MTG Salvation

Just sold my MtGO collection to MtGO Traders. They were fast, gave me a great and fair value, and the value for going to their physical store is great. Bought from their online MtGO storefront many times, and have never had any issues. I can't recommend them enough. I haven't had a chance to use the credit yet but I can only hope to receive the same level of service.

The only con I have for them is that their new website doesn't seem to remember search parameters (I usually don't search for foils, so if I search one set for, as an example, Mythics, when I go to another set I have to re-add my filters). This is a minor gripe, however.

I had a quick question about Purphoros, God of the Forge and mass blink effects. For the sake of ease, we'll use Legion's Initiative.

Say I have 4 creatures (Excluding Purphoros) on the battlefield and Purphoros is a creature as my devotion to red is 7. I activate the effect of Legion's Initiative and all of my creatures are exiled. I move to combat and everything comes back in.

I'm fairly certain that when everything comes back into play, I will have 4 triggers of his triggered ability that deals the 2 damage. Is this correct? It's much clearer to me when he is not a creature as he remains on the battlefield the entire time, but for some reason I'm blanking when they all enter the battlefield together.

Are you looking to sac lands specifically? And what are you looking to get out of sacing that permanent? I've found Edge of Autumn to be great, especially running Flagstones of Trokair as it turns the Flagstones into a fetchland, and the ramp is still pretty relevant if held early enough and needed.

Just an idea. Granted, it's a one-shot and a cycle effect for the sacrifice, but it's worked fairly well for me.

Prison Term on your own creature (Or theirs, if they have one) will do the job. Granted, you're painting a gigantic target on your guy, but it works.

I built up a Naya list that is primarily RW and splashes green for Edge of Autumn and Knight of the Reliquary. Boom/Bust with Flagstones of Trokair is a house. I will post a full list tonight (posting from my phone, also apologies for no card tags) but the deck is very consistent. Cycling Edge of Autumn on a Flagstones is like a fetchland without the life loss, so it gives you a second way to nuke them aside from just Boom or Ghost Quarter.

Luminarch Ascension is a solid win condition because it forces them to change their game plan if dropped early and is usually a lock if it resolves late game when their lands are depleted.

EDIT
Okay, home from work, so I can now post my in-progress deck list.



This is what I've been testing on MtGO lately. I'm pretty confident on the list, it runs fairly tight. My biggest concern is super-fast aggro, like Affinity/Robots, and probably control, which I have not gotten a chance to test against yet.

Crucible of Worlds really scares the crap out of people, and I know it's been mentioned before but Crucible + Ghost Quarter is basically going to be miserable for an opponent to play through. Eventually, it just becomes a Strip Mine every turn. Against a deck like Jund, who runs few basics (At least that I remember), it is pretty quick to go into Strip Mine mode.

I would like to run Path to Exile but it is very counter-productive for the plan of the deck, so I'm forced to run slightly-less-than-optimal remove with Helix and O-Ring, as well as the RSZ and single Devil's Play.

Edge of Autumn is great at pulling double-duty. Like I mentioned above, it can easily just turn your Flagstones into a free fetchland, or on semi-weak hands you can use it as a ramp spell. It's a good situational card, and you can always pitch a Ghost Quarter or Arid Mesa to it if you need to cycle it without hurting your mana or lowering your life.

Gideon can easily swing a game, as he often does. I rarely turn him into a creature, nor do I recommend it unless you've managed to either Bust or ultimate with Ajani, if you put an opponent on any sort of spot removal. Gideon and an Ascension will very quickly get active and turn into a savage beatstick of doom.

Figure of Destiny is actually the one card I'm not 100% on. Dropping him will often prompt an early removal from an opponent. Sometimes I will actually toss him out there if I see an opponent on white just to draw out a Path to Exile, which is a nice ramp for us. I look at this as a chess match, and it is a pawn I am comfortable with sacrificing if it means my knight (Figuratively or literally) gets to make an earlier appearance.

Sideboard current looks like the following:


Nihil Spellbomb will be switched with Tormod's Crypt, and the Lightning Bolts are just filler more or less until I can get some more testing in and figure out what I need to shore up against.

Sorry for the long rant, hope you like the list.

Maybe run Makeshift Mannequin as well? Instant speed can be very nice. I'm building a 5-color reanimator using Faithless Looting and shenanigans like that.

Evacuation works okay, eventually. Or Ratchet Bomb if you can't afford the Explosives.

I did a really dumb but funny combo awhile back with the Vedalken who bounces permanents you own with Reality Acid. Turns any bounce into a destruction spell.

I usually say "Good game" if it was a good game. If it was a blow-out and I lose, I will typically say good game and good luck for the next round, and shake hands. If it was a blow-out and I win, I will usually apologize for whatever happened (mana-screwed, etc.), say good game and offer to shake hands (Never had anyone refuse).

