The idea of the deck is to beat your opponent by turning creatures sideways. Simple and direct. But in the Dominaria meta that can be difficult because of the token strategies (knights, saprolings, vampires, etc..) and the very wide variety of sweepers to combat the tokens / aggro. The plan is to win the main event in a few weeks and get ourselves a champion mat. Please upvote.
I think it's safe to say that green has been getting love lately and now that we have our 1 drop mana dork of choice, I think it's time for beats. Our offense is very good. Let's do a quick review:
Steel Leaf Champion is a ridiculous card against tokens and other aggro decks in general like mono red. Even with an anthem effect, some token decks still can't even block it and mono red does not run anthems. We can often drop him on turn 2, putting the opponent on an immediate 4 turn clock. He's a pillar of the deck for offense.
Resilient Khenra is a buff on a stick that we can use to power up weaker creatures and turn them into problems. Having at least one Eternalize creature in the deck was important and I think this one is the better choice out of the G/U options available.
Untamed Kavu has great synergy with our deck because we can buff him and later put him down as a 5/5 for 5CMC. The combination of trample and vigilance is superb. A solid workhorse creature for the deck.
Rhonas the Indomitable is excellent for our deck as a sticky 5/5 that swings in every turn. His ability to give a buff and trample is also super important. Great card to make our offense even better at a low CMC.
Ghalta, Primal Hunger is the end game goal of the deck to close out games. Doing a quick check gives us:
Turn 1 Llanowar elf /
Turn 2 Steel Leaf /
total power 6
turn 3 Resilient Khenra for 2, buff steel leaf or llanowar
total power 10
Cast Ghalta for 2.
I've done this line multiple times now in playtesting. It's not that difficult to achieve considering we're running 3-4 of each card listed. Turn 4 is the average play otherwise.
Finally Carnage Tyrant is a singleton I use as a big hexproof trampler that I can use if Ghelta is too expensive to close out games.
That's the bulk of our offense. Winning games on turn 4-5 is pretty common so far. So our offense is on point. Next Defense:
Siren Stormtamer gives us great use of our U splash for a defensive creature. Being able to protect our creatures to win is key. This one will usually eat removal or counter removal. It's excellent cheap value.
Blossoming Defense just feels bad when your opponent plays it against your 4CMC removal spell. It also buffs. Auto include.
Spell Pierce feels bad too, but it allows us to counter those turn 3-5 board wipes that are so key against our deck. Cheap and effective. This is gold for the U splash. This card will win games.
Heroic Intervention is another protective option we have in the deck that fights against removal, sweepers, combat, etc.. It's a very nifty and flexible card that helps us survive to win.
With those protective options we can survive. The thing to remember is that, against most decks these days and because of the speed of our clock, countering/stopping a single sweeper or removal spell can be the difference between winning and losing the game. So we don't need more complex options. Now for the utility.
Adventurous Impulse is a great way to get us a creature to play in the late game or a land early. Useful in small doses.
Ripjaw Raptor is a decent card with a solid ability. A singleton because we don't want to get bogged down with this kind of creature.
Aethersphere Harvester has lifelink with energy and is a flyer. We use our dorks and Stormtamer's to crew. Singleton for utility.
Nissa, Steward of Elements represents utility, flexibility and also a win condition. If we ever get to the late game, having 8 mana to suddenly burst the opponent for 10 damage in the air using our lands can be very useful. Singleton.
The mana base is simple. 8 dual lands for the splash, 14 forests, 2 utility lands. Memorial to Unity let's us search for creatures in the late game should there be a need. Scavenger Grounds let's us interact with graveyards which is important. Both utility singletons.
The sideboard is all about utility and covering the weaknesses of the deck.
Prowling Serpopard is excellent to bring in against the myriad of control decks and it makes our matchup with them easier to manage. A full playset here to swap for the Steel Leaf Champion playset against control decks. The reason being that most control decks won't have enough creatures to cause real problems. Instead we protect our creatures and introduce a creature that can't be countered. A good trade.
Thrashing Brontodon is a good option against decks that specifically use artifacts. There's lots. I'm currently wondering if I would prefer to keep the brontodon or go with an option like Naturalize which is 1CMC cheaper but doesn't give me a body. For now I've decided to keep the creature.
Sorcerous Spyglass can shut down decks. A great utility card for the sideboard against decks that use specific cards to combo or get their win cons.
Negate offers a cheap counter spell to fight against decks that heavily rely on non creature spells to win.
Prey Upon offers us a cheap removal spell against strategies that use specific creatures on the battlefield to win such as Lords for example.
Feedback welcome. Upvote if you like the deck :)
