MTG Salvation

The double black mana to cast LOTV can be difficult, and LOTV won't enter the battlefield until the 3rd turn; when I play the B/R Roulette deck, I really need to kill someone by turn 4, most times, so playing Lili on Turn 3 won't have much effect and won't advance my game plan. I'm either already winning, at which point LOTV becomes a "win-more" card, or I'm behind and LOTV probably can't save me... It seems to me that the Roulette deck is sort of difficult to effectively sideboard with; of the popular "pro" list, the flex spots are 4 Lightning Bolts and 2 Collective Brutality. All 6 of those cards are useful and powerful, and in many instances, the exact tool we need... Diluting the game plan for sideboard cards is not advisable, as you want to maintain explosiveness.

It seems to me that with B/R Roulette, for any "bad matchups" like Bogles, or Humans or whatever, that you just hope to EXPLODE out of the gate and run them over before they stabilize. Winning the "long game" can be a bit much for any of these bad matchups, so you hope that Burning Inquiry helps your game plan, and hopefully mangles theirs.

So, I first bought the pieces for the deck after it had been out a few months, but hadn't exploded in popularity yet... I remember going to Lucky's, my local badass card shop, with a list of cards for the deck, and managed to walk out having spent about 30 bucks to get the Goblin Lores, the Burning Inquiries, and a few other pieces for the "stock" list.
Fast forward 3 months, and now Goblin Lores are going for about 25 bucks a pop... Making me wonder, is Goblin Lore the most expensive "uncommon" currently being played in Modern? Seems like it's on the top end of that list for sure.

What I love about the deck is that it feels decidedly "old school," and can have explosive first turns that just win the game for you... I remember back in the old days, when Swamp, Dark Ritual, Hypnotic Specter on the first turn would just WIN games by itself... Burning Inquiry into 2 Hollow Ones, with a graveyard full of Bloodghasts feels pretty solid and fun, and old-school explosive.

I like old-school explosive.

The set looks pretty solid and fun for Standard, with maybe a few Modern cards as well. None of my major decks got any major additions, but some of my more janky, silly decks will get some fun cards for them... I like the new GGG 5/4 elf; a good fit for Stompy, even upgrading the Leatherback Baloth. Some of the sagas seem neat, the predominance of "legendary" cards... Pretty cool...

I like the Icy Manipulater in the new, slow Standard. It's really "cute" to see Thorn Elemental and Verdant Force making a comeback, although there are not many cards with a converted mana cost higher than 6 that I EVER play... The set looks pretty solid. It will be interesting to see what decks come to light, as people can literally start playtesting months in advance now, albeit with proxy cards... When Dominaria hits the ground/stores and goes legal, the metagame will be pre-developed, I bet, with people having discovered the best brews already... Could prove to be interesting... After most rotations, the "meta," especially in the shops, tends to be wide open and malleable for a week or few... I doubt that will be the case with the next rotation.

Although this would require playing Mardu Burn (and most players don't), one card that I really like in my SB for the Bogles matchup, or against other decks with big creatures like Death's Shadow or Tarmogoyf is the card Crackling Doom. This seems like a spicy SB addition in a meta where Bogles is prominent.

When I cast my Delve creatures in my version of B/R with Amalgams, I usually want all the creatures to say in the graveyard, and try to exile the Burning Inquiries, Goblin Lores, Collective Brutality, discarded Hollow Ones, things like that. That way my Amalgams, Bloodghasts and Phoenix can still do their thing in harmony. In my build, Soulflayer wouldn't jive with the rest of the deck; if it naturally had flying, maybe...

With other decks, I always mulligan if I don't get TWO lands. However, on playing this deck, I've learned to accept 1-land hands, especially if I have a Faithless Looting or Burning Inquiry, Street Wraith or something like that.

I would be hard pressed to keep a no-land hand, though I do see why you were tempted to try.

I'm surely in the minority as I run B/R Hollow One with Amalgams, and that may prove to be the less effective list, but I've been having a ball playing it the last few FNM's. I went 3-1 with my list last night, grabbing 4th at my local FNM.

I love the deck; it has such power and resilience, and can be crazy explosive. I lost one match, a terrible matchup against a Lantern deck, when he stabilized early, got the Ensnaring Bridge out early, and had me "locked" soon thereafter. I scooped rather than have my soul ground out by the Lantern deck, but was pleased with good results after that.

