MTG Salvation

Wow I need to update this list kind of badly. I just figured I would drop in an update. I have been having some issues with lots of players attacking me while playing this deck with threats both flying and just chunky things. Due to this I am resorting to do some testing with some things like Seraph of the Sword, Dawn Elemental, and Commander Eesha as defensive measures. I am also going to do some testing with things like Lyra Dawnbringer and Baneslayer Angel as threats that give me some sticking power through lifesteal and add vigilance nicely.

With the new pickup of a bunch of sticky flyers I am also going back and seeing if I can test out Dowsing Dagger and Sword of the Animist with a small equipment tutor package as well. I originally shyed away from them in part because I didn't have a lot of creatures that could pick up and carry them but I have added a lot more 4/5 mana flyers recently and so I wanted to circle back to them for testing. Having Sword of Feast and Famine in my list gives me a nice late game tutor for the equipment while the other two give me great early game ramp. Ramping lands is also a little less fragile for me given we usually refrain from mass jacking with lands in my meta.

Thalia's Lancers also was missing from my list which I didn't think about much due to not having that many legends but realizing how many of the lands I actually want are legendary I quickly added it in.

The OP is way out of date though with where I am at right now. I will see if I can get some testing in with some of my recent changes and update this thread.

I got to play a fun game this week. I won't recap the whole thing but I managed to assemble Heliod + Skybind + Serra's Sanctum and used it to fire up a TON of tokens. I managed to hold off someone from using Laboratory Maniac due to the Skybind and when he went to disrupt it I covered with Unstable Obelisk.

As of right now, my concern for this deck tends to be a bit more towards the idea of decks that win from nowhere which as of right now seems to be a bit of combo and overrun decks. With that said I guess I have a few changes for now but its possible I might want to look more at versatile and cheap spot removal moving forward.

DECK CHANGES:

• Soul Warden -> Weathered Wayfarer - I like the lifegain from the warden but honestly of late its just not been what this deck needs. I am not convinced that Wayfarer has been working in my meta of late but I will give it a shot for a bit and see how it goes. Finding the big mana lands is really a big difference for this deck so I will see how it does.
• Martyr's Cause -> Arcane Encyclopedia - Martyr's Cause is a card I am fond of. That said, the cost per token is high to depend on it for more than voltron defense which right now isn't what I need. Going to try a bit more draw for now.
• Smothering Tithe -> Eldrazi Displacer - I haven't been impressed with Smothering tithe as a whole. I think it works better for decks that want to store mana for big effects where as I need more of a constant thourouput for this deck. Smothering Tithe has just been a pain to stay on top of for what it gives me for a deck like this. Eldrazi Displacer works well with a bunch of the ETB creatures in here and it can also serve as defense vs some threats or blank tokens if I want.
• honor the Fallen -> Mind Stone I still like honor the Fallen but I just need more ramp / draw as of right now. I always like having more graveyard disruption for a control deck but I think I have to keep in mind my ability to draw cards and drawing a card that "could be useful later" kind of sucks sometimes. Adding Weathered Wayfarer to the deck also gives me more access to Scavenger Grounds so its kind of a similar access to grave hate still.
• Hour of Revelation -> Cast Out I constantly didn't want to blow up my own artifacts / enchantments so lets just trim this. I am hesitant to rely on Oblivion Ring effects but it has flash and it costs the same as a Heliod token so it seems like a convinent mana amount to keep up. I considered the idea of bringing in Swords to Plowshares, Oblation, Banishing Stroke or Scour from Existence which might still possibly happen but I am going to see how Cast Out does for now.
• 1 Plains -> Tithe given that Tithe is always at least one plains but might be two it seems handy.

I have honestly been seeing a lot more Laboratory Maniac of late than I usually do which I don't know if that will continue but it seems that many are using him of late. If I continue to encounter more of it I might boost up some of my cheap spot removal but I will wait and see what I encounter as I also see a lot of overrun tactics.

Well, I played this deck this week and I had an interesting showing. I had a good solid opener and then kind of slowed way down with no draw but ultimately won said game. I was experimenting with a few changes last week and I ended up with a T4 Thran Dynamo + Worn Powerstone, T5 Gauntlet of Power + Avacyn, Angel of Hope. From that point I really slowed down with not really having much for draw. I got a Mentor of the Meek online but sadly was buffing all my white creatures which sort of disabled him as I think I drew like 2 cards from him in the entire long span he was in play.

