MTG Salvation

Hi everyone, I’m a first time poster, long time lurker, who’s been playing magic on and off for the last 23 years or so. My current playgroup is at work over lunches, and we typically play ffa multiplayer with 3 or 4 players, and using the Legacy banlist.

I’ve always enjoyed combo decks, and upon reviewing Dominaria spoilers I found Cabal Paladin. I recently saw a YouTube video from mtggoldfish with Sram, Senior Edificer and a bunch of 0 mana artifacts, and my gears have started turning!

I think I want to stick with white/black, although adding blue for draw and scrying (Artificer’s Assistant, perhaps?) also sounds fun. I’m thinking Dark Ritual and Lotus Petal to try to get stuff out early. And then a bunch of 0 mana artifacts/artifact creatures.

So what ideas does everyone have? Is Cabal Paladin worth trying to storm off with? What other cards would be good in this deck?

The question that I always have for that specific card is "why?" That is, "why not use Aetherflux Reservoir instead?" Why are we splashing Black for a weaker win condition when the colorless one (which costs 50 cents or whatever) is vastly superior?

Rituals don't work very well in this archetype. You need your fast mana to be artifacts like Mox Opal, Mox Amber, Sol Ring, Mana Vault, etc. that work with your Retract effects to generate mana to ensure that you're consistently able to combo off.

Also, the deck doesn't need Blue. Retract is clearly the best version of the the effect but Leave // Chance can still work. You don't need any actual Red mana but you will sometimes cast Chance off of a Mox Opal.

Thank you for the response, Prid3!

You make a really good point there...I guess I didn’t remember that Aetherflux Resevoir even existed.

Is that a viable strategy? What else supports it if you fizzle and can only take out one opponent, for example? I guess the thing that initially excited me about the Paladin was that it hit everyone, so I didn’t think about anything else the deck might need to do if it didn’t fully combo off.

Quote from JRod0586 »

Is that a viable strategy?

Yes. Very much so.

Quote from JRod0586 »

What else supports it if you fizzle and can only take out one opponent, for example?

The deck basically doesn't fizzle once it gets going. Even if it did Cabal Paladin wouldn't save you either so it's a moot point. If you want to add a 4 CMC colored spell make it Paradoxical Outcome. That card will legitimately win you games that no other card in Magic possibly could.

Quote from JRod0586 »

I guess the thing that initially excited me about the Paladin was that it hit everyone, so I didn’t think about anything else the deck might need to do if it didn’t fully combo off.

This deck doesn't have a backup plan if things go awry. You just lose and there's no two ways about it. Don't play it if you want something that can pivot from combo to a regular gameplan. Stick to something like Waste Not combo if that's what you're looking for.

Thanks again for all of the great advice, Prid3! Here is what I have so far - P.S I derped this hard originally, corrected list now there!



I also can’t afford the Mox Opal right now, but eventually 4 of those would be added.

The problem with that deck is that it can't actually cast any of its spells. Let's pretend that you go Land -> Land + Sram and combo off to draw your deck (just so we're clear this is virtually impossible but it's moot as you'll soon see). What do you do with that? You're never drawing into fast/free mana so you can't actually win. That's my biggest concern for you right now. 16 lands also seems low. You only have a 76.022% probability of drawing 2 or more in your top 9 cards which means that ~25% of the time you (almost certainly) automatically lose the game to mana screw.

How removal heavy is your meta? As it sits this deck cannot win before turn 4 so it's not going to be the blazing fast combo deck that you saw Seth play. Even then it's difficult to call this a turn 4 deck because you typically need at least 1-2 copies of Retract to win and since you have to cast Reservoir after Retract that kinda messes things up. Not having access to any fast mana such as Mox Opal more-or-less kills the deck :/.