MTG Salvation

Quote from crexalbo »

You use Liquimetal Coating. Target Saheeli, then -2 her targeting herself. Repeat ad nauseam for infinite ETBs for Altar.

Thanks Crex. Not sure a new 3 card combo that dies to Stony is what this deck needs. Any way to justify jamming the through the breach emrakul package? Or polymorph/Emrakul? At least those attack on a completely different axis. I recall folks suggesting Polymorph before, anyone actually try it?

I must be dense, what is the Saheeli combo with brood if you do not use Felidar Guardian?

I'm enjoying the recent conversation about the correct balance between turbo and midrange. I've been moving back towards midrange lately, first with Liliana's and then most recently I've been playing with IoK. Between IoK, LOTV, and Brutality I have some early disruption that makes up for a reduction in raw speed, and in exchange I feel like there is a bump in card quality without playing so much air.

I find myself very unimpressed with both Mox Opal and Welding Jar. I can count on one hand the number of times I've used welding jar in the last few weeks, and Opal never seems to be on - especially early when I would want it. I've been trimming on them to fit in the midrange cards, and I recognize that makes Opal weaker and weaker. I particularly dislike drawing a second Opal so I've been happy to be down to one, and am honestly considering dropping even it. Even though they are terrible topdecks I really like the synergy with Prism and Whir and Herald, but I don't want to draw more than one if I can avoid it because they are pretty dead in multiples, so I've been happy with three. Edit: Also, it seems like Prism gives you what you want out of Opal, an early turn with extra mana, but much more consistently because you don't need metal craft. You have to pay for it on turn two, but in exchange you don't have to run so many weak or narrow cards.

Anyone care to give me an argument for playing the three Opals I see in so many of your lists? Also, I see some of you are playing mainboard Grafdigger's Cage. That seems pretty narrow to me, how is that working? I really wish we had a different one or two mana silver bullet that would be a bit more broadly useful...too bad Thorn of Amethyst wrecks our deck so bad...I would play a creature version in a heartbeat...again looking forward to the new 2 mana pithing needle with peek.

Per a recent conversation, I really like the 3x bridge, want to draw naturally as much as I can but don't want to flood on them.

I swapped in the Time Sieve for the Bottled Cloister I had been playing to shore up my combo and tron matchups. It's probably buyers remorse but I have had a few times where I've had a uselesss TS in hand while getting beat down under a bridge because I had too many cards. Bottled Cloister was really great in that situation, plus it gave a good target for a single whir behind a bridge when you don't have either combo piece. I'm considering putting one in addition to the Sieve, maybe for the Jar or Opal.

Of course trimming all the zero drops is contributing to having Bridge be less helpful. Hard to tell. That's what is fun about this deck though, lots of different options and pluses and minuses.

Sideboard wise, I almost never bring in Canonist...are there nontraditional matchups I should be bringing her in?

I took a trip through the modern legal artifacts with CMC 3 or below looking for new options. Anyone ever try Storage Matrix? Not sure it does enough. Culling scales might be good if we dropped the zero drops except Bauble, seems like most decks would have enough 1s and 2s to keep away from our combo and we could always sac it. Just spitballing...


Current list is:

Looking forward to the 2 mana peeking needle too. This week I split the finals of our SNM and won the final game we played after for fun. Beat Valakut (opponent misplayed prime time triggers), burn (won despite five smash to smithereens cast in G2/3), eldrazi taxes (fun games, g2 he hit me with stony and RIP, game three was super long, drew bridge at the right time), and mardu control (lost to lingering souls, won with redundancy and pulse/decay/needle).

Played inquisition for the first time in a while which forced a mid-game surgical that turned out well. Also played sieve to hedge against combo and tron. Used it once, drew it more than I wanted. Probably would have won without it and don't think I lost because of it.

3 Lili/3 IoK/ 4 serum/ 2mb 1sb Tezz

Thanks radouf -

I appreciate your thoughts and think you're right that I overvalued thopter sword and should have played toward bridge/orb more.

In one particular game I lost to being generally slow but having thopter sword online, then having one prime time land, grab 2nd valakut and mountain, killing it with a liliana then losing next turn to pact/titan. Maybe that's rare and I'm undervaluing bridge there, but it didn't seem like it dealt with titan enough for my liking.

