Scam In Half

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

With Saw in Half Getting added to MTGO I have been obsessed with tweaking and tuning a deck based around this powerful card.
It basically functions as: A Stifle, A Copy Spell, A Protection Spell, or a Pump Spell. With so many creatures having so much value tied onto them, and the fact that odd numbers round up I feel this card has a lot of potential.
Here is my Mk1 list:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
4 Saw in Half
2 Beseech the mirror

4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Dauthi Voidwalker
4 Opposition Agent
4 Grief
2 Sheoldred the Apocolypse
4 Troll of Khazad-Dum

4 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Diamond
3 Wasteland
12 Swamp/Fetch
//Sideboard
4 Leyline of Singularity
4 Leyline of Lifeforce
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Singularity

[Reeplcheep]

Hey I’m back after a long break from magic. I’m out of the meta so my comments might be off base.


Even with 4 cyclers, mox diamond and 15 lands is going to be a bad time.

Malakir rebirth seems more what this deck wants to do rather, rather than reanimate something that can be plowed

With no sol lands, why are we playing monoB instead of WB for solitude?

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Hey I’m back after a long break from magic. I’m out of the meta so my comments might be off base.


Even with 4 cyclers, mox diamond and 15 lands is going to be a bad time.

Malakir rebirth seems more what this deck wants to do rather, rather than reanimate something that can be plowed

With no sol lands, why are we playing monoB instead of WB for solitude?

1 Missed Chrome Mox

2 That's the same outcome, the reanimation/discard spell gets stuck because the [object] was plowed.

3 Solitude + what? I would need like 13 white cards and other than Solitude I don't see any I like.

[PirateKing]

Malakir Rebirth comboing with Saw in Half is 4 mana over 1 turn, compared to 4 mana over 2 turns with Reanimate makes it more palatable in game I'd say.
You can Saw in Half your Bowmaster then a few turn later Reanimate it so you're not stuck with needing all the cards and mana at the same time.

I'd also be in favor of more than zero Ancient Tombs, getting Saw in Half online as early as possible to extra-punish removal seems important.

I kind of get the Beseech into Sheoldred as a smart pivot, I'm not sure if going harder into Cut in Half targets is better though. Might be too cute? Opposition Agent does nothing in multiples, Sheoldred is Legendary. Dauthi Voidwalker is only helpful if you're wanting to start playing your opponent's spells, but that seems mid without some sort of Thoughtseize to force the action. They're not just going to give you a Mind's Desire without killing you with it first.

A splash color might be worth it, not sure if White is best though. The little NicFit part of my brain wants to see Veteran Explorer sawed in half and then have all the mana, for reasons. Probably not game winning reasons, but when has that stopped NicFit before?

[Reeplcheep]

1 Missed Chrome Mox

2 That's the same outcome, the reanimation/discard spell gets stuck because the [object] was plowed.

3 Solitude + what? I would need like 13 white cards and other than Solitude I don't see any I like.

1. I wasn’t talking about total mana sources, I was talking about lands to discard. It is quite unlikely you have a 7 with 2 lands/trolls, in which case mox diamond is worse than a lotus petal.

2. Presumably troll is to combo with reanimate. Malakir + grief is both cheaper and higher payoff than reanimate + troll. An etb taped land is slightly better than swamp cycling for keeping 7s too.

3. Ephemerate, priest and tide hollow sculler could be considerations. But maybe that is moving the deck too far away.

[FTW]

I like the idea.

I think your biggest obstacle is that Saw in Half costs a lot of mana. The point of scam is to cheat on mana to get the ability and body on turn 1.

If you're spending 2B, you've added a new obstacle: needing enough mana acceleration to still do the thing early. Because for 2BB you could just cast Grief.

Maybe Tomb would help. With Moxes you're annihilating your own hand (after Grief + pitch + enabler), so maybe Petal is better. You could also add Initiative creatures. They're good to power out with acceleration and good to saw in half.

