MTG Salvation

Quote from Feuerdrache

Those would have both been terrible... there was an Angel of Despair jammed in my hand.

All I needed to do was draw like a single land or any of my 12 remaining removal, and I didn't. That's an anomaly.

Well, what's the point of bring this situation up then?

Quote from Feuerdrache

Oh, it does. But it needs to draw them.

Which is how I lost to an Ohran Viper today (off the top after a _devastating_ Void).

That's why you run Urza's Factory and Sacred Mesa.

Quote from Filipinho

I've been playing with only 4x Izzet Signets as mana fixers. Maybe I've been luck, but I'm not having any colored mana problem.

Well, another thing Prismatic Lens allows you to do is run extra colorless lands(Urza's Factory or Academy Ruins) instead of basic Islands, which IMO is better than only having 4 accelerants... It gives you a great late-game against other control decks, and can also help you obtain the mana advantage until you get tron online...

I'd say you need 2-3 Mortify between the MD and the SB, so take Fetters #4 out of the SB in favor of 2x Mortify...

Quote from TheInfamousBearAssasin

Condemn, Cancel, Faith's Fetters.

Besides the obvious 4(Stromgald Crusader/Wildfire Emissary/Solifuge/SSS), Faith's Fetters cannot be a reason to exclude a card from your deck... And as usual, Cancel counters every non-Split Second spell in the format(Barring Willbender or Scragnoth :p)... Condemn, however, could be a reason Akroma didn't make top tables...

Quote from ***4Life

Ouch... those are some nasty whiffs... lol. I've done that a few times too. Went for red against a psuedo-zoo deck and got a char... he still had heirarch, coth, and a watchwolf... or something like that. But I was still ok (only b/c he got mana screwed)

edit: @tang4433: I personally have a problem with zoo and other aggro of the sorts game one if I'm on the draw (go figure huh? lol). But pox is another problem deck, but I just got 2 flagstones of trokair so that should help (I was a land drop off against them before). UG aggro/control I heard is no walk in the park either... Also D-storm sucks game one unless you MD Hide//Seek like I do

Yes, actually i'm having a tough time beating UW Control and UG aggro if I can't get an arena to stick... Against UG, you can usually Helix their mana dude turn 2 or their Viper/Coth Token turn 3, which will give you a window to drop the Arena while they play out another threat... but sometimes, you just can't get it to happen... Maybe Defense Grid in the SB? If we get a grid to stick against UW when we're on the play, the Firemane/Knell/Mesa/Arena redundancy and recursion should be too much for them to handle... Any other thoughts?

Quote from mtg17

Yes, but it's only necessary against Blue control. which is why I run 2. I never find a use for s-lands when 'drowsing because i will only have to pay 3-4 mana to tap them out, which i always have.

Yes, like Catch22 said, you need to be prepared for the lategame... Most of the time, you'll need to double-drowse all of their Blue sources anyway, to make sure you get past Rewind. And what's so bad about not having to actually play lands to hit your land drops? It allows you to discard them to Compulsive Research or put them on the bottom of your library with Sleight of Hand/Telling Time when you'd rather have a Ritual/Dstorm/Drowse/whatever... I love the fact that you can win the game with only 3-4 lands in play on turn 10+...

Quote from Feuerdrache

Do you ever have any problems with consistency?

Actually, I don't have problems with consistancy other than just flat-out card disadvantage... I've lost a couple times to my Arena getting countered/destroyed, the life provided to my opponent by Condemn, and the fact that Debtor's Knell doesn't work until your next upkeep(It has died to Angel of Despair a few times... :mad:). But most of those problems are just inherent to the deck Archetype... I've never had many problems drawing Wrath when needed, or having the wrong removal spell in hand(like only having a mortify when facing akroma, and only having a helix/mortify when facing Priest/Paladin). Then again, I have lost a game or two after I whiffed a Persecute(against Dstorm that drew into 3 rituals with the 4 blue cards in his hand, and against a UG Aggro deck that had 3 CotH's when I took his lone Psi Blast)

Quote from ***4Life

Now if I played 22 lands like you I would have room for it! (I'm not knocking your mana base at all, im just purely stating that I play 23 lands). I am currently looking for something to take out... I think having a lot of 1-ofs is fun because you never know what your deck will give you. It was actually kinda funny. A few times during my last FNM I forgot some cards that I threw in the deck and I said to myself "Hmmm that's a fun card!" And the looks on my opponents faces were priceless. But I'm going to find room for the knell AND the mesa I guess (maybe 2 lands and put in knell and a karoo?)... must playtest more... lol

Yeah, that's pretty much what I take into account when determining Spells vs. Lands... I count the Karoos as 1.5 mana sources, the Signets .5 mana sources, etc... so as long as I have 25+, then i'm good... which is why I had room for a Mesa(er, well actually it was the 3rd demonfire that was added last:)).

