MTG Salvation

If you play competitively the first thing you do is see what commanders your opponents are playing and get a feel of what the deck is about.
This usually gives you a good guess of what is going to be played.

If I'm playing against a Rhys the Redeemed, ghave, Guru of Spores, and Zedruu the Greathearted I can make a safe guess that Rhys is playing tokens, Ghave is playing counters, and Zedruu is playing either control or gifts. Now what would my opponents think when I tell them that my commander is Phelddagrif? They would think that I'll be playing group hugs or some political heavy deck. If you have skimmed over the decklist and part of this guide than you would know that that is the biggest lie ever. The deck doesn't need the commander to win and in fact I honestly never play Pheldaggrif unless I need to play political for a bit to buy some time. He's there as a red herring for the new players and a political enabler for rough times. You could honestly put any Bant colored general and the deck would be just as efficient.

utopia sprawl and wild growth- These are good cards regardless in what part of the game. In the early game these are good on getting ahead a turn mana wise and during the mid-late game it can translate into a free draw card if you have any of the draw engine cards out.

carpet of flowers- If you are playing a pod of four you in a competitive environment than it's almost a given that someone is playing blue which could be give you a much needed boost. if for some weird reason there isn't a blue player it can become a draw a card for one mana.

urban burgeoning- This by itself is a bad card but if you can get it onto a serra's sanctum with a leyline of anticipation on the field than you can go wild with the white spells which makes up a third of the deck. Other than that you should put this on a blue source so you can have mana open to use a counter spell of some kind.

burgeoning - This is a good way to ramp early in the game especially when you are not playing duel. Be warned though of playing it early. If you come out playing this turn one with 3 other players you will most likely be the target until your dead or until everyone has more mana than you. Like the other one drop if anything else it's a draw a card for one.

dictate of karametra and mana reflection - If you have one of these plus a draw engine card you can very easily combo out to win the game. There is a trade off from using either of these cards. you can go for the safe but less efficient dictate of karametra or you can try to win with mana reflectionand make you the target. Also take note that a dictate of karametra can easily give one of your opponents the mana they need to win as well.

thran dynamo and sol ring - these are just nice colorless mana rocks to have that can also benefit from mana reflection

sword of feast and famine- This card is mostly used to untap all of my lands but it can be used to force catch 22 situations onto your opponents. The main target for this is academy rector because it puts a pressure on players to kill the the academy rector or let all my lands untap. if you don't have the academy rector out than any other expendible creature/token would do except for aura thief which i'll go into later in the winning section.

prophet of kruphix- This card is great in any deck with blue green in it. This card is especially good when you have the Leyline of anticipation out so that every turn is essentially your turn. This card does make you a major threat so be ready to defend yourself from all the board wipes exiles and attacks.

Leyline of sanctity and solitary confinement- These are the best cards for stopping any target combo decks like storm. Leyline of sanctity is good for the cost but even better for the free turn zero play. Solitary confinement is the best card you can have on the field if you have a draw engine up that can crank out more than one card. Solitary does have a few holes like discarding a card at
the beginning of your upkeep and that life loss can still affect you. So be weary of black cards mechanics like extort because it doesn't target and it doesn't do damage.

propaganda, ghostly prison, elephant grass, sphere of safety, and web of inertia- these are the cards that will most likely be your first line of defense for creatures because of the 2 for every creature tax. In most games though you won't have the pleasure of having two out at the same time. If you have the mana to play propaganda, ghostly prison or sphere of safety you should do it. The best use for elephant grass is to use it like a temporary buff to your defense but at a certain point the benefits are out weighted by the cumulative upkeep to keep it on the field. Web of inertia is a weird tax card in the sense that you have to exile a card in order to attack you. the best use of this card is having rest in peace out so that no one can attack you because there are no cards to exile from graveyards.

sterling grove, greater auramancy, and fountain watch - these are the card needed to stop any individual dis enchantment removal. Ideally you want greater Auramancy and Sterling grove out on the field so that none of your enchantments can be targeted. the best of these cards however is sterling grove because of the fact that you can sacrafice it as a result of it being destroyed to tutor for an enchantment.

moat- Now if someone played this in a deck where creatures without flying couldn't attack that would shut down most creature decks. Essentially the game stops or slows everyone except you and that makes people a bit ticked off. Also if there are any flying creatures that can still attack, you can always play humility and clip their wings making everything as powerful as a 1/1 token. again this shouldn't slow you down unless you are relying on a aura thief to win or a argothian enchantress to draw cards.

detention sphere, oblivion ring- good ways to stop threats for a while.

