MTG Salvation

So, I decided that Glissa the Traitor would be my next project. A red deck will come afterwards, but I realized I have a bunch of black cards I haven't had anywhere to use, and my friend did give me a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth that has been gathering dust for far too long. But I'm having trouble on where to start.

I've looked at the decklists and primers and I have an idea. But I don't want to just generate big mana, drop an Eldrazi and cackle. I want this to be a Johnny machine. Sure, I don't mind sometimes dropping a Genesis Wave for a hilariously large amount. But I also want little interactions to go off. Fun egg popping and baiting other creatures so that I can get value out of Glissa.

Now, cards I have. Please note that I'm on a budget, and these are cards I've been trading up for, for a day I would make an off colour (for me) deck. These are the cards I've been thinking about.

'Eggs'

• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
  
• 1 Horizon Spellbomb
  
• 1 Chromatic Sphere
  
• 1 Chromatic Star
  
• 1 Executioner's Capsule

Creatures

• 1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
  
• 1 Harvester of Souls
  
• 1 Sheoldred, Whispering One
  
• 1 Birds of Paradise
  
• 1 Crypt Ghast
  
• 1 Phyrexian Obliterator
  
• 1 Ulvenwald Tracker

Sorceries

• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
  
• 1 Black Sun's Zenith
  
• 1 Damnation
  
• 1 Decree of Pain
  

Now I could load up on Stax effects and really reap the benefit of creatures dying and still bait with glissa, pegging with Thornbite Staff. Or I could make a more stompy deck. I kind of want something in the middle though. Obviously using Glissa's trigger, but not running too much stax and losing some of the egg interactions. I would want to put a combo in there as well, if possible.

I guess I'm just looking for something with variance. Too many of my decks play out the exact same way. I want something that's fun but can still be competitive. Hell, possibly flavorful if possible.Do you guys have any suggestions?

I just got a Guardian beast in the mail and am super excited to play it in here!

I really like Grave betrayal with her as well.

in the bauble category, mishra's and urza's baubles are insanely good. expedition map is a great way to keep mana hitting the table and getting your engines going. Personally I don't love horizon spellbomb. wayfarer's bauble is better imo.

Forbidden Orchard is a must. I have Mindslavered an opponent to death by giving him a 1/1 every turn, saccing it to his High Market.

If you're in an environment that is okay with it, Ark of Blight can be really good.

Similarly, Mindslaver is very easy to recur with Glissa (you attack me with one non-first striker, and everyone else with everything else, Glissa blocks, picking up Mindslaver...)

Sylvok Replica and Moriok Replica are pricy for what they do, but have highly desirable abilities.

Finally, Oblivion Stone will do good work, as will a repeatedly sacrificed Duplicant

Other than that, I should watch this with interest, since I never built Glissa due to what I perceived to be the dearth of good artifacts to recur.

Quote from xbinox

I just got a Guardian beast in the mail and am super excited to play it in here!

I really like Grave betrayal with her as well.

...That card is beautiful. I am so envious of you. If I didn't have to spend any more money on this deck, I would grab that creature. Just... wow.

And I have been debating Grave Betrayal. Just wondering if I should just put it in or really focus on making people sac stuff. Or just swing with a thornbite staff

Quote from DirkGently

in the bauble category, mishra's and urza's baubles are insanely good. expedition map is a great way to keep mana hitting the table and getting your engines going. Personally I don't love horizon spellbomb. wayfarer's bauble is better imo.

Ah! I knew I was forgetting a few more baubles. I like drawing a card and getting a peek at the opposition for free. And I need to get another expedition map... And a wayfarer's! Do you miss the card draw, or do you find there's enough? If I throw in the chromatics, I should be good.

Quote from grimafacia

Forbidden Orchard is a must. I have Mindslavered an opponent to death by giving him a 1/1 every turn, saccing it to his High Market.

That's so evil. It's not a play I'd always want to make, but if I had to... This meta is a bit more competitive than my last. I barely pulled out a win with my Tibor and Lumia deck.

Quote from Sinis

If you're in an environment that is okay with it, Ark of Blight can be really good.

Similarly, Mindslaver is very easy to recur with Glissa (you attack me with one non-first striker, and everyone else with everything else, Glissa blocks, picking up Mindslaver...)

Sylvok Replica and Moriok Replica are pricy for what they do, but have highly desirable abilities.

Finally, Oblivion Stone will do good work, as will a repeatedly sacrificed Duplicant

Other than that, I should watch this with interest, since I never built Glissa due to what I perceived to be the dearth of good artifacts to recur.

