MTG Salvation

I think we're going to be a fair bit closer to a playable UW control deck. Having a one-card answer to Eldrazi ramp is a big deal, as it's one of the things control traditionally finds hardest to deal with.

There are definitely other infinite mana combos in Standard that may be considered simpler (although I doubt there are any really good ones). Here's what I could come up with in 10 mintues:

Combo 1
Cards in play:
Cryptolith Rite
Greenwarden of Murasa
Eldrazi Displacer
Hedron Crawler (not summoning sick)
7 other creatures without summoning sickness (produced with Secure the Wastes or your method of choice)

In hand:
Tenacity

Tap your creatures for mana, cast Tenacity to untap them, then blink the Greenwarden to get your Tenacity back. With one less creature, you can still have infinite power, but not infinite mana.


Combo 2
Cards in play:
Cryptolith Rite
2 Nettle Drones (not summoning sick)
3 Herald of Kozilek

In hand:
Ancestral Statue

Any combination of drones and heralds works as long as you have at least five, and the drones are not summoning sick. Tap the drones for mana, play the statue from hand to untap the drones, have the statue bounce itself. You can use it for infinite damage to the face in place of infinite mana.

Combo 3
Cards in play:
Embodiment of Insight
Weirding Wood
2 Retreat to Coralhelms
Nantuko Husk

In hand:
Any land

In graveyard:
Drownyard Temple

Play the land from hand to turn your enchanted land into a creature via the embodiment. Use the untap triggers from the Retreats on it to generate mana. Return the drownyard temple to play, animate it with the embodiment, and stack the triggers on the enchanted land for more mana. Sac the drownyard temple to the husk and repeat. Also gives infinitely large husk.

I was very short on removal, which seems to have been a consistent problem for me in this format so far. I firstpicked Immolating Glare in my first pack, taking it over a good white rare in Munda's Vanguard, and it ended up being the only decent removal I got in my colours at any point. Initially it looked like WU fliers was the way to go, but some later picks made me decide on aggressive WR. I'd also lost in the finals of the previous draft to a good RW deck, so I knew it was doable. I had quite a few concerns going into the matches, particularly the lack of removal but also because I hadn't picked up a couple of the cards I was hoping would show. Nevertheless, the deck looked cohesive so I felt I had some chance.




MVP(s): The deck mostly ran on a good curve and the cards working well together, without any real standouts. However, it's worth noting that the equipment subtheme functioned really well with Captain's Claws/Weapons Trainer/Chitinous Cloak.
Underperformers: Most cards played their part. United Front was weak, partly because I'd forgotten to add Meandering River to my starting list and so could only get a max of two from it. Affa Protector was really just a filler creature that never did much.
Overall Record: 6-2. Flattened the first round with speed. Second round was a slow player with a slow deck, I dropped a game to mana flood but won the others with fliers after he stalled out the ground. This fellow was clearly the one who'd drafted all the white removal. Third round was a 3-colours + C deck that overwhelmed me in one game when it hit all its colours and some good spells, but was too slow in the other games.
1st Picks: Immolating Glare, Captain's Claws, Undergrowth Champion (opened a pack with zero playable red or white cards, so I took the mythic)

I actually like Cohort, simply because it's rare under WotC's current design philosophy to see activated effects that don't have huge mana costs tacked onto them.

Quote from Astacius »

no Athreos, God of Passage? I am really disappointed, this card fits perfectly and its next card to run with Flamewake Phoenix, and I am also using 2 main Bile Blight, really useful vs goblins, GW Collected, atarka red etc.

I will try Fiery Conclusion and new Liliana

Athreos is a nombo in a lot of sacrifice decks. No opponent will bother paying the 3 life to keep Bloodsoaked Champion or Tymaret, the Murder King from returning to your hand, because most of the time they are better in the graveyard.

Quote from Mrow_Mix »

I like the interest in making living lore a functional deck.

My biggest concern here is that this deck has no way of controlling the match until landing a living lore. There's also no ways to ensure that living lore will hit your opponent. Once it hits the table, it can be chump blocked by anything and there's several ways for an opponent to remove it. I think the deck needs to function in a more controlling way rather than a goldfish fill your bin style while doing little until turn 4.

For me, it needs more removal and counter spells. I don't think living lore can be the featured card in the deck. It doesn't do enough on it's own fast enough to warrant building around it.

Quote from Niallplaysmagic »

What if you toolboxed the deck a little more - run a gifts package and a few more gnarly spells, maybe stuff like Enter the Infinite, Eternal Dominion, Army of the Damned, Temporal Trespass, Time Stretch, etc. If you're going to be in grixis because of Cruel, consider stuff like faithless looting and tormenting voice to drop fat spells that are sitting in your hand. Then if the living lore plan completely falls apart, you've still got the possibility of reanimating some fatties like Griselbrand or Iona/Elesh, but obviously you need to be 4c for white to do this. Just some thoughts, but it could be a fun FNM deck for sure.

