MTG Salvation

New Sorin is just too swingy compared to the old Sorin. He occasionally will be better (like when you alpha strike vs. Burn with a goyf or two), but most of the time he will be worse. We don't want to be forced into combat decisions just to support our planeswalker. And he is relatively embarrassing as a 4-mana token maker. Again, he's good enough for Modern, but only in B/W tokens and maybe a few other corner cases. Sorin, LOI just does a better job of defending himself and gaining incremental value the longer he's in play. The emblem is better than the 24-hour effect on the new one, and getting out of Bolt range while making a blocker is also very, very relevant in this format.

Anafenza is a splashier Loxodon Smiter for a Tier 2 Junk value deck, but she's a step below Tier 1 status for BG/x Rock decks. This version of the deck has never wanted a Loxodon Smiter when we already have Goyf. Knight of the Reliquary is many times more powerful, and we don't even play him at the moment.

Speaking of Kibler's Favorite Knight, it's possible that the new fetchlands push him just over the line back into the solidly "good" camp in Modern, and it's possible that we start to see BG/x Souls merge with Classic Kibler Junk Midrange as a new archetype. I will certainly be testing KOTR in the coming weeks. Anafenza will stay in my Standard piles though.

Quote from HomelandZecurity »

New Sorin is just too swingy compared to the old Sorin. He occasionally will be better (like when you alpha strike vs. Burn with a goyf or two), but most of the time he will be worse. We don't want to be forced into combat decisions just to support our planeswalker. And he is relatively embarrassing as a 4-mana token maker. Again, he's good enough for Modern, but only in B/W tokens and maybe a few other corner cases. Sorin, LOI just does a better job of defending himself and gaining incremental value the longer he's in play. The emblem is better than the 24-hour effect on the new one, and getting out of Bolt range while making a blocker is also very, very relevant in this format.

Anafenza is a splashier Loxodon Smiter for a Tier 2 Junk value deck, but she's a step below Tier 1 status for BG/x Rock decks. This version of the deck has never wanted a Loxodon Smiter when we already have Goyf. Knight of the Reliquary is many times more powerful, and we don't even play him at the moment.

Speaking of Kibler's Favorite Knight, it's possible that the new fetchlands push him just over the line back into the solidly "good" camp in Modern, and it's possible that we start to see BG/x Souls merge with Classic Kibler Junk Midrange as a new archetype. I will certainly be testing KOTR in the coming weeks. Anafenza will stay in my Standard piles though.

Do you really not think that the value from Anafenza is worth it in the current meta? Stops opposing Lingering Souls, Finks, Redcap, Voice, etc. The problem with Smiter is that he was just a 4/4 that was uncounterable and sometimes free. I'm not expecting more than a 1-2 of, but he feels like a very natural supplement to the deck. One thing I am curious about is if there's a revival of WGB midrange ala Kibler style with Birds and Heirarchs to accelerate into 3 drops.

Anafenza does stop Persist and Voice triggers, which is bonus, but not a good enough reason to play it alone. Scavenging Ooze stops a single persist trigger for the same cost, but has many more application elsewhere in the format (against Snapcaster, opposing Goyfs, Burn, Already-stocked-Living-End-graveyards, Gifts Ungiven, etc.). Ooze is just more efficient in general I think.

Anafenza only exiles creatures, and only while she's in play. Ooze can demolish an existing graveyard as soon as he comes down and grow much bigger in the long run. He can also eat critical spells. They basically fight for the same slot in this deck I think. Also, Anafenza is a bit tougher on the mana. She's playable in Modern for sure, but she's not so good that we must make room in our current list. Perhaps the Kibler-style Junk decks will be more likely to adopt her, but even then there is strong competition at the 3-slot. Knight, Courser, Doran, Pulse, Liliana, Dismember, Pact.... it's a tough place to be for Ana. If you can use her first ability consistently, I think she gets better, but then you become more aggressive, and lose the midrange stance that makes BG/x so successful.

