MTG Salvation

If you use Burning inquiry, is there room for Waste not in the deck?

Why bother? This isn't a megrim/memory jar deck. The card does nothing.

Quote from daviusminimus »

Hi Tucker,
That's a great recommendation, especially since i'm not sold on Bridge from Below. I may struggle to keep cards in hand though! There's certainly no harm in running 1-2, as there's slots to play with. I know there's a list with 4 Loam + 3 Conflag, so perhaps I should move in that direction!

I don't know if a full playset of Loams are needed, I sun a 2/2 split of Loam and Conflagrate and find a lot of success with it.

Quote from FLCL »

Did a run through using 18 land and 3 infestation. (4-1)

The card really has incredible synergy with the deck Except conflagrate. It really improves the death shadow zoo matchup while also providing a non dredge intensive potential turn 3 win.

Will report on 18 land and 3 tormenting voice. I think we are close guys.

As for inquiry, I think it's a non negotiable 4x. The card wins you the game if you have a dredge.

Since when is Suicide Zoo a bad matchup? They are really easy to get around for a cheap conflagrate kill, especially with Lightning Axes.

Quote from Tucker_Fleabane »

I actually lost a 3k placing in the money against suicide zoo with dredge a few weeks ago, im not sold on infestation can you run through how it works for you? especially the t3 win? I run 3 burning inq and 4 tormenting voice and love both cards lol. I used to run the garg and bridge from below version and I think they are out for now Bridge is an awesome card but the current meta we want to be killing blockers/threats, if we could fit leyline of the void in main, bridge might be amazing. ( I doubt we will ever fit Leyline in main)

You don't run Faithless Looting> I would run Looting + either Inquiry or Voice, but never skip on Looting.

Quote from Gabriel Chase »

If you use Burning inquiry, is there room for Waste not in the deck?

Waste Not does nothing for us, we only run 3 copies at the most of Burning Inquiry, so it's effectiveness is little to none if we don't have any in hand.

Suicide Zoo can be rough on the draw if you don't have an ultra aggressive hand or get unlucky via missing narcos.

Faithless looting is a 4 of, no argument there. The conversation is about tormenting voice/burning inquiry as extra enablers I tend to run 3 burning inq and 3 or 4 voice. I do really want to test zombie infestation as a sideboard card I run 3 swan songs at the moment and am finding 4 colors annoying and swan song is so low impact. I have destroyed Ad N with it and I love it in my hand when I know my opponent has anger of the gods but it hardly ever comes in anymore.

I think suicide zoo is a pretty bad match up they beat us and conflag does nothing if you die before you can flash it back my normal death from suicide zoo is a 16+ hit on turn 3 or 4.

I run nature's claim it covers all the popular hate and costs a G. Anyone thought about Leyline of Sanctity in the side as a bring in against most combo decks? I find combo decks to be our worst match ups and leyline of sanctity does a great job against them.

Quote from Tucker_Fleabane »

Faithless looting is a 4 of, no argument there. The conversation is about tormenting voice/burning inquiry as extra enablers I tend to run 3 burning inq and 3 or 4 voice. I do really want to test zombie infestation as a sideboard card I run 3 swan songs at the moment and am finding 4 colors annoying and swan song is so low impact. I have destroyed Ad N with it and I love it in my hand when I know my opponent has anger of the gods but it hardly ever comes in anymore.

You are running 3 different draw spells? How is that working for you? I feel like you would be missing something crucial. I'm not a fan of infestation at all, I don't see it going very var. How has it done for you in testing?

I think you definitely need 3, plus another enabler.

4x Insolent Neonate
4x Burning Inquiry
4x Faithless Looting
3x Tormented/Goblin Lore/Zombie Infestation

I Only run 4x Looting and 3x Voice, along with 4x Neonate. Then I have 2x Conflagrate and 1x Skaab for discard outlets. Are we considering those in the same vein as Infestation and Lore?

Lore is far superior to Voice.

Also that new cryptbreaker card is prob an instant 4x in our deck.

I don't know how I feel about Lore, I haven't played it yet. I like Voice because you can discard a card before you dredge, if you have a weak turn 1.

Lore is a slower version of burning inquiry. Casting two mana spells we can't dredge (or flashback) back to our hand feels wrong. The only card I wouldn't mind doing that with is tormenting voice and some selective sideboard cards.

The new zombie is interesting, however, I don't think this pure form of dredge isn't trying to cast 1/1's that don't do anything the turn they enter play. It allows you to draw cards, but the deal is that amalgam comes in tapped so you can't draw asap when it enters the battlefield, then the next turn you want to attack usually.. So tapping to dredge some more and take damage doesn't sound all that amazing, but I may be wrong. If instead the zombie was a copy of putrid imp where you could discard cards at will then yes it would easily be a maindeckable 4-of in my list. Its actual discard ability feels too slow, if you pay B, wait a turn, then 1B you can discard a card. If it was B I would consider it, but 2 mana kills it for me personally. I think stitchwing skaab and haunted dead are similar effects that are simply better in our shell. We don't need them in our hand to get value and they include evasiveness.



This is what I'm currently working with. Testing natural state in the place of nature's claim. It's okay, no noticeable differences. Yes, I keep a lot of one handers, but including dakmor salvage it's 16 lands and I can cast life from the loam off of one copperline gorge + dakmor salvage if I keep a one lander. Hasn't caused too many problems so far. Let me know what you all think.

