MTG Salvation

How to SB???

How do I sideboard against all these decks? Everyone's been saying D&T is a metadeck, but what does that mean?

Lately we've seen the rise of and .


Yet we still have to fight all these other decks. Feeling overwhelmed?

Perhaps.

Perhaps, you think you can manage it?

If not, that's quite alright. That's what we're here to talk about it. Because the thing is, no two sideboards like exactly the same. I always rant about how we're a metadeck. That means we attack the most played (top tier) decks in the format. Now we try to have decent matchups against every deck either through the main deck or sideboard (like any competitive deck). I'm a strong believer in looking at every card in your deck and thinking about what MUs the card shines in. If it's not enough MUs, then you have to strongly considering cutting the card. There are some cards like spellskite that might go MD or SB depending on your list. Having cards like these MD means that you free up room in your SB. These kinds of cards should be put main deck if they're good against a lot of decks and would otherwise come in from your board a lot. However, sometimes mirran crusader might just go main deck because you expect to see a lot of GBx decks at your next tournament. If that's the case and you end up being correct, then it's likely that your gamble will pay off, but it is a risk because there's no real way to be completely confident in your assumptions. Making decisions like these can really help your chances against the field. A great place to start is looking at different decks percentages in meta. Perhaps your just sick of losing game 1 to Jund. It's not that unreasonable to include some MD mirran crusaders if that's the case since he's still a 2/2 double strike even if your opponent isn't on GBx. But be careful not to dilute your gameplan or overdo it with cards that are great in the board, but simply wouldn't be worth it in other MUs.

But some decks are just hard to beat game one with some things that just run over you. These kind of decks demand silver bullets. Now you can just jam 4 of both of those cards in your board, but then other MUS might become much harder. That's why it can be wise to do one of two things:
1. you can put less powerful but more well versatile cards. The classic example of burrenton forge-tender vs kor firewalker comes to mind.
2. Make your mainboard better against these kinds of decks so you don't need 4 ofs in your board. Perhaps you're running BW and you have 2 basic swamp slots. It might be wise to take one out and put in a bojuka bog. Additionally, you can put cards that are pretty good well rounded answers in your deck. For instance, it turns out blade splicer can help you fight off those prized amalgams. I alluded to this earlier with spellskite as that card has a lot of game against a lot of decks. It's difficult to find something else that can be that good against burn, jund, and infect all at the same time. Because otherwise you may find yourself going overboard for certain matchups and sacrificing your game for others. You might beat dredge every time if you had 4 rips, but maybe you had to take out all those burn slots and burn is beating you silly. If you feel confident enough for a matchup that you don't think you need anything for it, then that's a good realization, but I will warn you to think long and hard about this and test it to make sure that you can still beat your opponent even after they board in cards meant to beat you and you just don't have anything to bring in for them. This is an exaggerated version of how your SB works though. Every time you cut one card for another you change how you fight against certain decks and probably, consequentially, your win percentages.

A place that I like to start it is to have ~3 slots that you can bring in against any deck that you feel you are likely to run into.
Let's try something like this:
3 anti graveyard slots
3 anti burn slots,
3 anti artifact/enchantment slots (I'm really talking about affinity here),
3 anti combo slots,
3 anti control (the grindy matches) slots,
and some good catch alls or +1s for the harder MUs.

The catch all slots might be something like engineered explosives, ratchet bomb, or surgical extraction. I really like a lot of these kind of slots because they hit multiple matchups and they really are the "maybe not the best card per deck, but hits a lot of decks" kind of slots and this whole mentality is something I live by and consequentially complicates how we make our sideboards since they can help fill other slots. For instance, EE can hit an aggro deck decently hard, can hit affinity, and tokens. Surgical might hit a tron land, a combo piece, or a control deck trying to flash something back with snapcaster mage, or hit those prized amalgams. You can also put stuff here that are just the acknowledgement of brew decks. It's why I like hibernation and echoing truth when I play WU.

* For anti burn, the only real slot I'd recommend moving to the main is spellskite. It turns out we can have decent game against them with our mana denial. Your real options otherwise include burrenton forge-tender and kor firewalker. The former along with sun lance and mark of asylum win the *hit multiple decks* award while firewalker really is the silver bullet here.

* For aggro, we have ghostly prison, worship, sunlance, and dismember among others. A lot of these slots can be pretty flexible. For instance, catmix feels good enough with his BW list to run ghostly as his anti affinity slot too because his main has enough tools where he feels comfortable without stony silence. Aggro is a broad thing so it's hard to have a silver bullet, but lots of these cards can hit multiple decks. A card to try main if you're on BW might be orzhov pontiff or wasteland strangler. For WU reflector mage can be surprisingly good. Otherwise you're stuck with blade splicer or kitchen finks.
NOTE: As mentioned before, engineered explosives and ratchet bomb can come in. A good to card an all-in creature you couldn't otherwise kill can also be blessed alliance.

* For your grindy matches, it can really depend. The main two kinds of decks I'll focus on here are RUx and GBx. As mentioned burrenton forge-tender and mark of asylum can both be good if you're worried about your creatures being burned dead. mirran crusader can be good here. Also some GY hate may find its way here. If you want to keep stuff in your hand you might consider leyline of sanctity or you can try loxodon smiter if you're in GW. Some popular options otherwise are swords of X/Y or walkers as both of these can provide a lot of value. Some main deck cards to consider here are ways to get you CA. I don't leave home without at least 2 horizon canopy (bonus points for EE!). You can also give sea gate wreckage a shot. UW gets moorland haunt. GW gets gavony township. BW gets vault of the archangel. RW gets slayers' stronghold. All of these kinds of lands have unique pros, but tend to keep you in the game longer and can turn otherwise dead or useless creatures into something more. manlands also help make your topdecks better as they still produce mana early on, but can help you out later and turn into a threat. Essentially, you want value cards here (Some of you might be hurt if I didn't include lingering souls here). I'd also like to note that celestial purge tends to hit most of these decks troublesome permanents. Also, cards that are hard to kill/ bring lots of value are worth considering putting in your deck if these guys are giving you trouble. Some good value cards might include courser of kruphix and collected company in GW, Pia and Kiran Nalaar in RW, and Ephara, God of the Polis in UW.

