Hi! To be honest, I don't have a really good idea of all of the cards and how to build decks in modern, but I wanted to branch out and get more in to the only format I hadn't really devoted any time to. I had an idea for this deck, and tested it, and it hasn't quite gone as well as I would have hoped, but I see the potential in it to Basically, I'm asking if players with more experience and a better knowledge of the sets available in modern can make suggestions to help optimize this deck.
First, the basis of this deck is to essentially have effects trigger on enchantments, particularly drawing cards with
Eidolon of Blossoms
and making angel tokens with Sigil of the Empty Throne. Mostly drawing cards for Exquisite Blood + Sanguine Bond
which trigger off of each other and will take your opponent to 0 life if you can cause them to lose life or you happen to gain life using cards like Courser of Kruphix and Whip of Erebos.
So, when constructing this deck, I looked at the big tournament winning decks and saw that they were mostly creature based decks. Sure, lots of tempo strategies, but they still win by turning creatures sideways. With that in mind, Sphere of Safety was an obvious choice, as we would have lots of enchantments in play, and even hexproof strategies will have trouble swinging in, no matter how powerful and well protected their creatures are. This also made Doomwake Giant a good pick, since he has respectable stats, is an enchantment, and giving creatures -1/-1 is very relevant against match ups like burn, delver, and basically any deck that tries for quantity over quality.
I think Greater Auramancy is pretty self explanatory. Giving shrouds to the vast majority of my permanents is huge, but does come with the drawback of not being able to put any auras on my enchantment creatures. Particularly Ethereal Armor.
Aegis of the Gods is here since he's a cheap enchantment, but he also has a great ability that protects me from burn spells,
Thoughtsieze
, and "target player sacrifices."
Sylvan Caryatid, Birds of Paradise, and Utopia Sprawl are here for mana ramping, as many of the permanents in this deck are pretty high CMC, and being able to reliably cast
Kruphix's Insight
early on is important for this deck. They also are great for color fixing. They each have their downsides and strengths compared to each other, Caryatid obviously has hexproof, protecting her from Terminate and Lightning Bolt and basically whatever else, but won't get me a turn 2 Insight. Sprawl is weak to land destruction, but is stronger against wraths and creature removal. It's good to attach this to a normal forest, so your opponents can't hurt you as badly with BloodMoon or target destruction and starve you of any particular color.
Mana Bloom
is just a cheap enchantment to cast over and over again to trigger effects, or early on to ramp a little.
In the Sideboard, We have another Aegis for match-ups really require us to have hexproof. Eidolon of Rhetoric is a good pick against opposing combo decks, as ours is permanent based, we can afford to wait another turn, but someone trying to cast Grapeshot can't.
Rest in Peace is here for the occasional dredge deck, and is a power way to answer cards like Tarmogoyf, and Snapcaster Mage. It also protects us from cards like
Extirpate
, and makes delving impossible.
Choke is just game over against certain decks or at least certain situations where your opponent has a lot of tapped islands. I'm not sure, but I think it may also be good against decks that back up their Urza lands with counterspells.
Banishing Light
is just good, versatile removal, with a little risk compared to Path to Exile. Stony Silence is great against decks with lots of artifact abilities, or against Affinity, since their artifact lands won't be able to tap for mana.
Voice of Resurgence is here for control decks, but I feel like this is the hardest match up that I've played for this deck. Playing against Grixis Control, with all of their tempo-y counter spells and cheap creature removal at instant speed and hand disruption to back it up is really tough to beat. I also considered
Eyes of the Wisent
since it's an enchantment, but I'm not sure it's the right idea. Similarly, Grand Abolisher and Defense Grid are in the maybeboard. To punish or prevent them for acting during my turn, and making it so their counter spells and timely removal come at a price.
Bitterblossom is a card I'm considering for going under control decks and just beating them to death with a bunch of faeries if they manage to stop me in every other capacity. They also pair up nicely with Voice of Resurgence, powering up the tokens he provides.