Post your list or PM me and I should be able to help you better. Not seeing your list makes it hard to provide advice. There also might be things you are doing wrong that could be decreasing your odds against them, like overvaluing expensive (but powerful) spells. In general, U/R Delver beats us by playing tempo long enough to keep us off our good endgame, while of course chipping away. But they have trouble dealing with cards like Scavenging Ooze (with open mana), Goyf, Decay, Inquisition, Lingering Souls, and Thrun/Courser/Batterskull. They basically have a short amount of time to slow us down before our card quality takes over the game, so it should be favored for us.

Let's see what you're working with, maybe we can help you fight back better.

Maybe I'm just not playing against very good UR delver players, but I've never felt like I had a rough time in the matchup, and even when I've played it at PTQ's and such when I'm in the winning bracket, my opponent's have said that they hate this matchup. I will give it to you that Keranos and blood moon are rough, but that is honestly their only real threats against us. Young pyromancer can be annoying, but usually he can't actually grind us out when we have cards like abrupt decay to unquestionably kill any of their threats (other than Keranos) and liliana to pressure their hand so they have a rough time keeping up with us, and they just really have a hard time dealing with a goyf or a midgame scavenging ooze. (courser is also nice here, like you mentioned). That being said, almost every game comes down to a race, bolt/snap/bolt or remanding a 3+ mana spell is probably their best way to stay in the game. With this in mind, I would try your best to be as aggressive as possible while avoiding fetch+shock as many times as you can.

I took my list (post 306) out to a local 16 man event last night and 4-0d for first place. I actually quite liked the singleton courser of kruphix. If I'm in topdeck mode its not a bad card to draw as it wipes lands off the top for me and helps me stabilize. In the opening hand vs aggro it can also be quite good as a wall and some life gain.

Round 1: 2-0 vs GR werewolves. It was a major budget deck, nothing to say here.

Round 2: 2-0 vs GW midrange. His 4+ mana spells caused me some grief - elspeth followed by a resto angel or baneslayer in particular made things tough as it took liliana -2 and lingering souls out of the equation as answers to elspeth. Baneslayer is also no joke, if you don't have the dismember/pact in hand it gets real bad real fast. This matchup reminded me that drown in sorrow is not exactly damnation.

Round 3: 2-1 vs scapeshift. Had my first experience of "+1 liliana; discard baloth gain 4; untap kill liliana" I actually came back from that thanks to double 5/6 goyfs an ooze and a second lili but it was pretty devastating to see that baloth drop on t3. This feels like a pretty straightforward matchup to me - all we can do is bring in fulminators and mindcensor, board out our abrupt decays, and hope to kill them before they hit 7 lands. I also brought in baloth (good) and bow (bad). Afterwards I figured out that 18 life is the magic number. 0-18 life means 7 lands = death. However 8 lands = 36 damage, so gaining extra life past 19 is relatively moot.

Round 4: 2-1 vs GR tron. This seems like a pretty bad matchup as we simply don't have very good answers to wurmcoil, karn, or god forbid emrakul. I brought in 2x fulminator 2x stony silence 1x aven mindcensor 1x deglamer, but other than fulminator these are pretty low impact plays. In G2 I laid bob-bob and drawing 3 cards a turn buried him, highlight was ripping an inquisition after he had ancient stirringd for an o-stone (no tron yet). G3 he got a karn down but I fulminatord the tron and then abrupt decay'd his map and he never drew a coloured source or 3rd land. still took like 3 turns but eventually souls+treetop got the karn and I was able to finish him off with that plus a goyf.

I think the list is pretty tight but I'm seeing why most decks run 3 fulminators in the side. I'm actually wondering if this deck has ever used pithing needle in the board? its a cheap flip to bob, easy to lay while playing other cards in the early game, and handles some of the roughest cards I had to face - elspeth, karn, eye of ugin. Maybe we just don't have room or there are better approaches to those decks/cards, but needle seems pretty versatile and when its good its very good.

What do you guys think of going 4 colors with the new fetchland available or its too clunky?

