MTG Salvation

So I think I'm a pretty bad deck builder. I picked up a Silumgar pre-release kit and I'm a bit lost at how to build this deck. It's supposed to be U/B, but it has some really good green, so... How to build it?




How can I not put green in for Deathmist Raptor and possibly Temur War Shaman? Do I cut blue? But I think Stratus Dancer is really good as well. What would you do with this pool of cards?

Edited - Sorry I was having posting issues.

I'd go for Black/Green with a super light blue splash (if any)

1 Silumgar Assassin
1 Blood-Chin Rager
1 Dutiful Attendant
1 Minister of Pain
1 Reckless Imp
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Marsh Hulk
1 Acid-Spewer Dragon
1 Coat with Venom
1 Ultimate Price
1 Defeat
1 Flatten
1 Atarka Beastbreaker
1 Deathmist Raptor
1 Abzan Kin-Guard
1 Stampeding Elk Herd
1 Temur War Shaman
2 Segmented Krotiq
1 Map the Wastes
1 Grim Contest
1 Stratus Dancer (only blue card and it being a morph, can run with 1 island and map and the dismal)

Your blue just lacks punch. Sure you can smooth out draws, but there are very few blue cards there you want to play on their own. Also missed the good exploit creatures too. Green just has too much power not to play, not to mention having one of your better removal spells in Grim Contest.

I can't really see any justification for choosing blue over green to pair with black. Deathmist Raptor and Temur War Shaman are better than anything the blue has to offer.


last cuts:
1 Map the Wastes
1 Press the Advantage

Still learning my deck building. Here's the first crack at this pool, quite a few differences, so I'd like to discuss the thoughts behind them.

I don't splash color well so I stuck with black-green.



I went more the exploit mechanic route. I realize my deck lacks late game bigger creatures and flight. I flip flopped on putting Acid-Spewer Dragon in.

I didn't put Recklass Imp because there's no block but I guess the flight attack threat makes it viable for blocking by counter threat of just counter attacking for flyers? Is that the thought on imp?

Marsh Hulk I passed on because of the mana cost. I'm still not good with counting megamorph as a three mana 2/2 and tend to shy away from the very high cost megamorph seeing 3+7 mana to play and turn that 2/2 into a 5/7. At 4/6 the 6 mana cost seems expensive to me. Although the morph does have synergy with Death Mist Raptor. And 6 toughness will keep it around clearing smaller creatures. Is that the thinking?

Stampeding Elk Herd is a good agro creature for 5/5 for 5 mana so. Good cost benefit for brute power toughness when needed, something my deck lacks. Part of the reason I passed on Stampeding Elk Herd is I had the 2 Krotiqs and Temur War Shaman already given me three 6 mana creatures. I worry about being top heavy because the few events I've been to seem to attack very quickly.

Grim Contest plays well with the larger creatures and acts like a removal for something you may not be able to block oath wise. Am I on the right track with the thinking for the cards? Deadly Wanderings versus Press the Advantage the same? I went with mind rot and duress hoping to thin their hand.

I also did the Sultai Runemark for the power up and hopefully death touch since my creatures are weaker. I notice a lot of posters pass on the rune marks and I'm not always following why they find it a poor card. Is it just that there are better things to Dothan a straight up 2/2 boost for 3 mana?

Thanks for the help.

Edit. On the megamorph I think I see it. You need to think of megamorphs a 3 any mana 2/2 with ability. So Marsh Hulk is a 3 any mana 2/2 token blob, which in late game could activate his ability for 7 mana (5 any + 2B) and turn into a 5/7 and then compare that to say Dutiful Attendant at 3 mana 2any/1B for a 1/2 with ability on death to return card from graveyard. Same kind of comparison for Qarsi Sadist and others. Then since you treat the Hulk and Krotiqs as 2/2 you add the Elk Herd for a straight up 5/5 allowing you to use the morphs as cannot fodder if needed. Is that about right?

