Tick Toxic

It's been over a week since we last posted a new deck, but fear not adventurers we haven’t been slacking. We’ve got a ton of new ideas coming your way and we’re going to start with our first Mirrodin Besieged deck.... Ladies and Gentleman

We call this one....

Tick Toxic 

because once that timer starts your opponent hasn’t got long.

You will need....

3 Glissa the Traitor

4 Necropede

4 Corpse Cur

3 Core Prowler

3 Tangle Angler

4 Pistus Strike

4 Flight Spellbomb

4 Virulent Wound

3 Contagion Clasp

3 Throne of Geth

2 Everflowing Chalice

4 Darkslick Shores

4 Verdant Catacombs

4 Inkmoth nexus

4 Swamp

7 Forest

So what’s the plan? Well what we’re going to try with this deck is 4 different plays

at the same time...

Basically...

one quarter aggro

one quarter removal

one quarter proliferate

one quarter recursion

In an ideal game you would play early aggro from the necropedes, use virulent wound to take out blockers and begin the poison counters.  Later game you’d use the throne and the necropedes to start proliferating the threats downs and counters up.   Corpse Cur and Glissa are there to get your attackers back.

You can use Tangle adder to tie up blockers and Core Prowler to proliferate when he kicks the buckett... 

Sneaky tricks? Well it wouldn’t be a Vader deck without some sideways chicanery... At first glance the inclusion of flight spell bomb may seem a bit mad... There’s only 4 sources of blue mana in the entire deck for a start.  Ok this next bit is important... In magic there are too many statistics and not enough thinking. Ok technically to get the most out of the spell bomb you would want to play it in a blue deck for card advantage and you’ll find a lot of players  read this card as... one colourless and one blue (target creature gains flying until the end of turn, draw a card)... But this isn’t the point... This deck, for reasons that will become obvious in a second, needs a way for creatures to gain flying... full stop... and one colourless mana for that ability is a bargain...  

So why do we want creatures to gain flying? Well two reasons...

 Firstly when combined with Pistus Strike this mini combo will take out anything... from a primeval titan to a Platinum Emperion and more importantly it will also give its controller a poison counter... (stick that in your 2 for 1 pipe and smoke it)

Secondly if we need to, we can give one of our lot flying to get that poison damage through.

And if all else fails it’s still fuel for the Throne of Geth...

Here’s a game v’s Elves...

Tun one they drop a treehugger

Turn one you give it a virulent wound and they get a counter.

Turn two they drop a pair of lanowars

Turn two you drop the pede.

Turn three they get an archdruid

Turn three you drop a clasp and then give the arch druid a wound and one from the clasp they get another counter.

Turn four they drop Ezuri

Turn four you swing with the pede – they chump with a lanowar, both die and you put the counter on Ezuri then proliferate with the clasp. Ezuri dies and they go to 3 poison...

Turn Five they drop a Garruk and make a beast.

Turn Five you drop a spell bomb and give the beast flying and then kill it with a Pistus strike they go to 4 poison.  

I think you can see where this is going....

This is a fun deck that’s quick and cheap... (We’ve given it 4 fetches to make it as competitive as possible, but it will run fine with basics and Glissa is currently going for about $6/7, but we predict her price will rise... If only because she’ll be awesome in EDH/Commander)

As some of these card haven't been released yet we'll have to just show you them rather than use our usual links....

Spoiler Alert... If you don't want to know you may want to look away about now..

For sideboard I'd recommend Duress, memoricide and the like... incase some nutter decides to build a shape anew / coloussus deck...

Farme Fatale EDH / Commander Deck

Today I woke with a 'mead infused' hangover, in a strange maiden’s bedchamber somewhere on  a plane I didn’t recognise . All I can tell you guys is I had the strangest dream. I dreamt that I was at war with all the mages in the world. As the battle raged higher, I realized with horror that not only had I forgotten all my mighty spells of combat, but I had also quite inexplicably become a farmer. Fortunately as I gazed round the ranch I discovered it was no ordinary farm, indeed it was a very special farm and I call it…

Farme Fatale

You will need…

Ok Guys I’m gonna start with the basics… if you’re new to EDH or just mad I think I should get you up to speed on the cards that all EDH decks should have…  Folks can argue till the cows come home (and they are on the way), but this is Gordon Vader list of must have cards inEDH/Commander (feel free to submit your suggestions) Obviously some of these are colour specific, but don’t worry too much about that now.

