MTG Salvation

A cool new general with serious potential.



Average CMC - 1.26
The deck is a GB aggro deck with a combo feel to it. You can start knocking players out as early as turn 3 while playing hard to deal with threats and a lot of ways to recoup card advantage.

Plan A - Charge up Varolz and beat down. If you get him down turn 2 and then start going crazy from turn 3 onwards he is very hard to deal with, especially if you have Sylvan Safekeeper or Swiftfoot Boots . Buried Alive , Entomb and Survival of the Fittest are the all stars here in finding your good targets: Phyrexian Dreadnought and Death's Shadow . Lord of Extinction is the most powerful lategame option, and it can also be fetched by Green Sun's Zenith. Troll Ascetic is better than Varolz for putting on counters, so keep that in mind if you already have a dreadnought in hand and are looking for something to tutor.

Plan B - Get a critical mass of creatures and start killing the table with either Beastmaster's Ascension or Triumph of the Horde .

Plan C - Get an infect creature out, put some counters on it and go to town. You can actually do this as early as turn 2 with a turn 1 Inkmoth nexus , one of the mana artifacts and either Shadow or Dreadnought. The counters stay on Nexus when it turns back to a land.

Plan D - Cast Ad Nauseam on someone's end step, go down to 5 life and hope that gets you enough gas to win. The same also works for Necropotence .

Other noteworthy cards:
Lotleth Troll and Oona's Prowler - free discard outlets are especially valuable in this deck as they increase your speed. They also help with the Ad Nauseam plan allowing you to ditch everything into the graveyard right away and they are both pretty good cards to target for counters.

Winter Orb wins games by locking your opponents out of their answers. Easy and cheap to cast and a prime tutor target.

Some cards I am considering - Sheltering Ancient , Force of Savagery and Phyrexian Soulgorger . All three give a large power boost for their mana cost and can go to the graveyard without a sac outlet, which is nice. I also really like that the ancient and force of nature can be fetched by Zenith and all three have easy mana costs.

Glad to hear any comments.

Update 25-4
- Ulvenwald Tracker
- Stinkweed Imp
- Snuff Out
+ Slaughter Pact
+ Force of Savagery
+ Crop Rotation

Ulvenwald Tracker wasn't that useful to me so far, and it is a pretty weak creature. Crop Rotation is a powerful tutor, so it made the cut. Slaughter Pact as commented is better than Snuff Out in decks with Ad Nauseam. Dredging Stinkweed Imp did not feel like a good use of my drawstep, and Force of Savagery packs quite a punch.

Wow, I was just about to post something very similar, Ad Nauseam and everything! It is encouraging to see someone else do it first as reassurance we are on the right track. I am going to push mine more toward the combo end of the spectrum and try to make Lion's Eye Diamond work... I will share if I can get it functioning.

Have you considered Diabolic Intent? The downside is almost trivial in this deck.

Crop Rotation also looks like it would be superb, fetching Cradle, Nexus, and Bojuka Bog if you added it. Would also get Urborg to activate Filth if you decide to play it.

I would find a replacement for Snuff Out in an Ad Nauseam deck. What about Slaughter Pact?

So Lotleth Troll and Oonas Prowler are good here? Good ideas. I was not initially sure how to assess them. What about Putrid Imp?

Bridge from Below might be getting too cute, but if it is good in any EDH deck, it is probably this one.

What is Blood Scrivener? The CARD tag is not working.

I hope you don't mind all these comments. It is a nice deck.

EDIT: Two more, two more. Is Joraga Treespeaker worth it maybe? And how many elves do we need to make Priest of Titania worth it?

I'm not really a big fan of diabolic intent in this deck as most of the creatures you don't really want to sacrifice, except to save varolz. It's playable, but the drawback is still pretty severe.

I agree on Crop Rotation , which is now in the list. Same for Slaughter Pact which has replaced Snuff Out . I have found the discard outlets currently in the deck to be sufficient, although Putrid Imp works if you feel like you need another one. Oona's Prowler and especially Lotleth Troll are better than the imp, though.

Bridge from Below seems too easy to disrupt in EDH, as well as this deck not being all about continually sacrificing creatures. This seems like a better fit in Teysa. Blood Scrivener is a new confidant variant. Joraga Treespeaker depends on your meta. If you have a lot of removal in your meta it becomes a lot worse. Priest of Titania requires more elves to be better than adding for example Worldly Tutor .

Thanks for the comments. Main question I am wondering about now is if Dark Ritual is worth it, as it does pack quite a punch, especially if you draw it with Ad Nauseam .

Why do you think that Slaughter Pact is better then Snuff Out?

In general, I don't think it is, but in this case with both Dark Confidant and Ad Nauseam in the deck, the cmc of 0 is a lot better than that of 4.

Shouldn't Force of Nature be Force of Savagery? ^^

Myr Superion is another pump option with a low starting CMC.

Quote from Davran

Myr Superion is another pump option with a low starting CMC.

It's not nearly as easy to get him to the graveyard as the others, which all have an easy mechanism to get there (self-sacrifice, -X/-X, 0 toughness).

I'm surprised to not see more Varolz lists. He's my favorite guild champion out of DGM and I really like you list. I will probably work on my own version when I have the chance.

