MTG Salvation

(This deck is designed for multiplayer play for 2-4 players with a shared library and graveyard.)

When I designed the original 2-player monogreen deck, I felt compelled to include Panglacial Wurm because it introduced an interesting interaction for the shared library mechanic. However, green has very bad removal and supporting a 9/5 without making it an autowin was a tall order. It ultimately was too much of a strain to support and had to go. That deck would later be almost entirely overhauled and ended up at a great place.

When I removed it from that deck I promised myself I would design a deck specifically to support it. I ended up with a 2-player GW ramp deck. The deck was interesting for what it did, though I no longer have the exact list. The strongest card in it was probably Seedcradle Witch, which would be bonkers insane when paired with any mana-producing creature. The deck also was the only ever iteration of a deck to include Oust, which I'd like to try again some time since it's white's version of Metamophose in 2-player and made those combo shenanigans easier to put together.

Anyway, after putting this deck together, I'd been playing live FNM for a while and I'd been mulling over the idea of a multiplayer deck. I don't remember whether I expanded the mill deck first or not, but this deck plays far more Magic-like than the mill deck, making it easier for people to get the hang of the dynamics.

In the expanding, I added a lot of different card types that I don't normally use. Hallowed Burial and Austere Command introduced the first legitimate board wipes to any of my stacks. Hallowed Burial in particular keeps Panglacial Wurm active. Cards that get out of hand like Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage and Rhys the Redeemed have more opposing players to answer them. Vow of Duty and Vow of Wildness help add to the big bruisers theme. I've also been more willing to include 2-for-1s a bit more and have been happy with the inclusion of Divine Deflection.

I should note at this point that the starting life totals that I use are 20 which tend to drop in large chunks.

He's the deck presently:

The first thing to note is that the 37 lands have to be shared among all players and I want everyone to be able to reach 8 mana. In addition to the land count, several creatures produce or can be exchanged for lands and some of the spells as well and the fourteen basic lands will get tutored consistently and provide a noticeable thinning effect over the course of the game.

The core mechanic is Panglacial Wurm, which requires a lot of mana and a search effect. It conveniently lets you turn your excess land search effects into a 9/5 when you reach 8-9 mana which plays quite well. I want to make sure to include removal that helps reinforce the use of Panglaical Wurm's ability. I'm waiting for a white Griptide that puts the creature on the bottom. Having Mistveil Plains gives you some control.

(One of the common power plays in the 2-player version was to Sylvan Scrying for Ghost Quarter and then Ghost Quarter your own land later on to get an EOT Panglacial Wurm.)

I find it pleasing that Vow of Duty and Vow of Wildness grow creatures into range of Selesnya Charm and Radiant's Judgment.

Mul Daya Channelers is a subgame I really like and this deck plays it very well. There's a decent number of cards with cycling in the deck and with shuffle effects combined with these, people can have a time fighting over who gets or who doesn't get certain cards. This also broadcasts upcoming board wipes and also beats down or ramps for its controller. It just does a lot of cool things.

It plays well that there are many lands that upgrade into spells and spells that can substitute as mana. There are lands with cycling, lands that have hideaway, lands that turn into creatures. Creatures that can cycle for lands, creatures that upgrade when you get a bunch of mana, creatures that use all of your mana forever. Getting stuck with several expensive cards in your hand shouldn't be a problem encountered much.


Bloom Tender is the weaker of the three mana-creatures. It does tap for two, but you have to have multiple permanents to do so which can be hard after a board wipe. Werebear at least is a 4/4 when you don't need the mana and Joraga Treespeaker becomes a midsized wall. Bloom Tender just offers no late-game utility and is still just as vulnerable to board wipes, possibly moreso.

Awe Strike is out of place somewhat. I still need to find a copy of Pariah, so it will probably replace Awe Strike at that point. What I do like is that it offers a degree of flexibility in keeping a player alive, helping group blocks, and fogging a large creature attacking you for two turns. Celestial Flare would be difficult to cast, but might be worth considering here.

Angelsong is somewhat of a filler. I feel like I want a couple of cards to help stop alpha strikes to allow a reversal to happen. I imagine it being conditionally useful and political. If this didn't have cycling, it wouldn't be in the deck though since it's almost always bad except on very specific board states. It could be that it's still just bad anyway.

Auriok Bladewarden is a holdover from the 2-player deck. It doesn't do much and essentially requires you to combo it with something, at which point it still doesn't do much and is also vulnerable to 2-for-1s. Not exactly sure what I want to replace it with, but it's a nagging thorn to look at. I do very much like the card, but it's not doing anything relevant here.

Seeker of Skybreak isn't quite doing it for me. The idea is that it helps you untap a big creature to block with or to untap mana producers to make more mana. Sometimes you can use it to help an opponent that's being attacked, but if you have a 2/1, it's probably you. There aren't any tappers that this helps deal with either and many of the good creatures have vigilance anyway. I wouldn't be sad to see this go.

Apex Hawks is a mana sink, yes, but isn't ever spectacular at all. It has evasion though, which there is now not much of and can be very useful when dealing with groundling tokens, but it's never efficient and is never spectacular at any CMC except in top deck mode after a board wipe. It's a worse version of Voidstone Gargoyle. Would consider replacing it with Celestial Archon.

