I think I'd still keep a Sharktocrab because it's insane with the Familiar and isn't bad on it's own. Also Incubation into 4 drop is a natural curve so I think cutting at least one of the three Benthid's for a Sharktocrab would be good.
Use your base creature package with Biomancer's Familiar, Incubation Druid and Growth-Chamber Guardian this starts your curve off well at 2 CMC for Vannifar, and the Guardians find other copies so getting to 3 is pretty easy and they are simply good without her. Then the three slot you get Exclusion Mage for bounce, Reclamation Sage or Thrashing Brontodon for artifact/enchantment hate, District Guide or Elvish Rejuvenator for a land fetch, Plaguecrafter as an out to the hexproof creatures, Blood Operative is a way to recursively start the curve at 3 if you add a surveil package (Doom Whisperer and Dream Eater. Then at 4 you have Frilled Mystic as a counterspell, Prime Speaker Vannifar, maybe a Sharktocrab. There is also the enchantments that you can pick from in Hadona's Climb (you would want Llanowar Elves with Climb) or Wilderness Reclamation, which untaps your lands so you can adapt on their turn, or hold open the Frilled Mystics. At 5 there is Biogenic Ooze which works with the Wilderness enchantment, and Mesmerizing Benthid which sort of works like your Sharktocrab but not against fliers, but isn't dependent on Familiar and is good with Climb as it's hexproof, and Academy Journeymage is another bounce ETB guy At six there is the card I think is the reason BUG would be cool with your idea -- it isn't in packs, but is standard legal -- Gravewaker. With Biomancer's Familar it's 5 mana bring a creature from your graveyard to play. If you use Prime Speaker, you can sac Frilled and then have counter up every turn (you can fail to find). You can bring back Plaguecrafter sacrificing itself and making them sac creatures, then planeswalkers, then when its an empty board making them discard the card they drew for the turn in their draw step basically locking them out of the game. With 2 Biomancers out it cost 1BB to resurrect, and with a money landbase you potentially can do two activations each turn like bring back Plaguecrafter, and hold up for Frilled or whatever. With Wilderness Reclamation the holding up mana part shouldnt be that difficult. Whatever slots left in the deck that are open likely are filled with Incubation // Incongruity as its a creature heavy deck and this digs or acts as removal.
GU
Instant
Target creature fights another target creature
This spell already exists a few times over but with a less restrictive mana cost and relative (if minor) upsides in Setessan Tactics, Pounce, and Ancient Animus. Now, a GU spell that is of equivalent power level to Dromoka's Command would definitely be sweet.
That's your creature fights a target creature, their version is much more powerful with target creature fights another target creature. Your opponents 3/3 can fight his or her other 3/3 and both die. You as the caster wouldn't need a creature.
Oona's Blackguard (I use a Mac so my ' is different so it might not accept the card tag) is 1B Faerie Rogue 1/1 Flying Each other Rogue creature you control enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.
Whenever a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card.
(with the Scales the second Prowler would be a 3/3 Flyer for 2 that makes them discard upon hits for synergy, first just benefits your other creatures with counters)
With +1/+1 counter aggro plan going on Prowler the turn you swing and you can make them discard their hand. Phrexian Scriptures would likely be a one sided board wipe after a small pump (which if you run both can give the Blackguard a counter and make it an Artifact), before a somewhat irrelevant wiping of their graveyard.
My favorite card that I have wanted to play for a long time (since I last played it in standard) is Riptide Chimera. It's undercosted 3/4 flying body was always my favorite win condition and making it's drawback an advantage made it fun. Years ago I came up with a legacy combo with the Chimera using Second Chance, but it was too slow in theory to actually buy the cards. I tabled the idea for years until I recently decided to try and brew into modern -- here the "all the turns are mine" becomes "you lose a permanent every turn" with Reality Acid. Knowing this is what I want to play the requirements for deckbuilding became a little more clear:
I need to play a significant amount of enchantments.
I need to attack the opponents land base to slow the game down.
These two requirements lead to a quick addition of Root Maze, Spreading Seas, and Choke all of which meet the criteria of enchantments and attacking the land base.
Turn 1: Forest, Root Maze
Turn 2: Need a green 1 drop. Tap land.
