MTG Salvation

Hey everybody!



I've been working on a new EDH for a bit now. My first deck was G/B Savra, Queen of the Golgari and I wanted to do something really different. I've always leaned towards control or at least mid range in the past so I wanted to try something fast, explosive and aggressive. A lot of my play groups have been going really long durdley and we just sit around till someone combos off. So I decided I wanted to play something that can punish slower combo or control decks. The problem with true balls to the wall aggro is of course that if you don't go big and get in for the kill before someone can start clearing the board or getting up big blockers, ect, you will stall out, this is made especially hard in EDH and in multiplayer cause there is so much more life to chew through, 40 per player, instead 20 ect, ect, ect.


So I wanted to play something that could apply pressure without giving up past turn 5-9. I wanted to build in some come back mechanics in case the wipes come in early or somebody gets up some enchantments or artifacts to slow attacking strategies.

I started out with Mina and Denn, Wildborn as my commander and had a lot of the landsfall stuff, Omnath, locus of rage, Rampaging baloths, Retreat to valakut, Grove rumbler, stuff like that and it was reasonable and pretty fun but the landfall mechanic seemed a little gimmicky and honestly, felt a little too slow and midrangey. Sometimes if I got a really aggressive hand I could get down some beats quick enough and ramp into Valakut, the molten pinnacle for my reach or for removal to finish up but other times I just felt like I played some slightly over costed creatures and couldn't really get anywhere. It wasn't as much fun or as effective as I was hoping.
I thought about Borborygmos enraged. I ran him in the 99 but building around him as the commander felt even more combo based, which while cool and appealing to my inner Johnny, the whole point of the deck was to play creatures fast and attack, not build up combo pieces then kill say I win.
I also considered Ruric Thar, the unbowed, Omnath, locus of rage, and Xenagos, god of revels as potential leaders. I had been running all of them and they seem to be pretty heavily played and widely considered some of the better R/G commanders but when I looked through some of the list they all felt too pigeon holed around the commanders, and with most of them being quite expensive and again most of the decks seem to revolve around them pretty heavily, which I didn't like. Xenagos is of course a bit of an exception since he's so hard to remove but playing JUST fat Timmy creatures didn't really do it for me either, although in the end perhaps he is a better aggro general, I certainly am going to play him in my 99 either way.

Which brings us toRadha, Heir to Keld.






I've always had a soft spot for Radha, something about the idea of R/G elves always seems really cool. I always had a singleton of her in my 60 elf decks even though the R splash is questionable After trying out the other R/G legends here and there I felt too often I wasn't casting my general and that they would just sit there while I tried to get together a board state where I could use their ability and I got tired of it. Having these beefy creatures sitting in my command zone with nothing to do with them. So I decided to give Radha a go. I cast her every game and while she doesn't seem like she's that impactful on her own having that extra mana turn 3, hitting a 4 drop feels pretty good. Whether that be a 4 cast aggressive card, like Bloodbraid elf, Huntmaster of the fells, Charging cinderhorn or a ramp spell like Ranger's path, Explosive vegetation ect, you very often get out to a really explosive turn 3 and 4 since, if you hit a ramp spell turn 3 you can often hit a big 6cc spell on turn 4. Pretty cool.

