MTG Salvation

So here is a FNM report with the deck, going 2-1-1. I was generally pleased with the deck, and felt that I should of easily gotten first, but alas luck was not on my side,as well as some down right fustration. For reference here is the decklist




Sideboard


Round 1- U/W Delver 1-1-1

Guy is playing GerryT's exact list, and doesn't really know how to fully play it.

Game 1- Game goes back and forth, but I am able to image both of his Geists and stick a Sun Titan down with two images in the bin and win then next turn.
Game 2- Gets an early Delver flip but I manage to take it out with lingering soul chumps. He then lands a FaF and grinds me out with it while I both alchemy and ponder twice and couldn't find a O-ring or Divine offering. A bit frustrating, but that happens.
Game 3- This is where it gets really frustrating as for almost the entire game I feel like outplay him for the most part (and this is where I notice him starting to play a lot slower then earlier, especially game 2 where he was winning), then he lands a sphinx and clones it as a last effort, however I Doomblade the Sphinx on upkeep and play Sun Titan returning Dead weight to take out the clone. My board is then pretty heavily stacked, with a Sun Titan, Clone, and 2 Spirits as I start pushing for the win. He then stalls out the game with snapcaster, snags and haunt tokens. One instance he had only card, ponder, used it, shuffled, drew.....stared at it for like 7 seconds.....just to use the ponder he just drew, at this moment I wanted to say something about purposely trying to slow play but generally I don't let it bother me because usually its a non factor at my LGS. Alas we go to turns, and on the last turn I have him dead on board if I connect with both titans...... but he top decked a snag the turn before and we draw.


Round 2 - U/G Splinterfright 2-0

The deck was pretty cleverly made and he definitely deserved some props, I also can see how it could easily overwhelm aggro decks and Bonyard Wurms became Tarmogoyfs really quickly. However he admitted that he was not expecting to run into Flare (No1 at the store plays control like ever) and that this was his worst possible match up, and after winning game 1 once Nihil came in it was not even close.


Round 3 - B/W Tokens 2-0

A easy match up, Game 1 I live the dream and Turn 3 alchemy, pitching a Elesh Norn and Rites, giving me a turn 4 Norn. Game 2 Sun Titan & Ratchet bomb seal the deal.


Round 4 - Naya Pod 1-2

Feeling pretty confident about this round as I have play tested against the deck a bunch.

Game 1 - He plays out turn one bird and a Doom Blade it, turn 2 pilgrim is then met with a Dead Weight. Feeling good about my position after Turn 3 I alchemy away a Image(which in hindsight was a misplay imo, for Batterskull) he plays huntmaster and I play Batterskull which nets me a good amount of life, dropping him to 14 . He metamorphs my Skull and O-Rings mine and swings in, next turn I oring His cloned Skull when he is tapped out, and create some spirts. He then starts to gavony his Huntmaster, flipping it and Wolf and eats through my blockers as a I draw blanks and they hit me hard two turns in a row, getting me down to 6, fortunately he was also only drawing lands as well besides a pilgrim he got to 3/3 off gavony. I then flashback alchemy for a Suntitan, getting a image and a ratchet bomb from the bin and kill his Ravager and Wolf Token, sighing a breath of relief, thinking that I had stabilized. He then top decks a Zealous Conscripts. I lose:-/.

Game 2 - He starts out with a bird then plays two strangleroot geist turn 2 and 3 , I play Timely turn 3 and chump his two geists to get rid of undying as well as putting me back up to 20. Stuck on 2 lands he makes a play mistake and overextends by dropping two more mana dorks and I punish him with a DoJ, giving me enough time to land Elesh Norn and win.

Game 3 - Opening Hand looked solid, 3 lands with all the colors, DoJ, Souls, Ratchet Bomb and a Divine Offering. I don't draw a 4th land for 5 turns :mad:. I lose. Very frustrating way to end the night.


Looking forward there really isn't any changes that I think the deck needed, and felt really powerful when it got going and for the most part the opening hands were nice and rarely hd to mulligan, and when I did it mulliganed well. However I am definitively really looking into Vault to make souls more then just weak chump blockers late game into real defensive threats.

