MTG Salvation

Ever since I picked up a playset of Thoughtpicker Witch in the budget box at my LGS, I've wanted to make a deck around it. I searched here, to see if there already existed some ideas. I found a few from a long time ago. They were mostly GB decks. Nothing that really excited me. So, I sidelined it. Then, I thought about another of my favorite cards, Nightveil Specter . So I started brewing and considered the main ideas in The Art of War. Attack your enemy's resources, steal your enemy's resources, use your enemy's resources, attack when you outnumber your enemy. This is the decklist I came up with so far.



So, why these cards?

Thoughtpicker Witch seems to have crazy potential. If we can get the sac machine going, we can control our opponent's draws for the rest of the game. Take away threats, mana flood them, mana starve them, take your pick.

Doomed Traveler is a great 1 drop that can punch in for early damage, is a sac target for Thoughtpicker Witch, and leaves behind a flyer who also punches in for some damage and is another sac target.

Nightveil Specter is a thing. Let's hit you for 2, exile a card and play it if we can. In fact, if we have TPW cranking, let's look at the top two and pick the best one that we want Specter to steal for us.

Thief of Sanity I don't play standard and this card is new to me. It seems like it's a better Nightveil Specter. Gets three instead of one, leaves it face down so they don't know what they've lost, and we get to use mana however we want. I love this card. I may even look at replacing NVS with something else. (Suggestions are welcome)

Etrata, the Silencer is another new one to me. I'm trying to stick to exile mechanics and I like that she adds in the counter for a wincon. She has to be dealt with. She's a big body, unblockable, and has a built in auto-win. She's kind of a shenanigans card, so that's why I'm keeping to two.

Grave Titan is disgusting in this deck. I've played a couple different builds of this deck in the past 2 years and I've had this card in it the whole time. If he lands, it's lights out. He's big, generates sac targets and we just dictate the rest of the game from thereon out.

Lingering Souls is an obvious choice to provide sac targets early and late in the game when we need them.

Doomfall, Inquisition of Kozilek, and Thoughtseize all serve the same purpose. Controlling the early game and screwing up our opponent's hand until we can start controlling their draws. Doomfall is nice by giving us the addition of some removal, if we need it.

Path to Exile is my choice for removal. I don't have a secret reason for it, it's just fast, cheap and removes big nasties from the game.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver is awesome. I've loved this card since I saw its spoiler. I've wanted it to work SO bad and I think that this is its home. Exile, play stuff, graveyard hate. Yes please. Many an opponent has sighed heavily when I land him.

Some cards I'm considering:

• Psychic Surgery (Anti-fetch and the Dimir Mill decks running around?)
  
• Blood Artist (A lot of stuff is dying as sacs)
  
• Circu, Dimir Lobotomist
  
• Daxos of Meletis
  
• Dimensional Infiltrator
  
• Sage of Epityr (Surprised no one is running this. Seems like a nice early setup)
  
• Serum Visions
  
• Thought Scour
  
• Vraska's Contempt
  
• Curiosity
  
• Mission Briefing
  

I know, it's a long list, but there are a lot of good cards out there.

I took an older build to a tournament where, when I got the sac engine fired up early, I actually snagged the key cards from my opponents and started playing their combos and strategies for them, but on the wrong side of the table!

Warning: it's really annoying when it goes off. Don't play it against table flippers.

As I said, I'm trying to stick to the exile mechanic. If I can't use it, I want it out of the game. I don't want them pulling anything back out of the graveyard.

I would love to hear opinions and any suggestions.

I would have waited for this until I saw Ravnica Allegiance and seen if Esper was getting any sweet Orzhov or Azorious toys.

Yeah, it's definitely experimental and I'm not afraid to change it up if anything fun drops.

Fair enough lords work...the deck needs to handle fast graveyard loving aggro decks led by dredge and kci combo time. After that Tron, Amulet Titan, Humans, Spirits and Resurgent Grixis Death Shadow.

Jeskai tries to handle this by just blasting down every creature 1 on 1 and UW tries to just wipe it out via Terminus.

