MTG Salvation

Quote from Lexandur

Quote from VoodooGremlin

Quote from zemogFC

Anyone try yet? She'll never be a creature but shes cheap and makes Geist unblockable.

I've been playing for as long as I've played Geist of St. Traft I've never been disappointed. It's rarely a creature but the scry and the ability to make Geist of St. Traft unblockable is invaluable.

If you are just using for the scry + unblockable then Aqueous Form is less mana hungry and more wallet friendly. You can also tutor it with Tallowisp.

Whoopsy, fixed_

That makes more sense:)

I got a couple of questions for you Gaviro, what cards do you think should be cut/replace ? and what is your opinion on Voltron Geist vs Pierre Almaraz's list ?

I've seen so many lists using Ancestral Vision but I really don't like that card >_< if you don't draw it within the first 3 turns then it will be a semi dead draw since they will develop their game while you stare at the time counters >_<

I mean, focusing on equipment, auras mostly and cutting some counters/disruption. I've been running geist with stuff like Aqueous Form, Steel of the Godhead, Spirit Mantle, Jitte, Sword of Feast and Famine, Runechanter's Pike, Tallowisp, Stoneforge, Steelshaper's Gift, Gift of Immortality, Sundial of the Infinite and a few more things. All in with Geist is what I ment with voltron

Quote from Gaviro

BUT I like much more Tallowisp now with the synergy with the spirit of Labyrinth. It's real value and I think it's good enough now.

Honestly I don't like SoL in Geist. If we play cantrips, it interferes directly with our play, and provides bonuses only against other blue decks... decks we already beat.

For combat against marath or doran it's only a 3/1 with no combat abilities, meaning it's just dead weight against either.

It's not a card I'm looking at too deeply.

So, I would like to revisit the inclusion of Orim's Chant and Silence.
Now that Derevi is banned, I read "One white mana: time walk".
It is a horrible top deck I know, but early game gives you excellent tempo. And it can help you fight combos or counter wars (even trying to resolve a geist vs 35 counterspells.deck).

I feel like using Orim's Chant and Silence is all or nothing; but in a voltron deck should be, at least, considered.

The more I test Parallax Tide/Wave with the help of Stifle, trickbind, boomerang cards the more I like 'em.

i got blown out by both those cards in both our games yesterday, they demand 2 counterspells, and that is really rough on early turns when someone is forcing a geddon

So there was a tournament in Manila last Sunday. Link: http://www.mtgmanila.com/manila-duel-commander-february-2014-results/

Post Derevi/Zur meta became 8x GoST, and 5x Marath, with some Doran decks.

I played Geist myself and ended up 4-0-2 after 6 rounds for second place before the cut to the top 8.

Interestingly enough, I drew with a Marath on the second round. And beat two other GoST players who were using the polymorph to emrakul plan with their GoST decks. The last round intentional draw was with another undefeated GoST player, with the aggro creatures build like mine.

I lost to the same Marath player who had a great draw against me, as Gaea's cradle and Courser of Kruphix really ramped his deck a lot. And I could not find my sweepers for those games.

I also forgot to put in my phyrexian revoker in the deck so I had no plan against his marath + nightshade peddler. I don't own a Linvala, so I think I better look for one now that lots of Marath decks are popping up.

What do you think are some other changes we can adopt in this new meta without Zur and Derevi?

How many creatures were you playing Sharky_the_sharkdog ?

What were the flaws on Geist-Emrakul deck ? I'm curious, since I use polymorph-Clique and I never thought of Geist into Emrakul.

