Here is the Naya list that Im currently on and testing out. Finale is nuts since I have more creatures than usual. Delerium on Traverse is actually triggered quite a bit here, the Helixs are probably gonna be switched for paths but I am liking the life gain quite a bit. I agree that the M20 print elf is gonna be worth testing.
my sideboard is due to alot of tron, dredge, and an annoying zombie deck so pick what works for your meta.
How is ruination rioter? Seems like high potential just not sure how well he works in practice
I like the landfall plan to reduce reliance on the graveyard, and the good news is half of the graveyard hate is just ok to useless against the deck anyways
I’m testing using some cycle lands instead of tectonic reformation. Cycle lands seem better against everything except Rest In Peace.
With the release of m20 I feel the Naya version of this deck is getting some new toys. I was using a lot of etb creatures for value before but now i feel there is potential for a hybrid landfall vortex/assault loam deck
The lands and sideboard are really difficult to figure out in a list like this without some play testing which I won’t get to do for a couple weeks.
I chose vortex and tectonic reformation for the lower curve and less restrictive mana, there is lots of color strain as it is
Boom/bust is good to slow the game down and a way to seal the game late.
Reclaimer and KotR along with brought back can put a lot of lands into play quickly, and they all provide some ramp in the right case. So much fetching that there is a reasonable ability to deck thin to a meaningful degree
This is a deck that can be fast with steppe lynx, grind someone down with ghost quarter and just a couple lands, or get lots of mana and draw lots of cards
Suggestions and feedback are appreciated
So I don’t think this works but can you play a flagstones of trokair turn one and a lotus field on turn two and keep the lotus field?
I assume both sacs have to happen before the flagstone can tutor a land up though
Thanks in advance
Faithless was a necessary evil, card draw and turn one play, but steppe lynx is by far the best landfall creature and fits perfectly in
The deck can frequently get 3 or 4 lands in play on one turn. Though rare it can do even more. That’s a big lynx
Losing maindeck ooze may necessitate more graveyard hate in the side though
I shy away from going all in on any one strategy, to reduce redundant draws and avoid getting blown out by graveyard hate also i feel these different strategies combine in interesting ways, which i will explain with some of the card choices.
Arboreal grazer feels better than Birds of Paradise in high land count deck, particularly with the toolbox nature of the lands. It’s a better blocker, won’t get blown out by bolt, has an etb with is good with loam and ephemerate.
I have lots of etb creatures in the face of removal i still get value and they can be saved or just doubled (or tripled) up with ephemerate. This also doesn’t rely on the graveyard like much of the rest of the deck.
KotR is awesome with loam and Wrenn, the best reason to splash white in my opinion.
Vortex is better than Seismic Assault in this build, i can get it down early to kill something, and the activation cost is fine with me.
Boom // bust is the only land destruction spell that i feel is powerful enough to play, it’s cheap and with fetch lands, flagstones, and KotR the self destruct is negligible. Plus if I’m winning the board state Bust just seals the game.
The sideboard is focused on covering fast decks that should be the weakness of the deck, i varied as much as possible to cover a wide range of possible decks.
I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions. I have not play tested this beyond running some sample hands to make sure it theoretically runs smooth
I am tooling around with some lists, I have lands for a Naya base (I have a Kiki deck currently and would like to shift back and forth) so I’m looking into that and gruul, but black could be a smart inclusion, for discard mostly.
I am currently looking towards traverse shadow for inspiration, lots of free and cheap cantrips and search effects to help get gargadon at least
Gonna play 4 borderposts or bouncelands to help make sure we are behind on lands
It's also worthwhile to mention that K-Grip your KCI in response to casting Trawler means they usually have to take the turn off, even if they have Buried Ruin or Inventors' Fair ready to crack.