We have a guy who maindecks Armageddon and the like, so I think Ark of Blight will be fine. I never actually saw that card before today. Thanks!

I do have a Sylvok Replica lying around as well as a Duplicant. I'm throwing in some artifact lands since I don't have a crucible of worlds. If something dies in the sweep, I can always at least have a land or two in my hand after.

I'm starting to see a way through this. Use the baubles to get through my deck and use Glissa as basically a second sunrise but not as good. Whatever, we're in u/g, let's make it work! Filter through. Be able to clear their board through a few light stax/sweep effects, set up a Rube Goldberg machine... Mindslaver if I need it, and hopefully the mana ramp to play the big creatures I never can in blue.

I don't want to make it janky, but I want the deck to not always play the same way. What you guys said definitely gave me some ideas though...

Some people don't like the recursion cost, but I've found Codex Shredder to be very good in Glissa (and in Nath stax, which includes a shorter Glissa package).

Mindless Automaton is great in Glissa.

I strongly recommend running Salvaging Station, so you can continue the bauble-fest if Glissa gets tucked.

If you happen to have a Birthing Pod, run it in Glissa with things like Pilgrim's Eye and Solemn Simulacrum, and in no time you'll be awash in mana and easily Podding for, or simply hardcasting, beasties like Wurmcoil Engine. Grave Pact is obviously good if you go with that strategy, but then Grave Pact is obviously good, period.

Salvaging station and trading post are your back up glissa's. I have won games when glissa got tucked because I was allowed to recur my eggs over and over.

Meh the turbo ramp stuff bores me... I just like stopping at 6-8 cmc and kill people.. those creatures are good enough at that level and I just play 1 threat a time until they run out of answers... then I hit them with caterhoof.

I went with the Thornbite staff + viridian longbow.. synergy... a large number of my cards have deathtouch and not just glissa. (grave titan, acidic slime etc.)

There are two things you have to watch out for when playing glissa (problems you must have an answer to).
Indestructable and hexproof/shroud board wipes can deal with the latter problems but often you are not going to want to boardwipe, since you rely on perminates as a non blue control deck.

Indestructable is the bane of your existance... you need a way to deal with it.

you can deal with combo with jester's cap and just strip thier deck of the cards they need.

People sacing stuff is great with grave betrayal. Mine is more a stax list, but I run a few threats, all 5 swords, shoeldred, grave titan and grave betrayal, seeing as landing grave betrayal can win a game once you have a lot of sac going or you have thornbite staff.

Played guardian beast today, he was a house, great card.

I knew I was forgetting something. Salvaging station will help a lot. Hopefully I'll be able to draw into it. But a secondary plan is great. And with trading post you do get a third.

Viridian Longbow looks good as well. Especially with both out that's just beautiful. Need a darksteel plate so if I have to hit an emergency wipe the board, I can safely do so.

I don't have a Birthing Pod but that flavor man. I wouldn't mind a Johnny, yet flavory Glissa deck. Actually that sounds fantastic. And much more fun to get answers for.

I'm thinking of grabbing a few enchantments as well to help speed things up, like the new mythic that whenever you cast a noncreature spell you can put three +1 counters on target creature. Turning Glissa into an insanely large threat just sounds like icing on the cake.

I have a smoke stack and a bitter blossom lying around that doesn't have a home, but that might be a bit too much stax focused. Hell, I even have a Braids, Cabal Minion but... And I wish I had the swords like you do Xbinox. And hey, mind if I pm you? I'm from NC as well.

EDIT: And if I do go the birthing pod way, any more cheap value artifact creatures? Or even more baubles. I might be focusing on the baubles too much though. I mean, just alone I've got

• 1 Wayfarer's Bauble
  
• 1 Mishra's Bauble
  
• 1 Urza's Bauble
  
• 1 Chromatic Sphere
  
• 1 Chromatic Star
  
• 1 Expedition Map
  
• 1 Executioner's Capsule
  
• 1 Horizon Spellbomb
  
• 1 Nihil Spellbomb
  
• 1 Moriok Replica
  
• 1 Oblivion Stone
  
• 1 Sylvok Replica
  
• 1 Nevinyrral's Disk
  
• 1 Solemn Simulacrum
  

And that's not counting artifact creatures that I don't want to just sacrifice asap. I also have a Wormcoil Engine and a Duplicant. Okay, I think I see where this might be going... I doubt I'd need the Smoke Stacks and Bitterblosom...

Also been looking at Maelstrom Pulse and debating if it's worth getting.

