MTG Salvation

I went 6-3 at GP Singapore. With 2 byes and a no-show in the final round, that's a 3-3 in actual games. A pretty terrible record!



The rounds:

- Bye
- Bye
- 1-2 vs. UWR Control (one of the worst matchups, easily).
- 2-1 vs. Jund (a really easy matchup)
- 2-1 vs. Infect (another good matchup - tidehollow is insane here)
- 2-1 vs. Burn (not as easy as you think)
- 1-2 vs. Burn (I have 2 Firewalkers and 4 Finks!!! Wtf! I lost G3 with Firewalker, Finks, and Skite on board))
- 1-2 vs. Grixis Control (4 Terminates 4 Dispels = gg)
- No-show from opponent.

The MVP all day was Anafenza, the Foremost. I never lost a game when she lands. She just does so much for so little mana.

I don't think there's any way we're beating UWR control reliable without some luck. Burn is supposedly a pretty decent matchup. I was a little too conservative in my play in my loss to burn - we were both down to 1 hp and he topdecked an Atarka's command (he consistently drew burn every turn after playing his 4th land) so I am very sure I could have won had I made a better attack in an earlier turn. Grixis really depends on their draws - We had a long drawn out game 1 where he squeaked out a win, G2 was over very quickly when I swarmed him with creatures on T5-6, and G3 was extremely one-sided when he drew removal after removal, dispel'd all 3 Cocos I casted and landed Jace AoT on turn 4.

If you look at my decklist, I was hedging against random combo decks like Grishoalbrand and Amulet Bloom with stuff like MD Canonist and Mindcensor. Those were historically horrible matchups, but I did not meet any. I did not meet any Tron either, but I boarded in the 4 FMs a lot, so they're good.

Moving forward I'm not sure what changes I would make. I don't like to insta-lose to any matchup so I am iffy on cutting the canonist and mindcensor (they're pretty ok in other matchups) and they did not contribute to my losses in any way (no "I wish this canonist was a xxx" situations - in fact the only time I saw her G1 was vs. infect, a matchup she is good against). I've had a good run with this deck from before it became noticed due to all the States lists so it's probably time to give it a rest and go back to playing blue decks.

Abzan Company and Abzan Liege are excellent choices in that meta without sacrificing much against other matchups.

Quote from Havrekjex »

The floating serum I can handle, but the Lawnmower Man 80's sci-fi cartoon helmet thing just does not fly at all.

That's a neurok's helmet, which makes sense for a card from Mirrodin.

Quote from Valanarch »

Quote from Sasky »

Quote from Valanarch »

Would you say that it is better than both of the more traditional builds of Blue/White Control?

Yes. Being able to beat U-Tron (or other tron decks) was a major issue for me with the traditional U/W control decks. The matchup was much easier for me this time round as this deck does not have cards that suck in that matchup, like finks and walls.

I can't think of a matchup where this deck is actively bad against which the traditional build would be good against. You lose a bit of percentage against things like Affinity and Burn, but the matchups improve across the board. This should be the way forward for people looking to play U/W control decks in my humble opinion.

How does it perform against BGx compared to the traditional versions?

Also, 2 year anniversairy on this forum and 11000th post!

Congrats!

I can't make a sweeping statement on the BG/x matchup as I have much less experience with this deck as compared to the traditional build.

Based on gut feel and the one round I played against Abzan yesterday, I think it's about the same. You have more solid counterspells and Ojutai's a pain in the arse for them to deal with, but Finks are extremely good against them as compared to SSS (which are ok in disrupting discard spells and goyfs but not much else).

BG/x is a pretty good matchup for both builds anyway.

Quote from Valanarch »

Would you say that it is better than both of the more traditional builds of Blue/White Control?

Yes. Being able to beat U-Tron (or other tron decks) was a major issue for me with the traditional U/W control decks. The matchup was much easier for me this time round as this deck does not have cards that suck in that matchup, like finks and walls.

I can't think of a matchup where this deck is actively bad against which the traditional build would be good against. You lose a bit of percentage against things like Affinity and Burn, but the matchups improve across the board. This should be the way forward for people looking to play U/W control decks in my humble opinion.

I went undefeated at a GPT yesterday with Hoogland's Scornful Sprites. I sleeved up the deck in the morning to take a break from my primary deck and was surprised at how good the deck is.



