MTG Salvation

The main differences between the websites is that the staff are now able to try all-sorts of different functionality within the MTGNexus website, where as they weren't able to do much at all with Salvation as they didn't actually own it and were limited with what they could try.

MTGNexus is just going to get better and better overtime with new features and functionality, where as Salvation is going to remain stagnate and realistically go backwards, because the staff who were maintaining the website here are now working on Nexus.
Maybe Salvation will get some new staffers to move things forward, but realistically that is unlikely due to the limitations that are already there.

MTGNexus really is a gift to Magic enthusiasts.

I'd give him the perfect score of 5/7.

I think the fastest to combo deck is "Breakfast Hulk". Based around Flash + Protean Hulk, with billions of tutors to pair them up.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/breakfast-hulk/
In this respect you can easily combo on Turn 2 or 3 with the right cards. So as far as not playing the game, if you're opponents don't have an answer games are very quick.

I think "Food Chain Tazri" is probably the next fastest to combo and I've played my friends version quite a few times and pulled out Turn 3 wins consistently and even had backup counterspells that I didn't even need to use during the combo turn.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/food-chain-tazri/

However if you want to try and control the game, i.e. stop the degenerate nature a bit, then "Rashmi Control" is a good bet.
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/infinite-eternities-that-also-last-a-long-time/
It has billions of answers to what opponents are trying to do.

Or another control deck that is 4 colors;
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/4c-rashmi-curious-control/

But all these decks are complicated and there are tons of intricate interactions that you'd want to learn and master, so it's not like you can just go in and expect to dominate and win. All the decks need practice to learn what each card is capable of.

I just want to say how freaking exciting it is to have real control over the potential functionality of what can be done on Nexus.

Feyd_Ruin has stepped up and been a boss with listening to feedback, and honestly if you can dream it, it will probably be done in the future.

It's going to be all the things you've wanted from a Magic website bundled into one. There is obviously going to be some teething time to work in features and sort out bugs, but the foundation is boundless as far as I can see.

You're just going to have to trust that the brightest future is at Nexus if you're a true Magic fan. I love you Sally for all that you've done, but your limits have been reached and it's time to move on to what the actual forum users want from a content delivery point of view.

Quote from cryogen »

Quote from darrenhabib »

The ability to create tables with rows and columns for any content. Not just for the decks. This would help a lot.

This is already a feature

Cool, what's the syntax? I tried [table][tr][td]...

On that note if a bbcode syntax page is created with a full list of available options.

The ability to create tables with rows and columns for any content. Not just for the decks. This would help a lot.

The hard part is making sure you have a decent distribution, because there are just so many 2 mana auras that are better than a lot of the other converted mana costs.

1 cmc
Private Research
Sisay's Ingenuity
Vanishing
Curious Obsession

2 cmc
Hermetic Study
Psionic Gift
Immobilizing Ink
Dragon Wings
Eel Umbra
Fate Foretold
Ghostly Wings
Ghostly Touch
Aura of Dominion
Cartouche of Knowledge

3 cmc
Puppet Master
Sinking Feeling
Curator's Ward
False Demise
Field of Reality

4 cmc
Disappear
Flight of Fancy
Call to the Kindred
Abduction

5 cmc
Octopus Umbra
Drake Umbra
Fool's Demise

Another idea is that you could play Leyline of Anticipation and Vedalken Orrery along with a lot of return permanent cards like, Coastal Breach, Crush of Tentacles, Devastation Tide, Displacement Wave, Kederekt Leviathan, Paradoxical Outcome, River's Rebuke, Wash Out, in response to it's trigger.

Quote from cyberium_neo »

As I've asked in another thread: What would be an optimal number of tribal cards in Kallia #2 to make it consistent? Rather, is there a formula that could help calculating it?

The chance to "draw" a tribal card is = [(Total # of tribal cards in deck) - (# of tribal cards NOT in deck)] / (Cards left in the library)

Kaalia enters/blinks would take 6 cards off the top of the remaining deck at once, I'm not sure how the formula would go with the one above. Ideally, average ETB/blink should net 2+ cards. This feels so calculus...

