MTG Salvation

Is this forum still active? I've really been looking for sources on UW control, being fairly over the SFM hype. I feel that the things this deck was doing before the release of SFM was much stronger than what the current SFM lists are doing.

I've been planning to take this list to Magicfest Utrecht side events and would really like some input:

The banlist update has turned Goblins from a fun deck to bring to FNM to a deck that I might consider taking to large tournaments. Virtually all the terrible matchups for Goblins abused Faithless Looting. Stoneforge Mystic might seem scary, but we have plenty of ways to deal with the artifacts and we grind better. I'm definitely going to two cratermaker main, and I'm considering bringing a Trashmaster main although that is pretty tough with how cluttered the cmc4 slot already is. Btw, note that if you have Legion Loyalist's Battalion active, Batterskull's germ is not allowed to block!

Taking a deep look in how to beat Tron is a good plan though. I am already on 4 Field of Ruin myself and I'd recommend fitting as many as possible in the manabase. I'm also leaving my Surgical Extractions in the sideboard, since although graveyard decks are weakened, they will not be gone, and after surgicalling a tron land we are very capable of racing them.

Today I get to post the 3 most satisfying words after "draw a card"

Told you so.

Piledrivers are an absolute must.

You need them to have a reasonable shot versus noninteractive combo decks; without them, Goblins goldfishes too slow. Pro blue is also very relevant; you can attack through Snapcasters, through thing in the ice, block awoken horror forever, and dredge has no creature that can block it (forget Hogaak, it's gone next week). And together with a tutorable Legion Loyalist, it can crush through any boardstall for lethal.

I was 100% on the Frogtosser Banneret train at the start but I'm now convinced the card is too weak. The acceleration is great, but individually it is rarely worth a card, needing multiple Ringleaders to be worth the investment.

My list for reference;

Problem with Prohibit is that even at its best, you are only trading even in mana. That doesn't really get you anywhere. Furthermore, being able to counter Tron's payoff cards is important

Hogaak barely got any time in the sun and it wasn't like jeskai has been such an influential archetype so there wasn't much that a ban could influence to begin with. The main thing will be that now other Horizon cards get to shine a bit more, most notably Giver of Runes and Scale Up. And in those matchups, being a ball of spot removal like Jeskai is has its benefits.

Although I disagree with some parts of the Modern banlist, I sure as hell am glad it doesn't get the throw-a-dart approach the Commander banlist gets

Alright nice, now we're more likely to cast Rest In Peace before it's too late at least. Still want Looting gone though.

Hogaak still is a deck after this ban, I wonder what replaces Bridge. Maybe Cryptbreaker, there were already some lists playing that.

Quote from chaos021 »

Why is everyone going to MTG Nexus? Is that where this site is transferring or just bailing?

They put a lot of work into getting the site going when it still seemed liks mtgs would just be gone instead of bought over. I want to put in some support because I would like it to take off.

Quote from idSurge »

Quote from Bearscape »

I haven't looked at Nahiri for a while, but new cards like Narset and Force of Negation would definitely slide in that deck.

Would there be room for Little Teferi? If you are going Nahiri + FoN, throw in 8 Bolts + Snap + Little Teferi and the deck practically builds itself as a tap out Control/Combo deck.

Throw GoST in the side for those games against Tron, and you are off to the races imo.

EDIT: This may actually be the deck I keep around, for ease of swapping to 'real control' with Big Teferi, Breach Combo, and Kiki-Resto...

Little Tef fits very well with Nahiri I'd say. semi-timewalks like Remand, Timely Reinforcements and liltef's -3 can be really devastating with Nahiri ticking up. On top of that, liltef can bounce things like Ensnaring Bridge or Grafcage, and stops most instant speed interaction against Emrakul (most notably Cryptic Command).

EDIT: Now you got me thinking about it, Nahiri is also an excellent way to make use of narrow answer cards like Rest in Peace; just bin it in matchups where you don't need it. I'll wait until the ban announcement, but you got me interested in brewing Nahiri again.

Generally, you should be lowering your curve to make room for the new walkers. As I said before, I also think Search for Azcanta kind of became obsolete with Narset being printed.

In other news, I updated the primer for mtgnexus: https://www.mtgnexus.com/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=195

I expect to mostly post there about jeskai if it takes off

Kind of poetic for old mtgs to go down right before such a controversial ban update. My last post on the matter will kind of repeat what I've said for a long time now: Modern as an FNM format is incredibly diverse. You can sleeve up almost anything and do well at any small tournament and have fun.

