MTG Salvation

You could play more isolated chapels or fetid heaths if you wanted more duals. If you're playing push, I'd definitely go up to 6 fetches atleast though. 4 shocks is also a bit high, IMO.
For planeswalkers, sorin lord of innistrad is consistently underrated. He spits out tokens on his plus, and he gets lethal real quick with a lingering souls.
His ulti is also very realistic/threatening.
As for noncreature permanents, we kind of have to hope we can discard them
Luckily a top-decked moon is significantly less painful since we've likely had time to fetch some basics. Bridge can also theoretically be beaten with little gideon's ult milling them out (as lantern can struggle to beat resolved walkers, given that pithing needle won't help here.)

Thanks, Cody_X. I'd like to encourage anyone with an interest in the BW Superfriends deck discussed over the past few posts to come comment on the other thread.

That deck is playing out as a disruptive, controlly BW Midrange/Control shell with resilient and difficult-to-remove threats that seems to be very good against a wide meta. Because the threats are non-creature permanents, I can run several maindeck sweepers, improving go-wide aggro pairings when compared my my previous BW experiments. The deck is still soft to Valakut builds though.

My overall record across all versions of the walkers deck currently stands at 35-15-1. I started playing it at the beginning of October when the new planeswalker rule took effect. I only play on paper, in a pretty competitive LGS scene that regularly fields 30+ players per event on Mondays and Fridays.

Hello all been a little since i have been able to mess with magic, I took a shot and started playing a red guy ale list the used 3 K command and 2 crumble to dust side. only have like 4 red source between 2 black cleaves a sacred foundry and blood crypt. I really am happy with having main board artifact hate plus the ability to buy back bod and sculler is very strong and i haven't really felt much change in consistence of mana. What do you all think?

Also after seeing how well Freebooter has been doing in the 5 color humans list does that give it any validity in this strat? maybe not as a 4 of but could be tide hollow 5-6. i have not had a chance to test it yet so wondering if anyone else has been.

Hope everyone is well and has a great evening.

I feel like mot people aren't even running tidehollows.
I love the card, and its performed well for me, but I don't know if I'd want freebooter too.
Being a 1/2 is a lot worse, and while the flying is nice, its not terribly significant. Missing creatures is though.
If you play looter scooters and find yourself a bit low on fodder (not a fan of blade splicer, or something) freebooter could be worse I guess.

As for splashing red, not something I'd do. I haven't found a need for it, and I've never been happy with a build of mardu in modern. We have plenty of artifact destruction on color (though no mainboard) and while rebuying stuff is nice, I can live without it.
Having more consistent mana, as well as access to lands like ghost quarter/tec edge/field of ruin, mutavault, vault of the archangel, etc, feels much more valuable to me.

Regarding Freebooter and the red splash, I agree with all the points mentioned by Cody. Freebooter can actually become a reasonably sized threat in the humans deck thanks to Thalia's Lieutenant and Mayor of Avabruck, but here we have no tribal synergies to exploit, so it's a worse Sculler.


I finally got my Bobs last week and have been experimenting with different versions of the deck since. I'm convinced the Smuggler's Copter - Tidehollow Sculler - Dark Confidant + Souls/Removal/Discard route is where I want to be, but I have not found a second 3-drop besides Souls that I like. Blade splicer is good to crew Copter, but without blink effects I feel its power level is just not good enough for modern. I also tried Liliana of the Veil, but found myself with too little action too often.

For tonights FNM at my LGS, I'm going to test one of my pet cards in the 3-drop slot: Monastery Mentor. I played Esper Mentor for about a year before Gitaxian Probe was banned. Main problem with the card was always to get value before it dies to removal. In BW colors we obviously have no access to blue cantrips for crazy cantrip-chains, but a lot more disruption to protect Mentor. With T1 discard, T2 Sculler/Bob, most decks won't have an answer to T3 Mentor (except maybe Jeskai or Jund). Sculler and Bob protect/eat removal for Mentor and Bob can provide fodder for Mentor. Also, Mentor itself and its tokens are good crew targets for Copter. Bob alone probably isn't enough to fuel Mentor with spells, so instead of blue cantrips I will run Mishra's Bauble. It can be played with Mentor on T3 and works well with Bob for obvious reasons. There also is the cute little trick to target oneself with Bauble during your opponent's turn and then put either Bauble's trigger or Bob's trigger first on your upkeep depending on the CMC of the card to safe life.