Decks faced:
R1: Abzan Little Kid
R2: Burn
R3: UR Twin
R4: Burn
R5: ID
R6: ID

QF: Mono Blue Tron
SF: Jeskai Control
F: Abzan

A true midrange plan only plays 1-2 of each combo piece. Thinking the midrange plan is bad when you have such a high density of combo pieces is not a fair judgment imo.

The midrange plan is not worse than the combo plan as long as you play the right 'hatebears' and fetch them accordingly.

Pithing needle does a lot of work against GR Tron.

Quote from Muten Yoshi »

Ok so after several testgames by myself here are my opinions on your list:

You play some very random creatures that are only good in specific corner cases, therefore I dislike them in the main. We are just not Pod:

- Canoninst: SB material. Yes it gets you random wins vs storm but most of the time I really wanted to play more than 1 creature a turn.

- Wall of Roots: You said you are beating down most of the time. I´d could it because its bad without pod. I see the value with chord but its not worth it.

- Aven Mindscensor: Same thing as with Canonist + you are playing fetches, too.

- Dauntless Escort is cool. I haven´t tested him myself but it feels a bit... strange. Dont know yet but a possible cut

- Pontiff main is ok if your meta is much delver and affinity style of decks. Otherwise SB, too.

Furtheremore I dislike that you are playing 8 mana dorks, but also 23 Lands. Personally, Im at 22 lands and 6 Dorks and it works very fine. Keep in mind that you are only playing 28 creatures. 8 are dorks so 20 real creatures. I guess most of the time you company into a dork and another creature, right?

My suggest would be to cut down a bit on either land/and/or manadorks for more maindeck material.

So, if you are going to play a combo lite list, I´d consider playing Anafenza instead of melira. Sure she gives you random wins via Infect and BLinkmoths but thats what spellskite is doing also most of the time. While beating down Anafenza is just superior.

What I like about your list:

It seems like you are going heavy on playing with chord. Thats the only reason for me for the upped landcount and dorks. But I guess there are things that are getting worse because of that. However, there are definitely some upsides, but I dislike chord atm without a dedicate combo approach.

The split between Ooze, Qasali, and Voice is definitely a good choice. I like this setup, too, and it worked out for me really well.


All in all: If someone is playing a list with low combopieces I highly recommend that you should play some high power beef like goyf, rhino, knight, etc. Otherwise you are just an inferior bgx. I also like Reveillark.

Thank you for taking the time to test out my list. It is much appreciated.

You make very good points, thank you! I will mull over them and tweak my deck for next week's events with your feedback in mind.

Here are my thoughts on what you have said.

Canonist is great vs. Bloom, Infect, Burn, and Ad Nauseam. I agree that she would probably be better in the sb. The one-of in the MD is for testing, as I auto-lose to dedicated combo decks like bloom and ad nauseam g1.

Agree with wall of roots.

As Stuhl has pointed out, mindcensor is not symetrical. I would have to disagree with you on mindcensor as he's our only hedge against tron and bloom which are horrendous matchups, and he's pretty good as a beater too. I don't think he is leaving the maindeck any time soon.

Agree with Dauntless Escort.

For pontiff, do you not like him against lingering souls? Abzan is a pretty popular deck. The CC deck is also getting popular and he kills dorks well. I agree that he is pretty bad vs the rest of the field.

I think 22 lands and 6 dorks might be too low. I have many games where I am sitting on 2-3 lands the entire time, leaning on dorks for mana. Maybe some number in between is ideal, like 23 lands and 6 dorks.

I like the current split between ooze/pridemage/voice too and their numbers are not changing for me.

I like your suggestion to increase the beef count. Rhino might not be great because of CC, but I like the idea of testing some number of goyfs and knights. Lark might not be so good without pod to dump her in the yard.

I developed a combo-light list and played it in a few events. Here are the results and evolution of the deck.

I am only showing my results in actual events. There's a bunch of playtesting with friends and strangers that goes in-between as well but I did not take notes.

This is the list I started out with. There were tweaks in between events, but for the most part the list looks like this:


I played 3 weekday events and a GPT and a PPTQ.

I did not take notes on my wins, but I did note down the main reason for my losses.

Event 1 (2-0, split 3-0 prize):
Win vs. Grixis Delver
Win vs. UR Twin

Event 2 (2-0, split 3-0 prize):
Win vs. UWR Twin
Win vs. Abzan

GPT (1-2 drop) I played Abrupt Decay instead of paths this event to try it out.
Lose vs. GR Tron (It is difficult to fight through fatties without path. I combo'd to infinite life g1, but he annihilated my board with 2 Eldrazis and restarted the game with Karn. G2 I died to wurmcoil, Karn, Sundering Titan despite having Stony Silence in play.)
Win vs. Abzan
Lose vs. UWR Control (Angels! The guy drew 2 restoration angels game 1, and 3 of them game 2. Again, not having path sucks).

