MTG Salvation

Updated decklist. There is no Jund in my meta, but there are a couple Burn decks, some number of UWR, and an Affinity deck. If there was Jund, I would play 1-2 Threads of Disloyalty. I've taken out one Gitaxian Probe and added a Vendilion Clique to add another threat to the deck. I've also gone up to 19 lands to play Cryptic Command more consistently. I've taken out 1 Steam Vents for 1 Sulfur Falls so I take less damage from my land base.

How do you guys feel about Spell Snare. I know it's incredibly meta dependent, but going into an unknown meta do you think it is worth running? I know I've seen decks here that range from running 0-3.

Quote from Fogspy »

How do you guys feel about Spell Snare. I know it's incredibly meta dependent, but going into an unknown meta do you think it is worth running? I know I've seen decks here that range from running 0-3.

most underrated card in the format. I suggest running the full 4 in some sort of split in your 75. Hits relevant targets against all decks with few exceptions.

I think 2 is correct. 4 Spell Snare is disgustingly good against some decks like Tarmo-Twin and SnapxBolt decks in general, but it's also dead against Living End and weak against Pod. 2 is the safe number, the same number that LSV and Carlos Moral ran, 3 if it's a known meta and you know it'll hit most of the decks.

I like two Spell Snare main. I would not run more than three in the 75 though.

Has there been much discussion or thought behind really trying to get max value off of Young Pyromancer and Delver? When I say that, I mean cutting down to 16 lands, getting rid of Grim Lavamancer from the mainboard, and maxing out on free spells. The idea would be similar but there's a lot of decent free spells that aren't being played, and I'd be interested in how much you can really break Pyromancer. I was thinking off starting with something like this:



Clearly this is a really rough idea, but I'm interested in what you all think. Mutagenic Growth is a little weird, but it doubles a way to protect a flipped Delver from Bolt while pushing damage. The goal of this deck is pretty similar to Infect, but I think it's great to play cards like Spell Pierce and Vapor Snag and have them act double duty as enablers.

I don't think Gut Shot is playable, you 2 for 1 yourself way too often. I do think you can add additional Pillar of Flames and/or Rift Bolt/Lava Spike to make is more of a burn deck. If you want to go to an all out burn deck, that would work with Goblin Guide. Delver seems like a pretty good Goblin Guide imitation if you're running like 30+ spells, plus the disruption via Spell Pierce and Spell Snare is nice. I don't know if it's viable, but I would try to find a way to squeeze in Serum Visions so that you're consistently running on gas.

Disrupting Shoal is just bad when you don't have a source of card advantage, and so is running 4 Vapor Snag. Mutagenic Growth is a card, but Young Pyromancer still dies to Bolt with Mutagenic Growth.

Quote from Fogspy »

How do you guys feel about Spell Snare. I know it's incredibly meta dependent, but going into an unknown meta do you think it is worth running? I know I've seen decks here that range from running 0-3.

Here are some relevant matchups and targets:

Affinity: Arcbound Ravager, Steel Overseer, Cranial Plating. Basically, all of their important cards minus Master of Etherium (not played in all lists) and Etched Champion

Jund: Tarmogoyf, Dark Confidant, Scavenging Ooze. In other words, all their creatures except Courser of Kruphix or Thrun, the Last Troll from the side.

UWR (combining types): Remand, Mana Leak, Wall of Omens, Snapcaster Mage, Lightning Helix

Pod: Not great here, admittedly, but it does hit Melira, Sylvok Outcast, Wall of Roots (an important one), Voice of Resurgence, Scavenging Ooze, Qasali Pridemage, and Spellskite if they're not podding.

Twin: Tarmogoyf and Scavenging Ooze in the RUG versions, and Snapcaster Mage, Remand, Mana Leak if played.

