MTG Salvation

Played a more traditional list and lost in the finals of a PPTQ this weekend:



I beat Mardu twice, Enduring Ideal (!!!) twice, BridgeVine, and Boggles. My only loss of the day was to UW Control in the finals. (I had an ID against an unknown deck)

So, UW continues to be the bane of this deck. The standard list feels really good against much of the field, but I continue to bang my head against the brick wall that is UW. Trackers are solid, Reveillark helps, and Archmage was very good (I think I want a second in the board), but I'm still struggling to figure out how to beat UW's combination of counterspells, Terminus, and planeswalkers. I stole game one of the finals with the play and an aggressive draw, but most of the match felt arduous.

A couple of additional thoughts:

Glen Elendra Archmage was my big addition this time around, and it was huge all day. I moved Shalai to the board to make room, and it ended up doing a lot of heavy lifting. I've run it in older lists, and I've always been pleased with how it plays in interactive formats. Game 2, it almost carried me to a match win against UW on its own, but alas, I flooded out as I was about to turn the corner.

Evo into Gearhulk is really good against BridgeVine.

I went with Baloth over Thragtusk primarily for CMC reasons, though I've come to value 4 toughness more than the bonus 3/3.

Shalai is generally fine, and sometimes great. I'm happy to have her against the B/x interactive decks, and she's obviously good against Storm and Burn, but I think Archmage might have stolen her job. It does good work against B/x, and Storm, is surprisingly decent against Burn, and is much better against UW.

After a couple of rough weeks, I decided to put my tinkering hat on, and now that I've got reasonable access to Competitive Leagues (manatraders!), I'm not limited to paper if I want a quality testing ground.

I just went 3-2 with this list, which isn't bad for a first draft.



I beat Humans, Titan Shift, and UR Wizards. I lost to Humans, and RDW.

Wizards: A very close 3 games. I really missed Staticaster in this one.
Titan Shift: He lacked the quantity of interaction he needed to keep me from comboing off two quick games in a row.
Humans: In the match I lost, I had sluggish hands, and I died on turn 4. The match I won was lopsided in the other direction.
Burn: I stuttered, and couldn't quite recover in a close G3.

• It feels like I want a 22nd land, but I'm not positive what should get cut. Maybe a Noble Hierarch? Both matches I lost, I struggled to hit land drops, and the deck generally feels pretty hungry.
• Bugler feels good, but I'm right on the edge of an acceptable number of hits.
• Siege Rhino felt like a million bucks.
• Glittering Wish was consistently good, but I'm not stoked on my current sideboard. Slaughter Games, Fracturing Gust, and Crumble to Dust are iffy to me.
• I felt the lack of Eldritch Evolution a couple of times. Bring to Light is capable of some really cool stuff, but it lack the explosiveness of Evo.

Overall, I had a great time with this build, and I'm going to run it through a few more leagues tomorrow to see if it has legs.

A couple of broad thoughts to help guide this conversation:

Consider what our creatures are being asked to do. First, I think both version of the deck currently being discussed are combo decks at their core. Even when I was playing Cobra/Voice/Rallier, I was winning more than 50% of my games with a combo kill. That said, when we do need to win fairly, we're largely doing so off the back of our top tier access to hate. My current Dork/Wall/Moon build is running twelve 0-power guys, but I still manage to kill "fairly" in about 40% of my wins. This has a lot to do with the current makeup of the format - if I have a Stony Silence and Blood Moon in play, Tron is going to have a bad time regardless of what I'm attacking them with.

We certainly don't have flawless mana, but there's a reason I happily jammed 4 Blood Moons a couple of weeks ago. Our mana is pretty darn good, and because we're mostly G/W, we can often get away with fetching for basics after our initial land get. A fetch and a dork lets us cast everything in the deck not named Kiki-Jiki, and we never have to cast a Moon if we think it will hurt us more than them.

This is a skill-intensive deck, and it doesn't offer much margin for error on even seemingly innocuous things like fetching lands. As an example, I lost a game in the cash tournament due to not aggressively hunting for red sources. It would have been painful, but I didn't play to my hand, and was unable to hard cast a Kiki to win an otherwise unwinnable game. It's one of the things I love about this deck, but every damn decision feels like life or death, and the lines are often dangerous and complex.

