Zedd's M:tG decks - The Johnny is strong with this one!

[Zeddicuus]

Yeah, I'm doing the same as a few others. It's easier than attempting to get a response in that Jaggid thread that no one reads anymore. This way I can keep tabs on what I've made that fails and passes so far in games.

This first deck is an attempt at a deck type I've never built before: The Artifact deck. The only problem is I don't have a lot of good artifact equipment or creatures that really stand out. So I'll just make due with what I have at the moment and see what works and what doesn't. Maybe someone will have some good ideas to toss on the table.

This deck is designed for Casual Duels. about half of my play group is new or just returning to the game, so I didn't want anything to overpowering, but has enough going on to keep a Nny amused.

Planeswalkers: 1

Tezzeret the Seeker

Lands: 19

3x Cloudpost (can't find my fourth one. Argh)
4x Vault of Whispers
4x Seat of Synod
4x Ancient Den
2x Sunken Ruins
1x Underground River
1x River of Tears (mostly because I have one and the art is cool)

Artifact Creatures: 14

2x Silver Myr
1x Leaden Myr
1x Gold Myr
3x Glaze Fiend
2x Duplicant
2x Sanctum Gargoyle
2x Sarcomite Myr
1x Sharding Sphinx

Non Artifact Creatures: 5

4x Disciple of the Vault
1x Vermiculos

Equipment: 6

1x Jitte
1x Vulshok Battlegear
3x Cranial Plating
1x Loxodon Warhammer

Regular Artifacts: 8

1x Mind Stone
3x Courier's Capsule
1x Credit Voucher
1x Phyrexian Vault
1x Etherium Astrolabe (Probably try to get more of these)
1x Sculpting Steel

Instants/Sorceries: 7

2x Diabolic Intent
2x Esper Charm
2x Diabolic Vision
1x Brilliant Ultimatum (Just because I got one in a pack)


Total Deck Size: 60

Strategy is rather simplistic, yet seems to be rather tricky in a Casual sort of way. I play a load of artifacts, use a lot of card draw to either:

A) Get a Disciple out and start sacrificing artifacts for card draw and life loss on opponent
B) Pump a creature to hugeness with equipment than smash in the face
C) Get Tezzeret out and, if he manages to survive long enough, use him to make all my artifacts into big nasties to smash face.
D) Have a bunch of little artifact critters with equipment scattered among them to swarm in.
E) Any combination of the above four.

Probably the main problem is I have almost no answers to anything in the deck besides the Duplicants for creatures. But since I'm mostly playing people with small cardpools currently, I don't have a lot to answer to at this point in time besides the fact the one player has a couple Planar Chaos Dragons. Sarcomites can be used to block them, then sac to draw cards to hope I get what I need to win.

I didn't want to build the deck in a way requiring Tezzeret to win, as typically artifact decks aren't my style. I got one in a pack and just thought it'd be interesting to try him out since this is the first Planeswalker I got a hold of. Only one other person in the playgroup has a Planeswalker but he refuses to use his Liliana Vess in any way so I'll just use one myself and see what they do.

I know it's not much to look at currently, but I just built it and haven't tested yet so any comments or suggestions are welcome.

[LiaThistle]

Genesis Chamber seems like it could be fun.

Especially if you manage to keep Tezzeret around for any length of time. xd


On a tangental note, I was wondering when you'd start your thread.

[Zeddicuus]

Well, I was in a slump for a bit, and had trouble building decks for the last couple months. It's only during the Christmas season I made three new decks. I plan to post the other two after some comments on this one. One is a Tribal Knight deck, and the other is just a basic smashy smashy deck with mana acceleration to mess around with the newbies a bit. I think I posted my rat deck somewhere. I'll post that too just in case later on.

Genesis Chamber is a good idea. I know I have a few somewhere, unless the Mrs. stole those on me, hahaha. But I know where her stash is! That, the Tokens and Tezzeret would be amusing. I don't know if I'll try to get more of him. He sells pretty good here and I could get a few goodies for him if I don't like him. If the wife doesn't steal him on me. She loves using artifact decks.

What would you recommend to remove for them? Besides the Brilliant Ultimatum. That just looks like it would be amusing to try on someone at least once before I take it out. Either I'll get artifacts to do mean things with heheh.