Here's my Glissa Voltron build. It abuses Deathtouch + First Strike + Lure and Glissa's recursion.

Glissa Voltron

fixed stooped url

Maelstrom Pulse as well as putrefy always seem worth it to me. You'll want o-stone and nev's disk since you can get them back when you blow them up with glissa on board. Also that new putrefy art looks sick in foil <3

EDIT: ok I missed both of those in that list, my bad. I personally play a more staxy control list, but I've been liking vraska in mine.

Just found out I had a Glaring Spotlight. It is definitely going in the deck to deal with hexproof generals/annoyances. Recurable and serves as an alpha strike if needed? Yes please.

Thanks for the link ScatteredSun. You might just wanna edit it real quick. You have to copy and paste it instead of just being able to click on it.

One of my favorite interactions with Glissa was recurring Jester's Cap to get whoever happens to be playing cards that nerf me too hard or combo.

In general, you want artifact creatures over nonartifact creatures - You're going to get more mileage out of a Wurmcoil Engine in a Glissa deck then in any other deck.

As artifacts go, you're looking for ones with useful sacrifice effects. Even something innocuous like Vial of Poison becomes increasingly deadly in a Glissa deck - on it's own, it's not worth the card, but being able to use it repeatedly (And on opponent's creatures, no less) justify it's inclusion.

Finally, and I cannot stress this enough, Memory Jar is UTTERLY BONKERS in a Glissa deck. Like, seriously OP.

Nemesis Mask
Hornet Queen
Stinkweed Imp <-amazing flying rattlesnake that fills your graveyard with targets for Glissa.
Voyager Staff + Nekrataal or Massacre Wurm or Fleshbag Marauder
Voyager Staff gets better the more ETB effects you have, which then might also make Strionic Resonator an excellent choice. If nothing else, it can double Glissa's triggers.
I have also found Mortarpod to be awesome with all the Deathtouch creatures, Grave Pact and just as a general pain for theft decks and tuck effects.

I'm glad this thread is still going, I'm looking at switching my Skullbriar deck to a Glissa deck, and this is the info I needed.

Couple cards to look at here, do any of you run these?

• Junk Diver
  
• Mycosynth Wellspring
  
• Ichor Wellspring
  
• Claws of Gix
  
• Tangle Wire
  
• Ratchet Bomb
  
• Arcbound Ravager
  
• Lotus Bloom
  
• Lotus Petal

I think I want to try this deck out, so when this gets built if you don't mind letting us know how it felt, what you ended up cutting and what you found worked really, really well that would be awesome

Ive been playing glissa for some time now. My favorite cares for the deck are as follows

• scarecrone
  
• wurmcoil engine
  
• duplicant
  
• solemn simulacrum
  
• birthing pod
  
• executioner's capsule
  
• codex shredder
  
• salvaging station
  
• O-naginata
  
• tortured exsistence
  
• memory jar

Equipment in general is amazing in glissa.
Its so disheartening when they wipe the board and you just get all your equipment back.
Tortured Existence let you get back any creature from your yard using artifact creatures with glissa.

I have an egg-focused Glissa build which you might like here. I know you said you checked the database but I'm not 100% sure mine is in it yet.

Salvaging Station is my MVP. Second mention goes to Trading Post.

Also, Creeping Renaissance can be hilarous with a lot of artifact baubles. Can also snag bodied removal or an important enchantment in a pinch.

Recycle and Null Profusion become increasingly good in this deck. With the option to play your general for a card, and her built-in recursion, the threat of being locked out is much less serious.

Quote from The_Grey_King

In general, you want artifact creatures over nonartifact creatures - You're going to get more mileage out of a Wurmcoil Engine in a Glissa deck then in any other deck.

As artifacts go, you're looking for ones with useful sacrifice effects. Even something innocuous like Vial of Poison becomes increasingly deadly in a Glissa deck - on it's own, it's not worth the card, but being able to use it repeatedly (And on opponent's creatures, no less) justify it's inclusion.

Finally, and I cannot stress this enough, Memory Jar is UTTERLY BONKERS in a Glissa deck. Like, seriously OP.

Yeah I've been noticing that. Really, the only non artifact creatures that are going in are those with deathtouch to increase the chances of things dying, and one drops that can produce mana.

I was looking at Memory Jar. Draw seven every turn? Hah.

Quote from Throst54

Equipment in general is amazing in glissa.
Its so disheartening when they wipe the board and you just get all your equipment back.
Tortured Existence let you get back any creature from your yard using artifact creatures with glissa.

