MTG Salvation

Where Omen shines are those games where you're going to go beyond turn 4. Omen's strength is turning your land drops into damage, so if you're in a drawn out game you can wittle away at your opponent's life total.

Of course it has plenty of other uses, but that is where it is strongest.

Hey spike,

Things are calming down a bit for me, so if you're in a bind I can take the primer back and do some updates. I'm slowly getting back into playing, going to an event this weekend.

Either a Chandra or an additional Pact. Someone else was only playing with 3 and they were just using 3 Pacts and still did fine.

I don't even know how that got in there, it said 60 when I saved it. Oh well.

Thanks! I was pretty close to Top 32 and need to break my 10-5 ceiling but at least I got some cash out of it. Yeah, Prismatic Omen pulled a lot of weight in a lot of matchups. I've played with 2 for a long time and feel comfortable with that number.

The KHE is still a preference thing. I wanted to go on autopilot for the tournament and the lines with KHE are hardwired at this point. There was a match or two where I was able to Scapeshift under a Stubborn Denial to set my board with KHE to get lethal. IMO you have a lot more plays because the deck is good at getting 6, 12, and 18+ damage but nothing inbetween and a lot of decks will just sit at 15-20 life. Grixis DS pretty much has to drop to 12 and doesn't have a way to deal with resolved enchantments. It gives you some stupid inevitability if they are playing Serum Visions/Thought Scour for a few turns.
To be fair, KHE (and this deck) was just awful against the Jund version.

@FoodChainGoblins That's the plan. I'd work on it today but have some stuff due at work I'm trying to get done so it'll be a few days.

Got Top 64 in the Open this past weekend. Will probably do a writeup later. I didn't change the deck much from SCG Charlotte and Vegas other than taking out an Anger from the SB and adding a Rec Sage.

https://deckstats.net/decks/3908/764206-rg-scapeshift-scg-roanoke-

Some highlights: Played DS 6 times over the two days (5 Grixis, 1 Esper). My Esper opponent played against Grixis 8 times in day 1 (went 7-1), talk about metagaming.
Placed 53th overall (10-5). Losses were to Grixis Shadow, RG Tooth and Nail, Grixis Shadow, Junk Midrange, and UWR Saheeli. The match against Saheeli was for Top 32, so his list is the one you see posted on the SCG site in 30th I think. One of the shadow losses was hard fought, the other I hit land flood both games so I don't know how to evaluate that.

Probably the last event for a while until PPTQ season.

Why are 2 Claims weird? That's been pretty standard in most builds.

Claim lets you hit Expedition Map on the draw, which Grudge doesn't.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned it, but Bayesta hit Top8 in this weekend's MTGO Modern Challenge.

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/683372#paper

This list is a lot closer to older builds (looks a lot more like what I play), with two unconventional SB choices (2 Chameleons and 1 Leyline).

I know Bay browses here occasionally, so I'd like to hear his take on those three cards in particular over the course of his testing and this challenge event.

Green typically doesn't have these effects, so you'll have to dig into artifacts. I know a few Eldrazi Tron players that run Trinisphere. Should hose Storm, and slow down AN.

KHE is still really good. It's a lot better when the most played deck isn't an Abrupt Decay deck (Jund DS). In theory its good against Grixis because it's card advantage they can't easily interact with. I'm still on the fence about it here because you're gonna be playing off the top anyway, so I've just been taking them out to be safe.

Also played at Vegas

Round 1: Bye

Round 2: Grixis Fae (0-2); Not a great start, but he had it all. Disruption, constant counter magic, etc. Couldn't slip anything in on any turn.

Round 3: Jund (2-0); If my draws were bad, his were worse. Luckily, I was able to get ramp out of my hand and just play off the top.

Round 4: Mardu Midrange (2-0); His deck was the previous Boom/Bust deck with GDD. I think he realized the change recently and had to audible soem cards, but kept the boom/bust. I sided Cage preemptively and saw Nahiri second game. The interaction between Cage and Nahiri didn't stick, so he -8 on Nahiri and couldn't get his creature (he can activate the ability).

