I cannot believe this is standard. Un-REAL man. These are some rude combos.

Boomwizard That's called Orim's Chant lol.

This is a very... well... interesting deck. The first thing i will say is that if you can get your hands on more Stomping Ground s, Breeding Pool s and Steam Vents , then I'd add them to the deck. The next thing I'd say is that all of your 1 mana spells need something on the board to do something. This isn't necessarily bad, but it means that you're not spending your mana turn 1. This means you can easily afford to play a few more temples. (you also want to form some sort of combo, so scrying always helps). I wouldn't run the full four of either of the other 2, but maybe 1 or 2 each. The next thing I'd say is that I'm not too sure why Forced Adaptation is in the deck. The only synergy i see coming from it is with Fathom Mage . It's quite helpful having an extra card a turn, but your 1/1 with no hexproof needs to survive a full turn to get any value out of it, and even then it's only 1 card, and you need to wait another turn to get another card from it. One thing that is very helpful for combo decks is if they can function without the combo going off. This means that you want most of the cards to do something outside the combo. The deck right now seems to lack a good path to victory outside of the combo. This means if your arcanist gets Pithing Needle d, then your chances for success are lowered significantly. It'd be a good idea maybe to have some alternate path to victory if your combo fails. For example, Melira Pod in modern is a very strong midrange deck, but it can also just beat you with Viscera Seer , Melira, Sylvok Outcast and either Murderous Redcap or Kitchen Finks . Unless a combo is so good that it can extremely consistently go off turn 3 or 4, it's best to not devote your whole game plan to that combo. What i may suggest is cutting red for white. Ajani, Mentor of Heroes + Sage of Hours + Vorel of the Hull Clade can give you infinite turns, and Archangel of Thune + Horizon Chimera + Fathom Mage gives will give you lots of life, cards and beefy fliers. If you're not so excited about switching colours, then I'd say you should add in more protection for your pieces, as 4-mana 1/1's that look combo-ey are scary and are probably going to die. Mizzium Skin is the main one that I'd suggest in your colours. If you're not sold on switching to white, I'll try to give you a few reasons.
- If your combo fails, you still have a strong midrange deck, with pieces such as Archangel of Thune to fall back on
- You gain access to powerful control spells such as Detention Sphere and Supreme Verdict .
- Your deck is harder to attack into. An Archangel of Thune looks much more menacing to attack into than an Elite Arcanist .
- You can use every card in your deck. Your hands will often look dead, as lots of your cards rely on others being in your hand. Forced Adaptation is an example.
- You have a long-game. If your opponent gets you into top deck mode, you're screwed unless you draw combo-piece after combo-piece. Bant has more-relevant cards if you're on the back-foot.
- You add consistency to your draws. This is done in 2 ways. Firstly, you have to mulligan less, or at least rely on luck to draw combo-pieces less, as your card-quality is stronger, and secondly, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes allows you to dig into your deck for the right piece at the right time.
- The deck's idea stays the same. You have a deck where you can be flexible with your game-plan with neat interactions between cards, and mini-combos (Fathom Mage and Vorel of the Hull Clade is an example), and some powerful combos which can win the game outright.
- Downsides: Archangel of Thune and ajani are expensive, and you'll probably have to get quite a few cards to actually complete the deck.
As i said before though, if you're still not sold on this, I would try to get rid of some of the more-dead cards such as Forced Adaptation and instead add in protection like Mizzium Skin . +1

KingSorin Wow thanks for the great write up I am going to be adding in 2 Vorel of the Hull Clade today that card is just nuts with this deck.

As far as Forced Adaptation goes I have been on the fence with that one and after you confirmed my suspicions I think I am going to take it out in favor of Mizzium Skin and I think I need to sideboard in something like Rootborn Defenses to protect against Supreme Verdict .

Your ajani suggestion would be GREAT except it is not standard and this is a standard build.

When I first built this deck it was literally reliant on the Zhur-Taa Druid + Elite Arcanist + Triton Tactics combo to win. But with this build I have noticed that with the shear volume of counters that can generated at instant speed in response ,the seemingly weak little creatures can all of a sudden become much more of a threat.

