MTG Salvation

I'll ask... I've been playing similar on MTG Arena for a while now and it's probably a much different meta, but I'd love to know a few things or at least get your opinions...

1) How did you feel about Ritual of Soot? Do you feel you could support white sweepers by including Treasure Map?

2) Was Disdainful Stroke worth a maindeck slot?

3) No Thought Erasure in the 75? Would you consider it the next time out if you play this?

4) I've found the Golgari match-up to be build dependent. Was there anything special about that match you remember?

I don't want my question to sound too simple (or snobbish), but why do you need Planar Bridge at all?

After reading the last couple pages of discussion (a couple of times), I understand what it does, but I'm not seeing how it makes any match-up (in particular) noticeably better. I play GW and my toughest matchups are the ones where a natural turn 3 Karn isn't enough - Burn, Infect, Zoo, Ad Nauseum. Most of these decks don't even afford me the 4th-5th turn to sweep and if I miss even a simple step early, it's a lost cause. Against all of those decks, Turn 3 Bridge, Turn 4 Activation is going to be too late. [I keep looking at GR and GB as potential 'upgrades', but keep returning to GW as I feel the sideboard options are still the best].

In almost every other match-up I feel like we are able to go with our general game plan and the match-up is at least 50-55% in our favor. Early turns - develop mana, middle turns - sweep, late turns - win. Yes, I can see how an active Bridge gets you inevitability, but I find almost every threat the deck plays gives you that. Turn 3 Bridge into Turn 4 EOT Emrakul into Turn 5 win is awesome, but this deck already has the potential of Turn 3 Karn into Turn 4 Ulamog which is gg in most matches (especially if they missed a land drop along the way).

As I've read the last couple of posts, I can see where you might push a match-up from 50-55% to 52-57% in your favor, but I'm not really convinced by the arguments [I'll wait to hear testing results for a final judgement]. Specifically, to the downside mentioned - (1) Bridge taking a spell spot is HUGE. I think the generic need for Relic of Progenitus is lower, so there may be a couple spots available, but the need to NOT draw into Bridge threats is huge too. Each threat you draw minimizes the impact of a Bridge. (2) Bridge is tough because you can't rely on it, but your build needs to take it into consideration. As is pointed out, drawing a threat makes you less reliant on Bridge, but you need enough Bridges to make it relevant/worth playing. I think with the filtering, shuffle, etc. 2 should be plenty [I wouldn't play it maindeck as a 1-of and 3-4 would likely make it the focus of the deck.] (3) Artifact removal is on the rise, even maindeck. This card makes it all more relevant and powerful against us. I can see siding it out - a lot. Cards that get sided out of every match-up are usually not warranted either. Some further counterpoints to the 'upsides' - (1) Sanctum is still worth running. I run a 1-of and find it totally worth it. With 2 Bridges that I don't need to cast, Sanctum is a 'free' way to include a powerful tutor. Casting Ulamog into next turn Ulamog usually gets a concession (putting one into play won't). (2) I can probably count the number of times I'm 'mana-screwed' at 7 mana on 1 hand. I'm either color-screwed or trying to find a land to get past 8 or 9 mana to turn on Ulamog. (3) If unanswered and you stabilize, literally any threat this deck plays wins the game. In fact, sometimes you don't even need to stabilize completely with Ulamog and/or Ugin.

I'm interested to hear how testing goes and I would never try to minimize the benefits of trying new cards or strategies, but I think it's important to evaluate how much it's doing for us.

Quote from Systematicpro »

I just went 3-1 in gameday, losing in top 8 and during swiss to abzan blue
I don't remember games very well, so no detailed report :S
From what i do remember, this deck just seems to fold to a warden into lvl up into anafenza if you don't kill warden right away. I lost games 3 and the top 8 games in similar fashions.
This deck doesn't seem to do well with a 2 land start. Every 2 lander i kept felt so risky, and i felt compelled to not crack fetches if it were a double fetch hand.
I may bump up to 27 lands, witch all the fetches and no jace it feels horrible. Jace makes me feel like i can always bail my land light hands out, but with this deck I feel like I'm walking on egg shells.
I feel like den protector is worth running, it's just too strong imo and the 3/2 unblockable is no joke against alot of decks that don't play big creatures.
I believe I agree with cuting to two shambling vents. I already run the full 12 fetches tho, so I'm not sure if I'll cut it or not, maybe add another tri land.
Pluse of murasa: i saw this on a list on goldfish, and find it interesting. what i did notice tho, was it was in a 25 land deck, and i feel this is the reason why. It's the "26th" land that ends up givning you 6 when it's needed, and a creature when not. I may try it out, i'm considering adding a 27th land to my deck and may try this.
i may try to cut the den protectors, but unfortunately i only have 1 Kalitas and don't really know what else I'd put in.
Dooes gideon or sorin fit well into this deck? I feel people really underrate sorin.

That's a solid finish!

I think its hard to expect any deck to beat an archetype's 'God' draw. When this deck curves out, it's ridiculous, too. Warden into Anafenza can be tough, but with the right draw, it's still not something you can overcome. [Soulfire, Roast, Crackling Doom, Siege Rhino would allow you to gain back 7 life and gain back the board while missing a land drop - won't obviously happen every time, but it can happen.]

