I've always been a fan of lifegain and enchantment support, and have favored white decks since my very first game of Magic, when I built a weenies deck with like a dozen Crusade and Spirit Link cards in it. I still love life gain, and when I saw Oloro, I knew I had to build it. I've finally settled on this pillowfort lifegain build that has done surprisingly well. It dies to cEDH, but does very nicely against most everything else.
The hardest part of running this deck is managing all the triggers. Almost every card has a trigger and they chain off each other in sometimes unexpected ways. This makes it hard to learn to pilot well, but it always makes it competitive in that most opponents don't see how much of a threat exists with any given board state. Personally, I find the style to be delightful and absorbing, but I recognize that it may not be for everyone.
The Goal:
- Leaning on Oloro's main strengths, we aim to gain as much life as possible, and to draw cards like crazy.
- We don't run many combat focused creatures, so we're looking to win without combat damage, and focus on cards with "you win" effects, or on life drain effects such as Cliffhaven Vampire, or Exsanguinate.
- This can be slow, so in the meantime, we also have to prevent enemy combat and targeted attacks, as well as combo wins, so we have Platinum Angel effects and control elements in the deck as well.
Discouraging Attacks:
"Please don't hurt us, we're just chilling over here gaining life. Attack the other guys, they're a bigger threat!!"
Control:
Our opponents of course have their own plans, and we can't let those happen.
- So for starters, we've added Force of Will (yay for reprints!), Force of Negation, Dovin's Veto, Flusterstorm, Mana Drain, Arcane Denial, and Trickbind to round out the direct control package. Note that Arcane Denial isn't so bad if Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is also on the board.
- We don't have a lot of removal, but there's a couple: Terminus and Cyclonic Rift can clear the board for us. Karlov of the Ghost Council is here for targeted removal. More playtesting might determine that additional removal is needed, but so far, the counterspells have been sufficient.
- Glen Elendra Archmage is a counter-on-a-Stick, and when paired with Cleric Class, Nykthos Paragon, or Archangel of Thune, she can be abused for multiple counters.
- Unfortunately in these colors, only Aven Mindcensor is a good fit to prevent opponents from tutoring. I have considered Ob Nixilis, Unshackled to make it more painful, but he's high cost and somewhat off-theme for the deck, and... what to cut?
Winning:
Because I'm not a fan of tutors (I don't play cEDH, and find that tutors slow the game too much with the extra searching and shuffling), we gain consistency through high volume drawing, and running multiple paths to victory.
- Check out Angel of Destiny! The life total requirement should be easy for us, so then it's just a matter of connecting in combat with the angel. The flying helps, but that's the only evasion it has, so it may not always be possible.
- Drawing out the deck with Laboratory Maniac on the board. Takes some work, but this build can do it.
- Felidar Sovereign or Test of Endurance might be the easiest path to victory if the counterspell package can protect them from removal.
- With enough life gain (see the next section), Aetherflux Reservoir can bolt players to death.
- It might seem unlikely, but considering how much draw we will have, Approach of the Second Sun is not far-fetched, especially when cast with Boseiju, Who Shelters All.
- Perhaps even trickier, is a win with Triskaidekaphile, which with cards like Well of Lost Dreams, Paradox Haze, and Oloro's trigger being a "may" effect, it isn't too far-fetched to make happen on our upkeep if we stack the triggers right.
- Straight up draining through life gain and card draw triggers is more effective than might be expected. Most of them target each opponent, and it won't be long before the whole table starts targeting us, but hopefully by then we'll have our pillowfort well established, and can finish off players with Debt to the Deathless or Exsanguinate.
- Or, if we don't want to kill with a thousand cuts, we can do it all in one go, with Beacon of Immortality + Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose or Defiant Bloodlord.
- Finally, while we're not specifically built for dealing a lot of combat damage, a few of our creatures can definitely get big and swing through following a Cyclonic Rift if we're lucky. These include Chasm Skulker, Karlov of the Ghost Council, Psychosis Crawler, Shabraz, the Skyshark, Toothy, Imaginary Friend, and Voice of the Blessed. Nykthos Paragon can also contribute to everything.
It's my dream, someday, to win a game by flying a shark at someone's face. It's going to happen.
