MTG Salvation

Yes, Blood Moon and Back to Basics are common in my meta, and that is absolutely what is responsible for my "high" basic land count.

Decks that give us problems? Well, hate bears are hard on us. Straight up. Not unwinnable, especially with a good start. Part of what has lead my build to how it is currently is that all it takes is one window for the game to end. Against hate bears, a lot of what I do is simply a tactical shift. My focus becomes defense. Someone is going to try to take out those bears. I am not the best set up to do so. So I will try to leverage the needs of my other opponents into an opportunity to win. High value cards here are Cyclonic Rift and O-Stone. Most bears are rough but not game-ending, but Gaddock Teeg is an absolute nightmare. Once a Teeg hits, I go high defense. Wait for someone to kill him. Maaaaybe I'll get to, but my options are limited.

Combo decks can be rough, because they can just be faster than us. Here, my tactical shift is to remove focus on game-ending plays, and instead focus on incremental advantage, especially in terms of mana development. Here we can allow the midrange decks to sit on their predictable plays and come in with our accrued resources after the first lines of defense are triggered by the combo player. However, with a strong start, we can also just try to smash and win quickly. We *can* be as fast, we just aren't as consistent because we don't have the tutors. However, they cannot hold up through a developed game, whereas we are always a threat because we advance our board. Tactically monitoring our threat level and staying out of the spotlight is key here.

Land hate decks can be tough, but if we get off to a good start we can simply overwhelm their ability to combat us. Garruk Wildspeaker is good against stax and tax or land hate. Also Carpet of Flowers is clutch.

Unlike a lot of combo-ish decks, we are not very vulnerable to counterspells. Obviously they can hurt, but we have so many means of card advantage that it is very difficult to profitably 1-for-1 us over the course of a game.

I guess overall, I'd say the biggest key for me is to understand what my role is at any point in the near-constant flux of the game. If we make ourselves the scariest deck, we damn well better be able to seal the deal. Otherwise I try to just advance and look for a window of opportunity, using misdirection as to what my game-ending plan is. Nice thing about Maelstrom is the versatility with which we can kill. My most common methods are TnN, Food Chain, time magic, and KWR (in no particular order), but it certainly does not end there. Cards like Devastation Tide turn us into a pseudo-storm deck.

I think you are looking at two lists inbred for their own metagames. I am confident in my decision not to play it. I can't comment as to how it works in his build. I may be misremembering, but I thought it was stated that he plays it to combat Hermit Druid. I do not regularly see Hermit Druid.

Quote from kaeroku »

Strionic shouldn't be evaluated as (any card's CMC +2,) it should be evaluated as (any card's CMC) +2. That is to say, it's a two mana 'kicker' for some of our favorite things to do.

Pretty sure that's how he evaluated it.

Quote from Frank_Glascock »

I agree 100% with everything you have said. My version of Maelstrom is intentionally powered down and it still wins over 50% of the time. Cutting the aggro for draw would push this deck's power too high. I have two competitive decks that I very rarely get to play. More than minor upgrades and Maelstrom will be collecting dust.

I greatly appreciate your insight. I have been looking at your list as well as Ambivalent Duck's intermittently for over two years. Brutalizer Exarch could be replaced by draw. Which one of Overflowing Insight, Arcanis the Omnipotent or Sphinx of Uthuun would you add?

I could cut Beast Within for Crush of Tentacles. Beast Within is better against stax effects but Crush of Tentacles is the better cascade. I assume that would be an easy switch for you. How do you handle stax effects?

The other mass bounce/board wipes I am playing are Devastation Tide, Cyclonic Rift and Wildfire. I understand your reservations with Wildfire. Cyclonic Rift's upside overcomes the fact that can be a bad cascade.

Intuition is a card I expected you to be playing.

You made a strong argument for Time Stretch. No one in my meta plays Knowledge Exploitation.

