This means that i now have 2 cards i can drop: AEther Adept (which was just a nice trick to have with venser's ultimate) and Frost Titan . I want to implement 4: 2 Treasure Mage s, a Myr Battlesphere and a Spine of Ish Sah . I think because i have 3 ways to bring in the spine i can drop 1 Exclusion Ritual and the last card will be Mana Leak . I notice that I often tap out, and with the amount of deck manipulation i feel i can afford to lose one, while still being able to have one available for the most crucial moments.

So in the end:

-1 Frost Titan

-1 Exclusion Ritual

-1 Mana Leak

-1 AEther Adept

+2 Treasure Mage

+1 Spine of Ish Sah

+1 Myr Battlesphere

Let me know what you think!

Looking at my curve now though, i think i'll drop a Tumble Magnet for a second Journey to Nowhere . Someone tell me if that's correct.

I still think 2 Myr Turbine s would fit better than the Treasure Mage s.

Dropping a Treasure Mage gets you a 7 mana artifact in hand that you can play on T7, the Myr Turbine with Venser allows you to do exactly the same except doesn't tap you out and nor can it be countered. Myr Turbine s also provides your Myr Battlesphere protection from sorcery speed removal as you can simply tap it at the end of their turn and swing for an easy win next turn with Venser, the Sojourner s -1 and tapping out your 10 Myrs. It also isn't reliant on that turn 7 mana drop which is quite a hard thing to achieve when you're running 25 lands.

2 Myr Turbine s have the same chance of being drawn as the Treasure Mage s and provide solid defence against board wiping. I can understand why you'd want to have the Treasure Mage s in here as you want to be able to play the Myr Battlesphere or the Spine of Ish Sah on T7 depending on the situation but I still think that with the Treasure Mage you'll be sitting on 6 mana with nothing to play in hand where the titans used to be.

But I guess you're already sold to the Mages. :D

Hey wraithseer, to be honest i hadn't looked at them in that light, i didn't properly read the card nor think of bouncing it for 2 taps/turn.

There's a minor flaw in your plan though, as you say i can pull it out on t7, which is false. The fastest way this will go is:

T5 venser

T6 turbine, tap, tap

T7 tap tap

T8 tap, sphere

T9 attack for 24.(could be faster when using 2 turbines and venser, but let's not exaggerate our odds)

As opposed to my:

T5 venser

T7 sphere, blink

T8 attack for 20

My way is a turn faster but yours is a little safer. I get to choose between the spine and the sphere and have more endgame options, where you don't need more than 5 lands. The thing is, i have enough draw to consistently hit my landdrops. Playtest and see for yourself if you haven't already.

Another thing though: the treasure mage costs 3, the turbine 5, and i'm quite satisfied, with my current curve.

That said, it's still a close call between the two, and the fact that you can flash in the turbine uncounterable is an important factor. I wouldn't blame anyone for running the turbine, and i'll probably try it sometime myself too.

Thanks again though, for thinking along so pro-actively and keeping me up-to-date xD

I'm crazy.

I just got all of the cards on magic online for $64...

This means however that i get to play my most succesful TappedOut deck - FOR REAL!

:D

(I did skimp on the Spellskite s, they're $10 each for something very unexciting, flavor wise)

I like the fact that venser + exclusion ritual is permanent removal

Small update (big one is coming): -1 treasure mage, -1 spellskite, -1 exclusion ritual, -1 preordain, -1 tectonic edge

+2 Phyrexian Metamorph , +1 Steel Hellkite , +1 Wurmcoil Engine , +1 card:Phyrexia's Core

Basically, the metamorph is amazing and i hadn't seen that even though seibertross told me it would be. It copies batterskulls, swords, titans, obliterators... Anything relevant. Oh and it can copy my spine for more permanent destruction. The new phyrexia's core can sac the spine and a metamorphed spine to get it to bounce without venser. The wurmcoil and hellkite are there because i noticed the deck controls well but doesn't have a sufficient lategame, and they work well with the treasure mage too. I'll get back to you with a more detailed update in a little while on how the deck does online. (sneakpreview: the deck is AMAZZIIINGG)

Cya in a couple of days ;)

Oh and:

Cast Myr Battlesphere

Next turn cast Phyrexian Metamorph

attack for 22 (perhaps unblockable with venser?)

Party :D

im really sorry. but i dont get it. i get upset when people dont see how my decks work, but i cant for the life of me see how this works. i mean, i have an infect deck that has a COMMON turn 3 win condition. but only 1 vote. how did this get so many. do people really pay THAT much attention to standard decks?

