Exponential Beatdown

Welcome to part 2 of 3 of my Big Green deck series. Today I’m going to give some pointers for making one of my favorite Green Beat Down decks: The Exponential Growth deck.

The secret of this deck is a card from the Ravnica block called Doubling Season. Doubling Season is an enchantment that costs 4 and 1 forest that says: Any time an effect would put one or more tokens into play under your control, it puts twice that many into play instead. If an effect would place one or more counters on a creature you control, it places twice that many counters on it instead. I had this card sitting around in my collection for the longest time before I decided that I wanted to make a deck around it. I started looking through all my green cards for anything that places counters or tokens into play and ended up with a pretty killer deck. The beautiful thing about Doubling Season is that the effects from it stack, so if you were to have 2 of the card out at once, the first one would double the counters or tokens and the second one would then double them again. The same goes for if you have 3 or 4 in play. In my Exponential Growth deck I have 4 (the max allowed in a deck).

One of the card combinations in this deck that I love is Ageless Entity combined with Stream of Life. Stream of Life is an instant that costs 1 forest and X. When it’s played, you gain X life, where X is however much you paid when you played the card. Ageless Entity is a 4/4 for 3 and 2 forests with the ability: Whenever you gain life, put that many +1/+1 counters on Ageless Entity. It’s a killer combo on its own, but when you combine it with Doubling Season, it becomes amazing. I usually save this combo for when I have at least 6 or 7 forests available to pay for X, and when Doubling Season is in play. I put 3 of each of these 2 cards into the deck. I also threw in 3 copies of Nourish which costs 2 forests and instantly gives you 6 life.

Another great card to have in the deck is Forgotten Ancient. It costs 3 and 1 forest and is a 0/3 elemental with this ability: Whenever a player casts a spell, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Forgotten Ancient. At the beginning of your upkeep you may move any number of +1/+1 counters from Forgotten Ancient onto other creatures. Sound awesome? It should. Considering that every card played (other than lands) is considered a spell, your Forgotten Ancient is going to get pumped up to epic proportions even without Doubling Season in play. Just find a way to give Trample to this creature and you’re going to be hard to beat. I think the biggest I’ve ever gotten Forgotten Ancient in one game was 36/39, granted I had 3 Doubling Seasons in play when I played him, but that’s the beauty of this deck.

Jugan, The Rising Star from the Kamigawa block is also an excellent card to put in this deck. Jugan is a 5/5 with flying for 3 and 3 forests with the ability: When Jugan, The Rising Star is put into a graveyard from play, you may distribute 5 +1/+1 counters among any number of target creatures. Find a way to get Jugan killed, either by your opponent’s hand or your own, and you’ve got a great way to either boost one creature by +10/+10 or boost 5 creatures by +2/+2, or however you choose to distribute the counters. If you don’t think your opponent is going to be able to destroy Jugan, then it’s a good idea to have a couple cards available in your own deck that allow you to destroy a target creature. Generally though, your opponent isn’t going to want you to have a 5/5 with flying on the field, so they’ll probably try to kill him.

The rest of the creatures in the deck are all smaller creatures with abilities that involve +1/+1 counters.

Usually I don’t have too many Instant or Sorcery cards in a Green Giants deck, but in this deck, there’s quite a few. I avoided putting Giant Growth and Explosive Growth in the deck, as they only give temporary boosts. Instead I scoured my collection for cards that give permanent boosts in the form of +1/+1 counters. If you look hard enough, you’ll be able to find them. Stand Together is a good one, it gives 2 target creatures 2 +1/+1 counters. I particularly like Decree of Savagery, which is the most expensive card in my deck, mana-wise. It costs 7 and 2 forests and lets you put 4 +1/+1 counters on each creature you control. Combine that with one Doubling season and each of your creatures is going to be boosted by +8/+8. The more Doubling Seasons you have out, the better.

Another fun card is Dragon Blood. It’s an artifact that costs 3 to put on the field and has: Pay 3 and tap: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. If you have any extra mana each turn, this is a great way to spend it. Just like the rest of the cards in this deck, the more Doubling Seasons you have out, the better it will be.

That’s the base for a good Exponential Growth deck. I’m sure there are plenty of cards out there that would be great in one that I’m missing. If you can think of any, let me know in the comments. Have you ever tried a counter deck? How well did it work for you? Again, let me know in the comments.

My next post will be about what makes a good Infect deck. I have one that is half built, so I’m going to do some research on them before I actually type up the post. If you have built an Infect deck that works well, leave a comment on this post and let me know what worked for you.

