MTG Salvation

I've taken this deck to FNM twice now and gone 2-2 both times. Its fun and has explosive hands sometimes.




Sideboard was deathrite shamans, some sacrifice spells for hexproofs. tragic slips for Aristocrats.

Great interactions:
Krasis into Corpsejack is a lot of counters on your turn 1-2 creatures, up to 4 more on E1 meaning he can easily be a 7/7 attacking on turn 4. Corpsejack as a 4 of is a MUST, its what makes the deck able to blast through other agro decks.

Rancor is a must, early fatties means we need to land some hits and not be chumped with lingering souls and things with regen.

Predator Ooze is better games 2-3, his weakness is things that return him to hand/top of library. That sort of effect isn't what they want to bring in against an evolve deck.

Some under performers:
Desecration demon- I think i am just going to take him out and straight up replace with Cloudfin raptor.
Disciple of Bolas - I think this is going to the sideboard. The games this deck wins on game 1 are rarely the ones where I'm not hitting as hard as i can turn 4/5. Considering replacing with Simic charms for a surprise boost or hexproof.


Cards i would NOT run that i see being brought up here:
Elusive Krasis: way way too slow. Throw a rancor on E1 or predator ooze for the same effect.

Master biomancer: a late game card, only helping you the turn after you play it. Realistically your best case is you drop him turn 4, play a creature turn 5, and then attack turn 6. Thats not agro, that is midrange. Without resilience or card advantage our midrange is pretty bad.

Quirion Dryad: This isn't that bad only because its 2 mana. But it doesn't evolve anything and way too many of our spells don't trigger her. Strangleroot isn't amazing, but it helps get through some early turn 2 damage and can trigger evolve twice.

Zameck Guildmage: Interacts great with undying, but terrible with evolve. We WANT the +1 counters in evolve and had to work to earn them. All he does here is durdle a bit.

When you make a token that is a copy of a creature, you copy the text of the permanent being copied, not any effects being applied to it.

So, in your case, you would get a token that is a land with the ability to become a 3/4 creature.

If i have a Scion of Vitu-Ghazi on the field, and cast cackling counterpart targeting it, what happens?

Basically, I am not sure if the token created by cackling counterpart is considered "cast from hand".

Also, how does this interact with Clone?

I am a little confused as to why the damage would be prevented. The enchant (defang) is no longer in play. The enchant didn't grant anything to the creature (such as lifelink).

sorry, I'm all confused...

If i have a boros reckoner in play, enchanted by defang, and it is done lethal damage by searing spear, is 3 damage done by Boros Reckoner to a target creature or is it prevented?

-thanks

The new rules were posted today on the mothership about missed triggers rules changes. The Comp REL rules were pretty clear, however I felt the Regular REL rules were a little vague (maybe its just me).

If at an FNM, a simple non-rules changing trigger is missed (lets pick evolve on player 1's creature).

At what point can player 1 still put the +1/+1 counter on the creature?
When he resolves a second creature that turn and realizes he missed the first evolve? When he goes into attack phase and realizes there is no dice on the creature? After damage is dealt and it didn't add up to what he thought it should?

We don't typically play with active judges other than the shop owner. If we do call one over, what should the judge do in these situations?

I still need to playtest this out, but I'm just not sold on gyre sage. I feel like farseek or arbor elf is just better. I notice you took out both of those. Any reason why?

You also took out a lot of the reactive cards, I'm not sure I want to main deck 0 answers. Even rapid hybridization seems good, and we can run detention spheres too. A deck that is pushing massive card advantage should be digging for something that gets them out of hard spots. Realistically we aren't going to be casting more than 1-2 fatties a turn even under ideal situations, and none of our big guys are "1 turn clock deal with me now" bombs.

Also, why loxodon smiter? Right now a 4/4 at the 3cmc point is good, but why not a centaur healer instead? any of the early plays from red agro decks are going to die from that just as easily. Also, a 3 drop centaur healer is a great target for a 4 drop resto angel.

Here is what I will be playtesting this weekend, I feel that it has a very weak 3cmc spot and plan to work on cutting something, just not sure what.

Quote from proxysetting

I would highly advise checking out Chapin's article in regard to this list.

unfortunately, his article is paywalled at SCG. I can see the preview though, but that amounts to nothing more than "dis card is good"

I've been looking into this deck style myself, but haven't had time to play test it yet. I want to contribute to conversation here though, so here are some cards I feel are worth considering.

Master Biomancer - great interaction with all of our beat-stick cards. Having a biomancer on board and casting zegana means she enters as a 5/5 (assuming no other creatures).

Garruk, Primal Hunter - his -3 ability gives us some redundancy if we can't find a Zegana

Wolfir Silverheart - a lot of power, put this on a biomancer and your arbor elves enter as 6/6. Pair Zegana with him and she enters as a 9/9. Feels like a win-more card, but who knows at this point.

Snapcaster Mage - not sure on this one, but if a biomancer is in play its a flashed in 4/3 in adition to its other effects. Probably won't make the cut though.

Borderland Ranger - curve is pretty high, so either this guy or keyrunes.

Gridlock, Aetherize - both of these are great tempo cards. With us making huge beat stick creatures these can both allow us to slow down the opponent early game or late game remove their blockers.

Detention Sphere - a solid catch-all removal spell.

Any of the bant colored charms should be considered as well.

Edit: one more to talk about
Rancor - if we bring in any of big pumpers i mentioned (biomancer, silverheart), we need some way to get over blockers. Should consider using rancor. Also rancor increases Zegana and Garruk's draw potential.

A few things to note about how you are using this deck.

First, hydroform will not trigger evolve. The permanent entered the battlefield as a land, you then turn it into a 3/3 creature. No creature ever "enters the battlefield" to trigger evolve.

