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Howdy!
So Planes-Walking with Hydras is an experiment/journey of mine that I thought people would like to share in.
So I've been playing Magic since I was nine years old. I'm thirty now. Throughout the years I've spent countless hours deck building and theory crafting. From my pre-teen years with kitchen table magic games to standard FNM's and tournaments in high school. I took a brief hiatus while in college, but came back to discover the beauty of Modern.
A friend from my wife's work invited us over for dinner one night. Her husband and I got to talking. Turns out we had a lot in common. We had gone to the same tiny school (albeit a few years apart). We'd both married teachers, and of course, we both loved magic. He invited me to my first Modern FNM.
I was excited. I grabbed my old blue and white human/spirit deck and was ready to dominate. The deck had gone nearly undefeated back in the day. How much could really change from Standard to Modern. Good cards were good cards right?
Wrong.
I got stomped.
I remember beating exactly one player. A brand new player with a deck very similar to mine who had no business playing in the modern format (at least not if he wanted to have fun).
But even though I lost, I saw the weaknesses in the decks I had played against. And not all of my loses were blowouts. My deck had potential...or rather...I had potential. The deck needed to lose a color.
Now I don't know about you but I find it difficult to spend exorbitant amounts of money on little pieces of cardstock, despite how much I may love the game. I found out quickly that in order to use multiple colors in Modern effectively I needed a good mana base. Those mana bases would be built around good lands. The only problem was good lands cost money...a lot of money.
A mono-color deck, however, the mana base cost was basically free...literally. The local game store would actually give you basic lands if you needed any.
So I dropped blue.
Back then I had what I called "Human Pride," I was all about the 'Human' creature type. As many of you know Humans can be found in all colors but are most commonly found in white. By taking out blue I filled my deck with mono-white humans, with a subtheme of soldiers. It had strong synergies and had decent on curve plays. Even still it wasn't strong enough. The deck wasn't' fast enough.
But I kept playing. I kept tweaking the deck little by little until I created what is today, a human/spirit deck. Exactly what I started with, but this time in mono-white. I would consider the deck tier 2, on the same level as Merfolk or Lingering Souls decks (It destroys lingering souls decks).
At this point I was happy. I had successfully brewed a deck capable of beating every deck at my local game store, all of which were Netdecked.
While I felt a huge sense of accomplishment in this alone, something that made me feel real pride...was the cost.
Like I mentioned earlier, the cost comes into play when it comes to the Modern format, as well as older formats. Single cards were going from 60.00 a card, while others were all the way up to 250.00 a card.
Jund, the deck my friend was running, was close to 2000.00 to build. That brings me to my next area of accomplishment. My tier 2 deck that I'd been perfecting with each and every FNM, totaled out to be a 70.00 investment. That is the overall value of the deck (most of which I already owned.) This budget deck was able to compete with these 2000.00 dollar decks, and win (albeit not every time).
It was this accomplishment that I decided to strive for. I decided to craft budget decks capable of putting net deckers in their place. The game didn't necessarily become about winning an FNM for me. It more became about beating an opponent who had committed a significantly higher financial investment in their deck than I had.
Not long after I had created this tier two mono-white deck, my friend had decided to get back into the standard format. Black-Green Delirium decks were the rage back then. There were two versions. The older relied heavily on black/green cards from the Shadows over Innistrad block, while the newer version relied on several pieces from the Kaladesh block.
The latter was the more expensive, the deck totaling out to be anywhere between 250.00 to 300.00 depending on the vendor.
My friend went on this route, building his deck for about 280.00.
I pursued a different path. In the shift from Modern to Standard I had decided to also shift colors. I retained my mono-color concept in order to keep costs down. But instead of my traditional white-colored decks, I moved back to my roots. I built a mono-green deck. The first deck I ever built was a mono-green deck that revolved around the 'regeneration' mechanic. It mainly comprised of 'ape' type creatures, with the card 'Rhox' being my big finisher. My new standard deck called back to the old in color only.
I didn't have apes. I didn't have any cards that had regeneration. I didn't have anything like 'Rhox'. What I did have were Hydras and a mean ramp package.
I had created a mid-range hydra tribal deck for a total of 10.00. The deck was simple. I would ramp up as much mana as I could in the early turns, gaining life whenever I could, then I'd drop a giant hydra in the mid to late turns, usually with trample, vigilance...and oh yea...haste!
It was a simple...one-trick pony that worked! It was a midrange deck that excelled at beating other midrange decks! There are very few creatures that can become bigger than hydras in MTG, even fewer that can continue to grow. So while my friend's G/B delirium deck was undoubtedly strong, and grew undoubtedly fast, once my hydras came down they came down swinging. Within two attack phases my friend, as well as any other G/B delirium opponent, was defeated.
Now obviously there were times that I would lose. Although bringing a 7/7 trampling, vigilance, and hasty hydra down on turn 5 is powerful all the time. 15 1/1 goblin token is also pretty strong. Aggro decks destroyed me. Control decks were hit or miss opponents. Mid-range was where my mid-range deck shined.
The success of that 10.00 deck prompted another mission.
Hydra Tribal!
Since Hydras are the Iconic Creature of Green, there will always be hydras in the standard format to brew around or strengthen my modern hydra decks.
So that brings us up to date. I'm currently attempting to create powerful, Budget, mono-green, Hydra Tribal decks in modern. I've dabbled in the Pauper format, and I'm sure I'll have future blog posts covering those endeavors. But as there are no Hydras at common rarity I generally settle for Lizards and snakes as they seem to be two halves of the same coin when it comes to hydras.
