MTG Strats/Cards that you Like and Dislike

[Slenn]

Something fun for a bit. I know there's a good population out there that has played Magic the Gathering. Maybe there's some people on here that have played since 1993, when it first came out.

I have to ask, during your time as a Magic player, what strategies or cards do you like, and which ones do you dislike? And this can be in any format, and can be for any reason. Was it just a ridiculous combo that was awesome to pull off? Was there an annoying commander that you didn't like?

I try to make it a polar opposite thread, just to keep things even. Also I don't like to use the word "hate" here, since it's a pretty strong word.

I like almost anything with Selesnya. Pretty much everything about it has such good synergy for midrange decks. Plus the fact that since I've grown up around Kansas where there's forests and plains scattered everywhere, I would consider it my natural alignment. (Even though my favorite color is blue, and my first deck was mono-blue).

I dislike anything that says anything along the lines of "Win the game" or "Lose the game". Some people may like it a lot with a build up to using Door to Nothingness in a 5 color deck. But for me, it's like the ultimate jerk move.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

My first deck was an Izzet deck back in the original Ravnica block. Blue/red is a lot of fun, but I am pretty shit at control. Still I had fun tapping/untapping my gelectrodes to deal lots of damage!

Although I had a lot more fun when I started playing Gruul, Aggro is definitly my thing. Green/Red is great fun for the gigantic angry creatures you get.

I also play monored a lot, which tends to be where I get my best results and if I want to be serious and win. I find playing a monocolour helps keep you from getting manascrewed and I really like trying to kill my enemies by turn 5.

What really annoys me is white, I dont like the colour thematically, it can just get into opressive and/or weirdly culty regions too easily and upsets my freedom loving red heart. But also, is there anything more annoying than pacifism? Like come on, if you're going to do removal just give my warrior a heroic death dont turn him into a useless pansy loser that just sits there picking his nose while his friends die!

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

I just recently made a monoblack deck centered around the Origins card Priest of the Blood Rite [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=398639]. The idea of the deck is to put pressure on early with Despoiler of Souls [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=398587] until one of the Priests hit the board, then use various cards like Nantuko Husk, Altar Reap, Bone Splinters etc. to quickly get the Priest off the board before he hurts me. Then, next turn, you bring him back via something like Necromantic Summons or Lilianas -X ability to get another demon before getting rid of him again.

The deck is pretty inconsistent and not all that powerful, but it is a blast to play and thematically it makes you feel like an evil overlord that callously sacrifices their underlings once their purpose is served.

But also, is there anything more annoying than pacifism? Like come on, if you're going to do removal just give my warrior a heroic death dont turn him into a useless pansy loser that just sits there picking his nose while his friends die!

Stasis Snare from Battle for Zendikar is a contender. Costing one W more then pacifism but has flash and exiles the creature for as long as Stasis Snare is on the battlefield. It is white's way of flipping you off when it is cast during your attack phase just as you thought your heavy hitter would finally get to do something fun. Nope, it gets shoved off into exile until you can get an enchantment breaker. Especially annoying when your opponent decides to, say, Stasis Snare your Jace, Vryn's Prodigy just before he gets to transform into Jace, Planeswalker.

 

[balladbird]

I haven't played MTG since 2012 or early 2013, so my memory's a little hazy, but the last deck I ran was a token-spam/populate white-blue one, based around the geist of St. traft, that saw quite a bit of success, especially given how relatively noobish i was to the game at the time. XD

I was also intrigued by a card whose name I forget, an artifact that lets target player win the game if you manage to tap 2 of every mana type, though building a deck around it proved too troublesome for me to complete on my salary at the time.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

I started very recently, only a few months ago with Dragons of Tarkir. I don't have much yet in the way of powerful cards or strong decks, but my favorite thing to do right now is play a red/green dragon deck, with lots of mana and creature destroying spells. I also somehow picked up 2 Dragonlord Dromoka cards in boosters, so I made a green/white deck around them that's pretty good.

Really, I'm still just trying to get a hang of deck building, trying out my favorite cards and combinations. I need to do some competitive play soon to see what other people are doing.

