I designed this deck myself and have been playtesting it both on MTGO and on paper since before Khans block rotated. I took 2nd place at my LGS for Oath of the Gatewatch Gameday with an earlier version of this, and just took 1st place on a Tuesday night in a small tournament (a dozen players or so) that was 4 rounds with no Top 8.
I can't usually get to FNM due to my work schedule, but I'm planning to play this deck at a GPT for GP Portland and at GP Portland itself later this summer.
THE BASIC STRATEGY:
I originally built this deck around Pulse of Murasa, which I wanted to brew with as soon as I saw it spoiled. I like playing Ramp, but you're often so far behind by the time you've ramped out a big thing that you can't win. The life gain from this is exactly what a "go big" deck needs to turn the corner from the early game.
I also originally had a combo of Greenwarden of Murasa
+
Pulse of Murasa
which can be an infinite cycle, but just turned out to be too slow. Chandra, Flamecaller is just so much better in the 6-drop slot.
So the idea here is to go big and then be aggressive with creatures, possibly finishing off with a big burn spell. I like aggressive proactive strategies, but I hate the powerlessness of drawing a 1-drop on turn 8 against the opponent's powerful late game. So this deck is slower, but has power in the late game.
Most of the cards were chosen to be decent early in the game, and then be even better when they come back from the graveyard in the late game from a Pulse of Murasa.
I've had success in the past with decks that can use big mana late in the game, but don't NEED it to function, which is often the weakness of something playing high CMC cards.
THE MANABASE:
The only interesting point here is that I'm not playing Naya to improve my removal package and to access a creatureland like Needle Spires. I'm playing a lot of Green lands and a lot of basics Forests to be sure I hit my early green spells and still have a Forest in the library for a late game Nissa, Vastwood Seer
. I occasionally have a hard time getting double Red for Thunderbreak Regent and Chandra, Flamecaller, and that'll only be worse by adding a third color. I simply couldn't support 4x Nissa's Pilgrimage in a deck with three colors that leans so hard on Red.
Not having creaturelands is sometimes awful, when a game devolves into a topdeck war and you die to Shambling Vent activations, but the deck simply isn't as explosive without Nissa's Pilgrimage.
I have a couple Rogue's Passage as a manasink for the late game, to power through the last bit of damage.
CARDS:
1x Oath of Nissa: This deck is mana-hungry and REALLY needs to hit a third land drop to function. I couldn't decide what to cut for a 25th land, so I used this instead. It will usually find a land for you (not ALWAYS!), but late in the game when you have tons of mana and just need a decent threat, it can help find that too. If Standard is sufficiently slow, I could see cutting a small number of the other creatures or Planeswalkers for more copies of this to smooth things out, but for now I've been happy with it as a singleton.
2x Roast: This deck can usually win enough in combat, but there are a few things you really just need to kill, like Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
, Thing in the Ice
, and especially Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet. Roast will usually kill what you need it to.
I've toyed with the idea of Lightning Axe in this spot since it can hit fliers like Dragonlord Silumgar and Archangel of Tithes, but I haven't tried it yet. Dragonlord Silumgar has been popular lately and gives this deck trouble, so Lightning Axe is looking more attractive if I can't find a spot for Tears of Valakut in the sideboard.
4x Sylvan Advocate: This is a known powerful card, so I don't need to go into detail, but it's one turn better in this deck by getting to be a 4/5 a turn faster following a turn 3 or 4 Nissa's Pilgrimage. Because it has Vigilance, it's also really great at letting you be aggressive with creature attacks while also keeping some blockers back to protect your Planeswalkers.
4x Chandra, Flamecaller: Again, this is a known powerful card, but it's often one turn faster in this deck following a turn 3 Nissa's Pilgrimage, and most of my own creatures are big enough to survive a -3 or even a -4 from Chandra (sometimes play Endless One on turn 4 as a 5/5). Getting to 6 lands a turn ahead of schedule, buffing your own Sylvan Advocate to a 4/5, then doing -3 damage to sweep away the opponent's Sylvan Advocates before they hit the 4/5 threshold is really good.
