MTG Salvation

I've been interested in building a cloudpost deck for some time now. I could never figure our what color combination to do as multi-color post decks tend to have a pricy manabase. I've settled on mono-blue as I have a mono-black and mono-green deck already and blue seems like the only other mono-colored post deck that would make sense. The following is what I am thinking so far, but I am unsure.

The more that I play this style of deck that more that I appreciate how much better Mnemonic Wall is than Archaeomancer. The difference between 4 and 5 is trivial in Post decks and UU is a real cost. Not because hitting UU is hard but because you want to cast your recursion spell alongside other Blue spells on the same turn and that's where things get tight. I actually find it significantly easier to cast Crush + Wall every turn because even though it's 9 vs 10 mana 6UUUU always felt harder than 7UUU. The Wall is also a better blocker which does matter because I've never once won a game with 'Mancer beats. 0/4 isn't huge or anything but it's significantly better than 1/2 and, again, I do think that the Wall is easier to manage (cost wise) in practice. I know that you're probably only playing 'Mancer because of me but in my defense my old decks used to have a lot of 3 CMC draw spells such as Compulsive Research and I liked that curve a lot. Once you start cutting those then the 3 -> 4 curve starts to become a lot less important.

Prophetic Prism seems a lot better than Fellwar Stone in your current deck. You probably don't need the Ramp and the Prism is an actual draw engine with Crush of Tentacles recursion.

4x Recurring Insight is overkill. I love the card, don't get me wrong, but this deck doesn't lose games due to a lack of value. Run 1-2 but don't go overboard.

For what it's worth I'm generally satisfied with 4x Wall and 0x Archaeomancer (or any split really). This is especially true when your deck doesn't have a critical mass of powerful 3 CMC draw spells to recur. I like the recursion well enough but they don't have value early on and you kind of want cheap spells that affect the board earlier if possible.

As much as I like loading up on "Wrath of Gods" I'm starting to think that you don't need more than 4 total since Blue Wraths aren't quite on the same level as White ones. They're still powerful for obvious reasons but I do feel as though you can overload on them. It's kinda worth noting that Whelming Wave doesn't bounce Krakens and whatnot but I mean Tide is great too since it nails all nonland perms which is better for turning Prophetic Prism into a draw engine.

I like having actual finishers such as Memnarch and Kozilek, the Great Distortion. I find that the deck durdles way too hard and while it wins games it does so far too slowly for my tastes. I like winning but I'm not looking to play a fatigue game that goes to decking so I like having some actual meat for when I hit a ton of mana. You don't need to run a ton of bombs but insofar as your deck has Academy Ruins and ways to tutor for it then you may as well jam some Myr Battlespheres in there or something. Any big Artifact should work just fine and you probably only need 1-2.

Seems like more cuts than things to add, but good points overall. I think I'll add a couple Inkwell Leviathans as finishers. I feel like 5 mass removal will end up working well with a 3/2 split between Crush of Tentacles and Whelming Wave. Crush hits all non-lands and wave will leave my finishers on the board removing all other creatures. I'm still lacking ideas for early plays. Maybe more cantrips to dig for the posts or some Jens to grab blue sources and provide another blocker?

For early-game plays I don't like loading up on Cantrips. They don't do enough IMO.

Personally I play 4x Maps and 4x Ponder at 1 CMC and then I play six 2 CMC spells which is usually 4x Prophetic Prism and then 2x Fellwar Stone or any other "real" manarock. That almost always gives me stuff to do on turns 1 and 2 and remember that even if you miss on untapped/colored mana for turn 1 (which is common) that Fellwar Stone still casts Ponder immediately on turn 2. For 3 CMC it's just Sea Gate Oracle and for 5 CMC it's only Mnemonic Wall. The biggest difference between our lists is that I personally run 4x Diluvian Primordial where you currently have Rite of Replication/Recurring Insight because I prefer the body that I can actually bounce. I don't think that you need more than 1 Inkwell and you might like Memnarch as an answer to extremely threatening spells and effects since you can easily recur it.

Quote from Earthbound »

Hey, I wanna share my cloudpost deck maybe you get some inspiration from it.

I play a similar deck. I strongly recommend Crop Rotation over Reap and Sow since it's 1 vs 4 mana. A very common sequence is turn 2 Wall of Roots (into Ancient Stirrings) into Crop Rotation which sets you up nicely for the following turns. I also think that Wall of Blossoms should become Axebane Guardian since your deck already has eight 2 drops and the Guardian is sick with your other rampy Walls. Otherwise Moment's Peace should either be Ancient Stirrings or Sylvan Scrying unless your meta is hyper-aggressive because you already have twelve Walls for defense which should be way more than enough.

Quote from Xyx »

Out of curiosity (and perhaps also because I got Crush of Tentacles in the mail and I'm playing 2HG this Saturday)... What's a good Crush deck nowadays?

