MTG Salvation

Quote from taptwo »

Can we talk gameplay/strategy for a second? I see all these lists with Varolz and Fauna Shaman and whatnot, and I keep asking myself, how are you actually playing these?

The way I play the deck, if I can't get the card back from the yard, there is a tremendously small chance of me ever getting it, because the deck relies on me replacing all my draws with dredges. I'm usually on the dredge train no later than turn 3 (turn 1 Faithless Looting, or turn 2 Grisly Salvage, Lotleth Toll, or Rotting Rats), and the deck doesn't want to slow down. Where are you finding the instances where you actually want cards in your hand?

I'm running 4x Crawler, Bloodghast, Imp, GGT, Vine, BoP, 1x Rotting Rats, Flamewake Phoenix, 4x Looting, 2x Loam, 2x Salvage, and 1x Conflagrate. The strategy has been generally to dredge 75% of my deck away by turn 4, ideally with a T2 Lotleth Troll, but if not use a Rotting Rats or Mutavault to get the Crawlers online, start smashing in, and use Loams to keep the mana going and fill my hand for a Conflagrate finisher.

It works well, but I would love to play a more midrange style, I just don't understand how it should work. Something isn't adding up my head and I can't see through the combo-aggro fog. What am I failing to grasp?

I like your well thought-out question.

I'll do my best to give you my point of view, as I play the non-dredge version. (firstly as a sidenote, Fauna Shaman too weak and too slow so I do not condone it)

The idea is not to mill 75% of your deck and hit 3-4 VVine, with this version. Generally you want to hit 1-2, and anything after that is just icing. The goal is to get that 1-2 VVine out on turn 2-4, along with a few other creatures, and be so far ahead on board that the opponent can't really do anything to stop it. It's a less impressive army than what you probably get a turn or so later with a dredge list, but still it's hopefully enough that you are beating down harder than even the fastest Zoo deck.

I like this way because unless dredge versions gets lucky, it feels slightly faster. And even if I'm wrong on that, there are 2 points I'm almost sure about: This way is more consistent, and more resilient to graveyard hate. Oh and actually getting to draw cards is a huge plus, especially when taking sideboard cards into account.

As far as Varolz goes, you need too see the combo with Death's Shadow if you haven't already. Firstly, both cards are not bad on their own, in particular Shadow which can win games. But the real reason to play them is that you can steal wins out of nowhere on turn 4-5, or even 3 with BOP. Just slap him down and pay a black to turn Lotleth into a 15/14 trample or bigger, or a BOP into a 13/14 flier. Or beef up a small dude to run in there with 2 VVines to make blocking options horrendous. There's been times where it looks like I have no hope, but then I find a Varolz and just win. Aside from VVine, Varolz combo is the way this deck can contend with the speed of combo decks.

Hope that helps. I can repost my current list if you'd like to see it.

Fate Reforged has to be legal, else the point of this would be questionable.

Luckily, it's on Oracle already.

I goldfished a bit with a all-out dredge list, and found that I could do really well; turn 3 winnings quite often, however, many games I could get lots of stuff into my grave but then fizzle out because there were no lotleth/crawler in my hand. Also, I noticed that if my opponent played a turn 2 RiP, or an early Relic (some Tron lists play 4 main), I would completely loose.

So currently I'm happy sticking to my non-dredgers list.

/in

Deck-code TBA

I think as far as dredge cards go, it's all or nothing. And I don't really like the all-out dredge strategy, because we don't have the key card that makes it work in Legacy: Dread Return.

People are going to try classic dredge decks, and Living End will see more play now. This means that people will be running more grave hate.

I'd rather not play dredge cards, I think, because then you are skipping your draws to go all-in and if they play GY removal, you fall much more behind than you do with non-dredge lists.

Dredgevine always has a few slots available, and Flamewake can fit there (those slots before went to Mandrils or Bolt).

Though in my testing, I'd much rather run Viscera Seer than Flamewake.

GGT makes me want to try an all-out dredge version, but I still can't see it being better than where I'm at right now, without Dread Return.

That's fair, Parasitian

If people are playing dredge cards because they work nicely with faithless looting, you're basically playing bad cards in your deck to get a 1-mana glimpse the unthinkable.

Considering Imp removal is... interesting. A 3-mana non-guaranteed removal spell is not what this deck wants to do. The creatures we want to remove (like scooze) aren't even forced to attack into it. We are not a defensive deck, or even midrange. We are 100% aggro.

Varolz/Shadow combo: First off, the cards are good on their own. Playing a 1 mana 4/4 or higher happens quite often with Shadow, and you can still play it even as a 0/0 to help trigger VVine. Varolz is a sac-outlet, which is never awful, and it can protect itself quite well.
It's not hard to get Shadows into your grave. Once you do, you can pull off brutal turn 4 kills by dropping a Varolz and immediately scavenging onto a Lotleth Troll. Players rarely see a 13/14 birds of paradise coming, either. It can look like you're going to lose, but then you rip a Varolz and win. It's one of the main win-cons of the deck. You don't want to rely on hitting VVines every game or grinding out wins with Bloodghast.

Quote from Parasitian »

Quote from Tom »

Quote from jackad7 »

IDK if you've played enough if your saying stink weed imp is better. I started with 4 imps and I'm now at 3 thugs two imps. The 2cmc is so much easier to trigger with vine. I really can't explain my preference it is just that over time I have found him to be better.

You are starting to hit the nail on the head as to why non-dredge lists are better than dredge lists.