People played 4 colors before with deathrite, but they cut ooze/decay/pulse to play souls/ajani. You'll just be splashing tarmogoyf. I don't even know if decay is good right now. Path might be better, especially on mtgo, where pod, burn and affinity are the top 3 decks.

Just to confirm, is it "correct" to board out all discard against the mirror(junk)/Jund? Most players at my LGS keep discard in and I was just wondering if I was doing it wrong? For what it's worth I do have 7 cards in the board to replace 7 discard for that MU.

Also I torn between MD Batterskull and Garruk. I haven't tested BS, but I have tested Garruk, and while he has a chance for brokeness and explosive plays, alot of times when he comes down he is lackluster (especially If I am behind in board-state)

Quote from Apokalypse »

Just to confirm, is it "correct" to board out all discard against the mirror(junk)/Jund? Most players at my LGS keep discard in and I was just wondering if I was doing it wrong? For what it's worth I do have 7 cards in the board to replace 7 discard for that MU.

Also I torn between MD Batterskull and Garruk. I haven't tested BS, but I have tested Garruk, and while he has a chance for brokeness and explosive plays, alot of times when he comes down he is lackluster (especially If I am behind in board-state)

Haven't played the mirror enough to answer the first question, although I believe that is basically correct. I was also disappointed with garruk for the reasons you said plus the fact that untapping 2 lands was rarely a big play. In theory it lets you cast spells and then maybe get in with a man-land or resolve garruk and then put up abrupt decay mana, but in practice I never really saw that work. It was more like I'd play him, have no choice but to -1 him, they'd bolt the garruk and then eventually deal with the hill giant left behind.

I've been using batterskull for a while and am rarely sad to see it. While I've never bounced and replayed it, I have definitely equipped it to goyfs and souls tokens to excellent effect. When you're behind this is the kind of card that stabilizes you, and when you're even-ish or ahead it just grinds them into the dust. While its great to go souls-garruk-flashback-overrun, going souls-flashback+goyf-batterskull is also good.

If you can you should side out all the discard.

Thoughtseize is not completely awful in the mirror, people side in more expensive threats, so you still have time to take them with Thoughtseize.

But I'd rather have something like fulminator mage in my deck than Thoughtseize for the mirror.

I agree, it's generally accepted that siding out 7 discard spells for 7 powerful cards is the best plan for the mirror. And I think it's absolutely true in the ACTUAL mirror, where you are facing Junk v. Junk or Jund v. Jund and your lists are essentially the same plus or minus 5-10 cards. However, I do think it's possible that when you are playing something like Jund v. B/G, there can be merits to deviating from this normally accepted practice. Realizing that your mana is more fragile, and that they might be able to Iok into Tec Edge or Fulminator you out of the game, might mean that having a lower curve is better than having more 3+ CMC threats. In some cases, it's worth surprising your opponent and going for the aggressive tempo/mana denial strategy rather than trying to grind out the long game. I lost one memorable match when I was still on Red Jund to a BG opponent who simply stifled my mana and protected his Goyf/Bob start with discard. However, the Junk lists now have 25 mana sources and much more stable mana than Jund, so I am not as concerned about that scenario as much these days.

Basically it's a good rule of thumb to just drop all the discard, but as always, take every case differently and consider whether or not you might benefit from a different approach once in awhile. Surprise factor goes a long way sometimes.

So I think I got a concrete answer on that front, now it's that Garruk vs Batterskull and Pulse #2 vs. Pact #2 MD I am left with. I haven't had time to test skull yet but I was underwhelmed by Garruk from the testing I did do but that's not to say he's not the man for the job either. I am bit concerned about losing 5 life off Skull (Bob), but I mean Garruk isn't exactly light on the life-loss either in that respect and he can come down a turn earlier.

Quote from Apokalypse »

So I think I got a concrete answer on that front, now it's that Garruk vs Batterskull and Pulse #2 vs. Pact #2 MD I am left with. I haven't had time to test skull yet but I was underwhelmed by Garruk from the testing I did do but that's not to say he's not the man for the job either. I am bit concerned about losing 5 life off Skull (Bob), but I mean Garruk isn't exactly light on the life-loss either in that respect and he can come down a turn earlier.

