MtG : favorite combo/synergy

[veekie]

Yeah, since the people I mostly played with used creature decks, the minute the second wellwisher hits the deck they all concede.
Especially if I turn all my forests into elves.

[Agita]

Boy, I've made a lot of decks. I used to participate in deckbuilding challenges over at the Casual Play forums on WotC, way back before Gleemax. This was one of them:

//NAME: Thrumming Elves
// 24 Lands
        15 Forest
        1 Island
        4 Flooded Strand
        4 Breeding Pool
// 31 Creatures
        4 Essence Warden
        4 Llanowar Elves
        4 Elvish Vanguard
        4 Wirewood Hivemaster
        4 Civic Wayfinder
        4 Llanowar Empath
        4 Coiling Oracle
        3 Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
// 5 Other Spells
        2 Summoner's Pact
        3 Thrumming Stone

Note that this deck was built in post-Future Sight Extended and hasn't been updated since. All 31 creatures in these decks are elves. All of these elves also have abilities which trigger either when they come into play or when another elf/creature comes into play. Summoner's Pact lets you get Momir into play from your deck. Momir means that whenever you play an elf, you immediately set yourself up for topdecking another elf next turn. Momir plus Thrumming Stone means whenever you cast an elf, you automatically get all copies of that elf from your deck. No Wellwishers, no Imperious Perfects, no mass-pumpers or any other nonsense like that. Just put a lot of elves down and Zerg Rush for the win.
Notable: This is the only elf deck I've ever made. I've made other tribal decks, but no elves.

This isn't even one of the better decks I made, but it seemed appropiate as everyone was talking about elf decks. I might post other decks I've done for challenges (including some prize winners), as well as ones I've done by myself, if anyone cares.

[dither]

Wow, I guess it's been longer since I played this deck than I thought. I recognize these cards but I don't remember putting them in the deck. 

The Lotus Petal isn't necessary. It's there as my signature, or as my "seal of approval." I put one in every deck I've built from scratch and tweaked to awesomeness.

//NAME: The Elf Deck
// 12 Lands
        12 Forest
// 3 Colorless
        1 Lotus Petal
        2 Winter Orb
// 36 Creatures
   (common)
        4 Llanowar Elves
        4 Birchlore Rangers
        4 Elvish Warrior
        4 Winnower Patrol
        2 Silhana Ledgewalker
        2 Timberwatch Elf
        2 Windslayer Elves
   (uncommon)
        4 Elven Riders
        2 Bramblewood Paragon
        2 Everglove Courier
        2 Heedless One
        1 Nullmage Shepherd
   (rare)
        2 Tribal Forcemage
        1 Elvish Piper
// 3 Enchant Creature
        3 Frog Tongue
// 6 Instant
        4 Wirewood Pride
        2 Naturalize

I'm looking at the list of creatures here and kind of reverse-engineering my thinking as to why I put them in there.

I think the core of the deck revolves around using creatures to generate mana instead of lands (Llanowar Elves, Birchlore Rangers) and using creatures to generate effects instead of instants/enchantments (Nullmage Shepherd).

I have the Nullmage Sherpherd in there for artifact/enchantment hate (plus 2 Naturalize for backup).

I have the Elvish Piper there because I randomly pulled it out of a pack and found room for it. It combos well with Winter Orb.

Everglove Courier, Bramblewood Paragon, Timberwatch Elf, Tribal Forcemage, and Winnower Patrol are all there to buff/be buffed. Wirewood Pride is to add injury to insult (quick & dirty +Elf/+Elf).

Elven Riders, Heedless One, Silhana Ledgewalker, and Windslayer Elves are there to be unblockable, or to discourage blocking, if need be.

Frog Tongue is explicitly there to help me draw cards (cantrip effect) and to help me guard against Flying.

...Here's a simplified version. The point is to keep costs low.