Green one drop that makes the most sense to me is Utopia Sprawl as you will have 3 mana turn three. The issue here is the forest clause of Utopia Sprawl, so I will need to figure that out in the future as I think 8 Forests should be the target, where my list currently only has 4.
Now if we rethink this for a potential gameplay this is:
Turn 1: Forest, Root Maze.
OppT 1: Tapped Fetchland.
Turn 2: Utopia Sprawl on Forest. Lumbering Falls.
OppT 2: Fetch Shockland tapped. Shockland.
Turn 3: Choke
Turn 1: Yavimaya Coast, Root Maze.
OppT 1: Tapped Fetchland.
Turn 2: Lumbering Falls.
OppT 2: Fetch Shockland tapped. Shockland.
Turn 3: Eye of Nowhere their land. Field of Ruin.
OppT 3: Shockland tapped. 1 Mana Spell.
Turn 4: pass
OppT 4: Field of Ruin their land on their Upkeep. Each player gets a tapped basic.
Eventually you get Jace and dig for things and his flipside reduces the attack of the opponents small creatures that got through the land hate, and/or you get Riptide Chimera/Reality Acid and finish them off.
Obviously mono-red style decks will be extremely difficult to beat. Root Maze + Choke + Mind Bend can lock a specific basic land out of the game. Spellskite should help as well. Nature's Claim is for Eidolon of the Great Revel or other very difficult cards.
I don't expect this to every be -good-, but I'd like to give it a shot regardless. The wincons are attack with Riptide Chimera or Jace Ultimate and cast spells. Root Maze with enough stall becomes good with Temporal Adept in theory, which could also bounce Reality Acids (same with Boomerang and Eye of Nowhere).
This might just need to become a really poor Legacy deck and replace Utopia Sprawl (and it's forest issue) with Elephant Grass to deal with aggro and the heavier blue meta might be better for choke.
Regardless I'm brewed to a stall and wanted to come to the MTG Salvation community to see if anyone has ideas. I found this thread and figured it's similar enough to post here.
Red could use Draconic Roar for a Sarkhan dragon tribal deck.
White I always like Squadron Hawk and think it should be reprinted. It's the sort of "take these in bulk" card they try in limited (Rat Colony // Powerstone Shard), but actually good in draft and standard.
Green I'd like something that makes sense with the Scapeshift thing going on. Something like a Green Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle that doesn't do direct damage, but maybe makes Llanowar Elves tokens for forests ETB in a Valakut like way. I think Chainwhirler could keep it in check.
I played a deck using this combo at FNM yesterday I went 1-1-1 round one, 0-1-0 round two, 2-0 round three, and bye [played for fun 1-2]
Round 1 I played against a Naya planeswalker control deck. He kept killing my combo pieces so I couldn't go infinite (one turn off multiple times and I could have infinite thopter'd him), but I assembled the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek type combo against him. (Aetherstorm Roc (or the module) + Whirler + Era of Innovation). I stalled the heck out of GW tokens with the same combo (using Era) but lost ultimately (he had gideon +2 of his emblems, plus roughly 10 creatures the smallest of which had 5 power, nissa 3 drop made counters, and then nissa 5 drop was the finisher that killed me)
Anyways I used Aetherworks Marvel in my deck and it was the centerpiece that made it work. The uncommon 2 drop blue Aura was the key removal (always nets 2 energy) then the blue artifact that scrys 2 get 2 energy, and then Roc+Whirler+Module+Era. Making thopters then chump blocking with Marvel nets energy as well. The rest of the deck was basically UW control with Fumigates and Descent upon the Sinful (instant speed sweepers off Marvel).
