care to. I dropped a Chalice for 3 counters once, just to bait a Mana Leak (the guy said I seemed to want it too much). I posted this particular deck here to help get it some exposure since it does have a good lay of the field (since UB Control is keeping Valakut / other Ramp Decks in check), and I'd like other people to see that. I took a weaker version of this deck to States and while I lost Round 1 to a GW Ramp deck, I went on to go 5-1 before I lost a round again (Beat some jank Ob Nixis Combo, Tempered Steel Aggro, Elves, RDW, UW Control). I next lost to another UW Deck due some pretty bad draws (strait land for 8 turns), then to my own stupidity VS Elves in round 8 (Won game 1, lost game 2 because I wrote down my list wrong, then lost game 3 because in game 1 all I saw from him was Vengevines, and he got a nutz hand).
Turn 1: Urbog, Tomb of Yawgamoth, Thoughtseize their Removal. Turn 2: Dark Depths, Vampire Hexmage, EoT, pop Hexmage to release Marit Lage Turn 3: Try to remove any more removal spells out of their hand (Path to Exile / Condemn / etc..), swing for lethal. Maybe Rit of Consumption in they some how have a blocker. Easy turn 3 Win with a good hand. Why is Bite even in there?
Might I suggest Grasp of Darkness MD over Doom Blade in the event you play VS BR Vampires? That way you can put Doom Blade in the side, and you can just save Vapors for Titans. Why no Gatekeepers? Removal + Bear seems really good. I'd probably drop the Shade.
The deck, where is it?
Yeah, it's really easy to get powerful turn 1 plays like that, but you usually need the disruption turn 1 to help stave off removal (which is why I like 3Sphere on turn 1, then Deus on turn 2). Once you dump your hand, you need to win quick. The Wastelands might just be a bit of overkill, but they do help to off balance the other deck.
I'd say: +4 Curse Catcher +4 Lullmage Mentor +4 Counterbalance +3 Sensei's Divining Top for: -3 Summon the School -4 Judge of Currents -4 Stonybrook Banneret -4 Stonybrook Schoolmaster Then of course the mana base becomes strait Islands, with maybe 4 Wasteland thrown in if you feel like it.
Definitely, though you might want to look into bringing your land count to 22. 20 seems a little light, even if you only really need 2 mana.
It's a solid, budget friendly deck. Since you said that's what you were after, it should come as a surprise that someone should bring it up. If your choice is between BR Vampires and Wx Quest, you'd best go with Vampires since the deck is more consistent, and has posted better results over all.
Lullmage Mentor can give you tokens, as well as give you some "free" countermagic in a pinch though. When you start adding colors to a deck, it starts to become vulnerable to stuff like color-screw, so unless you grab better spells from that color as well, there's no reason to run other colors. A rason to splash White is Path to Exile, not lifegain. A CounterTop lock should be able to stop burn (for the most part) in it's tracks.
Aside from Regenerating a Skithiryx through a DoJ, why splash White for this? Seems like Green for Pump, Red for Burn or Blue for Countermagic / Draw would be better. Black's removal seems a lot better than White's right now, so there's really no need to add White for removal.
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