MTG Salvation

well sadly this deck got nothing from horizons really but I just got these at GP Providence. looks like I need to put down my other deck and play this for a while.

Another top 8 in the books for me at our 40 person FNM. Same list I've been on, Rockdrazi, no changes

r1 sultai midrange
g1 I just completely bury him. These matches seem to be whomever gets the first tracker wins. G2 he gets tracker and then I get buried. g3 I keep a hand with 2 eldrazi temples and 3 tks and 2 stone uncastable cards. I kept because it's a neat hand that never happens but I knew it was risky, if I never draw another land I just can't cast anything. WEELLLL that's exactly what happened. literally never drew a 3rd land and he was able to come back.
0-1

r2 hardened scales
both games were pretty easy now that I have a bit more experience in how the deck plays. Flaying tendrils MVP but with the right draws this deck is really scary. It has such awesome grind to it.
1-1

r3 UR wildfire
total brew but he had a bunch of land destroy and what not like blood moons and frost titans. It was kinda like skred red in a way, semi prisony but much worse. smushers put in work as did assassin's trophy.
2-1

r4 rock
we trade a LOT of resources and much back and forth. Honestly they were very fun games but my threats usually line up much better in these GBx mirrors. I beat him in 2 with goys and scoozes and trackers. just good ol fashioned magic.
3-1

r5 counters company
g1 i Just totally bury him with removal and hard beats and smusher to finish him off. g2 I get totally buried under his tracker/knight of reliquary combo. those 2 cards play very nicely together. g3 we have a mega long game. At one point i cast flaying tendrils and like 6 for 2 him (had to lose a treetop to trade with a courser) Eventually I get out kalitas and then a scooze who got monstrous and he ran out of answers.
4-1

top 8: jund
I was happy to play this as in general my threats line up and in my experience I would say I'm favored albeit slightly. However jund did jund things and his removal lined up perfectly and BBE's only hit gas despite so many potentially bad flips, was a close game tho. g2 I keep a 2 colored lands with 2 scoozes and a push but largely medium hand. I debated mulling looking for either more early game or more lands and probably should have but who wants to mull in an attrition matchup where every card counts. I eventually get to my 3rd land but that was it and just drew all my top end. Only playing 1 card a turn for 6-7 turns obviously is not going to beat jund.
4-2

I run 24 lands and got stuck on lands in very important games. Variance is always a thing and at 24 lands I guess I'll be prone to screw more than flood. Better mull decisions would have helped for sure but they were reasonable 7's against grindy decks. I only had to mull once for real vs Rock throughout the night and I will be more wary of this in the future. Overall I played pretty well and didn't make any obvious mistakes so I can't complain.

FNM results.

r1 storm
g1 I miss land drops for 5 turns and die on t8 when he has a single card in hand, past in flames and I am stuck on 3 lands with lethal next turn. I missed my 3rd land for a while and never hit my 4th with a TKS in hand..brutal. g2 we have a good game and he tries to go off through some disruption. basically he double manamorphose, no cards in hand and flips into an empty the warrens, of course, and I don't see any of my wraths or pulses...We play a few extra games for fun and they actually went a lot more like I thought they would...aka, I slaughter him mercilessly. That's magic for ya, sometimes variance is on your side, sometimes not.
0-1

r2 metalwork colossus combo
this deck despite it being jank is actually very resilient. It's similar to KCI but instead of a really stupid and BS combo it just poops out artifacts and recurs colossus. g1 I would say it's like a 80-20 or better in his favor. g2 my SB cards get me there and in g3 he losses to his deck. Draws lots of lands and useless cards like nature's claims.
1-1

r3 burn
fun turn with me having 2 4/5 goyfs a liliana TLH on 2 loyalty, him at 15 and me at 2 life. I'm trying to think how on earth I can deal 15 in 1 turn. So i know that minusing lili makes them 5/6 so I start with that, flipping a reality smasher and well, i take that, cast and smush for 15 hahaha oh man totally stole that game. I LOVE smasher. g2 he just gets TOTALLY run over i don't think i dropped below 10 health. brutality into discard and fast beats. GG
2-1

r4 hardened scales
I win in 3 very hard games. I could not believe how hard this deck was to play against. he just has so much value and his guys get so huge almost everything is must answer. To be honest I think i only won because he played poorly. He missed a lot of triggers of various sorts. I need to play against this more, I think I could have made better choices too along the way. I know how the deck plays but not having reps against it I know I played suboptimally. Even with huge goyfs and scoozes I always felt behind.
3-1

