I say that Rest in Peace is better for anti-graveyard, as it also immediately exiles everything in their graveyard.

Assault Formation has definite possibilities, and I am hugely excited for it!

Solid point SpatulonMk3

Also, come Dragons of Tarkir, have you looked at Collected Company? I'm not sure what you could take out, but it seems as though it could be useful.

SpatulonMk3 I have. But yeah at 4CMC...its a smidge expensive even if it is a fantastic dig card, and finding room for it is indeed the trouble.

My bad. didn't notice infinite combo with bloom and freed. Great deck +1

I like this. Given that you're trying to combo quickly I would perhaps run things like Spell Pierce

Thanks for the feedback ChiefBell!

What about throwing in Sphinx's Revelation or Monastery Siege? i just feel like there's times where you have a decent amount of mana and nothing to do with it so you sit there playing lands and passing... both help draw and you could gain life or stop your opponent from destroying your combo

The question is what to take out for such options. There are already a ton of Wincon in the deck. I am trying to see if I can get Consecrated Sphinx back in. Having the 4 big beaters that allow me to grab the Wincon are key.

Just tried out the deck against a mono U tron and burn deck and it was incredibly fun. I do have a couple of questions though.

Consecrated sphinx to me seemed to do pretty much nothing I'm assuming you classify it as an enabler due to the card draw, buy why wouldn't you run a fourth drift of phantasms over it, that is your money card which allows you to grab your win con.

Would it be worth having a strait 3 mana win con as in my first game against my friend I was able to get the combo off against him and used staff of domination, however I ended up pitching a quarter of my deck to dig to banefire which allowed him to see allot more of my deck that I would want to. I know that is kind of unlucky, but I haven't got that many reps with the deck to know how often you have to go digging for a win con, is this a common occurrence? If so possibly blue sun's zenith as suggested above could resolve that issue as you mill them out and they don't see your deck.

Laboratory Maniac gave you +1! (And me too)

Just tried out the deck against a mono U tron and burn deck and it was incredibly fun. I do have a couple of questions though.

Consecrated sphinx to me seemed to do pretty much nothing I'm assuming you classify it as an enabler due to the card draw, buy why wouldn't you run a fourth drift of phantasms over it, that is your money card which allows you to grab your win con.

Would it be worth having a strait 3 mana win con as in my first game against my friend I was able to get the combo off against him and used staff of domination, however I ended up pitching a quarter of my deck to dig to banefire which allowed him to see allot more of my deck that I would want to. I know that is kind of unlucky, but I haven't got that many reps with the deck to know how often you have to go digging for a win con, is this a common occurrence? If so possibly blue sun's zenith as suggested above could resolve that issue as you mill them out and they don't see your deck.

Also why city of brass over Manna Confluence if you don't mind me asking?

City of Brass has a mana ability that uses the stack, rather than paying the life as part of the activation cost, meaning you could make a life saving play using mana from City of Brass.

Hi Maccano1 thanks for the feedback.

City of Brass has less limitations for me and I'm not overly concerned about someone using it to ding me for damage.

As for Sphinx, It's a flying attacker that benefits from Assault Formation and allows ridiculous card draw to draw combo pieces. Prime Time and Sphinx exist to provide a backup when I don't have my combo while also drawing removal that can't be used on my combo pieces because they have to be answered immediately by my opponent or they lose.

The reason why we don't run another drift in here is generally due to the fact that unless I have Assault Formation out,I really want to use Drift as a tutor. The balance between defenders and attackers that give me a built in advantage just for sticking is key.

Also Drift can get Staff of Domination which is auto win. You shouldn't be digging for Wincons at all without it. Infinite mana plus staff or drift, or assault formation, or banefire, or Emrakul, or kessig, which means also by extension; Prime Time are all game over.

Also if ur digging for Banefire with Staff you shouldn't need to show them anything because u don't discard until EOT and they should be dead.

Birds of Paradise could be Sylvan Caryatid if you want to keep the defender theme as well as add some resilience to removal. Bigger body for both blocking and swinging too.

Thanks Saljen !

Sylvan Caryatid actually used to be in earlier builds of this deck. The reason why we're playing Birds of Paradise over it is really mostly due to the fact that we're trying to combo out as quickly as possible in this deck. Being able to drop Axebane Guardian on T2 and be able to go infinite on T3 is fantastic. Additionally, infinite mana with Kessig Wolf Run turns Birds of Paradise into an infinite power Fireball which we would need Assault Formation in play in order to accomplish the same with Sylvan Caryatid.

Speed and balance are the keys here. I get to combo out a turn earlier, and I have an additional flying chump blocker and potential attacker. (A premium in a Defender shell.)

We want to run the Defender shell to enable Axebane Guardian but we don't want to be hampered by an inability to produce offense, a hallmark of why Defenders have been non-competitive in the past. Assault Formation helps, but it's not going always going to be enough, even if we were running a 4OF. In this deck, we don't want to be digging for it. It serves a complimentary function and as another wincon in a pinch.

Any thoughts on Umbral Mantle? With 2 other defenders out, Axebane Guardian + Umbral Mantle is another infinite combo, and with 3 defenders out it gives Axebane Guardian infinite power/toughness and you infinite mana

Hey Khaosknight thanks for the feedback.

Yeah, I have given it thought. The issue with it is that I would need to remove something that provides resiliency in order to run it, and it is essentially the same thing as Staff of Domination only a little sooner and without being a wincon. Given that, I would rather run Staff of Domination as it is a wincon on its own as well as being a fallback combo enabler.

Fair enough. Although it is transmutable with Drift of Phantasms, so it could potentially be run as a 1 of if you could find 1 card to remove somewhere.

Either way, really cool deck, how has it done in real life?

Its actually been pretty exceptional IRL.

It toughest matchups are UB decks running a lot of removal and control elements. Generally the best strategy against it has been to disrupt the ramp and thus slow the deck down a bit. It has done remarkably well against Tron, Affinity, and Twin.