MTG Salvation

These are the relevant non-basic lands that I own



I am on a budget, and I have these lands left over from a mana base I built for a MarduRWB deck. I really don't want to get an Arid Mesa if I don't have to. Buying everything else, at least for now, I would prefer to not have a hole that big in my wallet. Eventually, maybe, but right now I want to have a workable version of the deck to bring to EDH night at my LGS and get in some play time with this deck, the sooner the better. I'd honestly rather splurge on more expensive creatures like Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Weathered Wayfarer, and Archangel of Tithes or other things that will help with the control aspect of the deck. I'd rather run a Myraid Landscape than Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse if I have to choose. I can actually cut one mana rock or my Evolving Wilds if I have a Myriad Landscape, and another one in favor of Sword of the Animist... which leads me to the question, should I have even more basic lands than I do, or is this a good number?

I am a huge fan of basics, and a few fetch lands is ok if you can get a weathered wayfarer in there. Activating a fetchland, and then in response activating weathered wayfarer for the land is a solid play (if you have the same amount of lands as an opponent). I would remove rupture spire, vivid crag, vivid meadow, exotic orchard, spinerock knoll, and maybe city of brass. If you are going to run cheap enters tapped lands, stick to the ones that tap for two different colors already, like boros guildgate, wind scarred crag, etc.

If you want to cut something for sword of the animist, that's fine, but don't make that something a land. Lands are necessary for everything else.

Okay, new mana base is:


Doing it this way will save me quite a bit of money because I don't need the expensive filter or the expensive fetch. I have no clue why Arid Mesa is so expensive, when compared to some of the other fetches in the cycle. I might cut the City of Brass. I already have all the red/white multilands that are worth putting in a deck in there, except of course for Plateau, which I pretty much refuse to buy, at least not until EVERYTHING ELSE is optimized. To be honest, I'd rather put that money into making a third deck. Maybe tribal squirrel tokens with Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist as general? I'm also running the Command Tower and Path of Ancestry (because there are more than a few angels in the deck) to get both my colors.. mandatory include in my opinion. How much does Nykthos help me? Is it enough of a change that I'm a fool not to put it in? Is it worth the price tag? The VAST majority of my permanents will be white.

People might want to check out the original post. I changed a lot of what was there to reflect the new direction of the deck. I'm going to hopefully be seeing a couple friends at my LGS on Wednesday who can help me take some of the suggestions I haven't implemented yet, sort through them, and come up with a more final form of the deck so I know what I'm working towards. I'll also post here with updates as to what I'm changing and why as I playtest. I'd like to thank everyone thus far for the help, and I hope this thread continues to be interesting to people. Again, feel free to chime in if you see something that maybe I'm missing, or if you have suggestions on what I should do to improve as a control player. Control is very new to me, like I said before, my usual strategy is cast creatures and turn them sideways until either I die or everyone else does. I think I have enough big angels in here that I can scratch that Timmy itch that I have for big, powerful creatures. Having a theme certainly helps get me excited about the deck, and I really look forward to playing it when I can.

To my mind you can live without the Mesa. It’s expensive as hell, and your deck will be mostly fine without it. There are better places to put that money. I actually think you’re probably closer to a working, functional deck than you might think. It might mean rationalizing a few cards out; the more expensive ones that you might be able to buy multiple cards for the same cost of. Essentially, most of this deck shouldn’t cost you too much at all.

For example.
Arid Mesa costs $35, maybe a little more. That gets you:
-Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Linvala, Keeper of Silence
-most of your other creature base
-Weathered Wayfarer, Sunforger, Mistveil Plains, Cloudshift, Eerie Interlude, Faith's Reward, whatever other instants you want on a hammer.
- A decent human control package with Grand Abolisher, Thalia, Heretic Cathar, Archangel of Tithes, Magus of the Moat
- A decent supplementary draw package
- A blink package with change.

Also as good as Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx can be, I question whether you really NEED it in a two colour deck. There's a lot of colour heavy spells here, but you can't choose both RW. I guess it's helpful for Marshal's Anthem and Aurelia's Fury, but the anthem I'd see as one of the next cards to question if it has a place anyway. It's an expensive land that may not be as helpful here as it is in a mono coloured deck, and eats up a lot of your budget again. Others may disagree, and to be fair it could be good. But it will also pay for a lot of the other bits and pieces you need to pick up.

