As I said in the OP, I'm just coming back from a hiatus of several years, so I haven't really got a firm grasp of the current meta. (Darksteel was the most recent set, I believe.) I haven't even met half the Thursday night regulars, much less played them! But I'm getting there, one match at a time. Speaking of which:
Went 2 for 2 last night. One of the losses was simply a misplay on my part. I wanted to get the game over with quickly and so played Nightmare over Corrupt, which would've enabled me to kill next turn. Unfortunately, that left me open to an all-out assault that put a 1/1 past my defenses and took my last 4 life thanks to a Giant Growth that I really should've seen coming.
The other loss was also to mono-green, or more specifically, one card: Vigor. A couple of 0/3 walls with Reach arrested my offense (no P/T boosters showed up for the first few turns), and it was accelerated out by turn 3 or 4. After that, I just didn't have an answer - Vigor hung back, making everything else effectively indestructible. A Tendrils sat in my hand the entire game waiting for a sixth Swamp that never came. Things would've gone very differently if I'd had Thoughtseize on turn one rather than IoK (Vigor was in his opening hand), or if I'd been pulling Needle Specters rather than Hypnotics, or any of several other things. But it happened the way it happened. The long and short of it is that I was outdrawn.
Considering replacing the Corrupt/Tendrils with 2x Doom Blade and 2x Sudden Spoiling, or just 4x Spoiling. The danger of the former is in having two useless cards in a mono-black mirror match; the latter in having no direct spot removal at all. And either way, I'm not totally comfortable with a deck that includes no lifegain and doesn't have a turn 3-4 wincon. Thoughts?
Oh, the tally: on the one occasion that it actually mattered, the Black Knights beat both the Hand and the Husk. Not done keeping track, of course, but they're ahead so far. Same goes for IoK and Duress. Machete and Bonesplitter went 1 for 1, but Bonesplitters aren't as easy to track down as I thought. So for now, the Machete is staying.
That's all for now. Off to start sorting out my new trade binder...
And we're assuming they won't call your bluff because...?
I've got Sylvan Ranger (off the top of my head); you're swinging at me with Nantuko Shade. You have three mana open. I'm going to block - the Ranger has more or less served its purpose; this is just the bonus round. Either you let the shade die, or I've deferred the threat you were going to play. Whichever way it goes, the chump has done a pretty solid job - it's not like it was going to be much help in outracing you anyway.
Now run the same scenario with Black Knight. Either I'm taking 2, or I lose the Ranger for no return. And however it shakes out, the 3-drop is coming down.
Which worked out better?
Adding an X-factor like, say, Giant Growth changes the equation a little - there, the Husk can get a 2-for-1, while the Knight is just boned. But to pull it off the Husk still has to sacrifice tempo, and that can often be just as important as CA.
I can come up with a lot of these, believe me. I won't (well, I probably will if this goes on, but I shouldn't), because that would be a waste of both our time. There is no "one card to rule them all." Different tools for different jobs. If I were running, say, 4x Whispersilk Cloak and planning to use the Husk as a major striker, it would clearly be superior. But I'm not, and it isn't.
So can we shut up about the Knights? The equine is well and truly deceased. I'll tell you what: I'll add the Husk to the running along with Hand of Cruelty and make sure to note each situation in which that card would have been preferable. Will that placate you?
Glad somebody seems to get it. (Granted, I could've been a little more explicit about my design goals... My bad, I guess.)
So to move away from horses that are, if not dead, then at least on their last legs: thoughts on Skithiryx? I know the fix is not yet in on Scars, but surely someone's formed an opinion of their own.
RE: sideboard. Think I'll be going with Sudden Spoiling/Cranial Extraction. Objections?
EDIT: Whoops. Typed a post, then got distracted by the cat and consequently ninja'd. (Original in quotebox.) In answer to rchrds:
Hand is nice. I think this is one of those cases that can only come down to playtesting. HoC can trade with a 3/3, but attach Bonesplitter to the Knight and no trade is necessary. Of course, that relies on two cards (and an untapped Swamp in the 2nd main phase). As I have no Hands at the moment (heh), I'll stick with the Knights for now - but I'll be sure to note the occasions when HoC would be better/worse. Rumor has it that's how Psychatog became a staple...
