I was looking at a Collected Company aristocrats deck and started putting in Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Then I realized the amazing combos between Alesha and Coco, as they pull the same kinds of cards. I tried running it still somewhat aristocrats, and found that I got destroyed by simple boardwipes that everyone kept at least in their sideboards, like Languish and End Hostilities. For this deck to work, I need around half my deck to be able to be pulled by Collected Company, and at least, if not more, than half of that to be able to be brought back by Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. This left me so very open to those wipes. What to do?
Then I realized it - flip planeswalkers can ALL be pulled by Collected Company and Alesha, Who Smiles at Death. Pretty soon the deck was progressing. However, it still needed a plan. What do all these cards have in common beyond the ability to be pulled by Alesha and Coco?Every card is a must-remove. That's the way planeswalkers work - get rid of them fast. People like to remove the flip planeswalkers when they are creatures if possible. And so, why not add more creatures that are must-removes. And so Dragonmaster Outcast and Drana, Liberator of Malakir entered the deck. I figured that I would need to attack to flip Kytheon, Hero of Akros
, and flipping
Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
would be hard without attacking. So why not make the last creatures must-stops when attacking? Drana, Liberator of Malakir already fills this role, so in the deck it went. The rest of the creatures are all ones that you simply want to block.
The only thing missing that every deck needs (beyond a land base) is simple removal. There isn't a lot of room for removal, due to the deck's nature. The removal needs to be red, to suppliment
Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh
. Giving me a bit more power by doing damage to face in addition to the removal, Crackling Doom seemed the right answer.
Recently I made more legendary creature additions, and 4 Hero's Blades. This makes the sudden damage powerful, in addition to allowing me to equip from a Collected Company. The weapon solves my problem versus abzan much of time as well.
Thanks for reading! Please leave any ideas and suggestions you may have.