Honestly right now the most expensive thing is my card draw cards. As for my card draw options, Magus of the Wheel and Wheel of Fate are going to likely cost $3.50 USD each, Reforge the Soul for likely $4, Skullclamp to turn my tokens into card draw and trigger Avacyn will be $1.50 or so, The Immortal Sun will be $9, and if I decide to get one, Mind's Eye will be $12. Most of my creatures will be cheap, as will most of my ramp except Dowsing Dagger and Pearl Medallion (though I will likely switch that out for maybe a Sword of the Animist or my Sunforger). My wrath effects will also cost more than $2 each. There are a couple creatures that are $5+. Prices may be higher at my local game store, but it looks like all together I'll likely need $100 to $150 USD to actually finish the deck in this form. The price will of course change when I make changes based on what Alex, Eve, and I work into what I'm going to be shooting for. I should likely have a working deck at the beginning of next month when I get paid again, and the full deck without substitutions in May. So with shipping I should likely have 2-4 weeks or so depending on how many of the cards I need my LGS has until I have something that's playable.

That's good to hear! To my mind, the best way to build is incrementally - once have a plan fleshed out, you can decide where there are weaknesses with ongoing playtesting. You'll get an idea pretty quickly of what your manabase needs, what ramp/draw/tech you need to use, and can tailor this over time.

Oh, and on the plus side I already own Avacyn, Angel of Hope. That's $14 I won't have to pay again.

In my local meta there is one really oppressive deck with blue in it, and another one that's a combo deck. Would it be worth me running Red Elemental Blast and Pyroblast along with a Sunforger package and maybe a tutor or two for equipment (Enlightened Tutor, Open the Armory, Steelshaper's Gift, Stoneforge Mystic, Relic Seeker, etc?

Absolutely. Not only does forger give you a variety of spells you can cast, you can also use it to buff Avacyn so she only needs 3 hits to kill a person while equipped. Another great card with Sunforger is Master Warcraft so you can set up some combat however you wish.

Okay, I've put together what I want as a Sunforger package... I'm going to likely need 12 cards to pull it off, and I'm not sure what to cut in order to make it happen.



Are any of them unnecessary? Enlightened Tutor maybe should be replaced with Steelshaper's Gift for cost reasons, though it's less versatile. Reverberate could be VERY nice to counter a counterspell. This is kind of a wishlist. What would you cut? I'd assume creatures and maybe one of my Wraths, but which creatures? I need control effects, I need removal, I need wraths, I need recursion and I need some win conditions for the deck to function. (As for win cons I'm thinking angel beatdown and maybe a big Aurelia's Fury, or an Earthquake, if I add that card. So, also looking for win-cons. Will this be enough? I was thinking about win conditions and I feel I need more than one. With this setup, I may also want more fetchlands for shuffle effects to bring the cards that Mistveil Plains puts on the bottom of my deck to a place where I'm more likely to draw them. I'd like to add red wraths like Wildfire, Burning of Xinye, and Destructive Force but I feel that mass land destruction, while it might help me win, might cause me problems socially. It sucks that something red and white do best, land destruction, is really frowned upon socially.

That's what I was thinking, also that blue could potentially really eff my deck up, also why Reverberate might be nice, to counter a counterspell, otherwise make an opponent regret casting a spell, or double a burn spell for a win.

Well, there is a really nasty The Scarab God deck that can cast him for free by making everything zombies and making zombies free to cast. There's a Mairsil, the Pretender combo deck that staples tons of abilities onto Mairsil until he can generate infinite mana, blink out so you can't deal with him, and giving him yet another ability. You can't deal with him because he blinks, and even if you could, he'd just come back with yet another ability stapled onto him making him one step closer to having a viable combo that either wins outright or totally locks down the table. Sometimes Mairsil player will even put his entire library into his graveyard to dig for things to put on Mairsil to win. There's a red control deck with Starke of Rath as a commander that can steal your creatures, swing at you, then he can sacrifice the creatures so you don't get to use them at end of turn. That deck is full of control elements and has creatures and artifacts that steal creatures and artifacts. He usually wins by waiting until there are just a couple people left, then stealing creatures and finishing everyone else off, or else burning people out with the Chandra, Torch of Defiance emblem. He uses snow-covered mountains to prevent people from using his ramp effects, and he uses Scrying Sheets as well. There's another deck with Dragonlord Ojutai that uses a Voltron strategy. I just looked it up, and this is the really oppressive blue deck can take like four turns in a row with the various extra turn spells, and then pound you to death with Ojutai before you can answer it. There are also two dinosaur decks in my meta, one of them is Zacama, Primal Calamity, and the other is Gishath, Sun's Avatar. Both focus on getting as many big dinosaurs as they can out as quickly as possible, and Zacama uses Zacama's great utility abilities. There is one guy who plays infect, but I haven't seen him in a couple weeks. There's also a guy who plays sort of a false hug deck who has come once.