RUG Scapeshift: Not great here, but still hits Remand, Snapcaster Mage, and Sakura-Tribe Elder as well as Izzet Charm and Telling Time

UR Storm: Goblin Electromancer, Desperate Ritual, Pyromancer Ascension, Manamorphose, Pyretic Ritual

Merfolk: They don't always have Vial, in which case you hit Lord of Atlantis, Silvergill Adept, Master of the Pearl Trident and even with Vial you still get Spreading Seas and Mana Leak

Gr Tron: Likely at its worst in this matchup, but still gets Sylvan Scrying and Pyroclasm. All our soft counters are bad in this matchup, though.

In my opinion Modern largely revolves around 2CMC spells as either tempo cards or setting up for larger plays down the road. There are a plethora of targets for Spell Snare in this format and you'd be remiss to not consider loading up on it. It's largely a meta game decision, but just look at all those juicy (and critical) targets. Where it's not great you'll be boarding it out anyway.

Remember that even though you are playing efficient spells, you will not be able to survive on just 1-2 lands (as you will often run into with 16 lands).
Here's why:
Young Pyromancer is a 2-4 drop. You rarely want to play him without being able to protect him. Shoal is not a good answer as you are 2 for 1ing yourself (plus a token) in a deck that can't really generate much CA. However, there are scenarios where that play will win a game - so maybe more testing is needed.

Snapcaster mage is a 2-4 drop. Another card that will be "mana intensive", even in an efficient deck like this.

I might add goblin guides to this deck if I were to go "all in" like this. Goblin Guides... hmmm.... I wonder if they fit in this deck like they do in the Legacy version? Anyone tried this yet?

I've considered this, and what I've found is that it will not make an impact often enough to warrant a slot. If we were playing a grixis deck with discard, it might make sense. However, ensuring you don't see a 2nd of something isn't always the best gameplan as they might not ever get to the 2nd one and you've spent a card/mana/life getting rid of it.

Quote from myo »

I've considered this, and what I've found is that it will not make an impact often enough to warrant a slot. If we were playing a grixis deck with discard, it might make sense. However, ensuring you don't see a 2nd of something isn't always the best gameplan as they might not ever get to the 2nd one and you've spent a card/mana/life getting rid of it.

Basically this. If you're spending 2 life and a card to do something that doesn't affect the board, it'd better be worth it.

I'd be hard pressed to find a match up where I want to bring it in.

Quote from fyawm »

Quote from myo »

I've considered this, and what I've found is that it will not make an impact often enough to warrant a slot. If we were playing a grixis deck with discard, it might make sense. However, ensuring you don't see a 2nd of something isn't always the best gameplan as they might not ever get to the 2nd one and you've spent a card/mana/life getting rid of it.

Basically this. If you're spending 2 life and a card to do something that doesn't affect the board, it'd better be worth it.

I'd be hard pressed to find a match up where I want to bring it in.

Combat tricks vs. tarmogoyf
gifts ungiven
anything with snapcaster mage
vs scapeshift alone or in combination with land destruction
vs tron alone (mono u only) or in combination with land destruction (gr or u)
vs scavenging ooze
vs storm (maybe?)

It does not seem the most versatile of sideboard cards however there are a handful of winning modern decks that have included it in the sideboard.

Has anyone else tried Disperse? I've been trying two in the 75 and liked it enough to go up to 2 main / 1 sb, and have sided it in when I want more counters. You never want two at a time, but I love having a hard counter. In the early game you'd rather just use the mana leaks and spell pierces, but by the time the opponent is at 5 to 6 mana it's so nice having a hard counter that really doesn't hurt your tempo too much.

Not sure what card you're talking about, Dynamite, but Disperse doesn't counter and Boomerang is strictly better than Disperse.

I meant Deprive, my bad.

So, my Burn deck is starting to be hated out, and I want to play with SCM and Delver, both. While burn spells are played in this deck as well, I do have options of bouncing, countering, and beating with creatures + consistency. I think I will create a base line similar to LSV's list in the OP.