[Painless Regrets]

I would play some arcbound stuff instead of some of the myr but then
I don't like Myr too much

[LiaThistle]

Considering your mana spread, probably Esper Charm and the Mind Stone, though I do see that you are light on mana, so the Stone may need to stay. However, over Mind Stone, with that kind of deck, I'd prefer the Talismans (which would probably be kinda painful, but there's a U/W and a U/B one, so it'd help).

You know I'm not fond of equipment, but the hammer, the Jitte, and at least two Platings should be good. I'm not so sure about the Battlegear, though if you wanted a "sacrifice" outlet, there's always Grafted Wargear.

[Zeddicuus]

Wargear. That's a good one! I don't have any of those, but I bet my wife does so I'll give her collection a raid and see how many I can find.

I'm usually not too fond of Equipment myself. I use a couple once in a while, but not to the extent I am in this deck. It's probably why I put that many in here, to go explore another area I haven't played around with that much. My wife is big into artifacts and equipment, so I have access to some like Kaldra's Equipment and some Katana that can turn to a dragon. I forget the name.

I'll have to check on the Talismans. I have a few, but cannot remember which colours they are. They'd definitely help. The reason I put the Mindstone in there was because it is acceleration as well as a means to sac an artifact and also draw a card. I rarely use Blue but the last few decks I've put it in I've been all over the carddraw aspect of it.

I could remove the Charms for the Talismans easily. If I have the wrong colours, I could always go with some Azorus and Dimir Signets in place.

I should maybe find another means of artifact sacrificing as well. The Phyrexian Vault andEtherium Astrolabe help out nicely, particularly with the Sculpting Steel in there to get two. I could throw a Karn Silver Golem in there so I can make my artifact lands into 0/0 creatures to trigger the Disciples xd

Also, Minion Reflector might work well for this deck, seeing how the token dies at the end of the turn. If I don't sac it beforehand for some reason. And since seeing how it would be another artifact coming into play if it's a token of an artifact creature, the Glaze Fiend and Vermiculus would get their bonus. Whoo! Genesis chamber is more efficient though.

[Zeddicuus]

Well, since I have to wait a few days before I can test my artifact deck out (and need to find that Genesis Chamber and the Wargear) I figured I'd be asinine and double post with this deck!

Casual Duels seems to be ideal for this deck, but in a few games it held up pretty decent in Multiplayer.

A-Crusading we all go!

Lands: 17 (Too low I know but so far it works)

4x Swamps
11x Plains
1x Tainted Field
1x Terramorphic Expanse

Creatures: 24

1x Haakon, Stromgald Scourge
3x Cavalry Master
2x Benalish Cavalry
2x Shadow Rider
2x Riftmarked Knight
1x Pentarch Paladin
1x Cadaverous Knight
3x White Knight
2x Paladin En-Vec
1x Sworn Defender
1x Sigiled Paladin
1x Knight of the White Orchid
1x Black Knight (Whom always triumphs!)
1x Knight of Meadowgrain
1x Soltari Crusader
1x Thistledown Liege

Enchantments: 5

3x Shadowlance
1x Glorious Anthem
1x Shared Triumph

Artifacts: 10

3x Vulshok Gauntlets
3x Umbral Mantle
2x Vulshok Morningstar
2x Coat of Arms

Sorceries/Instants: 4

2x Unmake
1x Harsh Mercy
1x Aphetto Dredging

Deck Size: 60

Tribal Knight deck! Main idea is to go Aggro on a person with a bunch of Weenies with First Strike or Flanking, then pump them with some artifacts and global enchantment.

Harsh Mercy is my budget WoG to keep my own Knights alive. Could use more Sigiled Paladins or White Orchids but plays pretty decent so far. I could replace the Unmake with Oblivion Ring. That would be a smart choice I think.

Again, comments and suggestions always appreciated.

[epiclevelwarrior]

There's definitely a rule somewhere that you're not allowed to play Haakon without Nameless Inversion, crib swap, or both (even if you only have one copy of Haakon). Seriously, infinitely reusable removal is tech.

Knights with Haakon also would love door of destinies, or even just knights in general. It's a good global pump that's specific to your creatures.

Otherwise... do you think the equips and shadow lances are doing what they ought to be? I'm usually leery of running many individual creature pumps unless you've got some kind of engine going on involving them or the pump in question is in the realm of rancor, loxodon warhammer, armadillo cloak etc.