I'm still going back and forth on Bugler. I love the immediate gratification it provides, I like the body, and appreciate that it plays nicely with all of our blink effects. The thing is, missing on Evolution and Saheeli drives me nuts, and sometimes I want a bit more oomph out of that slot. I may just play it safe and run Trackers again.

A less broad thought: Stonehorn Dignitary is totally nuts right now, and I highly recommend a copy in your 75, regardless of build.

@Lejoon, our current builds are very close. The meta is a bit wonky right now when it comes to interaction. It's not a midrange fiesta, but there are a number of decks that run some amount of disruption while also being very susceptible to disruption themselves. As an example, Humans wants to cause trouble with Meddling Mage, Freebooter, and Reflector Mage, but it often folds to a T2 Moon effect. We're in a space where linear decks are often trying to interact just enough to protect their plan. With the exception of possibly BridgeVine, I love where how the Dork/Moon build is positioned in the current meta. I'm planning on taking something approaching the linked list to a couple of PPTQs this weekend, and want to sort out a few slots.

Magus of the Moon in the main vs a 3rd Bugler. Magus in the main is good against Tron, Humans, Boggles, and occasionally catches the odd 3-color deck unprepared. I want a copy in my 75, but I could be talked into moving it back to the the board.

Worship in the board. I've had good success with Worship, but it has a significant overlap with Dignitary. Worship is better against Burn (especially G2), but otherwise I might be able to free up 2 slots in the board. Thoughts on Worship, and what might better take its place?

@Lejoon, I think we're largely on the same page about the deck, though I do think the Cobra build is a bit better against Storm, KCI, and the like Game 1, and post-board games are all about the sideboard regardless of build. If all you want is a combo goldfish on T3, the Cobra build has a couple of percentage points on the 8 dork build. Certainly, I agree with you about favoring 8 dork builds against interactive decks. I take some number of dorks out against Jund, Jeskai, and Mardu, but they're not the comical liability Cobra is in those match-ups.

Re: Stonehorn Dignitary vs. Magus of the Moat, consider the flexibility of Stonehorn in a number of matchups, not just against BridgeVine. Affinity, Infect, Hollow One, and Boggles can (and often do) attack through the air. Dignitary is also significantly harder to kill, gives you a turn even if killed, and doesn't interfere with our combo while on the board. Magus might be a little better against BridgeVine, but I think it's largely inferior to Dignitary overall.

My current build isn't running it, but I wanted to defend Cobra/Rallier a bit. The Cobra/Rallier package is a non-interactive combo package, much more than a "dump your hand" one. One of the big mistakes I've seen people make with this deck, is assuming 8 power on turn 3 is big game in Modern. Yeah, it can win, and I've played to it in some games, but it's not particularly impressive against a lot of decks. This, I think, sometimes gives people an overly negative impression of what that package is actually doing, which is giving you haymaker potential against decks with limited interaction. Without Cobra, T2 combos rely on a T2 Saheeli. Not only does this telegraph our threat level, but it's incredibly fragile. Beyond some silly draws, Cobra draws allow us to hold our threats until we're ready, while still comboing as early as turn 3.

Right now, I've been favoring a build that is more resilient to disruption, better at handling early aggression, and catered toward maindeck Moon effects. In a world where you're expecting a lot of Jeskai, Burn, Humans, and Tron, I think the Hierarch/Omens/Moon (Bugler?) build has legs.

When the format is rather non-interactive, I tend to lean toward Cobra builds. Remember, a lot of the non-interactive decks attack (Affinity, Eldrazi, Boggles, Infect) and even decks with some disruption (Humans) have limited options at instant speed.

I'm currently trying to figure out how we beat BridgeVine, and if that deck floods the meta for a while, Cobra/Rallier builds might be better. I think Stonehorn Dignitary is a must in the 75 moving forward, and I'm going to be trying it in the main. It's obviously pretty terrible against a chunk of the meta, but it completely decimates BridgeVine, Boggles, Infect, and a few others, while providing a lot of value against Burn, Affinity, and amusingly, the Mirror.

Took down a ~40 person cash event today with this list:



7-1-1 in matches (including an ID). Amusingly, I sided out the Blood Moons ever match except one, but they did randomly steal a G1 against Elves of all decks! I beat Elves, Affinity, Skred, Burn x2, Hollow One, and Boggles. I lost to Burn once in the swiss.

