This is a deck I put together that I am really enjoying and looking to improve. Any thoughts on making it better would be appreciated, especially with the sideboard.
This deck started out because I acquired 2 Skybinds and wondered what to do with them and at the same time I ended up with 4 Thassa's Devourers and thought when am I ever going to use these. This led me to deciding to throw some leftover cards together to see what sort of deck I could build. I happened to have just done a conspiracy draft and got Brago, King Eternal and a few things clicked into place. namely the only way to ever make Thassa's Devourer playable would be to bounce a lot of enchantments. Hence this deck.
The basic idea is prevent your opponent doing anything worthwhile until you reach the devourer and then bounce all your enchantments using Brago, King Eternal to mill them out. If you don't happen to pull Brago, you can use a Riptide Chimera to bounce enchantments and trigger the milling that way or you can use the returnable defensive enchantments, like Cage of Hands and replay them.
Win Con 1: Enchantments and Brago, King Eternal
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Thassa's Devourer
Of course in order to do this one has to survive and to achieve this there are a few methods. Firstly, all the defensive enchantments that take out the opposition creatures. Secondly, life gain via the Nyx-Fleece Ram who happens to also be a very sturdy body and more life gain via the Hopeful Eidolon. Thirdly, Skybind allows the bouncing of enemy creatures that have counters to reset them and provides excellent token removal. There is also an Eidolon of Rhetoric to slow card play. Finally if you have the Stonehorn Dignitary in play then you can slow your opponents combat further and indeed if you have Brago, King Eternal
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Stonehorn Dignitary
combo-ing then you lock the opponent out of combat until they can deal with one or the other.
One issue I foresaw with this deck was the destruction of the devourers or Brago basically halting the win strategy and so I wanted a way to recover built in. That's where the Custodi Squire comes in. Should part of the win combo end up dead one can simply play the Custodi squire and return it to hand. I originally had Supply-Line Cranes instead as an alternate win via flying that synergised with the bounce effects to provide +1/+1 counters but switched to the squires as they still proved the flying defence/offence whilst giving you a way back into the game. If you have Custodi Squire
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Skybind
then you can basically empty you graveyard of all enchantments and creatures over time and refill you hand, giving nice card advantage.
Which brings me onto an alternate way to win.
Win Con 2: Flying damage.Take out all the enemy fliers with defensive enchantments and then hit em with flyers. Brago, King Eternal
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Custodi Squire
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Riptide Chimera
Of course I also considered what happens if they get out some big critters and I wanted a way to deal with them in case I hadn't got an available enchantment and I also wanted some more cheaper creatures to balance my mana curve better and provide me with some early game defence. To this end I originally had 2 x Hero of Iroas because he allowed me to play a lot of the enchantments cheaper and he was also growable in a pinch. I won with him occasionally but with the release of M15 I swapped him out and 1 stonehorn dignitary for 2 x Ajani's Pridemate. This was done because in most games the 1 mana saved on aura casts wasn't helping and the Hero grows too slowly. However, also in most games I was averaging 2 Nyx-Fleece Ram on the board. This grows the pridemate respectably each turn providing a nasty beater that has to be dealt with. This is also why the Harvestguard Alseids are in the deck. They are mill triggers but they also provide a way for this deck to go on the offensive in the early game and with a good mix you can tie up some critters with enchantments and then beat the opponent down and win that way. This again ties in nicely in the mid game with Skybind bouncing your opponents defenders out the way.
Win Con 3: Ol' Fashioned hit em with something big. Ajani's Pridemate
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Harvestguard Alseids
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Nyx-Fleece Ram
I think that about covers it. This was made as a trial to see what I could do with a card that I think sees no use whatsoever anywhere: Thassa's Devourer and so far its working pretty well. It's a pretty combo-tastic deck with a excellent defence and enough offense to completely blindside your opponent to the mill that's coming. If I could change anything in it I would add 2 x Forced Worship instead of the Agorapobia and the Pacifism, but I don't have any so I made do, which is why there is only the 1 Azorius Guildgate. I would also swap in 1 x Brago, King Eternal and remove the Eidolon of Rhetoric or the Stonehorn Dignitary to make the deck more consistent.
It is also the first deck I thought worthy of putting up on tapped.out and I hope you all don't mind the long read.
One last thing, the first time I milled one of my regular opponents the response was: WTF?!!?! At the time I had 2 devourers out and bounced enough cards in one turn to mill for 28. Good times :)
