Dark Decks: No Blue Vengeance

Hello Everyone!

As Dark Ascension comes closer and closer to its official release, I have been thinking a lot about where Burning Vengeance can go from here. Clearly the deck can be good, however it struggled to keep up with the high impact tempo-oriented metgame. I don't know how Dark Ascension will change the metagame overall, although cards like Grafdiggers cage are going to be a thorn in our sides.

Regardless, I don't know where, but I was thinking about doing something drastic and not play blue in this deck that so many people want to just make straight UR. The theory is that instead of drawing infinite cards, we will be able to play a ton of cards that effect the board that gain incremental value. My new line of thinking was absolutely influenced by seeing this amazing deck. Basically you dredge/discard a Haakon into your graveyard, and then cast it, which allows you to cast nameless inversion from your graveyard. Just those 2 cards together is a killing machine, but when you add a Burning Vengeance or 2, you also have a blisteringly fast win condition.

By not playing blue, we lose Snapcaster Mage, counterspells, think twice, and a couple flashbacks (though we may play Desperate Ravings still). Frankly, we only ever wanted Snapcaster for the counterspells, which aren't too good right now anyways, so it's perfectly fine in my book. Also, think twice literally does nothing. It's just a mana-specific cycling that you can flash back. Here's my initial thoughts at the deck:

4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
2x Gideon Jura
1x Wurmcoil Engine
4x Burning Vengeance

2x Burning Oil
3x Geistflame
1x Devil's Play
4x Faithless Looting
4x Lingering Souls
1x Sever the Bloodline
1x Shattered Perception
1x Increasing Devotion

2x Whipflare
2x Day of Judgement

4x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Isolated Chapel
4x Clifftop Retreat
4x Evolving Wilds
3x Mountain
3x Swamp
2x Plains

Sideboard options:
Ratchet Bomb
Ray of Revelation (will need adjusted manabase)
Ancient Grudge (will need adjusted manabase)
Timely Reinforcements
Elesh Norn
Sun Titan
Grave Titan
Doom Blade/GffT
Nihil Spellbomb
Oblivion Ring

This deck is still fairly raw, but I like the direction it's headed in. Having 10 planeswalkers makes this deck very interesting in that it gains significant advantages every single turn that passes in addition to the shenanegans that BV causes. While I did initially dismiss it, Lingering Souls is SWEET in this deck. First off, it only costs 2 to flashback, so it makes it easier to flashback a ton of cards in 1 turn to burn a player/creature out with BV. Also, it affects the board, so it really helps buy us more time to develop our plan and get our 'walkers online. One card that seems especially sweet as a cute 1-of in this deck is Shattered Perception. Another card I initially dismissed, this seems like it can lead to some amazing games where you can keep a hand of something like 3x land, Shattered Perception, Burning Vengeance, 2 flashback spells. and set up some amazing plays with the turn 4 perception drawing basically anything because you discarded gas in addition to drawing several other cards.

One thing that is important to note is that we are *tears up* not getting any more flashback spells in Avacyn Restored. I conveniently can't find the article, but I believe Mark Rosewater was all like "flashback don't make sense flavor-wise, so we don't need it in Avacyn Restored!" And now we get no more fun toys. Honestly, I really don't know why they need a large set to finish off innistrad block. How is Avacyn returning (speculations on that later) worth a large set, while Phyrexia winning the war over Mirrodin and changing the face of the plane, in addition to how mana works, not?

Regardless, with some tuning I can see some merit to this deck going forwards! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

Dark Decks: Undying Pod

Hello everybody!

So an hour ago, I was not expecting to be writing this article. However, When I came into toys and saw John making a Birthing Pod deck, I helped him make some finishing touches, and we played a few games. As it turns out, Birthing Pod + Undying = Aggro as piss! Here's the deck we wound up putting together:

4x Birds of Paradise
2x Young Wolf
3x Strangleroot Geist
2x Viridian Elf
3x Blade Splicer
2x Fiend Hunter
2x Solemn Simulacrum
1x Phyrexian Metamorph
1x Hero of Bladehold
2x Acidic Slime
1x Voropede
1x Archon of Justice
1x Wurmcoil Engine
1x Sun Titan
1x Elesh Norn

4x Birthing Pod
2x Garruk Relentless
3x Green Sun's Zenith

4x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
2x Gavony Township
6x Plains
8x Forest

Birthing Pod is a very awesome strategy that honestly I'm surprised isn't more popular right now. With a Birthing Pod in play, EVERY SINGLE CREATURE is a must answer or die card! We wanted to keep our mana simple and just play 2 colors because Strangleroot Geist at GG and Fiend Hunter at 1WW and Voropede at 2GGG can't ever be in the same deck as Skaab Ruinator at 1UU or Skinrender at 2BB. Besides, this deck is already pretty good, why mess up what already works?

