MTG Salvation

Want to make sure that I can reliably cast bolt snare and iok on t1, that means 14 untapped sources. Also want 3 swamp to fetch against blood moon deck
s, not always gonna work but at least it can be a gameplan

Okay I think I'm finally sold on running alternate win-cons to compliment cruel ultimatum, the only reason is that it can easily be hosed with its color intensity against blood moon and cards like leyline of sanctity. Snapcaster and tarpit beats have been able to pull through but I think the deck needs to be able to fall back on an alternate gameplan.


Subtracting 1 damnation for olivia since she fills a similar role and can be better at times when facing a bunch of manlands (infect, merfolk, affinity) or lingering souls. I hate when I'm forced to blow my early removal even if I have a damnation saved up against aggressive decks with reach to keep them from netting too much tempo

Subtracted an ultimatum for Batterskull since lifegain is important and it's a resilient threat at least. Even having it against tron where you manage to kill a wurmcoil is nice to be able to defend against the remaining tokens. Wurmcoil engine might be better than batterskull but idk yet


Ended up splitting iok w spell snare 2/2, IOK is better in the early game for sure but I'd much rather top-deck spell snare.

Update

It's just a way worse white sun's zenith. No recursiveness and can lead to a huge blowout (from having have your lib exiled when it gets remanded) making it a basket I would never in a million years put my eggs in. Would just be a bad esper teachings list

Quote from matcjur »

elMochaLatte, in hindsight i would change a mountain with a tar pir and mybe add sulfur falls, but I'm not really great at building mana bases. Have any reccomendations?

Check out this article http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/frank-analysis-how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells/

Explains in depth (including other variables like having opening hands without any lands and mulligans) with the math to back it up. I can try to explain the math to you if you're skeptical on it too if you want. Keep it mind that you don't really have to aim for this 90% goal, control decks can cut a little bit off the required sources mark if a mana intensive spell is good enough (ie dissolve over psychic strike in standard) or if they can reliably scry or cantrip before the turn they want to play x spell (like supreme verdict or jace).

So basically I have the rule of thumb like this, based off the math/charting from the article (still taking mulligans into consideration)

Have 14 untapped sources of mana for whatever spell you want to play on turn 1. This means that sulfur falls won't count for a t1 spell snare or a t1 lightning bolt, but steam vents or any fetch-land will.

18 black for a reliable damnation

22 blue sources for a reliable cryptic command

For the t1 plays I would always stay at 14 with no compromise, for anything on t3 and beyond I feel that it's viable to deviate (only by a little bit, try and assume that you won't be cantripping anyways) from the charts since we have access to a lot of cheap library manipulation, effectively upping the consistency by a turn or two.

So I would cut reflecting pool (too dependent and shaky), the checklands, and 1 sunken ruins. I would also up the land count to 26

Here's what I'm on for reference



Even without any tec edges or ghost quarters (with a full boat of fetchlands) I still fall short of 22 blue for CC (which I kind of make up for with sunken ruins and cheap cantripping), it should become apparent as to why I'm against tec edge and GQ in the first place.

Quote from Sapientissimus »

i guess i understand the colored mana thing, only thing i'd say is that ghost quarter almost always has the ability to tap for the color you need (albeit at a drastically high price the turn after, but if u really want that t7 ultimatum, i guess thats still worth it). Cryptic command is interesting though, I forget the number of blue you need in a deck to reliably cast it on t4 but if a manabase could be arranged that was stable enough to cast cryptic etc. by t4 etc. im sure a mixture of mana exists that you can play with the numbers to reliably cast those key spells in the deck and still fit a very small amount of colorless lands in the deck. Urborg sounds like it would definitely help out the ultimatum/colorless land concern though. The accurate math on its impact seems too hard to calculate though for me.

I feel that if you really want to run a colorless land, then GQ is the way to go since the land loss won't really matter if you're casting an ultimatum. It's also ideal for the tron match-up since using a tec edge after they form their tron (the only time you can) won't really do anything anyways

Quote from matcjur »

I've been experimentating with this after the fetchland leak. Any thoughts?

elMochaLatte's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
// Lands 1 Blood Crypt 2 Creeping Tar Pit 1 Lavaclaw Reaches 2 Sunken Ruins 1 Dreadship Reef 2 Reflecting Pool 2 Watery Grave 1 Blackcleave Cliffs 1 Mountain 2 Steam Vents 4 Polluted Delta 2 Scalding Tarn 2 Island 2 Swamp	// Creatures 3 Snapcaster Mage 2 Augur of Bolas // Spells 1 Batterskull 2 Damnation 4 Lightning Bolt 3 Inquisition of Kozilek 2 Spell Snare 3 Mana Leak 3 Terminate 2 Electrolyze 2 Forbidden Alchemy 3 Cryptic Command 2 Cruel Ultimatum 2 Think Twice 1 Keranos, God of Storms	// Sideboard 2 Anger of the Gods 3 Thoughtseize 2 Rakdos Charm 1 Batterskull 2 Counterflux 1 Extirpate 2 Mystical Teachings 1 Far/Away 1 Blue Sun's Zenith

I Actually like most of the card choices maindeck, the only thing that looks shaky is the mana base. Since you have a high emphasis on early game interaction, I recommend that you find a way to make them more reliable on t1, 14 untapped color sources of each is what you want to aim for if you want 90% reliability.

