A Challenge

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Atifexe
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A Challenge

Postby Atifexe » 28 Jul 2014, 15:53

To all aspiring and experienced deckbuilders, I have a challenge for you.

My girlfriend has a fantastic colourless Myr deck. Its mana base, predictably, is a full playset of Urzatron, Cloudpost, and Glimmerpost. It has Galvanizer, Palladium, Turbine, Matrix, Battlesphere, Lodestone... Everything you could want in a deck designed to go infinite as quickly as possible. When I first met her, she'd play no other deck, but has since branched out, allowing this deck to take the role of 'the one to beat'. It's still her favorite, so giving her opportunities to play it is well worth it.

The challenge is, in concept, simple: Build a mono-coloured deck that can race this Myr deck in terms of token production.

Some Criteria - Click to Expand
  • Using split cost cards is fine, provided they can be played exclusively using mana of the deck's primary colour (so, for example, Rhys the Redeemed is fine in either a green or a white deck.)
  • Off-colour cards may not be splashed for (added solely for the sake of clarity).
  • No cards from Unhinged or Unglued.
  • No cards that haven't been printed or reprinted since 4th Edition.
  • No special promo cards that were never printed in a regular set.


This is for casual play, so don't worry about using obscure cards or ones that would be unplayable in competitive environments - if it fits in this niche, it's fair game.

The top requirement here is have fun! I look forward to seeing what you folks come up with.
Kapol
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Kapol » 28 Jul 2014, 16:40

Does it have to be tokens, or can it just be general threats? Because I feel like mono-green devotion might be able to race it. Then again, I don't know much non-standard gas to give it besides Gaea's Cradle if that'd work.

If it does have to be tokens, likely some kind of Goblin deck built around Krenko.
Atifexe
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Atifexe » 28 Jul 2014, 18:54

The goal is most definitely a token generating deck, rather than another mechanic. =)
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Volafortis
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Volafortis » 28 Jul 2014, 18:55

Hmmm...

Well, let's go find ourselves the best reusable token engine ever printed.

4x Sprout Swarm

Yeah, that looks like a nice start.

Now, why don't we drop that mana cost?

4x Emerald Medallion
4x Helm of Awakening
4x Semblance Anvil

Now, to ramp into those cost reduction rocks:

4x Elvish Mystic
4x Llanowar Elves

And, so we don't need as much cost reduction:
4x Doubling Season
1x Wort, the Raidmother

Something to find our rocks:
4x Ancient Stirrings

A few backup plans:

1x Endless Swarm
1x Nemata, Grove Guardian
1x Garruk, Primal Hunter

And some ramp lands:
4x Ancient Tomb

+ Being a jerk for value, because why not?
4x Strip Mine

-----------------------------------------

And that gives us:

    Creatures:
    4x Elvish Mystic
    4x Llanowar Elves
    1x Wort, the Raidmother
    1x Nemata, Grove Guardian

    Sorceries:
    4x Sprout Swarm
    4x Ancient Stirrings
    1x Endless Swarm

    Artifacts:
    4x Emerald Medallion
    4x Helm of Awakening
    4x Semblance Anvil

    Enchantments:
    4x Doubling Season

    Planeswalkers:
    1x Garruk, Primal Hunter

    Lands:
    4x Ancient Tomb
    4x Strip Mine
    16x Forest

There's certainly a faster/more efficient way to do it, but this will most definitely be fun.

Also, Strip Mine only squeaks in under the 4th Edition rule because of a From the Vault printing, so if that's not kosher, I'll understand. (But if that rule exists for cost reasons, the 4th Edition Strip Mine is only 4 dollars or so.)

Edit: Also, you'll basically need to mull until you hit Sprout Swarm. Sorry about that.
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Re: A Challenge

Postby tamaness » 29 Jul 2014, 06:12

1x Sprout Swarm
1x Vitaspore Thallid
1x Psychotrope Thallid
4x Fecundity
4x Doubling Season
1x Saproling Symbiosis
1x Mycoloth
1x Overrun
2x Heartbeat of Spring
2x Phyrexian Altar
2x Ashnod's Altar
4x Parallel Lives
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Elvish Mystic
2x Birds of Paradise
2x Nemata, Grove Guardian
4x Jungle Basin
4x Ancient Tomb
16x Forest

I like your List, Volfortis, but I'd run it like this, as it can draw your deck and produce infinite hasty saproling tokens by turn five with a perfect draw.

Token doublers:
4x Parallel Lives
4x Doubling Season
These enable the production of many, many tokens; more than 1:1.

Token Generators:
1x Sprout Swarm
1x Saproling Symbiosis
2x Nemata, Grove Guardian
I dropped this to one swarm, as we'll be drawing into it, and one symbiosis, as it can be cast at instant speed to prevent an alpha strike from the opponent, especially without durdling around with convoke. Sprout Swarm is in because it's broken as hell with multiple doublers out, and Nemata is a good mana sink.

