MTG Salvation

How do you guys feel about Celestial Colonnade?

I was watching a discussion about it on the UWx Control FB group and a lot of players were basically saying that they don't need to use it as a wincon anymore and a lot of players view it most to threaten blocks. If that's the case, which it normally is for myself as well, would we be well suited to include a couple copies of Stirring Wildwood?. It costs a couple less mana to activate, which means it's much easier to utilize as a blocker. The obvious trade off is that it's not nearly as effective as closing out the game, but as mentioned, that doesn't seem to be super important to UWx anymore now with all the walkers, and especially true of us since we play a few more creatures. The bigger draw back in my mind, but maybe a little more subtle, is that it can't presure planeswalkers as effectively if the opponent has ground creatures. You guys think that is a major concern?

Awesome! Glad you did well with the deck.

How did you feel about the mana? Blast zone over Field and 3x waterlogged grove?

Interesting build, heavily focused on the Narset/Box combo. I wonder if not having snaps because of RIP in the main means you have to have the combo or risk running out of action/threats.

My only gripe with his list is Astrolabe and On Thin Ice. They both have been so bad in my testing. OTI leads to tooany blow outs. Astrolabe is ok, but as a 1 of I don't think it helps turn on Coatl often enough to justify running it over Heiroglyphic Illumination.

I think Growth Spiral might be too high variance - I don't think the issue is that you need big mana sinks for it; Spiral into path on turn 2 Jace on turn 3 is lights outs vs basically everyone. When you can cast it on curve, and use the mana it feels like instant speed time walk. However, this is balanced out because when you cast it on turn 6+ it's just a 2 mana cycler. I think playing 1 might be fine, kind of like Azcanta - it's just game winning and amazing like 5% of the time or hard to find time to cast it the rest of the time but it's fine. Maybe I'll try cutting the single copy I've been on the last 2 days for the 4th Snapcaster.

Here's what I'll be on tomorrow:

Mystic Snake in light of the 'negate' counters is a pretty big deal I guess. Let me know how it goes, I still can't see it being better than Cryptic in a deck with more snapcaster than restoration angel.

We may have enough win conditions over traditional UW control to consider cutting some more colonnade and turning on Coatl more frequently is always good. I don't like going so low on the number of "spell" lands in control decks though. Maybe if we added some number of Arcum's Astrolabe we could consider cutting the celestial Colonnade for Field of Ruin - The colorless of Field of Ruin will be negated by Astrolabe and you are still increasing the number of snow permanents.


The idea in the spoiler doesn't seem to work, I tested it out all day today and last night and it's pretty bad. Just having a single dead card in hand is asking too much in this format because the format is far too fast. The more traditional UW control splash Ice-Fang is far more effective and worth exploring imo.

List looks good. Looks like we converged on the mana.

Blast zone instead of field is certainly interesting and could lead to potentially wanting to cut a copy of winds of abandon which frees up some space in the main. I worry about not being able to turn on Coatl enough though, as Field of Ruin helps with the Snow permanent count.

I know you aren't a fan of a Growth Spiral in theory, but if you haven't tried it I strongly implore you to cut 1 Sleight of Hand for a Growth Spiral just to try it for a bit. Whenever I cast one on turn 2 3 or 4 and use the mana right away it feels like the strongest card in the deck.

What matchup are you expecting for Blessed alliance? And have you considered Gideon's Triumph or are you hoping to ambush people with untapping Coatl?

I could be convinced to play an additional copy of FoN in the main, and I could be convinced on surgical and the 2nd growth spiral as not very good. I don't think I can be convinced off timely though - with no other lifegain in the deck it seems necessary. It also pulls double duty against creature decks because of the lack of cheaper sweepers like verdict.

What do you think of Regrowth?

I was watching Nassif run a similar list and he had a really good innovation in regard to the lack of sweepers in the maindeck: Lyra Dawnbringer. He runs 2x Lyra (well 1 lyra and 1 Baneslayer Angel, but I think that's wrong in a Restoration Angel deck) but he also doesn't run any Winds of Abandon. I think I like 2x Wind of Abandon and 1x Lyra, but I don't think you can go too wrong either way. It plays especially well with Growth Spiral, which is a card he chose not to play, but I think a pair of Growth Spiral goes a long way in getting you out ahead of aggro decks. Spiral into any 4 drop other than Fact or Fiction will buy you enough time to deal with a wide board via Angels or Winds of Abandon.



