MTG Salvation

Update History / Changelog:

This looks like a super tight list on a budget, and your acquisitions list has most of the really crucial and more expensive cards I'd consider suggesting. I do have a few thoughts though...

- Innocent Blood seems better than Bone Splinters (assuming you mostly play multiplayer).

- While their actual sacrifice effects are pretty minimalist, I'd consider Grave-shell Scarab and Shambling Shell as cheap self-sacrificers who can regrow themselves more or less at will and trigger both of Savra's abilities.

- Do you really need the mana from Mana Reflection or Reap and Sow? Because if not, I'd strongly consider Deadbridge Chant. The drawback of having it get nuked or having your 'yard get blasted by a Nihil Spellbomb seems worth risking due to how insanely strong it can be for you.

- Sylvan Primordial is vastly stronger than Terastodon. Assuming you don't want to run this borderline bannable monster, I think that Terastodon is still uneccesary and I'd consider creatures that are lower on the curve and have fun interactions with the deck, like Viridian Zealot, Brutalizer Exarch, Deadwood Treefolk, or Sylvok Replica, instead.

- If you find yourself needing even more sacrifice powers, you might look at Burnished Hart and Perilous Forays: you run enough creatures and enough basics to get high value out of them.

Hope that helps!

Quote from Hawk7915

This looks like a super tight list on a budget, and your acquisitions list has most of the really crucial and more expensive cards I'd consider suggesting. I do have a few thoughts though...

- Innocent Blood seems better than Bone Splinters (assuming you mostly play multiplayer).

- While their actual sacrifice effects are pretty minimalist, I'd consider Grave-shell Scarab and Shambling Shell as cheap self-sacrificers who can regrow themselves more or less at will and trigger both of Savra's abilities.

- Do you really need the mana from Mana Reflection or Reap and Sow? Because if not, I'd strongly consider Deadbridge Chant. The drawback of having it get nuked or having your 'yard get blasted by a Nihil Spellbomb seems worth risking due to how insanely strong it can be for you.

- Sylvan Primordial is vastly stronger than Terastodon. Assuming you don't want to run this borderline bannable monster, I think that Terastodon is still uneccesary and I'd consider creatures that are lower on the curve and have fun interactions with the deck, like Viridian Zealot, Brutalizer Exarch, Deadwood Treefolk, or Sylvok Replica, instead.

- If you find yourself needing even more sacrifice powers, you might look at Burnished Hart and Perilous Forays: you run enough creatures and enough basics to get high value out of them.

Hope that helps!

thank you for the awesome suggestion and it really helps a lot because i dont get much help from my playgroup because they dont know what's good or what's not so everything helps and thank you for pointing

Innocent Blood - this is awesome i will try and grab one of this but i think i will still leave the Bone Splinters in the deck because its target removal and if the opponents have 2 -3 creatures i'm kind of screwed and i forced to sacrifice more creatures than i really want

Deadbridge Chant i was considering this card but i dont know where to put it but since you do point it out now that i think about it yea i dont really need the Mana Reflection but i need reap and sow because it is really useful when you need bojuka bog or other lands

Grave-shell Scarab and Shambling Shell i dont know about scarab because its to high casting cost for my taste but shambling is definitely in for me

Sylvan Primordial i see i get your point about this one and will switch it in after this post hehe

Perilous Forays i will grab this as soon as possible and its really awesome i don't know why i didn't put one before


thanks again and most of your suggestions are already cards at hand and things i was already considering so it really helped out a lot

Quote from drew0527

Innocent Blood - this is awesome i will try and grab one of this but i think i will still leave the Bone Splinters in the deck because its target removal and if the opponents have 2 -3 creatures i'm kind of screwed and i forced to sacrifice more creatures than i really want

The problem with Bone Splinters and the other cards that do the same thing (Attrition, Stronghold Assassin) is that they interact poorly with Savra. You target, sac a creature, Savra triggers, opponent chooses targeted creature to sac, you don't get to kill any extra creatures... well, from that player. Other oppnents will lose creatures too, but it's kind of awkward.

