MTG Salvation

I am also a bit disappointed with the artifacts in this set. I am thinking we will have better luck with Aether Revolt next set - where if ully expect Tezz to rise in the story, and also in modern pending any playable artifacts.

Padeem, Consul of Innovation is a nice card. With ramp, I could see him as early as T2 and more commonly T3. At that point he is a bolt-proof dude that takes over the game, especially if you run him alongside spellskite.

I am glad you brought him up, at first I was looking at him for edh, but I can see some relevance to modern artifact decks as well.

Filigree Familiar is another card worth testing, but I am not sure it makes the cut since it doesn't ramp. Aether Hub is awesome!

Hope some of us open a masterpiece this set!

Here's my current list:



Went down to 3x Mox from 4x but added 2x Mind Stone in the hopes that I can (1) reduce hands with redundant Moxes and (2) use Mind Stone's cycling ability to lessen over-ramping. Seems promising so far.

To make room for this I trimmed a Fabricate and Relic of Progenitus. I also moved the fourth Path from the SB to the MB, as it's a very safe bet for game 1.

I've also made room in the sideboard for 3x Chalice of the Void. This will come in to combat Path and 1-drop heavy aggro lists when needed. Cyclonic got swapped with Repeal since I wasn't hitting 7 mana at an early enough point with sufficient reliability to make good use of the overload effect. Padeem isn't officially in the board yet but I'll test him, too. He'll take the Repeal slot if he pulls his weight against Jund.

I really wish there was a good modal spell or escalate spell that scaled with out ramping but wasn't ass early in the game. Blessed Alliance is close, but I'm not sure if it's quite what I want.

I like the list. How come no Academy Ruins?

Is that enough ramp? T4 Kuldotha is always my goal with the deck.

I feel like Padeem could replace a copy of transmuter, if you were to try it.

How has this been in testing?

I still need to acquire a couple more cards and print a few proxies (Padeem) to give the recent changes a proper test, but I should have a chance to get everything in order and run some games this week.

I don't run Academy Ruins because it doesn't help against exile effects and Path has overtaken Bolt as THE most played card in the entire format (probably thanks to Bant Eldrazi and recursive Dredge critters). Furthermore I don't have any kind of Minslaver lock to get a huge payoff out of it. Instead I'm more interested in either generating multiple colored sources for Engineered Explosives (Aether Hub & Fetches) or having artifact lands to sac to Forgemaster (Citadel & Inkmoth Nexus). If I really need to get something back from the grave I could use Sharuum. Otherwise having raw card draw from Thirst helps to offset some losses here and there. It might work it's way back in, though.

I go back and forth on the ramp because we can only speed ourselves up so much. Yeah with a perfect nut-draw we can combo off T4 (or maaaybe T3) and essentially soft-win the game that turn, but for the most part we're combo-ing off T5, maybe even later depending upon how lucky we are with drawing our pieces. There are a ton of decks that are simply faster than that, and even if we have more ramp there's no guarantee that we'll draw the right pieces before them, and they usually have very streamlined and reliable game plans so the odds aren't really in our favor.

I'm sure chalice helps to some extent but I think beyond 8 rocks adding disruption probably helps more than additional ramp. I did use to run 10-12 rocks but things have gone a lot better and generally been more consistent since I brought in an instant-speed control package with Thirst for Knowledge. The combination of digging, selection, and disruption that it offers have been great and it'd be hard to go back from that. If I weren't in UWb I would probably go UR (per the "Iron Control" list) to run Bloodmoon and Anger of the Gods. Both seem like great choices in today's meta.

On the subject of disruption – I think I mentioned this before, but could you tell me about your experience with Chalice of the Void?

Your points make sense - can't wait to see how it does!

Chalice of the Void
This option works well as a preventative measure for path to exile, aggressive decks, and other random things.It also counters the new "counter colorless spell" card just released. Obviously you can't run it alongside your control package with paths and 1cmc counters. It is nice because in a pinch you can use it to activate a mox opal, its not bad in multiples, counts as an artifact to sac, stops one of two biggest problems for the deck - Path to exile. Stony silence is the other...

Have you set it to (2) before? It seems like that would get in the way of Greaves, Skite, most of the rocks etc.

Is it useful after Turn 1? After Turn 2?

EDIT: Another card I've been toying with is Pact of Negation, but I don't think I'll have 3UU quite often enough to make it worth it.

Tried a bunch of the ideas, but they have dome points of concern.

1. While it looks like Tron makes sense in this deck, it doesn't actually fit well, and the whole time you're thinking...
This would work better with the Gx package, then you're cutting more artifacts to the point that may as well cut the artifact producing mana, and then forgemaster is stupid because you may as well just have a well rounded amount of CMC >= 7 monsters. Thus you end up at Gx Tron, and then... G/R Tron.

2. Cheating things into play sounds passable, but depending on transmuter is insane, because you will be starting at a hand of uncastable large artifacts. They also can then disrupt your hand... but most importantly it's just a totally different strategy, and you should combine quicksilvers with transmuters, cut forgemaster.. and go the grand architect route for your mana. Most of those of course are not artifacts, and architect is better with blue creatures. I still don't think this is even a good idea on it's own, because while it takes advantage of transmuters, it will be open to fizzling, and uses a lot of cards to bet the house on something... that something would HAVE to be Emrakul, otherwise once it was exiled you're in deep crap. Yes, the Sneak and Show style strategy is the only way to go, but it's very narrow in what it will beat consistently, namely an aggro deck without a sidebord nor any ability to respond.

