wind of words

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hrothmar

Guest
I recently acquired 3 words of wind. Its an enchantment that allows you to let each player bounce permanents instead of you drawing a card. In short, it turns your draw into mass-bounce. This has to be abused. Casually, of course...

I chose to do this by having more permanents on the board then opponents. The method: cryptic gateway avec golems (espacially the battered one that untaps when you play artifacts such as other golems). So the plan is to smack a dozen of these on the board and then play something like rush of knowledge, return 'em and smack them down again (especially brass ones), while opponents wont be able to do just that. Yes, this will be a slow war of attrition, but by god, thats how I like it (undying flames anyone?).

Oke...thats the plan and This is the decklist:

***land***(21)
12 islands
3 urzatron

***creatures***(20)
4 spire golem
4 brass herald
4 battered golem
4 bosh iron golem (Bosh smash!)
4 merchant of secrets

***art/ench/inst/sorc*** (18)

4 cryptic gateway
3 rush of knowledge
4 brainstorm
4 compulsive research
3 words of wind

***secret tech***(1)

1 tower of fortunes


I suppose I should include something that could use Bosh's ability, but I cant decide what. Any comments?
 
L

Limited

Guest
It seems that Rush of Knowledge, though it lets you draw lots of cards, does present a hefty demand on your mana if you want to use it together with the Words.. I mean, after tapping 5 mana to play it, how much mana are you going to have left?
Urzatron might help in this respect, but it seems fragile.

Maybe you can get your hands on some Whirlpool creatures? If my memory serves me, most of them are Merfolk so Cryptic Gateway would still do the trick.

Good luck!
 
H

hrothmar

Guest
Limited said:
It seems that Rush of Knowledge, though it lets you draw lots of cards, does present a hefty demand on your mana if you want to use it together with the Words.. I mean, after tapping 5 mana to play it, how much mana are you going to have left?
Urzatron might help in this respect, but it seems fragile.
Its true that the tron is fragile, thats why I put in 15 spells that allow me to draw cards. In the face of this massive amount of carddrawing I dont think assembling the tron will be much of a problem.

Limited said:
Maybe you can get your hands on some Whirlpool creatures? If my memory serves me, most of them are Merfolk so Cryptic Gateway would still do the trick.
I have considered whirlpool creatures. In fact, at first I opted to go with these creatures instead of golems. Yet, since I only own one it was a short consideration.
 
F

Force of Will Smith

Guest
word of winds is really amazingly powerful... and sadly this golem thing doesnt do it justice..

i tried doing a rush of knowledge deck where you'd play a spire golem for free, cast energy tap to gain colorless equal to its casting cost, then do a rush of knowledge or a prosperity for say 10, repeat etc... the problem is.. it doesnt work very well..

words of wind is much better for locks. Its best when you have a renewable effect that does nothing to you but hurts your opponent..

if youre playing artifacts, use ones that use up their value, like serrated arrows, rejuventating chamber, etc.

if youre playing white, trying abusing cards that gain you life, like a creature that gains you a hefty amount of life so you can play it, bounce it, play it,etc.

if you're playing green, ABUSE enchantments and the enchantress herself..
whipsilk and other cost:return this enchantment to hand are brutal.
imagine paying GGGGGG to make your opponent return 6 permanents while you return nothing.

cessation/rancor+ auratog will do it to a lesser effect.. and i think ?sun clasp and one other from visions did it as well..

add celestial ancient and for every G you gain each of your creatures gets.

you can use bronze bombshell+endless whispers with bosh
or trash with treasure to play him.

I'll never forget the broken piece of crap i played once. It was a tinker/trash for treasure/metalworker/bosh deck that killed on turn 3 or 4, with a false demised 2x sacrificial bosh...

pssht.
 
H

hrothmar

Guest
Force of Will Smith said:
word of winds is really amazingly powerful... and sadly this golem thing doesnt do it justice...
thank you for the kind reply.

Why exactly does this deck not do it justice? Sure it is no turn 3 or 4 kill, but at least its original and does not sport sick (auratog) cards. For me, that is what playing casually is all about.

Force of Will Smith said:
i tried doing a rush of knowledge deck where you'd play a spire golem for free, cast energy tap to gain colorless equal to its casting cost, then do a rush of knowledge or a prosperity for say 10, repeat etc... the problem is.. it doesnt work very well....
no wonder...with wow Each player has to bounce permanents! In the plan you describe there is no way to do just that. No wonder it didnt work.