Here's the list:


I'll do a short report if you guys want one

Thanks for the feed back everyone, for reference this is the current list i am running:
Lands
Marsh Flatts x4
Bloodstained Mire x2
Godless Shrine x3
Blood Crypt x1
Sacred Foundry x1
Concealed Courtyard x3
Blackcleave Cliff x1
Shambling Vents x3
Muta Vault x3
Urborg x1
Swamp x1
Plains x1

Creatures
Tidehollow Sculler x4
Dark Confidant x4

Artifacts
Smugglers Copter x3

Planeswalkers
Lilians of the Veil x2
Sorin Solemn Visitor x1
Sorin Lord of Innastrad x1

Sorcery
Inquisiton x4
Collective Brutality x2
Thoughtseize x2
Lingering Souls x4

Instant
Path to Exile x3
Fatal Push x3
Kolagan’s Command x3

Side board
Collective Brutallity x2
RiP x2
Runed Halo x2
Surgical Extration x2
Ptihing Needle x1
Disenchant x1
Zealous persecution x1
Kambal x1
Anguished unmaking x1
Kalitas, traitor of Ghet x1
Linvala x1

I have been loving having access to K command but that might just be because i love the card an normally i play playing grixis control so i have seen that card do work. I know it doesn't really fix to much in bad match ups it just gives me more games in fair matchups and i want to lean more heavily on my side board to KO the unfair list with cards such as runed halo and surgical. This is the first non blue control list i will be playing in modern since Seething song got banned so looking for as much impute on how to not just drowned people in snapcaster mage.From the play testing i have been doing worst match ups are any form of tron and titan lists, 5 color humans i have recently started testing against and it seems not to bad if u don't count the 1/5 games they just nut draw and kill me turn 4 threw discard and or kill spell. what are the decks yaw think i should be worried about and and tips on winning those match ups. Thank you and enjoy the rest of ur day.

Hey guys, long time reader of this thread, first time poster. I've been playing the deck on and off for a about a year and have tried several different builds. Started with Pack Rat and didn't really like it at all. Then I tried a build that goes a little bit bigger with Restoration Angel and Blade Splicer, but I didn't much care for that either. I even tried splashing red and playing Mardu, which felt pretty powerful, but ultimately I decided I didn't have a fast enough to clock to justify the extra damage I was taking from my mana base. Anyway after a lot of trial and error I've settled on the following configuration.



This looks pretty similar to a lot of the builds that are posted here with two major exceptions. First, I don't play Mutavault and don't like it in the deck. My plan almost never involves early aggression, and usually by the time I've taken control of the board I find that I don't need the extra damage it provides. Moreover, I don't really like blocking with it on defense either because losing a land feels terrible, and my removal suite combined with Lingering Souls chumps usually keeps me alive a pretty long time. Also since I'm not playing Pack Rat I'm not getting any additional value from it in that regard either. Mutavault seems pretty popular on this forum so I wouldn't be surprised to hear people disagree, but this is just my take. I'd rather have access to my colors on a more consistent basis.

Secondly, I can't sing the praises of Thraben Inspector highly enough. It looks pretty dinky on the surface, but this card is good at every stage of the game. I'm happy playing it on turn one if I don't have a discard spell, happy drawing it late game to use the clue, and it's really good at crewing Smuggler's Copter. People often ask me why I play B/W instead of an Abzan deck with access to Tarmogoyf, and my typical answer is that this deck gives a ton of card advantage and card selection in comparison. With that idea in mind, Thraben Inspector slots pretty seamlessly into the deck. Since our games tend to go long, the clue tokens are much more relevant than people tend to think. Also nobody wants to waste their removal on this dude so he just keeps crewing Smuggler's Copter and drawing more cards. It's great when digging for an answer to a threat, and shines even more in sideboard games when you're trying to find a specific piece of hate. Highly recommend people give this card a try. Like I said, I know it looks weak on the surface but I've been surprised by how good it is. I'd play four of them instead of three if I could make room for it, but the list is pretty tight and I really don't want to cut a discard or removal spell.

