This is the deck I've been working on a lot recently, and I've been pretty happy with it. I'm hoping to get a few suggestions for cuts/additions to tighten the list up a little more. I'll give the list and then a quick list of some of the issues I'm having.
General: Child of Alara
30 Fetch/Shock/Dual Lands
Sac Outlets
Diamond Valley
Miren, the Moaning Well
High Market
Creature Control
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Mystifying Maze
Maze of Ith
Kor Haven
Glacial Chasm
Nomad Stadium
Land Destruction
Ghost Quarter
Strip Mine
Recursion
Petrified Field
Academy Ruins
Volrath's Stronghold
Card Draw
Cephalid Coliseum
Horizon Canopy
Tranquil Thicket
Secluded Steppe
Tolaria West
Win Conditions
Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
Vesuva
Utility
Bojuka Bog
Dryad Arbor
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
More Land Drops!
Summer Bloom
Exploration
Azusa, Lost but Seeking
Oracle of Mul Daya
Recross the Paths
Tutors!
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Tutor
Natural Order
Primeval Titan
Enlightened Tutor
Gamble
Entomb
Crop Rotation
Intuition
Realms Uncharted
Knight of the Reliquary
Reap and Sow
Wargate
Drift of Phantasms
Survival of the Fittest
Card Draw
Ad Nauseam
Treasure Hunt
Sensei's Divining Top
Sylvan Library
Dark Confidant
Dark Tutelage
Answers
Necrotic Sliver
Harmonic Sliver
Qasali Pridemage
Swords to Plowshares
Bant Charm
Maelstrom Pulse
Recursion
Sun Titan
Cloudstone Curio
Nim Deathmantle
Dawn of the Dead
Eternal Witness
Reveillark
Tilling Treefolk
Life from the Loam
Crucible of Worlds
Genesis
Venser, the Soujourner
Win the game!
Prismatic Omen
Yawgmoth's Will
Last Stand
So basically, the deck is a pile of tutors, recursion, and lands; mostly lands though. This wrecks any "fair" deck; one that plans on winning with creatures, and doesn't have ways to repeatedly deal with problems lands and exile your graveyard. You typically win the game one of four ways:
1) Valakut + Vesuva
2) Emeria + Vesuva
3) Glacial Chasm Lock
4) Last Stand
The rest of the deck is dedicated to recurring various utility lands and creatures to generate a strong board position that's pretty resilient to wraths and spot removal. I'm more than happy to elaborate on how the deck plays, or the role of various cards in the deck, but it's pretty difficult to describe how the deck works when it's a pile of positive interactions.
So, I'm pretty happy with the deck as it is right now, but I"m having some trouble with a few things/have some questions
1) Blood Moon effects. Obviously, this is a problem, and it's not going to get fixed just by adding some basics. Thoughts?
2) Mill combos, or just combo in general. Scroll Rack might help, but is actually pretty meh in this deck
3) Is Bazaar of Baghdad good enough for the deck? I feel like it ought to be, but it's really hard to find space for things like that these days.
4) What are some of the weaker slots in the deck? I've been having lots of trouble finding things that I want to cut.
5) The only other lands that double as sac outlets for creatures are Keldon Necropolis and Phyrexian Tower. Are either of these good enough? Tower helps activate Nim Deathmantle more times, but Necropolis doubles as removal for problematic utility creatures.
I have a deck that is based on a very similar concept, but with very divergent card choices.
First, mine has more lands. It allows me to take better advantage of Ad Nauseam, which is nuts in this deck (especially lolgasmic with Manabond).
Second, my suite of win conditions is much different. I use Meloku, Rampaging Baloths, Worm Harvest, and Seismic Assault, in addition to a large number of manlands (speaking of which, you should run at least the Worldwake manlands here, as the color fix and beat relatively well).
Third, Burgeoning is much better than Summer Bloom and other one-shot effects; Manabond is also better in my deck, but you have more spells, so maybe not so much for you.
Fourth, with the exception of Deed, all of my answer cards are colorless: Nev's Disk, EE, and Oblivion Stone. These answer Blood Moon quite well.