Came in 9th missing out on breakers. We had 31 people which means we were 1 short of having 5 rounds. 4 rounds really sucks especially at 31 people. What can you do. Sadly no top 8 means no more modern for me but got to play cube so I guess it's fine

FNM Tournament report We had about 50 players at our black friday FNM. We had some notable attendees like Dav Shiels - GP winner, Sky mason - GP winner, Rich Shay - vintage pro and a couple pro tour competitors among others. So it wasn't a soft fnm haha.



r1: 4 color saheeli combo
Not going to go into too much detail. This felt very very easy. With so much removal and interaction I'm honestly not sure how they even with this matchup.
1-0

r2 abzan counters company.
g1 I run him over after we play back and forth for a little bit. I know what he's on ahead of time so I made sure to keep a hand that can deal with the combo. g2 I keep a 1 landser with a bunch of 2 drops and some cheap GY hate. I figure if i draw a land in 3 draws I'll be fine. I didn't and lost horribly. In hindsight I need to not ever do that again...Game 3 was a long drawn out one but I run out of gas eventually and can't compete with his Rhonas.
1-1

r3 mono blue tron
I was excited to play this match as it is favorable for me. I have 6 main deck ways to turn off tron and I don't have to deal with ulamog. I'm always excited to play Utron even though it's rare. I also knew what I was up against so I new I needed trophies and fields to show up. They did and I was able to get the removal I needed to stop huge walkers. It also helped my goyfs were always 6/7s. g2 got even worse for him as I add in more hate. I played around counters but TKS is such a beating in this match.
2-1

r4 jund vengevine
I'm not sure what he's on at first but figure out it's a vengevine list. I manage to deal with his threats and keep him off any sort of shenanigans. I thought he was much more all in combo and in g2 was stuck with a lot of GY hate and got smushed. g3 I remove surgicals and go back to a more typical set up I would do for jund. As expected g3 was long and drawn out but my top end is so much better than his and smushers took it home.
3-1

r5 GR titan shift
I was afraid of this matchup. I don't really have any good ways to interact with valakut or scapeshift. G1 I kept him off lands as best I could but i missed my 4th and 5th lands by a turn and that was huge. Had I been on the play I think I would have gotten there but I was 1 turn too late and he had the scapeshift and 7 lands and I was at 18. g2 i run him over very fast with some discard and he's unable to do anything about it. g3 we actually have a pretty long game after I thoughtseize his scapeshift seeing as second one then surgical them out. With step 1 completed I just needed to dodge prime time until I found answers which I did but he never drew any of the 3. I was able to finish him off pretty easily from here.
4-1

Bonus round while waiting for top 8: merfolk
g1 I run him over very fast despite it being a fairly close race. He shut off a temple which slightly screwed me for a bit till I was able to rip another land and play my guys. g2 he draws a bunch of vials and I was able to pulse them, haha felt good. He was light on mana and only really being able to play 1 guy a turn after that point was all I needed. My guys are far bigger and making sure I play around the lords and it's not really too bad. I do know from previous plays that things can get outa hand real quick with spreading seas and lords so thankfully that wasn't too much of an issue here. Trophy has been such a wonderful addition to this deck it's pretty dumb.
5-1

top 8 vs jeskai control
g1 I keep a hand with some discard and a bunch of goyfs. We play a lot of back and forth and I just run him out of resources, not run too badly into supreme verdict and my 3rd goyf gets the job done. g2 I get the eldrazi dream and t2 tks into t3 smusher. He of course is eventually able to deal with them but by that time he has but 1 lightning helix and a snapcaster in play and a couple lands in hand. I get down a kalitas, kill his snapcaster and from there I dodge 1 turn of removal for a quick win. This match felt pretty easy for me but from experience it has never felt easy. For me UW has ALWAYS been the harder matchup I was glad he was on jeskai where bolts and helix are pretty bad.
6-1


We split top 4. Top 4 was gTron, dredge, infect and GB eldrazi. Top 8 had KCI, 4 color shadow, jeskai control and 1 other I don't remember. I made a few changes prior to the tourney in moving brutalities to SB and adding a treetop and another scooze. I miss the utility of brutality but I think the consistency if more important. I really liked those changes and will stick with them for now. The additional manland was huge in the jund match. Smusher and trophy were MVPs. Smasher is such a hell of a card. I love it. I love having FoR too and the deck synergizes so well. I can't see myself playing anything else.

