MTG Salvation

@CosmoKramer: I've read your post 3 times and I still barely follow it. Though I did extract this: you will get the T2 Arbiter after Nissa's help for your turn 2 on the play in 57 out of 100 games. That is in comparison to to how many games out of 100 without Oath? I'm not good at understand numbers.

Can you run a similar scenario for a 2-of? Say you bring in Gaddock Teeg from the board and need him turn 2. What are you chances with and without Oath?

EDIT: and THANK-YOU! for writing that post. And thank-you for all the time that went into learning the skills so that you could write that post!

And I'm with dcovino: Don't run planeswalkers just 'cuz you can. The list of possible inclusions is A LOT longer than a list of actual or even likely inclusions. My short-list is currently: Domri Rade, Ajani Vengeant, Sorin, Solemn Visitor and Chandra Pyromancer. But this is all in the realm of maybe.

Ajani Vengeant and Chandra, Pyromancer seems extra spicy. I worry about Ob costing 5. I fiddle around and see if they make a dfiference. Pretty cool SB plan!

On Oath vs Coco: I've been watching a lot of Craig's matches and other Hatebear matches online. I don't get a chance to play too often so this is how I can do some research. What I've noticed is that in a lot of games the Hatebears deck does not have a lot of land in play - Craig really relies on his Aether Vials for mana. Because of that he can aggressively use his Horizon Canopies, Ghost Quarters and Edges as more spells. I've also noticed how ridiculously fast the format is. I really like Oath of Nissa because it's a Turn 1 play for 1 mana. It gets you that turn two Kataki or Teeg or Forgetender or Cannonist or Spellskite or Voice or Thalia or whatever specific hate card you need RIGHT AWAY. The impact of any particular hatebear is in direct relation to their timing against the opponent's strategy. An Arbiter off of a Vial, responding to a Fetch trigger is much better than a hard-cast Arbiter for instance. Turn 2 Spellskite against Infect is 100% better than a turn 3 or 4 Skite. The sense I have is that it's more important to have specific cards in play sooner rather than have mana and board advantage later. I would suggest that Oath is the correct main-deck choice (with Aether Vial) and that CoCo can appear in the SB for the longer games, mid-range and control games. Maybe CoCo is better with more dorks and no Vials.

And yes Domri is played through Oath. It's a gamble but nice upside. Oath does open up a new card type for us. No one is removing Oath once it's down. Sorin, Solemn Visitor also seems great.

A bit of a stretch but Oath also opens up the possibility of Green devotion (specifically Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx) a bit alongside Hierarch, Leige, Finks and all the GW dudes. It adds up quickly.

Suppression Field. Has anyone tried this in the board? Seems like a 3-4 of to me with broad application: Lantern Control, slows down Griselbrand, hoses Fetches, Activated ability combos (Redcap, Kiki-Jiki), Affinity, Jace, Vryn's Prodigy, Liliana of the Veil etc. Yes it slows down Ghost Quarter but we can more easily play around it, especially with Hierarch. I'd likely sub-out Vials for it. I suspect it really helps buy time against the linear combo decks.

Tooling around with possible builds post-banning. Oath of Nissa is AMAZING. More threats? Ghost Quarter? Missing a land drop? Better access to your SB cards? Wow..

Here's a version with some spice.



I think Domri is interesting here. Removal and card draw, two things I always want more of in this deck. Nylea seems pretty sweet to get those last bits of damage in and turns on quite easily between Leige, Finks, Oath, etc. When she's not turn on she still makes Exalted hit a lot harder.

Heliod could be considered too, especially if you run Archangel of Tithes.

So excited to see if Archangel makes a splash now that Twin is gone!

Very pleased how this banning effects all my favorite strategies including Martyr. Does the value on Swords of X & Y go up now? A big reason I never played them was Twin. They certainly speed up our clock and provide big value from Hawks. I would play Steelshaper's Gift, seems like a very reasonable tutor.

Do the Swords of X & Y get better now too? Part of their issue was that they were silly in the face of Twin. They don't help vs. Tron but can certainly help in racing against the other 'fair' decks in the format. Presumably Burn will be on the rise as well, swords would be handy here too. An equipped Smiter is no joke. Auriok Champion looks pretty powerful with a sword, especially if red sweepers are the common choice. Steelshaper's Gift is a pretty reasonable card.

I think the bannings (Summer Bloom and Twin(!) should help this deck substantially. Aggressive and Mid-Range decks will rise like a tide which is our natural prey. Wrath and Tax effects get better. Tron will hold it's place and we can run 4x Ghost Quarter and other hate with a basic mana-base. Leyline of Sanctity is extra main-deckable now with Eldrazi deck and the drop-off of blue generally. I suspect counter-magic will be weaker now that you can't just Remand and pray your way into a Splinter Twin win. The lack of counter-magic will continue to cement discard as the best control strategy. The format will slow down from a combo perspective and speed up from an aggro perspective - perfect for us to slow it down again. I think our niche is opening up.

