Best ways to speed up a deck?
Modern Deck Help forum
Posted on July 20, 2015, 5:31 a.m. by 3rdeye88
Hi All, I'm pretty new to playing Magic and I'm having trouble with a couple of my decks, one of them especially is too slow, and even though I've put a decent amount of creatures that produce mana and land fetching in my deck, its too damned slow. I either don't get the cards or can't get the deck on its feet soon enough before my opponents can with their decks. Or they do countering or removal. There's all these really awesome big creatures in Green and angels that do amazing things in white, but what I still don't understand is how people get to those big things before it's too late in the game to even matter when they would have the mana to produce them. Help please? Thanks.
I guess another way speeding up one's deck involves cheating cards out for cheaper right? What are some good ways to do that to? I play against some fairly aggro friends who seem to be able to create a wave of destruction by turn four or five and just by then I'm getting started. What can I do to get my decks moving and working faster?
razvaniorga says... #3
Also Quicksilver Amulet is like an Elvish Piper that's harder to remove.
July 20, 2015 5:46 a.m.
razvaniorga says... #4
There's also just control decks that control and stall the game for enough turns to just cast these creatures as resilient finishers. Usually the creature has to have some sort of inherent protection on itself to warrant the time and mana that it cost, such as AEtherling, or has immediate value when it comes in, so it still did something if it gets removed, such as Sun Titan or Grave Titan.
July 20, 2015 5:53 a.m.
GeeksterPlays says... #5
It's worth bearing in mind that WotC themselves call Modern a "4 turn format" - i.e. unless your winning/won by turn 4 you're probably losing instead.
A lot of the bigger creatures may have been more playable when they were in Standard (typically 7-8 turns or more) but in Modern where a Red Deck Wins can kill you on T3-4, Bloom Titan can kill on T2-3, and so on, having something like a Worldspine Wurm is probably not the best idea.
If you look at a lot of modern decks the mana curve tends to top out around 4-5, maybe 6 for something really worth it or if you're playing a Control deck and have enough time to get there.
For Green/White, one option may be to fun Fog effects (Fog, Holy Day etc.) to keep you alive in the early turns, drop a Day of Judgment or Wrath of God on T4-5-6 and then play out your fatter creatures once your opponent has run out of steam?
July 20, 2015 7:11 a.m.
I said Green and white just as examples because green has big fat creatures, and Angels for the most part tend to be pricy. The question applies to any color though. I didn't want to ask a super specific question. I'm trying to go for a thread that can help anyone here really. But the deck that's too slow for me is my blue green Kiora deck.
Landfall strengthened Kiora Deck Playtest
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July 20, 2015 7:24 a.m. Edited.
@razvaniorga I think the Quicksilver Amulet and Elvish Piper along with mana ramp would be my preferred way since I'm currently running two Blue/Green Decks and am working on a Green/ White deck. I've been getting some mana ramp cards, I just picked up Sakura-Tribe Scout and Whisperer of the Wilds. I also have a bunch of Elvish Mystics and a few Sylvan Caryatids. I'm using most of these and it still seems like its not enough.
I know elves are big on mana generation, any ones I should look at that generate 2 or more mana? What syntax do I use when looking that up to? Thanks for your guy's help. :)
July 20, 2015 7:39 a.m.
It depends on the deck. For mono colored decks its usually the ratio of big creatures to little, the more of one type of low cost card you have, the chances of it showing up increase.
Sometimes it can be too many basic lands in multicolored deck, or lands that come out tapped too often. I think, first, pick a style of deck you want to do. Then when it has certain key creatures in it, they can help fix the tempo of your deck.
For instance, Knight of the Reliquary for white/green and Vampire Nighthawk for black. Reliquary Knight has insane ability to fix your mana and ramp you up. Nighthawk is a flying death-touch, which buys you time and lets you setup some blockers.
The type of creatures/spells as well as how well put together your mana is will determine the speed of the deck. Take a look over lands (too many basic, not enough) and how long it takes you to play a solid creature.
July 22, 2015 12:30 a.m.
