Still needs tightening up but the curve isn't bad. Win condition is the standard ramp into big stuff and keep the threats flowing. (Prognostic Sphinx, Fatties, Ætherling.) And of course the bonus of making anything cannot be blocked for pretty cheap is not bad either.
I can probably cut a courser and I'm still on the fence with Thassa, (Feels just a touch short on devotion with all the double green in the deck) but Scry every turn + Courser + Dakra multi triggers is insane.
You don't know if it'll work unless you try it out! (At least I don't.) Side board is still up in the air.
The deck, although working pretty well as mana base and curve is concerned, seems at a bit of a crossroads. It could go a bit more blue and work well with turning Thassa on more consistently, or cut her down or out completely. I could run some Hypnotic Siren to compliment the ramp-and-blow-out strategy and turn on thassa, but then I'd be losing/replacing threats so I'm not sure if it's worth it.
I like the idea of going a bit more control with counterspells and "seeing" what they are drawing with the Dakra Mystic until we dig/ramp to a resolved threat like Ætherling.
With the excessive draw I thought about putting Horizon Chimera back in to get the added life and an additional decent body in the air, but I think it sort of overlaps with the Courser. if you're getting your land drops (or extra with Kiora) the life off them should be okay.
I wouldn't mind an extra colour if I were to really need the wrath protection or sweeper of my own, but some lists floating around here have mainly been struggling with MBD more.. Not really sure what to do about that besides throw their junk away and turn everything into pigs.
Sorry if this seems a bit over explained, just trying to show my reasoning so things sort of make sense.
Edit* Due to corner cases resulting in a lack of threat density/devotion, either Polymorphous Rush or Hour of Need is looking like an interesting option... Or I could just have more threats
Rush is interesting because it will turn "on" a thassa if you copy something blue and make enough of your green things blue, (Not to mention making everything Prog Sphinxs or Ætherlings.) But hour of need has less reliance on board state and more weird applications like exiling their thing thats really really bad....
I'd drop the Thassas for another Polukranos, a maindeck Sylvan Primordial and a Garruk. Polukranos does a ton of work and can be a mana sink late game. Garruk and Primordial are great to ramp into, have immediate impact and can work nicely in tandem.
I'm not a fan of Polymorphous Rush or Hour of need. They seem far too conditional. Big creatures are simply much more reliable.
Sideboard seems interesting. In what matchups do you side in Primeval Bounty/Prime Speaker?
I'd go for Hour of Need over Rush... you're not always going to have a good target to copy. With Hour you can just turn w/e you have into threats and win out of nowhere...
Bounty and Prime Speaker against control or burn probably, They're really just options to consider. Prime speaker was main when I was running 3-4 Horizon Chimera main. And she helped with thassa's devotion.
Bounty is just so strong in a build where you can drop it early and keep drawing cards. Again, I need to pick 1 or 2 strategies and go with it. (Less one offs.) It's hard to craft the side when the main isn't really solid yet...
I'd go for Hour of Need over Rush... you're not always going to have a good target to copy. With Hour you can just turn w/e you have into threats and win out of nowhere...
True, but I'm not a huge fan of exiling all my stuff for tokens. Yes it will win the game if you get in for 12, but I'm not sure if it's worth it earlier in the game. I'm thinking Polymorphous Rush to copy Mistcutter Hydra Or whatever they have that's scary. (Read it again, you "Choose" a creature. not target. Pretty cool )
Oops. It'll copy a 0/0, duh. Okay so that won't work lol!
Copying Mistcutter hydra will give you a 0/0 who will die immediately.
However, if you have, say, a Horizon Chimera and a Mistcutter Hydra, and you make your Hydra into a copy of the Chimera, it will be a 3/2 flying trampler, and still have however many +1/+1 counters.
I used to do this trick all the time with an original-Ravnica Simic deck. Have out a Cytoplast Rootkin with 5 or 6 counters on it, then when they swing at me with something ridiculously huge, use Cytoshape to make mine a copy that has +5/+5 over theirs.
Copying Mistcutter hydra will give you a 0/0 who will die immediately.
However, if you have, say, a Horizon Chimera and a Mistcutter Hydra, and you make your Hydra into a copy of the Chimera, it will be a 3/2 flying trampler, and still have however many +1/+1 counters.
