MTG Salvation

I've been toying around with Amulet Titan for several years, but I've never brought it to a "major" tournement. Howevere, last weekend I deceided to play Amulet for once. Part of my reason was to I wanted to test Jace, as Amulet can play Jace as early as turn 2; and the very least on turn 3. I'm more of a control player then a combo player, so my list is more geared towards a control-combo then normal.



I ended in 3rd place of 41 players total.

Short summary of my matches.

Match 1 - Jund: 2-0
G1: I had turn 1 Amulet into second Amulet and Jace bouncing my opponents Confidant. Followed up with double Titan.
G2: Slow game. He had some disruption but was not able to stop my Titan.


Match 2 - Death and Taxes: 2-0
Don't really recall these. Jace did some work controling the board.


Match 3 - Death and Taxes: 2-0
Don't really recall these either. My opponent did play Amulet Bloom when it was legal, so he was aware of the interaction and did his best to respond to triggers with GQs, Aether Vial activations and Paths.


Match 4 - Jund: 1-2
G1: I had both Jace and Titan. Ended the game with a hasted double striking Titan.
G2: My opponent had early pressure with double Goyfs and was able to close the game fast
G3: I lost 3 bounce lands to 2 Fulminator Mages and a Kolaghan's Command getting back a Fulminator...


Match 5 - RG TRON: 1-1-0
G1: He had natual TRON and a turn 3 Worldbreaker. This game took some time as I was trying to race him with hasted Titans. I don't recall the details, but the game ended when he had landed 2 Ulamogs, 2 Worldbreakers and all my Titans were exiled. I was able to hit him down to 2 life, so the game was close even though he had "the nuts".
G2: This was a "fair" game. I had a Crumble for his TRON-lands, but he was also targeting my lands with GQ and Worldbreaker. I won the game, but we didn't have time to the start the last game.


Match 6 - Burn: 2-0
G1: Got him with a hasted double striking Titan
G2: Courser made things difficult for him. When I landed Azusa a few turn later and used a bounceland for 3 life a turn his life became miserable.ar


Quarter Final - Zoo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qT4EX-U7YY


Semi Final - WB Eldrazi: 0-2
He had a lot of disruption both games and I was not able to land a relevant threat.

You're right Daviusminumus - My build against creature based aggro matchups lose a couple percentage points game 1. That said, I haven't been having too many problems for aggro matches (post board is awesome). The basic strategy G1 is to not rely too heavily on answers and just go for straight speed. So, the current list hits ~3.3 turn titan combo which is usually good enough. Also, my local meta slams blood moons like no other and the Beast Within build can keep up.

I have considered adding a one-of EE however and dropping the 2nd tracker for game 1. I'll test with it and see how it plays out.

Just 5-0'd my local 40 person FNM - felt great!
M1 - BBE based Zoo (2-0)
M2 - UB Jace (2-1)
M3 - Enchantress (2-1)
M4 - Ad Nausem (2-0)
M5 - Mono Blue Tron (2-1)

Finally was able to test Jace at FNM yesterday. I cast it 1 time, against UW control, and it ate a D Sphere, which means they didn't use that to kill a potential Titan down the line (thought Tracker would have had the same effect, and came down a turn earlier.) I would have been able to cast it turn 2 against Scapeshift, but he was on the play and was keeping up Remand mana, so I didn't go for it (and was rewarded, cause he did have an Izzet Charm which would have destroyed me, cause he ended up using it to kill my Tribe Scout instead of countering my Summoner's Pact.) Besides that I lost to Affinity in 2 games where he killed me in turns 3 and 4 with my deck never doing anything relevant, and beat Burn, UW Control (with 2 maindeck Caverns the matchup felt super favorable. Game 2 I flooded super hard, drawing 2 of my forests in my opening hand, and it just didn't matter, though it did require a punt from my opponent who decided to Field of Ruins my Sunhome instead of Stronghold.) and Scapeshift.
I would like to own some Jaces online to do some proper testing, but in the 4 matches I played it felt weird... I basically sided them out against Affinity and Burn, and against both UW and Scapeshift had the Jaces I did draw been Trackers I'd have been in a better spot. Maybe Jace is the way too go, but after playing yesterday I'm less excited about them than I was as soon as they announced the unbans.

Glad to see some t2 Jace shenanigans going on. Thanks for the reports NilsH and fpawlusz!

