MTG Salvation

Clique out of the board has definitely been proving itself. I have a funny story that does not prove that point however; I was playing Vs UW earlier today. I absolutely crushed him g1 and was continuing to crush him game 2, he made the control mistake and was playing too aggressively. Anyway, it's turn 57 or something, I have 8 or so soldiers on the field and he's at 5. I know he has a verdict in hand from when I extracted his negates earlier in the game, I also saw that he'd sided out his cryptics for some reason. I Clique him after draw and he has THREE verdicts in hand.. so he verdicts and I cast my second secure at end step.

One thing that I've learned is that Ghost Quarter really keeps our mainland's down, which is unfortunate. I loved pithing needle out of the board for this reason when I was on Abzan. I really wish boards would go up to 20 cards so I could run more answers..

It's not uncommon for people to board out CC in the blue mirror. I think it's a remnant from the Splinter Twin / Delver era when all the relevant blue decks played counterspells that just embarrassed Cryptic.

BLTurntable. Welcome aboard lol!

I think boarding out cryptics in blue mirrors is still correct:

Against anything UR, they could moon us so cutting mana intensive spells has innate value

Against any of the delver or death's shadow variants, they have more mana efficient counterspells and discard, so cmc 4 cards that aren't immediately live when topdecked are awkward.

Against merfolk, cryptic is a card you want to shave for curve reasons usually.

The only remaining category is blue control mirrors. cryptic is powerful here, but mana efficiency is just as big of a deal, and I find myself more likely to be on zero or one cryptics postboard than on two or more.

Hey guys-I've got a decklist that is very similar to my old one, but I decided that I liked WSZ more the Secure. I now have one slot open for the following list. Maybe a Spell Snare?


The second Glacial Fortress could be a GQ. Thanks!

If you cut a land and add 2 runed halo, you'll have my exact same list. And I find it smooth and delightful.
35 cards 25 lands. Always on time.

I may test that eventually, but right now I don't have Halos for the sideboard, much less the main. If I do move the Halos to MB, what would you put in the side for those two empty slots? Also, RN since I don't have Halos, what should that one open slot be?

I've been happy with a one-of Snare, but with your 3x Push MD and 5x 2-cmc counters, there might be something more impactful. Maybe move an EE to the main?

Atomic, to me, runed halo is the best unplayed modern card ever. You gonna catch so many people of guard. For exemple, if you name bolt against grixis control, they automatically become and weak creature deck. If you name mutavault against merfolk, your wraths become more impactful and they have to rely on aether vial to apply decent pressure. Against valakut, and storm its an mvp. Against any green deck, it can blank 4 tarmogoyfs or whatever decent threat hited the board. Against eldrazi, pick your poison, but thought knot seer is a crazy good target. Against infect, and boogle its almost an instant win. Against 8 rax, name raven crime and watch them cry once you chained a coupme TT and ECharm. So for me, that card is either decent or a complete mvp. I know it gets killed by abrupt decay and thats a problem, but since the meta kinda shifted off of it a little (thank you Mr Push) I have never found that card to be more powerfull then now. As for 25 lands I play, I realised that oftentimes, a push, a knot, a path, a runed halo is giving me a free turn. I don't know how to explain this clearly since french is my first language but I'll do my best. I don't think hiting 4 mana on turn 4 is a necessity. I want to hit every land drop for sure, don't get me wrong, and I do it about 90% if not more of all my games. But I think that hiting 10 mana before the game ends is more important than hiting 4 turn 4. Lets say I pushed turn 1, logic knot turn 2, path turn 3, my opponent is on nothing. If I miss a land drop and have a snapcaster in hand, there is still absolutely no way my opponent gets enough momentum to put me in serious danger, exept some rare case scrnario that are rarer than the number of time I cant make my land drop properly. I hope you get the idea I'm trying to share. Good luck with your list. If you need a 1 off to complete it, I suggest BA.

Quote from AtomicEmpire7 »

Hey guys-I've got a decklist that is very similar to my old one, but I decided that I liked WSZ more the Secure. I now have one slot open for the following list. Maybe a Spell Snare?

TheAnnihilator0798's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
3 Snapcaster Mage 3 Supreme Verdict 4x Cryptic Command 4x Esper Charm 3x Fatal Push 3x Logic Knot 2x Negate 4x Path to Exile 2x Sphinx's Revelation 4x Think Twice 1x White Sun's Zenith	4x Celestial Colonnade 1x Drowned Catacomb 4x Flooded Strand 1x Ghost Quarter 2x Glacial Fortress 1x Godless Shrine 2x Hallowed Fountain 3x Island 1x Plains 4x Polluted Delta 1x Swamp 2x Watery Grave	1x Blessed Alliance 2x Dispel 2x Leyline of Sanctity 1x Negate 2x Runed Halo 1x Supreme Verdict 3x Surgical Extraction 3x Thoughtseize

The second Glacial Fortress could be a GQ. Thanks!

