MTG Salvation

@greedemorris it's a tricky predicament. On one hand, it's Wizards' fault the bug exists, so why is it our job to step around it? On the other, you wouldn't ever intentionally do this to an opponent in paper, as that would be cheating. I have no idea if utilizing bugs in this way is punishable or not, but I just play around the way things are programmed online.

@Sgobba
I have also recently been playing Hive Mind--in the sideboard, however. I played a league today and I found myself siding it in in almost every matchup. I brought it in against eldrazi taxes, grixis shadow, eldrazi tron and the humans deck. And funnily enough, it won me 3 of my matches in post-board games. I went 4-1 that league, losing to monowhite hate bears, and beating the aforementioned decks. In the match against the humans deck it was actually my only live draw, as a titan would not have allowed me to win as they had a huge board and I was at a low life total. I've decided to try playing 1 in the main and 1 in the side. Also, winning with Hive Mind is the most deviously satisfying thing. It honestly makes me feel a little dirty, but makes me laugh at the same time. Being able to win games out of nowhere when you had no right to feels awesome. My results earlier are hardly enough to come to solid conclusions, but I'll definitely be playing Hive Mind a bit more to get a better evaluation of it in the deck in the current meta.

@daviusminimus
I also recently cut my number of relics from 3 to 2. It hasn't seemed as good recently, but I still like having a decent chance of drawing it against the decks where it matters.
The nice thing about groves is they allow you to more consistently cast sweepers out of The board on-curve, in addition to buying time against death's shadow. I feel like unless you're playing serum visions, groves are better than sanctums. I prefer groves with explores over the sanctum route right now. In your list I would cut spell pierce and ssg for 2 explores and play groves.

Does this also mean that gemstone mine enters with no counters on it? That also potentially hurts.

@grilledcheese @daviusminimus
I'll cut scouts against any deck playing electrolyze. Unlike UW control, Jeskai can present a reasonable clock, so I would never cut amulets. I am also in the camp of almost never cutting amulets though. So much of the deck's strength is from the card that I need a really good reason to cut them, like seeing multiple ancient grudges from an opponent. I board out scouts, board in thragtusk, trackers, and dismember if I've see spell queller, because that card is annoying. Most of their removal is burn, so they have limited answers to a resolved titan.

Thanks for all the replies. I think Opt will see a lot of play in Modern in decks that want to hold up mana for interaction on their opponents' turns, and decks that want more cantrips in addition to the cantrips they're already running. However, I do agree after consideration that serum or sleight are better for amulet as the additional info is more valuable than instant speed in our deck.

What do you guys think about Opt? Now that the card is being reprinted, it could possibly be an alternative to serum visions in the lists running them. Instant speed doesn't matter that much for us, but it could still be better than serum visions in our deck if we're just missing 1 piece and can find it with the scry. However, sleight of hand might just be better since we don't really care about instant speed. Situations where instant speed could be relevant are against Lantern and decks we need to hold up swan song for.

@0oSunnYo0 The main appeal to leyline is the ability to play it on turn 0. Also, the matchups you want leyline are matchups against destructive revelry or k-command. By the time you can cast orb, it may be irrelevant or easy to deal with.

@daviusminimus I've still been jamming amulet online, but not as much. The bug with slayer's stronghold almost always untapping first has really been irritating me. I've also played a couple of PPTQs recently with middling results. Went 4-3 in one and 3-2 drop in another.

@Talgardo

I've actually come to think taxes is one of my more favorable matchups. I cut some pacts, relics and explores and bring in sweepers, dismembers, and all lower-drop creatures i have. Kill leonin arbiter on-sight and try to get as many lands on the board as quickly as possible. Amulet is also very important in this matchup, as sometimes they do have land disruption-heavy starts and Azusa + amulet is your best way out of that. EE and ballista are also great against them. I've had taxes players get so traumatized by them that they brought in stony silence.

Against the eldrazi version, dismembers are great. I also play an ancient grudge, which is awesome if they have vial and tidehollow sculler and occasionally golem tokens from blade splicer. Thragtusk is always great against eldrazi decks as well.

@daviusminimus
Thanks for the tips, I'll definitely keep that in mind in the future.
Here's my current decklist (if I can get this formatting right):


I hope to see you jamming some Amulet on camera. Good luck!

Hey guys. I was recently on stream playing Amulet at my LGS. here's a link to the video if any of you are interested: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/165788754

I play two matches throughout the night. The first is against abzan death's shadow, and starts at about 58 minutes in. The second is a game 3 against Lantern Control, coincidentally being played by my roommate (we were both in the finals ~25-30 people at the event).
The game against lantern starts at 3:11:30.

Feel free to give me any criticism and/or comments about my gameplay if any of you are interested--I welcome them!

Also,
@daviusminimus, I like your list! Mine is very similar. My only real "tech" is playing a 2nd EE in the mainboard, which actually wins me one of my matches on stream. I also play an ancient grudge in the board and have been very happy with it. Good luck at GP Birmingham! Represent!

Hey, guys. Have any other online players been having inconsistency struggles with bounceland triggers? When comboing, it used to be get boros garrison first, then stronghold, then they would untap in the correct order. Now it seems there's no rhyme or reason to how the triggers stack, no matter which order you select the lands. Has anyone found a solution to this, or experienced the same problem?

I'm intrigued by the chameleon, I'll probably try one out. On another note, what do you guys think of the new green crucible creature from HOU, Ramunap Excavator? I ran 1 crucible in my sb for a long time and made good use of it. The ability to pact for a crucible now could be big game. I know I'm going to try it out anyway.

I also saw kanister's list. It seems he cut ghost quarter and the second basic forest to make room for the groves. I'm currently playing just two groves, but when I had 1 in my opener vs grixis shadow, it felt great, so I could see playing more of them due to the prevalence of the deck online. Even if it somewhat hinders other matchups, it could be worth it.