I use this webpage for calculating "chances".
http://www.unseelie.org/cgi-bin/cardco.cgi?deck=99&target=9&hand=7

Quote from toctheyounger77 »

So literally 4 of the primer committee members are building Yawgmoth. This just goes to show that while Urza was on the side of good, he was lacking in panache and had an infinitely more punchable face

I just picked Yawg up yesterday and put together an ad hoc list. Definitely closer to Kelzam’s in terms of build, purely because I don’t currently own a lot of mono black walkers. This is sort of the perfect deck for the latest Lili though, so I may introduce that element - for now though it’s very much a list centered around Yawg’s draw power. I’ll get a few play tests in and then probably bring my list online for critique.

Just a thought, not sure if it’s something we could go all in on, but there’s at least a couple of stax elements that do counters - Smokestack and Tangle Wire in particular. Has anyone tossed up running this sort of stuff?

I do have Black Moon and combined with Karn, the Great Creator will shut off most non-black decks.

I think you could definitely make a more competitive version with Smokestack and Tangle Wire, with Null Rod as well.

Also it must be noted that you don't really have any ETB effects, everything is dies triggers, so a Torpor Orb can easily be played.
I think the only two cards are Geralf's Messenger and Josu Vess, Lich Knight, so replacing Josu with Torpor Orb can be done in more competitive metas.

As far as Sphere effects like Trinisphere and Sphere of Resistance, you'd be fine I think. You get to spend a lot of your mana on graveyard recursion creatures, which is not effected by these types of cards, so I think they could be options if you headed that way.

Very much tribal, but you might not have thought about.
Crib Swap, Mirror Entity, Taurean Mauler, Graveshifter.

Obviously Kaalia of the Vast and depending on how stats of your creatures work out Imperial Recruiter can search for her at the very least. Same with Recruiter of the Guard if stats line up with your creature base.

There is a combo package with Felidar Guardian, Restoration Angel and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker.
Felidar Guardian and Restoration Angel give you additional ETB with Kaalia, Zenith Seeker by themselves.

Ilharg, the Raze-Boar is a nice way to cheat in your bigger creatures, especially those with brutal ETBs.

Planar Guide is another way of getting ETB and protection from board wipes.

Blood Speaker for repeatable value.

Quote from Gashnaw II »

And Vanifar was removed simply due to the mana cost of creatures. there is a very large amount of 4 and 6, not many 5 and unlike most vanifar use, they don't combo off. So I felt t was a wasted slot. She is better as a commander or in a deck more focused for her.

The plan was..
Zegana, Utopian Speaker -> Roalesk, Apex Hybrid -> Prime Speaker Zegana -> Protean Hulk -> restart a lower chain, i.e. Coiling Oracle + Biomancer's Familiar + Gyre Sage, or whatever suited.

But because there are no other sacrifice outlets the Protean Hulk seemed better in Iona, so removing Vannifar seems fine.
The other one was getting Biogenic Ooze at 5 cmc, so that you'd get a split in creatures which is nice to start the chains again. But there was literally only Birds of Paradise at 1 cmc, so again removing this makes her worse. Vannifar is an Ooze so you'd get the +1/+1 counter from the Biogenic Ooze

Quote from Gashnaw II »

I notice many of your cards overlap and while it may not be your intention it does make the decks feel a little similar. yeah that is the main idea (to have them balanced) but with Utopian sprawl and Birds, that s fast mana fr green that non green will not be able to get. Its is not like Gruul will not be able to get fatties out. i feel i will have to limit all mana accel to what everyone has access to. (i know it is green's greatest strength, but that was not the plan. i wanted to abuse guild strength not color strengths. (Which is again why i wanted to keep it in Ravnica. Simic always has +1/+1 counters (graft, evolve, adapt) Golgari is more about grave play shenanigans, and gruul is about being a timmy. Each guild has their thing, so i wanted to build the decks that way. Focus on what they are good at instead of what they can run. (And then limit what they can run) (If i open ended these builds. 100 bucks and I could finish all these decks in an afternoon. But that may not balance them right.

None of the overlap cards are that important anyway, they are just good cards.
The only cards I'd have in both decks are Perilous Forays, Nullmage Shepherd, Chord of Calling, Finale of Devastation.
If you only wanted to run Chord of Calling and Finale of Devastation in one deck then choose Izoni, Thousand-Eyed as Simic has a more robust distribution of cards, where Iona wants those key dredgers.

I hadn't looked at artifacts so there are some easy replacements. I do think the bottleneck in Iona is mana, so changing draw elements for mana is probably a better deck anyway.

