MTG Salvation

My purpose for the Echoing Truth is for removal of pesky things that stop us in our tracks like Ensnaring Bridge, Ghostly Prison, Blood Moon, bigger creatures, planeswalkers and the like. Normally when we're ahead we can lay the beatdown pretty easily, but sometimes a single non-creature card that we can't remove or return ruins our day.

We have no mainboard general purpose removal that's efficient enough to deal with annoying threats so I'm trying in Echoing Truth (1-of) and Engineered Explosives (1-of) in main. There's another Echoing Truth in the side in case it's needed or creature removal is not necessary.

Unlike destroy spells, we can use truth on our own permanents and creatures. And we can even return our Heartless Summoning in case we don't need it anymore (for those little extra points of damage).

Yeah, I've been testing it. However as it stands it's a bit slow since the Damnation effect is the second chapter. It would've been much stronger if it were the first effect.

I've also been testing Hostage Taker light you suggested before and it's proven to be a very good inclusion. It's a 2-for-1 if we get to resolve it properly and being able to recur our ETB is definitely amazing. I'm using 3 in the mainboard now.

Traxos, Scourge of Kroog is still something I'm trying out in some quantity, but for now I've settled with 1. It can get very awkward with 2 in hand and it needs some work to be useful. There have been cases where it was out but I couldn't find a way to easily untap it. It has wonderful interaction with Chief Engineer though since it will always be one additional colorless mana off the casting cost of artifacts, and then it also untaps again (have Traxos untapped, cast an artifact by tapping him to pay the cost, Traxos' ability triggers and he becomes untapped).

For our multi-purpose removal, I'm thinking of trying out Echoing Truth. It's use is twofold: (2) bounce any threat/prison effects our opponents have that's preventing us from doing anything and (2) recur any of our ETB creatures.

Traxos sadly is legendary, so copying it with metamorph won't do much good. But copying something else with metamorph will surely be able to untap Traxos.

I think the interaction is nice, but it would work better in a reanimation shell, where you have cards like Zombie Infestation to abuse the scry and then use The Scarab God's ability to reanimate what you discarded.

Zahid, Djinn of the Lamp is definitely a card to consider. One other card that I'm sure will be great for use if we can make good use of it is Traxos, Scourge of Kroog. I'll be testing this around but hopefully you guys could comment on any of your current builds and thoughts.

I'm also thinking of a way to fit in Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain and profit from her ability.

Has anyone tried playing with Vedalken Archmage? If played on turn 3 along with other artifacts it could keep the engines running. Survives heartless so there's that.

There are also a few other cards that would be interesting in the upcoming Dominaria set:
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Jhoira, Weatherlight Captain
Urza's Tome
Damping Sphere - effective against tron, storm and other decks that play a lot of spells per turn
Jhoira's Familiar - another artifact for cost reductions

Sharing my latest list here:



A few things to note:

• The tax plan is good when and if it comes out but it's too unreliable left to it's own devices. It's in there in case we draw it, but I'm considering doing away with it. It's good against cascade though.
• Unlike previous builds, the main focus here is to search up the goodies and put them into play. Having a Chief Engineer or Grand Architect in play when you put in the Sphinx Summoner allows you to go summonner, metamorph, metamorph, something else (normally Myr Superion).
• There are no Glint-nest Cranes or Tezzerets. They're nice, but sometimes you don't need artifacts, and this is where the reliability of Serum Visions comes in. The fact that you can play it in your very first turn (instead of always doing nothing) is a huge upside since it can set up the reliability of our early turns. I'll still try out how to fit in the Cranes and Tezzeret without reverting but well see.
• Memnarch is the top-end threat. When games go too long, we have a lot of mana to spare and sometimes resolving him allows us to steal an otherwise unwinnable state (ensnaring bridge, lantern locked, too many opposing bigger threats).
• Stubborn Denial has been crucial. In turn 1 it stops any one mana discard or even aether vials. In later turns when we have a superion or wurmcoil in play it secures victories where otherwise we'd be crushed.
• Lightning Greaves is the speedup necessary. Playing a Myr Superion on Turn 2 and then attacking on turn 3 is the same as playing the superion on Turn 3, play Greaves then attack.
• Pithing Needle on the mainboard just seems to be absolutely necessary to deal with planeswalkers. Almost all Tier 1 decks have abilities we can stifle with this anyway, so having one on the main is useful.
• No consistent draw engines means we're more top deck reliant, but having more search engines allows us to consistently get what we want. We're weaker to Mindlock Orb though.
• 4 Heartless Summoning in the mainboard now. We don't like seeing them in pairs, but since we have Claws of Gix to get rid of it when we don't need it, each extra copy is now just a 3: Gain 1 life. Having a higher probability of having it for turn 2 is worth the risk of having pairs.

If you have the time, try it out and see if it works well. I'd appreciate some criticisms and suggestions to help make it better.

