MTG Salvation

Detailed explanation here.

I am trying to get my head around your build. I love Mardu political control. It is a super fun archetype, and I am watching Mathas political builds closely. I run Queen Marchesa, and while I think that she will be better for political control than Mathas, I think there is space for Mathas with a slightly different build.

I am curious how you see the overall strategy of the deck. What is your ideal starting hand, and how do you best approach each phase of the game, from early game, through midgame, and then how does it win?

As for specific cards, I like Wall of Souls. Seems like a fun rattlesnake card. I will be curious how it turns out, and I may try it out in my own deck. I am not sure if totally fits, but I have been surprised before by things like this when they completely outperformed. For a card in your list that I question, tell me about why you include Condemn. There are many options in Mardu, and control needs versatility. Why not another option? Go for the Throat, Terminate, Murder, there are much more versatile options. Is there a specific reason for this choice?

A card that you should consider is Deflecting Palm. It would fit with just about any list that has Mirror Strike and Comeuppance. Also, in lists with Mirror Strike, I would consider Backlash and Delirium. Both rock, and have overperformed in my Marchesa deck.

Nice deck, I will be watching.

Thanks for the feedback. I was heading out the door so I didn't really have time to discuss the list.

The idea behind the deck is that I'm taking, but I'm also giving at the same time. The secondary them is to be a rattlesnake and to encourage (or force) my opponents to attack elsewhere. Then there re a couple of cards that just play nicely with the counters. So even though a regular old Doom Blade works better, I wanted to go with the more flavorful Swords and Path style cards.

Ahh... I see it now. Although looking again, I think some of your cards may be antisynnergistic with the idea forcing opponents to attack elsewhere. Kulrath Knight will stop attacks, but it also stop attacks going elsewhere, and they keep those creatures from blocking. I have not played him, but it seems Mathas should encourage attacks, preferably away from you, allowing combat to get rid of a bunch of creatures, and encouraging removal spells to be used against powerful utility creatures. Kulrath Knight has little effect on utility creatures, but keeps attackers out of combat. This could stagnate the board, and generally play less well with Mathas and a political theme. You should encourage strife at the table, and tip the scales in your favor by encouraging that aggression to be pointed away from you, using Mathas to profit along the way. Xathrid Gorgon is similar, but at least it removes the utility of utility creatures. Even so, the fact that you are leaving defenders, eliminating attackers, and generally slowing the game means that you need a finishing play, because your opponents will not be chipping each other down as much due to your efforts, and you are potentially making that final assault harder, since they will be sitting on a defensive army. I will be curious how you find these cards to play.

Played the first 3 games last night. Knight is absolutely great in the deck in the two games I got him out. He completely shuts down +1 counters decks which seem to be prevalent in EDH now (currently Edgar Markov, Atraxa, and U/G or mono-G are popular in my group). With Mathas I'm finding that I'm not able to flood the board with counters, so with Knight k can selectively decide who to remove from combat, and since my ideal game plan is to let everyone else kill each other and turn the game into 1v1, Knight let's me swing safely. Gorgon only made an appearance once, and due to the high cmc he sat in my hand for white some time. I did get to use the second ability to slow down a Phenax deck that was doing a number on my library, but I'm not sold on it just yet.

Ok, I guess I was probably overestimating the impact of Mathas, shifting the focus and power away from Kulrath Knight, or Kulrath Knight shifting power and focus away from Mathas. Interesting. My deck depends on other players to bring the offense agains my opponents. Kulrath Knight seems like it would shut that down, and same with Xathrid Gorgon. Sounds like your goal is to slow the game until you can win. Mine has always been to allow the game to progress at whatever pace it does, encourage continued strife on the battlefield, encourage more aggression to go toward my opponents than me, then drop a mostly symmetrical bomb when my opponents are in the red zone. I will be interested to learn from you deck regarding the difference.

First round of cuts:
Xathrid Gorgon -> Crown of Doom
Seal of Cleansing -> Vile Requiem
Condemn - Afterlife
Custodi Soulbinders -> Dread

Edit:
Nihil Spellbomb -> Hunter of Eyeblights
Souls of the Faultless -> Vow of Lightning
Avatar of Woe -> Parting Thoughts

Decklist updated.

How about ways to speed up the process of adding bounty counters or ways to generate more? Running Strionic Resonator means that during your upkeep you can pay 2, tap it, and be able to have Mathas give 2 bounty counters instead of 1. You can also run Illusionist's Bracers so that Bounty Hunter can give 2 bounty counters or kill two creatures with bounty counters. Rings of Brighthearth will also copy Bounty Hunter's ability. Thornbite Staff will also make Bounty Hunter untap whenever a creature dies, so you can then use its ability all over again.

Out of curiosity, how does this deck typically win?

Also, would Horobi, Death's Wail be useful for this deck (essentially allowing Mathias to shoot down a creature on each turn)? Would some pillow fort cards be useful or the Death Pits of Rath combos?

Thanks for the replies!

Quote from DementedKirby »

How about ways to speed up the process of adding bounty counters or ways to generate more? Running Strionic Resonator means that during your upkeep you can pay 2, tap it, and be able to have Mathas give 2 bounty counters instead of 1. You can also run Illusionist's Bracers so that Bounty Hunter can give 2 bounty counters or kill two creatures with bounty counters. Rings of Brighthearth will also copy Bounty Hunter's ability. Thornbite Staff will also make Bounty Hunter untap whenever a creature dies, so you can then use its ability all over again.

