MTG Salvation

Quote from tarotplz »

The correct number of Silent Clearing has yet to be determined.

I'm thinking running 3 or 4 and going to 24 lands. Seriously, this land is exactly what I was waiting for. It won't stop me from complaining from getting the occasional mana screw, but it will definitely shut down the little voices in my head that made me doubt wether 23 or 24 lands is the good amount for this deck. I can tell you I've been sleeping better since the reveal of this card.

We'll probably need additional ways to gain life tho. Sorin, vent and Vault might not be enough if we run this land. I'm thinking Timely reinforcements and/or Auriok Champion.

I've seen discussion about a red splash in this forum for various reasons, but never seen any about Shared animosity and I always wanted to try it. Concentrating on spirit tokens with Lingering, procession and Midninght haunting (Possibly Promise of Bunrei too). It also gives us access to pretty much the whole Mardu pyromancer's toolkit too.

T2: Intangible; T3 procession; T4 shared animosity leads to 12 damage.

But, that's assuming we want more anthems in our deck. Maybe it's just the burn player inside me wanting the deck to be more aggresive than it can or should be.

Quote from MisterMuffin21 »

So... what do we think of Dreadhorde invasion? Too slow?

Quote from MarcWizard »

The 3 huge strikes against this card are as follows;

1. Intangible virtue grants *each* token +1/+1. This card will only ever benefit once at most from our most powerful anthem. Bitterblossom produces 2 power each turn with virtue out, while this only continues to produce 1.
2. A single spot removal can erase all progress. Fatal push, path, terminate, even a single Reflector Mage trigger will feel horrible.
3. Same downside as bitterblossom minus the flying AND the multiple bodies means you can get chumped - while you bleed to death.

Quote from tarotplz »

I think so. It only makes one token, which then grows. That means it doesn't even benefit from something like Intangible Virtue and Sorin, Solemn Visitor as much as other cards do.

Also the token has no keywords (at least for 6 turns after the one you play this), so it could very easily be chump-blocked.

Glad to see I'm not alone on this. Back to the trade binder with you then.

So... what do we think of Dreadhorde invasion? Too slow?

Quote from diateone »

where is Kaya good in modern??

Also, Kaya's wrath is not better than wrath of god or damnation: casting costs, ruins your manabase if you play GQ, the no regenerate clause is also important...

Agreed. We don't need to constraint ourselves with that kind of casting cost when Wrath of God and Damnation are around. We usually already lost most if not all of our token to chump blocks and removal if we're to wipe the board, so the life gain clause on Kaya's wrath is not very good, and to make it worthwhile life gain, we need to overextend our tokens, which is also a bad idea.

There's plenty of wrath effect we can run. I've personally already gave a try to Flaying Tendrils and Hour of reckoning at some point in the past and while I don't run them anymore, I feel like both are better than Kaya's wrath. There's also Engineered explosives, but it's kind of expensive $$$ wise.

Quote from pzbw7z »

Rest in Peace is pretty much the best shot against Dredge. Settle the Wreckage might work once. Relic of Progenitus has been used to combat Delve back when Treasure Cruise was a thing, but I doubt it's good enough against Dredge. One could try it he were excessively attached to his Lingering Souls, but I think one has to bite that particular bullet and play RiP.

Surgical Extraction is another card that probably isn't good enough. But it might help a little and it does have application elsewhere.

For reference, I'm playing 2 Rest in peace and 1 Surgical extraction in my side to combat graveyard-focused decks. Dredge, RB Hollow one, UR Arcligh phoenix, Living End, Gift Storm, etc. There's a lot of grave focused deck right now. Thinking of going up one copy of RiP.

Or... Could the meta be calling for relic of progenitus (or Nihil Spellbomb if one cares that much for their lingering souls) to be played in the main? We are a meta-dependant deck after all and aside from Lingering souls, which isn't even completely shut down by relic, we don't need our graveyard and those options are not completely dead if we run into other decks. Maybe it could be worth testing if the meta sees a lot of the above decks.
(It did work for skred red for the longest time after all)

Quote from pzbw7z »

Lingering Souls is the best token generator. Spectral Procession is probably next. Bitterblossom and Raise the Alarm are both good; one or the other is nearly always played and a mix is fine too. Start is a mediocre token generator at best but it has a mediocre removal spell in Finish attached to it so it seems some play as a one or two-of.

