MTG Salvation

Here's the current iteration of my W/R Cycling Deck:

I'd run Wrath of God over Akroma's Vengeance. It doesn't cycle, but also doesn't kill your enchantments.

Life from the Loam is a very important component to this type of deck, especially in multiplayer. It also means you get to run Eternal Witness, whom is equally bonkers when she's cycled in-and-out of play every turn.

I really don't understand your creature base. Hellkite triggers when he's turned face-up, not when he comes into play. Rakroma has pro White and can't be exiled if people try and remove her, that is a massive liability. Exarch is just plain weak, especially in a multiplayer setting. I'm not seeing the typical Eternal Witness, Wall of Blossoms, Wall of Omens, etc. You want card advantage, not weak creatures that don't interact with your slide. Eternal Dragon is fine obviously, but the others are a flop.

This came up recently, so I thought I'd provide some threads to help give you some pointers and we can then help tune from there.

Here are the most recent threads on point and what I think you should take away from each.

The Fett Man's Recent Thread on Slide -- Here I would look at my posts detailing the difference between W/R and W/G and my personal list. This is what I would read first.

My original thread from awhile ago on my build -- Very old and largely irrelevant. My understanding of slide was much less then, but it has been included for completeness.

W/G Slide Thread circa 2010 -- Wrong archetype, but still listed for completeness

Astral slide thread circa 2010 -- I don't agree with a lot of the ideas expressed here, and it by now should become apparent that the average user doesn't grasp the difference between G/W and R/W slide, but completeness should win out. This is the second most important thread to read.

Quote from ExpiredRascals

Here I would look at my posts detailing the difference between W/R and W/G and my personal list.

There's absolutely no reason not to run W/R/G to get the best of both worlds. A W/R/G list is much stronger than a W/R or W/G one.

Fett Man: I would run Wrath too, but all my copies are in other decks.

Tich: Unfortunately I want to keep this W/R as it's an old Standard deck from back in the day. Plus I don't have any copies of Eternal Witness, Acidic Slime or the out-of-budget Life from the Loam. I could add Wall of Omens, but the deck has enough CA as it is, and that's where the benefits of running a 0/4 wall run out. Thanks for pointing out the Imperial Hellkite interaction, I saw it as a cheap 6/6 to morph first then slide in and search for a Eternal Dragon. That obviously doesn't work and makes the card pretty moot. Akroma however just seems too flashy not to include for a bit. I can play her for 3, then slide in an enormous beater when needed. I don't know if the pro. white is going to be such a huge issue.

Expired: I've played this deck for a while and understand many of its intricacies. Thanks for posting the information though, don't take my above comment as a shrug off - there are obviously aspects of the deck that I still don't understand, that's the beauty of Magic. How has Duplicant treated you in your testing? It seems a little costly at 6, but could easy win the game once it sticks.

Personally I want to up the Fluctuator count to 3, this opens up an easier path to burning people out with Lightning Rift, a main win condition. I was proxying 3 Exalted Angels, but am tired of those gold borders, and she's still a little out of budget.

These are the changes I would make right now if I had access to the cards:

-1 Inquisitor Exarch
-1 Imperial Hellkite
-1 Akroma's Vengeance
-1 Akroma's Blessing
+2 Wrath of God
+2 Fluctuator

Also, Ajani Vengeant is incredibly cheap at my LGS right now and I'm going to pick up a playset. He probably fits better in a different deck, but would it be worth running 2 of him for fun?

@Tich: A W/R/G list is actually a WG list splashing R (in terms of deck composition and philosophy). It has very little in common with the W/R lists. It also suffers as a 3-colours deck that feels committed to a large number of monochromatic lands. As to the relative strength between the two? Loam is a wonderful engine, it lets you skimp on cyclers, it guarantees access to cyclers once you find a few. But it is not without drawbacks. Loam opens you up to an entire other vector for hate (more than one actually: it opens you up to grave hate, which wasn't an issue before, and it makes countermagic more effective against you). It also puts a limit on what you can slide and when. It is a 2 mana tax on sliding that must be paid with every couple slides. It limits your ability to chain on opponents' turns because you're running much lighter on cyclers and can't cast a sorcery to refuel. W/R slide can chain cycles early on, and its only mana commitment is the cycling costs and rift costs themselves.

@Peter:
I strongly recommend running the full playset of renewed faith. That card was a staple of the old lists and I have found to be downright amazing. The small incremental lifegain with every cycle and the burst when you need it, it just gives you value at every point in the game. I would cut an angelsong for it.