Without a reliable sac outlet the enchantment isn't great. It may mean your guy becomes unblockable or you just board stall with it. With PtE as mentioned and no way to fully control when your guys die without losing value to do so makes it a no from me. I mean, using a removal on your own guy to trigger it isn't the worst but you are still using a card where as you might just get free value with a sac outlet or forcing them to kill it. I think it's interesting and perhaps in certain matchups it's good. It could be a decent mirror breaker kind of card. It doesn't help our bad matches which is the biggest problem I have with it.

I'm late to the discussion on the Red v Black but I personally don't think red adds much but it is a different take on the deck. I do actually like the obligator it's a very strong aggressive card and if you can maintain momentum it's hard to lose which is what the deck aims to do vs BG inherently is more controlly midrange. And for that purpose, having a mana dork t1 ups the chance of being able to play a 4 drop t2 and smashers t3. Obligator is also very good against tron. Deck does seem soft to storm but it does have tools to fight pretty much everything. There's certainly another forum for this deck style I'm sure. I certainly prefer what black has to offer. Interesting side note, we are much better vs boggles then they are, too bad that's not really a thing. I guess it comes down to the meta as this deck is better vs some decks than others.

I have tried out nobles and birds before and sometimes they were fine sometimes they weren't. Being able to accelerate is not to be underestimated and I have waffled back and forth thinking about adding them back again. Being able to play your stuff ahead of curve is the only reason decks like these can compete. I think for me it's hard to remove that interaction with our bad matchups, at least some, in g1. Sometimes t1 discard into goyf just wins where as t2 reshaper does not, or at least not nearly as often.

I've done some initial testing and so far I really like going up to 23 lands and adding couple more basics. Field of ruin has been excellent thus far with 4 basics. Although I will admit I'm far from any concrete truths, the getting a basic has been kinda huge allowing for either removal with revolt, discard, oath or a scooze activation combined with LD. It's a shame field doesn't really help me against a blood moon unless moon comes down late but that's where the 4 basics help I suppose. I also like having a wastes but maybe that's not necessary and could be something else at some point.

Went 3-1 at fnm. Lost to abzan r1 in 3 very close games. Ultimately lost g3 to topdeck tireless tracker. beat mono red skred, death and taxes and budget mono green aggro/infect deck.

Tested out 1 hissing quagmire and 1 driven // despair. Quagmire was fine but not amazing. I think it's necessary though. Only running 22 lands makes the slots super tight. I kinda wanted to go back to 23 and add another basic but I have no idea what to cut...a discard spell probably? I'm not sure the numbers on quagmire. 1 is certainly making the list but I can see some hard matches where deathtouch is super relevant and I'd want 2. Most times it's a grey ogre and sad. I think any way to help survive topdeck mode seems looking into.

I think driven is still worthy to test again. I'm not sure it's better than Rhonas but I can see it. Any way to draw a couple extra cards and push through some damage seems worth it. Not actually pumping the creatures was kinda annoying as it's not a potential "counterspell" for things like bolt or really pushing through damage since it's a sorcery and no gotcha moments. I think I will also be shifting explosives for ratchet bomb. Not being able to hit 3+ drops is a problem. Plus it's usually a better reshaper flip.

I think another basic is worth it, possibly adding a land and getting another. I think I'm going to just turn urborg into a swamp. I will be sad to cut it but I think 2 basics is way too greedy. I guess I would have to dodge a blood moon meta and it's fine. I got very lucky and managed to beat skred through blood moon but I'll be honest I was very lucky as I always had 1 basic to at least cast some things but I was basically shut out. Having a wastes seems good as well. Plenty of ghost quarter/field of ruin and moons and fulminator mage running around. Speaking of ruin, if I were to go up to 4 basics and 23 lands, I will try 1 field, 1 GQ. I can see a lot of value of field over GQ even though it is slower. Hell, I still kinda wish I could go back to the 3 GQ. I did pick up a twilight mire finally so that gets a slot as well. Very excited for that card. Got an expedition of it and few other foils for my birthday so I'm slowly getting to full pimp threshold.

