MTG Salvation

Out of curiosity, are these decks out of print now? Is that why the prices are driving up, they are that much harder to find? There's still quite a few of all of them hanging around my local stores - would it be a reasonable investment to pick up the ninja or chaos one and break them down to sell?

Thanks

I know people are complaining about not having access to answers for certain card types, but you have Oblivion Ring and Beast Within. In my build, I only run beast within and it is generally sufficient. Grand Abolisher will ruin your day, but I can't think of the last time I saw someone play that, and in that case, you just cast your fog in response and then do that DoJ you've been holding next turn.

On control decks:
My preference for control decks is to sideboard into an "aggressive" version of the turbo fog. Since I am running creature-less, I watch them sideboard in their whole board to ditch removal, board wipes, etc so I bring in Jace's Archivist and a counterspell suite and try and speed things up a little bit for game 2.

On direct damage:
Between timely reinforcements and blunt the assault, you should be able to last through some burn even in game 1, and game 2 can get much better. Most WRR and similar lists will be running a 3-4 slagstorms and maybe some inferno titans. Those are easy to gain enough life to avoid. The worry is bonfire of the damned, but hopefully you are reducing their chance of miracle-ing it by drawing them 3 extra cards per turn. Out of my sideboard comes additional lifegain in 1 more timely and 2 more blunt the assaults, as well as the key card of Witchbane Orb.

On timed play:
It really does depend on the person you are playing against whether you go to time. The vast majority of your turns will be draw your cards, cast 1 sorcery/rites/etc, pass turn. That being said, it can be somewhat of a viable strategy to try to eke out game 1 and then just let game 2 go to the time limit. Really puts all your eggs in one basket on that game 1 though, because they can do the exact same thing to you (and probably still not be considered slow play).

If you want to go real janky, which is always the best for an FNM in my opinion, you can try for living the dream of Blood Artist + Spiteful Shadows + Blasphemous Act, which should outright kill your opponent. Will probably only work for the first game or so, but it should turn some heads if you can assemble it.

As mentioned above, the goals of turbo fog are quite different from a normal deck. A turbofog deck should run between 8-16 fog or pseudo-fog effects, with the goal being to be able to cast 1 every turn after turn 4 or so. This is then enabled by the fact that you are drawing a bunch of extra cards each turn, filling your hand back up with fogs. The other thing turbofog needs to do is nullify non-creature threats - Beast Within is a great card to deal with planeswalkers, O-rings and other problems. Leyline of Sanctity and Witchbane Orb deal well with burn, which can be the biggest liability for this deck. Lifegain can also help offset that.

So long story short:
is fog good in turbo fog? YES
is fog good in any other deck? Likely, no


PS You can actually almost build a reasonable turbo-fog with the current standard pool, although it's not nearly as good as it was when howling mine + jace beleren were around.

I'm liking the inclusion of mitotic slime for devour there

Excitotoxic, your box is missing a card in column 1.

I will update the post later this evening if you want to check back for updating into your spreadsheet. I have the paper I scratched it down on at home, so I can get you the data.

Here is the box I opened. English, made in USA (pretty sure - EN###### for serial number)

Left
Arcane Melee
Demonlord of Ashmouth
Lunar Mystic
Descent into Madness
Devastation Tide
Spirit Away
Harvester of Souls
Conjurer's Closet
Alchemist's Refuge
Tibalt, the Fiend Blooded
Terminus
Gloom Surgeon

Center
Dread Slaver
Cavern of Souls
Silverblade Paladin
Divine Deflection
Descendent's Path
Rite of Ruin
Wild Defiance
Misthollow Griffin
Slayer's Stronghold
Archwing Dragon
Burn at the Stake
Demonic Rising

Right
Exquisite Blood
[/B]Primal Surge
Angel of Jubilation
Lone Revenant
Deadeye Navigator
Cathar's Crusade
[B]Craterhoof Behemoth
Tyrant of Discord
Soul of the Harvest
Wolfir Silverheart
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Divine Deflection

Sort of interesting to see the almost lack of repeats. May indicate that it will be more easily mappable? Since by chance, the likelihood of getting repeats is pretty good. (Divine deflection was the only repeat, and another rare that was in foil).

EDIT: Updated column 1

This is a pretty sweet little deck idea. The other nice thing being that if your combo goes off and Blood Artist is on the field, it will trigger off of every death, putting you above 20 for sure.

Also, hate to be that guy - but you know what this could use? Lingering Souls. Chumps, reduces cost on act and maybe gets in a little damage via combat or the Blood Artist.

Hi,

I have a question directed towards store owners and tournament organizers (or anyone else knowledgeable):

For a pre-release event, what does Wizards supply as far as prize support? As a store are you having to shell out for packs into the prize pool or does Wizards offer some free packs for prizes?

I am curious, because as I watch my local store raise its prices to ~$35 for a prerelease event, I am fairly appalled since other places can still offer a $25 price tag. So I guess - is the store owner just being greedy and upping the prices, or is this a necessity because there is not enough prize support from Wizards?

Thanks for your time.

Tunnel vision into tombstone stairwell with deathbringer thoctar out

Actually, the correct move is Tunnel Vision into Zombie Apocalypse!

But seriously, zombies can be fun. You just load up on every lord possible (like 7ish), get your token makers as well and some big fatties like Thraximundar to finish people off. It's not the most competitive of decks, but it sure is fun to play.

Also, Deathbringer Thoctar makes the token players incredibly sad - he's like a machinegun

Go to 'advanced' next to search and there is a check mark for 'search closed auctions' It will then display unsold auctions in red, and sold auctions in green.

Did Walmart just do a huge reissue of these? I came across like 8 in Wal-Mart face out on the package. Should I go buy them up or did they just release a ton of them and thus make them worthless?

Hi there all. I recently made a deck using Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as my general and so far I love it. However, I am going to a small local (1v1) competition and would love any/all tips on improving this list and making it more competitive. Moderate budget restrictions apply (probably won't go buy Rev duals etc.).

The deck is typical U/W control using lots of card advantage generators and taxing other peoples things to grind down opponent resources. There's also a lot of enter the battlefield and bounce effects to reuse creature effects. Note that every creatures should have a decent ETB ability or be a good enough advantage/beater to be included.

Here is the list in typical format:


Here is the list by function:



There is quite a bit of fat that could be trimmed and I am guessing that something like Karmic Justice loses some value in 1v1, but I don't know, maybe others can give me some advice on that sort of thing! Thanks!

Wolf Run is a piece of cake for us. Tragic slip their mana dork and you'll be good to go. Also just have your removal ready when they pump it up. Sideboard Manabarbs in for them and you ruin their day.

Tokens and Planeswalkers are the big problem for this deck. Whipflare is sometimes enough (usually for the planeswalker version) or Corrosive Gale seems to be good as well. Ratchet bomb is another option.