MTG Salvation

Always wanted to make an Astral Slide deck and here's my chance. I saw this one article in PucaTrade regarding a Slide deck in Tiny Leaders so I decided to read up on it and tweak it a little. Deciding on the colors was quite the troubling part. I wanted to go for Naya so I can have the Lightning Rift but then I saw that Ragnar (the leader the article suggested) has an Italian version~

So here it is, my version of the Ragnar Slide:



Sideboard:



I placed heavy anti-black in the sideboard since there are LOTS of Anafenza, Doran, Xira Arien decks running around here.

Any comments on the card choices?

Some general thoughts:
You're relying really heavily on lands for cycling triggers (only 6 non-land cyclers vs. 7 land cyclers), but still only running 18 lands, 4 of which are fetches. Life from the Loam helps, but this still strikes me as sketchy and I foresee mana issues.

Wood Elves is a risky play when you've only got three forests in the deck, most likely at least one of which will be down before you've even cast him. Similarly, there are only four lands KotR can abuse and you're not running any that are worth tutoring (though I understand she becomes strong just from the lands being in grave).
Stoic Champion's one-shot buff comes across as pretty unexciting.

Blue is probably the worst choice for third color. Red gives you Seismic Assault (you're seriously in need of a win-con) and Flame Jab. Black gives you Raven's Crime and Entomb (for LftL). I haven't looked into what actual cycling cards are available to each color, but that's my impression based on ways to abuse the overall scheme of your deck.

Quote from PopeJP »

Some general thoughts:
You're relying really heavily on lands for cycling triggers (only 6 non-land cyclers vs. 7 land cyclers), but still only running 18 lands, 4 of which are fetches. Life from the Loam helps, but this still strikes me as sketchy and I foresee mana issues.

Wood Elves is a risky play when you've only got three forests in the deck, most likely at least one of which will be down before you've even cast him. Similarly, there are only four lands KotR can abuse and you're not running any that are worth tutoring (though I understand she becomes strong just from the lands being in grave).
Stoic Champion's one-shot buff comes across as pretty unexciting.

Blue is probably the worst choice for third color. Red gives you Seismic Assault (you're seriously in need of a win-con) and Flame Jab. Black gives you Raven's Crime and Entomb (for LftL). I haven't looked into what actual cycling cards are available to each color, but that's my impression based on ways to abuse the overall scheme of your deck.

It also gives you Lightning Rift - the second best win condition in the deck.

You have Disciple of Deceit listed in your SB.

I must agree that I really don't think blue is a good color for slide decks. Would be much better with either R or B. Also, you should really look into the cards that still do things when you cycle them, a la Death Pulse. So far you only have Complicate, but I'm sure there's a few more useful ones to utilize.

Edit: And why Ragnar? Wouldn't Jenara, Asura of War be better for a bant slide deck?
And since you're going to be cycling so many types of cards, Tarmogoyf is probably going to be a nice beater for the deck as well.

Gilded drake is the best ever with slide. I also like Weathered wayfarer, ecspecially if you add a few more fetch lands (drop it turn 1, play a fetch land turn 2, if you oppeont plays a second land you sac and in response fetch some karoo and you are set. This was if you were going first were it is weaker). Mentor of the meek is also quite nasty. Scroll rack is also very good with loom (more effcient than cycling even). Gaea's cradle is ofcouse amazing if you got the money for it. Mangara of corondor is very nasty with slide.