Personally I'm no big fan of those 1/1 tokens without ability as I think that the cards that produce them a are (nearly) all to expensive to play...which might come from my inexperience with standard-decks. From what I have heard those decks tend to be slower than their modern counterparts, but my mind tells me "to slow" most of the time. Kari Zev, Skyship Raider was one of the cards I also noticed but I already had G and W as colours and I didn't want to add a 3rd colour, so maybe for the next deck then.
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These are only some ideas of what you can add. For example I added a short story on some of my early commander decks, just to make people smile and look at the deck. The description should always be the first thing you look at (well the deck-tags should be the first thing because you see them before the description) because there could be some vital information's. Also it helps to speed up the progress of analysing the deck and thus gives you more time on commenting it. A crappy description, which the designer thought about, is better than no description. And who knows, those 2-x sentences might be enough for many people as it shows that you have done your work. Maybe you don't have the language skills needed to phrase it out better (There are enough people here who's mother-language isn't English, including me) or you simply don't know how to tell it better...no matter, you have tried, and that's what counts.
Usually I only like decks that have a description. I often try to give the builder a stimulus by commenting like "+1 if you add a proper description" or such things. My personal attitude on this one is: Why should I comment your deck when you even didn't take the time to add a description.It's really sad to see how many decks here have no description at all. I dare to say that 50% is set to low I would go for 70-80%. The big problem is how to change this? Force the users to add a description? Then something like "Play fast or go home" for red decks will be standard. There are no sticky threads like a normal forum would probably have...
+1"Vines of Vastwood", "Ranger's Guile", "Blossoming Defense" or "Mizzium Skin" might be some ideas, at last for the sideboard. If one of your creature's gets shot away it might be hard for you to get back into the game fast enough. What is the budget you had in mind? I would nevertheless add some duallands because ending up with the wrong mana might really end your game rather fast. And decent duals aren't that expensive any more. GreetingsMuktol
Your deck-description could be a little more detailed. Also a how to play and deck-tags are missing. +1 if you manage to add these :)"Fuel for the Cause" and "Fate Transfer" (and "Thrummingbird" but you already mentioned that one yourself) might be some options here. The other thing that comes into my mind would be 'protection from XYZ' spells with rebound like "Emerge Unscathed" (second one would be "Center Soul"): First to protect your creature from your opponents removal and then to make them unblockable. GreetingsMuktol
Each decks should include a deck- and how to play description. The deck description should involve things as the basic idea why you did build this deck, if there's any story behind it, budget, certain cardchoices, especially if they deviate from common lists, legality, or any other information you can give others that will look at your deck. Best do this while you are building the deck because after some days important information's simply may not be remembered. The how to play description is crucial for beginners. An experienced or expert builder can normally take a look at your deck and see how it should work, but there also are a lot of beginners out there that maybe want to take a look at this and compare it with their own ideas/ decks. Even for more or less standard-decks there should be a description just because of this. By using deck-tags you can avoid to put unnecessary information into the deck name and thus making it too long. The tags also allows you to filter the decks you have made for a certain type, very useful if the number of decks you've build here steadily grows and grows. After that we can start working in the deck. GreetingsMuktol
+1"Quest for the Goblin Lord" would be a rare that can really have an impact on the board...tough it normally takes one or two turns. I would remove "Hordeling Outburst" for it as the loss of this spell isn't as fatal as removing "Goblin Grenade". "Massive Raid" (or "Outnumber" ) could also be of interest as well as "Raid Bombardment" if you don't want to sacrifice your creatures into "Goblin Bombardment". Both spells are cc3 so They might be a little slow, also Raid Bombardment would have an anti-synergy with Quest for the Goblin Lord as it might render it useless. GreetingsMuktol
The description could be a little more precise. Budget, legality, willing to buy/ trade cards, and so on. ;)Basically I would splash blue (or green) as colour to get access to some spells that let you draw/scry and discard into your graveyard: "Contingency Plan", "Forbidden Alchemy", "Glimpse the Future", "Nagging Thoughts", "Taigam's Scheming" or "Tower Geist". Another option would be carddraw and self-discard like "Thought Courier". GreetingsMuktol
Personally I would trade "Huntmaster of the Fells" for something more aggressive like "Instigator Gang". I also would replace "Wolfbitten Captive" with "Reckless Waif" or another "Village Messenger" because personally I don't like paying mana every turn I want to attack or block with a creature just to give it a (better) chance of survival. I'm also not really sure if the 2 copies of "Isochron Scepter" will really do a good job in here, something like "Vines of Vastwood" (Protection, can do some neat combat tricks) or a simple "Lightning Bolt" (Removal) might be better. Last, I think that "Arlinn Kord" is too slow for a normal werewolf deck. She has to be protected to do anything useful and her normal ability's are not really very helpful for an aggressive deck. The only good news is that she can buy you some time as your opponent normally will focus some of his attacks on her...if he isn't absolutely sure that you will go down even if you have her on the board. GreetingsMuktol