I used to do this trick all the time with an original-Ravnica Simic deck. Have out a Cytoplast Rootkin with 5 or 6 counters on it, then when they swing at me with something ridiculously huge, use Cytoshape to make mine a copy that has +5/+5 over theirs.
Except that in order to "turn" the Mistcutter INTO something with Polymorphous rush, you have to target it and it has Pro Blue.
Ehhh I guess Hour of need is way more flexible. I still think Poly Rush is good, you just need a fair density of threats to choose from. (Like Arbor Colossus or Sylvan Primordial.) Hour of Need has less prerequisites and the added bonus of giving flying AND permanent 4/4s.
I think part of the problem is A) Getting the combo going consistently, and B) Finding the right win condition. And infinite power Mistcutter Hydra or Pumped creature with Nylea, God of the Hunt is still a 4-5+ card combo (that requires running lots of cards that don't "win" by themselves e.g. the land auras and Thassa's Ire etc.) that only "goes off" turn 5 or later. Mistcutter is vulnerable to removal (I hate saying that but it is true.) and unless you are pumping a hexproof guy, so it whatever you're boosting with Nylea.
If Thassa's Ire tapped or untapped target permanent, which would cut out a piece (Kiora's Follower/Voyaging Satyr) Maybe it would be a bit better. Don't get me wrong, I like Thassa's Ire, I just think its a bit over the top. Really just untapping a Nykthos, or an Verdant Haven-ed land and getting 2 or three times the normal mana for the turn should be winning you the game.
Not to mention that Kruphix, God of Horizons and a Prophet of Kruphix will probably give you a similarly absurd amount of mana to play with, and only with 2 combo pieces instead of running the land auras.
Now, the real question is, are you going to splash B and Mind Grind them for 20 or Reap Intellect for 7? Or splash R for a 20 damage Clan Defiance?
Seriously, I think it would be a nice win con out of left field. You could even forgo the off colour lands and just run a full set of Sylvan Caryatid and Mana Bloom, or the aforementioned land auras to ramp and fix.
4-card combo that instantly mills your opponent. But that's not something you can just 'slip into' this deck.
Well... You could find the slots I think... consistently winning off it would require a different deck completely though. (Maybe with something with Disciple of Deceit to tutor whatever you needed...)
4 card combos are iffy though. Might as well go BiovisionaryClone. Or Azor's Elocutors and Vorel of the Hull Clade. Clone has redundancy for the moment, Azor's Elocutors only requires 2 pieces to win, and you could run Sage of Hours to make it easier and run similar tools.... Hmmmm....
Turn 1 Elf.
Turn 2 Artisan of Forms
Turn 3 Biovisionary
Turn 4 Twinflame the Biovisionary and Artisan. Heroic makes the artisan a copy of Biov, and so the token of it is also a Biov. You end up with four Biovs quite quickly.
Turn 1 Elf
Turn 2 Kiora's Follower
Turn 3 Vorel
Turn 4 Azor's Elocutors
Turn 5 get a counter, double the counters
Turn 6 double the counters, get a counter, win on the upkeep
Turn 1 Elf
Turn 2 Kiora's Follower
Turn 3 Illusionist's Bracers
Turn 4 Twinflame Kiora's Follower, equip the bracers, infinite untaps, cast Codex Shredder, mill them to death
So if we want to fill a deck with
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Kiora's Follower
4 Illusionist's Bracers
4 Twinflame
4 Biovisionary
4 Codex Shredder
4 Artisan of Forms
4 Azor's Elocutors
That's 32 cards. What in the world could you put in the remaining few slots to make it have a chance of winning?
Turn 1 Elf.
Turn 2 Artisan of Forms
Turn 3 Biovisionary
Turn 4 Twinflame the Biovisionary and Artisan. Heroic makes the artisan a copy of Biov, and so the token of it is also a Biov. You end up with four Biovs quite quickly.
Turn 1 Elf
Turn 2 Kiora's Follower
Turn 3 Vorel
Turn 4 Azor's Elocutors
Turn 5 get a counter, double the counters
Turn 6 double the counters, get a counter, win on the upkeep
Turn 1 Elf
Turn 2 Kiora's Follower
Turn 3 Illusionist's Bracers
Turn 4 Twinflame Kiora's Follower, equip the bracers, infinite untaps, cast Codex Shredder, mill them to death
So if we want to fill a deck with
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Kiora's Follower
4 Illusionist's Bracers
4 Twinflame
4 Biovisionary
4 Codex Shredder
4 Artisan of Forms
4 Azor's Elocutors
That's 32 cards. What in the world could you put in the remaining few slots to make it have a chance of winning?
