MTG Salvation

Most people still opt for Mutagenic Growth, as there are fewer direct kill spells in todays metagame (barring Mono black control, and even then you kill them with GoST with mutagenic+snapcaster for mutilate). The biggest issue is that faith's shield can't really protect things until turn 2 at the earliest.

Making GoST unblockable is alright, but usually you can just vapor snag your way through. Faith's Shield is much better late game against Zombies, when they push you under 5 health.

I occasionally run this in my sideboard if I see a lot of G/x aggro decks, and they are nice to swap in for my swords when they grab ancient grudge.

Its pretty fantastic having the ability to just fly over. The biggest worry is Crushing Vines, but playing Spec Flight on a delver flip on turn two on the play is pretty devastating, as you just sit on leak the rest of the game.

Well, it wasn't my decklist. I was also estimating his mana base.

Either way, he's playing Kibler-pod nowadays.

Quote from lanchfn21

Thanks for the explanation reply.

I had Divine Deflection in my 75 for a little while and it never did anything when I had it. Might just not have been enough games to fully test it though.

Divine Deflection's best use for me when I ran it was almost always a kill spell....so I just replaced it with dismember for consistency, and because if you play Divine Deflection once, they are going to play around it. While its great at stalling Strangleroot or Dungrove beats while still killing things like Huntmaster, dismember, at the cost of 4 life, has always been easier to play with and much more effective.
To be noted, it can be very good against stuff like Solar Flare, if you can force their counterspells early. I got my buddy to ~ 6 life before he swept and followed with 3 sun titans. Dropped Divine Deflection like a boss for x=6.


On topic of your list, I do really like it. Avenger is a pretty good play on turn 4 with 2 mana up for leak / snag. I feel like its pretty similar to running Resto angel , just you play it on your turn and gain the advantage of vigilance.

I like your list for the most part, however my sideboard would look different (but thats obvious, sideboards are situational!). Granted I'd still say running Talrand somewhere in your 75 is nice, especially with Tamiyo backup.

Quote from flakmonkey

I think sublime archangel works best in decks that have many creatures that you dont want to attack with (mana dorks, fiend hunters, relic warders, etc). if you are going to apply constant board pressure to pump up your champion, and now you have a mirran on the field, are you really going to want to have to pick which one to attack with? As far as restoration angel, she is just a great card on her own, the flash allows you to play her at the end of his turn 4, and then you sword equip turn 5. the problem with resto is that you have to leave 4 mana open, and WHENEVER I play a deck that uses white and leaves 4 mana open, I am just expecting the angel to come into play (cavern declaring Angel usually gives this away as well).

Wouldn't that be a good thing? You can bluff angel when people are contemplating board wipes or kill spells and make them think. Thats the easiest way to make someone screw up. Also, flashing in Resto Angel EoT if you run Silverblade Paladin seems pretty hilarious.

Quote from Lauphiette Kincey

Delver decks are cutting geist because he's become less and less relevant in a field of green decks that can flood the board with blockers. Vapor snag is becoming a lot more valuable as an answer to rancor and a tempo stealer as oppossed to removing blockers for geist.

As far as talrand goes, He's pretty much a 3 or a 9 on the spectrum of card quality but in a deck with so many cheap threats, he's often that 9. His best perk is being great in the mirror though.

If he's great in the mirror but less good against all out aggro (as far as I can tell, since by the time you're getting to turn four against naya aggro you are either winning or need immediate board pres.), whereas angel is pretty much good against everything, why not board talrand in? Angel seems silly with augur too.

I personally like talrand out of the board more than main (and even then, I generally have found I wouldn't board him in against anything other than mirror). He doesn't really do much to decks running red, they almost always have a way to kill him, and against delver, he's a big huge "vapor snag me all day!". Also gets owned by bonfire hard (then again, not much lives through it). I still think restoration angel is one of the strongest cards in standard, and am having a hard time with wanting to drop it.