I still like to have 2 ghost quarters MB as they really help in the WRR MU. I am not really worried about Moorland, but it is always nice to have that option to take it out, plus it can act as a poor mans evolving wilds if need be.

So how are people dealing with Surgical Extraction? In my testing online the card just blew me out one game with him extracting my titans and lingering souls another game where I really needed the chumps. I think the deck is starting to get more respect, so I expect to see the card more often. Now that the deck goes pretty much all in on Sun Titan, not having other real threats or ways to win besides Elesh or a single planeswalker is back breaking. I know you can play around it by not putting Sun Titans via forbidden, but even just removing Image makes the deck a lot weaker.

I just don't like how vulnerable the deck is to the card, and one of the main reasons I am worried to convert my Super friends list to it despite Solar Flares recent success.

Right now I am really liking Blade Splicer because he doesn't really rot in your hand in multiples and is stronger in some of delver's weaker MU. Having two bodies for your swords is good, and the obvious synergy with the angel is nice. I think it is meta dependent, where the splicer shines more against the aggro decks like R/G, Zombies (especially), and Humans. On the flip side splicer seems weaker in the mirror due to snag as well as against control decks.

But it's not like splicer can't hit pretty hard as well, it still swings in with 4 power against an empty board (Geist swings in typically into empty boards as well)

I think another big tech to go along with the angel is the use of FaF instead of WaP. The pro colors are pretty relevant these days and untapping your mana to fully utilize restoration and snapcaster is huge.

She has been really awesome and I like her as a 1 of in my Superfriends deck. I could easily bump her up to 2 if I got another, and I really like her and the Gidfather. Against red though if they have a card in their hand that they have been sitting on and I don't have a way to interact then I typically avoid getting to ulti her because of conscripts, her -2 with one full lingering souls nets 4 cards, which is pretty back breaking already, and if they steal her to use her -2 to draw more cards themselves that is much better then dealing with her ulti..

Either my Esper control deck or Naya Pod, Everyone pretty much plays human variants at my store and if not that some other aggro form, and both decks have a strong MU against humans, but I think ill go with my control list as I split 1st the past two FNMS with it and have the most playtime with it, and it crushes aggro like a boss.

Holy Llama while you bring up a good point and a potentially clever way to use it, I am going to have to go with mental tap here. If you opponent keeps a full grip or even a 6, there is a reason, it is a hand that provides what the decks gameplan is going to be for the rest of the game. Like I mentioned earlier, if my opponent on turn 1 keeps a hand where there really isn't any good targets, I am already winning as it means they are already in a topdeck mode without the game even starting, and now with that information I can punish them for keeping a poor hand. Also Turn one fits much better on the curve, as there is likely nothing that I will be doing that turn besides a possible Slip, which I don't play right now. I would much rather be playing a Souls turn 3 or flashbacking think twice, liliana etc(especially important depending on the information I learned about their hand) then waiting on despising turn 3. Its kinda like saving a Probe in delver on turn 3 instead because you will get to see more relevant cards outside of the lands and cards he played......... which obviously is a bad idea if you think about it. What makes probe such a good card is the fact he can be played turn 1 and knowing exactly what MU your playing before you even drop your first land, making that turn 1 ponder all the more potent as you know exactly what cards you need(Like that Gut Shot for their delver etc) from the start. Despise is not quite like that, but sometimes I find that turn 1 information for setting up my gameplan almost as valuable as taking out the creature.

Granted your idea holds some merit, against humans for example if I have enough removal to handle turns 1-3 I might save that despise for their potential hero, but the same could be said in reverse.... if they don't have the hero initially but I despise one of their early drops it now frees up my removal to answering her instead of dudes like crusader,Thalia (Which I might add IS A REALLY HUGE TARGET and most of the time much scarier then Hero for my deck and is easily more important to turn 1 Despise imo), and Silverblade Paladin.

