MTG Salvation

I figure I should share this deck I've been working on for a while now that takes advantage of some of my favorite creatures in Magic: Flickerwisp, Reflector Mage, and Eldrazi Displacer.

I'm a huge fan of the flicker mechanic, so this deck tries to take advantage of that as much as possible to control the board and break down defenses while building up groups of tokens to punch with. This is a creature-based aggressive control deck that aims to simultaneously provide field disruption and beatdowns.

The deck in its current state is as follows:



So overall, the main idea is to take advantage of the creatures' ETB effects to disrupt the opponent's battlefield and flicker them to keep the pressure on. Flickering is such a fun mechanic, since I can use it to save my creatures from targeted removal or use them to block and flicker them to negate the attack entirely while getting a bonus ETB in the process.

The main star of this process is Reflector Mage, who I can use to bounce threats away and keep them away, leaving the opponent wide open to attack. Fiend Hunter also assists in this process in the most hilarious of ways, since you can flicker-combo him to exile multiple creatures and lock down the last one. Eldrazi Displacer and Flickerwisp are the main facilitators of this process, especially since Flickerwisp can disrupt any permanent on the board, or technically even be cast for 2 mana since you can bounce your own land and have it come back untapped.

As for attacking, there is Blade Splicer and Hanweir Militia Captain. Blade Splicer can be flickered multiple times to make a small army of 3/3 golems with first strike, which can be very difficult for a disrupted and thinned-out battlefield to handle, and Hanweir Militia Captain flips and essentially becomes the Pridemate of the deck, giving us tokens for chump blocking and a creature that continually gets larger and larger with each creature on the field.

As for the sideboard, Leyline of Sanctity protects you from hand disruption and burn spells, among other things, Timely Reinforcements helps in aggro matchups where the opponent drops creatures faster than we can remove them, Stony Silence helps against artifact decks in general, Declaration in Stone is in for decks that use lots of tokens or rely on multiple creatures, Rest in Peace disrupts graveyards, and Pithing Needle can be used in tons of situations. The ones that are special for this deck are Archangel Avacyn (who, in all honesty, was the whole reason I constructed this deck to begin with, but haven't managed to reliably use her), and Eerie Interlude. Avacyn is such a fun card for this deck because you can flash her in to make our creatures indestructible, and when she flips, she can be flickered back to her original side, allowing you to recur her flip ability multiple times to deal damage to your opponent and their creatures while giving your creatures indestructible and not taking the damage. Eerie Interlude can be used not only as an evasive tactic to negate attacks or board wipes, but can be used offensively to trigger a bunch of ETBs at once and generate more tokens, exile creatures, and disrupt the opponent in general.

I'm pretty proud of it so far, but I know it's definitely lacking. So that's why I'm posting it here! I would really appreciate some suggestions for improvement-- I know it's pretty budget-y right now, but I feel this could really shine if I could spice it up with some better cards.

I can already tell there's quite a bit of room for improvement in some places, so here are some cards I already have in mind (but have yet to test or obtain).
Æther Vial -- since most of the creatures are 3-drops. Being able to vial creatures in would drastically improve how often I could use Eldrazi Displacer's ability and allow me to keep mana open for it as well.
Supreme Verdict -- an emergency boardwipe couldn't hurt, I suppose.
Celestial Colonnade -- more beatdown potential is always nice
Thopter Foundry+Sword of the Meek -- Thopters for flying chump blockers and lifegain! An alternate wincon.
Meddling Mage -- why bounce creatures when you can prevent them from being cast at all? Also useful if your opponent has a silver bullet against us. Can be flickered to rename a card that can't be played.


But beyond that, I'm kind of at a loss on what to do with this. May I have some advice on how to improve this?

It seems that your deck is a bit lacking in early game plays.
I would suggest Wall of Omens/Thraben Inspector for card draw and Lone Missionary for life-gain (if you had more plains: Hallowed Fountain and Prairie Stream then Knight of the White Orchid could be good for ramping/fixing).

I would cut Hanweir Militia Captain as it's not great in the deck and doesn't flip consistently.