1013-NOV-19:

Quote from Dirty Filter

The problem with Bone Splinters and the other cards that do the same thing (Attrition, Stronghold Assassin) is that they interact poorly with Savra. You target, sac a creature, Savra triggers, opponent chooses targeted creature to sac, you don't get to kill any extra creatures... well, from that player. Other oppnents will lose creatures too, but it's kind of awkward.

now that you pointed it out yeah its awkward thats why i swapped it for murder for now

2013-DEC-06:

2013-DEC-08:

The best budget card I can think of is Tortured Existence.

Quote from Shabbaman

The best budget card I can think of is Tortured Existence.

i see this is a awesome card to have i will do my best to grab a hold of this card thanks do you have other cards that you think that would fit the deck?

2013-DEC-10:
sacrificed Triskelion for Deranged Hermit
-> Triskelion is a dead card with out Mikaeus, the Unhallowed and Deranged Hermit is a great token generator

sacrificed Hell's Caretaker for Phyrexian Reclamation
->a cheaper recursion even if hell's caretaker is better the problem with caretaker is i need to wait for 1 turn to use it and by that time its already dead

Quote from drew0527

i see this is a awesome card to have i will do my best to grab a hold of this card thanks do you have other cards that you think that would fit the deck?

Well, my budget suggestion would've been Reassembling skeleton, but you're already running it. I'm running Gravecrawler as well, but you need a decent number of zombies to support it. There's Burnished Hart, doesn't trigger Savra though. You're light on mana anyway, so I'd cut something big (and annoying) like Vorinclex. I do have a couple of suggestions that are a bit less cheap:

-Harvester of Souls: great with Reassembling Skeleton and Grave Pact
-Nath of the gilt-leaf: you're already running Sadistic Hypnotist (should get a Hypnotoad alter) and this gives you green tokens to sacrifice plus a discard that could be valuable against control players
-Cauldron of Souls: your creatures come back for another round of sacrifice. Gives you some resilience against sweepers.
-Grave Betrayal: you are including some combo's, so I assume your meta is a bit fast... if it isn't, this card can have a high impact and (best of all) give you another win condition
-Glissa, the traitor + Executioner’s Capsule (+ any number of cheap artifact cantrips, like Nihil Spellbomb or Mind Stone: you're low on graveyard hate and, again, your mana is too light)

Speaking of Glissa: my Glissa deck used to have Savra as a general. I noticed there are mechanical ties between my Savra/Grave Pact deck and Glissa: both do things when something dies ("Whenever a creature dies"). I made this a recurring theme in my deck. With Savra that's a bit harder, since you're specifically looking for black and green creatures. I really like stuff like Pawn of Ulamog and Golgari Germination (which makes green tokens btw). Awakening Zone is good in my deck. It's crap with Savra, but it's a solid supply of self-sacrificing creatures and provides mana.

Quote from Shabbaman

Well, my budget suggestion would've been Reassembling skeleton, but you're already running it. I'm running Gravecrawler as well, but you need a decent number of zombies to support it. There's Burnished Hart, doesn't trigger Savra though. You're light on mana anyway, so I'd cut something big (and annoying) like Vorinclex. I do have a couple of suggestions that are a bit less cheap:

-Harvester of Souls: great with Reassembling Skeleton and Grave Pact
-Nath of the gilt-leaf: you're already running Sadistic Hypnotist (should get a Hypnotoad alter) and this gives you green tokens to sacrifice plus a discard that could be valuable against control players
-Cauldron of Souls: your creatures come back for another round of sacrifice. Gives you some resilience against sweepers.
-Grave Betrayal: you are including some combo's, so I assume your meta is a bit fast... if it isn't, this card can have a high impact and (best of all) give you another win condition
-Glissa, the traitor + Executioner’s Capsule (+ any number of cheap artifact cantrips, like Nihil Spellbomb or Mind Stone: you're low on graveyard hate and, again, your mana is too light)

Speaking of Glissa: my Glissa deck used to have Savra as a general. I noticed there are mechanical ties between my Savra/Grave Pact deck and Glissa: both do things when something dies ("Whenever a creature dies"). I made this a recurring theme in my deck. With Savra that's a bit harder, since you're specifically looking for black and green creatures. I really like stuff like Pawn of Ulamog and Golgari Germination (which makes green tokens btw). Awakening Zone is good in my deck. It's crap with Savra, but it's a solid supply of self-sacrificing creatures and provides mana.

