MTG Salvation

Hey all. I made a discord for the Semblance Anvil combo deck version if anyone wants to join up on that and tweak some lists! https://discord.gg/A5KsYPU

Ghost Quarter on a Tron land and extract it to give time to Nevermore and Stony Silence things.

Honestly I have been playing around with the list a lot. I never really wanted an enchantment that became "if this permanent leaves the battlefield, you lose the game", and it was only really useful in doing Unlife -> Form of the Dragon. I wished I didn't have it in most games that I've drawn it, so I moved it to the board. If Ideal resolves, going straight for Form of the Dragon or getting a different relevant lock piece usually ties Game 1 together. The advantage of playing mostly hard to interact with permanents game 1 felt less when I would draw Unlife and needing it to be something else. I swapped it for a Nevermore in the board and it has done well for me at least, turning off Chords, Abrupt Decay, or the minimal predictable hate from main decks. It can also call Karn or O-Stone on the play against Tron, which can falter them a little bit.

I'll have to try Blessed Alliance, but game 1 Leyline is so good so I may swap it for something else.

Journey is at least something for Thalias which I've liked. I kind of want to take out the Chalices but they do make the burn and infect matchups pretty insane. I thought they might be good in the Grixis Delver matchup, but K-Command breaks it and Leyline already turns off a lot of their 1 mana spells.

Blue splash didn't feel worth it, Detention Sphere rarely double exiled and Verdict's uncounterability hasn't mattered much. Wrath does have the anti regen upside for Golgari Charm and Ezuri, and I already felt stretched as white with 7-8 colorless lands. I did lose a game tonight because of Ghost Quarter not giving WW for Runed Halo on a low mull. I didn't like the ETB tapped chance of Glacial Fortress, and the life loss wasn't worth it for the splash. Spreading Sea's was a draw for the blue splash, but Nature's Claim breaks it in the Tron matchup which is mostly what I wanted it for.

Dovescape is in the sideboard because it locks out any kind of sideboard interaction for the most part. Without playing multiple do nothing enchantments like 2x Greater Auramancy, it comes down and locks out any number of non creature answers. At that point, chaining Nevermore's on any creature such as Reclamation Sage or on Abrupt Decay locks most players out of being able to break any enchantments post board. I hated drawing it game 1 when a lot of decks lose to just fetching Leyline -> Form of the Dragon, so I've been bringing it in against decks like Tron (O-Stone, Ugin, Karn, Nature's Claim), Abzan (Maelstrom Pulse, Anguished Unmaking, Nature's Claim, Seal of Primordium, other random 1 of sideboard enchantment hate), or Esper Control (Esper Charm, Cryptic, Countersquall, chaining counters on the Epic copies.) It is necessary to lock against flexible sideboards, but less useful against say Affinity game 1 where it just completely eats a draw. I've had enough problems just drawing Form of the Dragon early in games.



Went 2-1 tonight, beating Kiki-Chord, loss to Grixis Delver (what I feel is a good matchup but g3 Ghost Quarter can't cast Runed Halo on a mull to "5" (Form in hand), beating Sultai Chord. Dodged the Tron player in this smallish event haha

I want to change my list some more but I'm not sure where to start. I wish I could cut Ghost Quarter

I played FNM to 4-0 (3-0 with bye) with this list last week:



Round 1: Bye

Round 2: B/W Eldrazi Taxes 2-1

Game 1: Kept a hand on the draw with Temple of Enlightenment, Ghost Quarter, Journey to Nowhere, Ghostly Prison, Detention Sphere and some expensive things. I hoped that I'd get the third land and the hand would be much better. I proceeded to not find lands and die to turn 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben without playing anything. I usually play Ad Nauseam so he put me on that, despite the Ghost Quarter
SB: I didn't bring anything in or out, since it is a creature based deck. In hindsight I should have brought in a Stony Silence to be able to Nevermore on Flickerwisp and then turn off Aether Vial post Ideal.

Game 2: I played a Runed Halo naming Thought Knot Seer on turn 3, which was responded with Lost Legacy on Ad Nauseam, then double Tidehollow Sculler which I had almost named. I got enough lock pieces in play and resolved Enduring Ideal. He eventually got Flickerwisp and Eldrazi Displacer, but was limited on mana being unable to blink enough enchantments and attack, due to the multiple Sphere/Ghostly Prison effects out. I went for Suppression Fields and then closed it out with Form of the Dragon

Game 3: Played out pretty similar to game 2, blocking discard effects and eventually resolving Ideal.