 

[CrazyCapnMorgan]

As far as strats that I like, I'll just go ahead and post a few decks of mine that I have, some old and some somewhat recent:

Enduring Renewal deck
99% Red, 1% Black burn deck
All spiders deck
White/Black Lifelink deck
Red/Green mana ramp/huge creatures
Red/Black Vampire deck

I dislike anyone that says Red burn decks shouldn't be allowed or are terrible decks. (Because my 99% red deck can and will most certainly turn you into something that resembles a cake left in an oven that's been on for about 2 hours at broiling temperatures)

 

[Cycloptomese]

I've had a black/green deck that I put together during Kamigawa. It basically abuses the splice mechanic with Hana Kami and Soulless revival to be able to cast infinite Rend Flesh (destroy target non-spirit creature) and Kodama's Reach (get 2 land) until I have enough land to cast a massive Death Cloud (each player sacrifices X creatures, loses X life, sacrifices X lands, and discards X cards). Then my opponent is landless and topdecking while I kill them with Kokusho or Greater Harvester. It's surprisingly successful.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Maybe there's some people on here that have played since 1993, when it first came out.

(Raises hand)

My friend got me into it in its first year. I had a good White/Green 'Mesacraft' (Sacred Mesa/Earthcraft) deck going on until that combination was banned, then changed it more focusing on angels with theme cards like Decree of Justice and Celestial Convergence to go with it.

My friend eventually created a deck focused on using cards that lowered the colourless mana cost of everything by 1 combined with dozens of creatures with Cycle (can pay 2 to discard this card and draw a new one), milling his deck until he drew Living Death, which kills everything on the field then revives all creatures that were in the grave originally (4-5 years before YuGiOh introduced Exchange of Spirit I think?).

Thus was the beginning of my gradual drifting away from the game about 12 years ago, since I seriously dislike FTK decks and they became more and more prevalent and powerful in the few gaming shops in my city as time went on. Now they have Darksteel cards like Darksteel Colossus which are flat-out indestructible. Guess they could only keep the game balanced through so many expansions...

Last time I played it was being invited to a draft tournament celebrating the release of Unhinged, the second 'gag' expansion. I still have the deck I made from it. It's funny, if not exactly strong.

 

[Maximum Bert]

My friend eventually created a deck focused on using cards that lowered the colourless mana cost of everything by 1 combined with dozens of creatures with Cycle (can pay 2 to discard this card and draw a new one), milling his deck until he drew Living Death, which kills everything on the field then revives all creatures that were in the grave originally (4-5 years before YuGiOh introduced Exchange of Spirit I think?

Lol I made a deck like that well wrote one out I never bothered actually making it properly or playing it. I believe there was a card that reduced the cost by 2 so basically free milling on creatures but the name escapes me as it was so long agoand I think they errated or restricted/banned it anyway. I used to make loads of crazy combo decks some were pretty damn powerful but most were completely unviable. My favourite one allowed me to get infinite manner and duplicate infinite spells in one turn which combined with the wishes allowed you to potentially cast every magic card in the game infinite times although of course in tourny play it was limited to sideboard cards. That was my favourite combo deck anyway wasnt very viable but damn was it fun.

My most successful deck was a black weenie speed deck it consisted of almost all common one cost black creatures and would regularly win on the 4th turn often dealing 9 damage turn 2. (it was also dirt cheap)

I started in third or fourth edition but havent really played much since 2007 and before that year I stopped a few years earlier for a while I must admit I feel it started to lose its charm after Homelands and went completely off rails with the weatherlight saga onwards.

That said I do still enjoy the game and a friend has just started playing so may get back into it more I just wont buy any cards I much prefer proxies. I dont really have any strategies or cards that really annoy me but I suppose I dislike playing heavy counterspell decks or stasis decks the most although if I do play against someone who has that deck in a tourny I will make them play it out. You chose a slow boring but potentially very effective deck you play it out, you would not believe how many people just want you to concede because they dont want to sit through and play the deck they made or are at least playing.