On the mana: Arcane Sanctum is a B/W tap land. You have no 1 drops so it wouldn't be a big hardship. Also, Tainted land w/ 4 swamps and 1 terramorphic? Really?

Other decent knights: Chieftain en-Dal (first strike all around), Fallen Askari (if you want to exapnd the flanking theme), Kinsbaile Cavalier (2/2 for 4 but... double strike), Knight of Dawn, Knight of the Holy Nimbus, Sanguine Guard (cheaper regeneration than cadaverous knight), Zhalfirin Commander (Expensive ability but a decent flanking creature and one more tribal link).

Crusading Knight is awesome in multiplayer. Esp if you toss in an Urborg. Knight Captain of Eos is also an interesting possible play for a multiplayer focused build.

I feel compelled to mention that Ladies Knight is unutterably awesome.

I can see this was one of those "big pile of themed cards" builds so you may not want to go out and get more cards for it. Knights is one of my favourite tribal themes, though (mainly because of Haakon), so I went a bit overboard with suggestions.

[LiaThistle]

There's also Knight of Dusk, whom, in multiplayer, can give some opponents second thoughts about blocking with their fatties.
Too bad its ability doesn't work when it blocks.

[Zeddicuus]

Oooh got some good suggestions on the Knight deck from you two. Thankies very much.

Epiclevelwarrior was accurate on his assumption on the build of the deck. I was bored and wasn't sure what to make to play against some of the new players in my playgroup. So I slapped this deck together with equipment and enchantments that sounded Knightly. That's the sole reason Shadowlance was put in originally, but the First Strike and the pumping ability has come handy a few times.

I thought of using Crib Swap or Nameless Inversion instead of Unmake. I just thought it was too cheesy for the new players to deal with. I think I will throw those in anyways, just to be more of a pain than I already am.

Arcane Sanctum I could easily toss in there to replace the Tainted Field and the Terramorphic Expanse. The Expanse was originally a means to help thin land out of my deck and fetch that much needed Swamp I needed. Easily removed. Ditto on the Tainted Field. I should have removed that a while ago.

The list of Knights is very good. Some of them I've never heard of before and they'd help tons. I've been debating replacing Cadaverous Knight with the Sanguine Guard for the reason Epiclevelwarrior stated. Knights of Dusk and Kinsbaile Cavalier particularly caught my attention.

*EDIT* Knight deck has been altered as such:

-2 Unmake
+2 Crib Swap
-1 Tainted Field
-1 Terramorphic Expanse
+1 Swamp
+1 Arcane Sanctum (Only have the one at the moment)

haven't changed much else, still looking for that dang Sanguine Guard I know I have.
As to the Equipments, I'd sooner use Door of Destinies or other global creature pumps. I just ran out of Glorious Anthems/Shared Triumph. The Equipment was mostly just to match up with the theme of the deck.

I wasn't sure originally how well this deck would play for the new guys, but it turned out to be pretty fun and challenging for them to play against without being overly so. I might have to go buy/trade for some of those Knights listed by Lia and ELW to tweak this up a bit. It might prove more interesting that way.

[Zeddicuus]

Well, I haven't had a chance to try the Artifact deck yet, but I made a couple changes:

-2 Silver Myr
-1 Leaden Myr
+2 Gold Myr
+1 Nuisance Engine

No luck finding my Genesis Chamber, though I did find out my kids raided a box a while ago. Possibly the Chambers are collateral damage. Doh.

With the current change though, I have a controlled means to make tokens. The Chamber would be better with the disciples out, but a means to make tokens to sac off for other means will work well. With the change of Myrs to Gold Myrs, I have increased my means to make white mana considering my manabase is more heavy to Blue and Black because of the Filter and Pain Lands. It should help in casting coloured spells a bit easier. Not that I really need to worry about that for the most part, but it's nice to be sure I can do it when I need to.

I was thinking of tossing in some Esper Artifact Creatures, like the Windwright Mage, but it seems rather low powered.

Maybe Memnarch would be a better choice. I can get a hold of one of those at least.

How do these changes sound? I'm hoping to try them soon.

[Zeddicuus]

Still haven't had a chance to test the changes in my Artifact or Knight deck, so I won't talk about those right now.