I have used the play tester almost a hundred times now testing hands and playablity looking for stagnant cards and synergy problems. You are right about Forced Adaptation just too slow!

Due to the complexity of all of the triggers in the deck there is a psychological aspect to playing against it that I think will be somewhat of a bonus. As an opponent you really have to be extremely aware of the board state on my side as there are so many triggers and untap effects that can generate counters at anytime. It would really keep the opponent a little off guard and it is easy for them to "miss something".

Once I make a couple of tweaks I am going to test it at FNM and in some other matches to see how it fares.

Thanks again for great write up.

One more note on the one drops.

The one drops are great if in the first couple of turns you don't draw an Elite Arcanist you can just utilize them to switch to creature combat/protection mode.

All i meant about the 1-drops are they don't come out turn 1, so you can afford to be playing more temples. Also: Ajani, Mentor of Heroes is about as standard legal as Sage of Hours . Wait a few weeks and he'll be fine.

Maybe Polukranos, World Eater instead Mistcutter Hydra would let you defeat all opponents creatures in one shot. Mistcutter can be a side aganist blue decks...

TucoBZ I was thinking about that idea and also Vastwood Hydra . If vastwood gets killed I can move counters off it onto other creatures for triggers etc.

Vastwood gets killed with 5 counters on it move all 5 over to Sage of Hours and take another turn.

3 more votes to 100 can we make it happen?

You mean -1 votes until 100 lol

InconspicuousPotato Wow that escalated quicky ;)

proxied the deck and have been play testing... maybe im playing it wrong but it needs more spells to trigger the heroics of our creatures.

thelegendkiller Um there are only 3 herioc creatures (sage of hours) and they are not really used for herioc triggers per say.

The idea is to savage summoning in that creature and using the counter doubling or bioshift to dump a bunch of counters on it mid game for a few extra turns.

The idea is to keep in hand until you can drop it load up counters and take them off all in the same turn. Because you don't need to tap the sage to remove counters there is no worry about summoning sickness.

This build is more about counters than heroics. You could replace the Savage Summoning with Burst of Strength for more herioc triggers if that is how you wanted to play it.

They way I have played it is to keep the sage in your hand with a bioshift. Then when you have a creature with at least 5 or more counters on it for example the kalonian.

Drop Sage of Hours with Savage Summoning , get one counter Bioshift target kalonian and pull 3 counters off it target sage trigger heroic giving it another counter after spell resolves you have 5 counters on it swing with Kalonian Hydra or use Vorel and double those counters to 10. Remove the 10 counters and take two more turns.

The mechanics are complicated but I have pulled of some serious tricks with this build at turn 4-6.

Also with all the counters coming out on creatures most of your creatures become potential attackers. A fathom mage with 6 counters on it is a 7/7 your sage of hours with 5 counters is a 6/6 you can swing with it and then remove the counters for another turn.

Its all about the combat tricks how this plays out.

I am sure there is some tweaking that can be done for consistency but it is so much fun to play out a crazy trick during combat that your opponent just doesn't expect.

It is one of those builds that the more you play it the better you get at it.

I run a similar, thought a bit bugetier, version of simic, it forces my opponent to block everything because I can use Vorel of the Hull Clade 's ability and then Bioshift all the counters for lethal... which is why I run fliers instead of Fathom Mage , but I don't see simic surviving in standard after gatecrash rotates out

georgeegroeg2013 - Glad to see someone else running simic, it is going to be a shame when simic is not viable.

I am also running a BANT deck and I am hoping that BANT will continue once gatecrash rotates out.

Very very nice Combos, Really Cool Deck concept +1

Oh, I love this deck. Admitted, I had ridiculus luck drawing in the playtest (and the opponed not at all), but I managed to get Vorel of the Hull Clade , Prophet of Kruphix , Kalonian Hydra and Progenitor Mimic out early, leading to a 128/128 Kalonian Hydra as well as two 16/16 clones attacking on t8.

Maybe some cards that have inspired abilities with the double un tap steps?

No Primordial hydra?

Just as an FYI, you may want to remove the Budget tag. $762 is not quite a budget deck.