MTG Salvation

Quote from hotwaterproxy »

Quick question for the community. What does everyone think of Duskwatch Recruiter and Endbringer? I've been testing 2 and 1 respectively and they are pretty good in some of the grindier matchups. I also wanted to know why don't more people use a one of Moorland Haunt or Gavony Township or Sea Gate Wreckage? I mostly see ghost quarter lately.

Quote from whyjesse »

Quote from shaffer22 »

One other question:

Does Fatal Push affect our Matter Reshaper / Eldrazi Skyspawner decision? I had been leaning toward Skyspwaner, given the Blood Moon issues of late. But I'm thinking a tilt back toward Matter Reshaper might be in order. I'll probably test a 3:2 Reshaper:Skyspawner ratio.

Skyspawner:Reshaper ratio is always dependent on local meta, but I'm an advocate for more Skyspawners. It just does so much more in the first few turns... gives ramp, gives 2 bodies at once, can act as a mini replacement for drowner-displacer combo, gives us reach, gives us a flying blocker, etc etc.

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Quote from mo3mon3y »

my graveyard hate is based on how i can maximize the number of Ancient Stirrings-able hate pieces i can get for Dredge, Tormod’s Crypt, and Relic of Progenitus over rest in peace. i realized the match-up against dredge needs be a race in which a free graveyard hate in Tormod’s Crypt allows for Bant to continue to attack with out disruption, Relic can still be brought in against abzan and such. i still have to tinker with it a little bit. Iam still worried about the tron match-up. Australian Modern GP's are full of jund and abzan so alot of people will play tron.

Tron is not that bad of a matchup. 2 stony silence and 3 counterspells are enough, and not necessarily even necessary to win. We have answers to all of their threats except for karn and ostone. We also won't need that much grave hate now that dredge will probably fall to Tier 2.

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The main change I'm going to test is replacing the MB spellskite with a lightning greaves, given infect is weakening. Unlike spellskite it has some use in every matchup by giving us more possible T4/T5 kill draws. It allows our drowners to almost act like reality smashers, since the scions can be used to cast a greaves. Even when we're playing defense it can be relevant by turning up our closing speed.

I'm also going back down to 1 RIP.

Quote from whyjesse »

Chalice has been discussed before, and it's perfectly valid. It's great against burn and infect, not game winning but still really good. Hierarch goes through chalice. It's randomly useful in so many scenarios, not just burn and infect, like 0 on the play against affinity, 0 against Titanbreach, 1 against combo decks, 1 against lantern control, on 1 (or any number) against traditional control when your paths are sided out.

The only thing is I wouldn't have 3 stubborns in addition to the chalices. I would cut down to 1 or 2. Natural state is also bad when you already have Talismans for blood moon resiliency. I also don't understand your graveyard hate.

As a side note, you're actually kinda weak to stony silence, which is also the reason you're not including it in your SB (you should).

Quote from whyjesse »

Discussion on this deck seems to be slowing down and there aren't many new lists popping up. Worrying sign that we're slipping to Tier 2? I think it's mostly a reflection of the rise of Blood moon decks and also the resilience and popularity of Dredge.

Anyway, I want to bring up another discussion topic - how do you feel about Chalice in the board as a 1- or 2-of instead of 4-of? I don't understand the philosophy why Chalice has to be a full 4. I totally get that philosophy in normal deckbuilding with Chalice, for example in Eldrazi Tron. However, I don't think it makes sense to have it as a mandatory 4-of for us. If we do use Chalice, it's inevitable we will get some splash damage on our Paths and Stirrings. However, we're only siding them in in games were it pretty much ends the game by itself EVEN at the cost of shutting off paths. Resolving Chalice should usually give us enough time to find a Skyspawner or Displacer against Infect AND the mana to support it, after which we won't really need Path. Resolving two Chalices on X=1 and X=2 against burn locks them out - we don't need Path or Stirrings after. Chalice also has creative uses outside of the most obvious cases too. Chalice on 0 is a great play against Valakut Breach, a weak matchup. Chalice on 1 works against Ad Nauseam. However, every Chalice AFTER these draws is dead. 4 Chalices also eats way too much sideboard space. I think the ideal number is 2. That gives you about a 20% chance of having one in your opener, which is low enough that you can plan to get all of your important 1-cmc spells out of the way first before playing it to lock the game out. In addition, in most cases 2 Chalices is exactly the number needed to lock a game out (X=1 and X=2).