MTG Salvation

I'm really diggin perilous vault, it's a good enabler for aetherling since ub control's weakness was the inability to deal with resolved/threatening non-creature permanents. Gonna start here and tune it accordingly, dimir control will be my project for now

When shadow of doubt is good it's good, otherwise it can just be a bust. Gotta draw it early on and it has to be against a deck that wants to fetch. Always hated seeing them when there's an opposing liliana, or if im up against a deck like Merrill where it doesn't do much

I dunno, after trying telling time and magmajet I just wasn't impressed by them, they don't really generate any card advantage. Im just gonna back think twice

Yup

Consider the cards it would be up against

1gg
Creature
Gain 2 life etb. If your opponent is lucky, they only have to waste two removal spells on it. Gain another 2 life
3/2

2w
Creature(s)
1/1 and 3/3 w first strike
"Free card advantage yaaayy"

1wu
Creature
Hexproof
If your opponent doesn't answer this in a few turns, you win the game

G/RG/R
Creature
When this resolves, roll a die from 1 to 6. If you're on the play you win the game if the die lands on 1-4, otherwise just play another one
2/2

1g
Creature
Holy crap this guy is OP
3/4 to 5/6

G
Creature
3/3
"Well that didn't require much thought did it?"

Would never happen in today's slow standard environment, but if creature power levels hit insane card advantage/efficiency levels comparable to scars/innistrad again, then I want

Summoner's Torment
B
Instant
Target player sacrifices a creature
"Stop whining, you still got card advantage"

With all the undying/persist, swarm strategies and etb abilities it would be on the same power level as pte and just under bolt

Flame on!

That and this isn't legacy

If the scry 2 and 1 less makes m jet better than electrolyze then I'd test out mjet and alchemy as a lib manipulation suite over think twice/electrolyze

Aaaand I'm back to think twice

Nah the life total is very relevant, cruel control is like uwr with its backup counterburn gameplan

For cruel control I would take diaboloc edict over innocent blood since you can kill manlands and have more flexibility with the instant speed. Geth'w verdict is hard to incorporate into a 3 color deck even with fetchlands since its mana instensity impacts both early and later decision trees.

Cruel control just needs diabolic edict, impulse, and the allied fetches imo

I don't mind playing condescend as a 1 of over a 4th leak or augur/telling time. It's a good miser but not desirable in multiples due to you having to hold open a ton of mana to do so, it can get especially awkard w snapcasters too

Now that I'm beginning to consider it, I want to discuss telling time vs augur of bolas, I believe that augur > Think twice and remand easily as far as library manipulation goes

Telling time has the same digging power as augur with the upsides of being able to grab a land if need be and being instant speed, making it interact better with other instant speed 2 drops (while they're both in hand)

Augur offers both defensive and offensive options but he's sorcery speed, which makes him awkward when you have a mana leak/terminate in hand. He also can't grab lands or artifacts (in my case would be batterskull or r bomb out of the board). Definitely going to play around with both or at least be asking myself which one I would rather have according to the situations I run into. At least for my build on paper, Telling Time seems like a better choice

Damnation over aotg is going to help a lot since it's way better, aotg is practically a t6 spell since we're typically only playing red for less mana intensive spells, you need 19 red sources to consistently cast aotg on t3. If you're not running the same mana base then just go for terminate instead of g verdict since verdict is pretty mana intensive itself. If you want to consistently see something at least once per game then play 3 copies. I'd run 3 terminate for sure.

Ratchet bomb over engineered explosives since ee won't really be able to pop a blood moon if you draw it after moon resolves or don't even have both a basic island and swamp. R bomb also frees up some mana and can pop Permanents over 3cmc. Ee is a better topdeck and definitely a better choice against affinity for example, but I'm not worried about that matchup, we already do well against aggressive strategies imo so I'm prioritizing the blood moon/choke problem. For these reasons I place r bomb higher in the scale of cross
applicability

As for sowing salt, it won't be consistently cast on t4 without 18 red sources and a t4 land destruction spell is too slow against the nut draw. Maybe i shouldn't be playing a full set of stone rain since it might not be necessary considering seize and squall but it's definitely better than sowing salt imho. As sideboard cards I would entertain dissolve, dissipate, counterflux, and or hero's downfall since any of these are more cross applicable than stone rain. Leaning towards dissolve since it pulls its weight against tron, and it's the best counterspell against burn; the other matchup we need to truly worry about while giving another edge against other unfair decks as a hard counter with free library manipulation attached

I believe that geths verdict is an all around better card than terminate even if I do run into situations where I can't kill the creature I want to due to 2 or more being on board. Even if I'd rather have terminate against aggressive decks, geths verdict has these pros

. Hexproof/eldrazi/infect as you mentioned
. The damage dealt by it is relevant making it never dead. Subpar against a storm or 8rack deck but I would take subpar over dead always. It basically is more cohesive with our backup tempo/counterburn strategy

Might still switch to terminate though

Augur just has so many roles

. Early Blocker
. Beats are relevant, generally will get at least a few points of damage in before opposing control decks give in and 2-1 themselves by removing him. 3 for 1 if you can swing in for at least 3 points
. Digs like crazy, way more efficient for the mana cost than think twice will ever be
. Makes other burn spells more relevant not only in terms of tempo (damage to the face) but also in terms of how effective they are as removal (as you mentioned)

Switched back and forth between Augur, think twice, and remand for a long time now. The downsides of Augur over think twice/remand is that he's sorcery speed and I'd rather have think twice when I'm hurtin for a land. So far I feel it's safe to say that augur is the best of the 3 since he does so much and is undisputably the best top-deck (most of the time). Remand loses a lot of its luster when you're on the draw and running too much permission (Remand + Mana leak + CC) can result in a world of hurt against a lot of decks.

On countersquall, it's how I usually beat burn decks since the damage dealt on top of the virtual life gain is easily a 2 for 1, especially considering our back up game-plan being the counter-burn/tempo strategy. It's also very cross-applicable as a sideboard card against

. 8 Rack
. Blue Moon
. Living End
. Control Mirrors
. Combo
. Tron
. Mill

Basically anything that's cross-applicable while helping with the bad match-ups will always give me a strong incentive to run it in the sideboard. In the end though, evaluation of cards that are worthy of slots takes a lot of playtesting and qualitative assessments, despite that I highly recommend it and hope that my evaluation seems well-reasoned enough