Green Giants

Welcome again to A Gathering of Magic the Gathering!

I recently had a friend ask me to give her some tips on making a Big Green Creature deck as well as an Infect deck. Big Green Creature decks are my specialty and I’m also looking to make a good infect deck, so the next couple posts I do are going to be my pointers for creating my 2 favorite kinds of Green Beat Down decks.

Today will be about your basic Green Giants deck. This deck focuses on getting huge creatures out early in the game and then beefing them up.

The first thing to remember about a Big Green deck is that not all huge green creatures are going to be beneficial to you. Many of the bigger green creatures are going to have drawbacks associated with them that make them cost less. The lower cost may seem like a benefit, but the drawbacks from the card’s abilities tend to outweigh that. Plus, there are plenty of ways to get high mana cost cards out fast and easy, which I’ll get into in just a bit.

Some of my favorite green giants are the elementals. There’s a whole host of green elementals and they each have their own benefits. Thorn Elemental is always a staple in my Green Giant decks. It’s a 7/7 creature that can deal its damage to a player as though it weren’t blocked, which is a really handy ability. Tornado Elemental is another great one, although it tends to be a bit more situational, as it has the ability to deal damage to all creatures with flying when it enters the battlefield.

Beasts and Wurms also tend to be great in a Green Giants deck. I particularly like the Krosan Colossus and the Plated Slagwurm. Krosan Colossus is just a big hitter at 9/9. Plated Slagwurm is an 8/8 with Shroud (It can’t be the target of spells or abilities your opponent controls). Both of them tend to find their way into my Green Giants deck.

One creature that I find to be ridiculously awesome in a big hitter deck is Ancient Ooze. This card has won the game for me more times than any card. Ancient Ooze’s power and toughness is equal to the total converted mana cost of all other creatures you control. Sound awesome? No? Let’s say you had a Krosan Colossus, Plated Slagwurm and Thorn Elemental on the field when you played Ancient Ooze. Krosan Colossus costs 9 to play, Thorn Elemental and Plated Slagwurm each cost 7 to play. As soon as Ancient Ooze is on the field, it’s going to be a whopping 23/23 creature, and the more creatures you play after that, the bigger it’ll get. It’s definitely a game ender.

My best Green Giants deck has a particular card in it that is my secret weapon: Brawn. Brawn is a 3/3 creature with Trample, which doesn’t seem all that impressive, but it’s the ability it has that makes it indispensable. As long as Brawn is in your graveyard and you control a forest, creatures you control have Trample. That’s going to be a killer advantage in any deck Brawn is in, but when you have him in a deck full of 7/7s and 9/9s, it’s murderous. You can pretty much take down any player in a matter of a couple turns with Brawn in your graveyard.

Now, as I said earlier, you’re going to want to find a way to get these creatures out faster than usual in order for your deck to be really effective. Elves are one of the best ways. There are plenty of elf cards in the game that allow you to tap them for mana, and they usually each only cost 1 mana themselves. Llanowar Elves and Fyndhorn Elves each do this. There’s also cards like Krosan Restorer which allows you to tap it in order to untap a land. Krosan Drover also helps. It has the ability of: Creature spells you play with converted mana cost of 6 or more cost 2 less to play.

The very best elf card for any Green Giants deck is Elvish Piper. Elvish Piper is a 1/1 for 4 with a fantastic ability. If you pay 1 forest and tap Elvish Piper you can put a creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. So, basically, all those super expensive creatures in your hand now only cost 1 to play. With Elvish Piper only being a 1/1, however, your opponent is going to want to destroy it as soon as possible. So, keep a few in your deck just in case, or beef them up with cards like Blanchwood Armor, which is a creature enchantment that gives the creature it’s attached to +1/+1 for each forest you control. Also, feel free to throw a couple extra Blanchwood Armors into your deck as they work great for beefing up any creatures.

A fun little addition to a Green Giants deck is Tooth and Nail. It’s a sorcery that costs 5 and 2 forests and gives you the choice to either search your library for up to 2 creature cards, reveal them, and put them in your hand OR put up to 2 creature cards from your hand into play. But, it also has an Entwine cost of 2. If you pay the Entwine cost, you get to do both things on the card instead of just one of them. If you have the mana for it, it’s a great card.

If you have enough space left in your deck, throw some beef up cards in there for good measure. Giant Growth and Explosive Growth are both excellent for this.

Anyway, these are just a few of my favorite Green Giants deck cards. There are plenty of other great green cards that you can put in your own deck. What do all of you like to have in a Green Giants deck? What card combinations do you find work the best for you?

