MTG Salvation

This is a straight white version, something I've been testing and tweaking... In playing solitaire, it wins on turn 5 fairly reliably, often on turn 4 if you get a perfect curve. Rarely it goes to turn 6 due to poor mana distribution. Also, this is Theros block only. I wanted to see how good I could make the deck removing all the cards that are rotating out in the fall.



Some things I have experimented with that didn't work well:
Brimaz: He doesn't interact at all with the Heroic/Bestow component of the deck, and competes with Fabled Hero and Eidolon of Countless Battles in the curve. I found in testing I was almost always ending the game with him still in my hand.
Elspeth: By the time you cast this, the game should be over.
Phalanx Formation: As an alternative to Dauntless Onslaught. The damage potential is pretty high, but it is severely weakened if Fabled Hero is in play. Also, I don't think it's worthwhile to use it only on one creature, and I don't want to need 5 mana for anything in this deck.
Nyxborn Shieldmate: This is okay. I was divided on choosing between this and Hopeful Eidolon. You could go either way.

The deck has no maindeck removal, mainly because it's difficult to test that in solitaire (I've mainly been using tappedout.net's browser-based playtester since I can do that from my work computer). I'm not really sure if I want any. This can be explosively fast, and any removal spells will act against that if they are drawn. But I would also not be surprised if it ends up being worthwhile to play a couple Reprisal, probably at the expense of 2 Hopeful Eidolons.

There are basically two ideal routes to a turn 4 win:
Turn 1: Soldier of the Pantheon
Turn 2: Hero of Iroas (attack for 2)
Turn 3: Bestow Eidolon of Countless Battles on Hero of Iroas (attack for 8)
Turn 4: Attack using either Dauntless Onslaught or playing a couple cheap creatures/spells targeting Hero to get extra 2 damage to win.

Turn 1: Soldier of the Pantheon
Turn 2: Phalanx Leader (attack for 2)
Turn 3: Fabled Hero (attack for 3)
Turn 4: Attack, play Dauntless Onslaught targeting Phalanx Leader and Fabled Hero (for 19 damage)

The other stuff in the deck basically all support stuff for when you can't get these plays.

I don't think the deck is quite Tier 1 level yet (it can suffer terribly from having only 2 land or too many land, both of which happen often enough), but the results are pretty impressive considering it is Theros block only.

This matchup has gotten very bad now that MBD almost always runs 4 Thoughtseize maindeck, and another 4 Duress post-board. Most end up with 4 Lifebane Zombies post-board as well, which can get rid of serious threats like Blood Baron (not that you would be using that in straight azorius build, though). I've honestly felt at a loss about how to deal with this deck currently, because no matter what you bring in from the sideboard, if you draw it in the opening hand there is a good chance you are going to lose it to Duress/Thoughtseize before you can even counter that.

Recently I've been playing 4 Aetherize in the sideboard, and I bring them in against this deck (and others). It's extremely effective against the Pack Rat strategy. And with 8 board wipes in the deck, it will be hard for your opponent to get all of them out of your hand by discard.

Yeah, I didn't even think about Strionic Resonator... it gives another way to win by abusing Boros Reckoner and Dictate of the Twin Gods.

I'm going to make a wildly outrageous prediction and say that in 5 years these will be up on eBay at or above $10k, based on the combination of scarcity and play value. Some things to consider:

Beta Black Lotus: Only 3300 printed. Only usable in the least-played format, and only as a 1-of.
Typical eBay listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Magic-the-Gathering-Beta-Black-Lotus-Vintage-MTG-Power-9-/111323793838

foil FoW: people are estimating under 1000 sent out. Useable in Legacy as a 4-of (which most decks have).

Summer Hurricane: unknown number, probably less than 100 in existence. Has virtually zero play value.
eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/MTG-Summer-Magic-Edgar-BLUE-HURRICANE-x1-Misprint-BGS-8-5-NM-MINT-/121268776707

So yeah, probably somewhere in between, but keep in mind that the Summer Hurricane's value is 100% due to scarcity, while FoW also has top-level play value. I'm not sure that difference in play value is enough to compensate for the scarcity difference, but it should have some kind of effect to push FoW higher than it would be as a 1000-of useless card.

It's simple. If money is not an issue (and there are definitely players for whom this is literally true), you don't worry about it now and play your deck all the way until rotation.

If money is a concern, you should already be trading away any cards that will lose value after rotation. There is actually a fair amount of stuff from RTR and M14 that sees play in Modern, so it's less of an issue than it might be in other block rotations. However, some valuable cards that aren't seeing play outside of Standard include things like Boros Reckoner and Blood Baron. Probably best to trade these away if you still can find people who want them. I stop playing Standard June 1st and work hard to cycle all old block stuff for new block stuff. Then I play Standard again in the fall when the new block starts. But I wouldn't worry too much about what deck you are going to play then, since everything could change with M15 and the new block. That being said, if you have a Theros block deck that can hold its own against current Standard, it's not a bad place to start.

