This is, as personal creation, this is one of my best decks I've ever had the pleasure of Playing on Arena. I haven't had it for very long but when I realized People were having trouble with Bant and Simic decks I knew that this deck was something special.
Over about a 2 week period , my W/L ration with this thing against aforementioned strategies is about 85%. Some bad draws, misplays and good opponent tempo will do that. Against aggro other mid range strats, you might want to pray for perfect answers.
This deck heavily relies on mind games and knowing when to play and when to be reactive. I still find myself looking to better my thinking per turn. Also because this is an Arena only deck (meaning I don't have the $$ or time to play this IRL) it's also got a lot of bugs to figure out. I'll also preface by saying that my collection on Arena is doo doo butter biscuits
Apart from the obvious strats of countering what your opponent can do, the main win condition is several sources of damage. Such as
Expansion / Explosion
+
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
if you can afford that huge investment. This is also a great come back strategy when you really need it. Or save the
Expansion / Explosion
for a pin and single card draw.
The best combo however is
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
+
Contentious Plan
+
Ral, Storm Conduit
even better when you can add
Teferi, Time Raveler
to the mix. It's simple, play
Contentious Plan
or have it in your graveyard, flashback with
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
and copy it with
Ral, Storm Conduit
. This gives you insane card draw and with proliferate proc-ing on multiple walkers you get value after value after VAL-U!
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
bangs hard when you have this combo out.
Saheeli, Sublime Artificer
is nice but not entirely necessary, thinking of replacing her with another
Teferi, Time Raveler
or
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
for consistency and making sure my only walkers of that type don't get hand/deck disrupted. You could also say the same for
Improbable Alliance
and
Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor
.
Augur of Bolas
Helps to fetch my spells that might just be an answer to something, it also plays into the mind games of keeping multiple counterspells in hand and thinking they've played around the one they know you have. It's also a nice body on the field against aggro for an early blocker.
Dawn of Hope
is also an interesting choice in that there isn't a consistent way to gain life in this deck to proc it's card draw ability (apart from the tap lands and like 2 spells total). I honestly see this as just a way to get dudes on the field, some dorks to block with. This same goes with
Outlaws' Merriment
. So instead of milling out an opponent I can do damage over time.
Other big threats that I think are great are
Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
. When this thing hits the field, it's either going to die or kill everything you love.
Parhelion II
is a bit iffy because it's hard to activate it's crew ability more often than not. BUT! When you do.. Well just look at Drakuseth's blurb for analysis.
Finally...
Fling
and
Inescapable Blaze
. YOU WANT TO COMBO
Inescapable Blaze
+
Ral, Storm Conduit
. 14 damage for FREE if your opponent doesn't pull a miracle. Also, let me tell you about the time I flung a dragon at my opponents face...
Drakuseth, Maw of Flames
+
Fling
or even
Niv-Mizzet, Parun
... Yeah I heckin' love these dragons.
Well, any help and maybe even any conversions to other arena modes will be greatly appreciated. No Idea if this could see pioneer play, but I think it has potential.
(psst... the sideboard could be better)