MTG Salvation

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Quote from Havrekjex »

The floating serum I can handle, but the Lawnmower Man 80's sci-fi cartoon helmet thing just does not fly at all.

That's a neurok's helmet, which makes sense for a card from Mirrodin.

Brimaz, King of Oreskos is also great in a tempo deck.

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1. Scalding Tarn
2. Misty Rainforest
3. Verdant Catacombs
4. Polluted Delta
5. Flooded Strand
6. Marsh Flats
7. Windswept Heath
8. Wooded Foothills
9. Arid Mesa

Honorable Mention: Bloodstained Mire

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Quote from LordGrimpow »

Well, tron and affinity do see quite a bit of play in mtgo judging from what I've seen in recent streams. But I wouldn't run that list in a paper magic tourney unless you plan on running into a LOT of them there as well.

I was thinking of bringing the exact list to a paper tournament actually.

His sideboard and maindeck is actually quite tuned to beat more than just tron and affinity. Fulminators are good against Bloom Titan and any control decks you might run into. I would also bring in some vs affinity and infect to deal with inkmoths.

Stony silence is good mostly only against affinity and tron as you said, but these are such bad matchups that it is correct to have 4 stony silences. I've played with Jesse Hampton's three copies and I really want a fourth one.

Twin and infect are pretty good matchups, he has four sideboard slots for burn, and there is enough removal and discard to handle a spectrum of decks.

Overall, I think his list is actually well-tuned to a relatively open meta with mostly tier 1 decks. I can see it possibly crashing against rogue combo decks, but fulminators are really good against most funny brews and he does play eight discard spells maindeck.

People looking to play this deck should bear in mind that this deck is beary difficult to pilot optimally. Therefore, the bearier of entry to this deck is skill and not cost. However, once you bear the responsibility of getting enough reps in with the deck it should reward you with an unbearably high winrate as you fight through bearly winnable games with nothing but your bear hands.

Cube Maxim

I aim to create the most fun, exciting, powerful and balanced custom limited environment
that I can for my playgroup within the confines of a Vintage legal and Singleton legal frame.

Basic Info

Cube Size: 450 Cards

Breakdown: 55 Each Color, 105 Guild/Multicolor, 70 Colorless

Standard or Theme Cube: Standard

Average Draft: 3-6 players

Cube CMC: 2.762


Design Restrictions

Powered?: Yes

Vintage Legal?: Yes

Singleton Legal?: Yes

The only cards I ban from the cube are cards that aren't Vintage legal (Ante cards, Dexterity cards, Un- Cards, Conspiracies & Holiday Promos, etc), cards that can't function within all game types (like draft manipulators that are blanks in Sealed Deck, or cards that would require a commander to function, etc) and cards thar reference "outside of the game" as a zone (Wishes, Companions, etc).

Color Balance?: Yes

Guild Balance?: Yes

Mana Support?: No

Mana Support?: No


Other Info

Here's a link to the cube on CubeCobra if you want to mock draft it:

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/wtwlf123

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Actually, the blue splash is where it's at right now. You can use the incredible draw engines it provides to dig for the right cards at the right time. In addition, it allows you to selectively turn your Bridge on or off, so you can swing with your Pack Rats (or Delver of Secrets if you will)! You also get incredible sideboard cards like Hurkyl's Recall and maindeck recursion for Bridge and Rack with Academy Ruins. You also get to play with Snapcaster Mage, who is incredibly powerful at keeping their hands down with the hand nuke spells. A little bit of red goes a long way when Rise//Fall enters the deck and Trinket Mage lets you tutor up some Racks. Admittedly, a touch of white is also very nice since you get to cast Esper Charm and then have access to Path to Exile and even more amazing sideboard options. Instant speed discard 2 is no joke, it was a pseudo-win condition when it was in Standard.

Powerful additions like a value Gifts Ungiven can set you up with raw card advantage and depending on whether your are having problems with drawing lands or too many artifacts lategame, Compulsive Research and Thirst for Knowledge respectively are great engines. The access to Creeping Tar Pit is no joke either, it can steal a lot of games from seemingly unbeatable board states. Also, Piracy Charm is in blue, so you can now run both Piracy and Funeral Charm. #instantdiscardcrewrepresent!

Overall, I feel like Blue is the strongest colour to splash for right now. It might even be so worth it, that we might have to transition to a full two-colour UB deck, maaybe considering some Tezzerets in there as well. If the entire thread isn't ready to make the jump to this new and exciting way to play 8Rack, I might create another thread, only for people who can see and understand true innovation and embrace this path to competitive success!