Grief scam already doesn't get blown out by StP because you can resolve the discard before resolving the sacrifice, so you get perfect information and to strip their removal before commiting Malakir/Ephemerate/Reanimate. They could respond to the discard with Swords, exiling Grief, but then you haven't committed Malakir/Ephemerate/Reanimate yet and you still get to discard them, so Grief traded 2-for-2 as the failcase.

[FTW]

Is there room to combine it with Helm combo, a busted use of Beseech?


//Creatures: 17
4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Dauthi Voidwalker
4 Grief
4 Passageway Seer
1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse

//Enchantments: 4
4 Leyline of the Void

//Artifacts: 1
1 Helm of Obedience

//Spells: 13
4 Thoughtseize
4 Saw in Half
4 Beseech the Mirror
1 Ill-Gotten Gains

//Mana: 25
4 Dark Ritual
4 Chrome Mox
4 Malakir Rebirth
4 Ancient Tomb
2 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
3 Vault of Whispers
4 Swamp


If you saw Seer in half, you get 2 more Initiative triggers, then both 1/1 halves get +1/+1 counters at EOT so you end up with 4-power lifelink.

Maybe Opposition Agent instead of Passageway Seer if there are too many 4s.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

If you splash red you get a few neat things:
A Sawn DRC is a pair of 4/4s (since they're a 3/3 they cut down to a base power of 2/2 and then get the +2/+2 bonus)
Fury goes from attacking for 6 to 8
You can get two brother's Yamazaki in play immediately as a pair of 3/3 bushido 1 haste!

[FTW]

Good point. Maybe other creatures are better synergy than trying to cram in Helm combo (no synergy with Saw in Half or scam tech).

Fury works well. So would Caves of Chaos Adventurer.

[PirateKing]

I remember when Saw was first spoiled people wanted to get Baleful Strix for card draw. Nothing ever materialized off a blue splash then, not sure if it's a version you guy's would be interested in pursuing.

[FTW]

If already playing Reanimate, the best draw creature to saw in half is Atraxa.

Makes 2 4/4 flying lifelinks
Draws 8+ cards
Puts Atraxa back in graveyard for future Reanimates

Is that worth an Entomb package and 1-of Atraxa? Atraxa in hand pitches to Grief.

[PirateKing]

Well you'd get 2 4/4 flying lifelinks then sacrifice one to the Legend rule

EDIT looking at Reanimator for ideas, Archon of Cruelty is a house. Turns 9 damage into 12 after being sawed.

[PirateKing]

Writing this down here to test tonight:

4 Chrome Mox
4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Grief
2 Baleful Strix
2 Dauthi Voidwalker
2 Opposition Agent
2 Troll of Khazad-dûm
1 Archon of Cruelty
1 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
4 Dark Ritual
4 Saw in Half
2 Sauron's Ransom
2 Entomb
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
2 Beseech the Mirror
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Underground Sea
2 Swamp
1 Island
4 Polluted Delta
1 Scalding Tarn

Sideboard
3 Plague Engineer
1 Energy Flux
2 Surgical Extraction
3 Sheoldred's Edict
3 Drown in the Loch
2 Flusterstorm
1 Hurkyl's Recall

---
Okay, so went 1-2 with the above.

Match 1 was against a spirit guide initiative list. They had white and red and green Initiative creatures with a Forth Eorlingas top end. Maybe risky keeps but the deck drew extremely poorly. In one game was just holding Archon of Cruelty, Dark Rtiual 2 Saw in Half and 3 Reanimate when they put out an early Rest in Peace. I was flooding out and just hardcast Archon with the aid of the ritual and could Saw in Half next turn but they were sitting on Swords for some time. I felt like I had many opportunities for a Strix or Bowmaster to come out and immediately get sawed to pull me out, but it never happened.

Match 2 was against UWr Control, and it was more of the same as match 1. Either mana screw or mana flood, which means the weak tempo I could put out was easily answered by his counterspells or removal. He was hellbent a number of times but always drew out of it first, stabilizing at 3-4 life before Forth Eorlingas again came down and ended the game.

