This what I saw when I first looked at this pool; I've got a few sweepers, 2 bombs in the same wedge, a couple of nice Morpheus and a few charms (all outside the wedges of the bombs), not a lot of fixing within a singlular wedge, a few impressive commons sprinkled around. I had quite a bit of removal options. I also saw a bunch of cards that are filler. Not bad cards, playable, just filler. So I pulled the few good cards from each single color stack I had. The green and blue just weren't good enough by themselves to pull me away from Mardu. There really wasn't any problem cutting the deck. I did include one green card. I used the two Opulent Palaces as B/G lands and ran a single forest. I. I figured that the upside of a 4/4 Lifelink that, even if I didn't see a green source, would never be a dead car would be worth including. I was only running 2 of the actual dual lands so having to many taplands wasn't a concern.
Ainok Bond-Kin x2
feat of resistance
[c]debilitating injury[c]
[C]Mardu skullhunter[/c]
leaping master
chief of the scale
kill shot
Mardu Hordechief
dragon grip
rush of battle
[c]Sidisi's pet]/c]
[C]unyielding Krumar[/c] x2
butcher of the horde
throttle
Zurgo helmsmasher
end hostilities x2
Abzan guide
Ainok tracker
shambling attendants
Oppulent Palace x2
scoured barrens
wind-scarred crag
plains x6
swamp x3
mountain x4
forest x1
I went with 18 lands because I wanted 8 white sources and going 17 lands left me a black or a red source short. The only card I never used was Dragon Grip. Swift kick or Smite the Monstrous would have been my 23rd card. I spent more time thinking about Death Frenzy than any other card. I was able to justify the Guide due to morphology but with only 3 green sources I figured it would be a dead card more often than not.
Even with 18 lands I mulliganed about 2 of every 3 games. I really don't know what the problem was but I was getting a bunch of 1-2 land hands. Despite this I was able to overcome most opponents with End hostilities or Butcher of the Horde saccing for lifelink. Zurgo won one match by himself. Most of the time he'd get in for 7 and then eat removal, not bad for a 5 mana card. After 4 rounds I was 3-1 having gotten destroyed round 3 2-0 by a deck who used Empty the Graves or something (XXBBBB - Delve- Put X 2/2 zombie tokens in play. Instant) both games. Once he did it at my end step after End Hostilities, once he did it on my end step a turn and a half after he cast End Hostilities.
Then I get to round 4. By all rights I should have had this guy. My creatures were better than his. I never saw a card that impressed me except a Crackling Doom. It was this round that my deck decided to reward me for my patience with it's stingy mana habits. It returned the favor 4 fold. It gave me land after land after land. He eventually flooded the ground and ground out two long drawn out games.
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