MTG Salvation

Some additional tweeks. I love the way the deck has been running so far but I tend to toy with the list a lot but hopefully it is for the best.

-1 Ætherling
+1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

When it comes to mainboard, I just feel like Elspeth is better positioned against a LOT more decks currently. I have seen the Ætherling in a few early hands and he just needs so much more time to hit play due to needing to keep his extra mana and he feels like he has a lot less impact when against opposing aggro and midrange decks. Elspeth feels like she has a better all around feel in the mainboard in more matchups and it gives me access to that wrath which I really like.

SIDEBOARD:

-1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
+1 Glare of Heresy

I just feel like I am seeing a TON of white in general. There are some non white decks out there obviously but I had been considering bringing up my count of enchantment destroy effects and I realized that it was mostly white enchantments that I was answering. Glare deals with opposing Detension Spheres, Elspeths, aggro decks, and just... its amazing really. It feels a little heavy handed and yet it really doesn't as white feels like it has a lot of decks out there right now and glare just seems like the best answer for anything and everything white. In the end though, the control decks are composed of W/X decks and mono black right now and I sort of feel like it deals with a heavy amount of the control decks at the moment while having good versatility into the midrange and aggro matchups too.

-2 Lyev Skyknight
+1 Ætherling
+1 Island

I felt like the skyknight was more oriented towards an aggro build. When it came to trying to defend myself with it, it sort of sucked. I recently bumped my Brimaz and Reckoner counts though and I want to try to be midrange a bit more so. I felt that cutting skyknight was a bit of a better move. The skynight didnt help me very much against aggro and I have had some issues hitting lands consistently early on not to mention if I want an Aetherling in the main I need the extra island. In the end, I just didn't feel like the skyknight helped me enough in the aggro or control matchups. The extra land + Aetherling should help me against the control matches too.

One of the reasons I chose to put an Ætherling into the main is that I want to see how it plays in comparison to the elspeth. Running one of each should give me a better idea overall. It is possible that it should be 2x elspeth in the main but I want to do some testing before I sort of move to that or decide against it.

SIDEBOARD:

-2 Pithing Needle
+1 Ætherling
+1 Last Breath

My issue was that too much of what I would want to Pithing Needle was things I will be running myself so it made it a little more awkward. It came down to like rats being one of the few thing I still wanted to needle but I think I might be able to make Last Breath cover that to some extent. Elspeth and Jace are other things I would want to hit but I will be running them after sideboarding myself so... ehhh. I think this takes cards that seemed like they might be difficult to use in the board and improves my aggro and control matchups better.

-3 Jace, Architect of Thought my 4 drops were a little clunky due to the fact that I have so many three drops. I was also a little heavy built to try to draw cards and it was hurting my aggro matchup.
+3 Archangel of Thune there are a lot of matches where archangel was proving to be good so I want to just bring it into the main and see how it does. I was also lacking lifegain and flyers so this helps me some there.
-2 Azorius Charm while it was versatile, dragons and blood barron seemed to prove a continuous issue since we are so white heavy. I am going to try to bring in flares as an answer to them as they are incredibly difficult to deal with game one otherwise. I like the charm for being more versatile but with a few continuous issues I think I would add a few answers for them and see how things go.
-1 Banisher Priest banisher has been good for me but I need to trim their number back a bit. I also need answers for dragons / barrons.
+3 Celestial Flare as I said, dragons and blood baron have proven to be a pain.

Sideboard
-2 Archangel of Thune pushing angels to the maindeck and jace to the side. This is a hit to my control match but I think there are more aggro and mdirange decks in the meta currently than there are control decks.
-1 Celestial Flare pushing most of the flares to main.
+3 Jace, Architect of Thought keeps me access to draw for the control decks.

Got some great testing in last night with a buddy of mine. Overall I am very pleased with the deck but had a few adjustments for it.

-1 Spear of Heliod I was seeing too much duplication and there are a lot of games where the spear didnt matter much so I figure I need to go back to 2x and just be happy there. The spear was bad against the fast aggro decks as well since it took too long to set up and be meaningful.
-1 Lyev Skyknight I really enjoy the skyknights but too often I would be forced to lead them into an empty board. I like them still but at the same time most of my aggro crushers I am not seeing quite enough quantity of so I need to bump those up and go a little lighter on these guys.
+1 Boros Reckoner he is a monster vs aggro and midrange decks. Considering the gods and elspeth I run main I have to push up my anti aggro main a bit better.
+1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos despite him being a legend, I was never seeing enough of him. I hate going up to a 4x of a legend especially since it meant I had to order another one but at the same time, I never could get enough of him. Opponents just need to kill the guy like all the time.
-1 Island my islands are a lot less important than my plains. Even with just 6 non white lands in the deck I am still occasionally having issues with my white but I cant recall having any issues with my blue. Thus, I am going to swap one of my lands and try to secure the reckoner a bit better.
+1 Plains

SIDEBOARD:

-1 Revoke Existence through more testing, I just dont see the quantities of gods and what not that would justify me bringing in two of these I dont think right now. I am just going to keep a single in the board for now and if things change I can bring it back but I think going conservative in this area for now will be fine.
+1 Celestial Flare it deals with some problems like blood barron and the dragon which have pro white. It also works well against aggro decks so I just sort of like it as a versatile answer.
-1 Azorius Charm it was too narrowly sort of an anti aggro card but it costs two and it had a lot of things that it wasnt working against and it requires me to keep mana up. I figured I could add another ox and be happy with that for now.
+1 Yoked Ox it looked really solid against opposing aggro decks. It just buys me tons of life and its cheap as hell to drop. Buying time means that I can stabilize and kill them so it seems good.

