MTG Salvation

Here's a R/G version, draft copy



The deck is not exactly good, but we're getting there.
9 LD spells + 8 LD creatures = 17 LD cards (counting Detritivore and Shivan Wumpus in)
3 Crucible of worlds for recursivity.
Birds and Elves for speed. Wall of roots better for the aggro? At least it survives an early pyroclasm...
In an earlyer version I ran 4 Icefalls but I didn't play the recover cost that often, so I droped down to 2 icefalls.

I tend not to like that version with black, because without the elves of deep shadow, the chances of a turn 2 land destruction spell are slim, and the multiple black mana requirements of smallpox, damnation, plague sliver, garza's assassin and rain of tears makes the 3 color deck hard. For instance, if you're running green, you better play a full 4 sylvan scrying to get Uborg out quick.

If you're opening for the black path, the cardpool gets too big and the deck dosen't get steadily faster. I'd like to keep away from that path, as you need a both fast and steady deck if you want to win against UB faeries and BG elves, as well as RB goblins and WG kithkins.

Black candidates:
Gravern Cairns
Uborg, tomb of Yawgmoth
Damnation
Smallpox
Rain of tears
Garza's Assassin
Slaughter "spotremovalmadebetter" pact
Profane command
Toughtseize
Distress
Haakon, Stomgald Scrouge
Nameless inversion
Strangling Soot
Plague Sliver
Extirpate
Shimmian Specter
Hypnotic Specter

much needed:
Coalition Relic - for double black
Sylvan Scrying - get that Uborg out

If you want to exploit that cardpool, along with the already proposed cardpool (and all I've left out, such as Gaea's Herald), you'll have to cut where I'd like better not to.

To be viable in the actual T2, a deck must be able to
a) outrace agro
b) disturb combo (mainly haakon & mono red storm)
c) slay a major threath, or an annoying platinium angel
d) manage not to let control get over 3 mana

A 3 color LD deck doing all that would be wonderful, but I doubt it's achievable... I just playtested the second version (without crucible and boom/bust) and I liked it, but it's not making a good win record facing the current meta. Facing "random" it works on a good wining record (standard-built casual decks) but against tournament archetypes, it's just not doing it. Maybe I'm just a poor player.

I noticed Vesuva works well with the Ld theme. Slays legendary lands for free, replayable with crucible of worlds, make a new (and full) gemstone mine, makes an horizon canopy you will sacrifice to draw, etc etc etc etc

Magus of the moon owns a lot of decks too, so a manabase not too dependant of nonbasic lands could benefit this as a powerful tool, but using it in a RGB deck is not necessarily possible.

What's missing to the Standard r/g land destruction deck? It dosen't have access to a 3-drop LD spell, but it has some very strong spells. Here's a thrown-out list, sorry it looks messy and it's not a proper, playtested, actual decklist:

Larger creatures doing land destruction
- Detritivore
- Shivan Wumpus
- Avalanche Riders

Good 1 Drops / mana creatures
- Birds of Paradise
- Llanowar Elves
- Rites of flames
- Wall of roots

Solid smaller threaths
- Quirion Dryad
- Tarmogoyf

Extensive land destruction
- Boom/Bust
- Mwonvuli Acid-Moss
- Creeping Mold
- Icefall

Card advantage
- Crucible of Worlds
- Eternal Witness
- Harmonize
- Civic Wayfinder
- Evolution Charm

Creature removal
- Pyroclasm
- Incinerate
- Molten Disaster

Other Candies
- Stormbind
- Masticore
- Timbermare

Manabase:
- Horizon Canopy (think crucible of worlds)
- Terramorphic expanse (think crucible)
- Gemstone mine (think... allright, I said it twice already)
- Grove of the burnwillows
- The obvious

The potential R/G Land destruction cardpool is more than decent. The real problem is to keep a good balance of burn/removal and LD to fight both fast (ub faerie, bg elves, etc) and slow (mono b guile, manaramp) decks.

Aside from that, do you think we need to playtest against mono red storm? Lots think the deck will be dead by regionals.

Any comment or potential builds are welcome. If someone can show me how to post a nice looking decklist, please do.