My "casual" 2HG deck of choice is currently:



But I didn't want to spend a dime when I built it other than on the Surge cards so it's mostly built from my old Pauper deck. Sundering Titan needed a home after he was banned from EDH and his interaction with Crush is obviously absurd. The mana looks a lot worse than it actually is and you can goldfish it on Forge if you want to see what I mean. In practice you don't struggle to cast your spells at a reasonable clip. That being said it's obviously designed to be a 2HG deck and the reason why it has 4x Fall of the Titans and 4x Crush of Tentacles is because you can cast them on-curve with Surge via your Ally's aid and that's a big deal. Forge won't do those cards justice.

Note that Swords to Plowshares/Lightning Bolt/Flame Slash can be cards like Sudden Demise or Mizzium Mortars. Mortars is especially appealing if you can Overload it but that always felt win-more to me and I preferred having the cheaper spell in general since hitting RRR takes so long to reach.

Another powerful option is Mystic Remora which is always insane. Way better than Ponder or Ancient Stirrings or whatever.

Quote from Xyx »

That somehow looks terrible and great at the same time. Awesome! Will try. Thanks!

It looks a lot worse than it plays. It's more competitive than people give credit for and the mana really does work.

I've been going back and tweaking some of my old decks. This is my current 10-post decklist.



It seems to work pretty well. It is slow, but that is the nature of the deck. I stuck with the sea monster theme (even have sea monster sleeves) and am happy with that decision. There is a minor nobo between stormtide leviathan and the octopus tokens from crush of tentacles, but the moat effect + turning glimmerposts into islands has been worth it overall.

(I traded the academy ruins which is the only reason it isn't still in the deck.)

Quote from CoolLink19 »

Stuff.

I recommend fielding Soothsaying or Oath of Jace over Fellwar Stone. The deck doesn't need ramp and it's nice to have cheap/relevant things to bounce with Crush that don't die to creature removal. Soothsaying is a budget Sensei's Divining Top that digs you into Posts early on whereas the Oath is a powerful lategame card advantage engine that filters away excess Islands and such.

Kaladesh has just handed you Glint-Nest Crane - I wonder if it's worth swapping some of those in for Sea Gate Oracles?
They don't hit the Rites, Crushes or Archaeomancers, but they'll help ramp in a way (by hitting all the Expedition Maps and mana rocks). And they're down a turn earlier and a flying blocker.

Quote from CadaverousBl00m »

Kaladesh has just handed you Glint-Nest Crane - I'd run that every day of the week over Sea Gate Oracle in this deck. It'll dig for artifacts, comes down a turn earlier, and is a flying blocker with a decent caboose.

Doesn't hit Posts.

Quote from Prid3 »

Quote from CadaverousBl00m »

Kaladesh has just handed you Glint-Nest Crane - I'd run that every day of the week over Sea Gate Oracle in this deck. It'll dig for artifacts, comes down a turn earlier, and is a flying blocker with a decent caboose.

Doesn't hit Posts.

Behold my ninja edit skills.
To be fair, it hits the Maps, which hit the Posts. Does that make it better than Sea Gate Oracle? Dunno, but I reckon it'd be worth testing at least.

Quote from CadaverousBl00m »

To be fair, it hits the Maps, which hit the Posts. Does that make it better than Sea Gate Oracle? Dunno, but I reckon it'd be worth testing at least.

It's not.

Quote from Prid3 »

Quote from CadaverousBl00m »

To be fair, it hits the Maps, which hit the Posts. Does that make it better than Sea Gate Oracle? Dunno, but I reckon it'd be worth testing at least.

It's not.

Well, that was efficient.

Quote from CadaverousBl00m »

Quote from Prid3 »

Quote from CadaverousBl00m »

To be fair, it hits the Maps, which hit the Posts. Does that make it better than Sea Gate Oracle? Dunno, but I reckon it'd be worth testing at least.

It's not.

Well, that was efficient.

The non-efficient answer would be:

It doesn't dig you into your land drops early on, it doesn't grab key combo pieces such as Wall/Crush, it doesn't hit Posts, the deck can't afford to run Artifact lands such as Darksteel Citadel, it's a weaker card advantage engine when paired with mass bounce and it doesn't always hit. This isn't an Affinity deck with 26+ Artifacts that will hit 90%+ of the time. SGO is slower but it always hits and it can grab anything relevant that you happen to see. Yes, it's only 2 cards deep but so many of your key grabs are non-artifact cards.

The fellwar stones were mostly there for additional sources of blue mana without having to play an island instead of a locus, but may not be necessary. I like the idea of Oath of Jace to dig into more value. It also tosses things in the yard that mnemonic wall can return later if needed.

Quote from CoolLink19 »

The fellwar stones were mostly there for additional sources of blue mana without having to play an island instead of a locus, but may not be necessary. I like the idea of Oath of Jace to dig into more value. It also tosses things in the yard that mnemonic wall can return later if needed.

It's also relevant to note that even though it isn't card advantage it digs 3 cards to find a Post which is still insanely relevant on turn 3.