Further consideration to my sideboard setup leads me to some changes:

-2 Prognostic Sphinx I think its sort of taking up the spot that should be elspeth. I dont see myself cramming tons of high mana bombs into the list so I think just bring up elspeth's count and just move on.
-1 Ætherling the high mana cost, heavy blue cost, and need for multiple blink effects when dropping him is sort of more painful the more I think about it. I think I just need to jam some elspeths and run with it.
+1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion The more I think about Elspeth, she seems like a really strong finisher vs control and midrange. She gives me the option to wrath big rat tokens out or beat up the big smashy green creature decks with a wrath that could dodge my guys assuming I dont have spear out. Her tokens have synergy well with the spears as well as the UW god and it gives me some versatility to wrath opponents who are running bigger creatures than my own. She also gives me an out against those dang blood barrons which can be a problem for this list so I like that angle of her as well.
+1 Azorius Charm I like the versatility it brings against aggro and midrange decks. I can see potential to just put a demon back on top of an opponents deck or something as well and try to tempo them. I feel like the lifelink is an actual option in here as well with some of the decks that seem to just gun for your head like RDW as well.
+1 Revoke Existence its hard to say how big of an impact the gods will have as of yet. I think its best to just assume the RG one is going to be a problem and pack a second one of these for now.

-2 Omenspeaker
-1 Lyev Skyknight
-1 Aetherling
-3 Bident of Thassa
-1 Azorius Charm
-1 Island

+4 Precinct Captain I needed something to hit in a bit sooner in the game. What I like about it though is that it can still get a bit out of hand if left alone especially with a spear thrown into the mix.
+1 Banisher Priest additional control on a stick. If my opponent is using removal on these guys it means other things are making it through potentially.
+1 Boros Reckoner problematic for aggro and midrange decks. I am also shifting heavier towards white so I can support this.
+1 Spear of Heliod adding more token support.
+1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion it made more sense to run than aetherling did since I dont need 7+ mana to drop and the spear supports this add somewhat as well as the fact that this gives some reach into the realm of a wrath possibly.
+1 Plains trying to push harder into the realm of having a white early game.

I have some toying with the sideboard as well.... will get about to that.

I had some mild changes to log based on just further theorycrafting. I am setting up to test the list with a buddy of mine in the meantime as its still another week before all the cards will ship.

-1 Mutavault
-1 Plains
+2 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx since the deck is sort of set up currently to draw cards, I think that Nykthos might be a good way to dump cards in and it seems good with Heliod as well as a good mana dump. I am a little worried about establishing my manabase correctly so I am just sort of lightly committing to some of these but I would rather hit my manabase then try to be greedy about things. Mutavault was tempting but overall, I think its less relevant at the moment due to the style of my build. I wouldnt want to trade the Mutavault in the early and I would prefer to have the excess mana in the late than another creature so... meh.

SIDEBOARD
-1 Pithing Needle I figure its very unlikely that I will want to pull in more than 2 of these against anything but pack rat so I figured moving one of these to a verdict which is still good vs packrat is still a good move. On the flip side as well, I forgot that Detension Sphere answers all of the rats assuming they dont kill spell the one I target so I think it should be less of an issue than I was originally thinking.
+1 Supreme Verdict it gives me a little versatility and its an answer to blood barron as well as big fast aggro decks.
-1 Keening Apparition I figure its unlikely that I really want to go to three art / enchant answers against most decks even after sideboarding. I like the versatility of having an exile answer though so I figure for now I will cut the option to go to two of these since I run one mainboard.
+1 Celestial Flare deals with a variety of things. I see myself bringing it in against aggro as well as to deal with big demons and blood baron.
-2 Fiendslayer Paladin I just couldn't see myself gaining advantage by bringing him in. I have a lot of things in the three spot already so I figured I needed to bring my curve down and add some cheaper stops against the aggro decks.
+2 Yoked Ox seems like a solid answer for aggro decks. Its hard for them to get past so it buys me time and I like that he is so cheap to drop.

EDIT: I still have some concerns as to my control matchups as well as some of the opposing midrange matchups. I have Prognostic Sphinx in the list still but I dont know how much to expect from them. It seems like they could be strong against heavy spot removal lists though. I have been sort of relying on my heavy draw to try to get me through those matches but its possible that I need to move some of my maindeck draw into sideboard to improve my game one against aggro more. Its still wayyyyyyyyyy too early to tell though.