Match 3 was against Esper Cephalid Breakfast. First game a Thoughtseize showed the way and next turn he scooped to Dauthi Voidwalker. Game 2 I finally did the thing: turn 1 I evoked Grief, stripped a card, then with the sacrifice trigger on the stack Dark Ritual into Saw in Half wreaked his hand. An Opposition Agent robbed him of a Urza's Saga search towards the end, but I'm not sure that would have been enough for him to come back.

Not sure where to go from here. Somehow with the landbase above I got stuck on just black mana in a game where Strix into Saw was in hand and later Sauron's Ransom come but never a blue source. Both Swamps and an Ancient Tomb, any land or a Troll or a Chrome Mox would have let me do anything but I drew another Saw before death. Or like, any black creature? Just bad luck I guess.

Thoughts and feedback appreciated

[Captain Hammer]

With Saw in Half Getting added to MTGO I have been obsessed with tweaking and tuning a deck based around this powerful card.
It basically functions as: A Stifle, A Copy Spell, A Protection Spell, or a Pump Spell. With so many creatures having so much value tied onto them, and the fact that odd numbers round up I feel this card has a lot of potential.
Here is my Mk1 list:

4 Dark Ritual
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
4 Saw in Half
2 Beseech the mirror

4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 Dauthi Voidwalker
4 Opposition Agent
4 Grief
2 Sheoldred the Apocolypse
4 Troll of Khazad-Dum

4 Chrome Mox
2 Mox Diamond
3 Wasteland
12 Swamp/Fetch
//Sideboard
4 Leyline of Singularity
4 Leyline of Lifeforce
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Leyline of Singularity


Cards that I would love to Saw in Half

Priest of Gix
Grave Titan
Caves of Choas Adventurer
Fury
Kroxa
Grief
Opposition Agent
Shelodred
Death’s Shadow (thats been StPed)

Otherwise Animate Dead paired with Ancient Tomb and Oluphant is the better option.
Animate Dead

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Cards that I would love to Saw in Half
Shelodred
Death’s Shadow
Animate Dead
I don't think these are going to work the way you want
Shadow will still get -X/-X but instead of being a 13/13 it's only it's current power (so like, 5/5)
Sheoldreds are legendary
Animate dead keeps the -1 when doing the /2 calculation

[PirateKing]

Grave Titan was on my list but Archon of Cruelty is just a better creature if given the choice. Unless you're thinking of hardcasting it?
I don't get Opposition Agent in your list of Saw targets. 1 Opposition Agent is the same as 10. It's good in a fair(ish) Dark Ritual deck, but not like specific to Saw in Half.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Ok here's my updated mk2 list. I still want to splash either red for bolt/fury stuff, or blue and just tuck myself in with Force/Brainstorm/Ponder/Daze, but this is mono black:

4 Dauthi Voidwalker
4 Grief
3 Opposition Agent
4 Orcish Bowmasters
2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
4 Troll of Khazad-dûm

4 Reanimate
4 Saw in Half
2 Snuff Out
4 Thoughtseize

4 Chrome Mox
4 Dark Ritual

1 Gemstone Caverns
3 Wasteland
13 Swamp

SIDEBOARD:
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
3 Shriekmaw
2 Unmask

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Here is mk3 list, I handed to to streamer D00mwake and he went 2-3
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/LZzNLPuvIEC6ah_TFni2SQ

Creatures(25)
4 Dauthi Voidwalker
2 Gorex, the Tombshell
4 Grief
4 Opposition Agent
4 Orcish Bowmasters
2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
1
1 Tourach, Dread Cantor
4 Troll of Khazad-dûm
Sorceries(8)
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
Instants(12)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Saw in Half
2 Sheoldred's Edict
2 Surgical Extraction
Artifacts(4)
4 Lotus Petal
Lands(11)
2 Phyrexian Tower
7 Swamp
2 Wasteland
Sideboard(15)
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
3 Feed the Swarm
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Shriekmaw

The first two rounds were against aggro decks, goblins and 8 cast affinity, and it didn't go well. This is something I'll have to look into because without fury doing crowd control it's way to easy to get overrun.
The three round was a loss to doomsday settled by the die roll. Half a turn too slow g1 and g3.
Won round 4 vs the traditional UB legacy scam. It didn't even feel close. Just out scamming them at every turn
Won round 5 vs 4c. Absolute pasting

[FTW]

A couple Plague Engineer would really help in those matchups. You can even Saw it to get double Plague effect! Seems better than Bontu.

