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

[Zeddicuus]

Alright! Commander is definitely starting to pick up around here with the official release of Commander a few weeks ago. Nearly every player has a prebuilt deck, with only myself and a couple others with custom brewed ones. The balance is very nice if everyone is using the prebuilts, but so far no one likes going up against my Scion of Ur-Dragon at this point in time.

I managed to get the Heavenly Inferno so I can join in the more balanced gameplay (And acquire a few angels I was missing!) and I have also had this deck assembled for the past few months that almost never got played as almost no one would put the time into making their own.

Commander: 1

Sen Triplets

Planeswalkers: 2

Jace Beleren
Tezzeret the Seeker

Lands: 32

Salt Marsh
Stalking Stones
Vault of Whispers
Darksteel Citadel
Mishra's Factory
Seat of the Synod
Anceint Den
8x Island
8x Swamp
9x Plains

Creatures: 29

Merieke Ri Berit (Serves as a secondary Commander if I want to change it up a bit)
Memnarch
Karn, Silver Golem
Myr Enforcer
Phylactery Lich
Precursor Golem
Sun Titan
Auriok Windwalker
Broodstar
Leaden Myr
Filigree Angel
Gold Myr
Mycosynth Golem
Ornithopter
Tek
Indomitable Archangel
Arsenal Thresher
Faerie Mechanist
Platinum Angel
Master of Etherium
Sanctum Gargoyle
Myr Adapter
Salvage Slasher
Auriok Glaivemaster
Silver Myr
Skyhunter Cub
Court Homunculus
Glaze Fiend
Phyrexian Colossus

Artifacts: 24

Trusty Machete
Mask of Riddles
Dimir Signet
Darksteel Ingot
Umezawa's Jitte
Azorius Signet
Whispersilk Cloak
Darksteel Brute
Energy Chamber
Helm of Kaldra
Sculpting Steel
Loxodon Warhammer
Mycosynth Lattice
Worn Powerstone
Kusari-Gama
Obelisk of Esper
Vulshok Morningstar
Cranial Plating
Orzhov Signet
Vulshok Battlegear
Sword of Kaldra
Vorrac Battlehorns
Grappling Hook
Shield of Kaldra

Enchantments: 3

Oblivion Ring
War Tax
Journey to Nowhere

Instants/ Sorceries: 9

Ovinize (bbaaaaaaaaahhhh!)
Humble
Thirst for Knowledge
Saltblast
Day of Judgement
Open the Vaults
Sign in Blood
Wash Out
Diabolic Tutor

Deck Size: One Hundred!

To be a honest, the power level of this deck was built purposely lower to make for a more even playing field with the other players whom had an EDH deck built (This was built months ago, before the Commander decks were released). Many of them, like me, were not familiar with the style and were still learning how to build decks. They found the Scion of Ur-Dragon deck I posted about quite a while ago a bit much to take on. This was built to try to make the game more even.

It's based more on smaller creatures and reusing equipment until I can get the larger stuff going and steal their gear. Stuff like Open the Vaults and the Sun Titan let me retrieve permanents to keep things going.

I know that there are some cards that could use updating. This one seems to play pretty solid against the prebuilts I play against though so I don't want to change it too much just yet. Comments on it and suggestions are always appreciated!

[LiaThistle]

No Dread Statuary?

[Zeddicuus]

Haven't seen that one before. That's a good one! I'll have to watch for that!.

[epiclevelwarrior]

The idea of building EDH lists designed to be roughly on a level playing field with the Commander precons intrigues me. My own meta is far too competative for some of the more whimsical ideas I've had so powering down some could be fun.

Your deck reminds me of the Darksteel Nuts and Bolts precon (the one with Skullclamp) that I bought a long while back, before I really got into magic. It revolved around Auriok Salvagers and 1 cost artifacts that sac for effect (spellbombs and Skullclamp with 1 cost creatures like Arcbound Worker.) It ran Trinket mage to set up the matrix and could get pretty absurd if left alone.

All of which is to say that I wonder if something similar might be fun to stick in this deck or one like it.

Vedalken Engineer was quite strong in the above deck. It might fit in yours.

Some stuff for reusing EtB effects might also be good. Momentary Blink and/or Crystal Shard maybe.

Darksteel Brute and Tek look like potential drops. The former doesn't synergy with equipment very well and the latter is never better than an Air Elemental.

