MTG Salvation

Coatl rarely has death touch on turn 3 because your first fetch usually needs to find a dual

I indeed meant past turn three. Maybe I wasn’t being super clear.

I think mystic snake is too cute; a little bit of synergy with restoration angel (which I'm convinced is only 1 slot in the main and 1-2 side) isn't enough reason to play a 4 drop that's worse in most situations than cryptic command.

It may be too cute, obviously, but I do think it’s worth testing in a single copy. I’m pretty convinced in going up to three Angels, on the other hand. Sided them in in 90% of the matches.

I was watching Nassif run a similar list and he had a really good innovation in regard to the lack of sweepers in the maindeck: Lyra Dawnbringer. He runs 2x Lyra (well 1 lyra and 1 Baneslayer Angel, but I think that's wrong in a Restoration Angel deck) but he also doesn't run any Winds of Abandon. I think I like 2x Wind of Abandon and 1x Lyra, but I don't think you can go too wrong either way. It plays especially well with Growth Spiral, which is a card he chose not to play, but I think a pair of Growth Spiral goes a long way in getting you out ahead of aggro decks. Spiral into any 4 drop other than Fact or Fiction will buy you enough time to deal with a wide board via Angels or Winds of Abandon.



Additionally, I think I solved the Misty/Vista problem - Misty is going to be better if you cut down to 1 forest 1 plains instead of 2 plains 1 forest if you add a temple garden. I don't really like the 3rd shock much because of the life loss, so I cut a Waterlogged Grove as well. I don't think I would go below 3 Grove, it feels like the strongest land in the deck which is saying a lot alongside Colonnade and Field of Ruin.

What do you guys think of a singleton Regrowth in the main? Cutting the planeswalkers wincons down to 2 Jace and 1 Tef5 is a little light, and regrowth can help with that. Would it be better than Snap 3 or 4? I'm not really too sure but Snap can't rebuy Coatls, Angels and Field of Ruins whereas Regrowth can get any card Snap could with the price being sorcery speed and no 2/1 body attached. In normal UW control I would say the body is way more relevant, but between the snakes and angels (kind of a nice deck name, Snakes & Angels) we won't miss the body nearly as much as UW control would. If you guys think it would be good, what would be the cut? 3rd Snap? 4th Path? 2nd Tef3?

I would start from cutting singletons like Timely Reinforcements and Surgical Extraction to play the full set of Force of Negation. In game one I want to be the most flexible I can, and - even if in a different way - Force covers turn 0-1-2 plays in most of the matchups I want those cards.

IMHO Growth Spiral are overpriced for what they do, and if they were a cc1 cantrip (my fav is Sleight of Hand) you would cast Snap Mage more consistently. We don’t really need to go from 2 to 4 mana, the crucial turns are 1 to 3. I would, then, simply swap the first Illumination for the second Teferi, Hero of Dominaria.

When I asked him, Nassif said that Mystic Snake is interesting not because of the blink (he only played one Resto) but especially as a clock vs Big Mana and Combo.

I could be convinced to play an additional copy of FoN in the main, and I could be convinced on surgical and the 2nd growth spiral as not very good. I don't think I can be convinced off timely though - with no other lifegain in the deck it seems necessary. It also pulls double duty against creature decks because of the lack of cheaper sweepers like verdict.

What do you think of Regrowth?

The deck plays Lyra Dawnbringer maindeck as life gain source, don’t forget that. Not saying that Timely is wrong, though.

Regrowth has some utility, but in a Resto Angel deck I would maximize Snapcaster targets tbh.

This would be my take on it, given we want a) Lyra maindeck, b) support a more Midrangey strategy compared to straight UW.

Another point could be replacing Field of Ruin with Blast Zone and dedicate one more slot in the sideboard to big mana strategies (Disdainful Stroke or even a third Cryptic Command).

List looks good. Looks like we converged on the mana.

Blast zone instead of field is certainly interesting and could lead to potentially wanting to cut a copy of winds of abandon which frees up some space in the main. I worry about not being able to turn on Coatl enough though, as Field of Ruin helps with the Snow permanent count.

I know you aren't a fan of a Growth Spiral in theory, but if you haven't tried it I strongly implore you to cut 1 Sleight of Hand for a Growth Spiral just to try it for a bit. Whenever I cast one on turn 2 3 or 4 and use the mana right away it feels like the strongest card in the deck.

What matchup are you expecting for Blessed alliance? And have you considered Gideon's Triumph or are you hoping to ambush people with untapping Coatl?

Blast Zone certainly doesn’t help with Coatl. That said, it turns otherwise difficult matchups (Humans) into a walk in the park if we see a copy of it early enough. Which are the matchups where the same Coatl is at its best. Hard call. I’m gonna test a 1-1 split between Field and Zone to understand the dynamics better.

I tried Growth Spiral and it hugely disappointed me. I think its place is in decks such as Temur Scapeshift, where we don’t have to deal with the lack of lands in our hands (sorry for the assonance) before turn six/seven. I’ll try it again, but the only thing I liked about Spiral is being able to flashback it at istant speed with Snapcaster Mage, turning it into the fifth (very narrow) Opt.