I'm not exactly sure if Twinflame would work. The copies get exiled at the beginning of the next end step... So would it go on the stack at the same time as Biovisionary's ability allowing you to resolve the bio's win con first (by stacking it correctly)? Or is it a state based action...
Polymorphous Rush might be better here too, since you just need to turn Kiora's Follower or whatever else is down into the Biovisionary. (So Caryatids or Vorel, since we're running multiple win cons in the scenario.) One is faster (if it works), but the other may be more consistent. Tutoring combos or redundancy is always the issue.
Kinda going off thread though. This is all about the Prophet.
I'm not exactly sure if Twinflame would work. The copies get exiled at the beginning of the next end step... So would it go on the stack at the same time as Biovisionary's ability allowing you to resolve the bio's win con first (by stacking it correctly)? Or is it a state based action...
I think both the "exile this token" and the "if you control 4 copies of biovisionary" triggers go on the stack simultaneously under your control, so you order them as you wish. Put the exile triggers on first, then the win trigger should resolve first.
That's 32 cards. What in the world could you put in the remaining few slots to make it have a chance of winning?
Swan Song. If you're off your combo by a turn, keeping up one mana to counter a kill spell shouldn't be an issue and if an extra 2/2 flyer makes that big a difference you were probably losing anyway.
I just love this thread. As most people contributing to it, I immediately fell in love with the Prophet and needed to build around her. I've taken most of the advice here toward building my own version. What I wanted to try to do (since I cracked one) was to use Kruphix, God of Horizons and abuse the crazy amount of mana potential that he and his prophet provide. The problem of course is finding the win con using that. A look at all the X spells available leads us to stuff like Nimbus Swimmer (meh), Mistcutter, and... Clan Defiance. A slight red splash with all the scry lands available? And I can finally use my pair of Xenagos, the Reveler? Here is my attempt at a RUG list. I've seen a few on here so I hope I'm not highjacking, just hoping to contribute to the Brainstorming.
Maybe I'm getting too cute, maybe I'm too eager to force Xenagos in there (I am a proponent of play what you have, and I have put together this whole deck through buying a combination of packs and some singles), but in limited testing it has been fun, and can load up on mana. I just want to be able to put it to good use. Polukranos is a nice mana dump (Wish I had another), as can Nylea, plus obviously Mistcutter and CD Some cards I've wanted to try here that I haven't played with yet:
Dictate of Karametra - I think this could get insane, being able to use this twice to your opponents first use with a Prophet.
Dictate of Kruphix - I had my one copy in here at one point but never got to play it. Could be interesting, though maybe not what I'm looking for.
Prime Speaker Zegana - I don't have one, should I? If I have Kruphix in play it's ok to draw a lot from her...
I should probably just scoop an Aetherling next time I'm at my lgs.
Sideboard is basically a general one until I play competitively more and can tweak.
So that's my 2 cents. Thanks for reading, and thanks again for this great U/G thread!
The Magma Sprays/Anger are for the local meta since I keep coming across super fast aggro decks running x/1s and x/2s. Bumping up the Mistcutter count is because I feel like Mono Blue may be rearing its head again, on the heels of R/W aggro's success.
2-1 win vs Jund Monsters (and a 1-1 tie against G/R Monsters earlier in the week)
I'm combining these two because my thoughts are pretty much the same against both decks. While building this deck, I was honestly not sure how these "pseudo-mirror" matchups would feel, but now that I've played a couple, it feels like this deck has a slight edge. The Jund version has lots of 1 for 1 kill spells, which I'm fine with because of the card advantage that I can produce later in the game; the games I won pretty much ended the moment I got any sort of card draw on board. Simic Charm helped keep the board in my favor. For example, against the Jund deck, he went for an overloaded Mizzium Mortars and I was able to protect one of my Stormbreaths, which ended up being the difference in the game. Sylvan Primordial even made some appearances and was able to snipe planeswalkers, which is very valuable in these games. Kiora presents quite an issue for my opponents in this matchup by keeping them from racing me with their one big threat.