Izoni, Thousand-Eyed
Remove
Utopia Sprawl
Beast Whisperer
Primordial Sage
Guardian Project
Naturalize

Add
Illusionist's Bracers
Plague Boiler
Golgari Signet
Golgari Locket
Sundering Vitae

Zegana, Utopian Speaker
Remove
Birds of Paradise
Protean Hulk

Add
Simic Signet
Simic Locket

Quote from Tears of Tomorrow (post EU) »

Question: why did you not consider Ob Nixilis Reignited for this? His ultimate gives you an emblem that hurts people when you draw. Yawgmoth likes to draw. Seems decent enough.

Yeah, just not quite good enough. The first two abilities, draw and kill are what Yawgmoth does anyway in spades. And then the emblem is just a bit slow, only targeting one person. It definitely puts that person under a clock. But yeah just the sum of it's parts didn't inspire me to play him.

In a similar manner Liliana of the Veil ultimate only targeting one playing makes it hard to justify.

They are close, but just needed to be a little less narrow on their ultimates for me personally.

As I was researching green for Simic, I couldn't help but notice cards that were going to fuel an Izoni, Thousand-Eyed strategy, so thought I might as well do this one as well.

Mini-primer coming up, lol. It's a dredge strategy to get creatures into your graveyard for Izoni undergrowth ability.
Obviously getting dredge online requires some key cards. There are very few search library effects to get these with the Ravinca block, so I've been careful to maximize these, so that you can get dredge going sooner.

Dredge
Golgari Grave-Troll
Golgari Thug <- Shred Memory
Stinkweed Imp
Life from the Loam <- Shred Memory

Being able to discard a dredge outlet, rather than casting is nice, especially if it's Golgari Grave-Troll you're looking to use.
But luckily Izoni, Thousand-Eyed ability to sacrifice a creature, means that you can hard cast Golgari Thug or Stinkweed Imp each turn to get the dredge.

Discard outlets
Erstwhile Trooper
Lotleth Troll
Pack Rat
Vivien's Arkbow

Jarad's Orders one of the best cards in the deck as you can setup dredge and discard, for example Golgari Grave-Troll and Lotleth Troll.
Jarad's Orders <- Dimir House Guard

Chord of Calling and Finale of Devastation could easily be used get you a dredge creature in a pinch.

There are also plenty of other ways to get cards into your graveyard, with additional big pay off rewards like, Command the Dreadhorde, Empty the Catacombs, Finale of Eternity.

You're looking to take the game into the later stages, and grinding people out with some mass removal, which you should be able to claw back from more easily with Izoni, Thousand-Eyed card draw ability, and big reanimation effects. You're quite happy to kill off your own Izoni in the process so that you can recast her for value again.

It might be that you just use Life from the Loam to make sure to get land drops every turn to get to the grindy latter stages of the game, so that you have mana to keep recasting your commander in the face of removal.

Savra, Queen of the Golgari is especially good combined with Izoni, Thousand-Eyed to lock down opponents.
Woebringer Demon does a similar job of squeezing people out, while your own 1/1 black and green Insect creature tokens give it fodder.

A nice interaction is using Awaken the Erstwhile to make everybody discard their hands, and then Izoni, Thousand-Eyed allows you to refill your hand much more quickly by sacrificing the Zombies you created.

I've been careful to avoid the "scavenge" ability that was a mechanic through some of the blocks, as you really want to keep your creatures in graveyard for other spells, but the one Varolz, the Scar-Striped can be used as another finisher once life totals are down and attacking seems good.

There are some big payoff cards that use your life total like; Doom Whisperer, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Command the Dreadhorde, Bolas's Citadel.
So even though you get some life gain through Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, there are some other life gain elements through Deathrite Shaman, Crypt Ghast, Pontiff of Blight, Savra, Queen of the Golgari, Swarm Guildmage.
Make sure you pad your life total by blocking (even chump blocking if necessary), because creatures going to graveyard isn't the worst, especially if you're lining up a big removal spell anyway like Massacre Girl, Gaze of Granite type spell, or big reanimation/recursion spell like Command the Dreadhorde or Empty the Catacombs or Finale of Eternity.

Alright here is my attempt at the Simic deck. It's a good stuff +1/+1 counter matter and just has plenty of draw and additional ways to produce mana, aka "what Simic does".

Some interactions to look out for is Vigean Graftmage and Incubation Druid can give you infinite mana.
Also look to put a +1/+1 on Prime Speaker Vannifar to get multiple uses with Vigean Graftmage.

Don't be shy about using Ooze Flux to make Oozes and then sacrificing them to Perilous Forays to setup your mana base more.