MTG Salvation

Quote from Darkninja107 »

How does Aether Swooper look for this deck? It is an artificer, so it works with the goggles, but is it worth it? It can produce a 1/1 token that's an artifact, which at that point with all the equipment and artifact lands we could consider a red splash for Galvanic Blast and other Metalcraft options. The only downside is the Token created is a Servo and not a Thopter, so it does not have Flying, but at that point I'm sure it would be an Uncommon card.

Are there any other good Energy cards that would go well with Caw Blade to help push Aether Swooper for this deck or is Swooper too lacking in power to be considered?

Swooper is too weak for the format. It's a 2 mana investment for a creature that has to attack to generate value. There's a plethora of fliers that stonewall it cold in the format, and even if it manages to get through the extra body is just a 1/1 with no evasion whatsoever. It's not even that much of a hot pick in Draft, where Aether Chaser is better. It's both Human and Artificer, and First Strike + equipment is generally a pretty good combo. It also enables the Red splash for Galvanic Blast and Lightning Bolt. It fails the Bolt test himself though, which is the only thing where I find him lacking, but hey, it's a strictly better Youthful Knight, and being honest, the card is probably at an Uncommon power level. Coupled with both Goggles (which it autopicks) and Bladed Bracers, it's a 4/4 Vigilance First Strike that made a Servo token as Edict protection if it can do a single attack. Seems promising for the Human/Artificer build. That's one hell of a curve if undisrupted.

Hey, I thought I would link this here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM0-NImtubo&t=0s

Deluxicoff takes us through a league with his Jeskai Caw-Blade. Although he doesn't end up with a good finish, I agree that the deck seems pretty solid. I do like the way his mana base runs.

This might kick-start the conversation of a three-colour deck. He doesn't splash; all three of his colours are very well represented in this deck, which makes his mana base that much more impressive.

Just took a quick look at his list (I'll try and watch the whole video later to see how it runs), but I must say it looks like a solid deck throughout the entire game. It has early tempo along with late game finishers in Flashback Firebolts and Cenn's Enlistment.

I saw this decklist a while ago when he posted it on Facebook. Running so many sorcery speed seems like a mistake, since you have to give up on the counterspell suite and play as a tap out control, and at that point, why not play Kuldotha Jeskai instead? It's important to capitalize in instant speed draw spells like Accumulated Knowledge / Artificer's Epiphany and instant removal like Lightning Bolt / Thunderous Wrath (which we seem very well positioned to abuse given Brainstorm). His manabase however is a pretty good contribution, and I think he's onto something with maindeck Relic of Progenitus, although 2 are one too much. Wouldn't run Pyrite Spellbomb however, since there's a lot more burn I would run in it's place, unless he was running some kind of Leonin Squire package. Hallow is also interesting tech against a Burn heavy meta. Here's the list I've been running since MM17 hit the shelves:



As you can see, I've already dropped Mulldrifters completely. I'm at 61 cards right now, but outside of a Prohibit I don't really know what to cut. I've tinkered with cutting an Accumulated Knowledge and substituting the other three with Artificer's Epiphany or Think Twice, but it hasn't satisfied me. I've also gotta do some cuts for 1-2 Guardian of the Guildpact too. Thunderous Wrath has been overall pretty good, being able to deal with Anglers and Marauders just for R.

You don't know how much I want a resilient threat with Flash and an instant speed Divination (preferably with some lifegain attached a la Sphinx's Revelation) lmao.

So I've been playing my list online for a while now and it has been doing, well, pretty darn awful.

The meta is just so fast that the game feels over by turn 3, where my deck basically just starts to get going. The only way I've been able to keep up was with a timely removal spell into chump blocks an then take over with life gain. This is not sound plan.

The biggest problem with this deck other than the speed is the feeling that we're jamming in reactive cards while boasting a proactive strategy. I can't leave up mana while playing mid-range threats in a timely fashion.

I think the deck really wants to be more aggressive. A more focused mid-range shells will yield much better results, in my opinion. I think accepting our weakness to artifact removal is also an important step to improving the deck with more efficient cards.

Here's what I've been thinking so far:



When playing online, Battle Screech seems like a good idea. It's very easy to pay for the flashback with Hawks or Inspectors. Essentially, the deck plays like a White Metal list, but splashing Blue for Trinket Mage and Thoughcast to give it gas.

