MTG Salvation

I love this card goblin dark-dwellers its a mono red snapcaster mage.


I've tried in it in mono red control. it does amazing, but mono red control has its limits and often loses to decks like jund and eldrazi.

what other decks is her being used in?

I can build just about anything.

Maybe in an Eternal Command-like shell (meaning, Temur colors) with some accelerators

Don't you mean "Beefcaster Mage"? (I'm not sure what forum I read it on, but someone somewhere called this new 4/4 the Beefcaster and I really hope that name sticks.)

If Bloodmoon-based control isn't enough to slow the opponent down while you grind out value, then maybe you need more midrange to get you there. Jeskai Black splashed black basically because of how good Crackling Doom and Kolaghan's Command are in standard (and modern Jund/Grixis pull in a couple KComm for the same reason). Maybe more high-impact spells well-valued around 2-3cmc on top of a creature base featuring Monastery Mentor? Basically, looking at "Mardu Green", "Mardu Midrange", and "Jeskai Black" decks out of Standard might give you a decent starting point.

For something less competitive, the enters-the-battlefield effect could be abused by Eldrazi Displacer, which, although fun, would be more of a cutesy combo for flashing back anything for 2C. (There'd be a lot of potential value generated by the combo, but it'd take so long to set up that it'd likely be too late to make much difference.)

Quote from x1uo3yd »

For something less competitive, the enters-the-battlefield effect could be abused by Eldrazi Displacer, which, although fun, would be more of a cutesy combo for flashing back anything for 2C. (There'd be a lot of potential value generated by the combo, but it'd take so long to set up that it'd likely be too late to make much difference.)

If the whole deck is focused around that it's probably bad, but both of those cards are still great on their own.

I'm going to try it in my jund pox deck. The dream is to slam goblin dark-dwellers to flashback smallpox, saccing bloodghast, discarding worm harvest, and getting the land back with a dredged life from the loam the next turn to play worm harvest. Obviously that won't happen much, but the goblins play pretty nice with lots of cards in that deck: terminate, abrupt decay, kolaghan's command, and lightning bolt all seem like good plays.

5 mana is a lot, but so far the deck has had no difficulty dragging games out to a bunch of turns to get to 5 mana... the problem has been a lack of win-conditions, and dark-dwellers serves the dual roles of more removal and a decent clock. My concern is that a vanilla 4/4 is pretty fragile vs. any removal, and I don't really have any other targets, but I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.

I would probably combo dark dwellers with land destruction in a mardu build. Molten Rain seems good, but also so does Blightning.

Personally I think it could be a 1-2 of in Living End; probably a 2 of. Sometimes you don't hit a cascade spell, and sometimes your Living End gets countered or discarded, so it gives you a way to flash it back.

Additionally, it's not irrelevant that it can flash back Violent Outburst, which is often cast on your opponent's EoT in Living End to cascade, and buffs your guys. Sometimes an extra 4-5 points of damage is the difference of winning the next turn vs winning in 2 turns, giving your opponent a chance to recover.

I think my friend is planning on trying it in his list.

I'm also thinking about running the GR Boom/Bust deck I saw on Modern Nexus: http://modernnexus.com/seeing-snakes-grx-blood-moon-post-ogw/ I'm a big fan of running rogue decks.

Quote from The Greendale Human Being »

I'm also thinking about running the GR Boom/Bust deck I saw on Modern Nexus: http://modernnexus.com/seeing-snakes-grx-blood-moon-post-ogw/ I'm a big fan of running rogue decks.

I read this post back when it came out and that decklist makes me feel dirty in all the right ways. If I ever decide to pull the trigger on selling off my Esper Stoneblade legacy deck (ScapeWish and Trinity Green are so much more fun) I'll probably invest that money into Goyfs and Hierarchs to try that build out. It looks so, so sweet.

After finding that my Jori En, Ruin Diver Grixis Midrange-Control deck was often in danger of milling itself out before it won the game, I stuck in a Goblin Dark-Dwellers. (The deck already runs 4 Snapcaster Mages.) GDD has been disruptive, a decent clock, and pretty synergistic with Jori En. Shame I'm stuck staring at non-Kolaghan's Command spot removal, targeted discard, and cantrips to flash back pretty often.

Could be great in a Mardu control deck with Flickerwisp or Restoration Angel.

Quote from 3mag5num7 »

Quote from The Greendale Human Being »

I'm also thinking about running the GR Boom/Bust deck I saw on Modern Nexus: http://modernnexus.com/seeing-snakes-grx-blood-moon-post-ogw/ I'm a big fan of running rogue decks.