Each decks should include a deck- and how to play description. The deck description should involve things as the basic idea why you did build this deck, if there's any story behind it, budget, certain cardchoices, especially if they deviate from common lists, legality, or any other information you can give others that will look at your deck. Best do this while you are building the deck because after some days important information's simply may not be remembered.The how to play description is crucial for beginners. An experienced or expert builder can normally take a look at your deck and see how it should work, but there also are a lot of beginners out there that maybe want to take a look at this and compare it with their own ideas/ decks. Even for more or less standard-decks there should be a description just because of this.As for the deck would remove the two high-mana cards, "Malakir Bloodwitch" and "Sorin Markov", for some faster and aggressive creatures and perhaps some more carddraw. "Vampire Nocturnus" is a non-legendary so he can be on the battlefield more than once, thus up his number to 4. "Vampire Hexmage" is a good card but 2 in the mainboard and 2 in the sideboard should be enough. When using Vampire Nocturnus i would use "REad the Bones" rather than "Sign in Blood" as it allows you to scry 2 before you draw 2 cards, giving you a higher chance of 'removing', or drawing, non-coloured permanents such as lands or artifacts. You could also add some searchlands like "Evolving Wilds" (Cheap) or "Verdant Catacombs" (Expensive) to lower the number of lands you will have during a game. "Murder" can be replaced with either "Doom Blade", "Dismember", "Go for the Throat" or "Tragic Slip". All of them are faster to play and do basically the same. Some further suggestions:Vampire Lacerator ...cc1; 2/2; At the beginning of your upkeep, you lose 1 life unless an opponent has 10 or less life. Shadow Alley Denizen ...cc1; 1/1; Whenever another black creature enters the battlefield under your control, target creature gains intimidate until end of turn.Kalastria Highborn .....2; 2/2; Whenever Kalastria Highborn or another Vampire you control is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, you may pay {B}. If you do, target player loses 2 life and you gain 2 life.Viscera Seer ...cc1; 1/1; Sacrifice a creature: Scry 1. Indulgent Aristocrat ...cc1, 1/1; {2}, Sacrifice a creature: Put a +1/+1 counter on each Vampire you control.GreetingsMuktol
I haven't looked into the Aether Revolt cards yet but this seems to fit perfectly in here. Will be added for sure when the cards go online. Thanks for the suggestion.
I have translated (from German)/ enhanced a guide that revolves around deckbuilding maybe it can help you with general deckbuilding: http://www.mtgvault.com/muktol/decks/how-to-build-a-deck/Basically I would first look what creatures you have that might be dead cards in some matchups or which mechanic might not really work here. For example the 'madness' ability needs something that lets you discard cards when you want to, otherwise those creatures are rather expensive to play. Creatures without any ability are only worth playing if they're exceptionally cheap, e.g. a 2/2 or a 3/3 for 1 mana. Cards like Blood Seeker are good against decks that use many creatures (goblins, elves, and so on) but won't be so great against e.g. mono Green which plays few but big creatures. Such cards are excellent candidates for sideboarding. The next step would be to identify your key-cards. Those are cards that you want to draw and play every game, the more often, the better, and up their number to 4. Key-cards that cost more mana can be use only 3 times because you normally don't want to have it in your opening hand. When you want to provide certain abilitys like lifelink or deathtouch to creatures there are 2 ways: Artifacts (Equipment) or creature enchantments (Auras). Auras are cheaper (thus quicker) to play but have the drawback that, if you loose the enchanted creature, you'll loose all enchantments with it. Equipment is more cost intensive (thus slower) to play because you have to pay and play the equipment and pay it's equipment costs, but when you loose the equipped creature you'll loose only this card and not several others with it. Global enchantments, like Fervor, are more expansive to play as they normally affect more than one creature but they're also more expensive than Auras to play. Last I'm adding three links for vampire decks I have built or enhanced, maybe you can take Ideas from there. R/B aggro vampires, one of the first decks I have ever built, has seen some local tournamentshttp://www.mtgvault.com/muktol/decks/rb-vampire/monoB vampire deck, based on the Vampire Onslaught vampire event deck deck that was released with M12http://www.mtgvault.com/muktol/decks/vampire-onslaught-revised/W/B pauper (only common cards) vampire sacrifice deck http://www.mtgvault.com/muktol/decks/wb-paupervampire-sacrificing/
My personal approach here would be to lower the number of different creatures a little bit to increase the quantity of the rest. I would also try to lower the number of colours used here, from what I saw B/G or U/G should be enough to do what you want. GreetingsMuktol
Each decks should include a deck- and how to play description. The deck description should involve things as the basic idea why you did build this deck, if there's any story behind it, budget, certain cardchoices, especially if they deviate from common lists, legality, or any other information you can give others that will look at your deck. Best do this while you are building the deck because after some days important information's simply may not be remembered. The how to play description is crucial for beginners. An experienced or expert builder can normally take a look at your deck and see how it should work, but there also are a lot of beginners out there that maybe want to take a look at this and compare it with their own ideas/ decks. Even for more or less standard-decks there should be a description just because of this. By using deck-tags you can avoid to put unnecessary information into the deck name and thus making it too long. The tags also allows you to filter the decks you have made for a certain type, very useful if the number of decks you've build here steadily grows and grows. Why isn't this deck released? When asking for help via the forum only a few people will see it while when revealing it to all players here many more would and would probably help you. GreetingsMuktol
Well the number of (good) vampires with deathtouch is pretty limited: Vampire Nighthawk. The other two aren't really worth mentioning in my opinion. Lifelink is a little better: Child of Night, Indulgent Aristocrat, Vampire Cutthroat and Vampire Nighthawk. Question is how you want to play your vampires, there are basically two ways for B/R: Aggro or Control (I'm only speaking of modern-legal decks, standard is a different thing). When red comes into play vampire decks tend to be rather aggressive and try to run over it's opponent rather fast, red (normally) isn't the colour that takes it's time and let's you wait. Black on the other hand has enough removal and cards to slow your opponent and play big guys to finish him. For aggressive decks I wouldn't recommend cards with mana-costs bigger than 4 and these cards have to come into play and have an impact on the board the turn they are played (e.g. Vampire Nocturnus vs. Bloodline Keeper). Deathtouch/ Lifegain sounds more like a control-plan so here you want enough lands in your deck to be able to play those big guys you're drawing. The thing a slow deck has to worry about is how it lasts until it's able to finish it's opponent and how it protects it's finishers. Would you be willing to buy/ trade cards to improve this deck and if yes, what limit would you like to set for price/card or overall deck value?
