MTG Salvation

Quote from votan

About arguments: Arguments are what makes decks evolve. If everyone agrees with the status quo, no one's getting no where. We have to disagree, have different opinions, joust to be right and stand up for our choices, even when everyone is against us. Then, at some point, we are either right or we admit we were wrong. The main thing is to not give up our ideas too easily and not holding on to them for too long when, deep down, we know we're wrong. And above all else, understand that we're all aiming for the same goal. If I disagree with someone, it doesn't mean I want that person to rot in hell (-.-') it just mean I want to know which one of us is right so we can all end up with an optimized decklist. I think we all share this opinion...

About Therapy: I'm sorry, but the argument that a card is great for some people and not to others doesn't cut it. It's either worth it or not, we can't have both. Someone is playing the card wrong or someone is playing the whole deck wrong and seeing the Therapy as a great card when it's not. I don't know which is the right choice (playing or cutting it), but they can't both be right...

I agree with this sentiment wholly. I've already outlined my argument, but I took a step back from the whole thing since the discussion went south fast. Cthulich, I'm some random guy on the internet, so I don't claim any right to tell you what you can or cannot believe. I find it offensive that you think I don't listen to what you say or that I've subscribed to some sort of sheep mentality when I am taking great pains to be as articulate as I possibly can in every post I make as well as doing my best to address all of the issues that I am refuting--especially given that you are being hypocritical in attacking my character by ignoring the content of my post. I feel like your frustration stems from the inability to refute my claims about Cabal Therapy, and the reason I'm refraining from continuing the discussion is because it is actually not going anywhere; even if I am 100% incorrect about Cabal Therapy, your inability to articulate why you think I am wrong makes it very hard for me to see where you are coming from.

I disagree with eetu for the reasons already outlined; at best, Cabal Therapy is a powerful card that strips your opponent's hand and also functions as a sacrifice outlet for your creatures. At worst, it's a gimmicky card that is strictly worst than a Peek that lets you kill creatures (in a deck that I maintain shouldn't be wanting to kill its own creatures). I think that the best way to reach an optimal decklist is to play cards that aren't wildly erratic in their power level in the way that Cabal Therapy is. I respect that eetu's list plays Cabal Therapy and has performed well. At the same time, anecdotal evidence is not concrete--if eetu's list had been playing 2 Brain Pry and still performed well, that wouldn't automatically mean that Brain Pry is the best card for the spot.

Quote from votan

About Therapy: I'm sorry, but the argument that a card is great for some people and not to others doesn't cut it. It's either worth it or not, we can't have both. Someone is playing the card wrong or someone is playing the whole deck wrong and seeing the Therapy as a great card when it's not. I don't know which is the right choice (playing or cutting it), but they can't both be right...

Well i must repeat myself again here, Cabal theraphy is not an easy card to play, and im not saying im the absolute master here but if you are not good on reading game scenarios or you are not familiar with your metagame i would suggest to cut it.

The only way that you are going to know if its good for you is testing.. i came to my conclusion by testing the deck through a whole season of tournaments and i did pretty well, i cant remember a time where therapy was a bad draw, and i can remember a lot of times that it potentially won me the game.

Quote from martian007

I think that it can't be so difficult to arrive to an agreement on Cabal Therapy. I agree with all the Namida's arguments so far: we don't want potentially useless cards, and we don't want to kill our own creatures, since we don't run creatures that come back to the battlefield every turn as Pox does

Quote from Namida

at best, Cabal Therapy is a powerful card that strips your opponent's hand and also functions as a sacrifice outlet for your creatures. At worst, it's a gimmicky card that is strictly worst than a Peek that lets you kill creatures (in a deck that I maintain shouldn't be wanting to kill its own creatures).

As for these comments well, it is not that you WANT to kill your creatures badly and therefore i need a card that allows me to do that lol, the thing is.. that Tortured Existence+Krovikan Horror allows me to be able to sac any creature i want if i need to take something from my opponents hand, now im losing a creature here.. or lets say a body.. but with the main engine of TE and KH ill get it back, im also getting back the comes into play ability of that creature and im taking something that may disrupt my plans from my opponents hand.. now im no mathematician here but to me it is well worth it.