Yo MemoryLapse, I'm trying to find the nicest way to explain what I want to say. Since following this 8Rack forum, I have noticed an almost constant disapproval and negative responses from your part. If you think that your amazing 8Rack "stock" build is the best thing since sliced bread, then I don't understand why you feel the need to tell other people that their lists are basically crap. If the 8Rack list is something that is never changing or set in stone then there is literally no point in having a forum to discuss this deck. If all you want to do is bash people for putting up different decks such as my 4-0 Lightning Rack, why don't you just keep those comments to yourself. If it's a matter of being constructive in building better decks, I view your idea of do nothing as the real problem. I could care less if you invented the game of magic, but to say our variants are tragic is plain unproductive. I have tried your version a million times and as others have pointed out, it has let many people down. To say your list is the best version is also incorrect. If you think your deck is so perfect and unchanging then you miss the whole point of people coming into this forum and posting decks they have worked hard on improving. I again refer to this deck as tier 2, because in reality that is all this deck is until someone finds a way to break it. I have done more for this forum in the last week than you can even say for the last few months. Let's just find ways to improve this deck instead of trying to crash someones party. Let's get it done.

I think you all are freaking out just a little bit. Yes, Twin has won the last 2 events. Wizards knows better. It took a very long time for Pod to get banned and Treasure Cruise was in nearly every blue deck. Twin was about 16-18% of the metagame at the GP. Abzan was something like 18-21% and had more showings in the Top 8. If anything is gonna get the axe, it's something from Amulet Bloom. T1 Titans shouldn't really be possible in my opinion, but it might be so rare that they just don't care.

The top 8 was incredibly diverse in my opinion with 6 different archetypes (the diversity of the overall event can still be argued for either way, though). While there are clear and definite tier 1 decks, I think Modern is actually in a decent spot right now. Twin is strong but it requires strong pilots, as does Amulet Bloom.

TL;DR: Relax, settle down, and look at the facts rather than having irrational emotional responses.

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Well the thing with twin is that if you don't have path, they can just exarch + twin and you lose. You're never going to lose to pestermite, but you will lose to exarch which is where the bulk of your losses come from. If they have spellskite you need 2 paths to not lose to exarch. Having 2 combusts in the sideboard does help. But the thing is, combust will only be a 1 for 1, as they will never go for the combo if you have 2 mana open.

Also if you have a big knight, or an obvious exalted attacker, they can just tap down your guy and fog you a turn. Plus a lot of lists are playing flameslash so even smiter and knight can be easily killed.

The counter all the decks play is remand. That counter is somewhat easy to play around by leaving double white open. Though double white is kind of hard to get if they kill your mana dork. Owen and Kibler designed the deck with blood moon, so getting double white isn't that reliable. That's why Kibler is not playing elspeth.

I've played both Owen's and Kibler's lists, and I've cashed dailies with both. I like kibler's deck a bit more, partially because playing with creatures is slightly more fun than playing with burn spells. But I think domri is just way better than chandra. Being able to turn 2 your planeswalker on the play is sooo much better than turn 3ing your planeswalker. Plus the double red for chandra is a bit awkward to hit on turn 3 since you only have 1 mana dork that produces red mana. I think domri is just a better card than chandra.

You don't really want to tap out for chandra vs combo, and in my experience there are very few blockers or x/1s in the format. So her +1 is situationally good. Even against affinity, ignoring that casting her on turn 4 is slow, she doesn't have that many targets. You killed most of the ones you could, and she does nothing vs ravager, master, or the man lands. She's strong in the grindy midrange/control match ups, but there aren't that many of those. That is not to say thundermaw is better. I think they're both pretty average cards. But I do think domri is better.

Domri's fight ability is way better than chandra's +1 ability. And the +0 and +1 abilities are pretty close. Chandra's is better at "drawing" cards, but domri gains loyalty. And domri's ult is really good where as chandra's is meh.

Owen's and Kibler sideboards are meta dependent. I think they both have their merits. I really like choke though.

Kibler's and Owen's main decks aren't that different

Owen has a 2nd horizon canopy over the 2nd sacred foundry. Owen has 2 lightning helix over 2 pridemage. Owen has 2 chandra over 2 thundermaw. Owen has 1 smiter and 1 ooze over 2 domri.

It might also have something to do with the opposition at the table. If control isn't a major player, and most of the rest of the table are midrange goodstuff decks, aggro's not gonna have a good time. Additionally, if there's a lot of aggro hosing cards (lifegain cards, copious cheap sweepers ...basically superfluous aggro-wrecking stuff) it'll always be an uphill battle.

I'd also try to keep your aggro decks to 2 colors, AA/b if possible, because consistency is key. And 1-2 4cc curve-toppers will provide some punch that you'll likely need to break through against cube-quality opposition. Having a low curve is good and all, but having no scary 4cc bombs at the top of the curve gives your opponent a bit of a reprieve from the nail in their coffin.

Hello everybody!

This is my 8th installment of the "top 20" set preview articles.

Just like the previous review, it will be in a spoiled top 20 countdown format, with each section having an image, a brief summary/description, and my verdict on what cubes I think it could potentially see some play in. I have changed it up in one small way this time though. I will have each section broken down into a "Description", "Things I like", "Things I don't like" and the "Verdict" instead of having all the info thrown into one big blob of text. Hopefully it'll be easier to read that way.


Born of the Gods was a relatively disappointing set for the cube. This is very much the mood-killer that Gatecrash was to Return to Ravnica; a sub-par (for the cube anyways) follow-up set to a glorious cube release that was Theros. I really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel and be particularly generous with some of the evaluations towards the bottom.

Hope you enjoy!





















Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment and let me know what you thought.