MTG Salvation

Just like the other deck I posted, this is a deck that was inspired by Kelly Digges's article "Confessions of a Deck-Building Addict" with my modifications and updates.




I've had great success with a dragon-themed casual deck before in multiplayer, so naturally I wanted to try something similar in Commander/EDH. When I saw Kelly's list I knew I could improve on it.

Kelly writes that his deck took inspiration from the Dragonstorm decks and created it for quick mana to quickly cast Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund and smash face with it.

While this is a stratedgy that I can appreciate (prefering straight up brawn as my go-to problem solver), I don't think the quick mana flow would last in the mulitplayer games I get into. So my goal was to train Karrthus to be a marathoner, not neccesarily a sprinter.

After a few playtests, I took out the instant gratification from cards like Seething Song and Manamorphose in favor of stuff that would ramp my mana for the long-haul with cards like Coalition Relic and Sol Ring (Thank you Commander re-prints!), while leaving in cards that searched out my basic lands.

Wild Pair and Tooth and Nail really help me swarm the field quickly, which is key in helping me tutor dragons with "enter the battlefield" abilities like Thunder Dragon and Bogardan Hellkite. I'd LOVE to get Defense of the Heart in there too, but I'm not sure what to take out. A little help, fellas?

I've had fun with it so far, but I feel that the deck still has a lot of tweaking left to go, so any help would be much appreciated! Thank you!

Lands: Look at my post on your other deck for general land information. Okina bows, so I'd cut that, as well as Reliquary Tower (I don't see you having more than 7cih in this deck often).

A lot of your creatures are pretty horrible. Your non-creature dragon is awful... Farhaven Elf, Lotus Cobra, Mitotic Slime, Mycoloth, Skullmulcher, Sprouting Thrinax, Sylvan Ranger, and Utopia Mycon don't really help your deck out too much. If you're running Dragons, you're not going to be able to devour much, and the rest don't really have an impact in EDH. If you want mana fixing, run Bloom Tender, Yavimaya Elder, Primeval Titan, etc. Utility is really important, too... Eternal Witness, Woodfall Primus and it's ilk, Kiki-Jiki, Taurean Mauler, etc.

I know you're going for a Dragon theme, so not much to say about them, aside from maybe missing a few good ones, IDK, too lazy to look.

Non-Creatures: You don't need Ashnod's Altar, Doubling Season, Dread Return, Fecundity, Harrow, Necrogenesis, Rites of Flourishing, or Search for Tomorrow. Consider more Tutors (Worldly, Diabolic, Sylvan Scrying, Gamble, for the economical set), board wipes (Fault Line, Starstorm, Nevinyrral's Disk, etc.), utility destruction (Decimate, Hull Breach, Putrefy, maybe even Wrecking Ball), and other good stuff (Mana Reflection, Stranglehold, No Mercy, Fires of Yavimaya, etc.). Just look at the Top 50 list to see what you're missing.

I know you like tokens, but random token themes in non-token decks just don't turn out well.

Blades of Velis Vel allows you to steal any 2 creatures with Karrthus and they will have +2 / +0 and haste. I have used it several times to smash someone for like 30+ damage its sick.

Quote from ISBPathfinder

Blades of Velis Vel allows you to steal any 2 creatures with Karrthus and they will have +2 / +0 and haste. I have used it several times to smash someone for like 30+ damage its sick.

That's DEFINTELY a cool and jerk-like thing to do. I'm adding it!

Well, not just yet. I update the deck list corresponding to the irl deck and it's in a transition as I hunt for appropriate cards to proxy to modify it. I know I'm adding Primeval Titan for sure, for example, I just havn't proxied it yet to test him out.

i dont run a lot a lot of dragons in my karrthus deck because then when he comes into play under some one elses control and they gain control of all the dragons i gotta deal with all that. im about to get a damnation and incorporate that into either this deck or te grixis one im working on

I've got to update the list soon, but the deck's finally gotten some extensive play testing. I've gotta tell you...it's been a BLAST!

What I've been enjoying about the deck so far is it's straight-forward beater approach. It's not trying to get cute or clever with how it wins. It gets out HAD's (Huge --- Dragons) out, and then it smashes, no questions ask.

