MTG Salvation

Made a new version and edited into the OP. Initial testing on Cockatrice shows that an opponent packing heavy hand disruption really messes this deck up.

Those are some good points. I'll try a version with less counterspells (save Swindle) and more focus on making treasure. Spell Swindle + Revel in Riches is what made me want to make a Revel deck, so I'd like to keep that combo at the very least.

So. Revel in Riches. It's a card that says "you win the game on it," therefore I will be making a deck around it. The question is, how good can it be and what else should go in the deck?

I've attempted to make an answer. This is what I have so far - UB control with lots of removal and treasure generation. Also included is Mechanized Production as an alternate win-con to the alternate win-con, but it's not the focus because removing the Treasure token it's attached to is far easier than removing an enchantment (or so I assume).



Whether Duress and Disallow should be mainboarded will depend on the meta, I think.

Anyway, I tested this in a couple Cockatrice games, but it's hard to gauge such a reactionary control deck without playing a lot more. Achieving the 10 treasures isn't too hard once a Revel hits the board - just need to flip a Treasure Map or two, counter a decent spell with Swindle, and kill some enemy creatures (which is not difficult at all with 8 spot removals and 2 board wipes pre-board). It could be better, using cards like Pirate's Prize or Contract Killing, but I'm not sure if that's worth having the higher cost removal or non-instant card draw. The primary source of treasure generation is still going to be Treasure Map and Spell Swindle.

That said, I could see reason to shift things around a bit. Less counterspells, more spot removal. Maybe one more Serpent and/or Gearhulk for some mid-game defense. As far as mana generation goes, it seems fine as it is - I tried a version with 2x Dowsing Dagger and it seemed unnecessary; between the scrying and treasures, mana isn't really an issue. I'm also aware that I have an awful lot of 3-ofs and 2-ofs and could maybe stand to bump up my copies of specific cards. I am also aware that Vraska's Contempt does not trigger Revel, but I'm on the fence about removing it (since the only other unconditional removal is Never, and it's a sorcery).

I have also briefly considered adding a third color - probably white, maybe green - but I'm not sure if that would be worth it.

What do you guys think? Anyone else working on a Revel deck?

Edit: Already making one change - swapping Gearseeker Serpent out for Herald of Anguish. Updated decklist to reflect that.

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New version! This one is more focused on removal than it is on counterspells, and is also more focused on treasure generation. I will freely admit that splashing green for Vraska is basically more for fun than optimization, but I'll see how it runs. Also includes Marionette Master as a quick alternate win-con. Sideboard is currently fairly generic and will change based on what becomes strong in the meta.

I have him as a one-of to be fetched with Bring to Light. Basically, that means BtL can be used to cast:

- Cataclysmic Gearhulk if you need a pseudo-board wipe
- Verdurous Gearhulk for his trigger
- Maverick Thopterist for his trigger
- Electrostatic Pummeler if you're ready to pump it and swing
- Rogue Refiner or Glint-Nest Crane if you're desperate for card draw/finding an artifact (not recommended, but it's there)

Cataclysmic doesn't synergize with the copy stuff, but he increases BtL's versatility enough that I thought he was worth putting back in. That said, I'm still not 100% committed to keeping white in the deck (beyond having white mana to get a 5-color BtL), so if I need to make cuts he'll likely be going first, and I'll just have to rely on siding in Radiant flames for board wipe.

When I first saw Mechanized Production, I (and many others) thought "put it in a Cluestorm deck and win with 8 clues!" but the more I think and read about it, the less confident I am in that idea as anything but a funny gimmick. So instead of trying to hit the instant-win clause, I'm going to take advantage of the fact that Production makes a clone token of an artifact every turn and use that alongside Panharmonicon to go nuts with ETB triggers.

And so, I present to you: Musical Production.



Basically, I took SaffronOlive's 5-color Panharmonicon deck (which I'd built to play as my fun gimmick deck), stripped out white, added Mechanized Production and some other cards to work with Production and Panharmonicon.

Primary wincons:

• Electrostatic Pummeler and/or Verdurous Gearhulk, with mutli-triggers, potentially being cloned every turn = big fat beatdown
• Marionette Master or Maverick Thopterist to flood the board and go wide (can also trigger Production's instant-win); Master also makes killing Gearhulks painful for my opponent
• Combustible Gearhulk clone tokens (with multi-triggers) means either you get to fill your hand every turn or burn your opponent to death, depending on their choices

Support:

• Noxious Gearhulk is a versatile removal, lifegain, and beatdown card (especially when you get a new one every turn or give it counters with Verdurous)
• Cataclysmic Gearhulk as a pseudo-board wipe
• Bring to Light counts as Verdurous/Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Maverick Thopterist, or whatever lower-cost creature is most useful in the moment.
• Glint-Nest Crane to find artifacts
• Servant of the Conduit and Prophetic Prism for mana fixing (bonus: slap Production on a Prism and draw an extra card every turn)
• Rogue Refiner to help fuel Conduit/Pummeler, with a bit of card draw - but mostly, I had no 3-drop that I actually wanted to play on turn 3

Thoughts so far:

• Biggest concern is that the deck may be spread too thin. Could potentially cut Pummeler, possibly even the thopter/token makers (or at least one of them) and focus more on cloning Gearhulks
• 4-color may be unnecessary (technically 5, but I rely on "any color" or fetching the one Plains to get a 5-color Bring to Light)
• Bring to Light may be unnecessary, and if it is, so is needing to have any white in the deck
• On the flip side, I might be wasting opportunities by not having white cards if I'm gonna have white mana anyway. That said, the main reason this deck had white before was Reflector Mage and Eerie Interlude, one of which is banned and the other is not as useful if I'm making tokens
• As mentioned above, Rogue Refiner is just there to have a turn 3 play that also gains value later thanks to Panharmonicon; don't know if it's actually that great
• Not much thought put into land base, any better ideas? Not sure when to use two-or-fewer duals vs two-or-more-basics duals
• Sideboard would likely contain counterspells, additional spot removal, and probably some kind of board wipe (if I actually add more white I can just put Fumigate in the side)

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Edits:

Added Cataclysmic Gearhulk (-1 Rogue Refiner), altered land base to fit what I currently have on hand and add more white.