Now i will also say that i only play 2 of them because you generally dont want to have it on your first hand, but if you do is not abad thing and as Namida says in this scenario it is like a peek, im not saying its worst cause you have flashback instead of a cantrip, but i digress..

I don't know why people underestimate the fact that you are seeing your opponent hand, i mean that is e very powerful effect and to this day not many people realize this, imagine you playing a blind therapy on turn 2 after you have seen at least one of his lands... imagine you didnt hit nothing ( most likely you will cause everyone plays almost the same metadecks.. for this ill list some choices below).. ok you hit nothing but you got to see his hand, now you know if yoou can safely play your TE, or if he has a counter for ir, or a qasali pridemage or if you can play your horror on turn 4 without fear of getting it Sworded.. that is big advantage.. not to mention that in the mid to late game they have to focus on so many things from our side and the therapy will help you wreck any answer he may have for either your horror, the tortured existence, the nighthawk equipped with jitte, liliana or the confidant... most of the times is just too much to handle.


as i say the therapy is a skill intensive card, and most of the times its potential is reduced by the turn where yo play it and the game scenario itself.

My scale of efficiency would be something like this.

turn 1 blind = 05% turn 1 while on the draw = 20%
turn 2 blind = 15% turn 2 while on the draw = 35%
turn 3 blind = 40% turn 3 while on the draw = 45%
turn 4 blind = 60% turn 4 while on the draw = 70%



turn 2 flashback = 100% turn 2 flashback while on the draw = 100%
turn 3 flashback = 100% turn 3 flashback while on the draw = 100%
turn 4 flashback = 100% turn 4 flashback while on the draw = 100%


after a duress, iok etc = 100%


so tell me why is that bad?..


It is obvious what cards you are looking for in a blind therapy situation, if you have only seen a tropical island, or even a plains.. you will always say cards that may either win the game for the opponent or prevents you from winning,, and the later option doesnt have that many.. to list a few.

force of will
swords to plowshares
qasali pridemage
counterbalance
senseis divining top
goblin lackey
arcbound ravager
cranial plating
dark confidant

those help the opponent win the game and positively disrupt us if they land it on the table so to me they are the things i fear the most, but here is where i have to say that you need a lot of skill on knowing what the opponent is playing, because if they play a tropical island they are playing some sord of threshold or zoo, maybe counterbalanc ein my opinion.. but if they play an underground sea they could be playing control, reanimator, ad nauseamor even Pox.. so it gets tricky.. still dont be afraid of just.. naming a black lotus and seeing their hand.. because that is something you shouldnt look down on.

again never play more than 2.. unless you end up loving what this card does against combo and you play one more in the side..

Still dont believe me go try it.. and like Pingu said if it feels right for you fine if it doesnt.. cut it..

To answer Namida in a nutshell.. Cabal therapy is Good in fact i is one of the best disruption cards ever, but it is skill intensive and it is not for everyone.. at least in this deck..

then again this deck is not for everyone, i have stated before that this deck is pretty skill intensive and it handles like if you were in a surgery room.. you have to be precise and be aware of all the things happening in the game or youll miss some sweet sweet plays.

Im going to be testing it on Mws if anyone cares to join me PM me..

If anyone wants my latest build let me know..

cheers and keep the debate going..

I have no doubt that Cabal Therapy is a skill testing card, and that it is no doubt very powerful in skilled hands. However, the fact that this statement is valid makes Cabal Therapy harder to evaluate on what one might consider an objective scale, and that's why we're here, having this discussion. It's a no-brainer to skip over objectively horrible cards, after all. I've played with Cabal Therapy in combo decks (hence my statements on the role that I believe the card fulfills), but I will concede that my experience with the card in a non-combo deck is lacking, so there may be more to this than I have initially believed.