Kavu Primarch is similar to Apex Hawks, but at least it's a 7/7 almost all of the time. If you're under early pressure or mana light, it's a fairly easy to cast 3/3 which isn't terrible. I would at least consider Nylea's Emissary here, though am not sure if that would be an actual improvement. Trample is surely good for getting past 1/1 tokens, but Pacifism and detain make it more of a 2-for-1 material. Though it does handle the board wipes well.

Selesnya Guildmage is just too weak too much of the time. It's at its strongest on the play on turn 2 and then beating down with activation mana up, then transitioning into 4-mana chump forever mode. However, none of this is ever efficient and there are almost always better things to do with your mana. If these modes were each 1 less, I'm sure the card would play fine here. As it is, I think Jade Mage would be superior to this card almost all of the time.

Vitu-Ghazi Guildmage is actually probably too strong. It comes in at a weird angle and makes 3/3s for 4 mana, sometimes 8/8s. Rhys is faaaar easier to deal with and taps, so you can interact with it. It's too small to get hit by some removal spells and it's never in combat. It's certainly possible to deal with it, but the problem is that it HAS to be dealt with and is awkward to do so. It provides the same amount of pressure to every player that doesn't have a board wipe in hand and is the only card in the deck that provides this level of pressure without being a pure combat-card.

(This deck is designed for 1v1 play with a shared library and graveyard.)

When I was looking for interesting things to do with the first five mono-colored decks, morph instantly jumped out as something that blue had a lot of and could be interesting to play with. I incidentally had a small morph theme in the first drafts of the red, green, and black decks as well, but it became quickly apparent that it was a mistake. Players who hadn't played with morph before needed explaining on how it worked, which was jarring when I was the one playing the first morph.

Morph IS a nifty theme to play with since it advances the board state without revealing information and allowing creatures to be paid for in chunks. One side effect of this is that the blue deck seems to be the most mana hungry of all of the decks since top deck mode is pushed off for a while. This made Dimir Aqueducts even more potent than they would be otherwise and in removing those, I will need to make sure to help with the reduction in mana further than the cantrips I've already added. One key difference with morph in this context is that one player will know the other doesn't have a certain morph if they own it in play. Such is the zero-sum nature of singleton stack.

Another unique aspect of this deck is that it was the first deck to produce an actual engine in Echo Tracer + Ixidron (+ Aphetto Exterminator). The other four monocolored decks don't have on-board shenanigans like this. The green deck definitely has some cool combos and interactions, but nothing like this.

Ultimately, the deck is fairly straight forward and the card quality is somewhat flat, but there are definitely worse cards than others.

One of the first things to note is that blue has very few 1-drops worth considering and that this deck NEEDS 3 mana to do anything. Sage of Epityr does respectable work here, stealing better/more relevant cards at any point in the game, though can be flipped with any cantrip effect. Ixidron, Ovinize, Wings of Velis Vel, and Leaden Fists presently make the 1/1 body highly relevant.

Part of future changes will be adding at least one card that requires black mana on top of Spite/Malice and Aphetto Exterminator which don't technically require it to be used. If there are two compelling black cards I could add, that would be awesome, but I'm not sure at this time what they would be. Regardless, Traumatic Visions is a card I want to include to not only find swamps but to help buff up the mana count as well. On that note, countermagic isn't doing what I want it to for this deck. Morphs are played anonymously and counters can be used to stop removal which I don't want.

(3x Dimir Aqueduct will be replaced with 3x Swamp. Of the three counters, I think I want to remove Dream Fracture and Essence Scatter, leaving Hinder and adding Traumatic Visions and a non-countermagic spell.)

Quicksand is on the chopping block. It originally appeared in many of the decks, but I removed it because it was causing annoying board stalls unnecessarily. It's finally time for this card to go. I will be looking at Haunted Fengraf just to add more bodies. I am liking Haunted Fengraf's play a lot since it has its own character depending on what deck it's in and isn't as consistently high-powered as Stalking Stones.

Cephalid Coliseum is on the chopping block. The activation is quite good and it's delayed appropriately in this deck since the deck doesn't get threshold for a while due to slower starts, removal not killing creatures, and creatures costing multiple turns to fully cast. The main problem is that the deck is mana hungry and doesn't want to take damage from the land every turn. Pushing the deck in a more aggressive direction means that this becomes more of a liability. I'll be looking to replace it with Soaring Seacliff which provides reach if drawn late.

Metamorphose is on the chopping block. The main problem here is that people don't know that it's essentially Mind Control when they first play this format and that there aren't too many punishing ways to use its draw back, particularly with several creatures triggering via morph. I'll be replacing it with Griptide here which at least costs an appropriate amount and has better art now. I still like Metamorphose in the mana-tight mill deck.

Shell Skulkin is on the chopping block. As a 3/2, it doesn't contribute to board stalls, but it's quite obnoxious at protecting extant threats. I would be interested in replacing it with Soratami Rainshaper which has a steeper cost, though it has a more relevant body. It's possible that this type of effect is just not needed. Undecided.

