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I think it would be worth it. Toil//Trouble has the added benefit of sometimes being a finisher if you need. You can use it as burn, or draw, or both. It's also easier to cast being 2B instead of BB.

Toil//Trouble was originally taken out of the deck because of what it could do but at sorcery speed rather than instant speed. Granted SiB is the same speed... just less mana...

If you want to keep it standard, and want to draw cards in black/red, I think toil//trouble would be better than wild guess, that is, unless you have a glut of cards at 3 mana already. Wild Guess just replaces 2 cards, while toil nets you one. Is the versatility of toil//trouble worth the extra mana?

Possibly... we'll see.. its impossible to get in a game with these guys lol they're just chewing the fat.

So what did you pull Alfindrate? Also- what did you play against?

Edit: Or did anyone else go to a midnight release last night? Hopefully I'll get the time to go Sunday myself.

Now that I've had some sleep

I went W:2 and L:3. It was rough, my last opponent I'm fairly certain his dad helped him build his deck and it was a rough one. With that being said I pulled Chandra's Phoenix, Fiendslayer Paladin (I need more of these ), Ajani's Chosen, The blue sliver that gives slivers flying, the red sliver that gives "when this creature attacks, deal 1 damage..." and Jace, Memory Adept, which was from the first pack I opened . If I felt I could have done blue I would have totally done it simply because of Jace.

My first game was against this guy who was running a green white deck, I didn't get to see much because it was basically always the same few cards ,and he beat me 2 games to nothing. Second game was against another veteran player, who ran red, black, and splashed some green in for a bunch of spiders and the primordial bounty he pulled (the green mythic rare). I went into that round thinking, "If I can win 1 of the 3 games, I won't care and I'll consider the round a success." I stomped him both games >_< and won 2-0 thanks to that fantastic Fiendslayer Paladin with Lightning Talons. Third round I won against a green and white sliver deck It wasn't very good, he was looking for a reason to play the non-promo version of the promo card he pulled. I helped him out a few times and he said I was the best opponent of the night . I think after losing 3 straight rounds he left :-\. 4th round I played against a green and red beast deck that had some solid pieces, and it was rough... I had no chance against that deck, he literally had a response for everything I could do and then he brought out that dang scavenging ooze and I couldn't do anything but try an act of treason and used it against him. I was hoping I had my card that allows target player to sacrifice an attacking or blocking creature. I would have played that on his ooze and laughed as I couldn't regenerate it because I didn't have green mana (stupid trollhide enchantment). Round 5 was against a similar deck, although without the ooze. I lost that one 2-1. Walked upstairs, reported my game and bought the Chandra blue/red deck and pulled the megantic sliver and some other card that escapes me.

Not a bad evening, it was fun as hell but I'm fething tired now.

You know you can't regenerate a creature if you're forced to sacrifice it? Regenerate only works against destroy effects and damage. I'm guessing you went red/white using the Phoenix and Fiendslayer? Don't suppose you'd mind posting your card pool and what your deck used?

card pool being all the cards I pulled? D:

You can't?! Cause it happened to me in the fifth round and the guy regenerated it... feth...

I'll post my card list later, they're still out in my car...

Yeah, sacrifice is a way to get away regeneration, hexproof, and even indestructible. Sorry hoss. Yeah, if you wouldn't mind I'd like to see what you used and pulled. It's always fun to brainstorm and theorycraft.

Alfndrate wrote: I was hoping I had my card that allows target player to sacrifice an attacking or blocking creature. I would have played that on his ooze and laughed as I couldn't regenerate it because I didn't have green mana (stupid trollhide enchantment).

Sacrifice is a cost that has to be paid. There's no cheating it to stop it going the graveyard. If you were to 'regenerate' a sacrificed creature then it wouldn't have died.

It works for both your and your opponents spells, sometimes you'll be forced to sacrifice a creature by an opponent's spell, but you have some free choice within that. Your opponent can't choose the creature you have to sacrifice for you, as it's your cost to meet. There are also spells that you own that require you to sacrifice a creature as an additional part of the casting cost, if you don't sacrifice something then you haven't met the cost of the spell, you may as well ask why you have to tap all the mana to cast a spell. Look at the 'cost' of creature sacrifice in that way.

The only possible cheat with sacrifice is creatures with the ability of Wither or Undying, which say that creatures going into the graveyard are returned to the battlefield with counters attached. In this case you can sacrifice a creature and potentially get it back. This is particularly potent in decks using things like Birthing Pod.