A couple of notes:

Wall of Omens feels great right now. In a more linear meta, I want the velocity and the more stalwart defense.

Voices out of the board felt pretty good as well. I liked the option of going up to 6 good defensive two-drops in some games.

I want another Worship in the sideboard. It stole games against Burn and Boggles.

Fiery Justice felt solid. I could still see Engineered Explosives in that spot.

I want to give the main deck Blood Moons another shot. They don't cost me much beyond the slot, and they have the ability to steal games. I didn't face any of the big mana decks today, but they were present.

The Blood Moons created a chain reaction with the rest of the deck building decisions. Lotus Cobra and Rallier get worse in this build, and I am heavily prioritizing 3-drops. 8 dorks, and main deck Trackers felt pretty good.

@Koopa, congrats on the nice finish. How did 2 Felidar Guardians feel to you? My lists with Kiki have always run 4, as I'm angling to combo a fair amount of the time. Even with Shalai, I still dig having access to Eidolon in the board. It's redundancy against Storm, and puts in work against decks like Burn, Elves, and Living End.

Jund should be favorable for us as long as we're approaching it as an attrition battle. Because of their suite of interaction, you want each draw to matter as much as possible. Cut some number of mana dorks (Cobra's first), Evolutions, and any bullet cards you feel might be low impact in a grindier game. You want cards (Voice and Rallier) that generate value regardless of whether or not they have a removal spell.

@Shelldell, I think you're on the money about embracing the all-in builds. I'd add, I think it's also very reasonable to embrace the midrange builds fully as well. The place where I've been most unhappy is the middle ground, where I'm trying to be a little bit of everything. The deck mulligans very well, is resilient to disruption, and can win from horrible positions due to only needing 2 cards to end any game.

I think Magus of the Moon is a good meta call right now. It just steals game 1 against Humans and Tron, which are 2 of the 3 best decks in the format.

Given how fast the format is, I'd say that counting on something else than the combo to win is delusional. Birthing Pod was able to do that because it was one turn faster, you could search for your bullet pretty fast. Nowadays the best option for that kind of play is Eldritch Evolution. In all fairness, Pod lost most of G1s to very fast openings from decks like Ascendancy Combo, Burn, Affinity, Tron... So don't expect Vannifar to do as good or better while she's one turn slower. If by any magic we're still alive on turn 4/5, we must combo off, because it's too late for silver bullets to save the day.

So cards like Knight of Autumn are not even a given in the deck. It's a debatable card in GW Value Town, Vizier Company and so on because it's truly a SB card and doesn't help win as many G1s as people wish.

I'm not entirely sure about playing Voice of Resurgence: I've always loved that card, and it sure sinergizes well with Vannifar and Evolution, but is it worth playing or it could give some space to other useful things?

Another good example. Back in the day it fought Jund, Abzan, Twin, nowadays where is it good ? Wall of Omens, Coiling Oracle might be cards to consider.

I actually played Pod in Modern recently to figure out whether Shaheen Soorani was out of his mind or not about Pod being unbannable. Well, believe me or not, I struggled real hard against the Tier 1 decks (while I was a dedicated Pod player back in the day). Kiki Pod is closer to Vannifar because both decks focus on the combo, while Thune Pod rather is the Value Town. My point is the meta is so hostile to midrange decks, that playing Vannifar in a midrange shell is no good. It has to be a combo shell in my humble opinion.

Just my 2 cents.

Imho serious considerations for rhythm should also merit serious considerations for saheeli rai. Dork, saheeli, felidar gives you another t3 kill. Saheeli can copy vannifar t3 for a bolt proof kill because the copy has haste. Vannifar chains can already utilize felidar if you flicker something like bounding krasis, which although requires some battlefield presence isn't asking for much, guardian also combos with Kiki. These pieces don't have to amount for a full 8 slots, they could easily be 4-8 slots. It makes the deck surprisingly resilient because if your opponent taps out with saheeli on board t2 they risk losing to either 4 drop (felidar/Vannifar). These situations are very reminiscent of twin. What creatures are rhythms making into serious combat threats? Not many because very few are all that decent standalone in combat when you're facing down endless phoenixes and T1-2 hollow ones and gurmags.