Scam usually needs some source of card draw for fair matchups, to compensate for the early card disadvantage. Otherwise you run out of resources and they outdraw you. Dimir scam runs Sauron's Ransom. WB scam uses Samwise+Karakas and Recruiter. Maybe you could play Call of the Ring?

Other than card draw, more fair interaction seems good. You can hate on combo (Grief, Thoughtseize, Opposition Agent, Surgical) and cantrips (Bowmasters, Sheoldred) but have very little interaction with fair creatures (2 Edict + Bowmasters). Saw doesn't function as effective removal. Are you really going to Saw a Muxus or Thought Monitor or giant Murktide? I'm not surprised that 2 aggro matches went poorly. Maybe Shriekmaw main over Surgical?

[kinda]

Here is mk3 list, I handed to to streamer D00mwake and he went 2-3
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/LZzNLPuvIEC6ah_TFni2SQ

Creatures(25)
4 Dauthi Voidwalker
2 Gorex, the Tombshell
4 Grief
4 Opposition Agent
4 Orcish Bowmasters
2 Sheoldred, the Apocalypse
1
1 Tourach, Dread Cantor
4 Troll of Khazad-dûm
Sorceries(8)
4 Reanimate
4 Thoughtseize
Instants(12)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Saw in Half
2 Sheoldred's Edict
2 Surgical Extraction
Artifacts(4)
4 Lotus Petal
Lands(11)
2 Phyrexian Tower
7 Swamp
2 Wasteland
Sideboard(15)
2 Bontu's Last Reckoning
3 Feed the Swarm
4 Leyline of Sanctity
4 Leyline of the Void
2 Shriekmaw

The first two rounds were against aggro decks, goblins and 8 cast affinity, and it didn't go well. This is something I'll have to look into because without fury doing crowd control it's way to easy to get overrun.
The three round was a loss to doomsday settled by the die roll. Half a turn too slow g1 and g3.
Won round 4 vs the traditional UB legacy scam. It didn't even feel close. Just out scamming them at every turn
Won round 5 vs 4c. Absolute pasting

Gorex look sweeet.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Gorex was sweet, but I don't think had enough oomf to keep around.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

https://twitter.com/PTBench/status/1735570820364198218?t=6dT5_PpGzU3kT0FsQ1qANA&s=19
A trophy from the PT bench

//16 Land
4 ancient tomb
4 badlands
4 bloodstained more
2 swamp
1 mountain
1 wasteland
//9 other Mana
3 chrome mox
2 troll of khazad-dum
4 dark ritual
//20 other Creatures
4 Orcish Bowmasters
4 fury
4 Grief
4 broadside bombardiers
4 exsanguinator calvary
//15 Spells
4 Reanimate
3 molten collapse
4 saw in half
4 fable of the mirror breaker
//Sideboard
2 Thoughtseize
1 feed the swarm
2 dauthi void Walker
2 opposition agent
3 leyline of the void
1 null rod
2 Sheoldred, the apocalypse

2-0 beseech combo
2-1 riddlesmith combo
2-1 PO monolith combo
2-0 Boros initiative
2-1 squadron hawks

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

So I had this list that I didn't use
https://www.moxfield.com/decks/sSw8cJZWYE-xf_oC4psW8g
Because I didn't get the mana and the cards right but you can see a lot of what I wanted to do they were able to pull off.
Moved the discard, dauthis, and oppo agents to the side and using stompy mana to get to the 3s quickly.

I'm not sold on exsanguinator so I might bring some of that stuff back in, but my dream of dauthi into a scammed grief might have to die.
I'm also not giving up on tower, although if I do I'm pretty sure then I own the whole deck

[FTW]

Congrats on the Trophy!