I figured I'd post this one. It hasn't been tweaked much since I posted it quite a while ago, but my deck thread just wouldn't be complete without me rambling about it at least once. This deck is one of two personal prize decks I have that will most likely never be dismantled, only altered and tweaked. It's one of my favourites.

Deck Title: Zedd's Angels

Land: 22

1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
7x Swamp
14x Plains

Creatures: 23

2x Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1x Reya Dawnbringer
1x Radiant, Archangel
1x Selenia, Dark Angel
3x Serra Angel
2x Angel of Despair
2x Voice of All
2x Serra Advocate
2x Karmic Guide
1x Serra Avenger
1x Angel of Retribution (Filler until I can get something better)
1x Twilight Shepherd
1x Exalted Angel
1x Angel of Salvation
1x Archangel (Mostly filler but the art is cool in Visions)
1x Battlegrace Angel

Artifacts: 4

2x Urza's Incubator
2x Gilded Lotus

Instants & Sorceries: 11

2x Unmake (Plan to replace with Vindicate)
4x Dark Ritual
2x Patriarch's Bidding
1x Mass Calcify
2x Vigor Mortis

This is something I've been tweaking and modifying for about 8 years, since I started playing. Tribal Angel deck that relies on mana acceleration to get them out fast and attack. Pretty simple strategy and due to the large number of permanents this deck works very well for Casual Multiplayer around here.

I do want to get a hold of another Battlegrace Angel or two. That would be very handy as for a short time I do tend to only attack with one Angel at a time. Vindicates would help a bunch as well, along with the W/B Dual/Shock/Painlands. I'd have a trouble replacing my basics though as I put a lot of effort into getting all the basics as Unhinged lands with some Unglued lands, which aren't easy to come by where I am as no one will trade them.

I considered Coat of Arms at one point, but found it was a waste of space as it doesn't take a lot of Angels to pound someone into the dirt. Having that in there actually slowed it down.

I admit Harsh Mercy would probably be better than Mass Calcify. Hell, Wrath of God would work better. I just don't have extra of either right now.

Any suggestions/comments are always appreciated again. I'm always looking for ideas on better Angels to put in here. Out of 59 Angels that are out there, I own at least one copy of 48 of them so odds are pretty good I have one or more.

**EDIT**

Found my Genesis Chamber and tried my Artifact deck out. I must be a lucky b*****d because out of five games I got Tezzeret four times and usually had him in play Turn 4-5. Consistently dealt 40+ damage on turn 6-7.

I'm finding I'm not getting quite enough creatures out. Planning to take out a Cranial Plating and toss in something like Memnarch, which might help. I usually have a good amount of untapped lands to abuse him on a regular basis. I'm still debating on throwing Karn in there. I think he'd help out quite a bit.

The deck played good otherwise and won four of five games. Even if I didn't have Tezzeret out I would have won as I had quite a bit going on to draw cards like mad, drain life with the Disciples and pump up creatures or make tokens to send on suicide runs.

But man, Tezzeret is one big cheesy b*****d. I've heard he's been used in Vintage and I can see how to pull off a turn 2 kill with him. For Casual though he is just overkill. I'd hate to see what I could do with him if I had better artifacts.

[epiclevelwarrior]

Arcane Sanctum is a W/B tap land. It's not like you care about hitting your one drop.

Oblivion Ring would be a cheaper option that would provide vindicate's effect, albeit with a drawback. If you need the versatility it might be worth it.

On angels: Pristine Angel looks like a good play here if only defensively. It'd be awesome with angel's trumpet, somthing I found while looking for angel tribal support and, interestingly, a decent play in here. You like vigilance and you like forcing your opponent's weenies to come play with your angels. It does have negative synergy with Battlegrace Angel, though.

Other ideas: Adarkar Valkyrie. It's not even that expensive anymore.

How do you like the advocates? They seem a bit underpowered to me. I might replace them with more 6 drops.

Blinding Angel might be interesting to play with. A good way to stabilize against faster creature based decks.

Desolation angel is another interesting possibility. You're likely to be in a good place in terms of permaments on the board.

If you don't find the Echo on Karmic Guide a problem, Herald of Serra could be a good play for an early threat (I'd prefer it to Advocates).


I'd consider coalition relic or even Worn Powerstone over Gilded Lotus. You seem pretty decent for colors at this point (esp once you get some multi lands) but horrible for speed. Even in casual, trying to improve your chances of starting to drop angels on turn 4 rather than 6 seems like a plan.

