MTG Salvation

Were there any cards in Amonkhet, Hour of Devastation, or Ixalan worth considering? Rile is the only one I saw worth considering.

Rile is indeed another good one. Just need to be carefull with the 1 damage

Quote from Myrmadillo »

Were there any cards in Amonkhet, Hour of Devastation, or Ixalan worth considering? Rile is the only one I saw worth considering.

I'll take the lack of response as a no.

Has anyone tried out Aetherflux Reservoir? How many spells do you typically cast when Zada is going off? 10 spells is 55 life, 14 is 105, and 17 is 153, which is basically game over for the table.

Sorry about the general lack of response on my own part, I have been taking on more responsibility at work.

So far this year's sets have given us rile and I had some fun with Hazoret's Monument in a slower build and may be worth it for you. I am still working on a version that creates fewer tokens via spells and plays 25-30 creatures. In that version, I am testing wily goblin.

I've never serously tested Aetherflux reservoir in Zada, but I expect that it could be less effective win condition to psychosis crawler. It also has some serious synergy with treasonous ogre as mana production via life gain. To answer your question: I definitely cast 10-20 spells when I am going off optimally, but these days my playgroup just scoops when I hit critical mass.

finally managed to finish the deck and its amazing. So many KOs hahaha. Hilarious how a Red deck draws more then blue

I haven't updated my version of this in quite some time. Do any of you guys have an updated deck list you can share?

Quote from Goozefraba »

I haven't updated my version of this in quite some time. Do any of you guys have an updated deck list you can share?

I just recently updated my lists. All I did was swap out Temur Battle Rage for Rile. You can find my lists and their explanations in the Zada link in my sig. It's in this same thread.

Any thoughts on Land's Edge? It is mentioned on the first page of this thread in a positive light, but never comes up again.

I like that it gives you something to do with extraneous lands in hand, but I'm guessing it just isn't enough damage to be worth it. Discarding 20 lands does 60 damage (enough to kill a player and half). However, to have that many lands in hand, you'd have to draw ~55 cards, which would be game over with Psychosis Crawler. I guess I'm just looking for a second opinion to confirm my suspicions.

Quote from Myrmadillo »

Any thoughts on Land's Edge? It is mentioned on the first page of this thread in a positive light, but never comes up again.

I like that it gives you something to do with extraneous lands in hand, but I'm guessing it just isn't enough damage to be worth it. Discarding 20 lands does 60 damage (enough to kill a player and half). However, to have that many lands in hand, you'd have to draw ~55 cards, which would be game over with Psychosis Crawler. I guess I'm just looking for a second opinion to confirm my suspicions.

It's just as you said, Psychosis Crawler is much better in taking advantage over how you're drawing than Land's Edge does. To put it into perspective, I never even considered Land's Edge for my own deck.

Thanks for the response! The one advantage I see for Land's Edge is that you can draw it late, cast it for 3 mana, and still dump all your lands for damage. Psychosis Crawler has to be in play early before most of your draw for it to be effective.

Any thoughts on Guttersnipe? Assuming 3 other players, it does 6 damage per spell when storming off. Ten spells cuts every opponent at the table to half life.

Tilonalli's Summoner - Great way to produce a bunch of tokens. Even if they're exiled afterwards, you have a ton of bodies for Zada's ability. If that weren't enough, it's very easy to ascend with all the tokens anyways so they'll even stick around afterwards.

Deck update!

Here's the latest version of my ultra-budget decklist. Nothing on this list cost me more than 50 cents acquire. I fully recognize the deck could be improved by adding Past in Flames/Mizzix's Mastery, Siege-Gang Commander, Krenko, Mob Boss, and Ruby Medallion/Helm of Awakening. However, I'm not really looking to purchase cards at this point, just play the deck occasionally and enjoy it for what it is. If there is anything that looks out of place, I'd certainly appreciate the feedback so I can take it out.


Note: Due to difficulties hitting my 4th and 5th land drops, I increased the land count from 36 to 38. Should I decide to remove some land, I have the following cards waiting in the wings: Possibility Storm, Burn at the Stake, Overblaze, and Recoup.

Excluding mountains, my entire deck costs less than $15 including shipping on TCGplayer.com right now. The most expensive card is Goblin Bushwhacker at just over $1, which could easily be omitted from the deck.

I'm trying to think of a way to make Seize the Day work in this deck. Since each creature is untapped only once you essentially only get one
additional combat phase, but theoretically you could find a way to give everyone vigilance. What comes to mind is Akroma's Memorial, but that's not a good idea.

There are plenty of red spells that untap creatures - particularly the ones that steal them. Just target Zada with one of them and they'll all untap.