One downside is that in a matchup of opposing Chandra, Flamecallers you don't want to be the FIRST person to play Chandra, as you'll minus yours to sweep the board, then she dies to the opponent's Chandra's tokens the following turn, leaving the opponent with an empty board and an active Chandra, which is a good way to win games. So in this case, like against Grixis Control, it's better to slow roll the Chandra, Flamecaller and play some creatures instead on turn 5, so the opponent is the one who has to minus their Chandra in order to wipe the board, and then you cast your Chandra on the next turn and kill the opponent's Chandra with your own. So, play to be SECOND casting Chandra if at all possible.
4x Thunderbreak Regent: Another known powerful card. This is really strong against opposing Planeswalkers as the 3 damage it deals when targeted can be redirected to opposing Planeswalkers. Players often destroy this with Ob Nixilis Reignited, which takes him down to 2 Loyalty, so the 3 damage can just finish Ob Nixilis off immediately. The same goes for Jace, Telepath Unbound
. If they -3 Jace to recast an Ultimate Price or some other removal onto Thunderbreak Regent you can immediately kill the Jace.
I tried playing with some small number of Draconic Roar, but I only have 5 dragons so I wasn't getting the extra damage often enough for me, and Draconic Roar can't kill some of the things I really want to be able to kill, like Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet, Thing in the Ice
, or opposing Sylvan Advocates.
1x: Dragonlord Atarka: We know what this does! I'd like to find room for a second copy of this, but I'm not sure what to cut and I'm hesitant to further raise my already high mana curve.
3x Nissa, Vastwood Seer
: This card also works well as a decent early creature, making sure you get more land drops, which is ultra-critical, and sometimes chump blocking to buy you time. It'll come back later as a more powerful card if you topdeck one or buy one back with Pulse of Murasa.
Playing this turn 3 to make sure you get to 4 mana for Thunderbreak Regent the following turn can be really important.
I tried some mix of Nissa, Vastwood Seer
and Nissa, Voice of Zendikar in this spot since putting a +1/+1 counter onto Thunderbreak Regent is really great to get it out of range of Grasp of Darkness and Languish, and to help it block Sylvan Advocates and Thought-Knot Seers and Reality Smashers better, but I ended up struggling too often to get to that important 6th land drop, and it was sometimes too difficult to ensure both double Red for Thunderbreak Regent by turn 4 AND double Green for Nissa, Voice of Zendikar. I usually use Mulligans and Evolving Wilds to make sure I have double Red, so I'm often Red mana heavy early in the game.
Turns out I just really really need those three cards to ensure extra land drops more than anything else. If I get a Nissa, Sage Animist
into play later in the game, that's just gravy.
3x Endless One: This card works really well here. It can be played for any amount of mana, so it just has so much flexibility. Sometimes I've played it as a 1/1 late in the game because I just need one more chump blocker to protect a Planeswalker, or you can play it early in the game as a speed bump against aggro decks. This is the kind of card that LOVES big mana, but doesn't NEED it to function. This isn't as powerful as something like Ulvenwald Hydra, but it doesn't get stuck in your hand either when your Ramping hasn't worked out or you're dying to a swarm of White Weenies. Also, this is a "big" spell that can't be pulled out with Transgress the Mind, and it doesn't die to Ultimate Price. Before rotation it was also safe from Ugin, the Spirit Dragon's Exiling ability, but that doesn't matter any more. You can often play this big enough to dodge Grasp of Darkness and Languish and some -X damage from your own Chandra, Flamecaller.
3x Pulse of Murasa: This was actually the original build-around card for this deck. It gains you life to stabilize and turn the corner into your powerful late game, and can even buy back an Evolving Wilds if needed to get another land drop or get that second Mountain you need for Chandra, Flamecaller. It lets you play Endless One as a doofy early blocker against aggro decks, and then buy him back later to undo the damage they've done to you up to that point and drop a huge monster onto the board to stall out their attacks. Same thing for Nissa, Vastwood Seer
; you can play her on turn 3 to make sure you hit your land drops, then chump block with her if you need to, knowing that you can buy her back from the yard later to get Nissa, Sage Animist
into the game. People will often attack with a 2/1 or a 2/2 into Nissa, Vastwood Seer
as they don't expect you to trade, but against something like Mono-White Humans, taking out that early Kytheon, Hero of Akros
with a surprising block can really turn the long game in your favor. Sylvan Advocate can also trade early and then come back stronger later in the game.