Sailmonger is just not doing what I had hoped and it's quite obvious why. After the success with Wishmonger in the white deck for busting games open, I looked at the other mongers I could use and Sailmonger was the only one that seemed plausible. However, it doesn't create an asymmetric effect like Wishmonger or Filth and just basically only benefits whoever has the most mana. This isn't incidentally a problem since that player is typically down on cards, but it still requires that that player have creatures that can attack past a flying 3/3 blocker. Soratami Mirror-Guard?

Rushing-Tide Zubera is on the chopping block. I don't mind hill giants, but this one isn't creating interesting board states since the creatures at work are typically just not big enough to matter. Only two cards in the deck can deal the requisite amount of damage. I'd consider replacing it with Nevermaker, though that might be too oppressive defensively. Thinking about it, there are a variety of ways to deal with it that don't trigger the ability. Ixidron, Ovinize, Narcolepsy...

Callous Deceiver is on the chopping block. It's just an awkward card with abilities that don't quite do enough on its own.

Spiketail Hatchling is on the chopping block. Even though the deck is mana tight, this can be played around and it has the same problems vs morphs and doesn't stop their triggers. Wind Dancer might be better here.

Wall of Deceit is on the chopping block. I really would just like another big morph like Slipstream Serpent. Maybe a 4/4? Zombie Cutthroat would be funny, but I'm not sure if I'd want to go that far. I suppose I could try to give serious consideration to Brine Elemental.

Leaden Fists doesn't quite do enough and isn't very consistent. I like that it makes your own untap effects relevant, but not that it makes your opponent's tap or untap effects extra relevant. It definitely changes the board state though.

Piracy Charm is on the chopping block. It's modes are inconsistent and often don't do enough. If it cycled rather than cause the opponent to discard, I wouldn't have a problem. Islandwalk's relevance comes up so rarely since the only blue high-powered X/1 has morph and is already in the deck.

Willbender is on the chopping block. It's just too powerful. It counters removal spells for 2 mana, forcing them to kill an opponent's creature. It leaves behind a relevant 1/2 body for double blocks, it can be reused. It's an easy 3-for-1 and is obnoxious to play around.

I'd really like to add a morph creature that you want to block if you can. Like if there were a morph creature that came with Hands of Binding.

When I first built the five core mono-color decks, I didn't give much thought to white, however, after playing each of the first drafts, it was readily apparent that white had the best game play.

I've since noticed that white has several key factors going for it that makes it play well. White first and foremost has a lot of flexible removal and the removal it has comes in a wide variety of forms. Addition to being able to deal with creatures, white can deal with every permanent type other than land. Aura-based removal in the vein of Pacifism can be reversed or countered on a turn other than the turn its cast, which keeps things tense. Finally, white just has a wide variety of strange effects that create weird and unique interacts all over the place.

The deck is a boardstate slugfest drawn out due to the low number of viable attackers each turn. Damage is dealt slow enough that players have time to find an answer to their predicament. Auras can be undone later in the game to free the better threats to help the game end.

Wishmonger is the quirky game-changing card. Auras fall off in its presence and the non-targeted and colorless effects become significantly more important. Reckless use of it can cause a loss. If the game goes long, it will be drawn into, but you might not always want to cast it. Generally the game turns into a race and whoever cast the most auras at that point will be sad. Standard Bearer's presence on either side of the table was never more degenerate.


Recent changes:
Battlewise Valor over Stand Firm
Amrou Scout over Ronom Unicorn
Infantry Veteran over Akrasan Squire
Celestial Flare over Pitfall Trap
Icatian Javelineers over Gideon's Lawkeeper
Niblis of the Breath over Tower Drake
Switcheroo over Lapse of Certainty
Mistveil Plains over Nomad Stadium and other land changes

Several goals were accomplished with these changes. Most importantly, I updated the deck to match my updated standards on splashing. This is going better than red, but the deck already had a better blue presence than the red deck anyhow. I wanted to remove any excess ways to punish auras to make the blue bounce effects that much more relevant. Additionally, Switcheroo lets you trade away a pacified creature for anything relevant, which further makes auras relevant, but only for blue. Benevolent Bodyguard may similarly be replaced in a future update. Niblis of the Breath took over the role Gideon's Lawkeeper played and is conveniently non-white when Wishmonger rolls around.

With the removal of Ronom Unicorn, I added Amrou Scout as a second creature rebel since Defiant Falcon can be weak at times. Mistveil Plains deepen this line of play.

Akrasan Squire led to openings that were too aggressive, particularly when you curved into the other exalted creature and attacked for 3 on turn 2. Not being able to buff itself should lessen the early pressure. It can end up increasing later pressure though, threatening to pump multiple creatures and can no longer play double-duty with Leonin Bola.

One of the first multicolor Microstacks I built was a UB mill-based stack that intended both players to fight over the last few cards in the library. The resulting game play was puzzle-like and quite the interesting realm to dabble in, so I expanded it to a 100-card 4-player deck that I've enjoy playing whenever there are sufficient players that grasp the concepts.

I haven't played the 2-player version in a while and I'd like to update it since it has slightly different dynamics and requires fewer players to work. The 4-player version is quite a bit better tuned, so I'd like to update the 2-player version given what I've learned.