I don't run Tabernacle or Diamond Valley because I don't own either; I substitute Keldon Necropolis for Valley and have no substitute for Tabernacle. On the other hand, not having Tabernacle allows me to run both The Rapist (ie, Meloku) and Worm Harvest, both of which are ridonculous. Cap is incredibly useful versus hate cards like Bojuko Bog/other graveyard hate, Sacred Ground, Armageddon effects, etc.
I've heard Global Ruin can be quite powerful in a deck like this, but haven't tried it for myself.
EDIT: my list -
10 Original Duals
9 Ravnica Duals (not R/W)
5 Basics
5 Onslaught Fetches
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Unstable Frontier
5 Onslaught Cycling Lands
5 Worldwake Manlands
1 Treetop Village
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Deserted Temple
1 Petrified Field
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace
1 Vesuva
1 Dust Bowl
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Cabal Pit
1 Barbarian Ring
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Kor Haven
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Academy Ruins
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 High Market
1 Keldon Necropolis
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Magosi, the Waterveil
1 Tolaria West
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Burgeoning
1 Exploration
1 Manabond
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Trade Routes
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Ad Nauseam
1 Eternal Witness
1 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Nevinyrral's Disk
1 Zuran Orb
1 Rings of Brighthearth
1 Jester's Cap
1 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
1 Rampaging Baloth
1 Seismic Assault
1 Worm Harvest
1 Rude Awakening
It's really pretty interesting that a similar concept can have such divergent results.
Which worldwake manlands have been doing the best for you? I'm okay with adding one or two of them, but I definitely don't want the whole suite of them. I don't need more colorfixing, and ETBTapped lands are pretty miserable. I'm thinking that Creeping Tar Pits and either lavaclaw reaches or Raging Ravine would be my choices, since they have the best evasion/highest damage potential respectively.
Honestly, I really like some of my win conditions here. Sun Titan is a house, and being able to repeatedly recur him with Nim Deathmantle is absolutely stupid. Being able to strip mine lock an entire table is completely unfair. I guess I just don't see what kind of utility Meloku is giving you? Besides letting you reuse bojuka bog, it doesn't actually seem to do much besides slowly make a couple of 1/1s. I know our lists are very, very different, but Sun Titan is exploration and crucible in the same card, I definitely recommend trying it, maybe in place of regrowth.
Burgeoning doesn't let you play lands from your graveyard, just from your hand. Which makes a huge difference for my build since you're usually planning on "going off" with Valakut/Crucible/Summer Bloom at some point. I've been looking for a copy of burgeoning to try, but I find that my hand is empty pretty quickly, and that I'm spending most of my resources to mess around with my graveyard.
Regarding Blood Moon effects, I still don't think you've got such solid answers. It'd be pretty difficult to fetch up enough basics to make EE relevant, but ignoring that, it seems like you have to fetch up the answers preemptively, otherwise you're down to much fewer potential answers.
I do like the idea of adding more cycling lands and a few basics, I've been trying to find space for them for awhile. Just how good is Keldon Necropolis? Is there any chance that Phyrexian Tower could be better, just because it doesn't cost anything to activate? This is what I'm looking to add based on your list:
Keldon Necropolis
1-2 Worldwake Manlands
1 more Cycling land
2-3 Basics
Deserted Temple
Rix Maadi
What do you think of Prahv, Spires of Order? It seems like it could be okay, potentially a replacement for Mystifying Maze, or even in addition to. It's pretty mana intensive, but being able to deal with spell-based sources of damage seems pretty good.
The two blue ones have worked out well. It's pretty hard to get through on the ground with the others unless you use Child, but the evasive ones get in there for a steady stream of damage, which is nice.Originally Posted by 94teen
Meloku and Manabond allow you to make an airforce equal to the number of untapped lands you control in a single turn. People tend not to survive very long if Meloku is active, simply because most people don't have a lot of ways to deal with 40+ flying guys outside of Wraths. I've considered adding Sejiri Steppe just to protect Meloku, but opted against it since it does so little otherwise.
I might try Titan, but it seems pretty meh to me.
