MTG Salvation

just a question, against Control/counters could silence be useful to get the combo thru? I know its white, but when you intend to win you should have a Mox or a prism to wash the mana right? Its cheap to test the waters and if it goes thru you win, also keeps them from casting a counter off the draw of the first pysche. If it draws a mana leak or counter its just a proactive Dispel/Spell pierce. and playing a red deck proactive is preferable.

First I would like an Invite to the Google Wave.

Second, I've been doing some Orb work and it seems like there are quite a few come into battlefield effects, granted few of them may involve putting permanents into play but any card that can effect the game state when it enters play could be useful in Warp World.

Third, is admonition angel a good 3 of for the deck? it seems like with Siege-gang and other CitP cards you could pull off some shenigans. or just remove all your opponents permanents..

I think quite a few of these Level guys will see play, especially the 1, 2 and 3 drops. as long as they get p/t upgrades people will try them. Also Consider Cascade, you can cascade into them basically get the first level free, also there's gonna be A TON of accel in this set. Those spawn tokens sac for 1 colorless.

Other than that, I think they're cool and different. magic is fun, competitive really isn't competitive its who can afford to buy the new net deck so meh.

here's some more-
Battlefield- 64
End- 40
Step- 5
equal- 14
converted- 9
Mana- 56....
cost- 30 (think someone had that)

that's all I have for now. And hopefully Solmancer can update the first post soon. (Green, Red and black costs have been orbed, search for my name).

the other possible keywording probably steps on other Card game mechanics. let's see..
Evolve, Tier, Mutate, Gleaning, Graduate, Life Path uhm... yeah I'm reaching.

The thing is Finding the name and the mechanic to achieve these levels and having them both make inherit sense you go thru a few ideas and Level up/Leveling are the most grokable and most people understand Leveling.. It's in our culture, any other word would make it more complicated. magic is already complicated don't need to make it more so.

Basically designers prolly thought the same thing as you, spent 2 months trying to find something else, decided on something nifty sounding sent it off to Development and Development was like "uhm you know this mechanic.. nothing against you guys but...yeah it sounds weird... mind if we call it what you originally called it?"....

It does feel a bit phoned in, Magic Designers don't phone it in, sometimes they think that something is harmless and then it turns into Affinity, but they love the game as much as we do. I happen to agree with it, any other term would just be more confusing and more than likely people would have ended up calling it the Level up ability regardless.

fyi Darkhaze there is a seperate thread for orb results. Solmancer is compile it all in the first post. here We're gonna look at all those crazy mana costs and numbers and arbitrially throw them together and make wicked crazy cheesy cards, until someone hits us with reality..

for me.. two things I just found and added to the other thread.. XG, xxG,xB and xBB for mana costs. (there is many other costs that are O.o ). these 4 intrigue me. especially anything that has XX, granted these costs could be Level up costs but that seems odd to have x in that cost. I'm hoping for either some interesting Land search/accel or maybe tokens for green and black its prolly some sort of drain/destroy/discard.
for that +10/+10 maybe it's a critter that gets the buff when blocking/blocked by eldrazi cards? that would be interesting and thematically appropriate. I have to say I'm happy about flash coming back.. makes me happy, love that mechanic.

here's black-
xB- 1
B- 16
1B- 6
2B- 9
3B- 4
4B- 1
5B- 1
7B- 1
xBB- 1
1BB- 3
2BB- 2
3BB- 3
4BB- 1
5BB- 1
3BBB- 1
4BBB- 1
5BBB- 1

that's all the black costs, I did variations of xB and all the way up to 7BBBB. for all three I did other odd costs like 1BBBB, BBBBB, and BBBBBB. did green and red like that too.. so unless it's a huge mana cost and/or a weird combo I think I got them all.

As an aside... man these costs are crazy.. is it me? Red, Green and black with several cards over cmc 6? all three with 7cmc cards. maybe its because of the spawn tokens. They figured they could print some over the top cards with all the accel thats gonna be floating about.

solmancer I went to Twenty for written numbers nothing over six.
here's some red costs-
R- 8
XR- 1
1R- 10
2R- 8
3R- 10
4R- 2
5R- 2
RR- 1
1RR- 0
2RR- 1
3RR- 4
4RR- 2
5RR- 1

I did all the variations of XR and up to 7RRRR. I'll do green unless someone beats me to it.