I read this post back when it came out and that decklist makes me feel dirty in all the right ways. If I ever decide to pull the trigger on selling off my Esper Stoneblade legacy deck (ScapeWish and Trinity Green are so much more fun) I'll probably invest that money into Goyfs and Hierarchs to try that build out. It looks so, so sweet.

I've been playing that deck without the oath of nissa, and it's fun as hell. Lotus Cobra is sick when you enable it.

Rather fun janky modern deck - Twinflame, Druid's Deliverance, Boom//Bust, Blood Moon and dorks. Combos off turn 5 pretty frequently, less weak to thoughtseize than you'd expect if no goblins in your opening hand.

I've been brewing a Mardu Blue list that is basically your standard Mardu Midrange list that splashes blue for Snapcaster Mage and pre-spark Jace. Nothing ground-breaking, but still a lot of fun.

Theorher day at a gpt I had lots of fun using the goblin to get boom//bust and cast bust.
Resto angel to blink it and cast deflecting palm was pretty fun too

Here are some modern playable spells worth targeting with GDD:

Rise // Fall
Terminate
Kolaghan's Command
Blightning
Molten Rain
Lightning Helix
Electrolyze


And here's stuff I thought of pulling off in a Goblins Tribal:
Dragon Fodder
Hordeling Outburst
Goblin Grenade

Mostly though GDD is just off-curve (the deck tops out at Stoke the Flames as the only 4 CMC)

I`d run GDD with Boom // Bust, lots of removal, lots of fetchlands, some hand disruption, K`s Command and Tasigur. Use Boom as Stone Rain targeting your own fetchlands, keep the board clear and try to stick GDD and play Bust out of the graveyard off of it, then have land drop into Tasigur for one mana as post-Bust backup juice. I tried jamming the GDD/Boom-Bust package into Jund, but it ended up warping the whole deck into something more BR splash Goyf, with very few creatures and mainboard Anger of the Gods. I have not tested it, but I bet it has pretty swingy matchups.

http://tcdecks.net/deck.php?id=19447&iddeck=147937

One existing deck that can use GDD well is Living End. It gives you access to all your earlier cascade spells, rebuy beast within, or an earlier living end. It gives the LE pilot more late game potency after their living ends have failed instead of just casting spiders.

Quote from SelfMadeMe »

Lectrys, do you happen to have the list around - sounds very interesting.

Yup, here it is:

Flame Jab is pretty good at being Jori En's 2nd spell cast each turn. While Jori En (and Tasigur, and Goblin Dark-Dwellers) dying is a problem, she nearly always cycles the turn she ETB because I cast a spell straight after she resolves, I've got several ways to get her(/them) back, and I've cycled spare Jori Ens away multiple times while I already have a Jori En out. Additionally, Jori En is great at producing CA that doesn't depend on the graveyard.

I've abandoned it for now because it has a pretty bad match-up against Eldrazi (although, when it does win, it grinds them out with CA as usual) and a shifty match-up against BGx Midrange. It has a fairly good aggro match-up for a Grixis deck, though, thanks to all the CA.

The issue I keep running into with 5 cmc in modern is that the format loves turn 4 and 5 wins, so unless the deck is designed to draw out the game long enough to play the card, it usually will get played too little too late to do anything. That's why snap is good: it can be played from turn 2 and onwards and just gets better depending on what spells are in the yard.

Quote from Dos_Rouge »

I love this card goblin dark-dwellers its a mono red snapcaster mage.


I've tried in it in mono red control. it does amazing, but mono red control has its limits and often loses to decks like jund and eldrazi.

what other decks is her being used in?

I can build just about anything.

Grixis has already placed with the card as a 2 of: http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=11636&d=266299&f=MO

Dark Dwellers feel like they might be pretty solid in a Naya ghostway deck, now that we've got access to more virtual copies of ghostway.

It's okay in grixis

I would ask you to define 'best use'. There are two potential answers. If you mean the highest number of activations, then Jeskai midrange is probably the best choice. Restoration Angel is very effective with GDD, and can create a lot of CA. If you mean the highest amount of CA per activation, then Jund is correct answer. They have the highest impact spells in the Modern format, outside of Eldrazi.

However, if you're talking about what deck needs GDD the most, it's Grixis Control. He provides a reasonable body and a means of reusing many of the same high impact spells from Jund without having to actually cast them directly. Don't think of him as a 5 mana 4/4- think of him as a 2 mana 4/4 that requires you to cast a 3 mana spell from the graveyard.