I have made effective lock decks but dont like playing them (Zurs weirding and Necropotence with life gain is kinda fun however) I tend to go wacky or for tournaments wacky and fast I never look at the meta and always make my own deck based off what I want and in a tourny what I believe can work (at a low price). I dont like it when I go to an event and everybody is playing the same damn deck they pulled off the net. Then again 2007 was my last tourny and it was constructed which I prefer anyway did ok got 8th out of 64 so im happy with that considering 2 of my rares were identical and unusuable (seriously a 5 colour cast gold card that was rubbish lol) and another 2 were white when my other white cards were garbage.

 

[Slenn]

Guess they could only keep the game balanced through so many expansions...

Ah, the ever pressing issue of power creep. But it might also be the reason why there's many different formats for the game, such as Vintage, Legacy, Standard, Commander, etc. Commander and Legacy use cards from older sets, so there's more allowance for broken maneuvers to be made. As opposed to Standard, where it's more likely that WotC have a much easier time keeping track of cards and balancing issues.

A good example of this hypothesis is a blue card called Stasis. For 1 and a Blue, this enchantment prevents others from un-tapping as long as it's in play and you pay 1 Blue during upkeep. At the time of release, vigilance was not invented. But had the two mechanics be legal in Standard simultaneously, would make for some unbalanced decks.

You may have already known about this, but it's my two cents.

 

[silver wolf009]

I haven't played MTG since 2012 or early 2013, so my memory's a little hazy, but the last deck I ran was a token-spam/populate white-blue one, based around the geist of St. traft, that saw quite a bit of success, especially given how relatively noobish i was to the game at the time. XD

I was also intrigued by a card whose name I forget, an artifact that lets target player win the game if you manage to tap 2 of every mana type, though building a deck around it proved too troublesome for me to complete on my salary at the time.

You're thinking of this one:

As for me, I'm fresh to it too, but even I know that Siege Rhino is the Sphinx's Rez. of this standard, though I'm more of an EDH player. I've presently got three decks built:

-Mono-Black Sidisi, Undead Vizier
-Red Green Xenagos Super fun Party Time, Stompy Edition[small]tm[/small]
-Ghave Guru of Spores Tall and Wide Infinity Hole

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

Ctrl + F "Fog"

How has Turbo-fog not been mentioned yet?

I like decks with lots of interesting and on the fly synergy. The best deck I ever made for that was a RUW Midrange flash deck. It was full of stuff like [mtg_card=Restoration Angel], [mtg_card=Izzet Staticaster], [mtg_card=Hellrider], [mtg_card=Thundermaw Hellkite]. Lots of interesting on the fly synergy there. One thing I enjoyed was, after Izzet Staticaster wiped out all of the 1 toughness creatures and everyone got wise to playing only 2 toughness and over, to ping their 2 toughness guys once, flash in Restoration Angel to bounce the Izzet Staticaster and then ping them again. Certainly not strong enough to build a deck around that interaction alone, but the deck was just full of stuff like this.

Then it got stolen...

Now my favorite deck is probably a junk enchantment constellation deck. Best part is that it is enabled almost wholly by a card that I dismissed as the shittiest rare from Return to Ravnica, [mtg_card=Mana Bloom]. However, in the context of this deck, that card pretty much means "Cast an enchantment spell every turn", which translates into "Draw a card, place a +1/+1 counter on every creature you control, place a 4/4 angel on the battlefield and every creature your opponent controls gets -1/-1 until end of turn". One flaw with the deck, often I win around 5 or 6 turns after my opponent realizes they have no way to win and gives up.

As for my favorite card, I'd have to say it's probably [mtg_card=Think Twice]. I can't imagine having a blue control deck without that card being in there. It's by far my favorite low cost draw.

EDIT:

-Ghave Guru of Spores Tall and Wide Infinity Hole

I've wanted to make an EDH deck with this guy for quite a while now. I'm not going to say it's entirely because of [mtg_card=Cathars' Crusade], but it's entirely because of Cathars' Crusade.

Zedruu is the best commander though, why make enemies when you can make friends?