/edit- Here's the Green-
G- 9
1G- 11
2G- 10
3G-3
4G- 2
7G- 1
GG- 2
1GG- 2
2GG- 4
3GG- 3
4GGG- 1
xxG- 1 !?!?!?!

same as red, did several versions of xG and did costs up to 7GGGG

Does the White Enchant land wall fly? I think there's a White wall that flies in standard. Well Wall of Denial is in.. if you go with the new recursion guy that makes the deck UWGR.. Not horrible. You could probably find a reason to play blue. Wall of Frost and Wall of Fire, not horrible, but from the Orb results there seems to be a decent number of defenders in the new set. So that could end up working well. It's a wait and see.

third Planeswalker instance, I'm gonna go out and say a Warp Worldesque card. something that puts cards into play or could it be non-planeswalker? does the orb work like that? Perhaps a Level up creature that turns into a planeswalker? Level 12-Search your library for a Planeswalker etc...
I'm also sad that there is no allies and no landfall. maybe some sort of enabler. my timmy/johnny senses are tingling. I feel that this next Standard is gonna be a Summer of Combo. (crossing my fingers).

top- 12
Library- 30
graveyard- 21
remove- 12
counters- 6
"one"- 13
"two"- 17
"three"- 9
"four"- 7
"five"- 2
"six"- 1
"from"- 63
"hand"- 36
"sacrifice"- 29
"permanent- 9
"discard"- 3

what I looked up so far. Those are the words for the numbers in card text numbers are spelled out so could be for draw/discard/land search etc..

Red White Allies is cheap, you don't need the fetches and even then if you get lucky you can get a set for around 30, and investing in Real Estate is always good. here's a quick RW ally List-



There's 4 slots open to mess with land and another card of your choice (some people play a Kazuul Warlord and Talus Paladin as one ofs).

A set of Path to Exile and bolts will cost you $20. The Evangels may run you $4, the rest you can probably pick up off the floor, or find a decent human being at your local store. Or you can buy a set of commons and uncommons online or from a larger local store.

Ok this deck wants to be fast, the only 4 drop that should be in this deck is Join the Ranks.
Running non-allies in the deck dilutes the power of the allies you are playing.

Also Kabira Evangel is one of the cards that wins you games. It gets you past blockers and with Join the Ranks gives you spot removal protection. As an aggressive deck Ponder is another turn one play to set up further turns, and Call to Heel is Card adv. Umara Raptor Flies and in many of the games I've played ends up being able to stand up to Baneslayer.

I've playtested against Jund, elfdrazi, Time Sieve/fog, 4-5cc control, grixis and Baneslayer junk. Jund and Elfdrazi are 60/40 in my favor. Time sieve/fog is 40/60, control and grixis is 50/50. so far pre-sideboard about 10-12 games against each, its no way exhaustive and my luck can also be a factor.

I also playtest my decks without sideboards for at least the first 10-20 games against each match-up and take notes to see what cards would be the most helpful and then make an aggregate list. So far I have Silence, Dispel, Spell Pierce, the Artificer Ally, Volcanic Fallout and O-Ring (or an instant enchantment removal card) on my list. Those cards are my opinions at the moment against my bad matchups.

I'll play a few more sets with sideboards and see. against any deck playing DoJ or non-targeted removal Silence is a good sideboard choice, Granted Spell Pierce can be as good early. Dispel is against counters and annoying instants. The artificer ally is a meta choice as we have 2 people playing variations on a Time Sieve/turbo fog deck. Fallout is against RDW and other rush archetypes and o-ring seems to be a lock as a versatile answer in the SB.

It seems that the Red/White Allies are going to be the base for an aggressive Ally deck, adding either blue/green or black will depend on your personal play style and the meta. I could see RWG allies because of violent outburst and BBE. I'm going to at sleeve up at least 6 versions of allies and see which I personally like best.