Strionic Resonator is absolutely a card I would run, but I adhere to a singleton rule amongst my decks and it is currently in Yidris. If it wasn't for that self-imposed restriction I would absolutely run it. The other cards I am hesitant about because they are mostly to completely dead without Bounty Hunter in play (and I'll remind you that his ability to put bounty counters doesn't work with Mathas's ability).

Quote from paragonweapon »

Out of curiosity, how does this deck typically win?

Also, would Horobi, Death's Wail be useful for this deck (essentially allowing Mathias to shoot down a creature on each turn)? Would some pillow fort cards be useful or the Death Pits of Rath combos?

Hopefully by letting your opponents kill each other, and then you sneaking in the last bit of damage I run a fair number of traditional and nontraditional pillowfort cards which deter attacking, so I tend to not get swung on very often. I haven't played magic in over a month so I honestly can't recall my win rate with the deck. It's not very high because I didn't build it to be as strong as it could.

Regarding the two cards mentioned, Horobi is a nonbo I believe because Mathas would trigger, and targeting would trigger Horobi, which would kill the creature, and then Mathas' ability would attempt to resolve and fizzle. Death Pits is decent, but I would keep an eye on it if you ran it. You'll need a way to protect creatures, and it will most likely clog up the board because no one would attack.

Quote from cryogen »

Thanks for the replies!

Quote from DementedKirby »

How about ways to speed up the process of adding bounty counters or ways to generate more? Running Strionic Resonator means that during your upkeep you can pay 2, tap it, and be able to have Mathas give 2 bounty counters instead of 1. You can also run Illusionist's Bracers so that Bounty Hunter can give 2 bounty counters or kill two creatures with bounty counters. Rings of Brighthearth will also copy Bounty Hunter's ability. Thornbite Staff will also make Bounty Hunter untap whenever a creature dies, so you can then use its ability all over again.

Strionic Resonator is absolutely a card I would run, but I adhere to a singleton rule amongst my decks and it is currently in Yidris. If it wasn't for that self-imposed restriction I would absolutely run it. The other cards I am hesitant about because they are mostly to completely dead without Bounty Hunter in play (and I'll remind you that his ability to put bounty counters doesn't work with Mathas's ability).

Quote from paragonweapon »

Out of curiosity, how does this deck typically win?

Also, would Horobi, Death's Wail be useful for this deck (essentially allowing Mathias to shoot down a creature on each turn)? Would some pillow fort cards be useful or the Death Pits of Rath combos?

Hopefully by letting your opponents kill each other, and then you sneaking in the last bit of damage I run a fair number of traditional and nontraditional pillowfort cards which deter attacking, so I tend to not get swung on very often. I haven't played magic in over a month so I honestly can't recall my win rate with the deck. It's not very high because I didn't build it to be as strong as it could.

Regarding the two cards mentioned, Horobi is a nonbo I believe because Mathas would trigger, and targeting would trigger Horobi, which would kill the creature, and then Mathas' ability would attempt to resolve and fizzle. Death Pits is decent, but I would keep an eye on it if you ran it. You'll need a way to protect creatures, and it will most likely clog up the board because no one would attack.

The Horobi order would work the way you described, but it would still allow you to destroy the most threatening creature that your opponents have each turn. The Death Pits suggestion was dependent on the win condition you want to play. Another win condition you could play would include Repercussion and board sweepers that deal damage to creatures. Stuffy Doll is always a notable inclusion for this. You could also run some fun combos like Wound Reflection with Axis of Mortality or Tree of Perdition, the latter two are a good political card and a good rattlesnake card respectively.

Ok I see what you're saying about Horobi. I think it goes against the political spirit of the deck as well as leaves me open to having it used against me, but it's more synergetic than I initially thought. Not interested in infinite or near infinite combos though.

Quote from cryogen »

Ok I see what you're saying about Horobi. I think it goes against the political spirit of the deck as well as leaves me open to having it used against me, but it's more synergetic than I initially thought. Not interested in infinite or near infinite combos though.

Choosing which creature to remove of your opponent's can be done politically though. It seems to really have a very limited win condition against creature light decks though (spell slinger decks, or combo), which was my concern.

Well I realized that I haven't updated this list in forever, so I figured it was time to do this. I've been reading through DirkGently's Phelddagrif primer a bunch and really thinking about the things they say regarding playing politics. I didn't want to take my list quite as wrathy/control as his, but certain elements were incorporated.

The overall goal of the deck is largely unchanged: stay low, maintain a nonthreatening board, give gifts in order to not be perceived as a threat, and use the element of surprise when it's advantageous. Once you're down to heads-up, win with combat damage or reflecting damage.

Well I did another round of cuts, trying to cut this deck down to the essence of what it wants to be. Essentially, the goal of the deck is to keep a board state that either doesn't threaten opponents, encourages them to not attack me, or can help them. This is balanced by playing instants and sorceries that will ultimately leverage their own cards against them (creatures mostly, I'm weak to spellslinger decks).

Made a couple more swaps to add Strionic Resonator and Curse of Exhaustion. Still trying to figure out how to punish spell slingers though. Kaervek the Merciless is probably my best option, but dat 7cmc tho.

Kambal, Consul of Allocation punishes spellslingers.

Huh, I wonder why that didn't show up in my Gatherer searches. Either way, good call. I totally forgot about him. Thanks!