MTG Salvation

Ran Reid's list with a Path in place of Murderous Cut through some two man's on MTGO. Played against two Jeskai Tempo decks and felt pretty good in that matchup, as you guys have said previously Souls is a big help and boarding into Fulminator's/CB's feels great.
Treetop Village was fantastic I really enjoyed playing with that card again. Think I might want a 3rd Grim Flayer and a 2nd Path going forward.

I wouldnt mind a couple drs to spice things up

No but honestly, yeah, drs is the only consideration.

I also have great results with reids approach, love treetop as well as the low to the ground approach.

Past 4 events I have been putting great results with Abzan (3-0-1, 3-0, 3-1, 3-1)



Treetops and their trample dmg have been great, especially since my meta is crazy: last event had 12 players and 8 of them had Lingering Souls somewhere in the 75.

@meite wow thats a lot of Maelstrom Pulses. What do you need them for?

Quote from FlyingDelver »

@meite wow thats a lot of Maelstrom Pulses. What do you need them for?

In my meta I see a lot of BW tokens with planeswalkers and also some Sun and Moon decks. I feel they are good all around answers, especially since my meta is so infested with spirit tokens. And they can also take down delve creatures.

So we know Abzan has the advantage over Grixis DS, is this also true for Traverse Shadow is what I am wandering. I mean they also got Souls as trump card, so it might get tricky here.

You absolutely have the advantage over Traverse. If they can't start beating you down early they're in huge trouble.

Unless you're me against Shadow, a few weeks ago when I played Reid's list, my only loss was to a Grixis Shadow player, where he had 2x shadow, 1x Izzet, 1x snapcaster mage, and 1x K Command you brutalize me when I had 2x Linbering souls cards. So frustrating.


It looks like a lot of us agree on Reid's list except 2x Paths.


As for the Noble lists, playing a turn 2x Lingering souls was never exciting, and I hate when people bring that up. Turn 2x LOTV was exciting, souls was not.

DRS is beyond broken, even testing the limits of legacy, so no chance that card ever comes back to modern.

I wouldn't get too high on Flayer, that card isn't that great.

I'm going to test more of Reid's list and some BG Rock.

Abzan has definitely the advantage over Traverse Shadow, the Souls tokens usually only come in post board (max 1 copy main). Traverse Shadow basically is a pimped version of Abzan (and Jund combined), which means you are better against linear and uninteractive decks but this makes you also more fragile. In such an attrition-based matchup Abzan should always be favoured, as grinding is what this deck does best, whereas Traverse Shadow tries killing fast. That doesn't mean Shadow is chanceless in the matchup, I just think traditional GBx decks play to much value and removal for the aggressive Shadow decks.

I am very torn apart on the Path issue. I think arguments in favor of Path are as respectable as arguments against it. I think its reasonable to have the exiling effect, to have a better chance against Tron (Wurmcoil Engine) and GW Company decks, which usually prey on our removal with sticky threats ala Voice and Finks. Path could help there. Also, you know, opposing random Mirran Crusader also need to be answered sometimes. Thats where the third colour of our removal suite comes in handy.

However, Reid says that denying your opponents resources is the plan. And Path works against that. I think this is also very important. I never was completely happy when I pathed a creature (except for Wurmcoil, admitted, get out of here jeez!) since I am ramping my opponent. If I am playing against a GW Company deck, I might be able to cleanly deal with Voice, but if it means that my opponent then gets the fourth missing land to cast Collected Company, then IDK if it was worth the Path.

That's why playing 1 or 2 paths is ideal imo. You never want to rely completely on that card, but there are situations in the game where a path is your only way to deal with certain creatures.

Edit: Path is also very strong against opposing Gideons.

Quote from Hype_rion »

That's why playing 1 or 2 paths is ideal imo. You never want to rely completely on that card, but there are situations in the game where a path is your only way to deal with certain creatures.

Edit: Path is also very strong against opposing Gideons.

Hm I am leaning more towards 1 copy I think. Right now my list looks like this:



My basic Sideboard plan for the most important matchups right now is:

Grixis DS:

-1 Fatal Push
-2 Decay
-3 IOK
+1 Damnation
+1 EE
+1 Spellbomb
+3 Fulminator

Affinity:

-3 Thoughtseize
-4 Liliana of the Veil
+2 Stony Silence
+1 Damnation
+1 Flaying Tendrils
+1 Engineered Explosives
+2 Fulminator Mage

Gifts Storm:

-1 Liliana, the Last Hope
-4 lingering Souls
-2 Abrupt Decay
+3 Collective Brutality
+1 Grafdigger's Cage
+1 Nihil Spellbomb
+1 Surgical Extraction
+1 EE

Humans:

-3 Thoughtseize
-1 Spellbomb
-2 LoTV
+3 CB
+1 Damnation
+1 Flaying
+1 EE

Burn:

-4 Bob
-3 TS
+3 CB
+1 EE
+3 Fulminator

Jeskai Tempo:

-2 Push
-2 Pulse
-2 Grim Flayer
+2 CB
+3 Fulminator
+1 Thrun

Tron:

-4 Push
-1 LtLH
-1 Lingering Souls
+3 Fulminator
+1 Surgical
+2 Stony Silence

E-Tron:

-1 LtLH
-3 IOK
-1 Push
+1 Damnation
+3 Fulminator
+1 Surgical

UR Breach

-4 Push
+3 CB
+1 Thrun

I like this configuration, Delver.
For a long time I have been playing the so called "centralized" list with Trackers and Rhinos, but they felt clunky. This is more of a Jund approach, but with the benefit of Souls. Also, I was never a fan of the Plains in the mb, this makes more sense to me and is also the way Reid builds his Junk lists.
But the Foothills have to be Windswept Heaths, right?