Quote from Sapientissimus »

please don't compare seas/ molten rain with tec edge as a fine replacement. its really not, we are trying to keep mana open for counterspells why would you want to tap out during main phases with those spells. youre also exaggerating the cost of running 1-2 tec edges. Also its a choice to activate you don't have to use it, you make it seem like its mandatory to kill every utility land with tec edge, but its not. If the situation comes up where you see its "worth" it then use it, otherwise don't its that simple. Theres plenty of situations where it IS worth it. Im not sure what decks u guys have been facing lately but if you don't have these kinds of lands you're going to lose games vs manlands and tron lands that you just didn't need to lose to.

Yeah it's nice to bring up scenarios where tec edge is great, I can just as easily come up with scenarios where magma spray would be a better card than lightning bolt, it's not a reason to cut bolt though. So yeah, tec edge can be more ideal if you're out of cards and facing a raging ravine or a colonnade, but where we're coming from is that it's more important to be able to play CC on t4 consistently or t1 bolt ect. In other words it's a more likely scenario to lose due to sitting on cards you can't even cast rather than no being able to kill off an enemy manland. Sitting on a cruel ultimatum you can't cast on t7 or a damnation on t4 sucks, it sucks more than not being able to kill a manland for free. Maybe it's just personal experience, but everytime I try tec edge I find myself wishing it were a color producing land more often than not

Quote from Corporal Levinyan »

I could write a very long disupute why colorless lands are horrible in this deck but seems no one is willing to listen. Even though you're a control deck, this is NOT UWR kind of control deck. UWR is glorified tempo/counterburn and is low on curve really, until REALLY late game. This is hard control. Each land you lose from the board hurts you really bad and is NOT worth losing just to kill an utility land. If those bother you so much, run Spreading Seas or Molten Rain or Sowing Salt off the board. There are so many options that don't make you hurt your manabase more than it's worth.

Yup

Meh, if you want to play tec edge then go for it. Just don't say I didn't tell ya so

If you want to run Tec edge, you might as well cut cruel ultimatum since it's never going to be cast with it in. If you cut ultimatum then you might as well be playing uwr. Tec edge will hurt cruel control more than help it. What's even more ridiculous is the assumption that polluted delta will enable Tec edge

You need 22 of your sources to produce blue to hit CC 90% of the time on t4 if I'm not mistaken. A sunken ruins or two should help up the consistency or compensation in general. I still don't think we can afford tectonic edge, it's not worth it really. Cruel ultimatum is all colored mana and sacrificing our own mana base isn't where we want to be

I think that the ideal fetches you run should be based on what your t1 plays are. If you're running 4 IOK and 4 Bolt then 4 blootstained mire is going to be ideal. If it's Bolt and spell snare then you're gonna want the set of scalding tarns along side the Deltas. In the end it shouldn't really make a huge difference

I'm all for the 8 fetches philosophy. With enough basics to complement them you end up taking less life that you otherwise would with shocks or from getting your face beat in due to not having a consistent mana base.

tamiyo is not good

Nope

I wouldn't mind running a miser of shadow of doubt or remand over think twice #4

I've kept on trying to replace think twice with

Remand
Shadow of Doubt
Condescend
Magmajet
Telling time
Augur of Bolas
Peer through depths

but I always come crawling back to it, mostly because it's a way of pulling ahead on card advantage and playing too much counters/disruption makes for some awkward decision trees. I don't like scrying 2 to find out that I actually want the next card or two, then just have to wait for the next two turns to draw into them. I'd rather speed up the process of pulling ahead in terms of turns with think twice

I really hated magmajet, just scrying two without really doing anything to the board isn't where I want to be. There's only a couple times I would prefer the jet (like if I get stuck on two lands against merfolk), but electrolyze is always a stronger card. Just think about how much more impactful omenspeaker would be in the standard format (and possibly modern) if it read draw a card instead of scry 2. I'm sure if magmajet were really that good, then all of the uwr players would have caught on by now, especially wafo-tapa.

Updated

When shadow of doubt is good it's good, otherwise it can just be a bust. Gotta draw it early on and it has to be against a deck that wants to fetch. Always hated seeing them when there's an opposing liliana, or if im up against a deck like Merrill where it doesn't do much