Schiller

[Photon Eater]

My latest casual creation, focusing on cards that suggest flickering and shimmering, creatures that are there one minute, and gone the next, and lots and lots of lightning.

Landbase:
Plains x 9
Mountain x 9
Sacred Foundry x2
Boros Garrison x 2

Creaturebase:
Glitterfang x 4
Blinking Spirit x 3
Petrahydrox x 3
Djinn Illuminatus x 2

Enchantments:
In the Web of War x 2
Genju of the Fields x 3

Instants:
Lightning Helix x 4
Otherworldly Journey x 4
Festival of the Guildpact x 4
Leave No Trace x 2

Sorcery:
Brightflame x 2
Gift of Estates x 2

Artifacts:
Ronin Warclub x 3

The Strategy: Drop creatures that can be replayed such as GF and Blinkie, so that Ronin Warclubs attach for free and allow for a higher damage output. Since most of the time your main creatures will be returning to your hand often, you'll be open to attack- which is where the Genju and the Festival come into play. Use them to chump block, and continue to annoy people with Warclub-friendly creatures. If the board gets messy, feel free to wipe it clean with Brightflame, or Leave No Trace if enchantments become problematic.

And finally, if you find yourself with the upperhand, you can use the Djinn to replicate a flurry of Lightning Helixes and achieve a very cool victory- provided your weirds and spirits haven't already beaten them to a pulp.

 

[DarthFerret]

Looks pretty good, but how about a couple of Ball Lightnings, Skizziks, or Blistering Firecats?

Also, Earthquake might be a good addition to eliminate the pesky weenie decks...

 

[Photon Eater]

I suppose you could add stuff like Ball Lightning, if that's your thing. I don't personally prefer creatures that come with an expiration date, which is why they aren't in this deck.

 

[Oversoul]

Ball Lightning is awesome, but would be too hard on the manabase.

 

[Photon Eater]

Yeah, there's a lot of double R in there, and I'm not comfortable with it. I already sort of go on a limb with brightflame.

edit: rather, a lot of R, in general

 

[Limited]

Petrahydrox + In the Web of War.. brilliant

I have to start by apologising, but I'm totally going to copy this deck.

Some remarks though..

- Isn't the bouncing and replaying of your creatures consuming all your mana? I'd think you'd wouldn't get much use out of the Genju of the Fields.
- Leave no Trace? Wouldn't Orim's Thunder be a lot better? (Or do you want to keep it Ravnica block?)
- Even with Gift of Estates, isn't 22 land not enough? Especially if you are playing mana-hungry stuff like Djinn Illuminatus I'd go for 24..
- Shouldn't you play something that can easily target the Petrahydrox? Like Boros Guildmage or something?

 

[Photon Eater]

Hehe, wow, I'm flattered.

A point-by-point response, though

-Bouncing and replaying does consume a good deal of mana, yes. However, I'm also running the karoos. I originally had it at 24 lands, but found that I often end up being mana flooded, believe it or not. Gift of Estates often kept in me a decent supply of W, and I found myself hurting for R, so I added Sacred Foundry so I could Gift it out. However, if in time I find it needs more mana, you know I'll add it. In the meantime, the Genju's seem to be fine. I usually only need to activate them once, and Gift provides me with enough Plains, or so it seems.
-Leave No Trace for two reasons- I wanted it to stay as current as possible (even though, in the original decklist, Orim's Thunder was my enchantment removal). The secondly reason is, my local metagame is such that if you are not running some form of wide enchantment removal, you are a chump. One of the decks I end up playing the most are decks like GW Enduring Ideal and GW Yavimaya-Verudan Enchantress (which are usually PACKED with crap like Ghostly Prison and Priveleged Position).
-See point one.
-I've thought of this, also. Boros Guildmage used to be here, too, but I found that she made the deck feel far too aggressive for my tastes. In the meantime, I've been using Otherworldly Journey. Yeah, using it just to bounce Petra is a waste of a card, but at the very least the card still has the same basic effect on it. Also, if I do have any available mana, and I simply CAN'T afford to lose a Petrahydrox, I just pay the 5 mana to attach a Ronin Warclub, and it goes all poof and stuff.

Ultimately, this deck is still probably not the most mana effective, yes. It has, however, proven to be really fun and very troublesome in my local metagame because it's almost criminally difficult to kill my creatures. Sorceries just aren't gonna cut it, and everyone in my area has this Ross Perot-like fascination with sub-par creature kill like Terror. But you can't really terror a creature that is only on the field on my turn, can you?

 

[Limited]

Also, if I do have any available mana, and I simply CAN'T afford to lose a Petrahydrox, I just pay the 5 mana to attach a Ronin Warclub, and it goes all poof and stuff.

Too bad you can't do that at instant speed.. maybe something like Granite Shard? (I'm reaching now)

But you can't really terror a creature that is only on the field on my turn, can you?

