MTG Salvation

NOTE: Last updated 2018-06-04, and I don't update unless someone needs to see the most recent version. If you want me to update with the current decklist, send me a PM.

Hello!

It was the will of Zedruu that I make this, my sixth EDH deck (and probably my last in a long while). To give credit where credit is due, I owe a lot to this primer.

Some assorted notes:

• My group plays with no general damage and no French ban list. We play with either 40 starting life (free for all or Star) or 60 starting life (Two Headed Giant, be it 2v2 or 2v2v2).
• My group frowns upon infinite combos, land destruction, and locks.
• I'm a budget player who plays with other budget players, so I'm not interested in buying expensive cards for this deck. I try to keep most cards under two dollars, with only a few in the five dollar range (or more, if it's something I've opened).
• I'm only interested in black-bordered, modern frame cards.
• Numbers in the decklist denote mana cost.

Thank you for your comments and criticisms!

I hear some may consider Mindslaver to be unfun in your meta.

Why Flame Slash and Lightning Bolt? Seems like Path to Exile or Condemn would be more appropriate?

Quote from GFireflyE

I hear some may consider Mindslaver to be unfun in your meta.

That's nothing; you should see this one guy who puts stuff like Skullclamp and Serra Ascendant in his decks. :-P

Really, though, neither of us really knows how Mindslaver will turn out. At best, I'm able to get a combo win with Moltensteel Dragon (and I don't feel too bad about this; it requires a fair bit of effort to set up). If an opponent has a full hand, or creatures with stuff like sac abilities, I can wreck a board position. But if my opponent is top-decking, Mindslaver becomes an expensive Fog.

I dunno, I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt for now. If all it does is paint a target on my head in our occasional multiplayer games, I'll take it out the way I took out cards like Luminarch Ascension.

Why Flame Slash and Lightning Bolt? Seems like Path to Exile or Condemn would be more appropriate?

Yeah, these are definitely subpar cards; I should probably steal back cards like Chaos Warp. Honestly, the reason is that when I was building this deck, I went looking in my collection for X white spells, X blue spells, and X red spells. I told you this was constructed spur of the moment. The next time I make a purchase, I'll look for better red spells.

As for removal, I think that Pacifism effects would actually be better in this deck than the usual suspects like Path to Exile and Condemn. Remember, Zedruu's able to donate auras.

Other Zedruu players: how well does Zedruu work with unbalanced colour sections? Say, 50% white, 30% blue, 20% red?

Update:

I haven't played any games with the deck yet, but I played out a bunch of hands on my own and came to some conclusions:
- Very high mana curve, and once Zed's drawing cards, you want to start playing your high-threat cards. The 'jinxed' cards required me to save mana for a redonation every turn, so out they go.
- Zed starts generating card advantage pretty quickly, so the Mines aren't needed either.
- Tweaked the mana base a little to cut down on Red. I tried doing it more drastically to begin with, but then you end up lacking Red when you want to play Zed. So you can cut a few Red cards, but not too many.
- I have to play against real live opponents to figure out which nasty donations work.

I really want to play Scrambleverse, for the hilarity if nothing else. It would have its uses -- Zed gets killed, and you cast it before replaying Zed -- but admittedly, it is very limited. Add the fact that my CMC curve is way too high, and out it goes.

Curse of Stalked Prey might also go, but not now. I wanna see what it does in multiplayer. Yes, I know this is the 1v1 board. Most of my games are 1v1, but I still play the occasional multiplayer game, and I don't build separate decks for the two scenarios.


Thanks a lot for the advice so far!

Indeed, Coalition Relic is better, and Blood Moon (and other nasty cards like Pyromancer's Swath) would be cool in this deck. Unfortunately, they are too pricey for my liking, so I'll have to pass. I do own one copy of Coalition Relic, but it's currently residing in my five colour Allies deck, which needs it a lot more.

As for me running a lot of basics, that's mostly because the deck still needs some tuning. I plan on adding the Lorwyn vivids and the Onslaught cycle-lands. Probably Terrain Generator as well for when Zed starts drawing cards. I've though about running cards like Ruination before, but I probably run more non-basics than anyone else in my group. It might be worth it for this deck, though.

Update:

I played a few games of two-headed giant, and made a bunch of changes based on my experiences. I was mana short for most of my Zedruu games. Possibly due to bad luck, but I knew this deck had a bad mana base going in. Anyway, most of my additions are mana fixing cards I was planning on adding anyway. Instead of waiting for my next card order, I just stole a lot of the cards from other decks that I'm not playing at the moment.

The other changes are increasing early game draw and lowering the average CMC. I found this deck really needs to be able to survive without Zedruu out.

EDIT:

EDIT (2013-08-09): Updated the list, don't have a changelog handy for the numerous updates between my last one and now. PM me if you really want one generated.