I've made some minor changes to the deck but I'm pretty sure that they're gonna make the deck that much better:
Distemper of the Blood -> Goblin Instigator
Titan's Strength -> Reality Scramble

Goblin Instigator is very similar to Mogg War Marshal in that you get 2 1/1 goblins for 1R. Distemper of the Blood was just another one of the many pump spells, which are useless unless you have enough creatures to make them worth it. And I've been asking for cheap token production for this deck for a long time.

Reality Scramble seems amazing on the level of Chaos Warp (though Chaos Warp is still superior in every way). You can target Zada and a whole bunch of tokens to essential cheat into play every creature in the deck. Titan's Strength is a great stat boost but the scry is irrelevant when you're scrying 1 a dozen times. Once you find what you want you don't really need to keep scrying. Then again, if you're scrying 1 a dozen times, you might as well just draw a dozen card.

What I am considering finding a slot for is Mana Seism. I can tap all of my mountains for R then sacrifice them all for , thus getting 2 mana for each Mountain.

Quote from DementedKirby »

I've made some minor changes to the deck but I'm pretty sure that they're gonna make the deck that much better:
Distemper of the Blood -> Goblin Instigator
Titan's Strength -> Reality Scramble

Goblin Instigator is very similar to Mogg War Marshal in that you get 2 1/1 goblins for 1R. Distemper of the Blood was just another one of the many pump spells, which are useless unless you have enough creatures to make them worth it. And I've been asking for cheap token production for this deck for a long time.

Reality Scramble seems amazing on the level of Chaos Warp (though Chaos Warp is still superior in every way). You can target Zada and a whole bunch of tokens to essential cheat into play every creature in the deck. Titan's Strength is a great stat boost but the scry is irrelevant when you're scrying 1 a dozen times. Once you find what you want you don't really need to keep scrying. Then again, if you're scrying 1 a dozen times, you might as well just draw a dozen card.

What I am considering finding a slot for is Mana Seism. I can tap all of my mountains for R then sacrifice them all for , thus getting 2 mana for each Mountain.

Good stuff. I guess I missed the Instigator. Reality Scramble definitely has an early threshold where you don't want to tuck away many more creatures than creature cards you're going to pull out, and you want to make sure it pulls Zada back out, too. It's probably better than Chaos Warp for this because it removes a lot of the random since there are so many instants and sorceries. And I like running Chancellor of the Forge, so that'll be fun.

Another that I want to test sometime is Dark-Dweller Oracle, but hasn't been assembled for a while. Might only be good once we're rolling, but could be a good way to access the remainder of the deck in lieu of not getting another "Target creature. Draw a card." card.

Maximize Velocity is 100% going in the deck.

Maximize Velocity supports the self damaging spells well, and deserves to be added. We're approaching a critical mass of toughness boosts. Runaway Steam Kin is also interesting as a potential, reusable mana source. It also scales well with twinflame effects.

I concur. Also, what I like about Maximize Velocity is that it has jump-start. So you can then use it afterwards a second time to either toughness boost creatures or give haste to any new tokens created that still have summoning sickness.

Besides Maximize Velocity and Runaway Steam-Kin, another autoinclude is Gravitic Punch.

Nope, it has two targets.

Quote from lyonhaert »

Nope, it has two targets.

Ah! That's right!! Oh well...

Goblin Goliath seems like another solid way to create tokens in monoR. Even with 2 opponents you get 3 bodies for 6. Not only that, but it can double damage too. Definitely worth considering for Zada.

Really wish this makes it in paper Magic; it's be great for this deck (and Krenko, too):

If Goblin Gang Leader ever becomes printed *fingers crossed* it'll replace Pia and Kiran Nalaar. In the mean time, here are the recent changes I've made to the deck:

I removed Distemper of the Blood because Maximize Velocity is just better overall. It costs 1 more and gives +1/+1 more and it trades trample for haste, but I've found that haste is more key in this deck. There are cards that already give trample, but if you can't attack the same turn you create a whole bunch of tokens, then you are susceptible to sorcery-speed wraths and boardwipes during opponents' turns. I used the same logic with Titan's Strength over Reality Scramble. Sure, it gives hefty pump of +3/+1, but once you scry into the top card you want, every other scry 1 is lost. But with Reality Scramble, although you're not actually drawing cards, you're "drawing cards" by polymporphing, which is probably even better. This is why I cast Chaos Warp and Indomitable Creativity on my Zada.

I removed Spellbook and Fiery Gambit to add two creatures that produce tokens when they enter the battlefield which is something I really want to be happening with this deck. So Goblin Instigator and Goblin Goliath were auto-includes and needed slots.

Runaway Steam-Kin definitely has potential and I want to test it even more. If I'm playing a bunch of one-costed spells, Runaway Steam-Kin will then let me continue to keep casting spells. This is crucial for when you're filling your hand with cards with all the abused cantrips with Zada.