[Zeddicuus]

Zeddicuus

Deck: Mad Hatter's Tea Party V.2.0 V.2.5

Lands: 23

2x Sunken Ruins
2x Watery Grave
2x Coastal Tower
1x Salt Marsh
1x Tainted Field
1x River of Tears
1x Dromar's Cavern
1x Underground River
4x Swamp
4x Island
4 2x Plains
2x Glacial Fortress
1x Drowned Catacombs

Planeswalker: 1

Venser, The Sojourner

Creatures: 26

4x Spawnbroker (The Mad Hatter)
4x Phyrexian Infiltrator (looks kinda crazy too)
3x Chromeshell Crab
3x Bronze Bombshell
31x Phyrexian Colossus
3x Mistmeadow Witch
3x Phyrexian Prowler
2x Duplicant
2x Pilgrim's Eye
2x Angel of Despair
1x Galepowder Mage


Artifacts: 4

3x Voyager Staff
1x Avarice Totem
1x Blood Clock

Instants & Sorceries: 6

42x Momentary Blink
2x Diabolic Vision
2x Into the Roil

Deck Size: 60 cards

Made changes to Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Changes are in Strike and Bold. They are not major changes, but do add some versatility to the deck by including a means of repeatable removal for opponents' stuff I don't want and another means to repeat my bouncing shenanigans to stir things up. I have also improved the manabase by including more means to produce different colours concerning the U/W aspect of things.

Comments, opinions, suggestions, razings are all welcome of course!

[LiaThistle]

Whoops, forgot to post in this.

You're using U/B, and no Kezzerdrix or any other Lagromorph? What about rats for the Dormouse?

Also, Buried Ruin can help get you back some of the high number of artifacts you're running, have you considered it?

[Zeddicuus]

Buried Ruin would actually work pretty well in this deck. I haven't heard of it previously, but I didn't keep up with the 2012 stuff as I was paying off vehicle repairs. I don't like looking at stuff I can't get haha. I'll have to see if I can get a couple as it really would help out.

I don't see how Kezzerdrix would benefit the deck, even if it is using U/B. 4/4 First Strike is always nice, sure. I just don't quite see how the deck would benefit.

Not quite sure what Lagromorph is sweatdrop

[LiaThistle]

I like to call it a typo while attempting to be funny. "Lagomorphs." If you're not sure what that is, it's a rabbit/hare/pika (well, the pika isn't quite appropriate for the deck, as it was a Spring Hare in the book, but oh well).

[Zeddicuus]

It's that time again! I've finally had some time to build a new deck and give it a couple of runs, so here it is for everyone to check out.

Lands: 21

7x Swamp
14x Island

Creatures: 8

2x Aether Adept
2x Temporal Adept
2x Hypnotic Specter
2x Dimir Cutpurse

Artifacts: 3

2x Dimir Signet
1x Geth's Grimoire

Enchantments: 7

3x Megrim
3x Warped Devotion (couldn't find my fourth one)
1x Liliana's Caress (Only have the one copy)

Instants/Sorceries: 21

1x Wash Out
4x Boomerang
4x Rushing River
1x Echoing Truth
4x Recoil
3x Dark Ritual
2x Damnation
2x Diablolic Tutor

Deck Total: 60

This was built more as a shits and giggles deck, something to mess around with a creature heavy, combo laden environment. Something more to cause a shakeup than really go all out and get a 1 turn kill.

First off, let me explain the local meta. In a nutshell, it's a multiplayer environment that has a major dependency on permanents to either aggro out and rush someone, or have reusable combos through the permanents. This meta rarely uses enchantment or artifact removal, though some still exist of course.

the idea of the deck is to attempt to gain control of the battlefield by bouncing permanents back to the owner's hands, which would cause them to discard cards and take additional damage/lose of life. the only creatures in the deck help with this control and hand disruption and are there merely as utility pieces.

The majority of the spells are there to cause shifts in board presence. Wash Out and Echoing Truth have the ability to force an opponent to discard a massive amounts of cards with the right enchantments out, while Damnation merely wipes the board if the creature presence is too much for me to keep under control.

Stuff like Recoil and Rushing River give me a 2-for-1 or even more by causing more discards and removing threats off the table.

Now, I know this deck has a lot of room for improvements. Some of the cards, such as Wash Out and Liliana's Caress, I only have the one copy of at the moment. I'm working on obtaining more of those. I'd easily swap out Megrim for the Caress.

Any suggestions would be highly appreciated, as I'm sure there are cards out there I didn't consider when I built this. I used solely what I had in my collection and didn't look up any cards for it otherwise.

[LiaThistle]

Tradewind Rider, Time Elemental, and a few other cards are useful for repeatable bouncing. So is Capsize, though that seems to be a pseudo-universal annoyance move.

[Zeddicuus]

Tradewind Rider is an interesting one. I'd have to have two other creatures out though, so I'm not sure how well that would work in a deck with such a low creature count. Definitely worth considering. Time Elemental might work well too.

I've seen others use Capsize and it would definitely fit the deck. I forgot that card existed competely. I'll have to ask around with some of the other players to see if anyone has any availbe, as I do not have any.