Additionally, I think I solved the Misty/Vista problem - Misty is going to be better if you cut down to 1 forest 1 plains instead of 2 plains 1 forest if you add a temple garden. I don't really like the 3rd shock much because of the life loss, so I cut a Waterlogged Grove as well. I don't think I would go below 3 Grove, it feels like the strongest land in the deck which is saying a lot alongside Colonnade and Field of Ruin.

What do you guys think of a singleton Regrowth in the main? Cutting the planeswalkers wincons down to 2 Jace and 1 Tef5 is a little light, and regrowth can help with that. Would it be better than Snap 3 or 4? I'm not really too sure but Snap can't rebuy Coatls, Angels and Field of Ruins whereas Regrowth can get any card Snap could with the price being sorcery speed and no 2/1 body attached. In normal UW control I would say the body is way more relevant, but between the snakes and angels (kind of a nice deck name, Snakes & Angels) we won't miss the body nearly as much as UW control would. If you guys think it would be good, what would be the cut? 3rd Snap? 4th Path? 2nd Tef3?

You have plenty of time to get to 6 Mana
for Winds of Abandon against just about everything, especially if you play a couple copies of growth spiral. The additional creatures and proactive walkers will keep your opponent's creatures busy enough to buy you time to turn on a winds of Abandon.

In my experience (50 matches or so), with 7 snow basics, 7 fetches and 1-2 field.of ruin, Coatl rarely has death touch on turn 3 because your first fetch usually needs to find a dual. With conscious effort you can turn it on for turn 4 about half the time. Turn 5 is when you can reasonably expect Coatl to be turned on organically.

Despite not being turned on, the lack of defender, having power, and flash are massive advantages over wall of omens; the deck plays majority at instant speed and being able to play creatures during opps eot is a huge advantage when planning how to get your planeswalkers onto the field safely.

As you mentioned, flying is also a huge upside. Being able to block opposing cliques, pheonixes and mantis riders does wonders for the viability of your walkers in some of the most popular matchups.

I think mystic snake is too cute; a little bit of synergy with restoration angel (which I'm convinced is only 1 slot in the main and 1-2 side) isn't enough reason to play a 4 drop that's worse in most situations than cryptic command.

Another reason for running 4x Waterlogged Grove is also because the deck is thirsty for U/G duals, before MH1 I was running 3 Hinterland Harbour.

It could be correct to run a different dual over the 3rd and/or 4th grove (hintetland, Misty, prismatic Vista etc), but they have just been performing so well and flooding seems to be way more of a common problem for me than running out of life points because of painful Mana.

On another note, I think prismatic Vista should occupy some slots over Misty rainforest if you plan on using creatures with white in the cost and you don't want to play Temple garden, like resto. Ive been fiddling with a couple resto in the side and a couple times I had already fetched my hallowed fountain on a turn when I wanted to cast both resto and either a path or a tef3 in the same turn and it it was ugly. Because of running 2 plains and only 1 hallowed, Vista is probably better.

I don't think I would run any other ramp in the deck other than Spiral; those other ramp spells are just dead cards going late and being sorcery speed is not great in a reactive deck.

I don't agree with it being a 'bad' UW control deck. I think it has the potential to be a better UW control deck; Coatl and Waterlogged Grove are excellent cards for the archetype.

If it turns out to be a bad UW control deck, it would be because Field of Ruin is better than Waterlogged Grove or that 7 fetch lands is much worse than 5. I'm not convinced of either of those things.

So I couldn't get the mana to agree with the Growth Spiral plan - same thing happened when Growth Spiral was first printed. Either you have too many cantrips and you end up flooding or you don't have enough lands to consistently hit your land drops. You also end up needing to skew your mana base away from Field of Ruin altogether which really sucks, and you're incentivized to avoid 3 drops, of which there are plenty of strong ones in this color combo. It also incentivized playing additional 1 drops, like snare and spell pierce, which are not necessarily where UWx want to be.

