MTG Salvation

Quote from Iceheart_Omnis »

Wow, you don't even need to come up with a contrived Artifact deck "just because", a blue-based control deck, provided it isn't hurt by Darksteel Citadel giving only colorless mana, can use this as a handy winning condition, an indestructible 5/5 for a paltry 2 mana? Sign me in.

^ This. Plus, now that the legend rule changed, every deck with black will be likely running at least a singleton Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. In a U/B control deck a fair number of times your Darksteel Citadels will just be swamps anyways. Plus it makes a great early game wall against aggro.

Quote from Biggians

Firstly, while hidden strings doesn't pump for that turn's damage, it constantly grows your heroic creatures and once it's cyphered you can use it to essentially give two of your creatures vigilance and grow them. For free. Every turn. I don't know if I would ever use gridlock as an enabler, I get that you can EOT your opponent to ping your creatures for cheap, but you only get one ping and the spell is gone. In your deck, that makes more sense, considering you're running more than 2 heroic creatures.

I don't think Hidden Strings is a bad card. My original list ran 4. My problem with hidden strings is more that it's not versatile enough for me and didn't fill a role I felt my list needed. Yours is more aggressive so it can take better advantage of Hidden Strings tapping down your opponents creatures. Precinct Captain is also a card that really values being able to connect. My list on the other hand often chooses to play a midrange aggro-control role and therefore the effect becomes slightly less useful. I could see adding back in 1-2 of them as they still a very good card.

Because of the difference in our lists I also think we have slightly different opinions on the relative value of the heroic creatures, I've never felt I was running weaker heroic creatures. I've found in my list that each of them has different matchups where they are strongest. Versus control Phalanx Leader becomes really weak while Battlewise Hoplite becomes mvp. I also haven't really found having too many targets for heroic to be an issue, if I'm in that situation I'm usually winning. On the other hand I've found that knowing I'll always have a good target for my spells is great and lets me really max out their value. For example, with 16 creatures that bring their own +1/+1 counters, Ordeals become much stronger.

Quote from Aziel

Nice list by the way MrCowFart, I played it yesterday with a different sideboard, I don't have the Ajanis. Triton tactics has proved to be an amazing counter for Anger of the Gods. Unfortunately and surprisingly I lost to a RDW in the semifinal, I didn't had the protection in the right time and he always killed my creatures in response to heroic on the early turns.

I think that Fiendslayer Paladin would be a good add in the sideboard.

Thanks! I definitely need to fine tune my sideboard plan versus red. I haven't had the opportunity to test it as thoroughly as I would like. I would try playing around their removal spells by always keeping mana open to respond to their removal spell and using triton tactics and gods willing more defensively. The key to playing this list is learning to play around EVERYTHING. Especially vs red, your creatures will quickly get outside the range of their removal.

My current sideboard plan vs RDW is
Out:

• 1 Phalanx Leader
  
• 3 Artisan of Forms
  
• 4 Ordeal of Thassa
  
• 2 Gridlock

In:

• 4 Ordeal of Heliod
  
• 4 Mizzium Skin
  
• 2 Gift of Orzhova

Absolutely don't play Ordeal of Heliod or Gift of Orzhova unless you are sure you can respond to removal coming your way. If you can land one of them the game will usually quickly turn in your favor.

I tested Hidden Strings extensively in my UW heroic list and i didn't like it. Because it's sorcery speed it usually ends up tapping down two opponents creatures and then swing in pumping creatures after damage. The problem is that this effect is only good on offense. If you are on the defensive it's mediocre. Unless you're using cards like Nivmagus Elemental that get extra mileage out of free spells I would prob cut them down to 2-3 max.

In my own list I ended up taking them out and putting in 1-2 gridlock. Instant speed is huge. I liked it's ability to tap down your opponents attackers while pumping up your creatures or to tap down potential blockers while still pumping your team before damage.

My list for reference:

All-In Green
All-In Green is back and a fairly strong metagame contender, positioned somewhere between g/w and mono red. It's almost as fast as mono red, trading the reach of burn for a more consistant creature base and a better midrange matchup. While you lose some of the raw card-power of a G/W build you have a better manabase, are faster, and gain the ability to play Burning-Tree Emissary, Reverent Hunter and Mutavault.



The easiest cards to tweak in the main are 1-2 Scavenging Ooze, Brushstrider an Elvish Mystic, a Warriors' Lesson, and a Bow of Nylea. That gives you potentially 6 slots to play around with plus the sideboard. Changing much past that would have a large effect on the deck's play.