The only change to the deck since the last post has been the substitution of the Leechridden Swamps for four more of the vanilla version. It's Magic Night at my local, though (40k gets Fridays), so there should hopefully be plenty of new insight by day's end.
Okay, that deserves a reasoned response. I value Nightmare's evasion (and the corresponding ability to block evasive creatures) very highly. That said, the main reason I'm fielding Nightmares over Korlash is that I've got the former but not the latter. And as I think that Skithiryx (anyone? anyone?) would make a better replacement in any case, I'm inclined to simply field the deck this way for the next month or so rather than shell out for cards I probably won't use in the long run. Maybe I'll make that zombie deck one of these days, and Korlash would be a perfect fit. Until then, well, my resources aren't unlimited.
As for the Nighthawk - I have tested it, just not in this deck. It's superior to the Knights for most purposes, but it's also CMC 3, and that slot has a lot of competition. I'd nearly always rather play a Specter, and I nearly always can - quite often twice. The competition, then, is between a somewhat inferior but nonetheless very useful card on turn 2, or a superior card on ~turn 5. Your meta must be very slow for the distinction not to matter. That isn't a bad thing, but it isn't very useful to me.
That, and I'm saving my Nighthawks for a vamp deck that's still in the planning stages. Yes, there will be Gatekeepers too.
You want to bash me, do it in somebody else's thread. I happen to believe that Black Knight and Bad Moon are cards with great value to a deck like this one. You can say you disagree until you're blue in the face, but until you actually demonstrate that I'm wrong (or it's proven in play) don't be surprised that your cries go unheeded. If you can show me a more efficient two-drop that doesn't require me to leave mana untapped to make decent use of it, then by god it'll be added to the deck so fast it'll make your head spin. Short of that, just keep it polite and don't insult my intelligence, and we won't have a problem.
On to happier things: truth be told, Leechridden Swamp sort of sucks. The best it's done so far is end a game a turn sooner than otherwise possible, and coming into play tapped has gummed up my plans a couple of times. I'm at a loss to explain why it's still in the deck. Come to think of it, I should probably get on that.
Bonesplitters are going in as soon as I can round up another three of them. The +1 Toughness is outweighed by the extra cost to equip. Guess this means I won't be using Darksteel Axe either. Still undecided as to whether Nightmare Lash would be better.
And I still haven't heard anything about whether Skithiryx > Nightmare in the context of this deck. But for now I'm going with "yes", particularly if I also end up going with the Lashes.
Bad Moon pumps Needle Specter, which means more cards tossed (though it admittedly doesn't matter after a point) and more -1/-1 counters from Wither for anything audacious enough to block it. One in play won't save a Knight from Lightning Bolt, but two will - anyway, things like Lightning Bolt are what the IoKs are for. Also handy for Skithiryx, if that ends up happening.
Bad Moon was playable in more than just suiblack - see the beginning of the thread. I played that deck. It worked. Was it top-tier material? Not really. But it was fun, and effective enough for the most part. And yes, I often had 3+ creatures on the board in the old version. This one too.
Nantuko Shade's great on paper, but this deck tends to spend most of the first several turns tapped out, which makes it strictly inferior until the late game (when it's either unnecessary or too little, too late). Pump knights? Same issue. Pump is great in a lot of decks, but this isn't particularly one of them.
Mana curve, people.
Anyway. Thinking I might try out Nightmare Lash in the equipment slots. The high CMC is a turnoff, but the equip cost is nice and it's a hell of a pump - especially on Needle Specter. Assuming I hit all my land drops, I could theoretically play the Specter turn 3, the Lash turn 4, equip for 3 life and swing for 5, which more or less means "discard your hand". It could go well with Skithiryx, too. Playing him turn 6 with Haste, equipping for +6/+6, and attacking an unprepared opponent would be 10 poison counters in one shot and GG. But that's all just white-room theory. I dunno.
Oh, and same thing RE: anti-combo. Haunting Echoes or Cranial Extraction? Leaning towards the latter, but the former could be monstrously powerful in this deck. Again, thoughts?
All input is valued - even the bits I vehemently disagree withe.
The meta around here is actually pretty fast - the rather scattershot G/W deck I played against is the exception, not the rule.
I really think you're all undervaluing the fact that the Black Knight is CMC 2 - Specters are the priority drops at 3-4, so Nighthawks likely wouldn't see the field until at least turn 5. And against white (or even partially white) decks, or anything with groundpounding creatures in the T 2-4 range, the Knights are solid gold.
