We play a ton of multiplayer Magic. Pretty much any given weekend. Usually at least five players, often up to eight or more.

Anyone who knows me knows that I like to build a lot of decks. Build 'em, play 'em, then take 'em apart and build new ones. And a lot of these decks are really goofy or crazy.

The new project is to try to build a multiplayer version of Fires.

Here are the first benefits that come to mind:

[cardimg]Fires of Yavimaya[/cardimg][cardimg]Saproling Burst[/cardimg][cardimg]Doubling Season[/cardimg]

With one Doubling Season, Saproling Burst comes into play with 14 counters and then makes eight 10/10s that have haste. Clearly, this is spectacular.

The questions become after that --

Do you still run Birds and Elves (most likely yes)
Do you still run Blastoderm
Do you run other token makers or other things that come in with counters
How many planeswalkers

Wasn't there a version of Fires in Extended that ran [card]Pandemonium[/card] for the kill?

In other news, [card]Sekki, Season's Guide[/card] has potential to be absurd with Doubling Season.

I think it's going to be hard not to make it a doubling season deck more than fires.

Yeah ... I wouldn't want every card to point to Doubling Season, though. In multi you should always assume that your five-mana enchantment might not survive.

[CARD]Sarkhan Vol[/CARD] wants to play!

The little kid in me giggles at having 10 6/6 hasty dragons swinging:)

Yeah. I have another deck (that I'll probably take apart) with Doubling Season and a bunch of planeswalkers, and he's ridiculous in it.

[card]Ant Queen[/card] sort of works alright with fires and doubling season.

Off the top of my head, cards I use in my [card]Radha, Heir to Keld[/card] EDH deck, which is basically what you're describing:
[deck]Cloudstone Curio
Deranged Hermit
Dragon Broodmother
Blastoderm
Siege-gang Commander[/deck]

As I realised while goldfishing my Radha EDH the other day, Stonebrow, Garruk and Insurrection have a kind of entertaining interaction.

PS [card]Gaea's Cradle[/CARD]

A lot of great ideas

I think Birds and Elves are still in this deck. That makes me wish for another really good three-drop.

Call of the Herd? Fine for Elephants, good with Doubling Season.

[CARD]Penumbra Bobcat[/CARD]?
[CARD]Boggart Ram-gang[/CARD]?

I've always been a big fan of [CARD]Wood Elves[/CARD].

I'd replace Blastoderm with [CARD]Rumbling Slum[/CARD].

Is the goal to be good or is the goal to be fun?

edit: if the goal is to be good, I think you probably want to build your deck into a bigger version of extended elves with Priest of Titania and and Archdruid. You can do some pretty disgusting things that way, and it shouldn't be too hard to set up loops that kill everyone at the table from an empty board. That would be fun, too!

just to see how broken it is i've tried goldfishing with a first draft of a rofellos EDH deck. yeah i know it's a different format, but even without getting him t2 of every game the deck does silly things.

also i think [card]concordant crossroads[/card] is way cooler than fires.

I am pretty sure that any deck with doubling season in it IMMEDIATELY becomes a doubling season deck.

Also, I am pretty sure if you DO play with doubling season, you're wasting time if your stuff doesn't turn counters into tokens or vise versa. Personally, I really love spawning pit with it.

Symmetrical, though.

does that really matter when you play it the same turn that you win?

also, everyone knows that symmetrical effects are cool in multiplayer

My Radha deck's kind of token-based as well, but seriously consider [card]Hissing Iguanar[/card] if you need a 3-drop.

Reminds me of PandaBurst. Obviously, PandaBurst isn't good in multiplayer, since it only does 21 damage... but PandaBurst with Doubling Season does approximately infinite damage (182, if the math in my head is right, which it probably isn't). Certainly seems more efficient than Fires.

For kicks, I build imaginary EDH decks, since the balance between competitiveness and tact is a unique design space.

Pandemonium seems deadly, yeah

You hold off on playing it until you have the Burst the same turn, I suppose. Or already have the Burst from a previous turn.

[card]Triskelion[/card]/[card]Rite of Passage[/card]

Or [card]Triskelavus[/card].

gilder bairn
trike
mephidross vampire
in no particular build/order

If you're trying to get three enchantments out there at the same time (and hopefully not have them die), is it worth adding white for Replenish, Sterling Grove, and Enlightened Tutor? (assuming Replenish isn't banned/doesn't get you dragged out back and shot)

I played that three card combo in my enchantress deck

8 wild growths (that ravnica block one), 4 [CARD]Exploration[/CARD], 8 enchantresses (Presence?), 12 combo

8 one-offs that are funny like [CARD]Opalescence[/CARD], Mirari's Wake, [CARD]Enduring Ideal[/CARD]


but then my friends said I can only play this once per evening so I killed it again :/

Seriously, [card]Sekki, Season's Guide[/card]. :pmosad:

It's infinite damage to everything and everyone, if you have [card]Pandemonium[/card] and [card]Doubling Season[/card] out!

Since they removed the power-level errata from the parallaxes, I built the actual Replenish deck.

