MTG Salvation

Serra Avenger is a neat idea but given its weird drawback, I think more powerful cards are probably a better choice. Since you can't play it early, it's likely that you would be better off with a more expensive card like Kitchen Finks or a planeswalker. Say you play 2 Serra Avenger. Its most likely appearance is as a mid or late game topdeck. There are so many better options for a card like that. Perhaps you could cast an extra spell alongside Serra Avenger but then again a more expensive card will do more when you play it. In both cases you need more than 2 mana but in the first you need another relevant spell to make up for the difference in power level.

Seems like the most comparable card is Vampire Nighthawk, which seems worse than Finks given all the Lightning Bolt. Flying is real nice though. Elspeth, Knight-Errant, anyone?

Not so sure selling playsets of Dark Confidant and Liliana of the Veil is what I would do, personally, even if I weren't playing with those cards right now.

It's a fun deck. It is not tier one competitive but it does win games. If you want to try it out, you already own the expensive parts, so the investment would be minimal (in terms of competitive Modern deck costs, that is).

There is no Modern version of Vindicate; Abrupt Decay and Beast Within are its weak sisters.

Wargear looks good in this build for several reasons: It kills Percy when needed; it kills Bob when needed, and it eliminates the opportunity cost of equipping it to a Spirit token only to have it destroyed in response. It can also swing the turn it is played--say T3 attached to Bob or Sculler--because of its equip 0.

The newly spoiled 2 drop from oath looks really good for us. Can't wait to try her.

I don't think that it is that great for our deck. If the 1WB ability did not include the 10 more life than your starting total, it would be an auto include in our deck.

Wait, hold on. I just realized the great synergy with Tidehollow Sculler. Sac him in response to the enter the battle field trigger -> 2 life and you get to exile their best card for three mana. That is pretty decent. Here is a starting deck with her:



Some other cards to consider:
Mana Tithe
Aven Riftwatcher
Lapse of Certainty
Shadow of Doubt

She also allows you to sac Bob when need be, sac abyssal persecuted when need be, is a main deck anti burn card, sac sculler, and is a two drop that can fight goyf.

I also play sorin 2.0 so I could see being at 30 life against tron and just holding up 3 mana to exile karn or ugin on sight. We play enough disruption to get to turn 5 or 6 against them. I don't expect it to come up a lot but the ability is certainly not useless. I had one game go to time against kikicord because they had a worship and just kept drawing creatures. I was at 80 life so the exile would have single handedly won me that game.

I think the best thing she does is makes persecuter not nearly as much of a liability so I would absolutely not run her without the persecuter.

Here are my matchup ratings:

Grixis Twin: favorable, we have plenty of removal and a lot of threats that they cannot deal with. I haven't lost many matches to them.
Jund: Lingering souls wins us this match, but it can still be tough.
Junk: I haven't played against junk
Control: This can be a pain at times, but if we stick liliana and a threat we should be fine.
Burn, Tron: These are pretty bad match ups for me.
Living End: I have only played against this deck once, and I felt like the matchup was in our favor. You just have to only stick 1 threat at a time and have a beast in the graveyard. Post sideboard the matchup is a lot better. The main weakness with this deck is that you can usually see living end coming and when they cast it you have 1 turn to respond.
Merfolk: I have a lot of experience playing against this deck and our matchup is 40/60 or a little more in their favor pre-board. After we side in some wraths, our matchup gets a little better.

BW midrange has problems with super aggro decks. If we are still in the game by turn 4 or so against aggro decks, our chances to win go up dramatically. This new deathtouch card will really help us in that front.

Quote from coldtonight »

In case of a stoneforge mystic unban I bought a playset..

What do you think would mean an unban for bw midrange?

It would be a huge boost for us but only time would tell if it would improve us more than it would improve the field around us. Junk would be pretty popular with it which can already be a tough matchup.

I posted a primer for the deck over on r/spikes which I see some of you found. Here's the link to the thread. Any and all feedback appreciated.

It's a neat card but I doubt it will change much. It's probably worse than a removal spell in most cases.

Quote from davemo88 »

It's a neat card but I doubt it will change much. It's probably worse than a removal spell in most cases.

We are already light on threats and this card's synergy with abyssal persecutor and tidehollow sculler plus resiliency to pyroclasm and night of souls' betrayal makes me really excited for it.

The problem here is that a 2/3 deathtouch isn't a great threat, e.g. Shambling Vent is a better threat. I'm not sure Persecutor and Sculler are good to begin with. Resiliency to Pyroclasm and Night of Soul's Betrayal are good qualities since most BW lists do get wrecked by the those cards. However it doesn't trump them in any way. It's a fine defensive card at best since deathtouch is most relevant to blocking. Sacrifice outlet / lifegain is nice but this card isn't close to Dark Confidant, Pack Rat, Tarmogoyf, etc.

I don't mean to make it out to be the next great threat but I think it can carve out a good little niche in our deck.

I have had a lot of success with Percy. The card is just a monster. I had some success with this deck about a year back with baneslayer but I started building other decks. I saw the Percy tech and have really enjoyed it. Also I really like sculler. He is really good against any slower deck.

I have been running a 1 of vampire nighthawk just because I like the card so much and with grafted wargear it does a nice baneslayer impersonation but I think it is an easy switch.

Considering I already run Percy and sculler I feel like ayli does enough to make me want a few copies of her.

I really like deathtouch. It allows her to stall up the board a lot better than a shambling vents. I have been running a 1 of sorin, solemn visitor so I don't value the lifelink of vents as much as I do the deathtouch of ayli. It sounds like we are on pretty different lists so I can see how you would be less excited.

Yep that's fair. If you are already playing with Persecutor and Sculler then I see how this card is appealing.

The new kalitas actually seems bonkers in the deck

Quote from Grouty »

The new kalitas actually seems bonkers in the deck

I don't know about bonkers but it seems alright. Definitely worth testing. Not quite the uber threat of persecutor but he does enough stuff that I could see him being good.

Of the cards spoiled thus far, I think Sea Gate Wreckage has the best shot to make it in.

edit: updated name

Sea Gate Wreckage doesn't seem too great for our current builds. It looks to be more suited for an 8-rack deck. So far I am unimpressed with the spoilers with respect to a dead guy ale brew.

So if anyone maybe hasn't heard yet, there is a new Bx/BW midrange Eldrazi ramp build blowing up. It ditches the heavy discard approach for graveyard/exile shenanigans, getting card advantage with Relic of Progenitus which powers the Eldrazi Processors Wasteland Strangler and Blight Herder. In terms of accessibility, none of the creatures are super expensive to buy into, except for a 1-2 Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger. Unfortunately it is too late to get in on the other half of the mana base for cheap. But it still isn't a prohibitively expensive buy-in (though opinions may vary), especially if you happen to have a handful of Eye of Ugins lying around. The majority of the mana base, Lingering Souls, IoK/Thoughtseize, Paths, black removal, and much of the sideboard all swaps right over.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/651774-bx-eldrazi-processors

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/deck-creation-modern/651723-bw-eldrazi-processor

Anyway, I have been trying it out and it is a hoot (see what I did there?). I think it is a real thing and will have legs.

Just got done playing the black white eldrazi build to a top 8 in a 20 person gpt. I honestly think it's just straight up better than deadguy ale. The game basically rests on if you draw the correct lands though. When you do it's absolutely bonkers. When you don't you just kind of wait to die :\.

Just playing blight hurler felt unfair on turn 3. This deck can put down a serious clock which has always been a problem for dga