MTG Salvation

Quote from Duke Daemon »

This is worse than Heliod. I don't care if it has double strike....I'd rather an indestructible vigilance creature. Blocking for days. This thing is bad. It even doesn't make cat warriors! Wheres the tribal love?
Heliod makes 2/1 vigilance creatures, this makes 1/1's.....

Heliod, God of the Sun gives your OTHER creatures Vigilance. He's still likely better than Oketra, though.

It really is disappointing that Oketra is such a vanilla god, practically the same card as Heliod.

Quote from Billiondegree »

I dunno. Lab Maniac is still great for many reasons:

1) opponent thoughtseize/inquisitions my Lightning Storm in the opening hand
2) opponent goes to infinite life with the melira combo, or somehow gains more life than I have lands to beat (Vault Skirge for instance)
3) I exile my own Lightning Storm with Spoils of the Vault
4) Spellskite

I can't see dropping the Lab Maniac. It's just good insurance to have in the mainboard

Does going off with Lab Man just require an extra 4 mana, then? Isn't 10 (or 9 if Unlife is in play) kind of a lot? Is it worth throwing in a Manamorphose to pay for UU for Maniac and Visions? I play a Peer list, not a Spoils list, so exiling Lightning Storm isn't an issue.

EDIT: Just remembered Manamorphose draws a card, so that wouldn't work. Also remembered that Pentad Prism fills this slot nicely, I just usually board out the Prisms if I need something more, so I'd have to keep some in.

What would be the best place to find a slot for Lab Man main?

My thought process was that more often the First Strike will be a more relevant ability than Reach, so it makes sense to overload on it. I could understand swapping the ratio, though. Definitely worth testing.

Only if the value of X is 0. If you pay an alternative cost for an X spell, the only valid value for X is 0.

Quote from vismal »

If he(Gideon) gets insanely popular (kind of skeptical about this happening) then we'll need to make room for a main deck echoing truth which isn't honestly the worst thing in the world as that card is rarely just dead.

I played against someone recently who had a single mainboard Leyline of Sanctity, and it was pretty demoralizing to realize that before the game had even begun I just lost. I dislike the idea of running Lab Man main, as he's literally a dead card unless we can't combo off for some reason, and Echoing Truth honestly is looking like the more reasonable one-of for the main.

Can someone convince me otherwise? I'd much rather have a "bounce-target Tasigur" than a Gray Ogre that doesn't exile itself from our hand for R. Truth responds to threats, and Leylines, and now Gideons.

I'm a believer that the speed of the deck is one of its strongest attributes (lack of interactivity being the other), and Cartouche of Strength basically is a worse Rancor (one of our best cards) that costs more for the option of doubling as removal. If we're doing things right, we don't care what creatures the opponent has. If you're running a list with more than 1 Open the Armory, I might consider a miser's Cartouche of Strength simply to be tutored up, but the issue is that most of the time you won't have the mana to tutor and play the Cartouche in the same turn, and if you're not in a position to tutor up an Ethereal Armor and just win that turn, you're probably in a bad spot.

I'm only running one OtA, however, so I doubt I'll be testing Cartouche of Strength at all.

I definitely don't think we'll be seeing Gelid Shackles in many lists any time soon. Soft-removal is something control decks use against pesky permanents. We deal with permanents by winning before they impact us. One of the most polarizing aspects of Path is that it forces us to leave up a mana, sometimes meaning we need to forgo playing another aura, which usually equates to 2-4 extra power. Granted, against the decks we absolutely need answers to, e.g. Death's Shadow, it's totally worth it to have a maindeck answer to what otherwise becomes a viable racing card (minus lifegain on our side). For Gelid Shackles to deal with attackers, moreover, it requires snow mana, which means essentially you're forcing yourself into playing snow-lands and fetching them instead of Temple Gardens, hindering your color fixing, as well as forcing yourself to leave that Path to Exile mana up each and every turn just to make sure that creature doesn't attack. If you had Pathed it in the first place, that would have saved you multiple mana, which is several power worth of auras if you have them in hand.

Feel free to try out Shackles if you want, I just don't think it's worth it.

Hey, guys, I think with Cartouche of Solidarity we can start to re-evaluate our 1-drop auras. Has anyone been overly impressed with Spider Umbra? I've found them to be phenomenal vs Affinity, but I feel against the rest of the field a free body (plus First Strike in case we don't have Eth or Hyena) is better than Totem Armor.

With that in mind, I'm planning on doing some testing post-AMK with the following list:


Previously, I had been running 4 Spiders main, and 4 Glistener Elf side. After a few events where the Elves just felt like a gamble against opponents boarding out removal, I decided the main purpose of the Elves (shortening the clock against uninteractive combo) just wasn't worth taking up a quarter of the board. In their place, I'm moving back to 2x Gaddock Teeg, which I feel is a house against non-Eldrazi Tron, as well as having the option for a third Cartouche, and a second Spirit Link, which I always want to have access to against Burn or Dredge, but until now haven't been able to find the room for.