    Ok these are Gordon Vader’s all time, must have, top five EDH cards…

         Sensei’s Divining Top – Almost impossible to lose, this little cheeky scryer will let you get what you need and can help you draw answers at instant speed. They are getting pricey now, but you can still pick em up for about £4/$7 (Crystal ball is a good low budget version)

      Lightning Greaves – Generals like haste and more importantly they like shroud the 0 equip cost is what seperates these boots from the standard fair…  Whispersilk Cloak will do while you’re saving up.

          

      Sol Ring / Mana Vault / Mana Crypt – The cheapest of thes,e Mana Vault is still decent but you should try and run at last one of these…

        

         Tormod’s Crypt – Sometimes you just need graveyard hate and it doesn’t come much better than this, other option  include – Heap Doll and Relic of Progenetus. (in this deck I went for heap doll because a farm needs a scarecrow)

       

      Oblivion Stone – Board sweepers will keep everyone on your side, they come in various shapes and sizes, but for my money they rarely come stronger than the stone, other options are – Scourglass, Planar Cleansing, All is Dust… White has loads more options here and if you’re playing white you may want to look at Mass Calcify, Final Judgment, Wrath of God, Martial Coup, Day Of Judgment and  the king of EDH sweepers Hallowed Burial…

So there you have my budget top five EDH essentials… there are a hundred other cards I ‘d suggest if you have the money and the time to build a monster, but start cheap and play sneaky is what I always say…

So what’s next?  Well you’ve got your basics and what you need now is a plan… If you look at the post entitled, Farme Fatale update you’ll see a brief rundown of the generals I had to play. Each tdeck was specifically tuned to their general’s clolors and abilities… 

EG.

Wort’s deck was mostly instants and sorceries that are horrible when conspired (copied). Fireball/ Comet Storm/Destructive force etc etc.. 

Kemba’s deck was all about equipment and keeping them in play.

Sedris Deck was all  about getting fatties in the graveyard.

Sygg’s deck was basically polymorph and used various tutors and spells to find and protect Proteus Staff and the other half of the deck was about stealing creatures to use as targets. 

My Uril deck was about Farming...

Ok ok I will admit I did put a bit more thought into it than simply having lots of cows, but I did try and find farming related cards that were actually good rather than just about agriculture (I also turned down cards that perhaps could have been better than the ones I picked because they were farm related..) But.. most importantly I did try to utilize my generals awesome ability…

So first I’ll show you the Aura’s

Scourge of the nobilis

Fortitude – (almost as good as totem umbras)

Spider umbra (speak of the devil)

Snake umbra

Bear Umbra

Hyena umbra

Elend Umbra

Mammoth Umbra

Boar Umbra

Shiv’s embrace

Lightning Talons

Firebreathing

Lifelink

Luminous Wake

Sigil of the nayan gods

Celestial Mantle   (I could barely leave this little cracker behind could I?)

Next up the Two R’s   Ramp and Removal…

Ramp 

Culivate  - (do you see what I did here?)

Rampant Growth -

Harrow -

Winter’s Sky - (poor man’s mana reflection… great when you have a mix of lands, so you can still do stuff on the odd rounds and then ramps like a MOFO on the even ones..)

Carpet of Flowers - (a random one this, I play it because there’s always somebody playing big blue at our Club and this time it was Syyg and that early mana comes in really handy….)

Land Tax – (still on the farm theme)

Reap and Sow  - (get it? get it?)