Here's the deck I'm working with: General Dynamics
This deck is designed such that both players will cause it to mill out, either incidentally, or intentionally. There's a lot of cycling, and cantrips, a few cards with dredge, and a few cards that mill.

When players enter the endgame, a large number of cards behave significantly differently, either by putting cards back into the deck to stop the player from losing, or by causing other players to draw cards, which they won't want to if the deck is empty.

The midgame is about pressuring your opponent to either spend their resources to stay alive or to spend their resources to mill the deck more quickly.

In general, attacking your opponent is a safer, more selfish, plan if you have the creatures for it. If you mill the deck, your opponent can often flip it on you with a few cards and then kill you with the empty library.

At one point, the deck had an effective converted mana cost of 1.9

Card Specifics
I would have to say that the strongest card in the deck is by far Metamorphose. It deals with any threat in the deck and then allows you to draw that threat on your turn. It additionally puts a card on top of the library, keeping you alive in the endgame and potentially taking your opponent's endgame card from them.

Creeping Tar Pit is a very strong mid-game card. It puts a lot of pressure on your opponent to act and there are not very many cards that can deal with it. However, it doesn't do anything relevant at the endgame and likely can't attack if you want to cast anything.

Darkblast is very potent in this deck. It kills many of the commonly cast creatures and the dredge trick can kill the important X/2s. If there are relevant creatures in play, both players have an incentive to dredge Darkblast, either to kill that creature or to prevent the opponent from doing so. As a result, cycling and cantrips will be used to fight for control of Darkblast when it shows up. Darkblast will show up every game, so you can plan around it.

Reckless Scholar is one of the most dangerous permanents in play. During the mid-game, it helps to filter your draws, improving your chances in the late game. It can help you fight over dredge cards as well. In the late game, however, it becomes "T: Kill target player." It can do this during your upkeep as well, so an empty library isn't all that dangerous to you. This will likely be killed as soon as your opponent can.

Gomazoa is a very useful tool to have in play. In the endgame, you can use it repeatedly to avoid dying to an empty library since its summoning sickness goes away during your upkeep. If you have to, you can block with it in the midgame and rid your opponent from a troublesome attacker.

Magosi, the Waterveil is a niche card, but it does provide a useful effect on occasion. If the library is empty, you can skip your turn and let your opponent deal with that first. On occasion, this will just kill your opponent.

Runed Servitor and Dimir Guildmage are both 2/2s for 2. This happens to put them in a sweet spot where they are relatively difficult to kill with removal and also relatively difficult to block well for much of the game, given the rest of the creatures in the deck. This lets them pressure your opponent for a good chunk of the early and midgame. They both also have the ability to force your opponent to draw cards, giving them an added use at the endgame.

While Metamorphose is probably the best card in the deck, Death Rattle is second in terms of removal. It kills anything and can exile cards from the graveyard in addition, occasionally allowing you to 2-for-1 your opponent.

Screeching Sliver might not look like much, but it's a huge part of what makes approaching the endgame so complicated. Screeching Sliver says NO to Metamorphose and Gomazoa and any other effect that puts single cards back on top of the library. Additionally, the threat of using it cuts off lines of play for your opponent (such as cycling to nab the last card in the deck), and then not having to use it lets you draw the occasional card.

Millikin starts where Screeching Sliver leaves off and also gives you a mana for your troubles. While the deck doesn't require a lot of mana to operate, having more mana gives you more options. Being relevant during the endgame is an added bonus and you will occasionally mill into more options before casting your spells.

Stinkweed Imp having Dredge 5 is incredibly relevant. It can be used to block most of the threats in the deck and then mill an additional 5 cards as you recast it. Looting Stinkweed Imp multiple times is one of the fastest ways of shredding the deck.

Crippling Fatigue and Deep Analysis are two very potent cards that do something very useful for cheap, but only if they're in the graveyard and only if you're willing to pay 3 life. They essentially will show up every game, either drawn, or milled into. The life payment rewards aggression by lowering people's life totals and making the aggressor the one who can cast these more freely.

Areas To Improve

The deck is not without some problems. Combat only matters occasionally. I would like it to matter slightly more. Slowing the milling down by any amount would do this, but would also make the rest of the milling cards irrelevant. There quite a few mill-only cards which I'd like to address, since they're very polar draws.

Three changes I've decided upon already are as follows:

Duskmantle Guildmage replaces Dimir Guildmage. Dimir Guildmage came down consistently on turn 2 and started applying a lot of immediate pressure. If the board became stalled, it started to eat your hand and then draw cards. It was very oppressive and but didn't kill you. Duskmantle Guildmage doesn't provide any card advantage, but does encourage you to dredge as a way to deal large chunks of damage.

Pilfered Plans replaces Mind Funeral. Mind Funeral was good for only one thing: Milling a bunch of cards by surprise. You would generally have to tap out to do this and you could generally tell how many lands were left in the deck based on what was milled and exiled. However, if you weren't trying to do this, it was just a dead card, especially in the early mid game. It's possible that this is fine since as a card, it would guide you to make different choices, but for now, I want to try something else.

