MTG Salvation

Please keep hating on Phenax. That just makes it cheaper for me to make stupid brews with him. I love everything about him, especially that he can abuse his own ability when he's a creature. One of the few gods that can.

If you're going the mill route, I feel like Sands of Delirium is a bit better than Mind Grind. The ability to keep mana up for counterspells and then mill them at the end of the turn is probably a bit better than a one shot mill spell that has the chance to be explosive.

I've been working on a BUG ramp/mill deck as well, and I have to say Cyclonic Rift has worked wonders in testing. Instant speed board wipe whose only disadvantage is not being permanent. And although the cost is high, we're playing ramp so who cares if it's a bit more to cast than Mutilate?

I'll post my list later when I'm looking right at it, but being more black heavy I've been running Crypt Ghast to speed up the ramp and give us another win condition in extort. Definitely loving these lists though, here's hoping it can deal with mono red and boros.

Quote from kensanity

Granted, there are cards to beat it but not all decks have access to them. It's a crazy matchup for many decks.

Honestly, my deck tends to hate itself out more than other decks do. I lose more games to variance than anything.

Control has proven not to be too much of an issue lately, but aggro, particularly RDW and the like, tend to outrace me. I guess it really comes down to who's on the play against them, but I'm considering sideboarding Supreme Verdict to deal with them and Selesnya. We're fast enough that they generally have to overextend in order to race us, so sweepers should be able to blow them out while we drop anothing threat. Unless we get the god draw, it's very tough to race them. With Boros decks and Naya decks seeing more play lately, having the ability to deal with creatures that can actually keep up with us is going to be crucial.

Luckily my meta is mostly control so I'm not too worried currently, but with the meta shifting more towards aggro decks already we're going too want some way to slow them down if we can't outpace them. Just wondering if anyone else has tried Verdict or Terminus in the sideboard to any reasonable success.

Quote from Mantis808

Abundant growth seemed much more important when playing caverns in a control heavy dominated period a few months back.

Personally I'm staying bant and splashing red.

Same here. Mostly for Boros Charm since it's just that good.

Our ability to ramp/cycle through cards makes green too important for our deck. I feel like going with black over green would slow us down too much. As a splash, black would be fine. It might require Farseek, but that's better than cutting green entirely. We lose all our explosiveness if we drop green. Geist is still a beating, but not having Rancor, Abundant growth, and mana dorks would make us a midrange deck. Esper might work, but I just don't see it being quite as dynamic.

Quote from Murdox

Agree. I was trying to avoid mentioning Gatecrash. Best to use Sundering Growth to get a permanent angel token when you can off of GoST.

And in response to whatever fun tricks they might have for combat. Plus, the new angel token sticks. I'm not speaking just for gatecrash (while I'm highly annoyed about that situation); right now D-Sphere is supremely annoying when taking out our Rancor. Having the ability to generate advantage while blowing up their permanents will be nice.

I'm trying to work more token gen into the deck, perhaps Moorland Haunt will test well. It combats sweepers, gives us blockers, and can be used to push through that last bit of damage. Plus, it works well with Growth. I'll sleeve up a few for Friday and see how it works out.

I was thinking more along the lines of Sundering Growth. Hitting artifacts too apparently is going to be an issue now. I don't foresee our deck becoming too hated out though, it won a GP for a reason, and it can adapt. They didn't ban anything of ours, and nothing cycled out. There'll just be more sideboard tech to worry about now.

So now two blatant hate cards that benefit aggro and punish all else. First X spells, now this. I'm all for making hoser cards, but this one is stupid and pushed. They've made mistakes in the past (Bitterblossom was cited as one), but Wizards didn't print a specific card to hose it. Don't make up for mistakes with more mistakes, WotC. It's sloppy design.

Flavorwise, I love the abilities. But from a power standpoint, it's stupid.

But cage doesn't hose Rancor, which if we're siding in either card, chances are they're running sweepers. Honestly, most games aren't won on the back of the Armor so much as they are by slapping Rancor on someone or landing Geist and going to town.

I'll concede I really like Rest in Peace, but it being an enchantment just means they'll have already sided in an answer for it. At least cage is less likely to eat a Parasalene. I'll probably be running two of each in the side this week and see how that pans out, since nearly half the decks at my FNM run Snapcaster, and the other half is aggro decks. It's a bit annoying when there are two decks that give you trouble and that's all you face, but it does give me quite a bit of room for testing sideboard options.

Quote from Lori

To add a bit after reading the more recent posts.