Going red for Fury and Molten Collapse adds a lot more removal for fair matchups, seems good.

I like your Moxfield maindeck. It has a lot of synergies. I can see adding Fable (good card is good) and more lands (10 is low), but not sold on Exsanguinator Cavalry.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Not my trophy, I wish

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Going red for Fury and Molten Collapse adds a lot more removal for fair matchups, seems good.

I like your Moxfield maindeck. It has a lot of synergies. I can see adding Fable (good card is good) and more lands (10 is low), but not sold on Exsanguinator Cavalry.
Right, fury collapse and bombardiers are great. Especially when you can feed a bombarded to it's other half, that's a lava axe!
I don't know why they played calvary, it's not on my radar and looks really bad. I think I'd cut it entirely and bring back some of the items they moved to the SB.
Or just play bolt.
The d00m list was also light on land and it hurt it a few times so I wanted to run more lands and chrome mox persists (and can be fed to the bombarder for a shock)

[FTW]

Maybe -4 Exsanguinator, +2 Thoughtseize (from SB) +2 Troll?

Or instead of Troll move 2 Voidwalker to main?

[Scott]

I was watching one of his videos (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvRoptPztdk), mono black in this one, and he happened to talk about why he likes Calvary at the beginning. Basically, filtering, the fact that the token copies trigger off each other, and reanimating it for even more profit.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

There are many cards that are stompy and good in multiples, but idk, that one doesn't seem good unless you have multiples.
Like drogskul Captain is perfect cut in half, but

[FTW]

Plague Engineer saws in half well.

2 1/1 deathtouch with -2/-2 to a tribe, or split to 2 different tribes. You get to change the tribe decision too.

[rufus]

There are many cards that are stompy and good in multiples, but idk, that one doesn't seem good unless you have multiples.
Like drogskul Captain is perfect cut in half, but

I was expecting that if Saw in half were to be playable, it would be in a combo (i.e. with Dualcaster Mage to make infinite tokens) rather than in a more value oriented approach since - particularly in legacy - 3 mana is a lot for a card that also requires a body in play to do anything.

I imagine that it turns out to be too much of a color challenge to fit in a deck with the Fury/Grief package but Risen Reef would be a pretty strong thing to saw in half and also has some synergy with the scam elementals.

[FTW]

You could build in the infinite token combo into a shell that also has fair uses for Saw (Grief, Fury). Some A+B combos do that, to reduce the variance from only drawing 1 piece in a non-Xerox deck.

That would also be the reason to play this combo. Otherwise you could just play Twin. Dualcaster + Saw needs 3RRB in one turn, I think, so it's not worth building around unless you have fair modes too.

Dualcaster can pitch to Fury, copy Reanimate, or Twincast-counter a FoW, so it would offer fair modes.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

The combo with dcm is saw something else then hold priority and cast dcm , have the copy target itself?

[rufus]

The combo with dcm is saw something else then hold priority and cast dcm , have the copy target itself?

Yeah. Dualcaster Mage copies Saw in Half with the copy targeting Dualcaster Mage. (The Dualcaster Mage effect is an etb ability so - at least by default - it's in play and can be targeted while the ability resolves.) Then the copy of Saw in Half resolves creating two 1/1 Dualcaster Mage tokens, each of which has an etb ability that can copy the original Saw in Half, which is still on the stack. Saw in half rounds up, so halving the tokens produces more 1/1s.

[FTW]

Infinite flash 1/1s, but you need 3RRB in one turn, and the tokens don't have haste (cast on end step).

Twin is easier to assemble (can spread mana over 2 turns) and has haste, and is blue.

Sedgemoor Witch + Chain of Smog is infinite 1/1s for 3BB.

So to justify playing this combo you'd need to use A and B for their fair modes too. Otherwise it's just a worse token combo than unplayed Tier 3 combos. Luckily the fair modes are good. Grief & Fury also let you pitch unused combo pieces to scam.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Infinite flash 1/1s, but you need 3RRB in one turn, and the tokens don't have haste (cast on end step).

