MTG Salvation

Thanks, Lectrys, that's great news!

UW control is fairly close to 50/50, with a slight favor in our direction, I believe. I've been maindecking a few Teferi, not because it does anything that great for us, but because the card is overall stupidly powerful at 3 cmc.

Systrill, I have to offer a differing opinion when you say the heavy toolbox days are gone. I think Urza helps enable main deck toolbox cards, because between him and Whir, they all become mana rocks. So I actually feel more empowered to play cages and needles and spheres. Additionally, Engineer helps turn useless toolbox cards into useful ones, and helps tutor for them. While you're right that we're more about the combo, ideally we're just dropping artifacts on turns 1-3.

I find the matchup to be pretty close to 50/50. It's all about resolving a foundry - playing around surgical isn't a big deal at all, because they don't have a clock, so making thopters ASAP isn't necessary. Always just leave 1 mana untapped when making thopters. Also, once you do get a foundry in play, don't rush to get out other threats. Try to force them to use as many resources as possible to try to solve your foundry, because they will do stuff like bounce it with command and try to counter it. I never just run out Urza once I have a foundry in play, because you're playing into their game plan.

Post-board, it does get harder if they play stony. Now, most UW pilots aren't on 3 stony anymore, I've found. It's usually 1-2. But anyway, Aether grid, creatures, and planeswalkers are all good against them. Needles do a lot of work, too. (Can't say enough about playing 3 needles main).

On another note, this site is getting archived today. Just want to say it's been fun talking about this deck over the years, and watching it develop. Good work team!

Welcome back to the fold, Magpie. The deck is really fun, and I love that I'm actually getting to play against it online. I'm running mill through a league with scheming symmetry, and man was the thopter sword matchup easy. Chalice would definitely help if people actually pick up mill.

I like chalice, and SSG to some degree, but when you jam a bunch of games the swinginess of chalice really starts to show. Sometimes it's really good, sometimes really bad. I think if you do run it, you should swap needle out for spyglass.

But is the prospect of drawing 1.5 cards a turn with wellspring/astrolabe and engineer worth running that card when 2 astrolabe draw you 1 card per turn? If you can value-goblin away, you're probably in a game state where you're winning, anyway. Wellspring seems like the lowest impact kind of win-more.

I can see the rationale for cutting whirs in a vacuum, but don't forget how good they are against control with their instant speed. And goblin is a great tutor, but with maindeck surgicals they're more risky than whir.

Anyone have a preference between 3 and 4 engineers? I've been on 3, but I couldn't really say why. Also, I totally do not understand the wellsprings in people's lists. If I'm looking for a cantrip, I want it to be cast on turn 1, the added draw down the road hardly seems worth it. I also don't get trimming on whirs, especially in a deck with 4 astrolabes.

Yeah, it really is, systrill. The deck is legit tier 1 material with the new horizons cards, and it's only a matter of time before enough pilots pick it up to bring its meta percentage up. I truly believe that, and the silly thing is that pre horizons the deck was still really good but no one played it.

Great job, smagooo! Way to pay back the UW pilot you should have beaten in swiss, that is sweet.

Anyone a little worried about the potential for mill to be a real deck once Scheming Symmetry is released? It's an even worse matchup than tron. And speaking of tron, hogaak is keeping its numbers way down, which means that if hogaak eats a ban, there could be the potential for a worse meta then what we have now.

It was my 4 color list. In the main deck I upped the serum visions to 3, cutting tormod's crypt. My sideboard was:

3 battle at the bridge
2 dead of night
3 teferi, time traveler
2 unmoored ego
1 wear//tear
2 deputy of detention
2 blood moon

The wear//tear was the least useful sideboard card that tourney, though that was just due to matchups. I went down on hogaak hate, which ended up costing me, but both losses were still really close game-3 affairs, and I still feel like yard hate isn't nearly as effective as the plan of needle into bridge or thopter/sword. I kind of like blood moon as additional big mana hate and cards that control has to counter. Battle was instrumental against burn, as always. Dead of night ended up being lackluster in my matches, too, though I played 0 midrange decks and it only did work against hardened affinity.

Hey, I just got into top 8 in today's online Modern Challenge, going 7-1. My rounds went like this:

Round 1: No show 1-0 W
Round 2: Hogaak Vine, 1-2 L (Went to game 3, I kept a slightly slow hand on the draw with a turn 1 needle on Altar, and he just put 14 power on the board turn 2)
Round 3: Dreadhorde Footfalls, 2-1 W (Deck can be a challenge because of early pressure + force, but he drew poorly game 3)
Round 4: Burn 2-0 W
Round 5: Tron 2-1 W (He mulled to oblivion game 1, I thought he was on combo and boarded totally wrong, then game 3 I landed a damping sphere and a blood moon, though he exiled my only sword. Got there through urza beats around a wurmcoil thanks to engineer saccing one of my tokens)
Round 6: Temur Control 2-0 W (Too much value and needles for his walkers)
Round 7: Izzet Phoenix, 2-1 W
Round 8: Hardened Scales, 2-1

Unfortunately for me, Susurrus_MTG is also in top 8 and his Urza prison list also packs Karn, so if I face him it will be really tough.

