MTG Salvation

Gravecrawler has great synergy with grimgrin, as well as Geralf's Messenger. Diregraf Captain could be fun as well, and maybe Armored Skaab to help stall the early game a bit as well as dump some zombies into your GY to unearth.

I was thinking about putting this deck together as pyrohemia + personal sanctuary seems really powerful in multiplayer. What other cards do you see working really well with this strategy? Anyone have a decklist that abuses this?

I was thinking Tamanoa would be really fun with it, and/or a control package of powerstone minefield, meekstone, and kismet. Love to hear what other ideas you all have!

I'll add a couple Ichor Wellspring as some card generating artifacts worth sacrificing.

I really like the advocates for multiplayer politics: spurnmage advocate, shieldmage advocate, pulsemage advocate, nullmage advocate, and forcemage advocate. They're not great 1v1 really, but I think it kinda fits into the 'political' theme... theres always all those lobbyists advocating something!

Ahhh unfortunate news. I was quite happy with how my undead gladiator deck turned out! Oh well. I don't think the judging system needs to be changed necessarily, I just think the judges need to be aware of how much time they may need to commit to judging. I too had to drop out of judging after ~5 rounds last time as my work and real life picks up so much in the summer. I can judge again if needed, up until the end of May or so, but no guarantees after that.

I don't want to go the full-on enchantment route so avoiding cards like enchantress's presence, copy enchantment, etc. Collective Restraint is also so much more efficient compared to propaganda, I think that it'd cross the line from consistency over to redundancy by adding that and/or ghost prison, but definitely sterling grove could find a place in my deck, granted I can find a copy or two. I'll be damned if I pay $4 for an uncommon from a set I used to play a bunch!

Ok so thinking out loud here... I guess once I figure the core of the deck is something like this, it doesn't leave a whole lot of room for other stuff:



If that looks like a good core, then it leaves me with 12 slots to fill. Looking at that list, I think it needs a bit more protection and definitely some card drawing ability, and probably 2-3 "finisher" cards. So I'm thinking... I do have a rhystic study I can throw in already, along with demonic tutor and sterling grove for tutoring, that's 3/12. A few copies of exsanguinate (I dunno why, 2 seems like too few, 4 seems like too many), would make 6/12. Then for some more protection, I was actually thinking.. Moment's Peace? I just think it'd be really funny to have someone pay 5 mana for collective restraint and attack me, only to.. nope, fog! Helps stall out a bit from early attacks as well. So maybe 4 copies of that? That's 10/12.. last 2 slots can be anything fun really, I'd probably go with crucible of worlds to get a double trigger on valakut with recurring terramorphic expanses every turn, and then a legacy weapon for the lulz and, honestly, think it'd be good in here. So that leaves a final list of:



So ya I guess I just kinda talked (typed) myself through the deck building process. It looks alright I suppose, definitely not perfect, but the nice thing is that I own all the cards except prismatic omen and last stand (cheap). Still would like more card drawing, I could probably take out a couple kodama's reach for maybe something like rites of flourishing, seems like that'd fit in well here. Also not sure if Moment's peace would be better replaced with some global creature removal.. really can't decide, so many options! I guess thats the combined agony/pleasure of deck building, so now I'll just have to play it some and see how it works out. Let me know if I've missed anything obvious, or how else you would tweak it.

Ok so I've had this deck in the back of my mind for a while now, but I want to get it going since I have this playset of Valakuts I really wanna put to use, and I just can't quite figure out how I want to do it. Now that I got my tax refund I decided it's worth it to spend $20 on a set of prismatic omens, I think they really make this deck a lot better. I'm going to include 4 copies of Last Stand because it is just ridiculous with prismatic omen out. This also opens me up to playing any other color, so I was looking at including some domain cards (primarily Collective Restraint). Black also gives me demonic tutor and exsanguinate, and I might buy an Idyllic tutor too as the deck will be so reliant on prismatic omen. In fact I think that will be its biggest fault, getting out and protecting the prismatic omen. Any other ideas on how I can carry this out, or other cards that are a must-add in a rainbow/domain deck? I thought with all the land ramp even stuff like violent ultimatum would be an option.

Is this still going? Still waiting on scores from previous round (a week later), and still waiting on more picks for this round?

Needs more Lux Cannon

This deck is kind of an aggro-control hybrid. You want to play creatures early and often, backed up by counter magic and bounce/creature removal to clear the way for them. You'll notice this deck has a really low curve, with many cards in the deck costing 1 or 2, and the rest only costing 3. In addition, many of the cards have life loss components which together really add up and put your opponent in a tight spot.