//NAME: The Elf Deck Lite
// 14 Lands
        14 Forest
// 36 Creatures
   (common)
        4 Llanowar Elves
        4 Birchlore Rangers
        4 Elvish Warrior
        4 Winnower Patrol
        4 Silhana Ledgewalker
        4 Timberwatch Elf
        2 Windslayer Elves
   (uncommon)
        4 Bramblewood Paragon
        2 Elven Riders
        2 Everglove Courier
        2 Heedless One
// 4 Enchant Creature
        4 Frog Tongue
// 6 Instant
        4 Wirewood Pride
        2 Naturalize

The main thing you want to go for with this deck is as few lands as you can reasonably get away with (unless your opponents are playing shock & burn type decks that dominate low-toughness creature decks, in which case, you probably don't want to use this deck). My design philosophy is that lands are useless and you should get as much of your mana from other sources as possible -- in this spirit, Winter Orb is ideal for locking down your opponent's lands, preventing them from getting what they need.

It's possible to cross this deck with some Blue for further "control" effects, but I haven't tried it myself.

Few lands, low-cost spells; play fast and hard. Attack as often as possible without sacrificing your creatures. Get Winter Orb (or other land control) into play as quickly as possible once you have Llanowar Elves and Birchlore Rangers in play.

If you have one of those things that turns your forests into elves, go for it -- I don't have any, so I obviously don't have them in my deck. You *want* to have unblockable creatures (Silhana Ledgewalker), and you *want* some creatures that are more than 1/1 -- hence the otherwise expensive Elven Riders; the Heedless One has Trample. Tribal Forcemage grants +2/+2 and Trample to all creatures of the type of your choice. Everglove Courier grants +2/+2 and Trample to a creature of your choice. Bramblewood Paragon grants +1/+1 counters and Trample to warriors that come into play after it.

Winnower Patrol is awesome when you realize the entire deck is made up of elves, warriors, and elf warriors. They get stronger almost every turn.

You *want* to be able to stop Flying Creatures. That's why Frog Tongue is in there -- it's a cheap enchantment and it replaces itself in your hand.

[Agita]

I'd never play a defensive card in an explicitly offensive deck unless it does double duty and/or is just that awesome. If you're doing it right, your offensive deck shouldn't have to stop creatures, it should just roll over them. Why are you leaving a creature behind to block when it could be killing your opponent? If you're that worried about flyers, I'd just play flyer hate.

[dither]

I'd never play a defensive card in an explicitly offensive deck unless it does double duty and/or is just that awesome. If you're doing it right, your offensive deck shouldn't have to stop creatures, it should just roll over them. Why are you leaving a creature behind to block when it could be killing your opponent? If you're that worried about flyers, I'd just play flyer hate.

Because sometimes you can't attack. Or shouldn't attack.

I might not play competitively, but I build my decks pragmatically.

Sometimes it's just a bad idea to attack for 1, 2, or more turns.

Especially against White. >.<

[Agita]

I'd never play a defensive card in an explicitly offensive deck unless it does double duty and/or is just that awesome. If you're doing it right, your offensive deck shouldn't have to stop creatures, it should just roll over them. Why are you leaving a creature behind to block when it could be killing your opponent? If you're that worried about flyers, I'd just play flyer hate.

Because sometimes you can't attack. Or shouldn't attack.

I might not play competitively, but I build my decks pragmatically.

Sometimes it's just a bad idea to attack for 1, 2, or more turns.

I do play competitively (because there are only tournaments near me, no casual playgroups that I'm aware of), and I can tell you from experience that if this ever happens, 9/10 times you have already lost if you're playing a beatdown deck. Against another beatdown or midrange deck it means your opponent has more and/or better creatures out than you and is going to kill you within the next few turns. Against control it means that your opponent has got you locked down and is going to sit back and wait until he draws into his win condition and kills you in short order. Against combo, it means your opponent has either gone off or is in the middle of going off, and you're dying this or the next turn. In contrast to Frog Tongue which might let you maybe stall out one attacker as long as your blocker lives, creature removal not only gets rid of an attacker for good, it also gets rid of a blocker for good.