It was a ton of fun and a lot of decisions especially for standard. It needs a lot of tuning, but there is something there. It's also a hard deck to play fast enough for time (a lot of games are you make 5-11 thopters every turn, but chump block with them, or attack planeswalkers down so you don't lose). I also had Gisela as a 3 of to fight aggro, and a 1 of Bruna as a sort of top end Marvel thing. Bruna worked well as it was also castable [I ult'd Nahiri for Bruna in a game hit his walker for 5, returned to hand and made Brisela the next turn against Naya control, but he fumigated)
I liked playing a bigger more midrange version with Fairgrounds Warden. Having ORings you can find off Deepala was insane, especially with EOT crew and sink mana. I ran 3 Gideon, 1 Nahiri and 1 Chandra, I used the mana adding vehicle as well which had some nice curves like Veteran Motorist into Mana rock Vehicle then next turn if the vehicle wasn't in a good attack spot (worthless chump blocker or whatever that would make it not worth it) then Chandra into plus then having the vehicle to make that RR into RRW let me cast most cards in my hand (Fairgrounds Warden, Depala, more vehicles). I enjoyed this sort of shell as a midrange opposed to just aggro and I think that ability to alter between the strategies will allow this archetype to exist in many different metas. Depala is insane as long as there is relevant hits. Feels sort of like playing legacy Goblins with Goblin Ringleader where you are a midrange aggro with control level card advantage.
Something similar to what I posted I ran today. I played against UWR Miracles rounds 1 and 2 (1-2, then 2-1) then Punishing Fire, Nahiri, and Dak Fayden Miracles [which got 1st place] that beat me without me having a shot. I then played a really fun match up against Alluren which beat me in a super close game 3. Really have no idea how to beat that Punishing Fire Miracles with any deck to be honest.
I was your Punishing Miracles opponent. I wrote a mini-recap here, in the punishing miracles thread, but from your account, I may have misremembered the order of my second and third matches.
I don't really know how to attack the deck from a fair angle -- more so than normal miracles, the punishing build might just be inherently good against this kind of strategy. One way that you might be able to work it if you're trying to metagame against it would be Thrun, the last troll, Troll Ascetic, or Dungrove Elder. Anything without hexproof is going to be pretty vulnerable unless you hit ~5 toughness (and even then, you need to dodge Nahiri and JTMS). Geist of Saint Traft is probably too greedy since it walks into the pile of pyroblasts that that deck runs. Thrun would essentially allow you to fight over terminus and ignore all else -- which seems like a good position to be in. Other than that, I could see Stirring Wildwood or Lumbering Falls doing work against me
Yeah from what I remember you went against someone round one, then I moved round two to your table and then I went one spot over for the next three rounds. You played against Alluren round two, then he played against Food Chain round 3, then I played Alluren round 4 while you played the Miracles player that beat me round one.
I would think Meddling Mage on Punishing Fire, then T3 Prelate on 4 (Nahiri, JTMS, humility) then find another Meddling Mage or Prelate for Terminus. The issue is Meddling mage is blue so Blast can snipe it, then Fire can shoot the Prelate and all the locks come off. So basically I need to Hierarch into Prelate one 1, then prelate or Mage on 2/Fire, then Prelates on 4 and Mages on Terminus. Regardless it's all a tremendous amount of right cards in hand at the right time when knowing what to name. It's much much worse than regular miracles to play against. Also I think boarding out Stoneforges and all artifacts is sort of a necessity given how much of a blow out Dack Fayden was. Maybe SB Geist like you said would be a direction to take it as with Geist and True Name that puts you on counter with Blast or Terminus then the exalted triggers can put a clock on the game.
The Lumbering Falls would be an easy inclusion though, just a feels bad as you try to T1 manadork into 3 drop and a easy wasteland target.
Something similar to what I posted I ran today. I played against UWR Miracles rounds 1 and 2 (1-2, then 2-1) then Punishing Fire, Nahiri, and Dak Fayden Miracles [which got 1st place] that beat me without me having a shot. I then played a really fun match up against Alluren which beat me in a super close game 3. Really have no idea how to beat that Punishing Fire Miracles with any deck to be honest.
I went with Birds of Paradise as a 2 of and added a Manriki-Gusari sideboard. I moved the Path to Exiles to the SB along with Gaddock Teeg and cut the Basics down to 2 of each. I brought Jace, the Mind Sculptor, two True-Name Nemesis and all 4 Sanctum Prelates main. I played 5 test games against D&T and won 4 (misplayed the loss by playing my lands out of order and thusly getting snagged by Thalia setting me back a turn on an already slow hand), I also played a bunch of games against Infect and had maybe a 30% matchup preboard (naming was hard to do on Meddling Mage and Prelates, was never quiet sure what to name) but moved to pretty dang great post board.
