This is my take on a Red/Green deck that has a chance to beat the Eldrazi Ramp/Ulamog decks. I was playing a Naya Dragons ramp deck, but I could never beat the Eldrazi deck since on Turns 5 or so I was casting Dragonlord Dromoka and Dragonlord Atarka and they were casting Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon. That deck did really well against value midrange decks like Abzan Blue and Jeskai Black, and had a fair game after sideboard against aggro decks, but just could not hang into the late game, of course, with Ulamog, and couldn't transform to be fast enough to beat that deck even after sideboarding.
So this deck is simply faster. It's not as good against the other midrange decks, but it CAN get a kill in against an Ulamog opponent before they get to casting Ulamog. Crater's Claws is a big part of the reason, as I can whittle their life total down the first several turns with creatures, then hopefully finish them off with a big Crater's Claws even if they've wiped the board with Ugin. As a kind of last resort, if they do manage to resolve Ulamog or Kozilek, I have Act of Treason in the sideboard with the idea of stealing Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger or Kozilek, the Great Distortion for a single turn to finish them off. I'm hoping Crumble to Dust is a good way to slow down their ramping, but it doesn't shut them down completely.
The general idea of the deck is to utilize graveyard recursion with cards that are castable early, and come back stronger in the late game.
The buyback cards are Pulse of Murasa, Den Protector, and Greenwarden of Murasa. The cards that are good both early and late are Sylvan Advocate, Crater's Claws, Den Protector, Nissa, Vastwood Seer
, and Endless One.
With Sylvan Advocate, you can cast it on Turn 2 and chump block against an aggro opponent, and then it comes back as a 4/5 creature later in the game.
Crater's Claws can be used as an inefficient early removal spell, but then can come back from the graveyard later in the game to finish off the opponent's life total.
Nissa, Vastwood Seer
is fine as an early chump blocker that ensures a land drop, and then comes back as a real threat late in the game. I don't mind chump blocking with her early because I have so many cards that can get her back from the graveyard, and with Pulse of Murasa I WANT to have at least one creature in my graveyard.
Den Protector is a perfectly fine two-drop in a pinch, although I would usually want to hold this until I have 5 mana to ensure that I get to flip it. But against an aggro opponent, I'd certainly cast this on Turn 2 as a chump blocker, and then plan to buy it back later and use it's Morph ability to return another card.
Endless One works so well in this deck. I can cast it on any turn of the game at whatever size I can afford, and buy it back from the graveyard late in the game to summon it again as a HUGE creature. The possibility of this creature being really large is why I have the single Rogue's Passage in the mana-base, as making this ublockable when it's really big can end a game in one attack. My colors can't support more than a single Rogue's Passage, but I can also give it Trample with Mina and Denn, Wildborn.
Pulse of Murasa can also buy back a land from the graveyard, so sometimes I'll just cast it on Turn 3 to return a fetchland to my hand to make sure I make my land drop the next turn. There are some games in which this is the only spell I can possibly cast on Turn 3 and I don't have a desirable target in my graveyard, so it can be awkward at times. I'd like to have three of these maindeck, but for now I have a couple, with an additional one in the sideboard for grindier matchups. With the ability to buy back a fetchland on Turn 3 I think of this as a pseudo-Nissa in the aspect of ensuring a Turn 4 land drop, so I'm usually happy to have this in my opening hand, unless I don't have any fetches.
Greenwarden of Murasa and Pulse of Murasa can be cycled indefinitely. Say you have a Pulse of Murasa in the graveyard from having bought a fetchland back on Turn 3, and you cast Greenwarden of Murasa. You can buy back Pulse with Greenwarden, then when the Greenwarden dies you can buy it back with the Pulse, rinse and repeat, gaining 6 life each cycle. There's so much Exiling in the format, though, with Thought-Knot Seer and Transgress the Mind and Stasis Snare, etc, that this doesn't reliably happen every game. Also, against something like the Eldrazi ramp deck you don't want to play a long grindy game, so as much as I'd like to have 4x Pulse of Murasa and 4x Greenwarden of Murasa in the maindeck, to set up this cycle as often as possible, it's just too slow against aggro opponents or big Eldrazi ramp opponents, so I've cut down on the number of Pulse and Greenwarden to make the other cards faster, like Thunderbreak Regent and Crater's Claws.
Mina and Denn, Wildborn can be a really great card when it lives and you have plenty of lands to play. It makes a late-game Nissa's Pilgrimage better, and can make flipping Nissa, Vastwood Seer
easier since you can return a card to your hand and then immediately play it again. The games when I have Mina and Denn AND Nissa's Pilgrimage can get my mana up to the 6 needed for my bigger spells really quickly, and it's a perfectly fine 4/4 creature in the games in which it's just a body.
I started with 4x Jaddi Offshoot in the sideboard for use against something like Atarka Red, but I'm hoping Sylvan Advocate is suitable enough as early defense. I really liked Jaddi Offshoot in my ramp deck, and played 4x in the main, but I was casting a lot more spells in that deck that put lands directly onto the battlefield, so I think in this deck that the amount of life gain I'd get from having one on the board isn't as much, and I'd rather try to keep things more on the aggressive side. I'll just block early with any of my creatures that can come down early, wipe the board with Radiant Flames, then buy stuff back from the graveyard to gain some life with Pulse of Murasa, then play some big threats in the midgame.
The single Canopy Vista is in there to get Radiant Flames from the sideboard up to three damage. I was already running 4x Windswept Heath to smooth out my mana (it can fetch Cinder Glade), so adding the single Canopy Vista is pretty easy. It also lets me have Dragonlord Dromoka in the sideboard for use against Counterspell decks. Getting double-Red for Thunderbreak Regent on Turn 4 can sometimes be hard if I don't have enough fetchlands in my opening hand, but it's just too good a creature to pass up, and I'm shooting for double-Red eventually anyway to cast Chandra, Flamecaller.
I haven't playtested this deck very much yet, and I haven't had it at my LGS at all, but it can have some really good draws when all your early spells line up perfectly with your graveyard recursion and you blast out a win with a huge Crater's Claws. But it can also have some clunky games when you don't draw enough lands and are stuck with 5 CMC and 6 CMC cards that you can't cast, so finding the right balance between the ramping spells like Nissa's Pilgrimage and the payoff cards like Greenwarden of Murasa will be tricky.
