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General_Norris
04-16-2010, 06:20 AM
Hi. Recently I returned to Magic after quitting and a friend of mine has shown a lot of interest in the game and wants to play.

After some time I decided to scrap my Mono-X idea for her deck because she had no room for improvement, the cards will be good but not prone to deckbuilding and so on.

Similarly I think an aggro-control deck is the best choice for a starting player as playing combo doesn't teach you a lot, playing pure control is hard and requires metagame skills lacking in a new player and pure Aggro is too simple.

She doesn't like Blue so I thought The Rock would be a good choice. Keeping the budget at minimun I came up with this:

4 Treetop Village
8 Forest
10 Swamp
-------------------
22 Lands

4 Birds of Paradise
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Kitchen Finks
3 Eternal Witness
3 Wall of Bloosoms
3 Shriekmaw
--------------------
21 Creatures

4 Duress
4 Himn to Tourach
4 Putrefy
3 Pernicious Deed
2 Loxodon Warhammer
-----------------------------
17 Other Spells

This adds up to 76 Euro. If you change Birds with Elves of the Deep Shadow or soemthing similar you cut 10 euro and using Disks instead of Deeds saves you other 15 Euro.

Now, as you can see the list is not really perfected. I think it lacks a bit of focus or something big like 4cc spells and so on but I'm sure you can improve on that. Keep in mind I have just returned from a break and my mana curve skills are dead.

However as a whole i like how this is going. She gets Duress, Hymn, Birds and Kitchen Finks, very good carsd than can fit in lots of decks. Similarly she also gets other good cards that can be easily traded or obtained like Specter and Putrefy.

She will also learn about practically everything in the game. She has discard, something that leads to metagame skills. She has creatures and mana acceleration and she has sweepers. Wall of Bloosoms and Specter will teach her the importance of card advantage.

She doesn't have any regenerating cretures though. I think that would be a bonus.

So, what do you think?

GenioDeArena
04-16-2010, 03:36 PM
Maybe is way below the curve but Krosan Tusker is a hell of a card that has "midrange" written on it. Is both an uncounterable draw/mana instant and a fattie, and trust me, beginers love fatties.

Meekrab
04-16-2010, 03:52 PM
Fit a couple Spiritmongers in there?

paK0
04-16-2010, 04:25 PM
Mh, does she want do play casual players (or other budget players) or take on full powered decks?

If the answear is casual I'd also recommened Spiritmonger. He is just a solid fat ass finisher.


If she wants to play powered decks I would opt for some cheaper removal. Smother seems pretty sexy and is affordable.

bakofried
04-16-2010, 04:33 PM
Post-RoE you could throw in Inquisition of Kozilek. Changes the restriction from noncreature, nonland to cmc =>3, nonland.

MMogg
04-16-2010, 06:48 PM
paKO's question is a very crucial one. If, for example, the deck is meant to face Progenitus, I would suggest Gatekeeper of Malakir over Shriekmaw, because you have no maindeck way of dealing with Progenitus.

Since it's budget, maybe use some kind of cheap dual land. Even Llanowar Wastes would help a bit with mana fixing.

General_Norris
04-17-2010, 07:37 AM
@@MMogg &paKO

She will end up facing competitive decks so yes, I should add something against Progenitus. Gatekeeper of Malakir seems more useful over Diabolic Edict if Mana fixing is not an issue.

I didn't add any painlands because I thought they were expensive (One year ago they were around 7 euro per card) but if they are at 2 euro per card I will fit 4 of them ASAP. This deck needs GG in turn 3 and BB in turn 2 so duals are needed.

In fact part of the reasoning behind Wall of Bloosoms was circunventing that problem.

So what about this?

4 Treetop Village
4 Adarkar Wastes
7 Forest
7 Swamp
----------------------
22 Lands

(Damn, I no longuer know how to build manabases)

-3 Shriekmaw +3 Gatekeepr of Malakir

I don't really like the Wall of Bloosoms in the deck. What about removing them and adding a meta call? Or I can add some fatties because my inner Timmy wants to give her something. I could remove them for three Smothers (Thanks paKO) or one more Gatekeeper and two Krosan Tuskers. The money spent on Spiritmongers is better spent on lands and other cards, IMHO. Or perhaps I should scrap the fatty idea and give her more equipment, same effect but more reliable than a fatty.

Feel free to give some suggestions about what using to fill the Wall of Blossoms slots.

zalachan
04-17-2010, 08:18 AM
Idk, 1-of Unearth, maybe Mask of Memory, Night's Whisper, maybe Okiba-Gang Shinobi and/or Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni, since you have bunch of CIP creatures and birds on top of that. All of those cards are great fun, easy to obtain and have Rockish flavour. And put some Lignify in SB for savage tech against Iona ;)

porcupinetreeman
04-17-2010, 09:14 AM
4 Treetop Village
6 Forest
8 Swamp
4 B/G Painland

3 Krosan Tusker
3 Troll Ascetic
4 Eternal Witness

4 Innocent Blood
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Duress
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Putrefy
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Phyrexian Arena

I have a friend who runs something similar to this, it beats a lot of tier 1 decks.

General_Norris
04-19-2010, 10:01 AM
It's a good deck but I will first build something with more cretures, she will not like so many control cards at first. She can later choose what kind of Rock she wants.^

@Zalachan

I will pass her your suggestions once she starts to play.