MTG Salvation

Arixmethes is really interesting. He's got a lot of angles to attack from, and lots of interesting synergies. I've tried to keep it down to two here: land synergy, and control.

Version 2: skip the landfall, untaps + control only.



original version: landfall + untaps + control



Still WIP obviously.

Two strategies here:

Strat 1: play a careful control game, wait for an opening to remove arixmethes's last counter, then pop someone with a 2-hit natural kill.

Strat 2: get sweet value off powerful lands like the flip lands and tons of untap effects, or off landfall triggers.

I love the flexibility of this general. What do you think of some double strike to take out a player with a single hit if you're playing control. Fireshrieker and Inquisitor's Flail seem decent. Extra turn spells would have the same effect.

Quote from kraus911 »

I love the flexibility of this general. What do you think of some double strike to take out a player with a single hit if you're playing control. Fireshrieker and Inquisitor's Flail seem decent. Extra turn spells would have the same effect.

Generally I avoid extra turn effects unless there's some really good reason to include them, just because I think they're not much fun to play against.

DS had occurred to me but I think I'm trying to focus on other strategic elements. That said, I think I'm going to cut all the landfall related stuff and focus on the land untapping synergy. There isn't enough draw here that I think I can reliably get value out of something like azusa, which then means I can't get much value out weak stuff like zendikar's roil either. I'll probably replace it with more untapping stuff like vizier of tumbling sands and more counters/removal control stuff. Maybe some of the big power-matters stuff like traverse the outlands. We'll see if that gives me enough room to put in equipment for a 1hko.

Not sure how I feel about pemmin's aura/freed from the real. Obviously very strong here, although I don't have many amazing outlets for it. Could also throw in wirewood lodge for another infinite. But I tend to shy away from those too. I kinda like Pemmin's since it gives you a wincon along with, but one that only kills one person at a time so it's a little more balanced. Whereas FFTR kinda necessitates having a good mana sink to justify it, and then that becomes an actual strategy instead of a 1-off inclusion that comes up occasionally.

Some evasion would be nice; Thassa, God of the Sea, Rogue's Passage

Quote from darrenhabib »

Some evasion would be nice; Thassa, God of the Sea, Rogue's Passage

passage is almost certainly making the cut, just haven't gotten down to the *ahem* lands yet.

Thassa seems like an arguably worse whispersilk cloak. I can see that angle to take on the deck, but I generally prefer late-game value instead of knocking people out ASAP. Plus I think politically it's dangerous to present a very-hard-to-stop 2 turn clock. I'd rather do board wipes and spot removal so I can catch people by surprise rather than putting my cards on the table. Then they're less likely to feel the need to pressure me off the table, especially if I've hit them once already.

I gotta speak up for Thassa... scry every turn is serious value in addition to the target creature being unblockable. And she's going to be a 5/5 fish goddess on occasion. In my experience Cloak always gets blown up and Thassa will often stick around all game.

I hate extra turns too, generally. Three players sitting on their hands while one durdles and maybe wins isn't my idea of a good time. But like a lot of disliked effects in EDH (like MLD for example) I find if you're just going to finish the game then and there it's not a big deal. You might not even need to take the turn if they see you'll just untap and kill them.

On a note completely unrelated to your deck, I killed someone once who had me on a capsize lock by using Final Fortune and it was glorious.

I understand what thassa does as a card, it's just not what I'm focusing on doing for this particular build. Iteration may change my mind but right now I'm not interested.

Don't see extra turns as instantly winning the game here. They let you instantly kill one person who can't block you, but that's generally it. And in tandem with galleon they're an infinite combo, which I generally avoid. Anyway if I wanted to go for quick kills with Arixmethes I would have included a bunch of evasion, protection, and pumps/extra turns/etc (or just infinite combo with FFTR/PA), but that's not the focal point of this build.

Ran this last night for quite a few games (6?). Mostly 1v1 but a couple multiplayer.

Overall the deck performed very well. All wins were credit to arixmethes getting 2 hits in, but significant value was had from the flip lands and such. Control elements felt good and were pretty instrumental. Got pretty unlucky on getting early ramp most games, only had like 2/6 games where I had 4 mana before turn 4. But I was never really stuck on mana.

Funniest moment of the night, imo, was when I realized I had a sick combo between thawing glaciers, stone-seeder hierophant, and lotus cobra. Instantly dump all basics into play. Preeeetty sweet.

Biggest concern is with conqueror's galleon. Tends to create nasty locks with counters and board wipes, which can get pretty boring, although at least the deck does tend to finish things quickly once the lock has been established. Similar deal for capsize, although I think that's much of an issue 1v1 than in multiplayer.

Overall the deck is pretty sweet and does what it was meant to do. There's a few degeneracies I'd like to polish out, though. Conqueror's galleon always bums me out - it's such a fun card in theory, but that damn recursion ability is so busted with so many effects that I like to run, and it only takes 1 to become oppressive.

I have a version which is between yr version 1 and 2. Here are my experience with the deck.


The deck is relatively fast, but
1. golden guardian and azor's gateway are hard to flip

2. Not enough cards in hand

Are you still working with the deck or any updated version?

Quote from yeedeehege »

I have a version which is between yr version 1 and 2. Here are my experience with the deck.


The deck is relatively fast, but
1. golden guardian and azor's gateway are hard to flip

2. Not enough cards in hand

Are you still working with the deck or any updated version?

Sorry, I generally only play with my decks for a few weeks before moving on to the next thing (I just have one of all my cards, so I usually disassemble before building something new). I don't recall having too many problems with cards in hand, though, I think the deck usually had pretty high value.

Quote from yeedeehege »

I have a version which is between yr version 1 and 2. Here are my experience with the deck.


The deck is relatively fast, but
1. golden guardian and azor's gateway are hard to flip

2. Not enough cards in hand

Are you still working with the deck or any updated version?

My super secret tech to consistently flipping the Ixalan block lands regardless of the situation is to change their nonland side into an artifact (if it isn't one already), animate the artifact, make it a human, then cast Moonmist (bonus points for imprinting Moonmist on Isochron Scepter for repeated value). Is this incredibly convoluted? Yes. Is it janky? Definitely. Is it satisfying to pull off? Most certainly.

You can also do this without U by equipping the newly artifact creature nonland side with Runed Stalactite.