Rukh Egg Deck, need some critique

[Djenin]

Hey everyone,

I'm a long time player that recently returned to the game, and I'm looking into recreating one of my favourite decks, although an improved version with some new cards. If anyone could give me some general feedback or some suggestions on card replacement or additions it would be most appreciated.
I'm not sure if this is type 1 or type 1,5 but I hope it won't be a problem that I post this here.

Anyway here's what I've got so far:

4x Rukh Egg
3x Hell's Caretaker
3x Ashen Ghoul
3x Nether Shadow
2x Goblin Gardener
2x Stronghold Assassin
1x Royal Assassin
2x Cabal Archon
2x Rotlung Reanimator
1x Avatar of Woe

1x Gravestorm
1x Oversold Cemetary
2x Recurring Nightmare
1x Gate to Phyrexia
1x Icy Manipulator
1x Sol Ring
1x Life Chisel

4x Dark Ritual
1x Demonic Tutor
2x Diabolic Intent

1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Maze Of Ith

4x Badlands
2x Sulferous Springs
4x Mountain
10x Swamp

61 cards total

[xsockmonkeyx]

Hey everyone,

I'm a long time player that recently returned to the game, and I'm looking into recreating one of my favourite decks, although an improved version with some new cards. If anyone could give me some general feedback or some suggestions on card replacement or additions it would be most appreciated.
I'm not sure if this is type 1 or type 1,5 but I hope it won't be a problem that I post this here.

Hello, welcome to the source. The format here is neither type 1 or 1.5 its called Legacy. It used to be 1.5 but they banned some key cards and made "Legacy". Demonic Tutor and Sol Ring are banned but you can play up to 4 Mazes. You should probably have a look over the banned/resticted lists and the decks to beat to get a better feel for the format. Also, this.

Sulfurous Springs are outdated. What you want is "Fetchlands" (Bloodstained Mire, Polluted Delta, etc.) to run alongside your duals and basics. Fetches make up the core of most modern mana bases.

If you're returning creatures to play over and over you might consider Shriekmaw. Recurring it's comes into play ability could potentially lock down the board. It also has nice synergy with Volrath's Stronghold.

[Djenin]

Thanks for your quick reply, I checked out the banned list for legacy and other than the two you mentioned there doesn't seem to be a problem, but you probably knew that already. Excuse the ignorance by the way, I've been out of the game for quite some time.

The fetchlands are great indeed: deck-thinning, less loss of life and not to mention I can use them to fetch my duals. Hell yes!

The demonic tutor is easily replaced by another diabolic intent, which is probably better anyway. The sol ring however, is a different story since it provides awesome acceleration, which is why it is banned obviously. But what be a good choice to replace it with?

Shriekmaw seems a good addition as well although I'm not sure what to remove.

What do you think about the composition? Is it solid enough as is or are there things you would do differently?

Cheers

[Lemuria]

You may run either Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors or Chrome Mox. LED and Lotus Petal are nice as acelleration, but they fit better on combo.

[rufus]

I'm not sure the deck is legacy competitive - I think that it would get run over roughshod by most of the decks in the format because it's relatively slow and doesn't run strong disruption.

It's hard to see how Rukh Egg is going to be a better card than Academy Rector or Protean Hulk both of which have similar but much more potent abilities.

[Mental]

I'm not sure the deck is legacy competitive - I think that it would get run over roughshod by most of the decks in the format because it's relatively slow and doesn't run strong disruption.

It's hard to see how Rukh Egg is going to be a better card than Academy Rector or Protean Hulk both of which have similar but much more potent abilities.

Granted, he never said he wanted it to be competitive. He just said that he wanted to update his old favorite with some new cards.

[SpatulaOfTheAges]

Your strategy is to find some way of returning and sacrificing creatures to keep cycling through Eggs, right?

Epochrasite might be a good way to gain redundancy. If you played him and Egg + Rector, + Obliterate/Jokhulops (+ Blood Funnel, perhaps, to speed things up?) you might have a good start to a Balance-ish deck.

[rufus]

Cards you might consider:

Sneak Attack
Ambush
Ichorid
Footsteps of the Goryo
Apprentice Necromancer
Cauldron Dance
Greater Gargadon

[Iranon]

Hello and good luck!

While it's nice to see something that isn't the usual fare, I too am unsure if your deck can stand up to the current format. Just a few general points regarding the power level...



