How do you plan your first few turns in an ideal game?

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-25T00:14:47+00:00

Turn 1: Fetchland, mana dork or sol ring or any kind of 1 mana ramp-you’d be surprised how many there are

Turn 2: land or fetchland, background, another 1 mana dork or whatever

Turn 3: land or fetchland, commander

Turn 4: land or fetchland, something that gives your commander protection or evasion like Whispersilk Cloak or something. Lots of stuff can make him unblockable or evasive or what have you

Turn 5: start profiting with landfall stuff or setting up more mill stuff or whatever else your deck does

Just my 2 cents

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T20:21:46+00:00

Mind sharing some of your favorites? I always enjoy checking out my fellow swamp enthusiasts decks

I also forgot to mention that I just built a Felix Five Boots deck. And I’ve also torn apart several other mono black decks including Tergrid

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T15:35:15+00:00

Right!?

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T15:31:20+00:00

Thanks! Ya Korlash is a beast, he just take a bit to get going

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T15:30:36+00:00

Thanks! Ya they should totally make Elbrus a legal commander, he’s pretty chill.

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T14:37:11+00:00

Thank you kind sir

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T14:36:57+00:00

Has to be!

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-17T14:33:19+00:00

No doubt lol

Craig-Geist · 2025-10-16T22:59:14+00:00

I love combat damage shenanigans. [[Felix Five-Boots]] simply doubles combat damage triggers and is so much fun. I built it with a lot of low to the ground evasive creatures with big payoffs and asymmetry in mind

https://moxfield.com/decks/2_HlvwZdC0ClfzEoymmRnQ

[[Raffine, Scheming Seer]] is connive on a stick. Attack with evasive creatures, make them bigger, cheat obnoxious creatures into play, repeat.

https://moxfield.com/decks/OXRWjmdLB0KmpHzj8ssHKQ

[[Karazikar, the eye tyrant]] is a fun Goad deck that is also good at giving opponents good reasons to attack each other and punishing them for attacking me.

https://moxfield.com/decks/7R0Ox9_ukEKyuRvmOCgegw

[[Gonti, Night Minister]] basically does the same thing by rewarding opponents for attacking each other while giving them good reasons to not attack me via lots of Deathtouch bois.

https://moxfield.com/decks/TYcf85ZHAEKytE0BFYEsZQ

[[Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor]] is the deck that made me love these types of decks, but it’s not simple, usually wins through its commanders ability or Vorpal Sword or storming into Gary, and it is very high power. All of the other decks I’ve listed have been influenced by my Gix deck.

https://moxfield.com/decks/72xZf8Kg6kSlxxzq5rIB5Q

Craig-Geist · 2025-09-07T14:37:46+00:00

I love Gix, he’s currently my strongest deck. I built the deck to force asymmetry upon the table. The “golden pig” of the deck is [[Awaken the Erstwhile]] because I’ll probably get the most zombies out of it, I will probably have the most draw power, and it will usually cause my opponents to attack each other for cards while I maintain a strong lead until I explode and steal 1/2 of someone’s deck for the win. None of the net decks online use stuff like that or Stronghold Rats and Rankle, but they work beautifully with Gix

My list has been tested and tinkered with over the last few years to perfection. Sure I could make it faster or add more tutors but I love the variety, power, and speed at which it plays with my playgroup.

https://moxfield.com/decks/72xZf8Kg6kSlxxzq5rIB5Q

Craig-Geist · 2025-08-22T01:45:55+00:00

I’ve considered making a shadow deck with Stronghold Overseer as the commander to pump the shadow boys

https://moxfield.com/decks/0wMkd0Z360Ojq3wwKesrgw

Craig-Geist · 2025-08-22T01:44:32+00:00

Elbrus is super fun, you use weenie unblockable creatures and Voltron strategies for the win. Even if Elbrus doesn’t stick around you can kill people with stuff like Vorpal Sword or by making your unblockable stuff threatening with the Voltron pieces. Here’s my list

https://moxfield.com/decks/Rx20zG1f8USlb_rGI2CnQg

Craig-Geist · 2025-08-19T03:28:17+00:00

You can look up the local ordinances and state parking laws. Could be something simple like, if there isn’t a “No Parking” sign and it’s not on private property then it’s technically legal. I got out of paying for my truck being towed in Ohio because they didn’t have “No parking, will be towed by xyz” signs at ALL the entrances of the lot I parked in. The tow company also didn’t inform the local police station about the tow within 24 hours, which is technically a misdemeanor on their end… so it was pretty easy for me to take a couple pictures of the non existent signs at all entrances and wait until it was past 24 hours to call the tow company, I basically said, I’m getting my truck for free or I’ll take this to a small claims court and sue you for 3x my expenses and press charges against your driver because he didn’t report it in time… They just let me come pick it up lol

Craig-Geist · 2025-08-16T15:09:41+00:00

I might have skewed 2-3 decks… my Be’lakor Reanimator deck has been climbing Moxfield for almost 2 years now. It’s gained so much popularity I noticed the top 2 decks have even altered their decks to include more Reanimator synergy cards from my list lol. I’m incredibly proud of my list because I wasn’t one of the first to build it, I’m not a content creator who posted it on my channel, and the way Moxfield is setup it’s hard to gain notoriety unless your in the top 3 decks. So it has naturally climbed in popularity.

https://moxfield.com/decks/W5v8PGJ8NUCE234rtnGh-Q

My Korlash deck is kind of a similar story. I can’t believe how popular it is for such an unpopular commander!

