MTG Salvation

This is my Riku deck, mostly made for doing a lot of insane big things. Really enjoyable to play!
If you like doing big and insane things but want to keep it "relatively casual" this might be a good deck for you!



Wants:
Scalding Tarn
Misty Rainforest
Mana crypt

I notice you have a decent amount of extra turn spells. Consider running Zhur-Taa Ancient to complement them, assuming you're trying to win the game during these extra turns. It's 50% more effective than a lone Mana Reflection for just one mana more.

Also, Stitch in Time is basically a five-mana Time Stretch. Basically.

I don't think Mystic Snake is terribly needed. If anything, I would just run Plasm Capture for more value and/or Venser, Shaper Savant; even if one of them has to die after being copied, it's multipurpose and it's not often that you need to bounce more than one spell at a time.

Given enough instants, or Winding Canyons (worth running!) / Alchemist's Refuge / Prophet of Kruphix, Time Spiral looks as though it would be ripe for abuse.
Costs 8, adds 12+* to your mana pool, and gives you a chance to drop some of your intermittent seven. It does, however, go infinite with Dualcaster Mage + Deadeye Navigator.
*Karoos and especially Mana Reflection play well with this. As does Zhur-Taa Ancient, recommended above, but I am loathe to give me opponents mana: rarely have I seen this not backfire in dramatic fashion. Flashing it in just before your turn, or dropping Time Warp / having enough mana left to abuse it yourself of course work.

If it weren't for Deadeye Navigator comboing so easily, I'd have suggested Peregrine Drake & Co. Except for Palinchron, as the illusion combos with your commander by itself.

Have you considered Parallel Lives or Doubling Season?

It may require changing a lot of cards, but with enough small green creature cards, Natural Order could be insane. Costs up to 10 mana (2GG, RG, UG, UG) and 1 green creature. For the full 10, you can get four Terastodon onto the battlefield, plus an extra each upkeep. Or maybe 4 Avengers of Zendikar (plus the extra per upkeep), noting that not only is that a lot of plants, but now you get 4+ landfall triggers per land! With 10 lands in play, untapping and copying a four drop ramp spell, you now have exactly 1,000 power in plants, 800 of which is ready to attack.
Of course, you can't reasonably expect to untap with that board without serious concerted prior preparation (or, far more likely than the linked cards: opponents running out of answers after a long grindy game, which would also mean >10 land and thus far far more power still. It does pose the problem of having already drawn Progenitor Mimic / Avenger...a problem solved by shuffling your graveyard into your library).

You need a lot of mana before before Tooth and Nail is nearly that powerful. Well, 10 mana is already a lot, but copying any of your 4 drop ramp spells will get you there.
Given enough solid cheap 3 drops, Woodland Bellower also works extremely well with Riku. This deck doesn't even want to run legendaries anyway.
(Bribery, which you're already running, can regularly do the same or better. You can use that to help gage Natural Order's effectiveness, although tutoring your opponents decks adds a lot of uncertainty when unfamiliar with their lists [and uncertainty about which of those cards are in their hand cannot reasonably be avoided], making planning much more difficult.)

PS. Eternal Witness, Deadeye Navigator, Time Warp = infinite turns. Often times infinite combos follow from simply running synergistic good cards. The laziest change to keep your "Non-Infinite Coolstuff" moniker would be Eternal Witness -> Regrowth. Cutting a small green creature doesn't work well with the Natural Order plan, however.

EDIT: Harmonize > Concentrate. While 2GGUR is certainly easier than 2UUUR.

Chromatic Lantern may be helpful if you're running into colour fixing issues. If you had more multicoloured spells I'd also run Urza's Filter.

I'm putting together one of these myself, and it's always cool to see what others are running.

Hi! Thanks for your replies!

To eternal:
time spiral would definitely be great, but a bit to abusive I think? I will note it as an option for the future though.
parallel lives and doubling season seem a bit win more to me, not being spells to copy also kind of turns me off.
natural order will need a lot of changes indeed! I will stick with tooth and nail, its a bit blunt, but awesome when it comes together!