Hi Davis, great to hear from you again. Any thoughts on Sunhone VS Kessig? I hav been playing with Kessig since u first recommended, and I notice most of the list posted online are playing Sunhome, even your list from previous post.
On Explore, yes I notice my Explores are getting spell snared, whereas that has almost never happened before the unbanning. That being said explore is really good against jund which is also on the uptick, but maybe it's still worth it to play 4 Explore. I'm not a huge fan of 4-of Azusa.

Hey guys this is what I've been testing casually with a mate since BBE amd Jace got un-banned (I've been playing UWr Jacekai more competitively).

Was pretty happy to see Ian Boselys' list with 2JTMS in the main, and mine ended up looking very similar to his 60, with the sideboard containing more variance. I started testing with Hive Mind in the main-deck but ended up moving it to the board for non-green decks or linear decks that can be improved for us by having an 'oops, I win' button.

If you've been toying around with JTMS or Hive mind recently, how have your experiences been? I feel like both the match-ups I've been testing are excellent.

Feel free to critique. Specifically, if you can find a card in my SB you think I can do without, I would love to fit one more out to blood moon in the 75

Amulet Titan: JTMS Main-Deck

Maindeck (60)
1 Walking Ballista
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
3 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Primeval Titan
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Ancient Stirrings
2 Serum Visions
2 Explore
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Amulet of Vigor
1 Academy Ruins
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Boros Garrison
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Forest
4 Gemstone Mine
3 Gruul Turf
1 Khalni Garden
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Slayers' Stronghold
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
3 Tolaria West
1 Vesuva
1 Botanical Sanctum

Sideboard (15)
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Hornet Queen
1 Obstinate Baloth
2 Swan Song
2 Dismember
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Relic of Progenitus
2 Hive Mind
1 Ghost Quarter



Shared via TopDecked MTG https://www.topdecked.me/decks/7b1bd157-b74b-4a23-97be-44f043846a3c

This is a question for all and a response directly to Daviusminimus' most recent post:

What are thoughts on anger of the gods? It's been good when I've needed it. I run 1 sb, no maindeck sweepers. I also run a sb maelstrom pulse, which has been decent as well (and gotten me out of multiple blood moons thanks to vesuva copying one of the opponents lands.

Do people often run multiple pyroclasm/koz return? What's the split on MD and SB?

You confirmed my suspicions about MD sweepers. And yeah, abrupt is certainly something I was considering to replace maelstrom for the ability to cast at instant speed. I had some over-thought convoluted reasoning that I landed back on Pulse which I won't go too deep into (TLD:hitting token decks/problem creatures), but I'm off of Pulse now.

I run a sakura tribe scout list with 2 Jace MD, 1 Tracker, 1 EE. Here's my SB:

Swan songx2
Ancient Grudgex1
Anger of the Godsx1
Reclamation Sage x1
Obstinate Baloth x3
Hornet Queen x1
Keranos, God of whatever x1
Maelstrom Pulse x1
Ruric Thar x1
Ghost Quarter x1
Grafdigger's Cage x1
Primal Command x1

I'd love to hear a bit more suggestions about the SB, because I've made some personal concessions with clasms, more trackers, etc, and landed on this. It's done me fairly well thus far but I've been looking at the SB (With pulse being the first on my list to go) for a bit now. Thanks in advance for any help.

Quote from daviusminimus »

@ 0oSunnYo0 - Your list looks decent, but I can't understand running Academy Ruins over Ghost Quarter. Ruins is more of a long-term gameplan, but we're pretty good there already, especially with Jace and Serum Visions in the deck. Ghost Quarter main achieves your target of having an extra space in the SB, and gives you a chance to beat tron. In my experience, beating tron demands Ghost Quarter, and if you don't have it, you're asking a lot to beat it in the 2 SB games. I know there's a little more to it than that, but the TL:DR version is that.

I know you like the Hive Mind, but I do feel like its a little underpowered here. Green decks dont care about it, and the non-green decks tend to be... blue? Resolving a Hive Mind can be hard against Blue decks, and you don't have a tonne of countermagic to force it through. I'd recommend cutting the 2 hive mind for perhaps a 2nd relic and a Ruric Thar (ruric thar, although a different magic card altogether, tends to be good in the same match-ups as Hive Mind, and is tutorable).

If you want an extra out to blood moon, my recommendation would be Spell Pierce (you could actually squeeze it into the main over the 2nd Serum Visions). It is probably as good as its ever been, since people are triyng to play a certain planeswalker on Turn 4.