Twin is easier to assemble (can spread mana over 2 turns) and has haste, and is blue.

Sedgemoor Witch + Chain of Smog is infinite 1/1s for 3BB.

So to justify playing this combo you'd need to use A and B for their fair modes too. Otherwise it's just a worse token combo than unplayed Tier 3 combos. Luckily the fair modes are good. Grief & Fury also let you pitch unused combo pieces to scam.

Didn't you just make this post like an hour before?

[FTW]

Didn't you just make this post like an hour before?

Guess it mostly repeated what I already said.

Dualcaster + Reanimate also works well with Bombardiers.

Bombardiers also gives a non-combat win with the infinite tokens.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

I'll make a full write up later but:

This list made 9th atthe Jan 6 challenge
https://www.mtgo.com/decklist/legacy-challenge-32-2024-01-0612603450

//Artifact (3)
3 Chrome Mox
//Creature (20)
4 Broadside Bombardiers
4 Fury
4 Grief
1 Oliphaunt
2 Opposition Agent
4 Orcish Bowmasters
1 Troll of Khazad-dûm
//Enchantment (4)
4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
//Instant (13)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Saw in Half
1 Snuff Out
//Land (16)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
//Sorcery (4)
4 Reanimate

//Sideboard (15)
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Dauthi Voidwalker
1 Faerie Macabre
1 Feed the Swarm
2 Null Rod
3 Plague Engineer
1 Pyrokinesis
1 Sheoldred's Edict
2 Trinisphere

I took the list, made a few changes, mostly to the sideboard, and went 2-1, splitting in the 'finals' with goblins. The loss was me keeping meme hands in a meaningless final match

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

My list:

//Artifact (3)
2 Chrome Mox
1 lotus petal
Creature (20)
4 Broadside Bombardiers
4 Fury
4 Grief
1 Oliphaunt
2 Dauthi Voidwalker
4 Orcish Bowmasters
1 Troll of Khazad-dûm
//Enchantment (4)
4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
Instant (13)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Saw in Half
Land (16)
4 Ancient Tomb
4 Badlands
4 Bloodstained Mire
1 Mountain
2 Swamp
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Sorcery (4)
4 Reanimate
1 Molten collapse
60 Cards

Sideboard (15)
2 Chalice of the Void
2 Dauthi Voidwalker
1 Feed the Swarm
2 Karn the great Creator
4 Leyline of sanctity
1 helm of obedience

I was in a rush so I messed up the SB.
It's supposed to have chalice and engineers.
I don't own any oppo agents so I put two more Dauthi main.
2-1 enchantress.
Karn (the null rod I own) was able to plus on my reconfigured vehicles so they could attack, and stop his combo for infinite.
Then I got to do the thing and triple grief
2-1 storm
Lost g1, they did not expect leyline g2, g3 leyline stopped the tendrils so they made gobbis putting a lot of good cards under dauthi. Dauthi used these good cards to cast fury and then saw it in half to just kill all the goblins (well, 12 of them, but attacking did the rest)
0-2 gobbis
G1 otd I kept a zero lander that had two rituals and two saw in half and both fury and grief so I took a chance and lost. G2 I fetched poorly and didn't get a second red to cast fury, and also I cast my red spell so I couldn't even evoke fury

[Captain Hammer]

The Grief ban did kill the deck. But Pyrogoyf, Barrowgoyf and Unstoppable Slasher brought it back to life.

We already know how strong Sawing a Caves of CA can be.

But now, with these new cards sawing Pyrogoyf in half is enough to win the game by itself, since both copies see each other causing 4 triggers (and if that doesn’t instakill them, casting any of the 11 other goyfs surely will.

My understanding is that goyfs dont lose any power when Sawed in Half. So Sawing Barrowgoyf in half in response to your opponent trying to remove it is also often enough to win the game by itself.

Unstoppable Slasher is similiarly a must block or kill threat, but in response to removal or lethal combat damage, Sawing Slasher in half creates 2 Must block essentially 10*!power creatures with Menace and a third one for free two turns later even if your opponent manages to deal with the first two.