I'm not sure what I'm doing when building this deck, so any and all critique on my 75 would be much appreciated. My meta consists of UWR Control, Affinity, Jund, variations of Tron, Zoo, UWR Twin, Mono W Sisters, Pod, Fish, Gifts, and now Boggles. I think I've seen some kind of RW builds, one being an Aether Vial with Thalia and another with no creatures and PWs. There is TONS of life gain at this store. Tons. Did I mention there's a lot of life gain at this store?

Could you guys give advice on how to navigate against my mentioned meta with this deck?

Quote from AcademyRuins »

Has there been much discussion or thought behind really trying to get max value off of Young Pyromancer and Delver? When I say that, I mean cutting down to 16 lands, getting rid of Grim Lavamancer from the mainboard, and maxing out on free spells. The idea would be similar but there's a lot of decent free spells that aren't being played, and I'd be interested in how much you can really break Pyromancer. I was thinking off starting with something like this:

sylvanllewelyn's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
Creatures (12) 4 Delver of Secrets 4 Young Pyromancer 4 Snapcaster Mage Spells (32) 2 Forked Bolt 4 Gitaxian Probe 4 Gut Shot 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Mutagenic Growth 1 Shard Volley 3 Spell Pierce 2 Spell Snare 4 Vapor Snag 4 Disrupting Shoal	Lands (16) 4 Island 1 Mountain 4 Steam Vents 4 Scalding Tarn 3 Misty Rainforest

Clearly this is a really rough idea, but I'm interested in what you all think. Mutagenic Growth is a little weird, but it doubles a way to protect a flipped Delver from Bolt while pushing damage. The goal of this deck is pretty similar to Infect, but I think it's great to play cards like Spell Pierce and Vapor Snag and have them act double duty as enablers.

I've been thinking about Disrupting Shoal too. Combo decks are everywhere and the "tempo" decks like delver don't actually stop them in any way. What's missing? There's no Daze and no Force of Will in this format. Shoal is the best we got. How? Not sure but I've been thinking about taking that Mono-Blue Delver deck and "splashing" red cards into it.

Don't play Mutagenic Growth or Gut Shot. They're just bad cards. and Blood Moon in sideboard is mandatory. Otherwise the whole deck is basically worse than RUG Delver or Tarmo-Twin.

Quote from fyawm »

I don't think Gut Shot is playable, you 2 for 1 yourself way too often. I do think you can add additional Pillar of Flames and/or Rift Bolt/Lava Spike to make is more of a burn deck. If you want to go to an all out burn deck, that would work with Goblin Guide. Delver seems like a pretty good Goblin Guide imitation if you're running like 30+ spells, plus the disruption via Spell Pierce and Spell Snare is nice. I don't know if it's viable, but I would try to find a way to squeeze in Serum Visions so that you're consistently running on gas.

Disrupting Shoal is just bad when you don't have a source of card advantage, and so is running 4 Vapor Snag. Mutagenic Growth is a card, but Young Pyromancer still dies to Bolt with Mutagenic Growth.

Is card advantage important for a tempo deck? Are we even a tempo deck?

It's not so much the card advantage that matters, although UR Pyro has a couple cards that are inherently 2 for 1's (Snapcaster, Cryptic, Electrolyze). The point is that no deck wants to run cards that 2 for 1 themselves, not even burn. Gut Shot and Surgical Extraction are mostly 1 for 0's. Even if you manage to tag an opponent's Lightning Bolt via Snapcaster Mage flashback with Surgical Extraction, you've essentially dealt 2/3 of the damage to yourself, and you still have to deal with the 2/1 that's on the board.

Disrupting Shoal seems a lot worse when 70% of your deck is cmc 1 and 25% is 2 cmc.

Do you guys think that a Legacy-esque UWR Delver deck could be viable in Modern? You pick up Path and maybe Lightning Helix? Or does it just sacrifice efficiency for not a lot if any increase in power?