Turn 1 Hollow Ones are powerful, but unreliable due to all the random discard. I had this great sequence last night. Turn 1 Adept, Turn 2, Faithless Looting, draw two, discard Bloodghast, discard Amalgam, cycle Street Wraith, play land, Landfall trigger Bloodghast, activate Amalgam (EoT), cast Hollow One, cast Burning Inquiry with my available red mana, we both draw three, discard 3 at random, attack for 7 with Flameblade, end of turn Amalgam into play. My opponent just shook his head. It was a great 2 turn set up. The deck is a lot of fun.

Yeah, I opted to only buy 2 Street Wraith to start, as I had to buy Bloodghasts as well to build the deck.

I do agree, that a full set of Street Wraith is mandatory.

I played the deck at my FNM last night; on several occasions, I had two Hollow Ones in play at the end of the first turn.

This deck seems wacky powerful, and like a deck that will be "on the rise" in the months ahead.

If you look at my Decks portion of my profile, you can see my list if your are interested. I've built this in the last week after seeing SaffronOlive's take on the deck and have been fascinated by it...

Sometimes, the deck is a smelly donkey that you want to drop-kick, but that's rare. I had a weird situation playing last night (due to Godly draw and even better luck with random discard) where I had THREE Hollow Ones on the board on the first term, and a bunch of correlating Bloodghasts and Amalgams by turn 2... Nuts, man... Absolute nuts.

That might even beat a "Vintage" deck on occasion.

The go-to cards have skyrocketed in price over the last two weeks. This deck will be a THING, I think... And I'm really glad to have pooled the necessary cards to build it.

It's Way Fun too...

I have a feeling that Rivals of Ixalan will be more relevant to the metagame once our next Banned and Restricted announcement comes out; methinks the Energy mechanic will have an unwelcome/welcome (depending on your perspective) neutering, and will lose several key cards from its arsenal. I would say 3 cards, probably with Attune with Aether and Aether Hub being the first 2 most likely candidates.

I built this deck myself, as I had a bunch of great black cards that had not made the cut for other decks. So, I pooled all those good black cards together, took it to FNM and expected to lose a bunch. The only problem was... I didn't lose very much... My $40 worth of cards was resilient, fast and reliable.

Here was a general outline of my deck:



Since I was playing with cast off cards from other decks, I didn't put my Thoughtseizes, or my IoK's in the deck, or my Fatal Pushes, and then opted for the what seemed to be the less optimal "draw 2 cards, pay 2 life" cards. But I ultimately found that my Vampires did so much work for me that I had lots of life to spare, and that I actually liked those cards. But as others have pointed out, Thoughtseize and Inquisitions and Fatal Pushes are such solid cards that they should merit consideration.

I have changed my list from above, pulling the Messengers for Obliterators, as you have mentioned, and that raised the cost of the deck from like $42.00 to $130.00 or so, as I now have 3 Obliterators. I changed the Murders to Hero's Downfall, but most of the deck has stayed the same.

I love the Obliterators, personally. They gum up the battlefield, and basically prevent your opponents from attacking with anything ground-based. The difficult casting cost also proves wonderful with the Gray Merchant.

I've had the deck close to a year now, and it's one of my most reliable, most fun, and most successful decks... Highly recommended. Check out my Decks on this site if you want to see my exact current decklist, but it's not too far from above. For a "budget" deck, it packs a lot of punch.

Quote from SilverWolf_27 »

The interaction with planeswalkers is imo the most interesting thing here. You get to activate twice in one turn, resetting the loyalty in between. That's not a bad effect at all.

I'm not quite grasping the card yet, but why would it even be limited to twice? If someone "Disperses to the Wind" my Lilianna, can I just recast her infinite times... Something seems to be lost in translation here... As long as she remains "in exile." Does recasting the card then pull that card out of exile? I'm not quite grasping everything here... This does seem like an interesting card, though... Just not sure I have had enough coffee to grok what is really going on with it.

I do try to play around self-damage when I can, especially with the painful manabase of modern. I do see the value of quick Eidolon, although delaying a turn and firing lightning bolts first saves me 4 damage (say 2 bolts, and 2 Eidolon damage triggers to me). Although, there are instances when I recognize the need to go ahead and play EotGR now and avoid counters, discard, etc. So, there is no hard and fast rule for me... All Hail Eidolon...

Kind of tricky card; well-designed. I love it.