MTG Salvation

I've been slowly building this deck and have a question: What are the advantages of running UR tempo Twin (ie not all-in) over TarmoTwin, other than money concerns?

I've been theorycrafting on Spellskite vs Kira maindeck for about a week. They both have ups and downsides, but the main question is what decks you fear the most

Spellskite:
+can be vialed in response to removal
+protects vial from artifact hate
+hates on a lot of decks (twin, bogles, infect, burn)
-can't do damage

Kira:
+2 flying damage is very relevant
+is almost always a 2 for 1
+beast against UWr variants
+gives devotion
-still dies to some spells like Abrupt Decay

In the end it comes down to which you fear more: Jund or UWr, which made me decide on Kira. DRS-less Jund is very weak to Spreading Seas, and their hand disruption is just kind of meh against us. UWr can grind us out however, and Kira just makes that so much harder for them (just don't attack into a flashed Resto with her). Kira is also never a dead draw since at the very very worst she's a 2/2 flyer with psuedoshroud, while Skite just kind of sits there is some matchups. Our matchups against the decks Skite hates on are also already pretty good, so having him in the sideboard will suffice

I've tried Dakra Mystic a lot myself as I was pretty hyped about her cool ability. However having to tap AND pay mana makes you lose too much tempo to make it worthwhile. Where she shines is in slow, grindy matchups, where she can help you find more fish to play, but in that case you'd rather have Thassa

Honestly her ability would've been perfect if it was just U. Since it's only one mill per mana and doesn't really give card advantage, just card quality, it wouldn't even have been overpowered if you ask me.

The reason why people think Cursecatcher is bad is because you dont often see him in action. They see their opponent just hold open one mana to use Anger of the Gods and think "wow cursecatcher did absolutely nothing"

what you don't see however is how the opponent has to slow down his gameplan a turn because he couldn't use that Anger previous turn with Cursecatcher in play. Against Merfolk that's quickly another eight damage.

Exhaustion might've been worth it if only it was an Instant.

Seas stops tron. The confusion comes from a pretty recent event where a judge infamously and wrongly said a Sea'd tron land still turns on the other tron lands.

Quote from WillyBlake »

Hey people, what deck do you consider better UWR control or Merfolks?

UWr, there's a reason it is one of the top decks right now. However, UWr gets a lot more sideboard hate against it than Merfolk, which is still rather under the radar.

Chalice is fantastic against tron, it's the reason I've been trying to fit a third Chalice in my sideboard. Putting it on 1 makes aome tron players just scoop

Other than that tron is indeed a strange matchup. You want to go above their pyroclasms but can get destroyed by oblivistone. You want to Spell Pierce their boardwipes and Karn but it gets useless the moment they get tron up. Your Vapor Snags are useless but you need to keep a few in to not just fold to Wurmcoil.

Personally I go -2 kira -2 Vapor Snag +2 pithing +2 chalice against them, but the chalices are much better on the play than on the draw.

A 3-card combo in an aggro deck without filtering and no combo redundancy? I'm sorry to be a buzzkill but no, that's not going to work

In less silly news, I want to discuss sideboards a little bit more:

-What do you guys think about Swan Song versus Spell Pierce? While I like Swan Song for being a hard counter, I fear the token might be too relevant; having to counter an early game spell against UWr or Twin, the damage becomes quite relevant
-Is it worth it to keep in Vapor Snag against UWr? All their creatures have powerful etb abilities which makes bouncing them a bad idea, but bouncing your own guys to save them from removal is great. I'm having a lot of trouble finding what to take out against UWr
-Where do you guys take out Spreading Seas against? Specifically versus twin and affinity, keeping twin off double red and locking down affinity's manlands is nice but it seems kind of underwhelming.
-is grafdigger's cage worth it against storm? It doesn't kill pyromancer's ascension but locking them off Past in Flames is nice. If it's not, I'm thinking of taking them out as right now they'r eonly good versus pod.

Both those lists are really interesting but to be blunt those little combos are just way too cute to make them viable options

I've been thinking about going from 2 kira main 2 skite side to 2 skite main 1 kira side. Kira is fantastic against UWr and other removal-heavy decks, but in many matchups she's just overkill, plus Skite really ruins a lot of decks like twin, bogles, infect and burn. Two Kira in the side seems excessive, and it would free up a spot in my 75 for maybe another Relic

I added 2 Tec Edges to my mainboard and I like them a lot. I worried about color screw but that hasn't happened once in 5 matches and like 30 goldfishes. Compared to my previous list I went +2 tec, +1 cavern, -1 mutavault, -2 island

To be fair, I haven't played against it for quite some time since it went out of style. Back then I had a lot of issues with their large amount of boardwipes and inevitability in the form of the combo. Maybe it was because I wasn't very skilled with the deck yet and overextended? I'm not sure.

I still don't know what to do with Spreading Seas against them though. Do you keep it in? They use blue and it doesn't stop the Valakut combo. Right now I only have 2 spells I would board in against them (or is Spellskite worth it slurping up 1 damage per Valakut trigger?) while I have about 6 pieces against almost every other matchup I deem important

I need some sideboard advice:

With Scapeshift winning the pro tour I worry that it'll become a lot more common again, and it's a pretty crap matchup for us. What sideboard cards would be efficient against them? I'm thinking to get some tec edges for the mainboard, probably over 1 mutavault and 1 island.

I'm also looking at Annul. I feel my Twin sideboard plan is lacking, and Annul can hardcounter Splinter Twin and give some extra value versus affinity, but maybe it's too niche

Finally I kind of want a second Relic in my 75. I could possibly drop one GrafCage but it is just so strong against pod, which in my eyes is the #1 deck to sideboard against.

Pod is fine, it's not damaging the metagame and it's incredibly hatable.

And if another creature comes out that does put pod over the top, why not just ban that creature instead of a complete archetype?

I don't see what color balance has to do with the unban list at all. It's a relevant discussion, but it's a completely different discussion.

Legacy is incredibly Blue-based. If they'd ban Force of Will that would definitely change but I'm sure as hell it will not improve the metagame.