Yes, I know jonmaior, despite the well-documented results I understand that I'll never get the right lands, all my spells will be countered and all my combo pieces will be destroyed.

Where have you been for the last year? Managing cardboard on my own is haaaarrrd.

Unmake ;)

i have a deck that is very similar to this and i love your introduction,its spot on

Hey, this deck is amazing! I love the theme. I am having issues understanding the infinite Ajani's Chosen + Blasting Station + Enchanted Evening combo.. I understand that the cats will be used as fodder for Blasting Station (to use as fodder and untap it), but how are you getting all of the numbers of them? Just you playing things and having Enchanted Evening make them enchantments, therefor getting cats? The deck sounds awesome and I'm thinking about giving it a try, but at 1am I think I just need it put into layman's terms.

Great stuff! +1'd

Thanks for the kind words.

The reason that cats keep entering the battlefield is because Enchanted Evening causes them to enter the battlefield as Creature-Enchantment, it also causes lands to enter the battlefield as Enchantment-Land, and anytime an Enchantment enters the battlefield Ajani's Chosen creates a token. So Enchanted Evening allows Ajani's Chosen to feed it's own ability.

Rurara_Rahura Thanks for the explanation!

So I was just reading up on your competition notes:

"I held on in the third hand by having Providence in my opening hand and casting it on turn 7 after Angel's Grace saved me a turn. The Elves were fast and fierce but couldn't attack hard enough to overcome 52 lifepoints."

How did you get the 52 life points? Like I understand 26+26=52 (if you play two), but Providence makes your health 26 no matter what right?

Also, why 2x Declaration in Stone? Any particular reason? Why not Path to Exile when it's an instant and is only one mana. This deck is godlike.. The only apprehension I have with it is the mana demand of your primary cards and the possible need for more tutor or a cheaper tutor than Diabolic Tutor.

Do you think it would be fine for someone to add 2x Isolated Chapel to replace your 2x Caves of Koilos if they really aren't on a budget?

I know you're pretty much set on the deck and it's clearly kicking butt, I'm just picking your brain a little bit.. I'm more of a min-max deck builder guy. :-p

Thanks!

Yes, Providence does set your life total, but I held on with Angel's Grace. So I brought my life total up to 26 twice; once at the beginning of the game and once via playing the spell with 1 lifepoint remaining.

I don't like Path to Exile because it gives my opponent a land. Declaration in Stone can remove copies and in the event that my opponent gets to investigate they would have to spend mana to use their clues instead of casting spells.

Diabolic Tutor is there to grab one combo piece. In the majority of my games I can easily draw into two pieces if I don't start with them. The lands are split down the middle so I don't have to worry about not having black when I actually need it, and I can trade in my black sideboard cards without adjusting.

Isolated Chapel is a great substitution for Caves of Koilos. Lately I've been thinking of just adding two more Snow-Covered lands to replace them though. With a 50/50 land distribution playing a land that enters the battlefield tapped can be a big detriment when I'm hoping to end the game on turn 5.

The loop is ended as soon as my opponent leaves the game, because leaving the game is a special action that does not use the stack.

Hey, so I've been play testing this deck a LOT.

I've made a few (not many) changes to my version and am looking into resolving a few issues.

So for my version I side-boarded 1x Diabolic Tutor and replaced it with a Beseech the Queen simply because of the mana cost.

I also side-boarded 1x Echoing Calm and replaced it with a Scour and also side-boarded another scour. This is mostly because I want to destroy all basic lands in my opponent's deck with the Enchanted Evening combo and I also have a few friends that play Relentless Rats decks that this would basically be a wincon for. I figured I could tutor for the Scour if need be.

I've also side-boarded Reveillark and Fiend Hunter to use as a backup to the Cataclysm Engine combo as they create the same infinite combo for Blasting Station and at one less mana cost. I've won a few games by putting these guys in and side-boarding the 4x Ajani's Chosen and 2x Enchanted Evening, people don't seem to feel as threatened by this combo as the other one.

Now, my really only issue with this deck so far is that it seems to be very slow (or at least there is something I'm failing to understand) The Pariah+Stuffy Doll combo is godlike, but Stuffy Doll requires 5 mana and Pariah another 3, so that means turn 6 is like the earliest I can get this combo out IF I don't miss a mana drop.. Is there something I'm missing there?

Mana has been really the biggest issue for me so far, especially getting Stuffy Doll and Enchanted Evening out.

My questions for you are:

1.) How do you get past the slow mana state that I seem to be running into?

2.) Could you go through what you'd consider your perfect game, turn by turn? Like opening hand with certain cards/lands up until you get the Cataclysm Engine out? I'm just looking to sync with your thought process.

I'm definitely in love with this deck's play-style and I'm looking to take it to competition and/or make it as competitive as possible. Thanks for your insight!

Thanks MrSilk, I'm glad someone is having as good a time as I do with this deck.

Your alterations are all great. The main reason my version is composed this way is mostly due to the time that I chose to build it. Then, Beseech the Queen was a little difficult to get my hands on because it hadn't yet been reprinted. On top of that, the only reason I'm not running Fiend Hunter + Reveillark is because they didn't exist until several months later.