So whatever will work, must not depend on either of those aspects, otherwise you're just not playing the right deck to maximize either strategy properly. Also winning decks don't do two finalized strategies. they do one solid one with some resistance to disruption. The forgemaster being the card thie strategy should be about.

With that said, I did find something I think could work, but it has a few concerns as well.



Their are still aspects of this I dislike, this deck must recover major card disadvantage early, which only really happens when forgemaster gets out. Regardless this is the only viable direction I believe for this deck concept. You can get the forgemaster out second turn, if the hand is perfect you could get out a wormcoil, and then activate the forgemaster for a battlesphere, you never want to go for the blightsteel first, only when you've had them empty their hand of exiles.

An alternate hand would have you begin with a key, then a coretapper. Third turn forgemaster, now you're forth turn better be epic, a battle sphere and a blightsteel. I've also turned it around with a battlesphere and a darksteel forge. Basically you need to cast a third turn wormcoil, or forgmaster at minimum. Second turn lodestone, may present itself, and I'm not sure what to do in that case. Only if you can still get the forgemaster or wormcoil out the third turn, at least that's what I'd do. Two lodestones, somtimes one being a sculpting steel is usually very oppressive. Or forgemaster the blightsteel, and then cast a sculpting steel, that MIGHT be able to leave you with one, and the game is yours. The ghost quarters for any Trons, Temples, or Abbys.

With Mud, you already have an accelerated mana base, with modern non-eldrazi... you never do, and this makes things far more difficult. The only advantage we have over G/R Tron, is that our mana base can handle a blood moon with ease, chalice is great... but it hurts us alot, and I don't think we can ramp under a chalice. MABYE you could use it to our advantage. play it out and ramp up the counters, then forgemaster it... in fact, that just might work.

Stony silence completely ends the game, we have no realistically castable way to remove it, we may need colors to deal with our sideboard problems.

The issue I had with going all in on ramp was that I still wasn't as fast as the other Aggro decks or unfair combo decks and I also had to deal with regularly over-ramping or drawing the wrong half of my deck. Adding some kind of disruption and flexible mana sink helps a lot. Walking Ballista looks very attractive for this type of deck.

Despite not being an artifact I think Thought-Knot Seer is a better colorless choice at 4 CMC than Lodestone Golem since it helps you strip away removal before your higher priority / higher cost creatures come down while also not dying to Bolt.

Tell you this much, I've won games on two loadstones that I should have never won. I know for a fact that thought-knot would have not done near that lockup, I'd have lost for sure. In addition, you may need to sac that loadstone for the combo, this I also had to do once.

The other potential card, which may be a sideboard is silent Arbiter.
You cannot go as fast as aggro, pretty much no matter what, you can however match near tron. The only question is the consistency, however I think I'm close.

Here is a new take on Forgemaster mixed with Sai - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-97-16-tix-ur-sai-master-modern

The idea looks pretty interesting though I don't think that The Antiquities War is good enough here.
I'd probably replace it with: 2x Thirst for Knowledge, 1x Trading Post and 1x more tutor target like Steel Hellkite for removal (or Wurmcoil Engine).

Also, Red is mainly used for removal here so White might be the better option which also gives the deck a way to deal with Stony Silence which UR can't permanently remove.
Besides PtE/Dispatch and SB cards I'm not sure what else white can add to the maindeck here though Board the Weatherlight seems like a possible dig option as an overcosted Ancient Stirrings equivalent that finds Sai as well.
Another option is to add Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek to the deck which can help grind out longer games if the big threats are answered.

The ramp package of 4x Mind Stone + 4x Signet/Talisman isn't bad but might be a bit slow and Ichor Wellspring works really well with sac'-outlets but might be too slow otherwise so maybe Chromatic Star/Terrarion would be better as cheaper cyclers that trigger Sai and sac' to Forgemaster.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

Here is a new take on Forgemaster mixed with Sai - https://www.mtggoldfish.com/articles/budget-magic-97-16-tix-ur-sai-master-modern

The idea looks pretty interesting though I don't think that The Antiquities War is good enough here.
I'd probably replace it with: 2x Thirst for Knowledge, 1x Trading Post and 1x more tutor target like Steel Hellkite for removal (or Wurmcoil Engine).

Also, Red is mainly used for removal here so White might be the better option which also gives the deck a way to deal with Stony Silence which UR can't permanently remove.
Besides PtE/Dispatch and SB cards I'm not sure what else white can add to the maindeck here though Board the Weatherlight seems like a possible dig option as an overcosted Ancient Stirrings equivalent that finds Sai as well.
Another option is to add Thopter Foundry + Sword of the Meek to the deck which can help grind out longer games if the big threats are answered.

The ramp package of 4x Mind Stone + 4x Signet/Talisman isn't bad but might be a bit slow and Ichor Wellspring works really well with sac'-outlets but might be too slow otherwise so maybe Chromatic Star/Terrarion would be better as cheaper cyclers that trigger Sai and sac' to Forgemaster.

I love to play with Kuldotha, and i'n play a build of my own (any feedback are welcome), and now i love how Sai works. I saw this article in goldfish, i liked it too.

But instead UR or UW, i try UB for Tezzeret, Agent of Bolas and Executioner's Capsule


I'n willing to discuss on it.