MTG Salvation

I kinda like it. Its like the old LSV list that jammed the twin combo in there. Seeing as how you had to splash blue for the combo you naturally get to play Riverwinder + Curator since we are in blue. Not sure how I feel about as foretold but if you are looking for more long game I could see it being valuable.

there is a reason why people doesn't run kiki-jiki, mirror breaker anymore.
RRR is kinda tough (even with our good mana base), also it cost 5 which is kinda pricey for modern.
the combo is great (i played it back when splinter twin was legal) but it eats up so many flex spot for it to be consistent.
i used to have 4 splinter twin , 4 deceiver exarch, and 1 pestermite as part for the combo and even then i often miss 1 part for the combo.

if you are planning to use the combo, i suggest to up the deceiver exarch count to 4 and if you can add 1 more kiki-jiki. and replace as foretold with 3 demonic dread. also cut all U cylers, you only use U for the combo creature and nothing else.
if you want to play as foretold, up the living end to 4. i never liked because its U and it needs living end to be in your hand to work which is annoying since most of the time you dont want it to be in your hand.
also it will be better if the combo parts are in sideboard so you could side in the combo in game 2 to dodge graveyard hate.

part of me loves the idea and the other part of me hates the first part of me for loving it
If he is trying to assemble the kiki/pestermite combo it might be worth while to keep Curators because of his scry ability.
Its a really cool alternative win condition that doesn't concern the grave yard but with cutting all the utility slots in order to make room for the kiki combo it leaves you with no interaction until you find the combo or cascade which is essentially just a wrath at that point. I just feel like the downside to this build is that you're a sitting duck for a few turns.

My list was as follows:



The main is pretty stock and I was happy with it. The Blood Moons were all-stars all day. It is important to be cognizant of how you fetch, not only because of this enchantment, but because an astute player may notice you're fetching your basics early and could follow suit. Which obviously makes the bottle-necking your opponents mana plan sub par. I don't play Dreadshot Minotaurs because of the nonbo they have with Faerie Macabre. I have very seldom shot one of my opponents creatures. Not having an evasive threat has been relevant enough for me to not even run the risk of that scenario happening. I used to play a split of Desert Cerodon and Architects of Though because the library manipulation was fairly useful. But with the change of my manabase to accommodate Blood Moon, I'd like to be able to hardcast all my threats if need be.

The sideboard was worse than I had hoped. I would have played 3 Leyline of the Void, but I couldn't find one, swapping the faerie out for it. I do realize the hypocrisy of saying I want to be able to hardcast all my threats and then turn right around and play a full set of Leyline of Sanctitys. I know that I was essentially playing with an 11 card sideboard, and it indeed felt like that through a good portion of the tournament. My thought on the sideboard cards, especially leylines, is if they are super important to improving your targeted matchup, than there's merit to running all 4. Leyline of Sanctity is the epitome of "high risk, high reward." I feel the burn matchup is so lopsided that playing any less is absolutely a waste of sideboard slots. Not to mention that it has other applications against other decks, combo, 8-rack, etc. Now in a large scale tournament like an Open or a GP, I would not play this card. I would just hope to dodge. But in a smaller scale tournament like a GPT or a PPTQ like that was, people are always trying to come out "hot" with Lightning Bolts. In my experience with these tournaments, I'm never lucky enough to dodge. I wanted to go into that matchup post board hoping to lucsack my way through it. There was at least 5-6 burn players that I knew of at that tournament, and I knew I'd run into one of them at least once. I was fortunate enough to dodge dedicated burn for this tournament, but I still boarded all the white leylines in for 6 games throughout, and I saw none in my openers. With the universe being one of my closest friends, who is always a jokester, made sure I did draw them within the first 1 or 2 drawsteps.

It is possible that just maxing out 4 slots that are actually castable in the deck postboard could be a possibility. Something like Bristle Boar or Gnaw to the Bone, possibly even Pulse of Murasa may provide to be promising. But throughout my testing and numerous matches against burn, Boar was never enough, and I never got a sizable amount of life back from Gnaw. I don't even know if this should be a discussion considering we're probably not talking about smaller local tournaments where burn is more prevalent.

Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback. I think I'll still test at a regular REL event or two. Gonna try with the Kiki-Jiki business in the sideboard, moving Fulminator Mage and Beast Within to the main. Should be good for some laughs at least

burn has always been a terrible matchup for us since the deck first conceived.
if you are looking for some life gain card the best card to go is kitchen finks and spike feeder.
both netted you 4 life, the same with brindle boar but they have less chance of running into a full blown skullcrack or atarka's command since they gain 2 life at a time.
also some people have been toying with madcap experiment and platinum emperion, they have multiple applications but i'm not sold on this idea since it need more sideboard slot (4 madcap, 2 emperion)

over the course of time i learn that burn matchup always warrant sideboard slot no matter what level of tournament you are in, i am irritated enough to respect it. there is even a time when i have kor firewalker in the sideboard (swap the with living end game 2 and watch your frowns. it is tried and tested tech and apparently still good)

Quote from Magus_of_Farts »

Thanks guys, I appreciate the feedback. I think I'll still test at a regular REL event or two. Gonna try with the Kiki-Jiki business in the sideboard, moving Fulminator Mage and Beast Within to the main. Should be good for some laughs at least

good luck monkeying around with kiki-jiki, dont forget he have other applications.
if you are evil enough you could copy a fulminator mage and blow up your opponent's land each turn.
also if you are running architects of will you can make sure opponent never draw a good card.

Quote from Morimacil »

I like blood moons too. Did anyone try magus of the moon?
Theory is that the tron matchups are light on removal, so it doesnt matter much there, and vs everything else, usually magus is bad because he can die so easily, but for us, being a creature means he threatens to come back?



Sideboarding: What happens to demonic dread in creatureless matchups? Shave a few copies, side it out, keep it in?

Nah, it's hard to overstate how much better Blood Moon is compared to Magus for us. For one thing, you'll generally want to lock them out of their mana before you resolve an LE, which you obviously can't do if Magus is your lock piece. Secondly, just because something can come back doesn't mean that it will. A savvy opponent won't remove your Magus while you're churning through cyclers toward a Cascade spell, and resolving multiple LEs in a single game usually means things are looking grim for us.

My advice: play the Blood Moon and make them have an answer for enchantments.


It's hard to recommend shaving any Cascade spells. Beast Within and a hardcast Simian Spirit Guide are great ways to get a target on the field. Dryad Arbor is another option, albeit one that's fallen out of favor in recent months. Same goes for Forbidden Orchard. Still might be worthwhile to explore these inclusions if you're in a creature-light meta.


Re: lifegain, I can't agree that Finks is better than Boar. Boar's value ceiling is just so high for us.


So I finished second in a local 20ish strong Modern league over nine weeks of play, using predominantly LE (we're allowed to swap decks from week to week). I'll be bringing this deck to the upcoming playoffs, where the top 4 players face off. One opponent is almost guaranteed to be on Bushwhacker Zoo; another is likely to play monowhite Soul Sisters, though Amulet Titan and Dredge are also possibilities. The remaining pilot could be on just about anything--Grixis Shadow, Jund, Counters Company, and Ad Nauseum are all decent bets. I don't expect any true blue Control to be in the mix.

With that in mind, I'm thinking of rolling up with this list, designed for 1) ultimate consistency with resolving an LE, and 2) advantage against low-curve creature decks that have no real choice but to race me. (My mana base is a bit suboptimal, but that's not gonna change anytime soon).




With 21 one-mana cyclers, it's hard to imagine me failing to find the combo during game one. Post-side, there's some nice symmetry at work, too: 3 Minotaurs are the easy swap for 3 Faeries; the same applies to 2 each of Architects and Ingot Chewers.

Normally, I'd pack another Chewer, but I'm just not expecting much artifact presence. The main sticking point for me is whether three Leyline of the Void is better here than my three Faeries. Unsure about that call.

Thoughts?

Faerie is better against creature based aggro decks IMO, especially with Shriekmaw in the game.

Quote from Ken Carson »

Merfolk and Faeries are two of my least favorite matchups.

Faeries I agree with because Spellstuter is a pain but Merfolk is actually a favorable matchup. The majority of their deck is creatures which is what you want to see when playing living end.

Quote from Morimacil »

If you like your deck as-is, and dont want to change any cards, dont.
Nobody is going to force you to test new cards.

