Salvagers [Archive] - TCGplayer.com Forums

koby

03-06-2005, 11:29 AM

// Deck file for Magic Workstation

// Lands
9 Plains
8 Island
3 Swamp
2 Tendo Ice Bridge

// Creatures
4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
2 Pristine Angel
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror

// Spells
4 Wrath of God
2 Sunbeam Spellbomb
2 Necrogen Spellbomb
2 Condescend
3 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 AEther Spellbomb
1 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Hinder

// Sideboard
SB: 3 Bribery
SB: 3 Karma
SB: 4 Cranial Extraction
SB: 2 Final Judgment
SB: 3 Quash

Very old build I found on my pc. Tweak it as you like. I did some changes by adding some BOK to the board.Also some of these showed up at states and got a top 8.

Arkansas 2nd Place
2 Cloudcrest Lake
8 Island
9 Plains
3 Swamp
3 Auriok Salvagers
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
2 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Pristine Angel
4 Trinket Mage
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
3 AEther Spellbomb
2 Condescend
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Gifts Ungiven
2 Hinder
2 Necrogen Spellbomb
2 Pulse of the Fields
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Wayfarer's Bauble
4 Wrath of God
Sideboard
3 Acquire
1 Bribery
3 Cranial Extraction
4 Karma
4 March of the Machines

Nevada 4th Place
14 Island
8 Plains
1 Mountain
1 Great Furnace
4 Trinket Mage
4 Pristine Angel
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Condescend
4 Serum Visions
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 AEther Spellbomb
1 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Ghostly Prison
1 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Echoing Truth
Sideboard
1 Oblivion Stone
1 Yosei, the Morning Star
1 Bribery
2 March of the Machines
2 Annul
1 Acquire
1 Relic Barrier
1 Pulse of the Fields
4 Wrath of God
1 Keiga, the Tide Star

Newfoundland Canda 4th place
2 City of Brass
1 Seat of the Synod
1 Ancient Den
1 Great Furnace
2 Mountain
10 Island
7 Plains
4 Trinket Mage
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Wrath of God
4 Ghostly Prison
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Condescend
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Engineered Explosives
2 AEther Spellbomb
1 Fireball
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
3 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
Sideboard
1 AEther Spellbomb
3 Shatter
3 Sacred Ground
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Hinder
1 Salvaging Station

Rezeep89

03-06-2005, 05:45 PM

hey koby i liked your list but why dont you play mana leaks but i do like the hinders do you think that the deck should play red or black?? black does give us a solid S/b but red has pyrite spellbombs incase u run into WW becuase samuari of the pale curtain unless answered can be very rough

koby

03-06-2005, 05:56 PM

I used to like Mana Leaks the problem was that it runs so few counters that very often I drew them in late game so I switched to hard counters like Hinder and Condescend for the scry ability. Playing red is very good the problem is when you Sideboard you need a Swamp for those Extractions so I prefer locking their draw step than damaging their life since they can draw the spell they needed for the win.If WW hits with Samurai of Pale Curtain then I use Wrath of God clearing the board of threats.

In my opinion red is fast and black is slower. Red gives the opponent time to find answers and black don't by discarding his hand of his new fresh card if he has an empty hand. After locking him up he has to win with the board he has set up up to that point. So I choose black on top of red.

naruto369

03-06-2005, 06:15 PM

What is the point of the deck? I don't understand what positive effect you get by playing a bunch of cheap artifacts. Is it so you can search for somewhat sub-par answers for things by using Salvagers and Mages. Just wondering, please, enlighten me.

koby

03-06-2005, 06:29 PM

Ok I'll enlighten you with wisdom my son. Auriok Salvagers you pay 1W to return a 1 converted mana cost or less artifact card to hand.So we use the Spellbombs to capitalize on the opponent. So we play the spellbomb, activate it and return it to hand to replay it. Example when you have 4 mana, one of them a black one,cast the bomb. Then on opponent turn make him discard a card and at EOT return it to replay it in your turn.If opponent has empty hand then its a lock and he has to fight with his current board.

naruto369

03-07-2005, 01:09 PM

So this deck actually wins? Making them discard one card a turn for four mana doesn't really sound like a lock to me. It just seems that to get anything going with this deck you need too many cards that have sub-par abilities that cost too much mana to do too little to your opponent.

GenericKen

03-07-2005, 01:23 PM

It's card neutral and pure card advantage. Control loves card advantage.

Aether spellbomb makes a lot of this deck possible, since it nets so much tempo for so very little. Pyrite spellbomb's also very strong (2 recurring damage on a stick without a tap restriction), and the white spellbomb's a fine one-of to pull yourself out of holes. I'm not as fond of the black spellbomb, but against some decks, it can be a full lock (discard in your draw step).

A lot of very powerful artifacts are cogs. Wayfarer's bauble can net you a lot of eot land. Engineered Explosives will wipe tokens and weenies. Chalice of the Void and Scrabling claws are pretty savage fetchable toolbox hosers out of the sb. Once cog-control stabalizes the board, it's pretty unstoppable.

Here's the thing: MBC is back, so the Salvagers' 4 toughness won't neccessarily help you keep it alive vs Rend Flesh, Horobi's Whisper, Dark Banishing, Sickening Shoal, or Terror (or umezawa's jitte from any number of other decks). Also, cog control seriously does not like T&N's kiki+titan. I think we saw less of cog control the moment CHK came out with Kiki. I'm not personally sure how well cog control handles a death cloud, and all MUC has to do is counter/steal salvagers and you're hosed.

_Flame_

03-07-2005, 01:24 PM

Well did you notice that black bomb is instant speed discard. So when you do it during their draw phase they can only play instants. Thats not hard lock but pretty efficient anyways.

chrnocrusade

03-07-2005, 02:18 PM

FYI, I'm the one who built the Nevada 4th place decklist and played it into the top 4. To let you know about the matchups I had, I beat R/G Freshmaker, B/G Deathcloud, and then another B/G Deathcloud (Auriok Salvagers trumps Nezumi Shortfang), Tooth and Nail, I then lost a match to Affinity, I then drew into Top 8. In Top 8, I managed to beat another Tooth and Nail deck beating him down with a briberied darksteel colossus. In top 4, I played against another Affinity deck which I lost to just barely, He pounded me the first game, I sided in the wrath of gods and march of the machines, relic barrier in the second game, resolved a third turn march and won with pristine angel beatdown. The third game, I resolved a third turn march and spent about 3 wrath of gods, to wipe his board position several times, his only lands being 2 blinkmoth nexus and a city of brass which he managed to beat me with only because I hadn't drawn one auriok salvagers going through 3/4's of my deck, had I drawn one salvagers in 12 turns of blinkmoth beatdown, I could recurred my sunbeam spellbomb for the win, so I tell you that salvagers COG is an extremely viable deck, especially after the nuking of affinity.

Dommo

03-07-2005, 03:29 PM

Hmm... I'm interested in cog, as I have most of the cards required and it seems to be fairly cheap. What other cards might be good in this deck? Skeleton shard maybe?

BoyWithCards

03-07-2005, 03:36 PM

how much does the banning of artifact lands hurt this deck? It seems that it will be harder to fetch for the color that you need. The baubles might be enough anyway, but i was just curious if the bannings hurt it at all.

then again.... NO MORE RAVAGER!!!

Rezeep89

03-07-2005, 04:52 PM

i have been playing this deck post bannings and the lost of artifact lands does hurt the deck slightly but a small price to pay to destroy one of our worst matchups

The MUC matchup is around 50/50 because as long as you can force a pristine angel it usually means game for them

11 Island
9 Plains
3 Swamp

2 Pristine Angel
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mage

1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Conjurer's Bauble
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Scrabbling Claws
1 AEther Spellbomb
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
4 Mana Leak
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Hinder
4 Wrath of God

Sideboard
2 Pristine Angel
2 karma
3 Vedalken Shackles
4 Rewind
4 Cranial Extraction

The black seems better in a non-affinity enviorment because of the control heavy enviorment now i was also thinking you could play chalice of the void in the side vs WW for 2

Rezeep89

03-08-2005, 12:48 PM

i have been playing this deck and it seems like it is very good and has alot og good matchups but this deck can be very tough to play but i really like the mono-blue deck because shackles is there only threat

Wazzup

03-09-2005, 06:13 AM

I have been playing the deck quite a lot..
this is my current build (without arti lands)

4 Auriok salvagers
4 Thinket mage
2 Triskelon (!!!)

4 Condescend
2 Artificer's intuition
2 Thirst for knowledge
4 Reprocicate
4 Ghostly prison

4 Wayfayer's bauble
2 Aether spellbomb
1 Sunbeam spellbomb
1 Necrogen spellbomb
1 Engineered exposives (!!!)
1 Synod sanctum (!!!)

11 Island
11 Plains
2 Swamp

It has lost quiet some of the engine. Thirst and AI might be replaced. 4 Wayfayer's is absolutly needed. This version is still tuned to the aggro environment. I might put in some extra control elements.

After all it's a really balanced and stable version of the deck. The deck is powerful but quiet hard to play correctly. I have my doubts if it is quick enough for tournament play. If I would bring it to tournaments I would get lots of sleep before I start and maybebring in some quicker aggressive elements instead of the control parts.

One of the strong elements of the deck are the great games post sideboard. And the good numbers against rogue. Synod Sanctum is gold. First turn always play Wayfayer's. And protect your Salvagers with your life! They are the thieving magpies of Cog Control!

chrnocrusade

03-09-2005, 08:30 AM

Wazzup, I'm not sure I like that versino of the deck. I think you really need to put in those pristine angels as beaters in place of Triskelion. Recurring Engineered Explosives should take out anything that Triskelion would normally handle. I don't understand synod sanctum in the deck at all. Artificer's Intuition really really isn't needed. Some people prefer the necrogen spellbomb build, I myself prefer pyrite spellbomb. I suggest swapping triskelion for pristine angel, move ghostly prison to the sideboard and use serum visions to help speed your draw phases in searching for a salvagers. possibly swap the reciprocates for mana leaks, what rocks about this deck right now is with the neutering of affinity, there isn't anything fast enough to kill you where you can't keep recurring sunbeam spellbombs. my NV 4th place deck above was definitely strong enough to compete in tournaments, I have to edit it a bit and pull out the red artifact land, and I'm thinking about adding a sensei's diving top.

Rezeep89

03-09-2005, 12:32 PM

The point of this deck is to be control so why aernt anyone playing counters like hinder or mana leak also pyrite is better mainboard but the black gives you options like cranial extraction in the side for the tooth an nail matchup

koby

03-09-2005, 01:23 PM

At least my build, the one I made recently had 7 counters. The build a posted here was an old build. The problem of having counters is that you have to lower a lot of stuff. This deck got crippled by Cranial Extraction.

chrnocrusade

03-09-2005, 03:21 PM

Actually I've been Cranial Extractioned over 3 times in a single game and have still won easily with Salvagers COG

The Turtle Shell

03-09-2005, 06:52 PM

What did they extract ?

koby

03-09-2005, 07:39 PM

Obviously if Salavgers is not in play I'll extract Salvagers.

Mentara

03-10-2005, 02:20 AM

I hear some people justifying more counters in the deck. Here's a list I've been using for quit a while now. The only major thing I changed is the win condition, from 2 Pristine Angels to 2 Blue Genju and 2 white Genju. And it's running quit smooth I have to say.

Creatures
4 Auriok Salvagers

Spells
4 Condescend
2 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Leak
4 Rewind
4 Wrath of God

Enchantments
2 Genju of the Falls
2 Genju of the Fields

Artifacts
1 Aether Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble

Lands
2 Cloudcrest Lake
12 Island (1)
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
7 Plains (1)
1 Swamp (1)
2 Waterveil Cavern

Sideboard
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Bribery
2 Cranial Extraction
2 Terashi's Grasp
4 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

The deck boils down to pure control. And from the moment you can safely play Salvagers, you should be on the winning hand.

The white Genju will buy you time in mid and late game. Remember you can activate him multiple times for more lifegain. And the blue Genju will happily finish the late game for you. Wayfarer's Bauble will easily fetch you more Genju fodder. Just try to play as many lands as you can, and try not to miss a single landdrop before turn 5-6.

It sometimes isn't necessary to counter everything in the early game, remember you play Wrath of God and Engineered Explosives.

Rewind and Gifts Ungiven (my replacement for Trinket Mage because it fits control better) are godlike when combined. Just go fetch all your needed Cog's. Or maybe some lands when you really need them.

The sideboard should be packed with stuff for every important matchup. (except Affinity, but that's dead within in few weeks anyway) You'll figure out what cards are for what matchup.

chrnocrusade

03-10-2005, 11:20 AM

A salvagers was allready in play, first she extracted my pristine angels, then she extracted my condescends, then she finally came to realization that the one card that was slaughtering her was Aether Spellbomb so she spent her final cranial on the rest of my salvagers but it was allready too late. The spellbomb should have been her first cranial target after I got the salvagers in play was the aether spellbomb.

Mentara

03-10-2005, 10:34 PM

A female magicplayer, well what do you know... :d

Wazzup

03-11-2005, 05:40 AM

Well.. I have to say I have quiet some experience with the deck and in the aggro environment with gobs and affinity ghostly prison was my daysaver. Not only does it slows down the attacks but it cripples the narrow mana base of aggro-decks. I have to see how the format develops, but until then it will probebly be in the SB.

After 20 march I will change my build a bit. I like to make the deck a bit more in the aggro-control mode. Therefore I still like my Triskelon. Although it has an expensive casting cost; it has great options with aether spellbomb and the synod. The reason for the quicker mode is that it takes a lot of turns for the deck to take control and win. And in tournament you don't have this time.

That's why I like to keep thinket as a beater as well. He also has synergy with the aether and the synod.

I can't stress enough how important synod is in the build..It protects the major engines in your deck and works great with come into play effects.

If I made a prediction for the build post banning it would be like this:

4 auriok salvager
4 thinket mage
3 triskelon

4 mana leak/rewind
4 condescend
2 vedalken shackles
4 ghostly prison/serum's vision

4 wayfayer's bauble
2 aether spellbomb
2 engineered explosives
1 sunbeam spellbomb
1 necrogen spellbomb
1 synod sanctum

11 plains
11 island
2 swamp

My strat...go for lots of lands quickly and disrupt the opponent with the spellbombs if possible. Lay down trisk to clean the board or put down salvagers with counters in your hand or aether/synod on the board. Don't ever be afraid to pop your bombs as quickly as possible for card advantage. ghostly prison and thinket are great 3cc drops. turn one I usually play a cog (way pref). Second turn I start in countermode. Countering the second turn is often the best thing you can do.