Blessed Alliance actually synergizes with a lot of cards in our deck, and I was thinking of going for it instead of Winds of Abandon if I were to run a pair of Blast Zone. For starters, between Coatl and Alliance the opponent has a hard time choosing when and how to put its creatures in the danger zone. Then, I loved how often we untap Restoration Angel and Lyra Dawnbringer for additional kill/lifegain. It’s reusable with Snapcaster at istant speed, putting yourself in an optimal condition against any Burn deck. I’ve never been a fan of maindecking it, but she’s truly been amazing in testing.


EDIT: something I can see to make Coatl more functional is to cut Celestial Colonnade in favor of another Misty and a basic land. It hasn’t been impressive, lately. And Mystic Snake has been a lot better than Cryptic Command in this Spell Pierce / Force of Negation / Commandeer / Dovin’s Veto metagame. In order to cast it more consistently, I can see switching the numbers of them.

Mystic Snake in light of the 'negate' counters is a pretty big deal I guess. Let me know how it goes, I still can't see it being better than Cryptic in a deck with more snapcaster than restoration angel.

We may have enough win conditions over traditional UW control to consider cutting some more colonnade and turning on Coatl more frequently is always good. I don't like going so low on the number of "spell" lands in control decks though. Maybe if we added some number of Arcum's Astrolabe we could consider cutting the celestial Colonnade for Field of Ruin - The colorless of Field of Ruin will be negated by Astrolabe and you are still increasing the number of snow permanents.


The idea in the spoiler doesn't seem to work, I tested it out all day today and last night and it's pretty bad. Just having a single dead card in hand is asking too much in this format because the format is far too fast. The more traditional UW control splash Ice-Fang is far more effective and worth exploring imo.

Sauce has a bant deck that is tuned towards beating hogaak

https://twitter.com/McWinSauce/status/1142550022480912385

It seems like growth spiral is only good if you can use a ton of mana (teachings/nexus/scapeshift), and you have a ton of 2 mana spells/instants. UW is more tap out and stops at 5-6 mana for colonnade/teferi.

Interesting build, heavily focused on the Narset/Box combo. I wonder if not having snaps because of RIP in the main means you have to have the combo or risk running out of action/threats.

My only gripe with his list is Astrolabe and On Thin Ice. They both have been so bad in my testing. OTI leads to tooany blow outs. Astrolabe is ok, but as a 1 of I don't think it helps turn on Coatl often enough to justify running it over Heiroglyphic Illumination.

I think Growth Spiral might be too high variance - I don't think the issue is that you need big mana sinks for it; Spiral into path on turn 2 Jace on turn 3 is lights outs vs basically everyone. When you can cast it on curve, and use the mana it feels like instant speed time walk. However, this is balanced out because when you cast it on turn 6+ it's just a 2 mana cycler. I think playing 1 might be fine, kind of like Azcanta - it's just game winning and amazing like 5% of the time or hard to find time to cast it the rest of the time but it's fine. Maybe I'll try cutting the single copy I've been on the last 2 days for the 4th Snapcaster.

Here's what I'll be on tomorrow:

Cashed a tournament with a sweet 4-0.




Faced Mono Red Phoenix (2-1), GR Titanshift (2-0), Mono Red Blistercoil (2-0), Altarvine (2-1). The list is working the way it’s intended to do.

About Growth Spiral, I already pinpointed the problem with the card: moving between turns 2-4 doesn’t apport much to us, most of the time.

Awesome! Glad you did well with the deck.

How did you feel about the mana? Blast zone over Field and 3x waterlogged grove?

How do you guys feel about Celestial Colonnade?

I was watching a discussion about it on the UWx Control FB group and a lot of players were basically saying that they don't need to use it as a wincon anymore and a lot of players view it most to threaten blocks. If that's the case, which it normally is for myself as well, would we be well suited to include a couple copies of Stirring Wildwood?. It costs a couple less mana to activate, which means it's much easier to utilize as a blocker. The obvious trade off is that it's not nearly as effective as closing out the game, but as mentioned, that doesn't seem to be super important to UWx anymore now with all the walkers, and especially true of us since we play a few more creatures. The bigger draw back in my mind, but maybe a little more subtle, is that it can't presure planeswalkers as effectively if the opponent has ground creatures. You guys think that is a major concern?

How did you feel about the mana? Blast zone over Field and 3x waterlogged grove?

The manabase is an open project. I did like Blast Zone, but it’s also due to the decks I faced. Field of Ruin may be better suited for the archetype, but again, I was pleased with the former. What I truly disliked, though, were the Groves. Cycle lands aren’t the best when we actually want to make landrops, and this thing deals a friggin’ damage to us for every activation. We use a lot of mana. Not going to run mor than one, but I’ll probably just remove them altogether.

I do like your Stirring Wildwood suggestion. The problem I see with it is being non-blue. I want my non-basics being Choke-resilient (and yes, Choke is a real card, you’ll end up losing games to it otherwise). Then, obviously there is the dissinergy with Cryptic Command.


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I saw a very spicy list online, and I’m certainly going to try it (with some tweakings).