[dither]

I'd never play a defensive card in an explicitly offensive deck unless it does double duty and/or is just that awesome. If you're doing it right, your offensive deck shouldn't have to stop creatures, it should just roll over them. Why are you leaving a creature behind to block when it could be killing your opponent? If you're that worried about flyers, I'd just play flyer hate.

Because sometimes you can't attack. Or shouldn't attack.

I might not play competitively, but I build my decks pragmatically.

Sometimes it's just a bad idea to attack for 1, 2, or more turns.

I do play competitively (because there are only tournaments near me, no casual playgroups that I'm aware of), and I can tell you from experience that if this ever happens, 9/10 times you have already lost if you're playing a beatdown deck. Against another beatdown or midrange deck it means your opponent has more and/or better creatures out than you and is going to kill you within the next few turns. Against control it means that your opponent has got you locked down and is going to sit back and wait until he draws into his win condition and kills you in short order. Against combo... this probably doesn't happen. In contrast to Frog Tongue which might let you maybe stall out one attacker as long as your blocker lives, creature removal not only gets rid of an attacker for good, it also gets rid of a blocker for good.

You're right, of course. Still, I say "meh."

edit: I'll admit, too, that I'd prefer this deck to be 40-cards but padded it to play against "normal" people in my area. It certainly isn't the God of Smack, and I'm happy with it the way it is.

edit 2: Actually, I really like playing Frog Tongue because it gets this "WTF?" reaction from lots of players. It unnerves them, which works to my advantage. Almost as good as whipping out some The Dark- and Fallen Empires-era cards just to see their eyes bug out. It's the cool to see these guys 8 years younger than me scratch their heads and try to figure out what my older cards do, the same way I scratch my head and try to figure out what their newer cards do.

edit 3: You should see some of the reactions my friend's old school Stasis cheese deck gets when we play pick-up games at anime conventions. Lots of the newer players accuse him of making the cards up himself.

[Agita]

I'd never play a defensive card in an explicitly offensive deck unless it does double duty and/or is just that awesome. If you're doing it right, your offensive deck shouldn't have to stop creatures, it should just roll over them. Why are you leaving a creature behind to block when it could be killing your opponent? If you're that worried about flyers, I'd just play flyer hate.

Because sometimes you can't attack. Or shouldn't attack.

I might not play competitively, but I build my decks pragmatically.

Sometimes it's just a bad idea to attack for 1, 2, or more turns.

I do play competitively (because there are only tournaments near me, no casual playgroups that I'm aware of), and I can tell you from experience that if this ever happens, 9/10 times you have already lost if you're playing a beatdown deck. Against another beatdown or midrange deck it means your opponent has more and/or better creatures out than you and is going to kill you within the next few turns. Against control it means that your opponent has got you locked down and is going to sit back and wait until he draws into his win condition and kills you in short order. Against combo... this probably doesn't happen. In contrast to Frog Tongue which might let you maybe stall out one attacker as long as your blocker lives, creature removal not only gets rid of an attacker for good, it also gets rid of a blocker for good.

You're right, of course. Still, I say "meh."

I don't know your playgroup, of course, maybe it is a good idea against your friends' decks. I'm just saying that if all non-land cards in your deck are geared to kill your opponent and four aren't, you're usually better off replacing those four with cards that are.

And now for something completely different: A wacky control deck that's sort of a pet deck of mine. I played it in T1-X tournaments for a while with rather moderate success (because it's really more of a casual deck), but it's fun to play.

//NAME: Swiss Clockwork
// 22 Lands
        6 Plains
        4 Island
        4 Ancient Den
        4 Seat of the Synod
        4 Great Furnace
// 13 Creatures
        4 Leonin Squire
        3 Auriok Salvagers
        2 Etherium Sculptor
        4 Trinket Mage
// 25 Other Spells
        4 Æther Spellbomb
        4 Chromatic Sphere
        4 Conjurer's Bauble
        4 Pyrite Spellbomb
        3 Sunbeam Spellbomb
        4 Chromatic Star
        2 Salvaging Station

