MTG Salvation

So, new work and interest has picked up on the Discord server. We've started a new spreadsheet for data collection (great work by Jlobblet for making it better!). If anyone is interested in helping collect more data, please feel free to join the cause. We've also started doing more in-house testing on Cockatrice. Cockatrice is probably the best platform to test on, as it allows for anyone to help (no budget restrictions), allows us to take back misplays to get better data, and replay from specific gamestates to try and make sure that our lines are precise. Looking forward to any help!

Hey mikemaz

I'm just going to rebuild, going back to the old BG core from before GP Charlotte. I wasn't running Opals then, but we have new tools now that we didn't have then. My current tentative list is:



I'm sure it can be tuned to be a bit better, but this is what I plan on testing. It seems to me that it has a decent answer to about every deck type. For aggro, there are six creature removal spells (Collective Brutality and Assassin's Trophy), along with discard and Bridges. For combo, there are Inquisition of Kozilek, Thoughtseize, Collective Brutality, and Surgical Extraction (and Pithing Needle for some combo decks, like Ad Nauseum and Devoted Druid). For control, there are discard spells and Pithing Needle. For big mana (Tron, Titanshift, etc.), there are Ghost Quarter, Assassin's Trophy, Surgical Extraction, and discard (and Pithing Needle to help against Tron).

I expect decks like Grixis Shadow will still be difficult, but that's been the case for nearly forever, and I think it's fair that we have some bad matchups - Every deck should, in my opinion.

I expect to see a rise in Burn, Bogles, Infect, Tron, and Titanshift in the coming months. I think this list has a decent shot at beating Burn, and we've historically had a great Bogles matchup anyways. The BG lists are probably the best we have against Tron, and I imagine that 4 Ghost Quarter and 3 Assassin's Trophy should help a decent amount against them, especially with Surgicals. I worry about Infect, but Collective Brutality should help out.

Either way, I'm going to just rebuild and keep playing when I can. Hope all is well!

Absolutely agree on the Torpor Orb and Sphere main. At least for my meta Congrats on the results!

Maybe I've had Rest in Peace in my sideboard for quite some time now, as it's great against other decks as well, like GDS, Storm, and Eggs. I expected the Dredge matchup to get harder due to Creeping Chill, but that sort of thing is to be expected. Lantern is at its best when decks are super linear, and Creeping Chill helps give Dredge not only a faster clock, but a way to deal damage outside of just creatures and Conflagrate. That's why decks like Bogles has been so easy (so linear) and Jund has been so hard (such a diverse group of threats and answers and angles of attack).

My response it to continue to run Rest in Peace in my sideboard and kind of hope for the best. The meta shifts, as always, and maybe we'll get fed some more cards again like we were given in Kaladesh (Blooming Marsh, Botanical Sanctum, Whir of Invention, Padeem, Glint-Nest Crane) and Eldritch Moon (Collective Brutality). Time will tell, though.

Hey mikemaz! I have not tested it. I'd considered it, but really been kind of focusing work on Skred here recently. I almost feel that having to pay the extra colored mana instead of colorless might make Sadistic Sacrament slightly better, really, or the extra colorless mana for Slaughter Games.

I tested a decent amount against KCI. I found that disruption into a combination of Pithing Needle on Engineered Explosives and a Damping Sphere nearly auto-wins the game. Postboard they'll have Nature's Claims to answer the Sphere/Needle, but we'll also have more answers. I personally like a copy of Rest in Peace from the side. I do run one Sphere main, and it's been great. Not just against KCI, but Tron variants, Amulet Titans, Storm...

Haven't seen it, but personally not interested. Last premium article I saw was a blue-based list with 1 Bridge and cards like Thoughtcast. As far as builds with 3 Surgical and no Decay, that is about on par with lists from 2015 (specifically, mine). Zac is who ended up convincing me on the Decay.

I've also added Rest in Peace to my sideboard over the 2nd Grafdigger's Cage. It's been great, has a lot of additional benefits against decks like GDS and Mardui Pyromancer.

@Aremihc Those "nut draws" were included into the calculation on the spreadsheet. It turned out that turn one Opals correlated with a decrease in win percentage. When only counting Whir data, it was a rather sharp decrease. You can see the data for yourself, with links on the page before this one in my post. I would agree that it sounds like those sorts of draws should be "the nuts", the actual data seems to show otherwise. My hypothesis is that it's because having enough disruption is more important than having an immediate lock. If we make it so that what the opponent plays in the first two turns is relatively meaningless or neutered through our discard effects, following that up with a lock might be more important than setting an early lock only to have the opponent kill us or break the lock with what they've already drawn in their opener.

@Al_Z_Heimer, I tested a bit against the new KCI build, and though my testing was a small sample size, I found that landing an early Needle on Engineered Explosives and getting a Damping Sphere in play was often enough to just shut out the game. I run a Sphere main and one in the side, and I also now run a single Rest in Peace in my sideboard (over the 2nd Cage). In postboard games, I side in my extra Needle, my second Sphere, all of my artifact destruction, and my Rest in Peace. I side out Collective Brutality, Mishra's Bauble, Grafdigger's Cage. I also tested a little with Welding Jar, just to keep my Needle/Sphere safe against the opponent's removal. I don't remember if it did much, as most of the games just ended once I landed Needle on EE and Sphere.