Playing against this with UWr, Geist is key. It's also the only deck that drops rest in peace against me where the rest in peace is a game winner. It's normally just an irritant, but the ability to wrath twice is very important against you.

Those not playing hexproof have no chance at all of beating UWr, it becomes a slow bad red deck with card disadvantage in that scenario sadly.... you need to turn all the removal spells into wasted cards, and all the mass removal spells into spells that only kill one creature.

Cage has worked well for me against UWr as well. The amount of sweepers they run is scary to say the least, and being able to shut down Snapcaster is very nice. Had a game against Bant control in Top 8 a few weeks back where the guy somehow managed to land six Supreme Verdicts and a Terminus, but I still got him down to 2. Having hosers for Snapcaster is damn near a necessity for us, that guy seriously ruins our day.

Funnily enough, the version I was playing at FNMs was near Geist-less. Here it is:



As you can tell, I hadn't quite obtained the land base or GoSTs yet. For a start though, it ran pretty fluidly. This week, I'll be adding some more duals and three GoSTs, as well as upping Growth to four. The list will be in upheaval for awhile while I wait to see how my meta reacts to more of the list showing up. So far no one has been quite able to combat it effectively from the sideboard, and it's my own play mistakes that beat me up in the end.

Farseek is coming out ASAP, I just don't like how it isn't cohesive with the rest of my game plan. The charms as well are on the chopping block since they don't really win me the game so much as serve as an answer. That's the job of sideboard cards, not maindeck.

Red deck wins has proven to be a problem, but I have had Feeling of Dread in the side to deal with them. Hexproof stops them from mattering unless they just outrace us.

As far as control is concerned, I side in two more Negate in place of the Charm, and often Grafdigger's Cage to deal with Snapcaster. It doesn't hurt our Rancor like Rest in Peace does, which is something to be concerned about when trying to hose reanimator decks. It may be best to run RiP, but Rancor is such a pivotal card that I want it coming into play every single game. If reanimator becomes a problem, I could see us having to side out Rancor for Rest in Peace.

As it stands, Negate has been the single most effective nonenchantment, noncreature spell in the deck. It doesn't stop Supreme Verdict, but playing it safe and not overextending will remedy that situation. Or if it really becomes an issue, use Nevermore.

Quote from marinermichael

Better start to worry . . . let the hate begin . . . lol.

All I've seen to worry about so far is Parasalene, Golgari Charm, and the occasional naturalize effect. So long as we keep the sideboard negates and Dispels, we should be safe. Playing smart works well, and other than those few hosers, as well as board wipes, you can assume there won't be too many people who can answer our hexproof threats. Terminus has singlehandedly beaten me many a game, but that's it.

So far, the deck has piloted like a dream. I'll post my list later today, so far I've top 8'd 40+ people FNMs three weeks in a row. Loving it.

This'll definitely see some play in Legacy Goblins, but the token clause is largely irrelevant over there. Unless you're playing against dredge or a storm deck using Empty the Warrens, tokens don't matter too much over there. Even if they were using those two, you probably lost already if you're trying to attack into those tokens.

Trample and first strike though are massively important. Vial this in the turn before alpha striking, and they need an answer right then or it's game over. He's good, very good, to the point that you can guarantee it'll see legacy play. I don't think good enough to guarantee a maindeck slot, however.

You really want to take a look at Sigarda, Host of Herons.

Literally the only thing she doesn't do well is have the human creature type. She's very hard to get rid of, and wields enchantments like a champ. I've been working on a similar Bant list using her and Invisible Stalker as harder to remove options, I'll post it later when I've got a better idea on the numbers in it.

No, I get what Bluish means about the troll, and its largely why I don't plan on running him either. Yes, he'll be great in Jund and Zombies builds, but standard dredge already has ways to pitch things.

Dredge wants to dump cards directly from the library and not from the hand. Most of the cards that actually stay in our hand are our threats, which we have to dig for. Other than Gravecrawler or scavenge guys, nothing we want to use should be pitched to troll. We don't have any form of recursion currently, so it's better to use Splinterfright and Ghoultree for our main beaters. They can win games without requiring us to have card disadvantage.

I could be wrong, but I don't think playing him as more than a 3 of is a good idea. We have better two drops that contribute to our plan; focusing on the troll loses the point of standard dredge.

Quote from BluishGreen1.8T

that thread is already hopeless and full of terrible ideas...hahahahahaha

Most of them haven't played this deck, it's pretty obvious.

However, the shift to black I do agree with, and I'm currently making a legal version of that. When I've ironed out some of the kinks, I'll post my list. We can take advantage of cards like Gravecrawler and removal that way.