You're taking out good cards to put bad cards in. Servant of the Scale and Duress and Qarsi Sadist are all bad cards, even if you get to exploit with them. Mind Rot is okay but more of a sideboard card. From merls build you're losing legitimately good cards in Hulk and Elk and Grim Contest. You never want to play any Runemark but the blue one as well. I think you are overthinking things on the perfect draw and if you draw something late game or not. Think about it on the quality of the cards. You took out good cards and put weaker cards in their place. This is sealed and you're not going to win on agro Servent Of the Scale into Sadist into Press the Advantage. You want threats, removal and cards that are good at multiple times of the game. There is times when you get a sealed pool that plays out like an agro draft deck. This pool is not one of those.

Biggest thing to remember about sealed is BREAD. You need all your threats and removal.

Edit: On the matter of morphs and exploit sure you can use them for that. However between all the two drops and cards like goblin/attendant there likely won't be a need for them. As well this deck only has a couple exploit creatures and minister most times will just be a vanilla 2/3. If you think less of synergy and more of how cards stand on their own you'll likely see what merl was getting at.

Quote from NoSuchReality »

I went more the exploit mechanic route. I realize my deck lacks late game bigger creatures and flight. I flip flopped on putting Acid-Spewer Dragon in.

Yeah, all of the cards you put in are pretty bad. Press the Advantage is close to decent, but it's better to have more creatures and removal spells instead.

Quote from NoSuchReality »

Marsh Hulk I passed on because of the mana cost. I'm still not good with counting megamorph as a three mana 2/2 and tend to shy away from the very high cost megamorph seeing 3+7 mana to play and turn that 2/2 into a 5/7. At 4/6 the 6 mana cost seems expensive to me. Although the morph does have synergy with Death Mist Raptor. And 6 toughness will keep it around clearing smaller creatures. Is that the thinking?

Edit. On the megamorph I think I see it. You need to think of megamorphs a 3 any mana 2/2 with ability. So Marsh Hulk is a 3 any mana 2/2 token blob, which in late game could activate his ability for 7 mana (5 any + 2B) and turn into a 5/7 and then compare that to say Dutiful Attendant at 3 mana 2any/1B for a 1/2 with ability on death to return card from graveyard. Same kind of comparison for Qarsi Sadist and others. Then since you treat the Hulk and Krotiqs as 2/2 you add the Elk Herd for a straight up 5/5 allowing you to use the morphs as cannot fodder if needed. Is that about right?

Yes, morphs are all inherently a 3/3 for 2 mana. The fact that you can unmorph them for additional upside is just gravy.

Here's my mana curve with morpsh at 3:
1 c
2 ccssss
3 ccccccccs
4 cs
5 cccs

Quote from NoSuchReality »

I also did the Sultai Runemark for the power up and hopefully death touch since my creatures are weaker. I notice a lot of posters pass on the rune marks and I'm not always following why they find it a poor card. Is it just that there are better things to Dothan a straight up 2/2 boost for 3 mana?

If you play a creature, then put a runemark on it, and they play a removal spell on it, they have spent two cards and you have spent one. Eventually you run out of cards while they have action and kill you.

Yes, I'm trying to understand what makes them good. I built the deck I made and then looked at Merl's deck and wanted to understand the card differences. I.e. I tend to discount high cost megamorphs as too expensive so was trying to see if the thought on those is they can be a 2/2 fodder card with upside. Hence the 2/2 for 3 mana morphing hulk is better than the dutiful attendant. If I just look at Marsh Hulk straight up, I see a 6 mana 4/6 which is okay as an agro but trying to watch my high end mana curve. So it's critical to see it as a 3 mana 2/2 creature with bonus if it's alive or shows up late game when you have 7+ mana out and hopefully, is that correct?

Similarly, Deadly Wnderings. Can you share what make that better than the other 4/5 mana enchantment or sorceries? Is the thought that at 5 mana and two colored it's a late game spell for after the luge then you will likely be down to one large creatures or your opponent will be and hence the deathtouch makes any creature you can get out a good remover?

I'm not good at see the cards that are dirt and miss situational bombs a lot.

Thanks for the help

Well wanderings is a card with huge variance. It is also a card that has a pretty big difference on posters in how much they like the card. I think it's average but I think merl likes it more. There are games it can win you that no other card can. But be prepared to side it out if playing against a deck with a couple pacifisms. Also don't delay adding threats to the board just hoping to draw it. But if you have it opening hand you can craft some nice board states around it. I certainly think it's fine to play in this pool.