I really wanted to be able to make use of both the Undead Gladiator's abilities for this deck, and it does so in several ways. Many of the cards interact with the gladiator, but it's also not so wholly important that the deck won't function without it in those scenarios where you aren't drawing one (this is important to me). First off, it's good as a beater. Maybe not the best 3 power 3 drop ever, but with all the life loss from everything else, and hopefully some early attacks with grave crawlers, the 3 damage is pretty important, especially when you can recur it. The recursion ability is very important as it allows you to keep a threat coming, backed up by your control spells. Also, by always being able to get a gladiator back in play, it assures that your grave crawlers will also be able to come back as well. There are several cards that you can discard to recur it, the obvious choice being the madness Brain Gougers, but also Grave Crawlers and Skaab Ruinators don't mind being discarded either. The gladiator's cycling ability can be used to get it into your graveyard to either use as a madness activator for brain gougers, or to get an extra body in the graveyard to play a Skaab Ruinator. These different interactions make the gladiator a fun card in this deck.

I feel like everything works really well together, and I spent time tuning the deck so it plays real smoothly. As mentioned the mana curve is really tight, assuring fast and consistent starts, and all the life loss cards (piranha marsh, countersquall, undermine, geth's verdict, and vapor snag) really work together to make even 1 creature left on your board an unignorable threat. I also feel the deck has a real nice balance of creatures and spells, and I think you just have to play the deck to get a feel for this. Read below for more detailed card choices.

I love 'pinger' decks and play one myself. Here are my thoughts on yours.... I don't think you have enough actual pingers to utilize the enchantments and artifacts that enhance them. You only have 12 pingers, compared to the 10 cards that need them (the collar, curiosity, sigil of sleep), and even chandra's spitfire relies on them. I find my creatures die a lot more often in multiplayer so I feel you may find yourself holding on to a curiosity or sigil with nothing to play it on, so it ends up being deadspace for a while when you could have used something else more useful in the meantime. I would lower the count on those 10 cards a little bit, and add in a few more pingers. Another thing you can do to combat this problem is add in some protection for your creatures so that they do stick around, because trust me, a pinger with a basilisk collar or sigil of sleep is gonna get taken out pretty quick by your opponents, and nothing sucks more than losing a creature with an aura enchantment and getting 2-for-1'd. I would add in either Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots to give your creatures some staying power. Personally I'd also take out the counterspells, and I'm not sure about devoting 3 slots to intruder alarm for that combo, I mean it's pretty cool but, meh. I also think that, in general, Arc Trail or Forked Bolt are better than Lightning Bolt in multiplayer for their ability to address more than 1 threat, especially when backed up with some pinger power. Anyways, just my thoughts.

Edit: also if you can pick up a Goblin Sharpshooter or two, they're stupid good with a basilisk collar

I want to put a new deck together based on Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle. It's mostly for fun and doesn't need to be super powerful or good, but of course I don't want it to completely suck. So far I was thinking of including Harrow and Rampant Growth for ramp, along with New Frontiers as a sort of finisher once some valakuts are in play. I want the deck to be able to take advantage of all the mana so I thought it'd be fun to include some X spells like Stream of Life and Fireball, along with 4 copies of Savage Twister to keep the board clear. Maybe a couple copies of Hull Breach, and also 2 or 3 copies of Glacial Chasm for protection. That's the basic shell of the deck in my mind, so depending on how many copies of everything I put in I'll probably still have room for about 10-12 more cards. Anything you can think of that would fit in real nice with this strategy? I'd love to do something with Prismatic Omen but it's out of my budget right now. Anything obvious I've missed or any other cool ideas?

If you want a real budget idea I'd consider adding madness to the deck. I've always liked Merfolk Looter/Thought Courier to help filter your hand and get the cards you need when you need them and get rid of the ones you don't need, but they also turn Fiery Temper into a cantripping lightning bolt which is just sick. Throw in some violent eruptions with the fiery tempers and you have a decent burn suite, and obsessive search for more cheap draw. I think these could all play well with gelectrode and chandra's spitfire.

Personally I don't think it is worth it to include red in a Haakon deck. Does burning vengeance really put this deck over the top? I don't think so, but I guess ultimately that's up to you. I run pure black/white for my haakon deck, I think the consistency of 2 colors is really nice as well when you're running cards with double black and double white in the casting cost. If you need discard outlets I'd recommend something like smallpox or strongarm tactics, both of which work very well with haakon. The anvil ain't bad either. Also, I'd replace the entombs unless you already own some, because theyre so freakin expensive, and I like buried alive better because it also gets other creatures in your GY to play with haakon (I always grab an exemplar and one other thing, usually a stillmoon cavalier). I find with 4 buried alive and 4 smallpox I never have a problem getting haakon in my GY. Last thing is that I'd replace the stromgald cabal and the accorder paladins with some combination of stillmoon cavalier, mirran crusader, knight of meadowgrain or knight of the white orchid.