Force of Will Smith said:
words of wind is much better for locks. Its best when you have a renewable effect that does nothing to you but hurts your opponent..
I hate to play against decks that have to ability to lock you out of the game. As a consequence, I wont build such decks. Dont get me wrong; I like deck building as a creative process, and building a lock deck is a nice mental exercise. I wont play them though, its no fun. Fun is beating somebody over the head with griffins.

Force of Will Smith said:
if youre playing artifacts, use ones that use up their value, like serrated arrows, rejuventating chamber, etc.
What cards should I drop to make room for these great additions? And how would these make my deck (in its current build) better?

Force of Will Smith said:
if youre playing white, trying abusing cards that gain you life, like a creature that gains you a hefty amount of life so you can play it, bounce it, play it,etc.
I'm not playing white.

Force of Will Smith said:
if you're playing green, ABUSE enchantments and the enchantress herself..
whipsilk and other cost:return this enchantment to hand are brutal.
imagine paying GGGGGG to make your opponent return 6 permanents while you return nothing.
well actually, for GGGGGG you get to bounce 3 permanents. Wow has an activation cost you see.

And I'm not playing green.

Force of Will Smith said:
cessation/rancor+ auratog will do it to a lesser effect.. and i think ?sun clasp and one other from visions did it as well..
Force of Will Smith said:
add celestial ancient
true. But right now you are talking about a whole other deck around wow.

And Im still not playing either green or white.

Force of Will Smith said:
you can use bronze bombshell+endless whispers with boshor trash with treasure to play him.
this is a nice combo. But I dont really get what it has to do with words of wind...

Force of Will Smith said:
I'll never forget the broken piece of crap i played once. It was a tinker/trash for treasure/metalworker/bosh deck that killed on turn 3 or 4, with a false demised 2x sacrificial bosh....
congrats! a turn 3 or 4 kill. That must have been very rewarding.

Force of Will Smith said:
pssht right back at ya...
 
F

Force of Will Smith

Guest
omg :D
the pssht was in reference to losing to a bosh.. and its perfectly fine if you dont want to use either green or white..

Along with casual, not making locks is the idea, because theyre no fun.
and my statement about rush of knowledge has no relation to words of wind...
the problem is... if i see a card and its REALLY powerful.. why water it down? why not use a bad card and try to make it good. That's what I call casual.

in my earlier post I was simply trying to say that rush of knowledge, even in a deck based around it, doesnt do too well.

the statement about bosh has nothing to do with WOW, it has everything to do with golems.. and it seems like you have two different decks competing..

well first i'd drop cryptic gateway in favor of urza's incubator..
then i'd take out the tower, since you may not have the mana base to support it.

The thing is, generally when you play 4 of a card, its a really important card, and redundancy is welcome, 3 is right behind it.

and even though golems are awesome.. your deck has no control, counter magic, or protection from artifact destruction..

say for example someone finds a way to make it so artifacts come into play tapped, with say... a turn 1 root maze..

say you have full urza and you activate a tower of fortunes and manage to cast 2 rush of knowledges.. so you draw 20 cards... of... golems? and more draw?

Sadly golems arent that great, but you can build a deck with any creature type, as long as you make everything around it good.. incubator helps.

if youre running words, i'd recommend other things that make you bounce, like trusted advisor, blood clock, umbilicus, as well as things to bounce, like man-o-war, raven familiar, stern proctor (to bounce artifacts), and maybe other good bounce like echoing truth or temporal adept.

there are much better options for golems as well..
consider some of these..


basalt golem
beast of burden
Spire golem
karn
thran golem
junk golem (with so much drawing)
mycosynth golem
rusting golem is pretty good.
sparring golem
soldevi golem
glass golem would be good if you run some def equip like slagwurm armor


if i were to make a golem deck, i'd have either really fast artifact mana to bring them out quickly, some bounce backup. maybe some creature steal or a trick in there.. As it is now, urza lands with no land fetch seems like a lost cause. try running 4 vedalken engineers, maybe a locus, a copy artifact/sculpting steel to make another badass after you played your only bosh. This also makes more singular targets (aside from global artifact doom) Energy chamber could over time make your golems powerful. Energy tap could give you a mess of mana. you might also want something to protect and make your golems more powerful like a zephid's embrace or a whispersilk cloak.
and if you managed to play a zephids embrace on a thran golem.. you payed 2UU+5(9) for a 7/7 flying/first strike/trampling/untargetable which even if the enchantment is destroyed it still has flying.