Here is what I ran last night:
Sentinel Sliver x2
Thunder Strike x2
Show of Valor
Divine Favor
Celestial Flare
Capashen Knight
Goblin Shortcutter
Griffin Sentinel x2
Lighting Talons x2
Act of Treason
Blur Sliver
Flames of the Firebrand
Fiendslayer Paladin
Chandra's Phoneix
Chandra's Outrage
Marauding Maulhorn
Ajani's Chosen
Dawnstrike Paladin
Thorncaster Sliver
Pitchburn Devils
Mountain x 8
Plains x8

Cards I pulled:
White:


Blue:


Black:


Red:


Green:


Artifacts
Accorder's Shield
Staff of the Flame Magus x2
Rod of Ruin

Edit: So if he regens the creature I never forced him to sacrifice something? I guess I'm confused... it was a "rare" occurrance...

I originally came to the thread to say I had a good M14 prerelease. I don't really enjoy sealed and lost three matches in a row and then won three in a row meaning I just qualified for a prize booster.

I didn't get any big pulls from my packs, mostly decent utility rares and stuff that I will use but aren't money cards. Two of my packs had foil rares which is good going.

Looking at something along these lines for the 60 card version of the deck I made from the pre-release... Gotta test it first

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sliver-burn/

I just got back from my local prerelease.

I ran Red/Green and went 2-2.

My 40 card deck:



The saddest part:

One of my opponents was also running a Red/Green deck.
He didn't nothing but riffle shuffle for the entire tournament.
When he showed me his deck, it was bent at least 25 degrees. When he showed me his Chandra (which was mangled), I almost wept.

I also got a Darksteel Forge, which is worth a bit and will make a great sale.

My prerelease wasn't too bad. I got through trades and pulls all but like 2 of the cards I was looking for out of the set. I was also able to get some cards through trades for a draconic-goblin EDH deck. My actual sealed deck went 1-4 with the win against slivers in what turned into a red/green control deck.

I wound up doing three of these. Two yesterday and then decided to go ahead and do the 5pm today because my friend Lorne was back from Maine in time, and my friend Phil (who hit the noon yesterday with me) was also coming out, so we had three strong for Team Bacon (we use bacon sleeves).

First event was only 8 people as so many local players were sleeping in from the night before. I got Shadowborn Demon and Tenacious Dead, as well as some other good black (two Accursed Spirit, Grim Return, a Syphon Sliver to go with a green Predatory, the artifact one, and the Trampling 5/5) and good green, a little bit of fixing and two Flames of the Firebrand which I splashed. Only had the 5 mana removal spell and a couple of Hunt the Weak for removal (and the two red spells). Also a Mutavault. Went 2/1, losing in the third round to a red/green/black deck with Shivan, the doublestrike equipment, Mark of the Vampire, and a bunch of generally good creatures.

Second event was 25-30 people, went the normal four rounds. This time my pool had a bunch of crap rares. Lots of direct damage (Chandra's Outrage, Shock, 2x Volcanic Geyser) and mana fixing, though, and a good number of slivers. I had the haste one, the first striker, two Predatory, a Battle, Trample, manaweft and Syphon again. I also had both Shiv's Embrace and Mark of the Vampire. Between my Manaweft, a Lay of the Land, Verdant Haven, Darksteel Ingot, a Shimmering Grotto and a Swamp I had no issues paying for my splashed Syphon Sliver and Mark of the Vampire. No black removal at all. This deck easily could have gone 3/1 and maybe 4/0, but I got utterly manaflooded in back to back games in round 3. I got most of my Slivers and Mark of the Vampire in game one against that opponent; got up to 38 life before he managed to kill my lifelinker and take over the game with a Shivan and another flyer. Argh. I drew lands for eight straight turns to lose that game. Second game I kept a land-heavy hand and again drew mostly land. Yuck.

This evening we had 30 players and my pool was a bit better, though contained no fixing (well, one Lay of the Land). I ran blue/red:
9 Mountain
8 Island
Fireshrieker (that's that doublestrike equipment)
Young Pyromancer
Chandra's Phoenix
Shiv's Embrace
Dragon Hatchling
Goblin Shortcutter
Pitchburn Devils
2x Canyon Minotaur
Thunder Strike
2x Shock
2x Volcanic Geyser
Archaeomancer
2x Messender Drake
Phantom Warrior
Trained Condor
Claustrophobia
Cancel
Essence Scatter
Disperse

I actually had a pretty good, deep Green pool again, and was tempted to run Green/Red again, but Blue had the evasive creatures, the archaeomancer, and more good instants with which to generate elementals with the young pyro. Black was also briefly tempting with a Lilliana's Reaver,Diabolic Tutor and some other decent creatures, but just one Quag Sickness for removal wasn't cutting it. Seriously, 28 packs with not a single Doom Blade? WTF? I think about half of my opponents had Shivan Dragon and I couldn't get one piece of efficient black removal? Yeesh.