I've also had good showing with a 5 color ally deck. Based around the mana ally, warp world and the black damage ally.

4-5 Color allies is gonna be good. using the mana ally and all the fixing.
Rack 2.0-RB with Bloodchief Ascension and the new one.
Summoners Pact.dec- With the 1G cantrip land drop card, it might not be tier 2-3 but It'll be there, green based ramp too.
My Longshot call- Polymorph.dec With all the token creation/manlands Blue/Red/x it may end up being a contender, maybe.

The kickermox (everflowing chalice) may make some control decks possible, may not be enough to make them good just possible. The Amulet will give 5Color control players enough reason to try that again.
RW control. it may end up RWu control, with chain reaction, DoJ, Fallout and there is bound to be some good white and Red commons/uncommons.


But as someone has already said really too early to tell, commons and uncommons can alter a playscape vastly. commons and uncommons are were most of the removal, land search, playable creatures and what not are. Few rares are playable, Rares are more to give you a feel for the place, and occasionally those cards are playable. Commons and Uncommons are what defines a set as playable. there are corner explains of rares being playable, but often those cards were bumped up to rare for reasons.

I've been building/playing the pyromancer ascension deck since the pre-release. As it stands this is my version-

yes I run 10 fetchs. And yes 4 are Terramophics. Making sure you have the black mana nessecary to cast Ultimatum, Blast and terminate is invaluble. they act as a shuffle effect after a bad ponder, two they're virutal card draw, and three not having to rely on Cipt lands is key(turn one terramorphic isn't horrible, most turns you don't need the land to be untapped) I do have 2 tarns in to help with turn one ponders. to be completely honest I hate drawing land with divinations so I may as well take advantage of the overflowing land fetching available.

I went with the idea of all spells, I want every card I draw other than another pyromancer ascension to have the possiblity to put a counter on the enchantment. Banefire in place of Time Warp means I can just win with a doubled banefire or the turn before Cruel. I can see where Time warp could help. I will playtest it and see may put it on sideboard.

I have 4 Bloodchief Ascensions available to me, with the burn/draw I may add those to the deck along with Punishing fire. I am curious to see how people deal with both those enchantments.

My sideboard is against 5cc "pile o'rares".dec, having counters against counters is nice and against certain other decks lacking in creatures. The polymorph/fodder/angel combo is just hilarious. Fodder is another Sorcery to add fire to the Ascension. Plus in a pinch can chump block or even attack if need be (not the best but I didn't have much to choose from, and didn't want to run the 15 counter sideboard).

My take from playing this deck is being Pro-active is much better than re-activate. Drawing cards, blowing up critters or throwing burn to the face. Not nessesicarly tapping out every turn at least ponder or play a fetch to get some virtual card advantage, always casting something at their end step, Worldly consul May come in handy in that respect.

Having counters for non-creature spells and double negative against cascade helps, essence shatter is one of the sideboards cards I always seem to not use. I may put in Spell pierce or negate (pierce is good against Duress, borderposts, planeswalkers, opposing ascensions, and any other decks that play turn 1 and 2 non-creature spells that are problematic).

As for Match-ups.. Well I have to say with terminate and B.Blast if my opponent is not playing counters I do fairly well. The banefires/cruels are my win in those matches. Against counters its tougher to get and keep the ascension in play, but I can still win on the back of consecutive banefires for 6-8. I have tested against Jund/Vampires/Bushwacker/RW control/Time Sieve combo/GWU whatever/mono-white control/GWB baneslayer/Nayawalker/BRG discard. As of this week overall I am 28-12 with various versions of the deck. Last 2 weeks I played in a local FNM the first week I went with a UR version and lost many games to 4+toughness critters. Last Week I went with the version above minus the ultimatums(couldn't find them) and went 3-1 losing only to the "pile o'rares"5cc.dec. Due to the fact that the 5cc decks sideboard is amazing+infinite card draw is rough.

As always this is a work in progress, I am working on a G/R/U version as well as a 5 color version. Once I play-test those versions a few dozen times I will post them.

-xyver