Illusionist Bracers only effect activated abilities, not triggered abilities. Activated abilities are in the form [cost] : [effect]. When in doubt, look for the colon between them. Triggered abilities are things that happen automatically when something else happens.
Triggered abilities look like "When [event], [action]". Notice there is no colon and almost always there is the word "when" or "whenever".

All of that being said, none of those comments change the effectiveness of what you have for a deck. It seems like a reasonable beat down deck. I'd consider upping the threat density and maybe including some Aetherize and Gridlock instead of spectral flight and hands of binding.

Good luck!

I took my brew of BUG Zombies to a GP Trial last weekend. Ended up making it to the final round, however I knew I wasn't going to be able to make the GP so I conceded, he took the byes and we split the rest of the prize pool.

Swiss rounds, 3-1-1 drawing into top-8. Top 8 was 2-0-1 intentional draw (officially a concede).

Also, I went 4-1 at the FNM the night before, losing to BR zombies in a close game 3.




Round 1 - Black Red Blue control - 2-0 win
His removal package didn't have sever the bloodline and I got down early caverns both games. His izzet staticaster gave me a hard time game 2 though, but i was able to eventually get it off the board and get in for fatal. Nothing of note happened other than that.

Round 2 - GW Agro 2-0 win
Standard GW Agro with silverblade and sublime. This is the first game that Disciple of Bolas really shined. I was able to sacrifice a messenger with a blood artist and captain down, while the messenger also had a rancor on it. So draw 6 cards, gain 7 life, opponent loses 4 life. This let me restock with a hand full of removal and go in for fatal next turn.

Round 3 - GW Humans 1-2 loss
His variant didn't run sublime, but did run fencing ace and mayors. It was brutal fast. I'm going to need to adjust my sideboard more for this matchup. To many of my early creatures can't block right away and i have almost no answer to knight of glory.

Round 4 - BR Zombies - 2-1 win (opponent was paired down)
Going into this, i thought it was a bad matchup for me. Mostly because he has pillar and I don't. However he keeps a 1 lander with 2 gravecrawlers and a diregraf ghoul and I am able to stem the bleeding from that opener before he gets much on the ground game 1. Giving him his first loss of the night. He has an explosive game 2 when i flounder on awkward land. Game 3, I've got a solid board state with messenger, captain, lotleth down. I'm a little mana flooded with having 5 mana down turn 7. He has fatal on board with a Thundermaw I can't block. Drop my Desciple on a Messenger with its +1/+1 counter on it already and captain down, letting me draw 5 cards. One of them is a tragic slip that i use immediately on the dragon. I get fatal damage in next turn.

Round 5 - ID into top 8

Top 8 Round 1 - American Mid 2-0 win
Early GoST gave me trouble, but i kept blockers back so he couldnt swing. He wen't in late for near fatal with a GoST and Thundermaw, i blocked the geist, trading with it. Next turn i drop a lilly and make him sac the thundermaw and go in for fatal a turn later. Game 2 I have a stupid explosive opener with 3 1-drops the first 2 turns, messenger, captain. He has a bunch of tap lands and just can't stem the bleeding fast enough.

Top 8 Round 2 - Bant Control 2-0 win.
Both games i get a turn 2 cavern of souls down. He gives me trouble with unsummons on my captains but is forced to block messengers with resto angels, still losing life. A top decked ultimate price lets me captain + removal on the same turn. Game 2 i get another explosive start, But he gets turn 2 farseek into centuar healer into turn 4 thragtusk. I keep mana up to regen lotleth and keep the captain back. Forcing him to "trade" with my gravecrawlers. He is forced to supreme virdict, all the death triggers from captain put him at 1 life with no mana up. I untap, cast a blood artist, and abrupt decay it for fatal.

Top 8 round 3 - Draw


Overview
Cards that shined: Disciple of Bolas was amazing. Letting me restock my hand and gain tons of line is exactly what a tribal deck needs. It pairs so well with rancor and gravecrawler/messenger. Diregraf captain gives you an extra card and life while hurting the opponent 1 life. Blood artist lets you gain 1 more life and ping the opponent too.

Diregraf Captain + blood artist People arn't running terminus right now. Leaving only 2 cards that concern this deck. Pillar of flame and Sever the bloodline. These guys punish them for using removal.

Cards that didn't shine: Desecration demon never saw play, and i think he is going to be my third Disciple of Bolas.
Lilliana ended up being a weird Geth's verdict any time she saw play. I can't recommend her too much.


The all-in agro decks give me the hardest time. those decks feel to much like a coin flip. I also have no reliable way to deal with Knight of Glory. So i need to figure out a green/blue way to deal with that.

Quote from newbietech

Combo's with Angel of Serenity and thragtusks to get infinite life and infinite tokens, it also wins off of Griselbrand + Temporal Mastery to hit multiple times to win.... and the combo that usually wins in the deck is Nicol Bolas Planeswalker + Temporal Mastery to ultimate bolas and win.

how do you go infinite with angel and thrag? you can recur them for sure but it won't be infinite.

This deck seems to rely to much on the opponent durdling. Agro can outpace it and control will just counter your bombs.

I think we need you to take a minute to explain the combo here. Its not clear what the deck is trying to do besides cast expensive cards.

I don't understand, what is palisade giant doing for you? as late it is going to hit he board, they are going to be capable of doing more than 7 damage in one combat phase anyway. That is assuming they don't just use any form of removal they happen to have rotting in their hand because you have played no other threats to them.

Google Chrome has flagged forums.mtgsalvation.com as a host for malware. It is attempting to block access to the site. I don't know what could have happened to get it black listed, but I thought i would create a post here to bring it to any admin's attention.