MTG Salvation

This is my attempt to break open the new card Hardened Scales:


I was thinking of starting off with a shell like this:



This is my first draft. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a deck that could abuse the card more. With Hardened Scales every single card in the deck can easily become an X/3 if not even bigger than that. So that means that most of the cards in the deck can become the size of Wild Nacatl or Tarmogoyf and do so quite quickly. So that is the strategy behind the deck. Play Hardened Scales, play dudes, and turn them sideways. Any thoughts or suggestions for improving the deck?

Phalanx Leader might be able to find a good home here, maybe Favored Hoplite as well.

Experiment One isn't going to do much in this deck because the triggers on your Allies happen after E1 checks their P/T. E1 sees them as 1/1s.



I wouldn't play any more non-creature spells than the 12 that I already have. This kind of deck is very reliant on synergy.

Quote from izzetmage »

Experiment One isn't going to do much in this deck because the triggers on your Allies happen after E1 checks their P/T. E1 sees them as 1/1s.

cloudman's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Windswept Heath 3 Marsh Flats 2 Temple Garden 1 Godless Shrine 1 Overgrown Tomb 4 Razorverge Thicket 2 Horizon Canopy 2 Plains 1 Forest	4 Herald of Anafenza 4 Champion of the Parish 4 Hada Freeblade 4 Oran-Rief Survivalist 4 Kazandu Blademaster 4 Bojuka Brigand 4 Kabira Evangel	4 Hardened Scales 4 Throne of Geth 4 Path to Exile

I wouldn't play any more non-creature spells than the 12 that I already have. This kind of deck is very reliant on synergy.

I read the ruling on evolve in the gatherer and it actually checks the p/t when the ability resolves. So it all depends on how you stack the triggers. If you stack the triggers so that Oran-Rief Survivalist gets the counter before the triggered ability for evolve resolves then evolve will actually see a 2/2 and Experiment One will get a counter. That is how I thought it would work, but maybe I am misinterpreting the ruling on the gatherer. That really sucks if you are right about that.

I like the call on Throne of Geth. What do you think about Abzan Ascendancy and Anafenza, The Foremost? I also think that Cavern of Souls seems like a no brainer here as well.

Also I am not feeling Herald of Anafenza. I almost feel like Noble Hierarch, Simic Initiate, or even Cruel Sadist would be better in that spot.

If that is the case, I would swap out the Bojuka Brigand for Experimental One, as that cuts you down to just GW instead of GWb. I'm also not sold on the Throne of Geth. I don't see enough artifacts to make it useful.

Also herald of anafenza is really bad. I'd rather be throwing down another creature than spending 3 mana on 2 counters and a token at best. Honestly I think the affinity approach is really where it belongs. Arcbound Ravager is strong before it, and insane after it.

Quote from cloudman »

I read the ruling on evolve in the gatherer and it actually checks the p/t when the ability resolves. So it all depends on how you stack the triggers. If you stack the triggers so that Oran-Rief Survivalist gets the counter before the triggered ability for evolve resolves then evolve will actually see a 2/2 and Experiment One will get a counter. That is how I thought it would work, but maybe I am misinterpreting the ruling on the gatherer. That really sucks if you are right about that.

This is wrong AFAIK. Evolve uses an "intervening-if" trigger (it's worded as "Whenever <event>, if <condition>, <action>") which check the condition BOTH when you attempt to put the triggered ability on the stack and when it resolves.

4/15/2013: Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, check its power and toughness against the power and toughness of the creature with evolve. If neither stat of the new creature is greater, evolve won't trigger at all.
^This means E1 will check the Ally's PT as it ETBs, it sees "1/1" so Evolve doesn't trigger.

4/15/2013: If a creature enters the battlefield with +1/+1 counters on it, consider those counters when determining if evolve will trigger. For example, a 1/1 creature that enters the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters on it will cause the evolve ability of a 2/2 creature to trigger.
^This is probably where you misread. Allies have an ETB trigger that puts +1/+1 counters on them. This is different from ETBing with +1/+1 counters, e.g. Fertilid. Allies have a triggered ability, Fertilid has a replacement effect.

614.1c. Effects that read "[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ," "As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ," or "[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . " are replacement effects.

Lastly Throne of Geth is just a one-shot proliferater. Just sac it to itself for the extra counters.

