MTG Salvation

Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim, Anguished Unmaking, Altered Ego and The Gitrog Monster have officially be added to the list. Welcome!

Culled a lot of crap from the list. I'm shifting the guide to be on the more competitive side of the spectrum.

Added Grim Flayer and Tamiyo, Field Researcher. Tamiyo might come off at a later time but insofar as cards like Armageddon and Doubling Season exist I figure that she'll always be reasonably competitive.

Taking opinions on Gisa and Geralf. Is the Fleshbag Marauder/Gray Merchant of Asphodel/Sidisi, Undead Vizier loop powerful enough to justify making the cut? Especially on a 4/4 for 4 that self-mills 4 cards (which is usually better than drawing a card)? After all, we all love us some cards like Animate Dead, Accumulated Knowledge, Treasure Cruise, etc.

Quote from Xyx »

I have yet to see them in action, but in the right deck Gisa and Geralf seem superior to Meren of Clan Nel Toth. Meren starts doing it for free after a while, but Gisa and Geralf set you up with a bit of milling and you get the creatures slightly sooner.

G&G seems almost strictly worse than Meren. Both cards have an initial investment of 4 mana and a card but Meren "draws a card" for 0 mana every turn from there on out whereas G&G only provides value on turns where you elect to take advantage of her recursion. Since I value the Raise Dead over the mill 4 on the turn that you cast either I have Meren at least a tier above G&G and possibly even 2. Just so we're clear I've basically never had the experience counters truly matter (you typically need a card like Prossh, Skyraider of Kher to consistently trigger it) and I don't assign any value to it. When analyzing the card I only care about the "base mode" and if she sometimes goes above and beyond that's awesome but not something that I'm ever banking on.

That isn't to say that I dislike G&G, they're a powerful recursion engine, but at the same time there's a clear divide between them and Meren. The fact that one only works with Zombies and has recurring mana requirements are serious drawbacks when compared to things like Graveborn Muse that only ask for a single investment and work with anything. Clearly the power-ceiling of G&G is significantly higher but the floor is also noticeably lower. Still, the reason why I liked this card is because when it works it's oppressive so it's definitely worth discussing.

I'd prefer Meren by far. Because you only need a few XP for instant and free reanimation whereas G&G is narrower and never free.

(And on the previous addition: Altered Ego has yet to disappoint me, it's a HOUSE!)

Yes, Meren in a canter. GG are good, but pretty much limited to Zombie tribal (because otherwise, you lose half the benefit of self-milling each turn).
I'm disappointed in the fact that they really don't work nicely next to a lot of the normal Zombie tribal elements - Noxious Ghoul kills it, Lord of the Undead can't resurrect it, etc. etc. It's like you have to kill them and then Rise from the Grave them back into play to go properly nuts. So yes, good card, but it has its issues.

Havengul Lich likes G&G.
But that card likes any dead stuff.

Since these are no long stickied (why is that?), perhaps add links to your other color primers?

I, for one, are curious about Black updates over the last year or so.

Quote from Tev »

I, for one, are curious about Black updates over the last year or so.

My guides are still linked in the single stickied thread.

I'm currently in the process of re-vamping some of my guides. Working on Blue atm and hoping to roll it out in this week. Red and White both received major overhauls recently but the other colors need serious updates.

My "working" guides are linked in my sig and since I post in ~80% of threads I'm not hard to find.

Quote from Prid3 »

Quote from Tev »

I, for one, are curious about Black updates over the last year or so.

My guides are still linked in the single stickied thread.

I'm currently in the process of re-vamping some of my guides. Working on Blue atm and hoping to roll it out in this week. Red and White both received major overhauls recently but the other colors need serious updates.

My "working" guides are linked in my sig and since I post in ~80% of threads I'm not hard to find.

Yah, we were starting to clog the top of the forum up with stickies, so we agreed to roll it all into the single stickied thread. I should imagine if you post in one of the Guide threads, they'll bounce back up to the top of the forum as per normal.
And yes, I will do a full overhaul of the Artifice Guide soon-ish. I need to pull it apart and set it up like Prid3 has with his Red and White guides.

Added Leovold, Emissary of Trest, Daretti, Ingenious Iconoclast and Kaya, Ghost Assassin. Of those the only one that I'm 100% confident about is Leovold since the others will have to prove themselves.

Kaya is a worse siphon mind. Not sure that shes much more than that.

Quote from Kumlekar »

Kaya is a worse siphon mind. Not sure that shes much more than that.

I was an idiot and thought that she blinked herself AND a creature, not OR a creature. I've since removed her.

Welcome Renegade Rallier and Dark Intimations! The Rallier is a solid alternative to Wood Elves in any list with Fetchlands/Sakura-Tribe Elder/etc. and being able to recur things like Gaddock Teeg, Stoneforge Mystic, Scavenging Ooze, etc. in the midgame is also solid. Dark Intimations is literally an 8-for-1 in a 4 player FFA and since it continues to scale from there it's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned. The fact that it nails creature and noncreature decks alike is what really sells me on the card though.