On another note, I'm gonna have to agree with Marc on the Relic vs. RiP talk. While you definitely could justify a white splash to justify RiP, you need to keep in mind that you're a Moon deck first and foremost. So if you don't want your Temple Garden to get shut off you need basic Plains to cast RiP under Moon and that means running a basic that might as well be a Wastes in game 1. (Unless you're also running something like Path to Exile main, but then I'd wanna know what you're cutting and why you feel so insecure about the land destruction plan to the point where you feel like you need it.) One good Relic crack immediately slams the brakes on a KCI loop and tells your opponent to reload before trying again, and you can do that without having to introduce a third, only conditionally useful color splash to the deck.
I actually splashed white to my list, It’s become quite different than a typical ponza list but I’m diggin it. The white has been much easier to cast than I initially feared
I got access to lots of great “silver bullet” enchantments and thus had no more need for artifacts in the board also allowing me to run a well protected madcap combo
Played at fnm last night, I’m in a small town so it’s usually 10 or less and this one was a little extra small cause we split for the m19 prerelease.
Round 1 vs a blue white like turbo fog deck
I felt bad cause it was this little girl who is a smart player but still learning a bit and both games I threw out a blood moon and she just didn’t run enough basics for a two color deck.
Round 2 vs mardu pyromancer
Blood moon isn’t great in this matchup but it did keep him off color for kolaghan’s command a few turns so the madcap combo could do its work, then ghostly prison taxed him just enough to end it.
Game two he had to mulligan down to 5 and spirit of the labyrinth kept him from looting to his useful cards for a few turns while I established the board
Round three vs red black 8rack
This list had a little less discard than typical but was quite good. My half finished sideboard was my undoing. Game 1 I couldn’t get enough lands and game two not enough threats. White provides a lot of silver bullet sideboard cards but I didn’t have much against a “good stuff” deck that didn’t abuse graveyards or card draw and was creature light
Overall I took second and am quite pleased with the deck. Finishing my sideboard and maybe changing one of the cards for a simple value card in midrange type matchups will be most helpful
Enchantment removal is pretty limited in Modern, so its very hard to interact with. Since we rely on the Emperion lock to win, it is much like playing Greater Auramancy in the Enduring Ideal list, but it speeds up your clock and protects your lock. Generally if they can interact with your Platinum Emperion you lose, so its less a win more card and more lock piece.
I totally agree very few decks play creatures that cost more than 3 mana, if they do they cheat them into play. I think there is some Devoid removal that you can play to get around Favor of the Mighty if it helps your opponent like Kozilek's Return, Processor Assault, Touch of the Void.
I still have not decided if Favor of the Mighty is a sideboard card or a maindeck card in this kind of deck. Lord knows there are probably matchups where you board Favor out. But when I have played versions of Madcap Experiment, I find that they can often find removal for Emperion. Since it makes the Emperyon mostly unblockable, it also gives them less time to find an answer, and if Favor is out they usually have to find two answers.
I think they answer to making it work is finding a solid second creature that has a high mana cost that you can cheat into play, I have tried cards like Bedlam Reveler, because it can be played for less than its mana cost, it refills the deck and is a win condition, even if its not the best win condition, but because of the way Favor of the Mighty works, having the higher mana cost removes the protection from your opponents creatures.
