MTG Salvation

I wasn't sure if there was already a thread for this kind of deck, but i looked for a bit and didn't find anything. So i decided to use this credit: SaffronOlive from MTG goldfish

I went undefeated without a game loss with this against RW vehicles, GR energy, and BW allies. Got really really close to dying multiple times going only to comeback with a panharmoniconand a bunch of lifegain cards. it can deal with aggro pretty well with all the relatively high toughness creatures like glint-nest craneand reflector mage. overall it seems to be a pretty good midrangey good-things deck

Hey, glad to see there's a thread for this! I'm interested in putting this deck together. There seems to be some room for flexibility in the deck's lineup (SaffronOlive played a version with 4 Eldritch Evolution on stream!). Here's my tentative take on it:



I thought one of the deck's strengths was the ability to cast Bring to Light with five colours and tutor (and cast) any one of a number of potent five-drops: in addition to the Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Arborback Stomper, Verdurous Gearhulk, and Cloudblazer of the original list, we have a full sweeper in Fumigate and a mass-token-generator in Angel of Invention (good with Westvale Abbey?), as well as Confiscation Coup in the 'board as a catch-all and energy sink. I went up to the fourth Reflector Mage, dropping Pilgrim's Eye, and cut the more difficult-to-cast black and red Gearhulks and Greenwarden of Murasa, which can't be tutored by Bring to Light since they cost six. The sideboard needs serious work and the mana base tuning. I would welcome comments and would love to hear from you, Cappuccinojak, and any others as to what you're finding to be the strongest and weakest cards in your lists, and what is needed to go up against the Pro Tour meta.

one card i felt was rather meh was definitely combustible gearhulk. like i almost never wanted to cast it, bc getting multiple crane/familiar triggers was usually better. a standout card for me was filigree familiar. without panharmonicon it's a bit on the underwhelming side, but with it familiar just goes up in value quite well.

the mana base was pretty good imo. between hubs, prisms, and servants i had almost no problems casting what i wanted. the main issue is all the "enter tapped" lands, im not sure if it's better to run the manlands or just substitute some for the new fastlands like botanical sanctum. with the amount of lifegain cards, being a bit slow isn't usually too bad unless the opponent gets the nuts draw maybe.

some cards you removed i feel were extremely important for the deck's survival, mainly noxious gearhulk. even without panharmonicon it provides way too much value to omit it i feel. leaving out the greenwarden of murasais a bit rough though since it also provides an infinite loop of interludes. however i really do like the addition of confiscation coup because getting servant's triggers doubled isn't really that good. not bad of course, but i don't have many outlets for all the energy i was producing. like by the time panharmonicon comes online, servant's/hub's usefulness isn't as important then.

one final note: don't underestimate the deck's sustainability. plenty of card advantage, lifegain, and having all those effects doubled (or more) times makes even the most menial creatures waaaay better. like my final game of the night against RW vehicles i started with 2 land and crane. craned away 4 lands, so i was stuck on 2 lands for at least 3 turns. they hit me hard and got me to 2 at some point. Once i finally had lands/servants to play panharmonicon, i steam-rolled to victory.

Thanks for the thoughts! I was afraid you would say Noxious Gearhulk was too good. Surprised about the Greenwardens, but I didn't think of that interaction.

Let us know if you play it any more or make any changes!

Quote from TheHumanHydra »

Thanks for the thoughts! I was afraid you would say Noxious Gearhulk was too good. Surprised about the Greenwardens, but I didn't think of that interaction.

Let us know if you play it any more or make any changes!

Noxious Gearhulk is pretty amazing. Being able to kill a creature, gain life, and provide a large body makes him great at stabalizing a board state, coming from behind, or advancing one. Not having any at all seems rough.

If you need more ideas for a Bant list, to keep you alive:

Fairgrounds Warden
Thraben Inspector

I highly recommend adding at least one Thought-knot Seer. You can Eldritch Evolution a Crane or Servant to get to it (pulling 1+ cards from opponents hand and they only draw one on its death) and you can use it to Evolution to Noxious Gearhulk.