I went 4-1 at our weekly modern night beating Grixis Death Shadow w/ Delvers, UWb Control, Merfolk and Eldrazi Taxes and losing to Titanshift. Still running mostly a turbo build with 3x Tezz and Lili, 1 Bottled Cloister, serum visions but no IOK. 2x sideboard Herald of Anguish was as good as it has ever been for me, mowing down merfolk and taxes creatures and presenting a fast clock the oppponents weren't prepared for. I play a lot on MTGO and he's never won me games that directly before. Lilliana wasn't always great but was usually good, she got a lot of attention and ran away a few times.

Titanshift on the other hand felt terrible. My sideboard felt pretty worthless. I left in collective brutality hoping to spike a scapeshift, that may have been wrong. I screwed up and didn't bring in witchbane orb, which in hindsight was probably my best option. A natural thoptersword on curve wasn't fast enough to prevent prime time from Valakuting me out, and a sketchy keep that didn't come together and it was all over. Damage in bulk seems like it overwhelms the sword combo and primeval titan doesn't care about bridge very much. Is witchbane orb the best we can do?

Interesting comparison with Herald and Lili - despite the discard I've never really considered them serving the same role. I use Herald primarily when I want to bring in a diverse set of win conditions in post board games against decks running white mostly - especially when a 5/5 flier could run away with a game. I probably should just decide whether going to Tezz/Herald/Ghirapur is my plan against hate or abrupt decay/maelstrom pulse is my plan. I tend to kind of go with a combination of both with specific pieces based on what seems good in the matchup and then side out some combination of brutality, relic, needle, lili, Tezz and trimming thopter sword pieces.

I agree Lili is probably best in game 1 because she's got game against a wide variety of decks and her floor is pretty high. Conversely game 1 Herald would just turn on all your opponents stranded removal. I have backed off the pedal a bit on the turbo from some - running only seven 0 drops and 2 one drop artifacts so maybe Herald is more reliable for you - but I don't find myself rushing him out much. I don't really think that there are one drops outside of needle and relic that justify main deck inclusion - but open to being convinced.

Ultimately being best in game one isn't a problem for me because I usually feel like I've got plenty to bring in if Lili is bad in a matchup.

I'll just say that I've been back on the Lilli train (3x) for the last while and really enjoyed it. Otherwise a contemporary turbo list. I haven't been having a hard time casting her, 2 islands and two off-color shocks are the only lands that cannot cast her plus I run 4 prisms and 2 opals. 22 black sources. She serves as a great tertiary win condition and all around powerful card in a deck that still feels like it has a bit too much air. The conversation on win-conditions that didn't fold to stony silence or Rest In Peace a few weeks back caused me to reexamine her.

Quote from Disipleofbolas »

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_TEBflPVZkM

Hah, that was me. I remember that damned mis-click in the 3rd game... Sort of an uninspiring set of matches unfortunately... For some reason I have run into Corbin a lot on the 2 man queues in recent weeks...

Re: a tutorable win condition that doesn't die to stony or grave hate... what about expedition map and Nephalia Drownyard? Obviously map dies to stony but could potentially get under it. Horribly slow though...

I agree! This card seems awesome and opens up some cool new angles. Does it let us reduce our numbers on things like Bridge? Incentivize wurmcoil/batterskull? Is this trinket mage 5-8f? Smaller thopter sword packages?

Quote from bfrie »

Saw someone evolve a finks into old sigarda, literally winning a match vs jund with this. Those 1 off silver bullets are nothing to be scoffed at in toolbox decks

Sigarda has been a total all star in my testing. Have found having a "fair" bomb to evolve into that cannot be killed by anything other than a wrath has been great. And a 5/5 flier does pretty hefty work in a board stall. Particularly when your opponent has signaled they have removal, there are lots of five drops I've seen in people's lists that you wouldn't want to go get... I haven't been as impressed with Reveillark...

I've been doing a bit of theorycrafting and then finally got to actually play the deck tonight in our weekly modern SNM. I was pretty impressed with Blade Splicer (at the last minute I went 2/2 Splicer/Finks, was planning to go 2/1). It won me one game where finks wouldn't have (two 3/3 first strikers holding back a Reality Smasher). It seems that keeping a 3/3 around after an Evolution is better than a 2/1 and 2 life. Similarly good with Restoration Angel. It's also better with Chord.

Anyone else trying this out?

Agree, I like the Pack Rat. Also Master Transmuter being able to bounce your bridge at end of their turn and blast them with a blightsteel is pretty sweet. Probably not worth having to run so much protection for him, but still very cool.

Check out this deck that got 3rd at a recent Japanese tournament:

http://www.mtgstocks.com/decks/85850

Looks like a mostly standard ensnaring bridge build, with a master transmuter/blightsteel colossus package.