All The Triggers, All The Time:
Thanks to eminence, we don't even need Oloro to be on the board to benefit from his life gain. We want him out for the cheap card draw, but leveraing his abilities is what this build is all about. Starting with life gain, not only the gain good for our overall survivability, but we also want stuff to happen whenever we gain life! That's the reason I've named this deck, "Oloro Triggered" since our board will be non-stop triggers.
- In addition to Oloro's upkeep trigger, we can gain life from:
- Lifelink: Drogskol Reaver (twice), Felidar Sovereign, Rhox Faithmender, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and Vault of the Archangel.
- Draw triggers: Queza, Augur of Agonies, Shabraz, the Skyshark
- Other triggers: Aetherflux Reservoir on every spell cast, Chalice of Life
once pre turn, Pristine Talisman once per turn, Authority of the Consuls when opponents summon creatures, when we Extort Blind Obedience, and with Sanguine Bond.
- Direct spells: Debt to the Deathless, Exsanguinate, Approach of the Second Sun, Beacon of Immortality, and Sphinx's Revelation.
- If any of that happens with any or all of the doublers Boon Reflection, Rhox Faithmender, Alhammarret's Archive, it gets crazy in a hurry.
And then… whenever we gain life:
- We get to deal damage with Cliffhaven Vampire, Epicure of Blood, Marauding Blight-Priest, Defiant Bloodlord, Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose.
- Pump up Karlov of the Ghost Council and Voice of the Blessed, Cleric Class, and Nykthos Paragon pumps everyone. Because it’s once per turn though, I may switch him out for Archangel of Thune, although that would mean not getting the huge boosts from Beacon of Immortality and some of the other big spells.
- And get more draw with Drogskol Reaver, Well of Lost Dreams, and of course Oloro's own draw trigger.
Other draw effects include both Teferi planeswalkers, which are worth mentioning. Teferi, Hero of Dominaria draws a card AND untap lands to use for counterspells, and he has an amazing ultimate in this build, which will never happen simply because he’s a lightning rod for removal. Teferi, Temporal Pilgrim also has a draw ability, combined with a passive effect that increases loyalty for every card we draw, so his ultimate - which is 12! — is much more feasible, and still pretty deadly.
Note in that mess of goodness, there's a couple really nice synergies:
- Queza or Sharky + Drogskol Reaver is an instant win combo, assuming we have enough cards remaining in the deck.
- Similarly, even with just Drogskol Reaver and our commander, we can draw cards equal to the amount of mana we have available. Adding cards like Toothy, Karlov or Chasm Skulker allows us to suddenly swing big. And with Psychosis Crawler you get a big beater as well as the indirect pinging from the card draw.
Mana:
I saved the boring part for the last, but it's still important to identify how we're going to power out everything we need to survive and keep up with the faster decks out there. Without green, this is not easy for a 3-color deck, so we augment with mana rocks, as you'll see shortly. But first the lands… yes, I run the expensive stuff, and aim to avoid lands that come into play tapped, though there are a few.
- ABUR duals include: Scrubland, Tundra, and Underground Sea
- Fetchlands: Flooded Strand, Marsh Flats, Polluted Delta
- Shocklands: Godless Shrine, Hallowed Fountain, and Watery Grave
- Battle lands: Prairie Stream, Sunken Hollow
- Checklands: Drowned Catacomb, Glacial Fortress, Isolated Chapel
- Triome/Triland: +Arcane Sanctum, +Raffine's Tower
- Others: Command Tower, Prismatic Vista, Exotic Orchard, +Esper Panorama, +Obscura Storefront
- For big mana: Cabal Coffers, with Urborg
- Utility Lands: Vault of the Archangel, Boseiju, Who Shelters All, Homeward Path, Maze of Ith, Strip Mine, Wasteland, and Academy Ruins - because our rocks really matter.
+These four come in tapped (or the land they fetch does). Everything else can make mana the turn it's played.
The Prismatic Vista, Esper Panorama, and Obscura Storefront only fetch basics, of which there are only six in the deck. I recall in one game, I was only able to use Prismatic Vista while I had Chromatic Lantern out, but the color consistency is what really matters here, so it's worth that tradeoff to me. I can't recall a game where I've ever been color-screwed, so, it's working!
Note: I like to run fetches to help color fix as well as thin the deck, and in this build we want to get through the deck as one of our win cons, but I don't run some of the slower fetches to avoid falling behind.
Now for the rocks:
I had to make some unhappy cuts to fit all these into the build, but the mana consistency is worth it. Don't get mana screwed!