Nightmares can fly. Korlash can't. If I replace the last two with anything, it'll be another flyer. I was actually thinking Skithiryx, once Scars comes out. Could be valuable to have an alternate wincon. Thoughts?
Tendrils is expensive, sometimes too much so - but the lifegain can often be worth it against aggro, as can the ability to function as targeted removal against black. But I really have to see how this deck does against something a little more finely tuned before making any final calls there.
On the subject of targeted removal, IoK is staying for now. It might be changed to Duress if I find that its ability to remove creatures doesn't make up for its CMC restriction, but thus far it's performed admirably. It certainly won't be swapped for Hymn, though. (And Thoughtseize? Hell no!) Early targeted discard is very valuable to this deck.
Finally, the Bad Moons: they were fantastic ten years ago, and every playtest game so far has confirmed that they're fantastic now. They may not be in vogue at the moment, but try them in mono-black aggro and see for yourself. I just wish they'd give us a black Honor of the Pure...
Sorry about the double-post, but there's a legitimate cause: it's been playtested! I steamrolled my opponent repeatedly. (That was expected; he's new and playing an inferior deck, but he was the only person immediately available.) The Nightmares never did much; by the time they came out the game was all but won anyway. Dash Hopes, to nobody's great surprise, underperformed - it was either unnecessary or I didn't have the mana to spare. Accordingly, the deck now looks like this:
The Corrupts and Tendrils never came out - I just didn't draw them. And yet I somehow ended up pulling a Black Knight every game in either the opening hand or on the first draw. Weird. Thoughtseize never showed up either, though it was only present for the last two games.
Oh, I doubt it was the best - if I was confident in my draft abilities, I wouldn't have bothered to post for a review. But red was really, really not a good color to force.
Didn't have a lot of options, frankly. But yeah - I definitely see where I could have done better. Part of it's my own fault for making too many hatedrafts. The other part is that I opened the Hellkite in pack 1 and decided to force red. Not the best decision, in hindsight. I didn't save the pool, so I can't post it, but believe me when I say there wasn't a lot to work with.
I've put in the Machetes because I have four of them and only one Bonesplitter. If the +1 Toughness turns out to matter regularly then they'll stay; if not, I doubt three Bonesplitters should be too difficult to acquire.
Dash Hopes stays in for now. You lot have all but convinced me that it won't work out, but I'm stubborn enough to want to see for myself.:tongue:
Assuming I drop them, I still haven't quite decided what to replace them with, but it'll probably come down to 4x Thoughtseize or 2x Scepter of Fugue and 2x Nyxathid. (I have the cards to do either already, so cost isn't an issue.) I'm leaning slightly towards the former, but I'd value any input on the subject.
Finally, if the Nightmares prove too slow I'll replace two of them with Nyxathids. Sound good?
Interesting deck. Not really what I was going for (violates the "must keep Hypnotic Specter" rule, for one thing), but interesting. And I like Grave Existence.
I've got a Trinisphere around here somewhere, but I don't see it being maindecked for substantially the same reason as Chalice. This is a deck that gets hurt by it just as much as many opponents do.
Nightmare is actually CMC 6, but I like it - it's an evasive beatstick that just keeps getting bigger. It's also part of the reason that I'm not likely to add Cabal Coffers - without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, it isn't a Swamp, so no love for Nightmare, Corrupt or Tendrils. I could get four of each, but that would be A) expensive, and B) render me very vulnerable to the nonbasic landhate going around at the moment.
Also, can I request that no further mention be made of Umezawa's Jitte? Firstly, it's obvious. There are very few decks without it that wouldn't be improved by its inclusion, which makes it meaningless as a suggestion. Secondly, it's a little too good. I hate playing against it, and it would thus be extremely hypocritical of me to bring it to bear in a casual game where both players are (theoretically) there to have fun. (As noted above, I have a similar objection to Hymn to Tourach, albeit to a lesser degree.)
what do you think my best card is? Thank you so much btw. I just started playing maybe 3 weeks ago so I really dont have a clue what im doing.
