MTG Salvation

Quote from roccob64

Care to explain?

It's like running 1x Force of Will, 1x Mana Drain, 1x Mental Misstep, and 1x Mana Leak instead of just 4x Forces.

You don't want to toolbox your hate cards, rather you want to ensure your hate cards do the same thing, so when you draw them you can't think to yourself "gosh, I wish this was the other hate"

I think that diversity can be good in situation where you face Chalice of the Void, I play Noble Fish and I run 1mana/2mana and 3 mana Hate vs MUD.

So we've got the original top 4 deck:


Then Bone Doc's deck:



And lastly, the winner of the side event at GP Melbourne:



So by inspecting these decklists, a few questions pop up. Luckily, Bone Doc can answer some for us.

1. Chalice of the Void is unique to Bone Doc's list, how do you feel it does for you? Is this tech the other two guys are missing out on?
2. Metamorph is in one of the tournie decks but not the other. What is its primary use and is it better to have the additional hate, particularly in the form of Samurai of the Pale Curtain?
3. Edited out 'cause I'm stupid
4. Porcelain Legionnaire; Bone Doc, your list is the only one of the three without it. Have you tested it and disliked it?
5. On the subject of Legionnaire, should he be our 2 mana 3/1 of choice? How relevant is the first strike? The artifact-ness can be hard in the face of Kataki. Maybe Accorder Paladin would be better? Makes us more aggressive, isn't an artifact, and doesn't cost us two life.

I am looking towards building this list now that I ordered my pearl, few questions running in my head:

Stony silence and Grafdiggers cage - 3 or 4 of main? It seems like these lists most often run 3/3, but most null rod decks run 4 null rods. Are the Thalia's enough to make up for the hate loss?

Glowrider - I think he probably still has a place in the deck, as you dont want multiple Thalias but you probably want multiple spheres. He's dropped out of favor as of late, but seems worth it right? 3 mana creature is also nice because he helps you dodge chalice of the void on 2.

Swords versus path - The deck is a creature aggro build that is using 4 arbiters and some number of mind censors, does it not see like the right play would be path? Giving my opponent 11 life off a blightsteel is probably much worse than MAYBE giving them a land.

Balance - It's a creature based deck so my first gut was that this was the wrong card, but if your maindecking abolish and mana artifacts and even spirit guides you can get great value off of this. On the draw being able to play a mox and some guides, maybe hit something with abolish first and then balance to reset them on land and cost them most of there hands just to follow it up with stuff seems good.

Grand Abolisher - I am liking him less and less. Prevents counters or eats them but often not early enough for you to lock them up, and does not prevent the other wacky cards you need to stop, just slows them, but since the deck runs no counters hes not helping you win a counter war like he can in standard. It's also another 2 drop, which makes the deck have issues with chalice against shops, so it may be better to diversify in his slot more.

Quote from protoaddict

Snip

My thoughts on these -

Grafdigger's Cage/Stony Silence: the deck really diversifies on its hate, but out of the sideboard can be more focused with the four ofs. Also, remember that while we only run three main Stony in contrast to the four Rods you often see, we have additional artifact hate that accomplishes much the same thing. Kataki keeps moxen tapped down all day long.

Glowrider: I can see him fitting in as extra hate, as a one or two of. It'd require testing, but especially if you aren't satisfied with Grand Abolisher it seems legit to me.

Swords/Path: I like Swords more here. With all of our ways to stop their mana rocks and halt their fetch land use, mana denial can be seen as a real tactic here and we don't want to feed them. Path's synergy with Mindcensor doesn't seem consistent enough to be a valid argument here, either. The life gain will be annoying, but I feel we'll often have them locked out anyway.

Grand Abolisher: I just don't know if you can argue too much against a card that completely blanks counterspells except against your Swords, which you can just cast on your turn anyway. If you're having a tough time with him, though, I think testing Glowriders in his place could be a good experiment.

All that said, I want to present something as well. What are thoughts on using Serra Avenger in place of Porcelain Legionnaire? Chances are we aren't going to be dropping our beater creature that early anyway. so I wouldn't imagine her turn limit would be too bad, and she's got evasion and lacks life loss.

Avenger is something I tried in proxy and later removed, here is why.