Yeah, I'm on the opposite end of this spectrum: I haven't tested Garruk but I've been very happy with Batterskull. So I basically would recommend you test Batterskull (or possibly Sorin) in that slot instead. Sorin is great for mirror-breaking and controlly matchups, but Batterskull is just the best all around card in that slot in my opinion. Yes, if you flip it to Bob it hurts slightly more, but you can also generally regain that life within a turn or two, which is more than enough to justify the extra possible point of damage you might take. And we're talking very slight changes in statistical odds here, since it's a 1-of in your deck. Typically, when Bob is killing you, it doesn't much matter whether it's a 3-5 CMC card that does it, since the decks that pressure you on that front generally can squeeze in the last few points. Meanwhile, having the ability to gain 4+ life a turn is quite helpful even in the grindier/slow matchups, and can often mean coming back from the brink of death to stabilize well into the double-digits again, all while running away with the game on the back of a Bona Fide-Baneslayer Angel. I definitely would push you into Batterskull with absolute confidence. It's easy on the mana (costs more yes but colorless is a big bonus), it's as resilient as Thrun against a different subset of cards, but it can take over the game quickly and decisively over the course of a few turns. So far, I've been very pleased.

EDIT: as for Pact vs Pulse, it's a meta call. Do you expect more U/W planeswalkers, Tron, Bogles, Griselbrand, Hive Mind, Blood Moon, Batterskull type effects? Or more Tron, Pod, Affinity, etc.? Pact is better against faster decks and obviously is insane against Twin specifically. I also would honestly prefer it in the mirror and against most Pod decks too, as being able to tap out without fear of Angels/Exarchs/Goblins etc is a stronger effect than a Vindicate is most times. We generally are trying to get to play 2 spells per turn (threat + removal or double removal to protect existing threats), and Pact sort of "jumps" us into this zone a turn or two early when we need the tempo the most. Pulse is a safer spell against random stuff and specifically Tron, but in the expected meta I would lean toward a 2nd Pact personally, or possible a 2nd Dismember if you only run 1. My split is 3 Decay, 2 Pact, 2 Dismember, 1 Disfigure, 1 Pulse right now, and it's been serving me well.

So, yeah, just wanted to report my victory at my 3rd modern tournament, going 5 - 0 - 0, losing a single game against burn 17 players.

Round 1 - UR delver

Pretty straightfoward stuff, he plays threats, I kill them. He can't deal with goyfs. 2 - 0


Round 2 - Zoo

One of the best players of my region, often winning legacy tournaments. He is on the play, so that was bad news... but game one he gets mana screwed for about 4 turns, only playing 2 nacatl and a loam lion. Slaughter pact saved my ass game 2, as it allows me to play 2 kill spells on turn 3 and stabilize. Game 2 I have all the answers. 2 - 0


Round 3 - Jund (rgb)

Another good player. Games went as they're supposed to, threat - kill spell, until I get the upper hand for having versatile treetops while he is stuck with clunky ravine. Game 2 climax'es when I topdeck dismember to kill his Olivia, as she would start to make combat a bit complicated. 2 - 0


Round 4 - Burn

I had a pretty good hand game one, but his one was quite too insane to beat, he was on the play too. Game 2 I draw finks AND baloth, but he skull cracks twice and I only get 2 life xP. Either way I'm able to win game 2 by the skin of my teeth, and game 3 went pretty smoothly. 2 - 1


Round 5 - RUG twin

Lots of experienced players, but I guess I was on a lucky streak. Game one ended with me at 1, despite a much more advanced board. I feared for a trick, but in the end he had nothing and was hoping I would make a mistake. Game 2 was getting dominated by my 5/5 ooze, 1 turn away from lethal he sower of temptation's it, I had disfigure ready and won the match. 2 - 0



I'm absolutely happy with the deck, it's insane. It's my 3rd modern tournament, and I only lost 4 games (1 match) in 13 matches.