Finally found the link to my match vs death and taxes. I'm on the left my opponent is a pro tour player. Real deal opponent. I like playing him, we always have great games

Well, I'm dumb and forgot to add them back in this week. Forgot about that before I left for fnm. So far I like them but I don't have a ton of experience with them yet. I'm already soft to blood moon and I don't have any good ways around it without being lucky. I think that's fine. The mana is going to suck, it is what it is. I also don't think they are necessary but death touch does provide an interesting semi evasion which is neat. I still think it's worth testing a couple. Also possible it coming in tapped makes it too weak to include.

I went 4-1 on Friday. Won't leave a huge tourney post. R1 and 2 were vs abzan and then sultai. Both similar matches. Only thing to do is match removal and hope to get out ahead. Outside of tasigur my threats line up better than theirs.
2-0.

R3 bant coco counters. I think I got pretty lucky in this match. He's playing the combo so always the chance I Just lose. Thankfully he didn't. Things lined up decent for me and got there. His cocos were pretty awful but i guess that can happen. This feels easier than the abzan or elves versions. I saw far more disruption though so I'm sure it has other good matches.
3-0

R4 white death and taxes. Long grindy match. Nothing super exciting other than we had great games. Got a video of the match I need to find on YouTube. I'll post that soon as I find it.
4-0

Semi-finals mono green aggro. I got stomped. Not much to say g1 as I have no sweepers. G2 got color screwed at 3 mana. I thought I could use my gq to play damnation mis-counting my lands and attacked assuming i could damnation after. Turns out i couldn't and just died. Oops. Probably wouldn't have won anyways. Without drawing flaying tendrils, it's actually hard to fight them. It's not the worst matchup but it's very hard.
4-1

No complaints overall other than I wish I had the mires to test. Not going to be ale to test given thanksgiving this coming week but hopefully I can find time to get in some practice. I will most likely be taking this deck to gp Hartford in April assuming no huge shifts in the meta. It's a while from now so who knows.

went 3-1 again played against an interesting mix of decks this week.
r1: elreazi tron. Played 3 games the 2 I won where kinda close but discard and liliana and huge goyfs got me there. This match up certainly is more winnable than normal tron lists. Long as I don't get too behind it's do able. Nothing too exciting to report on it.
1-0

r2 8 rack: got destroyed. On the poor side of variance as I was stuck on 2 lands g2 and eventually got hit by smallpox. I don't have much to SB against this deck either. Just have to hope to have what I need. This may be a deck I hope to avoid. He seemed favorable for sure. I'll be adding back in explosives for sure. I think over charm. Means I don't have a great way to deal with a moon but I didn't before either. I could play a seal of primordium. I like it pumps goyf and can be flipped off reshaper. not being instant speed like naturalize or nature's claim is a thing to consider.
1-1

r3 skred red: I dont have a ton of ways to deal with a chandra or koth let alone them with a blood moon. Due to cutting back to 2 catacombs finding a basic is no guarantee. Regardless I held my own with the removal I had and beat down and disrupted best I could. When I dodged moon I have a fighting chance but long as I have some prep I can potentially beat a moon. Then again, it's a hell of a card vs me.
2-1

r4 vengevine, death shadow, hallow one deck: Another deck that dodges my removal pretty well. My opponent drew a lot of lands throughout the match so there's that. Leyline seemed good but they can play around it so I get a lot of value but it's not an end all be all. Think overall it's good enough to use as I got enough time to get there. Smasher was MVP this match. love that card.
3-1

Played for the first time since before hogaak.
Took down a local championship with one loss (7-1)
Hexdrinker was an actual MvP
Creatures:15
2 Hexdrinker
3 Dark Confidant
3 Scavenging Ooze
4 Tarmogoyf
3 Tireless Tracker

Spells:21
4 Fatal Push
3 Inquisition of Kozilek
3 Thoughtseize
2 Abrupt Decay
4 Assassin's Trophy
1 Collective Brutality
3 Liliana of the Veil
1 Liliana, the Last Hope

Lands:24
4 Blooming Marsh
3 Field of Ruin
1 Forest
2 Nurturing Peatland
2 Overgrown Tomb
5 Swamp
3 Treetop Village
4 Verdant Catacombs

Sideboard:15
2 Collector Ouphe
3 Fulminator Mage
2 Plague Engineer
2 Grafdigger's Cage
2 Collective Brutality
2 Damping Sphere
1 Torpor Orb
1 Weather the Storm

What is torpor orb for? The animator module? It does bot work with replacement effects, only triggered abilaties.