Anyway I'm curious what people have to say. Thanks for reading.

For 3 drops, little gideon has done some good work. Doesn't really work with copter, but he's a good stand alone threat.
The first list posted using mutavault had a bit on the high side as far as lands went, IIRC, as well as being a bit more all-in on smuggler's copter.
I agree that I'm not a huge fan of it either (my list doesn't play scooter, tho) because I'm usually really greedy on my mana bases, and colorless lands don't come cheap.

@vibql List looks solid, not sure how I like Stony Silence in the sideboard though, since both Smuggler's Copter and Thraben Inspector are effected by it. I think we are favored against Affinity and in my experience it only helps slightly against Tron, so unless you play against a lot of Lantern or Ad Naseam, I would replace it with something else. Also, how is Gideon's Intervention working out for you? I have never tried it, seems a little too slow to have an impact.

@Cody_X Can you post or pm me your list? Always happy to see different takes on the deck.


On another note, in the last PTQ two BW midrange decks went 7-1. First one is BW Control with Planeswalkers, second one is similar to my current approach playing Monastery Mentor. Main difference is it playes the full playset of Zealous Persecution and no Mishra's Bauble or Sorin, Solemn Visitor like I do. Went 3-2 last FNM btw, beating Grixis Shadow, Storm and GW Company, losing to Burn and Mono White Enchantments.

Links to the PTQ decks:
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/826978#paper
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/826979#paper

Yeah I don't loveStony Silence myself, but my meta is full of Lantern and Affinity and it just stops those decks dead in their tracks. When I board it in I board out Smuggler's Copter, which makes the deck pretty threat light. I could easily be convinced there's something better, but for now I don't know exactly what it is. The main reason for the inclusion of Gideon's Intervention is that it can name Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle to hopefully give us an edge against Scapeshift which I find to be a pretty bad matchup. This slot used to be a Runed Halo but I thought Intervention could pull double duty and provide some extra utility against most combo decks as well. That said the discard makes a lot of combo decks pretty easy to beat already so it might not be necessary.

The field of ruin is sometimes different things; ghost quarter/tect edge, sometimes another colored source, etc.
Sideboard is also a bit of a pile, I've played different things. Cage obviously plays poorly with souls, but I felt like I wanted something else for coco. Sideboard could definitely be rebuilt though.

For affinity/lantern, pithing needle does a lot of work. We've got plenty of tools against affinity as well (zealous persecution, cheap removal, disenchant effects, etc) that dont have the same friendly fire as stony.

Don't underestimate Smuggler's Copter against Affinity. It blocks all their fliers, Signal Pest, and even Etched Champion. Between Mutavault and Copter, Etched Champion is downright embarrassing. With Copter, Souls, Path, and Push, I'd say Affinity is one of our best matchups. I like Pithing Needle over Stony Silence since I never want to board out Copter against Affinity.

As far as three drops go, I'd say play Liliana of the Veil and don't look back. It's not a great follow-up to Copter but it's an amazing follow-up to Sculler or Bob, especially with tun 1 discard too. It's super powerful and is good in many of the tougher matchups like Eldrazi, Tron, and Valakut.

So awesome to see all these different takes on BW!

You guys should try field of ruin, I've been playing 4 of them and they've worked amazingly so far. They help improve the tron MUs and have kept my mana pretty smooth all at once.

Here's a weird version I'm going to run tonight at a local tourney:



From my previous build, I cut 3 Shambling Vent and 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant for 2 Blinkmoth Nexus and 2 Relic of Progenitus.

I want to try Blinkmoth Nexus for a few reasons. First is that Mutavault is amazing and Blinkmoth is similar. Blinkmoth is almost certainly a bit worse since it's only 1 power but it still seems great with Copter and Lingering Souls. You can also use it to give your Mutavaults +1/+1 which is at least amusing.

