MTG Salvation

I've been playing BANT enchantress for about a year now, lots of synergy and combos, but I rarely try to "combo off" with the "take everyone's permanents / kill everyone's lands" thing. I mostly just produce a ridiculous amount of mana and feed it into my commander, Jenara.

Here's an AVR update to the list I've been running. I'm still considering if I want to cut something for a miser's 1-of Griselbrand, and what i'd cut for it. The pre-AVR version was very similar, though I ran 1 more land and ran 2 Havengul Liches and 1 Periolous Myr in the main. I rarely, if ever, won with the "combo", and I rarely found myself in a position going "I sure do wish I could combo off right now." Most of the time I just ran with the fatty ramp plan and it was very effective. The prior version ran rough-house over my rather competative FNM scene, which has helped me get a nice healthy store credit line up.

My changes essentially were -1 land, -2 Havengul Lich, -1 Perilous Myr, +2 Deadeye Navigator, +1 Frost Titan, +1 Go for the Throat....then -2 Go for the Throat +2 Doom Blade. The main reason I went with Doom Blade over Go for the Throat is because the only time I have ever managed to lose to Wolf Run was when I had go for the throats in my hand and they were swinging in with a Wolf-Run'd Inkmoth Nexus. With Zombies not seeing as much play (at least in my local meta) I figured I could make that switch and improve a matchup that should be getting more and more prevelant in the new meta.

The Deadeye Navigator I'm still a little unsure on. He seems nuts if I could pair it with a Frost Titan, and blink out their entire board. But it may be "win more" or "too cute". If so, most likely the 25 land would go back in, as well as possibly the 1-of Griselbrand. As of now, I'm liking the look of the list.

My least favorite win conditions are ones that prevent others from playing the game, usually via a hard lock or some sort, excessive use of counter spells, or tax cards, etc. as rough as avenger of zendikar can be, wrath effects, propaganda, etc are good answers. Eldrazi are annoying because they are so board warping, but not that terrible.

Also, not all Azusa decks are identical, but they are, by definition, going to be similar.

I recently got a Portuguese Sliver Queen, and decided that I wanted to build a Commander deck with her. However, I didn't want to play boring old slivers, I wanted to just play her in all her 7/7 WUBRG glory, and make a WUBRG themed deck. Mostly I just finally have an excuse to play the Fifth Dawn Bringers!

Here's what I have so far.



I still want to make it win-able, so I'm open to cutting some of the randomness for some more control or what not. No LD or counterspells, though, cause those aren't fun no matter what!

Well, I ran my list at States today, and got my butt kicked by Wolf Run Ramp. It didn't help that all I drew in my matches against it where lands, o-rings, and wurmcoils (literally all I seemed to be able to draw) knocked me out of contention, so I packed it up and headed home. I liked my version of the deck, but it's far from fully tuned. If I don't audible over to Wolf Run (i'm really liking that deck) then I'll do some tweaking and tuning.

Here's the list I ended up getting together for States tomorrow. I've forgone playing Leak or any countermagic. The tap-out style list just seems more powerful and less clunky to me. Every time I've had to play draw-go with the deck, the deck just seems to fall apart.

Quote from knuckles29

If you fear Wolf's Run, you need Ghost Quarter or perhaps Dismembers. The big thing is to kick the Run target down, but with Titan, I'd prefer to just handle the Run.

Now notice Craig Berry's 13th's place list... know what is the odd part? He is W/B/u. The blue is for Alchemy and Image. That is designed to be a board presence deck. Few tricks other than kill spells. I like the idea, but I like the traditional aspects of Solar Flare with heavy blue and either white or black as a third color.

Watoo: I noticed you are U/W/b. Why ruin your deck by playing BB cards? You could throw in a mix of Doom and Throats and be fine. Less reliable kill cards, but more consistent showing of those cards. And with Snapcaster, it is fine. I do get that one card kills Titan and Wurmcoil alike, but if you can't play it a lot.. then it is useless. Point is moot if you are a FNM goer. Then do whatever works for the rogue meta you face.

By "Traditional solar flare" do you mean traditional to this current iteration of it, or solar flare through the ages? Cause I instantly remember playing WW for wrath and BB for persecute and not a single UU for anything in the list.

Quote from Cybinary

Does Elsh Norn kill inkmoth as soon as they animate it? The reason I ask is I noticed a few Wolf-Run lists running inkmoth along with wormcoil.

Unless they have some other static-pump spell active, then yes.

A couple interesting decks from the MTG Grudge Match that was the first weekend of standard, as presented in BDM's article today. The first is by GP and SCG Open winner Dave Shiels.