Yes with another expensive creature to cheat into play I would say that would be perfect, I just don’t know of any
Also it’s not really necessary to use emperion, I was running the deck to solid success without it and instead cards like blessed alliance and garruk relentess I just identified those as the weak aspect of the deck and replaced them
I looked at the top decks on mtggoldfish to see what answers they have to a platinum emperion on the board, I know individual lists will vary and there is always disruption but this is a decent gauge of favor of the mighty in the current meta
Also I’m always viewing favor of the mighty if played without emperion on the board to fully evaluate its space in the 75
Mono g Tron
Main: 1 world breaker, 2 ulamog, the ceaseless hunger and 4 karn liberated
Side: 3 nature’s claim, 2 abrade
Mainboard it’s a tough sell with land destruction and blood moon that they will win
Sideboard they probably use nature’s claim for blood moons, favor of the mighty iffy with any creatures on their board
Hollow one
Main: practically nothing
Side: 2 ancient grudge, 2 terminate
Game two has decent removal but favor of the mighty could help them more than me without the combo
Burn
Main: possibly a ton of burn
Side: 3 path to exile, 3 destructive revelry
Even with sideboard I would say emperion is a great way to slow down the clock. Favor is all upside
Kci combo
Main: just comboing and burning it out along the way
Side: 4 nature’s claim
Favor alone just protects their combo
I’ll try it out cause a lot of decks top out around 3 mana creatures so it may not be bad, especially with land destruction limiting their options, and it’s effectively a hard lock with emperion, but I feel like it will probably be a win more effect
I started with a regular ponza list and desire to even out some of its tendency to win and lose by a mile and to play Boom // Bust which tuned me off of Bloodbraid Elf
It wasn’t quite working till I added white and things clicked and making the mana work isn’t as hard as I feared. So I’ll go through some of the card choices and interactions
The Madcap Experiment combo is something I’ll be trying this week but it seems great, and must be answered, plus this deck can make a lot of mana and naturally cast Platinum Emperion
Knight of the Reliquary can Be a mana dork while growing itself, fix mana and thin the deck. and while it’s much less a utility land finder than in some other decks she can still protect a creature by tutoring up a Sejiri Steppe and an extra threat in Raging Ravine that is if you don’t have blood moon out
With any advantage on the board state Boom // Bust (Bust specifically) can seal a game away also make knight very big very quickly, works well with fetchlands and knight to limit the downside of boom, though it’s often still worth losing a land to
Thalia, Heretic Cathar it’s like a mini blood moon and the effect stacks with blood moon, besides also slowing down creature decks a bit and shutting down decks like grishoalbrand (kinda)
This also gave me access to powerful sideboard cards since that’s like whites bread and butter
For a deck that plays entirely on one’s own turn, at least to me, it offers lots of play like and interesting interactions
What do you all think? Any improvement ideas?
Sorry I’ve lurked here a while but never posted before, so I don’t know how to make a proper linked decklist but I figured I would share my twist on Ponza. I don’t have mtgo or even a computer, so I’ve yet to test this much, but from watching people play it seems like Ponza tends to overwin, or do nothing before getting crushed. So this is my attempt to even out some matchups and just have some fun.
So here are where I differ and hopefully my reasoning makes sense
4 boom/bust I feel this is a flexible card and can be quite useful early if we keep our mana costs low and if we have a decent board state using bust to destroy all the lands is a great finisher also worked great with Chandra’s plus one. Sadly since the rule change with split cards it can’t be hit with Bloodbraid Elf
Other strong 2 drops that work well with Chandra and boom/bust are
2 tilonalli’s summoner. Easy to play and late game with extra mana can create lots of tokens
3 heart of Kiran. Strong with Planeswalkers and tireless trackers that aren’t ready to attack yet
To help take advantage of heart of Kiran, and boom/bust we need another Planeswalker
3 garruk relentless. Heart of Kiran is awesome to flip him the turn he enters and he has some spot removal for those fast creature decks, also makes tokens to protect himself
Finish off with one main deck trinisphere to help with those other matchups like storm and affinity.
How is ruination rioter? Seems like high potential just not sure how well he works in practice
I like the landfall plan to reduce reliance on the graveyard, and the good news is half of the graveyard hate is just ok to useless against the deck anyways
I’m testing using some cycle lands instead of tectonic reformation. Cycle lands seem better against everything except Rest In Peace.
This is the list I’ve come up with
4 Elvish Reclaimer
4 Steppe Lynx
2 Courser of Kruphix
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Tireless Tracker
3 Lightning Bolt
3 Molten Vortex
3 Path to Exile
2 Brought Back
2 Life from the Loam
2 Tectonic Reformation
3 Wrenn and Six
3 Boom // Bust
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Copperline Gorge
3 Flagstones of Trokair
1 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
2 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Vigor
1 Grafdigger’s Cage
1 Pithing Needle
1 Cindervines
1 Rest In Peace
1 Stony Silence
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Choke
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Rule of Law
1 Force of Vigor
1 Leyline of Sanctity
The lands and sideboard are really difficult to figure out in a list like this without some play testing which I won’t get to do for a couple weeks.