Further testing along with the recent modern unbanning of Jace, the Mind Sculptor and Bloodbraid Elf has given rise to a need for counters again. I'm running 2 Stubborn Denials in the mainboard and have removed Padeem. I'm still testing the Vedalken Shackles and the Claws of Gix together. Any thoughts on your recent builds or the changing meta vs this deck?

Been having some luck with my current build. Your thoughts are welcome



Most notably, the inclusion of Padeem removed the need to have counterspells for protection. You're also not too reliant on Lodestone Golem surviving the turn to make an impact. Padeem that's been copied using Phyrexian Metamorph makes itself hexproof.

I'm playing the claws along with the shackles for the combo that I mentioned earlier. The gameplay now is a bit slow but we have ways to retain card advantage while keeping the threats coming.

Just putting it here in case it was never mentioned before, the Claws of Gix can also be used to remove our own Heartless Summoning so we can get rid of the -1/-1 when our board presence is established.

Lupine and Molten-tail would be awkward together if it's only them. But if you had Padeem, Consul of Innovation with them you might have better luck. At upkeep put the molten-tail trigger on the stack then on top of it put the draw trigger. This way, even if you empty your hand out at the end of your turn, you have a card to draw on your upkeep you can still throw out.

I'm not able to put a lot of time testing Padeem yet but from the few games I've tried her in my opponents always needed to answer her either by countering or removing her first. This ends up reducing their responses when next turn I put down Lodestones or other threats. There are games wherein she'd be in play without any artifacts on our side so I tried adding more mana rocks to make sure that if she goes down on turn 3, at turn 4 upkeep there's a chance we'll draw. The best Padeem play I can think of is: Turn 2 heartless, Turn 3 with 3 lands Grand Architect into Dimir Signet into Padeem into Lodestone. A hexproof lodestone is an absolute annoyance. With the removals taking on extra tax, spending one on just Padeem to get rid of the hexproof has been interesting. It'd be great if you guys could test it out too or maybe give your thoughts.

With Vedalken Shackles in, Claws of Gix seem to increase in value in our deck. And since we're on the topic of Claws, what are your thoughts on a one-of Spine of Ish Sah tutorable via Treasure Mage?

Testing out Padeem, Consul of Innovation now (2 in mainboard). The hexproof and the draw potential is attractive. On this removal heavy meta, I think it's worth the 4 mana.

Btw is there a discord channel for this discussion?

My tests with Molten-tail Masticore ended up me just having to discard cards without being able to use his ability to deal the 4 damage as removal or direct damage. The regenerate is cool and the deal 4 is great but only if we have creatures in the grave to throw out to exile. In most of my tests I had very few creatures in the graveyard that I could use to use as fodder.

I will test out the Claws.

The Mimic Vat idea with Mulldrifter seems to be quite interesting. With Grand Architect in play we can always tap the Mulldrifter for 2 mana before it dies making the mimic vat ability a (1, tap): draw 2 repeatable.

My tests with Molten-tail Masticore ended up me just having to discard cards without being able to use his ability to deal the 4 damage as removal. The regenerate is cool and the deal 4 is great but only if we have creatures in the grave to throw out to exile. In the games I were in, these creatures were in exile instead.

I will test out the Claws.

The Mimic Vat idea with Mulldrifter seems to be quite interesting. With Grand Architect in play we can always tap the Mulldrifter for 2 mana before it dies making the mimic vat ability a (1, tap): draw 2 repeatable.

Back when it was still standard I played it along with Phyrexia's Core so that when my Wurmcoil is about to eat removal like Oblivion Ring, I can sacrifice it and then later on proceed with abusing the vat (create token, sac to core after attacking). Standard was a much slower format so you have some time to setup.

Early versions of my deck in modern had the vat but I found that it was too slow. It's hard to put it down on the same turn we have a threat for ourselves we'd like to retain. It works well if you have a steady removal suite though since you can use it to take your opponent's creatures and use them for yourself.

On a completely different note, I just saw Razormane Masticore in a binder and I'm trying it out. Feels like it's a good consistent weenie removal and with the First Strike it can fight with creatures up to X/8 (or X/7 with heartless out). With all the discussions we've been having about the lich, I think this card would also synergize well with it.

Havengul Lich and The Scarab God don't get discounts from Grand Architect, Etherium Sculptor or Chief Engineer. And while they get the benefit of the Architect's lord effect and can tap for some mana, the earliest we'd be putting them down instead of our other artifacts is turn 4 and that's with Heartless Summoning out. They can't be taken from Glint-nest Crane's ability as well. I'm also wondering what they should be replacing in the mainboard.

I'm a bit pessimistic with their inclusion but I will try out some online games with them to see how they perform. They're powerful and can be useful no doubt but I just feel that by the time they become useful, it'd already be too late.

If it's targeted removal we're worried about, Spellskites seem to be the better option. Yes, it's a one time thing, but consider the field with a Lodestone and a Spellskite. The tax is enough so that the lodestone will have enough time to swing at least twice. By then, we might already have some other threats that are giving our opponents headaches.