So that's the aggro part of the deck, get out early and drop spells that will need to be dealt with otherwise they put the game on a clock. But what about the resilience? The grit? That's the second part of what I felt like I wanted was some back up plans in case, or likely when, I loose board control. The first big part of that is of course not overextending, as is true with any creature based deck. If you drop all 7 card in your hand on the field then get wrathed you get 7 for 1 and sit there for the next 7 turns, if you don't lose, trying to draw back in enough cards to do anything. This is especially true in EDH, since so many decks run sweeps of some kind, I am planning on running at least one or two in this deck as well. But it can feel hard to get through enough damage to be relevant if you're holding onto too many of your creatures. So I think the question is how do you get the most out of your creatures to give you more value out of your creatures so you aren't as likely to need overextend. In this deck I've opted to go for enchantments like Warstorm surge, Vicious shadows, and Gratuitous violence to get the most out of all of the creatures you play. I've also gone for the sneaky little bear queen Caller of the claw, that as long as you keep open 3 mana allows you to hit the ground running the turn after a sweeper. The other part of this is to land creatures that tick up and continue to generate value while on the board, either through tokens or damage. For those cards I've gone for Ruric thar, the Unbowed, Burning-tree Shaman, Charging Cinderhorn all generate continual damage just by sitting on the board. Other cards like this I considered are Mana barbs, Sulfuric vortex, ect which see play in the more Stax oriented builds of Ruric. The other half of this is building up tokens, Rampaging baloths, caller of the claw, Omnath, locust of rage. I also considered, and am still considering, stuff like Dragonmaster outcast, Avenger of zendikar, Ant queen, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Garruk Primal hunter.
This idea of resilience is carried over in many of the rest of my card choices, Verdant confluence, Green Warden of Murasa, and finally Creeping renaissance. All of these cards if topped deck late in a multiplayer game all allow you dig deep and grab cards from your GY and go for round two. Another cool thing for Creeping renaissance is that if you've got Borborygmos going you can name lands and go big all over again. Same thing can be true to a lesser degree with Verdant Confluence.
The third prong of my late game comeback potential is burn. Problem of a lot of burn spells for EDH, as will many things that are great in 60 card but meh in EDH is that they often are 1 for 1s or even worse 1 for 0, if they just go to the dome, which, unless you're killing your opponent or in the case of EDH all of your opponents essentially get you nowhere. Much like with the creatures I've chosen, I wanted cards to be refreshable and repeatable or in the case of burn, hit everyone. So the first way I've got this going is Valakut, the molten pinnacle. I am running a lot of ramp so getting up to 5 mountains is reasonably easy and it turns those late game ramp draws from dead draws in 6 damage burn spells that thin your deck. If you happen to have Mina and Denn, wildborn stuck around you can you can bounce and your lands and go WILD with your lands all over again. I've also included Seismic assault, baby Borbor, and the Life from the Loam package to again make use, hopefully multiple usages of all of your resources even lands. Lastly with got the classic Time Spiral block, home of Radha and my first real introduction into MTG, combo Fungal reaches and Molten Disaster. Even if all your creatures get wiped and you can't get board control back, you can sit back stock up on mana, kick that sucker and burn everyone down, hopefully not including you ;p You can also do this with Kessig wolf's run and Clan defiance to get in those last few points of damage. I've also got a couple big scaling burn spells that hit everyone in Treacherous terrain and Price of progress, both of which hit for upwards of 12-15 damage late in the game to everyone.


The rest of the card choices I've gone with are for generating card advantage, refueling the hand, or removal of the creature, land, enchantment, and artifacts, as well as ramp and utility.






I'd love some feedback, or just general discussion on the deck or the general. I think my big questions are are my creatures good enough? I am still worried that sometimes I'll just out creatures that are good while maybe my opponents are just dropping total bombs that end the game unless immediately removed. I know the bag bads of the Eldrazi would be at home here, I neither have them nor feel really inclined to pick them up. I know they're good but I just feel dirty casting them. Same goes for the various Praetors. My group mostly has an unspoken pact of not tossing them in every deck just because. I am strongly considering a Balefire dragon as well, seems pretty beastly. I don't have one yet though and since he's kinda pricey I haven't sprung for him yet.

I am also curious about people's thoughts about cards like Savage beating, aggravated assault, and Seize the day. As well as the various swords. They seem great, I don't have any at the moment but Godo, bandit warlord loves him some swords and that definitely seems like a great way to generate some board presence and card advantage with one or two cards that are harder to get rid of then most.



Anyways, I'd love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!

GRUUL SMASH

Thoughts on Garruk, Primal hunter vs Rishkar's expertise? I've drawn expertise a couple times now and its been kinda dead. Either I don't have a big eonught creature to draw toom any cards, which would be the same for Garruk, or I don't have any other creatures to put into play with expertise.



Or maybe even Lurking predators instead?


Also, trying to find room for Asceticism.


Here's where we're at with some tweaks and testing Garruk Primal hunter and the Lord of Shatterskull pass. I know the balefire dragon is like 98% better in that slot but I like the idea of a big angry minotaur who's almost as good.

Ok, tweaked some stuff but I can't decide whether to go Primal surge or no Primal surge? I've got two lists here, which do you guys like better?

OK so your deck in the OP is sweet BUT have you tried Xenagos instead of Rada? Think about it and LMK.

have you updated your list since this?
Here is mine for comparison.