Auriok Champion is not a bad card but it has fallen out of favor lately. Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar are the only plainswalkers that see frequent play. Sorin, Lord of Innistrad gets a mention and a try-out now and then, but isn't generally regarded as worthwhile. Elspeth, Knight-Errant is not awful and Elspeth Tirel was once regarded as the premier PW for the deck but has fallen out of use entirely. Modern is just too fast now for five-mana cards in decks without acceleration.

Windbrisk Heights is not worth playing in my view; I ran it for a long time and it usually bit me in the butt and I don't think it ever really accomplished anything. If you want to try one, go for it.

Most lists have run only the four Intangible Virtues as dedicated anthems for a good long while now. There are other, anthem-like effects available and there are just too many other needs for the deck. More anthems means an more aggro approach and that is just not what the deck is good at. It's solidly mid-range and needs to grind.

I was actually going to respond, but you actually lined up what I was going to say pretty much perfectly. It's actually kind of spooky

All the list that have been posted lately have zero (0) Spectral procession, with the exception of Voipallo's list a couple post ago. Guess it's time for me to give Raise the alarm and Start // Finish a fair try. With the biggest color restricter (AKA Spectral) out, what's stopping anyone from splashing a third color in the deck?

Green is very tempting with the assassin's trophy + Abrupt decay + Maelstrom pulse + Gavony Township package. assassin's trophy in particular because it's a very decent way to handle tron in the main.

Quote from tarotplz »

I'm no sure if the added disruption of Smallpox is actually enough to off-set this. Our combo matchups are already pretty unfavored. By slowing the deck down even more, those will probably become even more proplematic.

The thing with smallpox is that it also gets rid of a land, which can definitely put a dent in some decks. It's also non-targeting removal for those pesky bogles and we'll usually cast it when we have no creature, and sometime discard cards like Lingering souls or Start // Finish. I never tested Smallpox in BW token, but it's always in the back of my mind when I tinker with the deck. If I had a playset of Flagstones of trokair for the dream play, I'd probably give it a try.

(the dream play being: cast Smallpox; sac Flagstone fetching a plain/Godless shrine; discard souls and sacrifice no creature. Basically losing one + half a card while the opponent lose a creature, a land and a card, AKA 3 cards.)

Quote from YoungQuakerBoy »

So, with the new B/G cards spoiled so far, people are thinking Jund and such are on their way back. How would that set us in the meta? Seems like it would be good for us.

I'm actually gonna try to splash green again for this. It's just too good of a removal to not at least test. Assassin's trophy can even deal with lands (AKA Tron). This coupled with Abrupt decay and Maelstrom pulse makes for an awesome removal package. There's also Gavony Township which we can run instead of Ghost quarter or field of ruin now that Assassin's trophy is a thing. all of this makes for a very decent card lineup for green.

So... Judging both card as a token producer:

-- Spectral procession:
+ Produce three tokens at once for three mana (Best mana to token ratio)
+ Tokens have evasion (flying)
+ Part of the legendary dream play of "T1: Discard/Disruption ;T2: Intangible virtue ;T3: Spectral Procession; T4: Sorin, Solemn Visitor"
- Sorcery speed
- Very mana intensive. WWW mean we can't stray from being mainly white in our manabase and we have to limit our nonwhite sources (Ghost quarters, swamps, Vault of the archangel etc)

Spectral procession is better if you want your creature attacking to matter. It's the quickest way to put lots of tokens on the field at once.

-- Start // finish:
+ Instant speed
+ Not mana restrictive at all. If you get to three mana, you can cast it.
+ The aftermath effect is additionnal removal at a cost we can usually pay (sacrifice a creature)
+ Not totally lost if discarded
- Token don't have evasion (But they have vigilance (Have a secret +))
- Only two tokens
- Is an overcosted Raise the alarm if Finish is not useful in the match-up (AKA Combo, protection black, hexproff, grave hate, etc.)

