New to Magic; Building Thopter Deck
Standard Deck Help forum
Posted on Oct. 6, 2015, 3:27 p.m. by Troy242621
Played MTG for about a week now, and I'm new to this website. So, I could use some help. I put my future plans/current deck problems in the deck description:
Thopter Deck (New Player Need Help)
Basically, money is an issue, so a few essential cards are on a wishlist, but the following problems remain:
Poor early game ramp-up unless I draw very specific cards.
I have a list of several cards I am considering taking out and putting in, listed in the deck description, but don't really know enough to make an informed decision.
I'd really appreciate anything anyone could contribute!
Troy242621 says... #3
What exactly is illegal in it? Tab thing says it's Standard Legal.
October 6, 2015 5:15 p.m.
omnipotato says... #4
Don't rely on T/O to tell you if cards are Standard-legal. Cards from the Theros, Born of the Gods, and Journey into Nyx expansions just got rotated out of Standard when Battle for Zendikar was released on Oct 2nd.
October 6, 2015 5:41 p.m.
Troy242621 says... #5
Is it possible to move this thread to a different category? I don't know if such a thing is possible, nor would I know how to do it if it is.
I was told by my friends that my deck was Standard legal, and unviable in Modern. Problem is, from what I hear, Standard is a format I'd NEVER play in. I'd rather lose in Modern and gradually build my deck up until it's viable than build a decent Standard deck then scrap it in a year.
October 6, 2015 5:47 p.m.
omnipotato says... #6
It may have been legal when they told you, since BfZ was just released.
Your deck currently is definitely not viable in Modern. If you want to build the same kind of deck in Modern you can look at some Affinity decks.
If you want to start off with a budget build then work your way to some of those you can take a look at this for example: Master of Robots: Budget Affinity. Though that's still around $100 it's the bare minimum if you want to be competitive in Modern (by "competitive" I don't mean going to 1000-person tournaments and winning, I mean the deck is barely good enough to have fun with friends who are playing average Modern decks).
October 6, 2015 5:59 p.m. Edited.
Troy242621 says... #7
I'm fine with paying $100 to build a deck. If I went ahead and built that deck, would it be something that I could build on over time to make it actually competitive at, for example, a Friday night Magic tournament at a local card shop?
Or is it a niche thing that really can't be improved without changing the concept completely?
Either way, thanks a ton for your help. Kind of hard to get started.
October 6, 2015 6:08 p.m.
omnipotato says... #8
You can play that at FNM right away and it won't do terribly bad. If you play a few weeks with it and get good at the interactions, and learn a bit about what everyone else is playing and the answers they have to your threats, you could probably top 8.
You can improve the deck very easily. For example, if you buy a few Arcbound Ravagers later on, you can just remove a couple of Frogmites and stick them in. Or remove some Islands for Blinkmoth Nexus or Glimmervoid. Basically, you can slowly turn that deck into this deck without losing power in the process. All you would need are the lands, Arcbound Ravager, Mox Opal, and Galvanic Blast (which is cheap but you can't play without Glimmervoid or Mox Opal). The extra money you would be spending on the cards you're going to take out eventually, Frogmite, Welding Jar, etc, is not very much.
October 6, 2015 6:30 p.m. Edited.
Troy242621 says... #9
I really appreciate all the time you put in to help a new guy out :). It sounds like Modern is a perfect fit for what I want. I'll build towards that right away. In the mean time I'll just use my current deck for casual play until I can finish building that.
Question, though. If I build this deck and then slowly transform it into the second one, will I be able to reasonably play that deck in the future, or will it be unviable after a year? Of course I'd probably spend $20 here and $40 there to improve it along the way but I won't be forced to outright replace a ton of it?
October 6, 2015 6:48 p.m.
Troy242621 says... #10
Also I hope I'm not buggin' you, but I haven't had the chance until this website to ask folks questions who actually know what they're talking about.
Are there other decks whose goal it is to spam tokens and overwhelm the opponent that is actually modern-viable?
October 6, 2015 6:53 p.m.
omnipotato says... #11
Yeah, Affinity has been an archetype in Modern for a while and it's not going anywhere in the near future. I think the last update to the deck was adding Ensoul Artifact and I think a few are experimenting with Hangarback Walker although I think the consensus is that it's too slow.
