MTG Salvation

I want an open thread, so please contribute even if your deck uses different sets of cards. Or, try this deck out yourself. It's been absolutely amazing this past weekend, winning 5 of 6 matches. (The secret of course, is that this deck was tuned last season to beat Energy and Ramunap Red. This is still good, while most people are currently experimenting with untuned brews.)



How it works:
Generate a ton of tokens.
Run a pile of creatures who are really hard to kill but like tokens.
Run sweepers to take advantage of the above point.
Add some removal and you get to win quickly: Attacking with big creatures, or with a pile of tokens (pumped). OR with my version, cast Marionette Master, and sacrifice servos or treasures for an instant kill.

Unlike most token decks (anointed procession, anointer priest, legion's landing), this deck has the potential to be very aggressive as its creature package lets you attack through all kinds of defenses.

The deck looks interesting though I'm not sure if the Sac'-outlets are good enough as they lack evasion to punch through blockers and are vulnerable on an empty board unlike something like Bontu the Glorified (which has its own problems being a do-nothing without sac'-fodder and costing 2-mana to activate).
They can survive boardwipes which does seem pretty good so it might be their main upside though there is quite a bit of removal that can kill them like:
Cast Out/Ixalan's Binding/Vraska's Contempt/Baffling End or an early Moment of Craving (or Golden Demise).

Is their main use to enable the Marionette Master kill ? If so why not run more of her over the copy of Elenda (which looks like a slow Call to the Feast).

Does Metallic Mimic name servos ?
If so have you considered Radiant Destiny instead ? It is harder to remove and can easily grant vigilance as well as buff already existing servos.

Have you considered Golden Demise for the deck ?
You can get the city's blessing rather quickly and make it one-sided, same goes for Vona's Hunger which can be a pretty big blowout.


I have kind of a similar deck but it is more all-in on the servos and has improvise spells (Herald, Battle) instead of the sac'-outlets.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/784226-bw-improvise-servos

Great feedback! To start with, one of the lynchpins of the deck is 4 Stockpile 3 Treasure map. Together these enable me to dig deep to find particular types of cards when I need them.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

The deck looks interesting though I'm not sure if the Sac'-outlets are good enough as they lack evasion to punch through blockerhors and are vulnerable on an empty board unlike something like Bontu the Glorified (which has its own problems being a do-nothing without sac'-fodder and costing 2-mana to activate).

You are right that they can't punch through a horde of blockers on their own, but first of all, that describes an archetype mirror where the opponent is also on tokens, and secondly, this is why I have 3 sweepers in the deck. So that game plan is to activate indestructibility, cast a sweeper and attack.

They can survive boardwipes which does seem pretty good so it might be their main upside though there is quite a bit of removal that can kill them like:
Cast Out/Ixalan's Binding/Vraska's Contempt/Baffling End or an early Moment of Craving (or Golden Demise).

Yes, white and black have answers. So far I'm seeing a few in use, but not many. But these are answers to every creature so this isn't a problem, unless Golden Demise becomes the card of choice for black decks.

Is their main use to enable the Marionette Master kill ? If so why not run more of her over the copy of Elenda (which looks like a slow Call to the Feast).

Yahenni and Trafficker have many uses, which include attacking and forcing chump blocks, blocking and discouraging attacks, and enabling tricks like turning on a 4CMC fatal push at the opportune moment. I don't run more Yahenni because she's legendary, does not die very often, and it's not crucial to draw her. Likewise, Marionette Master is a great end-game card, but the deck often wins without it.

That said, Elenda is extremely powerful. She doesn't offer means of sacrifice so I would always keep Yahenni around, but I am definitely working to add more copies of Elenda. I get that it doesn't synergize with the artifact theme and I maybe should do something about that, but getting an instant pile of vampire tokens is great. Every stockpile servo sacrifice gives her counters, so it's like I get to generate more and more tokens for free.

Does Metallic Mimic name servos ?
If so have you considered Radiant Destiny instead ? It is harder to remove and can easily grant vigilance as well as buff already existing servos.

It depends what's in hand actually. Often it's servos, but it could be Vampires (Yahenni and Elenda), or Aetherborn. Mimic has the added bonus of being an artifact to Trafficker and Master. I will consider Radiant Destiny, and definitely makes more sense if I move more to a vampire themed deck.

Have you considered Golden Demise for the deck ?
You can get the city's blessing rather quickly and make it one-sided, same goes for Vona's Hunger which can be a pretty big blowout.

I'm still discovering new cards, so not yet. Golden Demise seems like a great sideboard for token matches; I'm guessing most other decks aren't especially weak to the card. Vona's Hunger could be interesting.

I have kind of a similar deck but it is more all-in on the servos and has improvise spells (Herald, Battle) instead of the sac'-outlets.
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/deck-creation-standard/784226-bw-improvise-servos

Very cool. Yeah, so my design is based around the notion of being a very hardy deck like all tokens decks are, but at the same time having the power to quickly end a game, thanks to my creature collection. (Unlike Anointed Procession decks which just stall and gain life until you have enough tokens.)
It's been successful so far in that I kill in about equal amounts each by Marionette Master, by attacking with big creatures and by attacking with tokens.

That said, it's a very mixedup deck and I'm open to pushing any of these angles if the cards are good enough.

After looking at this deck - WB Aristocrats
I think that a full-on aristocrats build can work but should be more servo-focused like the deck in this thread.
What has really caught my eye in that deck is Pitiless Plunderer which really helps with the consistency of the deck and casting Marionette Master on time.

So i've come up with this tweaked version:

Ruthless Knave is a flex slot which can also be Bontu the Glorified or Defiant Salvager but having another way to make treasure can be useful and the 3/2 isn't terribly to get in some damage.

I want to add Doomfall to the SB (as I SB it in every black deck I play) but am not sure what it should replace, maybe Thopter Arrest or Golden Demise ?

SaffronOlive posted an Aristocrats list on mtggoldfish that looked fun.

Quick question:

I get the reach that Marionette Master provides with the sac outlets and I've always been into the go wide approach of tokens. Why aren't we running Angel of Invention? Too slow? Curious to know before I sleeve up, since I already have all the components anyway.

Quote from BlackSummer »

Quick question:

I get the reach that Marionette Master provides with the sac outlets and I've always been into the go wide approach of tokens. Why aren't we running Angel of Invention? Too slow? Curious to know before I sleeve up, since I already have all the components anyway.

I don’t think this deck wants Angel of Invention because it’s not getting reanimated with base stats of 4/4. Even with Fabricate, it’s only a 4/3 and can be killed via Lightning Strike.

The reach that Marionette Master offers is far too great.

I was actually thinking of running both. It is still a lord and will gum up the board with tokens.