When you're saying Cabal Therapy is skill intensive, what you're trying to say in a nutshell is that Cabal Therapy gains power as you gain information. Every piece of information that you are able to discern about what your opponent could possibly be playing is information to make Cabal Therapy even stronger. My issue with the card is that I don't think the potential soul-crushing plays where you get three+ cards out of your opponent's hand is worth the instances where you can't cast the card and all you can do is think "at least you get information," when you could just cast Thoughtseize and always hit something because Thoughtseize's power level is less of a variable one and not as affected by how well-informed you are. This isn't even counting things like your opponent being able to manipulate the top card of their library to hide the cards that you would care enough to name. As I have been saying, Cabal Therapy is not a bad card, but I feel like things need to be falling into place in the first place to make a person want Cabal Therapy's specific effect instead of the general reliability of Thoughtseize. My point is not that Cabal Therapy is garbage; I have been comparing it directly to Thoughtseize because I think target discard effects on the whole are better than Cabal Therapy's effect, and I've been using Thoughtseize as my benchmark because I was hoping to avoid the argument that Duress doesn't hit creatures, etc. Then again, I haven't really thought about it too much and Cabal Therapy might be better than any targetted discard effects past Thoughtseize #4. I just don't like the idea because it seems to actually rely on having cast Thoughtseize, and the biggest issue I've had from the beginning is that Cabal Therapy relies too heavily on other cards to be powerful. This deck also is so adept at dealing with creatures that it'd be a hard sell explain how the drawback of Duress would be so crippling in this deck.

I'm not looking down on the ability to get information by just casting a blind therapy. I'm looking down on the cost of getting that information--because I sincerely doubt that we would be having this conversation if the card said "B: Target player reveals his or her hand," and of course, that's all this card does if you hit nothing. When I say that it's worse than a Peek if you whiff on it, I'm including the fact that you need to kill off your creatures to make it do any additional work for you as a drawback. Your creatures dying is something the deck doesn't mind--I just don't think actively killing them is the way to do it; however, in thinking about it a little more, I can understand it better. Ideally, this is what you want to be happening if a creature dies: you want your opponents to have to expend resources on your creatures (casting removal spells on them, trading them in combat, having them be countered, etc.), and in doing so you are gaining card advantage by having the ability to recast your creatures as your opponent is unable to recoup the cards they lose when they interact with your creature cards. If you flashback a Cabal Therapy and you hit, Cabal Therapy at this point becomes tantamount to your opponent spending a card on your creature. That isn't bad, but you still need to jump through the hoop of having that information to make Cabal Therapy not make you look foolish.

I won't deny that Cabal Therapy has utility when you have Tortured Existence in play and Krovikan Horror in your graveyard, but at that point aren't you already in a good position? It's also a four card interaction, so including the card for its power in such a situation (where you still need the initial information/initial card disadvantage of gaining information to make the play powerful) seems suspect to me.

I am entirely willing to admit to you that it may just be as you say: I could be evaluating Cabal Therapy incorrectly based on a lack of experience with such an effect in this deck; I'm arguing mainly about horrible this card is in the worst case scenario, and I may be misjudging how often you find yourself able to cast the card with enough information for it to not be strict card disadvantage. If that is so, it would appear that I'm advocating the use of the easier-to-use card based solely on my misinformation. So I'll test it and see how it goes.

To sum it up: The retort that Cabal Therapy "isn't for everyone" implies that not everyone is good enough to play with the card. I have confidence in my ability to play cards optimally, but I don't have the experience necessary to claim that I am doing so with the card Cabal Therapy in the context of this Tortured Existence deck, so I'll work on that and get back to you.

In essence, what eetu said.

To base part of your argument, Namida, and say that your opponent could just brainstorm and put the relevant cards you would potentially name while playing CT is rather misleading and trying to "game" that you are right somehow. If you were playing thoughtseize, duress, IoK and they put their relevant cards back in their deck with brainstorm, WHICH THEY CERTAINLY STILL WILL DO, you still get nothing but information or the POS card they didn't care about anyways. The reason why you should be playing CT is that while you just wasted your discard spell on their junk, I still have access to one in my graveyard. Not only that, but I have forced my opponent to slow down by a turn or two till they get those cards back in their hand.

