MTG Salvation

colors come up because you're trying to do a land thing, and land things are very green by nature. Regardless, crucible remains an artifact, and artifact recurring remains easy in white. Flame Jab + River Kelpie remains in your colors and gives you a solid draw engine as well, which will help you recover to another answer.

second sunrise may help you as well.

Why don't you tell us a bit more about the deck/general so we can see what you're trying to do and help you out more? Pretty much all you've asked so far is to do a Gatherer search so far.

Grave-Shell Scarab
symbiotic beast symbiotic elf symbiotic wurm

any of the "splicer" guys that make golems maul slicer
any of the "penumbra" guys that leave a copy behind. penumbra spider
myr sire

with a lot of lands in hand, you can also use flame jab + river kelpie

green will also give you azusa, which with crucible of worlds will let you play any land you pitch through trade routes.

I would try rushwood over saprazzan. Saprazzan has evasion, but costs 4 otherwise; Rushwood at least costs 3, and islands are more common. Both of these also require an opponent to go first for a turn one drop; even on turn 2, most opponents will be on one land only, its a bit of a gamble.

I would Skyshroud Cutter before both, based off of what you just said though, about life total not really mattering.

As far as the counters I list go; with all the cards that end up in the GY, Logic Knot seems like an extra copy of counterspell for anything beyond the first few turns. First few turns, its lackluster, especially with the double blue. Tedv, how much has UU costs been a pain to keep open? The psychological advantage though is people who see UU open immediately know what that means and plays around it.

Daze I think will be a champ. Worst cast, it's a force spike. Best case, it saved you when someone tried to play around your counter.

delay At first I didn't like it since it would come back, but on second inspection I will run it if I have the space. Some decks like to run recursion, and this stops them from recyling a threat. Also, you should hopefully be able to knock out the problem person in 3 turns to remove it from hanging over your head, and if not, you should have been able to find a harder answer in that time frame. Also, if other people see a wrath ticking away on the side, they may play around it.

The three of you already optimized your versions of the decks very very well, and it makes it hard to find hidden gems. I concentrated my search initially on cheap artifacts as the lists didn't have many in there, and they could help with the issue of requiring colored mana.

I also did a double take on signal pest, and really wished battle cry would affect him as well, which is why I did a follow up search for +1 effects, but it's too much work to actually try to make him work, sadly not even pendelhaven will help there.

I had forgotten about arbor elf in recommending the lands, I still think pendlehaven could have a positive effect in your deck, replacing a non-basic possibly. I wouldn't be too concerned of the pioneer losing functionality myself, but I haven't gotten this version of the deck fully scrapped together yet, so I'll defer to your larger expertise. I would also use it more defensively, rather than offensively. Use it as one of your lands held back for counterspells, so it can potentially be a one mana save from ping effects, or even if someone flashes out a whitemane lion or something.

Likewise, I think you should take a second look at winding canyon, while the cost appears high (2 + itself) and it taps for colorless, there are a few things to consider, the 2 you are paying into it could be the 2 you are holding back for a counter, if you feel opening up on an end step worth the risk of instant speed removal, most wrath effects are sorcery speed. This leaves it as 1 to give all your creatures flash, which doubles as being able to hold open more mana on enemy turns in case you need to stop two back-to-back wraths. It amounts to security vs tempo.

Springleaf drum was added due to a comment that you were considering re-adding earthcraft, and while the power is ridiculously lower, since it pays itself with just one sick creature the turn it CIP, you can drop it a turn earlier than EC and then see results immediately afterwards, which I think the tempo is worth more than the power in the deck, though once again you have more experience in that. I would only give it a second look if you actually do consider a slot for EC.

While you were drafting your reply, I edited in a few more cards, most of which are below cut (again, the list is fairly optimal, finding gems is hard). The one that I think is the best utility card would be Phantasmal Image, but I am a very big fan of cloning effects.


Edit: How much of a champ is memnite, as a free creature with no evasion? Green has Skyshroud Cutter as another potentially free creature, but is giving each opponent 5 life too much of a cost? It accels you into your game plan faster, but at the cost of a significant amount of extra life to have to go through?

Also, if forcespikes are good enough for play in this deck, would daze potentially make the cut? One mana more, to add to the two mana counter list, but the possibility of playing it for free if needed?

free bounce? : submerge
free creature?: rushwood legate
unfortunately these are both expensive for their effects if your opponents fail to accommodate you.