 

[silver wolf009]

-Ghave Guru of Spores Tall and Wide Infinity Hole

I've wanted to make an EDH deck with this guy for quite a while now. I'm not going to say it's entirely because of [mtg_card=Cathars' Crusade], but it's entirely because of Cathars' Crusade.

Zedruu is the best commander though, why make enemies when you can make friends?

Funnily enough, I don't even have that in my deck. What I do have is:

+

+

Means infinity mana for infinity infinity/infinity's

EDIT: Oops, forgot I needed this guy out:

Spoiler: For visual congruency

 

[SecondPrize]

I played off and on from Mirrodin to the vampire one.
I liked green tricky shit a lot. The first actual deck I played was Scrib Force, with chord of calling pulling out Spectral forces and Scrib rangers to untap them. Project X was the next one, with the infinite combos and options with black at the time. In the block with the short folk I played Elf Ball, just untapping elves and going through the whole deck to get the kill out. It's weird that I played a lot of green but didn't like the standard greenness of ramping into huge guys and never played any ramp decks.
If I wasn't playing green it was No Stick in extended when that existed with Teferi and Isochron Scepter with Ohrim's chant on it. That was a really dickish deck. Sorry. And a lot of sligh or R/W sligh.

I hate planeswalkers and being lied to. WoTC assured us Mythics wouldn't be standard viable, once upon a time. See how that turned out. And then planeswalkers ties into that but I just think they do too much on one card. Towards the end all the talk was about what new planeswakers they'd release to make a deck archetype work. It seemed like their designers were using them as a crutch or shortcut to make things happen instead of designing multiple cards with good interactions. And then there's just the poor fucking decision making they exhibit with certain cards. Either they've lost good talent in design or just want to make hot chase cards for profit but when you've been around this long after all you've learned about designing MtG you should never ever ever run into a situation where you have to ban cards in standard or even extended. Not fucking ever.

 

[9tailedflame]

I've only played a little bit, and mostly EDH, but i personally love weird boardstates that lead to weird things. Like one time, we had a black enchantment in play that said when something died, you gave it to an opponent's battlefieds instead of it going to your graveyard, but hushwing griffan was also out, which said creatures enetering the battlefield can't cause abilities to trigger, so when we got out a creature with base P/T 0/0 that came out with +1+1 counters, it cycled endlessly from player to player. I love ridiculous gamestates like that!

 

[The Almighty Aardvark]

EDIT: Oops, forgot I needed this guy out:

Spoiler: For visual congruency

Him or Cathars' Crusade.

*cough*

Sorry, I'm trying to vicariously live this deck through you.

since I seriously dislike FTK decks

First turn kills are so passe. Turn 0 kills are where it's at.

Honestly though, unless you're playing legacy, vintage or modern (and even then) first turn kills aren't something to be especially worried about. They're also really hard in EDH

 

[silver wolf009]

EDIT: Oops, forgot I needed this guy out:

Spoiler: For visual congruency

Him or Cathars' Crusade.

*cough*

Sorry, I'm trying to vicariously live this deck through you.

since I seriously dislike FTK decks

First turn kills are so passe. Turn 0 kills are where it's at.

Honestly though, unless you're playing legacy, vintage or modern (and even then) first turn kills aren't something to be especially worried about. They're also really hard in EDH

The problem with Crusade is that it's harder to recur, a bit more expensive, and more obviously a threat, while Corpsejack Menace can sit down for awhile, then suddenly be part of a combo.

At least, that's how I've seen it happen before.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I played off and on from Mirrodin to the vampire one.
I liked green tricky shit a lot. The first actual deck I played was Scrib Force, with chord of calling pulling out Spectral forces and Scrib rangers to untap them. Project X was the next one, with the infinite combos and options with black at the time. In the block with the short folk I played Elf Ball, just untapping elves and going through the whole deck to get the kill out. It's weird that I played a lot of green but didn't like the standard greenness of ramping into huge guys and never played any ramp decks.
If I wasn't playing green it was No Stick in extended when that existed with Teferi and Isochron Scepter with Ohrim's chant on it. That was a really dickish deck. Sorry. And a lot of sligh or R/W sligh.

