MTG Salvation

Very nice! I feel In a deck like this, lands like Ghost quarter and raging ravine hurt your mana smoothing. Better to replace them with additional fetches. Maybe the check lands can be swapped with basics as well so you can fetch and not hurt yourself so much.

I agree to an extent. I found that having the 1 manland was nice for playing the beat down game, since lots of times your mana base pulls you one way or the other. The ghost quarter was mostly just a nod to tron existing and felt like I had to have it in my mana base for the match up.

Hey guys, long time no see. Here are my updates for the list I´ve been tweacking for 2 months now.




CHANGES SO FAR:
* Breeding Pool Sucks: It is really poor with blood moon as my deck is mainly a UR with green splash.
* 21 Lands: I lowered the curve and noted that 21 lands are more than enough for this deck.
* Spellskite: Just awesome against every aggro deck in the format.
* Crumble to dust: A fourth blood moon against tron which is a very strong deck in my meta.
* Cage: Against CoCo and Dredge, could be anything else. I just figured that 3 Ancient Grudges could be too much, so this is a flex slot.

Deck feels great. 4 AV is a must. I played 3 but you just can´t strip away the core of the deck.
Say whatever you think. Cheers.

Not sure why you're playing the 10 fetches. I'd assume you'd probably be better of with a 3rd Steam Vents and Desolate Lighthouse or possibly another Sulfur Falls depending on how bad Choke is in your meta.

Out of curiousity what deck are you playing 2x Spellskite out of the side for? Lots of bogles in your meta?

* 10 fetches.. Well, I wanted 2 wooded foothills to grab the forest while blood mooning people. A lot of time I had the option to either get basic forest or basic island so I get them on turn 3 with each land. "7 forests" might be too much but still on testing. Perhaps a 2nd Sulfur Falls/Island.
* I'm not a big fan of Lighthouse anymore... it feels that the incolor mana might damage the manabase. We already have Fulmarole though.
>>> 2nd GR Fetch and 1 Sulfur falls are the 2 flex spots.

* 2 Spellskite against Aggro. I usually take out 3 remand and 2 clique, while bringing 3 dispel/anger and 2 spellskite. It's just a well tought number.

I strongly think that the strength of this deck is its ability to turn into blue moon deck with Goyfs.

Thinking more about it, the mana base seams sloppy. We have 3 options:
CORE MANABASE
4 Scalding Tarn
4 Misty Rainforest
2 Steam Vents
2 Wandering Fumarole
3 Island
1 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Stomping Ground

FLEX SLOTS
1 Wooded Foothills
1 Sulfur Falls

#1) 3 Steam vents, 2 Foothills , 0 Sulfur Falls // Consistent with moon, but takes too much damage
#2) 2 Vents, 2 Sulfur Falls, 1 Foothills // Consistent without moon
#3) 2 Vents, 0 Sulfur Falls, 1 Foothiils... 5 Islands // Better with MOON, but the deck isnt that blue intensive.

If you want to run Blood Moon in a 3+ color shell, then IMO anything that taps for C should be out of the question. I found good success with the list below:

Hey guys! Posting here since I somehow found the UR Kiki thread before realizing you all are also discussing Kiki lists, but yeah. We've been discussing RUG Kiki there too, and I wanted to invite you guys to participate. (Usually I wouldn't, but there's no definite proof that UR Kiki should be the appropriate title yet, since RUG seems quite legit. For what it's worth, I've had success with both RUG and UR.)

Anyways, link: www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/672045-ur-kiki

PS: Pay no attention to the primer, it's pretty off -- advocating Simian Spirit Guide and the like.

Have not tried Kiki Midrange yet, but I would start with an untuned version like this one:

I have moved away from AV. After 40-50 games with it, Im no longer convinced. Id recommend starting from here:



You can swap out the MB blood moons, as well as adding two more huntmasters in place of pia, but I recommend the split. If you remove the MB moons, you can also swap the repeals for cryptics.

Its not too bad. Im still tuning the list, but it plays catch-up pretty well. More often than not, I wont be casting spells on turn 2, but leaving mana up for a counter. And then cast something turn 3 if I see the window is open. My list doesnt commit threats early, often.

As I see the thread here still hasn't found one list they can really agree on and some are even starting to drop Ancestral Vision I thought I would share my RUG Eternal Ruse list with you as it's pretty much a midrange list aswell.