Reid Duke is doing a BGx decks in Modern series. Let's pester him until he comments on Rockdrazi!

Cats are always knocking over my prized artifacts and destroying them.

Can't blame him for remaining tapped after giving birth to twins I guess.

Quote from jSewell »

Quote from Elaan »

What do you guys think of Scarab Feast as tech against DSJ to hit their GY when they Traverse?

Is Delerium checked for on cast or resolution?

Resolution, Nihil Spellbomb is just better though

Painful truths could just as easily become night's whisper to lower your curve, and would be significantly easier to cast (considering truths is essentially RWB). I like boros charm almost as much as battle rage: 4 to the face is GREAT reach on an empty board and the indestructibility is not without use, though the trample WOULD be missed. I was skimming the Google for ideas that might be floating around, and a few people have tried vexing devil. The stats along with enabling ferocious on battle rage AND being a valid target for O charm fought my attention.

Played in another local event last night, had five rounds of modern with roughly thirty people showing up to jam! Awesome time all around, took BUG for a spin again after 5-0’ing an event last week. Ran the same maindeck for the most part, albeit on of the misty rainforest was switched into a verdant catacombs as I found I would flood on GU lands with the fetches the way they were. Fetching basic swamp seemed more important than forest/island due to fatal push. Deck is below. the golgari charm which is normally the 15th card was cut for an Ashiok out of the board, more thoughts on this later.
4 goyf
3 snap
2 tasigur
2 scooze
1 grim flayer

4 serum visions
4 fatal push
2 decay
2 dismember
1 maelstrom pulse
1 pulse of murasa
3 leak
3 snare
4 spreading seas
1 Jace, architect of thought
3 lumbering falls
1 tar pit
4 delta
1 misty
3 verdant
2 breeding pool
1 watery grave
1 overgrown tomb
2 botanical sanctum
1 darkalick shores
2 island
1 forest
1 swamp
Sideboard
2 clique
3 countersquall
2 kitchen finks
1 pulse of murasa
1 go for the throat
1 to the slaughter
1 ee
1 abrupt decay
1 damnation
1 painful truths
1 ashiok
Deck ran hot again, and I was able to swing a little luck and variance to another 4-0-1 finish. Me and the other guy split the final prize pool. Walked out with like 50 in store cred. Matchups and notes on them are below.
Burn 2-1
I’m on the play, and my hand has some general good stuff, 2 delta, verdant, goyf, push, snap and a pulse of murasa. Hand seemed fine as I didn’t know what I was playing against. I lead off with my delta and said go. He leads off with stomping ground into goblin guide and swings so the jig is up on what he’s playing. My hand lined up perfectly honestly, as I was able to fetch basics the first three turns and play a oyf to stonewall his dudes. I eventually cast pulse of murasa and snapped it back which prompted a quickend to the game.
Sideboard
In: 2 Finks, 3 countersquall, 1 pulse of murasa, 1 go for the throat
Out: 2 dismember, 2 decay, 1 spreading sea’s, 1 jace

Game two he kills me on turn three with an absolute nut draw. Triple goblin guide into atarka’s command on turn three.
Game three, I keep what is by far a REALLY loose hand with push and double spreading seas and countersquall on a mull to 6. I played a land, he played a lava spike, which made me think he had eidolon in hand. I spreading sea’s his first land so he can’t play an eidolon. He plays another mountain and plays a swiftsspear. I draw a third land, kill his swiftspear then spreading sea’s his second land which drew me a goyf. He doesn’t draw land the rest of the game and dies with two islands on board a couple turns later
Jeskai Nahiri 2-1