Anyone else planning on playing around with the Cartouche of Solidarity? I'm interested in blue splashes getting a cantripping Gryff's Boon, but ultimately I feel our 2 mana auras just need to do more than evasion. I'd be interested in seeing someone find a spot for the Cartouche of Strength, but I feel 3 is just way too slow for the deck (I don't even run Unflinching Courage). If anything, like some have mentioned already, Cartouche of Strength feels like a nice sideboard card against Spellskite, but again, 3 mana is huge in this deck.

Quote from Ryadriz »

Of note here, starting loyalty at 3 virtually 4 and Lightning Bolt is widely played.

Fixed that for you. Gids eats a bolt, blanks an attacker, pulls another attacker (or multiple if blockers), all for three mana, and this is if the opponent has bolt, and multiple attackers, by turn 3/4. Otherwise, feel free to blank an attacker each turn until you can afford to emblem, or even emblem before cashing in for (better) Ally of Zendikar. Heck, in a UW control deck, OG Gideon Jura is sometimes played, which is a beast at staying alive given some walls.

I'd love for this (and As Foretold) to push UW control to being playable in Modern, but there's still probably too much aggro in Modern for that.

Hey, all, I've been thinking of getting into Miracles, and I was wondering what permutation you all feel is best for someone starting out in Legacy. I've been following the scene for a while now, so I'm by no means totally new, but I definitely don't feel I'd have the expertise to pilot Joe Lossett's Legendary build.

I'll also be moving in a few months, so I'll be walking into an unknown meta. Is there some build of Miracles that does better in general against an unknown field? I'm not in tune with the format enough to know whether Mentor or Entreat are better when you don't know what you're up against.

Thanks! I look forward to getting to know and love Miracles!!

Aven Mindcensor from the Top Level site.

Hey, guys. I'm looking to get into Legacy. I've recently picked up a Volcanic Island, so something UR would be nice, but I'm having some trouble picking a deck.

I've always enjoyed watching Miracles being played, especially Joe Lossett's decklist, but I also like the look of Sneak&Show and ANT.

I'm going to be moving in a few months, so I'd be going into an unknown meta; it's my understanding that Miracles sides are usually pretty heavily meta'd, so that might make it harder to build.

Any suggestions? I at least understand most of the Legacy metagame, and other than disliking straight aggro (burn, dredge), I've explored pretty much every Modern deck, so I have a lot of archetype experience.

Right now, I'm thinking one of the following:
Miracles
ANT
Sneak & Show
Grixis Delver
RUG Delver

But I'm thinking I would enjoy one of the first three more than a Delver variant.

Thanks in advance!

Quick followup to this question:

I think the way this would work is, each copy of Reyhan sees the others put into the graveyard. Thus would each of them trigger for each copy, allowing you to put more counters onto the original Reyhan than were on the copies themselves?

E.g. You have three opponents. You attack one with a Reyhan equipped with a Blade of Selves. The Blade triggers, creating two copies of Reyhan. You choose to keep the original, sending the other two to the graveyard. Two of your creatures "died," and all three Reyhans see the two die. Thus, you would get six triggers. Because the effect of Reyhan doesn't actually move the counters (it just places that many onto another creature), you should get 6 times 3 counters to place onto other creatures, in sets of three. So you could potentially place 18 more +1/+1 counters onto Reyhan.

Is this not how this scenario would work?

Hey, guys, I've had Infect built for about half a year now (been playing it pretty exclusively in the last few months) and I'm going to my first big tournament this weekend (SCG Open Milwaukee). My list is pretty standard, except for running Dryad Arbor in the main (though I could be persuaded to move it to the side). I've loved Blossoming Defense - Have most people moved on to completing the playset of Defenses by cutting a Vines of Vastwood? I'm pretty sure most of the time Defense is going to be better to have as a set.

I'd be happy to take any build advice, especially going into a relatively open meta, as well as general sideboarding advice, as I feel that's my weakest area.

Hey, everyone. I'm planning on going to my first big Magic tournament the weekend of Oct 22-23 (SCG Open Milwaukee), but I'm not sure what to play. I've played tons of decks, but have not really found one that I cling to and enjoy head-and-shoulders above the rest. Most recently I've tried out RG Breach, which was definitely fun to play, but I'd prefer to take something that's as tuned for an open meta as possible. I've had relative success with Jund and Abzan, and though I haven't played it in a while I've heard Nahiri Jeskai is on the rise again. I've also played Tron, Affinity, Abzan CoCo, Elves, RG Ponza, Slivers, and Merfolk. (I have Infect, but I don't think I have the reps needed to do well with it.)

What deck(s) would be good contenders in an open meta? I'd like to start solidifying my plans, as sideboarding is sort of my biggest weak point and I'd like to get some practice in before I decide to take the deck.

Does it bother anyone else that it seems we won't be getting a new set icon? The WotC page with upcoming products lists the old Archenemy icon for Archenemy: Nicol Bolas.