I love playing Maelstrom, but I have a new pet-deck I am testing, and I am unfairly targeted with Maelstrom bc before my group started building to counter the strategy, I won an obscene percentage of games with it. Once my group caught up (probably when fully-built Edric was complete) and as they have continued to evolve as deck builders, Wanderer's relative power to the other decks decreased considerably. The target on my back is imprinted on their souls, however, no one wants to lose to it again (or at least that is my perception). My deck list is not cutting-edge at this point because at a point in time I felt the list was solved in terms of what I wanted to do, and my focus shifted. So it's you guys doing the front-lines testing now. I have a ton of experience with the deck (unlike any other deck I've ever had), so I have a foundation of knowledge and a philosophical understanding of what I want to do, but I am a few steps behind when it comes to testing newer cards.

As for Exarch, I'd play Sphinx in that slot. I feel as if he is rather underrated in this deck. Legit damage and evasion and one of the best spells in Magic on ETB. Also blocks flying with enough power to kill most things, and enough toughness to survive most things. Dirty with Foodchain and good at finding it.

In regard to cutting Beast Within, I think the two biggest arguments come down to if 1) Gaddock Teeg and/or 2) Gaea's Cradle are big in your meta. I only see one Cradle deck, so it is not a huge worry for me. Teeg is the worst card my deck could see. I have, like, one means of removal, I think (O-stone). Stone is cool, though, bc opposing Thada decks can get it from us to kill Teeg.

I do well against a lot of stax decks. We have a bunch of permanents quickly, and can amass a bunch of lands early. It certainly can be an effective strategy against us, but I have historically fared well against stax. One nice reason is that stax decks are trying to play a different game than everyone else, and are trying to change the game to what they are trying to do. As such, a lot of hatred that often would go at us goes at the stax deck bc people are tired of their *****.

Agree with your assessment of mass bounce.

Not sure what I'd Intuition for, other than Foodchain, Regrowth, Witness. Or extra turn, Regrowth, Witness. What do you tend to use it on?

Quote from Frank_Glascock »

Mr Coupon, I am ordering Overflowing Insight tonight as well as Expropriate. Is Time Stretch still in your deck? Would you consider Expropriate a better alternative?

I may cut Scroll Rack for another "bomb". Overflowing Insight, Crush of Tentacles, Sphinx of Uthuun and Arcanis the Omnipotent are all cards you are playing that I am not. I know Ambivalent Duck played Arcanis. What would you pick from these choices?

Ambivalent Duck got me playing Brutalizer Exarch. It has been useful. Is there a second card from the above list that I should be playing in Brutalizer Exarch's place?

Temporal Mastery can not be recurred.

I wanted another way to win outside of combo understanding that the power level of the deck would suffer. Malingus, Pathbreaker Ibex, Scourge of the Throne and Kozilek, Butcher of Truth were the aggro additions. You have replaced these cards with draw which cards which is optimal.

Expropriate seems good. I simply don't know if I would play 2 copies of Time Stretch if given the chance. I have literally never lost after resolving a Stretch, so which is better is not worth testing to me (I get the 1 mana difference, Expro *could* just be better given that, but I doubt it).

Mastery cannot be recurred, good point.I play it for the 2 mana aspect. Brainstorm is a champ with this guy. I misspoke to say I only play the non-exiles, but this one has so much upside. Delve one would be next one I play.

Exarch is a guy I played for a little bit, but the reality is, Duck and I played two very different style of decks, despite many card similarities. He played a much more interactive, much less glass-cannony deck. He played cards like Beast Within and Chaos Warp and things of the like which are better against Gaddock Teeg style strategies. I use the world bounce effects to deal with hate cards, which are nice in terms of card efficiency, but bad in regard to Teeg. My combo potential is stronger, but I am weaker to (but by no means impotent to) hate decks.

