MTG Salvation

Mishra's Metalworker 3

Artifact Creature - Construct (R)

Tap: Add 3 to your mana pool. Spend this mana only to cast artifact spells.

1/3

No, you should not play all eight (Surgical and Extirpate) because you don't want to draw too many of them. Four Surgical is good and you could have Extirpates in the sideboard.

Mill is not a good deck but it can be built properly. Ensnaring Bridge works well with a mill strategy. I recommend the following package to make sure you can stop attacks for longer times.

-Ensnaring Bridge
-Welding Jar
-Mox Opal
-Darksteel Citadel

This accelerates your game and helps you dump your hand faster to hide behind Bridge. From there you tee off with mill cards until the opponent runs out of cards. you'll need more artifacts to enable Mox Opal. Executioner's Capsule and Mesmeric Orb are fine candidates. Orb could potentially be much better in this setting because it helps with metalcraft and it can be protected by Welding Jar. Capsule is just additional creature removal in the form of an artifact. If you're going for artifacts, Trinket Mage is very good. You can run a small toolbox in your 75 next to the standard kit. Put a Chalice in there to put at 2 to stop Ancient Grudge, which takes care of Bridge/Jar.

Essentially you'll be preying on combo decks (by having 8 extirpate effects in your 75) and you'll be playing the prison strategy against aggro/midrange decks by landing Bridge + Jar. From there you need to draw like 4 or 5 mill spells to win the game.

This is all theorycraft but might be worth looking into. It certainly seems fun.

I play RUG Delver and I don't often lose to UW and RG tron. In this match-up, the trick is to land early threats while they build up. Then, I keep mana up to defend against aggressively played Karns or something (which get hit by Leak and Pierce). Usually when their first two bombs get countered (or Clique + counter), you can close the game with a Bolt + Snapcaster (this would be turn 5 or 6). On the play, I sometimes get to use Cryptic Command to counter and bounce a land. That hurts them too, because your Leaks and Pierces will probably still be effective. Clique is also very good against them. Still, game one is difficult as they can sometimes power through if my clock is slow or they clasm me out of the game (double Delver draw with the Serum Visions set-up answered with unexpected Pyroclasm, it happens). Even if you only draw creatures, when they assemble tron, boldly represent counters. Usually they can't afford to just throw their bombs out there when you have blue lands open. Best case scenario is when I get to deprive (1-of) something in game one. I found that opponents would be very wary of it for the remainder of the match. They would wait until the last moment, or bait with inferior spells and then they might get blown out by Bolt, Snap, Bolt, untap, attack ftw.

After boarding I have four Blood Moons in my deck. While it isn't a guaranteed win, it slows them down long enough for me to get the job done.

Tron decks have their weaknesses. They prey on midrange and control decks. They lose to combo and they have problems against affinity, burn and tempo.

If you want some additional one drops I recommend Lavamancer.

The problem though is that he isn't better than the other creatures so you'll have to cut spells, which nonbos with both Delver and Lavamancer himself.

Another option is Kird Ape but again, it's far less impressive than the creatures that are already being played.

In some metagames I like to have two Lavamancers in the board that I can switch around with Vendilion Clique. For the most part, Clique is good when Lavamancer is bad and vice versa. This strategy doesn't interfere with the number of instants and sorceries you run.

In this deck I like Sleight of Hand over Serum Visions. It's because of suspended Search for Tomorrows and Sakura's waiting to be cracked. If a land search is pending, you can't really cast Serum Visions for other than just drawing a card. Sleight of Hand doesn't care about those cards and always gives access to one of two cards. I compliment my Sleights with Peer through Depths.

Shadow of Doubt in the board is awesome tech.

I don't like the Lava Spike line. You're kind of cheating yourself out of any opportunity to use Searing Blaze on the opponent's turn. If you keep two mana open and there's nothing to Blaze, then you can at least throw a bolt at the opponent's face.

Of the three possible lines, I like the Keldon Marauders line best. Then the Searing Blaze line and finally, the Lava Spike line. I agree with divisionbyzorro that it's important to examine all the lines and never make blind assumptions. Burn is a deck where the pilot has to work with what the deck gives him. Indeed, it's very important to try and get maximum value out of your cards. This and speed. It's a fine line when you want to be aggressive or when you want to maximize value with your spells. In this scenario, aggression is better than playing the value game.

Also, if you Spike early, you'll lose the ability to succesfully Blaze a potential turn two Tarmogoyf. If you hold on to Spike the Goyf is 2/3 when Blaze resolves.