As for why morphs are good it's not that marsh hulk is great. It's not. But servants are just bad. They're non playables unless you get the nuts bolster deck. So average card beats bad card. Sealed is also slow tempo so a 1/1 for one doesn't have much impact. But yes morphs are great because they can play both roles. I do think dutiful attendant is a must play in this deck. There are too many high quality creatures you can get back not to play it.

Thanks for all the answers. Yes, I agree Servants is very weak but figured I had a lot of low power card, I see the morph advantage a little better. I really Merl's answer on Runemark which makes a lot of sense and plies to servant of the scle a well as many other card, essentially playing two cards to make a so-so card a little better or make a good card better instead of just using a second good card. Only use them when no other good card are there.

And thank you Kasi. I think you earlier said the cards need to stand on their own which makes more sense now. Each card has to get it done by itself and buffs basically run you out of cards. Kind of a problem I've had is getting low on cards.

So plain old big dumb creatures do one thing but do it well for their mana cost. Things like megamorphs kind of do two, low level creature that buffs itself into a brute (not all but the bigger ones) and creatures like stratus dancer do three things, low level creature, situational counter, and buff itself for relatively low costs.

So you want the cards that do two or three things themselves or at least one instead of cards that need another to buff it.


Thanks again.

Yeah that's it generally. You want cards that are good on their own. Like the easy test is do you want this card as a late game topdeck? If no then question why it is in your deck. Synergy decks (which is what you're going with) can work and be very powerful. For example the BR dash deck. But even in those synergy decks you want the cards to be good or at least decent in isolation.

Quote from NoSuchReality »

Yes, I'm trying to understand what makes them good. I built the deck I made and then looked at Merl's deck and wanted to understand the card differences. I.e. I tend to discount high cost megamorphs as too expensive so was trying to see if the thought on those is they can be a 2/2 fodder card with upside. Hence the 2/2 for 3 mana morphing hulk is better than the dutiful attendant. If I just look at Marsh Hulk straight up, I see a 6 mana 4/6 which is okay as an agro but trying to watch my high end mana curve. So it's critical to see it as a 3 mana 2/2 creature with bonus if it's alive or shows up late game when you have 7+ mana out and hopefully, is that correct?

Yes. If Marsh Hulk was only a 4/6 for 6 mana it would be unplayable.

Quote from NoSuchReality »

Similarly, Deadly Wanderings. Can you share what make that better than the other 4/5 mana enchantment or sorceries? Is the thought that at 5 mana and two colored it's a late game spell for after the luge then you will likely be down to one large creatures or your opponent will be and hence the deathtouch makes any creature you can get out a good remover?

Well, let's imagine that you have a creature, say Acid-Spewer Dragon out. When you cast Deadly Wanderings, you can immediately attack with the dragon, doing 5 damage and gaining 5 life. That's a 10 point life swing so if you're racing your opponent from a sinilar life total they have to have 10+ power worth of creatures on their side of the board in order to not be obliterated by you.

Actually, looking through your list, you have so many deathtouch/lifeline creatures already that I could see an arguement to be made for Press the Advantage over Deadly Wanderings.

Thank you everyone - this conversation has been very helpful. I was thinking this was a B/G deck, but stratus dancer just made me wonder if I could splash blue. Stratus dancer was a great card for me at pre-release (different pool of cards), so I was just trying to include it here. But I think it's more consistent without trying to force blue in there as well.

Which brings me to a question - is it generally better to try to limit to two colors when you can in limited?

Quote from Sunmatrix »

Thank you everyone - this conversation has been very helpful. I was thinking this was a B/G deck, but stratus dancer just made me wonder if I could splash blue. Stratus dancer was a great card for me at pre-release (different pool of cards), so I was just trying to include it here. But I think it's more consistent without trying to force blue in there as well.

Which brings me to a question - is it generally better to try to limit to two colors when you can in limited?

Almost always. There are occasional formats where
a: there is more fixing than normal, and
b: the powerful cards are gold, so you are rewarded for delving into more colours

Khans of Tarkir as a set rewarded you for being in a tri-colour wedge (an allied pair and their common enemy). But the current set does not, so it has reverted back to two colour decks as the default. Some people might still be defaulting to what was good practice six months ago, so right now there will be more than the usual amount of 'stick to two colour decks' advice being dispensed.