* For your GY decks, it's pretty straightforward. Our options are: rest in peace, relic of progenitus, and surgical extraction. Rip is obviously the strongest of these and I'm fairly well convinced that most versions of our deck out to run at least 2 somewhere unless you have something real going on with your yard. If so you might try relic. Otherwise, I'd recommend rip. It just shuts down something like dredge so well and even comes in against something like Jund and junk. That's too many decks to ignore. Surgical is versatile as I mentioned before. Some main deck cards you could try are bojuka bog (in BW), scavenging ooze (in GW), or Jötun Grunt. Relic has also seen play in some of our lists and its cantrip can be quite useful. Plus it fuels those wasteland stranglers if that's your prerogative.

* For affinity our most common choices are stony silence and kataki, war's wage. Both of these do a pretty good job. Stony hits harder, but kataki has legs. It depends what you need. BW probably has the most game preboard here since they have access to extra removal. Some cards to note here are lingering souls (it can block everything they have and usually profitably so), phyrexian revoker (shutting down the right piece of their deck can be brutal), and even fiend hunter. Some more well rounded but perhaps not strong enough removal pieces here might be disenchant or sundering growth. These both hit enchantments too though. That's worth considering if you're having trouble with those.
NOTE: As mentioned before, engineered explosives and ratchet bomb can come in.

* Combo decks come in a lot of shapes and sizes. Depending on how you cut it, tron and valakut decks might both be combo. Infect might be too. Oh and don't forget about ad nauseam or storm. How could I forget about Lantern? Well that's a heck of a list to all be lumped together and that's probably not even all of them... You might want your paths real bad, but then again you might not. What do they have in common? Well, again, we want spellskite and it turns out Thalia, guardian of thraben hits em all decently well. That and discard. But you might want to try different 1 drops to deal with them accordingly. Icatian Javelineers might suit your fancy since it shoots their dorks before they go off. Or perhaps Dryad Militant is needed to exile their spells. Then again judge's familiar could keep your hate piece alive long enough to matter. Or different still, you might not want a 1 drop. Since it's so broad, this category kind of ends up being lumped with the miscellaneous one, but if you're seeing a lot of these decks, you probably want those main deck skites, 4 thalias (or other Thalia might help too!), and if you're feeling adventurous, you could try vryn wingmare to double up on your taxes, or eidolon of rhetoric if you're having a real hard time, or perhaps magus of the moon if you're on RW.

As seen above, I once counted decks like valakut and tron as combo decks and while I don't think that's wrong, I've decided to add a new section:
Big Mana Decks.
Here, I will be including Tron (all splashes), Eldrazi Tron, Valakut (both primeval titan through the breach and scapeshift variants), and Bant Eldrazi.
The number one best maindeck card I've found to be here is Thalia, heretic cathar. The earlier she comes down, the better. Cards like Leonin arbiter and or thalia, guardian of thraben can do some serious work here, depending on which deck you're facing, but Big Thalia seems to do her work very well across the board (yes amulet of vigor and or removal can get around her, but that's about it). She enables us to beat face while our opponents plays are significantly slowed. All of these decks run lots of nonbasic lands and try to cheat out their unfair cards with it when you're not ready. Even an early Thought-knot seer can be back-breaking. We should be a more prepared deck to deal with these at their root (at their mana) since we have lots of mana denial tactics in our deck, but it's not always that easy. That's why some people will push these parts of their decks by running cards like MD Big Thalia or even renegade rallier in GW to reoccur more LD. WU gets some interesting SB options like ceremonious rejection which hits about half of the above mentioned big mana decks hard. WR gets the obvious choice of magus of the moon because blood mooning these decks can often prove to just end the game. BW gets hand disruption and the possible unfair permanent removal in the form of the WOMBO-COMBO. All of these decks can bring in cards like crucible of worlds if they feel they have enough time for it to work, or the possible gotcha play with surgical extraction + valakut or a tron piece. Some other options, depending on which deck you're facing might be stony silence (to shut off those early expedition maps or even those later batterskulls) or Worship which prevents Bant Eldrazi from winning period (they often have no way around it outside of TKSing it out of your hand).
There are also a lot of plays which just have to be done to win against these decks which might not be obvious when one first puts their hands on the deck. I'm talking about stuff like flickerwisping away a tron piece at the end of your turn, or aggressively taking bant eldrazi off a color (or colorless!), or how Thalia stops tron from player karn on T3 even if they have natural tron. BASIC CHECK PEOPLE OFTEN (many decks only run three or so basics and some run less!).
Finally, one thing to look at is, how do these decks beat us when we stop them from getting their unfair mana so quickly? Well, they do what any reasonable deck in that position would do, they try to sweep our board. For these reasons, selfless spirit can actually be a bit of a sleeper here.

I'd like to note that it can be a bit difficult to define certain decks as well as certain cards as being in one category or the other. I'm aware there's a lot of overlap here in the sense that say lantern only really beats you with one card even though it does grind you ought. Equally, burn and affinity are both aggro decks, but they earned their own slots since siding for one or the other can be quite different than it might be for say zoo. Don't be afraid to correct me if you disagree with my assessment. We can give more decks their own categories if people would like to add/ correct information they think is missing/ wrong here.

All in all, I'd say, try to make your mainboard hate out those top tier decks without diluting your deck. Make sure you have enough hate slots for the decks that give you trouble, but try not to overdo it! Yes dredge and affinity are the boogeymen out there in the night, but we CAN beat them with a little help from our friends. It's all about the balance.

I hope this write up was helpful! As always, if you guys have any questions, comments, or anything, feel free to hit me up. Get out there and get taxing!


EDIT: formatting is haaard

Changelog:

30/4/2014 - Version 1.0 posted.
9/7/2014 - Added information on Spell Burst and Batterskull
9/7/2014 - Add primer version with Mindslaver
11/11/2014 - Added some more card analysis for Mana Leak, Flooded Strand, River of Tears, Dig Through Time, and Treasure Cruise
2/11/2015 - Remove analysis for Dig and TC after they got banned. Update analysis for Amulet Combo
2/26/2015 - Change the primer list to run a Flooded Strand
5/1/2015 - Cleanup some of the main post and add more discussion
6/10/2015 - Added an FAQ section at the end.
8/10/2015 - Changed some matchups info a bit. I'm working on rewriting them with a new list.

Copyright Info

This guide is copyright darksteel88. This guide may not be re-posted anywhere without express written consent from its author. Any re-post must be "as-is", including but not limited to posting the full guide with no alterations, in the original language posted. This guide is posted "as-is", and its owner is not liable for anything that happens as a result. All Magic the Gathering trademarks are copyright Wizards of the Coast.