From the moment you have a working engine things get easier. Chump block with your creatures and aether/synod them. Then make a choise: go for anti aggro mode recurring EE
go for anto control mode recurring negrogen spellbomb
go for save life recurring sunbeam
then clean the board and attack fast with your creatures before they find an answer. The will probebly have nothing in the SB against you so go for it.

And ALWAYS COUNTER cranial extration. Even when you have a Salvager into play.

Cog Control is a fun deck to play. It can make possitive results against any deck (except for the dying affinity). Knowledge of the deck is gold. So is almost perfect play of your own deck.

I'm looking forward to more discussion on the deck.

Btw Mentara.. ook nederlander?

Wicked_Mind

03-11-2005, 08:42 AM

Isn't Cog control just to slow for any type of deck it goes up against?
I can understand the tutoring for the toolbox of 1costing arties is a wonderfull thing but how do you speed it all out? plus it's 4mana 1W+1+C to activate your salvager and a spellbomb..

Anyway is bauble enough to get the speed going?

er zitten hier wel wat meer nederlanders :+

chrnocrusade

03-11-2005, 09:47 AM

Cog control was too slow for affinity unless you resolved a 3rd turn march of the machines, but with affinity being banned, I can honestly tell you Wicked that Cog Control is a beatstick for all the other decks out there, even against tooth and nail, if you resolve a bribery or an aquire, they are going to be in a fair amount of trouble, you can resolve one on turn 4 for a darksteel colossus or a sundering titan and then you should hopefully have enough mana left over

Matchups

Tooth and Nail - in your favor post and pre sideboarding
B/G Deathcloud - Definitely in your favor post and pre sideboarding
R/G Freshmaker or Kikki Control - They stand no chance
MUC - Shackles is your enemy, probably in their favor
W/G Control - they have no chance

all in all, I think MUC is the only color that has better chance of beating cog control

Wicked_Mind

03-11-2005, 12:17 PM

If that is true (witch I don't believe because BGcloud draws an answercard & thread everytime justkidding ;))

I understand the impact of a resolved bribery put how do you handle all the hate on salvager that BG has, or the counters that MUC have? (MUC is our enemy mainboard your choke please)

Well I'll guess I have to see it in action some more again a friend of mine had it and I raped it ...from the front to the back... With my BGcloud or maybe he wasn't use to play with the toolbox of 1ofs..

I could be wrong all together because a toolbox and a decent amount of tutor and recursion is always good especially if it's 1costing!

chrnocrusade

03-11-2005, 12:39 PM

Trust me, I 2-1'ed and 2-0'ed 2 B/G Deathcloud decks at states, the first step is to tutor out an aether spellbomb and an auriok salvagers, use the spellbomb to save the salvagers from removal, at that point, the attrition war against B/G Deathcloud goes highly in your favor and when they attempt to resolve a deathcloud, you should be ahead in terms of lands, cards in hand and counter backup. B/G Deathcloud at that point really needs to hope to draw a boseiju who shelters all to really compete against salvagers, or at least my build, the card quality provided by serum vision and recurring spellbombs tends to give Cog control the edge.

Rezeep89

03-12-2005, 10:17 AM

has anyone tested against a Mono-green deck because that seems like a tough matchup

g0nz02

03-12-2005, 11:41 AM

Wazzup: Why Trike? I don't see any natural Synergy there.... I think that The Dragon of Taplandor perhaps Pristine would serve you better.

Rezeep89

03-12-2005, 08:07 PM

Couldent meloku be good in this deck because of the late game
also it seems like this deck loses to some random janky rougue decks maybe my list isnt right but it seems like the right build

11 B Island
9 ARE Plains
3 IA Swamp

2 DS Pristine Angel
4 FD Auriok Salvagers
4 FD Trinket Mage
1 CHK Meloku the Clouded Mirror

1 CHK Sensei's Divining Top
4 FD Wayfarer's Bauble
1 FD Engineered Explosives
3 MR AEther Spellbomb
1 MR Sunbeam Spellbomb1
1 MR Necrogen Spellbomb
4 8E Mana Leak
3 MR Thirst for Knowledge
4 CHK Hinder
4 8E Wrath of God

Sideboard
4 Cranial Extraction
3 Vedalken Shackles
8 for either karma,sacred ground, rewind, or bribery possibly even chalice of the void for decks like WW or other decks

Wicked_Mind

03-13-2005, 03:59 AM

Rezeep89

03-13-2005, 08:47 AM

this deck searches for slavagers by sensei's divinging top but you also dont need the salvagers till late game because that is when you can go off with it early salvagers isnt always good unless you can force it through against MUC

dragon_flip24

03-14-2005, 03:22 AM

Lol. Here's my decklist, it goes against traditional Cog Control.

1 Pinecrest Ridge
1 Cloudcrest Lake
7 Plains
5 Forest
4 Island
6 Mountain
-24 lands-

4 Arcbound Worker
4 Auriok Salvagers
2 Cathodion
-10 creatures-

4 Darksteel Ingot
4 Lifespark Spellbomb
1 Fireball
3 Krark-Clan Ironworks
3 Sunbeam Spellbomb
4 Aether Spellbomb
4 Pyrite Spellbomb
3 Wayfarer's Bauble
-26 other spells-

I do realize that I have no Divining Top in this deck...

fooligan

03-14-2005, 12:54 PM

the formats huge lack of reasonable draw makes discard all the more powerful, since your intent is control over a widespread amount of turns until your are capable of the handlock, playing a discard2 spell would be a good idea, my impressions from the block version lead me to believe that the scrying one was very solid.
aswell ive come to believe that rigger indeed has a home in this deck as hes quite hard to kill and is perticularly effective with the AEther spellbomb.

Mentara

03-14-2005, 01:33 PM

I haven't seen anyone commenting on the control build. It's quit consistent. I used to play the build with the Trinket Mage's too, but I just found Gift's Ungiven to be much better, especially in a control-stylish version of the deck.

Creatures
4 Auriok Salvagers

Spells
4 Condescend
2 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Leak
4 Rewind
4 Wrath of God

Enchantments
2 Genju of the Falls
2 Genju of the Fields

Artifacts
1 Aether Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble

Lands
2 Cloudcrest Lake
12 Island (1)
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
7 Plains (1)
1 Swamp (1)
2 Waterveil Cavern

Sideboard
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
2 Bribery
2 Cranial Extraction
2 Terashi's Grasp
4 Circle of Protection: Red
1 Engineered Explosives
2 Boseiju, Who Shelters All

The sideboard can pretty much deal with most of the Standard Environment heavily played decks.

And the Genju's really are hidden gem's in the deck, both the blue and the white one are very good in this deck. The white one is probably the best, especially with a lot of mana open.

Any comments?

Rezeep89

03-14-2005, 03:00 PM

i like the idea of the deck but is gifts ungiven that much better than trinket mage and also you could lower the counters and add mage and thirst
Suggestions
-1 rewind
-2 gifts ungiven
-1 condescend
-2 waterveil Cavern
-2 cloudcrest lake
- 1 minano
+4 trinket mage
+1 conjurers bauble
+2 plains
+2 swamps

and for the sideboard i like except the 2 boseiju and the 1 explosives so i would recommend 3 karma but

GenericKen

03-14-2005, 03:49 PM

Two points:

1) I ran into someone playing this earlier, and chromatic sphere is a must. It cantrips for 1 less, which really helps you find the salvagers.

2) Does anybody have any sort of gameplan vs T&N? Both kiki-titan and trisk/vamp ruin your day, and there's no way for you to race them. Keiga falls to hardcast duplicant (every time, too, never fails). Quash is unsplashable, and cranal only slows them down 3-4 turns, and Salvagers is too slow to pull out a win in 3-4 turns.

fooligan

03-14-2005, 04:02 PM

AE-spellbomb is a nice way to permanently remove jiki and to give faties summoning sickness so you can draw into some recursion
actualy it kinda ruins both trisk-vamp's and kiki-fatty's day due to the fact that theyll not get to play them again, at least for a very long while.
why is no-one playing one of top? its pretty outrageous in this deck

chrnocrusade

03-14-2005, 05:00 PM

I think Cranial slows them down more than 3-4 turns, T&N cannot cast Kikki-Jikki or Mephidross vampire without Tooth and Nail. Personally I think mana leaks and condescends should be more than able to win your game against T&N game 1, and game 2, they should be slowed down enough having to spend a land search spell for Boseiju that you can cranial them before they cast vampire or kikki and if they can't do that, you own T&N

eeva

03-14-2005, 10:11 PM

Hmmm.....here's an idea

Use crystal shard along with trinket mage, if you need the search, or leonin squire.

I played this back when 5th dawn came out, but my kill condition was funnier: psychogenic probe and lantern of insight :P

Wazzup

03-15-2005, 04:30 PM

The nice point about triskelon is that it has nice synergy with Aether Spellbomb and Synod Sanctum. When your opponent is hiding behind an ensnaring bridge. Recurring a triskelon makes you clear the board as well against weenie or can kill Jiki as an instant.

I agree that it isn't the only solution, but Triskelon saved my *** a lot of times and till this day I never regret he's in.

But feel free to make your own choise. I think the deck needs a big finisher.

killla

03-15-2005, 04:46 PM

why do you use finishers? just beat down with your mages and stuff, but since jitte is a cog, equip jitte and SoFI to win, why not?

Wazzup

03-16-2005, 12:02 AM

Because It can take forever to clean the board. And some creatures like Flametongue Kavu (Not standard I know), Eternal Whitness and Troll Astetic are a pain in the *** to remove from the board. I'm not always in the position to have 3 diffrent land types and a explosives. In this case he can still do ddamage to my opponent.

And never to forget: it's your only creature removal for 4cc and higher. At least for me. It can attack/block, deal damage and remove 3 counters for 3 damage, go to your hand and come in for another 3 damage.. this means 10 dmge that turn! Worth 2-3 slots for me

The_Jolly_Imp

03-16-2005, 02:02 AM

I played a build that:
used black to say by to there hand
and then blue spell bomb to bounce
then black bomb to make them discard the card i bounced.
wot u think? an idea??

Wazzup

03-16-2005, 01:01 PM

Well.. for competive play.. we have to have quicker answers than that. The necrogen spell bomb lock together with the aether spellbomb is too slow. As long as there is nothing interesting in there hands.. why discard the cards?

chrnocrusade

03-16-2005, 01:07 PM

Necrogen spellbomb is a kill more card... but... adding black allows us access to cranial extraction... which puts our build over T&N..

Wazzup

03-16-2005, 02:06 PM

Don't misunderstand me.. I do have the necrogen spellbomb Maindeck. But I don't think that that should be your main strat.

shzlbmnpstik

03-16-2005, 03:06 PM

I played COGs in Block, different metagame I know, but, RED IS NEEDED. Pyrite is insane at controling the board, especially when you need to clean up after you Wrath Sligh, and it's a good win condition also.

Fly On The Wall

03-20-2005, 04:29 PM

Has anyone played a salvager deck at FNM? If so, what was your build and how did your matches go?

Rezeep89

03-21-2005, 02:26 PM

i have two very good ideas for this deck and that is cranial extraction md and meloku also seems very good

Mentara

03-21-2005, 10:38 PM

I use two Cranial Extraction sideboard and also one Meloku sideboard. The reason I just don't maindeck them is because my version of Salvagers is very controllish, I don't use any other creatures besides the Salvagers. The rest is counterspells backed up with Wrath of God and Engineered Explosives.

I try to finish the game with the blue and/or white Genju. Or a Necrogen Spellbomb/Salvagers lock.

The Meloku (together with one Keiga) is for when I'm paired against Cranial Extraction. Check my latest decklist a little bit back in this thread.

Cheers,

Mentara.

IHaveGas

03-22-2005, 02:00 PM

Shzlbmnpstik is right. red is definitally needed. the spellbomb should definitlally be your main win condition and also a clean up card.

also black is not needed. this deck should be r/w/u only. yes cranial extraction is a great card but it is just not needed. you all have an entire toolbox to deal with cards. you dont need the extraction for that. also the black spellbomb is not that great. recurring all the other spellbombs is just as good. plus they have more of an impact. i know a lot of you probably do not agree with me but i think you all will find that black is too slow for constructive play.

The main idea of the deck that some of you are missing is the card advantage this deck can have on any other deck. you have a whole toolbox against most threats you will come up against. and that toolbox just keeps coming and coming as long as salvager is there. dont throw in any other obstructions that dont help fuel the card advantage you need too win.( like pristine angels...dont get me wrong i think they are great but they are not needed in the deck.)

For Fly on the wall: this is my decklist i brought to an fnm a couple of weeks ago. its a lot like the older version of the deck.

4-trinket mages

4-auriok salvagers

1-fireball

3-thirst for knowledge

4-condescend

4-ghostly prison

4-wrath of god

1-sunbeam spellbomb

1-sensei's divinning top

2-engineered explosives

2-aether spellbomb

3-pyrite spellbomb

4-wayfarers bauble

3-city of brass

3-mountain

8-plains

9-islands

SB:
3-sacred ground
4-terashi's grasp
4-hinder
1-scrabbling claws
1-tel-jilad sylus
1-conjurers bauble
1-? ( i forget lol )

All of my matchups pretty much went like this
Aggro=Win
Control=loss

control decks in the enviroment right now definitally have the edge on this deck. MUC has the shackles and all the countermagic it needs to stop your plans. and MBC has cranial extractions.( which just plain out screw this deck over ). a smart control player should be able to beat you. tooth and nail however is the only exception. they usually have no answer to a salvagers on the board so recurring the aether spellbomb everytime he plays a fatty is the best way to deal with them.

Aggro decks in the format have no chance at all ( against my build anyways ) after you resolve a wrath and set off a couple of spellbombs, they will just run out of steam. they usually cannot deal with the salvagers nor can most of them deal with all the stall this deck has via. wraths, prisons, and spellbombs. and we have all the perfect artifacts to mess them up such as engineered explosives and sunbeam spellbomb.

I love this deck but the way the metagame is shifting towards control decks i do not think a combo deck like this will be able to survive.

