MTG Salvation

I've been tinkering with this for a while, and I'm open to suggestions as to how to improve the deck. Two things to note, however:

1) I play somewhat casually. This is not intended to be a win-every-time, smash-people's-face-in deck. The deck wants to win, but do so in somewhat cool fashion.
2) I'm on a tight budget. So no suggesting duals, etc.

Card discussion follows the decklist.



Commander: Having access to all five colors and a reusable reset button is always handy.

Lands: For some reason, I find the colored portion of the manabase to be rather elegant. Most of the standard colorless and all-color lands, of course. Bojuka Bog could technically go in the "hate" category, as could Ghost Quarter. High Market + Child = useful.

Sweepers: Five is a bit light (and Comet Storm barely counts), but when I have access to a sweeper pretty much anytime I need it, it doesn't seem to be much of an issue.

Recursion: I'm putting Cruel Ultimatum in there because that's it's primary job. Praetor's Counsel after Genesis Wave is just mean sometimes.

Hate/Spot Removal: Mostly pretty standard fare, I think. Clone reads "Destroy target legendary creature," right?

Defense: Silklash Spider is surprisingly good against an active Akroma's Memorial. Lightning Greaves is there more for haste than shroud, but both are useful.

Ramp: An earlier version of this had Avenger of Zendikar (now in my Ghave Tokens deck). Boundless Realms the turn after Avenger was just bonkers.

Card Draw: I don't often fire off Garruk's ultimate, usually waiting until I land Terastodon and cashing it in for nine cards. With three Howling Mine-ish effects (four if you count Rites of Flourishing), I can usually filter through my deck pretty efficiently.

Beatsticks and Bombs: Once this deck gets up to 10 mana or so, every one of these can be a game changer. Exsanguinate, especially in a large game, keeps me alive long enough to do everything else. Genesis Wave into...well, any of the other permanents in this section demands a response. Serra Avatar randomly mises wins out of nowhere, especially if I can ramp to it early.

I've never actually seen what happens after I resolve Omniscience, as my opponents tend to simply scoop. Maelstrom Nexus is experimental, but free spells seem good (Ulamog into Omniscience, anyone?) Yosei-Nim Deathmantle is a combo I've had used against me to good effect, especially with High Market out. The rest just seem like good late-game value cards.

As mentioned, I'm open to suggestions, but do try to keep them reasonably priced. Thanks in advance.

I've found that which cards a Child of Alara deck uses is very dependent on how often its' creator intends (or is willing) to use Child's ability. It's very possible to blow things up every other turn without disruption, if that's what you want to do.

Your list is $250+ currently and has a few $10+ cards, so I'm curious why you aren't running some of these:

• Life from the Loam
  
• Spitting Image
  
• Phyrexian Metamorph
  
• Eternal Witness
  
• Corpse Dance
  
• Sensei's Divining Top
  
• Grim Harvest
  
• Stonecloaker
  
• Phyrexian Tower
  
• Solemn Simulacrum

...or any non-land tutors. (Mystical Tutor, Demonic Tutor, Intuition) That's perfectly legitimate if you don't want to use them; I'm just curious. Is it because they tend to homogenize decklists? Reduce variance? Regardless, I think your list could synergize much more with your commander, and be more powerful if you're interested in that. Check out some of the other Child decks here for more ideas.

Seems to me like you might have trouble finding the right mana leading to dead cards in hand. There are a few budget appraoches to this problem (if you have found it to be a problem for you). You could put in a set of Panorama three-color fetch lands, or just the CIP-tapped three color lands (Jungle Shrine, etc). Shard Convergence is pretty sweet. Perhaps artifact fixing such as Terrarion or Armillary Sphere. Crystal Quarry is not super budget but is awesome. Perhaps reducing some of the 2 or 3 mana of one color spells such as Garruk, BSZ, Ultimatums, Dread, Lord of the Void, etc and replacing them with bombs that are easier to cast in a 5 color deck. The "Bringer" creature cycle is pretty budget, you could pick a couple favorites. Perhaps more indestructible stuff (for surviving Child). Spearbreaker Behemoth maybe?
I also agree with the previous post that a bit more recursion would probably be good for you. Corpse Dance + Sac outlet is awesome.
Anywho hope my brainstorming gave you an idea or two!! Good luck.

Thanks for the insight. I agree that more recursion would be useful; Corpse Dance is probably worth picking up, as is Metamorph. I don't want to be too tutor-happy because of the homogenized-decklist problem, though adding one more (Mystical) might be useful. Solemn Simulacrum is actually in my other deck at the moment.

The issue with monkeying with the manabase is that all of my land search, at the moment, hunts for basic lands. Firing off a Boundless Realms with twelve lands in play doesn't do as much good as it could if you only have three basics left in your deck. And this deck wants as much mana as possible in play to fuel the big X-spells.

I'll keep tinkering. Thanks again for the advice.

I went ahead and cut one set of basic lands for the shardland cycle (Arcane Sanctum et al.). Seems to play pretty well. Other stuff will wait until I next get paid.