Procelain Legionnaires first strike is what makes him the bomb. He can take out Slash panthers, lodestones (not affected by him either), any number of Bob's if they come your way, and pretty much any tribal creature. Avenger will mop up the game, but her mana efficiency is also often a problem since you are using off color sources sometimes (wastelands, strips, ghosts, spirit guides) and she is vulnerable to more spheres.

Even though the legionnare has counter synergy to your katakis, his benefit is overall more than not. I did the same comparison with stoneforge mystic in testing and her counter synergy with Leonin arbiter outweighed her benefits, while with legionnare it seemed minimal at best.

The other option is student of warfare which is overall the same mana investment made in increments, without the PMana option, but the ability to come down earlier if needed and grow larger. I think it could be worth while to diversify the 2 options if you dont know what meta your walking into, as legionnaire is much better against shops while student is somewhat better in every other matchup.

So I had an idea for a new list derived from this one.

With the release of Cavern of souls, we now have a powerful tool to stop counter magic as well as chalice on 2, which previously was a huge pain in the butt for this deck to deal with. Basically this is thalia cleric parfait:



The maindeck creatures mostly have multiple creature types in common. Everything that you would not want countered is a cleric with the exception of Thalia, but Thalia is also a human which is also a large portion of your deck. basically on T1 your going to play cavern naming cleric unless you have a Thalia in hand in which case you yell human.

Some of the creatures in this list were chosen based on creature type as well as mana cost, as WW is harder on non cleric/humans. So for instance Grand abolisher could go in this list pretty easy since hes both of the types your going to want to name. Anything that is not a human or cleric is in the list because its not critical to your game plan or has other resistance, mindcensor is the big exception since he has flash, so often you can play him at oppurtune moments when he wont be countered and by the time you want to play him you probably have thalia down.

Basic battle plan is play stax and disruption guys early and often and get there with them.

• Legionare is in there to deal with lodestones and generally be good against shops.
• There is a singleton eight and a half tails in the list because of legendary, but he can protect your guys pretty well and be subsequently bounced with karakases if more protection is needed. I am on the fence about him cause MOM may be better and is also a human cleric.
• Ethersworn felt good against storm and people trying to resolve a yawgs will. Not sure if this is better than Kataki but could not run both in the same list because of the counter synergy.
• 2/1 split on the removal suite is for name naming cards, as well as path is better sometimes but not always. I think that it may prove later on that path is the correct choice.
• The card that got cut is grand abolisher. While he turns off counters he does not do so early enough usually to matter, and the rest of it just gets slowed down but you cant interact with their instants and sorcery anyways.
• The sideboard needs a better grave hate option than samurai of the pale curtain since her tribes are all off, looking for recommendations.
• Preachers in the board are just for creature based matches. Hes pretty good against goyf.

Looking for recos if you got them.

What do you think about an unpowered version of this deck, how much power would it lose if you skipped out on the Lotus Petal, Black Lotus, Pearl Mox. Don't these work against you when you have Stony Silence?

Most of the time they are just in there on the odds that you get them turn 1 so you can drop hate the same turn. If you wanted to try unpowered I would think that your best bet would be to replace them all with spirit guides (there are 2 different one mind you) who will always work with stony online. It may require you redo your creature base as WW becomes much harder this way, but at the same time there are advantages to running all spirit guides that even the lotus does not have.

I can see cutting petal and lotus for guides, but I think that pearl is too valuable to cut. You only have 3-4 silences, if you get a first turn pearl followed by a Thalia followed by Glowrider its going to be GG against a lot of decks.

Glowrider is terrible, hence why they gave us Thalia. 3cc is way to late to be locking people out, even *after* Thalia.

If you play your cards right (haha), Thalia is the only "sphere" you'll need. Between Stoney Silence, Thalia, Wasteland, Silent Arbiter, there isn't much else you will need. Throw in some Leonin Relic-Warders and you're set. Anything else is just gravy.

Do remember, you are trying to swing for 20 damage, not lock them out of the game. That aspect of White beats is missing. If you aren't trying to swing for 20 while playing protection and prohibitive spells, then you're just playing bad lock pieces.

