MTG Salvation

4 Faerie Conclave I feel the deck is a bit light on the creature count so these can help provide some flying damage in the late game.

By the way, it's good to see the MAD's here now.
a.k.a DreadLord on 'News

The Reverse the Sands question is a relatively easy one. White in its current state is not very competitive as a control color. Greens has hands down taken over the spot of support color in control decks, at least until Mirrodin rotates out of Standard. White really only offers Wrath of God and to some extent Pulse of the Fields. Green has Eternal Witness, artifact removal, and a better eight mana finisher in Rude Awakening.

Chalice of the Void is a bit mana intensive for a card you want to have in play as soon as possible, not to mention that it also suffers from splash damage.

Engineered Explosives has seen some play but not a whole lot. I think it may be due to its inconsistency in part by the Suinburst mechanic.

Magemoth was correct in his statements about the thinking about the context of your deck and not a vacuum. Some other cards to think about that I feel are seldom played are as followed:

Defense Grid along with many other good artifacts that suffer dearly from splash damage.

Grave Pact

Evacuation

Emperor Crocodile
Might of Oaks
Troll Ascetic
Viridian Zealot

Beacon of Destruction
Flamebreak

Blinding Angel
Worship
Wrath of God

These are just some that come to mind, but they all suffer from different afflictions based on what is currently played in the Type 2 environment.

I do have a Kiki-Jiki build that I use as well. I've drifted away from it though as it can get hated out pretty easily. After playing it in a few tournaments I started running up against Pyroclasm quite frequently and Night of Soul's Betrayal which, not game ending, but definately makes it difficult to keep in control of the game. Cranial Extraction is being splashed alot as well which lowers the deck effectiveness, as the main targets are usually Witness and then Kiki-Jiki or Rootrunner. My last build was:

3 City of Brass
9 Forest
7 Mountain
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Pinecrest Ridge
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep

4 Birds of Paradise
2 Duplicant
4 Eternal Witness
4 Hearth Kami
4 Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
4 Rootrunner
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Viridian Shaman

4 Commune with Nature
4 Magma Jet

Sideboard:
3 Arc-Slogger
3 Cranial Extraction
3 Electrostatic Bolt
2 Naturalize
3 Plow Under
1 Swamp

I did really well with this deck and it definately had plenty of game against Affinity decks. As such Affinity became my favorite match-up, until I started seeing Pyroclasms out of their Sideboards.

Some suggestions for you could be Electrostatic Bolt as its really good against Affinity and possibly Pyroclasm as a mini board sweeping effect that can also knock out all your Zuberas for maximum beneft as well. One finisher I'd like to mention is Arc Slogger, its not an Angel or Demon obviously but will be in the face of your opponent.

When I first saw this build I had similar thoughts of putting the Bolts in the maindeck and Oxidize into the SB. I do knid of enjoy the Jugans in the deck but they may not be necessary.

My main concerns were the Lands and the Sideboard. I really don't like entertaining the fact of running 25 lands with Elders and Reaches in the maindeck. Why not drop a land for the fourth Reach? In the SB I really don't like the Swords of Fire & Ice. They are there for other control matches and TnN but in my opinion, they feel a bit slow and for lack of a better word, clunky. I think there are stronger arguments to run either Rend Flesh or Boil. I personally feel Boil is a great sideboard card to run against the obvious Mono Blue Control decks and to some extent UG control.

I have doubts on this deck being able to become a competitive tournament deck. From the looks of it, it seems to be a bit too slow to compete with the speed of Affinity, as well as lacking in any ability to control the board against most creatures.

I will make some suggestions though. I would definately look into trying to fit in some Vedalken Engineers. They provide a consistant 2 mana of any color to be used with your artifacts. I say this cause I really don't like Desperate Ritual. Thirst for Knowledge is a great card drawer with many artifacts in your deck as possibly Thoughtcast if you can lower the cost with its Affinity. Trash for Treasure seems like a neat trick with Possessed Portal but I'm not to sure on that one.

I'd have to say I agree with Gifts Ungiven being a bad card thats just good against bad players. Thirst for Knowledge is cheaper to cast, and I've also enjoyed the fact that I can cast it in response to a spell being played by an opponent to find a counter. Thirst does not always guarantee that this happens but it is a bit more manageable than paying four mana to search for counters and then let your opponent pick what ones you get to use.

Here's my current listing

9 Forest
12 Islands
1 Minamo, School at Waters Edge
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers

4 Eternal Witness
2 Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Viridian Shaman

2 Condescend
3 Echoing Truth
3 Hinder
3 Kodama's Reach
4 Mana Leak
2 Rude Awakening
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Vedalken Shackles

Sideboard:
2 Bribery
1 Echoing Truth
1 Hinder
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
4 Oxidize
2 Plow Under
4 Temporal Adept

Its worked fairly well so far, I'm a bit weary on adding the one Mountain and sideboarding Bloodmoons for the Tooth&Nail match. I basicly haven't had time to testing as much recently due to the holidays.

This deck type has a lack in aggressive early drops and is seriously low on one drops. If I attempted to claim this as a RG beats deck I'm sure that it would ensue some amount of negative feedback on that sort of claim. The curve is pretty steep for a beats deck and is never as quick as the current top aggro deck, Affinity.

In Standard lately, there has been a general consensus that the format consists of Affinity as the aggro deck (some say WW as well), Tooth&Nail and KCI as the combo decks. All other decks are usually UG, BG, and RG which are classified as controls decks because they usually have to focus on trying to control Affinity and Tooth&Nail in order to do well in a competitive environment.

Sounds interesting and quite fun. Never thought of trying something like that. *Wheels in brain start turning, in an effort to build some new decks.*

Nice you see a T2 forum regular here. I always enjoyed your input and found most of your comments to be quite entertaining.

Good to see you here god child!

I was surprised to not see a "Freshmaker" thread up here yet. This thread will be for discussion on RG control decks. I recently gained interest in this archetype due to Kyle Boddy's latest article on SCG. The decklist he is using is as such:

Neo-Freshmaker (I do not personally condone that name)

4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
3 Hearth Kami
4 Eternal Witness
3 Viridian Shaman
4 Arc-Slogger
2 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
2 Jugan, the Rising Star

4 Oxidize
4 Magma Jet
3 Kodama's Reach
2 Rude Awakening

12 Forest
10 Mountain
1 Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers
1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
4 Cranial Extraction
4 Electrostatic Bolt
4 Plow Under
3 Sword of Fire and Ice

I think this is a nice list for a non-Kiki Jiki RG control deck, let's discuss and see what improvements we can come up with.

help im a bug :symw::symr:
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