I think this is an interesting idea but there are some changes I'd suggest:

# This would probably be better as an Aether Vial (over Doomed Traveler) deck with a lower curve (so no Titan/Etrata) as it accelerates your deployment of creatures and leaves your mana open to activate Witch and cast cards exiled by Specter/Thief.
# Specter is a worse Thief and having both isn't great imho so I'd cut it to add Wasteland Strangler (good with all the exiling cards) or Spell Queller which is another good disruptive flyer.
# You should really play Tidehollow Sculler here, I'd take out cards like Doomfall for it.
Collective Brutality is another card I'd consider here maybe over some of the other discard spells, it will also be good for pitching useless vials later in the game.
# Blight Herder can be pretty good here as an exile payoff, I'd consider it over Ashiok which can be a SB card for slower grindy matchups.
# Some 4-drops worth considering here would be Restoration Angel and Hostage Taker or Ulamog's Nullifier.

Thanks for the suggestions! Those are definitely some interesting changes. I was thinking the same about Nightveil Specter. Worse than Thief of Sanity and redundant, too.

I realize that we get to control the opponent's draws, if TPW is gassed up, but should you be worried about pulling cards back into the opponent's graveyard? I haven't played in awhile and I'm not familiar with some of these cards, so I may be missing something with them right in front of my face.

Definitely going to build this out with your suggestions and give it a test.

What do you think about Lavinia, Azorius Renegade? Looks like she would be good in this deck. Think that she might force faster decks into a grindy matchup?

I'm not sure in which matchups Lavinia can be particularly good, she just seems worse than Thalia, Guardian of Thraben for the most part.

Wouldn’t she shutdown 0 cost Affinity cards? Maybe a SB option?

I just think that there are better hate cards, for Affinity I'd rather bring in Stony Silence for instance.

Yeah... I can’t disagree with that. I think I’m being lured in by the new and shiny.

2nd D90Dennis14's suggestion of Hostage Taker. Never seen the card before but recently faced it on Arena limited and I immediately thought of your deck. Works well w/ Thoughtpicker Witch. I also like Wasteland Strangler, particularly if you keep some # of Nightveil Specters in. If you exile cards you can't cast due to color restrictions, you can at least get some use out of them.

Since I already have the Aether Vials, and everything else is probably dirt cheap on MTGO, I think I'll slap it together and report back.

So here is what I played.



I played against 2 very casual decks. The first was slow with no real interaction, so it was essentially solitaire. That said, the cards did their job and it felt good (for me) to snag odd cards like contagion clasp and use it to shrink a lashwrithe just enough to keep my Ashiok alive for another activation which gave me enough exiled cards to Strangle it, Wasteland style.

The other was a Thing in the Ice deck, but not the good sort. Again, it felt satisfying to snag bounce spells and use them against a Thing that just about to flip.

The interactions are pretty sick when it gets rolling. Exiling a spell with Spell Queller, and then using said exiled spell to feed a Ulamog's Nullifier feels very unfair. Same for EoT or even mid-combat Hostage Taker. Aether Vial is probably necessary for the version of the deck I was focusing on, if you want it to be competitive. I never actually cast a Thoughtpicker Witch, but based on the games I played, i wouldn't have had a lot of fodder for it. Still, it's a controlly one-drop that enables some later strategies, so probably still worth it. Just something to keep an eye on (and I'm not playing doomed traveler like the OP, of course, so that could be why).

I will say that better players will probably get a lot more mileage out of a deck like this than, well, players like me. I'm solidly average at this game and I felt my brain trying to melt down due to all the options available. So many decisions!

Based on my games, I'm going to snag a couple Restoration Angels (they're like 60 cents at the bots...). I'll for sure replace a Wasteland Strangler, and then either Hostage Taker or Ashiok. Not sure. I'd like to get the fourth Path to Exile in at some point as well. Just need more testing to see what's not pulling it's weight.

Cool idea, OP! I like it.

Why not Myr Servitor, Reassembling Skeleton, and a few copies of Sylvok Lifestaff? Run a couple Memorial to Folly in case all Servitors or Thoughtpicker Witch all hit the yard. Lifestaff nets you the ever necessary lifegain to keep stuff like this viable. Trinket Mage tutors up Lifestaff and Myr Servitor. That leans your more into a lock than just trying to take away their deck and dying to some piddly dude that slipped through. Doomfall is iffy just because edict effects kind of suck in Modern. Path is good. Maybe Mortify or Anguished Unmaking?