PPTQ (2-3) I tried out Blood Artist this event.
Win vs. Grixis control
Lose vs. Abzan (I had a game loss for writing 2 spellskites instead of 1, and I drew very poorly against my opponent game 1)
Lose vs. Merfolk (Double Master of Waves w/o drawing chord or pontiff game 1, then getting stuck on 2 lands with my BoP getting vapor snag'd twice + spreading seas on one of my lands + 5 lords on my opponent's side)
Win vs. G/W Hatebears
Lose vs. Bloom Titan (T3 kill g1, killed him g2, and died to two pyroclasm + firespout g3)

After my ridiculous loss to Bloom Titan I realized that playing the combo-light version exposes me to instant death against any fast combo decks.

I decided to move a canonist effect mb and beef up my tron-hate.

This brings me to the latest list I am playing:



I played 2 more weekday events with this list.

Event 3 (2-1)
Win vs. Grixis Delver
Lose vs. Burn (G1 I could not beat his insane draw, G2 finks + scooze saved me, G3 He topdeck skullcrack'd my finks after I already checked his hand with sin collector, and won by exactsies.)
Win vs. Burn

Event 4 (3-0)
Win vs. Grixis Twin
Win vs. UW Control
Win vs. Ad Nauseam

Just some comments:

Moving forward I might swap out the Dauntless Escort for something else. It might be a 4th finks, but drawing multiple finks in the matchups he is bad in is really sad, and he's not super-good in the matchups he is good in as well. I need more games with the Escort to see if stopping a sweeper is worth it. He could easily be a Fulminator Mage as well to stop manlands g1.

I like the md canonist - she gives us a chance against our worst matchups (except for Tron) and is not detrimental in others. I would not have beat my Ad Nauseam opponent G1 without her. We use our mana quite efficiently anyway due to being land-light and keeping mana open for township, chord, and CC so the single-spell clause does not hurt us. She has collateral benefits vs. decks like burn and infect.

I might trade one of the reclamation sages in the sb for something else.

Blood Artist is a trap in lists like mine. You are almost always on the beatdown plan (I have combo'd off to infinite life only twice in all my event-games). I hated drawing him every single time.

Speaking of the beatdown plan, our beatdown plan is amazing because of exalted triggers. Our creatures trade up quite easily with a couple of hierarchs on board. Birds are also great attackers on a clogged board when you give them exalted.

Thanks for reading. Let me know if anyone wants any details on any of the games I played.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos is also great in a tempo deck.

Here's a question:

When sideboarding in 3-4 thoughtseizes to combat fast combo decks like bloom titan, is it correct to board out some amount of collected company since you will be lowering your creature count anyway?

Quote from Sgt_Kidder »

Quote from Sasky »

I've been unimpressed with Cartel Aristocrat. She does nothing much on her own and her sac effect does not give much value. I think you should run either the Seer or Varolz depending on your curve. I have quite a few 3's in my deck so I run Seer as my sac outlet.

Im not trying to be negative when I say this but, everything you have said so far in this thread goes against posted tournament results. The decks shown here are winning, and they use the cards you are saying are bad. I think you may want to play a w,b,g deck but less focused on the combo.

Cartel can get protection from all colors and with bolster triggers on the stack goes infinite power/tough. You win with one swing.

I agree with you and I don't take offence.

Isn't the whole point of discussion to have differing viewpoints and hearing each other out though? I've learnt a lot about this deck from people like cbgirardo clarifying why they disagree with the points I raised. I don't think I've been making any stupid or cute suggestions so far - if I have please point them out to me. The decks that are posted have been top 8-ing in States and that's a fantastic result, but States and SCG IQs are not a GP - therefore, I am quite sure that the deck has a lot of room to grow and only in discussing options can the deck grow.

The cartel aristocrat comment was an oversight on my part as I'm not playing the combo version and I apologize. It makes perfect sense that if you are looking to combo off frequently then the unblockable guy is better.

I've been unimpressed with Cartel Aristocrat. She does nothing much on her own and her sac effect does not give much value. I think you should run either the Seer or Varolz depending on your curve. I have quite a few 3's in my deck so I run Seer as my sac outlet.

Re: Wall of Roots - That card is just as bananas as it was during pod's era.