1. About the Deck

UW Tron is a combo-control deck. At heart, it’s really a control deck: we play counters, spot removal, card draw, and MB Wrath effects. On the other hand, we’re playing Tron, which in itself is considered a combo, and our win conditions are combo oriented as well. We’re basically a control deck that stalls until a combo finisher.

Tron is a combo consisting of three cards: Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Power Plant, and Urza’s Tower. Each land, individually, produces one colourless mana. However, all three lands combined produce 7. Mine and Power Plant both produce 2 instead of 1 if all three are in play, and Tower produces 3 instead of 1 if all three are in play. So we’re capable of ramping our mana from 2 to 7 for free.

So what do we do with all this mana? We play some win condition that requires an insane amount of mana that’s nearly impossible to interact with. There are two main win conditions via Tron mana, Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, and Mindslaver Lock. Emrakul is a 15 mana creature that can’t be countered and Time Walks, meaning we get an extra turn. Mindslaver Lock (more can be seen below) involves us repeatedly controlling our opponent on their turn, and eventually milling them.

Unlike traditional Tron decks, we have a much stricter colour requirement. Tron decks are traditionally ramp decks, where you play ways to get to Tron as fast as you can, and then drop a huge threat like Wurmcoil Engine or Karn Liberated. For us, however, we’re not in ramp colours. We’d rather stall out a game while trying to assemble Tron because we know when we get to mana for a win condition, it’s hard to beat us.

Unlike traditional control decks, we put a clock on our opponent. We have a win condition we can facilitate as early as turn 3, Gifts Combo (more can be seen below), which involves us reanimating a huge creature that we fetch out of our deck. Outside of this win condition, we put a hard clock on our opponent via the other win conditions, Emrakul, and Mindslaver Lock. So for us, the plan is to try and not die before we can win. We also play Celestial Colonnades as an alternative win condition, though you more often win via the other win conditions.

This deck, at heart, is a control deck that happens to play Tron for a good late game. A lot of the time, forcing early Tron when you can serves no purpose. We have limited ways in the early game to make use of Tron mana. We don’t play a lot of cards that strictly only cost colourless mana around the 7 mark, and most expensive cards we’d consider or play have coloured requirements as well. You generally don’t go for turn 3 Tron, instead opting to get to it on turn 4-6 when you have coloured mana as well to use.

I would recommend this deck to anyone that likes doing unfair things. Gifts Combo is absolutely not fair, and instantly wins against certain decks. A 15/15 creature that can’t be countered doesn’t seem particularly fair either. And I know taking all my opponent’s turns and watching them slowly lose the game is excruciatingly painful for them. This deck is also known for having very good average matchups and good chances in bad matchups due to Gifts combo and its flexibility. You’ll also notice that several of the bad matchups are not the most popular decks, meaning sometimes the deck is really good in a given meta.

I would recommend this deck for anyone that wants to play control but doesn’t have the patience for it. Since most control decks stall out the game very long and win relatively late into the game, having the option to win quickly and having a clock makes it easier to decide when the game ends. I would also recommend this deck for anyone that wants to play combo, but dislikes how easy it is to interrupt, or who likes combo but doesn’t want to go infinite with it.

If this sounds like the deck for you, then you’ve come to the right place.

2. Sample lists and results

3. How to play the deck

This deck, at heart, is a UW control deck. Your goals are to kill creatures, counter spells, and get to the late game. Unlike many control decks, this one presents a hard clock. The win conditions are generally really strong and instantly win you a game. You’re not concerned about grinding points of damage, and you aren’t concerned about gaining incremental advantage. You want to just not die before X happens. In that sense, the deck plays to stall the game out a lot.

I like to view this deck as a combo-control deck because of how we win. Control decks generally grind you out, but we’re playing more of a combo win, where we just do something insane and hope they lose to it. Gifts combo, Emrakul, Mindslaver lock, they all should just come down and win the game (barring a few exceptions). You can win other ways, like Colonnade, though I find it’s not as common to win that way, or even via Ghost Quarter + Crucible if you play the pair, which is also not as common.

Our game plan is a mix of trying to stave off whatever the enemy does while trying to ramp our lands and find more answers. It’s composed of a mix of cards like Path and Remand that interact well with the opponent, while playing Map and Signet to advance your own game. You also have the opportunity to combo with Gifts. You just stall out the game trying to stop whatever your opponent’s plan is with cards like Wrath, and eventually get to one of your end game win conditions.

*Note that a large portion of this section assumes you already understand the basics of the deck. If you are new to the deck, I recommend playing it a few times first and also reading the sections on Gifts first.

4. All about Gifts Combo

The main reason we play Gifts is to give us a strong early play. Gifts, according to the Oracle text (which was updated with the Modern Masters printing), lets you search for up to 4 cards with different names, and you get two, and two go to the grave (the opponent chooses). In particular though, the opponent picks two, and those go to the grave, and the remaining cards go to our hand. What makes it special is that we can instantly fetch a creature and Unburial Rites and put them into our graveyard, without our opponent being able to choose. Effectively, Gifts becomes 4 mana, find my reanimator combo.

The most popular reanimation choices remain Iona, Shield of Emeria, and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite. Other popular choices include Terastodon, Sundering Titan, and Wurmcoil (though it’s not so much of a reanimation choice, but it can be relevant). Lists always play the first two, and waver on whether they play the other three.

Off the nut hand, we can facilitate this combo on our turn 3 main phase. That would involve a turn 3 natural Tron as well as a turn 2 Signet. Tron + Signet produces you 6 colourless, 1 white, and 1 blue, conveniently enough for Gifts and Unburial Rites. This rarely happens though, maybe 1/100 games, if even that. You’re more likely to cast Gifts on the end step of their turn 3 and cast Unburial Rites on your turn 4, which happens via any 3 lands and a Signet.

5. All About Gifts

Aside from using Gifts to fetch the combo, we can use Gifts as a value card. At worst, it’s 4 mana get two cards. It’s really not that bad of a card in general, and with all our extra mana from Tron, we don’t care it costs 4. The real caveat to this card is that when we fetch 4 cards, our opponent gets to choose which two go to the grave and which two go to our hand. It’s not ideal, but we can use this to try and get what we want.

Every time you fetch for >2 cards, you need to consider what your opponent would do. We want to think like them, decide what seems best for us, and then consider what happens when we get the other two. For example, if we need Tron, we can fetch Map + Tron land. However, we won’t get it, so we’ll have to consider what the other two cards do for us. The goal is always to make the decision as difficult as possible for our opponent. This often involves us finding a mix of cards that progress our plan and stop our opponent’s plan.

