Since the advent of Delve and the life-gaining duals we all have been shown in the Treasure Cruise era that one can just splash a third color with some of the Khans lands to gain life and run with it as long as you play cheap removal spells to keep up the tempo. I was and still am a big fan of the Shards of Alara block and the two Standard seasons where it played, mainly the SOA - ZEN one as it gave birth to two of my favourite archetypes ever: Caw Blade and Jund Midrange. Jund Midrange centered in it's ability to generate card advantage while keeping it's pressure up, mainly with it's Cascade cards, Bloodbraid Elf and to a lesser extent, Bituminous Blast. While those two are Uncommon and there are no good Cascade spells in our colors at common, the high-powered Standard where the deck existed had plenty of strong common cards that were the bread and butter of the deck. So without further ado:
The deck features a pack of very resilient creatures in the form of Gurmag Angler, who is immune to Grasp of Darkness, Doom Blade, Lightning Bolt, Flame Slash, Victim of Night, Disfigure, Nameless Inversion, you name it, and Putrid Leech, who is immune to the same remova excepting Flame Slash and Grasp of Darkness. Horned Kavu is another rock-solid creature with pretty good stats for it's cost, and who allows to generate repeated advantage from Satyr Wayfinder, the main Angler enabler and color fixer (which also serves to chump block and eat edicts) and Beetleback Chief, which acts as a nice Siege-Gang Commander impersonation (although lacking the most relevant ability which is to sac the Goblins for damage). Besides from enabling Angler and helping me drop lands and hitting colors, Satyr Wayfinder also dumps Flashback / Retrace cards to generate card advantage. The deck can also burn the opponents to death on the back of Lightning Bolt / Firebolt / Blightning. Finally, Edge of Autumn is the crux of the deck, ramping up the mana and fixing my colors early, while not being a dead draw and reducing by 2 the cost of the next Angler later.
I'd want a little bit more of Flashback spells though, mainly another Chainer's Edict to have a superb Bogles matchup since G1, and creatures to abuse with Horned Kavu. They need to keep the value going and be resilient, so that's why I didn't add anything like Elvish Visionary which is just a puny 1/1 that cantrips and would turn us into a bad Boros Kitty imitation, or Keldon Marauders which can be chumpblocked, die in a whim if I'm not constantly having them bounce up and down, and can't even ping creatures. Blastoderm is nice, but he doesn't generate any value, depends on Kavu to not die, and I already have my beefy 5/5 resilient to most removal.
3 Beetleback Chief
4 Satyr Wayfinder
4 Putrid Leech
4 Horned Kavu
4 Gurmag Angler
Instant (6)
4 Lightning Bolt
2 Terminate
Sorcery (13)
3 Blightning
2 Chainer's Edict
2 Firebolt
2 Raven's Crime
4 Edge of Autumn
4 Rugged Highlands
3 Jungle Hollow
3 Bloodfell Caves
5 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Swamp
3 Brindle Boar
3 Ancient Grudge
2 Diabolic Edict
3 Duress
2 Evincar's Justice
2 Unearth
The deck features a pack of very resilient creatures in the form of Gurmag Angler, who is immune to Grasp of Darkness, Doom Blade, Lightning Bolt, Flame Slash, Victim of Night, Disfigure, Nameless Inversion, you name it, and Putrid Leech, who is immune to the same remova excepting Flame Slash and Grasp of Darkness. Horned Kavu is another rock-solid creature with pretty good stats for it's cost, and who allows to generate repeated advantage from Satyr Wayfinder, the main Angler enabler and color fixer (which also serves to chump block and eat edicts) and Beetleback Chief, which acts as a nice Siege-Gang Commander impersonation (although lacking the most relevant ability which is to sac the Goblins for damage). Besides from enabling Angler and helping me drop lands and hitting colors, Satyr Wayfinder also dumps Flashback / Retrace cards to generate card advantage. The deck can also burn the opponents to death on the back of Lightning Bolt / Firebolt / Blightning. Finally, Edge of Autumn is the crux of the deck, ramping up the mana and fixing my colors early, while not being a dead draw and reducing by 2 the cost of the next Angler later.
I'd want a little bit more of Flashback spells though, mainly another Chainer's Edict to have a superb Bogles matchup since G1, and creatures to abuse with Horned Kavu. They need to keep the value going and be resilient, so that's why I didn't add anything like Elvish Visionary which is just a puny 1/1 that cantrips and would turn us into a bad Boros Kitty imitation, or Keldon Marauders which can be chumpblocked, die in a whim if I'm not constantly having them bounce up and down, and can't even ping creatures. Blastoderm is nice, but he doesn't generate any value, depends on Kavu to not die, and I already have my beefy 5/5 resilient to most removal.
Thanks to DNC from Heroes of the Plane Studios for the sig
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