I will note that a card like Mind Funeral slows aggro multiple ways. For a player that has a good board state, it's a dead card. For that player's opponent, milling a bunch of cards helps to mitigate them since most creatures are irrelevant during the endgame. I DO want the player on the back foot to have the option of pushing for this.

Rapid Hybridization replaces Archive Trap. Archive Trap was cute, but highly polar. It often was card disadvantage, and even when you could play it for free, it was often wrong to unless you needed to dig for dredge or Crippling Fatigue. Further, casting it in response to cycling to kill your opponent out of nowhere gets old really fast and is not stellar game play. Rapid Hybridization will play as a combat trick aura in the midgame and then be decent removal for their endgame-relevant creatures as well as let you trigger Golgari Thug and Runed Servitor.

These three changes make it a lot more difficult to mill the deck, particularly quickly. Combat will be more relevant and dredge/flashback cards will be drawn more often than they are currently. I would like to add in incidental mill where I can moving forward on cards that are otherwise still fine.


Hedron Crab is a card I'm looking to replace with a 1- or 2-drop blue creature. It's nice that it mills a lot, but that's ALL it does. Bloodcurdler is a decent attacker that also mills. Unlike Mind Funeral, this is still a bad top deck for the defending player since it doesn't mill everything away at once.

Mental Note doesn't quite do enough to justify having to spend a mana to cycle. As with the 100-card version, I'd be open to replacing this with Peek, but we still need incidental mill somewhere...

Gravepurge would have been awesome at 2, but is presently a bit clunky. Rarely will you ever cast this to just get multiple good creatures back. It instead cycles for 3 or Disentombs for 3. If you're lucky, you get to cast it during the endgame and not die. It conveniently puts back a variable number of cards, which lets you dodge Millikin.

Nihil Spellbomb just does too much too easily. It sits in play and counters any sort of reanimation or disentombing and cantrips and lets you fight over dredge OR exile dredge. I'd like to try Conjuror's Bauble over this since that at least doesn't turn off Gravepurge. Though not having to keep a mana open to draw is relevant and this clashes with Cremate. I could possibly replace Cremate with another spell, possibly Unearth or Misinformation, but I'm not sure presently. Regardless, it would be nice if the graveyard mattered more and exiling all of it whenever you want is a bit of a hindrance to that.

Mindlash Sliver is quite weak. I'll grant that in this deck, there are more things you can do with it, like ditching a flashback card and pressuring your opponent's endgame spells, but more often than not, it just doesn't do much. If it's removed, I want to replace Screeching Sliver with Cathartic Adept.




Change List
(9/30/13)
Duskmantle Guildmage replaces Dimir Guildmage
Pilfered Plans replaces Mind Funeral
Rapid Hybridization replaces Archive Trap

I don't really play constructed. I like playing Magic. I love drafting, but it is time consuming and costly. The decks I build are intended to be played by multiple players sharing a library and a graveyard. I discovered this way to play in high school and have never looked back.

Apparently, "Stack" was already a format and has been discussed on Wizards' own website here and here. However, the decks I build are quite small by comparison, so I'll label mine as "Microstacks." The typical decks I build are 60-card with only two 100-card 4-player decks thus far.


Games can be played without having to bring multiple decks or having to count on another person to bring their own deck. This can enable pick-up games in numerous places where play is less likely to happen.

Originally this made it easy to play Magic between at school/between classes. I've also been able to get in games before FNM drafts when people are reluctant to break out large EDH decks with all the related paraphernalia when those games typically go on for much longer.


Format Quirks
Putting cards back into the library can change who draws them. Metamorphose is my favorite example. For 1U and a draw step, you get to steal any permanent.

Manipulating the library with cards like Halimar Depths and Mul Daya Channelers can be used to steal better cards from your opponents, but they can fight back with cycling, dredge, or mill.

Cards like Unsummon behave as you'd expect them to, though I've yet to introduce Mind Control or Switcheroo, so I'm not 100% sure what my opponents would expect bounce to do in that situation.

Disentomb effects become deeper when you can target a creature card that you just killed. Evolution Charm is always a cool card.

If the Stack is mill-themed, it's a battle of Mill-To-The-Death!

Threshold will activate very quickly. I avoid instants with flashback. Dredge cards can be fought over. The graveyard is as relevant as you choose to make it.


I find that designing a Mircostack is essentially like designing a limited environment, though I am admittedly drawn to limited-level cards out of preference. Regardless, I notice dynamics and trends in my decks that I can actively fix. With the red deck, instant-speed removal turned out to make combat tricks terrible draws and I was able to correct that by taking them out. It was a very liberating experience removing Burst Lightning and Brimstone Volley for cards that would make the gameplay better.


I have noticed that I like to make the power level of cards relatively flat so that drawing a land is closer in power level to drawing a spell than it would be otherwise.

Normal games of Magic have two decks with their own goals. Some come out blisteringly fast and spend extra cards to do so. This match up typically has one deck that has better top decks with another deck that will probably lose if it doesn't draw the right hand.

My Microstacks don't have this dynamic at all. Each player has the same top deck quality, so a flatter power spectrum is needed to lessen the effect of draw variance in these games. It is also why I shy away from cards like Divination.



That's all I can think of for now, but it should give good insight into what I'm doing.