Khalni Heart Expedition - ( a very very poor man’s Primeval Titan)

Removal

Path to Exile

Staggershock

Swords To Ploughshares (yep I got a farm card into my removal)

Crib Swap (technically this is a cow too)
Condemn (if you're in white there's no excuse not to run this card)

Here's The Search

Treefolk Harbinger – (can find me a forest or any of my changelings)

Worldy Tutor – (the cheapest of all the tutors cashwise a least)

Hibernation’s end – (an expensive, but rewarding way to find a lot of cows…)

Into the north – (go get me a highland weald thank you)

Ok so that’s the nuts and bolts but what about the Cows? Well these are all I could find…

Animals…

Aurochs (how could I not have them)

Bull Aurochs

Rhimebound Aurochs

Aurochs herd

Taurean Mauler

Pillarfield ox

Yoked Ploughbeast

Totem Guide Hartebeast (I decided that these looked like cows and probably made good eating, besides with Uril as my general I needed some aura tutoring,, and then I thought Venison mmmmm….)

Game Trail Changeling – (This and the mauler earlier are cows that are also sheep and pigs and porcupines and fairies and mermaids and avatars and whatever the things are that live inside biscuits… it’s all a bit disconcerting if you ask me…)

Glimmerpoint Stag - (Well, while we’re on the game menu)

Grazing Gladehart – ( I beat this one taste’s really good.)

Brindle Boar – (we’re on to the swine now, A farm’s gotta have some pigs)

Argothian Swine –

Realm Razer – ( Dude… it’s so clearly a big pig.... I could totally eat this)

Ok now we’re into the realms of fantasy a little bit and I may have reached here and there a little, but I hope you’ll agree there’s still cow-ish-esque-ness- in here somewhere.

Aura Gnarlid -(With all these auras on the battlefield we need another excuse to use them)

Woolly thoctar – (I got a friend who keeps these, he says the milk's awesome)

Ravenclaw Gargantuan – (Slaughter time for these guys is not for the faint at heart)

Mirror Entity - (It’s a cow… well really it’s just there to turn everything into Aurochs or incase some idiot brings their Sliver deck)

Zodiac  Ox (I am fortunate to have a decent amount of the Portal 3 kingdoms stuff. This is one of my favourite sets, the art is beautiful the cards are random and mad and hardly anyone has any.)

Zodiac Goat (well a good farm needs a Goat)

Zodiac Rooster (One of the few ‘plains walk’ cards in existence, if memory serves me there are under 5 such cards in over 11,000 cards)

Of course there’s one more card that any good farm can’t be without any ideas?

Well also from my Portal 3 Kingdom Set, my last card is…here…

I’m not going to bore u with the land other than suggest you do what I did and stick any land of the appropriate colours into the deck and add some basic (and snow basic) land.

You may notice that he usual links that I normally provide aren't working on this post and I want to apoligise for this, but I don't know exactly what went wrong (I'm blaming google gremlins)

but if you want to checl any card just cut and paste it here...

Update - Farme Fatale

It’s going to be a big old week at Adventures in the Meta... We’ve got our the Farme Fatale EDH list to go through, our Mirrodin Besieged speculation to update, more lords to discover and of course we’ve got a new deck to publish.... 

I also want to say a huge thanks to everyone who has contributed a deck idea or a combo and I am pleased to say we now have a wee back log. So this week coming we’ll be putting up as many of them as we can. So if you sent in a deck list then it’ll go up this week.

I think updating the Besieged spoiler list is going to be a mountain and it may be better now to wait for them to spoil the whole set. Which I am confident they will do before the pre-release. That way we can have a look at it as a whole and I’ll give you Gordon Vader’s tips for first picks and the best of the bombs. Mean while I think we’re going to have a look at EDH and more specifically Farme Fatale...

If you may remember I was lamenting my chances against the big money decks...So I bet your wondering how a bunch of cows and farm related cards did in the grand scheme of things....

Well since you asked it came second... Not bad for herd of cattle.. I’ll post the list later but here’s the game highlights. 

My opponents were...

Wort Raid Mother

Kemba the Regent

Sygg River Guide 

Sedris the Traitor King

and I had Uril the Miststalker

Wort’s deck was (as you can probably guess) was all about conspiring and there was plenty of that going on....