Good question. Ob Nixilis can be good with fetchlands, but you haven't got any. If you manage to build a deck with a low CMC average, Sun Titan is potentially incredible. Celestial Mantle's a gamebreaker under the right circumstances. Ajani and Liliana both have the potential to be annoying as all get-out. But for sheer utility, I'm going to say Sword of Vengeance. There are very few situations in which it'll be useless, and every now and again it will win you the game.
That said, it's not the sort of thing you can build a deck around. Off the top of my head (and using only the cards given), how about:
The idea is that it's sort of a variant of Soul Sisters, using lifegain as a wincon. Disentomb should be saved strictly for the Titan or the Sovereign; the Titan himself can get most of the other permanents back onto the field. Getting past 40 shouldn't be too difficult with this deck, and then Felidar Sovereign makes it an autowin. Failing that, just beat the living crap out of the opponent with SoV-equipped Pridemates. I've left out a couple of good cards because I don't like using anything that costs more than two colored mana to play in a multicolored deck, but, well, season to taste.
Went 2 for 2 last night. One of the losses was simply a misplay on my part. I wanted to get the game over with quickly and so played Nightmare over Corrupt, which would've enabled me to kill next turn. Unfortunately, that left me open to an all-out assault that put a 1/1 past my defenses and took my last 4 life thanks to a Giant Growth that I really should've seen coming.
The other loss was also to mono-green, or more specifically, one card: Vigor. A couple of 0/3 walls with Reach arrested my offense (no P/T boosters showed up for the first few turns), and it was accelerated out by turn 3 or 4. After that, I just didn't have an answer - Vigor hung back, making everything else effectively indestructible. A Tendrils sat in my hand the entire game waiting for a sixth Swamp that never came. Things would've gone very differently if I'd had Thoughtseize on turn one rather than IoK (Vigor was in his opening hand), or if I'd been pulling Needle Specters rather than Hypnotics, or any of several other things. But it happened the way it happened. The long and short of it is that I was outdrawn.
Considering replacing the Corrupt/Tendrils with 2x Doom Blade and 2x Sudden Spoiling, or just 4x Spoiling. The danger of the former is in having two useless cards in a mono-black mirror match; the latter in having no direct spot removal at all. And either way, I'm not totally comfortable with a deck that includes no lifegain and doesn't have a turn 3-4 wincon. Thoughts?
Oh, the tally: on the one occasion that it actually mattered, the Black Knights beat both the Hand and the Husk. Not done keeping track, of course, but they're ahead so far. Same goes for IoK and Duress. Machete and Bonesplitter went 1 for 1, but Bonesplitters aren't as easy to track down as I thought. So for now, the Machete is staying.
That's all for now. Off to start sorting out my new trade binder...
I've got Sylvan Ranger (off the top of my head); you're swinging at me with Nantuko Shade. You have three mana open. I'm going to block - the Ranger has more or less served its purpose; this is just the bonus round. Either you let the shade die, or I've deferred the threat you were going to play. Whichever way it goes, the chump has done a pretty solid job - it's not like it was going to be much help in outracing you anyway.
Now run the same scenario with Black Knight. Either I'm taking 2, or I lose the Ranger for no return. And however it shakes out, the 3-drop is coming down.
Which worked out better?
Adding an X-factor like, say, Giant Growth changes the equation a little - there, the Husk can get a 2-for-1, while the Knight is just boned. But to pull it off the Husk still has to sacrifice tempo, and that can often be just as important as CA.
I can come up with a lot of these, believe me. I won't (well, I probably will if this goes on, but I shouldn't), because that would be a waste of both our time. There is no "one card to rule them all." Different tools for different jobs. If I were running, say, 4x Whispersilk Cloak and planning to use the Husk as a major striker, it would clearly be superior. But I'm not, and it isn't.
So can we shut up about the Knights? The equine is well and truly deceased. I'll tell you what: I'll add the Husk to the running along with Hand of Cruelty and make sure to note each situation in which that card would have been preferable. Will that placate you?
EDIT: Whoops. Typed a post, then got distracted by the cat and consequently ninja'd. (Original in quotebox.) In answer to rchrds:
Hand is nice. I think this is one of those cases that can only come down to playtesting. HoC can trade with a 3/3, but attach Bonesplitter to the Knight and no trade is necessary. Of course, that relies on two cards (and an untapped Swamp in the 2nd main phase). As I have no Hands at the moment (heh), I'll stick with the Knights for now - but I'll be sure to note the occasions when HoC would be better/worse. Rumor has it that's how Psychatog became a staple...
