MTG Salvation

So I goldfished a version of this deck and if felt a bit slow. How has your experience been with it? Do you feel like turn 8 is when you start to get going or am I lacking some ramp?

Question for you: Why not use Everflowing Chalice? It's more or less a Mind Stone that grows with your Proliferate cards.

(I have a non-Commander WU Planeswalker deck that abuses the crap out of the Chalice.)

Quote from trancekat

So I goldfished a version of this deck and if felt a bit slow. How has your experience been with it? Do you feel like turn 8 is when you start to get going or am I lacking some ramp?

I've had a couple fast games and a lot of slow ones. Ramping it to play faster is my primary focus right now. I've just been evaluating my options and looking for suggestions.

Quote from Ulthwithian

Question for you: Why not use Everflowing Chalice? It's more or less a Mind Stone that grows with your Proliferate cards.
(I have a non-Commander WU Planeswalker deck that abuses the crap out of the Chalice.)

I had considered it but don't currently have a copy. if I can get one, I will likely swap it directly for the other XX spell (Orochi Hatchery). Hatchery is just too slow (had it last night and didn't want to play it), while chalice could accelerate. Unfortunately, it just produces colorless, and I've been more worried about hitting specific colors.




So, as i said, I have been pondering how best to ramp up, but that just reminds me how much I really miss Prime Time. I need to check my stash of commons and uncommons to see what I have left (got rid of 25,000 cars recently and keep finding that I need cards that were among them). Any further suggestions would be appreciated, especially if they ramp an color fix at the same time.

Testing a few changes.


I was trying to address the ramp/fixing issue and give myself a little more control without losing a token generator. Legacy Weapon was just good stuff but too slow. Hatchery and Arrows both interacted with proliferate but were also too slow. I'll play a few more games and see if I like the changes.

I am looking for one more slot to open up for Aura Shards. I figure that the tokens would combo with it for non-creature control. Any suggestions on what to cut?

This deck exploded tonight.

A turn 2 Luminarch Ascension kept me in the game despite mana shortage until I Demonic Tutored a Land Tax. Martial Coup and Garruk, the Veil-Cursed bought me more time, and then I finally got to drop a combo I've been dying to get - Humility and Jace, Architect of Thought in the same turn! This, and a miracled Terminus that tucked both opposing generals (a 1/1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath and a 7/7 Vorosh, the Hunter), kept my walkers and myself protected long enough to ultimate Jace, allowing me to cast Doubling Season from my deck and Elspeth, Knight-Errant and Contagion Engine (with my opponents' creatures still 1/1s) from my opponents' decks. I immediately ultimated Elspeth to protect my newly acquired goodies. The next turn saw another Jace ultimate, which allowed me to fetch and ultimate Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker. I even ultimated Veil-Cursed on two different turns with only two creatures in my graveyard just to speed the game up and deal lethal with wolves and soldiers. A meaner individual would have ultimated Bolas a second time against the guy with only seven permanents before attacking him.

It was epic.



That being said - I want to discuss the new planeswalker :
Ral Zarek 2UR
Planeswalker - Ral
+1: Tap target permanent, then untap another target permanent.
-2: Ral Zarek deals 3 damage to target creature or player.
-7: Flip 5 coins. Take an extra turn after this one for each coin that comes up heads.
Starting Loyalty: 4


SWEET!!!!
-Mana cost is not too restrictive, and he starts with four loyalty counters.
-His plus ability is so versatile - tapping is alright, but untapping is great. This could be mana ramp/fixing, it could be another activation of Contagion Engine (or Clasp) or Lux Cannon or Magistrate's Scepter. It could be a lot of things.
-His middle ability is solid - a sorcery speed lightning bolt every turn.
-His ultimate is nuts. On average, you will get 2.5 extra turns each time you activate it. Or 5 extra turns if you have Rings of Brighthearth out. Which could be enough to go infinite with repeatable proliferate. Or just with Doubling Season and Venser, the Sojourner.

I'm afraid he's going to be expensive, but he's a solid 9/10 for me right now. I'm so excited to get a copy.

Still don't have Ral Zarek, but I wanted to post some disgusting ways to abuse his ability.

Ral Zarek + Doubling Season + Venser, the Sojourner = infinite turns as long as you average 1/5 or more on the flips. Just use Ral Zarek's ultimate and then bounce him out so he'll come back fully charged again.

