This is my combo deck which features Living Lore. The idea is to use various discard effects like Taigam's Scheming, Monastery Siege and
Jeskai Elder
to discard high CMC cards that you probably wont be casting like Volcanic Vision and Treasure Cruise. Then you can play a Living Lore to create a 7/7 or 8/8 creature.
I found that the utility of Living Lore is insane! So much value in this 4-drop. In an ideal world, I would run all the High CMC cards like Temporal Trespass but the deck becomes too unreliable. This deck is relatively low curve and although it relies on a Living Lore to win a game with style, it is not necessary. Low costing prowess creatures allow for a very aggressive start as well as lifelink against mono-red. There are only 13 creatures in the deck meaning 25 cards will trigger prowess. With Alesha, Who Smiles at Death in play, it is easy to bring back small creatures from the grave to keep beating in for extra damage. Every creature in the deck except alesha herself can be revived by alesha, and double white on turn 4-5 isn't too hard to achieve with the amount of tap lands.
Most games follow a similar pattern:
T1: Tap-land or Evolving Wilds
T2: Basic Land.
Seeker of the Way
,
Jeskai Elder
, or Tiagam's Scheming.
T3: More land of some sort. Either another card mentioned above or Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. If you are casting a non-creature spell, it is a good idea to start attacking with creatures with prowess. Especially to get the loot trigger from
Jeskai Elder
.
T4: From here, multiple things can occur. Since you have likely filtered through your top few cards of your deck, you have to make the decision of how the rest of the game will flow. In most cases, I am playing a Living Lore and trying to generate as much value as possible. If you don't have a Living Lore, just start playing 2-mana cards like Lightning Strike and other prowess creatures and just keep tempo.
Here are some of the key combos I like to use at various stages of the game:
Destroys aggro strategies : Howl of the Horde
+
Lightning Strike
Wrath's the opponent : Living Lore
+
Volcanic Vision
+
Treasure Cruise
Dome for 12 : Howl of the Horde
+
Jeskai Charm
Infinite Loop : Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
+
Living Lore
+ Any spell you want to cast repeatedly.
When low on cards : Living Lore
+
Treasure Cruise
or Howl of the Horde
+
Treasure Cruise
Just a few things to note. If Howl of the Horde is cast from Living Lore, raid will trigger. This allows you to triple-cast what ever you want during your second main phase. Treasure Cruise doesn't have to be cast from a Living Lore. In most cases, when you need to draw 3, you are able to exile crap from the graveyard like Evolving Wilds. To my knowledge, Howl of the Horde copies do not trigger prowess. When you have a lot of options, it is nice to cast a Howl of the Horde before combat. You only get one copy but it plays mind games with an opponent. They may block differently and you can double-cast a Lightning Strike or
Jeskai Charm
during combat.
Help is needed for my sideboard. I live near my "local" game store, so I can't attend FNM often. I'm planning to go more often after magic origins comes out. Just from the Tarkir Block, what cards should I use in the sideboard. I pretty confindent that mono-red/heavy aggro decks will be present as well as abzan decks featuring Siege Rhino/Wingmate Roc. For this reason, I am running Deflecting Palm as a means of countering Siege Rhino's drain and burn spells like
Stoke the Flames
. Disdainful Stroke will outright counter any threat from abzan decks and will come in agianst a lot of decks. Im thinking about mainboarding a few because this deck is weak to huge threats. I need opinions on this.