@Lexandur - I played 15 creatures in my deck. (+ GoST)

As for the two Geist players sporting the Polymorph/Reweave/Proteus Staff + Emrakul list, they had man lands for extra targets to get the combo online. I wouldn't say that they had flaws with their decks, I can only say that they play a more control type of game. They had more sweepers, removal, and cantrips to dig for their combo. But if they don't get to play the poly-emrakul combo, they have a slightly worse UW control deck. GAAIV decks had more creatures and mana denial, while geist is a tempo/aggro-control general. By making the geist deck more combo than tempo, they had a tougher time winning if they only had geist in play with counter and removal backup. If you don't know their real game plan, then you will be caught off guard, and probably lose. Knowing their game plan for the next two games (if you lose game 1) makes you play tighter, especially with counter wars, and mana denial, to make sure you pressure them to combo-off and play into your counter wall and removals for the polymorph targeting man-lands.

Quote from Sharky_the_sharkdog

Post Derevi/Zur meta became 8x GoST, and 5x Marath, with some Doran decks.

Are you trying to imply something here? From the tournament result page, it looks like there were 44 players, and 20 of them played one of the following four decks:
* 8 Geist of Saint Traft
* 5 Marath, Will of the Wild
* 4 Doran, the Siege Tower
* 3 Maelstrom Wanderer

That is a lot of focus considering the other 24 players represent twenty other deck types. However, when I look at the top 8 result, I see the following decks:
* 2 Geist of Saint Traft
* 1 Ruhan of the Fomori
* 1 Oloro, Ageless Ascetic
* 1 Thraximundar
* 1 Talrand, Sky Summoner
* 1 Marath, Will of the Wild
* 1 Sigarda, Host of Herons

That seems like a pretty diverse top 8. A result like this can encourage people away from playing a Doran deck (four players, no top 8 spots) and into playing decks that had a lot less players, like Sigarda, Host of Herons (one player, one top 8 spot).

@Cheethorne: Sorry it was an incomplete statement. I did not intend to discourage anyone with that statement. I was simply trying to point out the 3 most popular decks from the meta of that tournament.

@MerDeNoms
There is nothing controversial on stopping your opponent from tutoring cards with a 2/1 flying body. You and your opponents will look for cards in your libraries 90% of your games, it is good and to my eyes necessary.

Cards you might want to add: Winter Orb, Back to Basics (this also encourage you from adding more basic lands, meaning, more budget friendly), Sensei's Divining Top (it requires you to do quick decisions so you don't drag the rounds more than it is needed), Serra Ascendant (whats not to like on a 6/6 flyer with lifelink turn 1 ?)
You can cut Unexpectedly Absent, Peek, Gideon Jura and Tamiyo for these cards.

If you play with stuff like Parallax Wave/Tide, Wipe Away/Boomerang is better than Rushing River and so is Trickbind (more budget friendly than stifle, remember that this card gives you an angel tocken for 2 mana and it can also eat their creatures/lands permanently with the parallax).

If you play with multiplayer list you will expect more degenerated fast combos and control decks rather than aggro decks (I could be wrong, but 40 lives and fast mana rocks encourage this), so you don't really need that many sweepers.

I recommend Orim's Chant, Silence or more counters so you can stop combos and broken stuff, Disenchant/Seal of Cleansing to slow your opponent down (sol ring targets).

Any deck needs to adapt to the format, I don't think this one is different.

The bonus on rushing river is not worth, you are losing a land just to bounce something else and the split seccond is significant when you want to combine it with the parallaxs (no counters, no disenchants, no surprises). And yes, deplete all your parallax ******ers at once and bounce before they resolve = one sided wrath/armageddon, but even if you don't have the bounce spell they are exellent tempo cards.
You can use both bouncers if you want, but I dont think it is good enough, I rather have a boomerang (it can bounce a land turn2 if you don't have the parallaxs, and it shines against caroos).

I haven't tested Ephara yet, but if you are using it just for the extra draw then you could use Bident of Thassa instead. It doesn't avoid disenchants but it can force blockers to attack you.