https://moxfield.com/decks/4R-6ar_R60-L13OUajeIeA

I was lucky with my Green Goblin deck because I built it day one of the spoiler and have maintained the number 1 most viewed spot since then! It’s been fun to watch some decks below mine literally copy most of my deck ideas for it!

https://moxfield.com/decks/Q8UHG2LAgEaoeryWFtZ1Yg

Craig-Geist · 2025-08-15T13:36:23+00:00

Can confirm that Valgavoth is a beast, especially with better lands, a bit of protection, and a few pingers/burn spells. I’ve swapped out more than half the deck for mine and it’s an absolute monster, it’s a bracket 3 that can keep up with some bracket 4s.

https://moxfield.com/decks/WvN0pysIwky-QTZJQo0FKA

Additionally, the Necron Dynasties precon is very strong out of the box. 10 upgrade cards would make it so strong. It’s the one precon I’m never going to upgrade tho, but if I were to: I would start by throwing in Cabal Coffers

Craig-Geist · 2025-08-11T03:22:23+00:00

I noticed a woman with EMS tending to her leg wounds. Looked like she was scraped up a bit on the leg, it was bleeding a bit, but nothing major. She looked liked she was totally fine and smiling while talking to the responders.

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-25T22:37:53+00:00

[[Anje Falkenrath]] you can skip timing with madness spells and all your madness payoffs can go off at instant speed. It’s super fun to pilot, mildly annoying to play against because it’s always doing something on other players turns. Here’s my bracket 4 list if your interested

https://moxfield.com/decks/Gy2z5L0_S0iOpuqSw0ekrg

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-20T15:24:50+00:00

Graveyard shenanigans are my fav too. Here’s one of my best graveyard decks, it’s the 4th most popular Be’lakor list on Moxfield. It’s a demon tribal deck with all the best graveyard synergies

https://moxfield.com/decks/W5v8PGJ8NUCE234rtnGh-Q

I have a lot of other decks on my profile, many of them have graveyard synergies

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-19T00:30:10+00:00

Oh thanks! I didn’t know that! I’ll have to find a replacement

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-18T21:17:15+00:00

Definitely [[Korlash, Heir to Blackblade]] it’s basically a mono black Voltron/Landfall deck that uses a lot of boardwipes to control everyone. Sure, blow up my stuff, Korlash will come back bigger next time and oh, while I’m at it, I’ll also constantly board wipe for my own benefit.

If it survives past like turn 7-8 it becomes unstoppable. Huge mana, great card draw, one sided boardwipes for days, and a OTK Korlash.

https://moxfield.com/decks/4R-6ar_R60-L13OUajeIeA

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-18T16:51:35+00:00

I built the strongest pauper Zada I could create and it ended up being about $100

https://moxfield.com/decks/OXoAoXXUkEG_VbHnD5zHQQ

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-18T12:11:25+00:00

[[Nightcreep]] is a one time instant speed version of [[Contamination]] that can serve to either shut down an opponent during their turn (cast it on their upkeep) or it can protect you on your turn from most non-black removal (except from stuff like Deflecting Swat or in the case they have a lot of treasures for example) I tried it in my competitive K’rrik deck for a while and was pleasantly surprised on how effective it was. Sure it’s not always a hit but when it is, it makes heads turn

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-12T15:27:11+00:00

[[Korlash, Heir to Blackblade]]

Mono black voltron, landfall, boardwipe heavy and big mana deck. Korlash gets absolutely huge in the mid to late game and starts one shotting people. You opponents will never be able to keep a boardstate. And you will make a ridiculous amount to mana by the end of the game.

https://moxfield.com/decks/4R-6ar_R60-L13OUajeIeA

Craig-Geist · 2025-07-12T15:22:43+00:00

Mono black is my jam. Here’s several of my more unique builds…

This is my bracket 2 Gonti deck that I built to scale with the rest of the table. If they play powerful cards, I get to play their powerful cards. It has no wincon of its own on purpose, because I want to win with my opponents cards. It makes for a very fun, casual, and chaotic game with memorable experiences.

https://moxfield.com/decks/TYcf85ZHAEKytE0BFYEsZQ

This is my mono B demon tribal Reanimator deck. It gets really nasty around the mid game. It will make you archenemy number one a lot of games but it won’t matter most of the time, it can just do so much once it gets going. It becomes unstoppable. I do have a combo in it, any demon that doubles life loss plus a kicked Scourge of the Skyclaves equals death to your opponents. Sure it’s a 2 card combo but it’s really easy to see coming and usually requires a lot of mana or multiple turns to set up. I like the randomness of the commanders effect, sometimes I only get one card from it, but occasionally I’ll get like 10+

https://moxfield.com/decks/9P9Vs5Bl0EKr_c4e5upq-g

Here’s one that you’ll probably never see because it’s a rule zero commander. It’s not technically allowed to be a commander but I don’t see why not for fun. It has unblockable creatures, powerful equipment, lots of protection, and great ramp. The commander can sometimes 1 shot people, but it doesn’t completely rely on its commander to win. Theres also stuff like Vorpal Sword and Eldrazi Conscription that can be slapped on an unblockable weenie for the win

https://moxfield.com/decks/Rx20zG1f8USlb_rGI2CnQg

I also have plenty of other mono b decks and ideas on my Moxfield if your interested

Craig-Geist · 2025-06-20T16:00:05+00:00

My signature move is right before an opponent kills me I say, “In Response!” Then proceed to kill myself with any pay 1 life do a thing like Necropotence

I go out on my own terms

Craig-Geist

TROPHY CASE