MTG Salvation

Ya, unbanning the two best value cards not in our colors is kinda rough lol

edit: I'll probably be working on Esper for a while. Here's my starting point:

Happy Coptering

I really don't like the way that build plays out. Its curve is way too high; it has much worse mana with all the WW; it just feels crappy. I think I will stick with my old build for a while and see what problems materialize in practice.

Let's assume for a moment that the meta becomes overwhelmingly Jace Control and BBE Jund. Then Kolaghan's Command, Maelstrom Pulse, and various Wrath of God-type cards are going to be much more popular. Kommand is obviously great with BBE and Maelstrom Pulse gets better because killing Jace will be quite valuable. Wrath pairs well with Jace and is good against Jund.

Now let's consider my latest builds. The biggest loser is Tidehollow Sculler. Kommand and Wrath are extremely painful topdecks with a Sculler in play. So we probably need to find a replacement for Sculler.

Copter also takes a hit since they can kill it with Kommand /Pulse without it becoming a creature. However it is quite strong against Jace and Wrath. Copter can probably stay but it depends on our ability to find a good replacement for Sculler.

Discard spells also get worse. Thoughtseize will continue to be good because it can take Jace and BBE. However Jace and BBE both improve the opponent's topdecks as well as make the top of their deck a relevant zone, e.g. for cascade or Brainstorm / Fateseal. Yet another reason to avoid Sculler. It may be time to start with 4 Thoughtseize and play fewer (even 0) Inquisition, which sounds nutty but if we are focused on beating BBE and Jace then Inquisition is definitely not where we want to be.

Dark Confidant gets worse as well. The life loss from Bob will become more costly against Jund with 4 BBE and 4 Bolt. Confidant is decent against Jace decks with Wrath since he can get one turn of value before they come down but he is still vulnerable to Jace's bounce.

Liliana of the Veil is also worse. BBE excels at killing planeswalkers, there will be more Pulses, and Liliana is somewhat embarrassing against opposing Jaces. Ticking up to her ultimate against control decks is fine but seems unlikely to succeed against an opponent using Brainstorm every turn.

Fatal Push and Path also get worse. They will be close to useless against Jace control. They'll be fine against Jund but they don't effectively answer BBE. Path in particular suffers because Pathing a 2 drop against Jund could ramp them into a turn 3 BBE.

Lingering Souls definitely gets better, even in the face of more Pulses and Wraths. It doesn't exactly hose Jund or UW like it does, say, Grixis Shadow but it will still trade well on resources.

The other card that gets much better is Mutavault and Shambling Vent, for similar reasons. BBE Jund and Jace Control will both have to play at least 24 land, I'd guess. However they are also playing 4+ 4-mana cards, which means tapped lands like Raging Ravine and Celestial Colonnade will be even more costly than normal. So it will be easy to outnumber the opponent on manlands. Jace Control players will probably have some number of Field of Ruin but not enough to easily beat 4 Mutavault and some number of Shambling Vent. If you're crazy like me then you will have Blinkmoth Nexus too.

Another potential Ace up our sleeve is Relic of Progenitus. It will be nice to neuter Goyfs but it will also be important to prevent recursion of BBE with Kommand. Jace Control will probably have Snapcasters so it won't be awful there either.

With all of this said, the first thing I might do is try a list like this:

went 4-0 last night with same list.

2-1 Burn
2-0 Skred Red
2-1 Traverse Shadow
2-1 Mono Green Nykthos Ramp

GGs. Nice to 4-0 once more before BBE and Jace take over.

I think Thalia, Heretic Cathar is a good sideboard card against Tron and especially Eldrazi Tron because it can slow them down while attacking. Fulminator Mage is alright but it doesn't clock them as well. Neither are very good on the draw though. The other card I've been trying is Smallpox, which is slightly better on the draw than on the play and can also kill one of Eldrazi's big creatures. I don't really like Fulminator Mage or Ghost Quarter because they don't progress your board and you need a board in order to win quickly. One cute play is turn 2 Copter into turn 3 Fulminator, crew Copter, sacrifice Fulminator.

