MTG Salvation

The new site seems to suffer from the current idea that there needs to be lots of color and pictures and shiny, when it ends up being a lot of distraction and harder see what you are actually looking for and to navigate. Just my first thought after seeing it for the first time but the same thing that I have seen a lot of sites do when updating or "upgrading" and I have never been impressed with it. I prefer less clutter and easier to read and navigate. I'm not there for pretty pictures or beautiful buttons and drop-downs, I am there to get stuff done.

Played Modern FNM a few days ago and went 2-2 losing my last match to RG Tron on game three where I got him to 3 life before he dropped a second wurmcoil engine. Even then I had a shot until I hit only 1 Birds of Paradise off of a Collected Company. He finished 3-1 and placed. So close... I beat Jeskai Nahiri and a weird, poor homebrew. I lost to Burn which looks to be making a resurgence in my store. Time to bring back the Kitchen Finks I guess.

Hey, guys. Ran my Collected Stompy list on Fri. Modern FNM. Here is what I ran:



Had 20 people show for a 5 round night.

Round 1 - Merfolk
2-1
1-0

Round 2 - Red Devotion
2-1
2-0

Round 3 - Tron
2-1
3-0

Round 4 - Ad Nauseam
2-1
4-0

Round 5 - R/U Storm
0-2
4-1

Was the only undefeated going into the final round and even after losing got first place due to tiebreakers. Lots of fun!

Quote from theflow »

Hey guys!

Words and stuff

What's your experience? Or what do you think?

I only have experience with a couple of these.
Den Protector is generally outclassed by Eternal Witness. We have much better beaters already and witness is just better at returning stuff.
Groundbreaker is a fun card. I run x4 in my Collected Company Stompy deck but I feel that they are stronger there as I have ramp and the ability to collected company out one or more for lethal burst.

I'll give you my thoughts on some of the others.
I feel that Mistcutter Hydra suffers from the less power/toughness than cost problem. I can see it being run against blue heavy control but for having haste, it is slow when we want to be fast. Also, Skylasher can block Celestial Colonnade for days which is one of controls biggest finishers these days.
Cards like Skinshifter are cool and seem like fun but they usually fall into the needing too much mana to be good enough zone. In some games we have extra mana and can use this ability for days but in more matchups I believe that we don't have the extra mana for his ability when we need it.
Not really sure on the others. I don't really like Honored hierarch because as a beater we generally have better 1 drops that are always good and as ramp we have better creatures that can always ramp and you usually want one or the other at that point.

All of that said, test them as you see fit. If it works or you enjoy it use it.

Went 3-1 again at FNM with my Stompany deck in a 14 person field. Beat a poor, wanna be bogles deck 2-0 first round (guy hadn't played in a while and was using a deck that looked like a standard deck from RTR and Theros). Second round I lost to Merfolk 0-2. I hadn't played them before so made some serious misplays and misjudgements second game. First game came down to who top-decked the win (He needed a Lord and I needed a land) and he got it. Third round I beat Burn after losing the roll and the first game, which makes me happy every time as I feel like it is one of my rougher matchups. Fourth Round I played a RW Prison/Land Destruction deck but he didn't draw his ghostly prisons and I was able to run him over despite him stone raining me multiple times, killing my dorks with Lightning Helixs and playing Magus of the Tabernacle every game(thank goodness for pump spells). I had lots of fun and had some learning moments. After bulking my sideboard against Jund and affinity I dodged the 3 people playing those decks but my SB came through strong against burn as I got a Spellskite and Scavenging Ooze each of the games that I won (got me to 1 life in one of them).

As far as GV hate, Scavenging Ooze tends to do all that I have needed for it, although I have not faced any living end or dredge as of yet either.

I ran this deck a couple weeks ago at FNM:



I went 2-2 but was right on the cusp of being 3-1.

I played against Affinity first and they went first game 1. On turn two they dropped an ensoul artifact on an ornithopter and then a Cranial Plating the next turn. I Collected companied during their combat that turn and only hit a birds and it was over pretty quickly after that. Game 2 I pull the dream and drop land, Birds, pass. He drops his things including Vault Skirge paying 2 life. Turn 2 I drop a land into Ram-gang and swing unblocked for 3, putting him at 15. His turn 2 he plays a few more things and taps the scourge with a springleaf drum for mana to drop a plating and ends the turn completely tapped out. Turn 3 I drop a land into Groundbreaker + Aspect for the 16 damage kill. The only time I have done it yet and so sweet. Game 3 we mess around until turn 4 and I play the sided in Creeping Corrosion that I was fortunate to have drawn by then and pretty much win on the spot.