Satyr Wayfinder is better than Golgari Thug. It mills the exact same, unless you hit a land, which wouldn't matter either way (it's actually a plus for Satyr). Yet you don't have to get Satyr in your graveyard first, OR skip a draw step. And it will ALWAYS help trigger VVine. The only way thug could be better is if you're able to use it several times, which is not unreasonable, but I'd still prefer having my draw steps.

I don't know where you dredge-playing players are at, I'm guessing you're probably ahead on board / winning around turn 4-6 rather consistently, maybe some turn 3s. With my current list, it's turn 3-5, with turn 2 also happening quite often if I get turn 1 BOP/Looting.

(As a side note, any Varolz players still playing BOP as a 3-of, 4 is definitely the way to go.)

While you bring up some good points, you cannot guarantee drawing a satyr wayfinder, if I want to bring back my Vengevines now, I can guarantee it by drawing a golgari thug from the grave

EDIT: You also didn't account for the fact that you can use Faithless Looting to get dredgers into your hand to flop a ton of your deck into the yard.

To your first point, yes that is true and is a slight point in favor of the Thug. However, I find with my current list that runs 34 creatures, this move would rarely be necessary.

To the second point, eh, a draw is a draw no matter where it comes from, and most of the time I'd rather not skip it to mill a few. Especially if I want to find the cards I boarded in.

@Lord Haz: Yeah Pizzap basically covered it. What I said was "ahead on board or winning" by turn 2, meaning that you're going to win very soon or your opponent may just scoop.

Quote from jackad7 »

IDK if you've played enough if your saying stink weed imp is better. I started with 4 imps and I'm now at 3 thugs two imps. The 2cmc is so much easier to trigger with vine. I really can't explain my preference it is just that over time I have found him to be better.

You are starting to hit the nail on the head as to why non-dredge lists are better than dredge lists.

Satyr Wayfinder is better than Golgari Thug. It mills the exact same, unless you hit a land, which wouldn't matter either way (it's actually a plus for Satyr). Yet you don't have to get Satyr in your graveyard first, OR skip a draw step. And it will ALWAYS help trigger VVine. The only way thug could be better is if you're able to use it several times, which is not unreasonable, but I'd still prefer having my draw steps.

I don't know where you dredge-playing players are at, I'm guessing you're probably ahead on board / winning around turn 4-6 rather consistently, maybe some turn 3s. With my current list, it's turn 3-5, with turn 2 also happening quite often if I get turn 1 BOP/Looting.

(As a side note, any Varolz players still playing BOP as a 3-of, 4 is definitely the way to go.)

I just spent a while testing Viscera Seer and it was actually VERY impressive. A keeper, for now. Everytime one of my Bloodghast or VVines got blocked or were about to get killed/exiled, I'd get to sac and scry. I could also block with stuff like Satyr and scry. I could control my draws much more effectively. In fact, one game I was going to die in a couple turns, but then I repeatedly sac'd my Gravecrawler to Seer (I think like 5-6 times) and managed to find a Varolz which I left on top of my deck. I had a Lotleth on board and 2 Death's Shadow in my grave, so I untapped next turn and unexpectedly won the game.

I found with Seer as yet another one-drop it was also much easier to get my VVines out of the grave (if Faithless Looting or BOP turn 1, decent chance of VVine turn 2). And in the games I boarded in Essence Warden, the life-gain was much more potent (sacing Bloodghast / Crawler and bringing em back).

So yeah Seer is amazing so far. My current list:



Grisly Salvage continues to be lackluster, with continued creature-based interactions.

Dredge cards are bad in this deck thus yes thug is bad. My humble opinion.

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I've tested a bit with the new pheonix and I have mixed feelings. The most reliable way to get it out is when you have Vengevine, in which case you're probably already winning. However it can help you speed wins out faster or help gain an edge in grindy games (but it can't block unfortunately)

What I like about it too is that it's a good Varolz target, and it's also a pretty powerful play to discard it to Lotleth and play it back once Lotleth has 2 counters. It's also not unreasonable to hardcast it and a 1-drop to trigger VVines.

So it's been alright, not great. It's currently replacing my 2 lightning bolt and I'm deciding what I like better.

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Another card I want to test more is Viscera Seer. I've found that the sacrifice ability on Varolz is very relevant for avoiding PtE and Anger, among other things. Seer offers the same protection on a 1-drop, which also makes it good for VVine, and the scrying can be super relevant. Another great thing about being able to sacrifice creatures is that you can sacrifice a gravecrawler and play it back again several times, which also helps to bring out the VVines.

The organization needs a big overhaul. I'm trying to talk with some of the people who have been major contributors to the IQs in the past, but so far I haven't gotten much response.

When the time comes, more people will probably be added to LanternIQTeam and we will proceed. Soonist that will happen is next month.

Quote from toasty1437 »

my friend gave me a free playset of lightning axe's. anybody have any thoughts on them?

lightning axe

I don't like it. I feel like lightning bolt is better. Discarding one card is situationally helpful, but the amount of creatures that it kills is not much more than bolt, and it doesn't even have the option of being aimed at a player. It might be a sideboard card if it proves worthy in testing... but I'd only see myself bringing it in against Abzan Pod or something. Mayyyybe twin.

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I still have yet to test the pheonix, but I will soon.

@jackad7: Have you tried any of the "dredge"vine lists with no dredge cards? That seems to be the current direction and I'm liking it with my deck. I'd really rather not sacrifice my draws to mill a bit more. It doesn't allow for as effective sideboards, and there's no effective way of getting stuff like Lotleth or Varolz out of your grave once they're there. Plus you eat dirt harder to graveyard removal.