MTG Salvation

Figure of Destiny isn't gold, I run it in white for numbers.

1. Tajic, Legion's Edge
2. Lightning Helix
3. Aurelia
4. Boros Charm (if Armageddon effects exist, otherwise completely skippable)
5. Nahiri (if playing cheatyface strategies, otherwise completely skippable)
6. Ajani Vengeant

I really like RW having good support options in its gold section because their mono-colored offerings can feel pretty samey. I'm low on Ajani but I know I'm the outlier in that. I want to keep the planeswalker count low and he doesn't excite me at all.

I think this is currently the 5th best WB gold card behind:

• Vindicate
• Anguished Unmaking
• Sorin, Lord of Innistrad
• Kaya's Guile

I could see an argument for Kaya, Ghost Assassin in place of Kaya's Guile but the latter has overperformed. Lingering Souls is obviously better than both but that's a white card for me.

Narset gets better the more unfair your cube is. One, there's more card draw and draw 7s. Two, there's more artifacts and spells, and thus fewer whiffs. Third, blue takes on a different flavor in unfair environments. While this Narset is a control card through and through, it's definitely one of the better cheap card advantage options. Would you play a double Impulse enchantment with a relevant static ability for 1UU? If I was even close to Ux control while drafting, I'd slam that pick.

I play four green walkers at 540 powered:

• Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
• Garruk Wildspeaker
• Nissa, Who Shakes the World
• Nissa, Worldwaker

Green's identity is primarily ramp and secondarily midrange, and these walkers fit really well. Nissa, Who Shakes the World replaced Vital Force for me. High starting loyalty is important.

540 powered cube. Playing in each color:

Dual
Fetch
Shock
Manland

For the 5th cycle, the 6 Horizon Canopy lands replaced fastlands for me. So it looks like:
Horizon Canopy
Nurturing Peatland (over Blooming Marsh)
Fiery Islet (over Spirebluff Canal)
Silent Clearing (over Concealed Courtyard)
Waterlogged Grove (over Botanical Sanctum)
Sunbaked Canyon (over Inspiring Vantage)
Copperline Gorge
Blackcleave Cliffs
Irrigated Farmland (over Seachrome Coast)
Fetid Pools (over Darkslick Shores)

Will be cutting the final four if/when they finish the Horizon Canopy cycle.

Quote from ThisBorzi »

I have been thinking about going up on a verdict in my maindeck (so 4 copies with the rest being similiar to BennyHillz) - I feel like it seems very unreasonable to have the 4th one in the board. The reason I play UW control is because I want to crush the decks that verdict is good against. Often, drawing Verdict is crucial in those matchups and it is the best card in many games. The matchups where verdict is bad are usually REALLY bad in g1, so why try to hedge does matchups when I can just add a versatile sideboard card to replace the sideboard verdict, that will hedge my chances in g2 and 3? Does that make sense?
Note: the card im replacing for the 4th maindeck verdict is the 3rd Cryptic - which is also not the greatest against linear decks but at least more versatile

I think maxing Verdict MB is the right call. It's often straight-up the best card or only out in 50%+ of matchups. It also is an easy cut for the matchups it's not good in, giving you one more sideboard slot.

I am high on Cryptic, but I think it's so versatile in shutting down random stuff. Also, I don't think I've lost a game where I drew 2-3 Cryptics against a deck with no counterspells. If you can land even a little Gideon, those Cryptics are time walks that replace themselves. With that logic I ran four and it felt great.

I would also like to point out that Card Advantage is not just drawing cards. This UW deck goes one for one a lot, yes, but it also goes two for one all the time. Spreading Seas, Wall of Omens, Snapcaster Mage, and most importantly Supreme Verdict, Cryptic Command, and Planeswalkers all do something for nothing (only card-wise; they are all mana-invesetments, but that's why we play so many gotdam lands!).

I'm thinking of mainboarding the one Geist instead of Elspeth. It might be a better wincon, and I'm also high on Elspeth, mind you. The only downside is it nobos with Verdict, but it's an insane followup to Verdict if you sequenced reasonably and saved your Path's for your opponent's followup.

