The_MoC

And yes, I do have a bias against tournament players. Honestly though, the only difference is that you feel tourney is the ideal format of play, and I prefer multiplayer casual. The other assumption that the driving force is winning at all costs, while my driving force is drinking with my friends and coming up with strange and interesting stuff. I'm just glad that magic isn't so limited.

Man you really do have a hard time looking at this game from any point of view that's not your own, don't you?
I've got roughly 30 or so active decks at a time. Instead of "practicing" playing one over and over again, I bounce around between them randomly, depending on whatever I feel like playing. Probably have roughly the same amount of play time per week as a spike with his one deck, minus the countless dry runs of theoretical hands that might come up. If you built your deck, you should have a pretty damn good idea of how it plays. This practice dry run stuff is the outcome of net-decking. Build something that everyone says is good and now you wanna figure out why? Is that the driving force?

It's awesome, because I was just brainstorming with my old roommate about doing one of these. It'd be like one of those old "choose your adventure" books that were popular when I was a kid.
Would you like to..
A- Go through the door - turn to page 57 - die a horrible painful death
B- leave it and continue down the hallway - turn to page 154 - die an excruciatingly painful death

Talked about naming it Choose Your Destiny
Or some other such nonsense

Uh ohs. Fun Drainer 2000 activated.

Mostly it's the net-decking that bothers me. If you trounce me with a deck of your own design, then hey, good on you. But killing me with someone else's deck? I don't see that as a win for you. Credit where credit is due.
Spikes are the min/maxers of magic. plus they usually have horrid personalities, so nobody wants to play with them anyway. They have a unique skill in draining all of the fun out of the game.

Dont bother Couch, dude's just a negative Nancy. If it's not made for tournament players, he regards it as utter nonsense. Ironic, I know.

Blazing Salvo if you're really trying to make them kill themselves by making bad choices.

I second the Staggershock motion over Bump in the Night any day. Granted, since it's damage, it can be prevented, but the fact that its an ascension turn on by itself more than makes up for it.

Why go one sided? Boros Reckoner, stuffy doll, phytohydra if you wanna go naya. Spitemare.. all sorts of fun stuff.
Basically do this http://www.mtgvault.com/themoc/decks/budget-global-burn/
And take it out of budget.

I like the bridge! That would go great with a Madness deck. And yea, the synergy with Guiltfeeder is nuts. I've got a Noetic Scales discard deck in the works that I'm loving the concept of, just need to get the finer details worked out. Guiltfeeder may not be a bad addition to that either.

Honestly, attributing yourself as a Spike in a card game is setting yourself up for disappointment. If you put so much stock into winning every time at all costs, you're gonna rage out every time you get mana screwed, or pull no creatures. There's an element of chance in this game, you can't take it seriously and make it out alive every time. Statistics are against you.

That's disconcerting.. You in the wrong neighborhood, foo!

I dunno, you tell me. You're the one posting on the topic. If you truly didn't care, you wouldn't be here.

Thanks everyone. I feel that justice was served at that Time Spiral Pre-release tournanent. As for my local tourney scene, I'm not sure what the player base is like, but I assume the tourney crowd can't all be people of that caliber.
A-1
B-3
C-4

Be careful, as Drgn made an excellent example, this deck garners a lot of hate. Expect multiple kill/burn spells coming your way early game. I don't recommend doing any 1v1 with it, just too slow to set up.

I must admit, I lean pretty heavily to the Johnny side of things. However, that's mostly attributed to the format I play. I exclusively play multiplayer, 4 man+ free-for-all, and these cute little tourney decks don't cut the mustard outside of 1v1. I used to frequent the tourney scene long ago (invasion-ravnica blocks) but I've found that most tournament players annoy the hell out of me. Actually the main reason I stopped playing tourney was because I superman punched a dude across the table at a pre-release, which, understandably, got me kicked out. But really, sitting across from a guy who constantly says "say go" your entire turn is only going to work on the timid nerds. I'm not that breed of nerd, as he found out. Not trying to downplay the importance of the 1v1 tournament meta, just explaining that it's not my cup of tea.
As for 'free' lifegain, using original ravnica bounce lands in conjunction with life gain lands, or perhaps the expensive Firemane Angel could be an option. Even using the bounce lands early to keep your hand high, making you discard the Angel at the end of turn 2 is an optional play.

While guiltfeeder is awesome and strangely I didn't know that it existed, sadly that puts it at 22.57. The aim is to stay under 20$.

Beat me to the punch again, North. I was in the middle of constructing a devo budget deck last night. Hadn't considered the Veridian Emissary or Fungal Sprouting though. Consider Mudbutton Torchrunners or Boggart Shenanigans?

Ah, I see. I was thinking of only using it as offense.

Act of aggression can be a bit pricey, have you considering Traitorous Instinct, Traitorous Blood, or good ol' Act of Treason? Or are you running it specifically for its option of colorless?