I consider Tamiyo and Gideon good if you can put several ramp rocks and play them turn 2 or 3, but for 5 mana you want to win the game with that card, they don't do that on the spot or something significant enough for their mana cost. Thats what I feel about them, I haven't test them enough. I rather have Tezzeret the Seeker, it can fetch Winter Orb, Pithing Needle/phyrexian Revoker, Relic of Progenitus, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, Swords, Sundial.

Counter/disenchant Wanderer's ramp/mana rocks and you will be fine. I haven't played against Zegana yet, if it is a ramp zegana then you can do the same thing.

If your meta is filled with mana rocks, then you could play more disenchants.

Quote from asimov

Vanish into Memory
It kills Marath and can be used on geist's angel

As it happens, I've been playing Vanish specifically because of Marath lately. It works decently, and the secondary use as a draw 4 on your angel is fantastic.

I guess it's no longer secret tech.

Nice work there MerDeNoms! If I can get my hands on a copy of vanish into memory for the next tournament, it wont be a super secret tech anymore. Cant wait to cast that versus a marath player.

Given that he average creature count is still 10 from your data, I think the tempo geist builds are better than the polymorph + emrakul builds that I've been seeing crop up in our local meta lately.

Its also good to note that the decks have no way of interacting to graveyard based strategies looking at the popular lists of cards. I'm curious to see if reanimator decks like Iname, Karador, Mimeoplasm, and Oloro-reanimator, appear more in the next tournaments if they have tweaked their decks to combat Geist. Maybe addind a lot of edict effects or so.

I do want to ask if Ephara would be a better card to put in compared to bident of thassa, or even Thassa for that matter? What do you guys think.

I think I need to find a slot for TNN now, as I haven't been running that card yet.

Geist into Emrakul is for funcies =3

Hello, I have been playing Geist for over 1 year now and I base my list off Pierre Almaraz (frequent top 8 geist player in france). He recently won 1st place at a tournament of around 40 people. His deck list can be found here: http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck_top8?ref=238712

1) If you notice, Pierre is playing 8 cantrip/selection/filter spells (ponder, preordain, brainstorm, peek, opt, impulse, sleight of hand, probe). This is quite a lot of these effects, what do other people think? is it good or bad?

2) Some cards that I often see on peoples Geist list that pierre doesn't play are, elspeth knight errant, steel shaper's gift, mother of runes, ancestral visions, oblivion ring, gilded drake anyone have any thoughts about any of these cards?

3) Has anyone considered Azure mage as a 2 drop in the deck similiar to pierre's version? In a meta with low number of marath (the one i play in) she seems not bad? its very slow, to spend 4 mana to draw one, but the upside is very good

4) Another version of Geist I have considered is playing a strictly tempo version. around 19-25 creatures including bounce/temporary removal such as mano war, aether adept, banisher priest, fiend hunter, sower of temptation etc and playing lots of effects to stop blockers such as bounce (vapor snag, feeling of dread, unsummon etc). So this version purely focuses on establishing board state and then using spells to prevent enemy from blocking and attacking their life to 0.

I am now not sure which version is better (pierre's version vs some huge tempo deck I described above)
Anyone have an opinion?

Personally I play ponder, preordain, and brainstorm because of the fetches in my deck. I want to fit in more cantrips but I just cant seem to figure out which cards to remove for them.

I dont play ancestral visions anymore, and have used fact or fiction on hat slot instead. I like it even if it costs 4 mana. I use stifle and trickbind now to combat fetchland activations, and sometimes catch others who use ancestral visions on me after they remove the last time counter.

Mother of runes has been great for me all the times that I've cast her. I play more of a tempo geist with 15 creatures so mother really pulls a lot of weight. O-ring is also a universal answer, and can be seached with enlightened tutor. Steelshaper's gift can turn the tide if you can stick your sword for a few turns and geist can connect. Just cannot cut that one for another cantrip.

Creatures have to do something when they come into play, or have powerful effects if you can untap with them. The azure mage is more of a multiplayer card for me, then for duels.

