MTG Salvation

let's say you have a one drop a two drop and opp has some GY hate ready, so no possible shenanigans with scryb into rallier. And also it seems easier to me to go 2 drop-> exarch, 1 drop -> image, copy exarch, copied exarch -> resto, resto-> kiki. Sure, it has some conditions, but what does not?

yeah, but reasonable sac outlets come in black, needles to say, that all of the combo cards are cmc3 or less, so probably better with CoCo and there we are

I'm still trying build with rhythm and I'm quite happy with that. It offers some amazing T3 kills when you cast or evo/chord for Vannifar. It is awesome against control, almost any threat we draw after terminus can do some hasty damage to pesky PWs, sometimes it makes creeps bigger with +1/+1 . Still it is a bad topdeck midgame.

yeah, the only chance to hit Saheeli more often was with Oath of nissa, but as it offers some card filtering, it's not really strong. I've lost too many games to my own Oath which put my Evo on the bottom of library and did nothing except drawing me card. Now I'm on Serum visions and as quickly run through discord, I'll try Glittering wish, but I don't have particular decklist for that, yet.

@Depian Your list looksa bit similar to mine, with some more value pieces added. I wasn't impressed by the combination though, but I'm glad to see, someone is still trying and I'm curious how the deck will perform to you.

Just came to my mind, Vannifar is a legend, so it works with Goryo's Vengeance I know, I wrote about black few posts before, but has anyone else considered it? It would be probably different shell than ordinary "kiki-pod" but maybe it could work, it would need some discard+reanimate part, creature-combo card and protection part, I don't know. Any opinions about that?

According Rhythm of the wild, I was also tempted to try it and at some time, I will. I wouldn't be so sceptical about multiples, beacuse it grants riot and not only haste, so you can play a voice and make it 3/3 with haste, it also does quite well with persist creatures, so with rhythm I would try finks instead of knight.
Chord, however I love the card, seems not so good to me, you can not chord for anything on T1 or T2, and tapping out on T3 for a 3 mana creature makes almost no sense to me. It's perfect when you have bunch of creatures and/or mana, but I'd say, we do not have such potential and searching for big threats is difficult. I'd rather pay 3 mana and sac 2 mana creep for shalai/resto/something than spend 7 mana+creatures to do the same. Decks are too punishing now, so you can't even rely on having bird or noble on T2 or T3.

Hey guys, so I've done some testing with my previously posted deck and I'd like to share my obseravtions. As my friend said "You are a combo deck, and when you sit against nonreactive deck, you should defeat him T3 on regular basis, if not, you are slow combo deck, not viable in modern meta" So we played about 30+ games against dredge, which we considered as a prototype of super fast almost non-rective deck. My friend was concentrating on killing me before I combo off, I was concetrating on comboing off before getting killed.
So to the Saheeli+Vannifar combination: It resembled me some gemaes with Jund, when I drew the right half of the deck, the deck was awesome, when I drew wrong half of the deck, it was a disaster.
T1 dork -> T2 saheeli -> T3 Vannifar win is awesome, but susceptible to timely removal on bird. It also happens that you have the option of T1 and T2 play, but don't have T3 Vannifar/Cat/Evo and you just sit with your hand full of cards, that are good with Vannifar but awful with Saheeli.
Lotus cobra is awesome and even without dork on T1 she can generate absurd amount of mana, I had a play T1 oath of nissa, T2 cobra, T3 cobra, fetch -> rallier, fetch -> cat, fetch -> Evo for Kiki.
Eldritch evolution seems somehow better than Chord, especially when we need to find combo pieces quite fast and playable chord is at the best on T3.
Vannifar + two two-drops makes kill with two exarchs in library, so I'm not going below two exarchs. I drew kiki naturally on T4, If I had not another one in my library, I would not win, so two Kikis it is.
Body double was horrible, never wanted to search for it and as a cursed singleton, I drew it almost every game. Maybe against reactive deck it could be better, but for 5 mana... Seems like another rallier or Witness is going to take It's place.
Relying on combo T2 Saheeli+T3 Vannifar is a disaster, as Saheeli won't survive, you don't even cast it. Doing it opposite means T3 vannifar and T4 useless Saheeli. I think, it's the worst on the Saheeli+Vannifar combination, that botch combos although with similar effect, have different timing. With Vannifar, you want to play Vannifar first and combo off later, with Saheeli you want combo pieces and Saheeli as a last card or combo off the same turn saheeli hits the board.
oath of nissa offers some nice card filtering, especially, when you wait for some specific cards. However it doesn't get you much close to victory played on T1. Withous Saheeli it is just filtering, which could be done with serum visions maybe.
Single spellskite is fine, but without Chord shenanignas is quite bad, Shalai is probably better, as it is a much better target for Evo.
To cast vannifar on T3 reliably means, we have to maximize on T1 dorks, still I'm not fond of plying full set of birds + hierarchs plus some cobras.
So even though I was a great defender of mainly combo oriented build, I'm dropping saheeli/cat shell, still will keep some Oaths in to smothen my draws. It seems like
4x Saheeli, 3X felidar, 1x Oath, 1x spellskite, 1x body double are leaving and making room for
1x Restoration angel
1x Shalai
one more evo
one more exarch
2x kitchen finks
1x Glen elendra
2x Noble hierarch
1x eternal witness or another rallier