To up the powerlevel, you add 4 Chalice of the Void, but the card is now ~$40. This deck has god awful match ups (Elves, combo [why chalice is such a good, but expensive option]), and then blows up the fair decks. The most common thing opponents use their free green mana for are free Deathrite Shaman and Tarmogoyf, but you take advantage of the mana so much better (with the exception of the unbeatable elves). Guide is basically an upgraded Forest in this deck since if you flood you can just cast it as a creature or if you get Dazed, pay the Daze off.
Lines include:
T1: Vineyard
T2: Morphed Hydra, maybe another Vineyard
T3: 5 or 6 Mana available, flip option or huge creature to commit more to board.
T1: Vineyard
T2: Scavenging Ooze, activate or another Vineyard
T3: Jitte and Equip swing (this is basically the only way to beat elves then -1/-1 creatures, but it's still often not good enough)
T1: Spirit Guide + Forest = Chalice
T1: Vineyard, Spirit Guide, Vineyard (or Vineyard, next turn, forest + guide = Deus)
T2: Deus of Calamady
- Rest in Peace (~$4)
- Energy Field (~$4)
- Web of Inertia (~$0.50)
Enlightened Tutors are around $10 to silver bullet the deck adding bullets like Seal of Cleansing (~$0.25) and a one of (expensive) finisher of Helm of Obedience (~$25/$30).
Can also go hate bear beatdowns is an alternative way to build, using enchantment or artifact creatures you can tutor. With land base of +4 Terramorphic Expanse +4 Evolving Wilds with a UWR color scheme to get Spirit of the Labyrinth (~$1), Phyrexian Revoker (~$1), Aegis of the Gods (~$1) Meddling Mage (~$8), Ethersworn Canonist (~$5), Magus of the Moon (~$25) in creature builds, but Blood Moon is roughly $35 as well if you went enlightened tutor and can one of a blood moon which ends up being more bang for the money.
Second Chance + Riptide Chimera + 5 or less life = infinite turns
Board: Riptide Chimera, Second Chance, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Beginning of your upkeep place the Second Chance trigger on the stack. Then place the Riptide Chimera trigger on the stack.
Board: Riptide Chimera, Second Chance, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Stack [top to bottom]: 1) Return an Enchantment to your hand. 2) Take an extra turn.
Resolve the Riptide Chimera ability, return Second Chance.
Board: Riptide Chimera, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Stack [top to bottom]: 1) Take an extra turn.
Resolve Second Chance's ability that is on the stack. Take an extra turn, since it is no longer on the board you do not have to sacrifice it (post-2010 ruling).
Board: Riptide Chimera, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Draw step, then Main phase use the mana to recast Second Chance. Repeat each upkeep for infinite turns. Win condition is attack each turn for 3 flying.
Glacial Chasm keeps you alive, while getting your life to <5. RIP/Energy Field/Web of Inertia keeps you alive. Blood Moon wins some matches.
This is not at all tuned and I think it probably needs more basic lands (you are mana hungry). It's a deck that can do some weird things though for around $120 (~$150 if you put a Helm of Obedience in it)
Use your base creature package with Biomancer's Familiar, Incubation Druid and Growth-Chamber Guardian this starts your curve off well at 2 CMC for Vannifar, and the Guardians find other copies so getting to 3 is pretty easy and they are simply good without her. Then the three slot you get Exclusion Mage for bounce, Reclamation Sage or Thrashing Brontodon for artifact/enchantment hate, District Guide or Elvish Rejuvenator for a land fetch, Plaguecrafter as an out to the hexproof creatures, Blood Operative is a way to recursively start the curve at 3 if you add a surveil package (Doom Whisperer and Dream Eater. Then at 4 you have Frilled Mystic as a counterspell, Prime Speaker Vannifar, maybe a Sharktocrab. There is also the enchantments that you can pick from in Hadona's Climb (you would want Llanowar Elves with Climb) or Wilderness Reclamation, which untaps your lands so you can adapt on their turn, or hold open the Frilled Mystics. At 5 there is Biogenic Ooze which works with the Wilderness enchantment, and Mesmerizing Benthid which sort of works like your Sharktocrab but not against fliers, but isn't dependent on Familiar and is good with Climb as it's hexproof, and Academy Journeymage is another bounce ETB guy At six there is the card I think is the reason BUG would be cool with your idea -- it isn't in packs, but is standard legal -- Gravewaker. With Biomancer's Familar it's 5 mana bring a creature from your graveyard to play. If you use Prime Speaker, you can sac Frilled and then have counter up every turn (you can fail to find). You can bring back Plaguecrafter sacrificing itself and making them sac creatures, then planeswalkers, then when its an empty board making them discard the card they drew for the turn in their draw step basically locking them out of the game. With 2 Biomancers out it cost 1BB to resurrect, and with a money landbase you potentially can do two activations each turn like bring back Plaguecrafter, and hold up for Frilled or whatever. With Wilderness Reclamation the holding up mana part shouldnt be that difficult. Whatever slots left in the deck that are open likely are filled with Incubation // Incongruity as its a creature heavy deck and this digs or acts as removal.