Mentara

03-23-2005, 04:42 AM

I love this deck but the way the metagame is shifting towards control decks i do not think a combo deck like this will be able to survive.

Well, that' exactly why I turned the deck into control itself. Now I'm able to beat other control decks I couldn't defeat before. Just try it yourself and you'll find out. Here's my latest list:

4 Creatures
3 Auriok Salvagers

19 Spells
4 Condescend
3 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Leak
4 Rewind
4 Wrath of God

4 Enchantments
2 Genju of the Falls
2 Genju of the Fields

9 Artifacts
1 Aether Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble

25 Lands
12 Island
7 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Mirrodin's Core

15 Sideboard
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
3 Bribery
3 Cranial Extraction
4 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Sacred Ground

I used to play a lot of U/W Control back in the Standard day that Onslaught was still legal. The way you play this deck doesn't differ that much from then. You pretty much try to stall everything, meanwhile trying to set up your combo. And once the coast is clear, and you control the board, out comes the Salvager for the finish.

I lowered the amount of Salvagers to 3 instead of four, because you really don't need them in the early game. You could cycle Eternal Dragon, or morph Exalted Angel, but this card is useless early game.

Hints on playing the deck:

- mark the great synergy with third turn Rewind followed by Gifts Ungiven
- don't forget to tap Mirrodin's Core when Rewind is on the stack, untap and tap it again, you need the counters for the lock
- side in Keiga, the Tide Star versus Cranial Extraction for an alternate win condition
- be careful with the amount of counters on your Engineered Explosives, try not to hurt your Genju's
- it's important NOT to miss a land drop in the first five or six turns, so when scrying, don't punt the land on the bottom of your library

Constructive advise and comments are welcome.

Mentara

IHaveGas

03-23-2005, 01:07 PM

Yea i understand where you are coming from mentara but control decks are just going to be more solid then this deck no matter what we do, even if we become the control deck.

Take this into consideration.
-they are faster at setting up board advantage.
-they have a more solid win condition.
-usually have more disruption.
-most have an answer to the salvagers.

Thats why i think we should just keep the deck a combo deck that stalls until we can set up board control .via toolbox and salvagers.
Thats about all we can do and hope to get the better draws. I wouldnt really try to out "control" them if i were you because we are using a lot less control then most such as U/G, B/G, MBC, and MUC.

I also think that when you go the control route with this deck you probably lose the upper hand against aggro decks that you would with the original version of the deck. because you are losing your speed and losing some of your stall cards. countermagic can sometimes just be too slow to disrupt weenie decks.

I cant judge the control version too much though because i have not playtested it yet. when i do i will come back and give you some better critiscism.

ohh and why arent you using trinket mage? he's your main man. ( next to salvagers ) he fetches any tool you need from your toolbox.

All and all this deck just has some kinks in it. we just gotta work them out. hopefully with a lot of playtesting with different versions of the deck i can work them out before regionals. i just need to find a solid decklist that can do decent against everything.

Mentara

03-24-2005, 12:57 AM

Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it. You pretty much have a point with most of the things. Especially when dealing with agro decks. But I haven't been losing to a lot of agro decks lately, I really haven't. I have to admit they're my toughest matchup, but far from impossible to win. As long as I draw Engineered Explosives or Wrath of God somewhere in the early game things turn out not that bad.

Concerning this:

ohh and why arent you using trinket mage? he's your main man. ( next to salvagers ) he fetches any tool you need from your toolbox.

This is pretty obvious since the deck doesn't like to tap out during it's own turn. However the presence of the 3 Gifts Ungiven creates a way to fetch every cog you didn't already draw. Most important: at end of turn. (as mentioned before that's pretty neat with Rewind btw)

I really like my new build with 3 Salvagers as the only creatures, and so far there haven't been a lot of situations where I wish I had the Mage. Even if I can't counter an Extraction, or I lose all my Salvagers one way or another, I still won some of those games with the Genju's. And after SB-ing things only get better against those matchups as Meloku and Keiga join the party.

Hope this enlightens some of my previous statements.

Cheers,

Rezeep89

03-25-2005, 07:25 AM

If were playing a black deck U MUST COUNTER CRANIAL or else you will probably lose because when they hit salvagers its alot harder to draw, also the meloku and keiga are awesome in the sideboard when you play decks with cranial,Karma needs to be played in the sideboard i dont know why its not in the sides i have seen

My list

3 Creatures
3 Auriok Salvagers

20 Spells
3 Hinder
3 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Leak
3 Rewind
2 Condescend
3 Wrath of God
2 Cranial Extraction

4 Enchantments
2 Genju of the Falls
2 Genju of the Fields

9 Artifacts
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Sensei's Divining Top

24 Lands
12 Island
7 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
3 Mirrodin's Core

15 Sideboard
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Cranial Extraction
3 Karma
3 bribery
3 Sacred Ground
1 Wrath of God
2 Engineered Explosives

IHaveGas

03-26-2005, 07:55 AM

I dont really believe that Karma's need to be played. in my opinion this deck should win to every black deck out there. the only card you have to watch out for is cranial extraction. thats why the extra countermagic in the sideboard is needed.

I mean really karma just again removes more of our removal when we sideboard it in. there really isnt any room vs black. you need all the removal and stall you can.

Aggro Black can easily be stopped by explosives, spellbombs, wraths, and ghostly prisons. Like i said the only really card you have to worry about for black is extraction. i think karma should only be used in a deck like white weenie when you are racing to deal damage. and most MBA decks are only running 12 or so swamps. so usually it doesnt put a huge impact in at all.

for MBC i would probably use karma's because they are using 24 or more swamps. there is no real race for board control so a karma hitting play would effect them a hell of a lot more then a MBA. plus vs a control you have the time to sit and wait.

B/G is another reason why i wouldnt use them. they are more aggro then MBC and they are running forests as well. so this deck is probably even worse to put a karma down then MBA. there usually only using like 2-4 life a turn. which vs a deck like that its just not fast enough.

dont get me wrong Karma is a great SB card vs some black decks. I will probably take your advice and throw a couple in my sideboard. i always have 3 or more slots changing all the time anyways. but i believe they are not a "must have" for this decks sideboard.

GenericKen

04-08-2005, 03:07 AM

A thought just suddenly occured to me:

Has anybody thought of Possessed Portal? Salvagers is actually the portal's best freakin friend, and the portal can most certainly help seal a lock.

Not sure if you'd wanna tap out to lay it though.

Synergy_Man

04-09-2005, 05:51 PM

hehe i never thought of possed portal probably cause its too slow and it sucks. And mentra u really like the control build but if u like all of those counters play MUC. i think maybe hinder or condescend but from results condesced and only condescend is the choice. And fly on the wall i played at a FNM with only 8 people:(.

2x WW equip
1x bringer stuff
1x G/U control
3x solid rouge decks.
1x me

1st round vs WW: i drop land wayfarrers. He drops auriok glaivemaster. next trn i pop bauble and he plays auriok steelshaper and atcks. Then i play salvegers. He plays shakari and slitter. equips and atcks, i take and im at 13. Then i play pyrite with and mountain and pop to kill glavemaster. then i play chrome sphere and pop to add W and i play aether bomb with blue open. He plays skirmasher and equips glaivemaster. He atacks and i bounce. I return and pop pyrite and he scoops.

Next game: NO SB changes for me or him. he gets quick jhitte but i quickly control board with meluko and salvager , pyrite, sunbeam.

1-0

Next round Bringer: i pretty much controled hilm with necro spell bomb and he couldn't recover from card disadvantage.
Game 2:same

2-0

Round 3 vs rouge: it was weird but a little too rougy. He got landscrewed and thats it.

Game 2: he plays some red quick stuff and blue stuff. I couldnt get salvagers until turn 7 and i lost.

Game 3: i stabilize quickly with salvager, pyrite, and get to 50 life on turn 10. i play pristine and meluko and he scoops.

3-0, it was only 3 rounds cause of small turnout. I won and i loved at end of day sunbeam spellbomb. He got my life back constantly. Here is my decklist:

# Card
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyrite spellbomb
1 Sunbeam spellbomb
2 AEther spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
2 Necrogen Spellbomb
4 Wayfarers Bauble
3 Chrome Sphere
4 Wrath of God
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
4 Auriok Salvagers
2 Pristine Angel
4 Condescend
2 Meluko, The Clouded Mirror
8 Islands
10 Plains
2 Swamps
2 Mountains
and i didnt get WOG or condescend once:(. woulda helped vs WW. but a sweet tourny.

Khorshed

04-09-2005, 08:34 PM

Has anybody tried dropping in a white* Bringer or two? Free artifact return late game, and a 5/5 trampler. As long as you're repeatedly casting Wayfarer's Bauble, you'll have the WGRUB to cast it. If you really wanted, you could alter the deck list a little to add in a few copies of Fabricate. Would anybody consider changing their decklist to accommodate this? If so, what 2cc+ artifact would you add to the mix?

*Or you could add in the black Bringer, to add his insane search ability. Or the blue Bringer for crazy card draw. Or, if you wanted to be a real pain, add the red Bringer...or...Door to Nothingness.

New ideas? Comments?

Synergy_Man

04-10-2005, 04:38 PM

lol door to nothingness. The bringers are too slow and green isnt run in this deck. Fabricate is too slow and is just 1 card so u wouldnt cahnge to put 2cc artifacts when the only fetch is fabricate. But on the topic of big creatures i changed it to 4 pristine but wut do think. The viable big creatures are:

Meluko
Pristine
Yoesi
Keigia
and i forgot rest but those are most reliable.

Khorshed

04-10-2005, 06:30 PM

I would definately take a forest and a bringer over Pristine Angel numbers three and four. You actually wouldn't even need to change your land base if you're running Chromatic Sphere. A couple surprise Bringers would definately be better than making Pristine a four-of.

Door To Nothingness, I hope everybody realizes, was a joke =P

Synergy_Man

04-11-2005, 06:30 PM

Pristine is more consistant because it is resistant to bouncers tappers can block bigges, and bringer can get killed by blacked, bounced by blue or controlled, mass deestructed by white, green will have huge beaters on u when u play it, and red will take controll of it or burn it or if it is fast finish u. It is just slow. And pristgine can only get hit by mass destruct and maybe some black barters or DC.

SpnkAMnkyDaly

04-11-2005, 08:19 PM

How come people feel the need to post approximitly 30,000 diffrent threads for the same deck ideas. This is at least the fifth one of these I've seemed in the last week. If people actually posted on the same threads it would be alot easier for everyone that needed help.

As for the deck run 4x Explosives between the main and the side. Red/White Weenie seems like it would be a horrible matchup for you. Although getting down a Salvangers quickly would help because hes got a nice fat butt.

Mentara

04-12-2005, 12:57 AM

Sorry to interrupt the major black spash idea, but I've played a little more with my control build of Salvagers, and made some minor changes, this is the current list:

3 Creatures
3 Auriok Salvagers

18 Spells
4 Condescend
2 Gifts Ungiven
4 Mana Leak
4 Rewind
4 Wrath of God

2 Enchantments
2 Genju of the Fields

12 Artifacts
3 Aether Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble

25 Lands
12 Island
7 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
4 Mirrodin's Core

15 Sideboard
3 Bribery
3 Circle of Protection: Red
3 Sacred Ground
2 Boseju Who Shelters All
1 Keiga, the Tide Star
1 Meloku the Clouded Mirror
1 Scrabling Claws
1 Engineered Explosives

I dropped two blue Genju's and changed them for two more AEther Spellbomb because as stated before they're really necessary in multiples.

I added one Sensei's Divining Top, but I'm not quit sure if I'll leave it in. It might get replaced by a single Sunbeam Spellbomb, I don't know.

One, because you don't want your Salvagers destroyed vs mono black or maybe even red decks. Always leave one Aether Spellbomb on the board when you play Salvagers. And two, they have more use in the deck then two more Genju's, and when facing control the spellbombs might serve as mini-card drawing that will hardly ever get countered.

Some people asked me why I don't just play Mono U Control or U/W Control. Well, basically because I like the versatility of being able to play counterspells and mass destruction in the same deck. It has served me more then well back the Onslaught block days. So that leaves out the mono U.

So why not play U/W Control you say?

I don't think regular U/W control is half as versatile this deck can be. I pretty much have acces to everything. Counterspells and mass destruction (control) to start with. Add lifegain, direct damage, discard, bounce, mana acceleration, fatties, and a game winning lock to that, and you have one of the most versatile decks you can play in the current standard metagame.

Second thing is the fact I think our sideboard is more effective too. We can have tools for every single matchup. The most important ones (Tooth, WW, U/X Control) eat up most of the sideboardspace ofcourse, but that's normal. I know U/W has the same possibilities towards sideboarding, but some things just don't fit their build very well. Like extra Engineered Explosives or Scrabbling Claws. And I still have those 3 COP: Red I can switch to whatever I feel the metagame needs. (maybe some Chalice of the Void)

kaskamerica

04-12-2005, 02:27 AM

My current build of Salvagers!

4 Auriok Salvager
4 Trinket Mage
3 Meloku, The Clouded Mirror

4 Aether Spellbomb (bounce threats)
4 Sunbeam Spellbomb (nullify beats)
4 Necrogen Spellbomb (discard LOCKDOWN)
4 Chromatic Sphere (nice draw engine plus mana filter)

4 Mana Leak
4 Hinder
4 Wrath of God

8 Plains
8 Islands
3 Swamps
3 Tendo Ice Bridge

I really dont see how the deck works as good as it does but mainly because it is a control format. If your Salvager is attempted at getting Extracted, play for one of the 8 counters! I havent really worked on much of a board for the deck but I figure it would be something like this.

4 Kira, Great Glass-Spinner (MUC cause Shackles shuts us down)
4 Cranial Extraction (Tooth)
4 Bribery (Tooth/MBC/B-G Cloud)
3 Karma (MBC and MBA)

Synergy_Man

04-12-2005, 02:48 PM

OK let everyone know this that this deck has like 3 names salvagers, cog control, and tool box; but they all rely on having many options with fetching from trinket and can get u out of many situations. so run a deck with more 1 mana artifacts and u can run 1 ofs.

Tassador

04-12-2005, 03:30 PM

i like this deck but what do you do vs muc?

Synergy_Man

04-12-2005, 04:43 PM

u have to get necro bomb and make them tap out for auriok thats why now i run early frost in SB so i can get auriok and win from there.