@all: this is not my big update yet :p

@wingsofwind:

The way i see it, getting a lot of votes hangs on a couple of things (correct me if i'm wrong, all of u who voted).

1. You've got to have an interesting deck, that works. It doesn't need to be tier 1 competitive, but it has to work and have some sort of originality to it.
2. The deck is usually always standard if it has a lot of votes. Standard is by FAR the most popular format, especially on this site. It also receives much more coverage by sites like tcgplayer and channelfireball with interesting in-depth articles, which makes it more known and again, even more popular.
3. I very much like this site, it's a great community of innovative deck-builders, and i like to support yeaGO!. i do this in the way of buying feature tokens (under the extras in the menu on top of the page). This allows me to get 24hours of extra attention for the deck, so that more people see it, more people help make it better and more people vote for it.

About how my deck works: Get some early-game defenses up in Wall of Omens , Spellskite and Sea Gate Oracle . Wipe opposing aggro from the field with a Day of Judgment on t4-5 or make a wall or oracle hit the field again through Glimmerpoint Stag , to get more card draw. Then we get to Venser, the Sojourner , which, by using his +2 ability, can bounce Journey to Nowhere to get it on a better creature, bounce the other creatures for more cards, bounce Spine of Ish Sah for killing a permanent per turn etc. This way you control the field until you get wurmcoil, hellkite, sun titan or myr battlesphere out, with which you win (all of these except the titan are also summonable with the Treasure Mage ). Reaching venser's -8 usually makes people concede right away, it's just that awesome.

As an encore to you, the myr battlesphere + venser trick: cast battlesphere, bounce it with venser's +2 to get 4 more tokens, next turn make him unblockable with vensers -1 and attack with the sphere, using his ability on all the tokens, dealing 20 unblockable damage.

I hope you now know how my deck works and why it got a lot of votes, best of luck with brewing!

Oh and

4: I listen and react to people who comment, because i like to keep a discussion going about the deck and all things magic.

Why don't you use Contagion Engine ? The proliferation would get Venser, the Sojourner to his big ability much faster and if used with Everflowing Chalice you can mana ramp effectively to play anything. I use Everflowing Chalice in one of my decks and I have 7 useable mana on turn 5 almost every time, that's with one in your starting hand, if you two you can have 7 on your turn 4.

ok i see what the battlesphere is doing in there now, before i had no idea why it was there in a deck with no myr. the deck kinda relies a little heavily on venser though huh? i mean he seems to be the key to any sort of offense.

I can see an epic confrontation between this deck and my Extractor deck...

Wouldn't you agree?

Hmm. Cut a Venser, and cut the 2-and 1-ofs that arent your win conditions. You don't need Spellskite . If you are paranoid, drop in another DOJ or Tumble Magnet . That will give you ample protection and will open up some slots for a more aggressive creature base. Also, when you can, JUST KEEP SWINGING. That will go a long ways toward getting you there.

The big update (a little later than expected).

So, I've been playing the deck like crazy on Magic: The Gathering Online, and it performs amazingly, i didn't think it would do this well!

Of course i had never actually played the deck before, despite putting a lot of effort and time into constructing it on this site. I really love the deck but i'll say one thing: It makes for some looooong games! The first 10-20 games i was just overcome with the sheer amount of decisions to be made, what to bounce, what to keep with preordain, when to use Day of judgment when to play jace when to play venser.... DAMN! But after that i got thehang of it, my games got shorter and by now i can play the deck (almost) as fast as any other, because i just know what i want with it against basically any opponent.

Cards that have very much impressed me are:

First and foremost; Venser, the Sojourner :

He's beast, i'm always glad to see more than one in my hand, people are playing despise all over the place online and the 4-of really helps with getting him out. Versatility is his strong suit, especially when you have Journey to Nowhere 's or Wall of Omens /Sea Gate Oracle s on the field, even bouncing Halimar Depths is always a great help. His unblockable ability is often forgotten, even by me, but the times it is effective, it really does the trick. I won't say too much about his last ability, except that i get it more often than i should and that it is amazing.

Jace Beleren :

Is almost always a card:Jace's Ingenuity, or at least a Divination + prevent the next 2 or more damage". He's gotten me out of so much trouble just by getting into my deck deep.

Preordain :

As we all know is amazing, for the people who didn't know yet: this card is so much more valuable if u save it for mid-lategame than turn 1.

Day of Judgment :

What can i say. I think 3 is enough for the main, but i wouldn't think anyone stupid if they included 4.

