MTG Salvation

Opt reprint in Ixalan, boys. Would we want to drop or replace anything for it?

I dropped my Remands to mainboard Countersquall instead, probably one of the best changes I've made to my counter suite.

So question, what's our main strategy against Eldrazi Tron? Is it still just land Fulminator and pray or has it changed up at all?

I mean barring Snap, I run Clique and Kleetus, so it wouldn't be too much of an issue for me to have less creature space and Bolas 2 is another threat. Could make it work.

He's for sure as strong as the original in my opinion. Still enters with a boatload of loyalty and I'm drooling at the thought of flipping a TKS or Prime Time off the top with this.


My real dilemma now is do I abandon the original for this should it prove to be real or run both?

Dlanze, I'm trying to be as neutral to how aggressive stuff was in the past as possible when I say this, but I think the point that Grimbs is trying to make is that since September of last year, a lot of your suggestions have been picked apart and scrutinized and people have tried to explain why your evaluations and suggestions may or may not be wrong and you have a habit of retorting with "okay, but this is why I'm right" and typing out a huge text wall or just trying to ignore the criticism like you are when you're saying the last paragraph should be deleted in your last comment. Where Grimble's coming from makes sense, it's frustrating as all hell to put so much time in to trying to explain to someone why they might be wrong about something and have that person just brush them off.

You also kind of have a habit of making suggestions for people based off cards you use and your build specifically. Like you make suggestions to newer people based on how your build is and sometimes those suggestions are just uh...a little off and it's kind of detrimental because people that don't know any better will take that information as truth and it'll bite them in the ass when they go to play their deck in a tourney or FNM and find out that the information they were given was kind of ****y and they end up losing as a result.

And I know it hasn't been brought up, but it just might need to be restated: this is a COMPETITIVE thread. Most of us here are trying to play competitively in some way and a lot of the cards or strategies you've suggested don't hold up in a competitive environment and we've explained why that is in the past, be it because of the meta or because of how they hold up against certain builds or how slow or fast they are. This doesn't mean that everyone else here wants their builds to be 100% the same with no variation or differences so that we can all copy and paste each others lists and try to 12/0 a tournament and that we're all netdecking just to win, it just means that we're using the knowledge that we have about the meta and competitive environment when we make suggestions for the deck or talk about changes or try to explain why your evaluations might be off.

I've retooled my own list once again, kind of minor changes, but it's change all the same:

http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/cruelty-loves-company-1/

Changes made were -2x Remand and -1 Keranos, God of Storms and went back to 2x Countersquall in the main and 2xPithing Needle and 1x Izzet Staticaster in the side.

With Vegas approaching, I'm looking to shift my land base around a bit. Cascade Bluffs is probably going to be dropped along with a swamp for other dualies, but I can't decide on which ones. I've thought about maybe adding in some checklands ala Sulfur Falls or Drowned Catacomb to replace the Bluffs but I can't decide on whether or not I should run two. Any thoughts?

Again Dlanze, Lili nonbos with a counter suite, but she also wins games and Surf has cards like Think Twice that work with her. People don't play her just because she's a popular card, they play her because she wins games on her own if left alone, we've been over this before with strong cards in the past. Tamiyo on the other hand, while neat, takes too long to get to the ultimate and makes you miss a turn if you play her on curve. Bolas is expensive and makes you pay more mana than Tami does, but he's almost on par with playing an Emrakul with how strong his abilities are.

Also Surf, we have a discord server if you'd like to join that too. There's a link to it in the OP.

Hey, yo, welcome to the thread, Surf. Your deck looks pretty good, I agree with your reasons for running LOTV even if she nonbos a bit with a counter suite. Looking forward to seeing your tourney results.

Also mentioned this on the discord server, but I started running Pithing Needle in my board when I made changes this past thursday and good lord, was it useful. I didn't realize how good it was until now, but needle just seems like it takes care of so many of the threats in our problem matchups. Like it hits Batterskull, Expedition Map, Karn, Ugin, Walking Ballista, etc., and that's just the tron match.

It doesn't have to be EXACTLY from the primer, but adding fetches to the land base along with a few shocks and going up to 24 land wouldn't hurt and changing the spell base up would benefit the deck. The Terminates could go down to 3 because four isn't 100% necessary, the Doom Blades could be swapped for Fatal Push just because it hits most creatures in modern, the Spell Pierces (only hit noncreature, won't always counter) and Vapor Snags (bouncing isn't as permanent as killing) could be swapped for three Mana Leak, three Cryptic Command, and two Spell Snare or Countersquall depending on what other decks you play, and the Anticipates and Telling Times, while decent, can be swapped for Serum Visions and either Ancestral Vision for deeper draws or Think Twice if you can't afford Ancestrals which is fine. Banefire struck me as a strange choice for a control deck, but then again with a moon deck, it's a neat idea.

As far as threats go, Gurmag is good, but you don't really have the support to get it delved out early, so it isn't as efficient to have them as it would be if you were going all in on getting those out early. Since you're running Moon, it would help to have a colorless threat like Batterskull involved since it's easy to cast with Moon out. Lastly, it wouldn't hurt to get Snapcaster Mages if budget isn't an issue. The deck can be played without them, but they just give the deck more reach with Bolt-Snap-Bolt being a thing that wins games.

If you need further ideas for your build, take a look at Blue Moon for ideas if you haven't already seen this, they do the same thing but in two colors rather than three.

DSDX, your idea of a Cruel deck running Blood Moon has been tossed around a bit here actually. Course your land base and spell choices could be improved, but the concept has been talked about before. Have you used this much at all in any modern tournaments or FNMs?

Gonna be testing censor too. The counter effect is definitely a bit weak, but the cycling attached to it might be enough to redeem it. I'm also personally going to test Pull from Tomorrow as like a Sphinx's Revelation impression for our deck and see what comes of it.

Edit: Ninja'd by Grimble

I'm glad to announce that we now have a Discord server up and running specifically for our deck type. It's not meant to replace the thread we have here at all, but it's got different channels for different aspects of the deck like matchup advice, card and build tests, tournament results, as well as some general purpose and off topic chats as well as a text channel and voice channels specifically meant for setting up online games for practice with each other. You can reach the server by following this link, just be sure to read the rules and choose a role once you're done doing so. It's late now, so I can't choose any mods right now, but we'll hopefully get that settled over the next day or so along with working out whatever kinks might be left over with the channels.


If anyone has trouble with the link or with the server itself, leave me a message and I'll be sure to respond as soon as I check in here tomorrow.

3/3 split of Ancestral and Serum is the best bet. You're still likely to draw Ancestral on t1 and you're less likely to draw into it late game when you need other spells or threats. It's also better to just get the set out of the way now so you won't need it later on when they're even more expensive.

I think it was a joke reference to the typo on Wit's End. Course if it wasn't, that's another story.