MTG Salvation

Quote from Wraithpk »

I think there are a couple main points that we aren't all in agreement on yet. I want to give my arguments for them, and maybe we can see if we can come to a consensus.

The Tasigur/Angler split

I played Grixis Delver before this, and I've always been a proponent of the 3/1 split in that deck, but I think in this deck the 2/2 split is correct. There were two reasons to play more Tasigurs in Delver: he's easier to play on turn 2 and sometimes you get to 4 mana and get to activate him when you don't have something else to use your mana for. In Shadow, I feel like it's much easier to cast Angler on turn 2 than it is in Delver because of the high number of fetches and Street Wraith. With the closing speed of the deck, I also feel like you don't have as much unused mana to dump into Tasigur activations. So basically, the upsides to playing Tasigur over Angler are lessened in this deck. The upsides for Angler are the extra point of power, which can be relevant against your average sized Goyfs, and that it's not legendary, which is the real sticking point here. You can't play multiple Tasigurs. While I think I would still rather have one Tasigur over an Angler, I would rather have one of each or two Anglers over two Tasigurs. So that's why I feel like the 2/2 split is correct here.

The mana base and RR spells

I think if you want to play Anger and Stone Rain over Kozilek's Return and Fulminator, you HAVE to play 2 Blood Crypts and 1 Steam Vents (in fact, this might just be correct for everyone). It's not hard to hit RR by turn 3, but you often don't want to. Black sources are the most important thing to have because so many of our spells require black mana. I've watched a lot of games where someone fetched a Steam Vents early and then lost the game because they had 3 black spells they wanted to play on a turn but could only play 2. Without RR spells in the deck, I would probably fetch Grave, Grave, Crypt every time if I could. Playing RR spells means you have to fetch Grave, Crypt, Crypt and limit yourself on blue mana, or Grave, Vents, Crypt and limit your black mana (which is probably even worse).

For these reasons, I'm on Fulminator and Kozilek's Return(for now). Anger might still be the better card, but that RR by turn 3 is not free like people have been making it out to be in posts in this thread.

Fourth color splashes

I don't think this is correct to do in this deck. You can't search up your copy of Ranger of Eos like the GBx versions can with Traverse. Lingering Souls is a great card, but they play it because it gives them the ability to play a longer grindy game. We already have that ability with Snapcaster and Serum Visions fixing our topdecks. I just don't think the white splash really does anything for us.

Temur Battle Rage, yes/no?

I haven't been playing it, but I might try it as a 1-of in the main. The card is really good for helping you race when you need to win quickly. I think the ability to add a small comboish aspect to the deck might be worth the opportunity cost of a slot in the main.

Planeswalkers

I think LotV is not right for the deck. We just have too many instant speed things we want to do on our opponent's turn, so I think you'll have too many instances where you don't want to uptick your LotV for several turns because you have a good card in hand you don't want to pitch. I could maybe see 1 in the SB for a matchup like Bogles, but I don't know if I love that

LtLH, on the other hand, seems great in this deck. I've been running 2 SB, but I've seen people running her MD. She's great in grindy matchups, and she's great in matchups where your opponent has a lot of X/1s. She very well may be MD-worthy, since even in matchups that aren't grindy or she's not killing creatures, she can provide fuel for delve and dig to threats.

I'm wondering, has anyone tried Ashiok in this deck? It seems like a crazy mirror breaker.

I think JVP is too slow for the deck. The only upside I can see is that people are probably going to side out their Bolts against you, so if they are using their Pushes and Paths on JVP instead of your actual threats then that's a win for you. I don't think he's worth it, though.

Tibalt is clearly a 4-of in the main deck.

Matchups

I'm not really sure from my own experience, but I can say what I've read from various people. Grixis Shadow supposedly has a good matchup against GBx Shadow. I've also read that Shadow instead of Delver improves the Burn and Tron matchups. From my limited experience with Shadow, it feels like the control matchup would be hard, likely worse than it is for Delver. That's all I really know, though.

Quote from Ember_Twilight »

Quote from buwalda98 »

As a Burn player in Modern, I'm not sure I'd play this. Maybe out of the board.

I don't think anyone is suggesting this is a mainboard card. It's beautiful hate, through and through.

Quote from khaosknight69 »

Seems like a great SB card but a bit too narrow for MB.

Quote from Silver_Spellthief »

Oh man, this would have been ridiculous in that GB Hapatra deck I'm brewing if it only costed B.

Could you imagine dropping this turn one, Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons turn 2, then Exemplar of Strength turn 3? Surprise! I've got two 2/2s, a 4/4 and a 1/1 deathtouch on turn 3!

Oh a man can dream.