Phyrexian Metamorph :

Makes for some really neat tricks with venser, spine, sphere, hellkite, wurmcoil and the other dude's creatures/equipment. Soon the evil dude making this card so amazing, Stoneforge Mystic , will be banned and i assume it will be used less and less by others, but this deck is doing very well with it, even against non-batterskull decks.

That said, there's some things to go over:I will adjust the deck here on tappedout to what i actually run online, the lists differ slightly because some cards are just not worth the money you have to pay for them. (spellskite is one such card, going for up to $3, and believe it or not, Dismember also costs $4, FOR AN UNCOMMON!)

to be continued

I have made some adjustments that i feel were right, but i've been changing it so much that i'm just going to upload the new list instead of going over all the decisions i made, bar a few which i will talk about here.

Hero of Bladehold (in the sideboard x2):

While not entirely synergetic with venser's +2 ability(aside from getting her out of your own Day of Judgment ), she's an amazing offensive tool that will be boarded in against controlish decks like U/B. If left unchecked, this card will deal 18 damage in 2 turns, venser's -1 can make sure this party actually happens.

Celestial Purge (in the sideboard x2):

I noticed while playing that i was having particular troubles with ridding myself of koth and tezzeret. These 2 walkers are quite dangerous and can grow too big quite soon. The purge deals with both of them, in addition to other big stuff like inferno/grave titans and more importantly: Splinter Twin .

Contagion Clasp (in the main x2):

Aside from it's synergy with venser's +2 ability, this card will also turn on venser a turn early (t5 venser+2,t6+2,t7->prolif->-8), which can be of great importance. It also helps my jaces and Tumble Magnet s.

The only thing i'd perhaps like to change is the fact that i run no instant removal. I

would like to have 1 or 2 Dismember s MB and 1 more SB for the times i need it, the Journey to Nowhere and Day of Judgment are nice, but instant speed has shown to be of importance with plenty of Inkmoth Nexus ' and [[glint hawk idol]s as targets.

I am contemplating including 1 or 2 Condemn s in dismember's stead, as those are cheap, whereas dismember is incredibly expensive ($4 each, like i said). What do you guys think?

So far I haven't counted match wins and/or losses but i will start to do this now that my list is more refined and will report back soon with any new findings.

Any comments so far are welcome and appreciated, i intend to get this deck as close to tier 1 as possible!

Regards,

jessetaverne

p.s.: I will update the boarding plans asap, bye :)

None of your boarding plans call for 2 Flashfreeze s, and they include all the good meta, so why have two if you only plan to use one?

read the post before you ;) boarding isn't up to date.

I expect valakut and exarchtwin to be problems post-bannings, against which flashfreeze helps a lot. I'm considering going 3 flashes and 2 spreading seas for that reason. What do you think?

(i've also already put in an extra tectonic edge for the return of valakut).

whoa! y rnt u doing the Mnemonic Wall and Silence combo? :D

Something i've been thinking about putting into my work in progress Venser control deck is Augury Owl . That scry is just awesome and can be easily abused with Venser, i also don't own any wall of omens :( so it could be a good replacement except it can't take a hit very well

Updated my boarding plans, any suggestions regarding it would still be very welcome though!

@borosgruul2:

Good that you mention it, i forgot about it and i took it out before even testing it, i'll let you know how it works out! (though i still think it's probably not a good idea - we'll see).

@machetemable:

Augury Owl is definitely a good replacement for the walls, i have considered it myself, though it doesn't exactly give cardadvantage, there's enough other cards that do. I do prefer the walls for their defensive power though, as this deck tends to be kinda slow for aggressive decks.

@ jessetaverne

I think the Augury Owl actually does give card advantage. What i like about it is Scry lets you put the cards on top or bottom of your library so if you've got a lot of land on the field and the scry shows 3 land then you can put them on the bottom. Really helps with figuring out future plays. The walls are awesome though cause of the defensive power which would be amazing if the owl had that.

Cards that will enter this lovely thing with M12:

Ponder x4

Oblivion Ring x4

Stonehorn Dignitary x4

Stonehorn Dignitary:

Creature - Rhino Soldier

When Stonehorn Dignitary enters the battlefield, target opponent skips his or her next combat phase.

I'm particularly excited about the last 2 cards, ponder is just a replacement for preordain when it rotates.

Oblivion Ring is a beautiful addition because it answers EVERYTHING and if there's something better to answer, just bounce it with venser and take that :) (very important because this means you can stall and when the time is right outright stop his progression later on).

Stonehorn Dignitary is beast with venser's +2 ability because it protects the walker while pushing him to his ultimate.

If you have other suggestions, let me know!

@machete:

A matter of semantics :)