MTG Salvation

Quote from GumgodMTG »

Quote from kamakazi339 »

Voting to remove ghitu Slinger. If we're trying to use shardless to use it it won't work. These spell has to cost less

Are we trying to stay above 3 cmc now? I'm confused.

What im saying is that the reason for adding shardless agent was to fetch ghitu slinger. However, cascade will not fetch ghitu because the two cards have the same cmc. In order for ghitu to be a target for fetch it would need to be 2 cmc or lower. I voted ghitu out because I believe of the dysfunctional pair shardless is the better component to this deck

Quote from GumgodMTG »

Quote from kamakazi339 »

Voting to remove ghitu Slinger. If we're trying to use shardless to use it it won't work. These spell has to cost less

Are we trying to stay above 3 cmc now? I'm confused. I was going to add a sol ring, but I don't understand why we have Idyllic Tutor and Furious Assault now when Enlightened Tutor and Impact Tremors both exist. Will it screw something up if I add a 1 cmc spell? I don't know how "all in" we are on cascade.

edit: Also Shardless Agent is an artifact making it a non-bo with Cloudstone Curio if that matters for anything.

I simply forgot that enlightened tutor existed, which happens sometimes, so I wasn't intentionally trying to keep above 3 cmc

Quote from kamakazi339 »

Aluren 65Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creature (28) 4 Mentor of the Meek 4 Catacomb Sifter 4 Skyshroud Sentinel 4 Imperial Recruiter 4 Man-O'-War 1 Caustic Caterpillar 1 Cadaver Imp 1 Blade Splicer 1 Ghitu Slinger ( 1 @ -1) 4 Shardless Agent 1 Sparkmage Apprentice	Enchantments (6) 4 Aluren 2 Furious Assault Sorcery (5) 1 Demonic Tutor 4 Idyllic tutor Artifacts (2) 2 Cloudstone Curio Lands: 21 Forest 3 Ancient Ziggurat

Voting to remove ghitu Slinger. If we're trying to use shardless to use it it won't work. These spell has to cost less

adding a sparkmage apprentice, since we can cascade into it.

Adding a sol ring for ramp, because it's vintage and ramp is good.

Cavern Harpy doesn't have many targets, though a nice addition. with c]Horned Kavu[/c] they could wreak havoc. if only we were running Soul Sisters.

Since Aluren can take care of our creature casting ability, we still need the facilities to cast our other spells- so we can get Aluren out asap with our tutors- adding four Nomad Outpost. Gives us the mana we need to cast both tutors and even Furious Assault.

Voting out a land slot, as Aluren can make things really easy for us, and voting our the Sliver because with the Apprentice, it's nigh moot. also, without a cloudstone and the ability to pay his echo, he's dead weight.

Quote from RabidVacin »

Yeah I kinda wish I picked Horned Kavu now instead of Cavern Harpy.

The Harpy's own bounce ability is still very good in this deck [tis why i inquired about Hibernation Sliver inclusion], it will still facilitate a bounce via Cloudstone... though ironically, i do believe the Gating ability would force the Harpy to bounce itself if we don't have any blue/black creatures to bounce- so at worst, it's a free bounce regardless. Sadly, two of the four targets that it can bounce, one is an artifact the other, well- i don't know how Devoid works with color specific abilities.


We'd have to get a ruling on the interaction between the two cards...
1> Cavern Harpy ETB
2> Cavern Harpy bounces itself via it's own gating ability
3> Cavern Harpy's ETB triggers Cloudstone...?

I'm going to vote against Ghitu Slinger as it seems redundant now. Third vote, cut.

I know I added Blade Splicer, but I honestly didn't pay enough attention to realize it was more or less redundant with Catacomb Sifter. I think we could probably cut splicer to make a little room.

As far as harpy goes, our last add could always be Baleful Strix... Harpy does have good synergy with Shardless Agent and Man-o'-war.

If we streamline our Shardless Agent interactions, we can trim some slots off our endgame combo.

I like Gumgod's call on Impact Tremors over Sparkmage & Furious Assault : Tremors replaces both of these cards. Agent or tutors find it, and it allows Harpy/Aluren to win without Curio.
Swapping out Idyllic Tutor for Enlightened allows us to dig up Aluren or Curio more consistently off an Agent.

So
-1 Sparkmage Apprentice
-2 Furious Assault
-4 Idyllic Tutor

I'll refrain from adding anything until feedback from the group backs or disputes this course of action, because I don't want force the cutting phase before we have more of a consensus on this.

Impact Tremors IS definitely better than Furious Assault, so it makes sense to include Tremors over Assault. I am a Vintage/Legacy player, so i've not kept up with the newer cards.

I'm going to go ahead and vote against these two I talked about before.

Voting to remove Idyllic Tutor to make room for Enlightened Tutor. (third vote cut)
Voting to remove Furious Assault to make room for Impact Tremors. (third vote cut)

I'm going to go ahead and add 4 Enlightened Tutor. It's a great way to find either Aluren, Cloudstone Curio and potentially Impact Tremors (if it gets added). It's also an instant. It's more vulnerable to mental misstep than the other tutor, but it's also more flexible.

