MTG Salvation

I have started spamming Torbran, thane of Red Fell into every red deck that can use it with pretty decent results. The card adds a ton of reach to sweepers like Anger of the Gods, creatures like Goblin chainwhirler and utility cards like fiery confluence. It's clearly nuts with impact tremors, Purph or Hostility built to take advantage of the card. There are a ton of Thermo-alchemist type effects as well.

If you really want to be a filthy casual, just playQueen Blaze and since those emblems trigger separately, each deals 3x the damage (until Torbran is removed) and then those emblems continue to burn until the game is over.

There are clearly lots of other strategies to explore but I feel like the card has legs b/c it feels very one-sided when done right

I had a chance to jam a few games with your smitten swordmaster deck, and I have to say, it performed better than I thought it would. edgewall Innkeeper definitely draws a lot of cards and the ability to recycle removal frustrated people. I will tweak it a little bit for my meta specifically, but the core of the deck is sound

Quote from Prid3 »

I highly highly highly recommend both Unsettled Mariner and Yarok, the Desecrated. Both cards are elementals, Mariner protects you from interaction and Yarok doubles Reef/Field triggers. Vesperlark is also fantastic at recurring Reefs + Harbingers while still being an elemental itself which is perfect.

I have played with/against Yarok, the desecrated and know its effects quite well. In my Gates deck with Golos. I like both of the other suggestions.

Maze's end in the Gates deck forces the tables hand, which I like as a win condition. I just want to make sure I am doing enough with the deck to play good quality magic

Let's discuss Risen Reef and just how broken it is in the right deck(s). Standard has felt it's dominance paired up with Field of the Dead. I am pretty sure this can translate into a multiplayer deck, so let us brew!

I have built a bunch of different iterations of the deck below is just a silly sample.

I routinely draw my deck if not completely disrupted and most the decks have 70 cards in them just b/c the fear of decking is real and short of my maze's end version, I haven't found a wincon that just blew me away yet.



Anyone else playing risen reef and dropping hordes of zombies, or using other alt-win cons?

Decklist updated Oct 12/19

So I had a chance to play with Oakhame adversary and I put it in an all deathtouch deck just because thematically it fit. Green is represented in about 33% of my opponents' decks in a meaningful way. In 10 games, I drew the card 22 times and was able to cast it for 2 mana 14 times and for the full cost the other 8 times. That is a 64% rate (but I was looking to jam the card every possible time, even if it wasn't the best play to make) so the results are a little skewed. As has been alluded to by others, if your meta is full of green, then the card is undercosted and a good addition to budget decks. If you meta can't guarantee the lower mana cost, then I think it's just another rattlesnake that may or may not draw you a card and I feel like you have a ton of options out there.

I mean, less than a buck for a playset, sure....why not

I really like the look of the knight decks but I have a legitimate question to ask. Can you really burn out the table in your meta?

We used to be able to, but now payoff strategies like gray merchant of asphodel, Exsanguinate and zulaport cutthroat simply aren't good enough anymore. Yes, if you nut draw, aren't disrupted, recur said pieces fast enough and others don't draw well, you can still squeak out a win. We had a lifegain issue in our meta and now lifegain hate is prevalent or you have someone gaining life at a rate where only a combo or infect can take them down.

Instead, a card like torment of hailfire causes extreme grief for the table as resource denial can be strong when dumped quickly.

Quote from Prid3 »

The set itself is interesting. Going by my grades it's mostly C+s, not many Bs or As, but there's a ton of C/C+ cards that will be fun to play with/against and very few cards like Narset, Parter of Veils and Smothering Tithe that trivialize what your adversaries are playing. So for the super spikey players it's a "meh" set overall but it's utterly fantastic for kitchen table fans.

Agreed. It's a great set for kitchen table magic.

Any chance we're going to see any more set reviews from you? You know you love writing them and there are some of us who gobble up in the information. Or is it an end of an era?

Another card I tried out in a control shell that performed better than I initially thought the magic mirror If it sticks around it can draw a lot of cards. Obviously there are far better options out there if you want to get competitive, but casually, it's relatively strong.

Quote from bleedin_eyeball »

Ok, so my view is that this set is a little under powered so far. Lots of love for tribal knights (yay)
I haven't had time to digest all of it yet, mainly considering what might fit into my current decks so far.

Oakhame Adversary looks very sweet for multiplayer.
Realm-Cloaked Giant looks the goods for some sort of giant-based control deck.
Knights' Charge will be delicious in my wifes' Knight deck running Knight Exemplar.
Once upon a Time into another 2-cmc spell (think Growth Spiral etc.) looks like a pretty good Turn 2 play, and it's instant speed!
Rankle, Master of Pranks - flexibility is usually good.
The Great Henge looks very good.
Deathless Knight another not-terrible cockroach that gets around Grafdigger's Cage
Gilded Goose is ok

Gluttonous Troll etc.
Food tokens are artifacts, so anything that cares artifacts to sacrifice, metalcraft, affinity etc. might find food tokens useful, but I'm thinking we probably already have better options.

Since Prid3 has stopped doing set reviews, (much to my dismay as this is the only place I know of that does 60 card mp decks, most reviews for MP are for EDH) I guess we shall have to work together to make heads or tales of sets going forward.

Piggybacking off Bleeding Eyeball, who for the most part I agree with (depending on your meta).
Not completely sold on:
Oakhame Adversary I prefer [card]Ohran Frostfang for one extra mana but probably play both, thanks for pointing it out
Deathless Knight meh, recursion is fine, but for 4 mana I think I want my card to do a bit more?