T1: Overgrown Tomb tapped.
T2: Hinterland Harbor, Biomancer's Familiar
T3: Breeding Pool untapped, Plaguecrafter (self sac)
T4: Forest, Wilderness Reclamation -- their turn Frilled Mystic either chump block with it and or counter
T5: Watery Grave tapped
T6: Swamp, Gravewaker, their turn have Mystic up or start Plaguecraftering them.
That's your creature fights a target creature, their version is much more powerful with target creature fights another target creature. Your opponents 3/3 can fight his or her other 3/3 and both die. You as the caster wouldn't need a creature.
Oona's Blackguard (I use a Mac so my ' is different so it might not accept the card tag) is 1B Faerie Rogue 1/1 Flying Each other Rogue creature you control enters the battlefield with an additional +1/+1 counter on it.
Whenever a creature you control with a +1/+1 counter on it deals combat damage to a player, that player discards a card.
(with the Scales the second Prowler would be a 3/3 Flyer for 2 that makes them discard upon hits for synergy, first just benefits your other creatures with counters)
With +1/+1 counter aggro plan going on Prowler the turn you swing and you can make them discard their hand. Phrexian Scriptures would likely be a one sided board wipe after a small pump (which if you run both can give the Blackguard a counter and make it an Artifact), before a somewhat irrelevant wiping of their graveyard.
These two requirements lead to a quick addition of Root Maze, Spreading Seas, and Choke all of which meet the criteria of enchantments and attacking the land base.
Turn 1: Forest, Root Maze
Turn 2: Need a green 1 drop. Tap land.
Green one drop that makes the most sense to me is Utopia Sprawl as you will have 3 mana turn three. The issue here is the forest clause of Utopia Sprawl, so I will need to figure that out in the future as I think 8 Forests should be the target, where my list currently only has 4.
Now if we rethink this for a potential gameplay this is:
Turn 1: Forest, Root Maze.
OppT 1: Tapped Fetchland.
Turn 2: Utopia Sprawl on Forest. Lumbering Falls.
OppT 2: Fetch Shockland tapped. Shockland.
Turn 3: Choke
Turn 1: Yavimaya Coast, Root Maze.
OppT 1: Tapped Fetchland.
Turn 2: Lumbering Falls.
OppT 2: Fetch Shockland tapped. Shockland.
Turn 3: Eye of Nowhere their land. Field of Ruin.
OppT 3: Shockland tapped. 1 Mana Spell.
Turn 4: pass
OppT 4: Field of Ruin their land on their Upkeep. Each player gets a tapped basic.
Eventually you get Jace and dig for things and his flipside reduces the attack of the opponents small creatures that got through the land hate, and/or you get Riptide Chimera/Reality Acid and finish them off.
Obviously mono-red style decks will be extremely difficult to beat. Root Maze + Choke + Mind Bend can lock a specific basic land out of the game. Spellskite should help as well. Nature's Claim is for Eidolon of the Great Revel or other very difficult cards.
I don't expect this to every be -good-, but I'd like to give it a shot regardless. The wincons are attack with Riptide Chimera or Jace Ultimate and cast spells. Root Maze with enough stall becomes good with Temporal Adept in theory, which could also bounce Reality Acids (same with Boomerang and Eye of Nowhere).