Thanks for pointing that out! Takes a little of the shine off but not much.

I haven't read all the thread going back but I just want to make sure I'm not an idiot about Eldrazi Displacer. This card seems insane. You can tap down the opponent's blockers!? Stop Twin from comboing? Reset a Scavenging Ooze? And that's not to mention all the positive things you can do with your own creatures? It's aggressively costed and with Wilt-Leaf Liege it's a 4/4, out of bolt range. Finks benefits from Displacer and Liege, so there's your core. I'll be playing a couple of Nykthos in this build to maximize Displacer activations. And with Flickerwisp...oh man...take out 1 or more of their lands on all their turns..it's insane.

So yes it dies to removal, has no immediate impact, etc. But the upside is so nuts. It does everything you'd want a creature to do!

Stoneforge mystic is $50 CAD...holy smokes.

@PicesJazz13, I hear you about Prime Time. Did you find any other spells or creatures I didn't include in my list useful? Did you use Coiling Oracle at all?

I realize too that Wilt-Leaf Liege should be in the board as a target, Probably over Dragonlord Dromoka.

I know that Blue is the popular splash in Emeria decks. I prefer what Green adds to the mix over blue, particularly speed in both ramping to Sun Titan, ramping to Emeria and pressuring the game to end a lot faster. This build aims to get a turn 4 or 5 Sun Titan and can quickly get Emeria online with all the ramp cards. It's not afraid to Wrath with 7 bodies (Finks/Voice) that come back as well as Emeria/Titan. I like green's recursion better too: Knight of the Reliquary, Eternal Witness, Voice...Lots of options, lots of pressure. Trying out Glittering Wish as a way to take advantage of the ramp and to sidestep one of the glaring weaknesses of going Green over Blue which is lack of card draw. If I can get the right card at the right time it's as good as drawing a bunch.



Still working on Board.


Looking for input and suggestions.

There is a strong tension between Glittering Wish and Emeria. One wants easy access to many colours the other wants a lot of plains. For the sake of consistency and speed I've found that only lightly splashing outside of GW is possible. Red is another very good splash for Firespout, Burning-Tree Shaman, Savage Twister, Ruric Thar, Unbowed, Aurelia's Fury, Lightning Helix, Waves of Aggression. Black brings Necrotic Sliver, Abrupt Decay, Maelstrom Pulse, Crime/Punishment and I always felt Fleshbag Marauder was strong with recursion. The black splash is more difficult because the best cards are GB with no white...trick to get AND stay on a strong Emeria plan.

Thanks DemannicTheOrc for those league videos. I really enjoyed them and they taught me a ton about the BW version. Your time and effort are appreciated!

I considered it as a Glittering Wish target but splashing for both black and red and green was too much for the build I was running. I was also trying to create the possibility of activating Emeria...so, y'know, super greedy. It is flexible for sure but splashing colours is a little tricky in this deck I find and I think that's what kills it.

I think Castigate is your better option here.

Really happy to see the Selesnya version there. I wonder why the Life From the Loam over Crucible in the main-deck...cheaper? Maybe it's nice to dredge. Pretty interesting how all in that player went on the land destruction - 4 Ghost Quarter AND 3 Tec. Edge including the splash. Voice seems underwhelming...Am I wrong there?

I wonder how Glare of Subdual plays along cards like Ghostly Prison (and potentially Lingering Souls.) That version would love Ajani, Mentor of Heroes in the SB.

So only 8 people showed up for the tournament - I live in a small town - but the GWb version did well. Slow, grindy but well.

Glittering Wish is slow, that is for sure but it does pay in flexibility. Just playing a few games I think the slots you want are cards like Gaddock Teeg, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes, Sky Hussar, Fulminator Mage or other cards that can really make a big difference against specific decks COMBINED with the already existing gameplan. Combo is particularly difficult and I would have been happy to have more Teeg or more Dromoka's Charm to stop Twin.

Went 2-0-1. (Valakut 2-0, Jeskai Twin 1-1, GB Goodstuff 2-0.) 3 matches isn't really enough matches to say much though...

I can say that most of the time that I had the chance to activate Blighted Woodland to boost my Plains count for Emeria there were other things I wanted to do with my mana. So now I think that while Blighted Woodland is a great card to help boost Emeria, without taking up spell slots. It's simpler to simply rely on land drops and lean a little more heavily on land recursion - like running 2x Crucible in the 75 - if you want to get Emeria online consistently.

Ghost Quarter + Crucible is still very strong against the 3 colour decks. Made me want to play an Azusa, Lost But Seeking to demolish them. Loosing your land drop each turn to stymy them is a serious tempo hit which matter if you want to finish matches on time.

Getting to and staying above 30 life is challenging. Glad to have the Knights as additional threats.

Cavern of Souls was very strong in my control match-up. Searching it up on turn 2 with Wayfarer felt very good.