Extremely similar to my Defenders of the Door ... even down to the name!

LOL... and now I find out that I was not original either...my deck: Defenders of the Door

If you are really worried about graveyard focused decks I would suggest sideboarding either Ground Seal or card:Grafdigger's Cage

I feel like 4 doors is a bit much as you don't really want more than one in youoor hand at any given time. I'd say go down to two max and run increasing ambition instead to tutor for it or something else if you need it. Tamiyo would also be a good addition along with maybe trading post if you're worried about artifact destruction.

I agree, you don't need Door to Nothingness in your opening hand; you want it later in the game when your mana can support it. Two Doors is more right.

Playtested against Ultimill Control and it was a huge blowout, unfortunately. I love the idea of Defenders-Door deck, but what can it do when faced with blue-white? As in, Detention Sphere s, Oblivion Ring s, Supreme Verdict s, and a few other nasties.

One thing I can think of off the top of my head is a must-have, I think: card:Alchemist's Refuge. You need to be casting the Door at the end of your opponent's turn, in order to avoid sorcery-speed things (like the short list above) that really hurt your plan.

The awesome thing is, your deck is already predominantly blue and green, so activating the Refuge will never, ever, ever be an issue if you plan on activating the Door during your next upkeep... if you have 10 mana for the Door, then you will by default have enough to Refuge and cast the Door. :)

Sorry for the triple post, but I thought of something else: I don't think you need all those shocklands. With four Chromatic Lantern s and four Axebane Guardian s, you aren't trying to activate the Door through straight up lands.I think a consistent build with four Breeding Pool s and four Hinterland Harbor s would serve you just as well.

I, too, have built a defender/mana ramp deck and think it's pretty on pont. If you could clear up a couple things for me...one, Arbor Elf states to untap target Forest, it's my understanding that it means a Forest, not a "green land," also, how are you liking the lack of syncopate? I'm much heavier on counterspell stall than you and was wondering how it played out for you. Would be great to get a response.

Arbor Elf untaps any land that has the "Forest" subtype, which includes both the basic lands called "Forest" and green shocklands. It cannot, however, untap Hinterland Harbor, because it doesn't have the say "Forest" beside "Land" in the list of types. Does that help?I tried stalling with counterspells in the initial version of this deck, but Fog works much better from what my playtests have shown. 4x Dissipate is enough of a general-purpose counter for this deck, I think.

OK, I see th eland subtyping now. I just didn't see much point in putting in Fog since I get so many defenders out in my deck. Would rather counterspell direct damage and destruction spells.

maybe a Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker

You're right, a single Nicol Bolas that I could tutor for wouldn't be a bad idea. Thanks!

Diabolic Revelation has potential here

@bryce__baker The issue that I had with putting Diabolic Revelation in instead of Increasing Ambition is that I typically tutor on turn 4, and Diabolic Revelation costs 6 mana for one card, as opposed to Increasing Ambition tutoring one for 5.

On turn 4, this deck will have either 5 mana open if I'm unlucky, 6 mana open typically, or 7 if I get very lucky. I'd prefer to tutor one and have one mana open for Fog the majority of the time than tutor one and be tapped out or maybe tutor two if I get very lucky, and still be tapped out.

Increasing Ambition also has the advantage of still being able to be used if it happens to be milled, countered (not including Dissipate), or discarded.

but late game win :D

If I need more than 3 cards to win late game, I've already lost.

I like this deck very much. My only concern is that you only have very limited counter magic. The meta for states where I live was very control heavy and I personally would run more counters in the main and possibly even more in the sideboard.

Aside from that I think that this list has a lot of potential. I have copied it (and given the proper credit to pelolep) so that i could try seeing how it plays out and I was very impressed. I went with more of a control approach with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage and a card:Sphinx's Revelation or two.

@Rathnait Great to see that you like the deck! I actually did originally have many more counters in the deck and sideboard, but I don't play against many control decks because I have no LGS near me, and thus can only playtest on Cockatrice, where control decks are uncommon. I should note, though, that I do sideboard all of my Naturalizes in after almost every first round, in order to deal with Oblivion Ring , Detention Sphere , and Pithing Needle .

Bro sup, I took inspiration from this list, and made my own deck with my own twist. I took it to FNM last night and came in second place. here are the differences between mines and yours:

I'm Running:

3x Increasing Ambition - 4 of is too much, sometimes I don't really need to search for anything...

3x card:Ludevic's Test Subject - This is the backup win con, with Axebane Guardian you can hatch it on your opponents turn, then stomp on your turn. OR just leave it as a defender while slowly building up hatchling counters to trick your opponent into believing you are actually trying to use the 13/13 to win... (which you could do if needed).

2x Syncopate - Hundred times better than Dissipate , especially with all the mana floating around in between turns.

2x Cyclonic Rift - Supreme blue removal, planeswalker giving you trouble? does your opponent have a bunch of hexproof creatures? Overload this puppy get rid of all dat shit!

2x Golgari Charm - Supreme Verdict or other sweeps making you mad? With Golgari Charm you can simply regen all your defenders! ORRRR kill off some hexproofs, ORRRRR some tokens, ORRRR eradicate a pesky enchantment such as Rancor or Ethereal Armor .

With these things in my Deck, I found that I could handle everything except artifacts, of which I had an answer to that in my sideboard if it was needed. Nicol Bolas is a funny addition... I might sideboard him.

I just want to add that Golgari Charm beats Detention Sphere and Oblivion Ring too... your list was great though, and that whole Charm cycle is really nice and relevant in today's Standard.

I ran this deck at FnM and loved it. I pulled off the door 4 times, and went 2-2. The 2 I lost? Aggro. Admittadly I didn't have time to make up the sideboard, but your sideboard doesn't really address the problem. Not sure what the best way to handle that is. Any deck that either spams a lot of creatures, or uses rancor/doublestrike kind of eats this deck for breakfast.

@thebeardedshuffler Funny, I just ran it today at FNM and won all my aggro matchups. Using the Increasing Ambition s to get any Fog s I needed helped a whole bunch in that regard.

Clinging Mists is good when fateful hour triggers, but it costs more than card:Druid's Deliverance. When you need to tutor for the effect you might find every mana counts.

@thebeardedshuffler I'd work around that by casting Increasing Ambition from my hand for Clinging Mists , and from the graveyard for Fog . The fact that card:Druid's Deliverance's secondary effect does nothing for me, whereas Clinging Mists could win me the game by stalling for more than a single turn, leads me to prefer the latter.

True but the secondary effect is a potential boon, whereas the lower mana cost is a consistent one. I think I'd go for the deliverence, but I guess they both do the same job.