Each decks should include a deck- and how to play description. The deck description should involve things as the basic idea why you did build this deck, if there's any story behind it, budget, certain cardchoices, especially if they deviate from common lists, legality, or any other information you can give others that will look at your deck. Best do this while you are building the deck because after some days important information's simply may not be remembered.The how to play description is crucial for beginners. An experienced or expert builder can normally take a look at your deck and see how it should work, but there also are a lot of beginners out there that maybe want to take a look at this and compare it with their own ideas/ decks. Even for more or less standard-decks there should be a description just because of this.By using deck-tags you can avoid to put unnecessary information into the deck name and thus making it too long. The tags also allows you to filter the decks you have made for a certain type, very useful if the number of decks you've build here steadily grows and grows.After that we can start working on the deck if you want to.GreetingsMuktol
Each decks should include a deck- and how to play description. The deck description should involve things as the basic idea why you did build this deck, if there's any story behind it, budget, certain cardchoices, especially if they deviate from common lists, legality, or any other information you can give others that will look at your deck. Best do this while you are building the deck because after some days important information's simply may not be remembered.The how to play description is crucial for beginners. An experienced or expert builder can normally take a look at your deck and see how it should work, but there also are a lot of beginners out there that maybe want to take a look at this and compare it with their own ideas/ decks. Even for more or less standard-decks there should be a description just because of this.By using deck-tags you can avoid to put unnecessary information into the deck name and thus making it too long. The tags also allows you to filter the decks you have made for a certain type, very useful if the number of decks you've build here steadily grows and grows.After that we can start working on the deck if you want to. GreetingsMuktol
With the high number of defenders I would use "Doorkeeper" as second mill-option and remove "Traumatize" instead. The problem with "Midnight Guard" is that you need 3 (4 if you want an endless interaction with "Ornithopter") components for your plan to work. And the Guard is highly risky to play simply because you have to protect him one turn and he can (and will) be hit by any removal your opponent has left. Basically I would cut some defenders to add control and carddraw spells. Another way would be to splash green to get access to defenders like "Axebane Guardian" or "Overgrown Battlement" and use spells like "Increasing Confusion" with 'pay {x}' effects. This would also enable you to use "Assault Formation" as backup-plan. One of my all-time favourites as defender is "Order of the Stars". Cheap mana-costs and flexible protection makes this card a real winner. "Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch" is another good defender that makes things for your opponent a little more complicated. GreetingsMuktol
Should the deck stay modern legal? Should it be just any legality (kitchen table)?Basically the plan to use elves to produce mana is a good one in an elf deck. The only problem is that you need a lot of elves to produce mana and cards like "Elvish Archdruid" only work with elves and only strengthen elves. The same is true for "Krenko, Mob Boss" or "Goblin Rabblemaster". So what I would do is look at cards that provide mana based on the number of creatures you control and buffs that work for all your creatures. For example "Battle Hymn" or "Dragonrage" and "Overwhelm" (or "Obelisk of Urd"). A second way to ramp with elves would be to use those that let you search for lands. I also would try to search for cards that work with all creatures and not only a single tripe, e.g. "Boggart Shenanigans" for additional "Impact Tremors" and so on. I would also use either some carddraw spells and/ or some 'pay {X}' spells to make sure you have something on your hand that you can make use of the amount of mana you have.
I'm not really a combo player, it's kind of frowned upon in our playgroup, so it's hard for me sometimes to recognise the interaction between the cards. With the description it's clear why you're keeping Tunneling Geopede. "Mina and Denn, Wildborn", which you had in the deck before, would have been able to provide trample, but without any sort of evasion (and/ or removal) it's pretty useless, I totally agree on that.
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