Sideboarding Guide

Red Aggro
Out

• 1 Bow of Nylea
  
• 1 Boon Satyr
  
• 3 Warrior's Lesson

In

• 3 Ranger's Guile
  
• 2 Nylea's Disciple

UW Control
Out

• 3 Bow of Nylea
  
• 2 Warrior's Lesson
  
• 1 Elvish Mystic

In

• 2 Nylea, God of the Hunt
  
• 1 Haunted Plate Mail
  
• 1 Mutavault
  
• 2 Ranger's Guile

GW Aggro
Out

• 1 Warrior's Lesson
  
• 2 Scavenging Ooze
  
• 1 Brushstrider

In
4 Hunt the Hunter

GR Aggro
Out

• 3 Warrior's Lesson
  
• 2 Bow of Nylea

In

• 3 Hunt the Hunter
  
• 2 Ranger's Guile

BR Midrange
Out

• 3 Warrior's Lesson
  
• 1 Elvish Mystic

In

• 3 Ranger's Guile
  
• 1 Scavenging Ooze

You should definitely be running Ember Swallower over Sylvan Primordial

My reasoning for including Deathrite Shaman was it's synergy with turn 2 Grisly Salvage or Commune with the Gods. In testing it seemed to be active more so than not but I could see people being not happy with only 8 enablers. Read the Bones is certainly a more versatile card than Commune with Gods but it does have less synergy with Whip of Erebos, Commune with the Gods is better at finding Whip and helps stock your grave which Read the Bones doesn't do.

Once you drop Commune with the Gods I feel like you're better off dropping Grisly Salvage and 1-2 Whips and just playing a more Jund-style midrange strategy with Whip as a mid-late game engine. It might be that this is a better way to go in this metagame but I feel like hedging your bets and running a mix is weaker than going one way or the other.

Trostani's Summoner has a major advantage over Giant Adephage in that it's better against control because it requires a wrath to answer instead of targeted removal. This complements your Obdezats nicely as they are essentially wrath proof but vulnerable to targeted removal, forcing your opponent to diversify their answers.

Junk Whip is a midrange deck, with some similarities to Junk Reanimator, built around abusing Whip of Erebos. The current iteration of the list has some trouble with Anger of the Gods. Swapping Voice of Resurgance with Loxodon Smiter might help with this.

Oh wow, I didn't realize it stacked like that. Time for some reworking.

An attempt at a deck designed to take advantage of Whip of Erebos. The deck functions as a midrange creature deck. Whip's lifegain helps you in aggro matchups and gives you a ton of value in control matchups.

If you have multiple copies of the equipment in play you can turn them all into creatures. Also works well with mutavault and obdezat.

You guys are evaluating this card wrong. The alternate win-con is the weakest part of this card and can basically be ignored.

If you are running 4-6 gates it's basically a thawing glaciers that cost 2 more to tap in exchange for being able to tap for mana itself. If there is ever a control deck running around in standard running gates this is a great 1-2 of that will do some decent work in control matchups. It does have to compete with nephalia drownyard right now but in other colors, or after innistrad rotates there's a decent chance.

Thawing Glaciers type effects are easy to misevaluate. Journeyer's Kite saw some serious play in it's time and that took up a card slot. Being on a land is a huge benefit.

Also while returning to hand immediately stops untap land shenanigans (this wasn't what made glaciers so good) it gives you a huge benefit in that if you wanted you could search up a land every turn with just one of these, which glaciers couldn't even do.

Quote from Aoi

I'm sure that, according to the rules, after the opponent successfully draws a card on his/her draw step, you lose all priority until he/she decides to cast something (playing lands doesn't count) or switch phase (this means, you can't activaye any ability or play any spell on this timespan). I will look at the rules and paste it here as soon as I can find it, but I don't have the time right now.

You are wrong, after your opponent draws he/she get's priority but once they pass priority you will have an opportunity to cast spells/abilities before you move to the main phase.

Dryad is mostly superior to Smiter in a delver deck. It's a mana cheaper, which means it comes out earlier and it's easier to leave mana open to protect it. It also get's bigger than Smiter very quickly.

As for mizzium skin it's actually fairly relevant even for geist as very often opponents will try to trade with a two power guy (ex snapcaster) that you don't want to waste an unsummon on.

While not a super impressive example, a bant delver deck with 3x Spell Rupture main won a SCG IQ.

http://sales.starcitygames.com/deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=52907