That's really good

You don't need Doubling Season here; Sekki can target itself and the tokens can target whatever.

That's really good

That makes me want to also build the deck, since I have three sarkhans laying around doing nothing.

Here's an EDH deck I've been tweaking as of late. I feel like there's something missing, but I can't quite put my finger on it, and Gatherer's been of no help.


[deck]Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed

Mana Crypt
Volrath's Stronghold
Vesuva
Cabal Coffers
Scrying Sheets
some number of Snow-Covered Swamps

Vampiric Tutor
Entomb
Expedition Map
Sensei's Divining Top
Wayfarer's Bauble
Bubbling Muck
Mana Vault
Sol Ring
Bloodchief Ascension
Skullclamp

Dark Confidant
Gatekeeper of Malakir
Nezumi Graverobber
Bloodghast
Demonic Tutor
Sign in Blood
Night's Whisper
Scroll Rack
Journeyer's Kite
Jet Medallion
Imp's Mischief
Bitterblossom

Undead Gladiator
Beseech the Queen
Dimir Machinations
Necropotence
Phyrexian Arena
Extraplanar Lens
Corpse Dance
Crucible of Worlds
Oblivion Stone
Phyrexian Totem
Spoils of Evil

Dimir House Guard
Solemn Simulacrum
Insidious Dreams
Ambition's Cost
Diabolic Tutor
Leyline of the Void
Helm of Obedience
Damnation
Mutilate
The Abyss
Snuff Out

Thrashing Wumpus
Lilliana Vess
Moonlight Bargain
Promise of Power
Brainspoil
Gauntlet of Power
Mirari
Hatred

Sorin Markov
Decree of Pain
Corrupt
Twisted Abomination

Skeletal Scrying
Profane Command
Death Cloud
Consume Spirit
Drain Life[/deck]


One possible problem is I've overloaded it on tutors and card draw, but that's in part because I ran out of ideas for what else the deck needed. It's pretty much Mono-Black Control with great recursion thanks to its general and all the ways to reanimate creatures on the cheap (e.g. Corpse Dance + my general = 4B: Return target black card to your hand) that can fuel massive spells. It can also sometimes Hatred Xiahou-Dun to kill a player with general damage.

I'm not entirely sure what it's missing, though. I know there's something it needs, but I can't put my finger on it.

[card]Tortured Existence[/CARD]

Okay, let me clarify: I need useful business spells.

E.g., with this deck, you can play a tutor for Corpse Dance, buy it back with Xiahou Dun to go find a business spell (letting Xiahou go to the graveyard), then keep buying the business spell back with that loop. What I need is something more useful than just buying back Corrupt forever.

[CARD]Myojin of Night's Reach[/CARD]?

[CARD]Syphon Mind[/CARD] seems good.

If you're playing monocolored and Crucible of Worlds, why on earth aren't you running Strip Mine and Wasteland? I realize that they don't count towards Corrupt, Cabal Coffers or Scrying Sheets, but seriously. The more Mines and Wastelands there are on the table, the less likely the jerk with the Tolarian Ruins will ruin everybody's night by dicking around with infinite turns, not to mention the mono-red guy with Shivan Gorge and Valakut to finish the job after he's activated Heartless Hidetsugu a couple times.

If your deck had more creatures you could consider using [card]songs of the damned[/card] (with 6 other creatures in the yard...) to fully combo off. (ok, this is probably a terrible idea). Well, I guess you only need 4 other creatures with [card]mirari[/card].

For business spells, I'm not really sure if there's much better to recycle than [card]corrupt[/card], [card]mind sludge[/card], and well, I guess [card]syphon mind[/card] if you've already ripped everyone's hand to shreds. Big difficult to kill finishers could include [card]Korlash, heir to blackblade[/card], though he's obviously not very evasive.

would something like [card]defense grid[/card] be useful? You don't really have a bunch of instants, and you'd really like to make it difficult for decks with counterspells to counter corpse dance.

I just recommend this because Tortured Existence is one of black's "secrets" for casual play. Card is nuts, as it turns out.

Also is more than one Snow-Covered land of any type acceptable? Like I get they are basics but I got the impression that just meant mountains, not snow-covered mountains.

Built a RW aggro deck this weekend that did very well. Almost everything in it costs 1-2 mana except I am running Sunforger and the RW liege. And one Master Warcraft.

Liege is tremendous fun, obviously because of the extra lightning helix off of most everything you play. Sunforger is fun because of the 1-ofs you can put in the deck and cast when you want. Abeyance; Master Warcraft; Double Cleave; etc. I realized later that it can cast Congregate! But I didn't put that in yet.

One of the other fun things about the deck is that I am running all four Wheel of Fate. Unload your hand and reload! It's amazing. I had never cast it before.

As for the "Fires of Yavimaya" deck, after talking to you guys, I feel now like it's a Pandemonium deck. I still haven't built it. And then that makes me feel like it's a Pattern of Rebirth deck.

So I guess some quantity each of:

Birds of Paradise
Llanowar Elves
Academy Rector
Pattern of Rebirth
Pandemonium
Sekki, Seasons' Guide