MTG Salvation

I have evolutionary leap but I'm sort of iffy on how good it has been. Against Twin it's such a bad tempo play that I feel like I rarely get the breathing space to hold up mana for it. I'm willing to try Choke and see how it goes because it is enough of a strain on resources that we should be able to pull ahead even though it's not going to shut down *every* blue source in the deck. At any rate, the meta is skewed enough to be worth trying it, and I'll probably take it out of the board entirely in the more competitive shop I play at where the meta is a little more normal and diverse

I personally dislike evolutionary leap, we already have so much value I don't think we need such a mediocre card. If I'd want such an engine I'd almost rather play fecundity , no need to tap mana and you don't reveal the cards you draw, you can also draw things like CoCo/Gavony Township which can be insane in these value matchups. It doesn't get countered by spell snare either which is kind of a bonus but to each their own.

I think my favorite moment with Evo Leap was when I had Sin Collector, Evo Leap, and Liliana, Heretical Healer on the board. I attacked with Sin Collector, he specifically chose not to block because he didn't want to flip Lili.

After damage, I sacced the Sin Collector and my opponent was like "but I didn't block" and then he got all sad and just scooped.

I can see the advantage of Fecundity, but I like being able to sac my own dudes in response to exile effects and whenever I want in general. I think it's more comparable to Athreos, which is a new addition for me and I'm not sold on 100% yet.

Evo leap is fine as a 1 or 2 of from the sb, if your meta is grindy, as any sb card is a meta call but with the proper meta and build, the card allows you to do very silly things with kitchen finks and voices. So if your local meta is like that give it a try. Of course if your meta is uninteractive combo/aggro decks don't even bother sleeving it up.

Regarding the pardee video, I think the deck is just not good enough. Many times you will be drawing the wrong pieces of the combos and beating yourself in the head because you can't go off. (knight+viscera)(Kitchen+coralhelm) etc. It's such a feel bad situation. Unless your shell is more value/midrange oriented you will be doing nothing many turns, and die.

I would never run 4 decay ever.
Path kills everything in the format and modern basically translates into "versatile"

Disagree with the part about us having enough value already, Jund, twin and grixis seem like coin flips to me who draws the most value.

If you're having problems with Grixis and Jund, I have to say that I'm concerned about your build. Those two decks tend to be some of our best matchups.

Path doesn't keep Relic of Progenitus/RIP or any other dedicated Graveyard hate in check bar Scooze so Decay is definitely needed. It's also a better removal against a myriad of things such as a t2 Dark Confidant or any twin deck.
I don't like ramping Jund to 4 lands whilst I'm on 2, or any other deck which relies on value and hitting land drops for that matter.
Its versatility to kill any creature can't be denied, Decay hitting Blood Moon/GY hate AND creatures whilst being uncounterable makes me believe it is even more versatile and crucial for us. The only thing which frustrates me is when I'm taking a beating from a manland and I have a decay in hand ^^.

I have to agree with MrMond4y, most builds run 4 Voice/4 Finks/4 Eternal Witness/4 CoCo which gives us a total of 16 possible 2 for 1's, plus 4 Chords which get those 2 for 1's. A CoCo into a Witness + something decent is mostly a massive blow for other value decks, I wouldn't consider them our best matchups but they are definitely favoured for us, running 1 or 2 other value cards in the sideboard besides the Voices just makes these matchups even better.

Imo the main problem with Jund are their creatures( and their few boardwipes post-SB), namely Ooze/Bob and Olivia Voldaren, so having removal or a Linvala for Scooze/Olivia can get you a long way. I even bring in Orzhov Pontiff here since taking care of an early Dark Confidant is crucial and we run little removal.

I just board in pridemage for all those things.
Noone really plays cage so its not a real problem.
I havent played decay in months and i dont miss it at all

I have had plenty of games where decay has been pivotal, not the least of which was against Burn where I was sitting at 3 life and slowly beating my opponent down while he flooded out on lands. Decay is what let me feel secure in that scenario because I could target Finks and gain 2 health if needed to outlive any top-decks he might find.

I'd say 3 decay 2-3 path has worked pretty well.

I play Confidants in my Leap deck, but this list runs a lot of 4-drops so I think it's much worse here.

Played a local GPT with 30 people. Finished 3-1-1 and made into top 8 and lost to abzan. I played a total of 11 games.
I was playing against:

• Match 1: vs Grixis Twin. 1-0
• Match 2: vs Ninja Delver.2-0
• Match 3: vs Grixis Delver. 2-1
• Match 4: vs Hatebears. 3-1
• Match 5: vs Living end. 3-1-1
• Top8: vs Junk. I lost 1-2.

Fun facts through the tournament:

• Horizon Canopy made 13 damage to me and drew me only three cards.
• I only comboed off 4 times and not even once in the first game.
• I used Gavony Township 10 times.
• Evolutionary leap drew me 3 creatures and I played it three games, but it was useful only once.

I was playing http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdatabase/displaydeck.php?DeckID=90604 with slight changes to sideboard

Melira Company in top32 of GP Pittsburgh:


Lots of Affinity, Twin, and GBx in the Day 2 Meta. I think there were 2 Affinity and 3 Twin in Top8.

4 copies (1.3%) Day 2 of the 307 players.

We've gone full circle on that. It's likely becoming more necessary due to the uptick in combo decks.

That list looks like a really bad version of Birthing Pod. You're basically trading the raw power and consistency of birthing pod for instant-speed sac and draw a creature from Evo Leap.

While I play 2 Evo Leaps in my SB, I can't say I am a huge fan of the card in general. It specifically comes in for grindy MUs to give me extra cards when they kill my stuff anyway.

You probably haven't played it with Lingering Souls then. My matchups were 3 twin 2 gr tron 1 grixis control in swiss (6-0-2), beat gw hatebears in the top 8 and lost to nacatl burn because i drew lands in a long game 3,would easily have won if i drew even one land. Jund in the finals would be close to a bye. Either way we split the cash and I qualified for the invitational. Match report is over in the melira Leap thread.

Having played quite a bit of Pod, I'm not convinced this list is worse. Pod almost never beats tron, and I've won my last nine tournament matches against it.

Hi, I have been testing the leap deck recently and for me it doesn't have a good enough early game. Once you get going the engine is ridiculous, and it doesn't even need a combo to win. But I dont think it's well positioned in the meta right now.

The unfair fast decks seem almost imposible to beat consistently. Sometimes I would get lucky and draw the specific hate/chord and that would feel great, but most times I wouldn't. Maybe it's my build or maybe I need to mulligan more aggresively for the specific hate, but I personally think that going for the combo with co-co is generaly a better plan, although somewhat unreliable aswell.

Quote from cbgirardo »

You probably haven't played it with Lingering Souls then. My matchups were 3 twin 2 gr tron 1 grixis control in swiss (6-0-2), beat gw hatebears in the top 8 and lost to nacatl burn because i drew lands in a long game 3,would easily have won if i drew even one land. Jund in the finals would be close to a bye. Either way we split the cash and I qualified for the invitational. Match report is over in the melira Leap thread.

Having played quite a bit of Pod, I'm not convinced this list is worse. Pod almost never beats tron, and I've won my last nine tournament matches against it.

Have you tried any hangarbacks with leap? Seems pretty good, been brainstorming a leap/souls/hbw/township deck for a while and yours looks like a pretty sick start.

Hangarback walker seems pretty bad in a world of kolagans command and path to exile