MTG Salvation

The idea of the deck is pretty simple:
To deploy walls and find either Arcades or High Alert to attack with them and Tower Defense for an immediate kill or find Worship to lock down the game and win slower.

The soft-lock consists of Worship and a hexproof/shroud creature like Sylvan Caryatid or Wall of Denial.

To find its pieces the deck uses Shimmer of Possibility (the new sorcery speep Impulse) and can also draw cards with Arcades and Wall of Omens.
It is possible to use cheaper cantrips (Serum Visions/Oath of Nissa) but mana is usually not a big issue so digging deeper is probably worth it.

The interaction consists of Deputy of Detention and a couple Beast Withins (the walls easily block the beast tokens).
I considered adding Slaughter the Strong as well as it is hilarious as a one-sided pseudo-wrath here but it is probably too cute.

Here is the decklist:


What do you think ?

I played around with this concept last year, with more tutors, and it felt... too fair.
High Alert seems like a good card but we desperately need better actual walls before we can do anything.

For example, I hate having to play one drop mana dorks like Birds that don't have defender and thus do not synergize with the other cards.

Let us know how it goes though, if you end up testing it.

It is was my deck I would decide if i'm a worship deck or a tower defense deck.

If the plan is to drag the game out and win via worship then you don't really need to kill in one turn. I think those slots would be better used disrupting your opponent or protecting your board. Cards like assassin's trophy make it difficult to have a worship game plan. If you are going to depend on worship I'd go with spellskite. You could also consider Sigarda, host of herons. to protect yourself from sacrifice effects. Although, you have shalai in the board already. She is probably better than sigarda.

If you are a tower defense deck then you should try to play aggressive and drop the curve as much as possible. maybe run black Doran, the siege tower and discard. Tower defense wants to end the game quickly and worship wants to stall. I don't think they go in the same deck. This is just my first thought.

I want to have several options and not limit the deck to one gameplan.

As you've mentioned the Worship soft-lock isn't a guaranteed win so having a good option to win the game besides that is important.
Tower Defense can easily lead to one turn wins with 2x walls on board and Arcades/Alert which is much faster than attempting a more staightforward beatdown plan.

Doran is no good here and is worse than Arcades/Alert as it doesn't let creatures with defender attack (and forces splashing a 4th color).
The Doran deck is a completely different thing (no defender creatures) and plays nothing like this deck.

i have a similar deck and i played it in a tournament and my conclusions was that it neccessary better walls by the moment.

My deck:



I considered to add +1 Eldritch evolution / -1 Tower defense for change the birds for Denial in late game.

It probably is a bit too clunky but splashing for Black can add Behind the Scenes to the deck and make the walls basically unblockable but it will have to take Worship's slot in the deck and require to many pieces for the "combo" to be consistent.

A simpler but more vulnerable option can be Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive.

I wonder why nobody has yet pointed out the possible combo between Axebane Guardian and High Alert. Well... its all still very fragile. Resolute Watchdog might be the card exactly for the purpose of preventing the kill on Axebane though.

Never forget to put Jaddi offshoot and Perimeter Captain into your sideboard. I'd also suggest using a split of 2 Spell Pierce and 2 Negate in the sideboard, maybe even more counters.

Other new cards like Saruli Caretaker might also help to establish a solid roster of defenders for the early ramp. Usually the combo kinds of Wall decks functioned with Assault Formation, Duskwatch Recruiter and Genesis Wave + Craterhoof Behemoth. I don't know if "aggro" defenders with Tower defense is viable as it requires a lot of setup. As bellune already pointed out the current concept is very fair and I don't really see a way of changing that, even with going further into the combo plan. The deck just needs too much synergy with too many pieces at once on the board.

I wish you good luck.

Infinite mana with walls is not a new idea and has been laying around for quite some time.
You have plenty of possibilities, Umbral Mantle, Freed from the real, Overgrown Battlement, Axebane Guardian, etc.

I tested this too and, without being disrupted, you can expect to kill regularly on turn...4. Clearly that doesn't work for modern.
Right now, there is no reason to play this over a quicker and more reliable vizier + druid combo, for example.

For that plan to work competitively, you would need good zero or one drop walls, particularly a mana dork.
Saruli Caretaker was indeed very close to be what we needed...

The good thing about High Alert is it does all things as the same time : allowing your defenders to attack, untapping your creatures, and boosting your toughness-heavy creatures (not just defenders). So that's definitely the best wall enabler we got out there.

Have a look at the "Coco walls" thread.

Unfortunately the "CoCo Walls" thread got erased in the recent "EU rules" coming into effect.

Ah, too bad

I have a weakness for Defender-decks. I have for a long time tried to create a functioning Defender and Worship-deck.

There was a good thread going with a lot of combos and sweet ideas, the one bellune mentions, but it's gone yes, too bad indeed

My list today looks like this

Main plan of the deck is to either beat down with toughness or get 5 defenders out where 1 is either Axebane Guardian or Overgrown Battlement + Staff of Domination which generates an infinite combo with mana, lifegain and draw, while I try to prison opponents with Worship or/and Ensnaring Bridge.

It's very fun to play, it can be quit explosive and hard to deal with.

Never taken it to FNM, but I have played it casually against many tier 1 and 2 decks. It does ok but it's too janky to be competitive I guess. It's usually too slow and Collective Brutality is Worship players doom, and it feels like everybody plays it.

I wish we had better 1 drop defenders, and maybe more defender-tribal effects.

