MTG Salvation

The first deck I ever built for myself and our lunchtime casual free-for-alls was a deck that revolved around Phyrexian Tyranny. So of course... I've got a soft spot for this sort of thing.

We've had this archetype among my playgroup for quite some time now, and I've had this list mostly hovering in the background. Now though, a general arises to take command of the best step ever.

Tainted Strike
Fork/Reverb
Mirari

..

Damn, you're fast. Faster than me with Derevi.

Looks solid, I think you included just about all the wheelish type effects I was able to find. Not barbed shocker or robber fly, but maybe those are too janky. Shocker is on there, though.

Glistening Oil and Grafted Exoskeleton make this guy a really short clock, even more so if you start dropping wheel spells after. Tainted Strike too, but it doesn't stick around for your opponent's turns.

Great minds think alike, this guy screams underworld dreams. I think you hit most of the highlights except perhaps Copy Enchantment, Copy Artifact, or Bloodchief Ascension. Mirari might also be decent for double wheels.

solid list. you and MCR have almost identical lists lol. i guess there's only so many ways to build this guy at first glance.

while MCR's list looked like it was lacking a few damage outlets, you look like you could use some more ramp. ramping harder will improve your consistency when going big card draw into big card draw.

Snapcaster Mage seems good here.

Because there's a lot of discarding would it be worth running Megrim effects?

tainted strike...

You guys are just mean

have you thought about minds aglow?

early game it helps you dig as opponents may pay into it, mid-late game it's no worse than prosperity, with slightly less control (may have some drawback with some of the global draw pain)

breathstealer's crypt is a good one to have too, helps prevent opponents from drawing dudes that can beat you up

The more I think about it, the more I like Bloodchief Ascension. In a four player game with Nekusar/Spiteful Visions out, it'll be charged by the time it gets back to your turn, in time for you to wheel.

I assume the Words enchantments are there to keep you from hurting yourself too much with Spiteful and keep from milling yourself out, but I'm not sure you need all three. I'd probably suggest dropping one of Words of Wind or Waste, as I'm not sure how much work they do for you.

The other card I can suggest cutting is Archmage Ascension, as I can't foresee a meta where it sits on the table for the seven turns neccessary to turn it on. Even cutting that time in half (which I can only see being possible with Jace's Archivist), it's still got a huge target on it's forehead, and will likely eat an enchantment wrath well before it's primed.

Finally, the card I'm surprised to see not mentioned, how does Notion thief sit with you? Yes, it's antithetical to your plan of killing people with draw steps, but at the same time, it turns Words of Waste into your own personal lockdown, and makes people make the decision between having to take damage for their cards, or just letting you have all of them.

Quote from Gabgabdevo

Snapcaster Mage seems good here.

I purposefully stayed away from Snapcaster - yes, you can wheel again, but the creature you're getting won't do anything more than block. I wanted my critters to do something else when they hit the board.

That being said, I don't know if I want Obstinate Familiar anymore... I hear Barbed Shocker is a card.

Quote from A.D.D Hahaha

Because there's a lot of discarding would it be worth running Megrim effects?

This isn't a discard deck, it's a draw-step deck. Get it together, now.

Quote from SamuraiMunky

have you thought about minds aglow?

early game it helps you dig as opponents may pay into it, mid-late game it's no worse than prosperity, with slightly less control (may have some drawback with some of the global draw pain)

breathstealer's crypt is a good one to have too, helps prevent opponents from drawing dudes that can beat you up

Yes. I can't stand the card or the cycle, and don't think it's very useful here. Once more, this being said, I suddenly like Skyscribing and Prosperity a lot less now.

Breathstealer's Crypt is brilliant. Almost want to play Zur's Wierding, too. Almost.

Quote from wallycaine

The more I think about it, the more I like Bloodchief Ascension. In a four player game with Nekusar/Spiteful Visions out, it'll be charged by the time it gets back to your turn, in time for you to wheel.

I assume the Words enchantments are there to keep you from hurting yourself too much with Spiteful and keep from milling yourself out, but I'm not sure you need all three. I'd probably suggest dropping one of Words of Wind or Waste, as I'm not sure how much work they do for you.

The other card I can suggest cutting is Archmage Ascension, as I can't foresee a meta where it sits on the table for the seven turns neccessary to turn it on. Even cutting that time in half (which I can only see being possible with Jace's Archivist), it's still got a huge target on it's forehead, and will likely eat an enchantment wrath well before it's primed.

Finally, the card I'm surprised to see not mentioned, how does Notion thief sit with you? Yes, it's antithetical to your plan of killing people with draw steps, but at the same time, it turns Words of Waste into your own personal lockdown, and makes people make the decision between having to take damage for their cards, or just letting you have all of them.

The Archmage Ascension should actually be it's blacker cousin. I uh, am allowed to derp now and then. You're completely correct in that it's a terrible card.

I like all three Words too much to cut. They're way too fun and randomly useful. Since you're going to be drawing so much, you have the option not to play them if you like. Myself, a good excuse to play them is enough for me.

Your reasoning for Notion Thief is quite sound, and I suppose I can use this as an excuse to play it in a deck. If anything, this is the best style of deck for it.

Quote from Gaka

I purposefully stayed away from Snapcaster - yes, you can wheel again, but the creature you're getting won't do anything more than block. I wanted my critters to do something else when they hit the board.

That being said, I don't know if I want Obstinate Familiar anymore... I hear Barbed Shocker is a card.



This isn't a discard deck, it's a draw-step deck. Get it together, now.



Yes. I can't stand the card or the cycle, and don't think it's very useful here. Once more, this being said, I suddenly like Skyscribing and Prosperity a lot less now.

