4x each dual-land in these colors, +2 Swamp, +1 Kessig Wolf Run = 23 lands.

If you want the most mana-fixing for things like card:Geralf's Messenger in a 3-color deck, that's the best way to do it.

Rakdos Charm over card:Tormod's Crypt and Vandalblast in the side-board.

Thanks for the suggestions, I fixed the land base accordingly. I was kicking around the idea of Rakdos Charm in the SB but for some reason I didn't put it in, that has also been remedied. Much obliged

Fast and tough to beat.I playtested it against my Mono-Black Discard deck, which usually does pretty well and lost 1-2. +1

I'd definitely consider dropping one Bonfire of the Damned and adding another Tragic Slip in it's place though.

Really nice. Playtested against Counterjack, which is pretty resilient, and it was about even.

If you wanted a bit of advice, I'd cut down the number of shocklands a bit. I can see you dumping 4 life to lands a fair bit of the time. I know Blood Artist can, ideally, help you out there, but you could very well have plenty of games where the Artist never shows up.

Still, very nice deck. +1 from me

Shock-lands > Basic lands. Any shock-land will let all of him Core/Innistrad dual-lands enter the battlefield untapped.

Yes, but that life penalty starts to add up. Shocklands are good, but if your deck is full of them, you're either going to have your game slowed down terribly (which is bad for this deck), or you're going to burn yourself to death. Since he's so heavy on swamps, I would cut at least 2 shocklands for 2 more swamps.

... But Killing Wave for 1 means that you gain back with Blood Artist as much as you lost. And then your opponent loses life equal to the number of creatures you had die, and then has to pay life or sacrifice. If he/she sacrifices, Blood Artist just does that much more to him/her. It's really not fair to yourself to play a Blood Artist deck without Killing Wave in it.

Shock-lands are very good and shouldn't be removed for Basics. If you play with Shock-lands correctly, you shouldn't be losing too much life to them. And adding Basics in their spots would only slow the deck down.

What if you don't draw Killing Wave or Blood Artist? Particularly since Killing Wave isn't in this deck.

I'm not saying the Shock Lands aren't good; quite the contrary, they're amazing. But having too many in a deck CAN put you in a vulnerable spot.

I don't understand what you're saying. What's your point here? If you don't draw Killing Wave or Blood Artist , then you don't have either one and you have to play the cards the deck gives you.

If you draw one or the other, then they're still both very useful cards in most situations. Blood Artist has been seeing play since it was released, and for good reason. Killing Wave is worth using a couple of on its own, but with Blood Artist out, it's good enough to warrant using just for that purpose.

Your argument is like saying you shouldn't run Intangible Virtue in a Token deck, in case you only see Intangible Virtue or token-generating cards.

I'm saying that you can't rely on a certain pair of cards to make back the life you're going to dump to Shocklands. Let's say you go a game where you draw 4 Shocklands but no lifegain; you'd wind up having to play them tapped, or take some very serious dings to your life total.

The Shocklands are good, but they're not something I'd want to run in excess. That's my advice here. The OP can take it or leave it as he or she chooses.

Killing Wave + Blood Artist isn't designed to gain you life. It's designed to kill your opponent.

Your life total doesn't matter, as long as you're not at 0. Why do you think Delver runs all four of Mental Misstep , Mutagenic Growth , Gut Shot , and Dismember , with nothing but U/W lands?

Your life total is just another resource. I'm sad that you don't see that.

Your life total is a resource, but it's also one that you can lose by using too much of. As much private despair as my supposed ignorance of the use of a life total brings you, I pray your soul will heal from the grievous wound. 2 life is usually well worth getting one dual land untapped at the beginning of the game; 4 life is usually worth getting two lands untapped; 6 life starts to become a fairly real problem; 8 life is suicidal. The other player will actually be doing things, and with spells like Bonfire running around I wouldn't be too eager to dump my life total down the drain.

Delver decks that ran all those spells were usually wiser to run those spells in shorter number; and a lot of decks ignored Gut Shot entirely, and often Dismember and Mental Misstep as well. Nevermind that we're now moving to a new standard environment.

You think every game is going to give you 4 shock-lands or more, with 8 total in the deck?

Have you ever played Magic before?... Or taken a math class?

And do you honestly expect Bonfire of the Damned to stay mainboarded against this in the second game?

I have to agree with zandl on this one. I'm not concerned with my life total, I'm concerned with killing my opponent quickly and efficiently. And thanks for bringing up Killing Wave , I honestly forgot about that card while I was building this, I shall add it immediately. Thanks for the comment guys

Funny you ask! I've done advanced calculus and linear algebra in my university degree.

yes, I've done math.