Sygg was codename for polymorph and whilst there wasn’t much of that going on there definitely lots of target practice... and he managed to steal both Kemba and Wort and punish their pilots with their own generals..

Kemba had plenty of swords to choose from, but a turn five Quietus Spike pretty much ensured she was never going to stick around long enough to use it. ( Some EDH lists band the spike)

Sedris played it safe for a few turns, but did manage to set up a reality strobe and much fun was had with its bouncing shenanigans.

I have to confess I had a dream start.  Turn one divining top into turn two mana vault into turn three  khalni heart and then winter's night and oblivion stone...  I had all the mana in  the world...   and soon I had a fire-breathing – life-linking –shiv embraced pump-able 15/15 cow. Now with Kemba out for the count I could have been mean and taken her pilot out of the match in two turns, but it pays to have allies in this game and under the guise of keeping Wort free from her conspiring abilities I swung at her removing her conspirators and went over 70 life in two turns...

With a cow that big on the battlefield it’s safe to say I made a few enemies and Wort in particular was keen to bring down the beast... and tried some pretty massive burn spells to achieve just that...

Meanwhile Sedris got back in the game and with a steel hell-kite he managed to remove Kemba’s Quietus Spike along with half her armoury... It was then very clear that I had the biggest threat on the board and no amount of sticking my neck in the sand was going to keep that fact safe... So I did what all sensible cows do in these situations... I blew up the world... Now it was a pretty god time to do it... It took out 3 of the other generals, the remainder of Kemba’s swords, Wort’s Mana Reflection, a steel hell-kite and a minion reflector. The oblivion stone had been with me long enough for me to save m general and my mana vault and if I’m honest that seemed like good value to me, particularly as Wort kept asking me how big my cow was and then counting his lands and then his fingers...

And there the story would have ended had it not been for a bit of pre game trading... During Which Kit (Kemba’s pilot) had asked me if I had any Open the Vaults. I replied that I did not, but that I did have the very excellent Roar of Reclamation.   So ‘hey presto’ on Kemba’s next turn they all came back... The minion reflector and the hell-kite and all the swords... And of course the Oblivion stone...

But bigger things were brewing and a cheap FNM foil and pure old fashioned greed were to take Wort out of the race altogether...

I had found myself another enchantment and more cows and had managed to table a Zodiac Ox and a Taurean Mauler. The Mauler got to 5/5 as a conspired bolt sent it to the slaughterhouse, but Iril was getting out of control...

The enchantment I had found was Scourge of the Nobilis and that my friend is a scary card to have on a big cow.  With llife-link and  pump able 9/9, Uril was looking like no cow you’ve ever seen.  

Skipping to the end... Wort had a last nasty trick and played It That Betrays followed by a destructive force... A quick wink from Sedris and we were encouraged to hand over our ‘non basic’ lands... and that would pretty much be 5 each... So with about 30 land’s (28 non basic) Wort was looking pretty sweet for the win... Sedris on the other hand had other plans and a Minion reflector and a FNM foil Anathemancer taught Wort all about the evils of greed and sent him to the abyss with 56 points of damage...

Cutting the rest of the game short basically Sedris and I were left to contend the game and it was anyone’s game until he cracked out a Storm-tide Leviathan. Even with my top in place I couldn’t find an answer (I’d used the oblivion stone twice by this point and I’d had to use my swords to ploughshares on the Steel Hell-kite. )

I’ll put the Farme Fatale list up next week, but I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who sent in suggestions...

  

Some words with the Wonderful Wizard from Oz

Today we’re going to take a look at a deck that I happened to meet in combat. I’ve seen lists like this before, but there was a trick here I had not seen and that plus some great piloting by Aussie player Gazz gave me a real run for my money. Anyway after a post game chat I asked Gazz to send in the list and he did.  Now I know we are a budget blog and there are a few pricier cards in Gazz’s list, but if you haven’t got the cash then I’m going to offer up some alternatives to a few of these cards (I’m sure Gazz wouldn’t mind that…but this is his list as he sent it first...)