I agree the manabase seems pretty on point. There have only been a few games where I wasn't able to get a color I needed. Verdurous Gearhulk are easily the best card in the deck. I run 3-4. Stacking counters on a crane to just get a big threat in or spreading them out to make blocking very much in your favor shows how flexible the card is.

I've been playing around with this Bant Shell, getting away from the 5 Color cuteness and building in the Eldrazi Displacer + Broodmate Monitor + Panharmonicon infinite combo. It's been alright so far but could definitely use some curve taming.

i feel that not having any amount of gearhulks definitely hinders the plan. i see people running cranes for prisms, familiars, and of course panharmonicons. However one of the main reasons to run the gearhulks (besides just being bonkers good) is that it fits right into the crane package since they are artifacts themselves.

i kinda forgot all about thought-knot seer, with the hubs and settlements we have plenty of colorless to cast it pretty reliably. i also really agree on the verdurous gearhlks being a vital part of the deck. still messing around with some numbers atm, but i'm definitely slotting more in

I would also highly suggest watching Seth's games. he's matched against UW control, UR panharmonicon, UR fevered visions, GR energy/pummeler, and Grixis emerge. i think he only loses like 1 game to UW control because of a counterspell, but he went on to win that match and proceeds to 5-0 this set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLtLlcD-b2JRGx0F79AhkUZgbXx2g0xPhC&v=MqIqUD_32Lw

Something else worth considering is Authority of the Consuls. Panharmonicon triggers when any creature or artifact causes a permanent you control to trigger, meaning when their creature ETBs, Consuls would trigger twice, netting you two life. Also counts as incidental early game life gain and slowing down the aggro decks that cast a creature to crew Copter T3.

Authority of the Consuls seems more sideboard vs aggro to me. Its not like were pumping out a bunch of 1cmc guys every turn.

Quote from teakwood54 »

Authority of the Consuls seems more sideboard vs aggro to me. Its not like were pumping out a bunch of 1cmc guys every turn.

Yeah, it's a 2-of in my sideboard at the moment. I wanted 4 in the sideboard so I could be sure to get one early against aggro, but there wasn't enough room with the other things I felt were necessary.

Wow, this deck looks good. What are the odds against an Aetherworks Marvel deck?

honestly? no idea. hopefully i'll get to run across it at FNM this week. looking at some lists it seems pretty scary to go up against.

Thank you! I think I'll try to take some version of this deck to the Game Day on Sunday. I'll write a report if anyone here is interested.

Quote from Faust »

Wow, this deck looks good. What are the odds against an Aetherworks Marvel deck?

Since this deck has a lot of blue already, the sideboard should include Ceremonious Rejection to counter Aetherworks Marvel (and even Emrakul/Ulamog, if the game goes long enough where they can hard cast). I'm not sure if 2 copies is enough, as you want to make sure to have it on their T4 with blue mana up.

I've been playing with this deck online, and I can't seem to win a game. The deck just seems to do nothing for me. Perhaps I'm just getting unlucky.

it can be tough to get off the ground for a bit with the ETB tapped lands and overall slow nature of the deck. You are in for the long game though. the longer it goes, the better you'll do usually since you can start slamming multiple Panharmonicons and creatures in the same turn.

yeah sideboard is a tough one. the problem comes with that there isn't really many sideboard worthy creatures/artifacts. so sideboarding out a creature or artifact with an instant/sorcery just usually feels pretty meh. i think the main problem is gonna be control decks. i didn't get to play against one last week so i've no experience against it though.

i do like the idea of maybe a single gonti, lord of luxury. not sure if i'll toss him in the sideboard or mainboard. i'm thinking about the main since i'm running bring to lights

Played some tonight, most fun thing to do is Verdurous Gearhulk and place mondo counters on Glint-Nest Crane. I won one game with a 25/27 crane... but without Panharmonicon, the deck kinda durdles. Lost handily to control, but I also didn't play sideboard for counter spells.