Breathstealer's Crypt is brilliant. Almost want to play Zur's Wierding, too. Almost.



The Archmage Ascension should actually be it's blacker cousin. I uh, am allowed to derp now and then. You're completely correct in that it's a terrible card.

I like all three Words too much to cut. They're way too fun and randomly useful. Since you're going to be drawing so much, you have the option not to play them if you like. Myself, a good excuse to play them is enough for me.

Your reasoning for Notion Thief is quite sound, and I suppose I can use this as an excuse to play it in a deck. If anything, this is the best style of deck for it.

While archmage ascension looks like it will take a long time to setup, it does go much faster with cards like notion thief and consecrated sphinx (each end step, not just yours), both of which also make niv-mizzet, the firemind and psychosis crawler stronger. Still fairly slow though, but it has the ability to never let you mill out though as you tutor the cards you need, and fail to find the rest.

As for snapcaster mage, don't think of it like a creature, because he really isn't. He's another spell in your deck, that occasionally shocks an opponent or fogs a creature that would hit you, plus he can hold a whispering madness. Having some sort of recursion is very useful, especially when you're discarding half or more of your cards to wheel effects.

As for megrim style effects, you are a discard deck, you just do it while drawing cards. Imagine you play a wheel of fortune with your general out, and each opponent had 7 cards in hand to start (not hard considering the number of howling mines in the deck), each opponent discards, draws 7 more, and takes 7. Not too bad, but could be better. Now imagine you have liliana's Caress out with your general (megrim and bloodchief ascension as extra copies), and you cast wheel in the same scenario. Each opponent takes 21 damage, that's over half their starting life total instead of 1/6th. This game could be over in less than 2 wheels. Toss on Words of waste for more discard, Zur's weirding, breathstealer's crypt, every "discard then draw" effect in your deck, along with natural discarding due to having 8+ cards in hand (if they don't have a reliquary tower in play), and megrim effects actually turn into your fastest damage output. Also I can't wait for waste not to become an actual card for this style of deck.

My 2 cents, and I'm really looking forward to building a very similar list to this where it's every form of draw/discard punishment out there.

PS. While we aren't losing too much life to our own effects, we don't really gain life, so having cards like erebos, god of the dead, everlasting torment, forsaken wastes, havoc festival, and leyline of punishment might be useful for other players to not out gain the deck's constant damage (and remember, you are letting them draw into everything they need to gain said life).

Also while I don't really like time walk effects in EDH due to the group nature of the format (turns already take along time, so in a 4 player game you can be waiting 15 minutes between your turns, gets kinda boring, then add on even more time as some guy takes an extra 5 turns by cycling time walks), it could be useful for casting more wheel of fortunes.

I'm personally thinking something like Painful Quandary could do some work in a deck like this.

Also, how about Nin, the Pain Artist, she could do some rather brutal hits in this style of deck.

I'm going to agree with the above on discarding damage. You can't just let people get away with discarding for free. Make them hurt. Filling their hands is usually going to end up in discarding. Wheels discard. That's a lot of extra damage going to waste. With that said, some minor land destruction to take out reliquary tower won't hurt. Land to land strip mine style or multi-task like Pillage. RKF Pillage to be precise.

I plan on making a very similar deck this week and hopefully my group won't mind the proxy general.

Quote from Gaka

Breathstealer's Crypt is brilliant. Almost want to play Zur's Wierding, too. Almost.

The Archmage Ascension should actually be it's blacker cousin. I uh, am allowed to derp now and then. You're completely correct in that it's a terrible card.

I like all three Words too much to cut. They're way too fun and randomly useful. Since you're going to be drawing so much, you have the option not to play them if you like. Myself, a good excuse to play them is enough for me.

Your reasoning for Notion Thief is quite sound, and I suppose I can use this as an excuse to play it in a deck. If anything, this is the best style of deck for it.

I feel like Zur's Weirding would be fun for this deck... once. Get it out, play it, wheel once or twice, watch the game devolve into petty squabbling over who gets to keep what cards as you look knowingly at the wheel in your hand (because everybody is already too low to pay to keep all the wheels out of your hand), and then laugh manically before taking it out that night.

And yes, we all derp occasionally. I wasn't sure if it was a straight up mistake, or if you'd misread it and thought it had synergy with Nekusar or something. And I can totally understand that reasoning for the Words. My only caveat is that Words of Wind needs some more things to positively interact with, I think. As far as I can tell atm, it's best uses are resetting things like Phyrexian Tyranny so they don't affect your turn, and resetting Chandra. That said, if you add Snapcaster, he'd be an easy target for the Wind. Plus, my brain's already concocted a scenario where you flash Notion Thief in response to someone trying to draw a lot of cards, and then use the last draw to bounce himself, making them keep taking damage for the rest of the turn, but afraid to do any large draws, in case the Thief comes back.

Instead of Snapcaster Mage, there are other ways to give graveyard stuff flashback.

Yawgmoth's Will
Past in Flames
Recoup

Since Nekusar deals damage, have you considered ways of giving him lifelink?

Does Duskmantle Seer have a place here?

the deck needs more forced fruition in the form of copy enchantment and one more howling mine like sculpting steel

With all the discard from the wheels, and if the deck becomes life hungry sangromancer will be a perfect fit. Working on my own list the only issue I have him is that al. the decks are gonna look similar

I will testify that Nin, the Pain Artist is a fine lady to include.

TDdizzle, I love the incarnations, but Anger has no purpose or place in this deck. And even with the ramp the game should be near over by the time you can cast Omniscience or Obliterate. If they work for you then play on.

Gaka, how have obstinate familiar and cerebral vortex been working for you?

Any edits yet, Gaka? Other than cutting Prosperity, Skyscribing, and Archmage Ascension...