Solar Flare
A Standard deck, by Dave Shiels
3rd place at a Miscellaneous tournament in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States on 2011-10-02


At first glance, a rather normal solar flare list...but then I noticed it was playing Merfolk Looter. I'm not so sure about the only 2-of Day of Judgement, but perhaps his added "speed" with Looter, making it a bit more reanimation-style, might help? The top decks were flooded with mono-red, but perhaps his deck was able to fight through it.


The second list is the one I really like, mostly because for a while I was playing a 3 Sphere 3 Solemn list myself. And, like many people have discussed but few have really tested, he has skewed maindeck counterspells. Of course, he also doesn't play any in the board either, which is surprising.

Solar Flare
A Standard deck, by Craig Berry
13th place at a Miscellaneous tournament in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States on 2011-10-02


This version goes, again, a bit more reanimator, what with a full 4 Unburial Rites. Personally, I'd cut 1 Unburial and 1 Liliana for a couple think twices, but I really like this list. I'd also probably cut a Sun Titan and a Elesh Norn for 2 Wurmcoils...(actually, then it more or less becomes the list I was playing up until about a week and a half ago!).

Quote from TheCounterGuy

Against rug its. 4, against white bases its always 6

Have you tested brimstone volley any? I just wanna cram it into every day that plays red nowadays after getting wrecked by it in a few test games.

If I was brewing up a RUG list, I'd definitely include at least 1 batterskull. If you build the manabase and draw-engine right, you should easily be able to get it online and active, and the life gain is really nutty. I can't even imagine how awesome it would be to put it onto a thrun, as well.

Rune-Scarred Demon is one of the best creatures in the deck for 2 reasons. 1) 6/6 flying evasion with built-in protection (grab a counterspell for removal, or an unburial to bring him back). 2) Everyone has Doom Blade as their removal of choice. Nice doom blade.

Here's the list I sleeved up tonight to a Top 8 (out of about 37) finish, after my friend (who had been playing solar flare) decided to run RUG-control and let me use his liliana's.



I have to say that I was really really satisfied with the maindeck. Of all the cards that I wasn't happy with, I'd have to say it was Consecrated Sphinx, but that may have been that I just didn't draw it enough for it to be relevant. I played against a more traditional draw-go Solar Flare list piloted by a local pro and went to time in the swiss, and then lost 1-2 in the top 8. I smashed him game one both times, mostly on the power of Rune-Scarred Demon, which may become a 3-of in place of Consecrated Sphinx. His doom blades were useless, and he kept going the distance.

I have to say, that I didn't drop a single game 1. All games that I lost were post-sideboard. That being said, the sideboard was nowhere near what I wanted it to be. Since I wasn't playing on playing, I mostly threw it together last minute, and wasn't able to get many of the cards I wanted to play (2 more Dissipate, 4 Mental Misstep).

I loved having the Spheres in the maindeck. Sure, many people think they are unnecessary. But being even just a half a turn ahead of my opponents was enough to put me in a lead against everyone. I did notice that I sided them out quite often, bringing in better and more optimal early-turn plays...but in the 4 sideboard games I played against the mirror, I wish I had room to keep them in (despite bringing in 1 Jin-Gitaxis 2 Dissipate, 4 Purify the Grave and then later 3 Purify and 2 Revoke Existence). They saved me on color fixing quite a few times, and just always seemed to matter. I don't want to fully cut mana leak like I once did, but against the Solar Flare list, i was definitely at a disadvantage the longer the games went, as their combinations of Snapcaster and Think Twice buried me in card advantage the longer the game went. However, game one I tended to be able to be more proactive and targeted with my threats. They seemed to have dead cards sitting in hand, which let me push through to the win.

This makes me think that there is a better plan of attack for games 2 and 3...I'm just not sure what they plan may be.

One other note on the mana base: I kept a miser's 1x each Scars land...and those are definitely being cut. I drew one when it would be untapped once all day, and it didn't even matter. I'm curious to test something else in it's place, perhaps ghost-quarter? Maybe even a singleton or 2 Inkmoth Nexus? The again, they may just serve off better as 1x swamp and 1x island.

Quote from Adam W

Smallpox is even more of a "build around me" card than Lily. You'd need to run Sphere of the Suns to mitigate the land loss and Solemn Simulacrum as a sac target.

Not saying the effect isn't powerful, and the original Solar Flare eventually morphed into Solar Pox. But you really need to build the deck a certain way to maximize it, and I'm not sure the metagame is a good place for that deck.

To be fair, flagstones of Troikar was the main reason why it could play smallpox

I had sheoldred is my list at one point, but it got to a point where it just felt win-more. Often times, if a fattie sticks on the board, you are winning. Sheoldred's ability isn't as powerful as I think it seems.