"Strength, Faith, Allies"
The deck's focus is allies. Its format is supposed to use modern cards only. As a deck in general, it performs quite well even outside pauper... to some extent. It however falls into a more casual deck rather than competitive sadly.
The deck itself utilities
Clockspinning
- it used to run 4 in the mainboard - to add counters to
Oran-Rief Survivalist
,
Umara Raptor
,
Graypelt Hunter
and Serrated Arrows. Of course in match-ups against infect, evolve, counter getting or suspend card using decks I can use it offensively and defensively to remove counters from their cards.
Keep in mind that the boards are not set in stone, it can still move around a bit.
Deck breakdown
The team:
Oran-Rief Survivalist
Halimar Excavator
Ondu Cleric
Umara Raptor
Benalish Knight
Graypelt Hunter
Join the Ranks
This is the entire win condition, a simple drop creatures that support one another like Slivers and beat-down with the creatures. There is little to say about the counter gaining allies other than that they are the muscle in the deck. Join the ranks is there to provide a boost to whatever happens to be on my board; in games where I'm losing allies more quickly it can be dropped away for something else, however in slower games the other one could come in. Its the Cleric and the Excavator which I have found really fun, the Excavator provides a nice defensive body while also providing an alternate win condition. The cleric can gain back a ton of life, if more than one enters, the life gain gets silly, but the main reason he is there is because he is an ally, an excellent ally. The Knight is just a good surprise tactic and a good creature for defending - until you use Test of Faith on him, then it gets fun - although I am considering replacing him because he feels a little out of place, an Ethereal Armor would not be so bad because of the amount of enchantments, an Auramancer could be an interesting choice.
Removal:
Serrated Arrows
Faith's Fetters
Oblivion Ring
Journey to Nowhere
Someone said to me that removal was useless in pauper, an incredibly stupid statement considering it was coming from someone who then pulled out 2 pauper combo decks to prove my deck was as bad as it looked - which i beat with surgically placed removal on important pieces. I couldn't leave without these important tools. If each and every piece of removal was put in it would bring me at 10 pieces, more than enough if I really need to clear a path. For a long time I couldn't get my hands on O-Ring due to no-one wanting to trade it or it being out of stock, so
Mold Shambler
filled in the role it was meant to play for some time, taking out non-creatures nuisances; but O-ring is much better as it can be turned against creatures also, land destruction shouldn't matter to much in pauper anyway, especially at 6 mana.
Fixing/Digging:
Harrow
Preordain
Compulsive Research
Terramorphic Expanse + Evolving Wilds
I used to run Search for Tomorrow until I realized what I want to be doing on turn 1 is dropping a sac land or dropping an island and using preordain. Harrow is better for a turn 3 state if I also have a 2 CMC drop in my hand as well since at best Ill drop an ally on turn 2, harrow on turn 3 and then drop a 2 drop - one of these days someone is going to counter my harrow and I'm not going to like it - but I only include a couple since I had a problem before with too much fixing and having a mana overflow - which is not a exactly bad thing with Clockspinning and Serrated Arrows. Preordain can set up good draws first turn or look for things latter on in the game, while Compulsive Research can look into finding more allies or removal or even, if I have an "ally", draw some cards for them. What the harrows and the sac lands do well however, is filter out land from the deck allowing better draws later in the game.
Utility:
Momentary Blink
Test of Faith
Clockspinning
- Allstar card
Nature's Claim
Join the ranks could be called utility, the same could go with the Excavator and the Cleric. Test of Faith became a common with the release of Modern Masters, ah joy; it does takes up a fair bit of the sideboard since it is really good against damage removal and I want to test it out; and it really screws with a combat - I might considering main-boarding another depending on how things turn out. Momentary blink allows me to dodge some removal and reuse allies like Ondu Cleric and Halimar Excavator with profit - then I get even more value since I can flash it back. Nature's Claim is hate against "those" cards, I could not care about my opponent gaining extra life if this card creates advantage; "those" cards are things like Journey and O-Ring, artifact heavy decks and enchantment heavy ones... its particularly good against combo decks. However, Clockspinning was the card that inspired the deck to be created, I wanted to use that wonderful card in pauper so I look at various strategies that used counters or suspend until I took up the ally banner, their cheap cost sealed the deal. The card has synergy with 11-12 cards in the deck and its uses extends outwards depending on what your opponents strategy is and what they are doing. I also found out a while ago that having nothing to do in a turn was frustrating and just plain bad, so in every deck I have tried to construct I include something like Clockspinning or Titan Forge or Mystic Speculation to make use of spare mana; in really long games it can break a stalemate by buffing allies or utilizing the power of Serrated arrows or otherwise something which is tactically useful to help your situation.
Sideboard:
Extra's and natures claim sits in the sideboard.
Deck has been updated to actual paper build and page has been reformatted into something prettier - 24 July 2013
Currently testing Test of Faith
Sideboard is slightly incomplete
I would be happy to hear any suggestions for the deck, comments on the deck and ways to improve the deck.