6. Mindslaver Lock

Mindslaver is a card which allows us to take control of a player during their turn. We can use this as a combo to take over all their turns. We use Academy Ruins to to place Mindslaver back on top of our Library, and do this every turn. With enough mana, we can draw it every turn, replay it, and put it back on top for next turn. We eventually mill their entire deck, as they’re forced to draw a new card each turn while we always draw Mindslaver.

7. Card Analysis

While the matchup analysis and sideboarding plans I have done are based on a sample sideboard, there are tons of cards that are useful for this deck we haven’t covered. This section provides more details about those cards. Remember, sideboards are tuned for events/metas. While the one above is broad-spectrum, you may find your meta is different, doesn’t have certain decks, and thus your board would benefit more from some changes. There are also several cards that would be played in the MB that we haven’t really gone over because they’re not in the list, so those are discussed here as well.

Crucible of Worlds - This card is great for forcing the Gifts package to get Mindslaver lock. When you fetch up the Map, Academy Ruins, Crucible, and Mindslaver, your opponent has to give it to you. The fact that the card does other things that are generally good for our deck (stopping LD) is what makes the card nice. I don’t really believe in playing the card when we’re not playing Mindslaver though. I don’t think you see enough LD to support it, and we’re not as reliant on Tron as Tron decks traditionally are. I would not really want to sideboard this card, it would have to be MB for the combo and then potentially boarded out (though if you’re playing Mindslaver it should stay basically every time).

Cyclonic Rift - An all-purpose bounce spell. It’s 2 to bounce anything, not exactly thrilling, but not horrible either. The Overload is what makes it really appealing. At 6U to overload, it’s very reasonably cast in our deck. Tron plus a blue source is all you need. I gets to act as a pseudo-Wrath effect, which can buy you multiple turns. It’s generally worse than Repeal early game, but better than any bounce spell late game. I've had some great success with this card.

Detention Sphere - A second Oblivion Ring basically. Due to Gifts this is better than the second Oblivion Ring, but due to the colour constraints of our deck, worse than the first Oblivion Ring. The value you get exiling multiple permanents from Sphere is minimal and doesn't offset the Oblivion Ring being that much more playable.

Hallowed Burial - Another cool 3rd Wrath card since it doesn’t kill creatures but puts them on the bottom. It does cost more than other Wraths, but putting creatures on the bottom is often more advantageous. Against Zoo or Pod, it’s really relevant they went to the bottom. No Voice trigger, no Boros Charm, no Persist, no Eternal Witness - there’s a lot of reasons why putting them other than the graveyard is better.

Karn Liberated - Karn is certainly a very powerful card, but the real power comes from casting it early. Most decks playing Karn, primarily RG Tron, are going to power it out on turn 3 or 4. It’s faster than the combo deck can go off and since it exiles something, it gets around losing the next turn most of the time. For us, the card is typically a lot slower, so it loses a lot of value. I think it’s best played as a 1-of as a sort of mid range card to put some pressure. It’s really not a win condition for us, but we really don’t need it to be. It has to contend with other cards like Sphinx’s Revelation and Mindslaver for a spot though. I don’t think it’s a replacement for Oblivion Ring, the card is more difficult to cast and unreliable. It is nice to present a Gifts pile of all threats and have them figure out which is the lesser of the evils.

Ugin, the Spirit Dragon - Ugin has been a nice addition to my deck. I play it as a 1-of and typically in the sideboard. I think he's better as a sideboard card because he's really awful in some matchups like Affinity, Twin, or Burn. Ugin's -X ability is pretty much a win on a stick against some decks. Against decks like BGx and BW Tokens, they simply can't beat that mode. The first ability is also nice since it makes Ugin never a dead card, although often that ability simply doesn't cut it. I think it's significantly better than Oblivion Stone for us because it doesn't kill our Signets, which was always a problem with Oblivion Stone. It also costs the same amount if you're doing it in the same turn.

Kozilek, Butcher of Truth - I think he’s pretty much worse than Ulamog and downright unplayable. Drawing 4 cards is cool, but you can’t tap out for him as you risk losing. And when you do have mana to leave up after casting him, well, Emrakul would just be better. The fact that all he does is put a huge body on the board means you really need backup when playing him. Putting pressure on an opponent who’s playing a combo deck doesn’t really do much and he’s too slow for the aggro matchup. He may be playable in other lists with Through the Breach simply because Gifts would then guarantee an Eldrazi, but short of that, it’s bad. I think 3 Eldrazi is bad in this deck, and I’m never playing Kozilek over Ulamog.

Martial Coup - A cool 3rd Wrath card since it can also be used offensively. Essentially it’s a 7 mana Wrath that actually puts pressure on the opponent. It tends to be slow against aggro decks but solid against midrange decks. It’s more so meta dependant. What’s nice about it is that even if it doesn’t Wrath, it still gives you some value, and more importantly, that value synergizes well with Elesh Norn. 1/1 tokens turn into 3/3s and bam, now they’re scared. It essentially Wraths and provides pressure, and after Tron it’s really easy to get x=5+. That said, this isn’t the value the deck particularly needs.

Noxious Revival - Similar to Snapcaster, this card provides us with a free copy of any card. Unlike Snapcaster though, we’re forced to actually pay 2 life and skip a draw step. On the other hand, the cost to get the card is 0 mana. So in the situation where you fetch double Wrath + Revival, vs double Wrath + Snapcaster, you’re more likely to cast the Wrath the next turn off Revival because it ends up costing you 4 instead of 6 (3 of which is coloured). And of course, unlike Snapcaster it can get back permanents like Map, which is really huge. It can actually function as a budget replacement for Crucible if you need one because if you fetch Mindslaver, Academy Ruins, Noxious Revival, Map (with second Academy Ruins in the deck), you’re also guaranteed the combo.

Oblivion Stone - Another option for a Wrath. It tends to be a little slow for our deck so I’d rather not play this one. I can cast it at 4, but not activate until I get another mana, and then I’m wasting two turns to do it. I really don’t want to be doing that. Yeah, Academy Ruins and all that, but the decks I want to Wrath are often faster than Oblivion Stone is. Sure, I can hit non-creatures as well, which is cool, but it hits my Signets as well in the process. Sure, I can play it pro-actively and leave it in play until it’s relevant. Still, the extra mana required by it is a lot, since I have to do it over two turns or waste an entire turn late game.