council's judgment and krosan grip- council's judgment is by far the best way to get rid of a threat that the whole table can agree with and the best artifact and enchantment in magic.

nevermore- remember those cards that are really mean to play against casual players in edh well this is one of them. They most common target for these are the generals but if you know what the win conditions for you opponent would be than naming a key card would be a better to move to make. usually these key cards are tutors.

wrath of god, day of judgement, supreme verdict - i don't play with that many creatures so chances are that I don't care if I wipe the field of all creatures.

fracturing gust - if you are low on health and the board is filled with artifacts and enchantments than this spell is definitely worth casting.

enlightened tutor and eladamri's call- need something than go get it with these great tutors. A good rule of thumb when it comes using enlightened tutor is using it right before your turn starts.

auramancer, hanna, ship's navigator, and genesis- These are good to get stuff back from the graveyard. the best way to play genesis is by not playing him but to discard him at your end step.

elixir of immortality- best card to use if you messed up.

academy rector - best cheat card ever but it becomes the target of many swords of plowshare. the best way to kill her is by using her as a blocker. it's either that or equip swords of feast and famine and force them to deal with her before you go off with a lot of mana.

argothian enchantress, enchantress's presence, and mesa enchantress- This is you main draw engine. you want these out as soon as possible. the one you want the most is either enchantress's presence or argothian enchantress because mesa enchantress is really easy to deal with.

rhystic study - aka "did you pay one". a good card to get out but a card that is destroyed quickly for obvious reasons.

rites of flourishing - A good card to play to be friendly while also giving yourself to ramp. only down side is that you're the last one to benefit from it.

mirri's guile Essentially a Sensei's Divining Top at upkeeps. a good cheap enchantment that can help you sort out a few turns ahead.

femeref enchantress - This card is really good in the deck because it doesn't you can draw from any enchantment that is put into the graveyard. the best combo for this card is to play cleansing meditation when you have seven or more enchantments on the field. you can clear the board of all the enchantments from the field and draw a card for each one. then all of your enchantments come back on to the field. congrats you just drawed 7 or more cards for 3 mana.

ok so there are multiple ways to get what you need onto the battlefield. you can hard cast them and if nothing happens you win. You can cheat them in using academy rector but you have to make sure you get the rest out before the pieces are destroyed but if they do don't stress because magic gave us the best card to fight against counter spell heavy decks.

replenish - this card is amazing. you can return all your enchantments from your graveyard to the battlefield. There are multiple ways to abuse this card. you can try to cast your win combo and it can get countered but if you have enough mana to finish the combo you can cast replenish and get them and a lot of other stuff back onto the field. you can also go crazy with drawing and discard all the expensive cards so you can cast them all for a cmc of 4 next turn. LMAO. How you use this card can make or break your game so make sure you not going against a lot of players with a ton of blue mana untapped.

omniscience- you cast spells for free. So if you have a draw engine with one or more cards you can essentially play the entire deck but be careful not to mill yourself. If this resolves you can easily play any of the win combos.

parallel thoughts - play this and you get a deck 7 cards of whatever you want and you can draw from them whenever you could draw a card normally. You have to be careful about this card because if you put all of your win cards in here they are gone for the entire game so make sure to have some form of protection for it like sterling grove.

helm of obedience and rest in peace - Rest in peace say there are graveyards and any card that would go into the graveyard will be exiled instead. Now helm of obedience say you can tap for x mana and target player has to put either that many cards into there grave yards or I gain control of the first creature that goes into the graveyard. So if we can't put any cards in the graveyards essentially the target player mills their entire deck. This is the way you will be winning the most. The earliest I have ever gone with this is a perfect hand that can go off turn 3. if oyu get a good hand though and you are dueling the norm is usually turn 4 or 5.

enchanted evening, aura thief, and some form of creature/enchantment destruction - ok so how this works is you have enchanted evening and aura thief on the field and destroy aura thief either with a krosan grip or a wrath of god congrats you just now control every permanent that survived the destruction spell. most people scoop after that especially when it's later in the game. the down side to this is that someone could play a card like fracturing gust to mess with the combo which would essentially start the game from scratch.

enchanted evening and cleansing meditation- so like the combo with aura thief except you destroy everything but your own permanents. Again most people scoop after this resolves and the same weakness can happen in response to casting cleansing meditation.

forced fruition- the slowest win condition but still a win condition that can win the game. essentially you play it and let your opponents mill themselves.

entreat the angels- I draw it pay it's miracle cost for angels. the best thing to have for this is a serra's sanctum with a lot of enchantments on the field so you can get an ungodly amount of angles. the most of have ever gotten was 50 something angels because I had serra's sanctum with 15 enchantments including mana reflection on the field.