EDIT:
Got 6th place, losing to Hogaak again. Close games, but he won the die roll, so... Although, he did mull to 5 game 3 but was able to turn 3 Hogaak with a bridge in the yard and a feeder to make a bunch of zombies and dodge my deputy as removal. Really, I should have mulled to a needle, oh well.

Yeah, the deck is no longer a secret. Urza took our baby away and gave it to the masses to enjoy, which is obviously a good thing. But we can remember when it was just our beloved pet deck that everyone always seemed to find cute and interesting,

And Deputy being a creature seems to be relevantly good more often than it is bad. For instance, it dodges negate, stubborn denial, spell pierce and dovin's veto. In a war of attrition, it's a body off the top of the deck. Against humans, it costs 3 while Thalia is out, can't be taken by freebooter, and can chump block if need be. It blocks gravecrawlers, and can be killed to exile bridge from below. On the negative side, it does get hit by dead of winter.

I've played this list through 4 leagues online, 3-2, 5-0, 4-1, 5-0. Edit: Whoop, another 5-0 tonight! This deck is just humming in this meta, and it feels so powerful and flexible. Absolutely stomped all over Hogaak and Neoform with turn 1 needles. Going four colors lightly has been just fine. Aether Grid continues to be sweet and puts pressure on opponents' removal. Dead of Winter is sometimes really good, so I may want to go up to 3. Meddling Mage hasn't been much of a factor, so I may cut one for the sweeper, but it does help shore up the degenerate matches even more. Needle continues to just be so important.

I'm not really sure what is with the sudden love for Sai, and other lists popping up on 5-0 dumps packing 3. He is always decent, but never amazing, and only truly good in grindy matchups or to stall against humans. I don't think going above 1 maindeck is ideal, but I understand he's never truly dead.

@Smagooo - I still like Damping Sphere main deck. Tron is still really hard, and you don't really want to see the new aria storm, either, without it.

I also kind of wanted to run board, but the 2 slot is jammed like smagoooo mentioned, and engineer gives you a body and threatens card advantage over the long haul. The only list I would run board in is probably something like a dice factory or more rampy build with both Urza and Karn.

@Lectrys - Time Sieve was a good route to take against certain decks like tron, storm, and other combo. But now we run a 4-of that is a much better infinite engine, with all sorts of usefulness in pretty much every non hyper-fast matchup like infect or neoform. So while Urza can't be whirred for, I think assembling (thopter+sword + 1 of 4 urza) happens as often as assembling (thopter+sword + 1 of 3-4 whir or time sieve). And Urza accomplishes the infinite much, much faster after drawing the pieces. So we're infiniting just as often against those decks that we abo****ely need to as we did in the past with sieve, and when we do its happening more quickly, meaning we're not really "losing" any infinite points. You could run a sieve, but since we're already doing as well or better against tron and combo, doing so would dilute your plan against the rest of the field.

@Systrill - Needle is a lot better vs Hogaak than Nihil spellbomb is. Obviously not in every scenario, but needling Carrion Feeder or Altar usually prevents them from doing their nuttiest things. I would highly recommend dropping the spellbomb for a 3rd needle, dropping the grinding station and the wellspring for an Aether Grid and a spellskite. Grid is just a much better finisher because of its other usefulness, and skite should help vs infect.

Also, needle shuts down neoform combo if you get it in b4 griselbrand, and it also helps against UW control and Druid combo. Needle is just the bees knees in the current meta, in my opinion, which is why I'm running 3 maindeck.

That's a good point about Saheeli copying an urza token. Especially online, when you really need to close out games in a timely manner. I disagree about Saheeli being more sticky than Sai, however. In today's Modern, there's fewer pushes and paths than there are low to the ground creatures ready to swing into a walker. In the end, though, I do think Sai making fliers and drawing cards beats out Saheeli's minus.

So after a frustrating 2 morning leagues with Grixis build, losing 1-4 and 2-3 to just ridiculous nut draws and perfect topdecks, I decided to take a break and test out a Jeskai version featuring the creature sideboard I mentioned earlier:


In my first matchup, turn 1, I crack a blue fetch to get Hallowed Fountain... and realize I accidentally put Glacial Fortress in there instead. Uh, great job there, this should be fun. However, despite my stupid mistake, I proceeded to 5-0. Without my most important shockland. So, yeah, this deck sure is a lot more explosive (if you draw lucky) than it was previously.

As to the grixis/jeskai debate, I still think the grixis sideboard cards are more important. That said, Teferi single-handedly dismantled Ad Nauseum in games 2 and 3, so he may be THE reason to go jeskai. Although, now that I think about it, if I had just drawn Unmoored Ego intead of Teferi the outcomes would have probably been the same.