MTG Salvation

Without a clock, it doesnt even matter in my experience. All they do is tutor lands, and then start dropping bombs, with triggers attached.

I’m playing 2 surgicals and 2 field of ruins. That being said, I have thought about going up to 3 FoR. It’s great in soo many matchups.

In this deck, I'm on 2 FoR main, 2 Alpine Moon, and 2 Damping Sphere, and I ACTUALLY just won a match against Tron. Lucky for me, they didnt find a World Breaker in game 3. Lost Game 1, hit a FoR, Moon and Sphere (lol) in Game 2, and got there with Burn/Snaps Beats, and game 3 had a Turn 2 Sphere, Turn 3 Geist, Turn 4 RoR, and that was quickly it.

I'd like to talk a bit about sideboarding against some of the important matchups right now. Below is my own list, my sideboard plan against 7 important matchups and my thoughts on them. Any input would be greatly appreciated!


Fairly straightforward, I continue believing Gideon of the Trials is a modern all star and should be in every list. I switched a lot between Negate and Spell Snare but although Snare is really good, Negate is the card in the matchups where I actually NEED counterspells to win.



Gtron
+2 alpine moon
+2 damping Sphere
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Negate
+1 Abrade
-1 Path to Exile
-2 Search for Azcanta
-1 Supreme Verdict
-1 Wrath of God
-3 Lightning Helix
Notes: I think some amount of grind should be cut here, it should be either Teferi or SFA. Reasoning is that the T2 SFA rarely is safe vs tron and Teferi's -3 can be used to stop planeswalkers. You want paths so you dont have to spend a counter on wurmcoil, but I think cutting one is safe.

Humans
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Lyra Dawnbringer
+1 Abrade
+1 Celestial Purge
+1 Supreme Verdict
+1 Engineered Explosives
-3 Logic Knot
-1 Negate
-2 Cryptic Command
Note: I kind of wish I had more cards vs humans, my average cmc going UP after boarding sucks. Purge is medium but better than Cryptic I'd say.

Jeskai control
+2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Dispel
+1 Negate
-2 Path to Exile
-1 Cryptic Command
-1 Supreme Verdict
-1 Wrath of God
Not sure if the last card to cut should be the one cryptic or a third path. Some people bring in the Angels in the mirror, which I dislike, but you should have some answer to it.

Hollow One
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Lyra Dawnbringer
+1 Abrade
+1 Supreme Verdict
+1 Celestial Purge
-3 Cryptic Command
-1 Negate
-1 Logic Knot
Note: Cryptics come out first to keep the curve lower, and countering loot spells early on helps. Maybe EE should come in but there’s very few good targets for it.

Burn
+2 Dispel
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Lyra Dawnbringer
+1 Negate
+1 Abrade
+1 Celestial Purge
-1 Supreme Verdict
-1 Wrath of God
-2 Electrolyze
-2 Search for Azcanta
-1 Cryptic Command
Note: Again some grind should be cut here, I chose Azcanta as activating it vs burn is dangerous. Teferi also forces you to tap out once but after that it actually nets mana which I think is very valuable.

Affinity
+2 Vendilion Clique
+1 Baneslayer Angel
+1 Lyra Dawnbringer
+1 Abrade
+1 Supreme Verdict
+1 Engineered Explosives
-3 Cryptic Command
-3 Logic Knot
-1 Negate
Note: Cliques are kind of medium, so maybe cryptics should be left in instead, also to counter Karn. Then again, Clique also pressures Karn well and upkeep cliquing them when theyre in topdeck mode tends to be really powerful since the quality of their topdecks varies so much.

KCI
+2 Damping Sphere
+2 Vendilion Clique
+2 Dispel
+1 Negate
+1 Abrade
+1 Engineered Explosives
-3 Lightning Helix
-2 Lightning Bolt
-2 Electrolyze
-1 Supreme Verdict
-1 Wrath of God
Note:I have to admit, I have no idea what I’m doing in this matchup as I've only played it a handfull of times versus pilots that weren't very skilled with it. Maybe Gideon is bad because of their EE and tapping out at 3 is dangerous? I do like having a 4/4 to beat them down with. Dispel is just for Guttural Response as that is the card I lose to. Since I'm bringing in a whopping 9 cards, I am probably overboarding here but I dislike burn spells against them.

Why are you cutting cryptics against fast decks (Affinity, Hollow one, Humans, Burn), but keep Teferis and/or Azcanta? If anything cryptic fogs/counters and draws a card.