Watch for my next post for pointers on how to make what I call an Exponential Beat Down deck. And following that; pointers on making an effective Infect Deck.

Decks From Outside My Comfort Zone

Welcome again to A Gathering of Magic the Gathering! We hope you’ve been enjoying this blog so far. If you haven’t been, then you need to start.

Today I thought I’d talk about decks, which is going to be a topic that is talked about quite a bit on here. As I’ve said before; my two favorite colors to play with are Green and Artifacts, but today I thought I’d talk about a couple of my favorite decks that are colors other than those two. Two of the decks I’ll talk about are ones that I own, the third will be one that I built, but which belongs to my friend. Let’s actually start with that one.

The deck I built for my friend is what most card players call a Mill Deck. What that means is that the deck focuses almost solely on making your opponent discard not only his hand, but his entire deck. You’ll find Mill Decks in almost any trading card game, but Magic seems to have some of the more wicked milling cards, usually in the Blue or Black color sets. Currently my friend’s deck has both those colors in it. The trump card for his deck is easily Traumatize. If you’re unfamiliar with that card I’ll explain: Traumatize is a Blue Sorcery card that, when played, causes your opponent to put half of their deck in their graveyard. I think we put 2 of that card in the deck. Tied for best card in the deck is Jace Beleren, who can potentially make your opponent discard the top 20 cards of their deck. There are also killer filler cards in it, such as Tome Scour, which is also a Blue Sorcery that causes your opponent to put the top 5 cards in their graveyard. There’s one card we’d love to have in the deck, but which is somewhat hard to find; Szadek; Lord of Secrets. Szadek is a vampire lord from the Ravnica block who starts out as a 5/5 with flying. However, his ability is what makes him so evil. Anytime Szadek would deal damage to a player, you instead put that many +1/+1 counters on Szadek and that player puts that many cards from his library into his graveyard. It’s a pretty killer card, when played right. That flying ability makes it easy to hit a player directly and the more times you do, the stronger you get and the worse off your opponent is. All in all, it’s a brutal deck to go up against. I think it’s only lost once, and that wasn’t against me.

The next deck I’d like to talk about is a rather popular deck with many players; my Sliver Deck. If you’ve never played against a Sliver Deck, consider yourself lucky. Slivers are easily the most annoying creatures to go up against. The reason Sliver Decks are so mean is because Slivers all have abilities that beef up all other Slivers on the field. Some Slivers give all other Slivers +1/+1, or they could give them all Flying or Trample or whatever, really. Most Sliver decks have some of every color of card in them, mine included. I particularly like my Sliver deck because it has Slivers in it from all through the history of the Magic Multiverse. I’ve got plenty of old Slivers as well as a bunch of new ones. There are two cards in particular that I love in my deck. The first is Coat of Arms, which is an artifact. Coat of Arms gives creatures +1/+1 for each creature on the field that shares a creature type with it. In layman’s terms; if I have 7 Slivers on the field, as well as Coat of Arms, each sliver would then get +6/+6. And the buffing up only gets better the more slivers I have on the field. The second card I absolutely love is called Sliver Legion. Sliver Legion is a 7/7 creature that costs one of each mana and has the same ability as Coat of Arms. So, same situation as before; 7 normal Slivers on the field as well as Coat of Arms, but now we’ll add in Sliver Legion. Each of my slivers would then get +14/+14, ridiculous, right? I think so, but I love it. My Sliver deck, not unlike most other Sliver decks, is pretty unbeatable.

The third and final deck I’d like to talk about is the deck that I’ve spent the most time making; my Angel deck. Angel decks, like Sliver decks, are quite popular among players. For the most part, each set of cards that is released has at least one Angel in it. (This isn’t always the case, but usually it is.) Some Angels are more powerful than others, but that’s fine with me because I need some lower cost angels to defend myself at the beginning of the match. My Angel deck is my only deck that is (almost) solid White. Possibly the most notorious Angel in the Magic Multiverse is Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Akroma is a 6/6 Angel that has flying, first strike, trample, haste, protection from red, protection from black and vigilance. She’s a pretty unstoppable force. I currently have 3 of her in my deck, just in case one of them is destroyed. A couple of the other popular angels in my deck are Platinum Angel and Pristine Angel. Platinum Angel is an artifact creature with one of the best abilities in the game; you cannot lose the game and your opponents cannot win the game. It’s a killer card. Then there’s Pristine Angel, which, among other things, has protection from artifacts and from all colors. All Angels have flying and most of them have some kind of ability to make them even harder to beat, but the trump card in my Angel deck isn’t actually an Angel card. Concerted Effort is the card that really makes my deck shine. It’s an enchantment that, at the beginning of each player’s upkeep, gives all creatures I control flying if I control a creature that has flying. The same is true for fear, first strike, double strike, landwalk, protection, trample, and vigilance. Basically it’s an ability sharing card, and with cards like Akroma and Pristine Angel, all my creatures would have protection from everything as well as first strike, trample, haste and vigilance. Once I get that card out on the field, there’s almost no stopping me.