4x Eldrazi Displacers seems a bit much and rather taxing on the mana (and requiring you to draw colorless sources).
I would suggest replacing 2-3x of them with Restoration Angel.

Lingering Souls is a good card but doesn't really synergise with this deck, it can be replaced by 2-3x Whirler Rogue (whose ability can work with clues from Thraben Inspector).

Another very good card for the deck is Kitchen Finks.

Reflector Mage and Flickerwisp without Aether Vial?

Also you deck has 61 cards...

Thanks for all the input, everyone.

Quote from D90Dennis14 »

It seems that your deck is a bit lacking in early game plays.
I would suggest Wall of Omens/Thraben Inspector for card draw and Lone Missionary for life-gain (if you had more plains: Hallowed Fountain and Prairie Stream than Knight of the White Orchid could be good for ramping/fixing).

I would cut Hanweir Militia Captain as it's not great in the deck and doesn't flip consistently.

4x Eldrazi Displacers seems a bit much and rather taxing on the mana (and requiring you to draw colorless sources).
I would suggest replacing 2-3x of them with Restoration Angel.

Lingering Souls is a good card but doesn't really synergise with this deck, it can be replaced by 2-3x Whirler Rogue (whose ability can work with clues from Thraben Inspector).

Another very good card for the deck is Kitchen Finks.

Good points. Maybe...

- Drop the Hanweir Militia Captains and put in Thraben Inspectors, maybe 3/1 or 2/2 with Wall of Omens
- 2/2 split of Displacer and Resto
- 3/3 split of Blade Splicer and Whirler Rogue
- 2/2 split of Kitchen Finks and Fiend Hunter

Would that balance things out better?

Quote from rayo »

Reflector Mage and Flickerwisp without Aether Vial?

Also you deck has 61 cards...

Planning on getting Vials.

And no, it's 60, I miscounted when putting totals in. I'll fix it after I finish posting this.

Quote from Be_lakor »

He said himself that he wants to add the Vials.

I'd really like to see an Eerie Interlude in the main. Cloudshift +Essence Flux are good but not overwhelming when only 12 of your creatures can effectively be retriggered.

You also should consider enchantment/artifact removal in the sideboard which doesn't use ETB. Torpor Orb is a thing that comes up now and then since Abzan Coco-Chord got popular.

Mm, good point. Sundering Growth, perhaps?

And yeah, maybe that could help prune things down a bit, if I were to reduce the number of Cloudshift and Essence Flux (or replace them entirely for Momentary Blink) and put in Eerie Interludes instead. The reason why I wasn't mainboarding them is because Essence Flux and Cloudshift are cheaper. But if I were to get some Vials so I could throw creatures in for free, I'd have more mana open for that.

Quote from Smgbad »

You should really check out my take on this. You can find my thread on here titled "sundial of the cheatyface".

Ahahahah! That's absolutely, disgustingly cruel. I like it!

I might have to consider taking inspiration from that, if you don't mind. Definitely considering the Sundial part. I'm really digging that.



While I'm thinking about it, would the Thopter/Sword combo even be worth it in a deck like this? Or am I being misled at how useful the combo can be?

I like all of those, as well. Planeswalker Venser does everything I could ever hope for this deck to do-- he has a flicker ability, an unblockable ability, and an exile ability. So much value in one card.

Hmm. Let me try a new rough draft decklist:



Mind, this is a REALLY rough draft. What do you all think?

Venser is a cool PW but too slow at 5 cmc and does nothing for you when your board is small/weak and you are behind.
I would add more Blade Splicer/Whirler Rogue/Restoration Angel instead

I don't think that Kytheon is particularly good here since it's not an aggro deck that floods the board.
More Thraben Inspector/Wall of Omens (or 1-2x Snapcaster Mages) is probably a better idea.

Other 2-drop options:
Harbinger of the Tides, Deputy of Acquittals.

Inquisitor Exarch is ok but not great, I would prefer Kitchen Finks instead.

Some (1-2x) Vendilion Cliques would probably be a good addition as well.

I also think that the 4x PtE are necessary so I would cut the Momentary Blink.

About the manabase:
-2x Holdout Settlement, -3x Glacial Fortress, -2x Westvale Abbey.

