Whispers of the Muse: Lawrence M’s ‘Grab for Power’ (M12)
Welcome to the next installment of our Whispers of the Muse, the occasional series where a reader asks for help tinkering with and improving upon a precon deck from the Ertai’s Lament community! Today’s request comes to us from Lawrence M., who would like to improve the Black/Blue Grab for Power deck from Magic 2012. He’s building it almost stock from the box, but says “so far I have purchased 1x Throne Of Empires and 1x Scepter Of Empires.”
“I’m fairly new to the game,” he adds, but mentions that he’d like to make the deck more competitive. As you may recall from our review, Grab for Power is a combo-style deck heavily dependent upon hitting it’s three-card combo (the artifacts of Empires) for maximum effectiveness.
Because Lawrence is a newer player, it may be more helpful to limit suggestions to cards more readily available at his local gaming store, but of course any suggestions for improving the deck’s performance are more than welcome. Here’s the stock list:
So… how would you make the deck better? Let us know in the comments below!
Whispers of the Muse: Steve S’s “Mystical Might” (Magic 2012)
We might be on vacation, but Ertai’s Lament never sleeps! We recently received this request from a reader, Steve S., who was looking for ways to improve his Mystical Might deck. With some extra boosters (as well as apparent trace elements of Life for Death and Devouring Skies, and Sacred Assault) of raw material ready to go, here’s what he had to say:
My son and I have just started playing Magic and we really enjoy collecting cards and talking about our decks. Now that we have a good number of extra cards from booster decks, I would like to try improving the Intro deck I just picked up… Mystical Might 2012 Core Deck.
I have switched out a few cards to increase the flying attack and include some other rares I already had but I’m not sure which ones and how many to add without making the mana curve too high. I would like to use the deck in Standard format.
Here is Steve’s current decklist:
Creatures (23)
- 3 Hovermyr
3 Phantasmal Bear
1 Lord of the Unreal
2 Stormfront Pegasus
3 Porcelain Legionnaire
2 Kemba’s Skyguard
4 Aven Fleetwing
2 Phantasmal Dragon
1 Shattered Angel
1 Serra Angel
1 Chancellor of the Spires
Spells (13)
- 3 Oblivion Ring
1 Argentum Armor
2 Cancel
2 Elixir of Immortality
2 Vapor Snag
1 Throne of Empires
2 Mind Control
“However,” said Steve, “I have so many other cards I wish I could use as well. I will list a few and maybe I could get some advice on cards I should be using or ones to look for in trades.”
It’s great to see folks new to the game and already looking to tinker and meddle with what comes right out of the box. Who has some suggestions for them on their deck- what to keep in, what to take out, and what to track down?
Whispers of the Muse: Si’s Counterpunch (Commander)
Reader Si has been tinkering around with the Counterpunch deck from Commander, which features Ghave, Guru of Spores and a host of tokens and effects that use or rely upon them. He’d like to keep the general theme of the deck, but wants some suggestions on how to improve upon it.
Whispers of the Muse: Wolfgang’s Snowscape
Welcome to the next installment of Whispers of the Muse, our occasional series where a reader submits a list they’ve come up with based upon a precon deck, then it is put before the community for suggestions and advice.
Whispers of the Muse: Henry S’s ‘Predators Trample Underfoot’
Today’s Whispers of the Muse (our community-feedback deckbuilding series) comes to us by way of Henry S, a player relatively new to the game but already keen to try out his brewing skills. In possession of two heavily Green decks, he’s looking to fuse them into one powerful set of 60 cards. Of course, suggestions from outside the card pool never hurt, either! Says Henry,
I’m the sort of person that enjoys creating new decks and my next idea is something I’m very unfamiliar with: a trample deck.
I will be basing the the deck on a synergy between Garruk’s Teeth of the Predator and Archenemy: Trample Civilisation Underfoot, both of which, as you know, are green decks excelling at pumping out the fatties. I’m a player that likes speed, so I would the deck to be as quick as is possible.