It does have a particularly strong combo going for it though, and it gets stronger the more people you have playing and the later in the game it is.

Mana Geyser gives you a R for every tapped land your opponent's control. By late game in a usual four-player game, your opponents usually have about 7-9 mana each. Anytime I've played it I've consistently gotten anywhere from 17-21 mana off of it.

If you have it in your hand, go ahead and use something like Regrowth to add mana geyser back into your hand and replay it. Last time I did this, I was lucky enough to have five mana from my lands to play it rather than use my floating reds. Instant doubling.

So what do we do with this sudden explosion of mana? We add GGG and pump it all into Genesis Wave. Suddenly you're flipping over 20-40 cards and getting a crap load of dragons, and possibly some support too.

Having Karrthus out beforehand is usually a good idea if you can't play Fires of Yavimaya or Sarkhan Vol out already to give your sudden army haste. I suspect this isn't a combo that comes up a lot because people who see it for the first time are rather surprised by the shenanigans this presents itself.

Obviously a control deck can ruin this combo by waiting for Genesis Wave to be cast, but we stopped playing control in my meta, so combos run wild completely unchecked here.

In decks with green I've always been rather unimpressed with the signets. For one G more you can cast something like cultivate or Kodama's reach, getting a land into play tapped and one in hand. That will then (unless your meta runs land D) stay in play for a lot longer than a signet. Personally I would remove Coalition Relic, Golgari Signet, Gruul Signet, Khalni Gem, and Rakdos Signet for a few more land or creatures that can ramp. I don't want to derail you too much from the dragon theme, but Sakura Tribe Elder, Primeval Titan, Wood Elves, etc. All of these signets could be replaced by creatures that put land into play when they arrive, or during their departure.

Which once again, will generally stay on the field much longer than artifact mana that seems to get blown up once every 6 turns or so. At least in my meta, this is the case. As wraths are heavy and ostones, akroma's vengeance, nev's disk seem to go off pretty frequently. I'd recommend changing the land base a little bit, or maybe adding a couple mana as 34 seems a bit light for how little ramp you have.

Rites of Flourishing is also nice to ramp, but with how little land you have I find it a bit unlikely that you will frequently have 2 land in hand to necessitate allowing opponents to do that. Similarly, letting opponents draw cards is bad news. I'd replace this with personal card draw. Harmonizefor example? Or maybe even a wrath effect like Decree of Pain, which says "Destroy all creatures, draw a buttload of cards!" in the off chance things get out of control on the opponents end.

And finally, Where Ancients Tread and similar rattlesnake cards both myself and the general EDH community tend to recommend not including. While sometimes cards like that or Warstorm Surge, or Electropotence can have a big effect on someones life. They're not going to let that happen again. They will either immediately pop it, effectively wasting 5-6 of your mana or they will gun for the dude who can drop a buttload of damage at once. They say "deal with me now, or die".

I noticed you said that control decks took a recent nosedive in your meta, so I don't know how great these suggestions would actually be for you. The artifact mana that you play, may stay in play for the entire game for all I know. I would just rather run land / land fetches instead of these cards as they go poof often in my meta. Hope this helped.

Update: Deck list has been updated to match the version I've been playing as of late and has really taken off for me.

I'm still having a problem finding what to take out for Defense of the Heart, which is why I originally had Forbidden Orchard in there.

One problem I'm having is simply a lack of good tutors. I'll be taking out Demonic Collusion and Dread Return once I've got em'.

I like Furnace Dragon for artifact removal, especially when my playgroup bring out artifact generals like Memnarch, and just annoying artifacts like Crucible of Worlds and Darksteel Plate, but I tend to hold him back when I have artifact ramp on the field if I'm not being bothered by said artifacts too much, or I'm waiting for them to drop some more before I board wipe.

Quote from bone_doc

I 2nd this.

A card I would recommend is Berserk. It just randomly gets someone general'd out with Karrthus, plus works well with guys like Jugan. It's also a niche/political removal spell.

I really like that card, however it's about double what my price ranger per card is. I can go a little over my ~$15 range for things like Vampiric Tutor or Demonic Tutor since they're necessary tutors, but that's about it. I think the only thing I went over $20 was for Doubling Season, but only because it is the single most amazing card for decks like my Ghave combo deck.