MTG Salvation

I've been brewing a Glissa, the Traitor deck, am in the process of acquiring pieces for it, and would greatly appreciate feedback. I want to be able to abuse Glissa's removal and recursion abilities, but not be so overly dependent on her that it folds without her. The deck aims to kill my opponents stuff and recur my own, with a splash of reanimation from anywhere to add some diversity to my games. Synergy and interactivity are important factors to consider. I'm not completely settled on my wincons yet, but I'd like try and keep them diverse as well. Without further ado, here is what I have so far.


Current CMC is 2.85. I'm trying to keep it as low as possible. Here is a list of cards I am also considering/mulling about.


Let me know what you all think and where I can make improvements. Thanks!

I basically replaced everything I could with an artifact and moved towards a slightly tokens/army in a can style deck. I do lack some of the interactive elements that is often possible in GB.
I found Avatar of woe too slow and sadly cut her, I wanted only a few non artifact creatures in any case (9 + glissa). I my deck is nothing but durdle so it is surprising that I cut something for being slow.
Typically I hate ramp spells, no real point when you have infinite mana rocks you could be running instead, that you can sac for value and recur, I'd replace cultivate with life from the loam, goes with your reanimator strategy. I can't afford crucible but life has been great with utility and cycle lands.

You have a ton of sac outlets but nothing much to actually sac, I am not sure you need so many or alternatively you put in things like Myr retriever or perhaps more of my Army in a can style cards to give you more fuel.

Forgemaster isn't really getting anything particularly good to be honest okay you can tutor artifacts but wouldn't it be better just to draw more cards?

I am not sure your reanimation targets are particularly strong or hard to hard cast, I am not sure what the prime reanimation targets are in black green but nothing strikes me as something I want to cheat out.

If you have Mike you'll want Trike ( Triskelion)

I agree that the list is a little messy. Mike is here to recur my guys after I sac them and once I had an engine down really get some value there. Wurmcoil Engine is who I really had in mind here. I don't find infinite combos too terribly fun, hence Trike missing, but I don't mind having a couple just in case.

Kuldotha Forgemaster is a remnant of the Reaper King deck that was torn apart and used for this deck. The idea there was to add an artifact sac outlet since I should have no issues recurring them and a tutor to suit whatever the current game plan was. I'm trying to stay light on the tutors, but I might end up cutting them entirely.

As far as reanimation goes, my thought process was to grab whatever my opponents had, thinking this would add a little variability to games, or if I needed to restart a sac sequence.

It definitely still needs work. Any thoughts on Minion Reflector and Mirrorworks? I'd really like to get them involved somehow.

5 mana seemed like a lot for an artifact that does nothing the turn it comes in.. I have strionic resonator and I recently added Mirrorpool because I have a ton of colourless utility lands, that are doing similar things for less.

Most of my cards can value if my opponents untap and wrath, I think vampire nighthawk is the one I can't, but I was having trouble staying alive, It's currently one of my to cut when something better comes along.

Yeah I think you are really going to have to give the list some focus, I get that you want games to play our differently. If you what that then cut all tutors, I still run two but for creatures only.

Ashnod's altar + nims deathmantle + wurmcoil engine is an infinite combo.

I think if you are basically trying to kill and return the same creature over and over I'd look to having artifact creatures with ETB triggers like I have. I don't think reanimation is necessary for that kind of game plan.

I strongly encourage you to get a hangarback walker it's nuts.

Hi there,

As a fellow player who is building a Glissa deck, I'll try and give my 2 cents. But since i have never played with the deck yet, don't listen to me all that much XD.