Personally I don't like playing on low land count. I know, 1 lander can be good with dredge into dakmor then dredge into loam but it costs us time and means that instead playing creatures we focus on developing our manabase. If we waste 2 early turns to ensure landdrops we won't come back from being behind on tempo. In my version I play 20 and it works very well - so far in local tournaments 13-1-1.

I am on 19 lands and I don't think I will go any lower 2 land hands are just so much better then 1 landers. I like tormenting Voice better then Gobling Lore because its card advantage and I am playing for big conflagrates to clear boards or finish that last 7-10 life. I haven't actually tested zombie infestation yet I put it in my sideboard but haven't found a game where I want to bring it in. Last night I played against burn, infect, and midrange abzan. Won them all in 2. The infect player got fed up and quit game two as soon as I darkblasted his 2nd creature. Hardest match up was actually Abzan midrange so may have brought it zombie infestation in game two just to pump out zombies to go wide. The burn player had me at 4 life when I stabilized my board on turn 4 and then must have lacked burn spells in that match to finish next round. Game 2 I gnaw to the bone turn 4 and he scooped.

Opps just re read goblin lore and it is actually card advantage as well. The reason I like voice better is the discard comes before the draw getting us another dredger in the yard and its not random. I don't mind Burning Inquiry random because it harms my opponents as well (most of the time).

I think 19-20 lands is the "sweet spot" for lands. We only need 2 lands to sufficiently "go off" with Loam in the graveyard, at least one rainbow land for red and green. One land hands are risky and I have won with them, but optimally you want 2 lands in hand. I like Goblin Lore and I think I will playtest it to see how I like it. It draws a lot, which is good.

I'm starting to come around on 19 lands as I find myself mulling to five much too often. I also think we need to pay attention to the dakmor salvage/basic mountain count as you really want R/G mana on t1/t2.

Goblin lore has some strong promise as voice is absolutely mediocre, although Z. Infest really is underrated. T2 Infest into T3 dredged looting is a really strong play. I've now put about 50+ matches into the Z. Infest variant and will now pilot the deck this Sunday @ an SCG event.

I run at this time 17 sources of red mana, 14 sources of green mana, 12 sources of black mana (2 come in tapped the Dakmors) So that looks like this 8 Fetches Bloodstained, Wooded Foots, 1 blood crypt, 1 stomping ground, 2 Dakmors, 4 copperline gorges, 1 overgrown tomb, 1 basic mountain, 1 steam vents ( thinking about replacing steam vents with a second stomping ground or blood crypt) I played vents because I ran swan song sideboard but I am testing the zombie infestation and I do like it for certain match ups those being a few I would play swan song in. So really any one land hand with dakmors or overgrown tomb is an instant mull but that will happen rather infrequently. This deck is very solid atm out of the last 10 or 12 rounds ive played I have only lost 2 games 1 to eldrazi and taxes and 1 to a kiki chord deck that I drew and kept sketch hands on. So I am on 19 land sources and I would say out of every 6 rounds I play I get at least 1 games that I have had to mull to 5 before I have seen a land its very annoying but I suppose that's just the randomness of it all.

Often I side out 1 dakmor in games two and three.

I will still argue voice is a better card because of the discard first and non random discard, however I think its pretty minor between the two as they both aren't our primary enablers. A stuck lore in hand with 2 or 3 dredgers (none in yard must be very annoying however This happens to me often I discard the dredger that I use with tormenting voice. The counter argument is its 2 more draw steps with a chance to dredge much more heavily.

How many games have you guys played btw? I'm @ 150, but the sideboard still feels kind of suboptimal.

Ive played about 60 rounds mostly on xmage. I have played a few FNM events and a 3k with about 150 people signed up. Most of these matches with gargadon and bridge from below in the deck. I think the version running loam and conflag is stronger and that is the one im on now. What is your sideboard? Mine is 3 Leyline of the Void, 2 Gnaw to the bone, 3 Zombie infestation, 2 lightning axe, 3 nature's claim and 2 ancient grudge. I am pretty comfortable with that sideboard aside from zombie infestation because they are in testing stage for me now. I have kept track of my win % and it constantly stays around 65% which is really quite good.

I'm around 70%, with below average numbers vs. shadow zoo & burn.



I find myself sideboarding so many cards in certain matchups (infect/zoo) that the deck almost transforms into a clunky aggro-loam deck.

I also think that the deck's 2-2 split of congflagrate and scourge devils might need some optimization. My enablers are 4x looting, 4x inquiry, 4x neonate, and 3x zombie infest (the more i test it over voice, the more i like it. Really gives game vs hate/suicide aggro decks)

I play two dark blast main and 3 conflags and honesty my infect match is like 80% win rate at least, I honestly don't think I have lost to burn and I clearly remember playing burn at least 5 times, once at the 3k event.

Sideboard, Bojuka Bog I think is to low impact, Ravens crime seems like a waste as a one of. I would up the dark blasts unless your playing one main. I would up the gnaws to two its basically a win con against fast agro decks. Necroplasm I don't really understand what its doing in the deck because it can wipe our boards as well correct? Something better could be found for ghost quarr to I think.