2-1 win vs Esper Control
This pretty much went as expected, but there are a few points I wanted to touch on. Game 1, I lost pretty handily as expected. After sideboard, however, things got much more interesting. In Game 2, I was able to resolve an early Xenagos and an early Thassa and started swinging with tokens. With only 8 life left, he drops an Elspeth and attempts to stabilize behind tokens. I was able to simply make all 4 tokens unblockable and swing for the win. In game 3, he Duressed me on turn 2, at which point I had a Xenagos, Kiora and Garruk in hand. He takes the Xenagos, so I resolve a Kiora soon after and it ends up reaching ultimate. I resolve a Thassa while he starts dealing with the Kracken tokens. Elspeth drops once again. Generally speaking, Elspeth beats a Kiora emblem, but for the 2nd game in a row, Thassa, God of the Sea carries me to a win against a resolved Elspeth.
0-2 loss vs Bant Walkers
Ok this deck was frustrating to play against. He had SO MANY counter spells, it was absurd. Even a turn 3 Stormbreath Dragon on the play ended up getting Essence Scattered. Sigh. It was impossible to get any sort of board presence. At least 3/4ths of my spells got countered during this round (the only ones that resolved were Mistcutters haha ). If I have to keep playing against decks like this, Savage Summoning is going in my sideboard ASAP. Other than that, I'm honestly not sure what kinds of weaknesses I can attack against this deck. This was the first and only matchup that I felt at a disadvantage.
@RonBurgandy - I highly recommend having a card draw engine, as Prophet will make you empty your hand very quickly if you don't (and she's at her best when you can spew out creatures faster than your opponent can respond to them). I'm running 2 Prime Speakers and 1 Garruk mainboard for those reasons.
Been running the deck since BNG and I'ts evolved out of control. I feel like it goes everywhere now and needs to be streamlined. It still wins, but it's very painful to sideboard anything out and I feel there's more than a tiny dead weight. Can anyone help me out here?
I bought a binder full of cards and it had 2 Kiora, the Crashing Wave so I'm now testing her in place of the Urban Evolutions... so far so good, liking her
4 Temple of Mystery
3 Breeding Pool
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
8 Forest
8 Island
27 Creatures
2 Dakra Mystic
4 Kiora's Follower
3 Sylvan Caryatid
4 Courser of Kruphix
3 Thassa, God of the Sea
1 Deadbridge Goliath
1 Polukranos, World Eater
4 Prophet of Kruphix
1 Kruphix, God of Horizons
3 Prognostic Sphinx
1 Ætherling
1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave
2 Bow of Nylea
6 Instant/Sorcery
2 Simic Charm
2 Dissolve
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Cyclonic Rift
15 Sideboard/options
1 Sylvan Primordial
1 Primeval Bounty
1 Arbor Colossus
3 Mistcutter Hydra
1 Prime Speaker Zegana
1 Curse of the Swine
1 Simic Charm
2 Swan Song
2 Plasm Capture
2 Ratchet Bomb
Still needs tightening up but the curve isn't bad. Win condition is the standard ramp into big stuff and keep the threats flowing. (Prognostic Sphinx, Fatties, Ætherling.) And of course the bonus of making anything cannot be blocked for pretty cheap is not bad either.
I can probably cut a courser and I'm still on the fence with Thassa, (Feels just a touch short on devotion with all the double green in the deck) but Scry every turn + Courser + Dakra multi triggers is insane.
You don't know if it'll work unless you try it out! (At least I don't.) Side board is still up in the air.
The deck, although working pretty well as mana base and curve is concerned, seems at a bit of a crossroads. It could go a bit more blue and work well with turning Thassa on more consistently, or cut her down or out completely. I could run some Hypnotic Siren to compliment the ramp-and-blow-out strategy and turn on thassa, but then I'd be losing/replacing threats so I'm not sure if it's worth it.
I like the idea of going a bit more control with counterspells and "seeing" what they are drawing with the Dakra Mystic until we dig/ramp to a resolved threat like Ætherling.
With the excessive draw I thought about putting Horizon Chimera back in to get the added life and an additional decent body in the air, but I think it sort of overlaps with the Courser. if you're getting your land drops (or extra with Kiora) the life off them should be okay.