A few cards I like not mentioned yet
foulmire knight over-costed card draw with a rattlesnake attached and can be reused well tribal or B/x decks
murderous rider Great utility in a color that can reuse the card over and over again
dance of the manse enchantment decks
Piper of the swarm Rat Tribal among other uses
Smitten Swordmaster Mini exsanguinate stapled to a body for the draining knight tribal.
Syr Konrad, the Grim Curve topper for tribal knight drain. Powerful with a full board
Questing Beast Pushed, a ton of text, dies to no benefit, but seems like good fun

Ok, there are more good cards, but I will let someone else offer up some

Quote from Prid3 »

That's my point though lol. There's nothing "illegal" about putting Windfall in your casual deck. If someone can point to me the rule that states otherwise, I'm more than willing to eat my words, but until then I don't understand why we're vilifying people for having fun playing a card game. The Legacy B&R list is just that; the Legacy B&R list. It's nothing more than that. So unless you're playing in a sanctioned Legacy B&R event it's wholly meaningless.

First off, I never vilified anyone, I pointed out it must be nice to be able to run four Windfall. If you take exception to that, fair enough! I stand by what I said and I highly encourage players to build legal decks following some official constructed list UNLESS the entire group is playing anything goes. It's no fun for players to show up to a table with their Modern deck only to see people drop some turn 1 Vintage "I win" deck.

Second, Yes, there is no "official" list but I am willing to bet that the vast majority of players who play casually do follow one of the official B&R lists. Two posters have said they do and many others have said as much in all the "help make my deck better" threads on this forum. The evidence seems to indicate as much, although this particular site isn't as busy as it once was.

Prid3, I love your reviews, I love your deckbuilding ideas, you are clearly passionate about the game and have far greater overall historical game knowledge than I do. However, in terms of playgroups NOT following some sort of B&R list, I think you might be wrong on this one.

Zombie and vampire tribal got a new toy

Cordial Vampire is the new pump spell for vampires abusing Bloodghast cruel celebrant viscera seer among many other cards to drain and/or beat down the table. Double black means you could include it in a devotion deck as well.

Undead Augur Does this replace Midnight Reaper in zombie builds or do you run both? I feel like I want to be greedy and just run both in my B/w Oketra zombie deck. Wayward Servant with gravecrawler and carrion feeder combo can easily mitigate the life loss.

Quote from Prid3 »

I've yet to see anyone maintain a consistent opinion when it comes to multiplayer banned and restricted lists so it's unsurprising that people get confused. Unless the cards are banned in your playgroup then you're fine. It didn't magically become illegal just because another group banned its use in theirs.

That's totally fair and on point. Kitchen table Magic falls under house rules of course and how others play isn't really my concern. My point was that the deck isn't constructed legal by ANY B&R list and I was simply pointing it out. As I stated before, I too at one time was unaware that Windfall was banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. I would want others to help me keep my decks legal.

Apologies if I ruffled feathers.

Quote from bleedin_eyeball »

Windfall is restricted? What about Dark Deal & Whispering Madness? Are these banned in your group too?

To be honest, I'm probably going to cut Treasure Cruise, as Visions essentially does the same job by that stage of the game.

Why would Dark Deal or Whispering Madness be an issue? Neither card is banned or restricted?

One of my groups plays with the rule of "playset legal in either vintage or legacy means you can play the card as a 4 of". So a card like Brainstorm can be played as a 4 of. Cards like Sol Ring, Demonic Tutor Windfall are only allowed as a 1 of because they aren't playset legal cards in ANY format.

I too was surprised that windfall was banned and restricted awhile back, my playgroup was quick to point it out

Wow, wish my playgroup would allow me to play 4 Windfall and 2 Treasure cruise cards are restricted for OBVIOUS reasons. Must be nice.

A little feedback on the Phyrexian Altar version of the deck

I played it last weekend. Needless to say, I went off and the first time no one saw it coming, everyone scooped once I showed the combo and no one had cards to disrupt it. The second time, I had to play carefully, fight through disruption, but eventually, I went off for the win. The third game had the entire table gang up on me and punish me, so whatever.

So, the deck is powerful clearly, there was a little grumbling when I played it three times in a row, which I will never do in the future. Feels like a one and done deck on any given night unless your meta is all over doing broken combos or allows unlimited combos.

Personally, I am going to try out an all Zombie build with her, which is likely a little more fair for creature metas.

The decklist will probably look similar to Prid3's zombie build when wayward servant was spoiled since that was already a B/w build.

So a few "issues" I see with the deck
1. You are at 67 cards which negatively adds to the random factor of the deck which already suffers from randomness because of the design of a card like Amplifire. Ilharg, the raze-boar kinda nombos with amplifire but I see what you are trying to do.
2. You have no real defense early if someone removes Steel Leaf Champion or you fail to draw one. I would rather see you add 4 Leatherback Baloth and shave 2 copies of Rhythm of the wild and cut two other cards of your choice. The deck needs early strong plays to be able to get to the late game to play magic.
3. Pretty sure I like thragtusk better than Verdant Sun's Avatar and the extra token will trigger elemental bond
4. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is a ton of mana to pay to deny others their mana and you don't have high costing spells to pay for (you will cheat Ghalta, Primal Hunger in any relevant games one way or another. I would just cut it completely.
5. How do you plan to interact with the enemy? You have no way to remove obstacles in your path. You can't always go over the top successfully and this deck doesn't look to be going wide.