Play lots of lifegain & ETB triggered ability creatures, some with modal or additional abilities, get a
Doom Whisperer
&
Bolas's Citadel
in play then find a
Verdant Sun's Avatar
to play your whole deck and win the game.
The trick is when you have the game winning
Bolas's Citadel
on the top of your deck with one in play, you cast it from the top of your deck for 6 life, hold priority, activate the one in play (choosing the Citadel already in play as one of the sac targets) then the new Citadel resolves and you can keep playing from the top of your deck until you get another 10 permanents in play.
The other trick is to just play your whole deck and swing immediately with
Samut, Tyrant Smasher
giving your whole board haste.
The
Wildgrowth Walker
,
Jadelight Ranger
, and
Merfolk Branchwalker
package is a no-brainer here since they gain life and remove lands from the top of your deck so you can keep casting spells.
Seekers' Squire
Is just a bad card, and although would work fairly well in the deck, isn't good enough to make the cut.
Knight of Autumn
is obviously great vs any
Wilderness Reclamation
,
Experimental Frenzy
,
Chromatic Lantern
, or gods forbid other Citadel decks we may see running around.
Basilica Bell-Haunt
works very nicely when going off by shredding the OPs hand when going off, which shouldn't be that large turn 5-8 when we hopefully play most/all of our deck.
Verdant Sun's Avatar
has surpassed my initial evaluation in this deck. Costing only 2 life when cast by the Citadel, it's the main enabler of casting your whole deck in one go with Doom Whisperer out. It feels REALLY bad to draw both of them though.
Gift of Paradise
is perfect for the deck. Fixing for our demanding mana base, ramp, life gain, right where we want to be.
Font of Agonies
is a card you want to see exactly one of total so there's one lucky boi in the main. While a bit slow vs the red aggro matchup, in all other creature based matchups it does a ton of work with Doom Whisperer, Shock lands and Citadel to power it up. Provides a good mana sink when using citadel but not comboing off, since you'll usually end with a land or another citadel on top the usual play pattern is to stop casting spells out of your hand entirely once citadel resolves. If a creature deck can't remove it the game is over.
The mana base is painful and a weakness of the deck for sure with a 3BBB spell, a BBWW, a 1GG, and G hungry early drops but all the explore creatures and Gift of Paradie's help smooth everything out quite a bit. If people use
Field of Ruin
or
Assassin's Trophy
on our lands (especially when they have a Gift on them... oof!) we could be in some trouble. (I've since added 2x
Forest
in place of 2x
Isolated Chapel
but this is still a weakness of the deck)
Other considerations:
Revitalize
,
Path of Discovery
,
Karn, the Great Creator
,
Bond of Flourishing
and
Wayward Swordtooth
. Revitalize and Bond of Flourishing are great but aren't a permanent for the Citadel and when we go off we don't care about cards in our hand, Path of Discovery is a consideration for clearing lands off the top and gaining more life with Wildgrowth Walker instead of Verdant Sun's Avatar, but I'm not quite sold it's better than the big-dumb-dino, and Swordtooth does nothing against aggro, which is everywhere and I'm sure will continue to be widespread after WAR comes out. Karn is an interesting idea where you would sideboard one Citadel in addition to The Immortal Sun and maybe a
Sorcerous Spyglass
and
Amulet of Safekeeping
for toolboxy value, and Karn plussing on Bolas's Citadel seems pretty good as well. Worth a spot maybe as a 1-of in the main, not sure.
On to the sideboard guide.
-1 Font of Agonies
-4 Gift of Paradise
-4 Knight of Autumn
-1 Merfolk Branchwalker
+4 Duress
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+2 The Immortal Sun
+2 Vraska's Contempt
-4 Bolas's Citadel
-1 Verdant Sun's Avatar
-1 Font of Agonies
-1 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
+3 Cry of the Carnarium
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+2 Mortify
-2 Bolas's Citadel
-2 Verdant Sun's Avatar
-4 Gift of Paradise
-1 Samut, Tyrant Smasher
+3 Cry of the Carnarium
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+2 Mortify
+2 Assassin's Trophy
-4 Gift of Paradise
-1 Basilica Bell-Haunt
-1 Merfolk Branchwalker
-1 Wildgrowth Walker
-1 Jadelight Ranger
+4 Duress
+2 Mortify
+2 Assassin's Trophy
-2 Bolas's Citadel
-1 Verdant Sun's Avatar
-4 Gift of Paradise
-1 Merfolk Branchwalker
+2 Mortify
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+2 Assassin's Trophy
+2 The Immortal Sun
-2 Bolas's Citadel
-1 Verdant Sun's Avatar
-4 Gift of Paradise
-2 Merfolk Branchwalker
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+3 Cry of the Carnarium
+2 Mortify
+2 Assassin's Trophy
-2 Bolas's Citadel
-1 Verdant Sun's Avatar
-3 Gift of Paradise
+2 The Immortal Sun
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+2 Mortify
-4 Basilica Bell-Haunt
-1 Merfolk Branchwalker
-1 Gift of Paradise
+2 Vraska's Contempt
+2 Mortify
+2 Assassin's Trophy
Any help or ideas would be great thanks for taking a look!
