MTG Salvation

This deck started originally as a Damned Timbermare deck, but it evolved so much since then. I took this to FNM the other night, and I won 3 out of the 4 matches.


The decks this won against were...

RW deck. This is the same deck when I tried my pinger TS block against last week. I won 2-1. I lost the second match because she had a Fortune Thief, and I didn't get a Putrefy or Damnation in my hand.

GB Forever Walk. I won 2-0 on this which was a schocker to me. The idea for him was to have Walk of Aeons go off repeatidly and hitting me with a Riftwing Cloudskate and sending creatures to my hand.

Mono Black. I lost 0-2. He kept using Extirpate on my big hitters and bringing Tendrils out to take him back up life. While I lost both matches, they were close.

GBU Deck. This was a long one. I won 2-1 but it was long. He kept bringing out creatures that gave your opponent +1/+1 counters on your creatures, and then hitting with Ana Battlemage.

At the end, I came in 4th that night, but I did well. After talking to other players, I decided to Sideboard Rifsweeper for Extirpate and I traded for 2 Spectral Force.

Now, I want to know is this deck worth competing with and are there any suggestions that can make this deck better? I appreciate the help.

First of all, I don't think Damnation belongs in an aggro deck. Go up to 4 Putrefy, and take out Damnation. If you're really worried, you could move Damnation to the sideboard, but I would still take it out completely. Also, how are you able to play Groundbreaker? Even in a deck with 4 Overgrown Tombs and 4 Llanoward Wastes, I'd be be hesitant to run that card. It's a great card in Mono Green Aggro, and one of my personal favorites, but I would take them out for 4 Troll Ascetics. These will be legal for the next FNM with 10th edition rotating in, and I strongly suggest acquiring them and using them. Efficient, untargetable by your opponent, and regenerating, this is one of the best, if not the best, green creature in standard right now (technically it's not yet standard legal, but you know what I mean). I would also recommend getting some mana fixers, Llanowar Wastes and at least Gemstone Mine, if you can't afford Overgrown Tomb. I don't know how you haven't been color-screwed most of your games, playing all basics with double and triple colored mana cost on most of your cards. Anyway, good luck with the deck, I might be building a B/G deck myself, although I might end up with a more aggro/control build than straight aggro.

Quote from EnemyWithin

First of all, I don't think Damnation belongs in an aggro deck. Go up to 4 Putrefy, and take out Damnation. If you're really worried, you could move Damnation to the sideboard, but I would still take it out completely. Also, how are you able to play Groundbreaker? Even in a deck with 4 Overgrown Tombs and 4 Llanoward Wastes, I'd be be hesitant to run that card. It's a great card in Mono Green Aggro, and one of my personal favorites, but I would take them out for 4 Troll Ascetics. These will be legal for the next FNM with 10th edition rotating in, and I strongly suggest acquiring them and using them. Efficient, untargetable by your opponent, and regenerating, this is one of the best, if not the best, green creature in standard right now (technically it's not yet standard legal, but you know what I mean). I would also recommend getting some mana fixers, Llanowar Wastes and at least Gemstone Mine, if you can't afford Overgrown Tomb. I don't know how you haven't been color-screwed most of your games, playing all basics with double and triple colored mana cost on most of your cards. Anyway, good luck with the deck, I might be building a B/G deck myself, although I might end up with a more aggro/control build than straight aggro.

Thanks for the quick feedback. Damnation works great because say if your opponent has three hitters that can block a grounbreaker in your hand. Hit the damnation, killing them off then the groundbreaker, now unblocked.

plus, groundbreaker is a great second turn hit. This happened twice the other night.

Turn 1, forest llanowar evles
Turn 2, forest grounbreaker
Turn 3, swamp, timbermare.

11 damage in three turns.

Ill try and get Ascetics, but i'd rather have the grounbreaker. The regenerating mana can be taking up mana you need for another creature with haste.

All you need to run this deck is 2 forest and 2 swamp. Ok, one more with Spectral Force now in, but this is a fast deck. Once you have the four, you can play anything in the deck.

Thanx again.

here is my BG aggro version


what do you think?

Come this friday, im playing this deck again with a few changes. Dread Return instead of the charm because I can bring it into play plus the flashback. Could be just the thing my opponent won't think possible if I'm tapped out.

I took out Shadow of Doubt in favor of 4 Hyppies. I could sideboard them in to take the place of the Slayers.

I took out some forests in trade for 3 Dryad Arbors. I could sac them for a flash back of dread return. Anyway, you only need five lands to make the deck work.

Any other ideas?

how come nobody is running tarmogoyf in this deck????

B/G is better as a Midrange deck then a true aggro. If you want that play R/G. Not that it is bad. I personally love B/G and B/G/x deck.

Quote from PJ I

how come nobody is running tarmogoyf in this deck????

Ok, i'll think about this for a second.

Deck 1 w/Goyf
Deck 2 w/out Goyf

Deck 1...Turn 1, Forest
Deck 2...Turn 1, Forest
Deck 1...Turn 2, Goyf Early on 2/3, 3/4, or 4/5. Can be blocked and no damage to player.
Deck 2...Turn 2, Grounbreaker One time 6/1 trampler Can be blocked but damage to player.
Deck 1...Turn 3, More discard to make him bigger. Possibly put something out.
Deck 2...Turn 3, Timbermare. Taps opponent's creatures and hits for 5.
Deck 1...Turn 4, Another Goyf or making first one bigger.
Deck 2...Turn 4, Dread Return Timbermare or Grounbreaker or Damnation.