But saying he makes the deck less consistent is not true (if anything, it is just another cycler)
Saying he makes the deck vulnerable to thoughtseize is again not really true, since every other card we are considering for the spot is just as vulnerable to thoughtseize if not more.

If you want the analysis to be helpful, you have to show the other side too.

If you prefer to run shriekmaw, thats fine.
But it is a flexible answer to Scavenging Ooze, Jace, Tarmogoyf, Noble Hierarch, or Birds of Paradise, that is kind of dead vs affinity, classic tron, uw control, scapeshift, RG titan, deaths shadow, and dredge for example. Vs a 4/4 that goes from amazing to meh, but never useless.

If you want to compare the 2 cards, you have to compare them across the board, not just in scenarios where shriekmaw is good.

Same with with the rest. If you prefer to run 2 landcyclers, you have to not only compare how good a landcycler to get your correct mana is vs how good a 4/4 beatstick is when you have someone locked under blood moon, but also compare think about all the times you dont have a blood moon out, and then also try to compare whether being able to get a land for sure out of your 2 mana cycler is worth more than it cycling for random cards, but sometimes being able to cast it for free.

I can end this conversation fairly quick. Hallowed One sucks. He is a two mana cycler and not even the best two mana cycler, that spot is reserved for Archfiend and even then it doesn't see much play.

As far as coming down early? He can only come down as long as you have 3 mana available, and in those cases you would much rather cast your cascader to actually combo.

He is an artifact creature that has no abilities meaning he is open to more forms of removal, and if you are casting creatures on the board you already went to plan B meaning you rather be casting bigger creatures than him. You aren't going to try to clock your opponent with a 4/4 when there are Shadows, Tarmogoyfs and K. Commands running around. There isn't a single card I would cut for this creature.

I'm not a fan either, from the beginning and after testing,

Sure it's satisfying to 'cheat' anything out. But in the end his impact isn't enough and the negative synergy of killing opponents creatures early just adds to him being bad.

That said, @drew02k be careful to keep this a discussion not an argument.

Hey guys! I'm taking Living End (or at least considering) to a classic this weekend. I haven't been on the deck for about 4 months, but have shifted over to the R/B cyclers. Anywho, what's our sideboard looking like?

my current sideboard is
4 leyline of sanctity
3 leyline of the void
3 ingot chewer
2 ricochet trap
2 shriekmaw
1 krosan grip

this sideboard didn't have hate card for combo decks.
if you believe combo decks will be present add 2 lost legacy / slaughter games and replace the krosan grip and another card.

as for the hollow one i wouldn't be so dismissive about it. it has some potential at the very least it cycle for 2 with some gimmick that can turn it into a freebie (wistful thinking says hello)

Why would the Amalgams come back? His creatures do not enter from the graveyard, they enter from exile. I had to explain a similar interaction to the most recent player who thought he got me with Graffdiggers Cage.

My sideboard right now is:

3x Leyline of the Void
4x Leyline of Sanctity
2x Blood Moon
1x Shriekmaw
3x Ingot Chewer
1x Anger of the Gods
1x Slaughter Games

I've not had a Living End Remanded in months, so I've cut my entire anti-Blue control package. Blood Moon has been great in Esper and Jeskai control matches, plus my 4 main deck Fulminator Mages.

What is your mainboard that you can play Blood Moon?

I also play blood moon, it's not that hard to play with - fetch a swamp and go lol

Quote from MrDraftChaff »

What is your mainboard that you can play Blood Moon?

Quote from MrDraftChaff »

What is your mainboard that you can play Blood Moon?

I main a Pale Recluse and a Twisted Abomination plus I run a basic Forest and two basic Swamps. I very much like this little tech as it gives me a plan against control and Tron, but also two easily removed cards in games where I won't side in my Blood Moon package.

It does require that you run 4x Verdant Catacombs to ensure proper fetching.

I do run the 4x Verdants, just didn't seem worth.

My plan against any control deck (or decks that really really need their lands, like valakut and Amulet titan) is Blood Moon asap.

I also really like it against Midrange decks like jund and abzan, because they typically don't have an answer to it and they typically play 1-3 basics, max of 4, so a turn 2 blood moon is brutal against them.

I'd recommend you play some number of Deadshot Minotaur in addition to the blood moons because you can occasionally get denied non-R lands if you gun for it early. Just saying

My list is very r/b based. It's green for exactly beast within and violent.