MTG Salvation

Congrats on your outing last night. Death and Taxes can be a hard matchup. For me, I guess I just ended up with good hands against them most of the time. And partly players who weren't used to their deck or playing against mine. Other forms of card draw can be achieved with elvish visionary. I also like the constellation package with courser of kruphix and eidolon of blossoms. Adding card draw to a green deck without disrupting mana curve or power is really hard to do. I found the constellation package to be most useful for me. It gave me a solid body to rely on in courser of kruphix and allowed me to take even more advantage of oath of nissa. Garruk, caller of beasts can be good for you as well, although it fills a rather high 6cmc slot. domri rade could be really worth while if you can protect him early. These last two are pseudo card draw, but any card advantage is still an advantage. And, we don't have access to things like dark confidant or serum visions type cards. If you find the oath of nissa missing more often than not, it may be worth while to bite the bullet and for a guaranteed card draw and mana fixing use abundant growth. Courser of kruphix is also solid in those decks that do not run constellation because of his stats and pseudo card draw. Knowing what is coming is a huge benefit. And it can give your opponent a false sense of confidence since they know what is coming. I have often been able to play around my top deck, knowing that the opponent would want to counter me or hinder me in some way. All of these options are great, but change your strategy and strengths/weaknesses in some way. the best thing you can do is proxy and play test several different versions until you get comfortable with what you are playing.

your link is giving me "page not found"

You are welcome! That is what this forum is about.

You will hit nykthos for a ton of mana all the time. And you can grab cinder glade for $2-3 right now. I would recommend only 1-2 of those since they have a major downside on Turn 1 and 2. I would also use enchantment mana fixing with Utopia Sprawl, Abundant Growth, and/or Fertile Ground. Plus you have the Birds of Paradise, but often they will be the target of a big Kessig Wolf Run since they have evasion. The color splash is not hard to deal with at all. Especially for just Wolf Run. The funny thing about Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx is that if you have any number of Burning-Tree Emissary on board, you can tap it to add Red devotion and then untap with Garruk Wildspeaker to add green devotion as well to make a really massive Kessig Wolf Run. Keep in mind this must be done main phase and Wolf Run would have to be activated main phase in this scenario because you will lose the mana at phase shift. I agree that Primeval Titan may not be worth it if you aren't running utility. But, he still fetches Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx and Treetop Village, so he is still useful. The play just won't be quite as powerful. He is a big body too and removes "dead-draws" from your deck by allowing you to search on every attack as well. And, with trample, he is a good wolf run target if you decide to play it. I say give the utility land a shot. You will be able to activate more often than you think, even without Shocks and Fetches.

Stompy is going to be more towards the Primeval Titan, leatherback baloth, Khalni Hydra type cards. Heavy devotion with a big body that is hard to remove or comes down too early to deal with effectively. These decks like PrimeTime because he gets the utility lands like Kessig Wolf Run and Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. The core is usually the same. Some # of Arbor Elf. I am pretty sure we all agree on 4. At least two Birds of Paradise. Oath of Nissa is a new staple for us and works well with our resident walker, Garruk Wildspeaker. Oath is a massive card advantage for us. Some "Stompy" builds are going the all out punishing route with Gruul Ragebeast: see JaishivaJai's list above! Genesis Hydra is also a staple across all the archetypes as it allows us to filter for a fattie or for utility if we need it. And, as pointed out by JaishivaJai, it hits the field after the card it tutors. So, some shenanigans ensue at times, i.e. Gruul Ragebeast "fight" mechanic. Hornet Queen is an all-around good top-ender. It stops some of the peskier decks like Delver of Secrets and BU Fairies. And it has awesome synergy with Sarkhan Vol and Craterhoof Behemoth. All in all you can't really go bad with this deck. It is so much fun and there is so much variety. I hope you have fun building and we would love to see what you have come up with! Fresh eyes on this archetype may do us all some good.

very true as well. I may have to give a treetop a try. Swap them out for a bit and see what I come up against.

So stoked to see another green player playing raging ravine! I know a lot of other guys run treetop village but, I like that the ravine scales since it can keep up with goyfs late game if we need it to. And it is funny to just play that against "permission" players then beating their face with a land all game. Still thinking about the gruul ragebeast idea. I just don't know if that is where my deck is right now. He works super well with Hydra, though. Good call. Very impressive use of that tech!

You may be able to cut down to 3 or even 2 BOP to get in your 3rd Growth. If you go as far as two, that gives you one more slot MB for whatever you want to play. I have found 20 land and 6 dorks to be just right. Any more dorks and that is all I draw. Any more land, same issue. But, fewer dorks, and I don't see any "pop off" early turns.

Here is what I am play testing now.


May get to play in a Modern Tourney Monday since I have the holiday off. We will see.

Land destruction is often our easiest way to deal with a lot of decks. And, they have similar weaknesses that we have. If you like the Primal Command/Eternal Witness package, you can start bouncing their enchanted lands as early as turn 3. Or acidic slime is a 2-for-1 as it blows up a permanent (usually a land/enchantment ramp) and when they do get out fatties, it trades with a lot of their creatures. We don't run too many first strike creatures so slime isn't a typical chump blocker in the matchup. I also like Crumble to Dust to pull out their nykthos if they play it too early. You can also cheat in a couple of Aven Mindcensor with Birds of Paradise and Utopia Sprawl/Abundant Growth. Your current list is very combo heavy (which is often the best place to be in game one), you ramp quickly and generate amazing devotion. You should not have a hard time outrunning them usually.