It would be fun to see defenders make it in the modern competitive league ^^

After playing some games with the deck I have to say that I like how the new cards performed, especially:
Deputy of Detention and Shimmer of Possibility besides the obvious High Alert.

Tower Defense stole some games and though it was hit & miss and in some matchups and was the first to be sided out I still think that I want it in the deck.
The combination of Tower Defense + High Alert and the flyers is very good to switch from defence to offense and 1-shot the opponent.

Beast Within seems like the most redundant card in the maindeck and is probably good enough as just a 2x-of SB card.
I consider adding 2x more defenders instead and the best option I could think off is probably Carven Caryatid for the solid body and the cantrip effect.
Cutting the 23rd land also seems like possible option and can potentially be replaced by a cantrip.

I also want to replace the 4th High Alert with a Glittering Wish to have access to a toolbox out of the SB like:
Knight of Autumn, Detention Sphere and other potential options like: Meddling Mage, Spell Queller/Absorb/Voidslime, Gaddock Teeg
and Sigarda, Host of Herons.

You could try Drift of Phantasms instead of Carven Caryatid. Same size butt, it flies and can tutor for you Alerts and removal.

Glittering Wish sounds interesting!

Drift is probably a solid option though the tutoring is a bit slow especailly for a deck without Battlement/Axebane to generate an absurd amount of mana.

The next card I want to try out is 2x Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive in the Tower Defense slot as I suspect it might work better.
Instead of the 1-shot option can provide a reliable way to chip in damage consistently.

Yes that is true, I managed to comment while looking at khainedus deck thinking it was yours.

Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive seem to fit good in your deck. If you would run Chords you would probably only need one of her, but then again you would maybe need to run Battlement, but then again again you could cut a couple of lands. And with some Chords available, Arcades becomes more available so you could cut a High Alert. But I'm not a quality brewer, only throwing ideas, if it works it works

I just recently managed to trade me set of Noble Hierarch, she makes the deck much more aggressive then I predicted. If you're able too, you should try her out over the birds.

I'm also trying out Deputy of Detention over Detention Sphere as I saw you guys use him, he also surprised me. It feels good to Chord him out! And all thought he is easily removed, he is still quite disruptive.

Hello all,

How do you feel about this brew?

4x Dragon's eye savants
2x siren stormtamer
4x god-pharaoh's faithful
3x Sidisi's Faithful
3x Zur the enchanter
2x deputy of detention
2x omenspeaker
4x voidmage prodigy

4x high alert
4x wizard's retort
3x proclamation of rebirth
1xsteel of the godhead
1x detention sphere

1x watery grave
4x flooded strand
4x polluted delta
3x hallowed fountain
1x sunken ruins
2x mystic gate
4x ghost quarter
2x island
1x plains
1x swamp


sideboard:
3x path to exile
2x mizzium meddler
1x nevermore
1x trial of ambition
1x runed halo
1x blind obedience
1x spreading seas
1x rest in peace
1x stony silence
1x rule of law
2x flex spot

That looks like a fun and spicy Wizard brew! Would love to see how it preforms. How about Curious Obsession for extra draw?

This is an interesting idea but i'm not sure how it fits this thread as it doesn't really have: defender creatures, Arcades or Worship with High Alert being the only thing it has in common with the deck being discussed here.

I'd suggest starting a new thread and maybe naming it "Zur's High Alert Wizards" or something similar.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

This is an interesting idea but i'm not sure how it fits this thread as it doesn't really have: defender creatures, Arcades or Worship with High Alert being the only thing it has in common with the deck being discussed here.

I'd suggest starting a new thread and maybe naming it "Zur's High Alert Wizards" or something similar.

It’s a toughness matters build much like the rest. No it doesn’t play the mentioned cards. In an earlier post you threw around the idea of a bunch of multi colored cards that have nothing to do with walls, defender, or the like. One of those a wizard no less! You said you liked deputy of detention in addition to mentioning meddling mage so I assumed it was fair game. I didn’t mean to upset.

Cheers

Why all recent posts are in bold ???
Fixed. Apologies, it was a format issue with a post at the beginning.
(Responding here so as not to add a useless post in the mix)
- Feyd

Tetsuo Umezawa, Fugitive is still a nice card, as well as Tower Defense. As Bellune said, the deck lacks good walls, the birds / noble one-drop is awkward with Arcades.

I think we may get a bunch of playable walls with MH, maybe WAR, but without a huge upgrade, this deck does nothing great. Some examples of reprints :

Fell the Mighty / Wave of Reckoning
Meekstone (too strong though, OG effect of Marble Titan)
Enlightened Tutor (too strong though)
Eladamri's Call
Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa

Wall of Blossoms
Sunscape Familiar
Wall of Junk
Shield Sphere
Wall of Nets
Wall of Tears

Even then, most of these cards don't make the deck clearly good.

Shield Sphere would be really good, it's clearly one of the best walls we can get.
Also, I'd really like Tinder Wall and Wall of Light.

But brand new walls with cools ETB/LTB is what we're after.

Wall of Blossoms is the one wall that makes the most sense to reprint into Modern imho.

Could this replace a High Alert or two?

Legendary Planeswalker - Huatli
Each creature you control assigns combat damage equal to its toughness rather than its power.

[-3]: You gain life equal to the greatest toughness among creatures you control.

Probably not as unlike High Alert it doesn't let defenders attack.

It can work in a Doran deck though.

Ah of course, by some reason I misread it by thinking it would let defenders attack.

We also got a disappointing Teyo, the Shieldmage, Shalai is way better.