Anyway, that’s enough for today. What about you? What decks do you play with that aren’t your usual color/type? Or do you prefer to stick with what you’re comfortable with? Do you own and play with any decks that are notorious among other players? Let us know in the comments.

A Deck Builder's/iPad User's Dream

I've been an Apple device user for a long, long time. I've owned all kinds of iPods and computers and recently bought an iPad 2. Ever since I've owned an App capable Apple device, I've been looking for a Magic the Gathering app that allows me to create decks, store card images and shop for cards. It's been about 3 1/2 years since I started looking, and FINALLY, I have found the perfect app for it: Decked Builder.

Decked Builder is everything I could have wanted in a Magic the Gathering app, especially when used on my iPad's large screen. It has a fast, easy search engine that has every card to date in it. The cards it pulls up are in stunning HD. The controls are far from complicated. It also has features that will allow you to test play your deck to make sure you get good draws with each hand, and that show you the stats of your deck, from color and card type balance to mana cost balance. The app also has a pricing guide for every single card and a way to buy the cards right from within the app using TCGplayer.com.  The thing I love most about Decked Builder? When you've added cards from the database into one of your decks, the image for that card is stored in your iPad's memory, so you can view it offline, which I think is amazing.

I hope you don't think I'm being paid to advertise for this app, because I'm not. I just think it's amazing that someone finally made an app that was just what I was looking for. I've been wanting one since I bought my iPod Touch. I've been using Microsoft Excel to document my decks, and every time I typed up a deck, I wished for something that was easier and that would show me what each card looks like. The downside, and this is a very small downside, is that the app is not free, like many of the other MTG apps on the App Store. The iPad version costs $5.00. For me though, that's not too much to pay for what the app gives you. My only wish for the app would be to make it possible to do one really big download of all the images of all the cards so that people like me that only have a Wifi enabled device can still use it when we're not connected to the internet. The webpage for the app says that they are considering doing this and having it cost an additional $3.00, which would give you a download of all the HD card images and allow you to download future sets for another year. To me, this is a brilliant idea and I would be willing to pay the $3.00 for it. Just the thought of being able to search for a card from anywhere in the world regardless of internet makes me excited. Think of how easy it would be to build decks on the go.

What do the rest of you think? Have any of you tried Decked Builder? How do you like it? What would you change about it? What about any other deck building apps/programs that you've tried? Do you have any to recommend? Let us know in the comments.

(The Decked Builder app is not just available for iPad. It is also available for iPhone and iPod Touch users as well as anybody who has a Mac desktop or laptop.)

A Rather Large Project

Welcome back to a Gathering of Magic the Gathering! Today I'd like to talk about, and get ideas on, the topic of sorting and cataloguing cards. It's something that I think most collectors do no matter the size of their collection, and I think we could get some good discussions going about how everybody organizes their cards.



Does your card collection look something like this?



As far as sorting goes, I think the long white boxes you can buy at most hobby shops are a MTG enthusiasts best friend. They usually only cost around a dollar and each one can hold hundreds of cards, making them the best way to store your cards without spending a ton. I've been using the white boxes for years now and I can't think of a better way to store and sort my cards. I'm kind of OCD when it comes to my cards, so I tend to go a bit overboard on my sorting of them. Each color (Green, White, Red, Black, Blue & Gold) gets it's own box, or set of boxes. After I've sorted them by color, each color is also sorted out into the types of card. (Creature, Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, etc.) Once I've finished that, it's time to sort each type of card into rarity. (Mythic Rare, Rare, Uncommon, Common.) You're going to laugh, but when I've done that, I sort each of those groups once more, this time alphabetically. Artifacts get a similar treatment, but instead of sorting by Creature, Instant, etc., they are sorted by Artifact, Artifact - Creature, & Artifact - Equipment. Lands are sorted in much the same way. (Yes, Lands get their own box(es)). I know, it's a bit extravagant, but it's how I work.

