Donate

[Madbutcher]

4 Shadowmage Infiltrator
2 Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
4 Ravenous Rats
3 Dimir Cutpurse
4 Mesmeric Fiend
2 Barrin, Master Wizard


4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Donate
3 Innocent Blood
2 Undermine
4 Counterspell
1 Capsize
3 Illusions of Grandeur
1 Nefarious Lich


4 Underground River
2 Undrground Sea
7 Swamp
8 Island

So this is my Donate deck.. i hope it will kick some

 

[Oversoul]

I think the problem here is going to be that the kill cards do so little by themselves. I used to play Necro-Donate all the time and have played some other Donate decks too (monoblue with Sapphire Medallions and also U/B).

The weakest card in such decks was almost always Donate. It was limited to Force of Will fodder unless it could be played with a kill card (usually Illusions) on the board. But you had to use at least three copies because it was kill card and the whole deck would rely on it when the time came.

Illusions of Grandeur is pretty crappy by itself, but it can be used to keep you alive while you have a clock of some sort on your opponent and it also provides a burst of life for something like Necropotence (or Yawgmoth's Bargain, for that matter).

In your deck Illusions, Nefarious Lich, and Donate are dead cards until the time comes when you can play your combo. And without mana acceleration, that can take a while.

You're playing black cards. I suggest Dark Ritual be added, for starters. Nightscape Familiar might also be good. I'm not sure...

 

[Madbutcher]

it's my first donate ever.. so i will play it a little and se ..
i hope the Dimir Cutpurse and Shadowmage Infiltrator can help me with the mana.. none of my friends play with card's like Force of Will .. but i se the problem with a counter deck

 

[DarthFerret]

Madbutcher, by "Force of Will fodder" he meant that he used it as a discard to play his Force of Will. Reason being that it took so long to get the combo in his hand, that he would have to counter something to stay alive....

 

[Oversoul]

Darthferret is correct about "Force of Will fodder." However, I should clarify that the problem with Donate is not finding a two-card combo, but being able to reliably get the two-card combo AND seven mana to play it while avoiding disruption by your opponent.

You can play Illusions on turn four and Donate on turn five, which makes for a pretty quick kill, but that leaves you with only the first three turns to set up for your victory. Without Necropotence or another powerful card-drawing engine, this is problematic. One option is the monoblue trick of packing enough countermagic to play a controllish game while using things like Intuition/Accumulated Knowledge or Fact or Fiction to get that card advantage.

MadButcher's approach can, I believe, work. One problem is speed. It doesn't have the explosive card-advantage and mana boosts that are typical of decks bent on breaking Donate (this isn't necessarily bad, since those decks are broken, after all).

Another problem is that it relies on creatures while it won't win out in a creature-based battle. Obviously attacking for the win is not the deck's first plan: if it can get its Infiltrators and Cutpurses through, it will be doing all right. But I'm wondering if we can't fine-tune the creatures this deck uses.

I'm not crazy about Ravenous Rats. Something like Duress would fill its role a lot better. Abyssal Gatekeeper might be good in this deck, but that's probably a metagame call. If you're not worried about being beaten down by attackers early on, it's not as good. And it hurts your other creatures.

My first recommendation would still be the Dark Rituals though.

More later...

 

[Madbutcher]

oki.. i'll remove the Rats.. and put in Dark Ritual..
i'll remove Capsize, 1Innocent Blood and 1 Circu, Dimir Lobotomist and put in 3 Duress? will that make the deck bether?

 

[Oversoul]

Duress depends to an extent on what you're playing against. I mean, in tournaments it's been one of the best discard spells available (if not the best). But one of the reasons it's so great is that it can hit Force of Will and broken combo cards before they see play. It's nearly a dead card against a creature-swarm deck. It's worth trying. If it doesn't work, replace it.

Dark Ritual, on the other hand, is only ever good news. I'm confident that it will fit in with the rest of the deck.

 

[sageridder]

Have you considered propaganda? How about sleeper agent,with sigil of sleep on it to keep bouncing creatures back to thier hands.

 

[Madbutcher]

I think they will return the sleeper agent.. and that's not good..
i'll use Barrin, Master Wizard to bounc creatures.. maby i can use Waterfront Bouncer?

 

[Oversoul]

Your opponent can't bounce the Sleeper Agent because you control the Sigil of Sleep. So you get to pick what creature bounces. Of course, once the opponent has no other creatures you have to bounce the Sleeper Agent.