If we speculatively assume that this initial distribution is all we are getting for foil FoW, (meaning we are looking at maybe 1000 copies being on the market), how high could the price go? What's the highest this could see? Would we be looking at comparisons to extremely rare and esoteric stuff like Summer Hurricane?

I'm wondering if anyone else feels that Mox Opal may actually be the best Mox in Vintage. A good many vintage decks run the full set of Moxes, Lotus, & Sol Ring, along with many other artifacts that are inexpensive to cast. It's pretty rare when a vintage deck can't activate Mox Opal on the first turn (at least in testing I have found that to be the case).

Also, in light of the fact that extra Mox Opals function the same as Lotus Petal (which is restricted), why hasn't Mox Opal been restricted in Vintage yet?

Also, the difference between the foil and non-foil may be a bit greater than other cards as time goes on. The reason for this is that Legacy is, by itself, an extremely expensive format to build a competitive non-proxied deck for. If people are dropping hundreds each on dual lands, force of will, etc, then they are probably going to want to go the extra distance and have foil DS, which is obviously far less common than the non-foil, and that might push the foil version up pretty high. This is a little bit different than Standard (or even Modern) where most players are willing to pay just enough to play but can't be bothered to spend extra to have foils.

He'll probably creep up very slowly, perhaps asymptotically. It's true that the card still sees use in Legacy, but with the banning in Modern, it means that entire print run of this card is available for Legacy, a format with far fewer players than Modern. I think that the supply far exceeds the demand for this card at the moment.

Quote from icantstandbeinginawheelchair

Am I meant to take my licks until turn 4, verdict, then eventually gain my life back off a sphinx or stabilize with elspeth?

Mostly this. But against aggro, you should "waste" your Syncopates on Dissolves on any creature you can on turn 2 & 3.

But you should also be playing some number of cheap removal, typically 1-2 of some mix of Doom Blade, Ultimate Price, or Devour Flesh, along with a couple Hero's Downfall. These are weak against aggro (you want much better than 1-for-1 trade against aggro), but aggro isn't everything and these are good against midrange decks.

For sideboard, I've had really good luck recently boarding in 4 Aetherize to function as Verdict #5-8. In certain circumstances it is even worth it to replace the Verdicts with those after sideboard, particularly if they are playing a deck reliant on producing token creatures (white aggro or Pack Rat). Being able to board wipe for 4 CMC during their own turn is such a huge tempo swing and unlike verdict it does not commit you to giving up the option to counter spells during the their own turns.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and there is a subforum under Standard -> Competitive -> Proven for this deck, and you can get a lot more high-quality recommendations there.

I think that people get carried away with shying away from cards that might somehow enable a "broken" combo, or considering such cards mistakes. Pretty much everything in Legacy and Modern relies on something that most people regard as broken. Standard is where we have no access to such cards, and the format is generally pretty stale in comparison to the Modern format where loads of different combo decks that work in very different ways, along with a few very fast aggro decks and control decks. Adding a brand new broken combo deck to any of those non-rotating formats is not a bad thing, because the other broken combo decks are still around. Unless the new broken deck is one that is on an order far beyond the rest such that none of the other broken decks can win anymore, I don't see what the problem is. It adds variety to the game and makes it more interesting.

Well, it's all a moot issue now anyway.

Derek049, since you're playing a Heroic kind of deck, how do you feel about the heroic enablers Dauntless Onslaught vs. the new Phalanx Formation? Since the creatures are all going to have a base power of 2, at minimum, after triggering heroic, it seems like Phalanx Formation is almost always going to result in more damage than Dauntless Onslaught. But one is certainly easier to cast than the other. And since Fabled Hero already has Double Strike, Dauntless Onslaught is definitely the better card to play on him (doing this brings in 10 damage from the Fabled Hero alone as early as turn 4, plus whatever damage comes from the other target).

You can currently get this for $13, which is a pretty significant drop from 6 months ago. I don't think it's done coming down yet, either. I plan to get rid of mine at the beginning of June, hopefully will still be able to get $10 in trade value by then.

Funny to see this thread, I was just looking into this as being the best Theros-block deck type, which gives it a good chance of being a Tier 1 deck after next rotation. Your strategy is actually really similar to mine. Here is the variation I was working with as a Theros-block-only deck. Ignore the sideboard, it's very rough.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/white-aggro-next-standard-rotation/

I think monowhite aggro, which has been more of a Tier 2 deck right now, could be really well-positioned after rotation. I threw together a Theros-block-only deck on tappedout and was able to reliably win turn 5 solitaire with it (it was mostly based on selected heroic cards and a few choice enablers). You have the benefit of using excellent removal cards like Banishing Light, Deicide, and Reprisal as well, should you need to.