It's NOT that I want to kill my creature. It's that I CAN. My creatures can always come back.

In short, it allows me to make plays that the other spells don't allow me to make. I have given myself the opportunity to outplay my opponent and win even while facing a bad match up.

Why run Shriekmaw when black has a thousand other removal spells that are potentially better choices? Because he has synergy with the deck and is a utility card. He is removal when we need removal and he's a creature when we need a creature. The same is true with CT.

If you don't know your local meta well enough or you haven't been playing the Legacy format long enough to have a good sense of what your opponent is playing after a few turns. Then yes, Cabal Therapy isn't for you.

It has been pointed out that we're doing this argument to death. I could write another lengthy rebuttal, but we're derailing the thread. If you'd like to continue, feel free to send me private message.

All I will say is this: I do not believe that my dislike of Cabal Therapy in this deck is indicative of any inability on my part to discern what my opponents are playing, nor is it indicative of my inability to understand a metagame. I ask that you do not imply that I am a bad player because I hold the belief that Cabal Therapy is an ill-fit.

I see, but it's okay to imply that I am. Gotcha.

Moving on.

Sideboards. Who's got em?

Ya, well sideboard typically depends on your meta. Although its fair to say that we really only need to stop combo-ish type decks and anyone who can pop out Iona@black on the quick. Here goes:


I run only 2 'maws main. Bob loves maw, so I try to mitigate that damage. Needles I think are mandatory somewhere in the 75, in addition to the revokers. I tend to lose to combo that has back up counters, when I have already used my hand disruption. Started using metamorph over big game hunter, cause of the resurgence of reanimator decks. Damn WOTC actually letting people play legacy again...

Dunno how I feel about Macabre over Leyline in the side, but it probably is better specifically against Reanimator.

Are there any other options against storm combo besides Mindbreak? I almost feel as if it's not worth dedicating sideboard slots to it.

After much testing, Affinity matchup is a bye games 2 and 3, especially if you're still running at least 2 Revokers main. It's hard for them to stick anything relevant, their sideboard slots generally don't do much, and recurring removal is really gross. If you board in more Revokers/Needles, ezpz match. The discard also wrecks them if you get lucky and play it early enough. Game 1 just sucks because of Shriekmaw :/

also LESS INTERNET DRAMA PLEASE

Well im an advocate of the leyline now.. although i have used the faerie with some success in the past ( mostly when i ran an entomb package).. as for the mindbreak trap well its good, but only against one deck so its probably not worth it now, it all depends on your meta, but you could always pack some more disruption against those decks ( cabal therapy perhaps.. lol...).

As for affinity well, that has been by far (with goblins) my hardest matchups in the past.. im not sure what list ar eyou using but for me affinity game 1 is almost unwinnable, and game 2 and 3 were hard enough for me to splash blue for energy flux.

And if there werent for Drawma the humanity will be pretty dull so.. let there be Dramatic... cause we are all (as John Lovitz put it) ACTING!!!

I don't want to write a long diatribe that could be indicative of autolatry. So I'll just keep it short and sweet.
I don't have Combo in my meta at the moment so I have been trying Contamination instead of Mindbreak Trap. BUG, RUG, Maverick, and pretty much any multicolor deck hate Contamination. It's too cute to actually be useful without putting Bitter Blossom in the board. It's just something that f's over my opponent for a turn or two and is bait for counters. I wouldn't recommend actually running it in the board. I run it for lol's

I personally like Faerie Macabre instead of Void but I haven't actually tried it. It's not something a graveyard based deck expects to see brought in against them. I also like that they can't bounce it back to our hand and then counter it. They could Stifle it, but they usually don't run Stifle. I'll have to give it a try. It seems like it might be a better choice in my current board

Affinity game one I also agree can be an incredibly difficult matchup. Game 2 against Affinity I am very aggressive with my muligans. I want Jitte. They hate Jitte. They don't like Infest, but they HATE Jitte. Infest works wonders against so many decks that are popular to play. It's almost a mistake to not put it in your board.



