Tempo deck based around Ensoul Artifact with a Ferocious theme that helps maintain tempo. I 4-0'd a daily event with it yesterday and it seems to win a lot in the tournament practice room so I think its got legs.
Ghostfire Blade on Cloudform, Phyrexian Revoker or Stratus Dancer also activates Ferocious, so Stubborn Denial, Force Away and Icy Blast get much better.
General idea is to get an early big creature out, either with Ensoul Artifact or by sticking a Ghostfire Blade on any of the creatures and then use the Ferocious spells to keep opponents from racing you or dealing with your huge, early and evasive creatures. Anticipate and Force Away help with card selection you need for this since it's heavily synergy based and the Ghostfire Blades gives a degree of resilience since it equips for just one mana, making any creature a fast clock. I've found Ghostfire Blade very useful in a racing situation since you can cheaply move it from attacking creatures to blocking ones. Even Ornithopter becomes a decent 2/4 blocker or attacker with the blade equipped.
It's very strong against any form of control, they're just too slow and the few spells they get to cast get countered. Most midrange decks are also a good matchup as they struggle to stabilise against the fast clock and the disruption the deck plays. The deck has an awful matchup against R/W midrange since chained to the rocks is such an efficient removal spell and the lifegain effects they play slows our clock right down. Also a bad matchup against RDW type decks, dash cards like Goblin Heelcutter are really good against this deck and spending two mana and a card to Force Away a one mana dash creature is awful. Considering how popular this deck type is, I think it's a real problem for my deck.
The springleaf drum can tap for any colour of mana, so a minor splash would come with a relatively minor cost. I was thinking of adding in Hidden Dragonslayer, since has lifelink, can morph and has an almost incidental ability to kill massive creatures. The only issue with this is that one of the best things about this deck is the reliable manabase which I don't really want to interfere with.