For everyone who's not familiar with the Eternal Command/Ruse, the deck plays very midrangey but can switch gears and play more of a tempo game against slower decks or combo decks pretty well. With the Eternal Command/Ruse lock (Vial+Eternal+Command/Ruse to either counter one of their spells each turn or tap down their attackers each turn) the deck has strong options in the late game aswell.
The deck isn't easy to play but really rewards good piloting (knowing what to counter, when to switch gears and the like need some time and experience to learn). But if you like countering everything relevant your opponent is doing while beating him down and playing at instant speed most of the time, you really wanna give this deck a try.

And, to also contribute to the discussion in this thread a little more, what do you think about Keranos in sideboards right now?
He's pretty aweful against Jeskai thanks to Nahiri but still rocks against Jund, Junk and Grixis. Is he worth the slot in the SB?

I dont like Keranos at all in the 75. Not worth it.

Your list looks good, but a little on the cute side. Seems fragile.

Quote from Kovo »

I dont like Keranos at all in the 75. Not worth it.

Your list looks good, but a little on the cute side. Seems fragile.

I can see where you come from. Familiar's Ruse probably is a little cute, but when you get going it's just brutal.
The whole Command/Witness/Vial thing is solid but underplayed if you ask me (pretty high price tag and not really easy to play optimal).
Shouta Yazooka invented the deck back in 2012 and got second place during worlds (yeah really long time ago I know). Then Deathrite Shaman got printed and the deck was hated out of the meta. Since then it always popped up here and there, it won a 5k about a month ago for example (about 200 players if I remember correctly).

If you dislike Keranos, what's your favorite Haymaker against Jeskai, Jund and Grixis then currently?

I dont want to sound completely dismissive, I agree that with the lock active, it is brutal. But I feel that a more streamlined list exists (Somewhere in Neverland) for RUG Midrange.

I have to admit, the list I posted is very strong against combo and aggro, but folds more easily to control. I find Grixis its worst match up, with a slightly better chance against Jeskai. I have yet to lose against a deck playing Nahiri.

To answer your question, Im not 100% sure what my Haymaker is for control builds.

I can see where you're coming from and for now lists with Familiar's Ruse probably won't be the most streamlined ones (until Wizards prints a strong blue one drop with a nice ETB ability that is).
The thing is that Twin and Nahiri have shown that you really wanna have an 'unfair' way to win the game fast in modern midrange/controlly decks and the lock offers that. And while the lock is definetely weaker than an instant win combo, all the parts are individually quite powerful too (I always hated playing Exarchs in Twin and starting to 'beat down' with them. Yeah I know the threat was in the possibility to combo but it still felt just awkward. But that's probably also due to my personal playstyle preferences and well, Eternal Command/Ruse just fits that pretty well.)

I have a RUG kiki list Iw ill be trying soon. But nothing concrete enough to share. It might work with the lock, but its too many cards to stuff into a 60 card deck, and expect consistency.

Is anybody still working on the RUG Kiki-Traverse toolbox list? I've been having a fair amount of success with it online after a bit of tweaking but would love to get some external help on it as I see some people have worked on above. Here's where I'm at:



I've been playing around with the same base and this is what I've come up with. I think with 4 Bauble, 4 Serum and 4 Traverse, we can really cheat on lands a bit. 20 seems too light and 22 seems too much so I've landed on 21 and haven't had many issues. Traverse is great early game and late game making it a super sweet card to take advantage of.

Split between Exarch and Krasis just gives us options for beatdown or combo oriented and removal resilient. I played around with Vendilion Clique but its too taxing on the manabase. 2 Kiki-Jiki ensures that if one gets path'd we at least have the option for another one although with a maindeck Eternal Witness we're pretty resilient to removal. Huntmaster is just a sweet card to grab late game that gets value as soon as it enters play and accrues more value as the game goes on.

Manabase is actually pretty unrefined and I don't have much experience with a RUG based deck that also takes Traverse into account regarding enough basic lands so if anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate it. I think it looks good but might be better?

Sideboard is also unrefined. I'm trying to take advantage of the "toolbox" idea with a couple nice creatures I can tutor for, but not sure if thats the best approach. Opinions on a RUG sideboard for the metagame are really appreciated!

Perhaps a RUG Kiki deck with Eldritch Evolution? Might work well with multiple copies of Bounding Krasis and Deceiver Exarch in play, or use Vendilion Clique as a sacrifice fodder for Kiki-jiki after peeking opponent's hand.

Yeah, Eldritch Evolution could also be abused in this shell, although I do think a 4 color shell is better with the addition of white creatures. But don't let me stop you from testing it.

