A while back I saw this deck. It's a pretty cool idea, but now Sram, Senior Edificer is coming, can we do any better? I think so...
I originally wanted to make this a budget build, but Mox Opal is pretty much irreplaceable. Luckily, I got all my cards before the prices spiked.
This deck has been through a lot of iterations. Here's the logic behind my choices - looking at the lists others are running, there's definitely no agreed-upon best deck, and it's not helped by the meta at my LGS being nothing like what most people seem to be facing. We see virtually no Jund or Affinity, but lots of Burn, Control, Weenies and Combo decks.
First off, lots of people are playing two Serum Visions and two Swan Song mainboard, but not only do I not have an extra Swan Song to put in, having foolishly traded it away a few months ago, I also like having as many cheerios as possible - the more you run the less likely you are to wiff on the combo, which feels like the biggest potential issue. It feels like my best plan is just to combo off before anyone can do anything about it, and wiffing on turn 2 or 3 is truly painful. Some people are going down to as few as 18 cheerios, but that seems like trading the early kill for a grindy match, and this deck is never going to grind as well as other decks. As a result, I'm playing 1 of each. This also makes sense as I don't tend to have as much Blue available as some other decks, thanks to....
Cavern of Souls. It's not a popular choice but I think it works well in my counterspell-heavy meta. It hasn't caused me problems so far, but we'll see how it goes with more real life play. Not being able to Visions, Repeal or Retract with it kinda sucks, but I think it's worth it.
Kite Shield
is a 2-of while Bone Saw is a 4-of. This is fairly uncommon, but sometimes that extra power makes all the difference, and I have a lot of toughness boosters.
Noxious Revival is amazing. Whiffed on your second land? Revival a fetch. Had your engine killed? Revival and try again. Comboing out and need another
Retract
? Revival before you play your last cheerio. Mana-flooded or -screwed opponent? Revival whatever it is from their graveyard that they don't want, and slow them down a turn.
The sideboard is super simple, though it's gone through several iterations. 4x Leyline of Sanctity is obvious - it stops targeted discard and burn in particular, both of which can ruin us. 4x Echoing Truths is our catch-all way to remove troublesome permanents. Runed Halo? Bounce it. Eidolon of the Great Revel? Bounce it. Thalia, Guardian of Thraben? Bounce it. 3x Silence lets us stop them from interfering when we want to go off. 2x
Bastion Inventor
may look strange, but if they're burn/removal heavy, being able to get a 4/4 into play for a single blue mana on turn 1 gives us a ridiculous clock that they often just can't deal with. 2x Burrenton Forge-Tender helps us out when an Eidolon of the Great Revel or some other nasty red card is in play.
Erayo, Soratami Ascendant was in the sideboard before, but it is a magnet for the same removal that hits our engines, so I'm not sure it's that useful in the current meta. Against combo decks there are probably better options. I was previously running Monastery Mentor and
Mass Hysteria
to work around Grapeshot hate, but then I figured Mentor also dies to everything that gets Erayo, and I'm better just bouncing whatever is in the way of my grapeshot with Repeal or Echoing Truth.
Mark of Asylum
was going to be awesome against burn decks, but then they printed Fatal Push and suddenly it's not quite so impressive.
Dispatch is really tempting for creature removal, as is Path to Exile. Fragmentize or
Wear / Tear
for artifacts and enchantments, too. But, is that just reducing my flexibility compared to Echoing Truths? In theory I can bounce the troublesome stuff on their end step and then go off...