Combining both of these decks will allow me access to several large creatures (two Molimo, a Vigor, Verdant Force, and Kanahl, Fist of Krosa) but, being that I would like some of my own changes in the deck, I am currently holding a Liege of the Tangle that I would like to put to use, although I’m not sure here to put it or how start the deck in general.
Whispers of the Muse: Robert F’s Phyrexia
It’s that time again! Whispers of the Muse is our occasional feature where a Lament reader looks for advice and suggestions from the community in building off of a precon deck. Today’s deck couldn’t come at a better time, with ‘Action’ being announced as New Phyrexia and a massive leak of cards giving everyone something to salivate over.
Robert F has found himself in possession of two copies of Duel Decks: Phyrexia vs the Coalition, and has this to say:
Deck: Phyrexia (Duel deck)
Restrictions: Anything goes, I am a casual player.
Extra Stuff: The set was on sale at my local hobby store, so I have two each of the Phyrexia and Coalition decks to work with. I play mostly multi-player, as well.I just want the deck to feel more refined, focused, and aggressive, although I do like the sacrifice effects and abusing Living Death.I have a bunch of cards from alara block/m10/zendikar block/m11, but most importantly, a playset of Abyssal Persecutors that I think would feel right at home in this deck.
Who has some thoughts for Robert on how to best craft his deck?
Whispers of the Muse: Prophylaxis’s “Phyrexian Poison”
Today’s Whispers of the Muse comes our way courtesy of longtime reader Prophylaxis, who’s looking to go competitive with an infect strategy.
I kept the core theme, but it has a lot of different card choices. This deck originated from the precon “Phyrexian Poison”.
Current decklist: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/bg-infect-55/
Comments:
Yup, it’s an infect deck. Never tested against FNM crowd, though I’m planning to (I don’t go to tournaments all too often, as I’m usually late for them). All of my card choices and the reason I picked them are on the link. I know I need:
Verdant Catacombs – Expensive.. 12 a pop makes me vomit.
Inkmoth Nexus – Expensive and hard to find. I would put only 2 or 3 in there because of mana problems.
Consuming Vapors – I’m debating whether or not to put this in or not. It costs good mana, but its effect is tremendous.
Whispers of the Muse: Ed G’s ‘Izzet Gizmometry’
Welcome to another installment of Whispers of the Muse, the occasional feature where a reader submits their tinkering of a precon deck and look for constructive criticism and feedback from the community. Today we’ve got a letter from Ed G, who has a rather unusual proposition. In lieu of a decklist, he has this to say:
[This is] probably the “worst” (in terms of being able to win games) pre-con I have ever come across…
Whispers of the Muse: Steven T’s ‘Reign of the Bloodchief’
After a trip back in time to Tempest last week, we’re back with something more familiar and contemporary for this week’s Whispers. Today we’re hearing from reader Steven T. Steven has a request with a slight twist, one that should be familiar with readers of our previous Ertai’s Trickery feature, where we blended several decks together:
I’ve recently started playing Magic: the Gathering. I built myself a Vampire-themed deck by mixing together Reign of Vampirism from M11 core set and Fangs of the Bloodchief from Worldwake. I’ve been trying to find the third vampire precon called Rise of the Vampires (or something like that) so then I can tweak this deck a bit more.
I’ve played with this deck a few times and found that Captivating Vampire doesn’t pull his weight around in comparison to Anowon. However, I attribute this to everyone making sure I didn’t have 5 vampires on the battlefield at one time. Also I was thinking about swapping out the 4x Assassinate for 4x Go For The Throat. I’d like this deck to remain a mono-black. However, I’m happy for people to suggest a secondary colour. I’d like to keep this deck an aggro deck as well, but again i’m happy for other suggestions. Also I only play casually so I’m not really looking for a tournament standard deck.
Here is the preliminary decklist.
Whispers of the Muse: Stric9’s “The Sparkler”
Welcome to the next installment of Whispers of the Muse, the occasional feature where a reader submits their tinkering of a precon deck and look for constructive criticism and feedback from the community. Time to put on the thinking caps, because we’re going way back in Magic’s history! Today we’re hearing from Stric9, who’s begun working on Stronghold’s The Sparkler. Here’s what he had to say:
Ertai's Lament 