Well eh.. actually, you can. Terror is an instant. Did you mean another card?

 

[Photon Eater]

Too bad you can't do that at instant speed.. maybe something like Granite Shard? (I'm reaching now)

Bah. That's right. Good thing I haven't been in a situation where I had been counting on that. Ghost Warden might work, just off the top of my head. Also, one of the guildhomes could work, too. Sunhome is a might expensive just for bounce, though...

Edit: Although, on second thought, being able to add doublestrike to any one of my OTHER ItWoWed, Warclubbed creatures would be nasty. Unfortunately, I don't think it would be very efficient, manawise.

Well eh.. actually, you can. Terror is an instant. Did you mean another card?

Actually, yeah, I am. God, I'm making all sorts of stupid mistakes today, forgive me. The card I am thinking of is Eradicate, which is also popular around here.

 

[Limited]

Ghost Warden would do the job indeed..

Sunhome could actually work; the only creature that really costs too much to pay for both (the Hydrox) is something you don't want to target anyway (unles you want to safe it), but paying 6 mana for a Glitterfang so that it can be a 5/2 double strike seems worth it..

(including it in copy of your deck)

Eradicate was all over my playgroup as well.. sometimes its hella-annoying, sometimes its just expensive sorcery-speed removal (and occasionally a dead card). Still, removing creatures from the game is just what you need in some situations.

 

[Photon Eater]

Well, right. It's not bad. It just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, because so often I hear "Oh my god, if you aren't splashing black for Eradicate, Terror, and Corrupt, then you must be a total newb!"

I actually have a few Sunhomes. I think I will add them, too!

 

[Limited]

We've had a time were everybody had some kind of mono-black deck.. Its not so bad now, but only last thursday someone decided to play his monoB thing again.

Reminds you how good/nasty Kokusho is in Multiplayer

 

[Photon Eater]

Black is the most popular color in my town. And by most popular, I mean, it outnumbers other colored decks 4 to 1.

This wouldn't be so bad if these black decks were more than just any number of creature kill spells thrown into a deckbox with swamps and random Corrupts and Nightmares. But unfortunately, that's usually the case.

The second most popular color mono-red burn, which follows the same formula except replace "kill spells" with "burn spells", and replace Corrupt and Nightmare with Fireball and a random dragon of your choice.

I'm not saying they are bad decks, by far, but I like to play against a little more variation, you know?

Kokusho is so mean in multiplayer. I think the only thing worse than playing against a Kokusho deck in multiplayer is playing against that one white player who falls in love with stuff like Congregate and Beacon of Immortality. Nothing like spending 2 hours beating on an opponent with 4000 life, but no plausible way of ever beating you....

 

[Limited]

I here that brotha!

Its usually disappointing to see that a deck that has been put together with so little thought can come so far..

 

[Photon Eater]

I'm thinking that after my game with you, this deck wants Wrath of God, or something to that effect.

 

[Limited]

Something like Brightflame

You could try Kirtar's Wrath.. budget WoG effects that also grant you tokens (which would be funny with In the Web of War. I kill all creatures and get two 3/1 tokens with haste.. )

It does cost 6 mana though.. perhaps you need something cheaper.. or just up the creature count a bit? 4x Sunhome Enforcer would probably improve your defenses a lot!

 

[Photon Eater]

Actually, I don't think Brightflame is cutting it. It can be a board sweeper, but in a time when multicolor is so popular, it loses it's effectiveness. Case in point- During my game with you, I so wanted to nuke your creature base, or at least hit them all with Brightflame to gain life and buy myself some time to draw some more offense. However, with such a varied pool of colored creatures, my 7 mana Brightflame was only capable of taking down two creatures, and even then it was only by a little.

Meanwhile, Wrath of God is a flat 4 mana, and Final Judgment is 6. Compare those two to Brightflame. I think that trading the damage-sweeper for a solid reset button is probably better strategy. Plus, I think it's still in flavor- I mean, nothing quite captures the essence of here one moment, gone the next like Wrath of God.

 

[Limited]

I would indeed cut the Brightflame, and perhaps the Festival of the Guildpact as well; you already have Otherwordly Journey and are adding WoG (God shouting: "Party's over! Everybody out!").

Maybe you could add Boros Signet? A bit of mana acceleration never hurt anyone

 

[Photon Eater]

Well, FotGP is primarily there for two reasons- to provide an answer to attacking opponents while I have no creatures in play, and it's deck-thinning. However, it hasn't done me much good, but I'm not sure I am wanting to take it out, yet. I'm really hurting for draw in this deck, too.

I think I will

-2 Brightflame
-2 Leave no Trace (sideboard it just for local enchantment decks)
+2 WoG or Final Judgment (this will primarily be selected based on availability)

And I am debating:

-X Festival of the Guildpact