Basically, Strangleroot Geist is stupidly good! In case you didn't realize, this guy is going to kick your face in if you aren't prepared. Playing against him made me realize how bad it is to be a control player right now. Now only is there no great control cards, but even if there was, Undying laughs at you, and you have to play cards like Grafdigger's Cage just to make things get back to being fair, at which point you still have to make sure you can stabilize.

But not just Strangelroot Geist is sick, Young Wolf and Voropede are ballers too! I'm honestly very excited about this deck, and would honestly consider playing it at some future FNM. Just play dudes, swing, and then upgrade into a bigger scarier dude. That's how we play!

That's all I have for today, until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

Dark Decks: All of the Tokens!

Hello everyone!

Everyone is anticipating a tokens deck to be a deck as soon as Sorin and Lingering Souls get printed. So I am going to share 3 decklists today! Straight Wb tokens, and then Wb splashing blue and splashing green:

White/Black:

3x Fiend Hunter
4x Champion of the Parish
4x Hero of Bladehold
4x Doomed Traveler

4x Intangible Virtue
2x Oblivion Ring

1x Go for the Throat
4x Lingering Souls
3x Increasing Devotion
4x Gather the Townsfolk
4x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

3x Vault of the Archangel

4x Isolated Chapel
4x Evolving Wilds
10x Plains
2x Swamp

Sideboard:
4x Stony Silence
4x Celestial Purge
4x Timely Reinforcements
3x Leonin Relic-Warder



Black/White/Green:

2x Doomed Traveler
4x Champion of the Parish
2x Hero of Bladehold
4x Mayor of Avabruck
2x Fiend Hunter
2x Geist Honored Monk

3x Garruk Relentless
4x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad

4x Intangible Virtue
2x Oblivion Ring

2x Lingering Souls
4x Gather the Townsfolk
2x Beast Within

2x Gavony Township
4x Isolated Chapel
4x Evolving Wilds
4x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Forest
1x Razorverge Thicket
4x Sunpetal Grove
2x Vault of the Archangel

Sideboard:
4x Stony Silence
4x Celestial Purge
4x Timely Reinforcements
3x Fresh Meat



Black/White/Blue

2x Doomed Traveler
4x Delver of Secrets
2x Geist of Saint Traft
4x Drogskol Captain

2x Midnight Haunting
4x Lingering Souls
4x Vapor Snag
4x Mana Leak
4x Ponder

3x Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
4x Intangible Virtue

2x Vault of the Archangel
4x Isolated Chapel
4x Evolving Wilds
4x Plains
1x Swamp
1x Moorland Haunt
1x Island
2x Seachrome Coast
4x Glacial Fortress

Sideboard:
4x Stony Silence
4x Timely Reinforcements
3x Oblivion Ring
4x Celestial Purge

All of these lists are a little rough naturally, but I can see potential with all of them. I get the feeling that the blue splash makes the deck go smaller, staying BW is mid-sized, and then going with a green splash makes you bigger. Obviously a lot more testing is needed to make them optimal, but I don't actually think any one deck is strictly inferior to the others. The Stoney Silences in the sideboard are there specifically for Ratchet Bomb, which simply ruins a token maker's day.

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

Dark Decks: Dredge

Hello everyone!

Ever since Innistrad came out, people have been casually talking about a UG mill yourself deck, but the deck never took off. However, in Dark Ascension, we have some awesome new enablers, so the deck might turn out to be a possibility!

4x Birds of Paradise
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Screeching Skaab
4x Splinterfright
3x Kessig Cagebreakers

4x Forbidden Alchemy
3x Mulch
4x Tracker's Instincts
1x Gnaw to the Bone
4x Thought Scour
3x Postmortem Lunge

4x Hinterland Harbor
3x Woodland Cemetery
1x Swamp
4x Island
6x Forest
4x Evolving Wilds

Sideboard:
3x Aether Adept
2x Skaab Ruinator
1x Spider Spawning
4x Mental Misstep
3x Gnaw to the Bone
2x Naturalize

This deck is a ton of fun to play, however the major thing holding it back is that it's a non-interactive glass cannon. A timely Doom Blade or Vapor Snag can stop you on your critical turn, and we don't have much to slow down the opponents with. Also, with only 7 real threats in the deck, this deck is a durdling champion!