I hate planeswalkers and being lied to. WoTC assured us Mythics wouldn't be standard viable, once upon a time. See how that turned out. And then planeswalkers ties into that but I just think they do too much on one card. Towards the end all the talk was about what new planeswakers they'd release to make a deck archetype work. It seemed like their designers were using them as a crutch or shortcut to make things happen instead of designing multiple cards with good interactions. And then there's just the poor fucking decision making they exhibit with certain cards. Either they've lost good talent in design or just want to make hot chase cards for profit but when you've been around this long after all you've learned about designing MtG you should never ever ever run into a situation where you have to ban cards in standard or even extended. Not fucking ever.

I rather like the planeswalkers in origins for balance. I think that should have been the standard design for planeswalkers. Begin game as an easily killable 2/2 and if you fufill the right circumstances then you get a planeswalker.

 

[Ihateregistering1]

I'm one of the REALLY old school 90's players of MTG (and just old period), so I'm probably way behind on a lot of MTG stuff, but I've kept up with the game somewhat via Gatherer and Duels of the Planeswalkers.

Decks I liked:
-Hand Destruction: This is the only one on the list I actually really played with, but I had a bad-ass blue and black hand-destruction deck chock full of Hypnotic Specters, Mind Twist, hymn to Tourach, the rack, etc. that was a really fun to play with and that I won with the vast majority of the time.
-Land Destruction: I'm sure land destruction has expanded since then, but this deck was just fun because you hamstrung your opponent so quickly and then you basically just got to crush them.
-Infect Deck: I mostly found the idea of this deck appealing because I love the art-style of Phyrexia (with the creeptacular industrialized flesh+machine fusion), and I like the idea of creatures that can do permanent damage and an army that 'blights' everything around it.

Decks I hated: The only one that comes to mind was a friend of mine who had a blue-white deck built around counterspells. The problem was that this was at a time when the color pie was still pretty unbalanced, and there were no 'can't be countered' cards, so blue (and especially its counterspells) were very OP. It was just an obnoxious deck because unless you got lucky and drew some amazing opening combo (like a swamp, 2 dark rituals, and a mind twist) you were basically screwed unless you could get out some awesome stuff in 2 or so turns.

 

[Gethsemani_v1legacy]

-Hand Destruction: This is the only one on the list I actually really played with, but I had a bad-ass blue and black hand-destruction deck chock full of Hypnotic Specters, Mind Twist, hymn to Tourach, the rack, etc. that was a really fun to play with and that I won with the vast majority of the time.

I had a friend who played a deck like that. It sucked to face, especially when he went Dark Ritual into Hypnotic Specter on turn one.

-Land Destruction: I'm sure land destruction has expanded since then, but this deck was just fun because you hamstrung your opponent so quickly and then you basically just got to crush them.

Actually, from what I can tell, land destruction has stayed fairly consistent as a low key, high cost ability ever since I started playing, around 5th ed. Apart from some outliers, like Desolation Angel, it is actually pretty hard to run land destruction decks. It is next to impossible in the current Standard that only has 4 or 5 cards that removes lands and all of them are pretty expensive.

Decks I hated: The only one that comes to mind was a friend of mine who had a blue-white deck built around counterspells. The problem was that this was at a time when the color pie was still pretty unbalanced, and there were no 'can't be countered' cards, so blue (and especially its counterspells) were very OP. It was just an obnoxious deck because unless you got lucky and drew some amazing opening combo (like a swamp, 2 dark rituals, and a mind twist) you were basically screwed unless you could get out some awesome stuff in 2 or so turns.

Blue control still sucks to face, but as someone who played Open (the "old" legacy) back before Kamigawa, I feel it is at least doable now. No more Counterspell ruining everything for just UU, no more brainstorm to allow blue to constantly keep whatever card they wanted on hand. Blue control these days is more about abusing scrying a lot and denying the things that present the biggest threats, not just counterspelling everything. Though with Scatter to the Winds in Battle for Zendikar being a UU1 universal counterspell, I can once more see blue control stepping up its game.