Home  Decks  Combos  Articles  Visual Spoilers  Features  Art  Links  Search  BLOG  Forum

MDV RSS Feed  
 

  Super Games Inc - Free Shipping on orders over $30.   

 

Back ] Home ] Up ] Next ]

3 Plow Under
4 Revive
4 Ravenous Baloth
2 Krosan Tusker
1 Planar Portal
3 Forgotten Ancient
2 Loxodon Warhammer
2 Ensnaring Bridge
1 Glissa Sunseeker
2 Nantuko Vigilante
2 Soul Foundry
2 Silklash Spider
3 Chrome Mox
3 Birds of Paradise
4 Vine Trellis

4 Wooded Foothills
2 Mountain
2 Contested Cliffs
2 Stalking Stones
12 Forests

Sideboard:
3 Pyroclasm
3 Naturalize
2 Ensnaring Bridge
3 Flashfires
2 Stabilizer
2 Lightning Greaves

Revised Turbo-revive.

Description of deck by it's author (quoted):
After Mirrodin, I put a version of it together with my real cards, and promptly lost to Affinity, which was actually able to survive third- and fifth-turn Plow Unders with aplomb and still win. This amazing survival can be attributed solely to Chrome Mox; if your version of affinity does not use that card, its win percentage falls several percentage points against this deck. To help my playtest partners, I refined it into what you will see below, which proved a bit too good.

This version is much faster, and doesn't lose to Affinity or attacking Goblins. It still rolls over to the Goblin combo, but I haven't met a deck that doesn't. The available control decks aren't as good now, so Turbo-Revive is closer to tier one, but is it there? The only matches I've extensively tested are Goblins (~45% combo version - ~55% Sligh) and aggro-affinity (~70%), I can't really say how good it will do against other control. The sideboard should be pretty telling, though.

The first biggest change is the replacement of Vernal Blooms with Chrome Moxes. Bloom was often too slow, but Mox lets the deck use extraneous Revives and Plow Unders for a mana boost when it counts. As it is right now, casting Baloth and Ancient may happen on the second turn thanks to hands with two lands, a Mox, and Birds/Trellis. This seems to happen about one game in five. I repeat: In 15%-20% of your games you get an insane second turn or a third-turn Plow (but rarely both). Sligh doesn't win against turn 2 Ancient unless they Shrapnel Blast it immediately. Remove Planar Portal, Glissa, and one Revive against speed Sligh; chuck the Tuskers if you want the extra Bridges.

If you can't get Chrome Moxes and still wish to play Turbo-Revive, the recommended changes are - 3 Mox, +1 Birds of Paradise, +2 Stalking Stones. The speed reduction of losing the Moxes hurts enough that Loxodon Warhammer should be removed and replaced with the sideboard Lightning Greaves. The two open sideboard slots are then filled by another Naturalize and another Pyroclasm. Please only make this change if you can't afford Chrome Moxes from StarCityGames - they really belong in this deck. If you wish to go down to two Moxes while adding a fourth bird, you may, but I found three Moxes work better than four birds.

The Soul Foundries were an experiment that went horribly right, as making cheap Bird of Paradise tokens for mana or Baloth tokens for life has seldom steered me wrong. Keep in mind that Imprint is triggered, so if they counter the Foundry you don't lose the second card. Making more than two Baloth tokens is usually game against any version of mono-red. Both the Foundries and Moxen also serve the dual purpose of emptying the hand quickly to slam down an Ensnaring Bridge and stop a Broodstar or Rorix from mattering. Killing your own Bridge is easy once a 23/23 Warhammer-wielding Forgotten Ancient is ready to attack.

One card I wish I had time to test inside here was Solemn Simulacrum; it seems to fit the deck idea really well (especially as a Soul Foundry target), but I knew I wasn't attending States in advance. Therefore, I didn't do extensive testing like usual.

 

Have a deck you want to submit to the database?  Go here.  Do you see an error on this page?  Email it to this address.   

plow_under.jpg (19766 bytes) revive.jpg (20299 bytes) ravenous_baloth.jpg (18540 bytes) forgotten_ancient.jpg (43204 bytes) Loxodon_Warhammer.jpg (28661 bytes) ensnaring_bridge.jpg (22950 bytes) Soul_Foundry.jpg (27380 bytes) vine_trellis.jpg (20939 bytes)

by Judah Alt @ www.starcitygames.com

BEATDOWN: Forgotten Ancient - Ravenous Baloth / Revive

DISCLAIMER.
Magic the Gathering is TM and copyright Wizards of the Coast, Inc, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. All rights reserved. All art is property of their respective artists and/or Wizards of the Coast. This site is not produced or endorsed by Wizards of the Coast, Inc. 

Magic Deck Vortex (www.magicdeckvortex.com) is a service provided by John Streetz to promote the knowledge and awareness of Magic: the Gathering as a collectible card game (casually, of course). This is a free site based out of Illinois that does not generate any profit for its owner. Magic Deck Vortex is based out of Illinois and has been around since August 2002.

Home  Decks  Combos  Articles  Visual Spoilers  Features  Art  Links  Search  BLOG  Forum