Your manabase looks like it could use some tuning. I'd run all 16 copies of the on-colour cycling lands. I'd also recommend some blasted landscape, but not a playset. It looks like you're on a budget, so I'm going to assume shocks are out of reach, but if you have access to even a single sacred foundry, it will improve your eternal dragons significantly. I would also recommend running an additional temple.
Suggested manabase:

Cutting an eternal dragon would make sense with the abbreviated plains base.


EDIT: Why aren't you running all 4 copies of astral slide?
Slice and Dice deserves a playset too.

Quote from ExpiredRascals

@Tich: A W/R/G list is actually a WG list splashing R (in terms of deck composition and philosophy). It has very little in common with the W/R lists.

Totally. Building a deck that relies on cycling cards to trigger cards like Astral Slide and Words of War has very little in common with a deck that relies on cycling cards to trigger cards like Astral Slide and Words of War. They're completely different decks with completely different strategies. I don't know how I could have mixed them up to be honest. That's like comparing TES to ANT!

Loam is by far and away the strongest card advantage engine in Rifter decks. It's disgustingly strong. Dredging cards (that you can Witness back) to gain access to 3 more lands to cycle is just absurd. You're literally drowning in CA when you actually start playing it. It has a 2 mana tax? Are you serious? That's like saying that Yawgmoth's Bargain has a 1 life tax. Expending small amounts of resources to do amazingly broken things isn't a tax, it's a privilege. You have the privilege of paying 2 mana to gain access to 3 more cards to cycle. Last time I checked, a 2 mana Ancestral Recall that deals 6 damage and exiles 3 attackers until EOT with a buyback of "mill 2 cards" was a good thing.

The strongest multiplayer Slide lists will always have some means of recycling resources (Loaming Shaman for example) because it will prevent them from ever running out of steam. Right now your deck can only do X damage and then it will deck itself and die. Given how it easy it is to recycle resources in Rifter decks, I don't see a reason to put a cap on your deck's potential damage. Add in that Elixir of Immortality or whatever to keep yourself going indefinitely.

Quote from tich

Totally. Building a deck that relies on cycling cards to trigger cards like Astral Slide and Words of War has very little in common with a deck that relies on cycling cards to trigger cards like Astral Slide and Words of War. They're completely different decks with completely different strategies. I don't know how I could have mixed them up to be honest. That's like comparing TES to ANT!

Words of War? Perhaps you meant lightning rift?
Your sarcasm aside, consider the difference between forbiddian and countersliver. Both decks run counterspells, but they aren't remotely similar, they approach the game differently. In other news, TES and ANT aren't equivalent.

I would appreciate it if you withheld your condescension for the purposes of discussion.

Loam is by far and away the strongest card advantage engine in Rifter decks. It's disgustingly strong. Dredging cards (that you can Witness back) to gain access to 3 more lands to cycle is just absurd. You're literally drowning in CA when you actually start playing it. It has a 2 mana tax? Are you serious? That's like saying that Yawgmoth's Bargain has a 1 life tax. Expending small amounts of resources to do amazingly broken things isn't a tax, it's a privilege. You have the privilege of paying 2 mana to gain access to 3 more cards to cycle. Last time I checked, a 2 mana Ancestral Recall with buyback of "mill 2 cards" was a good thing.

The thing is, Slide doesn't have an issue with card advantage, the entire deck is a card advantage engine already. GW slide uses the loam engine to avoid the high cycler count that RW lists make use of, but it isn't needed to succeed. RW slide uses a high cycler count to achieve similar consistency while also achieving stronger early game potential. The early game is the most dangerous time for slide, and it is then that the 2 mana tax is relevant.
Also, rifter doesn't run loam. As you can see in the rifter thread, they don't run loam or slide at all. I'm unsure why you are mentioning another archetype unconnected to the discussion and also without support for the argument it was mentioned for.

The strongest multiplayer Slide lists will always have some means of recycling resources (Loaming Shaman for example) because it will prevent them from ever running out of steam. Right now your deck can only do X damage and then it will deck itself and die. Given how it easy it is to recycle resources in Rifter decks, I don't see a reason to put a cap on your deck's potential damage. Add in that Elixir of Immortality or whatever to keep yourself going indefinitely.

I've never lost a game in 3-5 person multiplayer due to decking with slide. yes, there is a limit to your damage, but when you aren't milling 3 or more to loam every turn, you won't run out of your library anywhere near as fast.
Again, the errant reference to rifter decks confuses me.

