MTG Salvation

Quote from stompstompstomp »

Doubtful. There's a plethora of big dumb beaters at 6+ mana already available. The only 6 CMC cards that get run are Inferno Titan and Big Chandra. Both of them don't just put on a fast clock, they also sweep away our opponents creatures to give us a good board state.

There are a lot of bombs in the 6cmc range, but hexproof and can't be countered are 2 abilities most don't have. At the end of the day it comes down to personal preference and your meta, but I would say this card is more than worthy of being tested.

One thing that hasn't been brought up much is how high the skill ceiling of Jace really is- many people think that brainstorming at every opportunity you have is correcT- this is 100% incorrect. Oftentimes it is actually correct to +2 on your opponent. I'm going to go over how to play Jace in the most optimal way possible when I get back from work today- I see people misplaying with him all the time and it's starting to tilt me.

On behalf of the Merfolk community, I'd like to apologize. That dude's a scrub. Don't let this worsen the relations between us, Vial-brothers.

I would say that Mind Stone is pretty huge for the deck, for three reasons:

- It ramps into T3 TKS with no Temple or Map in hand, or T3 Smasher with 1 Temple in hand. These two creatures are significantly better when played ahead of curve rather than fairly, and in this aspect they are basically Eldrazi Temple 5 and 6 in the opening hand.

- It smoothes out both flooding and mana screw. You can use it to help cast all the expensive cards in the deck through less land draws when tron fails to assemble, or you can cantrip it for a threat late in the game, whether you had it in the opening hand or just top decked it turn 12.

- Resilience to Blood Moon. Yes, you could Map for one of your two wastes if you don't draw your wastes naturally, but by the time you get your wastes you might be looking at a board of planeswalker(s) and Stormbreath Dragons from Skred, you'd be dead against Affinity, and against storm you'd also be dead because you can't Warping Wail, TKS, or Spatial Contortion without a colorless source. Mind Stone helps us smash through a blood moon and turn it into a massive tempo loss for the opponent. Blood moon isn't about them auto winning from it, it's about buying time for tempo.

I was on /r/modernmagic and saw the weekly Modern Tiered List post, and I noticed that most decks in tier 1 are weak to relic game 1. Both versions of Death's Shadow (Jund, Grixis), Dredge, Storm, and GWx Company are potentially heavily impacted by a relic, leaving Burn and Affinity where it doesn't do anything. Even half of the decks in Tier 2 are affected by it. I think relic is a great addition to the deck, for two reasons:

- Dredge, Storm, and GWx Company are all decks we need some Game 1 help against, and they combined make up a significant part of the meta that is not Shadow or Eldrazi Tron. 4 relics post-sideboard totally change the Dredge and Storm matchups. Devoted Druid decks can combo at will if they have a god opening hand game 1 unless we have Dismember(s) in ours. Relic can help us interact or draw extra cards before turn 3 in that matchup.

- I think a large factor in Todd's success with the deck through the past month or more is the streamlined and consistent build of the deck he runs. Through Endbringer, Matter Reshaper, Sea Gate, Mind Stone, and now Relic, this deck's late game plan is to see a lot of cards in our deck, draw a lot of cards to smother the board in Eldrazi or draw into an All is Dust or Karn to remove the opponents board. Endbringer and Karn can do so many things for you late game that anything beyond that isn't necessary. Decks that draw and see a lot of their cards do well (Serum Visions, Thought Scour, Street Wraith, and Bauble are all cards Shadow decks use to see a lot of their cards, thereby a lot of their threats). Drawing cards is one of the best things you can do in Magic, and cantrips that provide somewhat consistent bonuses are always great for this reason. The meta is prime for mainboard relics right now, and from personal experience I an say it boosted my BW Eldrazi deck's performance with how much graveyard interaction and cantripping it gave me game 1.

Clearly with a guy running the Sanctum + Ulamog package in the top 32, going that route instead is totally viable. Rather than the above plan, you're looking for either a Sanctum, your Ulamog, or an expedition map to get Sanctum, and you slam that down and it ends any stalemate game or game that would otherwise be a loss in 1 or more turns. You'll get a 7 cost card by the, even using a chalice or ballista if you have to. Ulamog can and will get you there, but there will also be game 1's against decks like Burn or Storm where you don't make it past turn 3, or games where you fall just short of casting an Ulamog in your hand and lose because of it. I really like drawing extra cards beyond my draw for turn, so I'm definitely more drawn to the consistent build a la Todd Stevens' list. And I'm super pumped to try out maindeck relics.