I went 4-3 drop at SCG Syracuse with this list. I'm not the spikiest person ever: it was my first Open and I wasn't playing optimally, but it also felt really good to have the extra mainboard wincon, and 4 Cryptics/4 Verdicts. If anything, I think Gideon Jura or the Walls should go if you *need* Rev.

note: second Timely Reinforcements should be Crucible of Worlds

Benny, preparing for SCG Syracuse tomorrow. Two questions:

1) Can you tell me a little bit about your updated sideboard strategy with Crucible of Worlds and Surgical Extraction? Obv. Crucible against Tron, Death's Shadow, and Valakut, but what else? And other than combo I can't think what I want Surgical for.

2) Some of my 'free losses' were games with an opening hand of 3 or 4 lands, all colorless, colonnades, and glacial fortresses. I want to go down to 1 Glacial Fortress and play a second Hallowed Fountain (you can pay if you need to, otherwise it's a tapland) and one more Fetch. Thoughts?

Quote from TomCourtenay »

I've updated my list and tuned it to my meta : Affinity, Burn, Storm, U-Tron as well as Eldrazi and Taxes and Soul Sisters are prevalent. Some Collected Company also

Tom, Storm is a tough matchup. You want to board your Dispels and since you don't have more Negates, the Spell Quellers (they don't play removal). But even if you do that it's just difficult because they can threaten to go off turn after turn.

For the rest of the matchups it seems like you want Verdicts 3 and 4? In matchups that are about speed (Burn, Affinity, Storm), I take out Jace, Elspeth for more interaction. You just want to lower your curve. See Bennyhillz' sideboard guide. I don't love 2x mainboard Condemn, I think 1 Gideon of the Trials and 3rd Supreme Verdict would be stronger mainboard. One other thing about the fast matchups is that Gideon of the Trials does a lot of work...every point of loyalty is a point of virtual lifegain, much more if you have blockers out, and if you happen to stabilize he's a fast clock. If Burn or Affinity only have a single profitable creature down, he can just lock it down repeatedly. Little Gideon is just so key in these kinds of matchups I could see playing both. I like 3rd Cryptic because the card is so strong but not as big of a fan of the 3rd Snapcaster (2/1 body not particularly relevant, our spells can be expensive to flashback, nobo with Verdict, easily hated by opp. graveyard hate).

And if your meta includes Soul Sister and Eldrazi and Taxes you will want all 4 Verdicts, at least in the side.

Quote from Slowgod »

I almost always fetch for the Hallowed Fountain tapped, sometimes I wonder if I should be getting the irrigated farmland in this case so that if I draw the fountain and absolutely need it untapped I can shock. I'm not super convinced on the Temple of Enlightenment It's been fine so far, but I'm considering just straight cutting it and going with 25 lands.

It's tough, if you have 4 lands in hand that come in mostly untapped, then I value the potential to cycle Irrigated Farmland. If you're short on lands, yeah, keeping your shockland in the deck so you can draw it makes a lot of sense.

So far, I like 25 lands with 4 cantrips and a ton of scrying. I would sooner cut Glacial Fortress 2/3 Island #5 then the first Temple, though.

I am a huge fan of -1 Jace for +1 Elspeth, as I've said above.

I've had great success with this in the local. Cf. Bennyhillz' (we should link the actual list as much as possible so people can find it more easily):

Lands (-1)
-1 Glacial Fortress
-1 Island
-1 Plains
+1 Hallowed Fountain
+1 Scalding Tarn
The idea here being that Plains is the worst card to see in your opener or off the top, but we can't play less than two. I also found Glacial Fortress cropping up in openers with, say, one Colonnade and one Ghost Quarter and costing me the game after playing off curve for 3 or more turns. The 5th fetch fuels Logic Knot and the second Hallowed Fountain smooths out opening hands for the early game and is one more dual-colored fetchable if you are holding Irrigated Farmland to cycle (with BH's, 1x Hallowed and 1x Irrigated are the only dual-colored fetchables). Going down one land, the 5th Island, is a judgement call: I found myself flooding and needing help against faster decks. I never found myself wanting in grindier matchups as no one grinds harder than UW. Overall I'm testing this mana base and the logic makes sense for me: Colonnade and GQ/Tech Edge are invaluable but they often ruin your ability to hit colors untapped in your opener. I sometimes struggle to hit untapped 1WWU on turn 4 for Verdict or 1UUU on turn 4 for Cryptic, and the extra fetch and shock should smooth this out.

Spells (+1)
-3 Mana Leak
-1 Think Twice
-1 Sphinx's Revelation
+1 Pull from Tomorrow
+2 Logic Knot
+1 Negate
+1 Cryptic Command
+1 Supreme Verdict (from side)

When Mana Leak is good, it's good but often it's so bad that it's just a dead card. And for a grindy/value deck, I'm not sure we can tolerate cards that are only good in the opening hand. By that logic, why not mainboard Leylines? At least they do something when drawn late game. Leak is such a nobo with Path, especially in multiples, that it feels like we're fighting uphill. If you insist on this card, I could see sideboarding it for, say, Burn or Affinity. But even then, wouldn't you rather Negate or spot removal? A final point is that our Land Destruction package is 4x Spreading Seas, 2x Ghost Quarter and 2x Tech Edge. Only Tech Edge actually keeps opponents off of a mana, the others just invalidate the specific land we target -- it's replaced either with an island (Spreading Seas) or a basic of their choice (Ghost Quarter). From that perspective, the opponent is going to have the mana if it's past turn 4. But I digress.

I think we should minimize our exposure to the graveyard. 2x Snapcaster Mage feels correct and I often board them out if the opponent is mainboarding Relic (Eldrazi Tron or BW Eldrazi) or I'm bringing in Rest in Peace (half the matchups I seem to play). It's a little thing but Think Twice nobos with Rest in Peace and Snapcaster and exposes us to our opponent's graveyard disruption.

On the other side of the same coin, Logic Knot aims to solve both this problem and the Mana Leak problem by treating the graveyard as an exhaustable resource. Because you delve as part of the casting cost, your opponent can't realistically pop Relic to keep you off of it, unless they know you have exactly Logic Knot and sequence accordingly. In the matchups where you are bringing in Rest in Peace, our two copies Logic Knot can be easily swapped for the 2 copies of the card in the sideboard, or Negate if you feel you need the countermagic. However, I don't find the countermagic matchups to be the graveyard hate matchups, so it's largely a 1 to 1 switch during sideboarding. Cryptic Command seems to be a better Think Twice anyway, as it's not just card advantage but also an answer, so playing the 3rd copy seems like an easy swap. We need our answer density as high as possible. The same logic applies for playing 4 Verdicts: it's often our most important card to draw, period, and drawing it in multiples can lock up games as people tend to overextend post-wrath, sensing clear coasts. The answer:durdle density is also my reasoning for what I believe to be the most important swap in the planeswalker package, and what our deck needs right now:

Planeswalkers
-1 Jace, Archietct of Thought
+1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion (from side)

Elspeth is, I think, just better than Jace. She is both answer and wincon: a virtual Dusk // Dawn (both wrathing high-toughness creatures and refilling your board) that demands an immediate answer. Jace provides value, and if you're digging for a Detention Sphere or Path, I can see the appeal. But our planeswalkers aren't there to equalize a losing position, like Chandra or Gideon might in Standard, they're to extend a lead or equal board state into a game state that's unwinnable for our opponent. In this regard, Jace can spend many many turns ticking up and down, or trying to build toward ultimate. Even when I do ultimate Jace, you know what I fetch from my deck? Elspeth. Jace's saving grace is how good he is against go-wide strategies and Lingering Souls, but that's more of an argument for him as a sideboard card rather than speaking to his overall flexibility.

Sideboard
-1 Supreme Verdict (to main)
-1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion (to main)
-1 Condemn
+1 Timely Reinforcements
+2 Celestial Purge

I tried to shore up close matchups rather than reach for bad matchups (Storm, Dredge, and BW Tokens require us drawing the right cards, I don't think we can beat them through sideboarding correctly). Tron, Burn, Affinity, and Counters Company are all close and greatly improved by a few key cards. Celestial Purge is one of them, and moving some of our sideboard cards to the main (4th Verdict, Elspeth) frees us to play more game-winners in the side. I think swapping Condemn for a second Celestial Purge is fine because Shadow is one of our good matchups already, and the only thing we struggle against are their Liliana's anyway, to say nothing of Jund/Abzan which are tough only because of the Planeswalkers they bring to the table. It is also passable in Burn, Dredge and a host of other matchups whereas Condemn feels too specific for my tastes.

I'm no expert but hopefully my thoughts are helpful; would love to hear yours.

Mana Leak feels so bad with Path to Exile. Logic Knot is better late game but stumbles early game. Spell Snare isn't in a good place right now. Honestly, might just play more Negates and Cryptic Commands

Quote from DannyDoedel »

Are you playing 2 Flooded Strands for budget reasons or is there any tech I don't see? Because they are really bad, especially in the version with 2 Blood Crypts. If you can, you should replace them with Scalding Tarns.

Only budget reasons, they are quite bad lol.

I am concerned about two matchups in particular: Storm and Burn. I know there's a danger to over-sideboarding but their gameplan runs so counter to ours that I feel its worth changing the gameplan to more controlling, or at least Delver-style aggro-control (stick a threat, disrupt until you win). This is what I'm thinking about right now, but I want to see your sideboards and subs in this situation

Storm
-4 Street Wraith
-1 Lightning Bolt
-2 Terminate
-1 Gurmag Angler
-2 Inquisition of Kozilek
+3 Surgical Extraction
+1 Izzet Staticaster
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope
+1 Stubborn Denial
+2 Collective Brutality
+2 Anger of the Gods

Burn
-4 Street Wraith
-2 Thoughtseize
+1 Fatal Push
+2 Collective Brutality
+1 Liliana, The Last Hope
+2 Anger of the Gods

On a more general note, I've been thinking about the flex spots: the two mainboarded Lightning Bolts. I've seen some go for the 4th Fatal Push and 3rd Stubborn Denial instead and I like it for the most part. But what about mainboard Surgical Extraction or Dismember? I find myself siding them in all the time, and Fatal Push / Stubborn Denial are so matchup-dependent that they almost feel like sideboard cards.

Excellent, thanks for your input! What you said makes a ton of sense.

I think I will need to acquire Chalice's for the SSG version.

Preparing for a 1K tomorrow. I'm new to this thread but have been playing the archetype for six months or so. I understand the difference between TitanShift and RG Breach. I'm playing the latter and I have some questions:

• why have lists moved away from Oath of Nissa? Too many whiffs/doesn't do enough?
• is Chandra, Torch of Defiance only good with Courser of Kruphix and vice versa, or has anyone had any luck running them separately? It takes between 4-6 slots for that kind of build, and it pushes the deck much more midrange, which I'm not sure is where it wants to be.
• Simian Spirit Guide: running these seems to push in the opposite direction from the Chandra/Courser builds toward a more all-in build. Lots of people seem to run either Scapeshift as another win-con or other big threats like Woodfall Primus, Worldspine Wurm, or Emrakul, the Aeons Torn.
• Fetches: The Scapeshift variants seem to run only 4 fetches in favor of more lands to sacrifice which makes sense. But in a Scapeshift-less, pure-Breach build, why not run 8+ Fetches and only one or two Stomping Grounds in favor of the full four Cinder Glades and more basic mountains? A commentator once said that Cinder Glades in RG Breach are as close as we get to ABUR duals in Modern. I hate drawing Stomping Grounds, I basically only want to fetch them up, ramp with basic lands, and draw Cinder Glades later on.
• Lightning Bolt: people are running 4 or zero! What gives? In my mind, removal is good and direct damage is a great topdeck possibility, although it does take away from the primary game play. They also do seem to be the first to go when it comes to sideboarding.
• Pulse of Murasa: some people swear by this, but it hasn't been widely adopted. Any reason besides being afraid of Skullcrack? It seems good to rebuy our limited number of threats, which is very proactive.
• The age-old Farseek vs Explore debate. I thought this was settled a while ago in favor of Farseek, but the more I think about it Explore can mitigate flooding late game? Or am I wrong.

Another way to answer my abundance of questions (apologies) would be to explain your preference between two sample lists I've created.

Classic/SSG vs. Chandra/Courser Midrange

I know this is old and all but I think it's a good resource and would love to read the articles if the links were fixed. I'm having trouble finding them on my own.