Much later in that game I managed to get and flip Azor's Gateway (Sanctum of the Sun) and combine it with Ancestor's Prophet into a situation where I quickly got over 100 clerics and 300 hp which did eventually result in the end of the game. Avacyn stuck literally the whole game and kept me from eating a few different removal effects including an Austere Command.

Some changes I have been fumbling with here but having a hard time nailing down:

• Stoneforge Mystic -> Pilgrim's Eye I am cutting back my equipment package as it hasn't been working as well with how the deck is constructed as of right now. Skullclamp hasn't been as good here as I had hoped because I really am not running many token makers other than Heliod. Paying 3WW to draw 2 cards is kind of expensive for draw. Sword of the Animist hasn't been too stable with a lower creature count and a commander who often isn't a creature. I am adding Pilgrim's Eye which really is just a small cantrip style effect which can be easily used as a throw away blocker. Its also relatively decent on some of my repeatable resurrect effects and it potentially buys me time to get later into the game.
• Harvestguard Alseids -> Unstable Obelisk I really like the idea of Harvestguard Alseids but its perhaps been a little more awkward in execution than I had hoped. Unstable Obelisk is nice as it gives me a removal option for when I leave my mana up as well as also being ramp.
• Golden Guardian -> Worn Powerstone I really do love the transform to land cards but the Guardian is a little too hard to flip here.
• Crovax, Ascendant Hero -> Sandstone Oracle I like Crovax but he feels a little too narrow in being sort of token hate for non white tokens. More draw please and thanks.
• Skullclamp -> Staff of Nin the actual token production is mostly just Heliod and paying 3WW per draw 2 is too heavy. Staff of Nin is a bit clunky and slow but I need additional draw that gives me more than one or two cards.
• Sword of the Animist -> Hedron Archive I like the effect of the sword I just haven't been able to get it suited up soon enough for my liking here. Its possible if I can get my cheap expendable creature count up I might bring it back but for the time being I just find it too hard to make work.
• Conqueror's Galleon -> Kor Cartographer I like the things the Galleon can do but getting it to flip can be expensive and a lot of the abilities of the card are kind of expensive to use. Cartographer gives me a disposable blocker who could possibly be flickered with Skybind or rezed with one of the few recursive rez effects.
• Marshal's Anthem -> Skyscanner the anthem can be cool and when its great it is fantastic but its slow and I don't have a ton of creatures or sac outlets here. Skyscanner is maybe not amazing but it replaces itself and gives me a very disposable body as well as something that can rez or flicker nicely if it comes to it.
• Steelshaper's Gift -> Enlightened Tutor just swapping a tutor for equipment to a more generic tutor. Enlightened is card disadvantage but the pool of cards it can get me is very deep. To be honest as well the ability to tutor for some of my better card draw options is probably worth the card disadvantage of this tutor.
• Gideon, Ally of Zendikar -> Ghostly Prison I like Gideon but I like him more when I have a little better card advantage and is a little more aggressive with him. I would prefer to make it harder to come at me as it stands so I am going to shift to a bit of forting instead.

I had three games last night and I believe I won 2/3 of them. In the first game I had played defense vs a Kaalia deck and he was leery of attacking into my untapped mana. When they finally did they ate a big Angel of the Dire Hour which essentially put them out of the game and let me mop up what was left.

Game two I was very relevant and I was about to use my Emeria, the Sky Ruin to rez Emeria Shepherd and then Settle the Wreckage four of my own tokens but someone went off with a Laboratory Maniac after counterspelling my Stonecloaker attempt to grave hate him out of his lab man.

Game three I was playing against Ashling the Pilgrim and Kaalia of the Vast in a three player FFA. Ashling had like.... all the ramp kind of a start and managed to stick their commander with a darksteel plate very early. Kaalia kind of panicked and went all in on Ashling removing his commander multiple times and running him out of the game while I curved Heliod, Divine Visitation, Caged Sun. I spun up 3 5/5 vigilant angels the turn Kaalia killed off Ashling and ended up putting too many angels into play for him to deal with which ended it.

It was a few odd games in the ones I did win as I was not the one people were looking at so the aggro deck would run some people down and I would crush the aggro deck afterwards. Overall, I needed more mana like every game so I am going to look at how to go deeper on draw and or ramp as my goal for now.

