I tried this deck similar to Woo's build but with Cackling Counterpart in place of Evil Twins last Sunday, and was amazed with this deck. I soundly won the first match, then lost a very close game against an Omni Door like deck just because I miscalculated mana by exactly 1. I proceeded to completely lose to a much faster Zombie deck and then dropped.
The deck does have problems with faster, more resilient decks like Zombie or green based aggro with undying creatures since there is no proper way for this deck to get rid of those creatures while having your own surviving incoming removals.
That seems good enough to give it a try, set it up as an UG Elves list with other wincons and you could be on to something. Tracker's Instincts could be a nice addition.
It's always possible to play a few counterspells against removal, although there is little to be done about Supreme Verdict unless you splash white for Rootborn Defenses (which, of course, works quite well with the Visionary tokens).
Or you can splash black for Golgari Charm, which does almost the same thing with less mana but more color needed.
Milling a Devil's Play still lets you one shot someone. Or you can even play Lantern Spirit and the extort 3 drops (one is even a defneder) to win that route.
Interesting point. Also, with a new wall, Corpse Blockade (also 3 CMC), can add more defensive power to the deck. There are so many 3 CMC walls that are above the Searing Spear curve to combat with red-based aggro decks. Even [CARD]Grave Bramble
[/CARD] looks decent.
The price rise of this card is mind-boggling at least to me. I traded it during Sunday pre-release for a Blind Obedience not knowing its price had jumped over the night.
For the card, I found it somewhat lackluster it slower Limited seal decks. It happened to me since my Boros pool was bad. If he comes out alone and your opponent still have 20 lifes it will be easily dealt with.
But yeah, if you play it in RDW or Boros Aggro decks where you should chip some damages before the guy hit the board, it will be nasty.
Having this guy and Infinite Reflection as an alternate winning condition in an Elf deck shell should be great. You can either put the Reflection on the guy or on Elvish Archdruid for big elves of the beatdown or gazillion of mana.
If you play Junk, it gives a lot more options; combat tricks, life gains, creature removals.
Turn 2: Forest, Cathedral Sanctifier, [CARD]Voracious Wurm
[/CARD]
"I just made get 5/5 wurm on turn 2. Make sure you have removals ready, bro."
Put them in a UWR control deck and walla!
It does get reprinted.
The 3-cards Witch engine seems fun. Having Heartless Summoning and Havengul Lich in that engine could be fun also.
The deck does have problems with faster, more resilient decks like Zombie or green based aggro with undying creatures since there is no proper way for this deck to get rid of those creatures while having your own surviving incoming removals.
Or you can splash black for Golgari Charm, which does almost the same thing with less mana but more color needed.
Interesting point. Also, with a new wall, Corpse Blockade (also 3 CMC), can add more defensive power to the deck. There are so many 3 CMC walls that are above the Searing Spear curve to combat with red-based aggro decks. Even [CARD]Grave Bramble
[/CARD] looks decent.
For the card, I found it somewhat lackluster it slower Limited seal decks. It happened to me since my Boros pool was bad. If he comes out alone and your opponent still have 20 lifes it will be easily dealt with.
But yeah, if you play it in RDW or Boros Aggro decks where you should chip some damages before the guy hit the board, it will be nasty.
Elf might be the better choice since you will have an access to Elvish Visionary, Elvish Archdruid, Zameck Guildmage, etc. for mana acceleration plus an aggro option.