I chose vortex and tectonic reformation for the lower curve and less restrictive mana, there is lots of color strain as it is
Boom/bust is good to slow the game down and a way to seal the game late.
Reclaimer and KotR along with brought back can put a lot of lands into play quickly, and they all provide some ramp in the right case. So much fetching that there is a reasonable ability to deck thin to a meaningful degree
This is a deck that can be fast with steppe lynx, grind someone down with ghost quarter and just a couple lands, or get lots of mana and draw lots of cards
Suggestions and feedback are appreciated
I assume both sacs have to happen before the flagstone can tutor a land up though
Thanks in advance
With a little more ramp I think primeval titan could be a great option
Maybe Renegade Rallier as well
3 Arboreal Grazer
3 Steppe Lynx
3 Wall of Blossoms
3 Knight of the Reliquary
3 Seasoned Pyromancer
2 Huntermaster of the Fells
2 Ephemerate
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Molten Vortex
3 Path to Exile
2 Life from the Loam
3 Wrenn and Six
3 Boom // Bust
2 Copperline Gorge
3 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Forest
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
2 Sacred Foundry
3 Stomping Ground
2 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Knight of Autumn
2 Cindervines
1 Rest In Peace
1 Stony Silence
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Choke
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Rule of Law
1 Theo, the Shieldmage
Faithless was a necessary evil, card draw and turn one play, but steppe lynx is by far the best landfall creature and fits perfectly in
The deck can frequently get 3 or 4 lands in play on one turn. Though rare it can do even more. That’s a big lynx
Losing maindeck ooze may necessitate more graveyard hate in the side though
3 Arboreal Grazer
2 Scavenging Ooze
2 Wall of Blossoms
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Seasoned Pyromancer
2 Huntermaster of the Fells
2 Ephemerate
3 Faithless Looting
2 Lightning Bolt
3 Molten Vortex
3 Path to Exile
2 Life from the Loam
3 Wrenn and Six
3 Boom // Bust
1 Bojuka Bog
2 Copperline Gorge
2 Flagstones of Trokair
2 Forest
2 Ghost Quarter
1 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sacred Foundry
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
1 Voice of Resurgence
1 Eidolon of Rhetoric
1 Knight of Autumn
2 Cindervines
1 Rest In Peace
1 Stony Silence
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Choke
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Rule of Law
1 Theo, the Shieldmage
I shy away from going all in on any one strategy, to reduce redundant draws and avoid getting blown out by graveyard hate also i feel these different strategies combine in interesting ways, which i will explain with some of the card choices.
Arboreal grazer feels better than Birds of Paradise in high land count deck, particularly with the toolbox nature of the lands. It’s a better blocker, won’t get blown out by bolt, has an etb with is good with loam and ephemerate.
I have lots of etb creatures in the face of removal i still get value and they can be saved or just doubled (or tripled) up with ephemerate. This also doesn’t rely on the graveyard like much of the rest of the deck.
KotR is awesome with loam and Wrenn, the best reason to splash white in my opinion.
Vortex is better than Seismic Assault in this build, i can get it down early to kill something, and the activation cost is fine with me.
Boom // bust is the only land destruction spell that i feel is powerful enough to play, it’s cheap and with fetch lands, flagstones, and KotR the self destruct is negligible. Plus if I’m winning the board state Bust just seals the game.
The sideboard is focused on covering fast decks that should be the weakness of the deck, i varied as much as possible to cover a wide range of possible decks.
