MTG Salvation

I was recently challenged to make a deck that wins outside of the combat step, agreeing I decided to brew something up. My challenger did the same, we then compared notes and I then made a deck that wins by neutering my opponents. The first step is make them think that Vosk is my primary wincon. The goal is to resolve spells that make creature combat untenable and then use targeted library removal to kill combo and control. Without wincons, I am free to kill the table at my leisure. In other words, my Commander is to deceive my opponents that I'm married to a mill strategy.

Try Jester's Cap and run Academy Ruins: repeatable deck exile there you go.

Dream Tides is a really annoying card for creature decks, especially green ones.

Quote from Ertai Planeswalker »

Try Jester's Cap and run Academy Ruins: repeatable deck exile there you go.

Dream Tides is a really annoying card for creature decks, especially green ones.

The deck is much more finessed than this, I can't quite use Jester's Cap as I axed it from my initial builds for being too slow. I also don't want Dream Tides to immediately cause me to become the enemy.

I delayed writing about my updates because this deck is really strange, outside of my wheelhouse and I'd say most EDH players. The entire deck is based off of political manipulation. I sit back, don't rock the boat, don't die and then when a player is eliminated do I slam down the stax elements that slows my opponents until I win. Vosk is still in the chair and the deck is still about deceiving my opponents because even when they know what I'm doing, they leave me alone because I don't look threatening.

Here are the variety of changes: Talent didn't hit as many spells as I wanted, so it got axed for a simple draw X of Stroke.

Noetic Scales is a prison piece that's great to slam down when an aggro player has just eliminated someone and is eyeing me as a problem. Engulf the Shore should theoretically handle those people but in practice, I didn't have enough Islands so it got the axe.

Journeyer's Kite makes sure I hit every land drop and thins my deck. Stitcher Geralf got axed because he was supposed to make bodies to protect me, but in reality he rarely did anything because my graveyard hate spells would frequently turn him off.

Syphon Mind drew in a nice burst but Sire of Stagnation defends me with a sizable body and continues with a steady supply of draw. He also incidentally hoses land ramp strategies, which is the sort of subtle things this deck looks to do.

Telemin Performance was supposed to mill out decks that didn't have many Creatures but I wasn't drawing enough so Greed got placed in the deck.

Languish didn't Wrath what I wanted to and I did die to a lot of effects, Sangromancer stems the bleeding from Wraths and helps me gain a lot of life from all the Windfalls in the deck.

At this point, I realized that the deck wasn't quite a full spellslinger and I was also having problems with my mana always getting bounced from the amount of board resets I ran: Diabolic Tutor to help me find what I need, Swarm got axed because I didn't actually cast that much.

Go for the Throat as a basic kill spell replacing the generic Overflowing Chalice which always got bounced. I also decided to include Hart as a way to get more lands into play which were immune to the bounce spells and cut a Coldsteel Heart.

This is where I pushed away from fast mana and added a bit more manipulation: A lesson I learned from Daxos the Returned about Monarch: people will chase it even when it is a bad idea. After all, it costs just an attack to get it and it does lower the person's life total. Marchesa's Decree makes attacking into me unattractive, but Monarchy is nice enough that people risk it. So, they hit me and get Monarchy. At this point, the rest of the table starts wrestling over Monarchy while I have no desire to do so - I sit back and accumulate resources for heads up. What's nice is that the Decree replaces itself due to Monarchy if someone else wraths the board away, if I bounce the Decree then I could replay to it for another drawn card. Fellwar Stone gets cut due to being a mana rock that would bounce.

Sword of the Animist permanently ramps me in an unbounceable resource. It also adds a power to Vosk, which helps if I need to deal Commander to seal the deal. Worn Powerstone is a mana rock that bounces and also ETBT, screw that.

Reliquary Tower is just to make sure I don't need to discard. Normally, having a huge grip might be a problem for causing players to notice that you're a threat, but with the amount of Windfalls I have, everybody looks like they have the same. These huge hands really help with decking my opponents.

This is a 'stay alive' upgrade:
Waste Not draws a lot of aggro and I couldn't guarantee if I could use it. Polluted Bonds keeps me alive and doesn't do so much damage that it draws aggro from other players.