I really like the idea of Gonti. May have to try it. And yes, I cut Combustible Gearhulk before playing the deck. It's a fun card, but it's not the best. I'm also playing the Eldrazi Displacer shell, because all the value...

For the record, the most fun and absurd game I played tonight was against an Aetherworks Marvel deck. I got him to 10 after gearhulking a crane, but Ulamog off Marvel cleared that a Pan-the-man from my board. With the hulk still out, he couldn't attack me, so we were stalled. He spun again, hit a Distended Mindbender and took another gearhulk from hand (that would've been game). Worldbreaker took out another Pan, but was destroyed by a topdecked Noxious hulk. I landed an Eldrazi Displacer which was going to win me the game, but then he spun and got Emrakul. I blinked Noxy and killed Emrakul, but when he took my turn, he blinked Noxy again to kill Displacer than ran my creatures into his fatties. I topdecked a Reflector Mage and bounced his Ulamog, but he Marveled and got another Emrakul, which I had no answer for. Fun game, and I lasted a loooong time against all the fatties!

I built the deck that SaffronOlive created and played it in 2 tournaments with it. I finished in 1st and in 2nd. The deck is very well put together and the only issue I ran in to was Combustible Gearkulk. I had my opponents making me draw up to 9 cards every time and it did not work out so well. I took out combustible and added in 1 Thought-Knot Seer to the mainboard. I know it does not get targeted by crane but it worked out very well for me.

The toughest matchup I faced was against grixis control with all the counterspells. Outside of that is was pretty dominant against my matchups

What's Saffron's list? I was having the worst luck with the deck I built.

Quote from GPash »

What's Saffron's list? I was having the worst luck with the deck I built.

his original list is the one i posted

Gah, I love this deck. However i've had an impossible time against RW Vehicles. Probably because I wasn't running any black gearhulks (or any gearhulks at all b/c i'm a scrub), but i've fixed that now. Here's what i'm working with:



So i've adjusted my sideboard to basically strictly cards to bring in against RW that also have play in other matchups. Ok, that's a bit excessive, but the deck seems a lot more tuned to fight the aggro decks because that's all I intend to play against forever at my LGS.

Notes: The Gearsmith is actually the best late game card there is. Recycling gearhulks for use again after a cataclysmic, negating the usefulness of the opponent's Appetites or other artifact destruction... Obviously Eternal witness is a good card, this just has better stats and triggers like 12 times in this deck. It's worth playing.

I'm going down to one bring to light because it's the worst card in the deck. I mean, it's every card, but it's 5 mana which is too steep. I can see why Seth was trying out Eldritch Evolution.

I'm not sold on TKS in the deck without Evolution, there's only like 5 sources that can cast it, it's pretty rough. If you build around it in like a bant colored version (so 4 color), it might have more merit but i'm not a fan right now.

so for FNM i went 3-1. got a bye 1st round then beat RB vampire/madness aggro pretty easily. lost to some weird GW aetherworks marvel deck because i sideboarded wrong games 2 and 3. i never saw anything marvel-related so i just thought it was GW energy aggro or something only to get blown up game 2 with the wrong sideboard. game 3 he had a buncha stuff, but i never drew into my counters/appetites so i got marveled again.then i got matched up with GB delirium. they were either really unlucky or something though, because they never once had delirium up. kinda durdled for a bit gearhulks closed it up.
still didn't get to play a counter-based control deck, so i still don't know how this deck really fares against it.

i didn't play him during FNM, but a friend built a mardu gearhulk reanimator deck with refurbish. turns out a turn 4 combustible gearhulk is kinda good. i had removal, but he also had the new elixir of immortality thing perpetual timepiece. so even though i was killing stuff, he was just able to win through inevitability. we didn't sideboard though, so idk how that would've gone.

also made some changes mainly being:
-1 combustible gearhulk
-1 eerie interlude

+1 thought-knot seer
+1 eldrazi displacer

thought-knot and displacer were great,never had to worry about the colorless requirement at all.