With no mainboard counterspells, the deck instead relies on 8 removal spells to get rid of the competition.

The strength of the deck is to apply pressure in the air with cheap fliers that wield equipment. With any equipment, a 1/1 bird will trade with just about anything else that flies.

A full 4 Bonesplitter makes sure we see them often and can start swinging for lots of damage early.

Metalcraft is activated easily with 9 artifact lands, equipment and clue tokens from Thraben Inspector. Clues, Mages, thoughcasts and cycling lands gives us a pretty good way to draw more business.

Other possible aggressive cards to play could be Court Homunculus and Ardent Recruit, but they lack flying, even if they are bigger bodies. Gearseeker Serpent was suggested to me by a viewer and I like the idea of this beater in the late game, maybe as a 1/2-of.

I know this is drastically different from the build we've been playing for years, but having had the chance to really test this out competitively online has allowed me to draw a lot of interesting conclusions about the deck. I'm hoping this proactive iteration will make it a bit more competitive overall.

While I agree you've hit onto something, I think you went too far away from one end of the spectrum to another. I've also been thinking we should be more proactive, but we don't necessarily have to eschew the counterspell suite, which is our main selling point against Kitty decks. Glint Hawk and Auriok Sunchaser seem like traps IMO, since Sunchaser is already strong without equipment and Glint Hawk has nothing synergistic to bounce. With Battle Screech in the mix, why not go Azorius / Boros Kitty instead, or even straight up White Metal?

4 Bonesplitter is also an awful lot considering we have the Mages to fetch for them, I would run no more than 3 and even then that's pushing it.

Thraben Inspector is a pretty good idea too, one that I didn't even think about to test. It solves a big deal of our problems, which amount mainly to have nothing to do in the first turn if we don't deploy a tapland. Inspector can chumpblock if the opponent starts too aggressive buying us time, wall an unflipped Delver or enemy Inspector, and leave a Clue behind to cash in for a card later, while also wielding the equipment herself and protecting our finisher of choice from Edicts alongside Hawks. Coupled with Sunlance to destroy their 1 drop if we're on the play, it seems like this would improve the early turns of the deck a lot. I feel like a playset of Sunlances is one too many though, because Kuldotha Boros is a deck, and Affinity often plays things like Ardent Recruit and Auriok Sunchaser alongside a plethora of 4/4s, which make the card dead real quick. This is the list I've been playtesting for the last couple of days:



Let's forget the SB for now and focus on the maindeck, since SBs should be adapted to your local meta. Since I added the artifact lands, the landbase is a bit of a mishmash and it's far from optimal as I haven't run the hypergeometrical distribution calcs yet to make it perfect. I had to cut back on Ash Barrens as it would have resulted in a suboptimal configuration of fetches + lands (Running 6 basics and 4 lands is my general rule of thumb and it has worked pretty good so far), which also means cutting out Brainstorm.

Preordain is there instead of Ponder because I have been fooling around with both to see which one suits the deck better, and I'm currently testing Preordain, although I think Ponder is better because we still have Hawks and Mages as shuffle outlets. Preordain's main selling point is that you're not hard pressed to tap out and follow with a shuffle outlet if you really need one of the cards but the other two are trash. I think this one will merit a fair bit of testing to ultimately decide which is the better suited for the deck.

About Gearseeker Serpent, while great, I still prefer old trusty Guardian of the Guildpact. A lot harder to kill, still stonewalls Gurmag Angler and other Serpents like champ, and you don't have to pay 6 mana for it's unblockability. Any thing that kills the Guardian will also kill the Serpent except for Myr Enforcer, and even with Inspectors and Artifact land manabase we're not guaranteed to have 5 artifacts in play for the serpent. Nevertheless I think I will test a split, if only to get a general feel about how the Serpent plays.

About the Equipment section I thought about it a lot and finally settled on 2 splitters and 1 goggles rather than 3 splitters. We only really need one splitter to kill, and the goggles make our ground creatures a lot more threatening on defense, while giving Hawks the chance to bounce off Kor Skyfisher and Spire Golem and win against Glint Hawk and Mulldrifter. A 2/4 Inspector will stop cold the plethora of Pauper's 2/2 and bounce off against 3/3s, and a 3/4 Mage will eat up said 3/3.

