ToastasaurusRex

Glad they've been useful, hope they lead to some really fun games.

Hey, you accidentally have 2 copies of lifeblood hydra. Happens to me all the time with commander decks.

Sweet deck, using it for inspiration for my own Muldrotha Brew, thanks for sharing.

Because I'm shooting for these more as lessons, I'm trying to keep the power level from being too terribly strong, and I feel like Sign in Blood is pushing it more than I want to. Blue is supposed to be the best color at drawing cards, and I want to preserve that when comparing these teaching decks to eachother, which gets a little awkward when you're comparing 4cmc instant Heirglyphic Illumination (which has been my go-to card draw spell over 3cmc sorcery Divination) to a 2cmc spell that is sorcery, but has the same effect at the end of the day. There's a bit of tension there with Read the Bones and Succumb to Temptation already, and I'd rather not push it.

Thank you very much for the suggestion though, I appreciate that.

Other than Certarch and Pyramid (which takes mana to use anyways, so not as much gain there), this deck doesn't gain a ton from untaping, other than pseudo-Vigilance, which is nice, but I'd rather not have artifacts that do stone-cold nothing unless they're enchanted.

Solid suggestion, but I'm not sure it works here.

I mean, I lean away from combat tricks just because I always feel like their utility is fairly limited. If your goal is to kill an enemy creature, there are real removal spells that are better for that. At least Turn to Frog is less conditional.

Hm. I've been avoiding Soulbond in these just because it's a mechanic you have to read two or three times to figure out what the hell it does, but I do like this deck- With Soulbond as the only really complicated thing going on in it, even if the mono-color means that you don't get much in the way of fun and interesting Soulbonds, that makes it the focus, so the deck can be a lesson about this more-complex mechanic.

I like it, it seems like a solid deck for purposes like these. If you want, slap a Teaching Deck tag on it, people are free to do that if they think they have a deck that you want people to find when they're looking for decks like my series.

Nice work, I'll see what Soulbond stuff I can make.

Do you mean as part of the teaching decks series?

I mean, I guess I'm open to requests, sure. What do you mean by "Good" that you don't do? That they're not janky enough? Because some of the combo decks are very not consistent. What are you looking for that you haven't seen in any of the teaching decks, and/or what are you seeing that you're not into?

If you're trying to be the person teaching new players? Depends. My assumption when making this is that the goal is that you have one or more new players you're trying to teach, you build and bring a couple of these decks (hence the budget constraint being so tight) and mix-and-match a little, so everyone gets to try out different archetypes and different matchups. That would mean that you'd probably be playing whatever's left over.

Which deck I, personally, would want to use? This one seems like a solid candidate, but I'm a bit of a midrange junkie. Also, all of the "Advanced Lessons" are decks basically intended for a moderately experienced instructor to pilot so they can show new players what they do, rather than decks new players could pilot and make sense of easily.

If you want to provide constructive criticism and suggest what you would do differently, please do so. Beating around the bush does not help me improve these decks.

I mean, it's a good red removal spell that's low-budget, and exactly the kind of card new players should learn with to understand how magic works. It's also slightly cheaper than lightning storm, or the same price depending on which version of lightning storm you put in the deck.

In this particular case, it's so you can cast it an instant-speed during your opponent's turn to still be able to interact with their board without flipping your werewolves back to human form.

Restoration angel is $2-3 a piece, in what possible world is that under my $15 budget?

Don't get me wrong, I'd 100% play it if I could afford it, but that is not in the budget.

Yeah, though a 0/1 isn't much of a blocker. Certarch does sorta end the "Blank all but their best creature removal" plan, but I kinda like the deck not Ensouling actual Creatures unless you sideboard in the Hovermyrs. Ornithopter would be there if I were trying to make the best deck, but I don't think it's what I want for the teaching deck so much. Though I could 100% cut those Implements of Malice for it and it'd be really easy.

Ooh, I like Certarch. I should double-check through all the metalcraft cards to see if there are any that would be good here.

Oh, and Crystal Chimes in the sideboard is basically exactly what I've tried to look for for more than one deck other than this, but is absolutely fantastic here as a means to get your enchantments back.

Tried Voltaic Key previously, way over budget (EDH staples are like that often), and Sol Ring is WAY higher power level than I want here, in addition to being over budget.

Ghostly Touch is sweet, but because all my 'tap for value' artifacts cost mana to use, I'm not sure how much value I'll get off of it. Plus, I'm not sure I want to set up combos that are already reliant on me getting an Ensouled Artifact up, I'd rather focus my cards on helping the deck get there, because I think that's a lot scarier for this deck than what it does once it already has a powerful creature on the board

I like Pacification Array as an Idea for this deck, because it does a thing that this deck wants, ie protecting itself, but it's both the best version of that effect I could find on an artifact.... and not very good. I wish they did colored artifacts more often, because a version of Pacification Array that actually cost blue mana would probably end up being fairly strong and useful.

Yeah, for some reason I thought this was gonna have a much higher mana curve. But some mana rocks would be nice to be able to use Sunset Pyramid. I'll start shopping around for cheap artifacts again, you're right.

Hell, I set up the lands expecting this to be a proper midrange deck, I should probably cut down to just 20 lands, which'll give more room for a balance of stuff.

Yeah, my problem was just that the only free Artifact that was in-budget was Ornithopter, and they just feel like they're useless if they're not an Ensoul Target, where at least the artifacts in the mainboard do *something*. Particularly because, the way I'm doing this series, with them as teaching decks, the sideboard is less "changes for a best-of-3" and more "The extra cards they have to customize their deck with", so I dunno how practical the purposes you outlined are.

That said- I clearly realized that I did not know how to build this deck as I was making it, so I'm probably doing it all wrong.

You just cited a lot of good reasons for Arashin Cleric to only be in the sideboard to come in against agro. You know, when lifegain IS good, so long as it comes alongside something that does influence the board, like a cheap body that can block passably. If they board it in when it doesn't help, that's how they learn that lifegain sucks. I stand by Arashin Cleric in the sideboard. Arashin Cleric saw a reasonable amount of Standard Sideboard play back in the day for exactly that purpose- It's not a garbage card, it's actually quite reasonable.

Yes, I'm definitely thinking 1v1 games, in large part because my experience of learning and casual play was mostly 1v1 back in highschool. My main model for how these decks would be used would be a more experienced player trying to teach a friend or family member who's trying to learn, or a group of friends or a club of something, and does so by saying "Okay, everyone chip in $20-$30, and I'll throw together a bunch of decks that we can experiment with and learn how to play together."

That's why I emphasized them as budget decks- so you can build a whole set without spending $200 on it. That's why I'm willing to make a lower-quality deck to fit to that $15 price point, even if I'll occasionally get fed up with trying to fit under it and make a more expensive version (This happened, then I found out the lands were hiking the price, deleted it when the $15 version was able to be 90% of everything I ever wanted from it). And yeah, they kinda do come out as poorer decks for the players who actually receive them, but the trade-off there is that at least the new players get to pick one or two out of a couple of decks that they actually want and like, and can start upgrading from there if they want to. It's a bit of a Quantity-over-quality approach, but I'd rather give people choices between bad decks than stick them with a better deck they don't actually like.

For the record- If you want to bring in your own approach, to make more expensive decks that have more useable cards in them, then you're free to make your own series of teaching decks. Use the same tag I do so people find yours when they're trying to search up mine, throw yours into the bunch, why the hell not? They aren't exactly competing. Having different options if someone actually tries to put some of these decks to use would be wonderful.

I don't think there's such a thing as a casual deck that runs Soul Ring, but you do you, fam.

I appreciate that, thank you.