Round 3: Abzan Coco 2-0

Game 1: I played a couple Suppression Fields backed up with a turn 5ish Enduring Ideal, getting more Suppression Fields. Field stopped him from comboing off for infinite life or damage, and then I went for Form of the Dragon.
SB: +3 Negate, -2 Runed Halo -1 Detention Sphere. I should have brought in Dovescape because it turns off both Chord and Company which then lets Nevermore work better.

Game 2: My opponent very quickly went infinite around turn 4 for infinite life, but with no Blood Artist to kill me. Multiple Ghostly Prisons, the Leyline and other cards allowed me to Ideal and begin fetching multiple Suppression Fields to limit Qasali Pridemage and going infinite further. Nevermore came out on Abrupt Decay, Eternal Witness, and Collected Company after he had played 3 chords and 2 CoCo. Eventually opponent conceded after needing to draw one of Chord to get Eternal Witness into a previously played one of Anguished Unmaking to break one Sphere of Safety, and I eventually got the second one. Mistveil Plains would have let me win in the end, and he brought in a one of Fulminator Mage, but I held the Mistveil all game until he scooped.


Round 4: Merfolk 2-0

Game 1: Turn 3 into Turn 4 Ghostly Prisons beats Merfolk.
SB: +2 Nevermore, +1 Story Circle. -2 Suppression Field, -1 Runed Halo.
Game 2: Hallowed Fountain allowed my opponent to awkwardly Islandwalk past two Wall of Omens before Ghostly Prison came down again . He didn't have Echoing Truth or Cyclonic Rift in his board, so I got to turtle up again and resolved an Ideal into Form of the Dragon.

Burn 4-1

Overall, I think it did pretty well for the first night playing it. I played a few games against a Naya Nacatl burn deck afterwards and preboard was super favored, with post board being ridiculous with Chalice, Negate, Story Circle, Ram, and Nevermore's on Destructive Revelry

I didn't like the blue splash, and it opened me to being weak to Blood Moon effects as well. I wanted to maintain some semblance of ability to fight Tron decks post board (after dropping blue), combined with the popularity that will arise from various recursive decks such as Abzan CoCo. I thought the 4 of Surgical Extraction would be really useful in Crumble to Dusting Tron, still acting like a Nevermore against some decks, and against Dredge decks which can't stop it with Nature's Claim and Abrupt Decays that will come in. I feel like this also makes the deck even stronger against Valakut matchups which I hope will be more popular due to immunity to Fatal Push.

I also like the ability to Surgical and see every possible thing to name with Nevermore later on in the game, as well as removing cards like Qasali Pridemage or Abrupt Decay that I would name anyways.

I just can't stand it when anyone plays Prophet of Kruphix. I was playing a game last night and I just relentlessly tried to kill the Prophet all game when someone would play it and people didn't like that I hate that card so much. Is there any way I can not hate it this much? Everyone seems to ignore it and then it's one person taking basically concurrent turns. We had another game where everyone was either cloning or stealing Prophet and it would never NOT be on the battlefield or back in someones hand.

The only way I see to stop it when people ignore it is to just try to get it exiled, but I had a friend tell me that I was ruining their fun because that card is what they consider fun. I felt sort of like a jerk about hunting the Prophet, but I don't know how else to keep it mostly out of the games I play, just because it either dies immediately or that player wins with insane turn and mana advantages.

Quote from M.C.Savage

Just a thought. If I hate drawing a bunch of mana dorks with Garruk AND am already playing 3 Stormbreath Dragons in my deck... What would be the cons of replacing Nylea, God of the Hunt with her red counterpart Purphoros?

You would not easily be able to turn his devotion on. Burning-Tree and Stormbreath are the two double devotions, so you either need a combo of the two, with Burning-Tree being pretty easy to kill and having two Stormbreaths out is a pretty dominant board position already. If you lean heavily on green, you will probably like it less. Giving Polukranos and Arbor Colossus trample is really strong for me, so I've been running two Nyleas instead of the one that I see a lot of lists running.

Quote from Cabz

You still can't cast it at instant speed just because it's miracled, I'm pretty sure.

You can cast miracles at instant speed if it's the first card you have drawn

Quote from Jazenn

How does the Trading Post and Prophetic Prism package work for card advantage? Is it good enough? Do you gain about an extra card a turn? I am interested in running those for a similar deck. Rakdos Keyrune fits in nicely as another artifact with versatility in ramp, card draw, and first strike I presume.