Quote from kicks_422 »

For a Draw-Go deck, it looks like you're a bit short on reactive elements, or simply things you can do on your opponents' turns. Maybe you should consider adding more instants, creatures with flash, and/or mana sinks?

The main goal is to keep up options to interact and to use my commander as a mana sink assuming I don't need to defend myself in some other way. The list is still a bit rough but I did manage to play the deck for three games last night which I would say had fairly good results but I think I still probably need to make a bunch of changes and tune it up a bit.

Quote from Taleran »

The Commander in a Heliod deck typically fills that role

That is my goal.

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I won't bother mocking up changes yet but I suspect I am going to try to go a LOT deeper on my ability to produce mana. Even some 2-3 mana stones would probably be fine but I also need some more of the 2-3 mana producing stones so I kind of suspect I am going to try to make room for at least 5 more mana rocks in here.

I have a few changes now that cards have shown up and I wanted to change a few things as I was building it. I still haven't done any testing yet but that should happen yet this week.

• Shieldmage Elder -> Crovax, Ascendant Hero I think that the flavor of Shieldmage Elder is cool but I think it might be a little underwhelming in actual use. Its a little expensive and needing to tap two to prevent from one source that it needs to target seems a little sketch. I have had a lot of issues in the past with how little Crovax does sometimes but being I am a controlling token deck I want to give him a shot before I dismiss him again. I really hate opposing token swarm decks because they tend to just mash some stupid huge anthem and slam in. Crovax gives me a small bump and potentially kills opposing tokens. I often cut him but for now I am going to include him as a halfway point between a control effect and an anthem.
• Selfless Squire -> Settle the Wreckage The squire and settle can sometimes accomplish similar results with a little questionable on opposing tokens but I like that I could potentially use it on myself to ramp which I think is something probably under utilized with this card. The idea of eating 2-5 of my own tokens and turning them into more lands in play sounds kind of fantastic.
• Alms Collector -> honor the Fallen shifting a little based on some recent meta experiences. I really hate mass grave abuse so lets have some more answers for that. Alms Collector can do some work but its very situational where as grave hate with some lifegain at instant speed can break some really miserable things I have recently experienced.
• Dawn of Hope -> Soul Warden it might seem odd to make this swap but the actual lifegain effects in my list before this were kind of low and token production is mostly irrelivant given my commander here. I am going to try out some of these one mana lifegining clerics and potentially I might end up running a few of them. Having a surplus of life makes random attacks a lot less threatening and its on theme creature wise.
• Martyr's Bond -> Marshal's Anthem I don't really have a way to kill my creatures which makes me think that Martyr's Bond might be a little more awkward than I first thought. In comes another anthem / rez effect instead.

Like I said, I haven't tested this yet but as I was sleeving things up I saw a few cards I wanted and or just saw some potential issues with a few cards so I made some small changes. Hopefully more changes will come after some testing this week.

Quote from Taleran »

I wouldn't necessarily run Land Tax but Weathered Wayfarer being a second way to find Serra's Sanctum has been when I have made this deck really invaluable.

I do have Expedition Map in the list but I might give Wayfarer more thought.

Quote from Pokken »

Boreas Charger seems worthwhile especially given you can probably just go off with Skybind pretty easily.

Looks pretty reasonable all around, though I think Heliod is pretty good with some light stax - say tanglewire or smokestack

I have always meant to get some testing in for Boreas Charger. I think it maybe could be a good card but in a lot of my more control based white decks I seem to have issues where I too often have more lands than my opponents for some reason. I would probably justify Land Tax over it which for now I have opted to pass on.

Smokestack might be a thing. I have always been hesitant to run it though because of that full turn where it doesn't do anything though. I tend to prefer Tangle Wire in decks that quickly tempo to play rather than decks that plan to play late game control.

I realized that the mana dump of Heliod was a nice kind of control effect that lets me play with big mana concepts as well as potentially allowing me to play a very reactive white deck. Some sweet cleric subthemes as well as a few enchantment ETB effects to give some further support to the tokens he makes. Being that our commander is indestructible, ramping with lands and potentially sweeping noncreatures when problems arise is a real thing here.

This is my rough draft starting point at least. I love me some mone white so I just keep making more of them lol.

You will notice a lack of Land Tax / Weathered Wayfarer effects and that is in part given how much transform to land and land ramping I am running in here. I have found that in a lot of cases my Bruna deck which runs some similar setup has a hard time triggering those effects without a dedicated ramp deck opposing me.