MTG Salvation

I need help with deciding if the "dramatic scepter" package is worth putting in and if so which three cards should be taken out in order to put the nessary cards in. Any and all advice is welcome, and thank you in advance!

Hey dude,

Some pointers on your list.

Cut about 8 lands. You dont need 38 at all. First cuts would be anything that ETB's tapped, then look at cutting Volrath's, and boseiju. Just no need for them.
If you need to make up the singleton manabase, the battlebond lands (Morphic Pool and Luxury Suite) and the new Canopy Land, Fiery Islet, are great includes.


You want to go down the doomsday route, but you are running Kess. Kess works a lot better with the Tainted/Consultation lines as it makes a 1 card combo. The main issue you are going to have is that with the singleton mana base that is needed for tainted pact, you end up cutting off some of the easiest and best doomsday piles. Not having a free Gush can be tough when making piles.

Trying to run both Consultation and Doomsday is gonna be a tough ask.

Hey, Thanks for the great feedback I’ve already dropped my lands to 30. I agree the the Singleton tainted pact line is going to be tough I e adjusted my lands so that the one which do come into play tapped are islands. Though this may still be to slow. After having dropped the 8 lands demonic consultation is easier to put in. I may be missing something about why it’s difficult to play both doomsday and consultation would you be willing to elaborate. Again thank you for you feed back and time I will make updates to my deck list soon.

You can make many many many piles with Doomsday, but some of the fastest and best piles include using Gush twice. This is where having 4 typed islands in play makes a real difference.

Being able to return 2 islands to cast Gush, makes life with doomsday easier.

The main pile goes as follows:

1. Gush
2. Gitaxian Probe
3. Lion’s Eye Diamond
4. Yawgmoth's Will
5. Laboratory Maniac

Once opened, this entire pile should cost you 0 mana. And because of this, you should be able to win early on in the game. With 4 islands, this is playable on t4.


the main issue with Consultation/Tainted lines is that you cant have the 5-6 basic islands (to compliment the Duals and Shocks) that are required to have consistent access to 4 islands. In the Consultaion Kess manabase there is only 6 typed islands. Whereas, in my Jeleva Storm/Doomsday list I currently run 9. The jump from 1/5 of lands to 1/3 of lands being islands really helps when making piles.

Hope this helps!

This absolutely helps! You’re awesome I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you taking your time to help me with this I promise I’ll post the revised deck list sone. You rock! Thank you very much!

you can doomsday turn one with the absolute perfect opening hand:

OPENING HAND:
Underground Sea
Mox Opal
Mana Crypt
Lotus Petal
Dark Ritual
Doomsday
Thought Scour

DOOMSDAY PILE FROM TOP TO BOTTOM:
Predict
Laboratory Maniac
Gitaxian Probe
Lion's Eye Diamond
Yawgmoth's Will

Play UnderGround Sea, Mox Opal, Mana Crypt, and Lotus Petal, Then tap Underground Sea to play Dark Ritual, use the 3B mana and play Doomsday, search for Doomsday Pile Listed above, tap Mox Opal to play Thought Scour to draw Predict, tap Mana Crypt, and sac Lotus Petal for 1U to play Predict (naming Lab Man), draw 2 cards, play Lion's Eye Diamond, and Gitaxian Probe for 2 life, while Probe is on stack sac LED for 3B, LED resolves 1st, then Probe, draw Yawgmoth's Will and use the 3B to cast, then play LED tap and sac for 3U cast Lab Man, then Probe for the turn 1 win

Turn 1 win without Doomsday and perfect hand again.

OPENING HAND:
Underground Sea
Mana Crypt
Lotus Petal
Lab Man
Demonic Consultation
Gitaxian Probe
Pact of Negation

Play Underground Sea, Mana Crypt, and Lotus Petal. Tap Mana crypt, and sac Lotus Petal for 1U to play Lab Man, tap Underground Sea to cast Demonic Consultation, and pay 2 life to cast Gitaxian Probe = GG, and you have the Pact for a possible Force of Will.

I have been playing Kess, Dissident Mage competitively for about 2 years now, and only had these combos a few times for opening hands, but for the most part you can drag a game out to be safe or just go for the combo win, my decklist averages turn 2-3, turn 1 win is very rare, plus for all you Kess players the is a new card coming out in Theros Beyond Death called Thassa's Oracle It Reads: When Thassa's Oracle enters the battlefield, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to Blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order if X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library you win the game, so you can use Tainted Pact, or Demonic Consultation, to mill yourself then play Thasa's Oracle for the win given the opposing player doesn't have a counter.