Repeal - A nice early-game bounce spell to handle a lot of pesky permanents. Drawing a card is also really nice, which is why most lists prefer this card. Another really cool thing is that it dodges a lot of potential answers. As long as x isn’t 1, you dodge both Spellskite and Spell Snare (since x+1 has to equal 2 for this to work). And in some situations, you get to bounce things like flipped Delver or Voice’s Elemental token for U.

Snapcaster Mage - As a 1-of it’s not that bad of a card. It gets to act as a free copy of any spell. Particularly for Gifts, being able to find a bunch of cards and a Snapcaster means you get to essentially have a second copy of each spell there when they decide what you’re getting. If you find double Wrath, it’s now triple Wrath (provided you can pay the mana). The one downside is that it’s mana intensive a lot of the time, and our deck is already tailored to not need a second copy of a spell most of the time. This deck is primarily concerned with the early game, so trying to do something like second Wrath off of him is sometimes challenging. Still, he offers a lot of utility for a deck that’s filled with utility. Especially since between Gifts and Thirst you discard a lot of cards, he sees many options when you play him. Decks also bring in Relic/Cage against us, so his value diminishes greatly post-board.

Sphinx’s Revelation - Similar to Supreme Verdict, the mana cost is quite prohibitive. Costing triple colour is a real concern. On the other hand, when are we looking to cast this card? If your answer was turn 3 Tron into turn 4 Revelation, that might be unreasonable. If your answer was turn 7, it’s actually not that bad. A single Signet can make this much more reasonable to cast. I tend to feel like this card doesn’t do a lot, because we already have 12 cards that draw. On the other hand, when you’re trying to cast Gifts to get cards for value, presenting this is pretty cool, because they really can’t let you gain 7 and draw 7, they’ll lose. If you’re playing it you have to support the mana base properly. It means limiting your colourless lands. Instead of playing upwards of 16 colourless sources, you should try to play around 13, and possibly the Talisman as well. It’s just a good mid-game threat because it really does act like a threat. In the heavy-combo meta, it’s especially nice because you leave up all your mana and do it at the end of turn, as opposed to slamming a Karn that gets countered or having them win around it because you had little to no mana up.

Sundering Titan - Another neat reanimator target that can shore up some problem areas. One of the biggest problems for reanimating are double removal colour decks. So any deck that plays black and white, as they’ll have something like Liliana and Path, or blue and white, as they’ll have Cryptic and Path. Elesh Norn is never safe if they have removal for her, but Iona is safe if they only have one colour for removal. These decks that have two create a huge concern for us. There’s not a lot of black and white decks running Lili and Path, but there are quite a few blue and white decks running Cryptic and Path. Particularly for the blue and white decks, they’re normally blue/white/red, so we can get a lot of value from hitting 3 lands, especially when we don’t need to target one of our own. This also applies to combo decks like Scapeshift, who run the combo and removal in different colours (meaning you have to choose between letting them win or letting them remove your reanimated creature). It’s particularly good against Scapeshift when they run Prismatic Omen since you can hit 5 lands. In general, it’s great against 3+ colour decks simply because the tempo swing is too much. Even against decks like Zoo, despite them being fast, you can starve their lands really hard (and they generally don’t play that many), and when it also makes Nacatl a 1/1, you’re perfectly fine with their retaliation.

Supreme Verdict - This card can be either really good or really bad. The issue is that it costs WWU and wants to be cast on turn 3 or 4 in a deck with half non-coloured sources. That makes doing this reliably difficult. It’s nice sometimes though because if you cast Gifts to fetch triple Wrath, it costs only 4 mana. Still, we’re not ever going to play the correct number of sources to support 3 colours on turn 4. It’s also good against Geist, which is a plus if that’s a problem for you. You need to tool your deck around supporting it, which means limiting the number of utility lands. You no longer get to play Emrakul and Mindslaver lock together, nor can you play all these crazy cards like Ghost Quarter or Boseiju, you need to just play coloured sources.

Talisman of Progress - Basically it’s a 5th Signet. It’s nice to have if you want to guarantee enough coloured sources. When Reid Duke played Sphinx’s Revelation and Supreme Verdict MB, as well as a Detention Sphere, having the extra source is good. You’re playing it on top of a spell and not a land, so it does decrease the spell count. The nice thing about Talisman is that it can tap right away, so you can do turn 2 Talisman into Path or Map. I think it’s worse than the 4th Signet, so it should always be a 5th one. The reasoning there is that this gives you only one colour, and at a life cost, whereas the Signet ramps and filters into both colours.

Terastodon - This card is a very good reanimation target. It blows up any three non-creature permanents. Between it and Elesh Norn, it will cover a lot of matchups. The reason we play Iona over it is because Iona is better than Terastodon in most of the matchups where Elesh Norn is bad. For instance, against Storm, blowing up 3 lands or 2 lands + Ascension is really good. On the other hand, Iona is just as good and more or less guarantees a win if you name blue. Against a deck like UWR Control though, they should board out most Paths and race us. If we give them 3 creatures, maybe they Cryptic bounce our Terastodon and we just lose on the spot. Terastodon is the only reasonable answer against RG Tron though, so take that into mind. If you play against it a lot, you definitely want to put it in. RG Tron, as of writing this, is at an all-time low in the format. Additionally, Terastodon doesn’t mean you beat RG Tron, it’s just an out. You can lose with it in the deck, but on the other hand, you will lose with it not in the deck.

Tolaria West - This card is sometimes very sweet. It allows you to fetch for x=0 artifacts, which if you’re playing Explosives, can be very nice. It essentially allows you to turn a Map into an Explosives. It tends to be on the slow side and coming into play tapped isn’t exactly good for us. The Transmute costing UU is also not great, since you can’t Transmute from a single Signet or blue source. If you’re playing a matchup where Explosives is really important, then it becomes very good, but otherwise it’s lacking and slow. With already 7-10 lands that sometimes come into play tapped, you really don’t want any more.

Snow-Covered Island - This and the Plains are interesting options. They allow you to have Gifts packages where you can fetch up three basics. It's certainly been relevant before for me. The more I play with Seachrome Coast, the more I dislike it as a card. However, the more that I play with more basics, the more I miss that Seachrome does tap for both colours (which is primarily relevant on the early turns). I tend to like the Island more than the Plains, because despite that we run no double blue but several double white cards, blue mana is typically more important than white mana for us since our deck has significantly more blue cards (typically around double). I have not liked the idea of playing both because I think we run too few duals at this point.