Quote from ExpiredRascals

@Peter:
I strongly recommend running the full playset of renewed faith. That card was a staple of the old lists and I have found to be downright amazing. The small incremental lifegain with every cycle and the burst when you need it, it just gives you value at every point in the game. I would cut an angelsong for it.

I'll toss it in there.

Your manabase looks like it could use some tuning. I'd run all 16 copies of the on-colour cycling lands.

My only qualm with this is that I don't have the extra copies of Fluctuator to reliably cycle the Urza's Saga lands for free. Do you think it'll make that much of a difference?

It looks like you're on a budget, so I'm going to assume shocks are out of reach, but if you have access to even a single sacred foundry, it will improve your eternal dragons significantly.

I have two copies of Sacred Foundry in my Zoo deck, is it that worth it to steal one and put it in here?

EDIT: Why aren't you running all 4 copies of astral slide?

If it is not in my starting hand I find I can reliably draw into it at 3 copies. Once I have 1-2 in play, the game is firmly in my control. Plus I aim to win through Lightning Rift, as I don't have that much to abuse Astral Slide with it's generally played defensively. If however, you suggest running Duplicant or some other Slide shenanigans, I could see it being worth it to run 4 copies.

Slice and Dice deserves a playset too.

I only have the two copies, but can easily pick up 2 more, what would you recommend cutting for it?

Quote from Tich »

Add in that Elixir of Immortality or whatever to keep yourself going indefinitely.

I will certainly do that - Elixir basically has a 1-of spot in all of my multiplayer decks.

Do any of these cards have a place in this deck?

Ajani Vengeant
Duplicant
Amulet of Vigor
Luminarch Ascension

Quote from PeterRiviera

Do any of these cards have a place in this deck?

Ajani Vengeant
Duplicant
Amulet of Vigor
Luminarch Ascension

I've found Amulet of vigor to only really help in this deck if you can land it on turn one off a non-cipt land, but if you have of those in hand, you're probably fine anyway since you can drop a cipt land on turn one and then use the normal land to meet your drops on subsequent turns. It doesn't help that it is a dead draw later. So i'd recommend not running the amulet.

Duplicant is really nice for dealing with pro-x creatures, since it bypasses most of the things slide and rift can't deal with. It also is nice because it can deal with any pesky indestructable guys permanently. I am very happy with the two in my list.

Ajani Vengeant and other planeswalkers are a seemingly perfect fit for slide, but the fact of the matter is, when you can drop and defend them, you're already winning anyway. I don't think this is the right deck for him.

Luminarch ascension is another wincon. I'm not convinced you need another over rift and incidentals (like duplicant).

EDIT: (just this part to peter, the tich part was in the original post and remains unedited)
I would strongly recommend running a full playset of slide. The full playset makes you less vulnerable to hate, increases your stopping power vs creatures (slide 2 attackers per cycler) and it makes you less susceptible to the randomization of the deck via shuffling screwing you over.

--------
@Tich:

Citation needed. I fail to see how a deck that trades 1 card for 1 card is a pure card advantage engine. Most of your cards aren't generating card advantage, they're simply cantripping themselves and providing you with a benefical effect such as lifegain or damage.

Every time you cycle a card with a slide or rift on the field, you are gaining effective card advantage. You are generating an effect with no card investment. Everyone else at the table on the other hand is expending resources to stop what you are doing without expending resources. It becomes hard card advantage when your rift shoots creatures or when your slide kills tokens or recurs duplicant's imprint.

I declined to reply to the rest since it seemed to be almost completely flamebait.

Quote from ExpiredRascals

@Tich:

Every time you cycle a card with a slide or rift on the field, you are gaining effective card advantage. You are generating an effect with no card investment.

There is a card investment. You are cycling a card and that card is now sitting in your GY. It replaces itself, so there is no net gain or loss of cards, but there most surely is an investment. Also, that's like saying that Prodigal Pyromancer generates card advantage when he pings. You're generating an effect with no card investment after all. Nothing in your deck can be said to be card advantage until after its net "benefits" can be calculated. I would argue that against a creatureless deck, the OP's deck is completely unable to generate card advantage other than recurring Eternal Dragon and possibly playing Ak's Vengeance. Nothing in the deck actually generates hard CA. There are no cards that draw multiple cards, recur multiple cards, etc. The cards that you do use are all "virtual" CA which isn't at all the same thing as a hard card advantage engine. It's like saying that Damnation generates CA. It doesn't. It can generate CA, and there will be times when the net effect of Damnation generates CA, but that doesn't mean that it's a card advantage engine. It's just a card that will, on occasion, generate CA.