+2x Hallowed Fountain, +1x Flooded Strand, +3x Adarkar Wastes, +1x Mystic Gate.

Oof, that Mystic Gate is a punch in the wallet when I still need to obtain Aether Vials. Might hold off on that for a while. Same goes for Snapcasters and Vendilion Cliques.

Point made about Venser; he's awesome, but he's a "win harder" card than anything and doesn't help me much if I'm behind.

I feel kind of weird cutting out the Momentary Blinks because I feel like I'm cutting essentially 8 flickers out of the deck, but I do agree that Path is too useful to not include a full set of, so let's try this:



I'm also still curious about including Thopter/Sword combo in here-- I feel that might be a nice alternate wincon that nets me lots of lifegain.

Anyway, is that better? I should test this online before going out to buy the cards at any rate.

EDIT: Never mind, I was looking at the Expedition land price of Mystic Gate. The normal price is much more tolerable.

Looks pretty good.

Some good blink targets for the SB can be:
Mangara of Corondor and Magus of the Disk.

It kind of feels like you're telling me not to play flickers in general, seeing that I've gone from having ~15 flicker options in the deck down to... well, much fewer, and at much higher mana cost? It feels kind of like I'm working against that by continuing to reduce that. So I have to ask, what exactly are you trying to get me to do with this? I'm getting some really good suggestions in two different directions, but I really have no idea how I'm going to go about including the sheer number of cards mentioned without thinning the deck out too much.

And as far as the Displacer goes, if I'm going to be running so many colorless sources, would it not be better for me to max out the Displacers so I actually will get a chance to use those sources? I'm genuinely confused.

So I have to ask, what exactly do I want in this kind of flicker deck? Because I don't know what direction this deck is leaning at this point-- what was once aggro-control feels more like aggro with a tiny bit of control, reducing my removal and disruption to very low levels.

I do agree with Remand/Meddling Mage though.

Here's my next shot at this, but at this point I have no idea how well this is going to do because it's involving so many cards I've never used and don't own and I'll need to test it somehow.



Maxed out Adarkar Wastes, dropped Glacial Fortress for Ghost Quarter (there's barely any blue in this deck anyway), dropped the Orchid and Acquittals and one Kitchen Finks and added 2 Meddling Mage, 1 Eldrazi Displacer, dropped 1 Eerie Interlude and added 2 Remand.

I think that Meddling Mage is strictly a sideboard card since you need the information to use it effectively (and you don't play Gitaxian Probe or targeted discard).

I think that the flicker/blink mechanic lands itself best to a midrange/control type deck because it slowly generates advantage and tries to outvalue the opponent, an aggro approach won't work here in my opinion.

Going heavier into colorless can be good idea as it opens up Thought-Knot Seer which is one of the best blink targets.

Playing him together with Eldrazi Displacer means that Eldrazi Temple is the prefered colorless land.
I would probably use him instead of Reflector Mage.

With Eldrazi Temple I would also use Eldrazi Skyspawner over Whirler Rogue.

The idea is something like this:

Not having Reflector Mage feels almost blasphemous to me since I love it so much, and I don't know how I feel about the Skyspawner, but... at the same time, it's an approach that sounds pretty neat-- being able to wreck their hand with the Thought-Knot Seer makes it so I don't even have to bounce their cards away. So I'll try it. I have a little time this morning, so I'll fire up XMage and test it a bit.

Game 1: Naya Burn, win
Game 2: Scapeshift, loss (only because Thought-Knot got Cryptic Commanded)
Game 3: UR Storm, loss (so damned boring)
Game 4: Grixis Dredge, very close loss (such a slow, slow, slow, slow player)


This deck seems very, very weak to combo and being overwhelmed with more creatures than I can manage so far. The lack of ability to do any worthwhile bouncing or blocking really hurts, and I'm finding myself seriously missing the Reflector Mages.

If combo is the worst matchup you can fill the SB with counterspells together with the Meddling Mages, against fair decks this version should be pretty good.
If you are having trouble against decks that go wide you can also SB:
Declaration in Stone, Magus of the Disk, Supreme Verdict, Ratchet Bomb (and maybe Echoing Truth/Displacement Wave).