Blessed Alliance has been doing God's work for me haha. It's been the most consistent way I've been able to beat burn (alongside the 3rd Snap and now Cliques in the board). It's a little bit of a liability against Death's Shadow and BGx, but I play the 3rd Push in the board (might try to fit in the 4th Push).

Only wrong if you're on the STW plan.

I was chatting a bit this morning with Pimpdonny and let him know that I was going to GP Copenhagen next week. Apparently he would be interested to have a card signed by Wafo Tapa. If anyone else is interested, I can take some cheap cards with me (dispel, duress, mana leak, logic knot, think twice) and try to have them signed (no guarantee but I will do my best).

All I ask is a PM from you with the card you want to have signed (still this week because I may need to buy cards) and that you take in charge the shipping costs (from Belgium) if I succeed

Well, so far 5-1-1 (we play 40 min rounds on mondays) with this configuration. 3-0 tonight (2-1 UR Delver, 2-0 Affinity, 1-0 UW control). Record doesn't really mean much so to the cards; Gideon has performed very well in a wide range of MU's - UW control, Burn, UR delver, etc. I still don't think you want to play more than 2, but I'm always happy to see him when he shows up as keeping the board clear / manageable is pretty easy with the deck. Cast Out has performed well as well dealing with resolved Blood Moons, Planeswalkers, Cranial Plating, etc. if the card is slow or dead you can cycle which has come up a few times - fuels delirium in my list as well. Cyclers - you can just think of these as split cards (U - instant; uncounterable draw a card and 2UB or 3UW creature) later in the game. In that way, they're versatile, but primarily there as a way to improve consistency and enable the way better CA engine (than TT) in Scour the Laboratory. Scour the Laboratory has been fantastic and has been 4 mana when I needed it to be in all my games except one post-board against BGx, where the fallback of 6 mana draw 3 was still fine. Again, it's my opinion, but this is just more consistent and more powerful than TT. It's allowed me to use my Esper Charms on the discard mode more often and not feeling terrible about it. By the way (confirmed by my local L2) you can cast Scour for 4 mana with Snapcaster if you still have delirium as you flash it back (it's because of CDA - characteristic defining ability). Ergo, Snapcaster is a MUCH better card in a shell like this as Snapcaster - Scour is amazing. SB as always should be determined by local meta and your 60.

I'm still not sure if it should be 4 Architects and 1 Glassdust or 4 Glass and 1 Architects (I've been running the latter). I think it's probably 3 Architects and 2 Glassdust, because the Architects ability is actually decently relevant later in the game and Hulk dodging Push and Bolt isn't that relevant on T15+. I'm probably the only doofus on the planet who spends time pondering this lol.

Quote from BloodyRabbit_01 »

Bloodyrabbit: disagree. You cant say that push is better without considering his build. He _does_ have leyline and snare, and thus BA _is_ better.

Explain yourself: how having Snare (which "kills" cc2 threats, not cc1) and Leyline would have anything to do with BA > Push? If something, Push is even better in his list, because he doesn't need the life gain from BA thanks to Leylines. So, it's rather the opposite.

Also disagree with your statement that "most lists run sv", when the majority of players in this thread _dont_ run sv. We've played and tuned and worked out this deck over years, wich should count more than random people picking up this deck (after reading articles by peopleh who dont have much experience with the deck) and getting results.

Lol? People getting results should count less than people from this thread? The successful lists are exactly what you should take into consideration, not the other way around.

Also, is fetching and shocking on T1 for Serum Visions advisable?

Quote from AtomicEmpire7 »

Also, is fetching and shocking on T1 for Serum Visions advisable?

It really depends on a few factors, namely what you're playing VS and what your hand looks like.
For instance, vs Burn it's probably not a great idea unless you're deaparatly digging for something or want to land it before they drop an Eidolon.
But, vs something slower like another UWx control, it can be fine, or if you've only got 2 lands and a TT in hand, it lets you curve into the TT on 2 for maximum hand dig.
G2 vs certain matches you really need certain answers, so it can be correct there too.

Can we please just get goodPastor banned and get back on with the healthy discussions?

We've got enough debate about secure vs WsZ / souls or no souls, to have to deal with his social justice nonsense.

-White, American, residing in the south.


Jesus Christ you guys. I'm gone for 6 months and now this lmfao