Saint_Fuse

04-12-2005, 05:18 PM

Here is my decklist for my FNM build. This is easily my favorite deck in standard right now. I have messed around with many builds and still havent found the best version although I prefer the red over black for the better sideboard.

This is my latest deck i played.

Creatures
3 Auriok Salvager
3 Trinket Mage
1 Meloku
2 Pristine Angel

Spells
4 Wrath of God
4 Mana Leak
4 Condescend
2 Thirst for Knowledge
2 Shrapnel Blast

Artifacts
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Engineered Explosives
2 Aether Spellbomb
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Conjurer's Bauble

Sideboard
4 Boil
1 Shrapnel Blast
3 Bribery
3 Sacred Ground
2 Kira. Glass Spinner
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Obliterate

I played 2 Mono Red Decks and 2 Mono Blue Decks, going 3-0-1 into top 8. I played against a White Weenie build first match and lost 0-2, but VERY VERY close games both matches.

I used to love the shrapnel blast version of the deck, but this is the first time i tried it after the bannings and I love the deck, but with the arti-lands out I am going to replace them. Tested Kira this time around and I like the card, its near impossible to kill your stuff with Kira out, but I didnt hit and Black which was what I put him/her in there for.

This deck actually has a great chance against MUC, before and after sideboard. You really need to play off your Boil after sideboard, and game 1 just counter his key cards (O-Stone, Shackles) Let him have his bribery go through, its easy to bounce or wrath the Pristine Angel away. Dont play a Boil Turn 3-4, get some counters in your hand and cast it with some Blue open and counter anything that tries to stop it.

Im taking the deck again but I am changing some things such as.

Sideboard-
4 Boil
2 Bribery (Great against MBC and T&N)
2 Engineered Explosives
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb (Side against WW/Red)
3 Sacred Ground
3 Squelch

Mainboard
-2 Shrapnel Blast
-1 Conjurer's Bauble

+1 Pristine Angel
+1 Bribery
+1 Scrabbling Claws

Tassador

04-12-2005, 06:28 PM

hmmm... what about defense grid? it's not 1cc or less but at least it stalls long enough to get board control out?

gepsy

04-13-2005, 04:50 AM

Synergy_Man

04-13-2005, 10:01 AM

Defense grid isn't too good, and sait i like ur deck but i think chrome sphere is very good in this deck.

Khorshed

04-13-2005, 11:11 AM

If you're going to consider Possessed Portal with Myr Servitors, you might as well think about tossing in Silen Arbiter. Arbiter + Servitors is great against pretty much every rogue deck I've played against, and limits WW to flyers, and all but shuts down Meloku. Won't do much for TnN, but you have Aether/Necrogen Spellbombs for that.

Synergy_Man

04-14-2005, 06:09 PM

I mean arbitor on its own could be viable in this deck, and keep this thread alive i really don't want to go to ANOTHER cog deck thread like the 4353453 thread on this.

Khorshed

04-14-2005, 10:10 PM

Maybe somebody sticky this then? The thread does come up a lot, and it's been front page for over a week now, it's definately being discussed.

By the way, why does everybody run City of Brass over Glimmervoid? It's not like you'll ever have a shortage of artifacts early, and if you need to sacrifice them all late, your land should already be set up, so it won't hurt so much.

Synergy_Man

04-16-2005, 05:45 AM

I don't like running either city or glimmer i just think it is too tisky too many times. and one card that is devistating to this deck is obviously damping matrix because u cant pop spellbombs and cant cast auriok or salvager so watch out for this.

ZACO01

04-16-2005, 06:53 PM

Khorshed

04-16-2005, 10:46 PM

With the overwhelming lack of artifact hate these days, when do you ever -not- have an artifact in play? Obviously, in the early game. I would hope you would have the common sense to not hold a one-land hand anyway, so you should be just fine to not lose it. I run three Glimmervoids and one Mirrodin's Core, and I've yet to sacrifice a land.

Some of the decks in here are pretty good but for the most part they are subpar decks trying to be good. I hope most of you see the way to enlightment and good deck versions.
Do you suppose subpar inflammatory posts will actually fix things?

Synergy_Man

04-17-2005, 05:14 AM

ZACO01 show me ur deck list plz. And here is my updated list.

# Card
1 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyrite spellbomb
1 Sunbeam spellbomb
2 AEther spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
4 Wayfarers Bauble
3 Chromatic Sphere
4 Wrath of God
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
4 Auriok Salvagers
2 Pristine Angel
4 Condescend
2 Meluko, The Clouded Mirror
11 Islands
10 Plains
3 Mountains

Sideboard:
3 Bribery
4 Karma
3 Sacred Ground
4 Sowing Salt
1 Sensei’s Diving Top

In MD i think i might want to MD more pyrite spell bombs. and in SB i had Sensei cause i have 1 slot and i dont have the extra brib or sacred but it can be good vs non-aggro decks

Saint_Fuse

04-18-2005, 10:01 AM

Lets see here.....

MUC runs what 4 SS and the rest Islands?

SO Boil hits 20-22 of there lands?

My deck runs 6 Islands, thats right 6!

Boil backed by counter spells means game against MUC, and for your information this deck takes me to top 8 (tooth match up is hard).

Who cares if I kill 3-4 of my lands, I have 18 other mana sources in my deck that dont get blown up.

I love when high and mighty people try to talk down decks, when they dont even understand the concept behind them.

I just love it.

Synergy_Man

04-18-2005, 04:02 PM

Well ya if u run 6 islands then yes boil could have potential but mine runs 11 and that is followed by 10 plains. So it is devestating to me and vs Tooth just run bribery in SB.

ZACO01

04-18-2005, 08:31 PM

I was going to waste my time in this thread but with fools like Saint_Fuse running around, forget it. I most likely know how to play the deck better than what you ever will. Anyone awesome enough to play Obliterate in a deck that has no indestructibles or enchanments should not be allowed to talk at all. What a pile!!! You heard me. Oh, using Boil in the side doesn't really help you. You don't understand the fact that your deck plays a greater amount of blue cards than you do of white. I guess leaving out the mana base does help you make up a base that doesn't make you look like that big of a noob. 14 blue cards and 9 white ones, plus 2 cards depended on the blue but only one on the white. Hmmm, I guess blue mana are not really needed to play those blue spells. Boil does not belong in the deck. You are better off with 4 COP: Red, there will be plenty of decks with red in them at any big tourney. My bad, I forgot you are the type of player that end up last at any tourney worth while. Learn how to play and deck build, then you may be allowed to talk some trash.

Synergy Man: Your deck looks pretty solid. How has it done? Have you put it up against the gaunlet (at least the one we got so far)? How has Sowing Salt worked out for you? If you could post some matchup analysis, that would be hot. If you want to see my build just PM and I will send it to you. later.

Synergy_Man

04-23-2005, 07:21 AM

So far the deck has run pretty well. Against Ponza and MBC sacred ground laughs in there face and u just run them over while they have 2-3 dead cards in hand. Against Tooth MD this deck is very resilant, even without salvagers. The only card im thinking of cutting is meluko because she gets bribed, shackled, or just easily killed. So im thinkin of another pristine and a pyrite. Pristine is amazing. Muc is the biggest problem because there is no big SB or MD against it. Maybe necro spellbomb but the mathup is very hard. Maybe 4 defense grids in SB and SB out condescends. That would hurt them. Maybe tesharis grasp could be useful MD or SB for shcackles.

Synergy_Man

04-23-2005, 05:54 PM

Im very sorry for the double post but i just played at a saterday type 2 tourney with competitiveness 2x FNM and would just like to report.
I only played 3 rounds and had to go, soo.
1st round vs Tooth:
I get bouble, and 3rd turn salvager. He accels and gets turn 6 tooth countered:). He witnesses it and tooths. I have no land thanks to titan and lose, even though i fought iit with aether he just played it again and again.

2nd game: +4 sowing salt +3 bribery -2 engineered explosives - 4 WOGs -1 condescend

3rd turn sowing salt and control the board for win.

3rd game: same

2nd round vs greeen becon splash: Engineered explosives was fantastic it killed becon tolens, jitte, and his witness troll and wood elf army. I controlled board with that and sunbeam for enough life to withstand 2 full rudes. I win

game 2: no SB (sigh)
He gets becon off early and i fin neither trinket, WOG, or ee. he wins.

game 3:
I get 3rd turn salvagers and draw like 3 cards a turn thanks to conjurerrs bauble. I stabilize with ee. he scoops to meluko.

Round 3 vs WW:
This was very close. First turn he gets chrome land samuri pale curtain. Then he gets jitte and hound. Then equips and another samuri. I WOG. He gets hikori and i couldnt survive.

game 2: 1 EE
I get ee and pop and aether his threats. block with salvagers and trinket. Play meluko after WOG and he scoops.

game 3: He gets me to 4 life with only a hikori after some wog. His is equiped with jitte. I get ee and pop away jitte. He getss anthem and im at 1. I aether his kikori and has no land. I open my mana and play salvager and stabilize very quickly. I get sunbeam and go to 51 life in 4 turns. I win.

3-0 I was very proud of my deck. Tooth is the hardest matchup so far. And the biggest threat card is rude because i have nothing against it but sunbeam and meluko to stall a turn. Maybe condescend. Here is the decklist i played:

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyrite spellbomb
1 Sunbeam spellbomb
2 AEther spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
4 Wayfarers Bauble
3 Conjurer’s Bouble
4 Wrath of God
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
4 Auriok Salvagers
2 Pristine Angel
2 Meluko, the Clouded Mirror
4 Condescend
10 Islands
10 Plains
4 Mountains

Sideboard:
3 Bribery
4 Sacred Ground
4 Sowing Salt
1 Engineered Explosives
3 Karma

Dommo

04-23-2005, 11:49 PM

Why not put a creature like kami of false hope in this deck for play against aggro decks. That would be a perfect hoser. Get a body/can fog. Perfect for delaying against the oncoming hordes.

Mentara

04-24-2005, 03:33 AM

Why not put a creature like kami of false hope in this deck for play against aggro decks. That would be a perfect hoser. Get a body/can fog. Perfect for delaying against the oncoming hordes.

Well, I don't really think that would change a lot to the current matchups, I think you might as well run extra counters in their spot, or just Wrath of God, or more Explosives. If It was an artifact creature for the same cost, it would be broken in this deck, but alas, it isn't.

It 's just that on the first turn I'd rather play some Cog than a 1/1 Kami.

Any other opinions on this?

Synergy_Man

04-24-2005, 05:55 AM

Very true u would just play a WOG or an EE in the place because destroying all creatures is much beter than stalling ur death for a turn.

Fly On The Wall

04-24-2005, 02:55 PM

Here is my decklist:

4 Trinket Mage
3 Auriok Salvagers
2 Pristine Angel

2 Salvaging Station
2 Aether Spellbomb
1 Pyrite Spellbomb
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
4 Wayfarer's Bauble
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Engineered Explosives

4 Wrath of God
4 Condescend
4 Rewind
4 Serum Vision

9 Island
9 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Mountain

SB:
4 Quash
3 Millstone
3 Karma
3 Ghostly Prison
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Bribary

I included 2 Salvaging stations which are amazing. The Auriok Salvagers tap out lots of mana, the stations allow free cogs. Whenever you wrath, you wont lose a salvager and it goes nuts with the station returning all the cogs. It saved me against tooth with recuring necrogen spellbomb. Sundering Titan destroys this deck, make them discard at end of their draw step gets around a lot of their spells. People were arguing between red or black, but the deck is a toolbox and both can easily be used. Fetch pyrite against aggro,fetch necrogen against control. This build is very solid.

Sideboard: Quash kills tooth and deathcloud, the only problems is buseiju, but getting an early quash on Kadama's reach is great. Millstones are just a basic alternate win against slow matchups like MUC, and are easier to protect and play early. I played karma against mono black decks and it murders them. Get it off before craniel and that's game. Ghostly prison helps against aggro, i was wondering how to fit it in the main. Chalice of the void set for 2 counters crushes WW. That's half their spells, including jitte. Trinket for it on turn 3, play turn 4, finish off their few threats. Bribary helps against tooth. Just take one of their fatties before they can, nuf said. I never played ponza or needed sacred ground.

I never had luck with scrabbling claws, I can never fetch it in time, and if i do, it uses up a cog fetch that could of helped me like necrogen.

Crimson_King

04-24-2005, 07:11 PM

on the kami of false hope thing, i dont really see why you should'nt just run somthing like ghostly prison it works more than once, plus it really gives u some set up time agianst agro decks.

Synergy_Man

04-24-2005, 07:37 PM

Salvaging station wouldnt help at all vs tooth because they go off befor or on turn 6. so thats a waste of a turn.

Fly On The Wall

04-24-2005, 10:40 PM

kami of the false hope? wtf? that is just a waste of a slot, ghostly prison is better. Your not going to lose by turn 3 anyway. WW doesn't have haste, wrath of god is a good answer. I sideboard in Chalice of the Void which which is very disrupting, counters all their 2cc guys and doesn't effect anything in this deck. Turn 3 trinket mage for engineered explosives (and expendable blocker) and turn 4 explosives for about 1 or 2 clears them, then just set it up to return and pop.

Vs. Tooth and Nail, the salvaging station wasn't a silver bullet, just kept my mana open, as long as 1 swamp is untapped, i can play whatever i want. I counter early land fetching, put out necrogen/trinket for it, pop it, salvaging station/auriok salvager, return necrogen, pop necrogen, repeat with countering back-up. Once they lose their hand, they die. Everything is managable in tooth except the sundering titan. After boarding in quash and bribary, this deck gains the edge. Quash kadama's reach or sylvian and they get hit hard. Quash a tooth and its over. With a turn 1 wayfarer bauble and turn 4 bribary for their sundering titan, I screwed their mana and bashed them in for a win.

I thought salvaging station was a waste and 6 mana was expensive, but its not. The Auriok Salvagers are very mana intenseive with 2 to return, 1 to play, 1 to pop, 2 to return, etc. 4 mana to return a cog can be a lot and eat up valuable mana early game. I have more counters and they work best with open land. The salvaging station hits play and immediatly returns a cog to play. Attacking and blocking with trinket mages and trading weenie creatures turbo charges the station returning everything in the grave. It also has good synergy with wrath, doesn't get destroyed and returns cogs. The main man auriok is still there however.

The diving top with the serum vision is amazing for digging through the deck to find wrath, karma, bribary, angel, salvager, and anything not cog.