Quote from theonecalledrune »

Also herald of anafenza is really bad. I'd rather be throwing down another creature than spending 3 mana on 2 counters and a token at best. Honestly I think the affinity approach is really where it belongs. Arcbound Ravager is strong before it, and insane after it.

I would run at least one if not two, just as a late game mana sink with good upsides for the deck. I still don't like splashing black for one creature. You weaken the overall mana base (to blood moon at least) and take more damage, while not running the most powerful black cards.

Edit- I see the point of the Throne, but I feel like there is probably a better card to run out there.

Unfortunately there's not a lot of choices for 1-2CMC creatures in GW that can have +1/+1 counters placed on them, that are also Humans. You can probably go up to 23 lands and some Ranger of Eos I guess.

It would be a nice curve topper that could give you enough gas to pump a number of creatures. I would rather than than extend the mana base into three colors for a minimal effect splash. I mean if your going for black humans I would rather see Dark Confidant. The curve is low enough, has an ok clock, and speeds you up a little more. But that again opens you up to a weakness against burn and the like.

I was working the same problem but I had a different angle. I was going to use Heroic along with a suite of 1 cmc instants that target and give protection.



This is just theory - no playtesting. The idea is to cast any particular creature to start with, and then use these protection from color spells along with a few other tasty 1 cmc instants to swing through. Blocking should be tough to do and you should be able to exhaust their creature kill spells pretty quickly. Varolz is an odd singleton black mana but he seems to work so good here.
No creature control or card draw. This has more in common with Bogles than anything else you might see.

Turn 1 - Favored Hoplite
Turn 2a - Risky play - Hardened Scales, Rancor (Favored Hoplite becomes 5/4)
Turn 2b - Safe play - Rancor, hold mana open (Favored Hoplite is 4/3)
Turn 3 - Emerge Unscathed, Hoplite gets 2 +1/+1 counters and can't be blocked
Turn 4 - Free casting of Emerge Unscathed, another 2 counters and can't be blocked


I am also exploring the splice spells to see if maybe a package of splices will be more efficient at activating heroic.

Quote from izzetmage »

4/15/2013: Whenever a creature enters the battlefield under your control, check its power and toughness against the power and toughness of the creature with evolve. If neither stat of the new creature is greater, evolve won't trigger at all.
^This means E1 will check the Ally's PT as it ETBs, it sees "1/1" so Evolve doesn't trigger.

4/15/2013: If a creature enters the battlefield with +1/+1 counters on it, consider those counters when determining if evolve will trigger. For example, a 1/1 creature that enters the battlefield with two +1/+1 counters on it will cause the evolve ability of a 2/2 creature to trigger.
^This is probably where you misread. Allies have an ETB trigger that puts +1/+1 counters on them. This is different from ETBing with +1/+1 counters, e.g. Fertilid. Allies have a triggered ability, Fertilid has a replacement effect.

614.1c. Effects that read "[This permanent] enters the battlefield with . . . ," "As [this permanent] enters the battlefield . . . ," or "[This permanent] enters the battlefield as . . . " are replacement effects.

Lastly Throne of Geth is just a one-shot proliferater. Just sac it to itself for the extra counters.

Thanks for clarifying that for me. I think Adaptive Automaton plays real well with Throne of Geth and the rest of the deck since you can name "ally" and get all the ally ETB effects and then sac it to Throne of Geth. Aether Vial could also be good here too.

My list right now:

@illinest: I'm definately liking your use of Varolz in your example but I don't think it will end up getting a lot more for the investment (only one additional counter for each scavenge). Here's the first deck I'm going to build with Hardeng Scales.



I think this deck would be hysterical to play. Scavenging Ooze might not go too well with Varolz but you would try to eat your opponents yard first with the ooze. You would have to avoid using the Oran-Rief, The Vastwood when you first play Strangleroot Geist but after that it would be all good. Gyre Sage should be able to get pretty big in this deck and could also help power out Garruk or mass scavenge your yard for an alpha strike.

I might try Garruk Wildspeaker instead of Primal Hunter because I think it would be awesome to untap Oran-Rief the Vastwood for extra laughs!

Any thoughts as to undying triggering the Hardened Scales effect? (I'm still building this deck anyways!).

Heroic isn't good with Hardened Scales. Hardened Scales is very inefficient in that deck because you're only pumping one creature at a time. You might as well play something like Hyena Umbra. The fact that Hero of Leina Tower requires you to spend mana makes it all the worse.