No experience in the modern match-up but D&T is aggro/synergy while RUG is aggro/tempo. For the most part you're the beatdown but you need to interact once the opponent tries to create advantages through synergy. Your cards are worth more on their own but the opponent's cards become better than ours when they start creating synergies. So that's your plan. Deploy threats and pressure his life totals while trying to control their synergies through well-timed counters and bolts.

His plan should be to control the board well enough to buy time, which means his deck's inevitability will present him with the most opportunity to create synergy.

Your cards are worth double when you're already applying pressure. For instance, Leaking something on an empty board is half as good as leaking something when you are beating down with Insectile Aberration or Goyf. So you need an early threat. Can't sit back and kill/counter creatures.

It's not that obvious but in the end it's the best play, yes.

You could make a case for keeping both lands open and passing. If he plays a creature you're in great shape because you can Blaze for maximum value. If he doesn't it's fine too. He'll be using a card to remove your Guide (which already did four damage) or he'll take another two from Guide.

That said, playing Marauders now is stronger. Turn one Guide, turn two Marauders on the play has always been a great way to pressure your opponent from the get go.

Preeminent Captain

Whether games are won or lost with burn usually comes down to lands to spells ratio. I would keep that hand and risk not finding a land in the next two draw steps, which probably means losing, but drawing a land leaves you with a perfect ratio of 6 spells and 2 lands. If you mull and are on the play, you often times don't have enough gas to work with.

Creatures like Tarmogoyf, Deathrite Shaman and Grim Lavamancer like lands in the yard.

That, and more importantly color fixing.

More fetchlands. If you Boom your own fetchland and crack in response, the Boom on your opponents land still resolves. This is useful when you want to Bolt and Boom on turn three and not lose a land. I like the Darksteel Citadel idea too because that one is also good with Bust.

I think Jund is a lot more difficult to play than Eggs or Storm. Eggs and Storm are tactical decks, where you need to understand the mechanics of the deck. After some practise you learn how to sequence your plays optimally. There is no interaction with the opponent when you're combo'ing. This is a skill you can master by goldfishing endlessly. Then during real games, you can focus all your energy on creating an oportunity to combo off. From there, it's just sequencing your plays. Something the best combo players can do in their sleep.

Jund is nothing but interaction and therefore much less a tactical deck, but a strategic one. Playing strategically correct requires a lot of knowledge on different elements of the game, like the format's card pool, probable deck lists, you have to calculate combat math many turns ahead and you need to manage your resources better than the other guy (especially in mirrors). Having a good plan is very important when you play Jund.

Yeah, I believe the biggest misconception in this discussion is that Jund autopilots itself.

Ignathas, I don't know about you, but I just don't lose matches to Goblins when I have SFM or Dark Ritual in my deck. Granted, I haven't played D&T for over six months, but I was definitely a favorite against goblins. They couln't possibly beat mom into SFM into Skull. Same goes for earlier iterations of Maverick, when SFM was played over Thalia and some were playing Punishing Fires builds. When that was the meta, Goblins was nowhere to be seen. Thalia and Miracles have led to other, more Goblins friendly, metagames.

But enough about Legacy. My point is that SFM into Skull is too powerful for modern. You can't compare the SFM>Skull play to the critical turn of a combo deck. The combo deck is built to achieve something on a given turn and the entire deck is geared toward it. Getting Batterskull in hand merely takes 5 slots in your deck, 1 card in your opener which you pay two mana for on turn two. Next turn, you can drop the skull at instant speed. If your Mystic gets killed, you're still up a Batterskull in hand. If anything stifles deck design, SFM and Skull are the worst.

Mythic could come off at a later stadium, coupled with a Batterskull ban. Introducing SFM to the format would make sense if a non-BG deck was dominant, because Swords are tough to deal with when you don't have access to Abrupt Decay. Right now, Jund ignores the Mystic and blows up the sword and lets you waste time and mana on getting the sword attached to something.

I come from Legacy land and I can assure you that SFM into Batterskull wins games just as easily there. It put Goblins and Merfolk out of business because they had a hard time answering this problem. When Cavern of Souls entered the card pool, tribal decks fought back but it had more to do with the rise of miracle cards. Now control is divided between blade decks and miracle decks. Blade beats up goblins, but goblin decks steamroll miracles. It's lucky for them blade saw a decline in play because SFM + Skull obliterates linear aggro decks. They have to invest so little cards, mana and deckspace to drop a huge roadblock, it's completely unfair.

Mystic is a risky unban. If Wizards chooses to unban more cards she could perhaps come off at a later stage. But it HAS to be coupled with an immediate Batterskull ban, or it would destroy the format.