So here's the list: 

// Lands

    2 [ZEN] Misty Rainforest

    2 [ZEN] Scalding Tarn

    4 [WWK] Stirring Wildwood

    3 [SOM] Seachrome Coast

    1 [M10] Glacial Fortress

    4 [SOM] Razorverge Thicket

    2 [SOM] Plains (3)

    3 [SOM] Island (4)

    3 [UG] Forest

// Creatures

    4 [M11] Squadron Hawk

    4 [M11] Fauna Shaman

    1 [SOM] Memnite

    4 [ROE] Vengevine

    4 [7E] Birds of Paradise

    3 [ROE] Nest Invader

    4 [ZEN] Lotus Cobra

    1 [M11] Frost Titan

    3 [ROE] Sea Gate Oracle

    1 [WWK] Stoneforge Mystic

    1 [FD] Trinket Mage

// Spells

    2 [SOM] Culling Dais

    3 [ZEN] Eldrazi Monument

    1 [V10] Sword of Body and Mind

As you said, i need to fit at least one acidic slime in there, and I've got to work out the sideboard at some point too.

But there are some cool tricks too, the culling dais/vengevine combo is great.  They bolt vengevine? sac it, draw into two creatures, play them, get vengevine back.  (this is a great play and it was the combo that prompted me to ask hm to send it in, it also saves vengevine from its natural nemesis Journey to Nowhere)

The fauna shaman/vengevine thing is obvious too, say you pitch vengevine and grab a squadron hawk, rather than paying 4 for vengevine, you're paying 4 for vengevine and two flying 1/1s.

Pitching for trinket mage to get memnite works in a similar way.  

The sword of body and mind can and will win you games that you can't otherwise win, (such as when you had emperion out :P) but shaman obviously can't grab it, so a stoneforge mystic makes it easier to grab.  

The mana base is a bit sketchy because i built it out of the lands i had available to me, and decided to use the same lands on MWS

So if anybody has any suggestions I'd be very interested, I want to see this deck do well, even if it's not me playing it :D

Ok so the original list does run a few pricier cards and whilst you can’t exactly replace some of them you can get pretty close for less.   

So if budget is a problem then you can get away with 2 vengevines rather than 4, if you can’t afford any then Cudgel Troll is a pretty good poor man’s version. Ok he doesn’t have haste, but he does regenerate and therefore once you’ve got him, he’ll ‘keep coming back’ like the vines..(I know it’s not a perfect replacement, but it also doesn’t cost £15… You can use Overgrown Battlements for lotus cobras once you’ve tutored a few of them into play you’ll be ramping all over your enemy. Add another trinket mage and an elixir of immortality and then you can get al your discarded critters back…  

Master Forgery

Over the course of the last few weeks I have been tinkering with a few cards. I’m sure it will come as no surprise to my astute readers that I have a penchant for a few in particular. And anyone who has played with The Tardis, The Dark Design and Big Blue Boom Button will know that hidden in the depths of these decks there are a few awesome combos. I’ve been meaning to post the results of my experiments for a while, but there were other decks to build first and this one is similar enough to the three I mentioned to  call for some distance. Basically this is stripped down version of my grand architect deck without all the smoke and mirrors and it is, to be quite frank, the NUTZ…

Ladies and gentle men this is potentially the new Archetype, because Mirrodin Besieged can go one of two ways now…

If it goes down the big artifact route then this could be the new rock and roll… If it doesn’t then you ‘ll probably never hear about it… I’m hoping for the former… I know there’s one spell in this set that combo’s off like a rocket in this deck but we’ll get to that later. 

I call it

Master Forgery

You Will Need

Either… now this is important because how you start the deck is dependent on your preference….

