Dislcaimer: This deck is supposed to be Janky. That is the whole point so please don't tell me to "fix it". There's nothing wrong with it.
This deck was designed to abuse the beauty that is Gift of Immortality. At first anyway. But then i saw the spoiler for Athreos, God of Passage and I about jumped for joy. It just fits so perfectly. So here goes the info on my decisions.
Ever since seeing
Bogbrew Witch
and
Festering Newt
and
Bubbling Cauldron
I wanted a way to make it work into a deck but never could come up with a way. And then Theros gave us Gift of Immortality and i thought "holy crap no way!!".
So obviously the first three cards fit together and synergize so duh. They all go in.
Gift of Immortality was the next add in as a 4 of because if i can land it onto a newt it spells game unless i'm disrupted (more on that later)
I also decided i needed a sac outlet just in case my newt got targeted and i needed a way to make it go away for a while. Cartel Aristocrat was my solution. The protection is nice just in case i do need to swing/block with it and also as it doesn't cost mana there is no limit to the number of times i can use it.
But what if i don't draw Gift of Immortality? At first this was a big issue as the deck specifically depends on that card to stay moving in the right direction and i was running
Grim Return
as the solution. And then Athreos, God of Passage was spoiled. Auto replaced immediately for obvious reasons.
I also needed a way to make aggro decks not want to attack me as if they get moving i'm sunk. Period. High Priest of Penance was my go to for this as a lot of decks (in my meta) due the ping you to death strategy. With HPoP in play, it sinks most strategies becaue if they swing with anything and I block with him I can destroy their engine.
I wanted to run Thoughtseize but as this was a midrange deck bordering on aggro in some games early on i couldn't afford to lose a creature so i went with
Drainpipe Vermin
instead. Yeah the conditional "pay B" sucks sometimes and i don't get to choose but I almost always have a B open to force a discard and losing a card is losing a card and disruption is disruption. It's even better if i have Cartel Aristocrat in play as I can force them to discard and then swing with a pro color creature or vice versa. Swing and see what they do and then pop the sac if i have to.
Pharika's Cure
is nice for me for 2 reasons in this deck. 1) death to mana dorks in ramp decks. 2) in a tough spot I have put Gift of Immortality on a High Priest of Penance and then drew this. I went "well that's not helpful" and then looked again. I swear the guy i was playing looked at me like I had three heads when he saw my face. And then i pinged my own high priest with it EOT and his face was priceless.
And lastly we have the swiss army knife of my deck.
Orzhov Charm
is just bonkers useful. With my ability to gain life I can literally kill just about anything without fear. I can bounce my creature that has gift on it back to my hand if i don't have my sac engines out yet or reanimate a
Festering Newt
that i had to chump with early game or what have you.
Well that about sums up the deck. I hope you all enjoy it. Trust me it's fun to play but i wouldn't plan on winning an FNM with it. The combos are particularly fragile against bant control what with all the Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict but it can keep with just about anything else as it basically punishes them for attacking you.