After your comment I gave it some thought, and decided to take out eternal witness I will replace it with [card]restock[card]. It is a bit to easy to assemble the infinite turns thing. I will miss witness though, I love that card

You are right about harmonize, somehow I forgot about it when searching for some 4 mana draw spells, will get replaced if I find one!
I considered woodland bellower, but there is just not enough targets to make it worth it..

To Serberus:
Both cards are definitely not needed, the deck is doing fine on fixing, my advice to you is to just pick up cultivate and friends and at enough forests!

Going to edit the deck for a bit right now.

Out:

• mystic snake
  
• Savage ventmaw
  
• Eternal witness

In:

• talent of the telepath
  
• Hornet queen
  
• Restock

Quote from Roelio »

Both cards are definitely not needed, the deck is doing fine on fixing, my advice to you is to just pick up cultivate and friends and at enough forests!

K

Out:

• glen elendra archmage
  
• Concentrate
  
• Hornet queen
  
• Avenger of zendikar

In:

• mana drain
  
• Harmonize
  
• Molten primordial
  
• Giant adephage

Bit more raw power, harmonize a bit better then concentrate and mana drain is awesome for the deck, finally got one!

I would replace Harmonize with Fact or Fiction.

Also, I'd suggest taking advantage of the fact that you're already most of the way to a solid creature toolbox, and play Birthing Pod and Survival of the Fittest.

Lastly, your curve is really high, and Riku is already naturally very mana hungry. I would recommend cutting some of of your higher cost cards in favour of cheaper/more efficient options. Basically I'd cut all of those 8 drops, and most of the 7 drops.

EDIT: Oh, and also, you're running a LOT of cards that specifically look for Forests. Multiples of them. You're going to run out fast. I'd probably cut Ranger's Path, Hunting Wilds, and Explosive Vegetation in favour of cheaper ramp spells. Farseek, for example.

Hi there!
fact or fiction is in!
You are absolutely right in that your suggestions would make the deck better, however I use this deck for playing all the crazy expensive cards I want, its a shame I couldnt find more room for clone legion and insurrection
So you are right, it is on the heavy side, thats why I recently increased the amount of 4 drops

Even though this deck isn't real optimized, as it is its one of the strongest decks in my meta.
Usually I don't play much tutors, tooth and nail is an exeption, because its so huge and awesome to copy, and doesnt win on the spot in this deck.

Running out of forests happened before, usually at that point I'm at about 15 mana though, so not really an issue the ramp spells I play usually search for more then one land, thats why I play them, they make everything huge.

For people going for a more competetive deck, ZenN's advice is great, also don't forget to put in stuff like palinchron and eternal witness

This deck is sahweeeeet.

IMO it's at the perfect level of power level / competitiveness.

Seriously great job.

The only thing I can think of off top at the moment is to consider Vengeful Rebirth and Epic Experiment (with Turnabout and Early Harvest). With Riku in play you can copy spells coming off the Experiment. Very fun. Vengeful Rebirth give you a similar effect to Volcanic Vision (which you've already found). That card (VV) is savage.

GL!

Flametongue Kavu Could be real killer in this deck in my opinion

Bit late, but thanks for the responses!
Some small updates, there hasn't been to much I wanted in this deck.

In:

• Mystic confluence
  
• Vengeful Rebirth
  
• Command Beacon
  
• Cinder Glade

Out:

• Prophet of Kruphix
  
• Restock
  
• Temple of Abandon
  
• Island

Added to maybeboard:

• Greenwarden of murasa
  
• skullwinder
  
• mizzix's mastery
  
• Flametongue Kavu
  
• reality shift
  
• templeof abandon
  
• restock

Made some small updates, notably combustible gearhulk

Just noticed the obviously missing worldspine wurm, will fix this soon!

Any huge spells that anyone seeing this is missing?

Thanks, I'll definitely get pathbreaker ibex, it might just be going big enough for this deck!
Hornet queen is indeed just *this* close to being in the deck.

Any suggestions for what to remove, anything you don't like for the deck's going big theme?