looks like I'm getting more into the value build

few think I forgot: If there were something similar to Kalitas, traitor of Ghet that is a creature with some value can't imagine 5c variant and dropping any of our core colours is unthinkable.
Question is, whether there won't be better chances with some sort of temur more control like version, dropping white and mana dorks entirely and adding drawing/counters to survive long enough to manage protected combo kill, not sure, if it won't be just worse version of UR kiki.
another card, which came to my mind as a combo protector was Pact of negation. When we plan to combo kill our opponent, it offers good interaction and upkeep clause seems irrelevant. If we are losing to upkeep, we are probalby losing on board, which doesn't make much difference either.

@daviusminimus I got it, I'll try today and I'll see, whether I'll cut one Kiki or not. I think it's mostly about the approach, if you rely heavily on combo, then 2x kiki, if not, then not I imagined a play against aggro opponent with chain vannifar - finks, sac finks for resto, blink finks, repeat next turn.
Is there any card, that would override vannifar's sorcery speed clause to inastant? That would be awesome. but i don't think, there esists such possibility.

@SGears I like Your list, sir, I really do

that's why I want two copies of Kiki in my main, in case of drawing one, I can still go for the other... bad luck happens, but taht wuld have to be bad bad luck to draw both of them. there were times when I was trying mardu Nahiri with one Emrakul. well I drew Emrakul so may times when Nahiri had enough counters to search for her... I know statistics works, but I don't beleive in statistics when it comes to MtG, I would apply Murphy's laws instead. Do you play one sigleton card, which you don't want in your opening hand? Be sure, you draw it in your seven 99% of your games...

So, I've been brewing a bit and a version, which I'll test and try to tune id this - similar to both previus Sahheli/Vannifar lists, there's not much to change obviously and little diffrences are definitely about card preferences.



no sideboard yet, because there is plenty of cards to consider, but definitely Avalanche Riders, Eidolon of rhetoric, Knight of Autumn, maybe Kitchen finks,Linvala, Worship, Scooze... I'm not sure about the main spellskite though, without Chord it's not as good as it could be

@thErgonomic I was mainly on Melira pod wave back in the time, mostly because I didn't had Grove of the burnwillows and the were quite unavailable to get. But time has come, when I switched to Kiki and it was awesome, hovewer it's so long ago, I have troubles remembering the decklist, lands especially, I could write a melira pod decklist in a minute, though Yeah, Siege Rhino revolution was fine, that was a hit for me, love at first glance.

I know, I know, it could copy anything dead, so scryb ranger, rallier... obviously it will not work with sun titan
it was meant instead of Reveillark, to copy anything dead instead of recurring it when reveillark leaves the field

how about sun titan in saheeli/vannifar shell? it would be probably hard to get him just with vannifar if there were no zealous conscripts (I know, I know, they are bad) but it could recur saheeli if needed which could lead to insta win, based on board state. Just imagine saheeli gets killed in response to felidar trigger, you sac felidar, chain for sun titan, recur saheeli... it's a question, whether you have enough cards available to combo out, but in magic christmas land...

edit: what about body double as a 5cmc target? I'm still thinking about reveillark substitutes, because it does nothing when searched for, if I remember it right.

one way or other way, it has to be tested and it will need some time to tune the decklists if it is a viable strategy. Really hate losing value in cards, which seem busted at first glance, but time proves them wrong. I can't tell you how happy I was, when I saw Assassin's trophy, i can't tell you about my disappointment either.
I'm thinking about the control matchup and as it has been before, voice is probably the best card available, makes bodies, leaves body upon dying, bouncing with Jace or Teferi probably wont help much because there should be already some tokens to do their work. If we make control player to play on sorcery speed instead of instant, we have almost won. How about selfless spirit against sweepers? Thragtusk is also great, decent body, life gain, leaves token even when blinked. Another solid card could be Huntmaster of the fells I played him/her a lot. If we stay out of Chord, Gaddock teeg also comes to mind.
Maybe we could do some list of mostly played archetypes, their goal and pick good/bad cards against them, then the most common among them could be maindeckable, some of them sideboardable and the worst of the worst will get the kick man, it's gonna be hard to forget Jund playstyle for a while. As it seems to me, then
synergistic aggro - humans, spirits - lifegain, board sweep and back in the day ghostly prison and worship + hexproof dude made aggro strategies sick
dredge - permanent graveyard removal, one shot does nothing except for hitting conflagrate, huge lifegain now with chill on the list, and sometimes they can struggle after good land denial with loam in their hand/gy and no green mana to cast it for.
control - early resilient threats or hasty threats
good ol' BGx - resilient threats, protection on creatures
burn - life gain
storm - spell denial, gy removal

that's all that came to my mind for now, especially because my playtesting would involve these decks amongst my friends
So let's start brainstorming...