I use Phyrexian Obliterator in my main so I do side in ritual from time to time if I feel I need to speed the deck up a bit. NOT for an explosive turn one, but because the mana curve in this deck is wonky. Getting to 3 lands, let alone 4, can sometimes feel like a miracle has just been performed. It along with Contamination ADMITTEDLY could be different cards. A fourth Needle, another Liliana, or Duress/Thoughtseize/IoK/Therapy. Maybe even Extirpates or Mindbreak Traps.

The only way to fight a Standstill is man up and break the Standstill. They want you to play around it. So don't.

This is way out there but what about Maralen of the Mornsong in the board to help fight against Enchantress? Just make them go first

*face palm*
How could I forget about Humility

Ratchet Bomb perhaps? Most of the Enchantress's relevant cards for their deck to function are 1 or 2 casting cost. You wouldn't have to worry about Replenish if you brought in Void as well. It's also useful against the same types of decks Infest is good against. It is potentially slower than Infest for it to be ideal but it covers more deck types. It's not great but it's something. Thoughts?

Quote from eetu

As for affinity well, that has been by far (with goblins) my hardest matchups in the past.. im not sure what list ar eyou using but for me affinity game 1 is almost unwinnable, and game 2 and 3 were hard enough for me to splash blue for energy flux.

It was running Stoneforge, which probably made it a lot easier than balls-to-the-walls Affinity.
That and 3 Revokers main plus 2 Infest in side

I'll do a bunch of testing vs. Affinity without a Stoneforge package and post my results.

IRINI = SUPER SECRET TECH
That's a funny idea. I have like 3, imma go troll with them

Quote from martian007

Too slow indeed, and it only hits Enchantress's mana accelerators. I still prefer holding them back and then exile his win-cons with sacraments. Also, I don't think Enchantress's presence (:D) in the current meta is relevant enough to side so specifically against it. I would go with more versatile options, and I think sacrament is fine to deal with decks with only a few win-conditions, since you can delay their game-plan with discarders. Also, Ratched Bomb does nothing against Affinity, while Infest really hurts it. Anyway, if you were thinking about blowing up Ratchet bomb always at set at 1, then Engineered Explosives would work as well, and it hits artifact lands.

I found this card: Irini Sengir. Its really old and outdated, but I would love having something similar to this that could be played competitively and wasn't a creature.

It may not be relevant in the meta, but if people are putting it in the board in case they play against Enchantress, then we obviously need to discuss cards or strategies that work better than sit back and wait so we can't play Sadistic Sacrament since they put Leyline of Sanctity out. We also can't win if they play Elephant Grass.
Against Affinity it takes out Memnite, thopter, Signal Pest, Cranial Plating, etc. etc. As I said in my original post "It's also useful against the same types of decks Infest is good against. It is potentially slower than Infest for it to be ideal but it covers more deck types. It's not great but it's something."
It isn't ideal but we only have 15 cards to hate out as many decks as possible with that cause us problems.
Everyone is obsessed with playing the most "optimal" card possible. It isn't always ideal to put best card against one particular matchup in the list, but it is "optimal" to put in a card that helps you against multiple matchups.

Keep in mind though that given enough information certain decks in your meta, you can play these "optimal" cards. In these cases, you would definitely be able to make such a call. Don't try to hate out decks that aren't going to be there and water down your hate against the decks that are going to be there. If you don't know your meta, ignore this lol

Also, one thing about Infest is that it's kinda redundant. We already have so much removal mainboard.

You are correct in terms of local meta. I myself use things locally that I wouldn't recommend people using in "The List". We need a think Globally not Locally mindset for "The List".

Shriekmaw is a dead card against Affinity and a few other situations as well. You need a replacement for those matchups. If you think you can beat Affinity after they unload their hand onto the board turn 1 with 3 dead cards and turn 3 removal that gets rid of one card max, then yes we have a redundant amount of removal lol.

Quote from martian007

I don't think there is an absolutely best sideboard, because it's impossible to cover all the possible match-ups with 15 cards. If you don't know the meta, you have to try the most possible number of problematic decks.

