MTG Salvation

I always see people here say how terrible Remand is against Infect, but I've found it to be pretty solid. Remanding your Path to Exile in response to Vines of Vastwood/Apostles Blessing isn't game ending (though it can be), but it basically reads "counter target spell, draw a card". Of course, if you HAVE to Remand their spell, do it, but most of the time I think it's correct to be Remanding your own spells.

After the bans, I can't say, though I've never played against the same eldrazi list twice after OGW it seems, because everyone is playing something different.
Note that zoo decks usually do have some trample, often in the form of ghor clan rampager, which makes killing walkers a bit easier.
Some lists also play cards like electrickery, so if you're against someone who suspects you'll be playing elspeths, they could bring that in. Not for game 1 though.
The issue with "just don't tap out" is that sometimes you're better off just playing the elspeth so it takes the burn away from your face, and you can't always just wait until turn 8 to play something.

I've played a couple of games with something resembling nearly every list posted here.
I've played maindeck wincons, I've played much more removal. Even then, I'm just not a huge fan of mainboard elspeths. It clearly can work, its not terrible, but I just don't think its the best thing to be doing, atleast pre/post eldrazi.

Been heavily testing again, including some midrange bitterblossom strategies and I'm back on the Wafo-List (imagine that), which if you're familiar with my older posts from last year, shouldn't be much of a surprise. I'm I was a major proponent of the double runed halos main, but now I'm really happy with this list after roughly 40 matches of testing againt affinity, jund, griselbrand, infect, rdw, merfolk, and abzan company.




Ask me anything.

Quote from Sentimental_Engine_Slayer »

Been heavily testing again, including some midrange bitterblossom strategies and I'm back on the Wafo-List (imagine that), which if you're familiar with my older posts from last year, shouldn't be much of a surprise. I'm I was a major proponent of the double runed halos main, but now I'm really happy with this list after roughly 40 matches of testing againt affinity, jund, griselbrand, infect, rdw, merfolk, and abzan company.

Tclaw12's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4x Celestial Colonnade 4x Flooded Strand 2x Polluted Delta 1x Marsh Flats 3x island 2x plains 1x swamp 3x Hallowed Fountain 2x Watery Grave 4x Drowned Catacombs 4x Think Twice 4x Esper Charm 2x Sphinx's Revelation 2x Snapcaster Mage	2x Logic Knot 2x Remand 4x Spell Snare 4x Cryptic Command 4x Path to Exile 4x Supreme Verdict (1 shadow of doubt becomes the 4th verdict) 1x Murderous Cut (the 2nd shadow of doubt becomes an extra spot removal) 1x White Sun's Zenith	[Sideboard] 1x Elspeth, Sun's Champion 1x Wurmcoil Engine 2x Baneslayer Angel 2x Engineered Explosives 3x Pithing Needle 3x Runed Halo 3x Duress

Ask me anything.

Mind explaining some of your SB choices? Wormcoil Engine, Engineered Explosives, Pithing Needle and Duress aren't cards I've seen many others using. I'm interested in knowing why you opted for these cards over some of the traditional SB cards such as Stony Silence, Rest in Peace and Thoughtseize.

So really Stony Silence is a hedge primarily against affinity's cranial plating, tron stuff, and maybe those lantern "control" decks.
Pithing Needle hits all of these things, in addition to actually being able to name something like Karn, Inkmoth Nexus, other manlands,Griselbrand, Viscera Seer to stop infinite persist combo, etc.

It's important to see a deck as a whole rather than individual card choices, for example, the Runed Halos in the board act not only as cheap early protection from infect guys or boggles, etc, but also team up with the pithing needles to protect us against random murderous redcap combos (name viscera seer with needle, redcap with halo), whatever griselbrands actual win condition is, lightning storm in ad nauseum, grapeshot in storm, in additioon to just being really versatile against things like etched champion, manlands, etc.

You could even bring Needle in against Liliana decks arguably, at worst you are one-for-one'ing their most annoying card and making up for it based on the fact that your deck is full of value. We all know they board out Decay against us anyway, and even if they don't it's like a 2-of usually. They can't abrupt decay a pithing needle and then decay a runed halo naming Goyf, or raging ravine, or even Lili. (well, they can, it's just unlikely)

I get that rest in peace would also stop vengevine stuff as well as other fringe graveyard things, I just like pithing needle to turn off graveyard based combos by hitting their actual combo pieces and still being able to personally flashback think twice and use snapcaster and logic knot.

As far as Duress, I toggled back and fort between Duress and thoughtseize and finally settled that I like Duress because it's an extra card you can bring in versus burn, while still hitting everything relevant you would want to thoughtseize (karn, counterspells, walkers, removal, etc)

Wurmcoil Engine is just a giant middle finger to Jund or any rogue aggro, could become the 3rd baneslayer though because I'm loving banesayer against affinity and obviously burn.

I've seen other people discussing engineered explosives here and honestly it's just a house. Versatile early against affinity, infect, merfolk, burn, but usable late against Lilianna, goyf's, lantern artifacts, ensnaring bridge,whatever. also it's a reasonable hedge against blood moon if you have at least two of your basics out, blood moon provides you red mana for x=3.