Sawing Bombadiers and saccing both creatures to each other post combat is 12 damage as well.

Any of these heavy damage plays turn 1 or 2 puts your opponent in range of resolving a Bombadiers or a Pyrogoyf or a hit with any Goyf killing them.

Sawing a Magus of the Moon could potentially also be game ending in some matchups, the matchups that you side in against.

Midgame, Sawing an evoked Fury in half is a one sided board wipe for 3 mana.

Thoughts on this list?

Saw In Half Stompy:

Colorless (18)
4 Ancient Tomb
3 City of Traitors
3 Bloodstained Mire
2 Cavern of Souls
2 Badlands
1 Swamp
3 Lotus Petal

Black (21)
4 Dark Ritual
4 Saw in Half
4 Nethergoyf
4 Barrowgoyf
4 Unstoppable Slasher
1 Reanimate

Red (21)
1 Sundering Eruption
2 Jeskai’s Will
4 Simian Spirit Guide
4 Pyrogoyf
4 Caves of Chaos Adventurer
4 Broadside Bombadiers
2 Fury

SB:
1 Opposition Agent
1 Dauthi Voidwalker
1 Orcish Bowmasters
1 Trinisphere
2 Thoughtseize
3 Chalice of the Void
3 Magus of the Moon
3 Fairie Macabre

It packs 27 must answer threats but I am sure the ratios are off. Jeskai’s Will, Reanimate, and Nethergoyf are the flex slots. Will could cause a manaflood (too bad Nameless Goblin got axed) but Will enables tons of turn 1 or turn 2 wins off of 20 creatures that deal 12+ damage when Sawed in Half and it definitely gets sided out after you win game one.

[FTW]

If Saw creates 2 *-power Goyfs, then Saw + Pyrogoyf is very good (4 triggers for * damage). Double Barrowgoyf is also good.

Saw + Caves of Chaos seems strong (+2 Initiative).

Saw + Broadside gives two haste attacking 1/1 menace, and even if blocked, you can sacrifice before damage. But you can't sacrifice both to each other. You could sacrifice one for 5 damage.

Saw + Slasher: 2 1/2 tokens + stunned Slasher. They don't have menace though (or haste). If you saw in response to removal, you get more bodies, but they can't attack yet. Not quite 10 damage each. The triggers happen in order, not at the same time: combat damage 1+1=2 (18 life), 1st trigger -9 (9 life), 2nd trigger -5 (4 life). Still a lot of damage!

Losing Grief hurts, because it was the #1 disruption. With no disruption you're wide open to Force of Will/Daze on Saw or Fatal Push/Swords to Plowshares/bounce on creature in response to Saw. I'd cut the flex cards (Reanimate, Jeskai) for maindeck 4 Thoughtseize.

Then there's the issue of card selection. Actually drawing Saw, not flooding out on fast mana. Try 4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker (maybe over Nethergoyfs). It helps smooth out the cards drawn, adds Enchantment type, fixes mana, then Kiki also does similar combos with all these creatures.

[Zoid]

If the original creature had a characteristic-defining ability that determined its power and/or toughness, that ability is not copied.
Sauce (https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=671326)

Sawing goyfs doesn't work that way unfortunately.

I would also suggest to add at least some discard because your combo matchup seems pretty abysmal.

Leyline, Rest in Peace and Endurance also make you pretty sad.
Since your colors don't really allow for enchantment removal consider maybe having an alt win con side board option.

[FTW]

With that ruling, only Pyrogoyf is still reasonable (4 triggers for */2 is still decent).

-4 Nethergoyf
-4 Barrowgoyf
-1 Reanimate
-2 Jeskai's Will

+4 Thoughtseize
+4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
+1 Fury

Edit: There appears to be a bug on MTGO where the 2 token copies still have the ability and have power *.

[FourDogsinaHorseSuit]

Sawing a goyf will give you two goyfs and they won't die to dressfown
But also +1/+1 counters are accounted for when you saw in half, so you almost always end up with two psychic frogs bigger than one fresh one

E: also modular creatures or other creatures that are 0/0s but etb with counters will be x/xs and still get their counters.
Oh and constructs are always bigger when cut in half

[Zoid]

With that ruling, only Pyrogoyf is still reasonable (4 triggers for */2 is still decent).