Chord always gets slow without a lot of the grindier set up cards like voice and rallier that give you a sticky board presence. Not sure that's something you can afford going up against a deck like KCI or storm. Unfortunately coco isn't super viable here and I don't like evolution without cards like lotus cobra and I think the deck is going to be too tight for that.

militia bugler hits a surprising percentage of the deck.

Lemme hear a shoutout for my boy void grafter >_>. No one ever sees him coming.

Why bother with Lancers when you can play Kiki instead? There are corner cases where Lancers are better, but on average, Kiki seems like the superior choice. Intruder Alarm is a win-more card - you're usually able to win without it once Vannifar is online, and it does basically nothing without Vannifar. (Okay, Kiki + Intruder Alarm + any creature with at least 1 power is a combo kill. But that is probably it.) And it also enables opposing Izzet Staticasters, Grim Lavamancers, and Elvish Archdruids.

Be optimistic about Vannifar everyone Remember that testing out new cards or variants always leaves you at worst with confirmation of a hipfired assessment. At best, you're the one piloting a busted deck weeks before it tops a GP. Here's a few funny quotes to encourage testing before dismissing.

I've been playing [Abzan Company] since before twin got banned, and I'm of the opinion that this [Druid Vizier] combo is garbo. We don't really have the tools to take advantage of infinite green mana, and putting in duskwatch requires yet another slot. With renegade rallier, tireless tracker, Saffi, fiend hunter/pontiff, and the Angel Combo already vying for spots, I don't see this as where the deck wants to be right now. Probably you want some new deck with Genesis Wave and Craterhoof.

[Siege Rhino] is worse than Obstinate Baloth [in Melira Pod]. You don't necessarily care about the extra damage to your opponent, rather you care about the life gained by the ETB. It is also much harder to cast, pods mana base is already under serious strain and replacing a card that's double green (which is relatively easy for pod) to then 3 different colours is not what you want to be doing, you could take a lot of damage off your mana base just to even attempt casting it.

I don't think the trample or the extra point of toughness is worthwhile. I'm struggling to articulate exactly why, so it's really just my opinion at this point.

The biggest point against rhino, what four drop do you remove? Common four drops in pod are Redcap, Resto, Metamorph in the mainboard. Redcap is integral to pods gameplan and is a solid 2-4-1 anyway, it breaks stalled board states and kills random utility creatures.

Resto and Metamorph fall under a similar guise. They both 'reset' kitchen finks, and each can provide a meaningful threat. The most important thing is the amount of synergy the have in the deck, which Rhino doesn't have.

If rhino was in the sideboard, what would it replace there? And what matchup is good in? Melira pod generally runs Entomber Exarch and Thrun as additional four drops in the board. I don't think Rhino can replace either of those, Exarch comes in for matchups like control or Scapeshift where spell quality and quantity will win the match rather than life total. Thrun is just a beating for BGx and Control, he is utterly unique.

[Traverse Shadow] looks spicy, but in all honesty not that potable. The main advantage deaths shadow zoo had against other aggro decks, was being able to just go off and go crazy and beat them even faster than they could. This list kind of dilutes that, leaving it in a weird place where you kind of to kill yourself, but even if you do get low enough to cast a big shadow you're still kind of dead cause you don't have as much otk potential. And yeah, this deck would just get smoked by regular control. Interesting idea, but I don't think it's there yet

Actually, the list has no 2-drops at all. Only 12 spells even cost less than 3 mana, and 4 cost 5 mana or more, which means it relies heavily on those 8 mana dorks. Also, in my experience Eldritch Evolution works really well with 2-drops, since those allow you to tutor for Felidar while still being cheap enough that you can cast both the 2-drop and Evolution in the same turn early on. Having lots of 3-drops instead makes Evolution a lot slower and drawing multiples seems worse.
That said, this approach obviously worked well for the pilot. Maybe it's worth giving it a try to see how it performs in non-interactive matchups (where Voice wouldn't be good anyway) vs interactive matchups (where the lack of 2-drops hurts the most, but at the same time Bugler and Knight of Autumn should be excellent). Definitely interesting.

Thanks for the reply, I'll definitely take that stuff into consideration.

The other super interesting thing about that list that I overlooked when I posted it was that there is no Voices. I have started to trim on those personally but it's a super bold move to go to 0.