In their initial incarnations, the green stack played the worst and the white stack played the best. The blue stack was probably the second worst, but it got some adjustments a while back to make it more aggressive and less stally. While the other decks have improved, red has really lagged behind and stagnated in a place I'd rather it not stay.

I'd say that the blue deck is still the second worst and that red has replaced green as the worst. (I think Green may have beaten white to first, though white may not have had much trouble beating the other colors initially.) This isn't to say that blue isn't better than its initial version, it's much better and has unique game play since it's the only deck that still uses Morph.

While the blue deck is still somewhat stally, the board states it generates remain interesting. Ixidron loops and hidden information give the deck some character. Being slow isn't necessarily a problem and I think that deck's play can be improved without gutting too much of its core. Certainly, if R&D ever revisits morph, I'll revisit some of my morph choices.

The problem with the red deck isn't that it stalls or even that it's too aggressive. It's that the game is a removal spamfest that ends during topdeck mode at which point someone ends up with an unkillable threat. The early and midgame are so incredibly uninteresting.

As far as I can tell, the core of the problem is the removal. I've addressed some of this in more recent changes with the inclusion of Wrack with Madness and Turn to Slag.

Here is the list as it stands today:
As mentioned, the problem is the removal. There's too much high-quality removal, particularly with respect to picking off early drops leaving an empty board.

Red's removal is almost exclusively burn, this makes creature size incredibly important. This isn't a problem in and of itself; I don't mind bigger creatures being better, it's just dangerous when bigger creatures are immune to removal.

The green deck didn't have this problem. It had slightly smaller creatures, but it had some decent blockers, it had some cheap removal spells that took out creatures of any size with a drawback that affected the board state, and it had some more expensive options that removed large creatures entirely. Additionally, green has deathtouch which lets small threats trade up. This will be very difficult to reproduce with what red can do...

The other side of the coin is also a problem. Burn comes in a lot of different styles, which are all cool cards, but the smaller effects unduly punish small creatures. In environments where removal doesn't care about creature size, players will use creatures to block or trade off with the smaller creatures and save their removal for evasion and large threats. Having burn that is only good on small threats is going to be very dangerous here.

In the original version of the deck I put together, I made very strict decisions to avoid burn that dealt damage to players so that the permanents would be more relevant. I had relaxed my restrictions on this, but presently, burn is giving too much reach. Granted, I expect this will be dealt with as the removal is worsened.

Lastly, much of the present burn is in Instants. This makes combat tricks veeery risky. Combat tricks are one of the few ways red has to make small creatures relevant, so I really need to open this up as a respectable option. Conveniently, we've gotten some nice new options as of late.

I would have to say Ember Hauler is the poster child for problem cards in the deck. I really like the card, but it's ruining game play. Fire Servant + Brimstone Volley is similarly bad. Brimstone Volley was a cool addition to deal with the Tuktuk token, but it's causing more problems.

A related theme that had been touchy was pump effects. The only way to make burn even approach a semblence of interactivity that auras give to green, blue, and white was to have pump effects that would counter them. However this has a few problems. You had to interact with the burn spell when your opponent casts it, rather than any time thereafter. Secondly, the spell is countered immediately, allowing the target to block that turn. Finally, it made big creatures further important because you could protect them from burn and could do so more easily since you could use smaller pump effects. This also led to the requiring of non-obvious removal like Wrack with Madness and Puncture Blast to undo the interaction in some cases.

Along another axis, the deck has an artifact theme. I've been progressively toning down the quality of artifact removal. The original version had Shattering Spree, but that lead to too many blowouts, so I replaced it with Shattering Pulse, which was more expensive. However that led to too many grindy scenarios where it would just pile on card advantage and strand artifact cards in the opponent's hand. Additionally, I'd been having issues where the removal for artifacts was much less expensive than that for creatures, making artifacts prone to tempo hits. I want artifacts to be less vulnerable and less vulnerable to blowouts.


The first few changes I know I want ot make are as follows:
Keldon Megaliths -> Teetering Peaks
Barbarian Ring -> Smoldering Spires
Mountain -> Forgotten Cave
I'm trading two lands that punish small creatures for two lands that sometimes let small creatures attack through larger creatures.

Lightning Prowess -> Embersmith
It's been difficult to find a pinger that's both fair and powerful. This slot was originally Rod of Ruin and then Dragon Shard. Various creatures have been shuffled since the beginning, but Embersmith seems to be the fair version of this since it's not consistent and it's limited in the number of uses you get out of it and by your mana.

Ingot Chewer -> Wickerbough Elder
Ingot Chewer is a cool card. It's having a subtly problematic effect on game play though. The red deck never had a huge green subtheme, and I would like to expand it. The 2-for-1 artifact hater seems like a very good value slot for this to begin. As a splash, it gives you more options if you happen to have access to GG. I'm not 100% sure if this should be Indrik Stomphowler since the Treefolk can be have a larger (oppressive?) threat-of-activation in play.

It's worth noting here that the splash is going to be a problem. For the green deck, green was splashing powerful removal that pushed the deck to pairity. Red has an abundance of removal. Is there anything that green offers that red actually wants? Battery and Gruul Guildmage are very useful effects for green to offer, especially if the removal is getting worse/scarce.