The only change to the deck since the last post has been the substitution of the Leechridden Swamps for four more of the vanilla version. It's Magic Night at my local, though (40k gets Fridays), so there should hopefully be plenty of new insight by day's end.
As for the Nighthawk - I have tested it, just not in this deck. It's superior to the Knights for most purposes, but it's also CMC 3, and that slot has a lot of competition. I'd nearly always rather play a Specter, and I nearly always can - quite often twice. The competition, then, is between a somewhat inferior but nonetheless very useful card on turn 2, or a superior card on ~turn 5. Your meta must be very slow for the distinction not to matter. That isn't a bad thing, but it isn't very useful to me.
That, and I'm saving my Nighthawks for a vamp deck that's still in the planning stages. Yes, there will be Gatekeepers too.
On to happier things: truth be told, Leechridden Swamp sort of sucks. The best it's done so far is end a game a turn sooner than otherwise possible, and coming into play tapped has gummed up my plans a couple of times. I'm at a loss to explain why it's still in the deck. Come to think of it, I should probably get on that.
Bonesplitters are going in as soon as I can round up another three of them. The +1 Toughness is outweighed by the extra cost to equip. Guess this means I won't be using Darksteel Axe either. Still undecided as to whether Nightmare Lash would be better.
And I still haven't heard anything about whether Skithiryx > Nightmare in the context of this deck. But for now I'm going with "yes", particularly if I also end up going with the Lashes.
Bad Moon was playable in more than just suiblack - see the beginning of the thread. I played that deck. It worked. Was it top-tier material? Not really. But it was fun, and effective enough for the most part. And yes, I often had 3+ creatures on the board in the old version. This one too.
Nantuko Shade's great on paper, but this deck tends to spend most of the first several turns tapped out, which makes it strictly inferior until the late game (when it's either unnecessary or too little, too late). Pump knights? Same issue. Pump is great in a lot of decks, but this isn't particularly one of them.
Mana curve, people.
Anyway. Thinking I might try out Nightmare Lash in the equipment slots. The high CMC is a turnoff, but the equip cost is nice and it's a hell of a pump - especially on Needle Specter. Assuming I hit all my land drops, I could theoretically play the Specter turn 3, the Lash turn 4, equip for 3 life and swing for 5, which more or less means "discard your hand". It could go well with Skithiryx, too. Playing him turn 6 with Haste, equipping for +6/+6, and attacking an unprepared opponent would be 10 poison counters in one shot and GG. But that's all just white-room theory. I dunno.
Also: sideboard. Looking for a sweeper, but I can't decide between Damnation, Infest and Sudden Spoiling. Thoughts?
Oh, and same thing RE: anti-combo. Haunting Echoes or Cranial Extraction? Leaning towards the latter, but the former could be monstrously powerful in this deck. Again, thoughts?
All input is valued - even the bits I vehemently disagree withe.
I really think you're all undervaluing the fact that the Black Knight is CMC 2 - Specters are the priority drops at 3-4, so Nighthawks likely wouldn't see the field until at least turn 5. And against white (or even partially white) decks, or anything with groundpounding creatures in the T 2-4 range, the Knights are solid gold.
Nightmares can fly. Korlash can't. If I replace the last two with anything, it'll be another flyer. I was actually thinking Skithiryx, once Scars comes out. Could be valuable to have an alternate wincon. Thoughts?
Tendrils is expensive, sometimes too much so - but the lifegain can often be worth it against aggro, as can the ability to function as targeted removal against black. But I really have to see how this deck does against something a little more finely tuned before making any final calls there.
On the subject of targeted removal, IoK is staying for now. It might be changed to Duress if I find that its ability to remove creatures doesn't make up for its CMC restriction, but thus far it's performed admirably. It certainly won't be swapped for Hymn, though. (And Thoughtseize? Hell no!) Early targeted discard is very valuable to this deck.
Finally, the Bad Moons: they were fantastic ten years ago, and every playtest game so far has confirmed that they're fantastic now. They may not be in vogue at the moment, but try them in mono-black aggro and see for yourself. I just wish they'd give us a black Honor of the Pure...
