I like this deck. However I wonder about Mindbreak Trap in your sideboard. Rarely are there 3 or more spells on the stack. I would prefer Leyline of Sanctity or some spot removal.

Thanks for the feedback! Leyline of Sanctity is a really good idea. I realize that other combo decks are going to be my biggest challenge, so I put in Mindbreak Trap vs storm. I realize now that Leyline of Sanctity works just as well in that match-up, along with helping with other combo match-ups like burn. Gonna make that switch.

Can you swap unified will for something like Mana Leak ? This deck is pretty boss though, no joke! The mutavault combo is genius. +1.

+1 from me. Really nice deck.

Wow I love decks like this. I too love using Descendant's Path but I've never tried anything like this.

Glad you guys like the deck! I've started playtesting the deck on Cockatrice, and it's been playing really well. Hoping to do a lot more playtesting against the more competitive decks.

@LtMiller117: I suppose Mana Leak is the go-to counterspell in modern for a reason... I was thinking Unified Will would be the better choice for me since I have a hard time imagining another combo deck with anywhere near as many creatures as this deck has. But now I'm thinking about things like board wipes, and maybe Mana Leak is best after all. Thanks for the suggestion! The sideboard will continue to develop as I do more playtesting.

I'm glad I could help! Are you hoping to go competitive with this? If so I might have a few other ideas that could be useful to you.

I'm looking to make it as competitive as I can, while still calling it completely my own (ie. it doesn't look like any established deck). The card slots I'm still thinking I might be changing are Avacyn's Pilgrim and Sage Owl . Though they provide the critical mass of redundancy that allows the deck to be super consistent, they're just not as good as the other cards in their categories. Strangely, the creature type restriction of only human/bird isn't the limiting factor here. There just aren't any better 1-drop mana dorks or 2-drop library manipulation.

Is there a reason you chose those over Elvish Mystic and Preordain ? I just don't see you capitalizing in pilgrims white and omenspeaker has better defense for you.

Currently, to maximize on being able to consistently play creatures off Descendants' Path , I only run 2 creature types: birds and humans. Elvish Mystic is, obviously, an elf. If Elvish Mystic were Deathrite Shaman (which is unfortunately banned), I would completely put it in over Avacyn's Pilgrim because it provides so much extra value. The ability to tap for green instead of white, however, is a complete non-issue: blue is the limiting color in the deck. There are turns in which I want to play multiple blue spells, but there are never any turns in which I want more than one green spell. And since I clearly already had a green source to play the mana dork, I don't need any more green.

I have given a lot of consideration to Arbor Elf , though. With Breeding Pool being the main land in the deck (almost all the other lands just fetch it), it basically reads: "T: Add G or U to your mana pool." Is this ability to tap for blue make it more worthwhile than the ability to easily keep playing off Descendants' Path ? I don't know: might be worth trying to switch these 2 cards.

As for Sage Owl vs Omenspeaker (Preordain is banned), this one is also hard to tell. Because I have Noble Hierarch to give exalted, I really appreciate cheap flying as a way to push damage through. Is flying better than +2 toughness? I'm leaning towards yes, but I could be wrong. This difference likely depends on the meta in which you're playing.

Either way, the important thing to examine is Scry 2 vs Rearrange 4. Omenspeaker 's effect allows me to easily get rid of cards I don't want to be drawing, which is valuable. Sage Owl 's effect, though, allows me to dig twice as deep. Combined with shuffling through fetch lands, I think this gives Sage Owl a slight advantage over Omenspeaker . I think this is another spot where I could be trying out both, though.

I see. You make solid arguments. My ideas weren't really meant to be replace.ent ideas but I wanted to see your logic behind the choices. I do wish for a green mana dork that can produce blue though! Would be great. But that makes sense.

Is there a reason you chose human/birds? I cant help but feel like there are better tribes to abuse this with. Also how do you handle hands without desendants path? do you just aggressively muligan till you have 2 land a dork and it?

@DocG, I do like to describe my thought process as I build decks:

1) It took me a while to figure out the human side: The initial concept of this deck was Eldrazi/Birds. I wanted birds from the beginning because I knew Birds of Paradise and Augury Owl were cards that the deck wanted to be playing. Starting with the focus on casting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn , I had Nest Invader and Kozilek's Predator (along with some cheap changelings) to reduce the need for Mutavault , with the backup plan of using the creature spam to power Beastmaster Ascension .

When I started playtesting, though, I noticed several issues: a) There was too much reliance on drawing at least one Descendants' Path or Beastmaster Ascension b) We never wanted to draw multiple copies of either one of those cards; we didn't even want to draw both c) The deck needed to over-extend with creatures in order to work, with the only protection in Judge's Familiar d) It was too slow and inconsistent in getting the cards it needed.

So I knew I needed to cut Beastmaster Ascension and replace it with an alternate creature win-con, preferably one that would work with Emrakul, the Aeons Torn awkwardly appearing at times. At this point, I remembered Mindshrieker was a thing. Replacing Beastmaster Ascension with Mindshrieker went a long way to solving issues a-c, but it caused even further reliance on having the top of my deck be what I needed it to be. In situations like this, I always do research to see what possible card options are. I was floored when I found Sage of Epityr , Skill Borrower , and Survivor of the Unseen . How had I never seen these cards before? I also realized at this point that replacing the Eldrazi with humans would even fix issue d) by giving me access to Noble Hierarch and Avacyn's Pilgrim . I had been considering making elves the secondary tribe, but it just seemed like I had found the perfect answer.