Conversely, I'm not a fan of Dark Ritual here. You don't have nearly enough card advantage to be throwing it away like that and you don't want to drop a single big creature early and then protect it to the win. You want to continue dropping fatties turn after turn (or that's how the deck is currently set up at least). Artifact accel is going to serve you better than rituals.

[Zeddicuus]

Alright, there are a lot of good suggestions in that post, ELW! I'll elaborate on what I've considered in your post below.

Arcane Sanctum is a good, lower cost means to get the colours I was wanting instead of Godless Shrine or the Caves of Koilos. I don't like the Sanctum comes into play tapped because of late game issues, but I could use a Lair that has those colours instead from Invasion. I could any combination of the three in and fix my minor colour woes right there by removing the Swamps.

For Oblivion Ring, that's a feasible answer that I will indeed do. I didn't think of that one when I put Unmake in there, and Oblivion Ring would prove superior due to versatility.

As to the Advocates, I admit I was probably casting a blind eye their way. They were some of the first Angels I managed to get a hold of to start my Angel collection. But you're right, they tend to be underpowered and typically I hoped for a bigger draw. Pristine Angel would make a good blocker, I'll put her in. I don't have an Adarkar Valkyrie yet, but I didn't realize their price was so low now. The last time I checked they still had a pretty hefty pricetag. I'll be sure to grab one or two of those as well. Ditton on Blinding Angel, the shops I regularly go to didn't have any in stock for the last year and no one would trade any. I always watch for them though. I could toss in a Platinum Angel and a Pristine Angel as replacements. That should cause some major problems for the opponent. I have another Serra Angel or Seraph to use as well.

Desolation Angel didn't work in this deck as good as one might think. The permanents I have are higher costs so I don't get as many out. Killing my land has proven a disadvantage for me more than once, particularly in Multiplayer where you'll garner a lot of hate. Herald of Serra is another I'm after, but the Echo is a pain. I really only use the Karmic Guides as chump blockers and as a flying Breath of Life. I rarely pay their Echo Cost. Instead I just play another Karmic Guide to fetch a Karmic Guide to fetch another Angel. Gives me more chump blockers in case I need them. Toss in Reya for lots of Angel revival goodness here.

As to mana acceleration: I agree with the Dark Rituals being bad due to loss in card advantage. I use them frequently to throw an Urza's Incubator and/or Gilded Lotus into play to speed up the deck overall. Unfortunately I do not have any Worn Powerstones or Coalition Relics. The relics are an awesome idea though that I'll have to try to get a hold of. Dark Rituals are basically only good if I have the other artifacts in my hand early game:

Turn 1: Swamp, DR, DR, Gilded Lotus, Urza's Incubator (5 cards used)
Turn 2: Swamp or Plains, Tap Gilded for White and play an Angel that is 7 CMC or less.

Do you figure Orzhov Signets would be a feasible substitute? It's another way to fix my mana and does give reusable minor mana acceleration. I'll miss the Turn 2 Serra Angel by removing Dark Rituals but I'm pretty sure I can do without that as most Multiplayer decks aren't rolling yet. I could do something like Sisay's Ring as I have a couple of those and 4 Orzhov Signets. I have some Spectral Lanterns as well.

What do you folks figure would work best in that situation?

[epiclevelwarrior]

It's pretty cool that some of the TS and CS standard staples are down to reasonable prices since the rotation. Valkyrie and Relic both lost 3 or 4 $ off their average prices.

On the mana accel question: I'd work on getting the 3 mana for 2 accel artifacts. Trying out signets as a temporary fix might work but I think 3 for 2 is the magic number here since it puts you at 5-6 mana on turn 4 which seems like where you want to be.

Still, if you have signets lying around I'd try them out for the rituals if only to see how much you really miss the rituals.

Also, and I know you tend to dislike doing this, I'd consider 1 or two extra lands It would potentially let you keep in more of your unhinged/ unglued basics or, alternatively, toss in things like Haven en-Kor which might help your early game somewhat.

On arcane sanctum: Provided you play them as soon as you pull them and hold basics as long as you can in case you need to make a drop on a given turn you should be fine. I've played 8 tap lands in an aggro control deck with a much shallower curve and it was ugly but it worked fairly well. As a deck with a long curve and plenty of artifact accel you should be just fine.