Dega Blitz 2014

I mentioned that I would post a Dega Blitz =)


so here it is:


Std_degaaggro_140517

Instant
1 x Brave the Elements
4 x Lightning Strike
Land
4 x Temple of Triumph
4 x Blood Crypt
2 x Godless Shrine
2 x Temple of Malice
4 x Mana Confluence
4 x Sacred Foundry

Creature
3 x Firedrinker Satyr
3 x Cartel Aristocrat
4 x Rakdos Cackler
4 x Burning-Tree Emissary
4 x Rubblebelt Maaka
4 x Gnarled Scarhide
4 x Frontline Medic
4 x Boros Elite
4 x Mogis's Warhound
Legend
1 x Purphoros, God of the Forge

Now to be perfectly honest it is weaker than Naya Blitz in the Innistrad/Return to Ravnica era. It is even weaker than the Dega Blitz I tried to build back then (This is a reason why I placed 2014 in the title, the Dega Blitz viable last year is different from the one this year).

In fact I do not think this deck is viable, but there is a small chance it might. Only testing will reveal the answer =) Which unfortunately i am unable to.

I gotta go, but later I will talk about why I call this a Blitz and why it is weaker than its namesake deck =P

Still if you like Dega enough, give this a whirl ;)

UR CONTROL!!!

Well yelling U R CONTROL!!!!

as a pun. How could I resist =)

For the non initiated to Magic terminology, U is short form for blue and R for red =)

U R

You Are

... 

ok. nvm.

Anyways, nothing innovative here really. I just happened to notice Cyclonic Rift and Mizzium Mortars and I went: Well why not?

Why not build a control deck? Albeit, Cyclonic Rift is not very hard removal, but 2cc for bounce and 7cc for a global bounce is slow, but possibly survivable.

Not to mention that red contains a lot of burn so creature (at least the little ones) should be quite easily dealt with. Its the PHAT like Desecration Demons that worry me.

Still Desecration Demon was partly what piqued me to a UR Control variant. The thing is: sure, there is no way to remove the Demon, but the Demon does have an escape clause: sac a creature to tap it and put a +1/+1 counter on it. Sure it grows bigger, but blue IS the king of bounce no?

I had this experience when I tested with Norman a few days ago (ironically we agreed the U/R aggro variant he was tweaking was'nt quite battle ready yet - But hey Norman won game day with a G/W aggro instead, so that turned out to be a good call ;))

Still, his pyromancers were holding me off for awhile, so it got me interested (I was running Mono Black Devotion against him). 

I was'nt really interested in an aggro variant however. I am pretty much a control player. I like annoying my opponents apparently. Well. Thats another story. Besides my one true aggro deck is Blitz. (Next post I will talk about my fiddlings with a Dega Blitz. Oh yeah baby, DEGA BLITZ. How cool is that =))

Anyways, at least Norman was playing with Aetherize, of which I was an advocate of, back when it was Innistrad block + RTR block. Though not in his deck and definitely not in this deck I am about to talk about.

Why? Well.... I'm not sure...its just a different style. Aetherize has its places. For instance I like it in my Foggy Kiora deck, where it works good! Also in my old NoLanD deck, Aetherize was the perfect foil to an aggressive deck going all alpha on you. Therein lies the problem. Mono Black Devotion (oh look its that bogey man again! =D) does'nt need to alpha strike you. So Aetherize often is a partial solution in this deck. I really like Aetherize and still use it in other decks. But this deck? Not so much.

Instead, I am drawn to Steam Augury and Opportunity

Now opportunity is really a perfectly serviceable card if you are Control. It is not just the poor man's sphinx revelation! I will let you in on a secret. Okay not really a secret. But an often overlooked point is that at 6cc it is STRONGER than an equivalent Sphinx Revelation. So Opportunity is circumstantially better than Sphinx Revelation in some cases. The point to take away is that, if you think Sphinx Revelation is good, Opportunity is really not too shabby too!