Ral Zarek + Doubling Season + Contagion Engine = infinite turns as long as you start with 2/5 or more on the first flips and then average about 1.33/5 or more thereafter. Here's a breakdown, with turn 1 being the turn you drop Ral Zarek with the other two already on the board:
Turn 1 - Ral starts with 8 loyalty, activate ultimate, putting him at (1 loyalty)
Turn 2 - Activate Engine, use his +1 to untap Engine, activate Engine (10 loyalty)
Turn 3 - Activate ultimate, activate Engine (7 loyalty)
Turn 4 - Activate Engine, activate ultimate (4 loyalty)
Turn 5 - Activate Engine, activate ultimate (1 loyalty)
Turn 6... This starts the cycle again at Turn 2
Considering you should average 2.5 on each ultimate, this should not be hard to keep rolling.

Ral Zarek + Rings of Brighthearth + Contagion Engine = infinite turns once you get the ball rolling, too. If you Rings his ultimate, you'll average 5 extra turns. On each of those turns you can Rings your Engine for just 6 (+5 loyalty), and every other turn you could use his +1 ability to untap the Engine if you wanted. You would get an average of 5 extra turns at least every other turn, sometimes more often.

I'm not usually a fan of locking games with an infinite combo, but these are easily disruptable, and sometimes you get in a sticky situation with no other way out.

Finally traded for copy of Ral Zarek, so I need to make a slot for him. Haven't decided what to cut yet.

Also, I can't say I've only spent $10 on this deck anymore - now it's up to $16. I played a really long, aggravating game this week because one guy got a Dead-Eye Navigator lock. He bonded it at different times with Mystic Snake, Draining Whelk, and Venser, Shaper Savant. Anytime the player before him passed, if he had enough mana left, he would blink the Navigator to bond it with Sylvan Primordial and then blink that to nuke our lands and ramp his own. I tried to land a few wraths, but he always managed to counter them, and I was never able to get my Supreme Verdict. In frustration, I turned to the guy behind the counter and asked if they had a Boseiju, Who Shelters All - I bought it on the spot. (That game has also made me consider Sudden Spoiling).

So, yeah - two cards that need a home. I'll figure out what to cut in the next couple days. Any suggestions would be appreciated (I love finding new cards but always hate pulling stuff out).

Quote from FunkyDragon

Finally traded for copy of Ral Zarek, so I need to make a slot for him. Haven't decided what to cut yet.

Also, I can't say I've only spent $10 on this deck anymore - now it's up to $16. I played a really long, aggravating game this week because one guy got a Dead-Eye Navigator lock. He bonded it at different times with Mystic Snake, Draining Whelk, and Venser, Shaper Savant. Anytime the player before him passed, if he had enough mana left, he would blink the Navigator to bond it with Sylvan Primordial and then blink that to nuke our lands and ramp his own. I tried to land a few wraths, but he always managed to counter them, and I was never able to get my Supreme Verdict. In frustration, I turned to the guy behind the counter and asked if they had a Boseiju, Who Shelters All - I bought it on the spot. (That game has also made me consider Sudden Spoiling).

So, yeah - two cards that need a home. I'll figure out what to cut in the next couple days. Any suggestions would be appreciated (I love finding new cards but always hate pulling stuff out).

This is exactly why I keep Boseiju in an all enchantment deck with 1 sorcery. Control players are aggravating; you don't get to play, you get to watch them play.

No suggestions on what to cut yet, but I'll take a look again when I have a moment; I really like the deck, just haven't had time to put it together yet.

I made a few changes to incorporate some recent acquisitions and a colorless mana-fixer I somehow overlooked. I'm not entirely satisfied with my cuts, but I'm going to run with it for a while to see how it plays out.

I've finally gotten around to starting the Alternative Budget/Subtheme section (original and second post). I hope to have it done soon. I would also like to link to other people's five color planeswalker builds in that section, so anyone who wants their deck posted, just shoot me a message.

Speaking of budget, I have a decision to make. I originally posted that I had no intentions of upgrading the manabase with duals, but I have made a couple of trades recently where i couldn't find anything I was looking for, so I grabbed trade value in the form of shocklands. I have two of them and need to decide if I should pursue getting the other eight. I still don't want to spend any money (have only spent $16 thus far), but I don't know if I can get a full set just through trades. I guess I can just start running what I have rather than wait for a full set.