Thanks for the input mate! I like the idea of spell pierce right now, I'll look at how to accommodate it.

I have had Ruric Thar in my board ever since I built the deck, it was hard letting him go. I replaced him with Sigarda, Host of Herons, who is pretty much a Jund Killer.

I also think it makes sense to have the Ghost Quarter in the main, maybe I'll swap it with Academy Ruins. I feel Ruins is too good Vs. GBx (and Lantern) to ditch from my 75.

Hive Mind is a pet strategy so I'm not averse to finding room in the Board by ditching it. I need time to test it together with Jace though. Hive Minds weaknesses were always a) cannot be tutored for and b) can be countered. If Jace and serum visions can provide the selection necessary to assemble the Hive Mind combo reliably, then it's already more attractive to me.

is anyone convinced JTMS actually fits in here? i feel like it was always the card to side out etc. idk still not convinced but i really want to play it lol.

I'm sold on the JTMS inclusion, I play Jeskai and I'm actually more excited about Jace in Amulet than in UWr Control.

The only issue is that unless we drop Jace t2 then we might struggle to defend him. The floor on Jace is fog + brainstorm. This floor is not great in a control deck, but for an explosive combo deck this is actually not a bad floor as it can set us up for a big titan play the turn after.

Jace has actually seen play in combo decks in legacy like SneaknShow. Back when Miracles was the best deck and Stoneblade was kicking around, a turn 1 or 2 Jace was absolutely devastating from the SneaknShow side. It seems like Jace sort of fills a similar role in Amulet except that our plan B is midrange beats which Jace can excel at. It's worst case function fog+brainstorm is similar to what titan will do (khalni garden+radiant fountain which is 2 cards, a blocker and life) except it would usually be a turn earlier.

I think the big concern is how fast is the deck you're playing against? Jace just seems bad against any swarm type deck which was already not a great matchup to begin with.

Just picking up on this deck and trying to lock down a list. I see a lot of lists are off serum visions... is there a reason for this?

Quote from Garrettv1 »

Just picking up on this deck and trying to lock down a list. I see a lot of lists are off serum visions... is there a reason for this?

So originally people went down Botanical Sanctum for Grove of the Burnwillows to have a better matchup against shadow. This led to the concession of not being able to play Serum Visions so enter explore. Now we are seeing less shadow but Field of Ruins and land destruction stuff so we still can't add the sanctums back; we have to play forests so explore stays.

Also, in my limited testing explore gets you a turn 4 titan on the play around 80% of the time while serum visions is closer to 75% of the time. Turn 3 titan on the draw appears to be the same with either explore or serum visions; right around 50%. So all along explore may have been the better card to begin with anyways.

So after looking around doing my research and comparing this is what I've come up with for a list.

I have 2 groves because there are still a few shadow players kicking around other wise I would go up a basic and a cavern. The side I have an extra ghost quarter for tron matchups and then a split with pyro and k return for the aggro heavy decks we have. Ruric thar because we have 3... lantern players.

Any advice or suggestions on the list would be great!

On Jace- if the card enhances our strengths and provides no NEW weaknesses, why would it not be considered?

Tracker in the MD or SB has never really been frowned upon, and it is there for exactly the same reason as Jace (grind/card draw/alt threat) but has a lower floor of resolve, clue, die to any removal. Jace potentially does a lot more than tracker for the deck IMO, and Tracker is already great.

Quote from Grrvvpp23 »

One question guys: any particular thing you’d tune from the stock list if I want to take it this weekend to a meta pretty heavy on Jund? Thinking to swap the Sakuras for Lotus Bloom as Nico played some time ago to blank their removal but I’ve been liking the snakes so far. Don’t have access to Jace but a friend could lend me a couple copies for Saturday, would you play with him without testing it or it isn’t necessary at all? Have seen different list popping up with and without him and I’m not sure what’s the right call.

Sorry, my last post didn't address your questions at all and was more just on card assessment philosophy.

It is by no means necessary to play Jace, nor can it be said that it is even tested enough to have a clear answer. Play what you feel is right. Usually if you have no reps with Jace it is unwise to jam him in the deck. Sequencing his abilities and your deck shuffles is another layer of complexity that you should practice with first.

I've not played with lotus bloom, but my general preference is scout. It's a utility card and allows a lot of flexible plays throughout an entire game. Lotus Bloom seems like a 1 trick pony.

I have been considering trying out Pentad Prism instead of Scouts, and changing my MD Explore x2 possibly so something else (Serum Visions) or just keeping them.