4 Kraken Hatchling (defensive play - good against elves & Aggro)

4 Cosi’s Trickster (Aggro play – good against Control of nay kind)

4 Enclave Cryptologist  (cautious play  for blue players trying to shy away from putting mind sculptors in every deck they possess regardless of colour)

In my version I play hatchlings (because for me they tend to survive longer)

So here we go…

4 Kraken Hatchling

4 Trinket Mage (yes this deck needs them)

4 Grand Architect

4 Kuldotha Forgemaster (It wouldn't surprise me if they banned this card)

4 Prototype Portal

3 All is dust

2 Whispersilk Cloak

2 Elixir of Immortality

 1 Voltaic Key

2 Everflowing Chalice

1 Mindslaver

1 Lux Cannon

1 Ratchet Bomb

2 Platinum Emperion

1 Platinum Angel

Land wise you can go anywhere you like with this deck… there is an argument for fetch lands and Eldrazi temples, but we are a budget blog… so I’ve gone simply for 16 islands, 4 tectonic edges and 4 dread statuary – a must in this deck…   

So how does it work? Well its partly combo based, but it’s a very simple and achievable combo… All you want to do is stay alive long enough to play a kuldotha forgemaster and have it survive a turn… if you can do that then there is a real chance you’re going to win… 

There are of course secondary agendas and the most important of them is to get a Voltaic key imprinted on a prototype portal if you can achieve this with mana to spare and a forgemaster in play there is only one deck in the meta that can survive more a few turns…

Ok it all sounds a bit pricey, surely it’ll just get mana leaked out of the water?… Of course like all decks you will have to play with caution against the likes of control. But if you can resolve an architect with even a couple of blue creatures in play then you’ll have mana and mana spare for the likes of Mana leak.  And there only a few cards in today’s game that can deal with the fat bottomed forgemaster… Doom Blade will be your worst threat but if you gat get him out for just one turn like I said they are going to really suffer… How?What?Why?

Well the forgemaster is a tutor extraordinaire, there are few cards in the game that can tutor cards into your hand at instant speed, let alone into play.  Of course if you’re not in any immediate threat of dying and he’s been round the table once the first thing you want to get is a prototype portal. So unless you already have this in place sac everything (except him) to go get one… You should have a voltaic key in hand… You know when you played that trinket mage earlier? So go sac everything activate the lands if you need to or that Whispersilk cloak or your everflowing chalice… EVERYTHING… because if you can do this… You are going to win and there are only a couple of cards in the world that can stop you…  For a start counters spells are no longer going to affect you as everything you want will be tutored into straight into play. So you have a couple of blue critters… a forgemaster and a keep on the portal…  what can you do? Well the simple answer is anything…

Ok here’s some scenarios… you are on 6 life, you’ve taken a beating , Valakut is about to go off and your opponent swings with Primeval Titan… he also has a khalni heart expedition on the field with a couple of counters… So he swings and gets a couple of mountains…  What can you do? Well first you wait.. He can see then end is in sight (and has a safety net in the heart  ) so he directs all the damage to you… In response you can tap the portal and generate some token keys (if you don’t already have some) and sac them to the forgemaster to instantly tutor the Platinum Emperion into play (now your life can’t change) now your opponent is not an idiot.. so he uses the extra lands to crack the shrine and goes and gets more mountains and targets the Emperion… But you were ready for this too so using one mana and a key you can un-tap the forgemaster and tap and sac the Emperion and the key and any other artifact to go get another one... (this actually happened to me once during a game…)   In my turn I made some keys went and got mindslaver taped and sacked it and killed him with his own deck…   

‘Oh but he’d target the forgemaster’ I hear you say! (and smart players are starting to realize this is the best play… )

So he targets the forgemater, in response you can make keys and tap and sac them to get the emperion then un-tap the forgemaster with another key and tap sac it and the forgemaster and another key to go get another forgemaster…All at instant speed (still think I was mad saying it could be banned?) 

Where am I getting all these keys? Well as you have one on a prototype portal (which is an artifact) and it only cost one to make a key and the keys ability is to un-tap an artifact… you simply use all of your mana to keep tapping and un-tapping the portal to make keys… With a Grand Architect in and a couple of his buddies in play you should be able to make 8/9/10, possibly more keys a turn.

