This is a spell & token based, draw-go style Ephara deck. The aim is to stay low, be able to create small creature tokens at instant speed to trigger Ephara often. This is done in two ways: 1) through cards that create tokens directly if you have nothing else to do, i.e. Springjack Pasture and Trading Post, and 2) through permanents that create tokens whenever you play Instants, such as Metallurgic Summonings and Monastery Mentor. This allows you to interact with the game while still getting creatures and drawing cards.
_Note: the current list has some slight changes from the description below. All in the realm of what is discussed in "Considerations & Honourable Mentions"_
A note on Blinking & ETB Synergies
While a good half of the non-token creatures in this deck have ETB abilities, this deck really isn't all in on repeated-blink-synergies. To be frank, I've seen enough of Deadeye Navigator and Brago, King Eternal. Eldrazi Displacer is still in the deck because it simply is a good card, and Cloudstone Curio, Crystal Shard and Whitemane Lion, while slower, still can generate quite some value. We rather dedicate our resources to other, less played synergies.
Win Conditions
Let's start with the end: there are three main ways to win the game, all building somewhat on the others. An obvious one is creating a whole lot of small tokens and buffing them with Mirror Entity. While sometimes the simplest things work best, this plan can fail, especially since most of our tokens don't really have much evasion.
A more subtle and situational win condition (but also more fun), is to find Mirrorweave and turn all creatures into copies of an opponents fatty.
Finally, this deck has several ways built in to win with Mechanized Production. It synergizes with the fast artifact token producers & support such as Spawning Pit and Anointed Procession, but can also lead to surprise wins when responding to the upkeep trigger with Mirrorweave on an artifact creature (note that you need 8 of ANY artifact, not the enchanted one specifically!). It can also enchant an early Sol Ring for value. A safer target however is Darksteel Citadel.
Cards by Type
Enchantments & Plansewalkes
Some enchantments are answers such as Aura of Silence and Grasp of Fate, some token value such as Sacred Mesa and Thopter Spy Network, and some are our key pieces Metallurgic Summonings, Mechanized Production and Anointed Procession.
Tutor wise, we have Idyllic Tutor & Enlightened Tutor.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion is the only planeswalker. She is just overall good value, her -3 spares ALL of our creatures.
Creatures
Creatures in this deck either have flash or provide some unique synergy with the rest of the deck. Besides those that are already mentioned elsewhere: Archaeomancer recurses our best spells. Glen Elendra Archmage gives us at least two Ephara triggers while being incredibly annoying to our opponents. Aven Mindcensor can is for combo decks, Hushwing Gryff, although hurting ourself a little, is just great tech against pesky ETB decks. Phyrexian Metamorph and Solemn Simulacrum just all around good and great value with Mechanized Production. Reveillark for recursion, Stonecloaker for graveyard hate.
Finally, Recruiter of the Guard is just a house, finding all but one of our creatures. Another creature tutor can be Myr Turbine, which finds Mirror Entity.
Instants & Sorceries
We like to be able to cast spells in each of our opponents turn (i.e. to create a creature with Summonings or Mentor) and still have mana open. So we prefer our interaction & answers free (Abolish, Foil, Rewind), cheap (Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, Swan Song), and flexible (Unexpectedly Absent, Return to Dust, Cyclonic Rift).
Following the same philosophy, our boardwipe of choice is Rout. Then there is Dusk / Dawn, which spares (and recurs) all (but one) of our (non-token) creatures. (Unless we make them tiny with Mirror Entity :P). If we committed to a couple of non-token creatures, Eerie Interlude help us keep them safe or to trigger their ETB abilities once more (especially great with Archaeomancer).
As for other counterspells, we currently play Arcane Denial, Delay, Disdainful Stroke over plain old Counterspell due to Sapphire Medallion.
Merchant Scroll & Mystical Tutor both find most of these cards (Scroll doesn't find Sorceries).
Lands & Ramp
Nothing special here. There are some utility lands such as Emeria, The Sky Ruin, Darksteel Citadel, Arcane Lighthouse and Riptide Laboratory which can be found with Tolaria West. None of this is amazingly strong and we could live without Tolaria and Emeria, but since the opportunity cost is so low we still run them.
The overall ramp & mana strategy in this deck might be a bit over-engineered and under-built. One major requirement is that we to increase the odds to be able to play Ephara on turn 3. Thus there are many of the better 2CMC mana rocks such as Azorius Signet and Talisman of Progress. But there are also Pearl Medallion and Sapphire Medallion, which I'm not 100% sold on yet. To get more value out of the latter two, and because it synergises with the crowd of artifact tokens we're creating, I am testing Inspiring Statuary.
Artifacts
Aether Vial can be crazy if drawn somewhat early. We have a bit few creature cards, but they are not spread wide CMC wise. It only really shines with Cloudstone Curio. Ashnod's Altar together with Trading Post, Nuisance Engine or Spawning Pit can keep the token engine going.
Tutors for our artifacts include Enlightened Tutor, Trophy Mage & Whir of Invention.
Considerations & Honourable Mentions
Cards that are in, but might go out:
- The Statuary + Medallions package is somewhat iffy. On the one hand, more mana allows us to more frequently bounce/recur creatures on our battlefield to protect them or generate ETB value. On the other hand, the average cmc of this deck is low and coloured mana becomes the bottleneck. It makes me want to play more X-spells to sink mana into, options being White Sun's Zenith, Distorting Wake and Sphinx's Revelation.
- I guess Mindcensor, Hushwing and Stonecloaker are meta calls.
- We could make cuts from the 1cmc creature removal suite.
- We could also live without Aether Vial. Given the low non-token creature count, it may not be used to its full potential in this deck.
Cards that currently aren't in the deck, but could be:
Acknowledgements
This deck started as a version of the Goat Simulator deck (hence the name), but I have also consulted some other primers to Ephara archetypes.
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Magosi, the Waterveil store up an extra turn for mechanical production (does basically just cost us a card...), tutorable with that landTimestream Navigator tutorable with more things (but no haste...)... but could go infinite turns with recruiter + blink outlet?