And its not just me, if you look at the deck Hanes used to win the tournament using U/W Azorius, he had an Opportunity in the side. It was his "5th" Sphinx Revelation. It is that good.

The reason I harp on it is that people seem so afraid to dump four opportunity in, but it really is not that scary. Especially when you are ramping into card advantage via Steam Augury.

Now Steam Augury is weaker than fact or fiction. No doubts there, with Fact or Fiction, there worst situation you can get is parity if your opponent knows how to split the piles. With Steam Augury, the BEST situation you can get, is card parity of the two piles. Since your opponent is picking the pile for you, he will NEVER pick the better pile. Hence your best bet is to split the piles evenly.

Still. Steam Augury digs 5 cards in. VERY useful =)

[Anyways it is getting late. I'll write more tomorrow..]

Std_ur_control_20140525

Instant
4 x Lightning Strike
1 x Dragonshift
3 x Cyclonic Rift
4 x Opportunity
4 x Steam Augury
4 x Turn // Burn

Planeswalker
1 x Ral Zarek

Sorcery
4 x Mizzium Mortars

Land
8 x Island
4 x Steam Vents
4 x Temple of Epiphany
8 x Mountain

Creature
4 x Young Pyromancer
4 x Nivix Cyclops

Legend
1 x Purphoros, God of the Forge
1 x Keranos, God of Storms
1 x Thassa, God of the Sea

[Random Deck of the Day] Burn Baby Burn

I wanted to title the post "I Hate You" but it seemed a little emoey and all.

Which kinda was'nt what this was about and although THAT was usually how I like to title my posts (absolutely irrelevant), I thought it best to not give people heart attacks out there ;)

Anyways I hereby call this deck "I Hate You".

Well first off it seems to hate on the opponent alot. Not like hatebears kinda hate. I think hatebears tend to torture the opponent slowly as he dies of boredom doing absolutely nothing. Oh wait Eggs does it better. (Now I like eggs and to be honest, if you know the deck well enough, you should'nt be that slow. The problem is everyone wants to win, and Eggs is a good strong resilient deck. And cheap to boot! But nobody takes the time to master their decks anymore ;) the wonders of netdecking)

Now back to hate.

How does this deck hate on your opponent? By doling gollups of Boros flavoured lava-ish pain on the unsuspecting opponent thats how!!

Btw, if your peripheral vision is'nt terrible, you might have already noticed that I originally was trying to build a red control deck. I don't know how that happened. I guess I'm violent.

Anyways heres the deck:

RControl

Instant
4 x Boros Charm
4 x Warleader's Helix

Land
2 x Plains
4 x Sacred Foundry
10 x Mountain
4 x Temple of Triumph
4 x Mutavault

Creature
4 x Archangel of Thune
4 x Firedrinker Satyr
3 x Eidolon of the Great Revel
4 x Boros Reckoner
4 x Ash Zealot
4 x Satyr Firedancer
4 x Fanatic of Mogis

Legend
1 x Iroas, God of Victory

So how does it work?  It is just an w/r aggro deck, that tries to abuse Firedancer and Eidolon of the Great revel. Now at first glance it seems the Eidolon  in an aggro deck is a nonbo. And that is normally true. Except that lifegain is part of your gig and you do have a significant amount of 4cc and above cards. 

Why Eidolon anyways? Oh wait now I remember the control bit =D I wanted to abuse Eidolon. But I guess I was'nt too inspired by the control elements in red, so it made me go crazy and I loaded up on nonbos. Something like that. 

Anyways, many decks like to play with low cc cards, the best example being aggro itself. Even controlish decks like efficient spells. Else they can't outrun aggro no? So I figured the Eidolon will never run out of victims. So it stays. Now if your opponent is already taking passive beatings from the Eidolon (the beauty of the Eidolon is that all the pain is self inflicted, nobody forced your opponent to counter one of your spell no? or cast that syvan carytid or thoughtseize or you get the idea). So while your opponent is using his mana to beat himself up, you help him along! With creatures and burn! And you help him reach the inevitable with the firedancers! 