The final piece of the puzzle was Gigantomancer . Though most of the issues as I saw them had been resolved, I still felt an over-reliance on Mindshrieker and Descendants' Path hitting Emrakul, the Aeons Torn . I needed a 3rd win-con, and I needed another target for my first two win-cons. As it happens, I was already running Skill Borrower to help fix my top-deck interactions. Putting in Gigantomancer just made everything "click" for me.

2) We no longer need Descendants' Path to win: I've won games off the back of Mindshrieker or Skill Borrower alone. Choosing when to mulligan or not is still something that has me scratching my head, though. We want to see at least 1 of Descendants' Path , Mindshrieker , or Skill Borrower , but are we able to cast them turn 2? Is turn 3 too slow? When can we keep 1-landers? 3 or 4-landers? What if we have 1 or more copies of Emrakul, the Aeons Torn or Gigantomancer in the opener? Those are dead cards, but mulliganning also puts us down cards. This is something I'm still figuring out.

This is very cool, but the loading screens would drive me mental.

+1 for creativity.

Have you played this at an FNM or on MTGO at all? If so, what decks have you played against and how has this done? I am curious to see how this does in a competitive environment. Very awesome combo! :) +1

you could put in Mothdust Changeling so you don't have to just rely on Mutavault for Emrakul.

Why not just make it changling and birds at that. Mirror Entity is a suitable replacement for gigantomancer

I've tried out Mirror Entity, and it's nowhere near as good as Gigantomancer. It pushes you to over-extend even more than normal, and is far less mana-efficient. The changeling ability isn't that relevant, since we can easily get everything besides Emrakul, the Aeons Torn, which is just in there for spice and is not actually the main point of the deck.

insects are crazy good with descendants path.

I've been toying with the idea of running a sultai control type deck with Lantern of Insight. I really like the use of Skill Borrower in here and I think this deck has convinced me to put it in mine. Overall, very cool and creative deck, though I wish it was more budget friendly. I've always liked the idea of making cheap cards competitive.

+1

Such an awesome, creative deck. Definite +1
Coming up with something completely new that's actually somewhat competitive is a rare sight, since it's such a hard thing to pull off.

You managed to combine multiple cards that I always wanted to break, but never quite managed to put in a solid deck: Descendants' Path and Skill Borrower (and Merieke Ri Berit).

Great job on combining just the right cards that work with both of the former cards.
I've had all of these in my maybeboard of the respective experimental decklists (including your maybeboard), but never managed to pull off something consistent.

Using BoP, Hierarch and the Pilgrim as mana dorks with the right creature types to make sure the Path or the Borrower enters on turn two is such a simple yet effective idea, especially in combination with topdeck manipulation from Sage of Epityr and Augury Owl.

Tasigur, the Golden Fang is indeed an awesome addition to this deck. I wonder what Dragons of Tarkir will have in store for us.

You probably did the right choice leaving out Survivor of the Unseen. She seems like the perfect card to control topdecking and get the cards you didn't want to draw back on top, but the cases where she's really worth it are marginal, and her steep upkeep makes her rather janky by herself.

Too bad Mercurial Chemister can't target players, else a singleton of him would be a no-brainer since aside from his general versatility, he could be used to end the game with the high CMC cards even if you did happen to draw them.

Have you considered Somberwald Sage yet? Admittedly she's not worth it in your current decklist, but she generally makes a decent point of intersection between the Path and Borrower, and can help cast creatures in the mid- to lategame range. (Too bad Arcanis the Omnipotent and Sphinx of the Chimes are neither bird nor human.)

Kaervek the Merciless is an awesome choice to cheat in with AP as well, although Gigantomancer and Emrakul is clearly the better choice in this deck. (I've had him in a more Shaman-focused decklist with Leaf-Crowned Elder to have basically eight copies with AP's effect.)

The great thing about Descendant's Path and Skill Borrower is that these cards are like a fine wine: They just get better as time passes! :D
(It'll probably take a while before any of these gets a ban like Birthing Pod now did, though :P)

CanadianShinobi, I would like to use this deck in the modern portion of the Tappedout Third League.

I'm not sure at first glance, but its possible that you don't need all twenty of your lands for mana fixing, especially with fetching and so many mana dorks. Throwing in some utility lands like Cavern of Souls or Ghost Quarter would give you more of a disruption edge. Also, in your sideboard, probably you could put some more disruptive elements or targeted elements for specific decks. Right now you have a lot of high converted mana cost creatures in your sideboard, which seem highly inefficient for their cost. Also, Collected Company might be an interesting option for at least a sideboard card, rapidly accelerating your board state and digging further for your combo pieces.

Also, what about Ensnaring Bridge as a defense against burn decks and aggro decks?

I have been considering Cavern of Souls, but I'm worried about not having the for Voidmage Prodigy. It's actually surprisingly hard to make sure I always have the when I need it. I'm thinking of cutting the swamp entirely (as much as it pains me to not have a basic for 1 of the colors), and I may cut it for either Cavern of Souls or another fetch.

The high-CMC cards in the sideboard are meant as tech pieces to be cheated out with Descendants' Path and Skill Borrower. Something is going very wrong if we are hard-casting them. With that said, I'm not sure they're the right pieces of tech; I'm still looking around. Collected Company, however, doesn't really work with what the deck is trying to do, since it doesn't let me play Descendants' Path.

Ensnaring Bridge doesn't stop burn like Leyline of Sanctity does. For other types of aggro, It's perfectly fine to chump-block with Sage of Epityr and the like.