MTG Salvation

Hey guys here's a old archetype that I've adapted for the new 20 life format. This is a five-colour Bant control deck that features Scapeshift as its instant win condition. The strategy is to play permission control until we resolve Horde of Notions, who is a convenient 4-turn clock on his own, or any of our six planeswalkers that can get accelerated into play by turn 3 from our Rampant Growth effects. Lastly but not least we play Scapeshift, which when cast with 7 lands in play finds us Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle and 6 Mountains. The 6 Mountains all enter the battlefield simultaneously and trigger Valakut six times, dealing 18 damage to the opponent. This is usually lethal. Another pseudo win con is Global Ruin, which is a sort of reverse Ruination that is particularly backbreaking against mono or bicolour decks.

The Scapeshift-Valakut combo was previously hard to play at 30 life because it needed a minimum of 10 or 11 lands before you could Scapeshift for lethal enough damage. Sure, you could say that the 30 life format was slower, so it was natural to have more lands, but how often were you allowed to wait until turn 10 to try and win? Even in 30 life, combo decks and Cavern of Souls forced our hands. With the 20 life change, our window to cast Scapeshift against creature decks is now smaller for obvious reasons, but then so is our threshold for a lethal Scapeshift. I believe the pros of a reduced threshold for lethal Scapeshift vastly outweigh the cons of having a smaller window of opportunity in casting it, especially if you play proactively. Rampant Growth and Nature's Lore effects even allow us to Scapeshift as early as turn 5.

Next you might also be wondering why five-colour, and not RG or RUG? The benefit of playing 5 colour over a RG or RUG shell is that we don't compromise our manabase by running a lot of basic Mountains. Since we normally end up playing at least 7 dual-land Mountains anyway, we can throw in a basic Mountain for Rampant Growth, and a few offcolor duals like Blood Crypt or Smoldering Marsh, and our manabase is still stable. Currently there are 10 dual land Mountains we can run: four ABUR duals, four shocklands, and two battlelands. I opted not to run Smoldering Marsh but instead a scryland or two, which puts our total Mountain count at 10. From my testing by the time we Scapeshift we usually have no more than three Mountains in hand/play/grave. The worst case scenario is that we Scapeshift for exactly all the remaining Mountains in our deck and deal only 18 damage, potentially not finishing off the opponent. Another thing to note is that this deck plays land-based acceleration rather than mana rocks and signets. This leaves us weaker to Blood Moon effects, but it's pertinent to our Scapeshift strategy which requires a minimum of 7 lands in play to win. The deck's permission style also means that we naturally hold up counterspells for incoming Blood Moon effects.

In addition to having exclusive picks of all the strongest cards in each colour, another advantage to going five-colour is that we are able to play certain cards to their maximum potential. Cards such as Bring to Light, Worldly Counsel and Global Ruin are at their strongest in five-colour decks. Bring to Light (BtL), is probably the best card in the deck. BtL finds Scapeshift or Global Ruin, and is a frequent Demonic Tutor target in the early turns because we can pick Global Ruin or Scapeshift and aren't necessarily locked into our win con of choice in the later turns. It lets us play the exiled card at any time as per the timing restrictions of the tutored card, so we can find Mystic Confluence and hold it up during the opponent's turn to counter or draw 3.

Another great package we have is Intuition which finds our Scapeshift win condition on its own. We find Eternal Witness, Snapcaster Mage and Scapeshift, or Demonic Tutor, Bring to Light and Snapcaster Mage. The second pile is safer because it doesn't risk exiling Scapeshift if we give it flashback with Snapcaster and it gets countered. Also note that I'm not running any sort of Life from the Loam and Lonely Sandbar package in this deck because I believe Loam is too slow in the current format and too durdly/ineffective for this type of deck. Wasteland is not played because it's not needed and we want to always be able to cast Horde on turn 4 or 5. Intuition is so powerful that we often just Mystical Teachings for it instead of a removal or counter.

Although we tend to play drawgo, in certain matchups and situations you will want to tap out for any of our six Rampant Growth effects on turn 2. Against control there is a low risk of the other player resolving a must-counter threat in the first few turns, so we have a safe window on turns 2-3 to tap out and start ramping early. If you're on the play against aggro and have a planeswalker + Rampant Growth in hand, it's correct to tap out for the ramp spell so we can have a turn 3 planeswalker. I picked these planeswalkers specifically because they met my criteria of having both a removal or stall function against creatures, and a card advantage function against control. A slight exception is Kaya, who is a bit weak against aggro because the 2 life loss hurts us almost as much as not dealing with the creature in the first place. But she makes the cut by being absolutely brutal against control and midrange, and in these matchups she is a close second to Jace, the Mind Sculptor. Chandra, Torch of Defiance is also extremely powerful and would be second to Jace if not for her prohibitive RR casting cost.

