MTG Salvation

Small changes to the lands. As I was writing the "Card Choices" section of the long post, I realized I was still running Ghost Quarter, which really should be a Strip Mine. I also cut a forest for Boseiju, Who Shelters All because resolving an Overrun uncountered is important.

CHANGES

I've had a chance to get a lot of testing in recently, so a few of the testing cards made their way into the main list:

IN
+ Sandwurm Convergence
+ Patron of the Orochi
+ Lifecrafter's Bestiary

OUT
- Rowen
- Hall of Gemstones
- Primal Command

Lifecrafter's Bestiary replaced Rowen because it provided much better card advantage, plus I really like the scry ability. As a few people have suggested, Patron of the Orochi is an all star in this deck. Having an untap effect that also comes with a big body is really nice. Sandwurm Convergence didn't take much testing to convince me of its power. Not only did it single-handedly prevent me from losing to a flying Voltron deck, getting a 5/5 wurm on each of my turns was nice, too. Hall of Gemstone and Primal Command are both good cards, but I found myself not casting them as much as I expected, so they got the axe.

The only card I'm actively testing right now is The Great Aurora. It's been in the deck for a while now, I just haven't ever drawn it.

Quote from vandertroll »

Good to hear that the deck is rolling!
I think that Hall of Gemstone is critical because it hoses so many decks and strategies. Do you think City of Solitude could work as well?Cast it a couple of turns before you go in for massive damage.

Edit: I just noticed Hunting Wilds. Isn't it too expensive? You play it without the kicker cost?

Hall of Gemstones is really helpful. Even though I've pretty much removed the whole "slow down our opponents" part of the strategy, I still think effects like this are important for getting through counter spells and the like. I like City of Solitude as some redundancy with Dosan. If it does make it in, I feel like I'm getting to nearly enough enchantments to make an enchantress worth it for some card draw...

You're right that I'll pretty much never kick Hunting Wilds. I wanted some more ramp effects that bring in more than one land, and I just happened to have a copy of Wilds on hand. It could just as easily be a Ranger's Path.

Another good suggestion I hadn't thought of. I knew making a thread was a good idea, haha

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

I'm pretty sure I have a copy of Animate Dead. Eternal masters was good for that, was hoping to pick up entomb too but no such luck.

I actually think Stitch Together is really solid tech for Dralnu. You'll almost always hit threshold so it's decent reanimation. Not instant, but you can't complain for BB.

You make a good case for Stitch Together. The reason I don't see me adding it to my list is it only grabs things from my own graveyard, so I don't know what I'd replace for it. Zombify is also one sided, and costs 4, but I have a full-art version that I couldn't bring myself to cut...

It's really too bad Entomb is >$10. It's just such a good card. It also allows for silly things like turn 2 Jin-Gitaxias. I guess that's why it's >$10...

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

Quote from GloriousGoose »

Why no Yawgmoth's Will? The card is absurdly powerful. Resolving it in the lategame practically guarantees a win, even without boatloads of mana. I'd cut Sword of War and Peace since it only seems there to protect Dralnu from Blasphemous Act. Similarly, I would think Rite of Replication would have a home here. Double kicked Rites on Kokusho, the Evening Star is a quick way to close out a game. Has Bloodchief Ascension been doing much work without being a combo piece? At any rate, this is a nice primer, so thanks!

I can see Rite of Replication here. Yawgmoth's Will seems a little winmore here. Especially since there's recursion of spells and reanimation of creatures here anyway, it seems like cramming what Dralnu can do over a longer period into one turn. I guess it's good for taking the table by surprise, but I see it as being a little redundant here.

My thoughts exactly on Yawgmoth's Will. I am excited about Rite of Replication. I had been looking for an end-game card to replace Army of the Damned and I have no idea why I haven't thought of Rite before. Even without considering the Kokusho synergy, there are just so many ways Rite can close out games. And sure, it can benefit from your opponents' creatures, but unlike what we were talking about with things like the primordials, it isn't dependent upon your opponents to be good. How about 5 Massacre Wurms? Sounds alright to me...

Quote from rogerandover »

Like you said in the OP, I also think your deck is a little bit all over the place. I don't see a lot of synergy in the stax-peices you put in the deck. You play a decent amount of creatures and have Overburden. Your curve is pretty high, and that makes me think Winter Orb and Static Orb isn't all that good. Why do you even want to slow the game down?

I would focus more the synergy with you sacrificing a lot of your stuff. You already have a few things, but Im sure more could be found. Mycosynth Wellspring could maybe do some work. Maybe even added a few ways to hit with those pumped atogs (Rogue's Passage).
A lower curve with stuff that cantripped to your sac-effects, could maybe enable a combo faster (right now you got Grave/Ashnod/Nim - with Conspiracy atogatog is lethal).

I think you're right about both the deck being all over the place, and needing to add more sacrifice synergy. I think when I first came up with the list I was just thinking "this is a dumb idea, I don't need to think about it, just throw in stax pieces!" And it hasn't really worked out. I think I'm going to revamp the stax package and add more sacrifice synergy. I'm not going to throw out stax all together, because I still think the deck can work like that, it just needs a lot of work. For example, in one test game Uba Mask ended up being really solid. I'll post an updated list when I've got it somewhere where I like it.

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Thanks to getting some store credit from the EDH league at my LGS, I got some fetches to work on the mana base. I've also made a few other changes to the non-land cards in the deck:

OUT
- 2 Islands
- 1 Swamp
- 1 Plains
- Sidisi, Undead Vizier
- Blue Sun's Zenith
- Hinder
- Crush of Tentacles
- Rupture Spire

IN
+ Polluted Delta
+ Bloodstained Mire
+ Flooded Strand
+ Hallowed Fountain
+ Toxic Deluge
+ Stroke of Genius
+ Windfall
+ Enlightened Tutor
+ Mox Opal

I'm not totally sure about the Sidisi -> Enlightened Tutor swap, but I think it's going to be worth it. Sure, Sidisi can tutor anything but there are a lot of good artifact and enchantment tutor targets. Also, 1 mana vs 5 and instant vs sorcery-speed are both big upsides. I felt I had plenty of counters and Hinder was the weakest, so it got cut for Windfall. Crush of Tentacles was a bit much at 6 mana, so Toxic Deluge felt better there. And Stroke of Genius is basically identical to Blue Sun's Zenith (the shuffle clause was rarely important) except that it is less color-intensive. I think the next pricier card on my list to grab is Mox Opal, probably to replace a land.

EDIT: I got a Mox Opal soon after posting this update so, rather than waiting until I updated more cards, or posting a separate update for a single card, I just changed this list.

I feel like you could do a little bit more to enable Delirium without compromising the theme too badly. Obviously the expensive fetch-lands would be great, but there's also

• Jund Panorama
• Terminal Moraine
• Warped Landscape
• Myriad Landscape
• Blighted Woodland
• Blighted Fen
• Font of Fertility
• Seal of Primordium
• Seal of Doom
• All is Dust
• Oath of Nissa (can't legend rule it like you can in Standard right now, but this sort of thing tends to get swept up in Austere Commands and whatnot)
• Oath of Liliana (ditto)
• Garruk Wildspeaker

Mutavault would be fine here as well but if you don't own one already it's probably not worth the price-tag for this deck.