MTG Salvation

I started playing MTG years ago and after a brief break I got back into it and developed a casual elemental deck. Having now been to a few FNMs and playing in my first PPTQ I want to look at creating a deck that focuses on hard hitting elementals (ball lightning and groundbreaker).

The premise of the deck is to get these creatures out as fast as possible and inflict as much damage as I can. I have developed the deck below predominantly on cards that I have, and a few I got inspiration from an article by Frank Lepore (http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=12641).



Ok so a bit of card justification:

Main Deck

smokebraider and incandescent soulstoke: these cards work excellently well together and also mean I may be able to play my elementals without collected company.

birds of paradise: the mana pump will help speed the deck up and may attract removal spells early on rather than when getting the main threats out.

flamekin harbinger: obviously this card tutors the elemental we need. Only downside is it puts the card on top of the library rather than in your hand.

ball lightning, hell's thunder and groundbreaker: these are the main threats of the deck. hell's thunder has the added benefit of being able to be flashed back from the graveyard.

primal forcemage: the benefit this card adds to any of our main threats entering the battlefield is fantastic. Downside is it can't be found with flamekin harbinger and can't be played with smokebraider.

elemental bond and cream of the crop: although these cards seem to slightly detract from the decks theme, I feel the search and draw benefits are worth it if we don't manage to finish the opponent quickly.

assault strobe: who doesn't love giving a 6/1 trample, haste creature with double strike?! Down sides are it is a sorcery.

evolution charm: being able to return our creatures from the graveyard is essential. This has the added benefit of being able to give the main threats flying if we have enough mana, or searching for lands to play collect company.

collected company: self explanatory. Play this and hope that he hit the main threats.

Sideboard

spark trooper: this is a card I'm not convinced on. It can't be found with collected company and changes the mana base from just red and green to splash white. However, having a big hitter with lifelink will be useful.

fog: Having very few creatures on the board after attacking means we are very vulnerable to attack.

eternal witness: good for returning collected company from the graveyard.

shattering spree good against anything with artifacts.

Has anyone got any thoughts on the deck, or any suggestions?

I will look to get some playtesting done as soon as possible and report back some results. I also have some other 'possible' options which I will list in a separate post.

Ok, so my other card options which I am considering are as follows:

1) noble hierarch - can't afford at the moment and don't match elemental theme.
2) fulminator Mage - can't afford at the moment.
3) fling - possibly useful for finishing the opponent, but favouring giving creatures double strike
4) stigma lasher - might be able to restrict opponents life gain, but no guarantees I will draw it early enough to effect the game.
5) domri rade - the emblem would be the ultimate goal, but ideally want to finish the opponent off in turns 3-4 (if possible)
6) rage nimbus - I think this card has potential to deal with decks with flying, as well as ensuring they have no blockers to allow the main threats through.
7) warstorm surge - Could be a brilliant card late game but don't want to drop anything else from the deck to fit it in.
8) vexing shusher - Useful for ensuring that collected company and assault strobe don't get countered.

Any other suggestions or obvious card choices I have missed are welcome

So, do you have a way to protect your creatures? I find I personally run into a ton of Electrolyze et. al.. With something like that, it's going to be tough to ensure you're really getting enough value out of your creatures.

If you're looking for more cards, I'd focus on making the deck more resilient first.

Thanks for your comments and welcome to the thread.

Protecting my creatures has obviously been a consideration, with stuff like; blossoming defence, ranger's guile being good choices. I also considered adding something like asceticism, but feel that the cost is too high for what the deck is trying to achieve.

I'm hoping that by having 1 or 2 incandescent soulstoke and/or primal forcemage I can pump my creatures enough to avoid direct damage spells. Dealing with spot removal is likely to be the main issue.

Do you have any card suggestions?

Look into something like Wild Defiance, would be my suggestion.

silly question, but what matches do you board in Lightning bolt? If it's not good enough for the main deck then I don't see it being that good coming out the board. Path can be a SB card, but bolt? I can't imagine a meta where this card doesn't deserve a main board slot. Besides that obvious deck building infraction I think maybe some pyrexian mana giant growth is in order to stop your opponent from playing some removal spells. or even the GG hex proof +4/+4 card.

Thanks for the comments and I think you're right about the bolts - remember this deck is in very early design stages.

So, based on comments so far I've amended the deck as follows:



I'm still tempted to see if Assault Strobe has a spot.

I will also consider Wild Defiance, but am favouring Blossoming Defence as a protection option.

As I said previously, will hopefully test it out soon and feedback some results.

This deck has become popular online recently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHMdC8keT7U
It was also played by Jeff Hoogland.

Between Bloodbraid Elf and Collected Company being able to find these hyper aggressive cards the deck seems to have legs now.

I'm curious why no one is running Evolutionary Leap in the 75? You can hit it with BBE and while it helps you with targeted removal it also just allows you to pay to get what will most likely be another copy of Ball Lightning from your deck before your Ball Lightning dies.