This deck is what I've built on from my budget version here which I started with:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/i-hear-a-horde-of-huge-scary-creatures-gw-budget/
I've made this decklist so that it contains all the cards that I have currently in my collection, and any future upgrades I want to make are listed below.
I feel like giving the new dual lands in Battle for Zendikar a try in this deck as a 2-of won't hurt either. My reasoning is that if you start with a turn one fetch and then do the end of turn shenanigans with fetching out a tapped shock land, using the 'basic lands matter' duals would generate the same effect of having 2 colours of mana on turn 2 for the price of 1 life, and if you're going late into the game for any reason, you can always use the fetches to fetch out a Canopy Vista as though it were a Savannah or something like that. I don't know, they're just my first thoughts for these new duals possibly being played in a 2 coloured deck like mine as 'extra' shocks.
I really can't wait until the community comes up with a name for these lands though, so we'll actually have something to call them! Maybe the 'continent lands'? You know, because their flavour text references them as a continent? I dunno.
These are the upgrades I've planned to add to this deck:
This is just a complete value creature, and the Elemental it leaves behind (or that it creates, if the opponent actually DOES cast a spell during my turn) will probably be pretty big due to the way this deck functions.
After seeing a few decks use Brimaz at a Modern tournament at my LGS, I've decided I want to include two of him in my deck in place of the Shield of the Oversouls. The shield isn't a very good card, as I've found, so it was just a matter of time before I found something to replace it with. I already have one Brimaz so I just need to trade for a second one, which might take some time or it might be quick if people are emptying their Theros block collection before rotation.
You cannot describe how much I hate having an Advent of the Wurm in my hand in a game...it's just so annoying having to spend 4 mana on one creature when I'd rather have smaller creatures that I can consistently play early-game. That leads on to another issue I find with this card - getting to 4 mana sometimes takes a while. It's easier to cast a 2-drop than a 4-drop!
I'm just testing around with these because from a glance, they're both turn 1 1/1s, but the Lion has a small chance of being a turn 1 2/3, as well as likely becoming a 2/3 for free after turn 2 and 3 due to playing forests, whereas with the Warden, you have to spend 2 mana to 'upgrade' him, which is 2 mana that could be spent on an actual 2-drop creature.
As it's been proven in previous decks, this creature is just very versatile. Being a 3-drop 3/2 that gains you 2 life on entry is powerful against most decks, especially burn, with the life gain helping to stall and the 3/2 body being easy to use as a blocker due to it coming back again, then gaining you 2 more life! Plus it gets buffed twice by the Liege and isn't colour restrictive, so if I'm somehow being manascrewed for whatever reason, it shouldn't be that hard to cast.
This is a creature that is very protective and makes your opponent play around it by possibly not using their sided-in Anger of the Gods or plain old Supreme Verdict. At the very least, it's a turn 3 3/3 that makes the opponent waste a removal spell on it. I've decided to remove 2 lands because now I mostly have 2 and 3-drops, I'll mostly only need 3 lands per game to get me going. The choice to remove Stirring Wildwood is because it always enters tapped, which is bad for the early-game, and is mostly only useful when you need to sink mana late game or are stuck without creatures for some reason, which shouldn't be happening. I can also just use Knight of the Reliquary to fetch him out if needed.
Scavenging Ooze is a great graveyard hatebear as well as providing life gain if needed against burn or heavy aggro matchups. I replaced 2 Seekers with 2 of him because like the Seeker, he provides life gain, but with hardly any noncreature spells, the Seeker's lifelink abilities are barely activated.
Thalia is a great hatebear against most decks in the format, considering most white decks run 3-4 Path to Exiles, red decks run playsets of Lightning Bolt, blue decks tend to run cantrips like Serum Visions and Gitaxian Probe, and that's just the floor of this card. If the opponent is playing something like storm or just a control deck, this card can completely screw them up. It also doesn't mess my deck up either since I only have playsets of Dromoka's Command and Path to Exile as my noncreature spells. At the very least, it's a 2 mana 2/1 first striker, which isn't amazing, but isn't terrible either.
Another consideration is that I might want to add in 4 copies of Vengevine instead, since it's a high-value turn 4 play with recursion, but I'm unsure of how often I'd be able to trigger the recursion ability.
If anyone has any thoughts on which one might be better to include, feel free to comment! I don't want to end up spending all that money on a playset of cards I'm gonna end up not using!