I went 4/0 with extremely tight, competitive games in every round except maybe round 1. Round 2 I got payback against the young lady who beat me in the final yesterday. Round 4 I had a really epic 2/1 match against another local who I've been matched up with recently and is quite a good player and nice guy (his quite cute girlfriend is also nice and quite a respectable player too). Both of my teammates went 3/1, so a great showing for Team Bacon.

I managed to trade for a Chandra and pick up a second one in my prize packs tonight too, which was sweet. I also fulfilled both the Chandra and Garruk achievements on my achievement scorecard. Good times. I don't think this set's nearly as exciting as the Return block, of course, but I'm still looking forward to drafting it. I actually think I find the new Slivers much less annoying than the old ones.Oh, and a tip: If you're in green at all, take/run Naturalize. It's almost certainly worth maindecking, whereas in DGR block it was just a sideboard card. In this, some of the biggest game-swingers I've seen are Shiv's Embrace, Mark of the Vampire, Haunted Armor and Fireshrieker. Also, some of the best/available removal your opponents will be running are also enchantments- like Claustrophobia, Pacifism, and Domestication. Seriously, Naturalize is huge.

Ugh, I want to see how my red/white deck works with Chandra in it.

Forgot to mention, one of the guys at the event I went to bought a modern master's pack, asked the store owner and myself to touch it for good luck so he'd pull a foil Tarmogoyf. I touched it, and said, "You're not gonna pull a foil one since I touched it, sorry dude." He opens the pack and pulls a non-foil Tarmogoyf. He thought about trading it downstairs, but the store owner offered him a box of M14 cards for the Tarmogoyf. The kid tried to push his luck and get the extra 50 dollars the card had in store credit (apparently it's a 150 dollar card non foil). I looked at him and said, "I'd take that deal in a heartbeat, because you have to remember he has to sell that card to make 150 bucks. If he doesn't sell it, you've got a free box of cards."

Yeah, Tarmogoyf is quite the sought after card- I personally would have kept it. I unfortunately didn't get to attend a prerelease, but at least I get to think of decks using everyone else's cards. Is the standard release next weekend, or do they still do that? I assume it will be basic draft format if they do.

Yup, regular draft format. I most likely won't be partaking as I'm terrible at deck building. I might buy a few packs though, or see if I can get the cards I'm missing for my Red/White deck.

Here is my current Eldrazi Deck which I have been playing for fun



I'm looking to make a Golgari Swarm deck for Standard, if anyone has any advice for building it, I would appericate it! For the Record, I have the Golgari Swarm Event deck, which can be found here
http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/returntoravnica/eventdecks

Ugh, that Eldrazi deck is mean. As for your swarm, first start would be lands. Land, lands, lands, lands. Overgrown Tomb would be ideal if you can get hold of a playset, and the innistrad b/g land I forget the name of.

After that, it depends on what you want to do. Are you wanting to be more aggressive, or take a more control approach? Black/green does attrition well, and you're in color for some of the best cards in the format. I'm quite partial to Abrupt Decay, and Dreg Mangler, but ymmv.

Edit: grammar, useless text

 Sinful Hero wrote:
Ugh, that Eldrazi deck is mean. As for your swarm, first start would be lands. Land, lands, lands, lands. Overgrown Tomb would be ideal if you can get hold of a playset, and the innistrad b/g land I forget the name of.

After that, it depends on what you want to do. Are you wanting to be more aggressive, or take a more control approach? Black/green does attrition well, and you're in color for some of the best cards in the format. I'm quite partial to Abrupt Decay, and Dreg Mangler, but ymmv.

Edit: grammar, useless text

The Eldrazi Deck is pretty fantastic, I can generally get an Eldrazi out by turn 4 at the latest, by then it's pretty hard for my oponnets to come back from. The Mana ramp up with Cloudposts is just insane.


As for the Swarm Deck, here is something I found



Any ideas for modifications? I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of Vraska, and I most of those creatures would be better if I had 4 of each of them. I'm also thinking to throw abrubt decay in instead of tragic slip.

Any other suggestions?

I'm a huge fan of Rubblebelt Raiders, Daggerdrome Imps, and Increasing Savagery (Give/Take works if you're on a budget).

Potential Combos:

Corpsejack Menace + Daggerdrome Imp + Increasing Savagery = an 11/11 with flying and lifelink.