Have you considered Cackling witch? A discard outlet that works amazingly with your infect strategy.

Plan C seems very strange. You have no other way of putting counters on a creature other than your general, and if you have your general out why not bash with him instead?

As a matter of fact, this entire list looks very strange to me considering it's in the multiplayer section. I mean... Tarmogoyf? If you're going to voltron-combo with your general, why not use a creature better suited for it such as Phyrexian Soulgorger? And if you're using it in the cases when you don't have your general out, why not use a creature that has an actual impact in a multiplayer EDH-game instead? Tarmogoyf does neither job very well.

And what do you use Bloodghast/Nether Traitor/Gravecrawler/Strangleroot Geist/etc. for? Regenerating your general? That's not gonna help you in a multiplayer game with several opponents with spot removal.

Are you sure you just haven't posted this in the wrong section? It looks like a 1v1 list to me.

Edit: If this IS a multiplayer list, I think you should add a note about what meta you play in. Because this deck seems a bit odd in a normal EDH enviroment.

Quote from Vindhjaerta

Plan C seems very strange. You have no other way of putting counters on a creature other than your general, and if you have your general out why not bash with him instead?

As a matter of fact, this entire list looks very strange to me considering it's in the multiplayer section. I mean... Tarmogoyf? If you're going to voltron-combo with your general, why not use a creature better suited for it such as Phyrexian Soulgorger? And if you're using it in the cases when you don't have your general out, why not use a creature that has an actual impact in a multiplayer EDH-game instead? Tarmogoyf does neither job very well.

And what do you use Bloodghast/Nether Traitor/Gravecrawler/Strangleroot Geist/etc. for? Regenerating your general? That's not gonna help you in a multiplayer game with several opponents with spot removal.

Are you sure you just haven't posted this in the wrong section? It looks like a 1v1 list to me.

Edit: If this IS a multiplayer list, I think you should add a note about what meta you play in. Because this deck seems a bit odd in a normal EDH enviroment.

Infect creatures, while vulnerable, are much faster in killing opponents, so that can make them better targets than varolz himself.

Tarmogoyf is actually really good in the deck. It is generally a 5/6 for 2 which is a good beater and a very good rate for pumping. You want cards which are good on both sides, which makes it much better than many other options. In general, I agree that tarmogoyf is not the best creature in edh, but the more competitive your meta gets, the better it becomes.

The four creatures you mentioned are good for recurring my general, drawing cards with skullclamp and just regular beat down. You aren't always killing with general damage, so every little bit helps. Nether traitor is also a great target for counters. High creature density is important for both regeneration and scavenging, and the damage from recurring threats can add up. I am considering rot-farm skeleton for the same reason.

As to this not being a common multiplayer list, if you want to play aggro in a meta with pretty strong decks, you need to come out of the gates quickly and knock players out as early as possible. The list is oriented towards doing that. That said, aggro lists in edh are obviously better in 1 vs 1 than they are in multiplayer by only requiring you to knock out one player instead of multiple players. You can come back in the game very quickly though with ad nauseam or necropotence, so you shouldn't run out of steam in the late game. Try it though, you can start knocking out players as early as turn 3.

Seems like devoted druid would be good here

Lion's Eye Diamond looks like it would be perfect here. How is Force of Nature working out for you?

I have been thinking about going more all-in, cutting some slower stuff like arena to fit in Lion's Eye Diamond , Dark Ritual and Sheltered Ancient . I'll definitely try these sometime.

Devoted Druid could definitely be quite good here. I've also been thinking of adding Gyre Sage as the deck curves quite well and the extra mana is very useful.

Gyre Sage, Thought Gorger, and Fungal Behemoth have been pretty solid in mine.
Is there a reason you aren't playing Hunter Horror?

Gyre sage is playable, but slow, and this deck may have to low of a curve to make it shine. Thought gorger is just asking to get removed in response to the trigger, in which case you lose your hand. I didn't know about fungal behemoth, but on first sight it seems win more, as by the time this becomes a significant threat, you have ten counters on one of your creatures, so it isn't really necessary.

The deck has been running pretty well, so no updates. Of the m13 spoilers, kalonian hydra, which can be pretty bonkers, seems worth testing. Witch stalker will probably replace blood scrivener, which I have found to be underwhelming.

Corpse Connoisseur looks pretty sweet here. ETB he tutors for your scavenge-targets and he has unearth, so you can sac him for varolz and do it all again. Sure, his CMC is a little high, but I think he's playable.

Quote from xterminans

Corpse Connoisseur looks pretty sweet here. ETB he tutors for your scavenge-targets and he has unearth, so you can sac him for varolz and do it all again. Sure, his CMC is a little high, but I think he's playable.

You can only do this once, as with unearth the connoisseur will be exiled when it leaves the battlefield. All in all though, I think the mana cost and the dis synergy between unearth and scavenge are the main issues here. Five mana is a lot for what amounts to entomb on a 3/3. The mana cost itself is too high for scavenge, and the unearth is still way overpriced for the ability. Depending on your deck, it could be playable, but this is too much a late game card and too little of an early game card. I would add Hunter Horror in before this one.