I wouldn't mind an extra colour if I were to really need the wrath protection or sweeper of my own, but some lists floating around here have mainly been struggling with MBD more.. Not really sure what to do about that besides throw their junk away and turn everything into pigs.
Sorry if this seems a bit over explained, just trying to show my reasoning so things sort of make sense.
Edit* Due to corner cases resulting in a lack of threat density/devotion, either Polymorphous Rush or Hour of Need is looking like an interesting option... Or I could just have more threats
Rush is interesting because it will turn "on" a thassa if you copy something blue and make enough of your green things blue, (Not to mention making everything Prog Sphinxs or Ætherlings.) But hour of need has less reliance on board state and more weird applications like exiling their thing thats really really bad....
One of each perhaps?
I'm not a fan of Polymorphous Rush or Hour of need. They seem far too conditional. Big creatures are simply much more reliable.
Sideboard seems interesting. In what matchups do you side in Primeval Bounty/Prime Speaker?
Bounty is just so strong in a build where you can drop it early and keep drawing cards. Again, I need to pick 1 or 2 strategies and go with it. (Less one offs.) It's hard to craft the side when the main isn't really solid yet...
True, but I'm not a huge fan of exiling all my stuff for tokens. Yes it will win the game if you get in for 12, but I'm not sure if it's worth it earlier in the game. I'm thinking Polymorphous Rush to copy Mistcutter Hydra Or whatever they have that's scary. (Read it again, you "Choose" a creature. not target. Pretty cool )
Oops. It'll copy a 0/0, duh. Okay so that won't work lol!
Yeah I just realized that after I posted. Duhh not the first time I've messed up with +1/+1 counters. Thanks.
However, if you have, say, a Horizon Chimera and a Mistcutter Hydra, and you make your Hydra into a copy of the Chimera, it will be a 3/2 flying trampler, and still have however many +1/+1 counters.
I used to do this trick all the time with an original-Ravnica Simic deck. Have out a Cytoplast Rootkin with 5 or 6 counters on it, then when they swing at me with something ridiculously huge, use Cytoshape to make mine a copy that has +5/+5 over theirs.
Except that in order to "turn" the Mistcutter INTO something with Polymorphous rush, you have to target it and it has Pro Blue.
Ehhh I guess Hour of need is way more flexible. I still think Poly Rush is good, you just need a fair density of threats to choose from. (Like Arbor Colossus or Sylvan Primordial.)
Hour of Need has less prerequisites and the added bonus of giving flying AND permanent 4/4s.
Has anyone tried to make a deck with Thassa's Ire? There are 8 untapping creatures you could run, and you can put verdant Haven or Market Festival on your lands. If you have two market festivals on a land, then you can produce 5 mana with it, and it only costs 4 to untap your creature and do it again... giving you infinite mana. You'd probably want to run Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Oracle's Insight, and some mana dumps like Mistcutter Hydra or Nylea, God of the Hunt.
I think part of the problem is A) Getting the combo going consistently, and B) Finding the right win condition. And infinite power Mistcutter Hydra or Pumped creature with Nylea, God of the Hunt is still a 4-5+ card combo (that requires running lots of cards that don't "win" by themselves e.g. the land auras and Thassa's Ire etc.) that only "goes off" turn 5 or later. Mistcutter is vulnerable to removal (I hate saying that but it is true.) and unless you are pumping a hexproof guy, so it whatever you're boosting with Nylea.
If Thassa's Ire tapped or untapped target permanent, which would cut out a piece (Kiora's Follower/Voyaging Satyr) Maybe it would be a bit better. Don't get me wrong, I like Thassa's Ire, I just think its a bit over the top. Really just untapping a Nykthos, or an Verdant Haven-ed land and getting 2 or three times the normal mana for the turn should be winning you the game.
Not to mention that Kruphix, God of Horizons and a Prophet of Kruphix will probably give you a similarly absurd amount of mana to play with, and only with 2 combo pieces instead of running the land auras.
Now, the real question is, are you going to splash B and Mind Grind them for 20 or Reap Intellect for 7? Or splash R for a 20 damage Clan Defiance?