Quote from Hype_rion »

I like this configuration, Delver.
For a long time I have been playing the so called "centralized" list with Trackers and Rhinos, but they felt clunky. This is more of a Jund approach, but with the benefit of Souls. Also, I was never a fan of the Plains in the mb, this makes more sense to me and is also the way Reid builds his Junk lists.
But the Foothills have to be Windswept Heaths, right?

ah yeah, sure, will fix it!

In personally never liked the centralized list all that much. Rhinos seem so mediocre these days.

Ok, played BG Rock. I think it's definitely a worse deck than Abzan

That mana base is an awful mess, based off Elliots. The deck is also far too soft to burn. I really don't think this is even a tier 2 deck. The mana base reminded me of how clunky E&T's mana base. Way too many tapped manlands, colorless base was far too much of an issue in the early game. Lack of fetches can make Goyf worse and put it in compromising situations, lack of fetches can make push worse. 4x Scooze? I can't think of many metas where this is right.

The only thing I truly enjoyed was Tireless Tracker.

To be fair, my only 2 losses in practice were to token decks, but I found this deck very clunky. It's just smoother to run 3 colors.


As for centralized lists, it's not bad but I think something has to be done about Rhino---it's a bad card overshadowed by power creep. E-Tron, Gurmag, Shadow. It's no longer a good card, just an ok one.

Quote from wagawagawali »

@FlyingDelver: When you say 'denying your oppenents ressources', you mean his hand, or his creatures or something else? I don't see any lands disruption in your list. For me abzan plan is dealing with opponent threats and applying pressure. I may be wrong.

The nature of the deck is to disrupt the opponents gameplan. This usually means discarding cards and removing permaments. Naturally, it operates against our plan to give opponents more mana to work with. Thats whats meant by this. So I mean everything, when talking about resources: Cards (in hand or BF) and tempo.

I will try your list on my next FNM FlyingDelver. I think i will just replace 1 nihil spellbomb with a 3rd flayer or ooze mainboard.

Also what, do you think is the position of Finks mainboard right now in Confidant decks? My meta seems to be infested with UWR control lately and i've been thinking about squeezing 2 finks mainboard. Is that even a good idea?

I think that both for both GDS and TDS (Traverse Death's Shadow), the difficulty of the matchup is directly tied to how many copies of Lingering Souls they play against. If Abzan doesn't draw any, then I would say the DS decks are slightly favored, with GDS grinding well and TDS just being a lower to the ground version of the same strategy. Having to fight through one Lingering Souls makes it even to slightly unfavored, depending on when it's played and the nature of the game, with two or more Souls making the matchup more difficult at an exponential rate.

@layf If you're playing Dark Confidant, 4 LotV, 4 Lingering Souls, and 2-3 Fulminators in the sideboard and consistently losing to Jeskai than your strategy is probably more of an issue than your list. Kitchen Finks will certainly help in that matchup (although you're running a lot of 3-drops at that point), but there may be other edges that you're missing that could help more in the long run.

I still think I'd run Murmuring Bosk instead of Temple Garden in a BG-splash-W deck. Maybe not with only twenty-three lands and four man-lands.

Make that "probably not", but I doubt I'd run four man-lands in a three-color list with 23 lands, though. At least that is against my inclination.

Quote from FlyingDelver »

So we know Abzan has the advantage over Grixis DS, is this also true for Traverse Shadow is what I am wandering. I mean they also got Souls as trump card, so it might get tricky here.

I play Traverse Shadow and Abzan is by far our worst matchup. UW Control ain't great but at least you can clock them somehow. Abzan feels unbeatable.

Hey all,
I had the pleasure of playing in the Columbus SCG open this past weekend with 950 players.
Deck list here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/883664#paper
Matchups were:
Day 1
L 1-2 Naya Zoo
W 2-1 Ad Nauseam
W 2-0 Jeskai Control
W 2-1 Grixis Death Shadow
W 2-0 Sultai Death Shadow
W 2-0 Abzan Midrange
W 2-0 Eldrazi and Taxes
L 1-2 Bant Company
W 2-1 UG Merfolk
7-2

Day 2
W 2-1 Grixis Death Shadow
W 2-1 B/G Tron
L 1-2 Four Color Shadow
W 2-1 Humans
L 0-2 Humans
W 2-0 UW Control
11-4

Some unusual choices and discussion:
4 Scavenging Ooze - I wanted at least 3 Scooze, I tried Kalitas and E.Wit in the main and was not impressed by them. Having 4 Seize and 4 Bobs, the potential amounts of life loss had me worried. Having 4 silver bullets against gy strategy also was nice. Would probably cut a Scooze for the next tourney in favor of a Kitchen Finks.
3 Treetop Village/ 2 Hissing Quagmire/ 3 Field of Ruins/ 1 Tectonic Edge - I used Robin Dolar's deck recipe from when he won GP Boston/Worchester in 2014. He played Abzan with 3 tec edge/1 stirring wildwood/ 3 treetops/ and 2 twilight mire, which appears very greedy especially in a three color deck. I was very happy with how the utility lands performed; however, would probably cut a treetop village for a 3rd Quagmire, and cut the Tec Edge for a 4th Field of Ruin.

I think the sideboard could use help. Sideboarding against Death Shadow was difficult - and I was curious to what strategies you guys were implementing post-board against them?

Thank you.