MTG Salvation

I've recently developed a fondness for combining cheap, card-advantage generating dudes, with control elements to clear the way and keep the opponent on the back foot until they fall on their ass. Keep a nice, low curve so you can easily drop multiple spells a turn later on and stay relevant both early and late.

Sygg functions as the deck's primary bootstrap CA engine, but there's plenty more CA in the deck so it's not excessively general-dependent.



You may notice that I'm missing some very powerful cards, like demonic and vampiric tutor, which is because this deck is as tight as something inappropriate on a family website. I'm also missing lifebane zombie, which I'd like to find room for. So mostly I'm looking for stuff to cut.

I know you said you're currently looking for things to cut, but how would you feel about something like Land Equilibrium? With you're relatively low curve, it seems like this would be pretty backbreaking to most tables. For that matter, Sunder would also be a pretty strong tempo play with your curve.

I have considered those, and I do agree that they could both be pretty nasty in the deck, especially if I found room for more tutors. It's kind of complicating the basic strategy a bit, I don't know that I'd want that kind of risk in the deck without some tutors to increase my odds of getting them late-game, when I want them.

Right now the 2 cards I'm most worried about/considering cutting are vedalken shackles and geralf's messenger - they're both great cards but have some signifiant risks. even assuming every fetch hits an island, i've only got 15 islands in the deck for shackles, which means it frequently will only be able to hit 1-2 power dudes. Messenger I like a lot since I can drop him turn 3 after attacking with sygg to trigger it, then attack on the next turn with messenger for a trigger, plus if I run into a board wipe he makes it easy to keep the CA flowing afterwards.

Regarding Vedalken Shackles: What are you really hoping to hit with that? Are you trying to steal a blocker away from your opponent? Do you see small-medium bodied creatures as your biggest obstacle? If you want to keep that "theft" effect with a different card, may I suggest Empress Galina?

I had this same idea when I built my Sygg deck, and I've loved it. I don't have access to my decklist at the moment, but I'll update this post when I do.

One thing I did though was to make sure every creature in my deck, except Sygg, has 3+ power and some sort of evasion. It's been working really well for me so far.

Quote from LimDul945 »

Regarding Vedalken Shackles: What are you really hoping to hit with that? Are you trying to steal a blocker away from your opponent? Do you see small-medium bodied creatures as your biggest obstacle? If you want to keep that "theft" effect with a different card, may I suggest Empress Galina?

Mostly I was thinking it'd be useful to steal utility creatures for chump blocking and whatnot. Generally-speaking I really like repeatable theft effects.

Empress Galina seems a bit slow and fragile for this type of deck. I'm thinking I'll probably replace shackles with demonic tutor/vamp tutor, since those obviously need to be in here. And it makes it easier to replace an island with the much-needed reliquary tower.

Also, I replaced hinder with undermine because it's so strong with sygg.

Quote from aDubiousNotion »

I had this same idea when I built my Sygg deck, and I've loved it. I don't have access to my decklist at the moment, but I'll update this post when I do.

One thing I did though was to make sure every creature in my deck, except Sygg, has 3+ power and some sort of evasion. It's been working really well for me so far.

I think there's still value in 2-power utility creatures. For instance, bob provides his own CA engine, and if someone has no blockers (or could be MADE to have no blockers...) on turn 4 with sygg + bob you can crack for 3. Of course I want a decent number of 3-power evasive dudes, but I think I'd be a lot happier to see bob in my 7 than latch seeker, for example. Of course it's nice to have a lot of 3-power evasives as well. I avoided most of the mediocre (3-power flyers for 3) beaters in favor of strong utility creatures, though. It's also worth keeping in mind that anyone can be evasive while holding a sword.

Definitely true, and I've been seriously considering some of the 2-power guys; I just hate hitting with a creature and not triggering Sygg. That said, it may be worth it in some cases.

As for equipment, I run all five swords, Loxodon Warhammer, and Jitte. Of the two swords you don't have, I've found War and Peace really can speed up the damage clock, while also letting me take some potshots with impunity. With Body and Mind, despite it's reputation as the worst sword, I've had good results with it. Now this could very well be just my meta, but the mill has generally hurt people a good bit more than helping them.

Loxodon I've had in and out of the deck a few times. It does work and I like it, but I could definitely see deciding its too expensive.

Jitte is just awesome, as I'm sure you know.

I also run Clutch of the Undercity, which like Undermine goes well with Sygg. It's a bit higher on the curve at 4CMC, but it's unrestricted bounce, which can really come in handy.

Quote from aDubiousNotion »

Definitely true, and I've been seriously considering some of the 2-power guys; I just hate hitting with a creature and not triggering Sygg. That said, it may be worth it in some cases.

As for equipment, I run all five swords, Loxodon Warhammer, and Jitte. Of the two swords you don't have, I've found War and Peace really can speed up the damage clock, while also letting me take some potshots with impunity. With Body and Mind, despite it's reputation as the worst sword, I've had good results with it. Now this could very well be just my meta, but the mill has generally hurt people a good bit more than helping them.

Loxodon I've had in and out of the deck a few times. It does work and I like it, but I could definitely see deciding its too expensive.

Jitte is just awesome, as I'm sure you know.