Round 2 I played against my friend running green devotion. Game 1 he hit devotion quickly and had 2 primeval titans out on turn 3 with some other creatures and pretty much had the game wrapped up but then inexplicably did not block a groundbreaker and a ram-gang desperation swing that I pumped with aspect for the win. He said afterwards that he just mentally, not remembering what was in my deck correctly, and thinking I had no plays. Game 2 he gets a much slower hand and I run him over.

Round 3 I play the dreaded burn and get just crushed. Part of the issue was that I went in with the mindset of an auto loss and made some very poor decisions. Game 2 I thought I kept a very bad hand with no plays until turn three when I may have been able to pull it off with a decent hand.

Round 4 I played against American(Jeskai) control. He was running a number of counterspells along with Lightning Bolt, Lightning Helix, and path to exile, so it was hard to get my guys to hit much less stick. He was running ancestral vision for card draw and his finishers were Celestial Colonnade and I saw a one-of Gideon Jura. Game 1 we traded creatures and removal and I got him to 3 but then stalled out and went into top deck and he started gaining life. Then he dropped Gideon and I conceded to inevitability. In this game I drew both of my rancors and got 2-1 each time I tried playing them. That was an easy sideboard option. Game 2 I was pretty quick off the block and was able to get a good company or two to out value his removal and take him down pretty quickly. Game 3 was a lot like the first. Trading creatures and removal and even ended up at about the same point. He was at 3 life and we were topdecking. The last bit went something like this: I had a birds stick as he used his kills on others. then for about 4 straight turns, with him stuck topdecking and an AV suspended, I draw lands and 2 aspect of hydra... and then he draws all his cards and is set to hold me off when I finally draw a useful card. We went to turns and he killed me on turn 3 with his colonnades.

It was a sad ending to a promising start but I was happy with the deck and had a good time. I am going to do a little tweaking and just practice some more and hopefully play it again this Fri.

I am going to try moving out 2 birds in the main for 2 Kalonian Tuskers to try to give me just a little more early pressure and useful drops. In the side I am taking out the Feed the Clans (decided that against burn I just need to try for fast and they were just wasting sideboard slots against more beatable decks) and one Ooze(I saw very little graveyard play) to add in 2 Vines of Vastwood for some protection and boost with no requirements and 1 Prey Upon for some removal of my own.

This seems to be the easiest one to see how it would logically scale.

Storm Crow
Creature - Bird
1U
Flying
1/2

Logical Upgrade:
Creature - Bird Mutant
1UU
Flying
4/5

Logical Upgrade
Creature - Bird Giant
1UUU
Flying
8/9

Logical Upgrade
Creature - Bird, Overlord, God, Elder Dragon
1UUUU
Flying, Haste, Vigilance, Double Strike, Indestructible, Protection from everything
This card cannot be countered
This card cannot be blocked.
If this card would be put into exile from anywhere put it onto the battlefield under your control instead.
If this card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere put it onto the battlefield under your control instead.
15/16

Quote from Bolas, the Mindsculptor »

-I find it unbelievable that a successful defence strategy (Hedron Aligned Network) can merely be done in hours while Nahiri and Co took decades to plot the Eldrazis' entrapment.

Agreed with about everything you said but just wanted to make a note about this. I figure that the original three took that long to get it set up because they were starting from scratch. They had to decide how to come up with a way to trap the eldrazi, then build all of the hedrons and magically seal them. In this arc, all they had to do was gather and align existing and ready hedrons with Jace having already gotten the scoop and plan from Ugin.

Overall, I thought is was an interesting story. Kiora was annoying. Ulamog was lame, as was Gideon fighting him. Otherwise, I liked the characters fairly well and how it went.

A Boggart Ram-Gang was sitting in pub, at the bar. In walks a Fugitive Wizard who sidles up to where the Ram-Gang is sitting. As soon as he reaches the bar, the wizard falls over dead. A Traveling Philosopher steps over to ask the Ram-Gang what happened and it just replies "Well, this is the -1/-1 counter."