Augur of Bolas, however, I am liking....just trying to fit it into my current delver. Thinking about chopping my cavern of souls and 1 angel or geist to add 2 of these. Would definately run these with Talrand though, it can get you a lot of card advantage and board presence all in one card.



Still, Talrand is an iffy card for me. I feel like angel is better against Naya and not much worse against Delver. No main deck GoST makes me think that this deck just loses to a GoST thats got at least 1 snag or kill spell behind it.

I personally run geist main board, with 2 talrand and 2 splicer in the sideboard. Still playing around with Augur of Bolas, but don't find myself getting enough benefit out of him until late game when I need an answer. Wish he had flash. Lol.

Sideboard 4 phantasmal image and bring in revoke existence to deal with their artifacts and enchants. If you sever their Geist of Saint Traft or Sigarda, Host of Herons (or Thrun, the Last Troll) after a turn one delver, you can basically just SoWAP up at some point while they ping you for next to nothing since you are most likely snapcaster- revokeing any enhancers and using Phantasmal's to kill their fat beaters.

Leave counter magic up for their Increasing Savagery (if they run it) on Stalker, that just makes you lose. A delver or a Resto Angel can often carry the distance by just denying them the chance to buff up their creatures.

I would play a lot of mana dorks, like Llanowar Elves, Birds of Paradise, and play cards like Strangleroot Geist, Rancor, and Thragtusk, if you're dead set on Primadox. Wouldn't suggest non-mana dork one drops.

Only four drops you really want in an R/G deck nowadays are Huntmaster of the Fells, for R/G only.

I wouldn't set the deck to be "damage through burn as your main damage output", but rather a deck that plays well with it. 1-2 Thundermaw Hellkite is probably fine on the top end, maybe along with two Wolfir Silverheart. Visionary is fine, get 2-3 Bonfire's if possible. Vexing Devil isn't that great, I'd rather run 3 Pillar 3 Incinerate. If you like Vexing Devil, I'd run Brimstone Volley over Searing Spear. Play devil on turn w/ four mana, they sac and take 4, morbid triggers, blast them for 5 more.

I would suggest at least getting 4 M13 dual lands for this though, as colored mana will be important. Rootbound Crag. Cheap too. If you want to get the Copperline Gorge, they're not that far up there in price either. These suggestions do lean you harder on green though.

Mark of Mutiny is good in the sideboard, for decks that cheat out fat creatures or ramp.
I wouldn't rely on spell based ramp, and try to ramp into 4 drops turn 3 and 5 drops turn 4. Also, Ground Seal is only really good for sideboard against certain decks.

Throw some Zealous Conscripts in the sb too, or main board if you like them better than Wolfir Silverheart.

Something like
Its much more of an r/g aggro style this way, however it does leave you with some explosive turn 3 -> turn four plays, and a bit more of a burn style.

Turn 2 Rancor'd strangleroot with things like Thragtusk, Huntmaster and co. on the way is scary.

its gonna be played in any red deck for the next long while.

other than that, I doubt anything will jump it past 31 for a while now.

rancor hasn't been too much of a problem, snag works very well against it.

thragtusk is tough game 1 but I usually have images to nullify it game two.

imo, nicol bolas should be your finisher, not something you race into.

Packing the deck with removal of all sorts along with some sweepers for hexproof and play into other threats first. You win the resource war first, then when they're struggling for gas you throw nicol bolas out, and blow **** up or steal their creatures.

I think he works best in a grixis control shell, a'la chapins list, however I would add a few more kill spells and even possibly a couple Think Twice, to draw those lands and pieces.

here is one of chapins lists from forever ago, obviously not tuned to the meta now but could give you a shell
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=963635

I don't see archangel doing much until possibly ravnica, if ever.

she looks good on paper, but really doesn't end the game like destiny can, or hero with mauler in r/w.

Wish I could go, or I would. Im stuck working this weekend :[