I would appreciate any feedback or suggestions. I have not play tested this beyond running some sample hands to make sure it theoretically runs smooth
I am currently looking towards traverse shadow for inspiration, lots of free and cheap cantrips and search effects to help get gargadon at least
Gonna play 4 borderposts or bouncelands to help make sure we are behind on lands
I actually splashed white to my list, It’s become quite different than a typical ponza list but I’m diggin it. The white has been much easier to cast than I initially feared
4 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of paradise
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Tireless Tracker
2 Platinum Emperion
Spells (22)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Boom // Bust
3 Blood Moon
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Stone Rain
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Madcap Experiment
7 Forest
1 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sejiri Steppe
1 Stomping Ground
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
2 Lightning Bolt
2 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
1 Hushwing gryff
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Rule of Law
2 Cleansing Nova
I got access to lots of great “silver bullet” enchantments and thus had no more need for artifacts in the board also allowing me to run a well protected madcap combo
Round 1 vs a blue white like turbo fog deck
I felt bad cause it was this little girl who is a smart player but still learning a bit and both games I threw out a blood moon and she just didn’t run enough basics for a two color deck.
Round 2 vs mardu pyromancer
Blood moon isn’t great in this matchup but it did keep him off color for kolaghan’s command a few turns so the madcap combo could do its work, then ghostly prison taxed him just enough to end it.
Game two he had to mulligan down to 5 and spirit of the labyrinth kept him from looting to his useful cards for a few turns while I established the board
Round three vs red black 8rack
This list had a little less discard than typical but was quite good. My half finished sideboard was my undoing. Game 1 I couldn’t get enough lands and game two not enough threats. White provides a lot of silver bullet sideboard cards but I didn’t have much against a “good stuff” deck that didn’t abuse graveyards or card draw and was creature light
Overall I took second and am quite pleased with the deck. Finishing my sideboard and maybe changing one of the cards for a simple value card in midrange type matchups will be most helpful
Yes with another expensive creature to cheat into play I would say that would be perfect, I just don’t know of any
Also it’s not really necessary to use emperion, I was running the deck to solid success without it and instead cards like blessed alliance and garruk relentess I just identified those as the weak aspect of the deck and replaced them
I looked at the top decks on mtggoldfish to see what answers they have to a platinum emperion on the board, I know individual lists will vary and there is always disruption but this is a decent gauge of favor of the mighty in the current meta
Also I’m always viewing favor of the mighty if played without emperion on the board to fully evaluate its space in the 75
Humans
Main: 4 reflector mage, kinda works with meddling mage
Side: 2 reclamation sage
Not much they can do about it
No creatures over 3 cmc so at worst favor is a tie
Mono g Tron
Main: 1 world breaker, 2 ulamog, the ceaseless hunger and 4 karn liberated
Side: 3 nature’s claim, 2 abrade
Mainboard it’s a tough sell with land destruction and blood moon that they will win
Sideboard they probably use nature’s claim for blood moons, favor of the mighty iffy with any creatures on their board
Hollow one
Main: practically nothing
Side: 2 ancient grudge, 2 terminate
Game two has decent removal but favor of the mighty could help them more than me without the combo
Jeskai control
Main: 1 Jace, the mind sculpture, 1 Teferi hero of dominaria, 4 path to exile, 3 cryptic command, 2 supreme verdict
Side: 1 detention sphere, 1 wear // tear
Most of the removal is high cost, should be avoidable , favor is all positive in this matchup
Affinity
Main: practically nothing
Side: 2 ancient grudge
Odds of them hitting removal are limited but favor is at worst a tie
Mardu pyromancer
Main: 1 dreadbore, 2 terminate, 2 kolaghan’s command
Sideboard: 2 liliana of the veil, 3 wear // tear
Favor is a real tossup with bedlam reveler, also lots of removal for emperion
Burn
Main: possibly a ton of burn
Side: 3 path to exile, 3 destructive revelry
Even with sideboard I would say emperion is a great way to slow down the clock. Favor is all upside
Kci combo