RSD's price bottomed out with the Iconic Printing, so I grabbed it as another to way to have a wincon but also block with a body. What's nice is the amount of bounce I have means that I could get multiple tutors off of its body. I cut Grasp because the idea was to tutor for my opponents' Sol Ring but when I'm looking for a solution or answer and they're not in my colors, Grasp does nothing so it got the axe.

More tuning to my deck:
Extinguish is expensive as a Wrath and Toxic Deluge is considered the best in the format, easy swap.

Talisman of Dominance is the last in the deck to go, Venser's Journal goes in for me to gain life to survive. Large handsize helps with the Windfalls in the deck.

Warped Devotion was part of the initial build as an idea to bounce people's stuff and continually stax their resources but it backfired a few too many times. Or it wouldn't do anything and sit dead in my hand. Pull from Tomorrow is a nice Draw X.

Forbid helps me close out the game far better than Head Games. While Head Games is nice in theory to put all the lands in my opponents hand so that they've got nothing and Vosk can mill them out. In practice, it was awkward to use. Forbid's multiple "No"s prove easier to use and better at sealing out games.

A bit of manipulation is added: The two Curses are to steer my opponents away from me and towards the problem player. I cut Tragic Slip because I didn't like the reliance on Morbid to get anything done and Mind's Dilation got axed because it was too costly. It's a card I could only really play in the end game and by then I felt like I had too much to do than to sink my mana into a 7 cost Enchantment.

Phyrexian Arena replaces Fact or Fiction as it can come down early, but more importantly, no one knows what's in my hand. The worst thing that can happen for me is having my opponents begin to play around some of my answers, so while I like Fact's Instant Speed, I didn't like my opponents knowing what I had.

Sunken Hollow is a Swamp Island that doesn't ETBT, which means it adds to my Swamp count for when I Nightmare Incursion someone.

My last update is just upgrading my landbase: Each of these lands either help me draw, filter or protect myself with minimal opportunity cost.

Changes after the prerelease: Hero's Downfall is strictly better than Go for the Throat.

Curse of Disturbance wasn't frequently enough of an incentive to attack an opponent, so I'm just going to go with a group hug-ish card that I can play to gain favour until the time is right. By the time I've hit face up, I would definitely have the City's Blessing.

Scrying Sheets is another low opportunity cost way to add more draw to the deck, I'll just have to add the Snow lands over time. Ditto with Arch of Orazca.

I had to make a decision today: I wasn't sure if I should cut Recurring Insight or Greed. While I like Greed's on demand draw, I hated how much life it cost me. I also liked Recurring Insight's burst of draw but I disliked how it suddenly caused the table to turn the spotlight on me. Vosk lurks in the shadows, doing only the minimum of actions before stabbing my opponents in the back from a superior position. In the end, I went with cutting Recurring Insight because I only dug deep with Greed when I needed to, which meant that I rather go wit the less obvious draw. After all, rarely do people take note that I've drawn 5 cards from a full rotation, but will lose their minds if I do that in a single burst. With Nezahal being a great blocker, solid finisher who dodges all of my board wipes, I removed the card that caused more alarm bells.

Otherwise, more land conversion.

Last piece of minimal opportunity cost improvement: Mikokoro is another way for Vosk to maintain card advantage without eating into deck space. More Snow lands for Scrying Sheets.

Finished the Snow Lands: I cut Whispering Madness because I found that I didn't want to repeatedly Windfall, as I would lose cards in my hand that I was using to plan. The idea was combo off with Vosk in that cast Madness, hit someone and trigger Madness again to make someone mill a lot. I've been looking for ways to gain more life and cut down on opponents' life totals if I wanted to race with some of my bigger Creatures. I've trying out Soul Conduit but I am thinking of using Bloodchief's Ascension.

I won't lie, I haven't tested Soul Conduit. I'm rather fond of Bloodchief's Ascension, so I made the swap. That's all.

A small tweak: Since Slaughter and Snuff Out both can potentially cost me life and hit the same type of nonblack, I went with the option that Buysback. That is a form of card advantage and is something this deck needs.

