MTG Salvation

I've been playing around with a new list for a few weeks. Any thoughts always welcome. I really appreciate the exchange of ideas. The goal is to engineer a interactive control list that aims to win after most combo decks have fizzled out. The deck currently supports quite a lot of recursion. Cuts / Notable missing cards etc. Please let me know.

How competitive are you looking to be?

The first thin I'd recommend is to trim down your list CMC wise. I would be that your average CMC is above 3, which is pretty expensive. My gut reaction is to remove Karn Liberated and Dark Intimations because they're quite expensive while not being 100% effective for a competitive strategy.

Anything outside of Labman, Dramatic Reversal, and Paradox Engine.

CMC is siting at exactly 3 currently.

Alright. If I was to do a competitive, non-Storm Grixis Control deck, I'd be looking at something more like this:



I think that Planeswalkers are a liability in a Multi-Player format because there are so many opponents that can swing combat damage into them.

The notable additions that I'd recommend are cutting Mind Twist[/CARD in favor of Torment of Hailfire. This is the big finisher spell for the list I posted and should probably be cast for X>=8 at any given point. The other addition is the inclusion of Counterbalance + Sensei's Divining Top. I'm not sure how competitive your playgroup is, but my observation is that competitive decks have a CMC that centers around the 2-3 range. If you can have your CMC match theirs, then you have a good chance of countering spells for free with the Counterbalance. Add in Top and you dramatically increase the chances that you can counter spells for just 1.

I would also be willing to bet that the card you're most keenly interested in protecting and which you probably always get into play each game is Consecrated Sphinx. Playing control against 3 different opponents is a losing proposition, from a card advantage perspective; you just don't have enough spells in hand to answer every threatening play that could occur from each of your opponents. The Sphinx helps refuel your hand each turn and turns into a nice soft-lock with Forbid. I would also suggest adding in Nezahal, Primal Tide for the same reason. He can draw an almost similar number of cards as the Sphinx, is uncounterable, and can protect himself as well. He also lets you stock up on cards without having to worry about max hand limit size.

How fond of you are the Entomb/Reanimate plan? I cut it from the list I posted because I like having more support for a Reanimation strategy than just a few cards.

Anyways, I hope this helps. I have a Vorthos Nicol Bolas list and an accompanying playmat (which I bought in '09). Niccy Nic is my boi and the Ravager incarnation of him is what I've always wanted. Happy brewing!

Entomb is very good in the list, it does silly things with snapcaster / jace / kess, also bolas flips and can reanimate planeswalkers so end of turn find god-pharaoh put in big, untap flip downtick to reanimate other bolas planewalker is very powerful. Nezahal seems good also looking at Jin. I suspect Mind Twist is much stronger then hailfire but I've never seen anyone cast hailfire for anything all too impressive outside of mono black lists.

I live in the Seattle area and so my pods dent range from highly tooned cEDH list where I just play Baral or Teferi, to focused tooned decks.

I think most of the planeswalkers are very solid Death's Majesty is rather loose but all of the 3 mana planeswalkers are incredibly powerful. Dack steals signets / sol ring / crypts. Most lists do not run creatures that can attack into a 4/4 and they all either protect themselves or generate incredible value very quickly. Lilly of the veil, everyone discard > bolas + Lilly everyone discard, ruins everyone at the table very quickly.

I'll take another look at your list and see if I glean any gems.