I really like K Hydra as a top-end beater. The reduced cost and superb devotion on the body make it spectacular for us. I was looking at one in the case yesterday but didn't pull the trigger. In all honesty, some of the stompier versions could get away with two-three of them. I play Sarkhan as well and he is a huge weapon for me. He makes C Hoof better by bringing all the beasties I G Wave into to the fight. I used to find with G Wave and C Hoof that I would only have a small handful of attackers (1-3) after a large wave. Even though they got massive buffs, this wasn't always enough to push past defenses. Vol takes that downside away and says "everyone come play this turn". Or using him to steal blockers and turn the tides can be really fun too. Oh, I see you didn't swing with your massive Tarmogoyf, he's mine this turn. thanks!

I am curious how the G Wave and T and N interact together. I have not seen a list with both in them. The list looks solid. I like the stompers as a cheap effective card against hate. Nylea is great when you have a couple creatures on board and cant draw into another. She can really push the damage curve your way.

Just got back from an FNM tourney. I went 3-0. Don't get too excited, here is the breakdown. We only had 6 players. I took a bye round one because he paid then didn't show. Then Round 2 I played some kind of blistercoil weird homebrew. He scooped on my turn three after I went T1 land, elf. T2 land, elf, elf, oath. T3 land, xenagos, sarkhan vol. He just gave up. Game 2 he scooped on my turn four when I played Garruk and then laid down Nykthos as land for turn. I didn't get to see anything else in his deck except the weird and two basic lands. Then round 3, my opponent dropped! I got to play a whole 1 match tonight and it was meager at best. The other 3-0 person was a BU Fairies player. We played for funzies after we collected our prizes and I won 2-1. Game one he beat me with flying pingers and some hand hate. Game two I sided in Atarka's commands and Electrickery. I never saw electrickery but, Games 2 and 3 I saw both atarka's. He was all about hand hate and land tapping again. I weathered not one, but two Cryptic Command and two Mistbind Cliques on upkeep. He thought I was playing T and N at first since he saw a lot of my enchantment ramp. So when I went off with Genesis Wave he was surprised. Basically game three he tapped out and I showed him C Hoof in hand and he did the math and scooped. Game three was a bit more grindy, but I hit T2 strangleroot geist in both games for early damage. I actually sided out hornet queen against him. I felt that rushing to the Hoof was going to be the better plan. I was also running the deck incomplete. I want to replace all three BTE with G Hydra, and for some reason hydras are really hard to find. So, I played 1 Hydra tonight and 2 BTE. The BTE were useless both matches. I never had it in hand where I didn't prefer to have Hydra. I also dropped the Inkmoth Nexus for another forest to try and eliminate a few more of those odd colorless hands. I made this call just before the tourney started when I goldfished two colorless hands in a row. Inkmoth was much better in the Primetime build anyway since I really have no way to fetch it now. Oath digs for it, but I still have to have it in the top 3 cards. Overall, tonight was fun. But, disappointing that I only played one real match and didn't get to see the queen in action. I am running 2 chord of calling sideboard to swap in for two Waves against matchups where I need to pick and choose what triggers I want. And it will make finding the queen easier in games 2-3. Overall, I am still not sold on Xenagos, he is fun and sometimes he can be worth it, but usually (since I am not cloudstoning) he is just another damage absorber. I am not done testing him though. Also, when I look back on the BU Fairies game I realized that he was attacking me while I had a garruk on board. He tried to race instead of taking out my ramp. That was a poor choice. But, he almost got there.

Has anyone looked into undergrowth champion? So here is what I am thinking...Big devotion. Easily able to put counters on it with courser interactions and G Waves. Can be a constant chump for Eldrazi. I might pick up a couple to try out. The only issue is I would drop my 2 drops to put in two off these guys. That would leave me with needing a T1 ramp to hit a T2 play of any validity. Idk if I like that. Input from anyone who has tested this card would be great! Or maybe predator ooze? I know some of you run it. How has it fared against the matchups you have faced? Also be on the lookout for warping wail to be a new Eldrazi/Tron staple since it knocks out the combo decks' mana dorks and it can attack fish early. I got caught off guard by it at Regionals.

I am excited that you got to play your first tournament. That is pretty awesome and it is pretty cool to see you do so well with the deck. I know the record doesn't show it, but based on your break down of the matches, you really demonstrated that you understood the deck and the complexity that the mechanics can generate. The list looks super solid too. I really think the ragebeast/fight thing may take off against Eldrazi swarm. Hornet Queen and ragebeast off a T and N could be game over for Drazi.

I really like the idea of ragebeast with hornet queen. Haven't tried the queen yet because I am not chording or using summoner's pact or TandN. Not sure how it would work out for me in a GWave deck. I also main 3 G Hydra now with my 3 GWave for that added dig effect. Super undervalued cared. I like the breakdown you put out as well. You are right that it shores up those mid game slots in a way that some of our other bodies can't. I almost want to try a deck with both GHydra and Wolfbriar elemental to turn that midgame point into a break away. I think G Hydra does that well. But, having another support card in that slot as well will make a big impact.