These are some good cards to consider. What did you think of the deck otherwise, Lia? too Gimicky?

[LiaThistle]

I've tried it before, though my version didn't run Megrims, as I wasn't expecting to win with discards. I remember the deck performing very poorly in my hands, but I also probably didn't set it up quite right. I wish I knew where the list was, but it's fully possible I didn't write it down.

What I remember from the deck:

4 Recoil
4 Remand
2 Capsize
3 Warped Devotion
2 Time Elemental
appropriate multi-lands

[Zeddicuus]

Sounds somewhat similar. I'm mostly set up to strip an opponent of permanents and resources and make them discard to win. So far it works pretty decent. Planning to find a means to tweak it soon.

On a different note, I have recently acquired several packs of Innistrad. I decided I could use practice in a Sealed environment and divided them into 4 pools of 6 packs each. I plan to list them here as I work on them to see what other people would build out of them, as well as post what I have created and how it has done. So here we go!

Pool 1

Lands: 3

1x Stensia Bloodhall
1x Ghost Quarter
1x Shimmering Grotto

Artifacts: 8

1x Demonmail Hauberk
1x Trepanation Blade
1x Butcher's Cleaver
1x Mask of Avacyn
2x Ghoulcaller's Bell
1x Cobbled Wings
1x Traveler's Amulet

Green: 14

1x Elder of Laurels
1x Wreath of Geists
1x Hollowhenge Scavenger
1x Hamlet Captain
1x Gnaw to the Bone
1x Ambush Viper
1x Naturalize
1x Villagers of Estwald
1x Prey Upon
1x Orchard Spirit
1x Moonmist
1x Darkthicket Wolf
1x Ranger's Guile
1xSomberfeld Spider

Blue: 17

1x Undead Alchemist
1x laboratory Maniac
1x Civilized Scholar
1x Skaab Goliath
1x Invisible Stalker
1x Memory's Journey
1x Deranged Assistant
1x Stitcher Apprentice
2x Frightful Delusion
1x Stitched Drake
1x Think Twice
1x Claustrophobia
1x Silent Departure
1x Makeshift Mauler
1x Spectral Flight
1x Curse of the Bloody Tome

White: 15

1x Dearly Departed
1x Rally the Peasants
1x Paraselene
1x Midnight Haunting
1x Ghostly Possession
1x Urgent Exorcism
1x Rebuke
2x Selfless Cathar
1x Village Bell-Ringer
2x Spare From Evil
1x Bonds of Faith
1x Thraben Purebloods
1x Silverchase Fox

Black: 14

1x Bloodgift Demon
1x Moan of the Unhallowed
1x Screeching Bat
1x Tribute to Hunger
2x Curse of Oblivion
2x Victim of Night
2x Curse Lunge
2x Ghoulraiser
1x Dead Weight
1x Rotting Fensnake

Red: 13

1x Falkenrath Marauders
1x Instigator Gang
1x Burning Vengeance
1x Skirsdag Cultist
1x Vampiric Fury
2x Village Ironsmith
1x Harvest Pyre
1x Ancient Grudge
1x Infernal Plunge
1x Curse of the Pierced Heart
1x Geistflame
1x Bloodcrazed Neonate


Pool Total: 84

[LiaThistle]

Blue is the only color I know I'd use; almost all of the cads in it are excellent for what you want to do. I'm split on the last color; green has some nice cards, red has some nice cards, and black has the most removal (though a lot of it is dead against a good chunk of the field).

I do know that I'd include both blades, and the Amulet for artifacts (the only reason I'd include Trepanation blade is thanks to the Stalker, who provides inevitability).

[Zeddicuus]

I was thinking along the same lines.

This is what I've assembled to test out:

Lands: 16

8x Swamp
8x Island

Creatures: 7

1x Invisible Stalker
1x Stitcher's Apprentice (mostly because I can sac a creature declared as a blocker to make another creature)
1x Screeching Bat
1x Civilized Scholar
1x Undead Alchemist
1x Bloodgift Demon
1x Skaab Goliath

Artifacts: 4

1x Traveler's Amulet
1x Mask of Avacyn
1x Trepanation Blade
1x Butcher's Cleaver

Enchantments: 3

1x Dead Weight
1x Spectral Flight
1x Claustrophobia

Instants/Sorceries:

1x Think Twice
1x Memory's Journey
2x Victim of Night
2x Frightful Delusion
1x Tribute to Hunger
2x Corpse Lunge
1x Moan of the Unhallowed

Basically the setup looks pretty straight forward. You use the removal from Black to try to keep the opponent at bay until you can get some things going, either with the Stalker, Goliath or the Demon.

Seems a bit underwhelming to me, though. Is there anything someone would alter in this to make it more efficient given the pool? I can't see anything myself at this time.