Thank you for stopping by.

I first became acquainted with Magic: The Gathering during Alpha set. After that initial foray where I was introduced by a neighbor to the game, I didn’t play again until the Tempest block. Then I took a long, 20 year hiatus until 2019 when another neighbor reinvigorated my desire to play by urging me to buy some Dominaria and Core 19 packs for a friendly draft. Since then I’ve found myself addicted to deck building.

I prefer traditional formats like Vintage/Legacy/Modern/Standard/Pauper as opposed to this zany, newfangled “Commander” format all the kids are raving about.

I lean toward the / end of the color spectrum; preferred hubs are Reanimator and any type of build that uses uncommon or otherwise off the wall strategies or win-cons.

God I miss the old artwork and flavor text from the older expansions; some of the new stuff is half decent but it doesn’t hold a candle to the gorgeous art of cards like those found in the Arabian Nights expansion or Mirage block. And then there’s the classical literary quotes on cards like Repentant Blacksmith, Juzam Djinn, Hammerheim, Karakas, Pendelhaven, Revelation...the list goes on! I weep softly when I realize just how lackluster today’s MtG sets are in this respect, by comparison. But, I digress.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions you may have on any of my decks; all upvotes are much appreciated as well.

Balaam__ says... #1

legendofa Nice, I’ll keep at it until the card art begins to curdle my stomach lol. I went through the Tarkir block and found a bunch of great ones, some of which you already had.

Definites:

Ghostfire Blade

Lens of Clarity

Enhanced Awareness

Coat with Venom

Scale Blessing

Vial of Dragonfire


Maybe’s:

Monastery Mentor (the one from the Tarkir block, idk the abbreviation) could be we’re looking through the eyes of one of the monks at the bottom of the screen, but maybe not.

Briber's Purse might qualify as FPP.

Display of Dominance person’s arm might be a bit too far offscreen for this to qualify as first person.

Tread Upon I’m for this one. I think it’s from the viewpoint of the Minotaur type thing doing the stomping, as if it’s looking down at its hooves.

December 18, 2024 10:47 a.m. Edited.

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Said on Molten Opals...

#1

I typically don’t play established archetypes outside Reanimator (or Reanimator adjacent), so I’m afraid I wouldn’t have any thoughtful insights to offer.

As a general statement though, it’s been my experience that if you’re having that hard a time making any additional cuts to try and work something else in then what you have is probably as well optimized as it can be for the moment. Unless you’re running into repeated issues I’d stick for now until you find ‘strictly betters’ for what you already have.

December 20, 2024 5:52 p.m.

Said on Molten Opals...

#2

Great build. Was that bit about Ponza being named after a calzone real, or did you make that up? I just watched the Seinfeld where George had calzone problems, so that made me laugh aloud ^_^

December 20, 2024 5:38 p.m.

Thanks capwner. I like those new cards, I haven’t seen them and I think they could be potent here. I haven’t been keeping up with the game much as of late, too burned out by practically daily expansions/pop culture collaboration sets. There might be a bunch of strictly betters floating around out there, I should probably reexamine this build at some point. Thanks for the pointers!

December 20, 2024 5:37 p.m.

Said on Built Like a …...

#4

‘Kif! I’ll be in the escape pod. If that commander deck I like survives the slaughter, have it sent to my P.O. Box.’

December 19, 2024 9:27 a.m.

Said on Balaam__...

#5

legendofa Nice, I’ll keep at it until the card art begins to curdle my stomach lol. I went through the Tarkir block and found a bunch of great ones, some of which you already had.

Definites:

Ghostfire Blade

Lens of Clarity

Enhanced Awareness

Coat with Venom

Scale Blessing

Vial of Dragonfire


Maybe’s:

Monastery Mentor (the one from the Tarkir block, idk the abbreviation) could be we’re looking through the eyes of one of the monks at the bottom of the screen, but maybe not.

Briber's Purse might qualify as FPP.

Display of Dominance person’s arm might be a bit too far offscreen for this to qualify as first person.

Tread Upon I’m for this one. I think it’s from the viewpoint of the Minotaur type thing doing the stomping, as if it’s looking down at its hooves.

December 18, 2024 10:47 a.m. Edited.

Rube Goldberg sends a posthumous +1

December 12, 2024 6:37 p.m.

Said on Golgari Depths...

#8

I’ve seen a few DD variations over the years and this looks fairly solid, all the main pieces are accounted for. Bayou would definitely help, but oh boy that price tag. Maybe a card with a Regrowth type effect would be a sideboard consideration, but then again if your opponent knows what he’s doing it would probably be surgically extracted anyway.

December 12, 2024 9:39 a.m.

Neat idea, and great breakdown in the description! +1

December 11, 2024 12:02 p.m.

I got all teary-eyed reading the intro. It had me longing for the days of good card borders and exceptional artwork. +1, I like what’s going on with this build. There are so many ways to use/abuse “Whenever…” cards like Furious Assault and Impact Tremorsfoil, someone should make the ultimate deck and call it “Whenever Subordinating Conjunctions Attack…” ^_^

December 5, 2024 7:55 p.m.

Said on I AM the …...

#12

Wow that’s a lot of great ideas slvstrChung. I’m going to maybeboard them here, although I don’t intend on changing this one just yet. I like the straight split, and even though this is certainly on the slower side, it’s surprisingly consistent. What I’d actually like to do is see if I can get either a deck up and running, focusing more on speed like you said. That would be…interesting…

December 5, 2024 6:27 p.m.

I’ve struggled trying to get a werewolf deck up and running myself, but this is an interesting take on it. Looks fun!

December 4, 2024 8:36 p.m.

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MTG Decks

Trouble at the Old Mill!

Modern Balaam__

SCORE: 52 | 32 COMMENTS | 1789 VIEWS | IN 11 FOLDERS

Modern Problems Require Modern Solutions

Modern Balaam__

SCORE: 64 | 11 COMMENTS | 2702 VIEWS | IN 6 FOLDERS

Ferngully (Help Wanted!)

Modern Balaam__

SCORE: 59 | 57 COMMENTS | 2292 VIEWS | IN 7 FOLDERS

Altar of Despair

Modern Balaam__

SCORE: 52 | 28 COMMENTS | 2162 VIEWS | IN 6 FOLDERS

Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny

Modern Balaam__

SCORE: 38 | 18 COMMENTS | 1902 VIEWS | IN 4 FOLDERS

Exham Priory

Pauper Balaam__

SCORE: 49 | 16 COMMENTS | 3188 VIEWS | IN 12 FOLDERS

Geralf’s Walk-In Clinic

Legacy Balaam__

SCORE: 44 | 6 COMMENTS | 1167 VIEWS | IN 6 FOLDERS

Darwin’s Dirty Onus

Modern Balaam__

SCORE: 32 | 15 COMMENTS | 1482 VIEWS | IN 1 FOLDER

Finished Decks 117
Prototype Decks 7
Drafts 0
Playing since Tempest
Points 1165
Avg. deck rating 24.87
T/O Rank 12
Helper Rank 6
Favorite formats Modern, Pauper, Legacy, Vintage
Suppressed formats Standard Brawl, Historic, Commander / EDH, Pauper EDH, Commander: Rule 0, Canadian Highlander, Highlander, Duel Commander, Leviathan, 1v1 Commander, Pre-release, Penny Dreadful, Heirloom, Hero, Noble, Tiny Leaders, Oathbreaker, Block Constructed, Arena, MTGO, Magic Duels, Unformat
Cards suggested / good suggestions 165 / 118
Venues Tales of Adventure
Joined 5 years