Seachrome Coast - I really like this card, but not in the higher numbers. The card is primarily good because it's an unconditional dual at the beginning of the game, which is the most important part for us. Having coloured mana early that doesn't come in tapped or ping us is great. Often times you'll go Tron land, Map, go, then Tron land, crack Map for Seachrome. I think it's wrong to play no Seachromes, but I'm also now thinking more and more that playing 3 is wrong as well. I'd swap with Snow-Covered basics or Flooded Strands most likely. It's still just a good card to play.

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre - This card is good for tying together the mid and late game. At a cost of 11, he’s perfect in that situation. Since he also has a Vindicate ability, it’s not unreasonable to tap out for him in some matchups. That said, many matchups are combo-oriented where he’s just awful. Killing one creature for 11 and putting pressure on a combo deck isn’t exactly the best idea. He’s solid in the Jund matchup, that’s for sure, but lackluster in basically every combo matchup and most aggro matchups. When you play a card that costs 11 and don’t want to tap out for it, you might as well wait for Emrakul. If you wait for 13 for Ulamog, you can stall until 15 most likely. You absolutely tap out for Emrakul every time, but almost never for Ulamog. He provides a lot of pressure on the board, but combo decks will play around him and aggro decks will win faster than he can come out.

Spell Burst - This card gets tossed around a lot so I figured I should add it. The premise of this card is that it works exactly like Condescend, minus the Scry and plus Buyback. The real difference is that this card is good late game or against decks that play only expensive spells. In the early turns, you don't have mana to Buyback, so you're losing out on the Scry value. Late game it's significantly better, but our deck is typically not bad in the late game, since we have lots of mana and cards like Gifts and Thirst to use our mana efficiently. I'm not convinced it's strictly worse, it's better against some slow decks, but I think in general it's worse than Condescend.

Batterskull - Basically does the same thing Wurmcoil does, but with minute differences. Wurmcoil has Deathtouch, so in attrition based matchups like Jund, Wurmcoil tends to be slightly better, since it kills Goyfs more efficiently. Wurmcoil can be fetched from Eye of Ugin and reanimated via Unburial Rites, meaning you have better access to it. Batterskull costs 1 less, but that is negligible for us. Batterskull also can be bounced, meaning it offers more protection for itself. Batterskull tends to be better against decks with Path because it doesn't die to it, but worse against decks with Abrupt Decay only (like Jund) because they can kill the token.

Mana Leak - It comes up a lot why we're a control deck not playing one of the better control counters. The problem with this card is that it is a pseudo-answer as opposed to buying more time. Mana Leak is a card that hard answers a card, but only situationally (when they can't pay). When they can't pay is generally the early turns, where we'd rather be playing cards like Map or Signet. So ultimately we end up in a situation where we don't want to play this card. In fact, the deck doesn't particularly need to hard answer cards, but rather buy time. If I can survive a turn, that's great. Remand is much better because it buys me a turn while also drawing a card. Seeing more cards is particularly good because we're a combo deck (we want to find Gifts or Tron lands, for example). If you want a hard answer, Condescend ends up better because it scales much better.

River of Tears - River sees some play every now and then when someone tries to splash the black source. Personally, I don't think River is any better than a dual land. Think about when you want the black source: I have Unburial Rites in hand or I have something like Explosives. What this means is that in order for River to produce black, you need to have a land in hand. Sometimes that becomes awkward. The real question is whether the two life vs having a mana now is going to be a problem. You could directly substitute it for Watery Grave, Darkslick Shores, or Underground River to see what the effects were. With Watery Grave, you sometimes get no downside for it, but sometimes pay two life. If I'm playing it the same turn that I'm using the black source, then I generally don't mind, because the effect is way better than the cost. If I'm playing it early, then I'm potentially having a problem because I may need to pay two. However, if the card you substituted was a Hallowed Fountain, this cost should be negligible because you had the same problem before. The same sort of argument applies for the other two cards. IF I was going to play a black source, I'd use a shock land (and I generally advocate for Godless Shrine instead because we have more double white).

Flooded Strand - Finally we have the fetch we've wanted. I think a 1-of is probably good, especially if you're on a list that has two or three shocks. I don't particularly like playing more than one because we don't have many targets. Most will have around 4 targets possible and if you play two and draw a shock first, a second Strand would be forced to find a basic (which is not necessarily bad but not ideal). What this really does allow you to do is play around Blood Moon slightly better, since this card proxies as either the dual or basic, at the cost of one life. Sometimes you have this problem that you'd rather not pay two for the shock but you want the mana now, and this offers up a one life option. It's mostly relevant in the Scapeshift matchup because the difference between 19 and 18 is huge.

Wurmcoil Engine - Just a solid creature that’s a huge road block. Short of Path there’s not a good answer for it. Traditionally a huge hoser against Jund since they play no good removal for it, and deathtouch hurts their creatures. It’s another aggro hate card but it’s a bit of a threat as well as opposed to something like Timely which just slows them down. Wurmcoil Engine is much less impressive against Burn now that they play 6-8 Skullcracks, but it's good against BGx, probably enough so to still justify a slot. It's fairly close though, and maybe a Karn instead might be good enough depending on the meta you predict.

Emrakul, the Aeons Torn - Generally the win condition if the game goes late. In fast matchups like Zoo, Affinity, or Storm, boarding it out is your best bet. You really can’t rely on him if they’re going to win before you can play him, or get drained of resources. He’s really good against fair decks and blue decks though, so a lot of matchups still want him in.

Eye of Ugin - Generally speaking it’s a pair with Emrakul. If Emrakul goes, so does Eye, and if Emrakul stays, so too should Eye. It’s basically just used to tutor it. Sure, you can find Wurmcoil or Sundering Titan but the value just isn’t there for them. Emrakul or bust, basically.

Iona, Shield of Emeria - Is really good in matchups where naming a single colour will win you the game. While most of those end up being mono coloured decks, even two colour decks like UR Storm or UR Twin, or even three colour decks like RUG Twin or Jund still get destroyed by her. Boarding her out really just depends on whether you want her or not. Against Affinity or RG Tron, probably not, they’re not really playing coloured spells. Against Soul Sisters? They’ll probably concede on the spot.

Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite - Good for creature based matchups where she can Wrath the board. Decks like Merfolk, Pod, even Twin has applications, or Storm if they side into Empty the Warrens. She’s even still fine against Geist decks just on the basis that she’s an answer to Geist. In non-creature matchups like RG Tron, Scapeshift, and basically any control deck, she comes out instantly.

