Geist Aggro (Updated)

[Zero_Origin]

Deck
Creatures 18 4 Doomed Traveler 3 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Drogskol Captain 4 Dungeon Geists 3 Geist-Honored Monk Spells 19 4 Faith’s Shield 4 Silent Departure 4 Intangible Virtue 4 Midnight Haunting 3 Cackling Counterpart	Land 23 3 Moorland Haunt 9 Plains 8 Islands 3 Evolving Wilds	Sideboard 3 Grafdigger's Cage 3 Dissipate 3 Nevermore 1 Cackling Counterpart 3 Witchbane Orb 2 Divine Reckoning

Notable changes have been made after testing the original decklist.

[Scotty Styles]

Why no Geist of Saint Traft? Or are you just trying to cram every U/W Dark Ascension spirit in one deck?

[VeritasVertigo]

Wedge some in there with some Isolated Chapels and a couple of swamps for some Lingering Souls flashback.

And in my opinion, the best thing about the DKA spirits is their ability to control the battlefield. Three Nibli (?) are able to tap a target creature when they either ETB, attack, or pay and tap and that's HUGE. Especially on turn 3 and 4. Strap a Curiosity on another creature, tap down their blocker and say hello to mr. card advantage.

Pile on some Burden of Guilt for even more cheap control-y fun.

[the_cardfather]

Were I to build this, I'd do something like the following:

Based on Jelger Wiegersma's PTDKA T8 Standard Deck.

Deck
Lands (22) 4 Isolated Chapel 2 Swamp 8 Island 4 Plains 2 Evolving Wilds 2 Moorland Haunt Creatures (17) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Drogskol Captain 2 Dungeon Geist 3 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Snapcaster Mage	Spells (21) 4 Silent Departure 3 Dissipate 2 Tragic Slip 2 Faith's Shield 4 Lingering Souls 1 Urgent Exorcism 2 Break of Day 3 Thought Scour

Personally I think WUr Humans is going to be the better weenie deck though.

[VeritasVertigo]

I went and rebuilt this deck after a first try, as it just wasn't aggro-y enough. So here's my second shot at this:

Deck
Creatures 4 Doomed Traveler 2 Snapcaster Mage 4 Drogskol Captain 3 Niblis of the Breath 3 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Dungeon Geists 1 Angel of Flight Alabaster Spells 4 Midnight Haunting 4 Lingering Souls 2 Cackling Counterpart 2 Dissipate	Enchantments 4 Intangible Virtue Land 3 Isolated Chapel 2 Shimmering Grotto 2 Vault of the Archangel 2 Moorland Haunt Basic Lands 8 Plains 7 Island

The sideboard is in flux right now, with cards like Claustrophobia, Rebuke, Smite the Monsterous, Dissipate, and a Drogskul Reaver. Haven't gotten to test it yet, so not sure exactly what I would include against certain enemy decks.

Basically trying to just run over people with a bunch of hexproof, pumped, vigilance spirit tokens. Drop some Traft in there for another win-con (pumped by captains he can finally survive some combat).

I'm still on the fence with the Niblis of the Urn. It'll definitely help push through damage. I think I'd rather see a dissipate or a snapcaster MORE than Urn late game, but the Urn really helps the deck curve out at the two drop spot. I'll test it both ways and I guess I'll have the Urn against aggro decks and Snap/Dissipate against Stompy and Control decks.

Counterpart can copy the captain (a poor subsitute for Phantasmal Image, but it works), dungeon geists, or a 4/4 angel token, all with immediate board changing results.

Angel of Flight Alabaster is there to grab a late game Traft, Dungeon Geists, or Captain back from the graveyard.

Update:

Deck
Creatures 4 Doomed Traveler 2 Snapcaster Mage 4 Drogskul Captain 3 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Dungeon Geists 3 Mindshrieker 3 Niblis of the Urn Sorcery 4 Lingering Souls Instant 4 Midnight Haunting 2 Dissipate	Enchantment 4 Intangible Virtue Land 3 Isolated Chapel 3 Evolving Wilds 2 Moorland Haunt Basic Land 9 Plains 6 Island 1 Swamp

[BraveGhost]

Thought Scour works really well with Snapcaster Mage, Lingering Souls, Moorland Haunt, Silent Departure and Runechanter's Pike.

I'm trying to piece together a deck maybe something like that, but I have a feeling all the token hate people will be running for the BW decks people want to run will just kill all my X/1s as well.