So, in terms of which of the other cards are best for you... it really comes down to how you are trying to win. My deck is much more spell based, and most of my combat damage kills come via commander damage. So the bounce all spells may not work as well for your deck, same for all of the draw spells. If you want to tune your deck more similar to mine, then I would cut some of the creature-based damage for card draw and game ending splashy plays. It's just about what you want. It sounds to me from the conversation that both you and Akroma have a good understanding of what you want to do with your decks. I know I want to play mine, and I have tuned my deck for so many years now to be where it is today, so I don't care who gripes or grouses about it.

Quote from Frank_Glascock »

Mr Coupon, I cut Brainstorm a long time ago (2014). It was such a bad cascade and was particularly brutal if it was the second. I have kept Scroll Rack because unlike Brainstorm it could be used repeatedly. I see you play a plethora of spells that draw you cards so you may not need it.

Blatant Thievery has been very effective particularly stealing commanders in decks which fold without them. Absent of this line of play the tempo gained, mana producing artifacts for example, compared against the tempo lost in most cases gives us a decisive advantage.

I run Wildfire but not its bigger brother Destructive Force which is dead outside of cascade. I only mention this because I have seen several list containing Destructive Force.

I am running all the extra turn cards you are with the addition of Capture of Jingzhou and Part the Waterveil. What do you think about this?

Have you ever experimented with Bloodmoon?

I really like Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Teferi, Temporal Archmage in this deck. I actually think Jace's ability to bounce Wanderer back to our hand to be more devastating than the free brainstorm.

What cards are you planning on testing?

Brainstorm came back in with the mulligan change and has performed quite will for me. Very good in opening hand, either for setting up early turns or later by setting up cascade. Also works well with our density of fetch lands. It is huge at time to be able to shuffle away some of the expensive cards we run in exchange for something to allows us to set up our tempo. Not saying I feel it is irreplaceable in any list, but it is nowhere near testing its way out of my list at the moment.

Scroll Rack, to me, was too clunky and a far worse cascade. I never found the need to reuse it (if you don't want an efficient Brainstorm that fits neatly into turns, I can't see wanting a repeatable version that costs 3x as much mana for first use. This deck is powerful, I find I need efficient means of accessing our huge threats is more valuable than an inefficient repeatable engine).

Stealing commanders can be extremely useful with Blatant Thievery. That said, this card has huge issues. It is seven mana, and three of it must be blue. There are plenty of situations in which it has very little effect, and the fact that it targets every player makes it a high likelihood to get countered. Just didn't do enough to warrant the high mana cost. I realllllly want to be winning games for that much mana.

Wildfire is cool. Meta call. Very legitimate card. I see too much efficient spot removal to want to risk my land base.

I like Capture of Jingzhou, I simply do not own one. However, I only play the time cards that can be recurred.

I've experimented with getting hosed by Blood Moon. That and B2B really suck for me when they get cast. Not running them.

I believe I play Mind Scultpor, or at least until recently I did. Been middle of the road for me.

Teferi is cool. I can see using him. Different strokes.

Plan on testing the new draw 7 card. Will probably test Ibex at some point (never got around to it).

I love Knowledge Exploitation. Even if no one plays time magic or Bribery, someone will at least have Demonic Tutor, which tends to find Food Chain.

Also worth noting: this philosophical core of this deck is to threaten a legitimate midrange kill while shaping up the Salvage combo. This enables us to not let our opponents just sit tight on cards that disrupt our combo and instead have to extend into a window of opportunity. When defenses drop, we combo for the kill. If they play chicken with our combo, we smash face with massive combat damage until death. The midrange strategy both aids us in defense, and makes it so that spot removal (which is rampant in my meta) doesn't disallow us to win the game. Being able to play at a slower pace and grow with incremental advantage means that we simply seize the opportunity whenever it presents, rather than having a more souped-up but easier to combat version of the deck; but make no mistake, this is a deck that intends to win with Dakmor Salvage.