Having 3x of these maindeck is one of the reasons I do NOT have a terrible Game 1 matchup against aggro decks like Mono-White Humans, and also helps out in the grindy matchups against value decks like Jund or Grixis Control. It's also the reason that Exiling removal, like Declaration in Stone, Anguished Unmaking, or an active Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet is hard on this deck, since it nerfs this powerful effect.
4x Nissa's Pilgrimage: This card is great in this strategy. It gets you to 4/5 Sylvan Advocates and/or Chandra, Flamecaller a turn earlier than your opponent, and is a natural 2-for-1 that helps keep the lands coming.
2x Arlinn Kord
: These two slots were originally held by Zendikar Incarnate which would often grow to have huge power, and is another thing that is decent early and even better later in the game. But it also dies to Languish and Grasp of Darkness and isn't that hard to kill by double-blocking with relatively small creatures. It's much better with Trample from something like Mina and Denn, Wildborn, but that's something for after Dragons of Tarkir rotates and I need to find a replacement for Thunderbreak Regent.
So, I playtested Arlinn Kord
in the two spots originally occupied by Zendikar Incarnate, and although that switch lowers my creature density a little, the payoff is worth it. I'm using this almost entirely for the +1 ability on Arlinn Kord
, granting +2/+2 and Vigilance and Haste to a single creature for the turn. I'm wanting to attack and be aggressive, and this checks all those boxes. The Vigilance is super nice, as it lets you be aggressive with attacks but also keep blockers up to protect Planeswalkers. A 6/6 Vigilance Haste Thunderbreak Regent is pretty awesome, and occasionally you can have a massive attack from an Endless One that comes down on turn 6 as a 7/7 (one extra land from an earlier Nissa's Pilgrimage) and immediately attacks as a 9/9 with Haste and Vigilance. Pretty good. Oh, or a 10/10 Haste Vigilance Trample Dragonlord Atarka on turn 6? That's pretty good too.
2x Burn from Within: So, I really just want this to be Crater's Claws, and it WAS before rotation, but this is a decent replacement...and a downgrade. I DO, on rare occasion, take down something Indestructible, like an Archangel Avacyn
on my second main phase after she came in during combat, or even an Ormendahl, Profane Prince
, if I have enough mana (it HAS happened once), or I Exile something that needs Exiling like a Deathmist Raptor or Relentless Dead or Hangarback Walker.
So I'm not super excited about this card (flavor aside...the art and the name are cool), but it is helpful sometimes as a removal spell for things that Roast doesn't kill, is another way to remove opposing Planeswalkers without having to win in combat, and does sometimes serve its main purpose which is just burning an opponent to death with a large X-value. Like Endless One it's also a "big" spell that can't be stripped out with Transgress the Mind since the CMC isn't 3 or greater.
3x Elemental Bond: Okay, I usually like to feature some spicy "pet" cards in my decks, and this is one of them, along with Pulse of Murasa. This card is so so good, I really think this is Standard competitive and it just hasn't been noticed yet except by me and maybe others I don't know about.
LOTS of people play Read the Bones or Painful Truths, either on turn 3 or later, for card advantage. Well, Elemental Bond does the same thing for me, for the same CMC, it just gets going more slowly, but also has a higher payoff. I often end up drawing many many cards with this, playing creatures and drawing card after card every turn.
When you resolve a Sylvan Advocate with 6 lands in play, he ETB as a 4/5 and triggers a card draw with Elemental Bond. The best part, when you +1 Chandra, Flamecaller to make two 3/1 tokens, you draw TWO cards for EACH Elemental Bond you have in play. And if you make the 4/4 Ashaya, the Awoken World token with Nissa, Sage Animist
with Elemental Bond in play, you get the creature AND a card.
There can be some really powerful turns late in the game when you're able to cast TWO Sylvan Advocates AND a Thunderbreak Regent in the same turn, for 8 mana, which isn't out of reach for this mini-ramp deck, and you draw three cards while doing it for each Elemental Bond in play. Oh, and you might also draw a couple cards from Chandra's tokens. I almost never use Chandra's 0 ability since I can make tokens AND get extra cards at the same time. And unlike Read the Bones or cracking Clue tokens from Tireless Tracker, I don't have to invest ANY mana in this to get extra cards, just play big creatures like I want to be doing anyway and let it rip.