I would be most interested in seeing a tribal sliver theme, or work with you in making one.

Quote from ashep01

I would be most interested in seeing a tribal sliver theme, or work with you in making one.

That's actually the next one I plan to post. It should be up in a day or two. Also, I'm up to 4 shocklands that I've traded for, so I'll be posting those in the main deck soon. I may need to add Wood Elves soon, if I can just get another dual forest (still missing two of them).

The alternate sliver build is up (front page, post 2), and I also scored our newest planeswalking visitors in the individual card discussion section of post 1. Here they are for anyone who doesn't feel like searching:


Chandra, Pyromaster (4/10) - This Chandra starts out decent, but that ultimate is designed for an entirely different deck archetype. After exiling ten cards, I'm most likely going to find a wrath, and having three copies of that is pretty pointless. It's not an ultimate I would ever want to fire off in this deck, and her other abilities aren't amazing enough to overcome that.

Garruk, Caller of Beasts (3.5/10) - Garruk's latest incarnation is really bad for a sweeper build but could prove useful in a tribal deck; even then, his CMC 6 is pretty bad unless you have lots of spare mana (say, from mana slivers). He feels like he really wants to play mono-green or two color at the most.

Made a couple more changes. I stripped down my mono-B Kuon deck and decided to make a new home for Sudden Spoiling. I like the card and wanted to try it out. It has Split Second, so it can shut down creature decks with very little fear of being countered (would have loved it in the game against the Dead-Eye Navigator lock). It can act as a pseudo-fog. It can be cast alongside a wrath (your own or that annoying Avacyn player's) to wipe out indestructibles.

I also managed to trade for a fifth shockland. Halfway there, but I'm getting annoyed as I look for Stomping Grounds (because no one has them) and Breeding Pool (because no one will trade them). I was really hoping to get all the dual forests - I keep telling myself that as soon as I get a third I will add Wood Elves to the deck, but so far no luck.

I loved Mimic Vat, but my playgroup seems to have decided it's a major threat - anytime I bring it out, they remove it ASAP - often before I even get a creature imprinted. It often just wasn't doing enough to keep.

Big changes!



It's been a rough couple of weeks, but I was able to relax and enjoy some great games this Tuesday. I have now traded for 9/10 shocklands and decided that running four dual forests and four dual plains merited Wood Elves and Tithe. The new manabase runs like a charm.

I even pulled off infinite turns by dropping Doubling Season and Ral Zarek one turn, flipping for 4 extra turns, and then dropping Contagion Engine on my first extra turn.

Here's why you need Tezzeret the Seeker: Artifact lands from mirrodin turn him into a ramping powerhouse, AND pretty much fixes your WUBRG manabase (find the color artifact land you need).

Just my own two cents.

Quote from spaninq

Here's why you need Tezzeret the Seeker: Artifact lands from mirrodin turn him into a ramping powerhouse, AND pretty much fixes your WUBRG manabase (find the color artifact land you need).

I hadn't really thought of combining him with artifact lands. If I hadn't used the shocklands, that would be a really compelling direction to take the deck. The biggest drawback I see is losing land to artifact destruction, but it would allow for a somewhat more budget manabase. I'll add it to the card discussion in the original post.

Also, I just traded for my 10th shockland. The set is complete.

My eyes are currently Theros-bound, so I figured I'd give my initial thoughts on the upcoming walkers.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion - (8.5/10) - I love all three of her abilities. Getting three tokens and extra loyalty is very nice. The minus is a wrath that won't hit my creatures and will hit anything bound to deal a lot of damage to my walkers. And the emblem is pretty good, too. I am disappointed in the CMC 6, but that won't stop me from playing this lovely lady once I get my hands on a copy.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - (5.5/10) - My initial excitement over Ashiok has dwindled a bit. Three mana is awesome, and the card has potential, but I feel like I want it to seem cooler than it is. the problem is, there is no way that Ashiok can affect the board the turn it comes into play. Even with Doubling Season in play, you can only activate the first ability. It offers no protection for itself and simply sits there asking to be attacked before it eventually does something powerful. i would love to activate the ultimate, but if your opponents have creatures, you can bet you will never get there.

