landbase is still WIP.
Restore Balance
:
The card the deck is named after, and rightfully so. This spell will never be cast for it's suspend cost. The effect is quite powerful, but symmetric, leaving both players with equal amounts of lands and creatures in play as well as equal amount of cards in hand. Luckily for us, we construct our deck to break the symmetry in our favor.
Removing lands is easily the most devastating part of the card, all decks in modern need lands to operate, although most manage with only 1 or 2. Ideally we have 0 lands in play when
Restore Balance
resolves. Getting our opponent down to 0 lands usually leads to victory for as, that usually means a
Greater Gargadon
is about to hit our opponent. An
As Foretold
on the field also allow us to play cards without lands in play, if our Gargadon gets dealt with.
Removing creatures is also a crucial part of the card. In most cases when Restore Balance resolves, we have no creatures in play, making it a onesided creature wrath. A nice upside is that
Restore Balance
force our opponent to sacrifice the creatures, preventing things like indestructibility to ruin our day.
Discarding cards is the part of
Restore Balance
we focus the least on. In some cases we end up being the ones to discard cards.
The most important thing about
Restore Balance
is timing when to cast it. Sometimes it is better to hold on a turn or two before casting it.
Enablers:
Cards that enable us to cast
Restore Balance
(and other suspend spells):
As Foretold
:
A 3 mana enchantment that allows us to play things for free, and cast all our suspend cards (excluding
Greater Gargadon
) the turn it hits play is massive. Noteably it also allows us to cast our other spells as well if it stays in play for a while. You only get to play one card a turn though, and casting timing restrictions still apply (so no instant speed restore balance from
As Foretold
). It is worth to note that we can use it to cast something on our turn, and then use it on our opponents turn aswell (if we do have a instant in hand and enough counters on
As Foretold
). Another interaction to note is that we choose to cast a spell with in its mana cost, then that is equal to .
Electrodominance
:
A 2 mana instant that allows us to cast our suspend spells at instant speed. Can double down as reach in a pinch aswell. Being able to cast
Restore Balance
or any of the other suspend spell at instant speed is really powerful, the most notable uses are:
Casting Electrodominance + Restore Balance
in the opponents draw step, to get them to discard an additional card (remember players can only cast instants and cards with flash in the draw step, so if our opponent floats mana in response they usually can't spend it on much).
Casting Electrodominance + Restore Balance
in the combat step. This will clear the board and prevent hasty creatures from attack until next turn.
Casting Electrodominance + Restore Balance
at the opponents end step. The last step we can cast a card before our turn. Like the draw step opponents can't play sorcery speed cards.
Casting Crashing Footfalls + Electrodominance
at our opponents end step (best case scenario at turn 2). Puts 8 trampling power in play that can attack turn 3 can really overwhelm opponents not prepared to deal with it.
Finale of Promise
:
The worst of our enablers and similar to
Electrodominance
. Noteably is sorcery and target cards in our graveyard. This is nice as it makes it hard for our opponent lock us out of casting
Restore Balance
by forcing us to discard it (as long as they don't exile it). It also allows us to play
Faithless Looting
. It is really important that you are play around
Surgical Extraction
if you know your opponent plays that card, as them exiling
Restore Balance
, or even worse, exiling it with you targeting it with
Finale of Promise
, can be really devastating.
Another noteworthy interaction is that one can use
Finale of Promise
to cast
Electrodominance
. This interaction can be quite usefull if you have a
Restore Balance
in hand but no enabler, nor a
Restore Balance
in the grave. The
Electrodominance
will have of which still allow you to cast
Restore Balance
from hand.
Other Suspend Spells:
As we do not play cascade, we can allow ourself to play other 2 or less cmc cards. As we already have the possibility to cast suspend spells with no mana cost, we stack up on others of those, as they are really strong.
Ancestral Vision
can draw us 3 cards deeper and helps find restore balance, it can also be suspended on early turns if we expect the game to go long.
Crashing Footfalls
is an alternate wincon in the deck (
Greater Gargadon
being the main wincon), the tokens created are reasonably beefy and can attack into or block many of the creatures in modern. The rhino tokens can also be sacrificed to Gargadon to get it in play earlier, or to make sure that our opponent also have to saccrifice all their creatures.
Card Draw/Filtering:
WIP
Serum Visions
Opt
Faithless Looting
Interaction:
WIP