Basically the fastest way to win is to tutor in an Emperion and then a whipersilk cloak on the next turn… If you can achieve this unmolested then only Day of Judgment can save them… and it won’t really save them it will only reset the board… Sure there are other long and convoluted multiple card combos that can help, but remember they now have 3 turns max in the game… Jace will help hear you cry! What Jace? You just took him out with an unblockable 8/8 and he couldn’t help any way as the Emperion has shroud.. (Platinum Emperion is a very under-rated card… and you can get them for $5 trust me this is a good investment)

Other fun plays….

They bring in a ratchet bomb to take out your portal… in  response make some keys and tutor one up yourself… then use the keys to tap and un-tap to get it to two counters and set it off before they can do anything with it… I’ve had upwards of 50 keys in play at times and once that’s happens imagine what you can do with the Lux Canon…

This deck is so flexible it’s ridiculous… As long as the forgemaster gets through a single turn…

They can’t… bounce it

                       Exile it

                       Destroy it

                       Steal it

                       Make you sac it…

                       Because you can sac it in response… Ok for the last one you’d have to get the Mindslaver, Ratchet bomb or Canon instead but is that really so bad?

Ok I play this deck a lot and I can tell you that it’s strong against every deck… I ‘ve beaten every single tier one deck with it and I’m not going to say its unbeatable , but I will say it’s a tough deck to beat…

God hand Mox goblins can give it trouble… and Big red can be a pain.. It should walk over
Valakut.. Its strong against elves and vamps (although be careful of domblades and gatekeepers…) It eats blue white control and Mono green Eldrazi, but this deck’s nemesis is Blue Black control… A clever player can steal the combo pieces from your hand and the forgemaster will die to a doom blade….

Of course you could go blue black yourself and beat them at their own game with duress’s and inquisition… Blue black is the sole reason I run two elixirs as taking one from your opening hand (which can often be the only target has the unfortunate side effect of ruining this deck…)

Anyway the reason I am publishing this list now is there may well be two card in the next set that either make or break this deck… If there is, as I suspect there may be, a ‘destroy all artifacts’ card, then this deck won’t work or will need silly counterspell cover… BUT…Spoiler Alert…. Spoiler Alert….Spoiler Alert….

There is a destroy all artifacts card... but there's some good news too... 1.. its double green and 2. the only artifacts that seem to have folks worried are the indestructible colossus and the split in two wurmcoil engine... So until some one invents a Tezz infect deck (which is unfortunately likely) then there's no real reason to panic

There you have it the first combo of Besieged and you heard it here first… Of course this may all be nonsense, but hey its only a game…

Update Jan 19th... Well as if this deck needed any more help.... Here's sme more resons to get building...

In one game recently I had  over 300 voltaic keys in play... Add throne of geth  and some Tezzs and that my firend is game set and match...

Need a way to secure the mindslaver/ portal  lock? 'Et voila..'.

If 3 turns is too long to wait for a kill... Then why not add the Brightsteel Colossus ?  in theory with a really good hand, you can actually have this swinging and equipped with a Whispersilk Cloak by turn 4...

Fog anyone? because thats pretty much the only way your opponent is going to see turn 5

A liege of their own

Well we had a look at some global lords and we’ve picked out chainer and Balthor for the our new Commander / EDH deck SWISS ARMY KNIFE.

It’s time now for a look at the most insane lords ever.  The double pumping, utterly broken hybrid nightmares from Shadowmoor and Eventide, ladies and gentlemen these are the Lieges...

As there are only a few of these beasts in existence we’ll have more time to study them and their insane abilities...

Best / Worst? Where to start?  Well I’d like to start by thanking everyone who sent in suggestion for the favourite and least favourite lords. So I guess we’ll start here with Adam Tobin’s best and worst... Here’s what he had to say on the matter...

“As my collection only goes as far back as Lorwyn so far, my favorite Lord would have to be Wilt-Leaf Liege. In my opinion the best liege out of the Lorwyn-Shadowmoor block, running 4 of these beasts is a must for extended elves and great for discard hate, even if it's just a sb. The worst Lord I've come across so far would be another liege from shadowmoor, Thisledown Liege…Ok I'm liking the +1/+1 for white and blue creatures, flash is alright too, but a 1/3? No thank you sir, just too much of a target.”