However, if you are solely focussing on results, if you do not plan on ending the game on turn 3, you are fooling yourself. Modern thrives on people clinging to strategies that are outdated. If Modern was started carte blanche today, two thirds of the decks people play would never exist. Even so, those decks pick up big wins because magic is a cardgame. But if you sit down and try to beat Modern as a format, the chance that you come up with "taking turns" as the solution is zero. And when I go to a big event and get Hogaak'd or Phoenix'd or Tron'd I can only think "yeah, you are completely right".

I still play Modern every week and have fun, but I also say every week: Ban Faithless Looting

I'm a big fan on the all-in Slinggang plan and it's what I'm currently building on. Whenever I see a new deck pop up in modern my first question is "are you not just playing a worse version of an established deck?". I think Goblins can answer that question by being a creature aggro deck that is, hilariously, almost immune to removal.

Spot removal? All my creatures have etb value, are two-for ones, or too individually small to matter.
Wraths? Alright, sac my entire board and drain you with Pashalik Mons and Sling-Gang.
You survived the onslaught? Cool, completely refill my hand with Matron and Ringleader and instantly redeploy with Vial and Banneret.

This is the strength of the Archetype and I think the angle that should be pressed to not just be bad humans or bad burn.


The list I'm running now is similar to your list, but with these notes:
a. Although sling-gang and ringleader are core to our strategy, you just can't run 8 4-drops. It's too much. I've moved one of each to the sideboard for grindier matchups.
b. Either Warchief or Chieftain is a 4-of, and I don;t know which one yet. I feel Warchief fits the strategy better, but Chieftain might just be more powerful. I'm still testing this.
c. I haven't tried knucklebone Witch yet. I'm not that excited myself, as I think it will just absorb removal and is a good way to set yourself up to be blown out. But since it's a 1-drop and our one-drops are just kind of poopy, maybe it's worth it. I do think Tarfire is an underrated card though.

Quote from LeoTzu »

They HAD to roll out Historic soon. With a new rotation coming up, players are about lose a ton of cards on Arena. This gives the cards rotating some sort of use once they are no longer playable in standard. If they didn't do this, plenty of people would have peaced out of Arena because all of those cards that they spent money, gold, and/or wild cards acquiring would be absolutely worthless.

They needed to create Historic in order to show that they have a plan on Arena for cards rotating out of Standard. My guess is that they support it more if it becomes widely popular in the Arena community, or when the card pool is larger and more robust to produce a metagame that's different enough from Standard.

WotC is a business. It wants to keep as many people engaged with their product as possible. If a format is popular, it makes more sense to support it and produce product aimed at that playerbase than it does try to cripple in hopes they playerbase will switch to Standard to support that product. Why do you think they kept making Masters sets and Modern Horizons? It would be like Coca-Cola purposely tanking Sprite, in hopes of former Sprite drinkers to start buying Coca-Cola.

But rotation doesn't happen until the set after M20, right? That gives another 3 months to make Historic into something that isn't just current standard again. Considering WotC is a business, wouldn't they want to make me excited about a new format on their booming digital platform? And considering WotC is a business, wouldn't adding sets that have at least partially been programmed into Arena already not be a good thing to incentivise me to burn wild cards?

Also offtopic, but Coca Cola actually has advertised sodas with the sole purpose of failing

Quote from idSurge »

I don't believe it was bearscape who suggested that. I however added our resident conspiracy lover to my ignore months ago, so I'm not going to go confirm.

Either way, Historic is going to be nothing for a few rotations and that's how Wizards wants it. They don't want to invest energy in another format, just let it be there so ppl don't cry about their virtual content being lost.

Wait, am I a conspiracy lover? Why? Or am I misunderstanding?

I'm being hyperbolic. Did you see the way Historic got presented after months of hype? They would have been better off delaying Historic entirely if there are technical reasons for not adding older sets immediately. "They'll fix it later" is an awful excuse.

And no, I absolutely never claimed they keep Modern bad to promote Standard.

Quote from Simto »

Quote from Bearscape »

I'll root for a Faithless Looting ban until the day it happens. I expect to only see Hogaak targeted bans next week but just maybe Hogaak was enough to make someone at RnD realize Looting has be the thorn in Modern for a very long time now.

I'm also incredibly disappointed that Magic Arena's Historic format got announced with he excitement of a wet fart without any old sets being brought in. I yearn for a new eternal format that isn't kept in a chokehold by the reserved list

I can't tell you how disappointed and sad I am that the new Historic format doesn't have Kaladesh and Amonkhet in it....... I know they basically said "sometime down the line" which sounds like 2 years or something lel..... kill me.

I am really fearing another Brawl fiasco where they toss a ruleset at the playerbase and hope it sticks without any support. Arena doesn't even have a Historic ladder... I kind of feel they don't WANT Historic to become popular so people keep dumping money into Standard rotation.