Crash Test Magic – Feathers of Mercy
A great card in sealed deck, but can we build a competitive standard deck around it?
It’s time for another round of Crash Test Magic. This week, we aren’t debating the merits of a fictional card design — this week, we’re going to build a deck.
Since I’ve been playing standard Magic again, I’ve been putting a lot more thought into deck design. I’ve also been thinking about the Magic “teams” that have had so much success in the past: groups of players that design, test, trade and compete together. It occurred to me that we could start a sort of virtual team here at Robot Viking. This post is something of a preliminary attempt to make that happen, or at least gauge interest in such a project.
My initial deck idea for this week is something of a combo deck, though it has multiple win conditions. Aside from the dual lands that will make the mana base smoother, there’s only one rare currently in the deck, so it’s very budget friendly. At the moment, it’s a little too slow, but I’m hoping the combined brainpower of the Vikings can whip this into something close to competitive shape.
Here’s the idea: get out a Sigil Captain as early as possible. Then, get a creature’s power as high as possible as quickly as possible, even if it’s temporary. Ideas include a simple Giant Growth or possibly an Awakener Druid, but I’m guessing we can find a better way. Then, use Mercy Killing on your own creature, getting a huge pile of 1/1 creatures that the captain makes into 3/3s. Finally, attack with all those creatures and play Flurry of Wings, unleashing five or more 3/3 fliers aong with whatever else is attacking.
Now, it seems like a pretty complicated combo, but it’s very resilient to disruption. You can take out any one part and it will still work, just less effectively. If your captain dies, you still get a ton of 1/1 fliers. Can’t pull off the Mercy Killing? An early game Flurry can still put two or three 3/3 fliers on the board for you. We can also run Bant Charms for creature removal and to protect the combo, and Dauntless Escorts can protect you from a Pyroclasm (and they’re a cheap rare).
Elvish Visionary helps you get the combo cards more quickly, and at worst he can help fuel the Flurry. Llanowar Elves are key for mana acceleration; Noble Hierarch and Birds of Paradise would be perfect if you have them, but they’re expensive. Other possibilities: Overrun or Sigil Blessing, or Sigil of the Nayan Gods to either get a big Mercy Killing or to create one huge flying creature. I’ve also considered running Ant Queen as a late game threat. There are some planewalkers that could fit in nicely, but I don’t think they’re crucial.
The primary problems that need to be addressed: 1). what’s the best way to pull off a big Mercy Killing? 2). Do we need more creature removal? 3). Is there another way to generate a bunch of creatures other than Mercy Killing, especially since that card will rotate out of standard in October? 4). How can we make this faster and more consistent? Do we need more card drawing? Tutors?
If nothing else, I think we can make this into a decent deck that will be fun to bring to Friday Night Magic, and can be put together for under $20 (not counting Hierarchs and dual lands, which you can work around, although it makes you slower).
August 17th, 2009 6:31 PM
Question: Do the token creatures from Flurry have “haste” or whatever they call it now? It’s been a while since I played, but just reading the card and reading your plans for it, it seems they would sit around for turn while the rest of your creatures attack the turn you cast it.
I read Flurry as a defensive prospect: all your creatures are tapped out, and the swoop in to block whatever your opponent unleashes.
August 17th, 2009 7:53 PM
You know, there must be a card that sends in token creatures that are tapped and attacking, and I got confused. Dur. Still, slowing it down an extra turn doesn’t necessarily make it a horrible deck. Well, it kind of does. See, this is why I need a team.
August 17th, 2009 11:23 PM
I think the card you were thinking of is Militia’s Pride that makes tokens tapped and attacking. It slots in perfectly into what you seem to want, as well. I really like the Flurry of Wings+Sigil Captain plan. What if we expand on that?
I would cut Noble Hierarch for not synergizing enough (not a 1/1 naively), and also for price reasons.
Token making 1/1s are out there, the best of them for you might be Rhys the Redeemed. If you don’t want to use a rare, or think that he is really expensive to do what he does (and I won’t lie, his mana usage is really high), you could use Patrol Signaler.
I strongly suggest you include some more virtual Sigil Captains in this deck. The most awesome is probably Mirror Entity.
A couple interesting ways you can go are the persist mechanic and Godhead of Awe. If you have a native 2/2 that persists with Sigil Captain in play, you will get it back as a 3/3, as the +1/+1 and -1/-1 will get removed as a state based action and the other counter will stick. The “best” card to do this with is clearly Murderous Redcap, but you could also use something like Cauldron of Souls to recurse non-persist creatures.
Godhead of Awe just does weird things with Sigil Captain in play. It basically makes everything a 3/3 for you, and 1/1 for them, shattering the Godhead symmetry.
Something interesting I might try myself on MTGO is a deck with 2/2s, Cauldron of Souls, Godhead of Awe, and the Sigil Captain. So you can loop Acidic Slimes and Borderland Rangers and Mullldrifters in and out of play.
Thoughts?
August 18th, 2009 10:35 AM
I pondered this overnight. I’m wondering if we ditch the Flurry and the Bant Charms and find another way to crank out tons of 1/1 tokens (that become 3/3s). Then we can just go two color (W/G), smoothing out the mana issues. To be a serious deck, it needs a way to have a serious amount of threats by turn 5 at the latest.
What if we make it an elf deck, and use Elvish Archdruid with some other mana elves. That way, we could get enough mana to power Rhys the Redeemed fairly early.
August 18th, 2009 9:21 PM
If you are ditching the Flurry theme, there are tons of ways to go. The problem with Elvish Archdruid is that if he is in play your elf tokens come in as 2/2s and won’t trigger the Captain. You could try Elvish Prominade if you are really hooked on elves for a huge wave of elves if you don’t have Archdruid or Perfect out.
I think there are much more interesting ways to go than plain old elves. Mycoloth is scary, as is Rise of the Hobgoblins and Worm Harvest. Oooh, and Ant Queen. Basically, take a look at this Gatherer search, it has all the white and green ways in Standard to make 1/1 tokens. There are tons of ways to go with this.
August 19th, 2009 12:13 PM
Robbit speaks truth. All I have to add is Supply//Demand, but that isn’t standard legal. Hasn’t been for a while, now that I think on it. I don’t see this deck surviving the October rotation simply because the best token makers will rotate out. Now if you want to play this non-Standard, you get Supply//demand and Doubling Season if you really want to reach back, but Extended will let you keep this for a while longer.
August 19th, 2009 5:47 PM
May I humbly suggest we bounce this discussion over to the new forum thread?
http://forum.robotviking.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4