25 creatures will eat up slots for counterspells, or other soceries. If you can find he right balance of spells to go with that many creatures, please test them in live games. I would be very interested to read about your games.

First of all, thank you everyone for their detailed replies!

1) If you read through Gaviro's posts, I noticed something that he mentioned quite a few times that I am starting to see and agree with now. If piere alamraz's list (voltron geist as Gaviro likes to call it) becomes very popular in the meta, people will start running more hate cards and things that can kill Geist. He only has 9 creatures and not many other game breakers as Gaviro mentioned. If his geist dies 2-3 times, I imagine it would be very very hard for him to win the game. His entire decklist is dedicated to being more consistent and having creatures/spells that counter opponents cards or protect geist or supplement his gameplan in some way (which is to get geist online and beat for victory).

In my play testing of a very similiar version, some games my opponents playing mimeoplasm and oloro, my opponents have managed to counter/kill/edict away my geist up to 4 times in 1 game. At this point I have 9 other creatures in the deck most of which are 2/2s or something and usually won't really win the game if opponent is still at higher life total (unless combined with some sort of equipment the opponent cant' stop).

So this made me think to play more "gamebreakers" as Gaviro mentions. To sort of have alternate ways of victory when the plan A (geist attacking) gets shut down. However, its also a double edged sword, if you draw some of these game breakers while trying to carry out the geist attacking plan then essentially you drew a dead card, these game breakers are usually higher mana cost at around 4-5 in my experience. some examples are Gideon Jura, Elspeth Knight-Errant (can constantly make dudes and get in for 4 damage in the air if geist is shut down), tamiyo etc

Do you guys think its worth it to include 1-2 additional game breakers outside of geist? Or do you think it will have too big of a downside towards our main gameplan and not be worth it?

discuss!

2) I also agree that the tempo version running much less cantrip/filter spells is less consistent, you could draw the bounces and tap down cards in your deck but not enough creatures to pressure and since u dont have wraths, if you fall behind on board its very hard to recover. I feel that the weaker matchups are the green creature decks (marath, doran etc) that can easily flood the board early to the point where the tempo version cannot recover.

I'm not sure which version (tempo or Pierre geist) is better against uw control based decks. I feel that tempo might be better since you have more threats to pressure control from getting to late game.

Against ramp and combo, the tempo version has way more threats and more attack damage but less control spells/counters to stop opponents game plan from comboing or ramping, so I'm unsure which version of geist is better here.

3) I realize that Umezawa's Jitte is seen to be a staple in geist. However in the voltron version only running around 9 creatures, I find it hard to get counters on jitte since we dont have many creatures and if you top deck it with no counters, it doesn't allow geist to attack through blockers. I was thinking about cutting it, any thoughts?

I want to test out that voltron list this week against creature decks like marath and jenara. I have all the cards from it, and would like to see how it plays out against them.

The current list I run, which has 15 creatures is already good against Doran. From testing last year, I dound that I have a 70-30 win percentage against standard Doran lists. Last tournament, I was able to get 2 free wins against Doran off a nicely timed stifle (game 1), and trickbind (game 2) on the other players fetchland. He didn't get more than 3 lands on both games.

I've cut elspeth from my list since last year, but if I use the voltron list, I'll get to test her again. I'll post any results if I get to play with some guys this week.

I run a lot of counters on my tempo list, 15 of them, plus stifle and trickbind.

I think the main concern for me when playing the tempo geist version is hitting my land drops. If I don't have to do partial mulligans, and my opponents do it once or twice. The advantage I get with the live cards I have is really nice. I used to lose a lot due to partial mulligans, and have since fixed that by adding land tax, and tithe to get enough lands. I think I'm the only guy who still uses land tax in geist around our local scene, but the extra shuffle effects, and deck thin that it gives me is really a great boost.

If I build the voltron version, I will add more game breakers like gideon, and elspeth again.