I am not saying that each and every game in an 8-shockland deck will end in an utter tragedy with the poor shockland player ripping out their hair in grief as they curse their idiotic decision to include 2 more shocklands than I'm recommending. It is not quite that dramatic (your aspersions about my intellect aside).

What I AM saying is that running that many shocklands may tip you over into sacrificing enough life that it can actually run you the risk of losing. When you run any number of cards, the general rule of thumb I use is that you run more than an anomalous chance of encountering half of those in any given game.

Ooooh. Linear algebraaaa. Now I'm impressed.

The problem with your point is that the deck already works fine with 8 shock-lands. If you used your "university degree" to simply playtest the deck, you'll find that it's perfectly playable.

With his cards at 3-cmc and under being all over the color-pie, what else could you possibly expect him to do? Push back card:Geralf's Messenger a turn? have to wait to use Dreadbore until after taking a hit? Get smacked by Insectile Aberration  ^{Flip  Flip} once or twice before using Abrupt Decay ?

Shock-lands are good and should be playsets, especially so in an aggressive deck. That's how shock-lands have always been played, and there's a good reason for it.

Are you done yet? Because I'm tired of watching you try.

Oh my god.

Actually, my original observation was that this deck is very strongly black; it's Jund, sure, but most of the spells it needs to hit are black. Geralf's Messenger being the big one; all his other multicolor spells really rely on black too (for instance, Lotleth Troll likes having two black mana sources available). That's why I'd suggest a very minor edit to lean to more Swamps.

The reasoning for this suggestion came from playtesting it against a few decks and finding that, when the deck lost, it would often be by a couple points of life that it had lost to a Shockland, or by a lost turn that it had given up to bringing a Shock in tapped. This is particularly prominent against another really fast aggro deck, especially if that aggro deck has a good early answer to Blood Artist like Tragic Slip or Abrupt Decay . I honestly wouldn't even feel the need to comment on this further if you didn't keep bringing this discussion down to childish insults. First you imply I don't understand math; I mention I do have a reasonable background in mathematics and you scoff at my supposed pretension.

It's just a discussion of a card game. We might disagree about what the best strategy for this deck might be, but you don't need to behave as though I've insulted your mother.

If I were behaving as though you insulted my mother, you'd know it. I'm just having a lively debate with you. By all means, if you feel as though I'm belittling you in any way, I'll dumb down my argument for you.

See, being passive aggressive doesn't make you look like a devastatingly clever internet troll. A lively debate doesn't involve trying to make the other guy look stupid; in a proper debate you don't need to pretend that you're better than the person you're arguing with so that you can prove your point.

Acting as though you have to dumb down your argument is belittling behavior. You know that. Not to mention the fact that both our arguments are actually pretty simple, and that our disagreement largely stems from an apparent difference in evidence.

That aside, I do actually think this is a very well-put together deck. The only thing I can see being a significant problem is exile effects, which are unfortunately in pretty good supply with stuff like Oblivion Ring, that new Azorious O-Ring that exiles same-named permanents (can't remember its name right now), and Pillar of Flame , which takes care of everything in your deck excepting a pumped-up lotleth troll, a Geralf's Messenger that's had its undying trigger activate, and Dreg Mangler. If you could, I think finding a spot for Giant Growth in your sideboard might be worthwhile, to counter Pillar.

Okay, so I'm trolling. You caught me, bro.

You're the first person, ever, to catch a troll.

And you might as well keep the paragraphs outlining my poor life decisions coming. You're really telling me.

Doesn't this place have any rules for behavior in comments? Seriously? Or moderators?

Yes. The tone of this discussion isn't welcome here. The rest of the internet can be a jungle-gym for belittlement tactics against other people, but this one never will be.

@MLBurt I was running Giant Growth s main, but took them out to fit in Killing Wave . I have made room for 3 in the SB, you're right that Pillar of Flame would hurt this deck's focus. Thanks

I'd like to suggest card:Ranger's Guile over Giant Growth . It's pump is significantly lesser, but it works against o-rings and other spot removal that isn't damage specific.

Also, while it seems fine to keep all of your Shocklands and I don't think it's a big hit, you could definitely shift your mana base more over to the swamps. If you decide to do this, I would take out 2 Blood Crypts rather than the Overgrown Tombs, as you need the green mana far earlier than you need the red. Just my 2 cents. +1