This might just need to become a really poor Legacy deck and replace Utopia Sprawl (and it's forest issue) with Elephant Grass to deal with aggro and the heavier blue meta might be better for choke.
Regardless I'm brewed to a stall and wanted to come to the MTG Salvation community to see if anyone has ideas. I found this thread and figured it's similar enough to post here.
4 Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy
4 Riptide Chimera
1 Temporal Adept
Enchantment (20)
4 Root Maze
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Spreading Seas
4 Choke
4 Reality Acid
4 Boomerang
3 Eye of Nowhere
Land (24)
4 Ghost Quarter
4 Field of Ruin
4 Botanical Sanctum
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Lumbering Falls
4 Forest
4 Mind Bend
4 Damping Sphere
3 Natures Claim
4 Spellskite
Red could use Draconic Roar for a Sarkhan dragon tribal deck.
White I always like Squadron Hawk and think it should be reprinted. It's the sort of "take these in bulk" card they try in limited (Rat Colony // Powerstone Shard), but actually good in draft and standard.
Green I'd like something that makes sense with the Scapeshift thing going on. Something like a Green Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle that doesn't do direct damage, but maybe makes Llanowar Elves tokens for forests ETB in a Valakut like way. I think Chainwhirler could keep it in check.
Blue Mystical Teachings
And add Standard to the Format is another way to do it. It would pop up some other printings of legal cards.
Round 1 I played against a Naya planeswalker control deck. He kept killing my combo pieces so I couldn't go infinite (one turn off multiple times and I could have infinite thopter'd him), but I assembled the Thopter Foundry/Sword of the Meek type combo against him. (Aetherstorm Roc (or the module) + Whirler + Era of Innovation). I stalled the heck out of GW tokens with the same combo (using Era) but lost ultimately (he had gideon +2 of his emblems, plus roughly 10 creatures the smallest of which had 5 power, nissa 3 drop made counters, and then nissa 5 drop was the finisher that killed me)
Anyways I used Aetherworks Marvel in my deck and it was the centerpiece that made it work. The uncommon 2 drop blue Aura was the key removal (always nets 2 energy) then the blue artifact that scrys 2 get 2 energy, and then Roc+Whirler+Module+Era. Making thopters then chump blocking with Marvel nets energy as well. The rest of the deck was basically UW control with Fumigates and Descent upon the Sinful (instant speed sweepers off Marvel).
It was a ton of fun and a lot of decisions especially for standard. It needs a lot of tuning, but there is something there. It's also a hard deck to play fast enough for time (a lot of games are you make 5-11 thopters every turn, but chump block with them, or attack planeswalkers down so you don't lose). I also had Gisela as a 3 of to fight aggro, and a 1 of Bruna as a sort of top end Marvel thing. Bruna worked well as it was also castable [I ult'd Nahiri for Bruna in a game hit his walker for 5, returned to hand and made Brisela the next turn against Naya control, but he fumigated)
Yeah from what I remember you went against someone round one, then I moved round two to your table and then I went one spot over for the next three rounds. You played against Alluren round two, then he played against Food Chain round 3, then I played Alluren round 4 while you played the Miracles player that beat me round one.
I would think Meddling Mage on Punishing Fire, then T3 Prelate on 4 (Nahiri, JTMS, humility) then find another Meddling Mage or Prelate for Terminus. The issue is Meddling mage is blue so Blast can snipe it, then Fire can shoot the Prelate and all the locks come off. So basically I need to Hierarch into Prelate one 1, then prelate or Mage on 2/Fire, then Prelates on 4 and Mages on Terminus. Regardless it's all a tremendous amount of right cards in hand at the right time when knowing what to name. It's much much worse than regular miracles to play against. Also I think boarding out Stoneforges and all artifacts is sort of a necessity given how much of a blow out Dack Fayden was. Maybe SB Geist like you said would be a direction to take it as with Geist and True Name that puts you on counter with Blast or Terminus then the exalted triggers can put a clock on the game.
The Lumbering Falls would be an easy inclusion though, just a feels bad as you try to T1 manadork into 3 drop and a easy wasteland target.