My deck has hard CA engines beyond the Dragon. Slide + Witness/Cantrip Wall is an actual engine that generates multiple cards. Loam + cycle lands is an actual engine that generates multiple cards. I'm not reliant on my opponent having creatures out to generate CA. It's unconditional card advantage. You are cycling and hoping to kill a creature to generate any semblance of card advantage. That's fine against aggro, but how do you handle combo and control?

Quote from ExpiredRascals

Everyone else at the table on the other hand is expending resources to stop what you are doing without expending resources. It becomes hard card advantage when your rift shoots creatures or when your slide kills tokens or recurs duplicant's imprint.

"If" you shoot creatures and recur Duplicant, not "when." Rifter decks have always beaten Aggro but have always lost to Combo. You will have an easy time generating CA against weak aggro decks, but powerful combo decks will just run you over since you don't have anything that can really interact with them. You do not generate CA against that guy who Tinkers out a Inkwell Leviathan and attacks you. You get to interact with all of the meaningless creature-based decks out there when you play a R/W list, but nothing you do helps you interact with other Control and Combo decks. You're just hoping to land a Rift and burn them out before they "go off" and take you out. Nothing about that is card advantage. That's why you don't see Rifter decks placing in Legacy. They don't have the tools to interact with strong, non-aggro decks.

You're also expending resources to play cards like Slide, Rift, Fluctuator and you're typically paying some mana for your cycles. You are paying mana for your spells and effects, you are making investments.

Quote from tich

I'm not reliant on my opponent having creatures out to generate CA. It's unconditional card advantage. You are cycling and hoping to kill a creature to generate any semblance of card advantage. That's fine against aggro, but how do you handle combo and control?

You can aim Lightning Rift at the dome, which is what you should be doing all the time. Slide is there for the creatures. 1: Draw a Card, Deal 2 damage to an Opponent. Sounds pretty good to me.

I thought I'd sketch out what changes I'd recommend.
I think I caught everything in the changelog, but i'm not 100% on it.


Cuts:
1x Inquisitor Exarch
1x Imperial Hellkite
1x Akroma, Angel of Fury
2x Angelsong
1x Akroma's Blessing
4x Spark Spray


Additions:
1x Renewed Faith
1x Astral Slide
2x Wrath of God
2x Fluctuator
2x Duplicant
2x Slice and Dice
1x Starstorm


"The Sideboard" Explanations:
The listed Sideboard isn't intended to function as a sideboard, but rather a repository of cards to tweak your maindeck according to your meta.

Gilded Light is crucial if your meta is a frequent sufferer of x-spells aimed at the dome. It cycles when in multiples or when a cycler is needed.
Krosan Colossus is a morph fatty like your list originally ran. It is defensible with slide and can frequently kill players with an easy 2 swings (with the aid of painful manabases or lightning rift. It also is large and imposing enough to deter attacks on its own without any sliding of attackers being necessary.
Scrap will be more efficient than submersion in a artifact-dominated meta.
Wall of Omens is a draw engine with slide that shines in faster metas because it stalls early ground assaults long enough for you to stabilize with reasonable life.
Sun Titan is the perfect fatty for metas resplendent with such sweepers as Purify and Fracturing Gust. He makes your slides and rifts extremely resistant to removal and will also pull back lands on the off days.


Recommended Substitutions for Scarce/Expensive Cards:
(Substituted --> Substitution)
2x Wrath of God --> 2x Rout
Here I consider the strongest aspect of Wrath to be the "can't be regenerated" clause since this is what takes out what you can't kill with lightning rift. This rules out Day of Judgment and led me to consider Final Judgment and Rout. Rout is more versatile an can be cast either a turn earlier or a turn later but at instant speed, hence it getting the nod.

2x Fluctuator --> 2x Relevant sideboard cards

Thanks a ton for your help man. I'll try to pick up the rest of the cards after payday.

EDIT: Updated OP with current list: still a work in progress.

I'm not a fan of pitchstone wall. I just have trouble seeing it as better than any true cycler.

In other news, how did it perform yesterday?

Pitchstone is more of a filler until I get the rest of the cards, last night turned into a party, more people came over to drink so we didn't get to play.

Just found Rockshard Elemental, think it'd be worth 2 slots? It's a big morph fatty with double strike that can be slid out when in trouble.

Quote from PeterRiviera

Just found Rockshard Elemental, think it'd be worth 2 slots? It's a big morph fatty with double strike that can be slid out when in trouble.

I don't think it can compete with krosan colossus. Running KC and relying on slide to flip it just seems stronger.

Updated OP with newly acquired cards.