Yeah, you're making a good point there. I was so caught up in "lol I can win the game with a cluestorm" that I didn't even think about putting it on other artifacts. I like the idea of putting it in a Panharmonicon deck - both to copy Pan and to copy things that trigger off ETB (imagine a Verdurous Gearhulk every turn... with double triggers). I think I'd still want to build a deck around Production even if it didn't have the "you win the game" part at all.

I already have a 5-color Panharmonicon deck (based on SaffronOlive's), I might see if Mechanized Production would fit well in it, probably turning it into Bant; black/red are only in there for the black and red Gearhulks and Bring to Light, but I could see myself dropping BtL for Mechanized Production and then replaced those two gearhulks with something else (probably just more green/white/blue gearhulks).

As soon as I saw Mechanized Production, I knew I wanted to build a clue deck around it. But the two things I'm hung up on:

- UG or Bant?
- Win-con(s) aside from Production? Just beat them down with Tireless Trackers?

I had a gimmicky Temur Cluestorm deck a while back, with Ghirapur Aether Grid as a win-con (it wasn't good), so I currently have a UG clues shell ready to go... I just don't know what direction I should take it, whether to add white, what else I need, etc.

Should Herald of Kozilek go in a deck like this?

2/4 blocker on turn 3 that discounts a lot of relevant cards - basically everything in these lists except for Planeswalkers and non-Devoid counterspells.

Or is there something else we'd rather be doing on turn 3?

I've been running a (fairly messy) Grixis Eldrazi control deck for a while now, and I'm currently trying to clean it up. I think I'll be cutting black and going to U/R, and I'm wondering why none of these lists I'm seeing run Herald.

That could work, yeah. My big threat in that deck is Docent of Perfection, so I could swap it out for Mirrorwing if I'm against a control deck with targeted removal.

Didn't see a thread about this when it got spoiled.

So, I think it's a pretty cool card. 4/5 flying for 5 that's difficult to remove safely, but has the potential to backfire if you're playing against a pump deck (not too common in standard, I think). Important to note that its ability doesn't apply to enchantments (Stasis Snare etc).

But what I want to know is: where does this thing go? In a pump deck of your own (but you already have Zada, so...), in a midrange R/X deck, as a sideboard option against heavy spot removal? I want to run this card in something if only because I think it's rather neat, but of the two red decks I'm building (UR spellslinger and Grixis Devoid control) it doesn't fit in either of them.

I definitely want to build a deck containing Tree and Trisk, but I don't think I want that to be the main combo. I do, however, want the deck to revolve around Tree.

The two combos I'm considering are:

Tree of Perdition + Assault Formation
Tree of Perdition + Turn to Frog (or Gift of Tusks)

So, either a two-card combo that lets you swing for 13 with a 0/13, or a two-card combo that lets you drop your opponent's life to 1 (or 3). Neither are an instant win - with Assault Formation you still have to connect with that swing, often more than once, and with the Treefrog version you still have to finish them off with some source of damage.

Right now I'm leaning toward UB because I tend to favor control decks over ramp. Not sure what would go in the deck though, aside from Tree of Perdition, Triskaidekaphobia, Turn to Frog, Alms of the Vein, and whatever the best blue/black control cards are (Murder, counterspells, card draw, etc).

I think I'll have to wait until EMN is fully spoiled before I start trying to build a deck.

So I built something similar to the Against the Odds list on MTGO (without some of the pricier cards like Languish or Chandra cause I don't like spending a lot on MTGO). So far it feels okay - I did get some Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh and I'm trying them out, but over several games I haven't even played her once, let alone had her do anything. So, I'm not sure she'd be a good choice over more card draw or direct burn.

Edit: Not two minutes after I posted this, I am now about to win thanks to her. Go figure...

Been wanting to make a deck around this card since I saw it, but I still can't figure out which direction to go.

SaffronOlive made a RB sorta-madness list using Avacyn's Judgment to get them to 13, and that looks pretty good. I could also see UB or Esper control working - just play defensively and let Trisk do with work. WB lifedrain could work as well. And there's probably some other reasonable shells that I'm just not coming up with.

Anyone build any Trisk decks? What version has been the most consistent and enjoyable for you?

This card is so hilariously silly, I think I want to build a deck with it as the main wincon.

RB burn springs to mind, but BWx control with the life gain/life steal effects in those colors could be good too.

So far, it looks like we've got the following two-color themes in this set:

RG Werewolves
UB Zombies
UR pseudostorm
BR vampires (probably with a madness focus)
UG clues
UW Spirits (though we've only seen two cards)

And then there's hints of GW Humans (with Sigarda). Nahiri and Sorin may or may not belong to a theme - haven't seen any other BW or RW cards (aside from a BW Sorin-themed removal spell). Also, Deathcap Cultivator producing G/B - not sure if that hints at another theme pair or if it's just some Innistrad flavor ("everything's black, even stuff that's not black").

Anything I missed? Any other theories or patterns you've noticed?