Reviving this thread cause of a 5-0 Saheeli Evolution deck that was posted.

It had 4 Knight of Autumn, 3 Milita Bugler and 0 Lotus Cobra. What do you guys think, and for the people who have played with 4 KoA what do you think about that choice? I've been playing 1 and it's been a powerhouse but putting 4 in deprives you of tech slots such as Gaddock, Ooze and whatever else.
It also plays the full 4 Felidar Guardian so maybe it's just going for a super consistent combo approach which as far as I know is the right thing to do in this meta.

I went to a ~24 person FNM yesterday and 34 person PPTQ today:

Deck List My general sideboard strategy is here.

FNM Report

PPTQ Report

Thoughts and Takeaways:

With overall records of 3-1 and 4-2 the deck felt pretty good.

I won all but a couple games with the combo. The beats plan really takes the back seat right now, as Lejoon said.

I've already explained some of the stuff below on our Discord, but I'll put all of my thoughts down here for completeness.

Plan vs aggressive decks
Aside from UWx Miracles I was expecting mostly aggressive creature-based strategies. Unfortunately there are so many different flavors of aggro these days and Terminus has pressured them all to become increasingly resistant to spot removal and/or non-Terminus sweepers. Worship works against some of these decks but is unreliable vs decks with access to Infect or Brutality, and can also just randomly lose if your creature count gets too low or it gets removed. Fiery Justice is generally good but can be thwarted by Mausoleum Wanderer, (instant speed!) pump effects, Selfless Spirit, graveyard recursion, get delayed by Thalia, snatched by Kitesail. Spot removal like Path can be good at sniping Lords or Meddling Mage but sometimes won't even buy you a whole turn vs the wider swarm decks. And so forth. For this reason I felt like the best strategy was just to build a list that was fast and low to the ground with MB Reflector Mages to try and out-tempo them while jamming the combo.

I settled on 7 Birds, 3 Cobras, and 4 Reflectors to maximize two possible sequences against these aggressive decks: T1 Birds, T2 Reflector, T3 Felidar blink Reflector, T4 combo out or T2 Cobra, T3 Felidar + Saheeli. Because my MB was built in this way I lost many (but not all) of the pre-board games against spell-heavy interactive decks. However, I had a strong enough SB plan to consistently edge out matches against these decks.

Plan for spell-heavy decks
Specifically, running 3x Gaddock Teeg, 3x Sin Collector, and 2x Negate (on top of the 4 MB Voice) created a consistent package of early disruption that allowed me to eventually combo out against decks that previously gave me trouble. Going into the events I wasn't sure if Sin Collector was worth splashing a 5th color for, but now I feel fairly confidant that this was the right call. I admit that the mana was undeniably greedy... there were at least 2 games where I had Kiki stuck in hand. Sometimes I had to twist my curve out in slightly non-ideal ways just to set up my mana. But I never got color screwed badly enough to lose a game -- even against Mardu trying to kill my dorks and landing Blood Moon or UW Miracles tucking my dorks and cracking Field of Ruin -- so for now I'll argue that being just barely short of "too greedy" is the best place to be and I'll stick with the full five colors.

Walking Ballista
On another note, we can just randomly auto-lose to Walking Ballista and it is quickly becoming one of my most feared cards. Simply casting Ballista for 2 allows the opponent to interrupt our combo at instant speed at any time, even if tapped out. A 2/2 Ballista can kill a 4-loyalty Saheeli or blocking Felidar with its psuedo-doublestrike. A highly pumped Ballista can clear our board. I'm glad to have 2 Stony and Spellskite to help with Ballista a bit, and might try to find room for other cards to take care of it. Maybe it's as simple as having 2 Knight of Autumn in the 75 and bringing them in for potential Ballista matches.

Goldfish speed vs. linear decks
The common factor in the matches that I lost (GB Elves, 4c Bridgevine) was that I needed to "solitaire" the combo out quickly against other potentially explosive decks but I just couldn't find what I needed and could never hope to present a traditional clock with beats to match theirs. In these scenarios an extra MB tutor would be nice.

• The obvious suggestion would be running the 4th Eldritch Evolution. There are a lot of counterspells in the meta right now but this might be the right answer, I'm not sure. I'm probably going to lose G1 against those decks anyways so maybe it I shouldn't worry about it too much.


