This deck was inspired by the Daily MTG article "Get Big" and it's preview card: Gyre Sage. More specifically, it was an answer to the challenge at the very bottom of said article that suggested the combination of Gyre Sage,
Corpsejack Menace
, and
Gavony Township
.
In other words: more counters than you can count.
Deck breakdown:
Gyre Sage is the star of the deck. Nearly everything is devoted to evolving it and taking advantage of the obscene amounts of mana it produces. When you finally feel like you have enough mana, our friend the Sage is an excellent beatstick.
Arbor Elf and Avacyn's Pilgrim are there for even more mana acceleration. And believe me, this deck uses every bit of it.
Gavony Township
uses the all the mana produced by the above trio to pump up everything in the deck. It creates a very nice feedback loop with our favorite Sage.
Corpsejack Menace
is all about acceleration. When it hits the battlefield early game, it will typically put two counters on each Gyre Sage, which is awesome. It also doubles counters from
Gavony Township
and the next two cards.
Primordial Hydra, the meat for our potatoes. Primordial hydra can be played early and left for a couple turns and be perfectly viable. Or I can just tap a Gyre Sage and drop it down as a large/large. Gets even more ridiculous with
Corpsejack Menace
in play.
Mikaeus, the Lunarch
is at worst a white
Slime Molding
and at best a great accelerant for my Sages and a pump for everything else. Add
Corpsejack Menace
and
Gavony Township
and your opponents will be flipping tables left and right.
Fleecemane Lion and
Dreg Mangler
serve as early, efficient beaters/blockers and Sage accelerators. The Mangler has the added benefit of being even more accelerant when it dies.
Essence Harvest
: Powerful direct damage and life gain, since this deck's average creature size is around a 6/6. Thanks Drakrhal!
Abrupt Decay and Maelstrom Pulse give me very powerful spot removal when I absolutely need it, and more can be found in the sideboard.
Ajani, Mentor of Heroes increases my field presence by 6 power and 6 toughness the turn he enters play, assuming he follows a Copsejack Menace. When not turning even my mana dorks into threats, Ajani digs for more threats from my deck.
(Note: Sideboard was tuned for RTR standard and has not yet been updated for modern.)
Overall the deck is running so much more smoothly than I could possibly have imagined. I will definitely continue to tweak it, but I love how it is coming so far.
