MTG Salvation

Quote from Smells_Better »

Quote from PraiseTheKappa »

How about Cathedral of War? Seems fine since it makes our Creatures bigger without costing us anything. Maybe that new land that lets each player draw/discard? Seems fine since we have witness value and it digs us deeper. Obviously not great against some decks, but i think it's playable.

Other land that comes to mind would be Vault of the Archangel

I've also been considering 1 vault in replace of 1 gavony. Anyone else tried this yet?

I have been playing with vault. However, I'm not sure if I will keep it. Gavony is just so much stronger. The advantage of vault is that all of you creatures trade up (with all the dedicated life gain from finks, I'm not sure that the life really matters). The disadvantage is that it doesn't help you close the game out any faster. This is a pretty big disadvantage considering that the creatures we are playing are not very good, so if we need to switch to plan b we almost have to have a gavony in play so we have real threats to work with.

Quote from magicxaves »

Quote from Mathemagician1 »

I have seen only minor discussion of sideboarding against zoo in this thread. Particularly, how are people handling deaths shadow zoo? I don't think this matchup is very good for us (barring a natural spellskite draw). They are faster on combo kill and their plan b is better than ours. Furthermore, it is making up a sizable chunk of the meta. Does anyone have any insight about successful play patterns against this deck?

They are faster . I haven't had a problem yet because Path to Exile and Spellskite just always stops them, they can't even get a land from path.. maybe you want 4 of them. Abrupt decay. Tidehollows and BFT together. Since you know they are faster than you at your fastest then maybe slow down a little to stop them with necessary spells, they are killing themselves so I think the way I've been winning is by focusing on not dying rather than trying to force my 'slower' combo. Could end up just pinging them to win after you timely removal, things start happening in your favor after you see their hand once with a Tidehollow and you know what game to play a few turns. Keep Ewits though, they will discard your ***** for sure.

Thanks for the advice. I think I will likely switch my board to 3 path, 3 decay, 3 sculler, 1 forgetender. The meta around my neck of the woods has been either very aggressive or jund. So, decay and path are both very good. I have also been noticing that there is a lot of flex in my current board, so this is good.

I have seen only minor discussion of sideboarding against zoo in this thread. Particularly, how are people handling deaths shadow zoo? I don't think this matchup is very good for us (barring a natural spellskite draw). They are faster on combo kill and their plan b is better than ours. Furthermore, it is making up a sizable chunk of the meta. Does anyone have any insight about successful play patterns against this deck?

What do we think of this as an enabler for the old project x combo? Saffi Eriksdotter gets crypt champion via Eldritch Evolution, stack the triggers so that champ returns saffi before you have to sac it, start the loop. Need only a blood artist effect for this to be lethal. Could do as early as turn three if you did a soul sister instead of a blood artist. Turn three would only work otherwise if you had two mana dorks.

So, I am in love with this card. However, I'm not sure how good a deck which requires you to have this card will be. I have seen some people talk about playing a midrange deck that includes this card instead. I think that is the way to go. That way you don't draw the wrong half of your deck some percentage of the time. Building a core around voice, finks, Rhino, thragtusk/archangel of thune, and possibly grave Titan seems perfect. The fact that you can only play four evolutions and that they are strictly one use (is there a way to cast it from exile?) means the deck should function well without it.

It seems to me that people are just a little lukewarm on Bob after the last few months of burn and delver. However, I think Bob will come back in a big way now, its just too good. I have been playing with it over the last couple weeks and it has been great. In the mirror an unanswered bob usually means you just win the game. In the UWR match up it doesn't actually hurt to have a lightning rod out on turn 2 (they can't really afford to let you have it out) so that you can play out your lilly on turn 3 and keep it around for more than a turn. Even in the worst situations (such as burn and zoo) is still throws itself in front of a creature or takes a bolt for the team in game one (clearly it comes out for more appropriate options).

The list I have been playing is pretty stock, but I have had some promising results in testing.

Creatures
4x [[Tarmogoyf]]
4x [[Dark Confidant]]
4x [[Siege Rhino]]
3x [[Scavenging ooze]]

Planeswalkers
4x [[Liliana of the Veil]]

Spells
4x [[Abrupt Decay]]
2x [[Dismember]]
1x [[Path to Exile]]
1x [[Slaughter Pact]]
3x [[Thoughseize]]
3x [[inquisition of kozilek]]
1x [[Maelstrom Pulse]]
2x [[Lingering Souls]]

Land
4x [[Verdant Catacombs]]
3x [[Marsh Flats]]
1x [[Windswept Heath]]
2x [[Overgrown Tomb]]
1x [[Twilight Mire]]
1x [[Temple Garden]]
1x [[Godless Shrine]]
3x [[Tectonic Edge]]
1x [[Swamp]]
1x [[Forest]]
1x [[Plains]]
2x [[Treetop Village]]
2x [[Stirring Wildwood]]
1x [[Urborg Tomb of Yawgmoth]]

SB
1x [[Sorin, Solemn Visitor]]
3x [[Fulminator Mage]]
1x [[Unravel the Aether]]
2x [[Graffdiger's Cage]]
3x [[Timely Reinforcements]]
2x [[Stoney Silence]]
1x [[Duress]]
1x [[Thrun, The Last Troll]]
1x [[Fracturing Gust]]


I have been seeing Voice over Bob in some lists, but I can't actually imagine doing that. The ceiling on how good bob can be is so high and in the meta-game that I see emerging I don't actually think the life loss is that big of a deal.

I have also done a bit of testing with Tasigur and have come to the conclusion that it is also not right for this deck. In most cases it hasn't felt like I have 'drawn' a card off of it. Mostly, your opponent just gives you the worst card in your yard (getting a thoughtseize back late game is not great). Worse is that you can't even cast any of the sub-optimal cards or pitch them to lilly as your oppoenent will just give them back too you again.
Siege rhino does so much and asks so little. It is the proper 4/5 in this deck.

I like the new human hate bear. Gives another reasonably good sideboard answer twin twin exarch and kiki pod in modern

Quote from The Descent

I still think that this deck won't have room for KoTR when Scavenging Ooze will be legal. I've been testing it for two weeks and it's just nuts.

Have you been splitting the count of goyfs and oozes?

I was thinking about it after I posted this and realized that I was wrong. I see the value of Knight over Doran. Now, I begin testing.

I have tested lingering souls with voice. Not sure there is much to say, both cards are amazing on their own and better together...Pretty solid.

Can anyone explain to me why Doran is worse than KotR in a deck that uses deathrite as a mana dork? I still like Doran.

Here is the deck list that I have been playing with. Similar to Alexis Taxes. I would love some input:

Haha, I had to go back and look at the picture again...I agree, totally Alice Cooper!

I think that Gaze of Granite is quite good as a two of in just about any deck that plays b/g (not including aggro decks). Its nice that it hits a flipped huntmaster and his wolf friend for just 3 cmc. I feel like worse cards have been standard playable in the past (i.e., ratchet bomb)...