This deck, is quite bare bones. I have wanted to play a colorless deck in Standard since the end of Zendikar-Scars of Mirrodin season. I understand, this deck is not going to do much in the ways of FNM, but maybe it will pave the way for a better deck eventually. At the very least, I hope.
The Game Plan:
Early game:
You want to drop Mana producers as early as possible. So playing Darksteel Ingot and Opaline Unicorn by turn 3 are what gets the deck moving. Sad to say, there is not much to do before you get out mana producers. Drop and Elixir of Immortality or Ratchet Bomb if you have them, and get to cranking.
Major "Removal"
Pre-sideboard, your only outs to creature strategies is Ratchet Bomb. Sure, you can block a few hits with the Guardians of Meletis, or even survive longer with Trading post, but other than that there is not much to do.
Against planeswalker strategies, you have Pithing Needle. 'Nuff Said.
Creature Decks, Aggro:
-2 Pithing Needle
-2 Akroan Horse
+3 Curse of Swine
+1 Ratchet Bomb
Control, Planeswalker, Strategies:
-4 Guardians of Meletis
-1 Elixir of Immortality
+2 Pithing Needle
+2 Volatile Rig
+1 Darksteel Forge
Trading Post:
The major strategy is to survive long enough to drop the Colossus of Akros and monstrous him for the win. To do this, we will have to survive long enough to achieve this goal. Enter Trading post and Akroan Horse.
While it isn't the most efficient way to gain back life, you can discard to the trading post, gain 4 life, then on the next turn sacrifice one of the tokens produced by the Akroan Horse to attain whatever necessary artifact you tossed away or was otherwise removed from the field earlier. Something I like is:
End of opponent's turn: Trading Post an Elixir of Immortality to gain 4 life.
My Turn: Trading Post to sacrifice a token, return Elixir of Immortality to my hand, and then play it.
This is great in critical situations, as it creates a tiny loop of +9 life between then end of your opponent's and beginning of your turns. Keep in mind, the Elixir shuffles away itself and any of your artifacts in the graveyard - so tread carefully with its activation
In addition, you can use a similar combo to gain card advantage. Sacrifice an artifact, draw, sacrifice a token, get back the artifact and replay it. Imagine this scenario:
Play Prophetic Prism, draw, sacrifice it to Trading Post, draw. Next turn, sacrifice the token attained from Akroan Horse, get Prophetic Prism back, play it, draw. You can average +2-3 cards per turn with this combo, all for 3 mana. It is almost like Divination on a stick!
Don't get me started on "what if you have 2 Trading Posts in play?"
Easy. It speeds things up. I only wish Voltaic Key was standard legal...a guy can dream.
All in all, it is a fun deck. The combos are neat, if not lacking a tiny bit in recurrence, but all in all different and fun. Who cares if you win all the time?
