ok a week or so ago I posted a magic deck here, and I’ve polished it up quite a bit
take notice that I removed 4 high tides in favor of gigadrowse and sleep, but the deck’s theme may have found more use of the high tides, im not sure. I found that before, I never drew the high tides when I had enough islands to make it count for anything, I do have 4 of them.

anyway as the deck stands now

land:
12x Mountain
2x Halimar Depths
1x Dimir Aqueduct
1x Jwar Isle Refuge
8x Island

Artifacts:
4x Everflowing Chalice

Enchantments:
4x Rumbling Aftershocks

Sorcery:
4x Blaze

Instant:
4x Searing Blaze
2x Gigadrowse
1x Sleep
2x Spell Contortion

Creatures:
2x Deathforge Shaman
2x skitter of lizards
2x Hellspark Elemental
4x Enclave Elite
4x Voyager Drake
1x Goliath Sphinx

Im not sure if the high tides would be more valuable in this deck then sleep, gigadrowse, and goliath sphinx. the deck is mostly based off developing a large mana pool as fast as possible and using that pool to either deal lots of direct damage with blaze, or kick one of the spells multiple times and have rumbling aftershocks deal damage direct (if you can get 2+ of those out and kick a monster several times, the damage can get brutal if your opponent doesnt get the enchantments off the field)

originally my idea was to use high tide to accelerate the growth of my mana pool and possibly use it to kick everflowing chalice more times and giving me a bigger boost to it earlier on or just using it to one time kick a creature more or boost blaze’s damage. but it turned out that even with 4 high tides in the deck, I never drew them at a point where I had enough islands out to make it useful. the most I would get in game was 1 extra island from it because after I paid it’s cost I *might* have had 2 islands untapped left.

so i took them out in favor of goliath sphinx, gigadrowse, and sleep. The latter two I figured could buy me some time and allow me to deal some combat damage in addition to direct damage, and I also figured it didnt hurt to throw goliath sphinx in, as he is a pretty big flying creature, and with 4 everflowing chalices in the deck, I can quickly reduce his cost to 1 or 2 everflowing chalices and 2 waters, which is more than reasonable for an 8/7 flying and since theres only one in the deck, odds are I wont draw him until I have some sort of mana base to work from.


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I have been assembling a deck for a while now and I have won matches with it but it lacks any theme or focus. I feel it is too much a jack of all trades and just not a master of any. I could use some suggestions on cards. Here is what I have.

Lands:
9x Mountain
6x Island
1x Izzet Boilworks

Creatures:
1x Covert Operative
1x Gelectrode
1x Izzet Chronarch
1x Platinum Angel
2x Akroma, Angel of Fury
1x Aven Fateshaper
2x Tidewater Minion
1x Llawan, Cephalid Empress

Instants:
1x Pyromatics
1x Frazzle
1x Convolute
1x Peel From Reality
4x Lightning Blast

Sorceries:
2x Mind Spring
1x Banefire
4x Illuminate
3x Ghitu Fire
1x Wash Out
1x Vacuumelt

Enchantments:
2x Freed From The Real
1x Aboshan’s Desire
1x Confiscate
1x Insolence

As you can see I have alot of cards and not many repeats. I can never make up my mind of what to drop and what to buy more of. I only have a few real combos built in to the deck as well. I just took out 8 cards from my deck earlier so I have 8 additional slots to fill as well as organizing my deck better. Can you help?


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I am just buying booster packs not specific cards, can I make a competitive deck this way or do I have to buy cards?


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Also, i posted this question before ans omeone gave good advice so im adding into this question but what he didnt clarify was how many of the cards should i put into my deck for the ones i listed as "?’s" so basically if it says ?x how many should i put in my deck. And also i need help with hsi answer cause he didnt clarify how much of each card either. Thanks a lot guys and please help.

Creatures: 1x Patron of Orochi
2x Tangle Asp
1x River Boa
1x Mire boa
1x Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro
1x Sosuke, Son of Sehiro
2x Seshiro the Anointed
?x Ohran Viper
?x Sakura Tribe Elder
?x Orochi Sustainer
?x Kashi-Tribe Reaver
(i am not sure of the amount i should have for the last four hence the "?")

Artifacts: 2x Coat of Arms
3x Snake Basket
1x Infinite Hourglass
?x Orochi Hatchery
(Same as before with "?")

Throw-Ins: 1x Steely Resolve
1x Doubling Season
2x Parallel Evolution
3x Sosuke’s Summons
3x Overrun
1x Epic Struggle

Land: 20x Forest

I found this snake deck online at (http://www.pojo.com/magic/Deck Garage/BMoor/2007/7-25-2.shtml) but where the "?’s" are is where the person who edited the deck did’nt state how many of that card so please if someone could look over this and tell me if it looks like a good deck and i was also considering adding in some aeather webs or something to help

Thank you for your time,

Daniel

And other guys answer:

The deck looks pretty solid to me. It has plenty of mana acceleration, and the snakes can become strong enough to defend you and kill your opponent. However, it has no life gain or destroy cards. Maybe replace the Sakura-Tribe Elder(s) for Naturalizes. Also, I would assume the deck would want 2-4 Orochi Hatchery. It’s an excellent card to go with all the doubling cards for your tokens, and Epic Struggle. If you want to give yourself permanent trample, remove 1 Overrun and put in Primal Rage. (1G, and enchantment: your creatures gain trample).

Lastly, The River Boa and Mire Boa aren’t that good. Try Sakiko, Mother of Summer. 4GG, 3/3, ability: "Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, add that much green mana to your mana pool. This mana doesn’t cause mana burn. Until end of turn, this mana doesn’t empty from your mana pool as phases end."

Also Shizuko, Caller of Autumn. 1GG, 2/3, ability: "At the beginning of each player’s upkeep, that player adds 3 green mana to his or her mana pool. This mana doesn’t cause mana burn. Until end of turn, this mana doesn’t empty from that player’s mana pool as phases end."

Great cards to build up mana with to play Orochi Hatchery, no?

Good luck!

Thanks so much!


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Should I buy the same deck twice to make the game more fair, or buy two different decks from the same release period? Also, where should I go to buy them? Thanks.


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