I've found scout to be good and bad...uncontested, scout hands can be very quick - I've turn 2 killed with double amulet, and turn 3 with regularity when uncontested. The problem is that scouts are the easiest to contest out of all the options...artifcats have plus side of synergy with stirrings, but also the the problem of getting caught by opponent's artifact hate that's brought in for our amulets...

Anyone have input on this?

So I finally got to play Titan Jace last night in paper (have been putting a few reps back in to the deck online since Jace was un-banned, after not playing it for about 3 months).

Needless to say I made about half a dozen sequencing errors and almost forgot a pact (but didn't, thank God).

Nevertheless made it 3-1 And then played a 5 game friendly against a Titanshift player (3 sideboard games), which I won 4-1.

The most hilarious moment was when I stared at an opening hand on the play that I saw a t2 Jace into t3 titan line. After waitng for my opponent to mulligan I then stared at my hand again and realised my lands were 2 Bounce Lands and Vesuva. With no lands to play Vesuva being useless for 2 turns, since my opponent was on swamps, I simply had to draw cards and say go until I knew what deck he was on (8 rack). He had shredded my hand by t3 anyway.

Other than that l loved picking up my Beloved Amulet deck in paper again. It felt really powerful, and although I never got t2 Jace on the night, he felt great, as I was able to shuffle Sunhome and Slayers Stronghold back into my deck multiple times during the night and even had one game where he brainstormed me 2 amulets from my top 3 allowing me to go nuts out of nowhere.

I got smashed by humans. My Kozileks Return in hand felt bad when his Meddliing Mage naming Titan was buffed by a Luitenant giving it 3 toughness. In g1 I shouldn't have lost to Thalia as I completely forgot the trick with EE while Thalia is in play.

Do we feel humans is a bad MU? Does anybody have some good advice? This is my current list.


Amulet Titan: JTMS Main-Deck

Maindeck (60)
1 Walking Ballista
4 Sakura-Tribe Scout
3 Azusa, Lost but Seeking
4 Primeval Titan
2 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Pact of Negation
4 Summoner's Pact
4 Ancient Stirrings
1 Serum Visions
3 Explore
1 Engineered Explosives
4 Amulet of Vigor
1 Bojuka Bog
1 Boros Garrison
1 Botanical Sanctum
1 Cavern of Souls
3 Forest
4 Gemstone Mine
1 Ghost Quarter
3 Gruul Turf
1 Khalni Garden
1 Radiant Fountain
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
4 Simic Growth Chamber
1 Slayers' Stronghold
1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
3 Tolaria West
1 Vesuva

Sideboard (15)
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Tireless Tracker
1 Chameleon Colossus
1 Obstinate Baloth
1 Sigarda, Host of Herons
1 Hornet Queen
1 Natural State
2 Swan Song
2 Dismember
1 Kozilek's Return
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Hive Mind
1 Academy Ruins



Shared via TopDecked MTG https://www.topdecked.me/decks/7b1bd157-b74b-4a23-97be-44f043846a3c

I'm new to Amulet Titan, wanting to try it out for the first time Online. I have a few questions:

1) Are all the utility lands that useful? Looking at a stock list like the 5-0 deck from last week (https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/977205#online), there are quite a few utility lands:
Bojuka Bog
Cavern of Souls
Ghost Quarter
Khalni Garden
Radiant Fountain

I know all of these have uses. My question is how often do we actually use each of these compared to, for example, having more basic Forests to get around Blood Moon? Cavern is a pretty easy inclusion, but the others seem like corner cases of usefulness (especially Bog, Garden, Fountain). Again, not that they are bad, just wondering about Forests instead.

2) Why Selesnya Sanctuary? Is there some corner case where you need the white mana to go with Stronghold/Sunhome? A 4th Gruul looks better to cast your sideboard cards.

3) How do you play this deck on Magic Online? I noticed that it doesn't let me decide how to stack multiple Amulet triggers but rather stacks them automatically. For example, if I Titan for Garrison and Stronghold, it will pop up 3 triggers: Garrison bounce, Amulet untap for Garrison, Amulet untap for Stronghold. I want to stack these Garrison bounce, Stronghold untap, Garrison untap. This allows me to get mana from Garrison, use it for Stronghold, then bounce Stronghold if needed. However, if I click the Garrison bounce trigger, then Magic Online puts both of the Amulet triggers on the stack in a seemingly random order... Is there a way around this?

Thanks!