I personally won't be sleeving this deck up any time soon, although if I were to, this is definitely where I would start. But that's all I have time for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

Dark Decks: Zombies

Hello Everyone!


Wizards of the Coast just spoiled the entirety of Dark Ascension, which you can find here! Naturally as I was looking at the set, I had my head in the brewery the whole time thinking which cards could do best in almost any deck. Over the course of this week, I will be posting several raw decklists as I think of them that could become viable in the post-Dark Ascension Standard. To start things off, let's take a look a look at the next potential Zombies deck!


4x Gravecrawler
4x Diregraf Ghoul
4x Highborn Ghoul
2x Walking Corpse
4x Geralf's Messenger
4x Cemetery Reaper
4x Diregraf Captain

2x Despise
3x Distress
2x Tragic Slip
1x Go for the Throat
4x Liliana of the Veil

14x Swamp
4x Darkslick Shores
4x Drowned Catacombs

Sideboard options:
Curse of Death's Hold
Ratchet Bomb
Nihil Spellbomb
Skinrender
Vapor Snag
Phyrexian Crusader
Mana Leak
Ghoulraiser

When Gravecrawler was spoiled, I started getting very excited at the possibility of a very aggressive mono-black deck emerging with 8 2/x 1 drops! Unfortunately, the deck is a little lacking in the 2 drop slot - we have a bear, and an intimidate bear..... cool.... However, at 3 mana the deck is busting at the seams with good stuff! 8 Lords? Liliana? Anti-Kitchen Finks? Because of the 16 quality 3 drops, I made a point to have the rest of the deck be focused at maximizing value from the 1 and 2 drop slots. 3 spot removal + 4 liliana may be a little too low on the removal spectrum, but this deck seems like it should be the beatdown in most matchups. Also, 5 discard spells may not be what we want, but this is what I intuitively feel is correct, and I will let testing take it from there.

The sideboard is not worth putting specific numbers into yet, simply because we don't know what decks need to be sideboarded against yet! However, I wanted to pull cards that have potential depending on where the meta goes. BW/x tokens is looking to be a popular archaetype, so we have Ratchet Bomb and Curse of Death's Hold for the tokens. In an attrition based match, Ghoulraiser can help us get ahead of the 1-for-1s. In a tempo based match, Skinrender and Vapor Snag are our friends. Against control, Mana Leak will help us counter their trump card and give us just enough time to finish them off (although is should be noted that with Gravecrawler, Geralf's Messenger, and Cemetery Reaper, we might simply not care about Day of Judgement at all!). Nihil Spellbomb seems better than Grafdigger's Cage to me because it doesn't hurt your own grave recursion, and the spellbomb draws a card. And finally, Phyrexian Crusader seems good against RDW or against a humans deck.

That's all I have for today! Stay tuned, as I wouldn't be surprised if I churned out new decks every day! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

Standard Rocks!

Hello Everyone!

Yesterday, a wave of cards were spoiled, and among them included this card:

Grim Backwoods
Land
Tap: Add 1 to your mana pool
2GB Tap Sacrifice a Creature: Draw a Card

At first I was like - meh, but then I thought about its potential applications and I was like

Lands that draw you cards? Yeah! Lands that trigger death on command? Yeah! Sign me up!

The first thing that come into my http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=1527297850651993869mind when thinking about the applications for this card was Glissa, the Traitor + Solemn Simulacrum. With the 3 cards in play you can sacrifice the Solemn to draw 2 cards, and then when a creature dies on your side of the field (maybe because of that Doom Blade you just drew) you get the Solemn back in hand, which will then allow you to replay it and get tons of value.

A few weeks ago I was working with Defo on a GB Smallpox deck, and I think this card would work fantastically in that deck! Using creatures like Perilous Myr and Viridian Emissary that gain additional value when they die is huge with Grim Backwoods, and Perilous Myr + Glissa is just amazing!

