MTG Salvation

Stony is a staple in the sideboard it can come in against affinity, all tron variants, lantern. I face one of these decks everytime I go to a large event which means it makes the cut for my sideboard. Anyone have any insight into the Soul Sisters match up? Do drowners come out because they pump your opponents life to much? Is displacer any good? everytime you flicker something you potentially pump opponents life. Right now I bring in 1 Warping wail and 2 ratchet bombs from the side and 1 EE.

Against soul sisters I think with path or EE + witness + displacer you could win very easily. I never had problems. The best creature against them is smasher and TKS (exiling ranger of eos).

How would you leverage displacer in soul sisters match up to help with the win?

With displacer you can:
(1) blink eternal witness to do infinite path to exile/EE;
(2) control opponent's hand with TKS.

If you really needs a silver bullet I recommend hushwing gryff, he will disable all sister's triggers, but also the TKS, skysprawner and drowner. In this case the eldrazis will be stronger and you can win attacking with the 4/4 and 5/5 creatures.

Hey all, I wound up pivoting to burn for last weekend's PPTQ, but not before hours of testing (I got up early to tweak my Bant List [7:30am], but didn't feel like I had done enough work to play my list that Sat, so I unpacked burn and top 8'd with it.) That said, there was a Bant Eldrazi deck at the PPTQ, he didn't do well but his list was not refined; it lacked meta knowledge to hedge against the newer decks.

Before putting down my list (you know when you have a recipe that is close but just not that close? That's how I felt that morning), I started making cuts:
-1 Forest, -1 Skyspawner, -1 Blessed Alliance, for +3 Matter Reshaper. I really liked how this creature package was playing out. It added pressure and the reshaper trigger started allowing me to grind better. There was a moment where I felt I was set but my Sb was a mess, and after talking to both my significant other (and teammates) they said run Burn and keep refining the Bant List. Here's where I'm at:



This is what I would play this weekend (I have family over so I can't), but I wanted to see what you all thought? My Meta is very diverse, but I am seeing an uptick in B/W taxes/ Eldrazi decks ( I lost in top 8 to B/W Eldrazi Taxes), and Bant crushes those decks. I tried Failure/Comply but it never worked out how I wanted, in the matches where I bring in countermagic I just want to counter things, hence I went back to 2 stroke (good against Tron and CoCo decks). Affinity is huge in my meta so, I'm trying Nature's Claim (This is a meta choice, and I'm just testing it it did work for me in GP San Antonio).

Thoughts?

Guys, I need some help. There's a PPTQ this Saturday and I really want to take Bant Eldrazi, but I don't have my Engineered Explosives and Cavern of souls. What cards do you think would give me the best shot instead? I'm considering changing the EE for Ratchet bomb, but I'm clueless with the Cavern.

I got roughed up pretty hard by Lantern and Valakut decks in my PPTQ, hope it won't be a pattern.

Flashfreeze. Holding up mana against eldrazi tron is not a productive play pattern, we want to be tapping out and killing them.

Flashfreeze is also good against some kinds of company decks.

Ideally, I like Unified will. But my experience has taught me that it's not always on when we need it. Maybe 90-95%, depending on the matchup. So due to our deck's weakness to Valakut strategies, I like Disdainful Stroke. It's so important for our counterspell to hit both Primeval Titan AND Scapeshift. It also does work against UW control, hits Ad Naus, and hits eldrazi tron pretty hard as well. BUT it makes your deck much weaker against Living End, but that matchup is basically unwinnable anyway. So I prefer a 2/2 Split of Disdainful/Stubbs, maybe a 2/3 split.

This week I'm going to test -2 stony silence and +2 ceremonial rejection in SB. I think this change remains reasonable against affinity and improves odds against Eldratron.

Another test I will do is -1 cage and +1 Hallowed Moonlight (still hits dredge and CoCo, but also Living End, tokens...)

Stubborn is just bad maindeck... We are not playing a control or tempo game. It's also not great postboard either, negate et al are just more consistent.

We don't need ceremonious rejection... eldrazi tron is already a good matchup and there are better cards against affinity.

Moonlight still lets living end wipe our board. It's pretty insignificant against dredge. It's not that great against company and chord decks since it requires holding up mana. Grafdiggers just seems better.

I have been testing township and I think it's a reasonable option. It is the only utility land I would consider. I don't think it's a slam dunk because of the mana inconsistency it adds. But it does have relevance in this meta because it allows us to get bigger than delve fatties and opposing eldrazi, it also allows us to not overcommit into wraths, and it makes our deck slightly faster.

I just realized a weird interaction: Delay + Ulamog's Reclaimer + Displacer. It may not be competitive, but it's very annoying.

Gavony solves a huge problem for this deck which is flooding. It's not an arbitrary inclusion. It makes skyspawners and displacers legitimate threats when we don't draw our fatties and like i said it also allows us to attack into opposing gurmags or endbringers which is super relevant. Just having it on the battlefield with mana up lets you push through opposing 5/5s.

I agree that a clean manabase is super important to us but I see people running GQ or sea gate and Gavony just seems way more well rounded as a utility land. I would definitely only run it as #24 and not #23. I will test further but I think this is the most viable utility option currently.

