Revising my old Equilibrium deck.

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Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Yet ANOTHER Spidey fan! This must be my lucky day! :D

I have mixed feelings about the symbiote costume (have all the Secret Wars, BTW). On one hand, it was sorta neat. On the other, it was BLACK which is not RED ;)

Purple Jester: I'm not too good with deck-building either, especially using modern cards (post-Stronghold) since I'm not that familiar with them. However, just because you're a Spidey fan ;) I can only suggest...

since the theme is bounce, AND you're looking for 1cc, what about some of those Fledging Osprey (?) and 2 more Sigil of Sleep. Then you can cast the Sigil on the Osprey, make it flying, and unsummon someone IF they get through (heh).

Maybe along with that, replace the counter stuff with bounce stuff like unsummon, that new one that can untap land, the one that can unsummon two creatures (you can tell I'm good with names here)...

Or if you want to keep the counters but not add the Ospreys and Sigils, get some Force Spikes.

That's pretty much it off the top of my head. Sorry it's not too good... :(
 
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rkoelsch

Guest
I have a couple of spindrifts I would trade for a couple tormented angels. And a card you could consider is Wall of Junk. Goes back to hand after blocking and only costs 2 for a 0/7.
 
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Purple_jester

Guest
It works against weenies, primarily because of the walls and the fact that most of the creatures are similarly weenies. However, winning takes too long, because the weenies have the capacity to come back into play as fast as I return them to my opponent's hand, on account of their cheapness.

I apparently need some way of preventing my opponents from recasting small creatures prepeatedly like that. I can counter a few, but more often you wouldn't want to do that with so many small critters. Especially if they're as ignominously irritating as Goblins.

So, I was thinking of two ways to do this. Tie up my opponent's mana in some way, or prevent him from using the weenies repeatedly. I was thinking of either of two enchantments.

One of them is Arcane Laboratory. Once I have an Equilibrium lock combo going, the Arcane Lab would prevent all remaining creature opposition. However, the Lab may prove dangeous if he ever gets a multiple-creature generating effect going. The other enchantment, Soul Barrier, would force my opponent to either tie up his mana, effectively adding 2 to the cost of all his creatures, or deal him damage. Which of the two would you recommend? ;)
 
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rkoelsch

Guest
why not use footpads. keep bouncing and recasting til he has nothing.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
That sort of deck works best with Parallax Wave. You play out your Pirates, then Wave them all out. When Wave dies you get them all back and your opponent has to lose all his stuff again. This trick gets good when you add in a Monk Idealist as well, when the Wave dies the Idealist comes back into play so you get to pick the Wave up and replay it, so you get to loop all your 187 effects every turn.
 
S

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Are you still mostly always winning? 'Cause if you are, I don't see that it taking too long is a problem... ;) (unless you get really impatient).

If it's more like 50/50, beats me... try 'em both (one at a time) and see what happens...
 
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Purple_jester

Guest
Before I say anything, I'd like to thank you all for helping me out with one of my favorite pet decks. I've had a bounce deck all the way back when all I had to play with were Unsummon, Boomerang and Time Elemental. Now with so many options available, it's nice to see my deck evolving along with the game.

Gizmo, I've thought about the Pirate+Wave combo back when Nemesis first popped out, but will never get to use it, however good it is. You see, I made a vow never to use white. No offense to all those white-using players out there. ;)

Rkoelsch, I've tested various 4cc creatures, and while Footpad would be high on my list of good blue 4cc creatures, its cost is too high for effective bouncing.

Spidey, the revised version of the deck does win a lot. It has even won against virtually creatureless decks, like Counter-Burn and Counter-Post. Of course, its win record against such creatureless decks is about 50/50. It has a better record against creature decks, which is most decks out there.

I've tested both Soul Barrier and Arcane Lab, and it seems that Soul Barrier is better. With the Lab, I have to wait until I'm absolutely sure of getting a lock before slapping it down. With the Barrier, I can play it as soon as I have the freedom to do so, because it will definitely tie up my opponent's mana and damage him as well. I've found that the damage does get in once or twice in a game. And besides, the Barrier makes it easier for me to play Mana Leak. Against a white weenie player, the presence of the two enchantments (Equilibrium and Soul Barrier) forced my opponent to decide which one was more dangerous in the long run (aka. which one to Disenchant first).

Duel, I have my own Rising Waters deck, so I don't need to try that enchantment. Besides, a mana-intensive deck like this would suffer as much from the waters as my opponent. I'll let the Waters hang out with the Thwarts and Gushes like it's sypposed to, and limit my bounce deck to its 6 globals.

Again, thanks for the comments. Rakso, if you're reading this, I'm also going to try out that merfolk angle. Just got to gewt me 3 more Lords of Atlantis (hey, I just noticed that it's a 2/2 for 2cc).
 
M

Mikeymike

Guest
I can assure you that I am going to repeat some ideas but...

Raven Familiar--The echo can slow you down but the ability to blow through your deck could prove very useful (and it is, I've used it for such a reason)

Rhystic Study--You are going to be casting creatures over and over again. They either tie up their mana or let you draw.

Thawing Glaciers--Although the deck is fairly low CC, having a lot of mana available will allow you to pull off tons o' tricks each turn.

The Rishidans--A good way to rid them of permanents

Morphling--No just kidding. I HATE MORPHLING!!

Opposition--You have a ton of creatures in here. You bounce the threats, during their upkeep tap their lands so they can't recast. It will be an annoying, ongoing cycle of them doing nothing.

Hope some of these help
*****
Oh if you decide to splash colors, try Aluren (2GG) from Tempest and watch the deck piss people off.
 
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Purple_jester

Guest
Hey! Wait a minute! You suggested the Morphling! AARRGGHH! How could you do such a horrible thing? The presence of the Morphling will shut down any combo deck known to man, by virtue of its power by itself... You'll protect it and ignore your deck concept, using it to deliver beatdown upon beatdown upon your helpless...

Hehe... Just kidding. I know you were joking. ;)

I think I'll try out your Rhystic Study idea. I've been looking for ways to tie up my opponent's mana reliably, and this might be a godd way to do it. If it works, I'll have to decide which is better, the Study or Soul Barrier.

Too bad about Opposition. The darn thing's rare, and I have access to exactly 0 of it. :( I've altered the deck since I first posted, here's the new version, which is based on a lot of input ideas and actually works better than the prototype:

Mana (25):
18 Islands
4 Mishra's Factory
1 Sol Ring
2 Sky Diamond (I'll use Felwar Stone once Invasion rolls out)

Creatures (16):
4 Stinging Barrier
3 Darting Merfolk
3 Ribbon Snake
2 Spindrift Drake
2 Gilded Drake (for those creatures with CIP abilities)
2 Wall of Junk (stops untargettables like Blastoderm and goes back to my hand on its own)

Spells (22):
3 Equilibrium
4 Counterspell
4 Mana Leak
2 Force of Will
2 Withdraw
3 Sigil of Sleep
2 Soul Barrier (I'll try Rhystic study next...)
2 Brainstorm

[Edited by Purple_jester on September 15th, 2000 at 06:18 PM]
 
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Thallid Ice Cream Man

Guest
This might not help, but if you need bounce, you can use Wizard Mentors. You can bounce two creatures every turn for no mana. I don't know how much you need bounce, but this might help.
 
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