This is a very aggro deck focused around getting lots of multi-colored dudes out for cheap and buffing them to Hell and back with
Knight of New Alara
and
Civic Saber
. It plays blisteringly fast most games, and can power out a Knight on turn 3 pretty consistently.
NOW FOR SOME MATH!
There's a system for finding the probability of a card being in your hand on a given turn called "Hypergeometric Probability," which, if calculated correctly, can give great insight into the consistency of a deck and improve one's deckbuilding prowess greatly. Here, I've used it to calculate the probability of any given card (by archetype) that could be in my opening hand, or be drawn by turn 4, since we want to stabilize by then and win shortly after. The archetypes are:
- Mana Producer
- Beater
- Stall & Answers
- Finishers
- Land
I use these archetypes because calculating it by each and every card doesn't tell us much about how our gameplan will develop as the game goes on. Also, keeping it to specific archetypes allows for going back through the deck and finding cards that don't play to the archetype given so that they can be replaced to help the deck's strength and consistency.
This is the Hypergeometric Calculator that I use:
A pretty simple Hypergeometric Calculator
Hypergeometric Probability of each card archetype in the opening hand and 4 turns in:
Mana Producer (7): >=1- 60% // T4- 77%
Birds of Paradise and
Steward of Valeron
are the mana producers here, they allow for ramp and a lower land count than one would normally have. I'd like to have more of the Stewards, but I can't think of what to cut that wouldn't throw off the deck.
Beater (22): >=1- 96.7% // T4- 99.6%
Naya Hushblade
,
Bant Sureblade
,
Marisi's Twinclaws
,
Steward of Valeron
, Loxodon Smiter, and
Qasali Pridemage
take up this slot, with each of them bringing quite a bit of power, and in the cases of the Pridemage and Steward, additional value as well.
Stall & Answers (12): >=1- 83% // T4- 95%
Captured Sunlight
is both a stall and an answer, gaining much needed life as well as cascading us into many useful cards in the deck. Green Sun's Zenith allows us to tutor for any of our creature based answers, like Dryad Militant or
Qasali Pridemage
. Declaration in Stone is useful for taking out problem creatures or token strategies, but will probably be switched for Path to Exile when i actually have money.
Finishers (11): >=1- 77% // T4- 91.4%
The most glaring finisher here is
Knight of New Alara
, who makes everything you have gigantic, and works nicely with
Civic Saber
, potentially making
Marisi's Twinclaws
hit for 16 damage provided you have both out, which happens fairly often. Green Sun's Zenith can also tutor for your Twinclaws or your Knights if you don't have them out by the time you want to end the game as well, which is quite helpful.
Land (18): >=2- 68% // T4 >=4- 43%
As I said previously, I don't have a lot of money, so my lands are very budget. You can go as high as you want with them, however, and get whichever dual lands and fetches suit your fancy. I, however, have 7 Forests, 6 Plains, 1 Canopy Vista and 4
Sunpetal Grove
. Dryad Arbor is a great addition here for when you cascade into your Zenith and have to cast it for 0, or if you add fetches, it can stop an edict effect from taking an important creature.