I do think the deck is a bit underrated for sure, and I think its a good point that no one has been really brewing/trying to find new potential for the deck, despite the possible potential. I mean the deck obviously has had some real successes in the past, alot more so then any infect deck. I think a perfect boat TSteel fits right now is with RDW, its not that they are bad decks, both have some explosive and powerful starts for unprepared lists, but the meta right now is just simply unforgiving to these decks, and it doesn't help that the best hosers for these archetypes (Ancient Grudge for Steel and Timely/Purge for RDW) just happen to be really really good against the format as a whole. When I am jamming my Esper deck SB with 3 Timelys its not for RDW in mind at all but for the G/R aggro, Zombies and Humans running around, it just so happens it's a wonderful hoser against RDW, no longer do you need to be prepared with a specific card like Kor Firewalker. When I play my Naya Pod deck with 2-3 Grudges in the SB, its not because I care about TSteel, its because of all the other pods, Spheres and inkmoths, swords etc running around.

One of the big issues I think is the hate cards are just too versatile and powerful for these decks, Decks like TSteel and RDW could exploit a gap in the meta where people would skimp on hate cards more and more in their 75 in order to fight more popular decks, but now decks don't even have to try to squeeze in these cards anymore, whats already being run just so happens to crush these decks without them even being a thought.

To the OP: I feel ya man, as a avid lover of all things RDW, the deck right now is just not that good at all, sometimes its tough to want to give up on a deck that you feel has potential, but right now TSteel just can't survive in this meta.

The card is actually very well positioned right now, after being really impressed with the 3 I had last fnm, after siding it in almost every match I run a full 4 in my SB now as it can be very clutch against ramp and human decks and almost always want to see the card the first 4 turns, even in multiples. Sure the card can get pretty terrible late game, but that's no different then mana leak and if you survived long enough to get to the late game where it's a bad card then your already in a good position for winning, it answers a ton of problems control decks face, which is basically dealing with a threat before it hits the board. Its also extremely clutch these days for my planeswalker control deck because of Zealous, a lot of the time my opponent sits with the card in hand till my walker is ultimate ready and tries to steal it, despise helps prevent blowouts from that.

Cards like Strangleroot, Zealous, Thrun, Geist of Saint Traft, Titans, Karn and Garruk's and Huntmaster all cause problems for control decks when they hit the board, by either being impossible to 1 for 1 by being hexproof, or become 2 or 3 for 1s.

My last FNM I played a ramp deck who game 2 kept a very solid turn 4 titan hand, 3 lands, 2 ramps, a Primeval Titan after mulling. My turn 1 despise made that hand very very bad, as he preceded to draw into mostly ramp and dead draws the next three turns, and by the time he got a threat on the board I was already more then ready to deal with it.

She is really quite good if you can support her, 3 mana for a edict that has a good potential to 2 for 1 is strong, and even pre-board she is very versatile, Like others mentioned even if they sac a strangleroot and then kill her next turn with it she still allowed your other removal to now take it out, as well as force them to attack her. With lingering souls blockers out she can easily turn into a 2 or 3 for 1 and just be a harassment for your opponent, spending resources and attacks on her instead of you. Sure game 2 against aggro decks such as humans and R/G I side her out typically for better specific answers like timely reinforcements etc, but she is still boss on her own against Delver, ramp, and control. The key is that she is a very skill demanding card, use her poorly and yes she will seem very underwhelming, such as tossing her down on a board cluttered with weenies, but post wrath for example she can easily force your opponents in bad situations.

But as far as a must need card in flare? Not really, only Sun Titan- Image-Alchemy are must needs in my book for that deck, otherwise its pretty open or meta dependent.

I also found that 23 lands was quite alot with all 12 cantrips, I threw the list together and it just seemed to get constantly flooded, idk but I think going down to 22 might be better, but i guess it worked for him.

Calcano won Grand Prix Minneapolis, the deck could be the real deal, Bonefire is sooooo good.

The guy is a house and people def need to stock up on him, even if he is a introdeck rare, I can easily see him doubling in price no problemo. He has been so good in testing that I think am going to make the jump finally from Bant to Naya Pod in paper, I love me some image shenanigans, but nothing compares to blowing out a WRR player with their own dude.

I really like this card, after getting stomped by it at my pre-release one game I honestly felt that the card had outside potential. He definitely brings a ton of power to the board and seems to be a very strong card against ramp decks as well. The fact alone he is a decent sized body makes it so even on a plain board he is a much better investment then increasing savagery. I am for sure going to try him out in my pod lists as I think that he could be really strong.