MTG Salvation

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.

I want to try a couple of Buglers out. It shouldn't miss much (~22+ hits), and adds to the decks ability to find the cards it needs while still building up a board. It doesn't go long like Tracker, but it plays better initial defense (particularly against Burn), and gives you a card without additional resource investment. My biggest concern is that in a list with 8 dorks and 4 walls, the hits might be relatively low impact.

Rest in Peace is better as a pure hate card, but I think we want that slot to do a bit more. ScOoze is tutorable, has more matchup flexibility (it's great against Burn), and is itself a threat.

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.

Unless you're doing something very specific (Battle of Wits, Scapeshift/Cryptic/no duals, siding in cards to beat a mill deck, etc), playing more than 60 is wrong for definable reasons. Here's a good exploration of the topic from a couple of years ago. Chapin ended up down on his own toolbox experiment, and the math doesn't support Nassif's 61 card deck.

@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 somewhat miss-evaluating how Magus plays in a deck like ours. You're forgetting that we only Evo for Magus in the scenario where it's backbreaking for our opponent, or our situation is problematic enough to warrant spinning the variance wheel (a shaky mulligan to 6, for example). We're only pressing the Magus button in scenarios where it gives us an advantage, not just anytime we can. Turn 2 against Humans and they led with a Champion? The game is close to over if you have any amount of action. Otherwise, there might be something better to do with that Evo. Remember, against Tron we can often wait until just before they assemble tron. If they're not representing turn 3 tron, you can usually afford to wait. We're going to draw it when we don't want it a small percentage of game ones, but the same is true for a handful of our singletons.

@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.

Quote from Memories_of_the_Time »

...I'm really missing something about Ambusher, beside of the things said in the last page

As it has been explained to me, it occasionally eats Goblin Guides, Phoenixes, and the odd human. The real key, though, is it unlocks big Evolution plays against aggressive decks. Ambushing a Goblin Guide, then slamming a Thragtusk is a backbreaking sequence against Burn.

@Emzed, I'm still not sold on Fiery Justice over Engineered Explosive. Fiery Justice has a higher floor in situations where you're squeezed for mana, but EE has a significantly higher ceiling.

With the format leaning toward linear decks, people are cutting their removal spells in favor of speed and more narrow disruption. The card quality tension with Felidar Guardian is certainly real, but I think now is the time to be running 3 or 4, and leaning into the combo. One of our big advantages is how explosive we can be while still having lines to disrupt linear decks. We're significantly more explosive than Kiki-Chord and only slightly worse at grinding, for example.

Gobern's 7-0 list from the most recent Modern Challenge: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1046784#paper

Quote from LumpyFishstick »

The lists I've posted and done well with have all had 6 one mana dorks and 4 cobras with 22 lands. I find myself mulliganing much less than the builds I first started out testing, plus anytime you stick turn one dork into cobra turn two, you are doing many many unfair things which,if top 8 at GP Hartford was any indication, Modern decks should be doing. But you also can play this grindy value-based game which is really what I love about the deck so much.

@Siefer, while Oath is definitely an amazing tool I find that hands where your turn one play is oath and then turn 2 voice or anything that isnt lotus cobra is just too slow in a lot of cases. Not saying this as a knock against Oath, the card should be a 4-of in the deck for sure, I'm just saying that I'm not sure it can really be looked at in the same light as a turn one mana dork. Getting away with less accelerators is more a function of format speed and less a function of if our deck can play without one. It can. But the format is trending towards a start with no early accelerant not being good enough, so I think builds with around 10 total mana creatures seem more appropriate.

I think you're making a good point here - the more unfair the format is, the more I want to jam the full 4 Cobras and lean into our explosive potential. As much as I loathe dork flood, that might be how we need to position right now.