Oh crap, I swear I once read on a wizards preview for the card that you could hold up an instant exiled with BtL to be played later on, not necessarily as part of the resolution of BtL. Either they've changed that since then or I've always been wrong. Probably the latter >_>

Kytheon is a good matchup because our red sweepers are powerful against their guys who are generally no tougher than 3. Also their guys don't have haste so we have a turn to wrath without soaking up too much damage. Zurgo is much harder because of hastey creatures and reach from their unlimited burn spells. Unlike with Kytheon, our sweepers are ineffective and only our counterspells are relevant. It's a matchup I'm constantly trying to improve but it doesn't help with Price of Progress and Magus of the Moon and all.
All other creature decks are pretty easy, with the exception of Titania which has a million ways to tutor for and recur Wasteland and ruin our day.

Hey spas, you know I've been historically in love with 5cc so I couldn't resist the urge to contribute : )

A couple more things:
1) There is an assortment of value/life spells we could use

• Pulse of Murasa
• Ojutai's Command
• Timely Reinforcements

The above are okay on their own and come in as an intuition pack
2) Point removal spells

• Oust
• Flame Slash
• Go for the throat

3) Lingering Souls. I think this is a perfect fit?
4) While I like the idea of turn 2 ramp, we could look into early defense creatures as an alternative. Here are a few relevant standouts:

• Augur of Bolas
• Soulfire Grand Master
• Young Pyromancer
• Wall of Omens
• Thing in the Ice
• Tarmogoyf
• Baleful Strix
• Monastery Mentor
• Siege Rhino - not as early : ) But fat and gains life
• Kitchen Finks survives removal too!

5) Clutch of the Undercity gets us Scapeshift, Jace, Wrath/Verdict

I don't have any test data on the above neither I know if any of these are better/worse than the current config. This is more to help you and me with the ideas should we get stuck with testing the current config.

I'm not bringing up marginal Child of Alara-esque tools like Life's Legacy and Bound/Determined. I don't believe we can afford this level of jankiness.

With all the PWs you have access to, I doubt there isn't a better option than Kiora. From the top of my mind I can name Jace, Architect of Thought, Dack Fayden and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. I'd say even Keranos is better in this slot.]

Other than that I'd Say Worldly Counsel is not a good card and Anticipate is probably more reliable.

Player-hitting Earthquakes are good to kill PWs.

@Magicmarvin: Subterranean Tremors doesn't hit fliers or players. I've used Rolling to finish off an opponent before, more often than I've redirected it against planeswalkers actually.

@fsecco: Worldly Counsel when cast on turn 2 is at worst Anticipate, but usually an Impulse. From turn 3 it's at least an Impulse. Keranos is a good idea, it can be tested over Kiora. I don't like Gideon because he doesn't kill creatures or draw cards. Dack doesn't kill creatures either. Jace AoT is probably the best out of the walkers you mentioned, I'll give him a shot over Kaya because I'm liking the idea of double Anticipate against a tapped out control player.

@oeoe: Sup bro, good suggestions! Also I'm really digging the SFM + Batterskull package. It's broken in a UW shell just like in the good old Caw Blade days back in New Phyrexia standard.
I cut Baby Jace for SFM, Thragtusk for Batterskull, and something else (Cryptic?) for FoF before I made this thread. Pretty much after you suggested the SFM > Batterskull package. Batterskull is better than Thragtusk against control because being able to bounce itself + equipping it to Horde makes it better than a crappy 3/3 beast after either die to removal. I've considered Ojutai's Command for some time but it feels between Renewed Faith and Exclude in power level. It might be better than Absorb because you don't often have the right mana to cast Absorb on turn 3 anyway. I think Timely Reinforcements is better than Lingering Souls because our control matchup is already quite good. But Lingering with counter backup threatens a 4-5 turn clock against control, so it's also very interesting. Might find room for both.

