MTG Salvation

This deck started as a Punisher/Group Slug type of build with a backup win-con from Wheels and penalizing what Wheels do with Kaervek at the helm. Now that Nekusar exists, I am in the process of moving this back to Punisher with a hint of Stax. Yes, there are sub-optimal cards in here. This is not meant to be the deck that wins every time, so I am not going out of my way to tune or crank it too high.

After much thought, Kaervek has been given the boot for a month of live testing with Mogis at the helm with no creatures for backup.




The basic premise is similar to many fine Rakdos decks that already exist. Deny the opponents their creatures, introduce multiple ways to cause pain, burn their face off.

Wound Reflection is a nice political card, people seem to let it sit out there as long as I don't launch X spells/get too spell happy since it keeps the board in check. The harder part is landing Havoc Festival for the auto-kill and keeping it there. That led to Wheel effects, which brought on the need for penalizing card draw and discard. Nekusar kind of made that part of the plan obsolete, so I went in a new direction.

Running a deck devoid of creatures, I suffer greatly when aggro decks arrive, which is why I have so much creature removal.

To-Do List:
Find more limiting effects to run that make creatures less helpful/viable for the opponents.

I actually really like this build. I do think that you run enough basics to justify Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon Also, despite your low creature count, I think Zealous Conscripts and Kiki Jiki, Mirror-Breaker should be in every EDH deck with red in it because when you are getting hated off, there's nothing like a combo to save your ass. Gamble, Reforge the Soul and Wheel of Fortune wouldn't hurt either.

I've got Wheel of Fortune on my test list, and Reforge the Soul is in the deck already.

Gamble looks like an interesting tutor even if it backfires, I'll have to look into that.

I thought about the Moon Effects for this deck, and will be testing them as things go on.

As for the Kiki-combo, I'll give it a spin once I get said goblin.

Quote from Jial

I've got Wheel of Fortune on my test list, and Reforge the Soul is in the deck already.

Gamble looks like an interesting tutor even if it backfires, I'll have to look into that.

I thought about the Moon Effects for this deck, and will be testing them as things go on.

As for the Kiki-combo, I'll give it a spin once I get said goblin.

My apologies, I must've missed it on my first read through. Overall, I want to try this general out and it doesn't seem like an overwhelmingly expensive deck to throw together.

It's able to run on a smaller budget nicely, but I am looking to smooth out all areas with higher pieces down the road IF it proves significantly better.

Alright, made a couple small tweaks, and now I just need to run some games on Cockatrice with the possible recruits to see what is underperforming.

So I am now up to three possible ways to bring up death by discard with Liliana's Caress, Megrim and Bloodchief Ascension. There are three Wheel effects I am testing right now, and I'll probably keep 2 at most.

Bloodchief also gives me more life to help fuel a very contentious addition in the form of Da Skull, but then again, just revealing my general usually makes me a high priority threat. May as well earn that, thus why Yawg's Win is now on the test list. Wheel out 20+ cards, throw that down, and if I can't win, I am doing something wrong.

A card I'd like to use, but can't find one yet.


Geth's Grimoire. If we can make them discard a few, this baby can go places.

I've thought about that, but for the most part, all of the discard I force has draw associated with it, and unless I consistently get crazy mana going, I can't see drawing 28 cards ever ending well for me. Maybe once I get a few more test games with Yawg's Win in place, I can consider it, since it would just wind up as fuel for the grave. Tentative results show Necropotence and Phyrexian Arena usually being enough extra draw power aside from the Wheels.

Finally dusted off this topic, took the time to update the deck here.

Kaervek has been ousted as the general, along with what few creatures were in this. Now, Mogis runs the show alone. Early tests of this deck have my playgroup REALLY disliking it, even though I have no real tax effects and have foregone any Smokestack/token creation engines to further make this deck evil.

Initial testing has gone very well, looking to add Tainted Æther in here somewhere...

Tainted AEther + Forbidden Orchard + Aether Flash = T: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Target opponent sacrifices a creature or land.

Add Burning Sands, Dingus Staff and perhaps consider Tombstone Stairwell.

I also have a deck that started with Kaervek and went creatureless for Mogis. It is very, very mean.

I like the Forbidden Orchard combo, I think I'll give it a test. At the very least, I'll be adding Æther Flash to help keep mana dorks in line.

Tombstone Stairwell is kind of sad for me since I have no creatures.

This deck does have enough removal and its only creature is indestructible so I'll keep an eye on Burning Sands. Not as sure on Dingus Staff.

Tyrant's Choice from Conspiracy fits the flavor of this deck and might get a spot. Coercive Portal seems like a fair trade between either a board nuke or a card engine, both of which I could always use more of.