Rubblebelt Raiders + some chaff (slitherheads!) + Corpsejack(s) = a ridiculous an extreme powerhouse. For extra lulls, use Jarad/a Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage (another card I suggest) to either do 10-20 points of auto-damage or spawn 10-20 saprolings.

What about Experiment One instead of Slitherhead? I'm not feeling the Vraska either, she seems a little tacked on. Strangleroot Geist looks like a great fit, but I'm not sure what you would cut.

All the three of's bother me a bit- maybe cut it down to the meat of the deck. If you're wanting to max out in he counters theme, maybe replace Slitherhead with Experiment One, and Gravecrawler with Rakdos Cackler, and maybe cut the nighthawk for filling out those three-of's. Or the fit for Stangleroot Geist? Would give you a pretty aggressive B/G deck.

Edit: I think Abrupt Decay instead of Tragic Slip would be a good move- a little more versatile, and putrefy can handle the big stuff.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
What about Experiment One instead of Slitherhead? I'm not feeling the Vraska either, she seems a little tacked on. Strangleroot Geist looks like a great fit, but I'm not sure what you would cut.

All the three of's bother me a bit- maybe cut it down to the meat of the deck. If you're wanting to max out in he counters theme, maybe replace Slitherhead with Experiment One, and Gravecrawler with Rakdos Cackler, and maybe cut the nighthawk for filling out those three-of's. Or the fit for Stangleroot Geist? Would give you a pretty aggressive B/G deck.

Edit: I think Abrupt Decay instead of Tragic Slip would be a good move- a little more versatile, and putrefy can handle the big stuff.

I think the Slitherhead is for the pretty much free 2/2 counters you can throw on a Lotleth troll. I'm going to drop Vraska for sure though. I also am a big fan of Strangleroot Gheist, throwing them in is a pretty good idea.

I much prefer the Gravecrawler to Rakdos cackler though, as he can give free stacks to Lotleth Troll, and is a pretty good card on it's own.

'm a huge fan of Rubblebelt Raiders, Daggerdrome Imps, and Increasing Savagery (Give/Take works if you're on a budget).

Potential Combos:

Corpsejack Menace + Daggerdrome Imp + Increasing Savagery = an 11/11 with flying and lifelink.

Rubblebelt Raiders + some chaff (slitherheads!) + Corpsejack(s) = a ridiculous an extreme powerhouse. For extra lulls, use Jarad/a Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage (another card I suggest) to either do 10-20 points of auto-damage or spawn 10-20 saprolings.

These are some ridiclous combos, that had not even crossed my mind!

So many choices!

I really apperciate the advice fellas, I'll probably post my Idea for a preliminary deck tomorrow, and pick up the rest of the cards I need this Thursday.

Looking forward to it!

Oops, missed this one-

 Alfndrate wrote:
Looking at something along these lines for the 60 card version of the deck I made from the pre-release... Gotta test it first

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/sliver-burn/

Have you tested it yet? It seems like the two wouldn't work quite well together, like Sentinel Sliver and Fiendslayer Paladin on the field, the sliver is just a generic 2/2 with vigilance. Imho, it seems like they don't build on each other like slivers should do. A hand full of slivers, or a hand full of non-slivers would be good, but if you draw a mix it's kinda meh. I would try to choose one or the other to focus on.

You should include something for card draw, Altar's Reap is ideal because it gels well with Slitherhead and Gravecrawler, either of which you are happy to send to the graveyard. Alternatively, Sign in Blood.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
You should include something for card draw, Altar's Reap is ideal because it gels well with Slitherhead and Gravecrawler, either of which you are happy to send to the graveyard. Alternatively, Sign in Blood.

Or Grisly Salvage, perhaps?

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
You should include something for card draw, Altar's Reap is ideal because it gels well with Slitherhead and Gravecrawler, either of which you are happy to send to the graveyard. Alternatively, Sign in Blood.

Is Jarad's Orders not enough for that?

Or are you saying I should add more in addition to it?

Also, here is what I"ve got so far after modifications



Still really open for suggestions, I'm currently working on a Sideboard as well.

Kind of excited about getting my first standard deck together, I had one for the last edition, but never got to use it.

Jarad's Orders is good but costs four, by the time you can afford that you should be doing something better in your fourth turn rather than finding creatures for your fifth turn. Standard tends to be quite a fast game. Sign in Blood and Altar's Reap can both be played early to find early game land and gives card advantage. Grisly Salvage doesn't give card advantage because you spend a card to get a card, but does let you find land or a creature and full your graveyard, which is ideal if you're dumping scavenge creatures or Gravecrawlers.