The beauty of such a deck (as with all aggressive decks) is that there are no wrong threats, only wrong answers. Every card in this pile is a threat. So there is no lynch pin that your opponent can target to dismantle your strategy. You just truck on and beat to the dome. Its all pretty. On paper anyways =)

Mousehunt Gold Farming - The Eggvantage Edition

Now are you lost about farming gold in mousehunt?





Are you in a panick? Now that Ronza is here?






No worries!




Be well!








You are not alone!








You see. I am as lost as ya.







....





kidding kidding.





I hope.







Anyways. The reason I decided to write this is that with Eggvent of the Eggscavator and charge eggs, the rules of gold farming have changed quite abit.

Outside of easter, Furoma is still king, challenged occasionally by the Varmint Valley, Derr and Warpath. Then followed catacombs and mousouleum. Probably in that order too. So really dependant on how strong your trap is =)


Come easter though, all this goes out the window. I must confess that this has dawned on me about two years late, since the Eggscavator has been around since 2012 =P

I must be under an Egg all this time or something.

Firstly.

How do you farm gold with eggs. You see the green eggish charm with a translucent battery in it?

Thats the Escavator Charge Charm. Make no mistake, that charm aint no Egg. Yep. It charges your Eggscavator , up to 20 levels.

Then theres that translucent Eggstra Eggs Charm. This doubles the egg drops. Any Egg.

So how this works is this. You charge the Eggscavator with the Eggscavator charge up to 20. Petween level 17 to level 20, there is a high chance of a high charge egg dropping. So once you hit level 20. Change from Eggscavator Charge charm to Eggstra charms. This doubles your High charge egg drops.

Once you hit 17 (or a lower number you are comfortable with - below that you get medium charged eggs) arm Eggscavator charge charms again until you hit 20. rinse and repeat. Until you run out of eggscavator charm.

High Charge Eggs have 10000 gold
Medium Charge Eggs have 5000 gold
Low charge eggs have 1000 gold

Now this charge cycle thingie can be done anywhere.


So the trick now is this where do you do this charge cycle and how does it compare to Furoma?

Remember I gave the caveat that alot of the best places to hunt are dependent on the trap you have available to you? For instance hunting Mojos efficiently requires Sphynx's Wrath.

The beauty of the Egg Charge Cycle is that it is regardless of your hunting ability. The key determinant to the succes of the Egg charge cycle is your catch rate. The reason why Mojo hunting or the Furoma run is now inferior to Egg Charging is the fact that you whiff on hunting Mojo quite often =)

And of course the current egg drops are pretty high and High charge eggs have 10K in them. All this adds to the Egg Charge cycle being a strong source of gold.


Better people than me have looked at this problem in the forums. You read there for the mathematical details.

But in summary there appears to be a few schools of thought:

1) Hunt in Omelette Factory (remember this is circa 2014... the Omelette Factory or OF may not be around every easter) and do the egg cycle. This actually does not produce the most gold but it is recursive and you can hunt infinitely in OF till the event is over. I have not really looked at this so I have to have the disclaimer that I might be wrong about the infinite part. It seems to have something to do with Mashmallow Montergory cheese and egg drops *shrug*

2) Hunt in Catacombs with Ancient and do the egg cycle thing

3) Continue to hunt in Furoma dammit!

4) "lesser" options but hey if its the bait you have: Mousouleum\RB oe Catacombs\Undead Emmamental


Now somewhere in that thread link, Mousouleum\RB is more than Pinacle Chamber\rumble by about 4000 gold  per hunt. So don't underestimate them eggs! =D


Happy Hunting!



[20140515 00:54]


I just want to add that the egg cycle thing only supercedes Furoma runs if you maintain the charge at high. So you should aim to charge it to high and THEN BE AVAILABLE to maintain the charge. At your downtime (i.e. you are not active and your charge level is just going south), you should go hunt in Catacombs/Varmint Valley if you are not able to hunt efficiently against Mojos or to Furoma if your trap is strong enough.


