MTG Salvation

Couple more ideas:

Izzet Charm
Dack Fayden
Future sight
Hull breach
Nature's Claim
Coiling oracle
Reclaimation sage
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Kira, the great glass spinner
Venser, shaper savant
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Trygon predator


Green Sun and Chord should be main deck as well

Ha, this is awesome. I'll be keeping an eye on this thread, it's always great to see someone not use the usual generals in these colors.

Pact of Negation, Swan Song and Mindbreak Trap should be considered. Merchant Scroll is a criminally underlooked blue tutor. It is usually better for a control deck than Mystical. Control decks should run both.

Even for a "beatdown" deck you run to many creatures and to many lands for most "competitive" or "control" decks. I'd probably cut 4 lands or so (replacing at least 2 with the optimal blue cantrips) and cut 4-6 of the "cute" creatures. Replace them with card draw spells and removal spells.

Every blue deck should run both but if you are going to only run one, Clever Impersonator > Phyrexian Metamorph.

A quick look at the list leaves me with the impression that you are too slow and light on control to hang with the better decks I've seen. By the time you're casting enough of your big win creatures, they won't resolve or your board will get wiped. Or someone else already won.

Thank you all very much for the suggestions.

Quote from Dies_to_Doom_Blade »

Couple more ideas:

Izzet Charm
Dack Fayden
Future sight
Hull breach
Nature's Claim
Coiling oracle
Reclaimation sage
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Kira, the great glass spinner
Venser, shaper savant
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Trygon predator

Green Sun and Chord should be main deck as well

I definitely agree with Green Sun's and Chord being main deck. I've been trying to find a spot for them. So many cards to consider. I originally had Tyrygon Predator in but I cut it as I thought they're are better cards that do the same thing.

Quote from bigbearlyke »

Pact of Negation, Swan Song and Mindbreak Trap should be considered. Merchant Scroll is a criminally underlooked blue tutor. It is usually better for a control deck than Mystical. Control decks should run both.

Even for a "beatdown" deck you run to many creatures and to many lands for most "competitive" or "control" decks. I'd probably cut 4 lands or so (replacing at least 2 with the optimal blue cantrips) and cut 4-6 of the "cute" creatures. Replace them with card draw spells and removal spells.

Every blue deck should run both but if you are going to only run one, Clever Impersonator > Phyrexian Metamorph.

A quick look at the list leaves me with the impression that you are too slow and light on control to hang with the better decks I've seen. By the time you're casting enough of your big win creatures, they won't resolve or your board will get wiped. Or someone else already won.

Some very good points. At this time I haven't been able to test the deck much yet but I do play tomorrow so that'll be good. At first glance I'll probably be taking out both planeswalkers. I'll have to see how they perform and how important they are. More draw is always good and while I agree to cut some lands, 4 seems like a lot o.0. As of creatures to remove, probably Purphoros, God of the Forge and Garruk's Packleader are the first to go. While I enjoy Purphoros, I'm not entirely sure how effective he'll be with so few tokens. They're straight up better draw spells in the colors I have access to so Garruk will be an easy cut. Urabrask and Vigor are probably the next to go creature wise. While they are disgustingly good cards, if I want to win quick, they aren't really needed.

As for Clever Impersonator, I do agree and I will be replacing Phyrexian Metamorph with it however I'm not 100% settled on even having them in the deck in the first place. I will have to see how they perform.

Somberwald Sage is a great card in a deck full of creatures, but as I decrease the creature count in the deck he gets worse and worse so this may be an easy cut in the near future.

Yes Merchant Scroll is an excellent card but for now since as you mentioned I have a lot of creatures, I'll be leaving it out until I have more sorcery's/instants included in the deck.

As for other cuts, I'm honestly not sure what to cut. Help is welcome

I think you are completely on the right path in your thought process right now. Everything you mentioned as potential cuts are cards I would consider as well.

Before you consider many other choices get that play experience with the deck. Even if it's just goldfishing. See how you tend to win most often (probably some sort of Craterhoof situation) and consider cutting cards that don't get you there as quickly as possible.

I agree. However if you want to fully optimize you'll need infintes.

Infinite damage is a lot easier to do than 120 when playing against 3 people and the main draw of surrak is those uncounterable creatures. That's just my two cents though.

Quote from Dies_to_Doom_Blade »

I agree. However if you want to fully optimize you'll need infintes.

Infinite damage is a lot easier to do than 120 when playing against 3 people and the main draw of surrak is those uncounterable creatures. That's just my two cents though.

Craterhoof/Avenger makes it easier but I agree for the most part.

The simple fact is that most decks aren't competitive if they don't have some "infinite combo" or if they don't storm (often with an infinite).

My playgroups decks generally are quite good but they aren't tier 1 good. No consistent turn 5 wins and not much land destruction and very little stax. So my aim for this deck is to make it as efficient as competitive as possible with the respective boundaries of avoiding some cheap infinite combos and land destruction. That will be clear when I expand my post into(hopefully)a primer. If I wanted the most competitive general in these colors that combo out very very quickly I would've chosen a different commander.

Though I am thinking about including Ruination as it hinders my deck a lot at the same time while not completely shutting my opponents out of the game 100% of the time. So that card is definitely something to consider.

So with that being said I hope with all of your help we can make that possible as I must admit, I am no deck building pro like some people on this site

I will hopefully have some much needed playtime with the deck tomorrow. I'll have some changes then I'm sure.

Well I got some good time in with the deck this weekend. It performed VERY well. You can see the changes in the new change log section. Currently I need more draw. Not sure which draw spells are the go to ones to add.

Probably Vigor and Somberwald Sage to cut next as I assume the draw spells to add are going to be some sort or sorcery/instant and Vigor doesn't really help with killing people.

Seeing how my meta is fairly creature heavy I decided to put in blasphemous act which hasn't been played yet but I assume its a very valuable include.

Prime Speaker Zegana is just disgusting. I drew so many cards off her and being able to tutor her on the battlefield at any time is ridiculous.

I unfortunately didn't get a chance to play Plaxmanta but Kira, Great Glass-Spinner could be a direct upgrade. Plax is an instant though.... so good.

I'd like to share a hilarious game ending play I had tonight....

One of my 3 opponents was running a Kaervek the Merciless deck. He had Possibility Storm in play with Platinum Angel and many cards that would deal damage to everyone in their upkeep like Sulfuric Vortex. Basically a chaos deck that is built to ruin everyone's lives and punish you for casting spells...tapping mana that sort of thing.

As my 2 other opponents slowly die to the rather huge amounts of punishing enchantments in play, I have Surrak Dragonclaw and Sylvan Library in play. I start casting some low mana costing creatures. Luck out and get a Glen Elendra and an Avenger. Still can't do anything as all the removal in my hand gets Possibility Storm'd away.

Probably 5-6 turns later its me and the Kaervek the Merciless player left and I storm into a Clever Impersonator to copy his Platinum Angel. We end up casting spells for the next 6-7 turns back and forth not getting any removal we can use to win the game. At this point were both at negative 100 life as every time we cast a spell we take 10+ damage from the enchantment triggers. I end up Counterspelling a random spell he had cast and luckily roll into a Beast Within to kill his angel and win the game. An absolutely hilarious game and a hilarious top deck win.

On a side note, definitely need more card draw and Somberwald Sage is next to come out. Not sure what to replace it with though.

Took out Somberwald Sage as its almost never been useful with having a lot of instants and sorceries. Added Momentous Fall which performed quite well. Still looking for some different draw spells like Life's Legacy, Blue sun's zenith.