The event deck does not have full-art lands. I got 4 of them and they all have the regular half-frame lands.

Quote from Yandere Sliver »

I think he somehow manages to switch Liliana's contract with his invulnerability. The question would be if that is a permanent upgrade to Lili.

I'm curious about that as well. Could be get an orzhov Liliana then?

This is sad though. I liked Gideon. Not a huge Liliana fan so I would have preferred her story end here but that seemed highly unlikely.

WOTC could never really win since all of the Gatewatch have fans. Characterwise at least it makes sense for Gideon to do this.

"Let's follow the big dragon who wants to enslave everyone under an iron fist and harvest all planeswalkers' sparks in the multiverse, what could go wrong?"
- Dormi's last words.

Just imagine if this was an actual line in the novel

Quote from Descendant of Urza »

Well, that's some major foreshadowing we've got here (Not that we needed it, Hazoret explicitly told Gideon he was going to die fighting a god in one of the Amonkhet web stories).

After seeing these, I'm more sure than ever Gideon's going to die. No shame if you ask me, I never liked "beefslab" anyway. Hopefully Teyo or Elspeth or whoever else steps in to fill the empty chair in the Gatewatch will be more interesting.
In fact, I'm kinda happy because Gideon dying makes Liliana actually surviving the war (in spite of the trailer) a little bit more likely. Fingers crossed!

I would much rather have Gideon survive than Liliana. I'm so tired of her tsundere peronality. Like she's stuck being an Avril Lavigne fan circa mid 2000's hehe.

Her spell is just a reprint of Foresee without the awesome pun in the name

"Go read War of the Spark"

Mutha****er I'd love to but someone thought it was a good idea to wait until after the whole set was spoiled and we were all confused as hell by cards like Chandra's Triumph to release the damn book.

Nissa: Check out what I learned back on Zendikar.

(Animates the FREAKING WORLD TREE INTO A 9/9. Cue epic music)

Chandra: DUDE!

Nissa: Now, Go get Bolas!

(Vitu-Ghazi turns and punches Bolas' statue knocking it over. Epic music scratches to a halt)

Nissa: That.. um... wasn't what I meant....

Chandra: Well, it wasn't wrong....

Using Path to Exile on your own tokens or something as repeatable ramp seems neat.

Solid start to the day. Stopped by my mom's house this morning to set up a desktop in the den/what used to be my room as kid. I wanted to clear out some old junk while I was there and I was pleasantly surprised to find my old 'Beatdown Box'. I was under the impression that all of the cards I had as a kid were thrown away/donated back when I started undergrad, but I found a pretty nostalgic mix of mostly 2003-2010 cards as well as an affinity deck I built back in 2004 and the last one I built before taking a hiatus. Shows how much I knew back then as I found Sword of Light and Shadow Sword of Fire and Ice & a Tarn just hanging out amongst a patch of bulk rares, while my prized card at the time, Mythic Proportions, was the star of the deck haha. Certainly sweet to find the swords and tarn, but rifling through misc Mirrodin / Darksteel bulk was a real treat; really brought me back.

Get it? They have Battalion!

Nothing new impressing me, yet. Green has the fewest spoiled cards thus far, though. I'm more interested in seeing what old-style analogs are reprinted within Modern Horizons.

Haven't made any real changes to my deck and it still feels concrete. The Arclight Phoenix and Death's Shadow match-ups feel favored, and I feel practiced in them. Everything else feels super medium. I don't feel like a landslide favorite but feel like I have game against everything, which is where I prefer to be in a given meta.

Absolutely cold to Auras deck, but that seems fine. I've only faced it once in over 100 matches on MTGO Leagues. Would require overhauling the sideboard to Natural State/Back To Nature which would leave me cold to the popular new Whir Of Invention prison artifact variants.

Still have one random flex spot in my SB that I've tried all kinds of things in. Am taking the deck to a paper 1k on April 20th, so we'll see how that goes. I suspect a more refined meta as opposed to the wild west of MTGO, perhaps softer local pilots than the online grinders as well.

My tentative sideboard for the function bar any newly discovered technology will be;




Currently practicing my mulligan discipline with the deck as much as possible, and still working out some sequencing based on various opening hands.