Yeah there's actually a token deck which is B/W, but it's not a tier 1 deck like Affinity. It mainly uses Lingering Souls, Bitterblossom, and Spectral Procession to get creatures out, then Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Intangible Virtue to pump them. Here's an example
October 6, 2015 7:09 p.m.
Troy242621 says... #12
Would this be FNM viable or improved upon to become decent:
Seems like, if nothing else, it'd be super fun.
October 6, 2015 8 p.m.
B/W tokens is a tier 2 deck as omnipotato mentioned. I run a B/W token deck myself currently, though I play casually and haven't really gone to any fnm's. I was in the same boat you are right now last year. I didn't want to drop $100 or even more on a realy good deck, but I just wanted something to play around with casually. So I built a B/W tokens deck that suck terribad for $30 and then changed it around a lot for $20 more dollars, and I've been slowly building it up for the past 3 months and now its about $200 check it out here if you want any ideas.
We are the Borg. Playtest
Modern*
SCORE: 7 | 2 COMMENTS | 2672 VIEWS
October 6, 2015 8:02 p.m.
omnipotato says... #14
That Goblin deck looks pretty slow. If I were making a Goblin deck it would be 80% 1-drops and a Goblin Piledriver or 2. The most common removal in Modern is Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile. All the 3- and 4-drops in that deck are easily answered by either of those. What you need is stuff like Mogg War Marshal that potentially requires 3 of those kinds of spells to deal with it.
October 6, 2015 8:23 p.m.
Troy242621 says... #15
Would a goblin token deck like that be viable, if tweaked with your specifications? I could afford a $130 deck. Could just use this Thopter deck casually until I finish it.
October 6, 2015 8:49 p.m.
Yeah, goblins are mad viable. Not tier 1 but still good. And pretty cheap if you use like Goblin Rabblemaster Krenko's Command and stuff like that and then you can upgrade later with Wooded Foothills Collected Company Atarka's Command
October 6, 2015 8:52 p.m.
Troy242621 says... #18
Pardon my ignorance but wouldn't a goblin deck be very early aggro, IE trying to win as soon as possible? If that's the case, why have Goblin Rabblemaster and Krenko, Mob Boss?
Seems like cards that spam tokens, cards that give tokens per turn and a card that basically doubles your creature count that all then get buffed is more of a late game strategy.
Trying to better understand strategies and deck building, pardon my ignorance.
Also, if anyone could point me to a Modern-viable goblin deck, I'd appreciate it. I can't tell you how much this helps, I really appreciate it.
October 6, 2015 9:36 p.m.
omnipotato says... #19
Goblin Rabblemaster was a good aggro card when it was in Standard, but I think it's much too slow for Modern.
This is a super fast Goblin deck that can win on turn 3 or 4 if unchecked.
October 6, 2015 9:39 p.m.
Goblin Rabblemaster would be a budget card, and then replaced with something else.
4x Goblin Guide does not a budget deck make.
October 6, 2015 9:43 p.m.
Troy242621 says... #21
So that's the "Win now" goblin deck. Where do I find the "I'm not able to drop $600 right now" goblin deck? Lol.
Also, are Modern games really that fast that they're usually closed out by turn 5?,...Seems incredibly binary if that's the status quo.
October 6, 2015 9:55 p.m.
Modern is a turn 4 format in that if you can't stabilize by turn 3 or deal 20 damage by turn 4 or 5 then you aren't a tiered deck. It's a really fast format in that the first 3 turns are really important.
omnipotato says... #2
You have a bunch of illegal cards in your deck. Standard just rotated with the release of Battle for Zendikar, so the only legal expansions are Khans of Tarkir, Fate Reforged, Dragons of Tarkir, Magic Origins, and Battle for Zendikar. Theros, Born of the Gods, and Journey into Nyx are no longer Standard-legal. You have 2 options: either remove those cards or make your deck into a Modern deck, in which you can use any card printed after 2003. It costs significantly more to make a competitive deck in Modern though.
October 6, 2015 4:25 p.m.