Hey guys, I haven't been around in a while. Mainly because my main browser quit working with NGA (still won't, no idea why) but I play on my ipad at night and came up with this build that I have played at least a 100 games with now. I haven't kept track of my record but I win the vast majority of games and have gone on 10+ winning streaks more than once so I had to post it up here, lol.
It started out as a 5-color build and through trial and error I figured out what was working, what wasn't, etc. On top of that I figured "what are the cards that just really screw me over when I'm playing against someone and they plop it down." Like with any build, you can swap out one or 2 cards and still have decent success and overall it is based on ramping and "tutoring" as well. And of course I was keeping in mind other builds that worked well in the past, nothing new or crazy here. Just very solid. So here it is:
A couple notes: So I also built this deck with a couple other things in mind. One is really good destroy cards/sweepers. Decks that rely on enchantments/auras typically don't have a chance. Speedy token/goblin type decks, unless they literally get the best possible hand/draws with a good deck played by a skilled player, have no chance. The decks that seem strongest against this deck are your counter decks and steal/sac decks, but even then it is more along the lines of being a 50/50 shot. I've weathered countless counters only to bring in one more big guy to seal the deal and the same can go with control decks. You can only kill off so many big guys until you run out of ammunition.
I've not encountered anything that I couldn't handle. If I'm getting really good draws there's pretty much nothing out there that can beat this deck (or at least I'm never having my ass handed to me, if I lose it is by a single turn). With all the ways to get lands I maybe get flooded or screwed on a 1-2% basis? I've won games with 4 or 5 card starting hands more often than not (when it comes to having to go down that low). This deck has amazing bounce back ability and I play with the mindset that my starting life is at 10. I'll let nearly any damage through until I hit 10 and by that time I've usually gotten enough land to do anything I need to do to win the game and enough life gain to get past any early beat downs.
I did use 'ol
Griselbrand and
Kozilek, Butcher of Truth for a time but both seemed to be a little late to the party by the time they came out, even with the pretty much sure land drops and ramping with cultivates. They are also near impossible to grab with a
Genesis Hydra as well. I tried other land type things with the artifacts but always kept coming back to the solid
Cultivate and
Satyr Wayfinder. I tried a few other things too like a
Séance, which wasn't bad, but wasn't wowing me either. So I've "settled" with this and can barely even play another deck now, lol. Like I said, anyone could switch a card out here or there but the core of this deck is pretty brutal.
Edit 03/07/2015: So, I totally left out 2 cards from my original list, lol. I was doing it from memory and forgot about a couple changes I had made (which is funny, because I left out 2 cards that have been in every version but w/e, lol). So...the main edit is -3
Ground Assault, +2
Arbor Colossus, +1
Monomania (if I had correctly listed the original list, it would be -1
Ground Assault for the
Monomania). -1
Pelakka Wurm, +1
Sheoldred, Whispering One (I wanted something from the new cards and this card is pretty damn amazing, even if I didn't really wanna get rid of a
Pelakka Wurm. So far it hasn't disappointed).
Monomania is something I completely overlooked and can really just decimate an opponent. The reason I even thought of it is due to the fact I've noticed when good players see the type of deck I'm playing they are playing patiently and waiting for an opening to try and get the upper-hand, which in turn leads to larger hand sizes. I don't think I've had a game where the opponent didn't just straight up quit after using this card, lol. You could put back in a
Ground Assault if you want, but
Monomania will usually end up taking away more cards. I go back and forth here.
I also tinkered with the land a bit. It's funny...this whole time I've been thinking "man, I'd do anything for a couple more
lands"...and then I see the
Seaside Citadel, lol. Which also works out in your favor because people think you are also playing blue when you're not. They think counters, bouncing, etc. With
Sheoldred, Whispering One and
Monomania I also figured another
would help so I went with an extra
as well and decided I might as well stick with the "fake blue" routine and added an
Arcane Sanctum. So the lands edited look like this: -1
Boros Guildgate, -3
Gruul Guildgate, +1
Arcane Sanctum, and +3
Seaside Citadel.
As another note, I have also noticed nearly every single loss I've had boils down to not getting a sweeper drawn in time. So I usually try to mulligan for at least an
Anger of the Gods or
Planar Cleansing.
Edit 05/11/2015: With the newest boosters and tri-lands I made a couple more changes. There's pretty much no reason at all to keep any of the dual-lands in this particular deck now. So -4
Selesnya Guildgate, -1
Gruul Guildgate, +3
Sandsteppe Citadel, +2
Frontier Bivouac. Needless to say, the
Sandsteppe Citadel is the perfect addition. The
Frontier Bivouac is another "trick blue" "dual land" of sorts. New lands are working out great.
I also made another change with the
Lone Missionary. While they are great early on they were lacking a bit mid-late game and after looking through to see what would be just as good early and better late
Ground Assault came back to mind. So far it has worked great.
Lone Missionary did great early on, gaining 4 life, chump blocking, and maybe even killing something important, but at the same time I couldn't necessarily choose what to kill with it and even then anything over 2 toughness wouldn't die anyway. With
Ground Assault I lose the life gain, but in many instances I am saving more life than I would have gained killing off something important like
Goblin Rabblemaster,
Brimaz, King of Oreskos,
Talrand, Sky Summoner or something like
Mentor of the Meek or
Banisher Priest, etc. And of course late game when I have a ton of lands there's pretty much nothing it can't destroy. So in the majority of instances
Ground Assault worked out better. I can only add 3
Ground Assault so I figured I might as well keep the 1 left over
Lone Missionary. -3
Lone Missionary, +3
Ground Assault.
That concludes this edit and this deck is still destroying opponents left and right. I enjoy experimenting with other stuff from time to time but I love playing this deck more than anything else.
Edit: 05/28/2015:
Banefire has preformed admirably, but I couldn't help but think another
Pelakka Wurm or the "new"
Craterhoof Behemoth were not worth trying out, plus it works better with
Genesis Hydra. So far it is working out great. -2
Banefire, +1
Pelakka Wurm (3 total), +1
Craterhoof Behemoth.