Reclaimer is interesting but I wonder if it can replace ewit. One of the strongest features about ewit is that it can get back displacer by itself. Plus a 2/5 isn't really that relevant size wise.

Has anyone tried a strategy of 4 skyspawners main deck to help against affinity and 4 matter reshapers out of the SB to help against UW control and attrition based matchups?

Now done with 70 testing games with Gavony against Valakut, Death's shadow, Abzan, Burn, Eldrazi Tron. I am pretty sure belongs in the maindeck as the 24th land. I don't know why it hasn't made more appearances.

Situations it has been relevant:

• Adds inevitability. It has been absolutely ridiculous against Abzan.
• Flood insurance. Once it is on the board you will always be able to do something with your mana in the late game.
• Allows you to play around wraths by adding power without committing creatures
• Reduces mulligans by reducing the number of 1-lander or 2-landers
• Can provide faster kills against combo decks or burn (gave me a turn 4 kill against valakut, for example)
• Allows birds and skyspawners to stonewall affinity in the late game
• Even one activation is already worth it against Eldrazi Tron
• Synergizes with 5-dork or 6-dork builds

I think it replaces the 4th drowner. It is a bit more consistent because Drowner isn't always castable but land drops are always relevant. Only when you flood do you not want it, but it inherently solves that problem by providing flood insurance itself.

Current list:
2 Birds
4 Noble
4 Displacer
4 Skyspawner
0 Reshaper
3 Drowner
2 EE
24 Lands including 1 Gavony

Quote from whyjesse »

Now done with 70 testing games with Gavony against Valakut, Death's shadow, Abzan, Burn, Eldrazi Tron. I am pretty sure belongs in the maindeck as the 24th land. I don't know why it hasn't made more appearances.

Situations it has been relevant:

• Adds inevitability. It has been absolutely ridiculous against Abzan.
• Flood insurance. Once it is on the board you will always be able to do something with your mana in the late game.
• Allows you to play around wraths by adding power without committing creatures
• Reduces mulligans by reducing the number of 1-lander or 2-landers
• Can provide faster kills against combo decks or burn (gave me a turn 4 kill against valakut, for example)
• Allows birds and skyspawners to stonewall affinity in the late game
• Even one activation is already worth it against Eldrazi Tron
• Synergizes with 5-dork or 6-dork builds

I think it replaces the 4th drowner. It is a bit more consistent because Drowner isn't always castable but land drops are always relevant. Only when you flood do you not want it, but it inherently solves that problem by providing flood insurance itself.

Current list:
2 Birds
4 Noble
4 Displacer
4 Skyspawner
0 Reshaper
3 Drowner
2 EE
24 Lands including 1 Gavony

Did you drop Rhonas? What's your entire 75?

Agreed, interested to see your 75.

Also, I am curious to hear from this community when thragtusk shines from the sideboard. Seems best against burn, and even then, I often find myself dead a turn before I can cast him.
Other match ups I'd bring him in would be blue white control for extra threats. But what else? There could be an argument for affinity, but he doesn't fly and can be slow to resolve. Currently thinking about cutting him for a flashfreeze.

Flashfreeze may be underrated for our deck. I haven't had much testing with it yet, but in theory, it seems great. It's a card that can be used in many of our tough match ups.
A two mana spell that seems good against
Burn
Titanshift
And abzan/counters company.
Even red green ponza (fringe deck, but has been picking up popularity near me)
Seems better to have one card for all these decks instead of warping wail for abzan company, disdainful stroke for titanshift and thragtusk for burn. (I still like one disdainful stroke for eldrazi tron and regular tron).

What do you all think? Thragtusk a reasonable cut? And does flashfreeze perform as well as it seems like it would?

Current sideboard is as follows:
3 stony silence
3 Rest In Peace
2 grafdiggers cage
2 stubborn denial
2 flashfreeze
1 natures claim
1 worship
1 distainful stroke

Forgot to mention I still have rhonas. Current sb:
2 flashfreeze
1 negate
1 ewit
1 batterskull
2 worship
2 rip
2 ratchet bomb
1 ee
1 chalice
2 pithing needle

Thragtusk is okay but I don't think there's one particular matchup it's necessary in. It's often too slow against burn and skullcrack can just prevent the lifegain. Batterskull is more powerful by itself (without displacer) and is harder for big decks to answer. Ewit is better in the mirror and gives you infinite removal.

I don't like skimping on our mana base. I think the deck needs a minimum of 13 green sources, 8 blue sources, 10 white sources, and 14 colorless sources. I suppose you could try it with 23 lands because gavony is good enough that its upside may be worth the mana inconsistency. If so you might have to consider cutting a few skyspawners or displacers for a few matter reshapers. I personally think any less than 4 skyspawners is wrong so I'd rather just have a cleaner manabase.

Also, calculated my win % with the deck... 71.3% with 597 games / 243 matches

That's nearly a year of paper events with payout (FNMs, PPTQ, IQ, Regionals) I don't play online. I do playtest a lot in paper with 1300+ games recorded...