i think you'd also need some global reset buttons yourself, but not a nevvys.. maybe run 4 powerkegs..

the deck i predict would run like this..

t1: island
t2: island, vedalken archmage/hold a bounce spell/drop a lightning greaves
t3: island, (tap vedalken for 2, and 3 to play a 5cc golem) or play incubator for 3 and play a 4cc golem


*edit: add quicksilver amulet to the list, and maybe levitation to make all your golems flying for the win...
 
H

hrothmar

Guest
it would seem that this thread was aptly titled :D

Force of Will Smith said:
in my earlier post I was simply trying to say that rush of knowledge, even in a deck based around it, doesnt do too well.
It does have a high mana cost. However, as I explained earlier to limited, I think the urzatron is going to help in that area. Furthermore, compulsive research and brainstorm are cheap spells that allow me to draw cards, so I wanted a spell that could potentially draw me more cards than that, that is, bounce me more cards than that through wow. I chose rush of knowledge because it has a little synergy going with the high-costed golems; this card allows me to draw six cards (targeting spire golem/brass herald) most of the time for 5 mana. Do you know another card that could do that? Maybe I could drop the tower and 1 rush for something else...

Force of Will Smith said:
.. and it seems like you have two different decks competing..
Deck 1:Massive communal bounce augmented with free creatures.
DEck 2:Golem beatdown!

??

Force of Will Smith said:
well first i'd drop cryptic gateway in favor of urza's incubator..
But crypic gateway and battered golem make such a fun combo.

Force of Will Smith said:
then i'd take out the tower, since you may not have the mana base to support it.
its going out.


Force of Will Smith said:
The thing is, generally when you play 4 of a card, its a really important card, and redundancy is welcome, 3 is right behind it.
Sadly, I only own 3 wow. If I had 4, then there would be 4 in the deck.

Force of Will Smith said:
and even though golems are awesome.. your deck has no control, counter magic, or protection from artifact destruction..
In my playgroup we dont play countermagic. We do play artifact destruction ,however, and you are right I have no defence against that. Most artifact kill played in our playgroup is either pinpoint or including creatures and enchantments. Either way Im not set back very badly, so its a risk Im willing to take...


Force of Will Smith said:
there are much better options for golems as well..
consider some of these..

basalt golem
beast of burden
Spire golem
karn
thran golem
junk golem (with so much drawing)
mycosynth golem
rusting golem is pretty good.
sparring golem
soldevi golem
glass golem would be good if you run some def equip like slagwurm armor
right now, I think that merchant of secrets (bombo with the herald) surpasses all golems mentioned here, save the mycosynth golem. Its sick. I dont own it however, which is also true for the rest of the list. Ill have to wait and see what coldsnap brings in the golem department in order to contemplate adding other golems to the deck.


Force of Will Smith said:
if i were to make a golem deck, i'd have either really fast artifact mana to bring them out quickly, some bounce backup. maybe some creature steal or a trick in there.. As it is now, urza lands with no land fetch seems like a lost cause. try running 4 vedalken engineers, maybe a locus, a copy artifact/sculpting steel to make another badass after you played your only bosh. This also makes more singular targets (aside from global artifact doom) Energy chamber could over time make your golems powerful. Energy tap could give you a mess of mana. you might also want something to protect and make your golems more powerful like a zephid's embrace or a whispersilk cloak.
and if you managed to play a zephids embrace on a thran golem.. you payed 2UU+5(9) for a 7/7 flying/first strike/trampling/untargetable which even if the enchantment is destroyed it still has flying.

*edit: add quicksilver amulet to the list
First, bosh is legendary, so copying him wont be a good move. Second, in this deck I'd prefer urzatron over locus, simply because there are 3*3 urzalands versus 4*1 loci. As I told limited, I believe that with all the card drawing it wont be a problem to assemble the tron. Third, thran golem is good. Strike that, it is very good. No...its excellent. Maybe I could run him with flight of fancy to keep to the theme. Ill have to buy him first, naturally. Fourth, cryptic gateway is better in this deck than quicksilver amulet due to the battered golem ability.