Round 5: GW Hatebears (2-1); She wins g1, I dodge Arbiter and win G2, seeing SB leylines. We both mull to 5 game 3 but i'm on the draw. She kept a hand with arbiter and Leyline but nothing else. I kept 2 bolts a Titan and lands, eventually getting there.

Round 6: Junk Midrange (1-2); Getting tired at this point and showed. Game 1 I was looking at two 3/4 Goyfs, and I had a relic and a Bolt but couldn't figure out how to kill one and not grow the other (hint Bolt then pop relic). I mis-sideboard for Game 2, thinking his deck was built differently but he leads out with Leyline. I get a good Valakut boardstate and can shoot down his creatures to make room for my Tracker and Titan. Game 3, he leads with leyline-Flayer-FMage. I have to scapeshift with 7 lands to keep his board clear, but leave some basic forests behind and null my own triggers. It was a hard loss and was definitely feeling the day wear on me.

Round 7: Kiki Chord (2-0); He casts a Courser game 1 and I untap and Scapeshift him. Game 2 he mulls to 4 and I have Titan+Omen and 5 other cards.

Round 8: Affinity (0-2). Did not keep a hand with bolt (blind keep), so died on turn 3. Game 2, I mull to 5 and keep a hand with bolt/Claim but only a mountain. Miss two land drops and once I find the green source, my Nature's Claim is met with a stubborn denial (he also dumped his hand Turn 1 with the last card being Thoughtcast).

Round 9: Eldrazi Tron (2-1): He can't interact with me and both games are over pretty quick. He's on the bubble for day 2 and planned on staying so I give him the win. Game 2 I get a Tracker on curve and manage to draw all 4 Titans.

CFB was having trouble running the event. There was at least 25 mins in-between each round. Even though I had the record for Day 2, I decided not to participate (I ran the risk of playing and missing my flight since Day 1 took forever).

As a follow up to the GP Vegas Meetup, based on the survey responses we'll meet Thursday June 15th at 8 pm (local time) at Tacos El Gordo.

Tacos El Gordo Site

Google Maps Link

This isn't inclusive, so feel free to bring whoever. I also picked the highest recommended place closest to the convention center but if the group that shows up decides on something else, that's also fine.

Also someone on the survey said they were local and knew some good eating spots, but the responses on my side are anon. DM me on twitter (@ aRichMesh) or on Reddit whoever you are (those will go to my phone, messages here don't)

I posted this to Reddit, but a cross post seems appropriate.

I've been playing with VBA recently and made a neat tool to look at card choices among MTGO 5-0 decks, SCG IQs/Events, and GPs. The first test looks at decks that fall in this catagory from 5-18 to 6-10 (a total of 24 decks).

I don't want to try and format it here, but here is the link to the Reddit post.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scapeshift/comments/6gv4gl/rg_scapeshift_card_choices_518610/

The first column is the card, second column is percentage in which that card is played among those decks in the set, and the third column is the average number of copies of that played card (of decks that have it).

Hope this is useful ahead of GP Vegas. About to look at mini-golf/food options for those who did the survey and release some details.

We can agree on Tireless tracker. We're easily the best Tracker deck in modern.

I had a game last night against Grixis control (no DS) where I wanted to sandbag a KHE for a few turns until I could land a Tracker. The tracker resolved and then got bolted, but I was able to get 3 Clues off it immediately.


As for the GP meetup, if you're planning on attending the GP and are interested in attending fill out the survey in the Reddit thread (don't need a Reddit account)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Scapeshift/comments/6efhr4/gp_vegas_meetup/

Not picking on you specifically, but in other forums a lot of innovation and discussion is hampered by

A. Person A suggests a card/ask if it was tested
B. Persons B-Z add opinion without testing.

Merfolk was notorious for this, and the phrase "Not what Fish wants to do" is sort of coined for that. Its a slippery slope and this forum is even guilty of it sometimes. Just be mindful, is all I'm saying.

As for Vegas, the Reddit /r/Scapeshift sub is doing a meetup, and I was going to extend it to this and the RUG threads if there was interest.

Also, anyone going to Charlotte and/or Vegas?