Which brings us back to Legacy's golden rule concerning sideboards - play to the metagame. If you're up against an unknown meta, you unfortunately have to eschew the surefire silver bullets in favor of a weaker, more versatile sideboard.

Getting back to the task at hand, I think a minor green splash would be the best way to get the jump on Enchantress (and troublesome enchantments in general). I'm talking about maybe replacing 6 lands with 4 Verdant Catacombs, a Bayou, and a Forest (f*** Wasteland). This allows you run Krosan Grip in the sideboard. Alongside Sad-sac/Memoricide/Cranial Extraction it could provide you with a chance to neuter their deck in the face of an opening Leyline.

Which brings us back to Legacy's golden rule concerning sideboards - play to the metagame. If you're up against an unknown meta, you unfortunately have to eschew the surefire silver bullets in favor of a weaker, more versatile sideboard.

That is true, but actuallt also favors us, since this deck is rogue as hell.

Quote from martian007

So much removal? Let's see:
3/4 Shriekmaw
4 Gatekeeper (and you can't target with this one)
3 Jitte (you need to cast creature+casting Jitte+equip Jitte, so not very fast)

Don't forget Nighthawk and Revoker, both of which lock them down pretty well. Even Stinky does well here.
It's probably just because I'm playing against a build with Stoneforge

Seriously though, even though some Affinity builds are fast (the ones that do worse against the overall field), Affinity has slowed down a lot from two or three years ago. Their nuts hands may beat our nuts hands, but our average hands will beat their average hands.

Again, I might be underestimating it because of Stoneforge, but if you need answers to Affinity from the side Smother works very well. Myr Enforcer isn't run too often any more, and Frogmite often gets cut down to 2 or less, so Smother will hit basically every creature in their deck.

Quote from martian007

This afternoon I played some games with a friend, and it's actually not so bad once you include Smother, but we don't have any heavy threat that can end the game fast and he just ended up dropping an Etched Champion and that was all. Not playing Jitte though, so my impressions are not really relevant for the competitive build.

Yeah, Jittes rock them pretty hard. As long as I had a Jitte on the board I would grind them out.
What's your build? I'm basically running Pinguster's minus Lilianas, with a few changes to the sideboard.

Dystopia is pretty boss, good steal from The Gate.

How garbage is Nantuko Shade here? I was thinking of putting him in somewhere, but he basically doesn't do anything. lol maybe budget replacement for Jitte.

Hey guys.. i couldnt type before.. but here are my thoughts..

Ok Enchantress (probably one of my top 3 all time fave decks).. is not really big on any meta.. in a 100 people tournament youll probably see 1 2 if lucky.. so i wouldnt worry, and the only card that i could recomend using against it is dystopia because it also covers some other decks. Irini seems like a cool idea if you run an entomb toolbox package but if not, forget it.

As for the Removal i believe in the main 4 shriekmaw 4 gatekeeper, 3 horror (ping) Vampire nighthawk and Stinkly are pretty much enough removal.. but i have needed some more in the past mostly against goblins.. i used to ran 2 smothers on the Sb but in the end i cut them to put my secret tech back then wich was to splash blue to take affinity down, as for the gobs i ran 2 eng plagues but that was never enough and my matches were pretty even specially against the Red black version of goblins.

Ratchet bomb is not really working, and ill probably ran powder keg instead just because it hits artifact lands, you could also try to splash green for pernicious deed, but this has been discussed before and to me is not worth it.

Nantuko shade is a really bad card in this deck, too mana intensive and with no evasion.. Shade was made to be in Control decks period.

Victim of night could be a good option since it hits everything in affinity and most of the other decks in any meta.

Here is the last Sb i played competively.


2 Pithing Needle
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Energy Flux
2 Dystopia
3 Smother
2 Engineered Plague


Pithing needles are pretty pretty good even if you ran revokers in main.. i would change it a bit nowadays.. a light splash is fine with me.. and you can always think of cards to fit in the sb that totally hose decks like enchantress.. but i dont think is worth it..

Im tired but ill try to post what it could be my new sb tomorrow.. cheers