There's something about Magic [The Gathering]

[Marpy]

I'm not sure if any of you here have ever heard, or even played Magic: The Gathering. It's a classic card game, that's been around for many, many years. And for those of you who do care, it's only a few days 'till the newest set's prerelease, Shadowmoor. Now, I'm normally the person who hangs around the Wizard's site when it's close to prerelease, and carefully look over each and every preview card, and wet myself when I see something that just jumps off my monitor, and into my hot new mental decklist. But this time, when I look over at Shadowmoor, I get a little more... reminiscent. There are now new types of cards that just bent the way the game played; equipments, planeswalkers, tribal. And now they have a few more new things that further bend the rules; the untap symbol, mono-colored hybrids. It, in a way, makes me miss when I was real young. When I played only casually with my older brothers. Back in sets like Onslaught, where I played as little colored spells as I could, to make way for my favorite card type: artifact.
Ever since Magic's birth, I loved the artifacts. Both from the stand-point that 'any deck can play this card', to the whole flavor behind artifacts. Two wizards, standing on opposite ends of the arena. My rival lifts his hands, and summons forth a massive fireball. I respond by waving my hand, and erecting a massive wall of sheer steel, to protect myself from his attacks. All the while preparing my mechanical minions on the other side of the wall.
And then... Mirrodin came out. I just saw a set full of artifacts, and I was happy. Well, until I found everyone playing artifacts, thanks to that silly little affinity deck. So I merely sighed, and pushed away my dream of spells vs, artifacts for just a little while. And now, thanks to the wealth of artifacts back in 10th edition, my muse was struck back up, and I attempt to fight fire with metal once more. So to all you elves, all you faeries, all you rouges...

Spoiler: Behold, the Power of Steel! (Type 2)

4x Bottle Gnomes
4x Icy Manipluator
4x Rod of Ruin
4x Mind Stone
4x Cloud Key
3x Fountain of Youth
3x Jayemdae Tome
3x Serrated Arrows
3x Sculpting Steel
3x Razormane Masticore
3x Triskealavus
2x Platinum Angel

8x Island
4x Desert
4x Vesuva
2x Academy Ruins
2x Urza's Factory

Holy crap, no colored spells at all! That's right, it only uses a little blue mana for the ruins. Does the deck work? To be honest, I've only tested it once, against a Idyllic Tutor/Enduring Renewal deck. And I must say, this deck did MASTERFULLY against it. Although he managed to drop the tutor and fetch out the renewal real early, and play a few cards like Storm Bind, and Dragon Roost. I got a little lucky when he tutor fetched a Story Circle, a little worried that I hadn't played anything blue, yet I obviously had blue mana. Oh, the surprise value of the deck...
But I digress. I managed to drop a few manipulators, fountains of youth, and the like that kept me alive for the 15 turns it took me to draw one of my Razormanes, or my Triskealavus[es?]. Wait, wait.. I survived 5/5 dragon creatures for a good 10 turns? Yes! Through the overlooked Icy Manipulators, and the good ol' Fountain of Youth. He was always just out of fatal range. And it's not like he could have swung again, all his dragons died to my serrated arrows, rods of ruins and the SIX deserts I had in play. Once I finally drew into my Triskealavus, which I played for 3 mana, thanks to cloud key, the game was pretty much over. I'd drop the trisk, make the babies, kill the trisk with the rod of ruin, put trisk ontop of the deck with the ruins, and use the tomb to draw it again. Until I had 20 little babies to blast him for 20. Ah.. good times.
How the deck wins? Awesome little synergies everywhere. It can survive agro with manipulators, life gain from the gnomes, or the fountain, and blasting their creatures with 8 deserts [4 deserts and 4 Vesuva]. Most decks don't run a lot of artifact destruction, and since EVERYTHING is an artifact, just fetch it again with the ruin. O-ring may cause a few issues, but you can always just over-run with Factory babies.
Until next time, crush with the power of steel.

 

[Despain]

You're using a lot of cards that frankly... suck. Cards like Rod of Ruin have counterparts that are much better.

Of course, if you are using actual cards here, I have a lot of respect for you, man. These days, whenever you see a decklist online, you have to wonder whether people are making an internet deck or a real one. It takes a lot more creativity to build decks using real cards, and they usually turn out more like this one.

I have an artifact deck of my own, based around the Myr. I personally hated Mirrodin, because it FORCED artifacts on you, but I think that the Myr were really cute. That deck is entirely artifacts as well, and it uses three of each of Mirrodin's artifact lands instead of basics.

Your game sounded fun, nice job surviving for so long, but it sounds like it took you a ridiculously long time to get to anywhere where you could cause any damage. Your biggest problems here are in the fact that you have lots of high-mana activations costs, which could leave you in a tight spot.

For continuity's sake, I'd personally suggest taking out the islands and replacing them with Seat of the Synod, which would give you 100% artifacts. Of course that can only replace four. I'm also a bit surprised you don't have the Urzatron in here, especially with his Factory and other cards that have a high-priced activation cost. Take a look at Metalworker, too, and other cards like that which help generate mana. It would also help you eliminate the Cloud Keys, which I think are a little out of place. You might also look into replacing the Tome with Serum Tank. It might work, it might not. I really like the Mind Stones, though.

Serrated Arrows is pretty shitty removal. For four mana, you can give a creature -3/-3, and you have to space it out over three turns. The same for Rod of Ruin, it costs four mana to play, and then costs three mana for one damage. There are lots of alternatives in the form of artifact burn: Triskelion, for example, who also serves as a creature (a slightly different version of the one you have, and being a little cheaper , it might be worth the switch if you don't need the flying). Or Moonglove extract, which is much faster and more efficient.

Not so sure about Fountain of Youth, the two mana for a life is a bit pricey for not much gain, when you consider that for the same price, you can generate 0/1s with a nuisance engine (one of my favorite artifacts ever) that can chump block more than one damage.

Razormane Masticore (and Platinum Angel) seem like your main ways of winning the game here. I assume that the Academy Ruins (and the card-drawing) exist to keep the Masticore in play, and you have a choice of keeping the Masticores and maximizing their weakness, or replacing them with a more reliable creature. For example, a Library of Leng would work amazingly well with the Masticore.

I really like Vesuva and the way it works with the ruins and Desert.

The bottle gnomes I like. Who doesn't?

Good luck.

 

[Marpy]

Well, I guess that is an error on my part. I meant to mention that this deck is, currently, Type-2. However, I have not thought about Moonglove Extract, which also has some rather crazy synergy with the ruins. And for the most part, mana cost has never really bothered me in this deck when I test it solo. A lot of the things I can just accelerate into, due to Mind Stones, and Cloud Key reduction.
Again, I meant to state this deck was type 2. I may go back and make a casual extended version of this deck, but my FNM tournaments are all type 2, so I doubt it.

 

[neomatrixjc]

Well first of all onslaught set was all right, but my favorite sets were Mirage, Urza Saga, Stronghold, and tempest
I had a really good dragon deck back in the day, A good black and white deck  or a black and green deck did good as well
but for me onslaught is when mtg took a twist, i can remember when you only played with instants(or 'interrupts'), sorceries, enchantments(global or local), artifacts, and the the red, white, green, blue, and black cards, no equipment
and in my mind MTG will always be the best CCG to hit the shelves,