Finally, I think that a non-artifact version of the deck is still possible with the exact same configuration but going down to 1 Den and 2 Seat, adding back the Ash Barrens, and swapping Preordain and Thoughtcast for Brainstorm and Tragic Lesson, which, as Marenkai said, plays wonderfully with gainlands.

Alright, I've rebuilt the deck and have almost a dozen games under my belt. I have to say I'm performing significantly better and have a positive win-rate with the new aggressive strategy. Here's where I'm at:



I realize my previous deck was too much of an opposite reaction in line with what I was feeling. I've gone back to including Mulldrifters, fetches and brainstorm and have cut down to 2 Bonesplitters.

I am loving this deck! The threat density is very high, while at the same time having an excellent draw package that lets the deck churn out threat after threat. With any equipment, any of our creatures can be a significant clock and I feel more than ready to trade with any of my opponents' creatures considering how easily I can replay another beater for cheap. We also have a high number of fliers which ignore other creatures altogether and represent a 4-5 turn clock.

I've easily out-grinded control decks with this strategy, and popular tempo decks like Delver, Izzet Delver, or Izzet Thermo-Archer just can't handle the constant playing of threats and efficient trading with their creatures. I've yet to play against a true aggro deck, but I imagine that this is where the might have a harder time. I did beat an Affinity deck, though it doesn't feel like a particularly good matchup.

I've noticed that in this deck, Ash Barrens is significantly better than any other fetch. Being able to brainstorm on turn 1 and then untap and cycle on upkeep has been key in really maximizing my mana and card selection.

Moving the countermagic to the sideboard has proven to be a good choice. Even when I was playing my original version of the deck, I constantly felt torn between advancing my board or holding up counters, and it sometimes resulted in a lose-lose situation. By boarding in counters in appropriate matcups, I can adjust my playing accordingly. I think something could be said for maindeck Dispel, however.

Court Homunculus has proven to be an effective tutor target. Who'd have thought that a 1 mana 2/2 could be so good? Being able to put 4 power on the board for 4 mana across two bodies has proven useful in a few scenarios.

Lastly, the removal package has been pretty good. Sunlance, while not being able to hit everything, nonetheless feels like a Lightning Bolt most of the time. I've found myself boarding it out frequently.

Overall, I'd really recommend testing this list for yourself.

The new equipment from Ixalan (searchable with Trinket Mage!) seems to be an auto-include. Also, Legion Conquistador does a fairly good Squadron Hawk impression, trading off flying and an additional 1 for a +1 power/toughness boost.

The new equipment looks great! I'm eager to try it out.

Legion Conquistador will not see much play, as far as I can see. The smaller cmc of hawks and their evasion makes them a lot better. I suppose you could run both, but that's a lot of space to dedicate to what's otherwise a Gray Ogre on the battlefield.

As for Sacred Cat, interesting idea! The cat creates card advantage as well, which is pretty relevant. I don't think it would take the place of Thraben Inspector though since it creates an artifact token for Metalcraft. What would you cut for it?

Seems like it would take the place of Lone Missionary in the side, as while it is a little slower against burn one with a bonesplitter will essentially win by itself.

Good point! I'll have to try it out! Thanks!

I've had solid results with the following, it's always a pleasure to pilot this.

Looking at your list I don't see where else it could go, except by slowing your deck down and taking out aurioks. Seems great against burn, if they shoot it twice they lost 6 damage or they can let it gain you that much back.

Although I haven't tested it (I have yet to build this deck), Court Hussar is definitely an upgrade over Sea Gate Oracle. The stats are the same (1/3 body for 2U), but Court Hussar digs 1 card deeper and has vigilance. The "drawback" of having to spend W to cast it or else it's sacrificed is almost negligible since this isn't a blink deck.

You can also test Prying Blade as an additional target for Trinket Mage.

The only thing Prying Blade really has going for it is the potential for reducing land count and relying on it making a bit of mana and also increasing the artifact count for Metalcraft stuff. Auriok Sunchaser likes this card a lot.

Is it worth running? Meh...