This match was probably my favorite the whole night. The games went forever and we were the last two playing as the round ended.
Game One: My hand had a ton of removal, and he’s playing a deck with no good targets. At one point I had all four push in my hand and laughed as he ticked up nahiri every turn. But at least I got his collonades. I died to emrakul.
Sideboard games
In: 1 to the slaughter, 1 ashiok, 3 countersquall, 2 clique, 2 kitchen finks
Out: 4 fatal push, 2 dismember, 2 decay, 1 grim flayer
I sided out the flayer to try and mitigate the effectiveness of snare on my creatures, plus kitchen finks are just incredibly hard for them to deal with. While path to exile is their best removal spell in the matchup, ultimatelyin the sideboard we become more of a blue deck and them ramping us with their removal spells helps us in the sub-game of mana advantage.
Game two: I jammed a goyf on turn two, he didn’t have a removal spell, I cast a clique to take his nahiri, and beat him for five holding up countersquall for a while.
Game 3: This game lasted FOREVER. We traded resources for a while, and neither of us could stick a threat. We got to a point where I had one card in hand (countersquall) and he had none with an ancestral coming off suspend. He goes to cast ancestral, I squall it. The card he draws for turn is colonnade ( he drew one earlier in the game but it had been spreadin sea’s). I think I’m pretty boned, but I draw a serum visions for turn. Cast a vision, it legit draws me spreading sea’s, and I scy my own manland (lumbering falls to the top). I sea’s hiscollonade, play lumbering falls. Next card is kitchen finks And win the game with beats.
Dredge 2-0

I honestly wasn’t expecting to play against this deck, and my sideboard was, to be truthful, not prepared at all for it. Game One I mulled to five and was incredibly lucky to have a scavenging ooze in my five, which honestly took over the game.
Sideboard
In: EE, Damnation, 2 kitchen finks, Ashiok
Out: 2 decay, 1 Jace, 2 dismember
Game two: My opening hand had a spell snare for cathartic reunion, a scangeing ooze, and an ashiok which was surprisingly decent.
Tron 2-1

Game one: the dreaded tron menace, I knew what the guy was playing so I was able to be a little bit disciplined in my mulligan decisions. I went to six, kept a hand with two serum visions and a mana leak and three lands and thought this can find me spreading seas. I was able to find a goyf and a sea’s off the second visions, and a mana leak on oblivion stone was able to put me ahead on tempo.
Sideboard games

in: 3 countersquall, 2 vendillion clique, 2 kitchen finks, 1 to the slaughter, 1 ashiok, 1 painful truths
Out: 3 spell snare (it legit only hits sylvan scying), 2 dismember, 4 fatal push, 1 scooze

*** I left in decay for o-stone

game two: he went turn three worldbreaker and I didn’t have a mana leak. I died soon after lol.

Game three: spreading sea’s two lands and cliqued him to take his o-stone. He whiffed on a ancient stirrings for a third tron land twice, which have been able to let him blow up my only pressure. I got a little lucky.

My last match would have been against grixis delver, and honestly I’m happy to have gotten an ID. I think this matchup is particularly tricky, slightly unfavorable in my view. I was happy with the overall finish though.

The godfather of BGx Willy Edel tweeted his first take on Sultai BGx yesterday. Said he went 4-1 w/it in a league. He goes with Rain of Tears over Fulminator Mage in the sideboard in the hopes of getting extra uses out of Snappy. He goes DEEP on Damnation, and has the full playset of Collective Brutality in the 75. I like Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver as a way to both fight midrange decks that are trying to go bigger as well as being a pretty great threat against control decks in my experience.

I like the manabase. The 4 Darkslick Shores incentivizes you to fetch Forest or Swamp early which is better for Blood Moon. I love Treetop Village in general, and since you're more aggressive in this build the cheaper activation is probably worth it. There is definitely some room to tune here, but generally speaking it looks good.

https://twitter.com/bazardebagda/status/831161925979471873/photo/1

The new tezz is actually going to be quite good in standard, but is worse than AOB. But what did we expect, AOB is one of the top 3 best planeswalkers ever printed. If modern slows down a little I could see this getting played in modern in different builds, almost exclusively for the removal on a stick with the ability to be a win condition. The deck would have to move away from bridge and into a more tapout UB control deck. Ill probably try it out some, unlikely to be any better than AOB.