It depends on the situation. Prophetic Prism is a cantrip that smooths out mana draws such as 2 colored lands, Vault of the Archangel and Boros Reckoner hands. Trading Post by itself with nothing but the prism draws 2 cards every 3 turns for the cost of 1 life and the brief ability to chump block with a goat. Combined with other things, it turns into a really strong engine with Angelic Accord or a way to race threats like Thundermaw Hellkite that typically kill in 3-4 turns alone, just by gaining 4 every turn. I really like the Prism engine and it does give me the card advantage I need. I came from playing American control and not being able to play Sphinx's Revelation is bad on CA.

Quote from spacetime

I'd cut the Bond Blood combo. Add in Tribute to Hunger since your weak to Hex and like lifegain.

I had tested Tribute to Hunger before and it was always disappointing for me. For Hexproof decks, they have mana dorks that would eat it and gain me one life. Rarely did I get a kill on their suited up guy because they could cover it with dorks and small hexproof guys. I liked Celestial Flare because game one it's a blowout and game two they are scared to attack without two things, even if I don't have it. That's why I replaced it with the Celestial Flare 4 of between main and sideboard.

I edited the main board a little bit after playing against Predator Ooze and Hexproof decks more. Does anyone have any thoughts on what I should change?

This is the decklist that I was playing tonight at FNM. I wanted to try to work out the kinks in the deck, because I felt as though I had a hard time against aggro when I playtested/played but felt very good against durdly Aetherling/Sphinx's Revelation decks. Sometimes the removal package failed hard, mostly against multicolored black creatures, including Dreg Mangler, solo Varolz, Lotleth Troll, Rakdos Cackler (from a mono red deck -.-) I couldn't stop a lot of things and ended up getting rolled by a BW human tokens deck in the first match. I wasn't sure if putting Searing Spear would be a better idea.

I have felt good though about being able to Slaughter Games very slow decks out of Aetherlings because I can't kill him easily once he lands without Pithing Needle. I was thinking about playing Riot Control but I wasn't sure what to cut either or if it was too cute to trigger Angelic Accord with it. Any ideas on how to make it better?

Edit: For Hexproof and Predator Ooze style decks, I added Celestial Flare to the main deck, along with adding a couple cute things to try out such as 1 of Sanguine Bond and 1 of Exquisite Blood, as they both work well in the deck alone and combo together. In addition to that, I tried out 2 Blasphemous Act to go with Reckoner and put one in the sideboard after it usually costing ~6 mana to cast because I don't play that many creatures.

I think that the UWBR version you posted is too cold to common permanent based grave hate such as Ground Seal, Rest in Peace, Tormod's Crypt, etc. and is too reliant on your own graveyard so that when those cards hit it just sort of flounders. Green helps that with Abrupt Decay, but I think you need something in your sideboard to break RIP.

Quote from Valonus88

Hey guys! The other day I played a fairly standard deadeye deck at a SCG open invitational (extremely small turn out, but still). I came in third, but it's really difficult to fight against the blitz and hyper-Aggro decks with this kind of a deck. I can post the list I was running if you'd like.

Here recently I was thinking: what about a white splash? That gives us access to verdict, centaur healer, azorius charm, Lyev Skyknight, Resto Angel, etc. if the mana is too difficult, what about dropping red entirely? Skyknight, healer, and Thragtusk are all still great targets for deadeye, and the white might give us a little more survive-ability.

With the splash, we'll still have arbor elf, verdant haven, chromatic lantern, and farseek to fix. But in order to fight Aggro, we probably won't want to waste turns playing ramp, rather would want to drop removal, flash dudes, and board wipes.

Anyway, I'd like to hear some thoughts about it.

I've been splashing white to play Sphinx's Revelation. My stuff for aggro is Turn//Burn, Fog, Simic Charm and Syncopate. I've been maindecking fogs to stop blitz decks for a turn. My shell at least is RUGw focusing on Staticaster + Nightshade Peddler, Huntmaster and the combo. I didn't like supreme verdict because of the double white splash and I want all of my creatures in play.

Quote from Dirty Filter

Sporemound goes infinite with Life and Limb. Time to build a janky, casual saproling.edh deck.

It ends the game in a draw unless you have an instant speed kill spell for a part, since you must keep putting tokens into play.

Quote from Commander Pox

I like this list allot- a few questions-

what do you do when unexpected hits enter the infinite and your at 3 lands? scoop?
why only 2 urban evolution? with no sphinx its your only draw spell.

I replaced two Urbans with two Thragtusk's to better fight against aggro because I'd much rather flip a Thrag than an Urban against hyper aggro or midrange. Unexpected Results says you may cast it, so it can stay on top of your library. You don't have to cast it.

1/24/2013 - If you can’t cast the card (perhaps because there are no legal targets), or if you choose not to, the card will remain on top of the library.