I've been refining the deck some more and found that dedicating the deck to the combo can be really bad as there is a lot of Lightning Bolt and Path to Exile in the format. Having an incidental combo when we can is good which is why I've dedicated minimal spots as possible while still being able to combo off consistently when necessary with the help of Traverse the Ulvenwald. I also found that creatures like Huntmaster of the Fells and Vendilion Clique just don't do enough when they enter the battlefield in terms of the creature toolbox. I decided to test out Bedlam Reveler in their place and it is fantastic. Not only do we fill up the graveyard relatively quickly anyways, in the grind which is where the deck stumbles the most, Traverse the Ulvenwald into Bedlam Reveler can often be a 3 mana 3/4 draw 3.

At the speed with which we fill our graveyard, I wouldn't be opposed to running some amount of Hooting Mandrills, but that does kind of non-bo with Traverse the Ulvenwald. Could warrant testing in a more aggressive shell.

Here is where I'm currently at:

Something like this is what Ive been running:

Yes!!! I have been exploring an Temur Eldritch Evolution build.

Since EldEvo is card disadvantage, I don't think you want play a control+value game with Electrolyze, Huntmaster, Pia and Kiran Nalaar, Eternal Witness etc. With those cards, Traverse is probably the better option. The advantage of Evolution is that you get to cheat on mana, so I want a more proactive game plan in the midgame. So....

(1) Use Remand, Bolt, Vendilion Clique, and Snapcaster in the early game to negate early plays.
(2) Try to lock the opponent out. We have Magus of the Moon for mostly-non-red decks, Sower of Temptation for creature decks, and Glen Elendra for combo/control as Evolution targets off of Snapcaster, Birds of Paradise in the early game.
(3) Turn the Eldritch Evolution sacrifice trigger into a benefit by grabbing opponents creatures with Sower, Vedalken Shackles to win through creatures. Thundermaw is available as a big evasive threat if you don't have the combo and want to win through damage.
(4) Play Deceiver Exarch into Evolution for Kiki-Jiki for the win.

Agree with the above poster that a relatively With Serum Visions, Remand, and Snapcasters, 22 land is fine.

I don't have a lot of local testers at the moment and don't play online so this mostly theorycraft, but it has performed pretty well in the initial results that I do have. Here's my current list. What do you guys think? What would this be soft too?




Up-to-date deck list here: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/temur-darwin/

Given that I've slanted more proactive, I'm not sure if maybe I should be playing more Goyfs, but they're not exactly an ideal Evolution sacrifice target.

Hey guys, I am new to this thread (though there isn't much)and I really want to go this route. For the more experienced players: How are we on ancestral visions? I am not initially sold on the card, but I can see how it can be a powerhouse at times, kind of reminds me of how I feel about Aether Vial in my main deck, however, I hardly drop a game when I have it. Is it that strong as well?

I also just realized I need to research manabases (haven't gone into 3 colors before), but could 21 land be sufficient in more standard lists posted?

@jacklionheart, Unfortunately I can't give you much advice, but I highly recommend you test your list!

Quote from Intelligent_Falling »

Hey guys, I am new to this thread (though there isn't much)and I really want to go this route. For the more experienced players: How are we on ancestral visions? I am not initially sold on the card, but I can see how it can be a powerhouse at times, kind of reminds me of how I feel about Aether Vial in my main deck, however, I hardly drop a game when I have it. Is it that strong as well?

I also just realized I need to research manabases (haven't gone into 3 colors before), but could 21 land be sufficient in more standard lists posted?

@jacklionheart, Unfortunately I can't give you much advice, but I highly recommend you test your list!

First off, I recommend 22 lands, not 21.

Second, I tried AV, and although 3 cards is nice, if you want to take a truly midrange strategy,I find AV is not what we are looking for. At least not in the MB. 4 Serum Visions is definitely what we want to smooth-out our draws. I also run a pair of Condescend which perform wonderfully, and scry 2 has won me more games than I can count (Im bad at counting, though).

Third, Im not sold on the Traverse builds with kiki. I feel a successful Temur Midrange deck runs a smaller threat base with heavy removal and permission. If Kiki combo is what you want, you might as well play the established colors for that kind of strategy. I linked my current list above, and though it needs tweaking, I think its on the right track, with a good pilot.

My sig has some RUG decks that use traverse more effectively.

That's a lot of different RG/RUG modern lists! What is it about RUG you love so much?