I could make this more of a beatdown deck by putting in a few artifact lands, swamps, cranial plating, skeletal shard, and dross golem. But I think im gonna play it first and then make some adjustments, save the removal of the tower in favor of rush.
 
F

Force of Will Smith

Guest
oops he is legendary :D. yeah thran is amazing, you'd just have to devote a little bit of your deck to enchantments.. which it may be good to run some enchantments you can return with a cost.

i think in regards to the card drawing, consider running the newly legal "tidings" that was shifted over from portal..
3UU draw 4 cards,
or
counsel of the soratami is really good 2U for 2 is not bad..

i think drawing 4-5 cards for 2 less will be better than drawing 7 with no mana to spend them.. you might still end up having to hold your cards for a turn, or even worse.. discard some :(.. if youre going for fast beatdown and you think you can spend the mana.. go for ideas unbound..

oh and with running blue spire golem is a definite in your deck
 
H

Homestar

Guest
Hey I didn't really take time to read all the previous replies, cuz, well, they're long =P. But anyway, my take on this deck would be this.

I'd play it GWU. Loxodon Heirarchs, Azorious Heralds, stuff like that. Then maybe play 1 Test of Endurance just for kicks. Then have all the same stuff you have for card draw and whatever else =P. And G has plenty of mana accel for your golemns if you still wanted to include those, then you wouldnt have to go with urzatron, being so many things can send it to hell.

Didn't really think this through much, just the first thing that came to mind.
 
H

hrothmar

Guest
well.. I finally got the opportunity to play-test this deck yesterevening.

Report (against enduring ideal-deck with hondens)

I kept a crap hand with 2 bosh, 2 lands and three card drawing spells.

turn1: island, brainstorm.
turn2: tower.
turn3: island, compulsive research

meanwhile my opponent played some mana acceleration through signets and farseek and produced a white honden.

turn4: island, spire golem, another brainstorm
turn5: mine, battered golem

both golems got arrested.

turn 6: island, rush of knowledge for 6.
turn 7: island, cryptic gateway, words of wind, bosh, spire golem.

meanwhile on the other side of the board: green honden (he missed some land drops). some tokens.

turn 8: powerplant, rush of knowledge for 8 (drawing only 1 friggin golem, luckily a brass herald), activate wow for 7. In response I play herald and I am lucky. I draw four golems one of which is another battered one. Smack em down. Then each of us bounces permanents. Opponent is left with one permanent. I bounce bosh, spire golem (3), brass herald, battered golems (2). Tapped out, discarding and passing the turn. -I made an error here; I should have bounced 2 lands instead of the 2 battered golems that way I could have ended it a turn earlier.

anyhow turn 9: play battered golems. Play everything I bounced inlcuding brass herald. Which opens up another herald - the deck is getting very very thin now - which opens up antoher etc. pretty soon all golems left in the deck are on the table.
turn 10: I swing for 79 damage.
 
H

Homestar

Guest
Sounds like you got it down packed. Is it a fun deck to play?
 
F

Force of Will Smith

Guest
I don't mean to come down hard, but usually setting up on turn 7 means you lose.
Maybe a flier or two over time to get past your spires, a couple burn spells or a couple drain life spells would run over your golems.
 
H

hrothmar

Guest
@ HS: well it is really fun to play, but I wont recommend to play it online ;).

@FOWS: Yeah, there is a (big) chance of losing, but when it works itll be that much sweeter. But you have a point; ill address it below.

So, on to game 2 o/t deck...

We were playing a multiplayer game were we attacking only the person to the left of us (due to the number of players). Unluckily the person to my right had an eerily big horde of squirrel/saproling tokens out really fast with which he knocked 4 players out of the game....in a row, me being the first. So I have concluded that this deck cannot withstand an early creature swarm. Right now Im thinking of taking out the merchant of secrets and replacing them with a big stall-wall or the surprising multiplayer meat-grinding tech that is reins of power.
 
H

Homestar

Guest
Well maybe you could just splash a little bit of red for Pyroclasm in that situation.
 
J

jorael

Guest
Evacuation might be an excellent card to use: it's blue, instant and bounces all creatures. Your deck doesn't seem to have a problem putting them back into play again :)

It's a rare, but not an expensive one.
 
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