I would max out Thalia at 4x. She's the cornerstone and a *huge* threat for decks. Her resolving makes it that much harder are your opponent's. 3x Aven Mindscensor looks to be the right number. 4 is too much, but 2 is too few. Remember, it's a culmination of lock pieces to annoy your opponent, not a defacto permanent lock. Also, 4 Leonin Arbiter. With that guy (and Aven dude), I'd be using Path to Exile over StP. Plus, you're in it to win it, and that means dealing 20 damage... I don't want to StP anything along the way, because most things you're killing are double-the-power of your dudes, meaning double-time walk for the opponent.

4x Leonin Relic-Warder is perfect. There should *always* be something for this guy to hit in vintage since you're not really removing opponent's artifacts/enchantments except with him. I like the Porcelain Legionnaire myself. My buddy and I basically decided he is the best Anti-Stax card. Blocks and swings through Panthers and Lodestones all day long. However, with Leonin Relic-Warder, you've got a lot of hate (plus PtE).

Cavern of Souls is cute, but I'd worry about MD versus Wastelands. While being able to hate on opponent, you need to make sure you are resilient.

I'd probably only run 3x Stoney Silence and board the 4th one. If you're going with Stoney, you can't use Stoneforge very well. What kind of major end game do you have in mind? Just over deploy with dudes and swing every turn?

Serra Avenger is a gimmick. If you're using 4x Aether Vial, then she's golden, otherwise she's way too late to the party.

So I guess your ok with someone playing chalice on 2 and just losing? Cavern helps tons versus very common hate cards like CotV but you need to customize your list to properly accomidate.

With enough acceleration in the list glowrider is just Thalia 5-8. The stax effect seems so very important against so very many lists that 4 Thalia is just not enough in my eyes. It's not about getting mutliples, its about get one when you need it. Since they can all swing it all just seems gravy to me.

I'm not really experienced enough this vintage or this particular deck to weigh in too effectively on this particular argument, but I did want to pop in and make a suggestion.

Would a singleton Eiganjo Castle be a good idea? It doesn't come into play tapped, and it's capable of protecting our Thalias/Katakis/Eight and a Half Tails at least in a small way. I know it's more susceptible to Wasteland and Strip Mine, but I don't know how much of an issue those really prove to be for us.

I am pretty new to vintage (want to get into it more after playing legacy for a long time) and this deck is really interesting to me for a variety of reasons. Excuse my possible ignorance but if we are running simian spirit guide maybe we could run a few scrublands and add Hide//Seek as a single or pair mb and the rest sb. It might get hit with our Thalia's/glowriders/thorns but that is also the case with the PtE and StP etc.

Quote from PopeJP

I'm not really experienced enough this vintage or this particular deck to weigh in too effectively on this particular argument, but I did want to pop in and make a suggestion.

Would a singleton Eiganjo Castle be a good idea? It doesn't come into play tapped, and it's capable of protecting our Thalias/Katakis/Eight and a Half Tails at least in a small way. I know it's more susceptible to Wasteland and Strip Mine, but I don't know how much of an issue those really prove to be for us.

It just does not do enough. Preventing 2 damage to a bunch of 1 toughness creatures does not prevent lightning bolt and it won't win them a creature war with Tarmogoyf/Ooze/Kotr. It is mostly useless in the mirror because most of your legends are going to die to the legendary rule more often than not, and TMWA does not play any threats that the first strikers can't deal with already to risk having it be a mountain or stripped.

If it is not a creature war and it is not a bolt, I'm not sure what is doing damage to your creatures? Dredge is the only other thing with bodies and keeping 1 dude alive fr 2 mana is probably not your concern with that list.

Quote from protoaddict

It just does not do enough. Preventing 2 damage to a bunch of 1 toughness creatures does not prevent lightning bolt and it won't win them a creature war with Tarmogoyf/Ooze/Kotr. It is mostly useless in the mirror because most of your legends are going to die to the legendary rule more often than not, and TMWA does not play any threats that the first strikers can't deal with already to risk having it be a mountain or stripped.

If it is not a creature war and it is not a bolt, I'm not sure what is doing damage to your creatures? Dredge is the only other thing with bodies and keeping 1 dude alive fr 2 mana is probably not your concern with that list.

Indeed, it didn't occur to me until after posting that a Bolt to our legendary haters was more than the Castle can handle.

Anyone have an updated list?