So my strategy now?


I will hunt in Furoma (I have SW) mostly, but when i know I will be free at a certain time, i will charge the eggscavator such that it will be at 20 at THAT time. remember 20 level is about 4 hours. So it will take 4 hours before you can cycle the High Charge eggs, don't waste the first 17 =) , cycle as long as you can, as the moment you need to go inactive: you lose a level with each hunt (i.e. you end up wasting the 17 charm you took to hit the high charge)

[20140517 11:25]

Now after hunting for a day or two with the charge cycle thing. I have come to this conclusion:

If you are going to be inactive for a relatively short time (I am putting this at roughly 12 hours). I think it is better to just leave the eggscavator charge charm (the green one) on. The reason for this is, I think it is more profitable to get High charge eggs when wasting eggscavator charge charms (wasted because you are perpetually at level 20 charge and not using eggstra charms instead) because you are inactive as compared to wasting eggscavator charge charms by letting the charge level drop. In both scenarios (1. Maintaining the charge level and 2. letting the charge level drop) you are wasting charge charms. Except in the former, you are getting high charge eggs while in the latter you get medium to low eggs! Not to mention that in the latter you still have to build up the charge to 20 (in that period you only get low and medium eggs for your troubles!)

So right now unless I am going inactive for a long long time (like I am only going to log in twice a day and then disappear). It is more profitable to just keep the eggscavator charge eggs on. Then when you are active, do the cycle thing (i.e. switch to eggstra on 18 to 20, use eggscavator on 17 and lower). It does not matter where you hunt. BUT apparently catacombs with ancient is better (ONLY IF YOU ARE CYCLING EGGS --> and that means you are going to be very active and are going to keep swapping eggstra and egscavator charge charms. If you are going to be inactive most of the time, just arming eggscavator charms is NOT going to be more profitable than Pinnacle Chambers. You are better off in the Pinnacle Chambers if you are predominantly passive!) 

On another note: Could you arm eggscavator charms in the Pinnacle Chambers? You sure could! Just remember that the trade off is if you are just maintaining a lvl 20 charge its fine, but if you are BUILDING up your charge. The level only goes up with a successful catch, so since the catch rate of Pinacle Chamber is lower than say Catacombs, your charge level will be slower to rise. Also you cannot ignore the fact that by arming eggscavator charm instead of say Chrome charm, you catch rate will be a little lower (by a few percentage points I think). This is as compared to hunting in cats (again I cannot over emphasize, this is only true if you are charging the eggscavator). So choose your own poison =)

My take? if you are active, do the egg cycling thing (swap eggstra and eggscavator charge charms, within the 17 to 20 level charge range). Do it in the Catacombs with Ancient armed and Grand Arcanum Trap. Or your best Arcane trap. Full time! Even when you are inactive for shot periods (like sleep or work), arm eggscavator charge charms when inactive for short periods.

If you are inactive? It then depends on your hunter level. If you are able to hold your ground in Pinnacle and can afford to arm eggscavator charge charms without affecting your catch rate too much. Go for it! Since you won't be doing the egg cycle thing anyways, its a valid way to use up the charge charms. In fact you might want to consider arming the eggstras as well, the reason being that furoma eggs are VERY NICE for extending Furoma runs =) I think you get master shards or the like (which you can use to craft rumble, very nice!). Whether you want to time your eggstra charms while on a high charge, its your call =) Its all profit since you are passive anyways =P

If you are inactive but having a charm to boost your stats is crucial to hunting effectively in the Pinnacle Chambers? Don't bother with the charge, for the Mojos!!!

If you are inactive but are not yet strong enough to hunt Mojos effectively? Arm eggscavator charge charms and hunt in the "catacombs with ancient"/ "mousouleum with radioactive blue" / "ronza's shoppe with rockfella" / "Omelette Factory with Monterey" /  "any other place that has been good to you for gold =) " with the eggscavator charge charm. Switch to eggstra whenever you are active and in 18 to 20 range.

