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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 3:09PM
#1
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Currently I play in a group that organizes mostly FFA or X-Headed giant (2 teams) with a lot of magic veterans. A few individuals have quite expensive and complicated decks with fulls sets of dual lands and/or multiple copies of big price tag cards such as Sun Titan  , Woodfall Primus  that seem to be able to deal with any threat I can put out with ease. My decks are bargain-bin in comparison (most expensive is ~$100, a very slightly modified version of Tich's Discard deck). What are some good strategies for dealing with Pox  / Smallpox  , constant removal via Woodfall Primus / Oblivion Ring  or sacrifice abilities, and lots of Graveyard abuse via Exhume  / Recurring Nightmare  / Eternal Witness  . I feel like two individuals focus these abilities on me and I get crippled to a point where I cannot catch back up no matter which deck I play. I was thinking some sort of defensive white/green lifegain deck with Grafdigger's Cage  / Karmic Justice  and perhaps Sigarda, Host of Herons  , but I can see the Grafdigger drawing enormous aggro while Sigarda wouldn't help me vs. early game Pox abuse. Any thoughs on how I can keep my head above water in FFA?
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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 5:11PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jul 22, 2011
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My group went from being full of negative removal strategy to the point where no one could play a large threat, then morphed into a group where everyone (except me) played heavy blue and jus countered everything. It went from being frustrating to being pointless..
Happily, now it's far more balanced.
Against all those negative tactic's you'll find it hard going no matter what deck you play.
Is your Meta full of counter's?
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1 year ago ::
May 01, 2012 - 6:53PM
#3
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2006
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I would personally play some sort of Life from the Loam  deck or something. Worm Harvest  , Spitting Image  (copy Primuses and reanimated fatties and whatnot), maybe some Raven's Crime  s (I dunno, maybe you can hit their recursive cards?) and whatever else. Pox strategies wouldn't really hurt you since you could always recur your lands, and you could even field a bunch of Bojuka Bog  s to hose their decks. Burgeoning  seems like it would be powerful in the deck, and should hopefully power you into more than enough mana to start chaining Worm Harvests/Spitting Images every turn. Why the deck is a good fit for you: 1) Resilient 2) Shrugs off land destruction 3) Hoses graveyards without dedicating spell slots to do so 4) Primary win conditions work from your graveyard (aka we don't care if Pox effects force us to discard them) and can't be O-Ring'd/Primus'd 5) Can reliably beat any number of opponents (aka will be able to defeat 2 people "teaming up" on you) For what it's worth, I don't like trying to hose your meta. Threats are better than answers in multiplayer since answers are only useful if you draw them at the right time against the right kinds of cards. If people take up shop and switch decks you're stuck with some useless POS list that doesn't do anything. At least a deck like mine always works. Yes, it's designed to succeed in your current meta, but there's no reason why it couldn't work in other ones as well. Dredging Life from the Loam and playing Worm Harvest is always a viable way to win games. So yeah, that would be what I would personally play if I were in your shoes. It seems like it would be the perfect foil to your meta, and I basically can't imagine a scenario in which the deck gave a lackluster performance.
My guide to Black multiplayer cards and strategies:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/18893722?sdb=1&post_num=1#322195706
My guide to Red multiplayer cards and strategies:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28999213/?sdb=1&post_num=1#517562879
My guide to White multiplayer cards and strategies
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29011349/?sdb=1&pg=last#517773211
My guide to Green multiplayer cards and strategies
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29034323/Tichs_Guide_to_Green_Multiplayer_Cards_and_Strategies
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1 year ago ::
May 02, 2012 - 2:15AM
#4
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2003
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I'm a fan of Price of Progress  and Ruination  as offensive defense against regular opponents running lots of nonbasic lands. So perhaps a Red or Red/other color deck could work. Cheers!
A shout out to Gaming Grounds in Kent, Ohio and Gamers N Geeks in Mobile, Alabama.
www.zombiehunters.org for all your preparation needs.
http://shtfschool.com/ - why prepping is useful, from one who has been there.
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1 year ago ::
May 02, 2012 - 7:32AM
#5
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Date Joined:
May 27, 2006
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My guide to Black multiplayer cards and strategies:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/18893722?sdb=1&post_num=1#322195706
My guide to Red multiplayer cards and strategies:
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/28999213/?sdb=1&post_num=1#517562879
My guide to White multiplayer cards and strategies
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29011349/?sdb=1&pg=last#517773211
My guide to Green multiplayer cards and strategies
http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75842/29034323/Tichs_Guide_to_Green_Multiplayer_Cards_and_Strategies
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1 year ago ::
May 02, 2012 - 9:04PM
#6
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1 year ago ::
May 02, 2012 - 11:24PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Aug 27, 2009
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HOW TO AUTOCARD! When posting in a text box, type [c ]Plains[/c] to make your post show Plains  . Are you making a casual mill deck? Please read.
Show
Control is the key of a mill deck. You should free up your mana as much as possible so that you can respond to whatever your opponent is doing. Having some way to remove threats, both real and percieved, is necessary to survival. Real threats are those that are already on the field, and are something a simple unsummon  or doom blade  can remove. Percieved threats are those that aren't on the field, something a simple duress  or counterspell  can deal with. Controlling the board will allow your mill deck to continuously perform, if you use permanent style mill, that is.