So Planes-Walking with Hydras is an experiment/journey of mine that I thought people would like to share in.
So I've been playing Magic since I was nine years old. I'm thirty now. Throughout the years I've spent countless hours deck building and theory crafting. From my pre-teen years with kitchen table magic games to standard FNM's and tournaments in high school. I took a brief hiatus while in college, but came back to discover the beauty of Modern.
A friend from my wife's work invited us over for dinner one night. Her husband and I got to talking. Turns out we had a lot in common. We had gone to the same tiny school (albeit a few years apart). We'd both married teachers, and of course, we both loved magic. He invited me to my first Modern FNM.
I was excited. I grabbed my old blue and white human/spirit deck and was ready to dominate. The deck had gone nearly undefeated back in the day. How much could really change from Standard to Modern. Good cards were good cards right?
Wrong.
I got stomped.
I remember beating exactly one player. A brand new player with a deck very similar to mine who had no business playing in the modern format (at least not if he wanted to have fun).
But even though I lost, I saw the weaknesses in the decks I had played against. And not all of my loses were blowouts. My deck had potential...or rather...I had potential. The deck needed to lose a color.
Now I don't know about you but I find it difficult to spend exorbitant amounts of money on little pieces of cardstock, despite how much I may love the game. I found out quickly that in order to use multiple colors in Modern effectively I needed a good mana base. Those mana bases would be built around good lands. The only problem was good lands cost money...a lot of money.
A mono-color deck, however, the mana base cost was basically free...literally. The local game store would actually give you basic lands if you needed any.
So I dropped blue.
Back then I had what I called "Human Pride," I was all about the 'Human' creature type. As many of you know Humans can be found in all colors but are most commonly found in white. By taking out blue I filled my deck with mono-white humans, with a subtheme of soldiers. It had strong synergies and had decent on curve plays. Even still it wasn't strong enough. The deck wasn't' fast enough.
But I kept playing. I kept tweaking the deck little by little until I created what is today, a human/spirit deck. Exactly what I started with, but this time in mono-white. I would consider the deck tier 2, on the same level as Merfolk or Lingering Souls decks (It destroys lingering souls decks).
At this point I was happy. I had successfully brewed a deck capable of beating every deck at my local game store, all of which were Netdecked.
While I felt a huge sense of accomplishment in this alone, something that made me feel real pride...was the cost.
Like I mentioned earlier, the cost comes into play when it comes to the Modern format, as well as older formats. Single cards were going from 60.00 a card, while others were all the way up to 250.00 a card.
Jund, the deck my friend was running, was close to 2000.00 to build. That brings me to my next area of accomplishment. My tier 2 deck that I'd been perfecting with each and every FNM, totaled out to be a 70.00 investment. That is the overall value of the deck (most of which I already owned.) This budget deck was able to compete with these 2000.00 dollar decks, and win (albeit not every time).
It was this accomplishment that I decided to strive for. I decided to craft budget decks capable of putting net deckers in their place. The game didn't necessarily become about winning an FNM for me. It more became about beating an opponent who had committed a significantly higher financial investment in their deck than I had.
Not long after I had created this tier two mono-white deck, my friend had decided to get back into the standard format. Black-Green Delirium decks were the rage back then. There were two versions. The older relied heavily on black/green cards from the Shadows over Innistrad block, while the newer version relied on several pieces from the Kaladesh block.
The latter was the more expensive, the deck totaling out to be anywhere between 250.00 to 300.00 depending on the vendor.
My friend went on this route, building his deck for about 280.00.
I pursued a different path. In the shift from Modern to Standard I had decided to also shift colors. I retained my mono-color concept in order to keep costs down. But instead of my traditional white-colored decks, I moved back to my roots. I built a mono-green deck. The first deck I ever built was a mono-green deck that revolved around the 'regeneration' mechanic. It mainly comprised of 'ape' type creatures, with the card 'Rhox' being my big finisher. My new standard deck called back to the old in color only.
I didn't have apes. I didn't have any cards that had regeneration. I didn't have anything like 'Rhox'. What I did have were Hydras and a mean ramp package.
I had created a mid-range hydra tribal deck for a total of 10.00. The deck was simple. I would ramp up as much mana as I could in the early turns, gaining life whenever I could, then I'd drop a giant hydra in the mid to late turns, usually with trample, vigilance...and oh yea...haste!
It was a simple...one-trick pony that worked! It was a midrange deck that excelled at beating other midrange decks! There are very few creatures that can become bigger than hydras in MTG, even fewer that can continue to grow. So while my friend's G/B delirium deck was undoubtedly strong, and grew undoubtedly fast, once my hydras came down they came down swinging. Within two attack phases my friend, as well as any other G/B delirium opponent, was defeated.
Now obviously there were times that I would lose. Although bringing a 7/7 trampling, vigilance, and hasty hydra down on turn 5 is powerful all the time. 15 1/1 goblin token is also pretty strong. Aggro decks destroyed me. Control decks were hit or miss opponents. Mid-range was where my mid-range deck shined.
The success of that 10.00 deck prompted another mission.
Hydra Tribal!
Since Hydras are the Iconic Creature of Green, there will always be hydras in the standard format to brew around or strengthen my modern hydra decks.
So that brings us up to date. I'm currently attempting to create powerful, Budget, mono-green, Hydra Tribal decks in modern. I've dabbled in the Pauper format, and I'm sure I'll have future blog posts covering those endeavors. But as there are no Hydras at common rarity I generally settle for Lizards and snakes as they seem to be two halves of the same coin when it comes to hydras.
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