The jitte has been underperforming for me, but I really don't want to cut it as a turn 2 jitte, and turn 3 TNN/geist is sometimes a great play against a tapped out opponent. It's a tough decision to cut the Jitte, but I will also test it, and put another sword in for it, to see how it goes.

I was over at MTG top 8 and was wondering anybody experimented with:
Hokori, Dust Drinker or Rising Waters- not Winter Orb but what is?
Parallax Wave and Parallax Tide - for creature denial, protecting Geist of Saint Traft and mana denial protecting land
Daxos of Meletis - I have True-Name Nemesis and to a lesser degree Vendillion Clique as a back up beater if Geist of Saint Traft gets killed too many times. I'm playing him for his evasion and life gain. I'm not planning on playing the card he removes, that would just be a bonus.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV- I see him popping up is he worth playing? I can see slowing down my opponent and replaying Geist of Saint Traft cheaper
Ephara, God of the Polis - More card advantage

If you have, or could have, access to Ravages of War would you play it with Armageddon? Just curious.

Quote from VoodooGremlin

I was over at MTG top 8 and was wondering anybody experimented with:
Hokori, Dust Drinker or Rising Waters- not Winter Orb but what is?
Parallax Wave and Parallax Tide - for creature denial, protecting Geist of Saint Traft and mana denial protecting land
Daxos of Meletis - I have True-Name Nemesis and to a lesser degree Vendillion Clique as a back up beater if Geist of Saint Traft gets killed too many times. I'm playing him for his evasion and life gain. I'm not planning on playing the card he removes, that would just be a bonus.
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV- I see him popping up is he worth playing? I can see slowing down my opponent and replaying Geist of Saint Traft cheaper
Ephara, God of the Polis - More card advantage

If you have, or could have, access to Ravages of War would you play it with Armageddon? Just curious.

Hokori and Rising waters were really good with Derevi because of the untap triggers after damage dealing. Geist doesn't play a lot of mana rocks or dorks, so I think it would be counter-intuitive for you to add them for the current lists right now. You need the mana to counter your opponents spells most of the time. With more green based decks like marath and doran popping up, it's also not a good plan as they have lots of dorks to counteract the effect.

Some players already run the parallax cards. It's probably a personal preference I think. I don't run them because I don't own any copies, and I don't find myself wanting to use them. My current list is already working good for me so I don't think I will run them any time soon. Maybe once I try the voltron list I will use them.

Daxos is too easily killed. TNN and Clique are better for the 3CMC slots. You can test him though. Please let us know here how he works out for you. Maybe he's good, or even great. I just don't want to test him now.

GAAIV is nice, but the deck I feel doesn't need him. The list is just too tight that I don't know what to cut for him. He has a nice plus side, cheaper spells for you, more expensive for opponent. His downside is he's 1-off in a 99 card deck - but he's not the commander. He also eats spot removal, so you can't cast him on the 4th turn as you need counter back up. He's just better as a commander himself or probably in an Ephara list, but for me personally, I don't think I'll put him in my own list.

Ephara has been discussed from some previous posts before so you can read those comments about her. I don't own one right now, so I also cannot test her.

Hope you can get some games in and post them here so I can enjoy reading some game reports.

I had a test game with a friend the other night. He was using Derevi before it was banned, and now he's back with Jenara. We only had one game in, as it was in between rounds for another tournament. I was first, but he plays mother of runes T1, I play T2 meddling mage for Jenara, he plays turn 2 meddling mage for geist (LOL! ^_^'). So he plays 2 more threats, I just cast fact or fiction getting 4 cards, and discarding armageddon as my hand goes over 7. I decide to use Supreme Verdict to even the field on my next turn. He play Jenara on his next turn, I play banisher priest and he let's Jenara get banished under the priest. He plays fiend hunter to take out my banisher priest - Jenara comes back into play. I play geist next turn. He attacks me with Jenara, I take 4 as he pumped him end of my last turn. He cast a phantasmal image copying my general. I was holding a cataclysm from my starting 7 cards, and have 2 more lands in my hand. I cast it and it resolves. Now I play a land, so my board has 2 lands, azorius signet, geist, and the banisher priest that came back. He decided to keep a tundra, and the image/geist so I can't target it with the banisher priest which came back into play. I cast steel of the godhead next turn and attacks him for 8 each turn. He's stuck at 3 lands so when I put down the bident of thassa, he concedes two turns later as I out draw him, and he couldn't attack or block me at that point.