Marsh Flats is slightly better because it fetches Swamp , but a split of Flats/Heath is totally fine too. Ideally you probably still run 4 Verdant, 3 Marsh, 1 Heath. But it also depends on your build and preferences.

Uhhhh, no. I don't think it's time to empty the pits here.

The card is probably playable in standard, and there might even be a Modern deck that uses it, but I think it's far too expensive and fragile to be very good. It's certainly not better than just having lingering souls.

Fun card, but not worth jumping through all those hoops I'm afraid. Not to mention the dissynergy with Goyf. We like our graveyard too much.

Maybe if Empty the Pits was a single X, but even with delve you're paying 4 black and a ton of mana / cards from gy to eek out a small number of 2/2 tokens with XX in the cost.

I see your point, I guess I was just thinking of it in terms of a standard Rock shell. Making a deck to abuse it is certainly possible - seems that there's a lot of delve enablers in Khans.

Quote from quizzlemanizzle »

I don't think its worth to worry about Tarmogoyf when you just put 5+ 2/2 into play EOT of your opponent for just 4 mana. Not many hoops to jump through for that. Better deal that sorcery speed 2 1/1 for 3 mana I would have to think.

Also Goyf still will be a beater since your don't exile the opponents yard.

I think it is a tremendous card and will be successfull in a BG control shell.

Alright, let's take a closer look at the issues here.

First is this: Remand. And Countermagic in general but especially Remand. Remand WRECKS this card, and blue decks are popular enough that this will matter a lot.

The second thing is a comparison: something like Tombstalker is much more efficient than this card and still sees basically Zero play in Modern. Sure, having multiple bodies instead of one is sometimes a boon, but having a 5/5 black flier is pretty darn good as well. Phyrexian Obliterator is another insanely powerful creature with a similarly prohibitive (but still cheaper) cost, and that card also only sees occasional play, since it is sometimes just a 4-mana vanilla dude. And many decks will have a harder time dealing with Obliterator than a bunch of 2/2s. We also have Grave Titan, which costs more technically but is easier to cast and requires no backup support. He sees very little play, despite being 10 power for 6 mana.

Third, what is this card really doing for us? At best, you might be able to Empty for 5 on turn 4/5 in most cases, given a list that supports this card. But you've spent at least one of your turns already doing next to nothing (Satyr, Grisly, etc) just to set up this effect, which means you might be behind. And then you have a bunch of tapped Zombies, and you are tapped out with nearly 0 cards in your graveyard. So you’re giving your opponent until Turn 5 or 6 to have to deal with 10 power of creatures? They can race your Zombies, block them, burn you out, combo you out, resolve a sweeper, etc. There are too many things that can just go horribly wrong with this strategy.

Many of the popular decks are just too fast or too resilient to this card. Tron can sweep the board. Twin can combo you out or race them with Burn and Pestermites. UWR can do similar. Both can just counterspell your one key card. Affinity will kill you long before you resolve the card. Pod can easily stabilize the board or just combo you out post-Empty. BG/x mirrors will discard your expensive threat and eat your graveyard with Scooze. Lingering Souls and Goyf also block down your Zombies quite well. Bogles will race you with a vigilance lifelinker. Burn has you dead by the time you get to BBBBxx mana. The list goes on.
And yes, making your Goyf smaller is very relevant. You’re effectively making our best creature worse for the sake of a late game bomb that isn’t very bomby. And all the other Goyfs and Empty the Pits you draw will be terrible after the first one.

Look, I like the card, and thank you for spoiling it since I hadn’t seen it yet, but it’s just not happening in this deck. The fundamental problem is that by itself, it’s way overcosted, and would only be relevant in very long grindy games. And to make it cost 4, you need to play bad support cards that do next to nothing by themselves, making you more vulnerable to discard, countermagic, and decks with better threat density (like BG). And the reward just isn’t there.

If you want to work on this strategy some more, I would highly encourage you start a new Deck Discussion thread to get some ideas and work on the strategy with some other brewers. It could definitely be a very fun archetype, but it simply does not fit into the existing BG/x shell as anything more than a 1-of for fighting the mirror or something, and even that is a stretch.