One-Shot Mill spells are something you should avoid. You can toss tome scour  s at your opponent until your hand runs out, but that isn't going to be enough to mill them to death. With 1-shot mill spells, like tome scour , you have to treat them like burn spells. Therefore, the only "good" 1-shot mill spells are sanity grinding  (in the right deck) and mind funeral  . Try to find more permanent styles of milling, like memory erosion  , hedron crab  , and curse of the bloody tome  , so that you don't have to waste your mana each turn doing something that those permanents can do with a single mana/turn investment. Keeping your mana open allows you to respond with control elements.
Traumatize  Rant. Traumatize is a terrible card for a multitude of reasons. First, it costs 5 to cast, which is a large investment for a mill deck. Milling half a library sounds neat, but if you do the math, it really isn't that much. An average 60 card deck starts with drawing 7 cards. Then, barring any draw spells on their end, or ramp on yours, 5 turns will go by, where they draw 5 more cards, leaving 48 in the deck. Unless they had a deck with more than 60 cards, or you ramped it out, the most you'll ever mill with a single Traumatize on turn 5 is 24 cards. That's not too shabby, but hang on, there's more! If they drew any additional cards or if they were milled before turn 5, that number will be much lower. In addition, any more Traumatize's you draw will only mill less and less as the game goes on...which is the point of a mill deck. My whole point on Traumatize is the it is NOT worth the 5 mana investment, not even with haunting echoes  . You can mill more than 24 before turn 5...which you can then cast the echoes.
If you look at a mill deck like a burn deck, you'll notice that it takes longer to win with mill than with burn. For example, lightning bolt  costs 1 and does 3 out of the 20 damage needed to win (barring any lifegain or damage prevention). For mill, that same investment of 1 would have to mill 9 cards out of an average 60 card deck to be the equivilent of lightning bolt . The problem is that there is no mill card that can do that...except hedron crab , over a period of time. The initial investment of 1 will pay off in 3 more land drops to make the crab equal to a bolt. However, the crab nets you more mill beyond those 3 land drops, making it better as the game draws on. Other cards, like curse of the bloody tome , are excellent ways of milling an opponent because the initial investment of   is all you have to pay in order to put your opponent on a clock. All you have to do is stay alive, which is the true goal of a mill strategy.
There are other ideas for mill decks that are specific to certain types of strategies. Combo mill decks can mill an entire player's library out from under them. Secondary mill strategies are usually tied to another strategy, like drowner of secrets  in a merfolk deck, or halimar excavator  in an ally deck. Milling can be done in certain decks that are able to ramp out enough mana to make use of the higher costing mill spells, like using 16 x post  to pay for X on sands of delirium  or for ambassador laquatus  . Multiplayer mill decks are even tougher to build, but can be done. Being a slower environment[/c], it is easier to ramp in multiplayer, allowing for big X spells, like mind grind  , to be useful. Consuming aberration  is another star player. The more straightforward strategy is to use mesmeric orb  and dreamborn muse  while being the only deck at the table that can deal with it  . There are always new strategies coming out with each new set, so check gatherer for any new mill cards that you find to be the most fun for you!
Now you can say that you haven't fallen into the trap that most new players fall into when they build their first mill deck!
 : Order, Law, Faith.
 : Knowledge, Artifice, Control.
 : Corruption, Death, Self-Interest.
 : Freedom, Destruction, Victory.
 : Nature, Growth, Life.
 : Progressive, but too controlling.
 : Focused, but short sighted.
 : Skilled, but hypocritical.
 : Unified, but without a sense of self.
 : Cunning, but devious.
 : Inquisitive, but incautious.
 : Rational, but impulsive.
 : Powerful, but spiteful.
 : Instinctive, but selfish.
 : Fearless, but reckless.
Name:  Keino
 =100 Class: 
 x 236 Diety: 
 125/200
Weapon: Staff of Fire ( =2x dmg/ =4+3 dmg)
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1 year ago ::
May 02, 2012 - 11:56PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jul 22, 2011
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Humility  will stop reanimator in it's tracks and give the whole table an even chance to knock them off.
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1 year ago ::
May 05, 2012 - 9:30AM
#9
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Date Joined:
Jul 17, 2003
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I'm a fan of Price of Progress and Ruination as offensive defense against regular opponents running lots of nonbasic lands.
So perhaps a Red or Red/other color deck could work.
Cheers!
I don't get it. Why are we thinking that people would be running a lot of non-basic lands? We're talking about cards like Pox here. Something tells me it's not some 5CC Pox deck that wins by casting Cruel Ultimatum  off of a whack of alara tri lands or whatever.
My comment was based on trann's referring to someone running "full sets of dual lands" and pretty much ignored the rest of his post.
Regarding the rest of his post request, what about building around Bazaar of Wonders  ? Penalize people for doing the established "right thing" and playing full playsets of cards. While my version was slow, it ground out wins against everyone but the people who only run single copies of cards, either due to clever strategy or to lack of resources.
Cheers!
A shout out to Gaming Grounds in Kent, Ohio and Gamers N Geeks in Mobile, Alabama.
www.zombiehunters.org for all your preparation needs.
http://shtfschool.com/ - why prepping is useful, from one who has been there.
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1 year ago ::
May 11, 2012 - 12:41PM
#10
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If Reanimator is a heavy killer, perhaps Tormod's Crypt  as a fast effect and a trap card on the field
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