Volcanic Submersion -> Scrap
Volcanic Submersion was mainly due to me not being able to find a copy of Scrap, but now with some relevant lands being removed, there little reason to make this change now.


Moving forward, I want to replace much of the Instant removal and a handful of creatures. The key threats are Hematite Golem, Tuktuk, the Explorer, Gargoyle Castle, Kultotha Flamefiend, and Wickerbough Elder. Aside from Tuktuk, the key toughness point will be 4 going forward. However, with the variety of equipment-like effects, it's often 5.


OUT Burst Lightning, Brimstone Volley, Inferno Trap, Chandra's Outrage
IN Icy Manipulator, Fatal Attraction, Fiery Fall, Contagion Clasp
It feels weird to remove Burst Lightning, because it's one of my favorite red cards. I don't like the idea that Fiery Fall won't always be castable, but it should help support the Green theme that I want to grow. Contagion Clasp might not have the effect I want since it hurts smaller creatures sooner, but I'm willing to test it. The best change here is the inclusion of Icy Manipulator, which has a much closer play pattern to auras, however it does die to removal that is intended for large artifact threats.

IN Needle Drop
This card plays the closest I can find to Lace with Moonglove. Crucially, it doesn't hurt small creatures at all and it makes their presence matter. It can also cycle, which is nice.

OUT Torch Fiend
IN Sylvok Replica
Torch Fiend was typically unsafe to play unless your opponent had an artifact and you could keep up the red since it dies to all burn/ping. While I suspect this would occur much less with the removal overhaul, I'm making this change anyway to make green more relevant and to create a larger variety of creature sizes. 1/3s can create a larger variety of blocking scenarios.

OUT Burning-Eye Zubera
IN Rubblebelt Maaka
This will require some testing to make sure that the replacement is suitable, but Burning-Eye Zubera varied from oppressive to irrelevant depending on the opponent's draws. The Maaka will allow small creatures to attack into large creatures, hopefully trading the 3/3 card for a 4/4. Unlike Brute Force, it can't be used to protect threats from removal. On the other hand, it could theoretically counter combat tricks used defensively.

OUT Thunder Strike, Mutagenic Growth
IN Weapon Surge, Slaughter Cry
The Thunder Strike slot used to be Slaughter Cry, but 3 mana was too expensive to be used defensively. The incoming tricks should be safer to use now with fewer Instants floating around. Unlike pure pump, these two don't bounce off each other, but instead kill all creatures involved. Weapon Surge has the added benefit of efficiently using all of your power in play in group blocks vs large creatures.


Those are all the changes I've decide on thus far, but there remains some work to replace creatures and I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the slots.

REPLACE Goblin Sledder
It's no longer "interesting" to stop a burn spell. It's also not as interesting if you can upgrade Tuktuk whenever you like. Due to the creature size spread, it won't have any relevant effect on combat. If there were red Pacifisms, this might not be true, but there aren't, so it really ought to be replaced.

REPLACE Spikeshot Elder
Ping remains a scourge. I like this card since it's a mana sink, but I don't think I can have this running around anymore.

It's worth noting here that none of the 1-drops remain. Flayer Husk exists, but I'd like to have at least two actual red 1-drops. compared to other colors, red doesn't have any utility 1-drops. All red 1-drops are aggro-oriented. I want a red Drowned Rusalka or something to consider, but nothing exists.

REPLACE Ember Hauler
As alluded to earlier, it's a problem card. If this were a 2/2 with Deathtouch, it would remain. Maybe Ambush Viper is something red would splash? It doesn't care about removal...

REPLACE Ferrovore
I want artifacts to matter more, but this isn't good enough. It's a 2/2. On the other hand, it CAN theoretically trade up, but that's 2-for-1ing yourself. I'd like to sac an artifact to draw a card or loot or something, but that doesn't exist. This just isn't quite good enough.

REPLACE Peace Strider
Gaining life to stabilize is cool. This is probably the most solid of the cards I want to replace and it's definitely something red otherwise can't do. It just doesn't seem quite good enough, but it can stay while I'm changing the more relevant pieces.

REPLACE Fire Servant
I suppose with all the burn leaving, its ability isn't as relevant now, but if it's a vanilla 4/3 for 5, I'd rather replace it with something that does something. It's worth noting that 4/3 are pretty good stats for this slot, though, trading with most of the top-end threats.


Do you guys have any ideas?

I'm having a bit of a Renaissance with Stack design. The Green deck has improved to a ridiculous degree from its original form and it's inspiring me to improve the weaker decks with what's worked.

Here's the last incarnation of the original green deck; it is different from the final version I had built, but it has the same problems. It was designed based on the unique effect of Panglacial Wurm.

This version had some vaguely interesting interactions. Ghost Quarter was the most reliable and efficient way of seaching for Panglacial Wurm. However this deck had huge issues.

The board would stall almost all of the time and would only get unstuck when the variance of draws favored one player over another.

The card quality was all over the place. This not only made for bad hands, but it also made for terrible top decks. Some cards are just entirely irrelevant and in the grand scheme of the deck, likely worse than a land.

In the same realm, the creature size spectrum is huge. Finding relevant 1-drops for this build was hard and awkward.