• There's also Chord of Calling per Lejoon's suggestion. Much better vs interactive decks but slower when racing and not as attractive without the Chord-Witness-Resto-Kiki chain available.


• Lastly I could go back to a copy of Bring to Light. This is right in the middle as it's usually faster than Chord but not instant speed so it's harder to get through counterspells. It's also worth noting that Meddling Mage naming Kiki also stops Kiki from being cast off BTL.

Moving forward I will be updating the deck with 1-2 Knight of Autumn and one more tutor. Beyond obviously replacing SB Rec Sage with Knight of Autumn I will be looking at Tracker, Shalai, the fourth Voice, and SB Worship as somewhat flexible slots to play around with.

Shalai -- she can win games vs Burn / Storm / Mill if unanswered, but she’s solidly mediocre vs everything else. She seems like she should be ok vs Midrange as a flying protective threat with a great ability but because she lacks an ETB effect and the opponent is highly incentivized to remove her the majority of the time I'm paying 4 mana for her to eat a Push (etc) on resolution and take a big tempo hit. Even if she does stick for a few turns I haven't had a good opportunity to activate her pump ability as I usually have a small board vs interactive decks and/or just generally better things to do with 6 (!) mana than activate her pump. "You have Hexproof" sounds good vs discard but in reality they will still tear your hand up T1/T2 before you can get her down. In a vacuum a flying 3/4 sounds like a reasonable blocker, but in practice aggressive decks like Humans, H Affinity, H1, Bridgevine can all go wider and/or taller, so we’re paying 4 mana to buy ourselves a turn at most. As the cherry on the top her Legendary status makes her impossible to clone, and she awkwardly turns off Spellskite. As a general "role-player" 4-drop P&K Nalaar provides better blocking vs aggro and more guaranteed value vs interaction. With Knight of Autumn arriving to help with Burn it's getting harder to justify space for Shalai in the 75.

Tracker -- Tracker is awesome vs interactive decks but takes too much time and investment to be a good card against aggressive decks outside of some perfect curves like T2 Cobra T3 Tracker -> Fetch crack -> Clue crack. I'm not sure if I want more than 1 Tracker in the main since I board him out so often, but there aren't a lot of value / card-draw 3-drops that sound better. Perhaps Eternal Witness, Carven Caryatid, Sea Gate Oracle, or something totally different like Lyev Skyknight.

Getting Bugler to hit somewhat reliably isn't too hard. Hitting actually relevant cards is another topic though. There are a number of matchups where grinding them out just isn't an option, like Storm, Tron, Affinity, Scapeshift, or even Spirits. How many of your 25 Bugler hits actually matter in that case? Probably only 4 Felidars (unless you already have one), 1 Kiki (if you can even cast it at that point), 1 Reflector Mage and maybe 2-3 sideboard cards. Sure, against some decks getting another Lotus Cobra or a chain of Buglers actually matters and will eventually overwhelm them. But in other matchups, the card just feels slow and only occasionally finds you what you need. I've had a number of games where I drew Felidar and Bugler, and realized that my Bugler needed to find exactly that one copy of Kiki to win. If I had played something like Court Hussar instead, I could've hit not only Kiki itself, but also 4 Saheeli and 4 Evolution in addition to that.
Overall, I think Bugler doesn't quite deliver what we need, even if I had high hopes for the card initially. Modern is just too fast and brutal to durdle around.

@Siefer: regarding the Archmage / Shalai niche, what do you think about Sin Collector? Emzed and Rober Dalentis both have had a lot of success with the card. I haven't gotten a chance to play it yet but am planning to run 2x copies SB at an upcoming PPTQ.

As you noted in the Baloth example, lower CMC is a big deal, and Sin Collector comes down earlier than Glen Elendra Archmage with a more proactive effect that works better with our copy/blink effects. Sin Collector requires Black so it stretches the mana a bit but you're already most of the way there to a 5c manabase (just add an Overgrown Tomb) and Archmage's effective requirement of double blue can sometimes be even tougher than a single black splash. However, Glen Elendra does handle all non-creature spells and can stop a topdecked Terminus where Sin Collector can't stop Teferi or miracle Terminus, so I can see her merit as well.