-4 Nethergoyf
-4 Barrowgoyf
-1 Reanimate
-2 Jeskai's Will

+4 Thoughtseize
+4 Fable of the Mirror-Breaker
+1 Fury

Edit: There appears to be a bug on MTGO where the 2 token copies still have the ability and have power *.

I don't know but I don't think 8 damage (maybe 12 if you're lucky) for 7 mana and 2 cards is that great.
Pyrogoyf also gets much worse without other goyfs going against the premise.

Saw is also a bit of a one trick pony as counter to removal.
I would take the angle of building a solid deck that uses Saw as value in response to removal rather than building too much around it.

[FTW]

The premise of this thread/deck is to abuse Saw combos. Tried to give feedback under that context.

Maybe Sawing Pyrogoyf isn't good enough. Saw is only 8 damage, but you also get damage off the initial Goyf cast. Pyrogoyf on its own is good enough to see play as a 4x in Red Stompy. It deserves a slot even if you don't Saw it proactively, and it's very good with Kiki Jiki (2 triggers for * + haste token)

[PirateKing]

Someone asked for some Halloween themed decks for content, so I shared this list I had.
It does the thing well enough, but not often enough.

4 Ravenloft Adventurer
4 Seasoned Dungeoneer
4 Solitude
3 Triumph of Saint Katherine
4 Unstoppable Slasher
1 Witch Enchanter
4 Dark Ritual
1 Fell the Profane
4 Saw in Half
4 Swords to Plowshares
3 Thoughtseize
4 Chrome Mox
2 Lotus Petal
4 Ancient Tomb
1 City of Traitors
1 Flooded Strand
4 Marsh Flats
1 Plains
1 Polluted Delta
4 Scrubland
2 Swamp

3 Faerie Macabre
1 Grafdigger's Cage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Null Rod
2 Pest Control
2 Surgical Extraction
2 Toxic Deluge
2 Vexing Bauble

[rufus]

The premise of this thread/deck is to abuse Saw combos. Tried to give feedback under that context. ...

My mind keeps going to Dualcaster Mage plus Molten Duplication/Twinflame as alternatives to Saw in half, but the mage is really the only enabler that works with that kind of combo, and those copy effects are liable to be 2-for-1s because they target. There are instant-speed copy effects, but they cost more mana, and I looked for alternatives to dualcaster, but I could only find really marginal stuff like Combat Celebrant (which really doesn't work that well with sawn in half.)

[FTW]

My mind keeps going to Dualcaster Mage plus Molten Duplication/Twinflame as alternatives to Saw in half, but the mage is really the only enabler that works with that kind of combo, and those copy effects are liable to be 2-for-1s because they target. There are instant-speed copy effects, but they cost more mana, and I looked for alternatives to dualcaster, but I could only find really marginal stuff like Combat Celebrant (which really doesn't work that well with sawn in half.)

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker seems like the easiest. Kiki copies have the same effect: doubling up on bodies & triggers.

That's a reason to be BR and on Ancient Tomb.

Otherwise in white there are all sorts of blink effects like Phelia.

[rufus]

Fable of the Mirror-Breaker seems like the easiest. Kiki copies have the same effect: doubling up on bodies & triggers.

That's a reason to be BR and on Ancient Tomb.

Otherwise in white there are all sorts of blink effects like Phelia.

I think finding alternative duplication targets is as big of a challenge as finding alternative duplication effects.

[FTW]

I think finding alternative duplication targets is as big of a challenge as finding alternative duplication effects.

Grief was the best one. But Evoke Elementals and Initiative seem like safe starts. And Slasher.

In BR
:
Caves of Chaos Adventurer
Pyrogoyf
Unstoppable Slasher
Fury


In BW:
Seasoned Dungeoneer
Solitude
White Orchid Phantom
Recruiter of the Guard
Unstoppable Slasher