MTG Salvation

Hey guys,

I was thinking hard about what I wanted to play vs. the field right now, with quite a few decks doing well we have a sort of rock/paper/scissors format. So we need to find a solution, a deck that can play any of the regular top decks at around 50/50 win rate that rewards good technical play.

How about a fusion between Seasons Past shell with B/W control build to make an Abzan control?

Why Seasons Past shell?

Petitions allow us to run a "Silver Bullets" build in the main/sideboard that allows us to specifically target some match-ups with hate while saving deck/SB slots. It also allows us a late game card advantage/life engine.

Why B/W control?

This list has lots of great 1 for 1 removal, and great exile effects that assist in this deck being a "generalist". It also comes with quality Planswalkers that allow accured card advantage left unchecked, these walkers also come back with Season's past. Basically Planswalker grind is Plan A, Seasons Past is Plan B and supports inevitability.

What do we want out of our colours?

Black - Targeted removal, mass removal, discard, walkers, silver bullets
White - Targeted removal, walkers, targeted removal, silver bullets
Green - Engine cards (Seasons past, Nissa's Renewal/Pulse of Murasa), utility (traverse?), silver bullets

I will be attempting to craft a decklist today, but I wanted to run this by the community to see if anyone else has tried this sort of Abzan shell?

Here is a quick mock-up of the deck. This version is purposely avoiding the token route in favor of main deck Virulent Plague. It runs 3 Petition/1 Seasons Past as a nod to the strength of the engine, but doesn't commit 4/2 to ensure the rest of the deck is solid.

There was a deck that SaffronOlive played against when he was spotlighting UB Demonic Tentacles.

Soooo many tapped lands... this deck is soooo slooooow O.o

First of all, sorry for my poor english (not my native language).

I'm trying a different kind of the Abzan Seasons Past:



I was trying to play with the B/G version of the deck, but it has a very weak board presence. I was able to control de game but taking too long to kill my opponent, giving them the chance to come back to the game.

With white, we got Sorin who put a lot of pressure on the table, giving us card advantage and killing creatures or planeswalkers from our opponents. Gideon is in here to put more pressure and possibly be one win condition together with Kalitas and his zombies.

One card that I would like to try here is Though-Knot Seer, this creature is amazing, but I'm in doubt if it gets any place in this deck, I'm using 4x Laguish MD so I don't know if it is viable to play it.

I'm returning to Standard after a long period out of the format, so any help would be great

Wedges are absolutely broken in standard, thanks to colorless mana you are essentially playing 4c. There are a couple of cards worth noticing thanks to this:

Warping wail: this is especially useful against aggressive decks (like humans) since you can exile a creature with toughness or power equal to 1, counter a languish or declaration in stone, and you can add a potential bloquer at instant speed.

Eldrazi displacer: control beast.

Thought-knot seer: needs no introduction.

Mana base should look something like this

• 3 llanowar wastes
  
• 3 caves of koilos
  
• 2 evolving wilds
  
• 2 shambling vent
  
• 2 hissing quagmire
  
• 3 fortified village
  
• 1 canopy vista
  
• forest
  
• swamp
  
• plains
  
• wastes

…let´s say 25 lands total

Now, since you would be playing at least 4 manlands, it would be dumb not playing 4 sylvan advocate, since you’re playing white it would be great to play 2 archangel avacyn as a beater, and at least 2 tireless tracker to aid card draw, the same for about 1 kalitas (but it could be best suited to SB). So I would play this creature core (based on value alone):

• 4 sylvan advocate
  
• 2 tireless tracker
  
• 2 eldrazi displacer
  
• 4 thought-knot seer
  
• 2 archangel avacyn
  

…Let’s say about 14 creature min.

Then we have other spells, you want to play 4 declaration in stone, maybe up to 2 ultimate price, 2 ruinous path (since there’s a lot of value to add with sylvan advocate and manlands), I wouldn’t play more than 1 anguished unmaking in the main since it costs a lot of life and ruinous already answers potential PW’s, and if you want a wrath effect 1-2 languish would be enough. About 2 duress would do (because the meta is truly split between aggro and control) and then we could add the seasons past package.

• 2 duress
  
• 4 declaration in stone
  
• 2 ultimate price
  
• 2 ruinous path
  
• 1 languish
  
• 2 warping wail

…we got 13 removal.

The season past package is

• 3 dark petition
  
• 2 seasons past
  
• 1 nissa’s renewal

…SP 6 spells.

That leave us with 6 spells, what would you want to play there? I feel the deck would still need card draw or ramp and life gain against super-fast openings. Pulse of murasa is great for life gain and recursion (you can recover a sylvan advocate or an evolving wilds for that matter), and the best card spell in black IMO would be Painful truths (and you could control how much life you pay thanks to the painlands).

• 1 pulse of murasa
  
• 2 painful truths

Right now the deck would be:



Then we could add the following SB cards

• 2 clip wings
  
• 1 naturalize
  
• 1 duress
  
• 2 transgress the mind
  
• 2 kalitas, traitor of ghet
  
• 2 pulse of murasa
  
• 2 virulent plague
  
• 1 infinite obliteration
  
• 2 anguished unmaking

Obviously this is a first draw and everything is subject to change, and everyone should play whatever they want/feel/like, but in theory I would start here, maybe adding one or 2 utility lands instead of canopy vista and the single wastes like mirrorpool or blighted fen.

Have you seen Reid Duke's recent Abzan Demonic Pact build? He had issues with Oath of Nissa not having enough targets, I'm thinking about tweaking some of the numbers to increase the creature count (maybe Tireless Tracker and Den Protector). Then I could run a couple Dromoka's Command instead of all those 3cmc spells. I'd also like to get a Seasons Past loop in the 75 somewhere. There are a lot of cool synergies going on, I especially like that Silkwrap into Wasteland Strangler is the perfect way to set yourself up for Demonic Pact without falling behind.

Some of the other Abzan Seasons Past decks I've seen can't generate enough pressure, they will struggle against ramp/superfriends. This one is more mid-range yet it has a bajillion ways to exile Ulamog and take out planeswalkers. Casting Tragic Arrogance with a Kalitas out looks like fun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4hcYFWh4xw