As far as bumping up lands, I wouldn't. I run 26 with all 12 fetches and 3 Shambling Vent. I may trade a Vent or a Heath for another Canopy Vista, but I wouldn't add land. You can keep a 2-land hand depending on whether or not the 5 are playable - I'll keep a 2 fetch opener if I have a Duress and an Impulse or Roast. How you develop your mana is, in my opinion, the hardest decisions you make with this deck. It is sometimes correct to get a tapped dual over the basic.

Den Protector is good, but Kalitas is better against most competitive decks. It's not wrong to run Protector, but some of the play decisions will change.

Interesting point on the deck with Pulse of Murasa. It would be nice to use it in a land spot... Definitely worth testing out.

I tried Gideon, but the WW really strains the mana. I agree that Sorin is underrated and he may fit, but Ob Nixilis and Chandra are just better.

Quote from Henry009dom »

Hi guys I recently started playing this deck and I wanted to hear your impresions on fiery impulse. For me it just can't kill anything relevant other than or a jace. With people playing sylvan advocate and other 3 thoughness guys for 2 and 3 mana it just sits in my hand not doing what it is supposed to do, wich is being cheap efficient earlygame interaction. It might be because I havent played against all the decks in the format yet (Where are the atarka red in my meta seriously?), but; do you also think the card is not good enough until you get spellmastery online?

I love this deck but I find it lacks enough good early interaction, and can get really far behind if the oponent starts deploying 3 thougness creatures before spellmastery is online. And by then, it can be way too late.

Any thoughts?

I think I play this deck a little more aggressively than others. The card advantage is evident once you get into turns 6-9, so giving up some early is alright (I think). I've double Impulsed creatures (especially Thought-Knot Seer) or ran a Soulfire Grand Master into a Sylvan Advocate with an Impulse on top. Maybe it's wrong to give up the occasional 2-for-1 early (you obviously can't do too many), but I figure (1) to win you have to be there at the end and (2) you are going to get it back with a Kolaghan's Command and/or a Painful Truths... I also play my spells more aggressively and will use Command as a discard + Shock first to turn Impulse into a Lightning Bolt... I certainly might be wrong, but I find that this deck runs well that way.

Quote from Aodh »

Kozilek's Return is not that good against us. Most players are bad and they will leave up the sweeper to try to trap us. If they don't block, simply do regular combat damage to them. If they then (either before damage or EOT) try to wrath, you just blow them away with an Atarka's Command. Just don't be bad and the card will actually work to our advantage since it eats their whole turn and we can always make them pull the trigger first.

'Most players are bad' is about the worst rationale for running or not running a strategy. Kozilek's Return is good against aggro red. You might save a couple creatures, but more than half your horde will die even with an Atarka's Command. The scenario you describe is also going to give your opponent an extra turn or two by changing your strategy. Giving most decks an extra turn or two to stabilize isn't always the best idea.

The thing to remember is that our clock is faster than most decks can stabilize. I wouldn't change the game plan at all - just make sure you can win after a sweep...

I will say this again:

Playing suboptimal cards for the chance of a risky payoff is a trap.

Sylvan Primordial is deceptively more difficult to cast with the dual green mana requirement. You can't grab it off of Ancient Stirrings. It doesn't trigger Sanctum of Ugin. The trigger doesn't exile. The trigger doesn't happen if SP is countered. You can't return SP to your hand.

But hey, it combos...okay...with Planar Bridge!

You all seem to be missing the point that when we face the decks that beat us (Burn, Infect, Ad Nauseam, etc), Planar Bridge is suboptimal. It is too slow, too much dedication across multiple turns, to reliably turn those matches around. Those decks will be on the upswing once people recognize that Tron is trending.

Also, using Bridge to fetch a Skite to defend the former assumes you have it sitting with eight untapped mana in play. Imagine how much better off you would have been with any of the other major threats already.

We already win the slow, grindy match-ups. Comfortably. Slotting a turn five combo win package might get you some wins right now, but that doesn't make it optimal.

Purklefluff, go jam that build at a more serious event and see how you do. That would be a worthy test for you to prove yourself. I don't mean to take away from how well you did at your FNM (nice!), but I cannot even count the number of times I went 4-0 with experimental builds of Tron, and I'm sure I not the only one reading or posting here that does as well. Prove its gas at a day-long event or better, against an open field, and you might make me a believer.

With everybody discussing planar bridge I figured that I would chip in my two cents by saying that it definitely seems to slow to see regular play, but will win the game ~95% of the time you untap with it. Prevalence of artifact hate that will likely increase with the re-emergence of affinity is also something that will hurt its prospects. The match-ups that I see it being good against would be grixis delver, jeskai control, abzan and abzan company. Reason I don't see it being very good against jund or grixis control are the presence of kolaghans command. additionally jund always brings in ancient grudge against us anyways and has maelstrom pulse. I don't really think the card will improve any of our bad match-ups, but I am interested to see if people's testing indicates otherwise.