MTG Salvation

Jury's still out on that. Notable that most recently-placing lists are playing the Elf, but that may be due to unban hype.

I've played both lists and prefer the traditional builds with Hour of Promise.

BBE builds do have an additional angle of attack and can hold the ground better. 2 for 1's are good as well.

Don't discount either build, proxy both and see which suits your play style.

Had good results again with the 24 land, 12x 1 CMC spell list. Second 3-0 result in a row.

Beat Affinity 2-0 in both rounds 1 and 2, and Burn 2-1 in round 3.

At this juncture, having early access to cheap kill spells / discard feels integral. I'm quite reluctant to want to move back to the clunkier 25 land builds.

Damnation overperformed for me from the sideboard, wiping out the Affinity players' boards in both post-board games in both rounds. I 4 for 1'ed him on turn 4 despite being on the draw, at 4 life. 2 of those creatures were Etched Champions. Then landed Ooze next turn to lock up the game.

I think that with 6x 1CMC removal, 3x 2CMC removal, Kommand and Pulses backed by Liliana, we don't need Anger in the board to kill little critters. Therefore I used Damnation in its place in view of Eldrazi and Etched Champion. It's a good O ***** button.

Reid needed that Lavaman or Anger real bad. He had two terminates, but those Mantises and Phantasmals were a real PITA. Rosum played to his outs and drew really well though - that turn when he had only a Phantasmal Image left in hand, he untaps and puts vial to 3, proceeds to rip Mantis off the top, and instantly goes in for 6.

It will destroy a fair deck meta. In my over a year of playing this deck, I can count on one hand the number of times I've lost to BGx. I've also only lost to UWx twice in this time.

What may give you problems in your meta would be Burn, sometimes Tron with the nut draw, and Humans if they get out of 3 toughness too quickly.

The rest you stomp.

Deck ran smooth as butter today. Went 3-0 in FNM in three straight 2-0 games.

Beat Lantern, Ponza, Bant Spirits

I was on the 24 land, 12 1-drop list and I gotta say having an abundance of 1 mana spells felt really good, especially when I got to double spell on turn 3, early and often.

Having the additional push and terminate solves a lot of problems.

Two grudges and an additional Pulse from the side made Lantern easy despite cutting to a single Kommand in the main.

I've had some trouble against decks that swarm the board and tax removal as well. It's really because we have shaved on kill spells.

Sweepers in the side are now more appealing IMO.

Good to see another Titanshift player in Singapore

You don't think bolts are needed at all currently? I'm still running 3 at the moment for humans and affinity.

All-in goldfish for the win game 1 is always an elegant solution though.

I ran into a GW taxes deck running maindeck loxodons, maindeck crusaders and sideboard auriok champions. Amused by so much targetted hate at the moment.

Beat him though, Bob drew me into endless varied removal. Golgari charm into Thalia and 2 auriok champions rocked his boat.

Yea I've read Karsten's works and find myself in agreement. that's why I was on 24 lands for the longest time.

Even then, I get stuck on 3, even 2 lands in a non negligible number of games though. It does not feel good that's for sure.

And then you see that most of the lists putting up results are on 25, then you start to wonder.

Giving it some thought, I may stick a Hazoret in the sideboard for long games. Apart from being a good finisher, she mitigates flood as well, just throw excess lands at their face. That way I can breathe easier playing only 4 manlands.

Thanks, your list at the bottom would be the way to go in terms of ensuring both black sufficiency and flood protection. I am however much more comfortable on 4 basics now. I'll go for the 4 manland, 18 black source landbase myself as BBE has done wonders in putting all those unneeded lands to the bottom.

I ran the 24 land, 12 1-cmc spell build tonight at an event and I gotta say I dislike it now. In 8 games, I failed to hit 4 lands on turn 4 on 3 of them. That's almost 50% of the time and IMO unacceptable if BBE is needed to swing games. Not to mention that Scooze requires more lands in order to do its dirty business. I was always an advocate for 24 lands as I am greedy for more interaction but tonight I got punished by mana bottlenecks.

I am right back on 25 lands for now.

I spent some time going over the 25 land with 5 manland builds - and notice that they all have access to only 17 black sources. Given how you have stated in the past that you do not feel comfortable going below 18 black sources, do you now feel otherwise?

I ask because recently I've been having opening hands with 2 ravines, 1 stomping ground or 1 ravine, 1 treetop, 1 blackcleave etc and never draw into my other black sources, stranding Liliana in hand. This despite me staying on a 18 black source landbase. And this is compounded if and when my opponents see that I have a black-light hand, and blow up that land accordingly.

Thus I am wary about cutting even more black sources.

I'm not high on rabblemaster. I only played him last year in desperation to stay relevant. Right now I don't prefer him over additional Pulses, Kommands or Last Hopes.

I just want more removal in general.

Perhaps the starting point would be Andreas Peterson's list which just made the finals at GP Madrid:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpmad18/top-4-decklists-grand-prix-madrid-2018-2018-03-11

I would tune the SB a bit, but the mainboard looks good to me. Anger or Slagstorm or Sweltering in the 2-of slots, up to your preference.

Joel Larsson was playing 9 3-drops in a 24 land build, with 4 Manlands and a Blooming Marsh.

Wonder how his mana felt and how much Bob hurt him all throughout. Still, can't argue with results.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/events/coverage/gpmad18/top-4-decklists-grand-prix-madrid-2018-2018-03-11