Martyr of Sands
, a card printed in 2006 in the set Coldsnap, has seen major play in the Modern format in a deck named "Martyr Proc." That version of the deck played Martyr of Sands with
Proclamation of Rebirth
to create a lock each turn in which a bunch of life is gained.
I figured, we can incorporate this card into a Pauper deck. Turns out, someone beat me to it, but not in the way that I imagined. Someone invented a version of Modern's Martyr Proc in Pauper by using
Grim Harvest
to return Martyr of Sands to your hand every turn and gain lots of life.
I started to think of ways that I can build another Martyr of Sands deck in Pauper, but not using the Grim Harvest route. Later that week, I cracked open some RIX packs and found
Legion Conquistador
, which reminded me of
Squadron Hawk
. Both of these cards can fill your hand with a lot of white creatures. So my deck had 1 of the necessary deck functions, which was having white cards in hand to fuel Martyr of Sands.
The second part part stumbled upon me one day when I was searching the internet for cool Pauper deck ideas. I then noticed a cool deck called Zubera Storm, which used cards like
Undying Evil
,
Exhume
, and
Unearth
to return
Floating-Dream Zubera
back to the battlefield a bunch of times and then draw a bunch of cards.
Undying Evil, Exhume, and Unearth were the last pieces of the deck necessary to making Sandstorm work. I now had the basic outer shell of an awesome looking deck.
I began to think about a win-con for the deck. While gaining a bunch of life was really nice, it wasn't going to help me win the game. I was looking for a card in which I could use my life to make it increasingly powerful.
Immolating Souleater
was an obvious solution, so I put a playset of those in and one
Trespassing Souleater
for another life sac outlet to slip damage through.
I then became aware that
Children of Korlis
, a seemingly innocent card, could easily be broken. Turns out Immolating Souleater paired really well with Children of Korlis because I could spend the life on the souleater and then get it back with Children of Korlis.