Second reason is Shambling Vent is not that great. I almost never activate Vent outside the Burn matchup so usually it just screws up my curve. Blinkmoth is better to play on turns 2 and 3 and way cheaper to activate. I imagine it will be useful in far more games.

Cutting Elspeth and Shambling Vent eliminates the requirement for WW. They are also the only cards which require more than 3 mana. Elspeth seems like a smart cut since I also went from 24 to 23 land. Elspeth is also worse without Vent since Angelic Blessing + Vent is kind of a combo.

Relic has always been one of my favorite cards because it has a decent floor and a super high ceiling- a mediocre cantrip that sometimes completely hoses your opponent. It makes sense to add cantrips because I cut a land and to add colorless cards because I cut colored sources.

Another cool option would be to play a couple Collective Brutality maindeck. Cutting Vent definitely makes the Burn matchup worse so maindecking Brutality, which is the best card against Burn, seems good. I think if you give up Shambling Vent and anything with CMC 4+ and keep your colored mana requirements easy, e.g. no WW and not too much BB or BW then you can get away with 22-23 lands with 5-6 colorless lands.

Most of all I'm going to pay attention to how often I get screwed by having so many colorless lands. I ran the numbers and it should be fine especially with Bob, Copter, and Relic all drawing cards and being easy on the mana. Even though no individual card except Sculler has strict mana requirements, the deck can still be hungry for colored mana, e.g. to cast multiple 1-drops in the same turn.

I think cutting lands is the way to go since your best opening hands only have 2-3 land in them, you have 8 2-drops that draw extra cards, and opening hands with 4+ land are much worse than those with 2-3 land.

The sideboard is not tuned yet.

I went 3-1 with the list in my last post.

R1 Humans W 2-0
He had clunky draws and I had smooth ones. In game one I attacked a Mutavault into his Kambal, Consul of Allocation and when he blocked I pumped it with Blinkmoth Nexus. Sold. I had Kalitas in game 2 and he couldn't beat it.

R2 Burn L 1-2
Close games but he got me. Runed Halo was pretty good in both postboard games. I won game 2 with Kalitas.

R3 Burn W 2-0
This player made some obvious misplays and I won pretty easily. I won game 2 with Kalitas again.

R4 Slivers W 2-1
He got me in game 1 with a solid draw. Once again I won game 2 on the back of Kalitas. Game 3 was long and drawn out but I was eventually able to burn him out with a topdecked Collective Brutality.

Even after playing against 4 aggro decks including 2 Burn decks I don't miss Shambling Vent. Blinkmoth was relevant in every match I played and the ability to pump Mutavault was surprisingly good. I didn't have any notable mana problems either.

Kalitas definitely stood out too as I won every game I cast him.

The Relics were predictably terrible against the specific decks I played against. If I had played against Death's Shadow and Storm they would have been great but oh well. Even so I am thinking of cutting them for more cards that can crew Copter. Next week I might try this:


bonus: I played a friendly game against a Jeskai control deck with Search for Azcanta and ended up winning by decking him.

Yesterday I went 2-2 with this list:


R1 Skred L 0-2
I think this is a bad matchup but I also misplayed a bunch because I hadn't played against this deck in a while.

R2 Affinity W 2-0
Affinity is practically free. Copter destroys them.

R3 Slivers L 1-2
This time he got me. Diffusion Sliver is a lot better than it looks. I think this matchup is slightly favorable in general but it's definitely close.

R4 BW Eldrazi W 2-1
This matchup is really hard to play optimally since we both have a bunch of tricky cards, e.g. Tidehollow Sculler. I think it's pretty close to 50-50, unlike Eldrazi Tron. In game 3 I had turn 3 Thalia and it was very good.

I think Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a good sideboard card against Tron and especially Eldrazi Tron because it can slow them down while attacking. Fulminator Mage is alright but it doesn't clock them as well. Neither are very good on the draw though. The other card I've been trying is Smallpox, which is slightly better on the draw than on the play and can also kill one of Eldrazi's big creatures. I don't really like Fulminator Mage or Ghost Quarter because they don't progress your board and you need a board in order to win quickly. One cute play is turn 2 Copter into turn 3 Fulminator, crew Copter, sacrifice Fulminator.