Necropolis is pretty meh. Tower is okay because it's free, but it's literally The Goggles otherwise: this deck doesn't even need black mana that badly and has very few creatures to sacrifice other than Child. At least Necropolis can add insult to injury by shocking someone.
Infinitely costly activated ability is infinitely costly. What direct damage spells are you protecting yourself from? Consume Spirirt?
Why doesn't your list have wasteland? Against any 3+ color general its like another strip mine.
I don't run wasteland because I don't want another effect like that. Strip mine is just better, and I picked Ghost Quarter for two reasons. Firstly, my group HATES land destruction, so I draw less hate for playing ghost quarter. Secondly, it infrequently doubles as a win condition.
If I were going to run another effect like that, Dust Bowl would be next, since you can sacrifice things like Dryad Arbor and Glacial Chasm instead of other lands. It's kind of hilarious how frequently I've started recurring dryad arbor with emeria.
On the topic of prahv, it seems like it might be better than mystifying maze. You get a little more utility, and don't have to worry about creatures with ETB abilities.
the meloku + mana bond combo seems pretty ridiculous. Though, you said that you didn't run Tabernacle because it doesn't combo with meloku; couldn't you just bounce the tabernacle with meloku? I mean, not running it for budget reasons is completely legitimate, my group lets me proxy it for the time being. I'd start trying to put those in, but I'm just afraid that I won't really be able to abuse Manabond since I have a (relatively) higher spell density.
How often is your reliquary tower relevant? I cut mine today so that I could start fitting in some basics and more cycling lands, since I almost never need to worry about the number of cards in my hand, unless I get pretty lucky with Ad Nauseam.
Tower is relevant with both Ad Nauseam and Seer's Sundial. In the absence of Azusa or Manabond, it's often quite difficult to empty your hand out in one turn after drawing a bunch of cards, and there wasn't much cost to running one. In the event I don't need it, it makes excellent Dust Bowl fodder.
I won't proxy Tabernacle, simply because most people around here would complain nonstop even if I were using a real one, and probably wouldn't allow me to use a fake one. Plus, it makes Worm Harvest and Rampaging Baloths worse, and I don't like being dependent on Prismatic Omen to enable tricks.
That's fair enough. I've started making a number of changes to the list, I'll edit in a new list sometime tomorrow.
What do you think are the best draw engines for the deck? I'm probably cutting Dark Confidant and Dark Tutelage for Cycling lands and possibly something else. Ad Nauseam is a lot higher risk in my list than in yours, but it's just so good I can't imagine cutting it.
There are a few other things that I'm curious about now that I think I have a new direction for my list:
How good are Barbarian Ring and Cabal Pits? It seems like they'd rarely kill anything that's not a utility creature, and Ring seems like a really slow win condition.
Is your general also Child of Alara? Regardless, I really don't see a reason not to play Emeria. I win most games off the back of Emeria, and it's not hard to get it active, even without prismatic omen. I don't even resolve the card in most games. It just gives you so much inevitability, and wrathing the board every turn with Child of Alara is something most decks just can't deal with.
Any comments on Prahv vs Mystifying Maze? The two are pretty comparable as far as I'm concerned, and though there's a huge difference between 4 and 6, I think there's enough of a difference in the effect that it might be worthwhile.
How often is Zuran Orb relevant? It's gone in and out of the deck, and has never really done anything, regardless of how good it ought to be in theory. More often than not Diamond Valley and Nomad Stadium are plenty of life gain, and I'm never happy to the Zorb.
I noticed that you run Riftstone Portal, but not Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. In my build, Urborg is better mostly because of Last Stand to just kill people. I know you don't run that many black spells, but it seems like there ought to be space for it just for the sake of redundancy.
How have you dealt with combo? Just Jester's Cap + Disk/Stone/Deed? If I were to add 1-2 of the Wraths you run, which have been the most effective? I'm thinking that Disk and Deed would be best for my list. Honestly though, Deed would be making the cut mostly because of the synergy with Sun Titan.
Sorry about all the questions, I'm just trying to figure out how to make the most of the slots I have, and I'm excited to have found someone else who runs a similar list.