I originally had three Scour in the deck but I moved them to the sideboard and eventually they fell out of rotation. Since I picked up the Snow-covered basic lands though, I may sneak it back in. Basically, the deck plays a very hard game and I was getting a lot of guff for gutting people's decks.

I'm sure the reason people are not as threatened by Ajani's Chosen + Enchanted Evening is because they've forgotten the horror that is the Shadowmoore block, lol.

Pariah + Stuffy Doll is meant as a back-up. I can only think of one game I've played that it was absolutely necessary, wherein a player removed all my Enchanted Evenings from the game. So Stuffy Doll threatened a draw until I could find three Oblivion Ring to manually kill them. My Stuffy Doll plays are often on turn 5 when I don't have Enchanted Evening.~~~~~

In regard to your questions:1, There are exactly 33% lands in the deck. This is for my comfort mostly, but if you're using the deck in an online game then that may be the issue. Most shuffling algorithms will shuffle far better than we might by hand so the land-to-non-land ratio can get sidelined. I can't guarantee that this will fix it, but you can try to pair down the following cards to three copies each: Stuffy Doll, Echoing Calm, Oblivion Ring, Pariah. If your composition is still similar to my version then that would give you about 40% lands, which I consider to be "flooded" lol.

If you're not using it online then the above suggestion could still work, but I would just spend some extra time shuffling between games.

2, The best opening hand in my opinion is:Angel's Grace (or Providence), Blasting Station, Pariah, Ajani's Chosen, two Plains and a Swamp. With this composition you have an equal probability (7% + 0.2% per card drawn) to draw into either Stuffy Doll or Enchanted Evening.

During the game you only have two options every turn. Either A, Continue with your own plan and get closer to finishing the combo you want; or B, Disrupt your opponent's plan by removing one of their important permanents. If you are doing either of these things then you're on the right track, but don't get discouraged if you have to keep spending your turns on dealing with your opponent because the more turns you spend the higher probability that your winning draw is on the next turn.

On turn 5, if you don't have a complete combo (given the opening hand in this example) then you should have just under 20% probability to draw what you need and anything you draw that isn't part of the combo can be used to control the field, save your lifepoints, or tutor for the missing piece.

Beyond turn 5 your focus should be on disrupting your opponent. So hold on to Angel's Grace as long as possible and concentrate on removing threats. Do not hesitate to throw Pariah on one of your opponent's creatures if you're in the shit. That one enchantment has saved me more times than any other card in the deck!

In the future I'm going to improve this build with a set of Inquisition of Kozilek for sharper removal. So use those if you have a few copies and your first three turns should be very comfortable.

Rurara_Rahura This is exactly the reply I was looking forward to!

I'll be taking this into account as I start attending more events with this deck. I'm definitely interested in if you ever update this deck with new/more efficient cards as I'm always looking to min/max my chances. Thanks again for the awesome responses, looking forward to what you come up with in the future! +1 sub

Daw, that's sweet of you! I'll follow you back.

Diplomatic Immunity is currently being retested since I added the Snow-Covered lands. I will be running it through some tournaments in the coming weeks; I should have a new tournament log soon.

I love this deck. I'd really like to use it for FNM because its off-meta and most people wouldn't expect it. Have you looked into protecting your enchantments so they aren't countered or destroyed as soon as they enter the battlefield?

At present, the only options for stopping heavy permissions is to play quickly and pay attention to your opponent's biases.

Enchanted Evening often seems like a mildly-innocent card to players that haven't encountered it before, but once a player realizes it's applications they often want to save their removals to get rid of it. If your opponent becomes wary of any particular spell in the deck then sideboard up to two copies of that card for Underworld Connections to increase the suspense and reinforces your opponent's bias for the card you side-boarded.

Just broke MTGO with this deck +1

Amazing! More and more I'm realizing that I've created an absolute monster of a deck. o.o;;

Hurt me.

I think Phyrexian Unlife and Solemnity go well with the whole "not losing theme" as you literally cannot die. This combo is cheaper than the Pariah + Stuffy Doll and isn't as vulnerable to exile removal.

I also recommend maybe choosing a different second color as your deck only runs 6 black cards including your sideboard. If you were to add a second color I would recommend green as it has fog-type effects to prolong the game until you find your combo pieces.

I was honestly considering switching to Green in the near future, I'm going to have to pick up snow-covered forests though.

Rurara_Rahura Hilariously enough, after running this deck for a while and splashed green instead of black and put more of an emphasis on mass enchantment removal after Enchanted Evening is out and swinging with cards that go really well with large amounts of enchantments on the field like Yavimaya Enchantress or and Ethereal Armor attached creature.

Check it out, perhaps we can come together to make a very good hybrid deck between our two minds or something. My green swing version of this:

Selesnya Spring Cleaning

Primeval Light after getting Enchanted Evening online is tough to recover from. It's gimmicky but devastating.

I do enjoy Primeval Light. Currently Scour is filling the role that card would play, but I could see pairing down to two copies of each in the near future.

How does it play against burn?

Interestingly, If you start the game with Providence then burn is a non-issue.

If you don't have Providence in hand to start then you can try for Pariah + Stuffy Doll to make a burn strategy ineffective.

In any other case, the burn-opponent will need to win by turn 5 or 4 which is very difficult.