In thought after, yes Goyf can get bigger, incredibly fast. But without haste its still slow by a turn and can easily be taken down by turn 4 in my deck as it already is. Groundbreaker is a one turn hit for 6 and even if these two aggro decks were playing against one another, I honestly think Deck 2 would win.

Granted allot of this is hypothetical, but I'm just thinking what might happen logicly. Goyf is a bit overated and easily managible sometimes. Thanks for the idea, but I think I won't put Goyf.

The thing that makes this deck is haste. I can kill an opponent by turn 5/6.

WhiteWerewolf: I was looking at your decklist and wondering if your build is trying to be as fast as possible, why don't you just make it mono-green? Compare you list to this one:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=113377

For convenience, I'll post the list here:


The pact is a game winner to find you the mare or breaker to deal the lethal damage. The dervishes can be replaced if you don't expect to play against a lot of B/x builds.

Anyways, my point is, do you really need to run two colors in this build? If you are really worried about Fortune Thief, can't you use Serrated Arrows or maybe even Lure in the sideboard?

Quote from card_wizard

WhiteWerewolf: I was looking at your decklist and wondering if your build is trying to be as fast as possible, why don't you just make it mono-green? Compare you list to this one:

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=113377

For convenience, I'll post the list here:

WhiteWerewolf's DeckMagic OnlineOCTGN2ApprenticeBuy These Cards
4 Groundbreaker 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Primal Forcemage 4 Silhana Ledgewalker 4 Timbermare 4 Uktabi Drake 4 Whirling Dervish 4 Wood Elves	4 Giant Growth 4 Might of Old Krosa 2 Summoner's Pact 16 Forest 1 Ghost Quarter 1 Pendelhaven	Sideboard: 4 Krosan Grip 4 Scryb Ranger 3 Tormod's Crypt 4 Utopia Vow

The pact is a game winner to find you the mare or breaker to deal the lethal damage. The dervishes can be replaced if you don't expect to play against a lot of B/x builds.

Anyways, my point is, do you really need to run two colors in this build? If you are really worried about Fortune Thief, can't you use Serrated Arrows or maybe even Lure in the sideboard?

Yes you could add the arrows or lure and stuff and yes mono green would help in fast, but black offers more spells to make this work as well. after all black and green have the fastest mana.

plus black has the flying that green doesn't. Which is another evasion. While I love haste, the black offers either flight or shadow which green doesn't have. Throw stonewood on the creature that goes through your opponent's defensives and that's 5 more damage. the split second stops the creature either being boomeranged or shocked.

Also, I never liked mono-color decks, they can easily dealt with at times. The other color can provide the support when needed.

Thanks for the advice though.

Yet again, I went to FNM with this deck, and even though I won some games, I didn't do as well as before. I lost a great deal to discard. Are there any sideboard cards that could help me in this area? Hyppies I thought were too slow to bring out. I lost cards on my second/third/forth turn.

Basically I lost to discard. I can handle control. But it was discard that got me. Any suggestions?

Grave-Shell Scarab is another option vrs discard and a solid recurring creature as well.

I think the problem I had with discard won't be that much of a problem because the only pump I had was Stonewood which is great, but it cost 4. Krasa casts 1.

I thought about the golem and the scarreb, but I dont know if they belong in aggro?

Quote from Xantcha

Does a (potential) turn one 5/5 creature belong to aggro? I'd say yes, but I guess you know that better.

I can see your point. I got one the other day. The golem I mean. Ill try and find at least 2 more.

4x Tarmogoyf
3x Ascetic
2x Call of the Herd
4x Dark Confidant
4x Ravenous Rats
3x Augur of Skulls
4x Smallpox
3x Putrefy
4x Cry of Contrition
3x Loxodon Warhammer
3x Spike Feeder
4x Treetop Village
4x Overgrown Tomb
4x Llanowar Wastes
1x Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
1x Pendelhaven
7x Swamp
2x Forest

I've still got a lot of testing to do with this deck but it's been enjoyable to say the least so far.

So, I'm going to try this deck one more time tomorrow for FNM. I need to work on the sideboard. What do you think?

Original Deck


As for sideboard, what do you think of this?

3 Dodecapod
3 Extirpate
4 Giant Growth
4 Ravenous Rats
1 Diabolic Tutor

Using the same frame of mind from last week, I lost to discard with 2 games, won one against UR Dragonauts and lost 2/1 to mono blue control. If you can provide an easy answer for this BG Aggro Deck before tomorrow night, all the better. Thanks for the time.

I tried the deck again, but I lost completely. The best I did was loss to 2-1. Thinking back, I lost either to mana shortage, tarmogoyf (yes, I realize what I said about before was premature. But I'm hoping the new build will help me out.) I also lost to the RW deck with Fortune Thief and poisonous slivers.

Here's the new build.

The reason for the new build because I couldn't get rid of creatures. Plus while the deck did hit fast, I think the deck might have to be mono-green to work to its best chance. And I don't like mono-colored decks, so with some help and after thought I did some cutting.

I love Groundbreaker and using it isn't hard. But when your trying to bring out black spells/creatures that reguire BB, the GGG cost would set you back. Unless you can help me find to keep it in the deck, I'm not going to use it.

The Terror/Putrefy/Damnation are there to keep your opponent at bay. After all a Terror can kill a Goyf. And I still have a few pump spells. I hope the Timbermare and Spectral Force are enough to do the killing damage.

Sideboard needs work. But what I'm wondering is that the sideboard might end up being discard cards.

This newer version isn't as hasty as my previous build, but it is still aggro. So, do you have any suggestions?

Gotta run the delicious Darkheart Sliver, in my opinion.

Love that card.