Welcome back from vacation, shawning, hope you had fun! All of my friends hate the Colossus deck I tossed together, thanks to your inspiration!

Have you considered Hinterland Harbor or Razorverge Thicket ?

I've replaced Sunpetal Grove with Razorverge Thicket . It really helps a lot ;-)

Mana base could use some MAJOR work. And doomed traveler should immediately be replaced with some sort of control card. I'd also consider taking out 2 vital splicers in place of some more control or perhaps even card draw. Mentor of the meek wouldn't be a bad option for draw considering all the splicers are 1/1's to go along with birds, pilgrim, and perhaps doomed traveler if you keep him in the there.

Also, if you 'fix' your mana base, I think you will be pleasantly surprised that you will be able to fit a minimum of 2 Inkmoth Nexus in there without it having an adverse affect on your mana curve.

(in turn giving you another viable win condition)

ashaleran says...

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I've replaced Sunpetal Grove with Razorverge Thicket. It really helps a lot ;-)

hint, hint ;)

Thank you for a great deck idea. Came 2nd at FNM tonight, with half the players being top rated FNM players in South Africa.

+1 again.

I replaced 2 Sunpetal Grove with Razorverge Thicket and that did the trick.

Inkmoth Nexus + Tempered Steel == a good time was had by all.

Also consider -1 or -2 Tempered Steel +1 or +2 Intangible Virtue (mana curve fix, vigilance is nice, you have lots of token creatures).

Parallel Lives ?

@eheitzman I don't really want to put Inkmoth Nexus in...the mana base is pretty shaky already. Parallel Lives was in initial build but it was just far too slow. :/ If I find a way to put the Inkmoth Nexus in without blowing the base I will just as of right now hasn't worked for me.

@shawning I did notice that your mana base seemed a tad off kilter. Check how I approached it for a similar deck here: deck:token-madness-12.

I would make the following observations:1. Right now you have even Forest, Island, and Plains, and the dual lands you have key slighty more off of the number of Plains you have in play.

1. You have 4x Birds of Paradise and 4x card:Avacyn's Pilgrim which are both green but provide non-green mana.
2. I'd recommend putting in more Forests. Something like -1 Plains, -1 Island, +2 Forest. Then, -2 Glacial Fortress , +2 Hinterland Harbor . This effectively makes Green your "keystone color", and increases the likelihood of getting out those birds and pilgrims.
3. Consider Misty Rainforest , though I think that may not be Standard.

Don't forget Intangible Virtue (at least 1).

I see you added the Razorverge Thickets. Nice. Now to fix the rest...

-2 Island-3 Glacial Fortress-1 Hinterland Harbor+4 Seachrome Coast+1 Glacial Fortress+1 Sunpetal Grove

Just my .02

And if you wanted to run Inkmoth Nexus, I'd recommend -1 Plains and -1 Avacyn's Pilgrim and +2 Inkmoth Nexus. Basically gives you the same mana, adds another creature, and gives you another win con. Good luck.

Inkmoth Nexus can be sacrificed to Shape Anew , that could be interesting. Also, a pumped Inkmoth Nexus is awesome. I'd definitely give it a shot.

+4 Seachrome Coast ??!! Are you crazy? I think people that play more than 2 of any of the "if you have less than two of..." lands are stupid. You can, at most, play 3 of them to effect. Otherwise, you're putting yourself behind on mana. I can't stand people that play more than of a 2-of with those lands, and I can't understand why they do it. Also, Akingforaday399 recommended you pull 3 Glacial Fortress and add 1 Glacial Fortress , so I'm not entirely sure what he's talking about. And I'm pretty drunk right now. Which is saying a lot.

shawning, your deck kick ass. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise (Though, 4 Inkmoth Nexus could do pretty well in here).

And to expound upon it more, I do see that you're running 4x Razorverge Thicket . I might recommend dropping two for 2x Seachrome Coast , just because I don't approve of playing playsets of those types of lands.

You're drunk and you picked up on that Glacial Fortress mental misstep? And you used the word expound (which most people think is a typo for expand, which would also fit) in your statement? Impressive.

+4 Inkmoth Nexus noo way he'd totally frizz up his mana. He's not perfect mana-wise as it is. He needs some Phyrexian Obliterators in there.