Tutelage actually seems fine, if slow. I prefer Seer's Sundial with permanent ways to increase the number of lands I play per turn, but it is probably worse with one-shot effects (by the way, Recross the Paths seems awful in your deck. How often do you win the clash?).
Ad Nauseam is the best. Treasure Hunt is okay, but really variable. After that, Tutelage is probably decent if slow. I'm not sold on Bob given how much easier he is to kill in this format.
They're mostly to kill utility creatures. Ring is not the best but I haven't found a decent replacement for it (maybe Prahv? But seven mana is so much...). Pit is pretty good at dealing with creatures and the toughness reduction is much appreciated.
Yes, it is. Emeria requires seven Plains to work, which means it's worthless in my deck without Prismatic Omen (I usually don't get seven Plains until very, very late since white is not an important color for my deck). In most cases, that means Child recursion gets randomly shut off by both using Child (you will need to recur Omens first) and Disenchant effects from the opponents; in the late game, I have other ways to recur Child and don't want to be blowing up my win conditions with it anyway. Not a fan.
Prahv effectively costs seven to use, since it's six to activate and you tap Prahv itself. Seven is a lot more than five in the early game, as I'm often quite busy barring very slow starts (in which case, I still want Maze because it starts working sooner). Circumventing CiP abilities and stopping direct damage seems nice, but most creatures with CiP abilities are small (so you don't often Maze them anyway), and I don't face many large burn spells.
Quite relevant versus aggro decks. If you don't run Tabernacle, you basically have to run Orb, IMO. Plus, I run neither Valley nor Stadium.
Black mana is basically colorless mana for me. I have very few effects that care about black relative to the amount needing green. Plus, it can randomly fix mana for my opponents, which I don't like.
Much like Lands in Legacy, you just lose to it. Fast, dedicated, spell-based combo decks basically don't exist around here (well, I have one, but don't often play it). Most of what I see are off-the-wall fun/"fair" decks and Survival-based five-color decks using creature combos to win. Cap and board control cards are sufficient to deal with both of those. Actually, Cap is more for hate cards like Bojuka Bog than anything, though I don't mind using it to lobotomize big spells like Tooth and Nail or Kiki-Jiki.
Changes:
-Reveillark
-Cloudstone Curio
-Reliquary Tower
-Mystifying Maze
-Bant Charm
-Swords to Plowshares
-Dark Tutelage
-Dark Confidant
+Tranquil Thicket
+Secluded Steppe
+Barren Moor
+Deserted Temple
+Nantuko Monastery
+Riftstone Portal
+Snow-Covered Plains
+Snow-Covered Forest
Other changes are waiting until I actually have copies of the cards.
Mouth of Ronom vs Barbarian Ring/Cabal Pit is what I'm thinking about now. Mouth of Ronom is better at killing more creatures, but it's less efficient, and can't hit indestructible things like Cabal Pit or players like Barbarian Ring. I'm not entirely certain that matters though, since I can't imagine Barbarian Ring being a win con very often. Of the three, I think I'd prefer to play Barbarian Ring, but it might be worth thinking about.
94teen, what's your most recent list for this deck? Mine's turned into something of a mess recently and I'm looking to compare notes with other lists.
@ aggro_Zombies: I posted an updated list over on mtgcommander, since more discussion seems to happen there.
For anyone else, here's the link
Why no mindslaver? Its how I win most of my games now. Not to mention, mindslaver+rings of brighthearth is insane in multiplayer. Prismatic omens always felt really weak in the deck because it non-bo's so hard with child.
Hello fellow Child EDH players! I've looked at the lists in this thread several times in order to generate some ideas for my own Child deck. When I originally constructed the deck, I tried to make it a lot like the old 5 color domain control decks of Invasion block during Extended. Early game, it would focus on ramping up basic lands, then would clear the board with Child of Alara and Global Ruin. Afterward, it would play Mirari's Wake and use Legacy Weapon to clean up remaining permanents to completely seal the game. However, the deck was quite slow and very dependent on successful big spells. I think that the land control route, similar to the 43 Land legacy deck, is the way to go. It is very versatile with such a variety of great lands, and the lack of too many non-land cards makes most of your opponents' nonland hate useless, generating virtual card advantage.
