Type 2 BG High Horse

[Atreides Conscript]

This is a deck that I created an hour or so ago. It only took me about thirty minutes, so I expect there to be many problems with it... and thus I'm open to opinions. This deck is meant for tourney play, and thus I'm not worried about the concept of casual play honour. It needs to be down and dirty.

Land

- Swamp x 10
- Forest x 10

Creatures

- Elvish Piper x 3
- Verdant Force x 3
- Seedborn Muse x 1
- Civic Wayfinder x 3
- Siege Wurm x 2
- Will-o'-the-Wisp x 2
- Woebringer Demon x 2

Enchantments

- Doubling Season x 1
- Underworld Dreams x 2
- Grave Pact x 2

Sorceries

- Bioryhthm x 3
- Rampant Growth x 3
- Diabolic Tutor x 2
- Consume Spirit x 4
- Plague Wind x 2

Instants

- Scatter the Seeds x 3

Artifacts

- Teferi's Puzzle Box x 1

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Win conditions are either beatdown, Biorhythm, or a combination of both. Saprolings for table delay to drag the game into the later turns where Biorhythm and Plague Wind can hit.

Biorhythm is the main vic. condition, so there is a heavy emphasis upon both creature massing, and enemy creature elimination. Woebringer Demon, Grave Pact, and Plague Wind handle the opponent's creatures. Verdant Force, Elvish Piper, Doubling Season and Scatter the Seeds run hard generation.

Civic Wayfinder and Rampant Growth for land acceleration. Teferi's Puzzle Box for both disruption and deck sifting. Diabolic Tutor for pick-and-choose.

[eunhathes]

This deck is meant for tourney play

Alright! Celest, help me out here. First things first: The Curve. Your mana curve is insane! Seige Wurm, Biorhythm, Plague Wind... Theres so many high cc cards. I personally suggest some better acceleration. Birds, Llanowars, and Deep Shadows are first thought suggestions.

Secondly, there is a lack of field prescence. Where's the Putrefy? Naturalize? It looks like you could also stand to get out there sooner. Kodama's Reach or, even better for Grave Pact, Sakura-Tribe Elder.

However, before you modify it to heavily, let me know how she plays out this way. No sense in modifying it if theres no need to modify.

[celest]

Well my immediate problem is the lack of dual-lands. Also I would suggest some Recollects would be useful too. But right now Im gonna turn things over to the local master, Roger, aka Crusader.

Hi there, long time no chat, but with so much time to kill at the moment, Laura asked if I could give my critique, so first things first.

Dual lands, I stress these greatly, LLanowar wastes (sp) and Overgrown tombs. Wastes are relatively cheap and work great if you can't get four tombs, however, I'd run four of each.

James was right with the birds, both elves (deep shadow and Llanowar), and maybe even signets for speed. One thing I'd never do is run the Lair lands, the Rot-Farm, in any constructed deck unless it was running Kudzu or any form of Angry Kudzu.

Why not eliminate the 2x's and cut the fat. By dropping some of the cards that really don't interact with the Primary conditions of the deck, you can afford to drop 4x of the ones that really matter.

Cut?

Teferi's puzzle box stuck out as unneeded. With only 1 copy it serves little than a one in a million influence to the game, and even then its an annoyance as it can greatly help your opponent. Now its great with Underworld dreams but thats not the exact method of the deck.

By cutting the Teferis we can safely chop the dreams. This gives us room for three. If you want disruption, why not try Persecute, possibly one of the greatest black cards in the block right now as with 90% of the decks running two colors, its not hard to pull off a turn three Mind twist and ditch their whole hand.

Next I'd probably ditch Seedborn Muse. Your creatures are big and stand for themselves, I assume the muse was so you could swing all out without being vulnerable. With token production though minimal, you should be able to let the big guys brawl safely while the lil' ones stand staunch in the back for support.

Now with Biorhythm as a win condition, what could is Woebringer? Yeah it kills their creatures, but with Woe being able to show up as early as turn 4, and biorhythm much later, it slightly hinders the rhythm (pun). With little token production that shows up rather late, and little that shows up early, I think the woebringer without recursion help could hurt you more than help.

I'm rambling so let me crack it down.

Creatures:


3 Verdant Force
3 Elves of Deep Shadow
3 Llanowar Elves

3 Woebringer Demon
1 Plaguewind

4 Golgari Guildmage

Spells / Other

3 Persecute

4 Putrefy
3 Golgari Germination

4 Scatter the Seeds
4 Fists of Ironwood
3 Doubling Season
2 Biorhythm

Land

4 Llanowar Waste
9 Forest
7 Swamp

Ok heres a relatively cheap and easy build that can revolve around your method of beatdown and biorhythm. With the mana from elves and the Guildmage you can generate a pretty good lockdown engine with the Woebringer and Germination.

Yesterday in FNM draft I pulled a Golgari Guildmage, arguably the best, but really for one reason. My opponent would play Guardian of Vhitu Gazi, the game wasn't long but with Scattered seeds and doubling season he was on hard and fast, but I had roughly 10 mana available with two aqueducts and six lands. The guardian hit out, he had two cards in hand, which I knew were Primordial Sage and Greater Mossdog.