Recently, I've been buying the Fat Pack for each set that is released. Aside from getting 8-9 booster packs, the Fat Packs come with a custom card box for that particular set, which has made me think that maybe I'd like to sort my newer cards differently. Instead of all my cards being in one big group, I've thought that maybe it'd be cool to have the new sets organized into a box just for that set. Instead of my super complicated way of sorting the cards, I could just use the Card-pedia that comes with each Fat Pack to sort each set into the numerical order they appear in in the set. It's just an idea right now, but it's one that I kind of like. I'll have to give it a try and see if I like it.

My collection of cards has gotten big enough that I have many, many of those white boxes full of cards. For the longest time I had them in stacks on my old computer desk, but that wasn't really the best way to organize them, plus the desk took up a lot of space and I was really only using it for storage purposes. On a whim one day I cleaned off the desk, tore it apart, and threw it away and began searching for a cabinet of some kind that I could use to store my cards. It only took an hour or two and I found a solid wood armoire at the D.I. (Utah's version of Goodwill.) I bought it and began figuring out the best way to store my cards in it. I didn't realize how nice it was going to be for that purpose. It has drawers for the boxes as well as a large cabinet for the other random boxes. It has plenty of space for all of my cards. If you have a lot of cards and boxes like I do, I highly recommend getting something similar to it to store them in.

That all works well and good for my non-deck cards, but I needed a way to keep my decks in a safe place, but in such a way that they were easy to haul around to places. The deck boxes I usually use don't fit in the white boxes, so I had to find another way. Now, don't judge too harshly, but I had seen a few episodes of Yu-Gi-Oh, and had seen that one of the characters keeps his cards in a briefcase. I loved this idea, so I started looking for a decent briefcase. I was lucky enough to find one (again, at the D.I.) and it works perfectly. I can fit all of my custom built decks as well as most of the pre-built decks I own. The briefcase has a dual lock, so I don't have to worry about my decks falling out when I carry it around. Again, if you need a way to transport a lot of decks around to tournaments or what-have-you, I recommend a briefcase.



Or even this?



Now, on to the topic of cataloguing. I've been meaning to make an official catalogue of all my cards for some time now, but with how large my collection is, the task is rather daunting. I need to buckle down and actually do it though. I've talked to a few people about how they catalogue their cards, and most of them use Microsoft Excel. I use Excel to create my deck lists, so I know it would work well for a full catalogue. The only problem at this point is actually sitting down and creating the list. It's going to be time consuming for sure. Now I just have to decide how I want to catalogue them. Should I do it by set? That seems like it would be the easiest. I think I'll go with that.

What about all of you? How do you organize, sort, and catalogue your cards? Are you a fan of the white boxes? Are you as OCD about your cards as I am? Let us know in the comments. (Just an FYI: feel free to comment about your card habits even if you collect a different game.)

Introduction

I'd just like to say welcome to everybody who visits this blog. In case you can't tell by the title, this is going to be a place for myself and my friends to post ideas we have about Magic the Gathering. Be it deck ideas, deck builds, ideas we'd like to see implemented in the game, or anything, really. It'll all be welcome here and we'll always be looking for ideas, suggestions and input from anybody who visits here.

I'll let the other authors introduce themselves on their own. For now, I'd just like to give a brief history of myself as far as Magic the Gathering is concerned. I've been collecting Magic cards since about 8th grade, which for me was about 12 years ago. Oddly, I didn't actually start playing the game until about 2 years after I started collecting. About 5 years ago my entire collection of cards, which was roughly around 10,000 cards strong, was stolen out of my car, forcing me to start my collection over again. I'm proud to say that today my collection has exceeded what it was when it was stolen. At this point, I have 10 decks that I've built either on my own or with the help of my friend Mike H. (Mike is going to be one of the authors on this blog.) While I enjoy pitting my decks against other's and hoping to win, it's not something I do very often. I really enjoy just collecting the cards and building decks with them, even if those decks don't get played very often, if ever. I like going through my cards and finding combinations that I can build a killer deck around. For the most part, I play Green and Artifact decks. There's just something appealing about those two types of cards. I love the enormous creatures you can get in Green decks and I love building decks that allow me to get them out fast, then beef them up even more. As for Artifact decks, I just like the way they seem to play off each other, as well as the anonymity of using colorless cards. The Mirrodin blocks (both the original block and the one that is currently being produced) are my favorite sets of cards. It shouldn't be a surprise why; big green creatures and a focus on artifacts abound in Mirrodin.

Anyway, that's enough about me. Keep a watch on this blog for all kinds of posts about Magic the Gathering. Hopefully you'll get something out of it each time you visit.