Wise word there from Mr Tobin, Wilt-leaf Liege was the Obstinate Baloth of its day and you have to remember that elves were a top deck at the time.  It’s all very well having a blue white liege that could lay golden eggs and turn all your opponents into Dita Von Tease, but if the only blue/white creatures were a couple of rabbits and a blind monkey then no-one was going to play them. As it turned out the Thistledown liege, despite its flashy title could do little more than appear at will, only to be bolted the second it hit atmo… 

So Mr Tobin’s arguments are strong and in their day he was probably bang on the money. (There were a lot of good green white elves) But we’re hitting the realms of Mirrodin Besieged in a couple of weeks and things have changed. So who is the top of the liege tree now? Well we’ll start at the bottom and work our way up.

First amongst the losers I’m going with Adam’s suggestion.  Flash aside there’s no getting away from the fact that Thistledown is really just a lightning bolt target for 4 mana. 

Next up guys I should warn you that if you are of a weak disposition you may do well to get behind the sofa and look away now… 

Yep you guessed it it’s a boar tusk liege and it’s a staggering 3 / 4 trampler (I know frightening isn’t it) Ok it pumps both green and red creatures, but have you even seen a green creature that needs a boost? (ok ok… ignoring birds of paradise)

So for the astute amongst you these were the baby lieges and there’s one more and whilst Mr Tobin’s Wilt-leaf Liege may have been the Primeval Titan of its day, I think that Ashen-moor Liege could easily be the Grave titan and thus the pair of them are definitely at the top of their game.  Ok it may only be a 4/1, but getting rid of it’s going to cost your opponent 4 life. And if you can prevent it from dying then those 4 life are going to add up. Plus if any critters need a boost it’s the little sneaky black ones…  

So… if these are the babies, you have to ask… who’s the Daddy?

Ok someone’s got to be first and it’s a genuinely tough call amongst these guys. I guess without a deck dedicated to him the most specific, and therefore potential least useful card would be the Muck-field liege.  I mean sure the ability to un-tap all your tricksy merfolk tappers and green mana generators in your opponents turn is awesome, but without the blue and green creatures to play their part it’s not going to win you any EDH games despite its otherwise awesome ability …

Next up Creak-Wood Liege is the cheapest of the big boys and at first glance its ability to spawn a 1/1 each turn doesn’t seem that great, of course a quick second glance and you’ll instantly see that the 1/1 are black/green and are therefore instantly pumped by their creator into 3/3’s and a free 3/3 every turn is decent no matter what way you look at it and once again it’s the black critters that need the boost…

And in third place… Mind-wrack liege ok it’s the priciest of the lot at a hefty 6 mana and four mana to flash in a critter from your hand isn’t bad, oh but it has to be a blue or a red critter darn it… hang on though isn’t Progenitus red? (and blue for that matter) oh it is… oh…

And the runner up is… Balefire liege, now this was a close call and I’m still in two minds but there has to be a winner.. Balefire liege is awesome there’s no way round that. Play a white spell get a free healing salve play a red spell hit your opponent with a free lightning bolt, play a red/white spell get a free lightning helix. Top stuff…

There can be only one and here it is… ladies and gentlemen I give you liege of the lieges.. Death Bringer Liege… firstly It pumps black critters and white critters, but play a white spell and tap out a defender… play a black spell take out a tapped out attacker…  play a black white spell take out anything… and there are some great black/white spells.

And there we have it all the best and worst lieges in the game... get digging for the following cards because there are a few stars here that we can use in our upcoming EDH deck. Death Bringer is a must and I’m also looking at Ashen moor and  Balefire liege ignore the rest we have work to do... and  bet you thought we’d forgotten , but no we don’t talk about Glen Elendra Liege... its pants and Oona is a very naughty fairy...

Rather than re write the whole thing

Here'sa major update....

http://tragicthegathering.blogspot.com/2010/11/mirrodin-beseiged.html