This deck grew out of the question "How do I use Rancor well in post-Return to Ravnica Standard". Seeing Dryad Militant,
Fencing Ace
and Judge's Familiar in the early spoilers brought me to the idea of White / Green weenie with Double Strike and pump spells as the main synergy of the deck, with a touch of disruption to delay sweeper spells.
The mana curve is the most glaringly odd feature of the deck. (16-14-4, not counting Giant Growth and
Titanic Growth
) Playing an early Rancor means I can't cast a cc 2 creature on turn 2 and a cc 3 creature on turn 3; I need to cast either a cc 1 + Rancor on turn 2 or a cc 2 + Rancor on turn 3. Doing some not-so-exact math quickly convinced me I couldn't rely on having three cc 1 spells (counting Rancor here) with any reliability by turn two without making the deck almost all cc 1 cards. Having the option of getting the Rancor out on turn 3 lets me play more cc 2 creatures which should give it decent power.
The deck has eight cards that have and / or give Double Strike and ten pump spells to make it matter. A
Fencing Ace
with turn 3 Rancor +
Titanic Growth
would attack for 14, making a turn 3 kill a theoretical possibility and a turn 4 goldfish fairly common.
Judge's Familiar and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben have the potential of delaying an opponent's answers a full turn which is a Big Deal with a deck as fast as this. A five mana Wrath of God usually only happens on turn five which is hopefully too late.
Against blockers and strong weenies such as BG Zombies I have 12 First or Double Strikers and eight fliers. This combined with the pump spells should help a lot, although I do expect to lose if the game drags out.
I have thought a bit about alternatives; primarily on whether I should skip War Falcons and use Champion of the Parish instead. This would mean the
Strangleroot Geist
s get swapped for some Human pumpers, either
Hamlet Captain
or
Mayor of Avabruck
. A different alternative would be to skip the idea of an early Rancor and go with a more traditional 10-8-7-4 or 9-8-6-4 mana curve, giving more oomph in the long run.
Sublime Archangel
is very good in itself and interacts nicely with Double Strike.
Any comments? I haven't played MtG since Urza, so I'm more than a little rusty and haven't played with most of the cards. There's a pretty decent chance I've misunderstood some card completely or made some other rookie mistake. Any help would be appreciated.
Edit: Swapped 2x
Strangleroot Geist
for 2x
Mayor of Avabruck
as the GG casting cost wouldn't work out.
Edit 2: That would make Champion of the Parish better than
War Falcon
in many if not most situations. I now have 20 Knights / Soldiers. With 4x Champion of the Parish, after casting the first one, I'd have 17 Humans left in the deck. Since Selesnya Charm makes tokens that are Knights but not Humans, swapping one or two for the third or fourth
Mayor of Avabruck
might make sense. I'm not too sure; the Trample and +2/+2 on a Double Striker may be important.