At the end of the day though, there isn't that much you can do to beat Tron. Their overall strategy is just good against ours so all you can really hope to do is discard them a bunch and then win fast before they topdeck. Maybe the best thing you can do is play Leonin Arbiter and Ghost Quarter in your maindeck but I don't think it's worth it.

Another reason to play Copter is that it makes all your sideboard cards better because you can find them more often due to its looting ability.

went 4-0 last night with same list.

2-1 Burn
2-0 Skred Red
2-1 Traverse Shadow
2-1 Mono Green Nykthos Ramp

GGs. Nice to 4-0 once more before BBE and Jace take over.

Just wanted to say I was dissapointed to see Stoneforge Mystic was not part of the unban party, this was the shell was most interested to try it in modern. Though will say if there is a major surge of Jace based decks the Smuggler's Copter seem well positioned as both has evasion and immune to sorcery speed effects (Lingering Souls no slouch either). On the other hand Bloodbraid Elf is likely to hurt keeping Liliana up in several matchups.

Let's assume for a moment that the meta becomes overwhelmingly Jace Control and BBE Jund. Then Kolaghan's Command, Maelstrom Pulse, and various Wrath of God-type cards are going to be much more popular. Kommand is obviously great with BBE and Maelstrom Pulse gets better because killing Jace will be quite valuable. Wrath pairs well with Jace and is good against Jund.

Now let's consider my latest builds. The biggest loser is Tidehollow Sculler. Kommand and Wrath are extremely painful topdecks with a Sculler in play. So we probably need to find a replacement for Sculler.

Copter also takes a hit since they can kill it with Kommand /Pulse without it becoming a creature. However it is quite strong against Jace and Wrath. Copter can probably stay but it depends on our ability to find a good replacement for Sculler.

Discard spells also get worse. Thoughtseize will continue to be good because it can take Jace and BBE. However Jace and BBE both improve the opponent's topdecks as well as make the top of their deck a relevant zone, e.g. for cascade or Brainstorm / Fateseal. Yet another reason to avoid Sculler. It may be time to start with 4 Thoughtseize and play fewer (even 0) Inquisition, which sounds nutty but if we are focused on beating BBE and Jace then Inquisition is definitely not where we want to be.

Dark Confidant gets worse as well. The life loss from Bob will become more costly against Jund with 4 BBE and 4 Bolt. Confidant is decent against Jace decks with Wrath since he can get one turn of value before they come down but he is still vulnerable to Jace's bounce.

Liliana of the Veil is also worse. BBE excels at killing planeswalkers, there will be more Pulses, and Liliana is somewhat embarrassing against opposing Jaces. Ticking up to her ultimate against control decks is fine but seems unlikely to succeed against an opponent using Brainstorm every turn.

Fatal Push and Path also get worse. They will be close to useless against Jace control. They'll be fine against Jund but they don't effectively answer BBE. Path in particular suffers because Pathing a 2 drop against Jund could ramp them into a turn 3 BBE.

Lingering Souls definitely gets better, even in the face of more Pulses and Wraths. It doesn't exactly hose Jund or UW like it does, say, Grixis Shadow but it will still trade well on resources.

The other card that gets much better is Mutavault and Shambling Vent, for similar reasons. BBE Jund and Jace Control will both have to play at least 24 land, I'd guess. However they are also playing 4+ 4-mana cards, which means tapped lands like Raging Ravine and Celestial Colonnade will be even more costly than normal. So it will be easy to outnumber the opponent on manlands. Jace Control players will probably have some number of Field of Ruin but not enough to easily beat 4 Mutavault and some number of Shambling Vent. If you're crazy like me then you will have Blinkmoth Nexus too.

Another potential Ace up our sleeve is Relic of Progenitus. It will be nice to neuter Goyfs but it will also be important to prevent recursion of BBE with Kommand. Jace Control will probably have Snapcasters so it won't be awful there either.

With all of this said, the first thing I might do is try a list like this: