MTG Salvation

I don't think anything from Eldraine is worth playing but cards that are worth looking at if we increase the blue source count. want to a play a black card in our deck is a lot hard than you think. going up to 4 talisman and a UB land that isn't River of Tears to consistently even try to cast it seems like a stretch.

Witching Well is a solid turn 1 play and later against grindy decks with the potential later to draw cards.

Into the Story seems like a fine card as a 1 of in our deck if we really need the card advantage. I don't think its quite good enough though, its hard for us to turn on and other cards are much better.

Some people are trying Stonecoil serpent, I personally don't think this card is good enough for any deck in modern but people always like their variable cost cards. It seems a lot better in legacy with all the sol lands, and delver being a real card there.

Gingerbrute was apparently in someones deck that did well? don't ask me, they must be a monster of a player.

With the banning of the Gaak and faithless looting , and the unbanning of Stoneforge Mystic my list definitely changes. I have a gut feeling that everyone and their brother will try to jam sfm into everything. UWr Stoneblade and DNT being the most probably and playable. However decks like Burn, humans, Tron, Grixis Deaths Shadow, Jund and possibly UW or Jeskai control will likely come back to the forefront. If this happens decks like storm and neobrand will try to supress those and squeeze under their pressure.



Here is what I'll be trying. Force has been good for me so far and I don't see that changing. Perhaps I won't want the forth if I'm right about the rise of creature decks.

I see spell snare at being an all time favorite against the metagame. Perhaps enough so, to warrant maindeck copies.

I just haven't been posting as there hasn't been any new cards worth talking about. My list hasn't changed significantly since modern horizons.



If I owned chalices, I still don't know If I'd play them. I'd have to cut force which has been extremely strong for me. I'm tempted to cut the 4th remand for the forth force. That being said, in the right metagame 4 of them could be devastating.

I still don't care for Karn, the Great Creator but I will still admit I could be wrong about him.

Fact or fiction has been nice so far. It could just be a win more but it's super fun to cast. A second Karn, Scion of Urza is probably correct in its place, but this is just another blue card for force.

Edit*
With Whurza and the 3-4color snow piles, it's probably correct to play Snow-Covered basics.

I've been loving Force of negation, the math behind the cards actually says that 16-17 blue cards is enough. If you want one in your opening hand and a blue card you need to up it a little bit to 19 for it to be reliable. There is an article by Frank Karsten on CFB that breaks it down further, and one for Force of Will by Caleb Durward also on CFB. We are basically playing the minimum to have it be 90%+ chance of having a card to pitch, which should be enough.

Always having a card to pitch to thirst isn't always needed, normally the card selection is enough. The card advantage half of the card is certainly nice though. I'm currently playing 12 maindeck artifacts and have never felt bad about discarding 2 or having a Walking Ballista or Expedition Map to discard.

Congrats on the 4-0. I totally forgot about the switch over to mtgnexus so I didn't even know that site was going. I know a lot of us are just testing whether or not Karn, the Great Creator and Force of Negation are good in the deck as of late.

I probably could write it but I feel like Shok, Trellon, Pie or Bloody should write it. Perhaps in collaboration since they all have pretty distinct builds.

I have to side with bloody here. Most of the time our deck wins if the game goes past turn 4. Our main struggle is actually getting to that point. Having a free interaction spell, while we can still advance our game is the crucial thing we needed. Force is easily the best card in our deck now. With Hogaak and decks trying to race it, having that early interaction is basically needed for us to survive.

Karn, the Great Creator obviously feels powerful when he does his thing. however sometimes you can cast him and just die. Maybe my wish board was wrong or not strong enough. Karn never won me games that a wurmcoil, mindslaver or even a walking ballista would have in the same position. So with that, I decided to cut him from the list. The tool box strategy I've found to be ineffective for a while now, I cut the tutors over a year ago and haven't looked back. Getting them from the sideboard is nice but I felt it was often times too slow. Sure a Turn 3 tron into Karn + Trinisphere or ensnaring bridge or chalice of the void on one is nice but that is a "perfect" sequence of 4 cards with your opponent having zero interaction.

Perhaps my initial idea of going hard control with Karn GC as our finisher is the right build for him. I've found hard control to be a better game plan for us over being a medium big mana midrange deck.

How has echoing truth been for you? Its something I've always wanted to try and I see it in your Cyclonic rift slot. Additionally how has 4 Force been? I'm currently at 2 and probably want to go up to 3.

With the release of modern horizons here is the list I have been playing. I did not like Karn, the Great Creator, and have decided to part with him. I could be just flat wrong and he is likely the best route for the deck but I have been doing just fine with out him.




This is a list I play in paper. My current LGS does not have any Hogaak and is just a pile of Midrange and Combo. I probably do not need the spatial contortions but there is always the rogue humans player that I need them for.

If I was playing my list on MTGO or at a large paper event, I would likely change the sideboard to:



My main reason for not having the Leylines in my current deck is that I just don't own any in paper and don't have the funds to acquire them.

Force of Negation has been insane for me. I have won several games off of my opponents not expecting it, or not being able to play around 2-3+ counterspells in a turn.

A lack of Chalice of the Void, I currently do not own any but I feel that they aren't always necessary for us to win games. When they are relevant and we have them on a meaningful turn, they always feel amazing. But aside from that they feel horrid. In a Great Creator build I would certainly have chalices, as you are sacrificing some of your defensive spells to be more all in on that wincon.

We also got exclude which is an interesting card. Probably not good enough for us to play, it's yet another option from this set.

I'm very excited about trying Fact or Fiction

I was going to ask the same thing. Its obviously strong but can we afford to play it. According to an article from 2011 on CFB by Caleb Durward. (I don't know if we can post links to it but it easy enough to find) 15 is the minimum number of blue cards to make force of will playable with the alternate casting cost. My list plays 16 and I believe most people are around there as well.

Like a lot of other nice blue cards spoiled in War and now Modern Horizon's I think its better against us than for us. The Card disadvantage and only costing zero on our opponents turn is rough.I definitely want to try it when it is released though.


Side note. I played in a SCG IQ this weekend and came in 9th. Damn Tie breakers, was hoping to have my list posted. I felt pretty good about it other than running 3 negates. I wish I would have had 3 Spreading seas or 2 seas /1 negate. The meta was nearly 25% Tron, 25% Humans.

Thanks for the reply! I'll definitely give it a shot. Those were just my initial thoughts, I've wanted to try them for a while and you seeing that they at least show some amount of promise, is encouraging. I can see the use of 3 EE in the 75 for sure. Seems like a solid fit especially with the color fixing from all the eggs.

I definitely forgot that just using them to fix for blue on their turn was good. I am used to them in Green tron and just aggressively popping them for green to cantrip.

With the average list at 9-11 blue sources, a double blue card is not really feasible for us to cast till turn 5. (I used a hyper geometric calc that assumed 10 sources, on the draw and we've cast thirst, or have seen three extra cards. And that gives us ~78% chance)

The cards do look good and I would love to play Narset, but we'd need drastically more blue sources for us to reliably cast them by turn 3.

I do think narset is probably better against us than it would be in our deck (even if we shifted our Mana to be able to cast it). The static shuts down our main way to survive through the control mirror. Only drawing one card a turn is probably game ending if not dealt with.

Ashiok is probably not good in our deck, just like Narset. I personally play a lower number of tutors than other versions (only maps and new Karn). The incidental graveyard hate would be nice but Relic of Progenitus is a card we can maindeck that is on theme and draws cards.


I think Teferi, time raveler is also a rough card for us to play against UWx control. Losing instant speed is rough. I haven't played against UW since war has been released and I can't imagine that the match up is slightly in our favor anymore. It's probably more so in theirs now (assuming both players are on an even playing ability).

It depends on what you are trying to do with the sb. IMO, if you are playing 1 Karn I don't think we can afford to go full silver bullet sideboard. You want good cards that apply in several matchups, just in case Karn is bad. Chalice is a main deck card that you could swap with batterskull if you really want it in your side. Tutoring for chalice with Karn is way too slow. Chalice for one on turn 3 if we have Tron and Karn still seems too slow for it to really effect the game in a meaningful way.

With siding Karn out. With your board I don't think you can afford to regardless of the matchup. With 2, in aggressive matchups I would definitely side one out. He is pretty poor as a turn 4 play, even with tron (and I assume an island). I'm playing one Karn in my maindeck and siding him out in anything that attacks aggressively. He is much better against artifacts, slower combo and control.


@Barrin
I've too thought about going crazy and playing stars and spheres. I think it's definitely something to explore but I fear it just makes us a worse green tron. We are MUCH weaker to Stony silence and Chalice of the void if we go into the 10+ 1 Mana artifacts. I do think if we go down that route you might as well go all in and play the 3-4 relics main too. This should allow us to cut down even more lands and probably play 21+-1

Doing that though will probably cut back the usefulness of condescend as we'll probably be more focused on quick Tron, rather than delaying till we can out grind anyone with our Tron Mana. However the useful of Karn Liberated goes up in our deck if we do this. He wins a lot of games if just played on turn 3.

At 4 Mana I'd rather play hieroglyphic illumination because we can always cycle it for 1 Mana to avoid counterspells or have an early turn 1 play. *Edit* If it needs to be four Mana and sorcery speed, Karn, Scion of Urza is a better card. He draws more cards if he doesn't die right away and can be a wincon all on his own.


There is certainly a lot of cards in war of the spark for us to try out though. I have a feeling Blast Zone or Karn, the Great Creator will be Mainstays in the deck.

Quote from barrin_master_wizard »

Biggest difference between Karn, Scion of Urza and new Karn is that Sion of Urza provides a way to get to tron as well as being good once we have it. The Great Creator is more like a fancy (very fancy) and weird fabricate. That is not really true, my point is that he most likely wont help us hit land drops. The card advantage is very limited in the sense that we need to have the cards in our sideboard. We really don't want to put darksteel citadel in our sideboard, or maps or talismans for that matter. I'm not sure he's good in our deck, I think I will have to try him out first.

I'm not trying him as a value engine but more as a win condition. I'm trying him as basically a mindslaver in our deck. Obviously not very good the turn we can cast it, but if we can cast and crack the game usually ends. I see this Karn in that kind of slot in the deck. Most games that grind we end up winning anyway, regardless of having a Karn, Scion of Urza or other walker. I'm trying him out now, but I never had issues in a long game before playing him.

I do think it is right to probably only play 1 Karn, the Great Creator because he does not got us into the end game. He doesn't stabilize a board state like oblivion stone or wurmcoil engine, but can win a game pretty quickly. He might end up being a win more rather than a card that actually helps us win games more consistently, but it is too early to tell.