I definitely agree with you on principle. That is why Bojuka Bog is mentioned at the end of the OP as a card intended for the deck (just a basic oversight that I missed it, even without Crop Rotation currently being in the build), although it is just a blurb at the end so easy to miss. It should help supplement the Scavenging Ooze and Dr. S already in the 99 to help combat graveyard trickery, but I would agree that even with all of those in place, my anti-GY is still on the light side. The reality to this is the same as my omission of several auto-include rocks: I need slots to test, I know certain cards will be in final build, so I am allowing for cards to test their way out of the deck to make room for some of my auto-includes and defensive spells. This is just a personal deck-building style, and relevant only because this deck is still in a state of relative infancy. Thanks for the input, I always appreciate an extra set of eyes because I am prone to miss things

I like the Wildfire variants in a vacuum, but see too much spot removal in my meta to where I'd be blanking myself as well

Edit: Kiki-Con was very fragile, both pieces bad on own. Deadeye can turn lock or exploit a number of repeatable ETBs (Kiki was similar but almost uncastable), and Palinchron is a good cascade and often profits us mana. I can see argument to cut, but having a TnN one-hitter is nice

Yup, Life from the Loam is one of cards in phone

Edit: OG list was supposed to have Loam, but turns out I traded all mine away

Chasm worth at least testing. Trying to keep basic count as high as possible, but yeah, so good with Rotation. Thx for the advice, brother

So, this is a variant on the Razzliox combo deck that is built for a paper metagame in which I play the same opponents regularly. The dedicated combo decks stop working once they grab a couple wins because they are relatively easy to shut down, and my meta is heavy in midrange decks that eat glass cannon combo alive. There a dozen or so super sketchy choices still in for testing or other laziness related reasons.

Chopping block cards include: Splendid Reclamation (have not had adequate opportunity for in-game evaluation, but reeks of cutability), Skyshroud Claim (not bad, but list getting tighter means more good cards that don't quite fit get the axe), Kodama's Reach/Cultivate (this decks is the one they'd be in, outside of, say, Azusa, but still have not staked a firm claim on roster spot), Torment of Hailfire (will be Praetor's Grasp, this is laziness, I popped one out of a prize pack same day I built deck), Dowsing Dagger (want to test, gonna add another land untapper and get a Cradle, so keeping to test theme), Koz Infinite (too many Eldrazi, colorless cost is whack AF), Manglehorn (given Priest of Tits, that one elf guy who disenchants at same cmc is better, but I have been wanting to test Horn in general)

Gonna includes: Gaea's Cradle (yeah guy, this S is good, but my only copy is spoken for, will be getting another after being fiscally responsible), Crop Rotation (once Cradle, then Rotation and a few other cards to empower instant-speed combo), Birds of Paradise (oversight to omit), Praetor's Grasp (replaces Hailfire), Krosan Restorer (may just be dumb AF, but want to test with 2 potential Cradles, Lake, 2 potential Lotus Vales), Razaketh, the Foulblooded (should be sweet, or naw?), other stuff, but don't have my phone with me for list. Oh, Dryad Arbor and/or Drownyard Temple (which was in before being cut, but coming back for infinite mana and Crop Rotation, mana rocks like Grim Monolith and Mana Crypt once some more S plays its way out. Oh yeah, Bojuka Bog cuz 1: its an oversight and 2: it's the new hotness with Rotation

I've been working on other decks recently. There are some newer cards I need to test, I'll update when I get some decent testing in

Edit: current differences from OP

-Kiki/Conscripts
+Deadeye/Palinchron

-Blatant Thievery (never as good as "should" be, UUU is a B at times (more for restricting other plays than being hard in its own right)
-Scroll Rack
-Karn (I think)

Not sure what last 2/3 additions are... kinda embarrassing.

So is Ramunap Excavator pretty dope for this deck or naw?

Bone Shredder is another good early game removal spell, as its echo allows it to be recurred once per turn cycle (if necessary). Also pretty easy on the wallet

People always have the option to concede. If they don't want to sit around for your turns, they can pick up their cards.