We will typically discuss what happened in each of the games. Most people at the shop I play at are pretty nice people, no hostility found or anything. We all hate matchups that end up one-sided due to mana-flooding or lack of mana, and most people are courteous enough to recognize that that was what happened.

So I was a bit bored tonight and got to tinkering on a rough draft of a reanimator list. It seems pretty fun. Not amazing, but not terrible either. There are obvious changes I could make but I'd thought I'd get some feed back about general viablity overally for the deck.



The manabase is more based on what's available to me (Fetches are easy to get from my playgroup, but we don't really have any shocks to go around).

I chose Oona's Prowler because it gives you a nice discard outlet for your reanimation targets, and the 3 power will also throw your opponent into a choice.

I went for a lot of targets that either a) gave value on EtB or dying to make the most effect of Makeshift Mannequin, or b) protected itself against targeting effects to trigger a sacrifice. I also made sure to look for beats that I could, if the game ground out long enough, still cast. I did a few test games against Jund and one game I just wore it's hand out and was able to swing in with her and a Prowler for lethal.

I originally had Wall of Denial instead of Angel of Despair in order to slow down big beats like Tarmogoyf and the like; then I realized I didn't have the Angel and made the switch. I haven't had a chance to test with the switch but I'm sure I'll enjoy her more.

Any thoughts on what to add/remove? Forbidden Alchemy seems pretty good, I'm just not sure what direction to go. I'm not planning on going competitive with this deck, but I would like to to at least stand a fighting chance against aggro.

Oh, I'd also like to add, getting back Mulldrifter to Reveillark is crazy fun.

Before it gets mentioned, yes, the Kozilek is intentionally main-board. The biggest reason is as a protection against graveyard hate. Additionally, if things start going south, you can pitch him to weaken up an opposing Goyf.

EDIT: I'm retesting it now with -3x Oona's Prowler, -1x Kozilek, Butcher of Truth and +4x Forbidden Alchemy. Will update later.

Sunken Hope likes to high five with them.

Rule of Law too.

Quote from Morack

This is too risky even for modern. Take into account that it would be very easy to first turn rip a play-set of the necessary cards from your deck by your opponent.

First turn:
Swap > Thoughseize
Take your Erayo/Rule of Law
Pay 2 life to cast Surgical Extraction and pull all 4 of your Rule of Law or the Erayo and removed from the game.

Now... what do you do?

Play the game as a regular control deck, because you just used 3 (4 if you used a fetchland) cards from your starting 7 to take apart the big slowdown of the deck.

At least that's what I would do playing a UW control deck like this.

I think that for any control deck to survive right now, it needs some number of Path to Exile and/or Wrath of God/Day of Judgement. Aggro decks abound and, without some kind of reset or removal like that, you WILL, more than likely, lose.

Spring Cleaning is, while not guaranteed, another option to blow them out.

Greater Auramancy prevents your opponent from interacting with pretty much your entire board, but it's almost a win-more card at that point.

If you're in blue (Or rather go into it), Azorious First-Wing is effectively unblockable, too.

Thematically, discounting Lorwynn, all of the planeswalkers have fit into or been a part of the story for each set they were involved in.

Alara: Ajani was a leonin from Naya, Sarkhan was on Jund, assisting Bolas who was on Grixis, and Elspeth was a knight on Bant. Oh, and Tezzeret was rocking out with his etherium out on Esper.

Zendikar: Nissa was happy as can be for some reason when Sorin stepped into her life. Chandra met up with Jace and helped unlock the Eye of Ugin while Sarkhan was going crazy. Gideon apparently had something to do there after the Eldrazi showed up? I think he's the only one I can think of that doesn't fit.

Mirrodin: Elspeth journeyed to Mirrodin for some insane reason, as did Venser. Koth was from there. Tezzeret was sent there by his big, bad boss. Then Karn got freed so that he could be...liberated. ...Sure...

Innistrad: Liliana is chasing down the demons that she is contractually obligated to do dirty, dirty things to, and Garruk just really doesn't like her. Sorin is the boss around there, so, he's showing up too.

ONLY because of this logic I feel that Kiora does not belong on Innistrad. However, if they follow the cycle of planeswalker counting that seems to be developing (Though not really a "proven" system yet) then we will have the following:

Initial set in the block: 2-3 Planeswalkers
Middle set: 1 Planeswalker
Final set (Small set): 0-1 Planeswalkers
Final set (Large set): 1-2 Planeswalkers

I'd like something like Furious if they did do it. It's simple, flavorful-ish, and relatively makes sense.

To answer the question, though, I don't think it's really "necessary". The phrase uses very little cardspace and needs no rules text on it.

Have any of you played Magic via Skype? I did it a few times with people around the internet and found it to be a nice way to play either my physical cards or proxy decks without haven't to use separate software (I use it often anyway).

I was thinking of starting it again and wanted to gauge interest.

Mods, if this belongs in Online, I apologize. General seemed like the right spot but I've been wrong before.