Xenagos, the Reveler - (5/10) - While he is a good walker, and hasty tokens are cool, this just isn't anything I want in my planeswalker deck. The mana is negligible in a low creature deck. The token may be hasty, but a 2/2 isn't that scary in EDH. And the ultimate is not something I can ever picture using in this type of deck. I'd lose more value than I'd gain.

So there's my opinion. Probably only one of the three will make it in my build. I am curious what others think in context of a five color planeswalker deck. Which ones would you run and why?

Lux Cannon has been depressingly useless of late - my opponents always destroy it before it can get online. It has been removed to make room for yet another walker - Ajani, Caller of the Pride. I've been wanting to try out this army in a can for a while, so I finally traded for one.

Still waiting to get an Elspeth, Sun's Champion. Not sure yet what I'll cut for it. I'm also debating adding back in Leyline of the Void or Rest in Peace because reanimator has become increasingly popular in my meta.

I'm bumping the thread (I do not consider this a useless necro-bump because we have Kiora, the Crashing Wave to discuss). Personally, even though I'm a little skeptical, I'm planning to make room for her.

Also, I stumbled upon this, and from playing all three for a few months now, I'd like to say a few things.

Quote from FunkyDragon

My eyes are currently Theros-bound, so I figured I'd give my initial thoughts on the upcoming walkers.

Elspeth, Sun's Champion - (8.5/10) - I love all three of her abilities. Getting three tokens and extra loyalty is very nice. The minus is a wrath that won't hit my creatures and will hit anything bound to deal a lot of damage to my walkers. And the emblem is pretty good, too. I am disappointed in the CMC 6, but that won't stop me from playing this lovely lady once I get my hands on a copy.

Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver - (5.5/10) - My initial excitement over Ashiok has dwindled a bit. Three mana is awesome, and the card has potential, but I feel like I want it to seem cooler than it is. the problem is, there is no way that Ashiok can affect the board the turn it comes into play. Even with Doubling Season in play, you can only activate the first ability. It offers no protection for itself and simply sits there asking to be attacked before it eventually does something powerful. i would love to activate the ultimate, but if your opponents have creatures, you can bet you will never get there.

Xenagos, the Reveler - (5/10) - While he is a good walker, and hasty tokens are cool, this just isn't anything I want in my planeswalker deck. The mana is negligible in a low creature deck. The token may be hasty, but a 2/2 isn't that scary in EDH. And the ultimate is not something I can ever picture using in this type of deck. I'd lose more value than I'd gain.

So there's my opinion. Probably only one of the three will make it in my build. I am curious what others think in context of a five color planeswalker deck. Which ones would you run and why?

All three made it into my deck. While I never intend to ultimate Xenagos, the 0 ability is a great defense, and her +1 is Gaea's Cradle, which as rare as it will come up, when it does, it will be gamebreaking. I used it to ramp out a Turn 5 Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker before.

Ashiok is a win condition because it eats players' decks, steals players' decks, then rips their hands and graves from them. It takes some defense, but the work put in by Ashiok is well worth the space in my opinion.

As for Kiora:

+1 Great in situations where there is all but one thing under control, or have control. It needs help though because against swarms, it's underwhelming.

-1 Explore! It's useful especially as repeatable, but only getting two uses except under Proliferation shenanigans or going +1,-1,+1,etc. But then we don't get...

-5 A 9/9 Kraken Emblem that will never go away. I like.

My only problem is that her Starting Loyalty is just 2, which is justifiable, but maybe that's just my constructed play paranoia of Lightning Bolt that doesn't like it.

--For the record, what I'm playing right now:

Hey, thanks for posting your decklist! I'm sorry I missed it - Work has kept me away for a while (both from the site and from playing Magic), but that's over, and I can't wait to rock the walkers again.

Looking over your list, I don't think I ever caught that Kazuul triggered when people attacked your planeswalkers. That's pretty cool.

I'm glad someone has found some love for Ashiok and Xenagos in a superfriends deck. I still don't see myself ever running them, but a turn 5 Bolas does sound pretty epic.