The deck is still rough, but this is how I would build it post Dark Ascension:

4x Perilous Myr
4x Viridian Emissary
4x Glissa, the Traitor
4x Solemn Simulacrum
4x Bloodgift Demon


2x Despise
4x Tragic Slip
2x Smallpox
4x Liliana of the Veil
4x Garruk Relentless

4x Woodland Cemetery
3x Grim Backwoods
10x Swamp
7x Forest

Some other cards to consider for the deck include Beast Within, Mimic Vat, Ratchet Bomb, Acidic Slime, Distress, and Doom Blade/GftT. Depending on where the metagame goes, I can see this deck being very good as it should have a very good matchup against creature heavy decks like BWx tokens and Wx Humans. I don't see any cards in the Dark Ascension that seem like they would be a good in Delver decks, although Gather the Townfolk seems like a natural fit into the Sam Black Champion of the Parish + Delver of Secrets deck. I can't really tell where the metagame is going to go specifically (although I can't possibly see control stepping up right now), but I think playing the rock could be a very good idea going forwards!

When I actually test this deck I will be able to offer updates and improvements, but I think this is a good starting place! Because of all the aggro in the format right now, Dismember loses a lot of value, so our Bloodgift Demon should be remotely safe.

That's all I have for today! Over the next week I will be constantly posting up decklists and new ideas periodically all the way through the actual release of DKA. But until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

Flowing down the Magical River

Hello everyone!

So when it comes to learning more about magic, we tend to look to the professional players for insight and guidence on everything from what deck to play to what card is the best first pick out of any pack. Every once and a while I will hear of someone who has been playing since the inception of magic talk about how he remembers back when there was nothing except for a monthly "The Duelist" magazine to read and learn more about magic from. Also, there was no price guides except for the monthly "Scrye" magazine, which naturally was always outdated. It's been called the Wild West days of magic.

Nowadays information is absolutely viral. Articles, like this one, are the most traditional form of strategy guides, however over the past couple years videos have been getting more and more popular. When ChannelFireball started a couple years ago, their angle (besides having LSV) was that they were going to have lots of MTGO videos for a new way of learning about magic.

Since then the idea has grown and spread across to all major websites and you can now expect to get videos every day! Drafting, Standard, Modern, and Legacy are all covered! I too would make videos, but I don't know what software is required to make them.... In addition to videos, there are even podcasts that you can listen to passively and pick up unique little nuggets of information from.

So you would think that there isn't many other places to go, right? No! In fact, there is a new realm of strategy "articles" that is very quickly becoming more and more popular, and that is streaming!

Streaming basically is when someone sets up a camera to display their computer screen and play it out live online. The most popular website to stream on is twitch, and now that I think about it I honestly don't know any other websites that you can stream on.... GGS Live is used by Wizards and and Star City to stream their events, but I don't think you can stream your MTGO games on it.... Regardless, there are a few notable players who do stream like AJ Sacher, Brian Kibler, Tom Martel, and Brad Nelson.

AJ seems to stream almost every night, and the others also stream very frequently. Over the past month, I have seen the popularity of the streams increase dramatically as you can see there are often 250-350 people watching them each time. Watching the stream is awesome because there's a chat next to the video so you can interact with the person streaming in addition to discussing the best next play. Also, it feels cool getting to chat with your pro player of choice between rounds.

Last night, Brad Nelson and Tom Martel were both streaming the same 8-4 draft at the same time, and they had a bet saying whoever didn't get as far in that draft would have to stream an M12 draft. To complete the irony, they actually played against eachoter round 1! So I put both streams on at the same time and left both soudns on. They each primarily talked only on their turn, so they never really talked over eachother too, so it was awesome getting to see how they each were thinking and playing around the other's stuff (and acurately reading the other's tells!). In the end Tom Martel won 2-1, but I had to get some sleep before Nelson cashed in on the bet.

There is a dark side to streaming though, and that is called ghosting. Ghosting is when you play against someone who yo know is streaming, so you watch their stream and see what is in their hand. From time to time you will see someone play around things or make attacks they normally wouldn't unless they were ghosting and they tend to get called out. Don't be that guy - don't ghost.

All in all, Streaming is awesome because its a different way to consume magic without actually playing it that does have a different feel from just watching traditional videos or reading articles. They are different every day, and are almost always accessible in the evening.

That's all I have for today! Until next time, stay classy!

Ryan Lackie
Ryan.Lackie92@gmail.com
@ThingsILack
ThingsILack on mtgo

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