However, as I tested and tweaked I realized how powerful Waterlogged Grove is. I tried normal UW, just replaced 2 Field and 2 Colonnade for 4 Waterlogged Grove and it was actually good. You just need to make sure you run Timely Reinforcements to make up for the lifeloss. Since I already had 4 green sources in the deck I wanted to try to make bant work again because I was missing Coatl.

Based on some of the suggestions here, I slowly added more and more Winds of Abandon until I was off all other sweepers and eventually cut down to 3 Path. Here's the List



A couple growth Spirals help turn Winds of Abandon into a real sweeper. Because of the high number of removal spells in the deck (PTE, Coatl and WInds) and the SB creatures pulling double duty against control and creature decks, you don't need a lot of space in the sideboard for removal - 1 PTE and 1 more coatl. The sideboard is obviously heavily skewed towards Hogaak.

Quote from Cody_X »

Yea thats fair. I do worry about how often you're able to hit land drops with only 22 (I only count 21 in the decklist of 59 cards so i assume the missing one is a land) especially into teferi. You have a fair amount of cantrips, but still.

Good eye, 22nd land was a breeding pool. Brings the U to 19 and the G to 12 for cryptic and the UG two drops.

I do occasionally miss on the Spiral, but not usually until 4+ mana. The deck is very cantrip heavy so if you go to many lands you flood like crazy. This was one of the biggest reasons why I was so excited about Waterlogged Grove.

I often have to shock myself on turn 1 in order to Opt into land 3, but it's a small price to pay. Additionally, if you don't have land 3 you can just Coatl or Opt instead of Growth because they give you either a) a better chance to find land 3 with opt or b)progress the board state with Coatl. I wouldn't cast Growth on turn 2 if I didn't have the land already if I had either of those other options.

In my testing so far 22 has felt a tiny bit light on lands and 23 has felt a tiny bit heavy. Need a bigger sample size.

I agree with your choice of sweepers. Verdict was pretty hard to cast which is why I cut it from the last list. I should probably choose not to have it in the sideboard either. Maybe an EE instead.

I think you could make a case for terminus as well since it plays nice with spiral growth and Jace.

Rampant growth effects are fine but I don't think into the north is needed - there's lots to do on turn 2 already. Growth spiral is unique because it's instant, draws a card and potentially puts the land in untapped. Being untapped is a huge tempo swing when you turn 2 spiral into interaction (pierce, snare, path).

BGx is great - UWx has only really had issues with ramping them too quickly when they had an early Bob + lilly. This is mitigate a bit by Spiral Growth because we can still interact while ramping; you dont have to fear pathing the Bob. Just have to watch out for Fulminator, like alway, but extra fetches help with that as well.

I also run a pair of snare, which helps a lot in this matchup.

After playing the deck a lot now over the past few days I can confidently say that Ice-Fang is definitely worth it. My question is just whether you want 3 or 4. Even when it doesn't have deathtouch, it provides an effect that bant control wants - drawing cards and providing tempo. The addition of being able to pressure opposing Narsets is also very handy in control mirrors. When you draw it late, deathtouch is always turned on which is nice. I've messed around with the mana base a little to include a pair of ETB tapped snow-duals (can't fetch them though) just to have Deathtouch more frequently.

Here's the list I'm currently on and it feels very consistent and strong:



I gave up the Field of Ruins, as Growth Spiral demands a lot of colored mana if you want to be be able to Spiral into a Spell on turn 2. I think if you want field of ruin, you could probably drop the 2 snow-duals for a single field and a misty rainforest. If you went that route I would suggest dropping Coatl number 4 for a Heiroglyphic illumination.

The other thing of note was dropping the sweepers altogether - if you can consistently turn on Coatl, verdict is not necessary.

I've been happy with the 5 "negate" effects of 3 force, 2 pierce - Its a control deck, so creature spells don't bother me a whole lot.

Mirror match feels good. Only played against Hogaak once, and he died to his deck not functioning properly so I can't really speak on the matchup, I don't see it being a whole lot different than UW. Tron is probably a lot differen't with no field of Ruin, but my experience with growth spiral decks in the past has been that the matchup is good despite low numbers of field of ruin (ran 1-2 copies in the past) - they just have such a hard time beating an early jace if you have any disruption at all. Now with force of negation, I dont see this matchup being too hard.