When an opponent gets a large creature, if the board is stalled it's not as impactful as draw variance. If the board is not stalled, then there are few cards that will let you deal with it.

There is little removal, particularly when it came to removing blockers. Deathtouch is the most common way to deal with large creatures and auras are irrelevant on stalled boards since enchantment removal is sandbagged.


Panglacial Wurm put too much of a strain on the deck. It required removal that could deal with it as well as creatures that could trade with it. When I went off to build a dedicated deck for it, that freed me up to redesign the deck from the ground up.

I relaxed my deck restrictions for the cycle of "mono-colored" decks to allow the green deck to not be stuck with a slight white theme and to be able to splash two colors. I decided that I would use the splashes to give the deck some potent removal as well as make the fewer land-searching effects more interesting.

Without the 9/5 7-drop directing me down certain paths, I was also able to flatten the creature sizes considerably, which would also give me access to Arachnus Web as near-unconditional removal.

Here is the deck as it exists today:
This deck plays radically differently and having access to some interesting Shards of Alara cards was definitely helpful.

The deck does not have a problem with board stalls. The board can stall sometimes, but it's not as if creatures can't trade and Chaos, Shinen of Life's Roar, and Golgari Decoy can break stalls. The deck also has a larger number of creatures with evasion which will keep the game going at a reasonable pace.

Scavenge, and the activated abilities of creatures like Cylian Sunsinger and Twinblade Slasher make sure that creatures are able to punch through for most of the midgame.

The deck spends no card space for dedicated artifact or enchantment hate. Uktabi Faerie and Wane are the only ones respectively and they have other jobs. The only enchantments worth hating are removal, so not reversing removal is also a good thing. The only non-creature artifact wprth killing Flayer Husk, but that's not dominating.

The deck has its own subtheme of Soulshift via Harbinger of Spring (which has a really cool board presence), Rootrunner (which I always liked as a green hill-giant; its ability has actual relevance in this deck as well), Orchard Spirit, and Shinen of Life's Roar.


This deck does removal much, much better. There's so much of it, and it each has its own play pattern.

Utopia Vow and Lignify are permanent answers to certain threats. However, while each are inexpensive their drawbacks are very relevant in the 3-color deck with small creatures. Arachnus Web is able to be used here due to the size of the deck's creatures and it can sometimes be reversed later on. It deals with utility creatures very well, however.

Contagion Clasp outright kills creatures, but is expensive and sometimes slow on larger creatures, but it guarantees an eventual kill and with scavenge counters in the mix, can give some inevitability.

Naya Battlemage's abilities are both very very potent. It's very flexible and cheap removal while able to be dealt with using other removal.

Various creatures have abilities that make them useful as blockers of even larger creatures. Of note, though is that Ambush Viper and Death-Hood Cobra have much better play patterns than the deathtouch creatures in the previous version.

Combat tricks are eaiser to make use of in this version with the creature spectrum being more flat. +3/+3 makes having any 1/1 relevant. Terrifying Presence adds some utility and variance into the mix and interacts well with other cards in the deck. Lace with Moonglove has impressed me the most. It's difficult to stop and lets any creature trade with any other creature without card disadvantage and forces the boardstate to change on both sides.

(Another issue with combat tricks that I'd been having with the the previous deck was that two +4/+4s would cancel out, making the spells irrelevant and creature size all that mattered. Terrifying Presence and Lace With Moonglove are tricks on a different axes from pure pump, which makes them play better. Fewer stalls also means that Resounding Roar and Wax//Wane card rarely have to fight each other.)

White and Red add removal as well, which was the main point. Conveniently, these tend to be the best removal the deck has access to. Assault isn't the most impressive, but it's cheap and it almost always is able to kill something relevant. Orchard Spirit and Naya Battlemage, being the most likely targets. Burst Lightning can kill more things as well as interrupt combat tricks or scavenging. Order and Iona's Judgment deal with creatures of any size, and conveniently also remove Soulshifters from play without triggering them.

All totaled, the deck is roughly 1/4 cards that can profitably interact with the opponent which is even more significant when you look at the chunk outside of lands. Each has its own benefits and costs which makes games play out interestingly.

The deck also handles its 3-colored nature very well. While the deck is essentially mono-green, being able to acquire the other two colors will add value to a significant number of cards. The only cards that require non-green mana to be cast are the strong removal spells Order, Iona's Judgment, and Burst Lightning. Forbidding Watchtower and Ghitu Encampment add an extra layer by asking you to find a second source of the same color to animate them while also providing land-based sources of mana that can't be removed via tutoring. Even if Greenseeker strips both mountains, there at least remains a couple red sources in the deck that the opponent could draw into.


I am very satisfied with this rebuild. It takes an area of utility in green (which produced numerous cards I could select from) and made it a relevant backbone in a deck. Green's removal, while not technically pie-proper, gives the deck a very nice fairness feeling during play.

I was able to make flooding less of a problem. I was able to flatten the card power level. I was able to flatten the creature sizes. I was able to make 1-drops matter and find 1-drops that mattered in-context. I was able to make 1/1 bodies matter more.

I had access to tools in Green that let me meet these goals. I want to copy this success in other decks if I can.