Mana engine
2x Heartbeat of Spring
2x Phyrexian altar
2x Ashnod's Altar
We need mana to dump into spells, and sac outlets to use as part of our draw engine. Heartbeat is a good backup plan, allowing us to use lands more efficiently

Card draw engine
1x Psychotrope Thallid
4x Fecundity
Fecundity reads, once you've a sac outlet out, "sacrifice a creature: you may draw a card." We'll be using this to draw through to the rest of our deck.

Mana dorks:
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Elvish Mystic
2x Birds of Paradise
The proportions can be altered, but 10 1-mana dorks is pretty much essential to getting out fast: they can be sacrificed to altars after they tap for mana, too, once you start to go off.

1x Mycoloth
Sometimes you can't get there in one turn, so here's your backup plan.

1x Overrun
1x Vitaspore Thallid
What's better than a swarm of 1/1s? A hasty trampling swarm of 4/4s!

I'll try to keep it Legacy-legal, so I'll skip the Strip Mine, but if you want to use them, swap out the
4x Jungle Basin
for 4x Strip Mine

4x Ancient Tomb is nice, but they can easily be swapped for forests

16x Forest should get you the rest of the way there.

Tappedout.net link

I run Ghave tokenswarm in Commander, so I've got a pretty good idea of how to get there.

Ideal hand:

Turn 1:
Forest, Mana dork
Turn 2: forest, heartbeat of spring
Turn 3: Forest, mana dork, Ashnod's altar, fecundity
Turn 4: Float mana off of mana dorks, sac to A's altar, draw two cards, Forest, cast doubling season, cast Swarm with buyback, sac to A's altar, draw cards, cast P. Altar and another Doubling Season.
Turn 5: Swarm/buyback, sac to altars to draw cards, play forest, play Nemata, generate Infinite tokens while casting your entire deck. Cast Vitaspore Thallid, sacrifice half of your thallids to give the rest haste, and then cast overrun. Win hard.

I'd take my time going off, though. Probably turn 6 or 7. I think there's a faster way to get there, though.
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Ricardo Anderson
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Ricardo Anderson » 29 Jul 2014, 07:12

If you want tokens going almost infinite you have to go Krenko!
The mob boss.
And I know this for a fact, because my girlfriend has a myr deck that is essencially the same as your girlfriend's.
Except she also plays myr smith and myr propagator.
Also in my deck : krenko, illusionist bracers, isochron sceptre, krenkos command and sometimes even dragon fodder, even though its a functional re-print of krenkos command.
Have fun BTW! :-)
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Atifexe
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Atifexe » 29 Jul 2014, 08:07

I like the suggestions so far!

That said, the estimated price tag on the deck you suggested, tamaness, is really really steep. I figured it'd be up there, but had guessed it'd be lower. :P Fortunately, I have a number of the cards already, so it should be possible to bring the cost down a touch.

A couple of points I didn't mention in the first post - my girlfriend and I have a sort of unspoken agreement that land destruction is to be avoided, so if I did run Strip Mine it wouldn't be more than a two-of. Similarly, though it hasn't come up yet, board wipes are also cards we try to avoid using. In this case, it'd hurt me as much as it'd hurt her, and I'd prefer to avoid using any regardless.

So, we've seen a couple of really cool green deck lists so far (which I think I'll be proxying up this afternoon for initial testing), and only a couple suggestions of red. I'd love to see a list or two using other colours, too, if anyone has any inspiration. Blue in particular is one I'm trying to figure out, and I'm not sure it has sufficient support.

Thanks for the input, everyone! Please, keep going!
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Ricardo Anderson
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Ricardo Anderson » 29 Jul 2014, 08:52

Blue?
I wanna say Talrand would be a good bet to build around. :-)
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Asthanius » 29 Jul 2014, 10:41

Did somebody say Mono Black Zombie Infestation?

47x Swamp
4x Barren Moor
4x Reliquary Tower
1x Gempalm Polluter
2x Zombie Infestation
2x Ad Nauseam

Mull until you get Ad Nauseam in hand. If you get Zombie Infestation down before turn 5, cast Ad Nasueam. Otherwise, wait another turn so that you can use your land drop for Reliquary Tower. Either way, you want to get everything in your hand aside from 1 or 2 cards so you can draw next turn. However, if you get Gempalm Polluter in hand, have two open black mana, and at least one card left in your library, you can win right there by cycling it after making a zombie horde.
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Volafortis
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Volafortis » 29 Jul 2014, 10:52

In blue, you can use Talrand with the Archeomancer (or Mnemonic Well)+Ghostly Flicker Engine, and that's right off the top of my head. I'm sure there are others. You just need to find a way to make Ghostly Flicker free, or produce infinite mana. Actually, I feel like Blue has better support for this, since it has the best ways to find the combo pieces.