Remand - Remand is boarded out against Affinity, Tron mirrors, and any really grindy match. Against a deck like Jund where they grind you out, you really don’t want to draw a mid-late game Remand and get nothing. I’ll counter your Goyf, draw a card, and you can replay him? You’ll cast no spells and I’ll have it stick around? I’d rather draw into actual spells. Affinity really just plays too cheap of cards to want to counter them, and Tron just doesn’t care, they’ll cast it again.

Path to Exile - Comes out against all non-creature decks the same way Elesh Norn does. Sometimes you leave it in against certain lists, like I’ll leave a copy in against RG Tron, I’ll leave some in against Scapeshift (for Primeval Titan/Obstinate Baloth), but as you would suspect, I’ll board them all out against UWR Control.

Oblivion Ring - It’s really slow for removal. You trade off it’s expensive and slow for the benefit that it answers a wide variety of cards. Depending on your needs you decide what to do. Twin is the deck you don’t want it, they’re doing it all where we need instant speed interactions.

Expedition Map - It’s a card that only benefits our ramp strategy, so in some matchups we’d rather not do that too much. Since it only slows us down a bit, some matchups don’t really care that we’re slightly slower. It’s a great card to board out in a pinch since you don’t accidentally have no Wraths against Zoo or no Paths against Twin.

Thirst for Knowledge - A great card but a tad expensive. Sometimes in the fast matches you don’t have time to slowly gain card advantage. If I’m in a fast matchup or need a bit more room, this card can definitely come out. Even though it’s advantage, it’s expensive. 3 mana can be a lot to actually pay when you’re trying to interact with your opponent.

Repeal - A nice silver bullet answer: it’s instant speed and draws a card. It also does get around some answers to it, potentially. That said, it’s not the best card in several matchups. If they’re not particularly playing any single card we care about, they’re not really playing permanents, or playing hexproof, we really don’t want it. It’s not going to answer Bogle or Geist so why keep it in?

Wrath of God - Bad against non-creature decks. Basically the fewer creatures you see, the less you want to see this. It’s a necessary evil against Geist just because it’s one of the few answers. It’s also really bad against Twin since it’s really bad at interacting with them - they go quickly and instant speed. This applies for all Wraths.

8. Sideboarding

Knowing how to sideboard is important. You can over-board and bring in too many cards, and not get your deck rolling, or bring in too little and find yourself with no answers. It’s really important when you board in or out win conditions because you may be making a terrible mistake. In fact, I lost a match in a tournament way back when because of it.

There’s a section below on matchup analysis that gives in-depth information on several of the top decks, however, there’s no guarantee your opponent is playing something popular. In lieu of that, this section will provide more general analysis on what the cards are for and what you should be looking to board in our out.

Spellskite - This card is really good in the format as it hates on a lot. It’s also an artifact to use with Thirst for Knowledge should the option present itself. Against decks like Twin or Boggles, it’s the absolute nuts. It can also protect your other artifacts by redirecting stuff. Even against other decks like Scapeshift or Burn, paying 2 to redirect 3 damage is relevant. A lot of Scapeshift math is ruined by it doing 1 less each time. In a Twin-heavy meta, it’s definitely a solid card.

Timely Reinforcements - This is here to shore up aggro matchups, particularly creature-based ones. Getting blockers is huge, and in matchups where you reanimate Elesh Norn, they can do some work. Gaining life is really huge against burn decks, and mono red isn’t the only deck playing Bolts; several UWR decks will turn into hyper-aggressors post-board. The card is also fairly good at blocking Geist.

Relic of Progenitus - Generally a really powerful graveyard answer. It doesn’t hinder ours in any way, which is something to be concerned of when playing Gifts combo and Mindslaver. You’re more excited to play this than, say Tormod’s Crypt, on the basis that drawing a card is better than being cheaper. Affinity might play Crypt on the basis that it’s a 0 mana artifact for them, but I think we’d rather draw a card. Especially in some matchups, the removing a single card can be much better (like against Goyf/Ooze, Snapcaster, Storm, etc.) so I’d prefer to have that ability. It does require me to leave up a mana each time but I mean, if that card will win me the game just sitting there then it’s a small price to pay. It's a good card to try to beat a wide range of decks because it's okay against a lot of decks.

Celestial Purge - Just a sweet card in general. Exiling permanents with no downside is great. Well, the downside is the restriction, but it’s vague enough that you can find enough matchups to use it in. General cards that answer a lot but are more widespread are really nice sideboard options, especially if you face an unknown deck and randomly show up with a good answer.

Disenchant - Basically, Affinity is a deck. We don’t want something that only applies to Affinity though, so we end up here. Disenchant can hit a number of cards like Birthing Pod or Splinter Twin.

Ghostly Prison - A really flexible card since it has applications in both aggro and combo matchups. Most combo matchups are creature based, like Twin and Kiki-Pod. Getting the jump on everything at the same time is really big game. It’s particularly good against a deck like Merfolk where the Timely isn’t that good. It’s obviously better in multiples but I prefer running a split of Kiki hate to be able to fetch it, and we already have other aggro-hate cards.

Suppression Field - Fills a nice niche since it classifies as Pod/Twin hate, but hates on other decks. In particular, it’s good against Affinity and Living End. For Affinity, it’s great because their manlands, Ravager, Cranial Plating, and any other activated abilities now cost more. For a deck that plays few lands and wants to attack with lands, it’s going to slow them down a lot. For Living End, it’s great because cycle now costs 2 more. It’s even good at slowing down Planeswalkers or the likes, and it’s just a nice flex card.

Torpor Orb - Specifically this is the best Twin answer. It shuts down all parts of the combo plus all the creatures they normally play individually (Pestermite, Exarch, Snapcaster, Clique, Wall of Omens) for every version of the deck. It’s also still good against Pod because you stop all their creatures as well. Generally just a really good card for us. It’s a bit of a nombo with some of our stuff but that’s fine, I’m okay losing out on my Snapcaster if their whole deck doesn’t function.

Rule of Law - A very specific card for Storm. It’s basically bad everywhere else but we can afford one spot for them.

Negate - A great counter when you need to answer specific stuff. A lot of the time we’re concerned with answering spells and not creatures. I’m more concerned about Twin than Pestermite, about Past in Flames than Wild Nacatl, about Scapeshift than Sakura Tribe-Elder. It’s not as cheap as alternatives like Dispel but the fact it answers a lot more cards makes it valuable.