4 Eladamri's Vineyard (~$1)
4 Scavenging Ooze (~$7)
4 Hooded Hydra (~$2)
1 Thrun, the last Troll ($10)
4 Obstinate Baloth (~$5)
4 Wickerbough Elder ($0.25)
2 Thragtusk (~$4)
4 Deus of Calamity (~$1)
2 Umezawa's Jitte (~$20)
4 Elvish Spirit Guide (~$5)
19 Forests
Some Alt Options
1 Choke
1 Chalice of the Void
1 Relic of Progenitus
1 Stingerfling Spider
1 Centaur Vinecrasher
1 Any Garruk
1 Natural Order [+Progenitus]
To up the powerlevel, you add 4 Chalice of the Void, but the card is now ~$40. This deck has god awful match ups (Elves, combo [why chalice is such a good, but expensive option]), and then blows up the fair decks. The most common thing opponents use their free green mana for are free Deathrite Shaman and Tarmogoyf, but you take advantage of the mana so much better (with the exception of the unbeatable elves). Guide is basically an upgraded Forest in this deck since if you flood you can just cast it as a creature or if you get Dazed, pay the Daze off.
Lines include:
T1: Vineyard
T2: Morphed Hydra, maybe another Vineyard
T3: 5 or 6 Mana available, flip option or huge creature to commit more to board.
T1: Vineyard
T2: Scavenging Ooze, activate or another Vineyard
T3: Jitte and Equip swing (this is basically the only way to beat elves then -1/-1 creatures, but it's still often not good enough)
T1: Spirit Guide + Forest = Chalice
T1: Vineyard, Spirit Guide, Vineyard (or Vineyard, next turn, forest + guide = Deus)
T2: Deus of Calamady
Is a solid basis for a budget control deck.
- Rest in Peace (~$4)
- Energy Field (~$4)
- Web of Inertia (~$0.50)
Enlightened Tutors are around $10 to silver bullet the deck adding bullets like Seal of Cleansing (~$0.25) and a one of (expensive) finisher of Helm of Obedience (~$25/$30).
Can also go hate bear beatdowns is an alternative way to build, using enchantment or artifact creatures you can tutor. With land base of +4 Terramorphic Expanse +4 Evolving Wilds with a UWR color scheme to get Spirit of the Labyrinth (~$1), Phyrexian Revoker (~$1), Aegis of the Gods (~$1) Meddling Mage (~$8), Ethersworn Canonist (~$5), Magus of the Moon (~$25) in creature builds, but Blood Moon is roughly $35 as well if you went enlightened tutor and can one of a blood moon which ends up being more bang for the money.
4 Terramorphic Expanse ($0.25)
4 Evolving Wilds (people have these)
6 Island (people have these)
6 Plains (people have these)
1 Mountain (people have these)
3 Glacial Chasm ($1.25)
4 Rest in Peace (~$4)
1 Energy Field (~$4)
1 Web of Inertia (~$0.25)
1 Blood Moon (~$35)
4 Mystic Remora ($0.50)
3 Second Chance (~0.50)
4 Riptide Chimera (~$0.25)
Instant 14
4 Swords to Plowshares (~$2.50)
4 Enlightened Tutor (~$10)
2 Divert ($2)
4 Spell Pierce ($2)
Sorcery 4
4 Ponder ($1.50)
Board: Riptide Chimera, Second Chance, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Beginning of your upkeep place the Second Chance trigger on the stack. Then place the Riptide Chimera trigger on the stack.
Board: Riptide Chimera, Second Chance, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Stack [top to bottom]: 1) Return an Enchantment to your hand. 2) Take an extra turn.
Resolve the Riptide Chimera ability, return Second Chance.
Board: Riptide Chimera, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Stack [top to bottom]: 1) Take an extra turn.
Resolve Second Chance's ability that is on the stack. Take an extra turn, since it is no longer on the board you do not have to sacrifice it (post-2010 ruling).
Board: Riptide Chimera, the ability to produce at least 3 mana.
Draw step, then Main phase use the mana to recast Second Chance. Repeat each upkeep for infinite turns. Win condition is attack each turn for 3 flying.
This is not at all tuned and I think it probably needs more basic lands (you are mana hungry). It's a deck that can do some weird things though for around $120 (~$150 if you put a Helm of Obedience in it)