What to do when you run out of charge and charms? Its back to Omelette Factory for you !

Happy Hunting!


[20140517 12:19]


Just to be clear, this is what you are gunning for when "high charge egg cycling"



A high charge:

This is the outcome you are looking for with eggstra charms armed (4 High Charge Eggs!):

This is my set up:

Happy Hunting and have a good Easter =)

2014 is Ronza Coming?

Ronza is coming?????????

..... Clear skies ahead???



[20140513 01:05]

Yet more evidence/rumours that Ronza is coming!!!!!



[20140514 01:38]


And RONZA IS HERE!!!!!

You need to actually travel to ROnza:

For once this is quite apt =P

[20140514 0203]

There are so many things!!!!

I bought most of the stuff:

And crafted this piece of badassery =)

Details here!

[20140515 00:09]


Now what should you get from Ronza?


This is a question whose answer is dependent on your current gold stash, where you are in the game and why in the world you are playing =)


Gold stash. This is most important. Unless you just started playing or have been pretty inactive, you should have a substantial stash. Varmint Valley opened up the gold front quite a bit. No longer is Furoma the default answer (it was never really, it was only the best with Sphynx Wrath). If you are below Lord, there is Catacombs if you are Legendary and below, Mousouleum. Point being, you should have some! Still, given a limit gold resource what should you get?

Where you are in the game. If you do not have enough points, then no, you can't buy the trap. Thats all there is. Thats depressing. But no it should'nt be depressing, you should'nt worry about those snazzy traps that you can;t get at the moment, because they WILL be superseded by the time you get the points for it. Trust me =)

Why are you playing again? Now you need to answer this. Are you some obnoxious ferret that must grab every L.E. in sight (i.e. like me) ? Are you really playing MouseTrap not Mousehunt (i.e. like me)? Or are you the kind that likes to be tight with resources and you just get what you NEED?

If your answers are yes to all three questions, go away! You are confused! But if you are yes yes no or nonoyes then please continue reading. (I am not too sure what to do if your answers are in other combinations, no worries, I accept you as you are, you may read on. or not. or do. or. ya.)


Anyways. if you are yes yes no. Then its really your budget and point constraint. Buy whatever you can get your grubby hands on man. Oh wait wait thats bad advice.

Shucks. I guess I will just assume you want to get everything if possible, but you have budget or point constraints. That would make it simple for me.

My advice:

1) Get the Phantasmal Oasis upgrade to Chrome Phantasmal Oasis if you are able to get only one thing and can afford it

2) If the Chrome upgrade is beyond your budget? Get the new base instead. It is rather powerful. Those are the two big things to me.

3) If you have gold to burn! The new Draconic trap is only slightly better but its pretty. HOWEVER. if you do not have the Ice Maiden? The Dragon Lance is gud stuff.

4) If you are still relatively new. The new tactical trap is good, if you do not have the Horrifc Venus trap or Zugzwang's first move. If you have not yet gotten S.L.A.C. II, the new law trap is a VERY nice reprieve. S.L.A.C I is pretty painful.

5) Others. If, after you are have bought all you wanted you still have some spare? There is unstable. And there is tarnished. Personally I would get a bit of everything. But Tarnish is a pretty safe bet at the moment. Unstable is shaky, but fun! If you have not yet done the M400 then the EMP400 charms are a good buy too! Safeguard Charms will save you much frustration =) Other than that just get what ever helps you get through your current challenges.

6) Do the theme first if you are into that. Use SB+ or Rockfella its pretty quick! Part I is bought, II and III are drops.

Happy Hunting!

[20140523 00:11]

Ronza is leaving on the 22nd May!!! Now this seems weird, well its a time zone thing it wil probably go alittle into 23rd for Singaporeans =)

Anyway you probably have a few good hours left, so go get what you want/need soon! =)


And if you can't get what you wanted this round? Don't fret, she comes around every year! And over time, you do not really lose out. Too much. =) Nah really, the best traps are all in game right now =)


Happy Hunting!