Synergy_Man

04-25-2005, 07:02 AM

Station is too slow in this format because evryone has a faste win or runs control so station wont help vs beats and not against control , it will be countered. And prison is good u just dont know weather to run it or not.

Synergy_Man

04-26-2005, 03:59 PM

KEEP TALKING we cant let this thread die so talk constructively.

Khorshed

04-26-2005, 06:09 PM

Has anybody tried running Leonin Squire? Leonin Squire with Aether Spellbomb is an amazing early stall tactic versus aggro decks. It helps with early card draw, because you can more easily pay the colorless mana to draw a card knowing you have retrieval in your hand. If nothing else, you pay the same 1W as activating the Salvagers, but you get a 2/2 to go with it. I've actually found Leonin Squire to be more useful than Meloku because of the early benefits. I've never really had any issues controlling the board once I get set up, Meloku is just a "speed things up" card.

Synergy, do you really need 24 lands plus 4 Wayfarer's Bauble to run that deck? I run three Baubles and only run 21 lands total, and it's always fine for playing with 4-5 colors of mana. My land base looks like this:

4 Glimmervoid
6 Island
1 Minamo, School at Water's Edge
6 Plains
1 Eiganjo Castle
2 Mountain
1 Swamp

Of course, my main build only vaguely resembles most of the others on this thread, but it works extremely well for me. I guess my point is: If I'm running a 21 land deck with a need for 4-5 colors of mana and I've yet to get screwed, is 24 land too much for a three color deck?

Khorshed

04-26-2005, 06:13 PM

On a humorous note, I played this deck against WW last week. I drew and played three Ghostly Prisons by turn five. I played the fourth Ghostly Prison by turn eight. My opponent was using Aether Vial to get Hokori into play whenever I bounced him, so neither of us could untap lands, and he couldn't pay eight just to attack. That was one long, painful game.

Synergy_Man

04-27-2005, 05:47 AM

Well i dont run prison but im thinking of MDing 2 maybe but leonin squire, I have found is an awful stall vs aggro because they either are running some burn to get rid of ur turn 2, black has kill, and white has evasion. So i found it is just early beats and this deck isnt about early beats. It can still be good in some prediciments but more likely than not it wil do bad. Meluko is in there to handle WW, because of flying. ONce u get him out it is gg (unless they have SOFI).

Khorshed

04-27-2005, 04:10 PM

I think I like Ghostly Prison as better WW control, as compared to Meloku. I was definately looking at Meloku as a win condition, not as an answer to a deck type. That does raise the value of Meloku in my eyes, and it could also save Glimmervoid if that need should ever arise.

Even if Leonin Squire just gets killed right away, who cares? His purpose is early recursion, before you have the four mana to pay for Salvagers and the two to activate it. Leonin Squire can get back your Aether Spellbomb to bounce their creatures, or can block, then be bounced via Aether Spellbomb to fend off weenies. Even if red and black have easy answers to it, that's a kill card they'll be wasting on a creature that I run almost exclusively for his comes-into-play ability. That turn, for them, likely could have been better spent playing something else. I do find myself boarding them out versus WW, though. It looks something like -3 Leonin Squire, -2 Bribery, +4 Ghostly Prison, +1 Pristine Angel. I don't see nearly as much Tooth as I used to, and I'm not sure how exactly to change my deck. So I'll post a deck list for once. Feel free to mock it once you've actually tried it.

2 Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo
1 Pristine Angel
4 Auriok Salvagers
3 Leonin Squire
4 Trinket Mage
2 Vedalken Archmage
1 Bringer of the White Dawn

2 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Necrogen Spellbomb
2 Pyrite Spellbomb
2 Engineered Explosives
3 Aether Spellbomb
3 Wayfarer's Bauble

3 Thirst for Knowledge
3 Evacuation
2 Bribery
1 Acquire

4 Glimmervoid
7 Island
5 Plains
2 Eiganjo Castle
2 Mountain
1 Swamp

Sideboard:
1 Pristine Angel
4 Ghostly Prison
2 Acquire
4 Hinder
2 Quash
2 Rewind

Right now I'm looking at taking out the Acquires from main and sideboard. I think I want to put one more Opal-Eye in main, but I don't know what I'd do with those last sideboard spots. Maybe I'd use two copies of Condescend. My main fear is that this deck would no longer destroy every Tooth deck in games two and three (via Bribery and Acquire, while countering land search), with a good shot at winning game one. I'm also undecided on the Vedalken Archmage. It's absolutely incredible if I drop it turn 3-6, but if I play it after that, I already have plenty of cards. I don't want to default automatically to Meloku, as that seems more like a sideboard card for this deck than a solid choice for main deck because of its insane mana requirements. Other than Meloku, I'm also considering another two Bringers, but I'm not sure what combination of blue/white I'd like. Suggestions?

Synergy_Man

04-28-2005, 08:52 AM

That deck is definetly different. So do u just lose if they play matrix cause u have 0 counters. Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo seems random and not very good. It just doest follow a good guideline. Go to the beggining and look at the lists posted that were tournement winners. Those are the better versions and go from there.

Khorshed

04-28-2005, 10:18 AM

So do u just lose if they play matrix cause u have 0 counters.
Yes.

Damping Matrix is potentially a huge threat. That's assuming, of course, that somebody actually puts it in a deck. It's very rarely played and when it is, it's generally a 2-of or 3-of in the sideboard. Game two I have plenty of counterspells for Damping Matrix or anything else I don't like. So while Damping Matrix has potential to immediately end game one for me, the odds of that potential being realized are absolutely terrible. I've yet to lose a match to Damping Matrix. All told, I've lost one game to it.

Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo ("") seems random and not very good.
Opal-Eye shuts down a red deck. Completely. Especially when paired with Eiganjo Castle, Opal-Eye is a beast in a lot of matchups. It usually takes three burn cards to kill him, which is three burns I'm avoiding, and three cards my opponent is losing. He also neuters Sword of Fire and Ice, Sword of Light and Shadow, and Umezawa's Jitte. With the recent trend of shifting to aggro decks, how could you argue against a 3cc 1/4 with bushido and a damage prevention ability? It's almost like an Avatar of Hope for six mana less, but he stops burn as well. Opal-Eye causes them more trouble than anything else in the deck, excepting the Necrogen Spellbomb lock and sometimes Explosives.

Go to the beggining and look at the lists posted that were tournement winners. Those are the better versions and go from there.
I'm not even going to ask if you've tried the deck out because it's obvious you haven't. It looks like unusual, but it's a beast to play against. It functions differently in the fact that it works better with itself. You use counterspells and Wrath of God to stall until your deck can actually do something for itself. My deck starts working much faster because of early recursion and better card draw. Where you begin the game as a stall and counterspell deck and eventually end up using cogs, I built the deck to aggressively abuse the theme.

To explain a second unusual card choice, Evacuation works exactly like Wrath of God for stall purposes, but allows me to reuse the comes-into-play abilities of Leonin Squire and Trinket Mage. Evacuation should be much better than Wrath of God in almost all instances, especially considering that a lot of people run Chalice of the Void. How have people not figured this out yet? Keep reading....

It just doest follow a good guideline.
What you mean is "It just doesn't follow the good guideline." That's why I rarely post deck lists, but generally discuss ideas. There's no such thing as THE good guideline, and most people just can't comprehend that. There are different ways to build decks with the same theme. I realize that most people only slightly modify a build that they read somewhere, which causes them to never learn how to actually build decks. Just because I sat down one day and built a deck around Auriok Salvagers simply because it looked like a good idea before I ever read about it online, my deck looks different. It doesn't match the generally accepted build for cog control, but that doesn't mean it's a bad deck. It ought to lose the mirror match more often than not, but this deck is so rarely seen that I couldn't care less about the mirror.

As I said before, feel free to mock it once you've tried it. Until you actually give the deck some thought, though, you probably shouldn't rip it up. If there's a card choice you don't understand - like Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo - that doesn't mean it's stupid. It means you don't understand how to use it yet.

ZACO01

04-28-2005, 02:33 PM

Synergy_Man: What are the answers to Dampening Matrix and Samurai of the Pale Curtain? If any of these guys resolve it is most likely going to be "GG boys" for us. I am thinking about MDing Echoing Truths for I am not one to fully trust counters. SotPC is not that big of a problem for she could be bounced and then countered, even if a cog has to be lost in the process. I am looking forward to hearing your answer. Thanks. later.

Synergy_Man

04-28-2005, 03:29 PM

Well for samuri u can bounce him and matrix is #1 counter targer. Samuri is only played in WW which is a very easy maychup so i wouldnt worry. U have wrath to handle them too. Damping is only stopped by bounce or counter. And Khorshed sry bout dissing ur deck and ill try out opal eye. Maybe it can work but i dont think u need it.

Khorshed

04-28-2005, 09:07 PM

Samurai of the Pale Curtain shouldn't be that big of a problem. You've got plenty of removal with Engineered Explosives, Pyrite Spellbomb, Aether Spellbomb and counters, and Wrath of God. The first two SotPC should be handled with relative ease, it's the third and beyond that start to have a big impact.

Damping Matrix you just have to counter, unless you, for some reason, feel like running Terashi's Grasp. That would be good for, uh, Damping Matrix, Aether Vial, Jitte, and Worship. Since these are mostly found in WW, and you have EE, it wouldn't really be too worthwhile. Just counterspell it when you see it.

Synergy_Man

04-29-2005, 07:32 AM

U cant EE cause it is an activated ability, thats why u must counter but i havent seen matrix around.

ArkadyZ

04-29-2005, 12:40 PM

I have great interest in Salvagers deck myself, and was closely watching Jay Moldenhauer-Salazaar's "Constructing the Preconstructed" experiment on another popular site (he bought two "Bolts and Nuts" precons and went from there). At that point the general consensus was that Withered Wretch totally owned his deck. Today one of the main enemies (if not THE main enemy) is Samurai of the Pale Curtain. My thought back then should work now as well: Chalice of the Void (a cog!) set for 2. If you don't go Leonin Squire route (as is the case with most people here) your deck will have ZERO 2CC spells. Let them try to Naturalize/Echoing Truth/Boomerang/Shatter the Chalice with 2 counters :). I'm not talking about the true control route - then you really need your Mana Leaks to resolve...
About the finishers: has anyone tried Qumulox? I don't own any Pristine Angels/Meloku, so meanwhile will have to go with that guy. I also own a lone Black Bringer - and since I also have 3 Glimmervoids I should be able to "sunburst" it quite often. Is it worth it?

Edited to remove the name of the other Magic site - the forum software was replacing it with stars (ironically, "star" is a part of that site's name) anyway.

Synergy_Man

04-29-2005, 02:14 PM

thats a very good idea. Id put those in SB but the only problem is that is only good vs WW and on turn 3 or 4 with wayferares they will have cast there 2cc spells but samuri is not the big problem cause u have WOG, aether, pyrite, EE, and anything. But im thinkn of MDing truths. Sunburst isnt worth while and bringers arent either. They just arent quick enough.

Khorshed

04-29-2005, 10:52 PM

Sunburst isnt worth while and bringers arent either. They just arent quick enough.
If I can play a Bringer for five, how is that not faster than a 6cc Pristine Angel? Considering that a Bringer either equals free search, artifact recursion, or extra draw, I just can't figure out why people won't run them. If nothing else, playing a black Bringer means Pristine Angel will likely be the next card to hit your side of the table, which is pretty hard to argue with. Could somebody actually post some situations or some reasons why Bringers are so easily rejected?

Synergy_Man

04-30-2005, 08:37 AM

Well for one for bringer u need 1 of each color and most run 3 colors, and ive found that chrome sphere is bad.
2nd pristine is very good cause it is untargetable, flying, and can block everything pretty much.
3rd meluko is as vulnerable as bringer but meluko can make like 3-4 tolkens before it dies while bringer dies.
And there is a reason that there are no decks with bringer and sunburst in them that win.

I just went to a FNM and here is how it went.

Round 1 vs kiki combo: I counter kiki and he plays alarm. He tops a kiki and wins.
game 2: -2 meluko -1 pristine.
I got 4th turn bribe for witness cause he had neither kiki or alarm in hand. I get kiki next turn. I copy and get bribe. He plays a kiki. I get another kiki and he scoops. Next game he plays 2 early shamans and a alarm. He plays kiki and i counter. I birbe for kiki and PULL OFF HIS COMBO!!:).

1-0
Round 2 vs G/B rock: He goes 2nd turn STE and 3rd turn he goes STE. Then he gets another STE. While i got 3rd turn salvager with bauble and 5 lands. So we both had about 9 land on turn 5. He forgot to sac one turn. And the next finally gets his last blck. He clouds for 1 and i counter. I play trinket get EE and kill. He plays cloud for 2. I play pristine with aether. I win.
Game 2: -2 meluko -1 thirst -1 WOG + 4 karma
He gets nothin but STE and jitte. So he has 5 lands, 3 black on turn 4. I got trinket for EE. I get karma. He plays shaman. Atacks and nijitsus and i have aether and pop. The turn he gets stuff. I get salvager and aether his army.

2-0
round 3 vs Ponza:(:
He gets slith. 4th turn slog and i try to stabilize but he finishes me, and i scooped a little early oh well.

game 2: I FORGOT TO SB MY SACRED GROUNDS RAWR!!
He gets early beats and if i had 2nd turn sacred to make his stone rain for my plains useless. So i had 7 lands and 1 was a plains. 4 WOGS in hand.

2-1
Round 4 vs R/G aggro:
The deck sucked bad its win conditgion was slogger but i raped it. I didnt Sb and just mutilated him.

I got 4th with 3-1. If i hadnt made the mistakes vs ponza i may have won. And in the middle of the rounds i played for fun against the winner, WW and i OWNED him with 2 damage on me. And i played against becon and owned i so here are the matchups.

Tier 1:
MUC 50-50
Tooth 60-40
Ponza 35-65
G/x 80-20
tier 1 is vveery equal except for G.
Tier 2
MBC 65-35
G/B 70-30
WW 90-10

So overall it is good but Ponza is the bad matchup and tooth is easy post SB. Ponza is 50-50 post SB but WOG is NECESSARY vs them. MUC is a very close game. Meluko is out in this matchup. Pristine is nuts in this match GL to everyone playin this.