Well, now for my third attempt to answer this...I hate my computer some days.

Boros control can compete in that meta absolutely. It is good at destroying creature strategies. Your "best" answer is humility, but that stops your own timmy-tastic plans of big old fliers, too. The better news is that some of the best cards you can run are angels.

You don't run a lot of activated abilities, so you can slow down mairsil and zacama with suppression field. You can outright stop either one with darksteel mutation or overwhelming splendor.

Up your utility angels with angel of the dire hour and sunblast angel, just to keep things fair. You are probably already running at least one of these.

Up your lockout angels with angel of serenity and admonition angel.

You need more utility in your spell slots. Vandalblast would be an excellent addition, as well as wing shards maybe?

Ok, so now that I checked out your main list a bit more and now that we also know your meta, the advice I already gave is solid. However, there are a few ways you can take your deck. Are you ok with the tapped out opponent approach? If so, it will require quite the shake up, but you can shut down your opponents seven ways from sunday and still get to play big vigilant fliers.

After some conversation with weltkrieg and some thinking, I've decided to add and cut quite a few cards to make the deck better at its objective. Here's a list of changes



Further changes will be noted in future posts, as will experiences playing the deck if I run into something. I'm considering adding Magus of the Moat, Kismet, Loxodon Gatekeeper, Kor Cartographer, Weathered Wayfarer, Angel of Serenity, Restoration Angel, and Enlightened Tutor. It may be necessary to add Darksteel Mutation, Suppression Field or Overwhelming Spendor to deal with problem generals like Mairsil, the Pretender. I may also replace Thran Dynamo with Sword of the Animist, because I am running a fair number of basic lands, I already own the sword, and I am planning on doing enough attacking to make it worthwhile.

Thanks for the heads-up, I will rectify that situation immediately. I'm an idiot sometimes. I'm a Timmy, so I get so excited about big creatures that I pay less attention to the practical vital stuff like ramp. lol That's why I'm getting suggestions here.

The list is looking a great deal more practical. try it out and let us know how it goes!

It will take me around 2 months to get the decklist together, I'll see if I can get something that is playable together sooner. So it may be a while.

I haven't been able to get out and play recently, and still waiting for next month to have the money I need to get an at least semi-working deck together. I'll likely post more at the beginning of April on how things are going.

I have to say I had a very enjoyable evening playing EDH. I've started to build this deck, and I'm liking it so far. I'm liking being able to flash in Archangel Avacyn to protect me from wipes, and I'm liking not being instantly targeted. I'm also liking that I'm getting compliments like, "You're brave for playing Boros because it's usually so terrible in EDH, but your deck isn't." and "I've never seen red/white played that way before." I like being the person at the table who gets complimented for having a creative deck, and not instantly swarmed. Also, the players who were there today were nice. Actually, I thought all of the decks were interesting. Only one was seriously competitive. I was playing against a funky Phage the Untouchable deck, a Phelddagrif group hug/ lifegain deck with some lifegain related win cons, and the competitive one was an Orzhov deck with big black flying creatures and equipment in it, I forget the commander, but the guy was swinging with a HUGE Bloodgift Demon with a pile of equipment and double strike. He had some mass land destruction in the deck, he discarded a Desolation Angel. I let him know that mass land destruction isn't really played in our meta and people generally didn't like it. I think the game would have been less fun if he'd played a kicked Desolation Angel, so thank goodness he didn't. He's someone I'd never played with before. Anyhow, I'll post what I was playing with, because I only have the deck partially assembled at this point:



I enjoyed playing the deck, but I could tell it wasn't tuned quite right. I decided to make a couple substitutions to the main deck list that really don't make much difference, just replacing cards I couldn't find with cards I could with the same function. I replaced Burnished Hart with Kor Cartographer, Thran Dynamo with Sword of the Animist, replaced Capashen Unicorn with Kami of Ancient Law, and I replaced Wear // Tear with Orim's Thunder. The main list will be changed to reflect that. If anyone objects strongly to Kor Cartographer, Sword of the Animist, Kami of Ancient Law or Orim's Thunder, please let me know. For all I know, I might be replacing a card with one that is far inferior. I will be updating when I replace fill-in cards with cards from the actual list with changelogs, and I'll be continuing to keep people who are interested updated on my continued experiences with this deck. It seems to fit my creature-heavy meta well so far.

I also in game found myself wanting some cards that I didn't have, and I've talked with someone with in private messages about some of these cards. This deck is a work in progress still, so I'll be adding a maybeboard and might after I get a feel for the deck and have all the pieces experiment with adding some of these cards:



What do people think of me adding Lyra Dawnbringer from Dominaria? She doesn't have vigilance, but could give my attackers a big boost and give me some life. I don't want to make any changes for a while yet, until I know more what I need and what I can do without, and seeing what the meta at the other store is like, which I'm visiting tomorrow, but are there any other cards from Dominaria I'm missing that fit into my general strategy, which is slowing down my opponents and swinging in with big creatures with vigilance (the vast majority of them being angels), with one surprise "Oops, I win" combo (Aurelia, the Warleader + Adarkar Valkyrie + Goblin Bombardment)? Big thanks to everyone, especially those who have been very kind to me in private messages. I love this community.

Thanks. I also didn't think I was throwing off my curve too much with these changes either. Sword of the Animist is becoming somewhat of a pet card of mine. As I am making decklists, I find myself including it when I'm not sure what other ramp to put into a creature-based deck. It's not too hard to attack to get the ramp. I found it was no problem getting my Dowsing Dagger to flip either, with all my flying creatures. I just made sure to tell the guy I attacked, "I'm just doing this to get my ramp, then I'll leave you alone." He still targeted me anyway once he also got a big flying threat on the table, so it seems I should have chosen someone else, or else making an enemy was necessary in that situation. Also, it was just me and a group hug deck that was left, so I get why I was attacked first. The group hug deck even put a Vow of Duty on the large flyer after it had already hit me twice, and took out most of my defenses. The guy was also playing as I said a very competitive deck, it seemed, and had an enchantment out that would have destroyed attacking creatures. It paid off for group hug player, he ended up winning with Felidar Sovereign a few turns after I died. It felt so nice to not be the target from the start. It seems me changing decks made a huge difference, I'll have to see if playing this deck I get targeted less often from the start than I did with Kaalia of the Vast, or than I do with Nazahn, Revered Bladesmith. I honestly don't understand why Nazahn gets me so much more hate than Archangel Avacyn seems to. Oh well. I think I've found a deck I'm going to be playing quite often, in any event. Thanks for the advice.

Sounds like the deck is exactly what you needed, along with a change in the meta. It's good that it turned out to be a lot of fun.

I'm pleased to hear of a good result for you! Sounds like the deck is a lot of fun and seems to be functioning pretty well. Was this in the same meta, or did you find a different group to play with?

The maybeboard looks good - every deck is, of course, a work in progress, but these look like good adds. Suppression Field looks like a good place to start over Darksteel Mutation or Overwhelming Splendor, Weathered Wayfarer is strong but expensive, so definitely look for it, but expect to pay like $10-15. Likewise with ET, it shot up in price a little while ago, but it could be a strong add.

I think Lyra, Dawnbringer is a strong card, and I'll be crossing my fingers to pull one at release, but it probably needs a little playtesting to see whether she'd deserve a place. The lifelink is great, but it is just life. The only life total that counts is 0, in most cases. Honestly, from the new set, I would probably be more interested in Tiana, Ship's Caretaker - it helps keep your Sword of the Animist, Lightning Greaves, Dowsing Dagger and Darksteel Mutation (if you decide to run it) relevant to the game. Plus she's uncommon, so she should be reasonably attainable for cheap.