Windston is building a similar list, but i guess he have to improve the number of lands.

http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?ref=483763

Quote from Tutussaurorex »

Windston is building a similar list, but i guess he have to improve the number of lands.

http://www.magic-ville.com/fr/decks/showdeck.php?ref=483763

This is clearly a different deck - horde mid-range/ramp with a combo-out. Not a control deck like the one spas is trying to build here.

Yeah windston's one is Sultai-based and looks alot less controllish but more combo focussed (6 counters versus my 19).

-1 Snow-Covered Island
+1 Krosan Verge

The equivalent of playing Myriad Landscape in Jace High Tide. The faster I can get out Horde or Scapeshift, the better! Also it perfectly allows turn 1 Verge, turn 2 counter, turn 3 counter/crack Verge and turn 4 Horde and is Nature's Lore without CDA.

-1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
+1 Keranos, God of Storms

Keranos is basically a planeswalker but he's harder to remove and is tutorable from BtL.

-1 Kaya, Ghost Assassin
+1 Jace, Architect of Thought

-1 Absorb
+1 Ojutai's Command

I've used the first mode a few times to recur Sakura-Tribe Elder or Snapcaster as a chump blocker. Not as good as Exclude, but it's better than Absorb and cycles itself when needed.

-1 Explore
+1 Guided Passage

This card is awesome. Opponent usually has no idea what to get. Even if they get us Stoneforge + Batterskull + basic Mountain it's still a good deal for us.

-1 Rampant Growth
+1 Search for Tomorrow

Lets us go turn 1 Search, turn 2 counter and turn 3 planeswalker. I think this scenario happens more often than t1 Force Spike/Mana Tithe turn 2 Rampant Growth turn 3 planeswalker. Late game Search for Tomorrow is basically the same as Rampant Growth if you have 6 lands and Scapeshift in hand since you just hardcast Search for an untapped land and Scape.

JFYI Kitchen Finks were nothing short of awesome for me. I played them over huntmaster due to availability issues and am super-impressed: it's almost always a +4 life CA+1. Planning to play it together with huntmaster once I get him.

Quote from Kassow-Rossing »

Looking at your lands I see no reason to avoid playing Damnation when you play Wrath of God. Did you decide 1 was enough? With this few creatures and this many new aggro decks I would consider Day of Judgment and Supreme Verdict as well.

I'll agree with oeoeoeoeoe (man that's a tough one to get right) Kitchen Finks should be om the list. Aggro wil dominate the meta all over the world so this is a no brainer.

I really like your newest changes! I think maybe Guided Passage will have to go again but test it for now It's always been this "Fun" card that is much stronger on kitchen tables than tournaments because people really use their head when there's money on the line.

If I were you I would consider some of the strongest spot removal spells before this many counter spells. They are going to serve almost the same function in the coming years but be way more efficient.

Playing Wrath doesn't necessitate playing Damnation. This list splashes black so I try not to find my first black source before turn 4 unless I need to Toxic or Vindicate. Having two black sources by turn 4 is very tough on the manabase. I only run 5 sweepers (Radiant, Firespout, Toxic, Wrath, Rolling) but I can compensate that with counterspells . Rolling Earthquake will get cut for spot removal because the damage to yourself is detrimental vs aggro decks.

I'll cut Guided Passage for Kitchen Finks. The Guided Passage slot was the flex slot and I've also tested Timely Reinforcements and Lingering Souls in that slot.

Yeah you could be right about running more spot removal instead since I run enough counters. Which spot removal spells do you recommend? I tried Abrupt Decay but GB is very difficult by turn 2 since G and B are the 4th and 5th colours. Path to Exile, Oust, Flame Slash, Tribal Flames, Incinerate come to mind. I would prefer no black in my spot removal.

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-1 Jace, Architect of Thought
+1 Chandra, Flamecaller

Chandra is really strong even though she is 6 cmc so I could not ignore her.

Of the 19 lands that can find black, 10 of them are fetchlands. When I activate the fetches I prioritise finding Tundra, Tropical and Volcanic in no particular order. I can't risk tutoring for an Underground Sea on turn 1 or 2 just to play a Go for the Throat and then not have the required colours later for a Nature's Lore or Wrath of God. The manabase is often shaky because there are so many random Mountains you can draw, many of which don't add blue. I was about to cut Overgrown Tomb and Watery Grave, but once the new Commander 2016 decks come out I may simply cut black altogether and go with WUGR depending on how strong the upcoming commanders are.