Khorshed

04-30-2005, 10:33 AM

Well for one for bringer u need 1 of each color and most run 3 colors, and ive found that chrome sphere is bad.
2nd pristine is very good cause it is untargetable, flying, and can block everything pretty much.
The mana should never be a problem. Between Wayfarer's Bauble and the possibilities of Mirrodin's Core and Glimmervoid, getting rainbow is pretty easy. I only run one Swamp and two Mountains, yet I'm still rainbow every single game. I don't like Chromatic Sphere either, I'd never put it in this deck as a mana fixer. Pristine Angel is pretty nice, that's why I run it as well. I'd definately maindeck a Meloku or two if I owned them, but that's still not the point of my argument. If people can only keep saying "There's a reason why nobody plays it" and not tell me what the reason is, I'll keep running the Bringers until they wind up proving themselves to be bad choices. Anyway, I'm going to let this part of the discussion die because it's not getting anywhere.

Now, I'm going to ask about the Tooth and Nail matchup with your builds. It looks like pretty much everybody except for me has four Sowing Salt in the sideboard for Tooth. There's also generally 2-3 Bribery in the sideboard. Is Sowing Salt really that much better than just using the Colossus/Titan against the TnN player? Even with a four color mana base, I like to take the Sundering Titan with Bribery sometimes, just to get rid of their forests to prevent them from ever having the GG to cast Tooth. Even if they beat you to the rush, you can just play Bribery or Acquire in game two or three to grab a boarded in Duplicant. Personally, I like the Bribery better than Sowing Salt because it works in a lot of matchups, and usually generates immediate concession versus Tooth and Nail game one.

Majin

04-30-2005, 10:43 AM

my friend runs cranial extraction in his salvagers deck (main) and it is pretty good. maybe you should run it too instead of sowing salt and bribery (no acquire it sux :p)

Synergy_Man

04-30-2005, 11:36 AM

Ya aquire does suck, but cranial no matter what u say doesn't win but a sowing salt does. sowing salt throws them off like 6 turns while a cranial can throw them off 0 turnns. Ok say u cranial befor a tooth and then they hardcast a titan and destroy ur mana base. And if i sowing salt before they go off they have like 4 mana to work with so nothing for at least a good 3 turns. And bribery is in there for MBC, rock, some slow ponzas, kiki, and tooth.
And bringers are just tooo fragile.
MBC can kill
rock can kill
most greeen splash black or can jitte.
MUC counters or bounces
Ponza burns or u cant cause of LD
WW evades it.

So every deck can deal with it right after u play it while pristine can stop all of these but LD. and meluko cant stop most of these and is just is fragile but it has flying and can go out with a bang by making like 8 tolkens.

ZACO01

04-30-2005, 05:58 PM

you bring sacred ground online instead of titan, he should not be a problem. cranial should help massively. Ok, now to tackle an issue. There are serious players and there are non serious players. Khorshed (http://forum.tcgplayer.com/member.php?u=52746), you are totally a non serious player because you are running a deck that produces no consistency. I tested your build and found it to be insanely awful. The bringers are only material for decks that are heavy on the green b/c they can produce the needed mana for it. Bringers are a poor man's excuse for a finisher. They have no evasion plus they trully doesn't add that much. You are trying to make the deck do everything at once. If you want to make a good build, you got to have it concentrate on certain things instead of being all over the place. Sowing Salt is not the answer for Tooth. It trully doesn't do as much, specially if you are up against post version. Pristine and meloku are the best finishers we got. Tooth matchup is going to be insanely hard, specially post board. It has to be played to the best of ones ability. The only thing is that the matchup is not impossible. I have a good feeling about saviors. later vbmenu_register("postmenu_136405", true);

Khorshed

04-30-2005, 06:47 PM

I tested your build and found it to be insanely awful.
I really doubt you actually tested it. I'm generally not much for responding to flames, but seriously, the deck works differently than a standard cog deck, just accept it. Very little of what you post makes any sense. Extraction isn't a win. I was talking about using Bribery to put a Sundering Titan into play under my control. How exactly does Sacred Ground help me there? Maybe you ought to read a post before you start to type. Sowing Salt actually is a great answer to Tooth, right up there with Plow Under. A simple glance through your post history shows you're nothing but a troll, so I won't even respond to the rest of your babbling.

(no acquire it sux :p)
Well, when you only own two copies of Bribery, sometimes you have to make due with the next best thing. Acquire still works for Titan, Colossus, Duplicant, Shackles, and whatever random artifacts happen to float around in rogue decks.

And bringers are just tooo fragile.
MBC can kill
rock can kill
most greeen splash black or can jitte.
MUC counters or bounces
Ponza burns or u cant cause of LD
WW evades it.

Fragile, they are, but so is Auriok Salvagers, right? I see very little MBC or G/B, which definately has something to do with their usefulness. If MUC counters or bounces it, I really don't care too much. It means they're wasting their hand on acceleration, and not on the actual combo. Ponza means sideboard the Bringers out for counterspells, and WW is a complete non-issue for any cog deck. If nothing else, an easy answer is to use Aether Spellbomb to bounce the Bringer in response to destruction, just as you would if somebody tries to destroy the Salvagers. It will cost one more to recast, and that's a pain, but it can really accelerate combos. If it happens to deal five damage every now and then, that's great, but it's not the point.

What, generally, are your life totals when you guys win? Do you stabilize, then lock the game down and win with Pristine? I generally don't "stabilize." I either win or lose. I tend to place a lot of importance on early Aether/Pyrite Spellbombs than most of you, I'd bet.

Synergy_Man

04-30-2005, 08:12 PM

I win 20 to 0 a lot and if i lose it is usually 4 to 0 around. When i win it can be up to 100 because i have stabilized on sunbeam. And every time i win and sometimes when i lose i stabilize, which can be broken. But the biggest thing with this deck is dont give up which i wrongly did once cause i saw i could of topdecked after aether and sunbeam spellbombing my way into some extra turns. and if u think that sowing salt doesnt kill tooth YOUR VERY WRONG!!! and against cloud if they get 2 on turn 3 and u wayfarrers into sowing into turn 3 then u get there base eleminated on turn 3 and they have a useless colorless mana, wup di do. so it is amazing vs tooth.

Synergy_Man

05-01-2005, 04:38 PM

OMG KEEP TALKING there are already imatator threads comin we cant let this thread die!! NEVER!!!!

Synergy_Man

05-02-2005, 06:04 PM

IM SO SRY FOR TRIP POST but right now there seems to be like 10 random threads that are repeated, stupid, casual, and shouldnt be there and we're gettin knocked out of the first page.

Valerofond

05-03-2005, 10:08 AM

Has anyone played this deck against black? When they play Extraction for Salvagers, will the deck have any chance to win? B/G can play extraction turn three. I think for that reason Leonin Squires or Salvaging stations should be run.

Khorshed

05-03-2005, 01:49 PM

Extraction means counterspell. A lot of people, game one, won't know what to name unless you already have one in play. Games two and three, you better have counterspells ready and hope they don't Boseiju the Cranial.

bigdaddyblock

05-03-2005, 03:57 PM

here's my build

8 plains
11 island
3 mountain
1 minamo, school at water's edge

4 auriok salvagers
1 keiga, the tide star
2 meloku the clouded mirror
3 trinket mage
1 yosei, the morning star

2 condescend
3 echoing truth
2 gifts ungiven
4 hinder
3 mana leak
3 aether spellbomb
2 engineered explosives
1 pyrite spellbomb
2 salvaging station
1 sensei's divining top
1 sunbeam spellbomb
2 wayfarer's bauble

3 blood moon
3 ghostly prison
2 sacred ground
3 quash
3 terashi's grasp
1 scrabbling claws

blood moon is tech vs TaN and shuts down boseiju.

Synergy_Man

05-03-2005, 04:57 PM

blood moon is good but why not just sowing salt, besides the fact it has 2 red in it, umm i think u want scrab clams main. The 2 dragons are unecessary and once u play pristine u will be beyond pleased with it. And when i got extracted which has been twice i didnt counter it but he named EE, which is a good choice sometimes. And the other guy had it countered. It didnt realy effect the game cause i had pristine in hand and owned him with that.

IHaveGas

05-03-2005, 06:08 PM

Why are some of you all having problems against T&N that should be a real easy matchup. your main concerns should be MUC. That is definitally this decks hardest matchup.

This deck is solidly built to beat aggro decks and less heavy control decks. so 4x ghostly prisons is a must have. it also works good against rude awakenings and meloku.

also i have started to playtest salvaging stations and they might actually work in this environment right now. i have yet to see much artifact hate in any tourney i have been to recently. yes its not early game but this deck can survive a long haul against any deck out there via all the cogs and stall.

LOL i gave up on this post a long time ago. no one was posting. well i will keep posting as long as you all help keep it up.

Synergy_Man

05-03-2005, 07:14 PM

Ya ive done like half the postin so i will stay on it. prisons are alright but dont seem to be good in the matchups we have trouble with. But if u havent seen artifact hate well thats the opposite here, cause everyone says there are always good artifacts around so they dont take it out. It doesnt hurt the deck but if i had station it would.

bigdaddyblock

05-04-2005, 05:57 PM

the reson i play blood moon vs sowing salt is that sowing salt is :2::r::r:. since i am running 3 colors and only run 3 mountains, i have to be real lucky. yes i understand recurring wayfarer's bauble could help that, but i want to make sure that boseiju stays offline consistently, and blood moon is cheaper and only requires a red source. if i was packing more mountains or had a hell of a lot of mana fixers in the deck to where i can get two red sources within the first five turns, i could understand sowing salt, but since the red is a splash, sowing salt isn't too effective. since i am running mainly on basics with 1 minamo, blood moon barely affects me.

you do have a point with scrabbling claws..... it should have a place in the main, but since space is soooo tight here, i could never find a card to take out.

if i owned any pristines, i would happily run it, but the dragons have been doing well here in their place.

Synergy_Man

05-05-2005, 02:28 PM

Dragons are a good replacement and i understadn the sowing salt not being use but i think it is much better considering i always get it. and scrabbling claws is a good card to slip in even if u must sacrifice cards.

bigdaddyblock

05-05-2005, 03:46 PM

ive been doing some tinkering around with welding jar in the deck, and it is quite effective if we are running stations. since some of the players here have been realizing they need some form of arti-hate in their decks, i've been toying with the concept, and it just is a very nice option. seeing most of the hate allows for regen, (except for oxidize, splinter, and detonate, but detonate is kinda sub-par, since most decks will have to waste an entire turn to detonate for 6 and i haven't seen too much of splinter around) i found it is a great way to keep your station alive when hate is aimed there. maybe as a 1 of in the board, but it had a big impact with keeping my station alive, which in the late game, is necessary to keeping it in play so you can recur your cogs to pull off a victory.

comments?

Mishra-

05-05-2005, 04:31 PM

here's a combo version of the deck thats probably the best version:

4 Intruder Alarm
4 Lifespark Spellbomb

4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mage

1 Pyrite Spellbomb
3 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Serum Visions
3 Inspiration
4 Wrath of God

4 Chrome Mox
4 Forbidden Orchard
4 City of Brass
3 Coastal Tower
5 Island
4 Plains

This deck is great fun and can go off fairly fast.

Synergy_Man

05-05-2005, 04:41 PM

ya it CAN go off buy u really dont want to go the combo route. EVERYONE LISTEN HERE this deck is purely control and no aggro or combo in it at all. so stay away from cards like leonin squire cause it is aggro and this is control. and i guess its good but the only thing is it is easily stopped. and there's a reason there are no cmbos out there winning consistantly cause KCI is gone. and station is too slow and if it is vs a slow deck then it will have answers or the deck is tier 2-3.

Fly On The Wall

05-05-2005, 08:08 PM

Mishra: I think your deck is far from being the best, but your right, cogs are a lot of fun. A few things i see with your deck are...

Chrome mox; You don't have any amazing 2 mana drops that it can accelerate. It removes another card from your hand which is not good card advantage. I don't see what the mox can do that wayfarer's bauble can't besides a turn 2 trinket mage.

Intruder alarm? It has a little synergy with lifespark, but thats it. You are either hurting yourself consistently with COB to activate lifespark or give your opponent free blockers with the orchard which doesn't allow intuder alarm to control the board.

The mana base does not allow access to green or red mana without hurting you or giving your oppenent creatures. The pyrite spellbomb without any mountains is rough, especially when it is a primary card.

I'm sorry to burn you deck, but you have orchards, COBs, moxes, intruder alarms, which are all money cards that have no synergy with the deck. If you lose a salvager in play, then you have nothing in the deck to win with.

The best combo version of this deck is using Salvaging Station with March of the Machines. Sac cog, untap, return, sac, untap... it is insane. I think it is too unstable for competetive tournaments and ordering the stack can be a nightmare but once the combo is off, you return more cogs than you have. Cogs fight for you and die for you in combat just to instantly return to play and savlaging station is a 6/6 beat stick.

Salvaging station is definately not too slow. It only taps your mana once. Even if Auriok Salvager comes into play, you have to tap out each turn afterward to get just 1 cog into play. I prefer both. Green decks can naturalize it, but have no answer for auriok. Black can terror auriok, but has no answers for the station. Even WW can jitte auriok. It is best to have multiple win conditions.

Control is the way to go! I play with 8 counters and necrogen spellbomb. Counters are great because it doesn't matter what your oppenent is playing because they simply can't cast anything important. Necrogen spellbomb also just tells them to take their combo and stick it in the grave. Then wrath keeps the board clear. Cogs are great, they can do anything.

Khorshed

05-05-2005, 09:23 PM

EVERYONE LISTEN HERE this deck is purely control and no aggro or combo in it at all. so stay away from cards like leonin squire cause it is aggro and this is control.
OMFGZORS!!!1! N KNO BODY USE TEH TRINKET MAGE EITHER! HE'S LIKE TOTAL AGGRO, THERES NOW WAY U R POSS IBLY PLAY HIM FOR HIS COMESINTOPLAY TRIGGERED ABILITY! THT'S A AGGRO CARD 4 EARLY BEATS, DON'T PLAY HIM OR U GON BE PWNZORED!

If somebody wants to seriously discuss ideas for Salvagers, feel free to PM me. If you want to say, "Here's a deck list completely identical to everybody else's, please pat me on the back," just continue posting here for self-gratification.