The fastest combo deck will attempt to kill on turn one und succeed more than 40% of the time.
More resilent ones seek to kill around turn 3 or to generate 10+ 1/1 creatures on turn 1.

Currently little played Prison seek to lock down their opponents at comparable rates, but your list should be fine against the lock of choice.

Aggro decks can kill an idle opponent around turn 4. Some can also do this through any reasonable number of blockers, others have an inbuilt card advantage engine that keep the pressure up even if you dealt with the initial assault.

With your recurring threats, you should have some game against Control and Aggro/Control.

[Cavius The Great]

Innocent Blood and cabal therapy should be really good with Ruhk Egg. You can even throw in some Damnations and you have a shell you can go by right there.

[Djenin]

Thanks to everyone for the many replies, and mental is right: this deck isn't going to run any tournaments. Maybe I should have emphasized that a bit more in my initial post, my apologies. The idea is to update the old deck so it can hold it's own in the casual environment I currently play in. The people that play there don't exactly run power decks either and the games played are mostly multiplayer, which in our case means that slow decks usually have a fair chance at building up. The three formats currently played there are: standard, legacy and vintage. The reason I chose legacy is that I won't have to re-acquire the power cards I sold a long time ago while still being able to run most of the old cards I still have.

I don't want change too much since I really like to play most of the cards in my initial set-up.

However I will certainly consider the suggestions made here and come up with a more definitive list. Thanks again.

Cheers

[Djenin]

Alright I finally had some extra time on my hands so here`s the updated list

Creatures:

4x Rukh Egg
4x Rotlung Reanimator
3x Hell's Caretaker
2x Cabal Archon
2x Shriekmaw
2x Stronghold Assassin
1x Royal Assassin
1x Avatar of Woe

Enchantments/Artifacts:

2x Recurring Nightmare
1x Gravestorm
1x Oversold Cemetary
1x Gate to Phyrexia
1x Icy Manipulator
1x Life Chisel
1x Sneak Attack
1x Breeding Pit

Spells:

4x Dark Ritual
2x Innocent Blood
2x Diabolic Intent
1x Damnation

Land:

1x Volrath's Stronghold
1x Phyrexian Tower
1x Maze Of Ith
1x Cabal Coffers

4x Badlands
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Mountain
6x Swamp

59 cards total

Which leaves 2-3 slots that I`m going to use for some additional mana acceleration although I`m very much in doubt which ones to use:

Bubbling Muck
Cabal Ritual
Blood Pet
Culling the Weak
Chrome Mox
Doubling Cube

or even Ancient Tomb/City of Traitors although I already have a lot of "special" lands in there.

Any additional comments before I go card-hunting would be great. I`m not sure cutting the Nether Shadows was that great of an idea since they are very cheap recurring creatures but I hope this composition is a little better at least. The breeding pit I`m not too sure about either but it seems to me that I need something that will keep giving me creatures to sacrifice.

[raudo]

Many many years ago I had a Rukh Egg / Jokulhaups combo deck. That worked quite well then. Just add some 2 mana producing lands and blow up the table with jokulhaups.

[Getsickanddie]

If you're really dead set on playing Rukh Eggs, I think your best bet might be to try fitting them into a Recur-Sur style deck.

[xsockmonkeyx]

You could try out an Anger or two. It makes Hell's Caretaker more powerful and lets you attack with your tokens and reanimated dude right away if it's in your graveyard. Also, if you could manage to get a Bridge from Below or two in your graveyard you could make lots of tokens.

[Getsickanddie]

You could try out an Anger or two. It makes Hell's Caretaker more powerful and lets you attack with your tokens immediately if it's in your graveyard.

Anger is good. Your point, however, is wrong. You won't be able to attack with your tokens immediately. Caretaker can only be used on your upkeep, and the tokens do not come into play until end of turn.

[xsockmonkeyx]

Sorry, it's been a while since I've shuffled up a Rukh Egg.

[Banelich]

Other ideas for a causal fun deck.....


Summoner's Egg ....build a deck with 8 eggs & u might need to change the name. (notably best used in sneak attack to hide a darksteel colossus under)


I built a deck a long time ago using Hell's Caretaker to recur Laquatus's Champions & Duplicants with a Forsaken Wastes in play to counteract the gaining of life when Laquatus gets swapped for another Laquatus, a duplicant or a clone.


Granted the deck was totally retarded, but fun none the less. Still won't win you tournies but some ideas to toy with in MWS.