• I'm not a fan of lotus petal in EDH, and even less in a deck that is not combo oriented. I find it hard to think of a situation where this deck would be so tempo hungry to make better use of recurring spirit guides than, say, a commander's sphere.
• Also not a fan of durdling with do nothing baubles, but that's just my personal taste. I don't want to play boring cards that cycle on my EDH decks. But mine has a dredge theme, so i expect that card draw will be plenty.
• I love altar of dementia, but i play it because my deck maximizes the card value (I play bloodghast and reassembling skeleton as fodder, i play heavy recursion to make use of auto mill and even have milling opponents as a secondary wincon). Your deck can't make the same use of the card (and as Narvuntien pointed out, you have little to sac), so maybe it doesn't do enough here.
• You have a relatively low creature count, so maybe Birthing Pod is kinda of lackluster here. Moreover, if you plan on milling yourself you might end up screwing your pod chain more often than not.
• Regrowth is fine, but I would never run it before Eternal Witness, Den Protector or even Skullwinder. Creatures are far easier to recur (see nim deathmantle and mimic vat).
• I'm not a fan of Abrupt Decay for casual edh, but can certainly be a good and necessary meta call for some playgroups. Victim of night seems a little unimpressive.
• I'm not sure about Necropotence.
• Again, I feel like Pernicious Deed is meta dependent. I could see plague boiler being better depending on your meta.
• You only run seven decent fodders to Greater Good and no buffs besides nim deathmantle. I think that this is hardly enough to justify the card.
• Is Hermit Druid just for the auto milling? If so, there are plenty of better options for a glissa deck. I would look into mesmeric orb or grinding station as substitutes.
• With Wurmcoil Engine or Mindslaver as your high end artifact targets, i don't believe this is quite a Kuldotha Forgemaster deck. You can run it for the toolbox it provides, but i think it would be generally worse then a black tutor of some sort.
• I would run Viridian longbow over Visara the Dreadful and Avatar of Woe anytime. In this deck, they basically do the same thing, but longbow is cheaper, an artifact and is more resilient to removal. I agree with Narvuntien that these cards are too slow.

That was all the cards i had something specific to say. However, if i were you i would run more recursion and less reanimation, or at least more creatures. Also, if you are interested, my list is available here on this forum, just a couple of pages back.

On the matter of your considered cards:

• The spell bombs there don't do enough.
• Tortured Existence is a worse phyrexian reclamation most of the time.
• Between Engineered Explosives and Plague Boiler, Ratchet Bomb should be too clunky.
• Sadistic Sacrament is outclassed by Jester's Cap
• Shimmer Myr is outclassed by Vedalken Orrery
• Victimize should require a higher creature count.
• Graveborn Muse is a clunkier, more vulnerable, conditional Phyrexian arena
• Minion Reflector should require a lot more creatures with ETB triggers. If you change your deck to have this kind o focus, then it is a fine card.
• I also though of Mirrorworks, but the more i thought of the artifacts in my deck, the more i though this would just be a win more card. There are no artifacts in my deck that a second copy would be really impactful, and I don't see many that would in your deck as well.
• Life's Finale is just a budget option. That are plenty of better warths in black.

As for the rest, the majority are either good cards in general or solid tech options against a specific meta. Some others are just fine cards, but i wouldn't run them simply because there are better options overall.

I hope this was of some help :).

Quote from Narvuntien »

Ashnod's altar + nims deathmantle + wurmcoil engine is an infinite combo.

I think if you are basically trying to kill and return the same creature over and over I'd look to having artifact creatures with ETB triggers like I have. I don't think reanimation is necessary for that kind of game plan.

I strongly encourage you to get a hangarback walker it's nuts.

I am aware of the combo, I don't mind them per say, I just feel that Mike+Trike is "too easy." Also, I'm taking the Hangarback Walker suggestion seriously. He's got crazy potential here even though I'm not 100% in love with the flavor.

Quote from Nithkar »

Hi there,

As a fellow player who is building a Glissa deck, I'll try and give my 2 cents. But since i have never played with the deck yet, don't listen to me all that much XD.

I truly appreciate the input, no matter how wrong you could be. The deck has undergone major changes since I initially posted the deck here. I'll freely admit that it was a mess. My initial convoluted idea behind the original list was to sac and recur my opponents stuff rather than my own. It was very clunky in testing. With regards to your comments, I will counter that Lotus Petal has been quite nice in testing, enabling a turn 2 Glissa. Probably just lucky to get it in my opening hand or first 2 draws frequently.

I'll be updating my first post with the current state of the deck shortly.

Here's my own Glissa build. I decided to go with a "Deathtouch Creatures" theme, using Glissa's Artifact recursion as an afterthought. As the deck has grown, it's seen fewer Creatures and more Artifacts, but it's a really fun control-type build that everyone at your table is guaranteed to hate.

Off the top of my head, I can't recommend Horn of Ramos and Skull of Ramos enough. Also, since you're running Thornbite Staff, I also definitely recommend Viridian Longbow so that you can go limitlessly infinite with the tap->poke->kill combo and not have to worry about mana.

Since you have Grave Pact, maybe also consider Dictate of Erebos and/or Butcher of Malakir? And if you're planning on killing a lot of creatures, Deathreap Altar is a great way to keep a low-cost deck like Glissa churning cards out.

Finally, wow, do you ever need Plague Boiler! A lot of people don't like slow Wraths or Artifact Wraths for some reason, but this is definitely one of my favorite cards to put in this deck.

At any rate, those are my recommendations. Feel free to take inspiration from my own build, as well, if you'd like.