20 Swamp
4 Leechridden Swamp
// Creatures [16]
4 Black Knight
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Needle Specter
2 Nyxathid
2 Nightmare
4 Trusty Machete
4 Bad Moon
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Thoughtseize
2 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Corrupt
The Corrupts and Tendrils never came out - I just didn't draw them. And yet I somehow ended up pulling a Black Knight every game in either the opening hand or on the first draw. Weird. Thoughtseize never showed up either, though it was only present for the last two games.
Incidentally, how do we feel about Shimian Specter?
Cheers, though. I think this has been helpful.
20 Swamp
4 Leechridden Swamp
// Creatures [16]
4 Black Knight
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Needle Specter
4 Nightmare
4 Trusty Machete
4 Bad Moon
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Dash Hopes
2 Tendrils of Corruption
2 Corrupt
I've put in the Machetes because I have four of them and only one Bonesplitter. If the +1 Toughness turns out to matter regularly then they'll stay; if not, I doubt three Bonesplitters should be too difficult to acquire.
Dash Hopes stays in for now. You lot have all but convinced me that it won't work out, but I'm stubborn enough to want to see for myself.:tongue:
Assuming I drop them, I still haven't quite decided what to replace them with, but it'll probably come down to 4x Thoughtseize or 2x Scepter of Fugue and 2x Nyxathid. (I have the cards to do either already, so cost isn't an issue.) I'm leaning slightly towards the former, but I'd value any input on the subject.
Finally, if the Nightmares prove too slow I'll replace two of them with Nyxathids. Sound good?
I've got a Trinisphere around here somewhere, but I don't see it being maindecked for substantially the same reason as Chalice. This is a deck that gets hurt by it just as much as many opponents do.
Nightmare is actually CMC 6, but I like it - it's an evasive beatstick that just keeps getting bigger. It's also part of the reason that I'm not likely to add Cabal Coffers - without Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, it isn't a Swamp, so no love for Nightmare, Corrupt or Tendrils. I could get four of each, but that would be A) expensive, and B) render me very vulnerable to the nonbasic landhate going around at the moment.
Also, can I request that no further mention be made of Umezawa's Jitte? Firstly, it's obvious. There are very few decks without it that wouldn't be improved by its inclusion, which makes it meaningless as a suggestion. Secondly, it's a little too good. I hate playing against it, and it would thus be extremely hypocritical of me to bring it to bear in a casual game where both players are (theoretically) there to have fun. (As noted above, I have a similar objection to Hymn to Tourach, albeit to a lesser degree.)
Good question. Ob Nixilis can be good with fetchlands, but you haven't got any. If you manage to build a deck with a low CMC average, Sun Titan is potentially incredible. Celestial Mantle's a gamebreaker under the right circumstances. Ajani and Liliana both have the potential to be annoying as all get-out. But for sheer utility, I'm going to say Sword of Vengeance. There are very few situations in which it'll be useless, and every now and again it will win you the game.
That said, it's not the sort of thing you can build a deck around. Off the top of my head (and using only the cards given), how about:
6 Plains
8 Swamp
4 Kabira Crossroads
4 Orzhov Basilica
1 Gargoyle Castle
// Creatures [19]
2 Soul's Attendant
2 Child of Night
3 Ajani's Pridemate
1 Mourning Thrull
3 Lone Missionary
1 Gold Myr
1 Leaden Myr
1 Souls of the Faultless
1 Guardian of the Guildpact
1 Shepherd of the Lost
1 Sun Titan
1 Felidar Sovereign
1 Angelic Arbiter
1 Moratorium Stone
1 Sword of Vengeance
1 Ajani Goldmane
1 Liliana Vess
1 Disentomb
1 Honor of the Pure
2 Ajani's Mantra
3 Pacifism
1 Doom Blade
1 Batwing Brume
1 Consuming Vapors
3 Diabolic Tutor
1 Invincible Hymn
The idea is that it's sort of a variant of Soul Sisters, using lifegain as a wincon. Disentomb should be saved strictly for the Titan or the Sovereign; the Titan himself can get most of the other permanents back onto the field. Getting past 40 shouldn't be too difficult with this deck, and then Felidar Sovereign makes it an autowin. Failing that, just beat the living crap out of the opponent with SoV-equipped Pridemates. I've left out a couple of good cards because I don't like using anything that costs more than two colored mana to play in a multicolored deck, but, well, season to taste.