All seem great. Especially Tortured Existence. I may have to go back and count how many creatures I'm running and see if it's worth it...

Quote from Darcykun

I have an egg-focused Glissa build which you might like here. I know you said you checked the database but I'm not 100% sure mine is in it yet.

Salvaging Station is my MVP. Second mention goes to Trading Post.

Also, Creeping Renaissance can be hilarous with a lot of artifact baubles. Can also snag bodied removal or an important enchantment in a pinch.

Recycle and Null Profusion become increasingly good in this deck. With the option to play your general for a card, and her built-in recursion, the threat of being locked out is much less serious.

This is just about exactly what I was looking for actually. I loved the Eggs decks from Modern, and since I can't play it there I wanted to play it here. My list is kind of similar to yours. I was just about to ask about lack of too many creatures. I'm used to it in blue. Glad to see it works.

As for Recycle and Null Profusion... I may have to try those. I was going to ask this thread if conjurer's bauble was worth it.

Quote from Feverous

I think I want to try this deck out, so when this gets built if you don't mind letting us know how it felt, what you ended up cutting and what you found worked really, really well that would be awesome

Definitely! You guys have helped out a ton, so of course I'd give you input! I'm trying to build it up now, but I won't be able to test until, at the earliest, Wednesday, and that's if the guys allow proxies. I will let you guys know then.

EDIT: What do you guys think about Elsewhere Flask? Sac it, make all your lands swamps in addition to whatever else they are, draw a card and get a huge coffers out of it? Or too 'cute'?

Night of Souls' Betreyal and Curse of Death's Hold plus Forbidden Orchard mean Glissa activations whenever you want, once per turn at instant speed.

So, is it okay to necro my own post? I never meant to let it go but had some bumps in real life and well, magic had to wait.

Now, I've gotten a good bit of the cards I want for this deck together (84, with 37 of those being lands) and have yet to test it, due to not knowing what I want for the last 16. It's more if I want to go stax or voltron. I need a good way to win really. I have many of the same baubles that Darcykun has (thank you so much for the link to your deck list).

I did promise to keep you guys posted. Once I get this back and running, I'll link to a decklist.

My version of Glissa is a control deck.

I draw a ton of cards, I kill a lot of creatures, destroy a lot of perminates.

I just play large game taking over threats over and over (draw them or recur them and play them again) until they run out of answers.

Wurmcoil engine, Grave titan. They are how I win... eventually.

I really love the Salvaging station/trading post/baubles Durdle engine that runs my deck.

I don't know how competitive your meta is. Personally voltron is not my thing. I have thornbite staff + viridain longbow going on.. plus the always useful Loxodon warhammer. But Swords have been pissing me off for a long time. Stax really only necessary if your opponents are trying to do stupid things too fast that is if your meta is really competitive. Otherwise you'll slow the game to a crawl.

I don't know, I have managed to get my deck right at the perfect power level for my group.

Quote from Doctor Church

So, is it okay to necro my own post? I never meant to let it go but had some bumps in real life and well, magic had to wait.

Now, I've gotten a good bit of the cards I want for this deck together (84, with 37 of those being lands) and have yet to test it, due to not knowing what I want for the last 16. It's more if I want to go stax or voltron. I need a good way to win really. I have many of the same baubles that Darcykun has (thank you so much for the link to your deck list).

I did promise to keep you guys posted. Once I get this back and running, I'll link to a decklist.

The bauble strategy plays well with Stax, at least I think so. Wurmcoil Engine continues to seem absurdly good as a finisher.

Suiting her up with a couple Mirrodin swords could be a really great way to achieve victory as well. Would love to see your decklist when you get the chance (and I should probably go update mine as well, it's old as hell).

Quote from Darcykun

The bauble strategy plays well with Stax, at least I think so. Wurmcoil Engine continues to seem absurdly good as a finisher.

Suiting her up with a couple Mirrodin swords could be a really great way to achieve victory as well. Would love to see your decklist when you get the chance (and I should probably go update mine as well, it's old as hell).

Trying to find my Wurmcoil Engine. Recently moved and... dammit. Also looking for a memory jar, because draw 7 is always fun. This thing might draw more cards than my blue deck.

I'm thinking of running a stax subtheme with those last 16 card slots, but I don't know how much fun that sounds, if that makes sense. And I've never been a fan of just throwing big burly guys at people's faces...

The current plan is to run some stax (with smokestack in there), reanimate some of their dudes/just purge the field and then beat face with the Wurm and some other big artifact creatures, though the only other I can think of is Steel Hellkite.