At the end of the day though, there isn't that much you can do to beat Tron. Their overall strategy is just good against ours so all you can really hope to do is discard them a bunch and then win fast before they topdeck. Maybe the best thing you can do is play Leonin Arbiter and Ghost Quarter in your maindeck but I don't think it's worth it.

Another reason to play Copter is that it makes all your sideboard cards better because you can find them more often due to its looting ability.

Yesterday I went 2-2 with this list:


R1 Skred L 0-2
I think this is a bad matchup but I also misplayed a bunch because I hadn't played against this deck in a while.

R2 Affinity W 2-0
Affinity is practically free. Copter destroys them.

R3 Slivers L 1-2
This time he got me. Diffusion Sliver is a lot better than it looks. I think this matchup is slightly favorable in general but it's definitely close.

R4 BW Eldrazi W 2-1
This matchup is really hard to play optimally since we both have a bunch of tricky cards, e.g. Tidehollow Sculler. I think it's pretty close to 50-50, unlike Eldrazi Tron. In game 3 I had turn 3 Thalia and it was very good.

I went 3-1 with the list in my last post.

R1 Humans W 2-0
He had clunky draws and I had smooth ones. In game one I attacked a Mutavault into his Kambal, Consul of Allocation and when he blocked I pumped it with Blinkmoth Nexus. Sold. I had Kalitas in game 2 and he couldn't beat it.

R2 Burn L 1-2
Close games but he got me. Runed Halo was pretty good in both postboard games. I won game 2 with Kalitas.

R3 Burn W 2-0
This player made some obvious misplays and I won pretty easily. I won game 2 with Kalitas again.

R4 Slivers W 2-1
He got me in game 1 with a solid draw. Once again I won game 2 on the back of Kalitas. Game 3 was long and drawn out but I was eventually able to burn him out with a topdecked Collective Brutality.

Even after playing against 4 aggro decks including 2 Burn decks I don't miss Shambling Vent. Blinkmoth was relevant in every match I played and the ability to pump Mutavault was surprisingly good. I didn't have any notable mana problems either.

Kalitas definitely stood out too as I won every game I cast him.

The Relics were predictably terrible against the specific decks I played against. If I had played against Death's Shadow and Storm they would have been great but oh well. Even so I am thinking of cutting them for more cards that can crew Copter. Next week I might try this:


bonus: I played a friendly game against a Jeskai control deck with Search for Azcanta and ended up winning by decking him.

Here's a weird version I'm going to run tonight at a local tourney:



From my previous build, I cut 3 Shambling Vent and 1 Elspeth, Knight-Errant for 2 Blinkmoth Nexus and 2 Relic of Progenitus.

I want to try Blinkmoth Nexus for a few reasons. First is that Mutavault is amazing and Blinkmoth is similar. Blinkmoth is almost certainly a bit worse since it's only 1 power but it still seems great with Copter and Lingering Souls. You can also use it to give your Mutavaults +1/+1 which is at least amusing.

Second reason is Shambling Vent is not that great. I almost never activate Vent outside the Burn matchup so usually it just screws up my curve. Blinkmoth is better to play on turns 2 and 3 and way cheaper to activate. I imagine it will be useful in far more games.

Cutting Elspeth and Shambling Vent eliminates the requirement for WW. They are also the only cards which require more than 3 mana. Elspeth seems like a smart cut since I also went from 24 to 23 land. Elspeth is also worse without Vent since Angelic Blessing + Vent is kind of a combo.

Relic has always been one of my favorite cards because it has a decent floor and a super high ceiling- a mediocre cantrip that sometimes completely hoses your opponent. It makes sense to add cantrips because I cut a land and to add colorless cards because I cut colored sources.