I'll say it again, this deck is very reliant on synergy. You have to play a lot of creatures that can put +1/+1 counters on themselves. I mentioned in the spoiler thread that I thought it was similar to Quest for the Holy Relic...well, look at this Quest deck from Standard. Everything other than the lands, Quests and Argentum Armors are creatures (there's 31 of them to be exact). Or look at any Gruul Zoo decklist before Nacatl was unbanned - they played 24+ other creatures just to support Experiment One. I believe this deck has to follow a similar route.

You criticized your own idea indirectly. You pointed out the construction of e1 zoo which had to jump through hoops to build a proper curve for e1, but hardened scales "wastes" 4 synergy spots. Your allies deck also has no way to push damage through aside from simply being big, and this is potentially bigger than zoo but also less efficient and flimsier in practice. I feel that you're trying to build a weak version of zoo, and that's not where i'd go. Nacatl isn't synergistic with hardened scales but i'd take nacatl over these allies any day.

Instants that grant protection are efficient in combination with heroic (synergistic - you might say) and my method gives you a chance to hold back a little. You're not forcing yourself to over-extend into a wrath of god.

The best Heroic creature you could use is Phalanx Leader as he pumps everyone on your team.

"Waste" synergy spots? What on earth are you talking about? What do you call Quest for the Holy Relic in its namesake deck then? Is it a waste to play Quest in its own deck? lol.

And there is a way to push damage through, it's Kabira Evangel. You know, the thing that has the same effect as Brave the Elements, which people play in their Knight decks.

There's one very simple question to ask when playing Hardened Scales: how many extra +1/+1 counters can you get out of it? An Allies deck can easily get 6 if it puts down three creatures in the following turns. I'll say that again; your one-mana investment generates SIX extra +1/+1 counters. How much mileage is your pseudo-Bogle deck going to get out of it? Definitely less.

Cenn's tactician feels better than herald of Anafenza.

Quote from snarfblattcheesewizard »

Cenn's tactician feels better than herald of Anafenza.

It's not a Human though, so it doesn't grow Champion.

The choice of 1-drop after Champion and Freeblade is quite infuriating because nothing seems up to par. Maybe it's better so up the land count and play something higher up on the curve, I don't know. Or maybe there'll be some other playable guy that hasn't been spoiled yet.

So I'm actually thinking that we can go down to 8 1 drop creatures because Hardened Scales is also a 1 drop. I'm also thinking that outside of Champion of the Parish the focus should be on human allies in order to maximize the value of every creature we are playing. I also think that while Throne of Geth can proliferate all of our creatures in reality it is just a crappy 2 drop ally (that also happens to hit Champion of the Parish). I think we can get better value from that slot by just playing more allies. I'm leaning towards this list right now:



Probably the most interesting choice here is Adaptive Automaton. Yep, it is true that it doesn't hit Champion of the Parish, but my gut tells me that isn't going to matter against most decks because most of the time Champion of the Parish is going to be the first card that hits the field, and it will be the first card to eat removal because of that. The value you get out playing Adaptive Automaton and naming "ally" is broken for 3 mana. Basically when he hits the field most allies are going to get +2/+2 or +3/+3 if Hardened Scales is in play.

I guess you're right about Throne of Geth. I want to keep the curve of this deck low, though, so when I take out Throne I want to bring in something that also costs 2. That leaves Harabaz Druid and Ondu Cleric...well, no real choice here, Druid is a Human and gives me mana to dump into Herald of Anafenza.

Automaton will trigger Champion of the Parish.

It has the Human creature type once it enters the battlefield.

I would go harder towards ooze/evolve mechanics. Oozes by their nature in MTG often use +1/+1 counters, and there are quite a few good ones. Bloodhall Ooze also won a lot of dailys for Jund after bloodbraid was banned.

• Bloodhall Ooze
  
• Experiment One
  
• Necroplasm
  
• Predator Ooze
  
• Scavenging Ooze
  
• Ooze Flux
  
• Hardened Scales
  

Quote from RedKid43 »

Automaton will trigger Champion of the Parish.

It has the Human creature type once it enters the battlefield.

The problem here is you have to choose between naming "human" or "ally". Most of the time "ally" is going to be the better choice because more ETBs in the deck trigger off an ally entering the battlefield.