I also run Clutch of the Undercity, which like Undermine goes well with Sygg. It's a bit higher on the curve at 4CMC, but it's unrestricted bounce, which can really come in handy.

Clutch is a card I do want to run, I'm just having a hard time finding stuff to cut.

I don't think I'm enamored enough with the other swords to use them. The cost is fairly high for a deck like this, where I could see them being pretty slow when you want to be beating down. SoWaP doesn't give you any board presence or CA, and SoMaB is kind of risky and the wolf isn't super useful - I'd rather use curse of shallow graves. Also I'm not sure how mill could hurt someone at all, unless they're either losing to mill-out or missing tutor targets. The idea of the deck is basically the cycle of beating face -> CA -> removal -> beating face, and I don't see the other swords inserting themselves into that cycle anywhere.

Jitte I know I should like, but I don't think I do. It does sorta fit into the cycle (although it cheats by skipping straight from beating face to removal) but it's place in the curve feels awkward. I think the only place it doesn't feel clumsy if if I hit T2 jitte, T3 evasive beater, T4 equip, swing, play sygg. But if I have a 2-drop or 4-drop beater it starts to get funky. I don't know, maybe. Lox, despite my love of the card in ravnica standard, is probably too expensive, and the trample seems largely irrelevant, so SoWaP is probably almost strictly better for this deck.

The equipment I think I want to run the most, actually, is civic saber. T1 saber, T2 sygg, T3 equip, trigger?

Quote from DirkGently »

Quote from LimDul945 »

Regarding Vedalken Shackles: What are you really hoping to hit with that? Are you trying to steal a blocker away from your opponent? Do you see small-medium bodied creatures as your biggest obstacle? If you want to keep that "theft" effect with a different card, may I suggest Empress Galina?

Mostly I was thinking it'd be useful to steal utility creatures for chump blocking and whatnot. Generally-speaking I really like repeatable theft effects.

Empress Galina seems a bit slow and fragile for this type of deck. I'm thinking I'll probably replace shackles with demonic tutor/vamp tutor, since those obviously need to be in here. And it makes it easier to replace an island with the much-needed reliquary tower.
...

Not repeatable, but Legacy's Allure has always been ridiculously efficient as a theft effect for small creatures. A perennial favorite of mine for creature theft is Dominating Licid. Maybe not as safe in a sweeper-heavy environment, but it certainly gets around the Island drawback of the 'Shackles.

Though I'd certainly support the inclusion of Demonic Tutor as another alternative.

Allure seems a bit difficult to pull off in multiplayer, especially since I don't want to play it early in my curve when I'd rather drop beaters to start getting triggers.

Licid's already in the decklist, as it's also a favorite of mine.

I switched shackles and old man for vamp and demo, and an island for reliquary tower. Then I messed around with the beaters by removing xiahou dun, siren of the silent song, hippy, shade, and infiltrator il-kor with less evasive, but more powerful beaters: dimir cutpurse, nightveil specter, graveborn muse, thada adel, acquisitor, and lifebane zombie. Harder to get through, yes, but more rewards for doing so. Here's hoping it works out.

I've had a lot of luck with Lifebane. Even in the unlikely event there's no W or G player at the table, you still get info and a hard to block attacker.

I haven't had enough games with it to say anything definitive, but I've been trying out Duskmantle Seer. I know giving others cards isn't great, but you get to use it first and with the low CMC of the deck you'll only get hit for 2-3 while a lot of decks will take a 6+ life hit. I'm not 100% on him, but he's been decent so far.

I'd also suggest Academy Ruins for a land, as people love blowing up swords.

I have a hard time running duskmantle. I played last night against a borb deck running howling mine and it felt awful, I hate running lots of incremental card advantage only to have it be rendered obsolete because everyone is drawing a ton of cards. If duskmantle worked on each players' upkeep instead of all on your upkeep at least you might get extra sygg draws, but as-is I don't think there's any way I'd consider it.

Not sold on academy ruins either, I rarely had extra mana since, despite the low curve, I was drawing a ton of cards and trying to keep up mana for removal as well. I never hit a sword all game, but even if I had I'm not sure I'd want to spend 3 mana just to get it back on top of the deck, and then another 5 before it's actually doing something useful again. In a deck with more artifacts that do a wider array of things I love ruins, but in this deck, nah.

Nightveil specter proved to be fairly meh, I think I'd rather run marchesa's infiltrator as I only got a few cards I could actually use and they went away if I hadn't cast them when specter died, and went away permanently when that player left. One the plus side, the liege was outstanding, worth every penny.

Ruins works great if you're holding up mana though. You keep up removal mana, and if it turns out you don't need it you EOT put a sword on top. If I have a creature in play there aren't a whole lot of better top decks than a sword, they do work.

I definitely understand the dislike of Duskmantle though. He very well may come out of my deck, but I want to give him a bit more of a try.

I've been rather pleased with Herald of Torment. A nice pump plus evasion to whatever attacker I have, and I love still having a 3 power threat after a sweeper. Everything dies, I get to immediately swing in and replay Sygg for a card.

Given your number of Rogues, Knowledge Exploitation is a nice card too. Even if you can't get the prowl, I love this card, it lets me "play" artifact and enchantment removal, a weakness of UB.