Speaking of, is vulgarous, vile profanity frowned upon here?

@ djgunn

Scars duals are designed to take advantage of a diverse, fast, and aggressive early game, as pertains to this deck. They provide needed speed and flexibility to power the early game fuel this deck desperately needs to guarantee it to go off by turn 3 or turn 4 consistently (especially for Birds/Pilgrim). Using playsets of Glacial Fortress and Sunpetal Grove are not nearly as consistent for early game, when this deck needs it most. Adding 4x Seachrome Coast along with 4x Razorverge Thicket smooths out the mana curve in this deck tremendously and gives you a much better opportunity to play Birds of Paradise or card:Avacyn's Pilgrim early. As for Glacial Fortress comment earlier, that was obviously a mere oversight on my part, my fault.

Anyways here's what I'd run for land in the deck:

4x Razorverge Thicket

4x Seachrome Coast

5x Forest

3x Island

4x Plains

1x Glacial Fortress

1x Sunpetal Grove

1x Hinterland Harbor

2x Inkmoth Nexus

Scars Duals:

Also to note, the wording on these dual lands is potentially confusing to some. The key word here is "other" - So yes, these dual lands are still legal tender and untapped if they are your THIRD drop. These dual lands definitely lose value from there on out, but you'll already be set up with a solid manabase, likely featuring some acceleration tools or a dangerous offense that won't really be reliant on later land drops being perfect. There's going to be mechanical monstrosities curving out on turn three in the future of Scars of Mirrodin, and these new duals are perfect for decks that want to come out swinging.

http://www.examiner.com/magic-the-gathering-in-national/scars-of-mirrodin-dual-lands

Another addition you might want to consider is adding 2 Phantasmal Image to MB or SB, or even both. Good luck! And +1 for originality.

DarksteelCondoms -- superb name, btw -- we all try to keep it pretty tame around here, because there are people of all ages on this site. Also, I have a tendency to get all self righteous and preachy when I drink, and even when drinking, I'm a stickler about my spelling. Though, I still fudge up here and there.

Akingforaday399, I understand the philosophy and theory behind the scars dual lands... I've just seen them hurt people's mana curves too often. But I do see where you're coming from. Playsets of both to try and give yourself a better guarantee that you'll get 3 of them out as your first 3 land drops of the game. Makes sense.

I played your deck vs. my Dark Obliteration and you beat me about 60% of the time, although I had to make assumptions about what you'd do. Very interesting deck, I myself have been trying to construct a splicer deck and this is the best I've seen yet. the Shape Anew-Blightsteel combo is awesome I first read about it in the Player's Guide and I can't fathom why I don't see more of it. fortunately for me, I was able to deal with it via my Distress and Memoricide .

I agree with an above comment, I think you should make green your main mana base with +2 Forest and maybe +2 Hinterland Harbor.

I played your deck vs. my Dark Obliteration and you beat me about 60% of the time, although I had to make assumptions about what you'd do. Very interesting deck, I myself have been trying to construct a splicer deck and this is the best I've seen yet. the Shape Anew-Blightsteel combo is awesome I first read about it in the Player's Guide and I can't fathom why I don't see more of it. fortunately for me, I was able to deal with it via my Distress and Memoricide .

I agree with an above comment, I think you should make green your main mana base with +2 Forest and maybe +2 Hinterland Harbor.

You play memoricide in main deck? The central idea here is to basically switch in the side board the next game to keep people from knowing the blight is coming and then making them presume he will be coming.

I see you have changed the sideboard a lot from the last time I saw it. I love Frosty the snowman but it seems like Loyal legions could just be so much more devastating and is fairly difficult for blue black control to handle.

Yeah I'm a trained psych so I know what's coming for the Memoricide. I see your point though.

I'm going to try this tomorrow night at my FNM. I feel that in game 1's, people will blow their O-rings and removals on the splicers thinking that they are the real threats of the deck, only to get bowled over by the the blightsteels. Game 2 we side out the shape anew/blightsteels, and the splicers, which they will now leave alone as they wait for a shape anew, become the threats of the deck. All of this assumes we get the right hand and don't get mana screwed.