He played the Guardian, my turn, I played Vedalken Dismisser putting the Guardian on top of his library. Meanwhile, I drew a land played it I had a few blockers for the tokens and was at 11 so I wasn't worried about damage. Now on his turn, he played the guardian again. At his end step, I payed 5 sacrificed the Dismisser to the guildmages ability, and then returned it to my hand. Since the sacrifice is part of a cost which occurs first, the mage was already able to be targeted. And thus predicted his draw for the rest of the game while I gradually gained board control.

Do the same, sacrifice an elf to the guildmage, get tokens from germination, and play the elf again. its a little slow but the engine can easily produce enough tokens to hold off many potential threats until you can draw and play Biorhythm, Plaguewind, Woebringer, or Verdant Force.

Well thats about all I've got, notice the deck is still relatively cheap with only a handful of 2 dollar rares and a few small gems like persecute (nightmare void is a good alternative).

Just a friendly suggestion so if anyone has some critique for me, I'm always up for the challenge

[Atreides Conscript]

I'm expecting this deck to go through some major modification before tournament execution, but that doesn't mean that I want the core style to change.

This deck should not worry about having to sacrifice creatures. This deck should have no need to worry about the opponent's creatures. This deck should work hard to lock up the cross-table combat and focus upon reaching its proper mana threshold of eight so that Biorhythm can hit and flip any former odds.

I am currently thinking of switching out things in favour of discard effects like Crusader's vaunted Persecute, but I'm playtesting the deck to find out which cards do not make the cut first. For this reason, they are currently on my sideboard.


Land (23)

- Swamp x 10
- Forest x 10
- Overgrown Tomb x 3

Creatures (16)

- Elvish Piper x 3
- Verdant Force x 3
- Seedborn Muse x 1
- Civic Wayfinder x 2
- Siege Wurm x 2
- Utopia Tree x 2
- Woebringer Demon x 3

Enchantments (5)

- Doubling Season x 1
- Grave Pact x 3
- Blood Funnel x1

Sorceries (10)

- Bioryhthm x 3
- Kodama's Reach x 3
- Diabolic Tutor x 3
- Plague Wind x 1

Instants (6)

- Scatter the Seeds x 4
- Putrefy x 2
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Sideboard

- Persecute x 3
- Underworld Dreams x 2
- Teferi's Puzzle Box x 1
- Naturalize x 2
- Hypnotic Specter x 2
- Plague Wind x 1
- Hell's Caretaker x 1
- Nightmare Void x 3
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In this version many things have been switched around. The sideboard now runs discard heavy, but I'm afraid that such may easily become necessary to further disrupt the opponent's actions. I'm looking forward to seeing how this will play out.

Oh, yes, I almost forgot.... Celest, while I have no problems with hearing from Jolly Roger, I'd like your full input as well. I suggest that the Crusader make a reappearance on the forum for further discussion.

[celest]

Wow, Blood Funnel. Yeah... good luck with that one. Just my opinion of course but yeah... let me just say that card is a last pick in draft... but maybe you can make it work.

Also if your using dual-lands, go ahead and use some of the pain lands too. It will cut down your need for swamps and forests.

[Atreides Conscript]

On the note of Blood Funnel, I find that it works quite well. The deck in play-testing has never shown a problem with creature count, and constantly shows a problem with breaking the 7 mana threshold (Biorhythm costs 8 mana altogether at 6 and 2 Green). It also combos well with Grave Pact, which often hits the field (and with three copies in the deck, it had better).

Blood Funnel + Grave Pact + Biorhythm = Effectiveness

As for the Pain Lands, I don't run them for two reasons.... They can't be searched for with Kodama's Reach is the first. I use this spell quite often, and don't see any need to lower my amount of basic land. Non-basic land gets shot easier as well.

The second reason is based around my deck liking to keep its life total. I have no gain effects since the removal of the Consume Spirit's, and creatures often bash me in the early turns of the game. I don't need to help the enemy. 2 life for a necessary Overgrown Tomb is one thing... and 1 life for 1 mana is entirely another.

[celest]

I would think that with Biorythum you wouldn't need to worry about a few damage here and there. Remember they only do that when you need a color from them. Colorless is free.

[Atreides Conscript]

Biorhythm is the main win condition of the deck. It hits fast enough for my deck to work while my delay tactics halt enemy advances. All I need to do when facing mill decks is to shoot off a single Bio... and the rest is done. High creature decks like the Selesnya are a problem, but that just results in longer games where my creature destruction wears them out until a Bio is effective.

Biorhythm isn't a casual life-gain spell in the first place. It will not keep me afloat with the use of pain lands and Elves of Deepshadow. The deck doesn't need those things anyway... they don't work well together. I playtested them as proxy, and they didn't speed anything up. They did, however, lose me the game from loss of life.

[eunhathes]

Creature troubles, eh? Night of Souls Betrayel and Hideous Laughter come to mind. If you feel you're really getting sticked by weenies, run both. My advice would be MD either NoSB or Laughs and SB the other. I would advise against any more than 2 NoSB and 3 Laughs.

[delicriox]

i say keep it the way you have it. i mean if you are really having problems with it put in some flying creatures or high hitters becuase the piper will help you get them in. also if you need creatures get another diabolic tutor.