Mishra-

05-06-2005, 11:00 AM

intruder alarm has no synergy in the deck?what the hell?its part of the combo!lifespark spellbomb+intruder alarm+ forbidden orchard=infinite mana.My deck was a take on the intruder alarm combo.

IHaveGas

05-06-2005, 06:30 PM

Well not too nag on you all it is neither a control or a aggro. Its a combo. As its been classified as this since it came out. look at some decklists on this site. they are all under the combo section.
I do see how synergy man calls the deck control. thats all i thought it was for a real long time but because of the "combo" or synergy between the salvagers and the cogs its classified as combo. That was really when it first came out so it has evolved a lot since people started using win conditions like angels and dragons in the deck. Well in this format i guess you could call it control. I dunno this is just my opinion though.

I agree with Synergy man. DO NOT USE SQUIRES. this is not an aggro deck at all. and too say that trinket mage is aggro and nothing else is absolutely wrong. its not used as an attacker it is used as a tutor for finding the cogs you need at a certain time. this is really the whole point of only playing 1 of a certain cog such as sunbeam spellbomb. i mean seriously why use fabricate when you can get a free 2/2 along with it and it does the same thing? so you really are only playing him for his "comes into play ability" and him as a chump blocker of course.

ohh and mishra if i were you and i was playing the alarm/orchard/lifespark combo i would probably not use it with the salvagers. just use it with a fireball or something and then that frees up like 18 positions in your deck for other cards that you can pump infinite mana into and disruption to make sure you pull of your combo. Salvagers isnt really needed with a combo like that and vice versa. try kiki/alarm or something that suits the combo better.

hope this helps everybody.

Fly On The Wall

05-06-2005, 09:18 PM

Yeah, i also wanted to dismiss the squire idea as retarded. A turn 2 squire won't return a cog, and then unless you get a miracle draw of an aether spellbomb and squire to play, without having to trinket for it... too much to set up and time consuming and cards to have it as an aggro. I guess if you really need the blocker though, steel wall can play on turn one and can hold to turn 4 when something can kill it, by then you can salvage them. But steel wall is not aggressive and wont win games.

Synergy_Man

05-07-2005, 06:41 AM

trinket is aggro retard. ive done a total of 0 damage with him. All he does is fetches the necessary cog usually EE or a spellbomb sometimes, but hes not aggro. and korshed we havent even posts decks in a while so shut up. This deck could be considered combo with salvagers its just i dont see it cause every time i play im controlling the board and not always with salvagers, but it is combo and its control BUT NOT AGGRO AT ALL!! gl to all with this deck:). and if someone went to a FNM please post how did cause i couldnt was on a 2 hr drive:(.

Mishra-

05-07-2005, 07:10 AM

@IhaveGas: I never said this was the strongest build of the combo, i just thought id post the salvager version here as another salvager decklist to consider.

Synergy_Man

05-07-2005, 06:06 PM

here's a combo version of the deck thats probably the best version:

so u did say it is the best deck. And it wasnt. I did a tourney today and went 3-1-1.

I beat one MUC
lost to ponza
tied with U/R burn control
beat green aggro
beat WW

the ponza was close but i drew no threats so lost even with COP:red. and in finals i drew cause he wanted to see celtics game. overall i did well and i noticed MUC is the hardest and Ponza is hard too. Here is my deck after changes from today aka -4 sacred ground -2 conjurrers - 1 plains + 4 defense grid + 2 sensei's + 1 condescend. those were after today with some advice from some pros and people with rating 1860+.

New deck:

2 Engineered Explosives
1 Pyrite spellbomb
1 Sunbeam spellbomb
2 AEther spellbomb
1 Scrabbling Claws
4 Wayfarers Bauble
1 Conjurer’s Bouble
4 Wrath of God
3 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Trinket Mage
4 Auriok Salvagers
2 Pristine Angel
2 Meluko, the Clouded Mirror
4 Condescend
2 Sensei's Divining Top
8 Islands
11 Plains
4 Mountains

Sideboard:
3 Bribery
4 Defense Grid
4 Sowing Salt
4 Circle of Protection:Red

ive found that red is an easy match if COP:Red hits but i SB sowing salt too because stalking stones is in the decks now so i lose to them, salt kills em all though. defense, i havent tested it, but can be very good. Vs blue u SB in bribes sowing salt and defense. 2 salts 2-3 bribes and 4 defense grids.

Synergy_Man

05-09-2005, 05:01 PM

SRY for another double post but we're dying again and i REALLY dont want another thread like this AGAIN.

IHaveGas

05-10-2005, 01:06 PM

well too keep the posts up........

How does everyone feel about this deck being an actual competator at regionals. I am kind of scared to use it because i think that there are more solid decks out there right now. I want to use it because i think its a great deck but i am kind of scared because i have not done a lot of testing and tweeking with it since the bannings?

and whats your all success with the deck in local tourneys?
and what specific version did you use?

well hopefully this will spark some conversation.
here is my current decklist. i have pretty much dismantled the sideboard because it needs some massive changes.

2-Meloku, The Clouded Mirror
4-Trinket Mage
4-Condescend

4-Auriok Salvagers
4-Ghostly Prison
4-Wrath Of God

1-Sunbeam Spellbomb
1-Scrabbling Claws
2-Engineered Explosives
2-Aether Spellbomb
2-Salvaging Station (Metagame Call...Probably change)
3-Pyrite Spellbomb
4-Wayfarer's Bauble

3-City Of Brass
3-Mountain
8-Island
9-Plain

Synergy_Man

05-12-2005, 12:55 PM

Ive found that with testing station is useless in ur bad matchups aka MUC and Ponza so it is useless. And defense grid and COP:red are VERY necessary. The deck hass a great match vs 60% of my meta so i may run it but im going to a $500 tourney with this or rats(which seems bad but raps MUC usually, kills tooth, kills ponza, and is bad vs WW and green) so the decks are completely different. Ill give a report and last time i went to one it was EXt and i got 5th.

Synergy_Man

05-15-2005, 07:59 AM

This Is The Last Time I Will Save This Thread!!

Tigris

05-15-2005, 11:10 AM

Here is my version of the Deck:

Lands:
4 Tendo Ice Bridge
3 Mountains
6 Islands
11 Plains

Creatures:10
2 Pristine Angel
4 Auriok Salvagers
4 Trinket Mage

Spells: 16
4 Mana Leak
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Condescent
4 Wrath of God

Cogs (artifact with casting cost 1 or less): 10
4 Wayfarers Bauble
1 Sunbeam Spellbomb
1 Aether Spellbomb
1 Pirite Spellbomb
1 Engineers Explosion
1 Senseis Divine Top
1 Chromatic Sphere

I will Cut something for scrabling claws but what?

Sideboard:
4 Boil
3 Engineers Explosion
4 Bloodmoon
4 Karma

What would you sideboard out versus blue decks, white weeny, Thooth and Nail and black, i am not sure, what should go out do you guys have any ideas?

When I would have Cranial Extraction, I would play the Deck UWb
I really like playing with this Deck it makes lot of Fun

peavey8332

05-15-2005, 08:06 PM

I noticed a lot of posts about using a control version with counters, bounce, and even hand destruction, but did you ever think of this? This is a decklist that made top 8 in a 100 player tourney, try putting the deck together and testing it against other tier 1 decks in the format, the key to success as with all cog decks is to make the right plays at the right time. Still as of yet this is the only build that I have seen to use paradise mantle, it can turn that useless trinket mage or salvagers into a mana source, and as all cog players know mana is always needed. So before I bore you with a super long post, here it is...

Cogs
3x Paradise Mantle
1x Sunbeam Spellbomb
1x Aether Spellbomb
1x Wayfarer's Bauble
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Conjurer's Bauble
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
1x Engineered Explosives

Blue Spells
3x Echoing Truth
4x Serum Visions
3x Thirst for Knowledge

I have played a lot of red decks in my time and figured with the current bannings, ponza is very powerful so instead of playing my own version of that boring thing I stole it's gem....

Red Spells

4x Shrapnel Blast

Artifacts

2x Mindslaver

Creatures

4x Trinket Mage
3x Auriok Salvagers
2x Vedalken Archmage
2x Bringer of the White Dawn

Lands

10x Island
11x Plains
2x Mountain

As any experienced player would know the lock that the Bringer and Slaver give you is something most players would just scoop to, but it can be tough to pull off. But when you can ditch a Slaver to a Thirst and dig it out of the yard with a Bringer it is a good lock, then of course the blasts and the spellbombs help too.

the sideboard is pretty standard, and adds the needed control against weenie and even deals well with MUC , and MB agro or control.

Sideboard

4x Wrath of God
3x Defense Grid
3x Ensnaring Bridge
2x Engineered Explosives
3x Artificer's Intuition

Defense Grid is the best defense to your spells being countered, Explosives and bridge are good against weenie and rude.
Some of the sideboard slots for the A.I.'s could be used for necro bomb, other bringers to keep cranial on the ropes, or even portal/insight combo I saw posted earlier. I tried all of them but this was the most consistant build I came up with. Again the Paradise Mantles and the additional lands are by far the better choice to ensure every land drop.

Please post any changes you think would be better as I think with some more feedback from other players, this deck could win any given Regionals.
A possible creature switch from Saviors maybe as well.

Synergy_Man

05-16-2005, 03:55 PM

Peavy ur deck is too none focused so it is control, bounce, etc...

and Tigris ur deck is good but i dont run leak so if i would cut 1 card for claws it would be condescend because u have 7 counters with the cut. Im sry but ur sideboard sucks. i would take out everything and make it

3 bribes (good vs MUC, Tooth, ponza)
4 Sowing Salt (good vs MUC, Tooth, Ponzas with stalking)
4 defense grid (GREAT vs MUC ur 2nd worst matchup)
4 COP:Red (GREAT vs Ponza aka ur worst matchup)

IHaveGas

05-16-2005, 05:05 PM

well peavy your deck is a little quirky.

do not use paradise mantle. just run more copys of wayfarer's bauble. they give you the land drop each turn plus give you deck thinning. plus they are not useless when all of your creatures are dead. plus the bauble is a lot faster because you dont have to wait until you have a creature out. which for this deck is 3 or more turns.

another thing is were is your countermagic. i know you wanted to make a version without it all but it is imposible when you are running a combo. you must have disruption to help keep the salvager well.....salvaging.

also yes the bringer/slaver is a good lock but again combos in this deck are not needed. you should have plenty of board control in recurring the spellbombs and explosives. you will simply win because of board advantage. no one can stop you when you are gaining 15 life a turn via sunbeam spellbomb. so all you need is to make sure salvagers stays alive at all costs. that is the golden key to this deck. so different combos clogging it up is only going to make it more difficult to do that.

i would also take out serum visions and shrapnel blasts. first serum visions because you have all the card drawing you need in the spellbombs (or just a sensei's top). plus you can just recur them and they have an alternate purpose. second take out the shrapnel blasts because they are not needed. you have the spellbombs for removal. shrapnel blast is not reusable and its not fit for a CONTROL deck. salvagers is nothing else but the control route. it will not work any other way. and shrapnel blasts were only good in aggro decks with chrome moxes and artifact lands.

all your deck really needs to do is just shift more faith into the cogs. echoing truth is not as good as aether spellbomb for this deck. shrapnel blast is not as good as pyrite spellbombs for this deck. yes i know well they are faster and have more of an impact. but the whole point of this deck is too win by having the bigger card advantage. by having multiple spellbombs you can do this a lot easier. the deck is all about the salvagers recurring the cogs. so try not to clog the deck with other things that do not help fortify the combo.

well hope you understand and i hope this helps. look at mine and synergy mans deck and you will see what i am trying to say.
I have played agianst a lot of tier 1 and my deck is more stable but i know it still cannot win regionals with ease. this deck in general is not too great in the format. just fun!!

im not trying to bash your deck i am trying to put the point of what this deck is supposed to do. which you should stick too if you are going to use the cogs and salvagers. play some tier 1 decks and you will see that the control route to this deck is a lot more stable, faster, and better in the long run. I have tested this deck since fifth dawn and have played it ever since.

Synergy_Man

05-22-2005, 04:49 AM

ok i just went to a $500 tourney and i went 3-1-2. I did well and cant give u a report but it reallly controled the board and i faced my most unfavorable matches too.

silverwolf727

05-22-2005, 09:16 AM

So I've just started tinkering around with this deck and I've hand good results using just the cogs without counter backup.

Land
Island 10
Plains 9
Mountains 3

Creatures
Bringer of the white dawn 2
Trinket mage 4
Pristine angel 1
Auriok Salvagers 3
Leonin squire 3
Leonin elder 4

Spells
Echoing truth 3

Cogs
Salvaging station 1
Sunbeam spellbomb 4
Wayfarer's bauble 3
Pyrite Spellbomb 4
Aether spellbomb 4

My current throughts would be to add another Wayfarer's bauble, salvagers, squire, and 2 more salvaging stations. I'm thinking of trading extra copies of the spellbombs in for counter spells and fabricates. For me the elders and squires have proven to be excellent blockers and easy ways to return cogs back to my hand in a pinch. My question is what has been the most affective combination and number of cogs and salvagers for you guys?

IHaveGas

05-23-2005, 03:55 PM

yes trade in extra spellbombs for counterspells. i wouldnt use fabricates. i stated why a little above. read this entire page and you will have all the answers you are looking for to make your deck better.

if you got any other questions feel free to ask.....
hope this helps a little.

silverwolf727

05-23-2005, 04:56 PM

Whole reason for the fabricates is to search out the salvaging station which I only have one copy of and because the Trinket mages can't search them out. Thanks for the advice though.

Synergy_Man

05-23-2005, 04:57 PM

That list is odd considering this deck is about getting what is needed not getting lots of the same bauble. and u need some counters. Bringers are slow and make u sacrfice spots to get em out. and at the tourney i went 3-1-2 i beat ponza, MGA, and 5cc gifts. Very depressingly i lost to bringer and i tied when i ran out of time to U/B control and B/G rock. I did well and made 10th out of 41 people. I did very well considering i played 1 out of the 18 good matchups for me. I only played 1 MGA which i OWNED. and played 0 WW. there were a lot of ponzas and i did well against them.

Mishra-

05-23-2005, 07:18 PM

pithing needle makes this deck a lot better.also, has anone considered artificer's intuiation?its a survival of the fittest for this deck.also, myr servitor works very well with the intuition.just a thought.

Synergy_Man

05-24-2005, 11:53 AM

if u use intuition then servitor would be goood and needle will be good in this deck but it will also break the deck so we may need to MD a little hate or bounce.