Quote from lotushead666

The other thing is the Lenses over the extra Signets. Why? I dont see why the lenses are helpful after WF(the only reason the extra are necessary). Do you have any thoughts on this? The only thing is the sb. I really dont like it at all. Flashfreeze? I bet that he expected alot of aggro(like most people did), and put these in for Gruul/Zoo. But now that we know the format, these arent needed. Also, i dont like Plagiarize. I mean, whats its purpose? Control matchups? These are good in the first place, why make them better. I think Confiscate looks better in this slot. And i personally run Steamcore Wierds over Serrated Arrows because it doubles as a blocker after it kills a Preist or an En Vec, which is really really goos. I know alot of people dont like this card, but i think it is amazing.

Actually I think the Prismatic Lenses are there for color filtering... It allows you to keep a Lens and a Tron land open and be able to Remand/Snag/Leak something without having to take manaburn... It also gives you EITHER Red or Blue mana when you need it to, as opposed to the Simic/Azorius/Dimir Signets, which will only give you the blue mana... and this is obviously one of its better uses, as Wildfire is most effective when you're able to cast it as early as needed...

Actually, for me, the best strategy against URW Firemane/UWr Tron is to keep using your storage lands to EOT Giga their Blue sources and Hardcast a Dragon... you then swing in for 5 and either keep doing this, or combo off the turn after you dropped the hellkite and Giga'd them... In my testing, that has been the best way to do 30+ damage to them... DO WATCH OUT for condemn though....... sometimes you'll have to mainphase(or during the previous EOT) Giga their white sources to make sure your dragons don't go on the bottom(which isn't always the worst thing, as it allows you to go off again, but it slows you down a LOT)...

Quote from ***4Life

In other testing notes... Sacred Mesa is definitly out in favor of Debtor's Knell. I wasn't so sure on when I posted my last decklist. Mesa = cool... but stealing your opponents creatures/reanimating your own = priceless! I want to find a way to run both... but then thats too many 1-of kills for me. I have pleanty in my eyes.

Why not play both? That's what I do, and it works out great... Dropping Mesa after you've stabilized makes any aggro deck **** their pants, and you can say the same thing for Debtor's Knell against control... I don't see how this deck is so crammed for space, when people are running Void and PoM, and Fetters all over the place...

Here's my build, for instance:


I still haven't found any problems with the Manabase(*never* color-screwed), the Creature Base(never run out of gas), or the Removal Base(Arena + PoM has won me many, many games). I do, however, want to test out Hide/Seek in the MD in place of either Persecute or 1 Demonfire/1 Helix... If anyone has any matchup analysis with MD Hide/Seeks, i'm interested... because they make the Dragonstorm matchup in Game 1 SOOO much easier, It would seem...

Hit/Run is NOT used in place of Cruel Edict, that's *very* stupid... It's used in addition to cruel edict... and Juggles, if you're playing against a deck with signets(Flare/Pox/UW), you already have a favorable matchup, so you don't need to worry about hitting their signets with your Hit/Run(which is a fair trade anyway). And remember, you're hardly ever going to flip a Hit/Run with bob anyway... you are just too scared of it.

If you're not willing to take 8 damage to draw an extra card(one that deals nearly 8 damage sometimes), then don't play Bob... ok, maybe I should reword that :p. I have played Bob in my neo-Satanic Sligh for about a month, and I have lost exactly ONE game to bob flipping hit/run(and I won the match so it doesn't matter :p)... and won about 6-7 games when flipping it... but anyway, that's the point of testing. Just because something looks good/bad on paper(by theory), doesn't mean that's how it works out in testing.

EDIT: And btw, Rift Bolt > Shock... try it out, you'll like it a lot better. It kills nearly EVERY 2-drop/3-drop(obv not BTS or Ironfoot) in the format, and it costs 1 mana.

Quote from monopoman

It's funny how everyone thinks we have never played with helix in this deck. Just cause its not in our current lists does not mean that we have never played it.

Please don't put words into my mouth... I'm just trying to push the point that Helix isn't useless in the deck...