Main: just comboing and burning it out along the way
Side: 4 nature’s claim
Favor alone just protects their combo
Storm
Main: comboing off
Side: 1 shattering spree, 1 abrade, 1 echoing truth, 1 wipe away
Favor alone helps us but doesn’t stop them from winning
Bogles
Main: 2 path to exile
Side: 2 dromoka’s command, 2 seal of primordium
Favor helps us unless they get spirit mantle, but they have limited ways of removing emperion anyways
Dredge
Main: nothing
Side: 2 nature’s claim, 2 ancient grudge
Favor is really good but so is just emperion
Grixis shadow
Main: 1 kolaghan’s command
Side: 1 liliana of the veil, 1 kolaghan’s command, 1 rakdos charm
Favor is rough (delve) and emperion is hard to remove anyways
Scapeshift
Main: 1 reclamation sage, 1 summoners pact (to find it), scapeshift (target with valakut)
Side: 2 broken bond, 1 beast within
Favor not good, emperion hard to remove anyways
Overall jeskai is the only matchup I would say is overall helpful for a favor of the mighty and a difficult lineup for the emperion part of the deck
4 Arbor Elf
1 Birds of paradise
2 Spirit of the Labyrinth
3 Knight of the Reliquary
2 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
3 Tireless Tracker
2 Platinum Emperion
Spells (22)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Boom // Bust
3 Blood Moon
1 Ghostly Prison
3 Stone Rain
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
4 Madcap Experiment
7 Forest
1 Plains
1 Raging Ravine
1 Sejiri Steppe
2 Stomping Ground
1 Temple Garden
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Huntmaster of the Fells
1 Thrun, the Last Troll
1 Lightning Bolt
1 Gleeful Sabotage
2 Rest in Peace
1 Stony Silence
1 Torpor Orb
1 Anger of the Gods
1 Ghostly Prison
2 Rule of Law
2 Cleansing Nova
I started with a regular ponza list and desire to even out some of its tendency to win and lose by a mile and to play Boom // Bust which tuned me off of Bloodbraid Elf
It wasn’t quite working till I added white and things clicked and making the mana work isn’t as hard as I feared. So I’ll go through some of the card choices and interactions
The Madcap Experiment combo is something I’ll be trying this week but it seems great, and must be answered, plus this deck can make a lot of mana and naturally cast Platinum Emperion
Knight of the Reliquary can Be a mana dork while growing itself, fix mana and thin the deck. and while it’s much less a utility land finder than in some other decks she can still protect a creature by tutoring up a Sejiri Steppe and an extra threat in Raging Ravine that is if you don’t have blood moon out
With any advantage on the board state Boom // Bust (Bust specifically) can seal a game away also make knight very big very quickly, works well with fetchlands and knight to limit the downside of boom, though it’s often still worth losing a land to
Thalia, Heretic Cathar it’s like a mini blood moon and the effect stacks with blood moon, besides also slowing down creature decks a bit and shutting down decks like grishoalbrand (kinda)
This also gave me access to powerful sideboard cards since that’s like whites bread and butter
For a deck that plays entirely on one’s own turn, at least to me, it offers lots of play like and interesting interactions
What do you all think? Any improvement ideas?
4 Arbor Elf
2 Birds of Paradise
2 Tilonalli’s Summoner
1 Courser of Kruphix
3 Tireless Tracker
Spells (27)
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Boom // Bust
3 Heart of Kiran
2 Blood Moon
1 Blood Sun
2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
3 Stone Rain
1 Trinisphere
3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance
3 Garruk Relentless
1 Primal Command
9 Forest
1 Mountain
1 Raging Ravine
2 Stomping Ground
4 Windswept Heath
4 Wooded Foothills
So here are where I differ and hopefully my reasoning makes sense
4 boom/bust I feel this is a flexible card and can be quite useful early if we keep our mana costs low and if we have a decent board state using bust to destroy all the lands is a great finisher also worked great with Chandra’s plus one. Sadly since the rule change with split cards it can’t be hit with Bloodbraid Elf
Other strong 2 drops that work well with Chandra and boom/bust are
2 tilonalli’s summoner. Easy to play and late game with extra mana can create lots of tokens
3 heart of Kiran. Strong with Planeswalkers and tireless trackers that aren’t ready to attack yet
To help take advantage of heart of Kiran, and boom/bust we need another Planeswalker
3 garruk relentless. Heart of Kiran is awesome to flip him the turn he enters and he has some spot removal for those fast creature decks, also makes tokens to protect himself
Finish off with one main deck trinisphere to help with those other matchups like storm and affinity.