MTG Salvation

I can see the appeal, but I don't think the efficiency is worth the extra cost. We already have a wealth of good options. Gonna be a soul crushing top deck late and it's uncastable.

God, I've been out of action for about a month now. hopefully I can get some games next fnm.

I've been seeing lots of decks online maindecking eidolons...any thoughts on this?

It really depends upon your meta. If you're fighting green devotion or some deck that just goes above 3 cmc it isn't good. If all you fight on a regular basis are abzan, control, white red,ground decks with 3cmc or less or even mono red it can help you tremendously.

On the play it is awesome casting turn 2. On the draw it can be so so but still attracts a kill spell.

The deck I've been struggling against at FNM is a red/white heroic type build -- Monastery Swiftspears, Hero of Iroas, Artful Maneuver, Temur Battle Rage, etc. I end up taking 16 points of damage in one round alone due to the trample (can't exactly remember which creature he used with Trample, but it was very much there) and double strike effects; it's one of the few decks I've played that actually feels faster than RDW in some ways. Any ideas for how to tackle this?

Timing on removal is key vs any heroic deck. It's usually better to main phase if they are tapped out. Otherwise it's pretty easy for them to blow us out with God's Willing or even just a pump/heroic trigger out of damage range. They have very few threats generally, as a large amount of their deck is pump. Without blue, they'll have a harder time reloading too. Just play more control oriented, kill their threats, side in Searing Blood and Roast, etc.

Quote from Nevelo »

I can see the appeal, but I don't think the efficiency is worth the extra cost. We already have a wealth of good options. Gonna be a soul crushing top deck late and it's uncastable.

It is. That's why I pulled them (in reference to collateral damage)
I didn't even topdeck one, I top decked two in a row and lost a game 3 that may have otherwise been winnable. I think there are better and safer plays than collateral damage. My $0.02

I took this deck to the PPTQ my LGS had yesterday and top 8ed with it. In the end I decided not to splash green but the deck still felt quite powerful.



Some of the numbers here may seem a little weird but it worked out perfectly fine. A lot of these decks seem to have moved away from Titan's Strength but it was an all-star for me. In the early game it gives you a good head start while setting up your draw, and in the late game when you attack with everything you can put it on an unblocked creature to push through damage or a blocked one if you absolutely need to kill their blocker.

In the swiss rounds I played two Abzan control decks, Bant, RG Dragons, and the mirror. My only loss was to RG Dragons which was an extremely difficult matchup. Everything else felt pretty beatable and for the most part the matches weren't too hard.

The Top 8 was rife with green decks. Aside from myself, there was one Esper control deck and everything else was Abzan or RG. Unfortunately I lost in the quarterfinals to Abzan megamorph, but I think it had more to do with my play than the strength of my deck. I kept a really suspect hand game 1 and after an embarrassing Thoughtseize my opponent put the game away pretty easily. I managed to win game 2 but in game 3 he was able to get his Den Protector/Deathmist Raptor engine going and I couldn't come back.

I can say pretty confidently that the weakest cards in this deck are by far the token generators. They're much better if you play Atarka's Command or Hall of Triumph. In this deck their purpose is to combo with Denizen and Stoke, but those can be good even without the token-making cards. I don't know if I should cut them entirely but I think shaving some could be correct for this particular build. I never really liked Hall and I personally prefer mono-red to the splash green version.

hmm probably, scrap hordeling outburst for more rabbles, then scrap fodder for more mardu scout?

Outburst and Fodder as quite good in this deck. The synergy with both Foundry Street Denizen and Monastery Swiftspear is real.

That being said, the monored version seems like it goes a little bigger and the wide boards are not as useful without command,

I took Atarka Red to a 4-5 finish at GP Toronto. Not impressive, I know, but I played it out. I wrote a tournament report here.

Over the day I four punts, one of which didn't really hurt me (playing creatures out of sequence to maximize damage), one which was epic (not resideboarding after I realized what my opponent was playing), one miscalculation in combat math, and one other that I can't remember off the top of my head. Atarka's Command was backbreaking when my opponent couldn't answer it or wasn't expecting it, and it was brutal on me as well (I played the mirror three times).

How do people side against Green/x/x Midrange decks with Atarka Red?

This is what I've been running online lately:



Its interesting how compared to the Mono Red version that plays like traditional Sligh, this plays much more like a burn deck.

I've been running mono-red since before Dragons came out.

Here's my current build:



I managed to get something like this into the Top 8 of an rPTQ but I honestly haven't figured out the sideboard fully (or a plan vs Den Protector + Deathmist Raptor decks). What does everyone else do?

No Goblin Rabblemaster?

Concerning the Green decks, I'm finding 2x Magmatic Chasm quite good along side the normal Roast 3 or 4-of.

out of all the games i've played i find the lightning berserker less and less appealing...

He's nice against Control and that's mostly it. You get the off times that dashing for R is nice with a pair of Foundry Streets. I run 1x and probably wouldn't want anymore. I find that I cut him against most of the creature decks because he trades out too easily.

It's a bit like Frenzied Goblin in that sense. He's good against he other half of the field.

Berserker has been good for me. It combos nicely with denizen can be a mana dump late game. I've been playing 2 just as a hasty mana sink. But against other aggressive creature decks he comes out for searing bloods or eidolon.

Been struggling online with the deck.. UB doesn't even feel like the best matchup when they draw a bunch of their Invocations.

No point in running fetches if you do not have a splash. The math doesn't support running them for thinning only.

I've won several games against other red decks by one or two damage because they took a little too much damage from their "thinning" fetches.

Honestly thinking of taking an AIR build with a transformative (rabblemaster red)sideboard and seeing if I can steal the win a box fnm this week. Meta seems soft to kill someone by turn 4 style red.

Quote from Nevelo »

No Goblin Rabblemaster?

Concerning the Green decks, I'm finding 2x Magmatic Chasm quite good along side the normal Roast 3 or 4-of.

Before Dragons came out I decided that Heelcutter was straight better than Rabblemaster. They got relegated to my sideboard then cut altogether. I would consider bringing them back as a sideboard card vs control but was never impressed by them.

Also I really like Lightning Berserker and was running 4 of them. They can deal a bunch of damage, play excellently vs control, and trade with shockingly big creatures.

I like searing blood mainboard for clearing the way over goblin heelcutter. He really shines in green matchups though.

Whats your decklist?

You should have a good matchup vs them...

Quote from Nevelo »

No point in running fetches if you do not have a splash. The math doesn't support running them for thinning only.

I've won several games against other red decks by one or two damage because they took a little too much damage from their "thinning" fetches.

The math 100% supports thinning. It's up to you whether you value the life more than the fraction of the card each fetch offers. If you can completely ignore your life total, fetches only for thinning is probably fine; otherwise, it takes to long to reap any benefit.