I get the majority of what you're saying. But the part about the style of deck you want. What do you mean? Like color or what? I know there's different ways to build decks but what do you mean by style? That's another thing about this deck, I don't really know what kind of deck it is. It doesn't combo like crazy, though I guess it's meant to, its not aggro, it doesn't have enough control in it to really be called a control deck. Its just kinda...its own thing. shrugs
Oh wow those are awesome cards. This would go really well with something like Serene Remembrance which would allow me to put the lands back in the library to be grabbed again. Is there other cards that allow the player to put key things back in from the graveyard?
July 24, 2015 11:11 a.m.
I think it's better to focus just on some nice cards with synergy. Try cards like Seraph of the Sword and White Knight and removal like Oblivion Ring if you're going white. Don't put too much mana ramp and put in cards that give you mana ramp and are solid like Steward of Valeron or my favorite Birds of Paradise . Some of these cards can be cheap or expensive but a lot of them are worth the investment to make your deck better. If you want stuff back from the graveyard you will need stuff like Whip of Erebos or Death Denied which is mostly black.
July 25, 2015 1:17 p.m.
Also pick a style. You can build simple combo decks for cheap like EXALTED. This is just an example but here's a super solid deck that only costs $20 to build.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/exalted-on-the-cheap/
Get some ideas like what you want to do. If you play black you can build simple "black devotion" decks with Gray Merchant of Asphodel that are insanely strong. Like green creatures? Look up a beast centered deck. The more synergy you have in the deck, the more powerful it becomes. Your problem might be that the decks are too random.
July 25, 2015 1:21 p.m.
electromancer says... #12
Since no one has mentioned it, you really need to pay to attention to mana-curve. Sometimes a deck will be really slow, even if the average converted mana cost isn't that high, if it doesn't have a good spread of mana costs. There's a great article on this:
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/lo/292
The number of lands you run is also really important. If you need 4 lands by turn 4 run at least 24 in your deck. A general rule for mana-dorks (like Elvish Mystic) is,
For every 2 mana-dorks take out 1 land.
Example:
You want to play Quicksilver Amulet by turn 4. Then you need 22 lands and 4 Elvish Mystics.
July 25, 2015 3:57 p.m.
Thank you for the article @ electromancer. I enjoyed reading the article. Though I feel a bit proud of myself as a noobie magic player because I can now say that "Mana Curve" is one thing I'm already doing and on top of. If you take a look at any of my Decks they've all got some kind of Mana curve to them. I always have at least one form of one drop and then tend to go more with two and three drops. From there I look at what is essential to the deck late game and work with higher cost cards than that. I have to play against a guy who cheats out Progenitus by turn four, so things need to be snappy for me. So I try to keep my mana curve around 3 or 4. I need better ways to cheat things out. That's also what I meant by "speed things up" Quicksilver Amulet is one, I've seen Elvish Piper and I generally get that green does all the mana ramp and the creatures tap for mana, but what about the other colors? How do you mana ramp in white or red per say? Again, I'm not looking for a super specific method, I'm looking for possibilities to consider for future deck building's sake.
Basically I think I'm asking for more mana out faster, and cards that cheat shit out so you don't have to pay their mana costs, you pay the cheat's.
July 26, 2015 12:24 p.m.
electromancer says... #15
Be sure to give the card list a +1:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Playing S**t for Free Playtest
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July 26, 2015 3:04 p.m.
electromancer says... #16
You might also be interested in hideaway lands:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text=+[hideaway]
July 26, 2015 3:14 p.m.
Knight of the White Orchid for white ramp. Lots of cards that help with mana tend to cost more. But you could always go for a Chromatic Lantern or something if you have problems ramping in white or red or something.
July 26, 2015 5:41 p.m.
spencer.dow says... #18
for green: Farseek and Explore. There are a lot of cards out there to search your library for a land, so keep looking.
razvaniorga says... #2
Could you give some examples of the green and white cards you were thinking of? How big are they?
Some decks cheat them in by reanimating through Unburial Rites or Goryo's Vengeance, others by putting them on the field for cheap through Through the Breach or Elvish Piper, others still cheat them in from the deck through Polymorph or Possibility Storm.
Other decks just make a ton of mana and cast them. That can either be through intense mana-ramp (Sakura-Tribe Elder, Search for Tomorrow, Summer Bloom), or by playing assembling lands that can create a ton of mana by themselves (Urza's Mine, Urza's Power Plant, Urza's Tower). There are lots of fun ways to play big creatures in modern. Just find what's most appealing to you!
July 20, 2015 5:43 a.m.