    The Combo Bits:
    4x Talrand, Sky Summoner
    4x Cloud of Faeries
    4x Archeomancer
    2x Mnemonic Wall
    4x Ghostly Flicker
    4x High Tide

    Dig:
    4x Ponder
    4x Brainstorm
    4x Preordain
    4x Mystical Tutor

    Lands:
    22x Island

The Combo is this:

Have Cloud of Faeries, Talrand, and either Archeomancer or Mnemonic Wall on the battlefield. You'll want High Tide and Ghostly Flicker in hand, and 3 untapped islands. Tap one Island to cast High Tide, and tap the two remaining Islands to produce UUUU. You can then cast Ghostly Flicker For 2U, flickering Archeomancer and Cloud of Faeries, Untapping 2 Islands, and returning the Ghostly Flicker to your hand. Tap the 2 Islands again, UUUUU, Ghostly Flicker, rinse, repeat.

This will net you not only infinite 2/2 Drakes from Talrand, but infinite Mana. Typically we'd run Blue Sun's Zenith or something like it (Brain Freeze) to win with the infinite mana and Storm Count, but, in this case, the infinite mana will just be sitting there, unless you decide to do something with it.
Atifexe
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Atifexe » 31 Jul 2014, 20:36

So, no actual testing has occurred yet - responsibilities like making dinner kind of took over. That said, these are all really interesting ideas. Thank you everyone for contributing, and a special thanks to Volafortis for the blue deck!

Currently, there are two colours that haven't been addressed: Red and White. Red would be easy with a Goblin list, so to make that one a little different, I'd like to see an attempt at a red Elemental token list.

White has lots of token options, and I'm not sure how many of them can really go infinite. If there are any such combos, I'd love to find out about them!
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Volafortis
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Volafortis » 31 Jul 2014, 20:58

Okay, well, a red Elemental token maker, that's easy enough:

4x Young Pyromancer

Some infinite mana:
3x Basalt Monolith
3x Rings of Brighthearth

Some buyback for repeated Pyromancer triggers:
2x Haze of Rage

Some dig:
4x Faithless Looting
4x Manamorphose
4x Act on Impulse
2x Wild Guess

Some Rituals to speed it up, (and play with Act on Impulse)
4x Rite of Flame
3x Pyretic Ritual
3x Desperate Ritual
3x Seething Song
2x Past in Flames

19x Mountain

White does have a lot of options, and they don't require you to go all in on one card, like blue and Red Elementals do! I might put a list together tomorrow, but I think I'm a bit too tired to look up a bunch of white cards tonight. (all-in on one card is actually a lot easier to think up the build)
Atifexe
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Re: A Challenge

Postby Atifexe » 02 Aug 2014, 16:50

Alright, so here's my attempt at a white token race deck:

First and foremost, let's pick a focus for the deck. I'm thinking enchantments, for a later interaction:

    2x Heliod, God of the Sun
    4x God-Favored General

And, of course, the logical card to combine with those:

    4x Ajani's Chosen

Of course, God-Favored General really likes having ways to tap that aren't suicidally attacking into a giant wall of ever-growing Myr - especially in the event of Heliod providing Vigilance:

    4x Archery Training
    2x Diversionary Tactics

And, of course, a few decent finishers:

    2x Seraph of the Masses
    1x True Conviction
    2x Sanctified Charge

We still have some room. What's missing? Well, some way to deal with an infinitely large Lodestone would be incredibly useful:

    1x Shieldmage Elder
    1x Circle of Protection: Artifacts

We're still vulnerable to an early rush. How about:

    2x Wall of Glare
    2x Wall of Essence

And, we need some Acceleration. White's pretty slim on that, so I feel like we may want to look at lands for the answer:

    1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
    1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
    2x Cabal Coffers

And why not make use of something the Myr themselves are doing?

    4x Gold Myr
    2x Palladium Myr
    3x Myr Galvanizer

I have no doubt that this build can be optimized, and I'd like to hear some suggestions in that regard. For now, here's what the finished deck list looks like:

--Creatures--
    2x Heliod, God of the Sun
    4x God-Favored General
    4x Ajani's Chosen
    2x Seraph of the Masses
    1x Shieldmage Elder
    2x Wall of Glare
    2x Wall of Essence
    4x Gold Myr
    2x Palladium Myr
    3x Myr Galvanizer

--Spells--
    4x Archery Training
    2x Diversionary Tactics
    1x True Conviction
    2x Sanctified Charge
    1x Circle of Protection: Artifacts

--Lands--
    1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
    1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
    2x Cabal Coffers
    20x Plains

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