Insidious Will is just more flexibility added to the deck. I cut Overburden because it was sometimes super useful at shutting players out, other times it did nothing. As always, I move towards cards with low floors rather than high ceilings when I talk about potential.

Some big swaps: I found that Windfall was beginning to become hit or miss. I've added Archaeomancer so that I can return spells as I need them, especially if someone else milled them out. Archaeomancer also causes a softlock with all of the bounce spells, which would be nice if I'm digging for solutions.

Strands of Night also helps with the Archaeomancer change, as I could instant speed reanimate it to get a spell back. It also gives a lot of my Creatures a lot more mileage, ramping with Burnished Hart, gaining lots of life walking a Sangromancer into a Wrath or putting a Sire of Stagnation back into play which either draws me cards or impedes my opponent's development. Bloodchief is great in theory but I found it was too slow in Vosk, especially since I tend to bounce the board a lot. With Strands, I can easily recycle Gray Merchant of Asphodel for the win or sneak in a Consuming Aberration at an end step to surprise one shot a player.

With all of the draw lands I've added, my opponents aren't having small hands anymore so Noetic Scales has lost a lot of its potency. Capsize is obnoxious so that'll be my choice to control the board.

I guess I'm now going to slowly add a big mana package: I picked up a Cabal Stronghold for this deck because it uses a lot of Basic Swamps, so I don't need to tinker around with Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, though I might now because it would make my Stronghold and Nightmare Incursion stronger.

I've started to rely on my Graveyard, which meant that Planar Void hosed me. Without it, there's no real point in going with an inherent Graveyard hate strategy. This has the side benefit of making Consuming Aberration less of a dead card sometimes.

With the room afforded to me, I decided to include a Mind Grind which a large enough X will kill the table barring Eldrazi and the like shenanigans. It's another way to make Mill a viable win condition.

Lastly, I've had a Sakashima without a home for a while. Considering his utility and ability to bounce at end of turn, I think he'll be a great addition this deck.

Another big change: With a buddy selling me his collection, I got some major upgrades. Maze of Ith is exactly what Vosk wants over Sakashima, so that was an easy swap. Diabolic Tutor for Demonic is also easy as it is a pure improvement. Volrath's Stronghold just adds so much redundancy.

A little tuning: Dissipation Field has caused me some problems, such as people intentionally attacking me to bounce their Creature to recast for an ETB trigger. It also requires me to take damage before the Creature gets bounced. In another thread of mine a Sunstone was suggested and I realized that Vosk already uses Snow Lands and is a defensive deck, so in it goes. This way people won't be randomly attacking me to ETB value and I don't need to eat damage to stop their attack, just some open mana.

With the dissolution of my Astral Slide Zur the Enchanter, this card needed a home: Vosk is the one who can abuse Search the most so he's the one who gets it. I didn't like cutting Awakening but it was the card that made the most sense to axe.

Vosk doesn't need this as bad as my Ob Nixilis deck:

C18 Update: Vosk can use this sort of card the most so he gets the first one. A lot of my non-Green decks are probably going to get Watchtowers but I'm going to buy them piecemeal. I hope it doesn't become an expensive card.

I also thought of Trepanation Blade, just as a way to go more in with Vosk's wincon and gives Commander Damage a more viable win. If I really wanted to go win with Commander Damage, there's always Blackblade Reforged. I just couldn't see any card to cut; perhaps Strands of Night but it provides so much interesting utility that I couldn't justify cutting it.

Well, now I can: With the dissolution of Damia, Scarab God has been freed up. Between Vosk's mill strategy and no longer needed to sacrifice my Swamps, the Scarab God seems so much better than Strands.

I really liked Vosk, he was an interesting challenge to make a deck unlike what I used to make of value-based G/B shenanigans. The problem is his games would drag on for a long time. It is unfair to design a deck that's designed to slowly grind out a game when most of my opponents are just sitting there, waiting. The amount of times where it would take me over 30 minutes to close out a heads up game is too many. I really enjoyed him, but I rather go with some sort of midrange option that doesn't have my opponents sitting there.