Another cool option would be to play a couple Collective Brutality maindeck. Cutting Vent definitely makes the Burn matchup worse so maindecking Brutality, which is the best card against Burn, seems good. I think if you give up Shambling Vent and anything with CMC 4+ and keep your colored mana requirements easy, e.g. no WW and not too much BB or BW then you can get away with 22-23 lands with 5-6 colorless lands.

Most of all I'm going to pay attention to how often I get screwed by having so many colorless lands. I ran the numbers and it should be fine especially with Bob, Copter, and Relic all drawing cards and being easy on the mana. Even though no individual card except Sculler has strict mana requirements, the deck can still be hungry for colored mana, e.g. to cast multiple 1-drops in the same turn.

I think cutting lands is the way to go since your best opening hands only have 2-3 land in them, you have 8 2-drops that draw extra cards, and opening hands with 4+ land are much worse than those with 2-3 land.

The sideboard is not tuned yet.

Don't underestimate Smuggler's Copter against Affinity. It blocks all their fliers, Signal Pest, and even Etched Champion. Between Mutavault and Copter, Etched Champion is downright embarrassing. With Copter, Souls, Path, and Push, I'd say Affinity is one of our best matchups. I like Pithing Needle over Stony Silence since I never want to board out Copter against Affinity.

As far as three drops go, I'd say play Liliana of the Veil and don't look back. It's not a great follow-up to Copter but it's an amazing follow-up to Sculler or Bob, especially with tun 1 discard too. It's super powerful and is good in many of the tougher matchups like Eldrazi, Tron, and Valakut.

So awesome to see all these different takes on BW!

In general I love the idea of Freebooter but so close yet so far. One reason I like Sculler so much is it really helps out the curve. It's a fine 2 drop by itself and a great pseudo-3 drop as a follow up to Copter. The curve of t2 Copter t3 Sculler + 1 drop is extremely good. 4 Bob 4 Copter 4 Sculler + 4 Souls flashback make t4 double 2 drop quite doable as well.

Kitesail Freebooter is so close to being good but it's terrible compared to Sculler. Not taking creatures is probably a deal breaker by itself but they can also just kill it in response to its trigger. It has slightly different rules text than Sculler that makes it so no card is exiled if Freebooter dies before its ability resolves. So it can't take creatures and it's much worse against removal. A 1/2 flying Sculler for 1B would have been insane though.

Yup, I hear ya. Mutavault is amazing. My sideboarding for Valakut/Gx Tron/Eldrazi Tron is like:

Valakut:
-4 Fatal Push
-1 Path to Exile
-1 Shambling Vent
+1 Shadow of Doubt
+1 Aven Mindcensor
+1 Surgical Extraction
+3 Collective Brutality

Eldrazi Tron:
-2 Inquisition of Kozilek
-1 Elspeth, Knight Errant
-1 Shambling Vent
+1 Anguished Unmaking
+1 Big Game Hunter
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Linvala, Keeper of Silence

Gx Tron:
-4 Fatal Push
-1 Shambling Vent
+1 Aven Mindcensor
+1 Shadow of Doubt
+1 Anguished Unmaking
+1 Pithing Needle
+1 Surgical Extraction

I used to play a couple Ghost Quarters but I don't think it's worth it. GQ doesn't do much against Valakut. GQ + Surgical on Valakut is good but unlikely to occur. GQ is fine against Tron but it's worse against Eldrazi Tron since they don't need as much mana. I think Thoughtseize, Sculler, and Copter are our best cards in those matchups.

Nicely done! It is pretty awesome that the mana is so stable even with 4 Mutavault.

Quote from Kazral »

@PapaMoons8 You almost certainly are going to want more than 22 lands in this deck. My MB doesn't even play 4 drops and it still wants 24 lands, thanks to mutavault and shambling vent activations (and the fact that they get killed by creature removal). We don't have cantrips the way blue decks do so we have to play a fair number of lands

My list (basically davemo's list with -1 elspeth +1 liliana last hope and different sideboard):
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Have you been winning a lot with it?