Since posting this I've swapped that murderous cut and that 4th verdict for 2 engineered explosives main deck, and in the sideboard Ive added the 4th Verdict and a Detention Sphere

So is it time to sleeve up those foil Ancestral Visions now?

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/banned-and-restricted-announcement-2016-04-04

So we have Thopter-Sword and Visions... what does this do for our decks?

So...is draw go control now just horrible? Or can we run visions in a draw-go deck?

I think we change gears...possibly drop black? Visions + Thopter Combo is ~12 slots or more...do we want to just be a Tezzeret deck? I honestly think it's a whole other deck. We may want visions, which might move us to UW Draw Go, dropping Esper Charm? I dunno if we can jam ThopterSword and still be the same deck though.

Quote from amalek0 »

Honestly, if we got Ancestral Visions back, I wouldn't play wafo draw-go. I'd build a more tap-out style list with mana leaks and more removal spells, fewer cryptic commands, probably some discard... lingering souls and some planeswalkers as finishers.

Edit:
I'd start with this:

Qtwelve's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 celestial colonnade 1 creeping tar pit 3 flooded strand 3 polluted delta 2 watery grave 2 hallowed fountain 1 godless shrine 2 island 2 plains 1 swamp 1 vault of the archangel 2 ghost quarter	4 ancestral visions 4 esper charm 2 mana leak 3 remand 2 spell snare 2 cryptic command 4 inquisition of kozilek 4 Lingering Souls 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant 1 sorin, lord of innistrad 1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion	2 snapcaster mage 4 path to exile 2 supreme verdict

So is the traditional list bad now. After just investing it

Was it ever good in the first place?

For those of you wondering about sword, I tried MANY versions of the combo in various control shells and it was terrible in each of them. The best sword deck I came up with was BUG which was your typical goyf bob deck with blue for muddle and the combo. It's not something you can just cram into a deck and have it be good because having 8 cards that do nothing at all on their own is a terrible idea. As for AV it's what plain UW needed all along to be on the same level as esper, and now it is. This is going to be an exciting week!

Quote from stokpile »

For those of you wondering about sword, I tried MANY versions of the combo in various control shells and it was terrible in each of them. The best sword deck I came up with was BUG which was your typical goyf bob deck with blue for muddle and the combo. It's not something you can just cram into a deck and have it be good because having 8 cards that do nothing at all on their own is a terrible idea. As for AV it's what plain UW needed all along to be on the same level as esper, and now it is. This is going to be an exciting week!

I agree. I think the sword combo goes in a Tezzeret deck of some sort.

I dunno what to do with myself now. Especially since I don't even own visions. Hoping EMA/Conspiracy2 brings them. I did just grab Swords and a few extra Foundry though. The other pieces for a Tezz deck are already stupid expensive (Opal, Bridge, Tezz himself)

My question is though, with visions legal, is that a card we can run and still stay draw-go, or should we move to a tap-out list?

Imma stay the course, this is my initial trail run:



I was speaking with SES last night on his reasons for running pithing needle over stony and after some thought it made alot of sense, it frees us up to run ee vs affinity, and answers any problem thing needed to at the low cost of 1 mana of any kind... a ******* steal and when paired with runed halo just wrecks alot of the meta cold.

Worth noting that, at least for the time being, the debate between SoD and remand is now settled. In my honest opinion remand should now be in every list as a 2 of. If it stays as popular as it's going to for now then remand will be part of out default list.


EDIT: Also with sword being around surgical becomes far more valuable as an SB card along with serious GY hate like rip to keep it shut off for good.

I think if you keep the original shell, Ancestral Vision takes the place of the Shadow of Doubts, sacrificing the "screw your fetch" for two more cards. But that's just my opinion.

Also, Visions are already sold out everywhere, and the places they aren't sold out they've doubled in value. Good luck finding some.

Come on guys don't lose the vision.

Remember how I was just pitching Pithing Needle to you? looks like that card got a lot better with the sword unbanning

And just replace think twice with visions and stay the course, the meta is going to get a LOT slower and have more control decks, so we are in heaven right now being a cryptic command / thoughtseize capable deck.

Play donny's list he just posted above, trust me.



Also, everybody and their cousin will be trying to brew thopter decks for a while, so burn probably just lost a huge meta share. Keep that in mind when Sideboarding.

I advocate 4 pithin needle because the card is bonkers right now

Quote from Sentimental_Engine_Slayer »

Come on guys don't lose the vision.

Remember how I was just pitching Pithing Needle to you? looks like that card got a lot better with the sword unbanning

And just replace think twice with visions and stay the course, the meta is going to get a LOT slower and have more control decks, so we are in heaven right now being a cryptic command / thoughtseize capable deck.

Play donny's list he just posted above, trust me.



Also, everybody and their cousin will be trying to brew thopter decks for a while, so burn probably just lost a huge meta share. Keep that in mind when Sideboarding.

I advocate 4 pithin needle because the card is bonkers right now

What all does Needle hit (other than Lili and Sword of the Meek)?

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Also, I very much expect BUG Rock (ya'know, the BGx Tarmogoyf shell) to become rediculous with Visions. Not sure if that changes anything, but worth mentioning.