MTG Salvation

Worth noting that guile also circumvents Leyline of Sanctity, which is nice.
Going to start proxy testing Seasoned Pyromancer in the deck soon too. this set could be nice for Mardu.

Quote from XathridY »

Yes, I agree. The ceiling seems very high for this card. It's a bad top deck though. Therefore, I think it's a SB card.
Yesterday, I played TWICE against Bogles (2 of 4 matches...). I whished I had Force of Despair against them after SB...

Liliana's Triumph is significantly better than force of despair against bogles. Maybe try a few of those instead?

To say that War of the Spark is pushing is out of the format is hyperbole. The deck is currently sitting 6th in the mtg goldfish meta and has a 6% share on MTGTop8. We have plenty of game against the meta, but may need to adapt the deck to not fall behind at some point soon.

If we get Daze, Force of Will or Toxic Deluge, we will be very well positioned. If not, we will still be ok.

Dreadhorde Arcanist is certainly an interesting card and something I like a lot more than just jamming Goblin Rabblemaster into our deck hoping that he will solve our closing issues (he doesn't). He actively works against our Bedlam Revelers by exiling instants and sorceries from the deck, so an arcanist version might have to trim down to two Revelers.

I would also most likely want to include some number of Mutagenic Growth to the deck to open up our 2-3 drop spells.... or just to double target himself to get in for 5.

Kambal is legendary, but yeah, if you copy peezy then all your spells for the turn become insane value.

Quote from Shaggy »

I like saheeli’s passive and I think mardu has all the tools to make her good with all of our cheap spells. Plus, she is still castable under a blood moon. Her minus 2 doing nothing for us is a bummer since we don’t play very many or any artifacts. I think she is worth testing out.

The tokens that she creates are artifacts, you can -2 to turn a token into a second Bedlam Reveler or w/e.

If I were in the market for a 3cmc token producer, I would go to Monastery Mentor though.

As a very slim out to Ulamog, probably not worth it and should just be loading up on disdainful stroke and ceremonious rejections instead.

I will be regularly using 2 Liliana's Triumph out of the board because it is an instant speed edict. It can be a good tool against Primeval Titan decks, Bogles, Tron and the mirror. This is a highly situational card however, so it will not fit everyone's play-style/ every meta.

I'm afraid everything else on that list is far too slow for my liking. Angrath's Rampage is flexible, but I would rather have Abrade personally.

Quote from FoodChainGoblins »

Damn, I've been testing the Dredge matchup and it seems nearly unwinnable in game 1. Even with the Thing bounce, Dredge can easily reload and be right there where they were the turn before, with only getting burned out being a concern (tough to do with Creeping Chill).

Do you have any surgicals in your mb? Can help to squeak out an edge.

$99 sealed GP entry indicates that the set will be priced as a normal booster set. (recent UMA GP was $150)

What I really meant was that Faithless Looting tends to be fairly high variance, as there is nothing in particular that you want to actively put in the yard. Sometimes it is great and you can throw something useless in exchange for something less so, but other times you just end up looking at a bunch of useful cards and having to bin 2 of them. It is also an abysmal top deck if you are hellbent.

Opt is a solid choice, but for some reason the whole Shadow community moved away from it over the last year. I agree that the instant speed draw is nice, but it only digging 1 card deep is a drawback. Good luck with your testing and welcome back

Quote from DaveJacinto »

I've been away from the archtype since the Humans takeover that occured last year. Now it's becoming more appealing to come back to play GDS but I've missed the latest developments on the deck.

Can someone explain to me the pros and cons of the SV/Opt/Looting/Bauble/TScour splits? There is hardly any consensus and I find it interesting to see everyone's PoVs on the matter. Personally I'm not a fan of SV at all so I didn't play it back then, but what about the rest? Is looting just a better TScour? Is Looting the TScour 5+? Do we really need to play Bauble? How many should we play? The full playset or just 3 like many do?

Looting is worse than scour in most spots because it nets you -1 card in hand, whereas scour is card neutral. The copies that we run are there to help maximise the chances of a turn 2 Angler. The other reason you might run 2 Lootings is when you have Leyline of the Void in your sideboard. Leyline is not favored over surgical at the moment, but if you do run them, you want to be able to discard them later.

I am a big advocate of the full 4 Thought Scour. Card is just great.

Mishra's Bauble gives multiple benefits to this deck and should be run as a 3-4 of. On the first few turns it allows you to power out angler, targeting your opponent gives you more information for resolving your Thoughtseizes, targeting yourself allows you to psuedo-scry for your street wraith draws and lastly you can hold them as Revolt enablers for your Fatal Pushes.

Serum Visions is favored over Opt because it helps to sculpt your draws in a more controlled manor. It also allows you to access the two scryed cards via street wraith. If you do not want visions in your deck, I suggest maxing out on scour and baubles with at least 1-2 lootings.

My personal split is 1x Faithless Looting, 2x Serum Visions, 3x Mishra's Bauble and 4x Thought Scour. I have found it to be a good mix.

I'm currently toying around with Light up the Stage from my limited testing with them, there could be something to it in this deck. Having 2 turns to make use of the card largely gets rid of the Abbot of Keral Keep draw it/ cant play it/ loose it forever problem.

Seems to have disappeared from the established decks section.

I think the match-up is much better if you have Surgical Extraction rather than Leyline of the Void in the board.

Lightning Bolt basically does nothing in the matchup as it cannot kill Thing in the Ice or Crackling Drake and only delays the pheonix for a turn. I tend to trim bolts and a few wraiths to max out on Stubs and surgicals.