A 5 color deck with Kobolds, Ornithopters, and one 1 land? What?
note - the deck has had some recent tweaks as I play around with it a little more. Description will be updated when I've settled it.
How to play the deck:
So hear me out. Cast Glimpse of Nature followed by a ton of 0 mana cost creatures all in the same turn, then win by playing Brain Freeze or Last-Ditch Effort. Once the deck gets going you can easily cast 20-30 spells in a single turn; this is even easier if you play a second Glimpse or Scapegoat (which affords more control over card draw). With that many spells played in one turn, Brain Freeze's {Storm} mechanic will mill your opponent's whole deck. If you draw Last-Ditch Effort instead you'll have enough creatures on the board where it will deal lethal damage.
I've always created decks on my own, and this deck was created a long time ago and has only recently been updated. While updating this deck and looking at new cards, I've noticed that others have created similar decks and wanted to point them out; most notably deck:Cheerios and [Budget Kobolds](https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/budget-legacy/766357-budget-kobolds-deck).
Your starting hand should include a Glimpse of Nature, a mana generator, and at least three creatures. If not, mulligan. An "ideal" starting hand is shown below:
Ideal Starting Hand Show
- Glimpse of Nature - because obviously. This starts the engine.
- Elvish Spirit Guide - so you can play Glimpse of Nature. Lotus Petal is a good alternative, but the Spirit Guide is ideal.
- Land Grant - you'd actually rather have this in your hand than a "real" mana generator. You get to play this card, pull Savannah into your hand, and have one fewer non-creature card to draw from your deck which could potentially interrupt the Glimpse's card draw.
- Scapegoat - I prefer this over a second Glimpse because Scapegoat lets you better control how many cards you're drawing and reduces the likelihood of overdrawing that can occur with an early second Glimpse.
- 3x 0-cost Creatures
The Cards:
Rationale for the cards is detailed below, grouped in a way that made the most sense for me:
Mana Generators:
You can generate at most 6 mana, and while you don't need all of that to win, you'll need to manage your resources properly.
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1x Savannah
ONE land? Yes. The rationale is simple: the deck is focused on a one-turn win, so why bother having more land that you'll never play taking up valuable real estate in the deck? A majority of your cards cost 0 mana, so you don't need a whole lot of mana generation to win - you only need enough to get by on that one turn (literally 3 or 4 mana is all it takes). What's more, the great thing about Savannah is that it can be drawn through Land Grant because it counts as a Forest and can be tapped to play either Glimpse of Nature or Scapegoat. Given the high price of dual lands (they have skyrocketed!) an alternative is Temple Garden. Sure, this requires you to pay 2 life so it doesn't enter tapped, but that is a fine tradeoff and it costs significantly less money. If you're really on a budget, I'd suggest a basic Forest.
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1x Elvish Spirit Guide
Discard a card to cast Glimpse of Nature? I mean sure, twist my arm!
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4x Lotus Petal
Play and sacrifice to get extra mana into your mana pool. Your win conditions require either one blue or one red mana, so you'll need to save at least one of these to win.
Support / Card Draw:
These cards are all about getting through the deck faster and providing a little bit of support if needed.
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4x Glimpse of Nature
Glimpse is central to your win condition. You'll need one in your opening hand along with 1 mana generator. If you don't, mulligan.
- 4x Street Wraiths
Use two life to draw a card? That's a great trade if you ask me.
- 4x Gitaxian Probe
Just like Street Wraith the Probe is a great way to draw cards. Apparently though Gitaxian Probe is no longer legal (or maybe never was, I'm not sure), so if you're looking to play this in legit tournaments you'll need to swap it out. I'd suggest replacing them with two more Phyrexian Walkers and two more Shifting Walls. You don't really need more creatures in the deck, but it's probably the "least worst" replacement for the card. If you're not playing in an official format, keep the Probes.
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2x Land Grant
This may appear surprising to some folks because. Why not use a Fetch Land? Just like Fetch Lands, it increases the likelihood of being able to play Savannah during your turn without needing to increase the number of "real" land cards you have. The reason that I like Land Grant over Fetch Lands? Simple. You're opponent is going to see everything you have in your hand anyways (because you'll play all of it), so why not save the 1 life? Life is a resource for this deck, and if you need to use all 8 of your card draws (4x Street Wraith and 4x Gitaxian Probe) to keep your engine running you'll be at 4 life; using a Fetch Land can potentially put you at 3, leaving you open to things like Lightning Bolt.
Creatures:
You'll notice that the casting cost of all of the creatures in this deck is 0 (excluding the Spirit Guides and Street Wraiths because they aren't used as creatures). As stated earlier, this is so you can dump a ton of them onto the board in a single turn. As discussed, playing a Glimpse of Nature will be key to enabling your win conditions; once the deck gets going, it really gets going.
Win Conditions
Speaking of win conditions, this deck has two.
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1x Last-Ditch Effort
All those ultra-weenie creatures that you dropped which have no attack power and will just sit there on the board waiting to die? Sacrifice them for the greater good and use this card to do 20+ damage to your opponent's face. I've noticed some other decks run Grapeshot in this slot. While Grapeshot is a good card, it is twice the mana cost of Last-Ditch Effort.
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1x Brain Freeze
Play Glimpse of Nature and follow that up by casting roughly 20 creatures and a few other spells, and boom, you can mill your opponent right into the ground. You can alternatively pop Reckless Bushwhacker (discussed later) into this spot, which combos really well with the aforementioned Last-Ditch Effort. Personally, I prefer Brain Freeze because it varies my win condition pathways (milling or damage, rather than just damage).
Sideboard
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Multani's Presence just in case you run into an opponent who has a 0 cost Chalice of the Void on the board turn one. Even though your 0 cost creatures will be countered, they still count as "being played." This meets the criteria of both Multani's Presence as well as Brain Freeze.
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Chalice of the Void speaking of the Chalice, you could actually toss this in yourself and cast it for 0 mana if needed. This obviously counters all of your own creatures, but it still powers Brain Freeze. This will prevent your other win condition though (Last-Ditch Effort, so you'll want to replace that.
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Elvish Spirit Guide or Simian Spirit Guide These can be useful if you're looking for more mana, but they aren't really needed.
Maybeboard
So the maybeboard here is a little interesting, and I'll try to walk through why they're included.
- Laboratory Maniac Casting two (or three) Glimpse of Natures can burn through your deck really quickly. I've been toying with adding one of these just in case that happens - to win by decking yourself. The problem is that it costs "a lot" of mana for this deck.
- Reckless Bushwhacker You'll (obviously) cast this for the Surge cost. The thought behind including this is that you might not be able to play 20+ creatures to fuel your Last-Ditch Effort for a win condition. You can use the initial punch from the Bushwacker followed up by the Last-Ditch Effort. If you do put this in, you might want to add in one (just one) Simian Spirit Guide.
- Gamble The rationale for including Gamble (and a few other cards to support it like Simian Spirit Guide) was to get to the Glimpse faster if you didn't have it in your opening hand. The problem that I see with this though is that you still need to use Gamble and a mana generator to draw the Glimpse, which you'll still need another mana generator for. This one is low on my Maybe List.