Dispel - With Gifts I like playing a split of counters. Flexibility is good for us, and going up to 4 different counters means we can Gifts for an all counters package. There are a lot of options here but in a pinch, Dispel is great. Particularly it’s good when they counter our counter; the cheaper the better.

Spellskite - Really good against Twin, which always manages to be pretty popular. It’s also a nice fringe answer card, it’s great against Boggles. I also really like it against Scapeshift since it can really ruin their math. 3 damage now becomes 2 and everything goes wrong for them.

Pithing Needle - Pithing Needle is a great card to answer pesky activated abilities. Some key ones include: Karn, Liliana, Aether Vial, Birthing Pod, most of Affinity, and any man land. Pithing Needle mostly depends on whether you’re expecting the first four permanents in large volumes or not. When Jund was far and away the best deck, we saw a ton of Lili and Karn as a response, so basically the Pithing Needle was great. However, when the meta shifts away to decks not using them as much, it’s just a lot worse. While Pithing Needle still does things against Twin, it’s difficult to use it correctly. Twin gives the permanent an extra ability, so the Exarch or Pestermite is what you would need to name, and you can’t really proactively name either card nor can you name in response. Remember that Pithing Needle isn’t a trigger, it’s “as it comes into play”. They cannot react to you naming, they must react before it resolves. Sometimes you can name things like Map or a fetch and prevent them from activating.

Leyline of Sanctity - This card is very good against decks frequently targeting you. Decks like Jund, Burn, and Loam are the primary targets here. While it has implications against Storm, it’s usually going to just get bounced and not do much for us. If Storm is going off, they should bounce it no problem. For a deck like Scapeshift, they have tons of outs to bounce it with Cryptic as well. Suffice to say, it’s generally bad against combo decks targeting us and good against fair decks targeting us. If you have a high Jund or Burn turnout, it’s definitely a good card to consider. You should also play as a 4-of to increase the odds of drawing it. Against Loam, this card is absolutely insane and wins game. It’s worth aggressively mulling into if your hand is mediocre. If you play against a lot of Loam, I urge you to board it, the matchup is otherwise horrendous.

Mindbreak Trap - A great anti-storm card as you cast it for free. When they go off, usually it’s key to stop like their one Past in Flames that really needs to resolve. They won’t care so much if you Negate it, but exiling it does a lot. And again, it’s free so you can be pro-active and tap out while not losing the game. This card is also good against opposing Tron decks because it’s one of the few pro-active answers to Emrakul. Yes, you can Mindbreak Trap Emrakul, it doesn’t actually counter, it exiles while on the stack.

Boseiju, Who Shelters All - Boseiju is an interesting card. It’s a land, but it provides a very cool spell-based ability. For a deck that wants to guarantee a couple of key spells resolving, it’s actually pretty solid. You drop it early, then use it to resolve Gifts and Unburial Rites, paying only 4 life. Sure, it puts you a bit behind, but the value you can get from it is nice. In matchups like UWR Midrange or Delver, force resolving is pretty neat. If you’re playing Timely, it synergizes nicely; pay 2, I now have less life, cast Timely. Especially with map, you get to force it out early.

Bribery - An interesting card to use against Tron mirrors. Being able to hit Emrakul gives this card a big punch. Against Mono U Tron, which typically doesn’t play Emrakul, it’s a bit lacking. Needing to hit 5 mana, it’s somewhat troubling against a deck like RG Tron. You’ll often lose before 5 mana and if they have a Karn, they can easily just exile their Emrakul after it. It gets a lot of talk but because it’s slow it’s ultimately not the nuts.

Sigarda, Host of Herons - A really nice Gifts combo option. Sigarda has Hexproof so she keeps herself alive against the face of removal like Dismember or Path. What's extra nice is that she's really good at staying alive against Junk because they cannot make you sacrifice her to Liliana. Typically their only out to her would be a 5/6 Goyf, because she can block every other creature (Tasigur, Ooze, manlands, Rhino). In the Wilted-Abzan, she's a little less impressive because of Noble Heirarch, but that's not enough to dissuade me from playing her there either, because they still have two colours of removal. Even if they're a little more light on black removal (typically only Slaughter Pact), you probably don't want to risk it.

Engineered Explosives - This card is very good in the format. It’s a 2-mana Wrath, or close to it. Our deck is typically not capable of paying 3. You can play a single black source to support it (typically a Godless Shrine), but it does hurt the mana a little bit. Between being able to fetch it though, you can force it if you try. It’s not exactly a Wrath, it doesn’t kill everything. But it has the benefit of killing non-creature permanents as well. For example, against Storm, you can kill Electromancer and Pyromancer's Ascension at the same time, and it’s so much better than a Wrath; even if they board into Empty the Warrens, you kill all tokens at x=0 for 2 mana only. The one downside is that our deck plays Signets, and you occasionally need to blow them up. It sucks, but the upside that it does things against several decks where Wrath doesn't is nice. You can also recur it easily with Academy Ruins for value, or even fetch for it with Trinket Mage or Tolaria West.

Grafdigger's Cage - Another graveyard answer, but generally not that good for us. Cage is excellent against a deck like Pod, but at the same time, we've already got a good matchup against Pod. Cage also doesn't deal with decks like Living End. You take a trade off to play this card because you can’t reanimate with Gifts through it. It boils down to how good Cage is in the matchups you board it in: if Cage can win you the game on its own, then it’s fine, and if it can’t, then something else is probably better. Even for a deck like Storm, they don’t absolutely need the graveyard. It’s possible to go off with just Pyromancer's Ascension being active, so Pithing Needle is generally better.

Hurkyl’s Recall - A great card against Affinity if you’re having trouble. It buys you a lot of time and can help you get to your Elesh Norn with enough life to spare. It’s also really good if they sac everything with Ravager to nullify that plan. You even get to bounce their animated lands and Darksteel Citadels as well, so you can get a huge swing from this.

Kataki, War’s Wage - A nice answer to Affinity if that’s what you’re looking for. What’s nice is that it attacks and blocks as necessary, not that you’re like to. Making them pay all their mana to keep stuff in play is really big against them. Especially when you’re seeing something like a bunch if Citadels, making them pay is a huge game. Obviously Ravager still does its thing but it’s not a huge concern. We can also fetch it from Gifts in a pinch. The best part about this card probably has to be that you’re going to get around all the removal since they board it out. It’s really not reasonable for them to keep in the removal for you, and so this card just skirts around unchecked.