as i read this post i was already re building the deck and removed vorinclex and changed it Boundless Realms because vorin is to to much of a threat that i dont get any value from it may as well remove him and boundless just filters the deck so i can have high possibility of getting my desired cards

and i also felt that my mana base is weak so i added some more lands


Harvester of Souls this is a great suggestion will get a hold of this in the near future
Nath of the gilt-leaf another great suggestion and it has a very cool interactions

Cauldron of Souls tried this and most of the time not that useful because its always destroyed and tokens dosent go back from the grave so not for me but i have one and will continue experimenting with it
Grave Betrayal im not really sure about this but i will check it out

also graveyard hates i dont run that much of it because players in my playgroup dont have that much graveyard interaction and most often than not im the only one on the receiving end of graveyard exile cards which makes me a very sad panda oh by the way check my newly re build deck and tell me what you think of it and suggestions that i can remove to free more slots for better cards

2013-DEC-11:

I don't think Marsh Flitter is a better choice than Endrek Sahr. Don't you think you have enough token producers anyway? Basically all you need is Reassembling Skeleton.

Looking over the list again I think you should run Worm Harvest and Creakwood Liege. You're already running LftL, so Worm Harvest is really great. Just add some cycling lands, and you have a solid draw engine. Oh, and Crop Rotation. Instead of Braids or Magus I'd go for Slum Reaper. You can find that by transmuting Dimir house-guard as well.

Consider Shred Memory: good graveyard hate, it gets vital cards from your deck (Skeleton, Loam) so it gets even good when you don't need it

Quote from Shabbaman

I don't think Marsh Flitter is a better choice than Endrek Sahr. Don't you think you have enough token producers anyway? Basically all you need is Reassembling Skeleton.

Looking over the list again I think you should run Worm Harvest and Creakwood Liege. You're already running LftL, so Worm Harvest is really great. Just add some cycling lands, and you have a solid draw engine. Oh, and Crop Rotation. Instead of Braids or Magus I'd go for Slum Reaper. You can find that by transmuting Dimir house-guard as well.

Consider Shred Memory: good graveyard hate, it gets vital cards from your deck (Skeleton, Loam) so it gets even good when you don't need it

i see the reason why i removed endrek sahr is because i find him hard to get that much value of but if you think other wise i will play test them to see which one is better but most probably your correct since im running more black now than before

Creakwood Liege i like this card and i have him on my acquire list the problem is he's to expensive and if i have the cash i would rather get a demonic tutor instead but long story short i will have him in time but after tutor first

crop rotation this is a wonderful card i will get it as soon as i see one thanks

slum reaper i see your point i was trying to play braids style of play and just have him survive by sacrificing tokens but i think i run them to much with braids, sholdred and magus i will replace magus to slum reaper with you suggestion

Shred Memory i see this is a really a value card since i run them both ways like dimir house guard and more often then not i run house guard as a tutor effect than a sacrifice outlet will get this ASAP

thanks for your suggestions by the way what do you think of my changes on the deck so far?

Looks good to me. If you pick the suggestions that tickle your fancy and are within your budget, I think you'll be happier with what the deck does and how it plays. The only thing that worries me, from my experience with my own Savra deck, is that you put your opponents in a position where they can't win (because you lock the board with Savra/Grave Pact) while you can't finish the game quickly. That's unfun.

You are running some combo's though, so that helps. In that regard I second the motion to add Perilous Forays, as you can finish the game quickly with that + Avenger + Bloodghast. Perhaps you could run Genesis Wave to make use of all that mana, or maybe Exsanguinate (aka lamest wincon ever). I don't know if it's within your budget, but Lord of Extinction plus Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord can finish games quickly. Both cards have cheaper equivalents, like Xathrid Demon and Lhurgoyf, Boneyard Wurm. Perhaps you don't need that though, that's up to you. Just keep in mind that you need to win eventually, rather sooner than later. Don't build decks that keep you from losing!