@Hdvin: I both samples, Mox hurts the deck a bit in the opener. In fact, in the sheet that only includes Whir games, it correlates worse than the larger sheet. I wouldn't remove Opals altogether, though. They are extremely helpful when we face Blood Moon, as Aremihc points out.

Hi :). Sorry, would have replied sooner, but was at sea. There is a way to view those statistics, and I did make a new sheet that only included that recent data. I'm a little busy right now, just getting home, but the links should be in my post history on here. I'll try to come back and edit this post some time this weekend.

EDIT: @mynameinbinary So my "Recent data" spreadsheet is now not doing a whole lot, since it's been so long since I added game data to it. The "recency check" function checks for games within the past three months, and the last game I entered was in February (when I started working more on using the spreadsheet method to tune Mono Blue Tron and my work/family life started to require more attention).

So, here's an edited version of the sheet only showing relatively recent lists (all Whir). There are still some interesting trends in data points to look at here, although we should probably be very careful, as the sample size is dropped from 1600+ games to 337 games. For comparison, I didn't get very good, stable data for Mono Blue Tron until about the 500th game I entered. I'm attaching three screenshots to show the relative changes when we only look at Whir data vs. when we look at all of the data combined.

Some things of note:

- Whir overtakes Bridge as one of the most important cards to have in the opener.
- Opal online on turn one still has a negative correlation with win rates.
- Having Opal online on turn one or two has a net negative correlation with win rate when compared to the slight positive from before.
- Being on the play looks much more important to Whir builds than before, where being on the draw was slightly advantaged.
- Having 1 Lantern & 2 Rocks still has a net positive correlation with win percentages.
- Having a "Bauble scry hand", or, a hand in which we have a mill rock and a Bauble, still has a positive correlation.
- Inquisition of Kozilek and Collective Brutality continue to outperform Thoughtseize with win rate correlations. Inquisition performs much better in the Whir builds overall.
- Spire of Industry overtakes Glimmervoid as the best performing land.
- Mox Opal continues to perform negatively overall.

Again, though, I do think we need to be careful about sample size here. These observations are only from me glancing at it a bit and just looking for things that stand out to me, and could probably benefit from multiple people with different perspectives and insights. I actually really need to get to bed for work tomorrow, or else I'd love to really dig deeper into the numbers and see what I can try to uncover.

@ivercosta: I used the Sphere to slow the mana to a crawl. Yeah, he could eventually get 10 mana for Ulamog, but that requires that he gets Ulamog and doesn't have it get discarded in the mean time. Being able to use Shredder to recur Thoughtseize as necessary is pretty important here. And since this slows down their ability to resolve Karn early, it frees up our Needles to take care of Oblivion Stone and World Breaker. If we've slowed their mana, their Walking Ballista doesn't pose too much of a threat because of how mana intensive it becomes for them, and we have two maindeck answers to it (Bridge and Witchbane Orb). Either way, Sphere allows us to slow down their game to the point where we have almost all the time in the world to cement the lock with each necessary answer, or just not let them draw threats.

Edit: Played against Grixis Shadow last night, with my current list that runs one Damping Sphere main and one in the side. Damping Sphere was crucial in winning, since they run so few mana sources and rely so heavily on low mana spells to keep tempo, etc. Definitely very happy with the card, but I suppose that was a given, considering most of us were probably very happy as soon as we saw the card was spoiled.

So tested a bunch last night and tonight against Gx Tron, KCI, Jund, Hollow One, Amulet Titan, and RG Eldrazi. Damping Sphere is absolutely awesome. I'm currently running one main, one in the side. It's best against Gx Tron, of course. We only played two games there, both preboard. Naturally drew Sphere, won easily, second game Whir'd for Sphere the turn before my friend could cast Karn (his turn four). Was also great against KCI, but they do have Engineered Explosives to deal with it. However, a Needle on Explosives and a Sphere probably just means we win preboard. Jund was tough, but that's how it goes, and he drew *really* well. Amulet Titan was fine, Sphere is great here again. I did drop a game though, but it happens. RG Eldrazi is also fine, but lost to it. Was very close, and I think I could have played tighter (just haven't ever played against it and was unfamiliar with what to name with Needle, etc.).

I'm currently in the process of revising my list, but I'm going to be away for about a week or so. Will hopefully have more testing results when I get back.

Here lately I've started running one Leonin Abunas to supplement Padeem, Consul of Innovation. I like being able to have both out at the same time, rather than drawing the 2nd one and having to either kill my first to empty my hand or wait for the first to get answered (in which case we may just die).

As for the Burn matchup, I'm still an avid proponent of maindeck Collective Brutality. I mean, the data doesn't lie. It covers the creatures for when we don't have Bridge and covers the spells when we don't have Leyline/Orb, and it's rarely a dead card in any matchup.

As for the Sphere, I'm going to be testing it in place of Grafdigger's Cage.