Is living lore the only only card that can cheat the spells / benefit from having HUGE spells in the yard?

I agree with the thought that the deck needs to diversify a bit more to be more robust. This was a first pass where I just focused on putting the combo together quickly, but I expected it would ultimately be better to at least have some more controlling elements in it.

Playing around, I hated Thought Scour. I was never happy when I found myself with it over another card, so it should go. Removing it and a couple of other things gives me room for some interaction. Naturally delve spells are a good fit, so I'm looking at Murderous Cut, possibly with some number of Lightning Bolts and Mana Leaks.

I've been wanting to to put together a Living Lore combo deck since the card was announced, and have finally got around to assembling a deck for it on MTGO. The list I'm putting here initially is the deck as I currently have it. It's untuned and consists of what I had available on MTGO at the time; the mana base is particularly horrendous. Hopefully I'll be able to upload a more ideal list for it later.

Quote from Aether7 »

I think Steam Augury is underrated. Not many good draw spells in standard.

Yeah, too bad Standard doesn't contain any draw spells so good that they've been banned from every eternal format.

I have been thinking about how I'd use this card for a combo deck, and this my preferred method at the moment:

I'll want to play it with haste, and I'm going to need to spells in the graveyard to do anything with it. Cruel Ultimatum seems like one of the best options for comboing, so I'd set the deck up as Grixis.
- Put in a bunch of cheap self-mill such as Thought Scour and maybe Faithless Looting.
- Run a few counterspells to protect it, things like Swan Song or Remand.
- Living Lore and Cruel Ultimatum as the combo pieces I need to mill.
- And finally Postmortem Lunge to actually start the combo.

Quote from Novajoe »

Quote from Redfang »

For a sideboard card, how do you feel about corpseweft? Seems like it might be an okay card against decks you can't plow through early.

corpseweft has been pretty insane. I probably need to go up to at least 2 copies. It's been fantastic at recycling creatures against decks with a lot of sweepers.

As a way of refueling your deck, how do you feel Corpseweft compares to direct card-draw options such as Pain Seer or Raiders' Spoils?

Quote from Phil Bowles »

[quote from="Bafflement »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/the-rumor-mill/new-card-discussion/599661-graveyard-strategies-present-and-future?comment=5"]I don't think there's a discard engine currently/soon to be in in Standard faster than Sultai Charm, Necromancer's Stockpile or Sibsig Icebreakers. By the time you can cast most of these, you're usually better off casting Sidisi 1 following a mana creature, which is also a minimum turn 3 play. If you're skewing your mana base sufficiently to reliably play Tormenting Voice on turn 2, you probably can't use your reanimation/graveyard tools immediately anyway.

If you're looking to have some discard to avoid reanimation targets getting stuck in your hand, I'd argue the best card for it at the moment is Monastery Siege. It fills the graveyard, digs for what you need and lets you dump anything you want out of your hand.

There isn't one obvious best graveyard deck, but there's support for a ton of different graveyard strategies, and the amount of graveyard hate in Standard is relatively low at the moment.

Quote from flappy »

"All colors are equally skill intensive" is a horrible statement. Any topic with the statement "everybody is equally right" disqualifies each and every possible debate.

The question is: why is blue the most skillful? And the answer has to do with decision making, resource management and reactivity. As a blue mage, you're often making choices on when to counter (or not), when to outtap or not, etc. It's a reactive style, and you need to analyze and anticipate on your opponent. I'd say green and/or red are the least skillful, as they're mostly about playing your deck (often through ramping) as quickly as possible.

So yes, there is something inherent to blue that makes it more skillful, and that is counterspells and other reactive abilities mostly found in blue.

Expecting more "they're all equal" responses below.



EDIT: kudos to the OP and his friends for at least having the intuition to brand blue the most skillful.

That's a bit of a fantasy. Playing counterspells tends to make players feel like they're playing cleverly, because they are answering their opponent's plays as they happen. However, the truth is that the decision whether to play a counter or not is usually incredibly easy. Playing against a counter deck can require skill, since it involves careful sequencing and planning to play around what your opponent is most likely to have.

Interesting cards. Dragon Whisperer and Mirror Mockery look very cool, plus we get a hoser cycle.

Quote from Emcee_Mikey »

The problem with cheap removal is the effect on limited. That being said, a SINGLE kill spell shouldn't be an issue, just make sure to run your bombs gold colored. Since we're also talking about which colors should die, red is the dumbest color ever. People who complain about blue are red mages.

Cheap removal isn't bad for limited. When you cut back hard on removal, you get stuff like THS limited, which was awful.