IHaveGas

05-24-2005, 01:12 PM

yea Synergy man is right pithing needle is a good card that is easily searched out or brought back with this deck but everyone else is going to use it also. its going to screw us up probably more than it is them. and we dont have any main deck hate that is fast enough to beat theres. its going to be even tougher to play this deck now.......

Synergy_Man

05-24-2005, 01:48 PM

maybe we could run a shatter main or... a.... march no wait nvm..... ummmm............................................. . how bout shatter ok shatter is the only card.

mbowen

05-24-2005, 02:06 PM

I probably wasn't playing a very good version of cogs but the last time I played it I really had a problem with Tooth and Nail. Is this what you guys have seen in your playtesting?

Rhino408

05-24-2005, 02:41 PM

Hmmmm.

i think tooth is a hard match-up too due to having very limited amount of protection and resolved tooth=bye bye lands.

IHaveGas

05-24-2005, 04:46 PM

Tooth is a pretty hard matchup. You can out smart him though.
both decks are slow so there no way in outracing him. so your best bet is to try to gain as much life as you can with the sunbeam.

the reason i say this is because the first tooth they cast a smart player is going to get kiki jiki and a sundering titan. there not going to get a darksteel colossus and kiki jiki because you can just bounce it each turn with the aether spellbomb. so when they get a titan its going to hurt a lot more when you bounce it. but hopefully you will have meloku in play to help bounce back some of your lands vs it. the reason why i say gain life is because bouncing it just gets you in more trouble so just let it stay in play and wack you a couple of times. in the meantime you might have some sort of chance to stable out with lands and gain some more life or have enough fliers with meloku to kill him before he kills you. either way its a difficult matchup and it takes a lot of thinking on salvagers part.

its very difficult to counter a tooth and even if you do he is probably just going to return it with a witness.

hope this helps the tooth matchup with you. i havent had to much trouble with tooth that i couldnt handle. but then again i havent played too many smart players that know how to beat salvagers. most players i play are stupid and get kiki with colossus. which kiki is burned fast and colossus is bounced. which slows his game down drastically.

Synergy_Man

05-25-2005, 01:04 PM

thats why i have SB sowing salt so the lose followed by bribe so they super lose.

Synergy_Man

06-02-2005, 02:06 PM

Sry i havent been on for a while but ive been looking and this deck seems good but we may need something like MD cranial or needle now. but this deck seems more viable with rising popularity in MGA and ponza.

LedSabbath

06-04-2005, 09:00 PM

this deck looks so fun to play the only real problem i see is a extraction or a Needle your Salvager but i gess that can be fixed i mean any deck that runs Explosives MD has got to be a blast.

Synergy_Man

06-05-2005, 05:36 AM

yes but how can we stop this prblem. maybe counters are the only way. and needle can be..... bounce. maybe a few MD bounce is necessary. ORR artifact destruction.

LedSabbath

06-05-2005, 09:13 PM

ya some shatter and little more counter than just 4 condescend but i would not want this deck to be one like MUC. once you start adding more counters so idiot is going to suggest 4 Shackles and turn it into a "land pass the turn, land pass the turn." deck. If that makes any sence at all.

IHaveGas

06-06-2005, 01:41 PM

yea i dont use much counters but right now there are some cards out there that just screw us up. 4-condescends is just not enough anymore. before kamigawa artifact destruction ran rampant which just didnt effect this deck too much. now with all the big creatures that came out of kamigawa everyone started to use more creature killers. and now the came out with cards that hurt us bad such as pithing needle and extraction.

extraction is probably the least threat of the two though. we can usually get a salvager in play before they extraction it or we have enough counter to get it when they cast it. but pithing needle is fast, efficient, and can go right under our counter. so yea i think that we are going to have to start using shatters in the sideboard because terashi's grasps are going to be too slow against it. but more counters i dunno about. maybe some hinders maindeck will do the trick i dunno though i will have to play more against decks that run pithing needle.

and yea ledsabbath i know exactly what you are talking about. some people go a little overboard on the control part of the deck and dont pay attention to the actual engine of the deck.

ohh and draw-go decks is the word you are looking for.

LedSabbath

06-06-2005, 07:37 PM

after more testing i have started running 2 Annul MD and 2 SB also 3 shatter SB is almost a must with the needle around. 2 annul MD might seem a little drastic but when a tooth player is smart enough to drop kiki+titan it can be gg for them if you dont bounce it and have some counter to back it up. and thanx IHaveGas i had no clue.

feralchipmunk

06-06-2005, 08:09 PM

I used to run a version of this with red splashed instead of black. It worked well, as I was able to toss a Razormane Masticore, Platinum Angel, Darksteel Colossus, etc. into my graveyard via Artificer's Intuition and Thirst for Knowledge, then sac a Spellbomb or something to Trash for Treasure. Yes, a bit sketchy to say the least, but I used it primarily for casual/semi-competitive play. I'd never dream of taking it to a tournament. Though it does seem to have answers to nearly everything, albeit moderately weak ones.

Master16

06-06-2005, 10:17 PM

4 Trinket Mage
4 Lenion Elder
1 Darksteel Collusus
1 Meloko the Clouded Mirror
Creatures 6

4 Artifacters Intuition
4 Conjuers Buable
4 Grinding Station
3 Pyrite Spell Bomb
3 Sunbeam Spellbomb
3 Cyrstal Shard
3 Twincast
3 Hinder
3 Mana leak
2 Proteus Staff
2 Wayfer's Bauble
2 Engineered Explosives
Spells 36

1 Bosjeu Who Shelters All
7 Island
6 Plains
6 Mountain
2 Swamp
Lands 20

IHaveGas

06-07-2005, 07:40 AM

yea i played with a bunch of friends last night and i decided to use this deck because most of my friends use aggro. i played a couple of decks that were using pithing needles and i just wanted to see what this deck could do about them. i didnt change my deck any but i did add 4 shatters in my sideboard.

first game i played against a MBA. it had 4 pithing needles and i thought it was going to be the hardest matchup ever because he had cranial extractions and a bunch of discard. well first game i was just trying to stall him as much as possible with spellbombs and ghostly prison. i then dropped a trinket mage and searched for a engineered explosives. he had 2 needles in play naming salvagers. well i played the explosives and nuked the board for 1 taking out them. i totally forgot that explosives is a good answer to everything. i turned around and started recurring a pyrite spellbomb for the win.
next game he sideboarded in cranial extractions and terrors. while i sideboarded in 3 karmas and 2 shatters. he extractioned me third turn( stupid mox ) while i had two salvagers in hand with no countermagic. so i was about to just say he won the game but i drew a meloku and a station and started pinging his creatures with direct damage and wacking him with 4 1/1s and meloku.

the other games where i played against pithing needle was against my friends MGA. it was a hard matchup because it was so hard to take care of trolls.
first game he had a troll with a jitte and a SOFI on it. i got EE to nuke for 2 but i was still taking damage from the stupid SOFI. so he killed me with that stupid thing.
next game i sideboarded in 4 shatters. he played a couple of equipments fast and i just blew them away with shatter. later he god some SOFI's and he got a pithing needle naming meloku. which was a good choice at the time because i was in desperate need of blockers. well he had 2 trolls equiped and some beacon insects. i was only staying alive by recurring sunbeam with the salvagers. which just wasent enough to prevent his 13 or so damage a turn. then i toppdecked a wrath of god and nuked the board. he couldnt recover fast enough to stop me from recurring spellbombs.
third game he just dominated me with a quick troll and viridian zealots which just blew away my ghostly prisons.

so all and all pithing needle wasent too much of a threat. this deck can still survive without the salvagers in play but pithing needle does however stall us quite a bit.

LedSabbath

06-10-2005, 04:01 PM

that is so right i did not even notice that eather how blatant that EE can be a recurring answer to the needle maybe you can post your deck list up here so i can see what you used.

Synergy_Man

06-10-2005, 06:28 PM

EE is an answer to about evrything. and i can see us MDing 2 shatters. and i see that needle will help us more. WHy didnt u run needle. it could of stoped regen for troll and the veryyy pesky SOFI. i think karmas should be nececsary now in SB cause they wreck us without them

LedSabbath

06-11-2005, 08:51 PM

so i got my hands onm 4 needles and am useing them i am only playing one MD and the others SB. I fell that i need them for MUC i just get slapped in the face by there Shackles and i feel its a better cog by its self MD than a Claw or black spellbomb i have took out 2 WOG for hinder for better counter wall it helps vs the b/g cloud deck that can trash your land for the game.

can any one tell me if the needle can stop the TnN form its entwine cost because that would rock if so

peavey8332

06-11-2005, 10:57 PM

The last time I posted a decklist it was trying to be way too combo, I have since changed it up a bit. I now run 3 Cranials MD and also run 2 Needles MD. I took out the bringers and slavers as well as the mantles. I did however leave a couple echoing truth MD and added 2 boomerang. I know the spellbombs are good bounce but what about noncreature permanent threats? My new build goes back to the roots of cog a little better while still maintaing some of the newer post-banning control builds.

Synergy_Man

06-12-2005, 04:46 AM

There are no non-creature threats. and EVERone neeeeeeeeedss to MD 4 needles. they are AMAZING vs Ponza, MGA, and MUc. i played a nnon-sanctioned tourney and ran 2. i was searching them out sooo much. i named SOFI, sakura, Shackles, Slogger, Genju, Blinkmoth, Kumuno, and Trolll. they were amazing.

peavey8332

06-12-2005, 10:07 AM

Well first off I understand where you are coming from but, there are non-creature threats to worry about. For instance any enchantment, yes there is EE but I MD 3 and am still always looking for them its just nice to have other answers to lots of problems. I also run needles but MD 2 and SB 1. Needle is awesome until someone drops one on turn 1 in game 2 and targets EE, because I am seeing a lot of ponza mods that now run 4 needles MD. Unfortunatly I see lots of ponza in my area, and everyones metagame is going to be slightly different. There is of course the tier1 decks of MUC, Tooth, and Ponza but the only one I have a problem with is Ponza, I use Aether Vial from SB, as well as the other needle for MUC, bribery for Tooth from SB, and when you are in game 2 of a Tooth battle, let them try the Kikki-Titan, when I name Kikki for the needle it puts a small damper on the combo. But anyhow I have noticed in talking to other people around the country that it all depends on what the current metagame in your area is, my recommendation try playing with cranial MD if you are playing a necrobomb build and you will see between that and the needle this might be able to finally knock on the door to tier1 in Standard.

LedSabbath

06-12-2005, 10:54 AM

i dont think 4 needle MD is good. 1 or 2 at the most, there not as good as matrix as fair as control gose but they do put a dampper on some games were people are runing a deck around 1 all powerfull car like muc but in my testing the the needle vs MGA it would eather get Naturalized or Viridian Zealot would sac and i would have called out troll or something elce that was pointless. TnN just casts a Viridian Shaman with tooth and a whatever. im not trying to say there bad just there not the best thing out there like most people think.

peavey8332

06-12-2005, 11:26 AM

My newest decklist looks like this:

4x Glimmervoid
1x Swamp
1x Mountain
8x Island
8x Plains

4x Wayfarer's Bauble
3x Engineered Explosives
1x Scrabbling Claws
1x Pithing Needle
1x Conjurer's Bauble
1x Sensei's Divining Top
1x Necrogen Spellbomb
1x Pyrite Spellbomb
1x Sunbeam Spellbomb
1x Aether Spellbomb

1x Yosei, the Morning Star
1x Keiga, the Tide Star
1x Meloku, the Clouded Mirror
2x Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
4x Trinket Mage
4x Auriok Salvagers

4x Mana Leak
3x Cranial Extraction
3x Rewind

My sideboard is still kind of up in the air as of yet but it will include for sure:

4x Wrath of God
3x Bribery
1x Engineered Explosives
2x Pithing Needle

The other five cards are up in the air. I also thought about putting 8&1/2 in SB instead of MD but metagame in SE Region is heavy Ponza/MBC.
I think with a little work this build might be able to hold up to tier1 metagame.
Feedback please!!!

Flameous

06-12-2005, 02:46 PM

I think 2 Needles is the optimum, mainly for Tooth which has two potential threats for this deck, other being Kiki/Titan and other Trisk/Vamp. Both of those just kill this deck and thus we need 2 Needles to stop these both. Also other decks generally have two important targets for needle. (Shackles/Meloku, Troll/SoFI/Jitte, Slogger/Kumano)

Synergy_Man

06-12-2005, 04:45 PM

trust me if u have done extensive testing in 3-4 different metagame places (i live in middle in no where in NH so i got to Maine, Mass and NH so i know a lot about the meta). If u do that then u can say 1-2. but from my testing it is VERY good. and why are u saying its in there for tooth it suxxx the most vs tooth. its Great vs ponza, MGA, and MUC. the card can change sides in matter of moments. it can make a game changeing genu a land. it can make a just cast game winning slogger and 4/5 5 drop. it is goooood. and SOFI especially. the card is great. and ive found the best big creature base is 3 pristines. meluko is ok but it cant win u games like pristine. SOFI shuts down meluko. and pristine cant be stopped. the only card that raps it even untapped is kaldra tolken (someone ran it) its colorless so i have 0 protection.

LedSabbath

06-12-2005, 06:30 PM

what are the chances that the needle will get banned

Galvatron

06-12-2005, 07:02 PM

very slim its not that great you might asw wel thtrow damping matrix in to mix too lol

Synergy_Man

06-13-2005, 12:54 PM

It could get banned but not in T2 maybe in extended if it is in evry deck which i think it will be.

peavey8332

06-13-2005, 07:19 PM

I now have 2 cog decks one runs on a base with Black's control for support, one tries to run on Red's speed for winning. In the last few days I have done extensive playtesting with both, and as everyone who has played this deck post-bannings, it can be a little tough to get a consistant game or even a match. With so many one-ofs in the deck it can be a little tough to get the right cogs at the right time, that is why I built a deck that is turbo-cog. NO GREEN. I am going to try it in a huge tourney on Saturday, I will post my final decklist by Wednesday for this version so people can post their feedback before I dive in.

I appreciate all the help and I do run 2 needles MD now.

Yeah, by the way Synergy I know what you mean about having to drive, I grew up in Laconia, NH. You have to do a little driving to get anywhere.

Oh well Adios, look forward to the feedback!