I'll use my addition to get Impact Tremors in. I don't know the appropriate number... Looks like we're leaving flexibility in how we finish out the game. So 1 or 2 I guess. Do we want a single tutorable cannon, or redundancy here?

I'll start by adding 1 Impact Tremors, we can vote it up to 2 if needed.

I have a feeling this is going to be a hard deck to trim...
We need some draw potential, mostly to get some of our combo's rolling, i'm adding 4 Tranquil Thicket. When we have Aluren out, we won't be really relying on our mana to cast spells. Late game, we can just cycle these.

Suggest to add 1 Blind Obedience, to have something to fetch if one draws more tutors, or cascades into them. And counter the potential of Aluren for the opponent.

Isn't squadron hawk better than skyshroud sentinel?

Quote from Quilt »

Suggest to add 1 Blind Obedience, to have something to fetch if one draws more tutors, or cascades into them. And counter the potential of Aluren for the opponent.

Isn't squadron hawk better than skyshroud sentinel?

Aluren 73Magic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creature (34) 4 Mentor of the Meek 4 Catacomb Sifter 4 Skyshroud Sentinel 4 Imperial Recruiter 4 Man-O'-War 1 Caustic Caterpillar 1 Cadaver Imp 1 Blade Splicer 4 Shardless Agent 1 Sparkmage Apprentice 4 Elvish Spirit Guide 2 Cavern Harpy	Enchantments (5) 4 Aluren 1 Impact Tremors 1 Blind Obedience Instant (5) 1 Vampiric Tutor 4 Enlightened Tutor Sorcery (1) 1 Demonic Tutor Artifacts (3) 2 Cloudstone Curio 1 Sol Ring	Lands (24) 13 Forest (2 @ -1) 3 Ancient Ziggurat 4 Nomad Outpost 4 Tranquil Thicket

I don't think we're using the best shard/wedge land. We should either use jungle shrine so we have colors for shardless, aluren and recruiter, or frontier bivouac for access to shardless and aluren.
we should also consider something like augury owl or omenspeaker to help dig for the combos.

Is it just me or is diluting the deck with cards under 3 cmc, going to reduce the efficiency of shardless agent?

what about good old Sage Owl? better than aug

Quote from BlackVise »

Regarding Skyshroud Sentinel vs Squadron Hawk - Hawk is better generally, but not interfering with Agent is a big vote in favor of Sentinel instead.

But isn't it more likely that one will have one hawk on the table, three in the hand by the time you cascade?

I don't think I like Ancient Ziggurat in this deck. It doesn't tap to cast our non-creature spells, and our goal is to cast our creatures for free anyway so in the early game it's junk and in the late game it's junk. I would like a different five color land in this spot (city of brass? Mana confluence? Reflecting Pool? Gemstone Mine?). Voting to remove all Ancient Ziggurat.

As a related thought, I think Birds of Paradise could have been good in this deck. I don't think there's room now though.

I'm going to vote against 4 Skyshroud Sentinel. The card is interesting, but I agree that Squadron Hawk would be better. We can fix the mana so that it doesn't matter what color it is.

I'm going to disagree with BlackVise and say that I think Caterpillar is better than Replica, but I'm going to refrain from casting any votes for either to see what others think. Pridemage would have also been fine here I think. I do see the desire to make it work with cascade, but having early drops is important too. I also think this one might be a hard deck to trim down.

-3 Ancient Ziggurat: I think all of our non-creature spells will need all the land they can get. Since we've gone more combo than mid-range, we can't afford to sit on a land that can't cast Aluren.
-4 Skyshroud Sentinel: I think this would also fit a more mid-range approach. While I like the bodies and the deck thinning, we need creatures that can ETB.
-1 Blade Splicer: Catacomb Sifter does this job and more.

I am going to final vote Ancient Zigg because it is a dead land as mentioned previously
Im also going to final vote Skyshroud Sentinal in favor of something like Squadron Hawk or a ETB creature with better effect.

I think we're still required to keep 24 land spots unless we get votes to reduce the total land count. (This is why we have votes against basic forest).

Wasn't paying attention I guess... thoughi think 24 is way to much for this deck.... I edited it

I hate it when we have to this dance... one card away from cutting phase, and no one's going to pull the trigger. We've prematurely started the cutting phase without coming to a consensus about the deck's strategy.

I'm going be brash- Voting Out 4 Shardless Agent- if this was added earlier to the deck, then it would have been viable to build around. With it being a late addition, and most of our critters at the peak 3 cc, it forces us to either entirely overhaul the deck, or just omit entirely. It is also an Artifact, so it won't trigger the Curio.

I'm going to add- 4 Wall of Blossoms (or Wall of Omens, if people prefer)- it's early game draw that'll buy us time and help us start a combo, it's a "no-brainer" bounce with the Curio when we have not much else to bounce, and if we keep the Agent- a great cascade candidate.

How would an Immortal Servitude do here? Otherwise, Recycle looks good.