[telemetry]

Deck
Creatures (18) 4 Doomed Traveler 4 Niblis of the Urn 4 Drogskol Captain 2 Dungeon Geists 2 Geist-Honored Monk 2 Geist of Saint Traft Tokens (14) 4 Lingering Souls 4 Midnight Haunting 2 Cackling Counterpart 4 Intangible Virtue	Spells (4) 2 Divination 2 Dissipate Land (24) 2 Moorland Haunt 4 Isolated Chapel 1 Evolving Wilds 1 Swamp 9 Island 7 Plains

Sideboard (w.i.p.)
Grafdigger's Cage
Dissipate
Divine Reckoning
Witchbane Orb
Purify The Grave

My current take on this deck. Prior to the listed revision, I was running:
-2 Geist of Saint Traft
-2 Divination
+2 Dissipate
+2 Thought Scour

Dissipate tends to just sit around in my hand, since most of my mana is always tapped out casting 2 & 3 drops, I might follow Zero_Origin idea and put them all in the SB.

Tried and didn't really like the Snapcaster Mage route, he seemed to slow the deck down a little while many time's I've had better top-deck draws to play.

My initial iteration of this deck did not run Geist of Saint Traft and still preformed very well against most block-archetypes apart from Dredge and mBlack Zombies being a bit tough.

Grafdigger's Cage
Dissipate
Divine Reckoning
Witchbane Orb

[Zero_Origin]

Haven't been back on the forums for awhile, but I'm glad to see there's still some interest in this decklist. After further testing I came up with a list that has some more tempo/control to it, and gave up on my stubborn (and stupid) reservation to leave black out of the mana base for simplicities sake. This is what it looks like now:

Deck
Creatures 18 4 Doomed Traveler 4 Niblis of the Urn 3 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Drogkskol Captain 3 Dungeon Geists Spells 19 4 Silent Departure 3 Burden of Guilt 4 Intangible Virtue 4 Lingering Souls 4 Midnight Haunting	Land 23 4 Isolated Chapel 2 Moorland Haunt 2 Evolving Wilds 7 Plains 7 Island 1 Swamp

Geist-Honored and Cackling Counterpart came out because the deck needed to be faster (in order to keep up with WR or WGr Human decks). Faith's Shield lost out in favor of Silent Departure/Burden of Guilt for more control because - as telemetry mentioned - there were often too many problem creatures (from Dredge, Zombies, and sometimes Werewolves) than a set of Dungeon Geists could handle.

I'm really liking how the deck has been performing. It's not top tier, but definitely solid and a lot of fun nonetheless! How has it been performing for you guys?

[shadowstalker98]

So, now that Intangible Virtue and Lingering Souls are gone, what are they going to be replaced with?

[pregina]

Now with the bannings, I feel this deck is well positioned. Without all the token shennanigans, I believe the biggest threats in the format are the undying creatures and humans. Without good mass removal in the format and given the fact that undying is naturally resistant to mass removal, the best way to deal with these threats is one for one. Claustrophobia, burden of guilt, dungeon geists, all serve as ways of locking down a vorapede, geralf's messanger, champion of the parish, etc. while allowing incremental board advantage. This is my take on spirits, its very rough, but I believe we should look at possibly moving into uwr, as it gives us access to the best mana in the format in sulruf falls and clifftoop retreat. I think there is more worth splashing in red, i just haven't thought of what would be worthy of splashing, brimstone volley, geistflame, etc. Also, against humans, the maindeck rolling tremblor is a house.

4 dungeon geists
4 drogskol captain
3 geist of saint traft
3 drogskol reaver
2 tower geist

4 claustrophobia
4 think twice
4 midnight haunting
4 burden of guilt
3 rolling tremblor
2 dissipate

2 evolving wild
3 moorland haunt
4 clifftop retreat
4 sulfur falls
4 plains
6 island

Sideboard:
3 witchbane orb
2 rolling tremblor
3 blasphemous act
2 dissipate
2 divine reckoning
3 graffdigger's cage

Input would be great.

[swiftyman]

After I just saw the bannings about 20 minutes ago my mind Immediately went to UWr Geist aggro. I'm wondering if the best avenue might be to model it after standard Delver decks though with some number of Runechanter's Pike and/or Spectral flight.

Obviously a fair amount would have to be changed but you still have Delver, Stalker, Snapmage, GoST, and other options. The disruption is, obviously, less efficient but I'm still going to attempt to make it work; if I can figure out the manabase.

[shadowstalker98]

y add the red as well? I think UW aggro should be good enough and that's what I'm aiming for atm. Spectral Rider, Niblis of the Urn, the usual stuff and working on the rest

[swiftyman]

The manabase doesn't get much worse (if at all) by adding red, and brimstone volley can provide some excellent reach. And if the deck ends up keeping a token sub-theme hellrider can be added, as well as the flash back on rally the peasants.

[shadowstalker98]

With the release of Avacyn Restored. I like the blue flying pumper card. We can possibly make this deck more focused on evasion through air?