Sprout Swarm can also turn two sick guys into a free creature. This is the first time I have ever considered casting it without buyback.
-turn 1: elf
-turn 2: 2drop, 1drop, convoke saproling
-turn 3: edric, 4 cards
seems nice.

Logic Knot could be another counter
Delay could be a counter?
Sadly, there is little good in suspended cards, makes me sad.

chatter of the squirrel can be two creatures for one. =/
(Guess where my latest search took me! =P)

I think it would amount to being a bad llanowar elf.

Edit: I figured I should expand upon that statement. Dropping a llanowar would cost you one mana this turn, and produce an extra for ramping the next turn; Natures lore does the same, effectively costs 1, and gives one more the next turn. The problems are this: Nature's lore can't attack. If you need the ramp, you could always leave the elf back, but you have the option to attack with it (and get cards). The elf is also a turn one ramp. Natures lore can only be played turn 2 and beyond, which is... less good.

The advantages: it mana ramps, it thins the deck.

Overall, it could still have a slot in the deck, but I feel it would be a lower slot.

Quote from ISBPathfinder

I feel like my creature count is alright. I would be alright with picking up some more utility somewhere but dont know of a creature offhand that I want in the list.

A few ideas for utility:

heap doll - 1 to cast, no evasion, but can deal with problem cards in GY's such as opposing wonders. I don't know much of what in GY's would really hurt this deck, but it's something to keep in mind.
hex parasite - 1 to deal with anything that has counters.
Flayer Husk - 1/1 for 1 that leaves a toy behind?
Shuko - cheap toy, better than bone saw
signal pest - 1 to cast, evasion, and pumps other creatures, this doubles your power on each attack. Also helps with 1 turn drops in color issues. -just re-read battle cry, made me sad... Tried to see if there's anything worthwile with graft, but meh.
Phantasmal Image - can be any evasive creature if needed, (is someone really going to waste killing your scryb sprite copy) otherwise can be any better threat that is out, or kill legendary Elesh Norn's. Clones are always just great utility.

Contested war zone - would be good on the battle cry aspect, but I don't know if you want to give people incentive to smack you, especially since you won't be blocking. Also, ties up 2 mana on your turn.
Hall of the bandit lord - taps for colorless, but can give edric haste. Problem is, it always pings you, and not many other creatures in the deck can use it.
*Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers - CIP untapped, and can potentially help edric, very low potential downsides, for minor potential upside?
*Pendelhaven - same as above, but with MUCH bigger upside. Can potentially stave off early trades, and can save something from a shock or tremor, etc.
soaring seacliff - loses a mana, gain some evasion, probably not necessary, but I figured I'd list it.
Winding canyons - turn all your mana into counterspell mana.
Yavimaya Hollow - protects creatures from basic removal.

Flight Spellbomb - 1 mana to give edric evasion for a turn? can also draw an extra card, including EOT on previous player with mana that had been saved for counterspells.
Springleaf drum - is a cheaper mini-earthcraft, can use one creature each turn to pay for another, may actually be better then craft in this deck because of how much the early tempo matters.
meekstone - for 1 mana, you stop other people's card advantage, does it make you a target of other aggro decks though?



Well, there's the fruits of my quick search, I hope something helps. I think some of the lands would be helpful; i see nothing against pendelhaven or okina. I would even run Yavimaya Hollow or Winding Canyon over some of your other colorless lands.

Oddly, I think springleaf drum will actually be better in this deck than EC, because of the cheaper cost and the instant early tempo, but it may simply be that the power of EC will just massacre it.

EDIT: more potentially fun stuff:
pygmy hippo - no evasion, but if you have an empty board to swing at can potentially help ramp? The colorless aspect hurts though.
skarrgan pit-skulk - kinda evasivy for the first few turns?
slith predator - potential to get bigger and has trample evasion?
whirling dervish - in this case, a worse slith predator.
Wren's run vanquisher - cheap beater, that has psychological unblockable, and can be used defensively if needed?
mold adder can get big
quest for the gemblades can encourage people to not block your creatures.

a bit expensive, but i've been wanting to try spawnwrithe myself. The potential to aggresively grow could be intriguing, especially with tap effects like mind over matter.

It can be good, with proliferate effects, or other counter effects.