Seriously, I think it would be a nice win con out of left field. You could even forgo the off colour lands and just run a full set of Sylvan Caryatid and Mana Bloom, or the aforementioned land auras to ramp and fix.
2 Kiora's Follower
1 Codex Shredder
4-card combo that instantly mills your opponent. But that's not something you can just 'slip into' this deck.
Well... You could find the slots I think... consistently winning off it would require a different deck completely though. (Maybe with something with Disciple of Deceit to tutor whatever you needed...)
4 card combos are iffy though. Might as well go Biovisionary Clone. Or Azor's Elocutors and Vorel of the Hull Clade. Clone has redundancy for the moment, Azor's Elocutors only requires 2 pieces to win, and you could run Sage of Hours to make it easier and run similar tools.... Hmmmm....
.
..
..... . . .damn. Now I want to build those.
Turn 2 Artisan of Forms
Turn 3 Biovisionary
Turn 4 Twinflame the Biovisionary and Artisan. Heroic makes the artisan a copy of Biov, and so the token of it is also a Biov. You end up with four Biovs quite quickly.
Turn 1 Elf
Turn 2 Kiora's Follower
Turn 3 Vorel
Turn 4 Azor's Elocutors
Turn 5 get a counter, double the counters
Turn 6 double the counters, get a counter, win on the upkeep
Turn 1 Elf
Turn 2 Kiora's Follower
Turn 3 Illusionist's Bracers
Turn 4 Twinflame Kiora's Follower, equip the bracers, infinite untaps, cast Codex Shredder, mill them to death
So if we want to fill a deck with
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Kiora's Follower
4 Illusionist's Bracers
4 Twinflame
4 Biovisionary
4 Codex Shredder
4 Artisan of Forms
4 Azor's Elocutors
That's 32 cards. What in the world could you put in the remaining few slots to make it have a chance of winning?
I'm not exactly sure if Twinflame would work. The copies get exiled at the beginning of the next end step... So would it go on the stack at the same time as Biovisionary's ability allowing you to resolve the bio's win con first (by stacking it correctly)? Or is it a state based action...
Kinda going off thread though. This is all about the Prophet.
Rule 603.3b
Swan Song. If you're off your combo by a turn, keeping up one mana to counter a kill spell shouldn't be an issue and if an extra 2/2 flyer makes that big a difference you were probably losing anyway.
3x Elvish Mystic
3x Kiora's Follower
2x Mistcutter Hydra
1x Polukranos, World Eater
2x Prognostic Sphinx
3x Prophet of Kruphix
4x Sylvan Caryatid
Enchantment Creature (6)
3x Courser of Kruphix
2x Kruphix, God of Horizons
1x Nylea, God of the Hunt
Instant (2)
2x Setessan Tactics
Enchantment Artifact (1)
1x Bow of Nylea
Planeswalker (4)
1x Jace, Architect of Thought
1x Kiora, the Crashing Wave
2x Xenagos, the Reveler
2x Clan Defiance
1x Hunter's Prowess
2x Urban Evolution
Land (24)
8x Forest
6x Island
2x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
2x Temple of Abandon
2x Temple of Epiphany
4x Temple of Mystery
Creature (3)
1x Arbor Colossus
2x Mistcutter Hydra
Enchantment (2)
1x Dismiss into Dream
1x Primeval Bounty
Instant (8)
2x Gainsay
3x Syncopate
3x Unravel the Æther
2x Curse of the Swine
Maybe I'm getting too cute, maybe I'm too eager to force Xenagos in there (I am a proponent of play what you have, and I have put together this whole deck through buying a combination of packs and some singles), but in limited testing it has been fun, and can load up on mana. I just want to be able to put it to good use. Polukranos is a nice mana dump (Wish I had another), as can Nylea, plus obviously Mistcutter and CD Some cards I've wanted to try here that I haven't played with yet:
I should probably just scoop an Aetherling next time I'm at my lgs.
Sideboard is basically a general one until I play competitively more and can tweak.
So that's my 2 cents. Thanks for reading, and thanks again for this great U/G thread!