I did manage to trade for a copy of Elspeth, Sun's Champion [so excited!], so i cut Ajani, Caller of the Pride. And speaking of cuts, it looks like I need to throw two more cards on the chopping block, because I absolutely love Kiora. Oh, and I got my hands on a Savor the moment. But back to Kiora:
Her +1 is somewhat limited, fogging only one creature, but sometimes that can be a gamechanger if your opponent is relying on one beefy/evasive creature to do their dirty work.
Her -1 is AWESOME. My build desperately needs card draw, and ramping lands is definitely welcome. I want this with Rings of Brighthearth and a repeatable proliferate on the table.
Her ultimate is pretty rocking, pumping out the biggest tokens my deck can make. They're scary even if I don't happen to have Doubling Season out.

Looks like the new site doesn't use all of the coding that the old site did - I'll have to cleanup on the original posts. Also, I'm looking forward to the XXX manarock (can't find it's name right now because I can't locate the spoiler) because with a little proliferation, it will quickly become profitable.

The XXX you're thinking of is Astral Cornucopia.

Quote from HexagonalZebra

The XXX you're thinking of is Astral Cornucopia.

So it is. Thanks.

I may not have opened anything spectacular in the release event last week, but I was fortunate to trade for a number of cards I've been looking for, so now it's time to update.



Kiora was a must-have, and I couldn't bear to cut any other walkers, so now I'm up to 21. I cut a Swamp because I realized I had a crazy amount of land/ramp/fetch.
Cornucopia replaced the one-shot Manamorphose with something that interacts better with proliferate. I was pretty loathe to lose Manamorphose because I love the card, but it's seriously getting harder to find things to cut.
Wargate gives me some tutoring, which can be helpful when I really need that one card (Humility/Bojuka Bog/Rings of Brighthearth/Doubling Season/a specific walker) on the board. Vault seemed like a good cut because it was supposed to function similarly (though I never saw it).
And Savor the Moment is pseudo-proliferate of a sort that doesn't require I keep mana open like Fuel did.

I haven't posted updates in a while, but after seeing The Chain Veil, I couldn't stay away. My jaw dropped and my eyes bugged out like never before in spoiler season. I never expected a card designed exclusively for superfriends! It's so powerful, but hopefully its narrow focus and drawback will keep the price tag from breaking the bank.

Do spoiler tags still work? (I still need to figure out how to recode the first post due to the site change) If not, I apologize for the spoiler, but I have to talk about this one.


I realize I'm a little behind on rating our latest planeswalking friends (Ajani and Dack), but I'll post it soon, along with The new M15 walkers. In the meantime, I'm still searching for an Ajani, Mentor of Heroes and trying to figure out what to cut.

As promised, here is the review of recent and near future planeswalkers.

Ajani, Mentor of Heroes (8/10) - The fact that Ajani has two plus abilities certainly weighs in his favor. My favorite is definitley his second - I could see myself doing nothing but that all game. Of course, his ultimate works in a pinch to give you a little life buffer, but the card advantage should be helping to win the game by then.

Dack Fayden (4.5/10) - Don't get me wrong, he's a good card - just not for this deck. We have no way to abuse the ultimate, and the best ability is the minus one. He really needs to be in a different deck to shine.

And from M15:
Ajani Steadfast (9/10) - His first ability is amazing in a deck that cares about aggro; in this build it may gain us two life. The second ability amazing - it proliferates our planeswalkers and pumps our tokens. The emblem is also amazing, protecting our walkers while keeping us alive. The very easy mana requirements and excellent synergy with Doubling Season makes this one of my favorite new walkers.

Jace, the Living Guildpact (5/10) - While the ultimate is great card advantage, I really don't care to use his first ability to build up to it - it just feels like a bad scry variant in a non-reanimator deck. The second ability can be used to reset planeswalkers or disrupt opponents, but it's not great.

Nissa, Worldwaker (4/10) - I want to like a planeswalker that can untap four lands or fetch any number of basic land cards and put them on the battlefield, but turning lands into creatures indefinitely is a good way to get your manabase blown up.

Garruk, Apex Predator (9.5/10) - I really wanted to give him a 10 for having four amazing abilities, but the seven mana-cost is a little steep. This guy is going to be a hate magnet, but the sheer power will be worth it. He defends himself, defends you, breaks up a mirror match, and really lays the smackdown on an opponent. What's not to love?