Anyways 94teen and Aggro_zombies, could you post your most recent decklists? I want to see some of the more polished versions of Child to get started. I also had some ideas of my own:
Would Greater Gargadon have any place in the deck? It has always been one of my pet cards, and I love the ability to sacrifice Child at instant speed with a sacrifice outlet that is basically untouchable barring a Pithing Needle or Phyrexian Revoker. Do you find that three lands that sacrifice creatures (Miren, Diamond Valley and High Market) are sufficient in proactively getting rid of your own Child?
Have you considered using Kher Keep as a token generator? I see that Khalni Garden and Springjack Pasture have been mentioned in the mtgcommander.net thread, but other than the tokens not being green (like from Khalni Garden) for a potential Natural Order, Kher Keep seems to outclass them both. It is cheaper manawise than the Pasture for constantly creating tokens, and does not require the put into play shennanigans that Garden would require.
As for some of the old domain cards that I've come to love, would any of these cards be worth a slot:
Collective Restraint - with a 5 color deck, this can almost be a Moat. The only downside I can see (as with many potential nonland permanents in this deck) is that it will be wiped by Child. Still, it is extremely efficient at stopping multiple creatures.
Legacy Weapon - could help you achieve your endgame alongside a Crucible/Strip Mine combo.
Mirari's Wake - is all that extra mana very useful for this deck? I'm guessing this card would not make the cut.
Global Ruin - it's been mentioned before, but I'm thinking this would probably not bode well in a deck that is leaning away from basic lands and towards a toolbox of non-basics.
And lastly, if you had all the money in the world to throw into this deck, which, if any, of the super-expensive lands - Library, Workshop, Bazaar and Tabernacle - would you put in? There are not enough artifacts to make use of Workshop, and Library probably doesn't do enough to justify a spot. Bazaar of Baghdad, however, is quite the oddity in that it's a land that straight up lets you draw a lot. The Tabernacle is also very unique in it's ability to hinder decks playing lots of creatures.
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Primeval Titan
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Gamble
1 Crop Rotation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Realms Uncharted
1 Wargate
1 Dark Confidant
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Treasure Hunt
1 Seer's Sundial
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Burgeoning
1 Exploration
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Genesis
1 Sun Titan
1 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Constant Mists
1 Jester's Cap*
1 Venser, the Sojourner*
1 Rampaging Baloths*
1 Worm Harvest
10 Fetches
10 Original Duals
7 Shocklands (all w and/or green)
5 Basics
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Creeping Tar Pit
1 Khalni Garden*
1 Mishra's Factory
1 Nantuko Monastery
1 Diamond Valley
1 High Market
1 Miren, the Moaning Well
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Kor Haven
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Academy Ruins
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Petrified Field
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Tolaria West
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Dust Bowl
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nomad Stadium*
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace*
1 Vesuva
Asterisks denote the cards that are or seem weak. I think the deck could use a new mix of win conditions (since the primary one right now is concessions from all the land destruction), and some of the other miscellaneous spots are kind of weak.
As for your points specifically:
Most versions of this deck have a lot of ways to find lands, so yes, the three lands are often enough. The bigger issue is recurring Child, since Stronghold is the only land for that and it eats a draw step.
If you run enough white, Kjeldoran Outpost is the best land token generator since the tokens are 1/1s and it taps for colored mana. Red is usually a pretty minor component in these decks, so when possible you want to avoid cards that need it. Pasture's tokens can be fed back into Pasture for life and color fixing, which is appreciated, while Khalni Garden taps for green - that's why those two are mentioned.
Restraint - sacrificing Child usually handles a lot of creatures. That aside, the incentive in most EDH games is to go big, not go swarm, and most decks will gladly pay five or whatever to push through their most powerful threat. I could see this card being better in version with more nonland permanents, but I would not want to use Child as a general in that deck.
Weapon is cute but not very good.