Quote from MrTzoulis »

Why are you cutting cryptics against fast decks (Affinity, Hollow one, Humans, Burn), but keep Teferis and/or Azcanta? If anything cryptic fogs/counters and draws a card.

That was my thought on looking over the board out's as well. I dont cut cryptic often, its how we can crawl back in.

I think tapdrawing to hope and find a wrath is playing to not lose. You need some real CA engine to actually get into a winning position. I could see the argument of leaving some more cryptics in versus hollow one since the bounce and counter modes are also very relevant in that matchup

I dont know, there are a lot of games I'm playing Tap/Draw, to get to 6, and setting up a chain with Snaps. Yeah it wont always work, but Cryptic is a 4 of for me for a reason.

EDIT: I beat G-Tron tonight folks, and if I was a drinking type, I'd go get smashed.

I may stray, but this is the deck for me.

What about the KCI matchup, how to board there?

I maintain two lists, a Nahiri list and a Teferi list. The Teferi list gives up on grave decks, the Nahiri list gives up on tron

I think we are quickly going to go back to the issues in the dredge meta.

You will need.

GY hate.
Recursive threat hate.
Artifact Hate.
Tron Hate.

That all comes out of the side.

Then our main deck answers Card Advantage, Selection, Sweepers, and Burn.

I'm just on my phone so can't get my list but I am thinking of dropping Dispel.

I don't think I drop it, the biggest issue is the time it takes in most games. It's hard to really grind and test. Blue moon I can easily get in 5+ matches a night.

There is no deck that I've played with as many options.

I do think Geist is important to have now. Looking over my notes from...a long time ago, I was running 2-3 in my main Nahiri list. I've got 2 in the side now.

We need a clock, in a lot of matches, and it's potentially one of our best.

Just may need to reconfigure a bit.

I think theres a pretty good chance that jeskai geist re-appears. It could be pretty well positioned (atleast compared to regular jeskai) judging by whats on camera this weekend.

Modern is much too creaturebased for Geist. Geist has been awful for years now and is only a thing because geist has devoted fans and modern is so high variance. It is at most a sideboard card but IMO clique just does that better.

I'm in limbo now myself, I was ok with giving up gravedecks for a while but the new dredgevine seems like the real deal. Honestly apart from Humans I really don't think any fair deck is going to be a good choice if your #1 goal is to win tournaments.

Quote from Bearscape »

Modern is much too creaturebased for Geist. Geist has been awful for years now and is only a thing because geist has devoted fans and modern is so high variance. It is at most a sideboard card but IMO clique just does that better.

I strongly disagree. It's fine in the more midrange variants. It's even better in the aggro shells.

Quote from Bearscape »

Modern is much too creaturebased for Geist. Geist has been awful for years now and is only a thing because geist has devoted fans and modern is so high variance. It is at most a sideboard card but IMO clique just does that better.

I'm in limbo now myself, I was ok with giving up gravedecks for a while but the new dredgevine seems like the real deal. Honestly apart from Humans I really don't think any fair deck is going to be a good choice if your #1 goal is to win tournaments.

A fine view, but I disagree. We are a deck that of our many nicknames, one is 'removal.dec' and at the very least, Tap the Team/Draw, is a play that is very very valid.

If you swing 3 times, maybe even 2, with Snap/Bolt thats victory, and thats exactly what got me the win against G-Tron last night, through a World Breaker that..cannot target the Geist.

a change I feel like making is cutting electrolyze and moving clique to the main. I'm also looking at my counterspell configuration to change logic knot so sideboarding rip becomes more feasible

Yep, thats where I was heading as well. This was the list I had a few days ago. Probably soft to go wide/mardu strategy, but...I think thats just a concession I have to make. I really hate what Field of Ruin does to the mana base, its noticeably worse off with it in to me.

I actually like Electrolyze quite a bit. Against the Vengevine decks picking off Bloodghasts and the like, to give us enough time to find a board wipe, is often enough to help us stabilize. Electrolyze also helps in the grindy U/W/X Control mirrors, as the extra card we get out of it is nothing to scoff at. I do think that Anger of the Gods and/or Settle the Wreckage are necessary in the Sideboard.

For sure you need sweepers, but things are feeling really fast online, even Anger was almost too late, and only bought me a few turns against Elves (1-2) dont know, maybe things just are not friendly to the deck at the moment.