Yes, it's a control deck based on cogs. It's an unusual and wacky implementation, but the deck basically follows all tenets of control decks - card advantage, stalling, and a win condition to bust out once your opponent has run out of steam. All the Spellbombs can be sacrificed for a card, as can Conjurer's Bauble, and Chromatic Star and Sphere replace themselves when you pop them for mana fixing. The Spellbombs keep you alive by burning or booming opponents' creatures and gaining you life. Salvaging Station, Auriok Salvagers, and Leoning Squire recur your card draw and survival, Trinket Mage tutors for whatever you need (and doubles as mana-fixing by tutoring for artifact lands). Etherium Sculptor is basically a gimmick, but it does make things silly quite fast, as having just one in play means most of your workhorse artifacts are free. The creatures can attack for the win in a pinch, but the real intended win condition is sitting back and shooting your opponent dead over multiple turns with your Pyrite Spellbomb once the board is stabilized. Salvaging Station plus a Pyrite Spellbomb on the board can make unprepared weenie decks just keel over, since it's essentially a board-wipe.

It's also dirt-cheap to build, since 90% of the cards are commons and the other 10 are crap rares and uncommons. For a bigger budget, I'm trying to fit in two or three Ethersworn Canonists, and will probably cut out some lands, the Conjurer's Baubles, or the Etherium Sculptors.

[Sinfire Titan]

One of the previous EDH decks I built was Enduring Ideal. Resolve it once, and fetch out Dovescape+Privileged Position. No one can do a damn thing about you after that.


I'm trying to rebuild it with Progenitus as the General.

[Sohala]

I say Rancors for the beat deck and a March of the Machines for the tiny artifact deck, but that might require some tweeking.

[Agita]

I say Rancors for the beat deck and a March of the Machines for the tiny artifact deck, but that might require some tweeking.

March of the Machines would actually suck in this deck, as it kills all artifact lands and makes my cogs mere 1/1s, i.e. royally screws me over. Sure, it makes the Salvaging Stations 6/6s, but those are two-ofs.

[dither]

I say Rancors for the beat deck and a March of the Machines for the tiny artifact deck, but that might require some tweeking.

Well, maybe. But Everglove Courier is an elf. Rancor isn't.

Everglove Courier feeds Winnower Patrol. Rancor doesn't.

[veekie]

Affinity decks are pretty nutty fast as well, I've had times I played my entire hand in the first round.

Artifact Land, Lotus Petal, Lotus Petal, Genesis Chamber, Ornithopter, Frogmite, Myr Enforcer happens pretty often, though I prefer drawing 2 lands, a lotus petal, a Vedalken Engineer, a pair of Skullclamps and a frogmite. More viable over several rounds of play, if not as visually impressive.

[jojolagger]

Mossbridge troll and whisper-silk cloak.

[dither]

Mossbridge troll and whisper-silk cloak.

How Timmy of you. 

[Sohala]

I say Rancors for the beat deck and a March of the Machines for the tiny artifact deck, but that might require some tweeking.

March of the Machines would actually suck in this deck, as it kills all artifact lands and makes my cogs mere 1/1s, i.e. royally screws me over. Sure, it makes the Salvaging Stations 6/6s, but those are two-ofs.

Well, now that I think about it more, it might take Mycosynth Lattice to pull off. But eh, might not be worth doing.

Well, maybe. But Everglove Courier is an elf. Rancor isn't.

Everglove Courier feeds Winnower Patrol. Rancor doesn't.

I meant as a replacement for the Frog Tongues.

[Agita]

I say Rancors for the beat deck and a March of the Machines for the tiny artifact deck, but that might require some tweeking.

March of the Machines would actually suck in this deck, as it kills all artifact lands and makes my cogs mere 1/1s, i.e. royally screws me over. Sure, it makes the Salvaging Stations 6/6s, but those are two-ofs.

Well, now that I think about it more, it might take Mycosynth Lattice to pull off. But eh, might not be worth doing.

Nope, definitely not worth it. Neither card actually does anything significant on its own, and both still hurt me more than they help me.

[Sohala]

Wish I could remember how that deck played...it looked like it had a similar set up to yours is the only reason I mentioned the march.