Wake's extra mana isn't needed, and the bonus is only relevant with Worm Harvest (and then Eldrazi Monument is better because it also lets the worms fly).
Ruin is very, very powerful. With Loam and Crucible, you can often take an entire table out of a game. I don't know about other areas, but around here most people are light on basic land types and heavy on generic nonbasics in their multicolor decks, which means they often don't have enough lands in play while I have five. Plus, the acceleration element of the deck means that some of those five are often untapped, so I can Loam back some of the important lands and then play them. Note that even this isn't an issue if you have Prismatic Omen in play, as you can pick and choose which of your lands to save at that point.
Workshop can be fine in five-color MUD builds since it lets you accelerate out lock pieces. Library is not worth a slot in the deck as drawing an extra card when the stars align and the right virgins are sacrificed is pretty weak - you're already able to run things like Horn of Greed, Seer's Sundial, Ad Noz, Trade Routes, and others to keep your hand well stocked and for much less cash. That same sort of logic applies to Bazaar, too. Tabernacle is probably fine in a more Enchantress-y build of this deck, but again, I don't like running a lot of nonland permanents in a deck where my insurance policy involves kicking the baby. If your meta is just bursting at the seams with aggro or token decks, Tabernacle is probably fine as redundancy, but otherwise I don't like it much.
Personally, if I had all the money in the world to throw into this deck, I would start with finding Alpha duals.
For the most part, I agree with Zombies here.
If I had more money to throw into the deck, I'd consider Bazaar and Tabernacle, but only getting the deck fully black-bordered. The cute thing with tabernacle is that it's another sac outlet, and for multiple creatures even, so it's certainly got some utility, and Bazaar actually seems pretty sweet in place of one of the tutors, or even Cephalid Coliseum.
Regarding the specific suggestions, I think that Zombie's is pretty much directly on point. Most of the cards are cute, but probably not the most efficient things that you could do. That said, the cool thing about this deck is that you can do all kinds of interesting things that most other decks wouldn't be interested in. There's definitely somewhere between 8 and 15 "flex slots" that can be used for just about anything without throwing the deck off too much.
Thanks for getting back to me about the deck. I completely forgot about Kjeldoran Outpost, so I think I will throw it in since I feel a token generator is a good ability for a deck of singleton lands. I played the deck quite a bit today between the rounds of a Legacy tournament (my deck is most similar to Aggro_zombie's list, but missing Diamond Valley, half of the duals and a few of the other choices) but one card that I am very sold on that is not in any of the listed decks is Expedition Map. Being colorless and able to be played over the first two turns when you have nothing else to do, it can easily help you color fix. I will sometimes go grab a fetch if I have graveyard recursion in hand (Tilling Treefolk, Regrowth or Eternal Witness) to guarantee more land. Later in the game, it is a simple 3 colorless tutor for any particular land. The best part is that it can be recurring with Academy Ruins. I'm sure you both tested Expedition Map, what was the reason for dropping it.
The deck is a blast in multiplayer games. You would think that Child would make you a lightning rod for hate, but the deck is quite passive and unthreatening on the surface, giving you a lot of staying power if people don't fear the Child too badly. Some players will even welcome the presence of a sweeper general, if another deck has a broken strategy revolving around permanents.
You were right about Collective Restraint, there is so much creature hate by the Child alone that it's completely unnecessary. Global Ruin can sometimes be painful for yourself, but it is simply too good to pass up a chance to knock your opponent down to 2 or 3 lands when you get to keep five.
And I suppose I could pursue the expensive black-bordered duals, but having them as the only white-bordered cards at least makes them convenient for all of the fetching.
It's actually been really interesting to see these lists develop over time. Most of the lists I've seen start with a bunch of spot removal and whatnot for creatures and other permanents, but everyone's slowly been cutting almost all the non-child removal. Everyone's got a suite of 2 or 3 cards that function as removal, but other than that seem to rely almost exclusively on Child recursion.