Another Kaervek-gone-Mogis player, here.

I, too, like that Aether Flash ugliness Pharmalade posted. Another card that is fun with Aether Flash is Death Pits of Rath.

You might consider Ruination, From the Ashes, and more basic lands.

Last Laugh seems fitting, but you might be killing critters to much for it to last long.

Stranglehold keeps all sorts of effects in check.

Cheers!

Death Pits are interesting, and I'd probably add Pyrohemia or Pestilence to make further use of it, since Mogis is indestructible and doesn't care how often I fire those effects off.

I've made the conscious choice to not run Ruination/From The Ashes/Price of Progress/etc as a challenge to myself more than anything. I'm fine with making my opponents choose between countering things or losing their lands, but I try to avoid outright land destruction...for now.

Stranglehold is something I keep going back and forth on, so I'll add it to my list of things to get if I can.

Ward of Bones and Uphill Battle are also effects I may try out soon to keep the creature horde down.

Have you considered pox and smallpox? I see you are running death cloud and have other land destruction in the "potential recruits" section so I assume your group is cool with it.

Smallpox can be viewed as cruel edict with the added benefit of also disrupting everyone.

Pox is like a gigantic lava axe to everyone's face which really helps Mogis seal the deal. You get Mogis out and then "reset" the board with pox and everyone's in for some pain.

Another card I really like that I think you should look at is innocent blood. Running 0 creatures turns it into a super edict that hits all opponents and costs less mana than usual.

Also if you want another (although overall worse) sulfuric vortex, there's forsaken wastes. It only does 1 damage instead of 2 but it still prevents life gain and if someone tries to blow it up, they get lava axed in the face.

I have consider the Pox family, but have set them aside for a mono-black deck. I run Death Cloud more for the scaling mass sacrifice in case of pesky things like Avacyn.

Innocent Blood and Crack the Earth are definitely in my low-cost permanent removal options.

I ran Forsaken Wastes and replaced it with Subversion.

Death Rattle destroys a nongreen. I think you should probably cut that before anything else. Innocent Blood sounds like a great replacement.

I don't think you have enough Swamps for Cabal Coffers and Mutilate. In fact, I'd suggest cutting a lot of the non-basics like Reliquary Tower (with the amount of Discard, you're going to have more than 7 cards? I don't see much draw), Rakdos Carnarium (ETBT, Bounce and probably get sacced?) and the Vivid lands. The ETBT lands are what is hurting you versus aggro matches, especially with the amount of land you will be sacrificing from your own cards. You are also maining Blood Moon.

I also see you're not concerned about hurting yourself but are afraid of enemy early aggression, so I'd suggest an ancient card: Fire Covenant. Pay X life, deal X damage to creature. You don't need to worry about your low land count and you snuff out a bunch of creatures for some card advantage.

I think more card drawing would be good but I have no idea what to add without cutting into your theme picks.

So, let me get this straight.

You're running a buttload of enchantments..
Your general is Mogis, which is indestructible and hurts people without creatures..
And you're not running Jokulhaups, Devastation or Obliterate to abuse these facts?

Quote from Juwdah »

So, let me get this straight.

You're running a buttload of enchantments..
Your general is Mogis, which is indestructible and hurts people without creatures..
And you're not running Jokulhaups, Devastation or Obliterate to abuse these facts?

They're at least in his "potential recruits" section I am running all of those in my Mogis deck. I also have wildfire, devastating dreams, and destructive force.

I put forsaken wastes and erebos, god of the dead in my deck because I was worried about oloro and other powerful life gain cards. I guess you still have your fair share of "can't gain life" cards though anyway.

This is intentionally a de-powered deck. I play this deck as a form of catharsis, when I want to make playing the game about painful choices, but still leaving just enough rope to feel like you can survive.

If I ever cranked the deck up to 11, either due a meta shift or a desire to make this my main deck, I would definitely be running the more cruel options listed. For now, I don't want to make this completely oppressive.

Minor changes that I'll get into the OP shortly.


Pyroclasm -> Æther Flash
Browbeat -> Tainted Æther

I'm probably going to look at adding Sadistic Sacrament and Jester's Cap to the deck. If I can proactively shut down G/W/x decks by gutting Aura Shards and other similar cards that basically knock me out of the game before they hit the field, that'd be awesome.

Another card to add for redundancy sake is Cursed Totem to aid Damping Matrix in shutting down some of the more frustrating generals. Might have to add Torpor Orb to combat ETB generals soon.

OP updated again with current decklist. I am on the edge of cutting Wound Reflection. I pretty much rely on my opponents to make it work well until/unless I can stick the Havoc Festival for that combo.