Burning Tree Shaman and Slum district would be neat. A set of char could make finishing easyer, but that would be just too gruul.

p.s. It spells flame TONGUE Kavu, tounge would prononunce like "lounge" with a T. gue = hard G. And I like to have at least 3 of them. It's a very good card, especially in a pandemonium/fires deck. You can deal 12 in a single turn.

Tarmogoyf is a nice + if you plan to lose, cause it's easy to hardcast when things go wrong ;). The deck used to be just fine with 2 Krosan Cloudscraper, which the zombi ate up to come into play 26/26, enchanted by dragon's breath, and that's beautiful ;). Tarmogoyf is a very good addition, if you can afford it, but I believe it's by no way mandatory.

The 1st list is flawed because it's going in every direction. You threw in good ideas for a kick-ass graveyard deck but you have to choose what 60 cards will make the deck. You want a plan to build a good deck, and I sugest that before you even want to make a list, you decide wether you...

a) want to kill with hasty Bridge tokens
b) want to kill with a pumped up ghoul (requires no bridges, 1 dread return)
c) want to kill with kiki-jiki / sky hussar (in which case you need bridges and 2 dread return) or any 2 creatures deadly combo (I like triskelion + mephidross vampire on that one)
d) want to use Ichorids to either sacrifice to cabal's therapy and dread returns, or to just plain attack
e) want to use psychatog as a finisher (only viable with the ichorid variants, me think)

f) want to mill yourself with cephalid illusionist + shuko/en-kor creatures (no, just shuko is not a viable option if you want to go off on turn 2 fairly often)
g) want to mill yourself by dredging (recquires some good dredge enabler. I like magus of the bazaar on that one, it doubles as a discard outlet).

Almost every combinaison is possible, and you can make a kicking deck that crosses strategies, but in order to achieve your goal, you must know what you're trying to achieve.

Either way, you don't need many many lands, and you should consider a set of chrome moxes because speed is an issue.

You can win a decent tournament with a 45$ build that runs on low lands and no chrome mox, I swear (no bragging, not my victory ;), but you have to know exactly where you're going.

Either way, start with:
4 Narcomoeba
4 Cabal's Therapy
4 Chrome Mox
(Set of +/-16 cards designed to make you dump your library in your graveyard for little or no mana)
(Set of 4 to 10 cards that represent your threats and the ways to get them into play*)
4 cards dedicated to a discard outlet
12-14 lands
4 to 14 cards that makes it your deck

See it as a pile of lego blocks. Each block is a group of cards with a purpose. You don't build much more with 20 hardly usable semi-block than with 10 full blocks.

* Exemple:
1 Dread Return
1 Sutured Ghoul
2 Krosan Cloudscraper
1 Fiery Breath

or

4 Bridge from below
2 Dread Return
1 Ancestor's Chosen
1 Flamekin Zealot

or

4 Bridge from below
2 Dread return
1 Kiki-jiki
1 Sky Hussar

etc etc etc


Notes:

Serum Powder is nice to have 95% chances of having a cephalid illusionist in your opening hand. Fairly useless otherwise.
Toughtseize will be your nightmare, and most tournament player will have a playset by next extended season.

I don't wanna be mean, but your build just dosen't seems like you even tried to play it. It looks like it's a thrown out crossbreed between dredge and cephalid breakfast, without key elements of both.

You need a discard outlet. Combo elements may be stuck in your hands and you don't want to use your cabal's therapy on yourself.

You need a smarter manabase. Less lands, add chrome moxes. You don't even need black mana. Add White for the en-kor targetters.

You're waiting to have a cephallid illusionis and a shuko to combo? That's not a supersteady plan. Including some En-kor creatures on top of the shukos seems smart, but like I said before, you need a whole different manabase.

You need narcomoebas, if you don't have them, you can't cast dread return for it's flash back cost once you decked yourself because you'll only have one creature to sacrifice to cast multiple dread returns and get both kiki-jiki and the hussard on the board.

You don't need 2 mirror breakers. You don't need 2 sky hussars either.

If you're doing it Bridge From below style, you might as well throw in a Flamekin Zealot to hasten them and go all in for the kill.

I'd be tempted to add a land destruction element in the deck. Avalanche Riders and Shivan Wumpus could be really good (especially if Pandemonium is in play).