Regarding Expedition Map, I cut it because I was running out of space. I'd rather have Entomb or Gamble -> Life from the Loam, or Tolaria West, which is recurrable via Loam and Petrified Field. There's really nothing WRONG with Expedition Map, it was just a slow card that wasn't as synergistic as the other tutors were. If your mana base is a little more shakey (less duals) or you don't have access to some of the more expensive cards, it's definitely a completely reasonable inclusion, especially in a list with Sun Titan.
I think the key to making the deck function in a multiplayer game is politics. If you wrath with Child as frequently as possible just to keep everyone down, people are going to try to kill you ASAP. If you sit around playing lands, wrathing when someone's getting out of hand, then everyone leaves you alone until it's too late.
I guess my question about Global Ruin is why you wouldn't want to just Wasteland/Strip mine someone a bunch of times instead? Isn't Summer Bloom almost the same thing, except more explosive AND synergistic? I mean, I guess Global Ruin hits more players, but it also wrecks your board position too. It seems interesting. It could be really powerful, but it could also just be the worst. If I were going to run a Geddon effect, it'd definitely be that one though, since it's the least symmetrical.
The politics with my build of the deck are usually pretty interesting. People moan a bunch about what a bummer it is that all of their stuff is going to get blown up, but then in-game they get super-cautious about dealing with you because they're afraid you'll kick the baby and set them back to zero. You end up being able to just do whatever and as long as you look threatening, people won't mess with you. I honestly don't kick baby that often.
What I do all the time is Waste/Strip lock people out of the game. Once you do that, the dynamics of the game change completely, in the sense that no one wants to do anything anymore for fear of painting targets on their heads. You can just run over people at that point.
For that reason, I kind of want to focus on the land destruction element of the deck. Winter Orb, Static Orb, and Storage Matrix all seem like decent inclusions if you add Blinkmoth Well, and Tangle Wire can get very annoying. I'll mess with the deck and post an updated list soon.
Well, "soon" turned out to be over a year, but what the hey. I'm thinking about putting this deck back together, and this is a (slightly updated) version of where I left off:
General: Child of Alara
1 Knight of the Reliquary
1 Primeval Titan
1 Rune-Scarred Demon
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Entomb
1 Gamble
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Crop Rotation
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Intuition
1 Wargate
1 Tolaria West
1 Dark Confidant
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Trade Routes
1 Necropotence
1 Cephalid Coliseum
1 Desolate Lighthouse
1 Horizon Canopy
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Tranquil Thicket
1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
1 Oracle of Mul Daya
1 Burgeoning
1 Exploration
1 Eternal Witness
1 Tilling Treefolk
1 Genesis
1 Sun Titan
1 Life from the Loam
1 Regrowth
1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Academy Ruins
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Volrath's Stronghold
1 Necrotic Sliver
1 Legacy Weapon
1 Pernicious Deed
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Diamond Valley
1 High Market
1 Mind Twist
1 Mind Shatter
1 Identity Crisis
1 Global Ruin
1 Dust Bowl
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Strip Mine
1 Wasteland
1 Phyrexian Metamorph
1 Worm Harvest
1 Inkmoth Nexus
1 Kessig Wolf Run
1 Glacial Chasm
1 Kor Haven
1 Maze of Ith
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Nomad Stadium
1 Vesuva
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Boseiju, Who Shelters All
1 Command Tower
1 City of Brass
1 Reflecting Pool
1 Riftstone Portal
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1 Verdant Catacombs
1 Windswept Heath
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Polluted Delta
1 Misty Rainforest
1 Bloodstained Mire
1 Arid Mesa
1 Flooded Strand
1 Scalding Tarn
1 Marsh Flats
1 Tropical Island
1 Volcanic Island
1 Badlands
1 Scrubland
1 Savannah
1 Underground Sea
1 Tundra
1 Plateau
1 Bayou
1 Taiga
1 Temple Garden
1 Overgrown Tomb
1 Stomping Ground
1 Breeding Pool
1 Godless Shrine
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Hallowed Fountain
1 Plains
1 Forest
1 Snow-Covered Forest
1 Snow-Covered Plains
I kind of wish I still owned a Tabernacle now.
Last edited by Aggro_zombies; 07-23-2012 at 01:13 PM.
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