I would be against it simply because it would cause a number of decks to splash into another color to run stronger cards of an effect, lowering diversity of cards. For example, in mono-green there is a lot of difficulty in finding removal. Cards like Desert Twister make building a green deck more challenging and fun. If given the ability to splash colors, some of the lesser green removal could be replaced with black if needed, or some of the lesser card draw be replaced with blue, making for a less interesting and smaller card pool.

I don't see it breaking anything, or being bad for a local rule, I just think there will be unintended side effects that makes it less fun than you think.

Whoops, you are indeed right. Teaches me to read the cards. For some reason I thought it was an ETB thing.

We're just expanding off of your example. As I said at the end of post, you are correct that certain generals will be affected far more strongly if they get tucked. The point was that it is possible to create a themed deck around a general that, while hurt, will not be broken by losing the general.

Taking Traitorous Glissa as an example: She likes for things to die, and she likes re-using artifacts. So you build your deck around killing stuff, and re-using artifacts. Since you have built the deck so that it kills stuff, putting in other cards that profit when creatures die is easy, Glissa doesn't have to be the only one on that bandwagon. Having other artifact recurring cards isn't bad either, such as a salvaging station (hey look, it loves it when creatures die!), this way even if both are out, they complement each other by letting you use MORE stuff whenever something dies, and your theme persists even if the general is removed.

Examples can be made with any General. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it hurts some more than others. No, that doesn't need to crush the deck's strategy.

Also, because it bears repeating, sac outlets stop tuck, and every deck has at least one sac outlet it can make great use of.

You are certainly correct that mana echoes is the better combo, but I just tossed doubling season instead as it is a card that affects both ends of Pentavus' abilities. The altar was for fun, there are many ways to go infinite with such enablers as we have named.

What it really boils down to is that manaechoes/pentavus/ashnod's altar/krark-clan ironworks/doubling season are all of a type of card that say "I am built to be broken with absurd combos."

For reference - Tangle root:

pentavus 5 counters / 0 tokens / 1 mana (to start the chain reaction)

pay 1 (0 mana left): create a token (2, doubling): 2 triggers of tangleroot (+2 mana)
pentavus 4 / 2 tokens / 2 mana
pay 1: sac token for 2 +1/+1 counters:
pentavus 6 / 1 token / 1 mana - You are now at your 1 mana starting point with +1 counter, +1 token. Repeating the above steps nets infinite creatures and counters, while remaining at 1 mana.

pentavus 1005 / 1000 token / 1 mana
pay 1 (0 mana left): make token, get 2 tokens (doubling season), 2 triggers of tangleroot (+2 mana)
pentavus 1004 / 1003 token . 2 mana - every 1 mana you pay produces 2 tokens. Each token gives you 1 mana, netting you 1 additional mana per iteration. You have infinite tokens and mana, though you deplete your pentavus.

This is slightly different from the other combos in that you have to create tokens to generate mana, thus you will always have to have more tokens than you are able to generate mana to kill them, whereas both altar and mana echoes generates a larger amount of mana than tokens, thus allowing you to end the series in any proportion desired. - Incorrect, I need to read my cards before posting from memory.

Phyrexian altar is the one that doesn't work actually. My apologies on that one. Replace it with the krark-clan ironworks, which is just an alternate ashnod's. Earthcraft actually works as well, under the same idea as tangleroot, although all of your tokens will be tapped (assuming using a basic, using lands that tap for >1 mana equals or exceeds altar as a production value, and allows you to leave tokens untapped).

Just because you have a theme deck based on the general doesn't mean you can't build the deck to still work without the general; run a bunch of similar effects.

Jor Kadeen wants you to a) play lots of artifacts, b) smash face.

While he himself gives a massive buff, there are other cards with similar effects that can be added in, such a strategy dilutes the power loss if any one effect is removed, and complements each other when both are out.

Also, adding some Sac outlets can really help prevent tucks. There are few decks that cannot benefit from a spawning pit, and it protects against tuck effects, as well as translating your dying creatures into more creatures and artifacts.

These kinds of additions hardly turn a theme into generic "good stuff."

Overall you are right that certain decks will have a harder time of it, and it comes down to personal preference and playstyle.

Quote from bitterroot

Add Mana Echoes.

Mana echoes / ashnod's / tangleroot / the other altar - are all interchangable there. They all give infinite +1/+1 counters, cards, mana, and creatures.


Phyrexian Altar

Quote from Wingedkagouti

Neat little combo: Awakening Zone + Fecundity

Fecundity + Pentavus/thopter squadron

... + doubling season

... + ashnod's altar