Start // finish is better if you can go for the long game and the "Finish" part become relevant. Not the best token producer, but it makes up by being pretty versatile.

Both have the + of costing only 3 mana and being 6 CMC, which mean they can dodge Inquisition of kozilek

Quote from Illusionmaker »

Oh and why is noone playing Zealous Persecution. I play it as a one-off to randomly catch Hierarch, Bird, Bob, Steel Overseer, Thalia as well as her Lieutenant...so far I never felt unhappy whenever I cast it and it even won me a couple of games by messing with opponents math.

I run 0 to 2 ZP depending on my mood/assessment of the meta, usually one main and one in the side. I really like it against storm, affinity, humans and elves, but those deck are actually pretty rare in my meta. Burn, tron, jund and jeskai control are more of a thing where I live and ZP is not that great against those.

Also, Tidehollow sculler is not a bad card, but it goes a little bit against the "don't turn removal on" gameplan we have. It can still be pretty good against combo.

I have yet to try Worship one day, but bitterblossom just doesn't interact well with it.

I'm really bugged by the fact that a lot of decklist I see posted here run less, if any spectral procession at all, often replacing it by Start // finish. How/why do you guys do it? Turn 3 Spectral into beat face has won me so many games it's hard to think about a list not running at least three, let alone none at all.

Now I'm not bashing Start // finish or anyone running it. I run 1/2 myself from time to time, but it's always alongside my playset of spectral and I really don't see it replacing it. The finish part is neat, but we're not casting that part until turn 4. Also, the token being vigilance instead of flying really does not click with me. I actually like the redundancy of vigilance, but not having flying almost delegate them to chump blockers. Best part is Start being an instant, but then the comparison to Raise the alarm is inevitable and I believe pretty fair. Do you really want to pay one more mana to have finish in the grave? Is Start // Finish being a potential discard fodder really relevant? Is it not worth it to have the tokens a turn earlier?

I can see the argument of spectral being pretty restrictive in the mana requirement, but we're not splashing any other color (other than black) and I've even seen it being heavily discouraged here. I agree with that. Believe me, I've tried many MANY time to splash Green or Red and while we do get some pretty neat cards from both colors, BW gives us pretty much all we need and is way more consistent). Hell, black is initially a splash for sorin, lingering and our discard package (And Bitterblossom, Liliana of the veil, Fatal push, etc. Deck can actually get pretty 50/50). we're already main white and even our manabase is built so that spectral turn 3 is easily (*Ahem*) achievable.

So is it for the utility lands? because so far Vault of the archangel is pretty much the only nonwhite/colorless land I care about anymore and I don't run more than one. Being able to run multiple Ghost quarter without the drawback of having spectral stuck in our hand is a big plus (It's actually the best argument for Finish over spectral imo), but it's just not good enough against tron and I am not willing to hurt my color production for a 5%/10% boost to a match-up that's already below 30% win rate. It actually has been better against manlands like Mutavault and Inkmoth nexus than it has been against tron...

Oh, and Field of ruing is even less good against tron. I know it technically doesn't hurt our mana production, but on the draw our opponent has time to drop a big guy before we can disrupt the tron lands.

Quote from YoungQuakerBoy »

Round 2: 0-2 against B/R burn running vexing devil, bump in the night, and claim // fame
Game 1 came down to if he had Skullcrack in hand or not and he did.
Game 2 I dumbly played into Blood Moon and got to spend some turns looking at mountains.
In: 2x Auriok Champion, 2x Blessed Alliance
Out: 2x Bitterblossom, 2x Thoughtseize

That's quite a reckless burn list. I can tell you I'd never run Blood moon or claim // fame as it's heavily discouraged in a "true" burn list. what you describe sounds a lot more like a rakdos aggro, which is kinda like burn with a bigger focus on creatures. Nitpicking aside, nice job on th rematch

also, most bogles mainboard the leyline now. They know discard and sacrifice are their big weakness. The last thing they want is getting their bogle thoughseized. I usually deal with them with Runed halo.

Quote from pzbw7z »

Field of Ruin can't do anything is most decks until turn-three. That could be just after your Tron opponent dropped Karn.

This is exactly why I think Ghost quarter is better than Field of ruin for tron.