If I get to play again tonight I will keep detailed notes so I can post here.

Hokori and Rising waters were really good with Derevi because of the untap triggers after damage dealing. Geist doesn't play a lot of mana rocks or dorks, so I think it would be counter-intuitive for you to add them for the current lists right now. You need the mana to counter your opponents spells most of the time. With more green based decks like marath and doran popping up, it's also not a good plan as they have lots of dorks to counteract the effect.

I was thinking using Hokori, Dust Drinker and Rising Waters as pseudo Armageddon. I'd use them strategically, like on turn 6 when Geist is holding a sword and my opponent has tapped out with little to no board position and proceed to beat face.

Daxos is too easily killed. TNN and Clique are better for the 3CMC slots. You can test him though. Please let us know here how he works out for you. Maybe he's good, or even great. I just don't want to test him now.

I'll keep Daxos in for two or three plays and see how it goes. He's plan c-d True-Name Nemesis and Vendillion Clique will likely be be enough as back-up plans. I have a foil Daxos of Meletis and felt compelled to use it. I can always put in another counter spell or deck manipulation cards.

Ephara has been discussed from some previous posts before so you can read those comments about her. I don't own one right now, so I also cannot test her.

I've played Ephara, God of the Polis and has been helpful when I'm behind and ahead. When I'm behind and she's already in play she can filter creatures into counter spells and removal. When I'm ahead and attacking with Geist she keeps my hand full. I've played her a dozen times and she's a creature more often than Thassa.

I got a question @Sharky_the_sharkdog, what do you archieve by using/playing signet+talisman ?

In my recent testing, I found Rising Waters and Hokori too slow, winter orb is a bauss because you can drop it when your opponent is tapped out and have counter/removal back up at the same time.

In a non-competitive "junky" decks metagame, do you recomend more "spot removal" rathern than wraths ? or more counterspells ?
The only deck that beats us all without much trouble is a 100% competitive Rafiq deck, the pilot is a very good player and I kinda need some advice vs bant decks in general

@Lexandur: I play the signet and talisman to be able to cast geist on turn 3, and still have a 1 mana counterspell, or turn 4 when I have a 2 mana counter to protect geist. The mana rocks help me go on an aggro plan against other blue based decks with counters. Also allows you to counter edict effects if they have black (griselbrand, iname, doran, skittles). Occassionally you can have more mana than your opponent after a resolved cataclysm or armageddon. I run just 35 lands with 7 of them being fetchlands, but the 2 mana rocks have never disappointed me in all my games. Try it out if you want.

Isn't winter orb banned for duels? I don't like hokori or rising waters as the meta in our local tournaments have a lot of players with green - meaning lots of dorks to power them out of winter orb effects. I've seen grand arbiter run those cards and it works better for that type of deck though.

In a non competetive environment, (assuming this is still 1 vs 1) I would like more spot removals. Just 1 or 2 sweepers, and still 13-15 counterspells. For bant matchups, sweepers are very good as they have less counters than we do, and they often times overcommit creatures to clog the board. If the rafiq player plays a more voltron style deck then pack in more spot removals and dont play geist until you've answered most of his threats.

Hope you find my answers useful. Just keep tweaking the deck til you get it right wih how your local meta plays. I always make changes to the deck each time I play it. Sometimes you do it wrong, but once you get the right mix of cards you find yourself winning as well. Share how your games go if you are able to play this weekend. I'd love to read some game reports from you.