MTG Salvation

I've been looking for a fun shell for Rite of Passage for some time, and I think I've got a good build here that uses Pestilence to clear out opponents' boards while building up mine. Corpsejack Menace is an obvious include, and I threw in a couple other cards that I was interested in, like Hardened Scales and Predator Ooze. Finally, I included Tuskguard Captain to give trample to all my creatures with counters, but I found that other options like Bramblewood Paragon and Crowned Ceratok also exist - would one of these be a better fit? I like outlast on the Tuskguard Captain, but the Paragon's Warrior boost or the Ceratok's additional attack could be a good fit. Thanks for any comments.


Other cards considered:
- Burst of Strength
- Retribution of the Ancients
- Withstand Death
- Bramblewood Paragon
- Broodhatch Nantuko
- Solidarity of Heroes
- Hindervines
- Hornet Nest
- Varolz, the Scar-Striped
- Crowned Ceratok
- Cytoplast Root-Kin
- Longshot Squad
- Mer-Ek Nightblade
- Saber Ants
- Titania's Boon
- Mycoloth
- Sprouting Phytohydra
- Decree of Savagery
- Suncrusher

I always liked Rite of Passage to make the phantom creatures invincible: Phantom Centaur, Phantom Nantuko, and Phantom Nishoba are the best ones.

Withstand Death is a rather weak effect - even when it is saving a Corpsejack Menace. Consider some card advantage here - even something like Harmonize.

If you really like the Saber Ants / Hornet Nest effect, I like the considered Broodhatch Nantuko as another good card to replace one of your weaker creatures. If you have Swarmyard lying around, the deck almost builds itself from that point.

Lots of interesting ideas here! You should pop by the Pestilence Primer and see if you can get any ideas from there. I play a deck very similar to yours, but more axed on Pestilence and how to make it one-sided.

Quote from Chromaticus »

I always liked Rite of Passage to make the phantom creatures invincible: Phantom Centaur, Phantom Nantuko, and Phantom Nishoba are the best ones.

Withstand Death is a rather weak effect - even when it is saving a Corpsejack Menace. Consider some card advantage here - even something like Harmonize.

If you really like the Saber Ants / Hornet Nest effect, I like the considered Broodhatch Nantuko as another good card to replace one of your weaker creatures. If you have Swarmyard lying around, the deck almost builds itself from that point.

Thanks a lot for this, I actually ended up restructuring the deck quite a bit based on your comments. While I didn't want to go into white for Phantom Nishoba, and Phantom Centaur has pro-black and couldn't gain from a Pestilence wave, I did add 4 Phantom Nantuko (this thing is a beast), and 1 Phantom Wurm for the top of the curve. I also definitely wanted to make sure to keep up my card advantage, so in addition to keeping the Overwhelming Instinct, I also added Mindless Automaton, which seemed like the best way to channel my +1/+1 counters into card draw, as well as 2 Soul's Majesty - since I'll almost certainly have creatures with piles of counters, casting a Soul's Majesty should net me a bounty of cards.

Wouldn't the phantom creatures' abilities prevent the pestilence damage, thus preventing the Rite of Passage trigger? Am I missing something?

Quote from Pigglebee »

Quote from Starpup »

Wouldn't the phantom creatures' abilities prevent the pestilence damage, thus preventing the Rite of Passage trigger? Am I missing something?

I guess it has something to do with stacking the effect properly?

There's nothing to stack. The Phantom trigger is a replacement effect. The damage isn't dealt and then retroactively removed or anything. It's prevented i.e. never dealt in the first place. So no, Rite of Passage doesn't protect Phantom creatures from Pestilence or whatever. It doesn't protect them from anything really because nothing actually deals damage to them. Burn, combat damage, Pestilence, none of that damage is ever dealt. The cards don't combine well at all in that sense. Fungusaur? Sure, that works. Nested Ghoul? That works too. Protean Hydra? Rite of Passage does actual nothing for it but Pestilence can be used to beef it up over time. That's fairly relevant.

Anyways, yeah, Magic is a stupidly complicated game and the interactions are rarely-if-ever intuitive. Hooray!

The Phantom creatures should be removed IMO since they don't work with the main theme of the deck; Rite of Passage. Yeah they work with the additional +1/+1 counter stuff but I think there are better alternatives for those slots. Maybe Fungal Behemoth or Fungus Sliver or more of any of the other Hydra or Fungusaur creatures in your deck already.

A similar Pestilence type card in green is Splintering Wind. It's a nice alternate way to damage all of your creatures without having to worry about losing the enchantment in a board clear like what happens with Pestilence. It also creates flyers which your deck seems to be lacking.

Another deal damage to all your creatures card that you can use as a defensive combat trick is Hail Storm.

Thanks for the reply Prid3, and thanks for all of your other posts as well. Some buddies and I started playing multiplayer Magic 2 years ago (none of us had really played since the 90s), and I have been lurking on this subforum for the past year and half. Your comprehensive guides and excellent comments have had an enormous affect on my overall win %! Thanks a ton!!

Quote from Starpup »

Thanks for the reply Prid3, and thanks for all of your other posts as well. Some buddies and I started playing multiplayer Magic 2 years ago (none of us had really played since the 90s), and I have been lurking on this subforum for the past year and half. Your comprehensive guides and excellent comments have had an enormous affect on my overall win %! Thanks a ton!!

You're welcome :)! Thank you for the kind words, they mean a lot to me.

I really like the Fungal Behemoth suggestion.

I think the best you can do now is up the creature count, up the amount of copies for consistency, cut back on all those Enchantments that aren't creatures getting the benefit and add more consistent card draw/advantage, such as Skullclamp, Lurking Predators and/or Oversold Cemetery.

Some dirty, dirty combos that come to mind:
Spike Weaver - Pestilence for 1, remove the Counter from the Spike Weaver to prevent damage, people will attack elsewhere. No ???, Profit!
Spike Feeder - You're going to hitting yourself for a lot of damage with Pestilence. This turns into: B: Gain 1 Life, all opponents lose 1 life.
Forgotten Ancient - Seems to always be in +1/+1 counter decks
Grim Backwoods - Would draw you cards and doesn't "take up a slot"