4x Elvish Mystic
4x Sylvan Caryatid
2x Thassa, God of the Sea
3x Courser of Kruphix
3x Polukranos, World Eater
4x Stormbreath Dragon
3x Prophet of Kruphix
2x Prime Speaker Zegana
1x Sylvan Primordial
Spells
2x Domri Rade
2x Kiora, the Crashing Wave
3x Xenagos, the Reveler
1x Garruk, Caller of Beasts
2x Simic Charm
2x Temple of Mystery
4x Breeding Pool
3x Temple of Abandon
4x Stomping Ground
4x Steam Vents
4x Forest
2x Mana Confluence
1x Temple of Epiphany
1x Garruk, Caller of Beasts
4x Mistcutter Hydra
1x Ætherling
4x Magma Spray
1x Anger of the Gods
2x Scavenging Ooze
1x Ruric Thar, the Unbowed
1x Bow of Nylea
The Magma Sprays/Anger are for the local meta since I keep coming across super fast aggro decks running x/1s and x/2s. Bumping up the Mistcutter count is because I feel like Mono Blue may be rearing its head again, on the heels of R/W aggro's success.
2-1 win vs Jund Monsters (and a 1-1 tie against G/R Monsters earlier in the week)
I'm combining these two because my thoughts are pretty much the same against both decks. While building this deck, I was honestly not sure how these "pseudo-mirror" matchups would feel, but now that I've played a couple, it feels like this deck has a slight edge. The Jund version has lots of 1 for 1 kill spells, which I'm fine with because of the card advantage that I can produce later in the game; the games I won pretty much ended the moment I got any sort of card draw on board. Simic Charm helped keep the board in my favor. For example, against the Jund deck, he went for an overloaded Mizzium Mortars and I was able to protect one of my Stormbreaths, which ended up being the difference in the game. Sylvan Primordial even made some appearances and was able to snipe planeswalkers, which is very valuable in these games. Kiora presents quite an issue for my opponents in this matchup by keeping them from racing me with their one big threat.
2-1 win vs Esper Control
This pretty much went as expected, but there are a few points I wanted to touch on. Game 1, I lost pretty handily as expected. After sideboard, however, things got much more interesting. In Game 2, I was able to resolve an early Xenagos and an early Thassa and started swinging with tokens. With only 8 life left, he drops an Elspeth and attempts to stabilize behind tokens. I was able to simply make all 4 tokens unblockable and swing for the win. In game 3, he Duressed me on turn 2, at which point I had a Xenagos, Kiora and Garruk in hand. He takes the Xenagos, so I resolve a Kiora soon after and it ends up reaching ultimate. I resolve a Thassa while he starts dealing with the Kracken tokens. Elspeth drops once again. Generally speaking, Elspeth beats a Kiora emblem, but for the 2nd game in a row, Thassa, God of the Sea carries me to a win against a resolved Elspeth.
0-2 loss vs Bant Walkers
Ok this deck was frustrating to play against. He had SO MANY counter spells, it was absurd. Even a turn 3 Stormbreath Dragon on the play ended up getting Essence Scattered. Sigh. It was impossible to get any sort of board presence. At least 3/4ths of my spells got countered during this round (the only ones that resolved were Mistcutters haha ). If I have to keep playing against decks like this, Savage Summoning is going in my sideboard ASAP. Other than that, I'm honestly not sure what kinds of weaknesses I can attack against this deck. This was the first and only matchup that I felt at a disadvantage.
@RonBurgandy - I highly recommend having a card draw engine, as Prophet will make you empty your hand very quickly if you don't (and she's at her best when you can spew out creatures faster than your opponent can respond to them). I'm running 2 Prime Speakers and 1 Garruk mainboard for those reasons.
4 Courser of Kruphix
4 Elvish Mystic
2 Hydra Broodmaster
2 Kruphix, God of Horizons
2 Polukranos, World Eater
2 Prime Speaker Zegana
4 Prognostic Sphinx
4 Sylvan Caryatid
2 Jace, Architect of Thought
2 Kiora, The Crashing Wave
2 Breeding Pool
10 Forest
6 Island
1 Rogue's Passage
1 Simic Guildgate
4 Temple of Mystery
i have a feeling you want Bow of Nylea and/or Kiora's Follower, but that's just preference
enchanting Witchstalker with Raised by Wolves
I also traded for a 4th Courser of Kruphix that's gonna go in in place of a Kiora's Follower (I always felt 4 were too many).
That also reflected in changes in my sideboard, where I'm testing Thassa's Ire and 2 copies of Consign to Dust