I wouldn't say that it's flat out wrong to run the Dismal Backwater instead of a swamp and splash the Stratus Dancer. But be aware that it's going to be a generic morph the majority fo the time.

So that brings me to my next question. I have Atarka pre-release sealed pool, that I think I need to splash the third color even though I have no mana fixing. I play better just in two colors normally, but couldn't leave these powerful cards behind. At the same time, it felt too light to run it as a main color and the Atarka base colors Red/Green felt like I was leaving bombs behind galore.

Here's the pool and the deck I built. I tried to review with points from this thread again.



The deck I built was the following


That gives me a mana curve as follows:
1: C
2: CCCSS
3: CCCCCCS
4: CCSS
5: CCS
6: CS



I'm not sure on Palance Familiar but like the card draw. I keep Qarsi Sadist as a low level card a little short otherwise. Not sure on the lands.

Thoughts?

White is clearly your best colour. I would rule out both blue and red as not having enough.



I think that either WG or WB are viable lists, with a 9/8 manabase.

The GW curve is
1
2 cccccssss
3 cccc
4 css
5 cccss
6+cc

The BW Curve is
1
2 ccccss
3 ccccccccss
4 s
5 ccsss

The BW list might be better since it has a lower curve and more/better removal. The GW list might be better because it has Enduring Scalelord, which I think is the best card in your pool.

I'd probably play BW.

Regarding the 3-colour deck you put together, you can't run UU cards off of only 4 blue mana sourcecs. You just can't. The cards you splash need to be powerful cards on turn 5 or so (things like Reach of Shadows or Disembowel). None of those blue cards are a good splash. If I was going to splash in this pool it would be a GWb deck. But the increased mana instability doesn't justify the weakened manabase.

I like the red in the pool a lot more than you do merl. I'd probably built it WR (I think stormcrag, double outrider, double rage, twin bolt, draconic roar and crater elemental makes a very strong core. That is a lot of good removal and some strong creatures and is easily better than what blue or black or green can offer.)

1 Kolaghan Stormsinger
1 Humble Defector
1 Hardened Berserker
1 Crater Elemental
2 Sabertooth Outrider
1 Summit Prowler
1 Stormcrag Elemental
1 Twin Bolt
1 Draconic Roar
1 Temur Battle Rage
2 Sarkhan's Rage
1 Territorial Roc
1 Herald of Dromoka
1 Sandstorm Charger
1 Sunscorch Regent
1 Wardscale Dragon
1 Mastery of the Unseen
1 Soul Summons
1 Great Teacher's Decree
1 Enduring Victory
1 War Flare

I could see going to 18 lands and cutting one of Teachers/Flare or staying at 17 and cutting one of those two for tormenting voice. And there is no way Scalelord is the best card in his pool. It is either Mastery or the White Regent. Scalelord is one of the weakest multi-color dragons. Only one I think is worse is RG.

The red is deep, and I guess I dismissed it too quickly. I don't agree that it's 'easily' better than the black, since the black removal is better and black has more flyers, which are two of the three things I am looking for in my deck (the third being an early creature curve of dorks).

That said, it does have a lot of removal and Warbringer is great with the other dash cards. I think 17 lands would be right in WR.

Yeah I cut Warbringer in my build since with white the only other dash creature is the 2/3 who is unexciting.

He's playable by himself as a 3/3 for 4, or a 3/3 haste for 3. I think it's a mistake to leave him out of a WR build. If I was going for WR, I think I would build this:



Curve
1
2 cccssss
3 cccccc
4 cccss
5 csss
6 c

That's a pretty solid list. I could see that being correct for this pool.

So +1 Center Soul +1 Warbringer +1 Brawler, -1 Sabertooth, -1 Roc, -1 Battle-Rage. I can see that I suppose. I do really like the Battle-Rage with so many 4 power guys and I think you'd want to cut the Prowler before the Sabretooth. Not having a double red card in the build makes the mana easier, and very few cards in the format kill x/2s but not x/3s. I do agree Roc is too low impact. I'd probably go Sabretooth, Battle-Rage and Center Soul for the three after looking at yours.

Quote from Kasi »

very few cards in the format kill x/2s but not x/3s.

You mean other than 2/x creatures?

Thanks again for the insight. Good to see that three colors have the appearance of potential playability.