Yes, the deck is fun, and I imagine it will be more fun when I actually have more of the control elements in place. This was at the same store, but only one of the other regulars was there last night, and he's not a bad guy. I guess the bad news is that the guy with the Phage deck also plays Mairsil, that makes two Mairsil decks in the meta... I've come to hate Mairsil, because he makes the game a lot less casual.

Like I said, I'll keep experimenting with the deck. I've only played one game with it so far, so it's hard to tell much. I just like the fact that I didn't get instantly targeted and people were complimenting me on creativity, which is in large part due to the feedback I've gotten here. I'll look for Tiana, but I think I'd have to put more equipment and auras in the deck for her to really be worth a slot. We'll see. I'll also think about Lyra, but I don't want to water down the deck any. For now I'll see how the deck shapes up and if I continue to have good experiences. I've come down with something, so I won't be going to the other store today, but I do plan on going soon. Also, I'll be picking up a few cheaper cards online that the game store didn't have.

Yes, the deck is fun, and I imagine it will be more fun when I actually have more of the control elements in place. This was at the same store, but only one of the other regulars was there last night, and he's not a bad guy. I guess the bad news is that the guy with the Phage deck also plays Mairsil, that makes two Mairsil decks in the meta... I've come to hate Mairsil, because he makes the game a lot less casual.

Yeah, Mairsil is strong. Not unbeatable, but nothing is. Think about it this way - Playing Mairsil puts a bullseye on your back, too. Although given that this other guy also plays Phage, sounds like he's more creative than competitive. Phage is definitely one of the weirder generals you can play, and requires some major build arounds, so maybe his Mairsil build is a bit more janky and fun than competitive?

Like I said, I'll keep experimenting with the deck. I've only played one game with it so far, so it's hard to tell much. I just like the fact that I didn't get instantly targeted and people were complimenting me on creativity, which is in large part due to the feedback I've gotten here. I'll look for Tiana, but I think I'd have to put more equipment and auras in the deck for her to really be worth a slot. We'll see. I'll also think about Lyra, but I don't want to water down the deck any. For now I'll see how the deck shapes up and if I continue to have good experiences. I've come down with something, so I won't be going to the other store today, but I do plan on going soon. Also, I'll be picking up a few cheaper cards online that the game store didn't have.

Good stuff - really the only way you'll know for sure what the deck needs is to continue to put it through its paces. You'll figure out what you need answers for, where your weak points are, and what to capitalize on, but all in all it sounds like really positive news so far. I'm really pleased you've had a good outcome here.

Quote from Gabrielle Angelfire »

Yes, the deck is fun, and I imagine it will be more fun when I actually have more of the control elements in place. This was at the same store, but only one of the other regulars was there last night, and he's not a bad guy. I guess the bad news is that the guy with the Phage deck also plays Mairsil, that makes two Mairsil decks in the meta... I've come to hate Mairsil, because he makes the game a lot less casual.

Like I said, I'll keep experimenting with the deck. I've only played one game with it so far, so it's hard to tell much. I just like the fact that I didn't get instantly targeted and people were complimenting me on creativity, which is in large part due to the feedback I've gotten here. I'll look for Tiana, but I think I'd have to put more equipment and auras in the deck for her to really be worth a slot. We'll see. I'll also think about Lyra, but I don't want to water down the deck any. For now I'll see how the deck shapes up and if I continue to have good experiences. I've come down with something, so I won't be going to the other store today, but I do plan on going soon. Also, I'll be picking up a few cheaper cards online that the game store didn't have.

You don't have to water the deck down for Tiana if you have enough decent equipments and auras since she's not the focus of the deck, only an enhancer. She does plenty with a lot of what you got. Suppression Field and Darksteel Mutation are both great choices for shutting off problems and should be sought for when you can. You aren't running Burnished Hart which I love for its interactions with Emeria Shepherd in W/X decks but Kor Cartographer isn't bad either (I used to run that in Brago before chopping the deck apart).

The Mairsil player who plays Phage is gutsy enough to make a Phage deck which deserves props too. Just seeing his general choice shows that he at least loves a variety of strategies, some more competitive than others, and that sort of player who is willing to play with a general that says "you lose" without jumping through a bunch of hoops is worth playing with more (assuming he wasn't a dick during your game). Personally, I love people willing to do stranger things like Starke and Phage and other uncommon generals, and people who do such things can be worth learning from too even if it is just learning from them as an adversary.