Soooooo after a few month of not playing magic ive decided to relook at some of the decks I’ve posted on here and to be honest this one was not all too good. The mana base was way too budget too work with and with the way it was it was hard to upgrade it without indirectly making it even more janky. So I’ve decided to completely remake the mana base.
Botanical Sanctum: This deck likes having blue mana available as soon as possible. Being a fast land this allows for leaving up Stubborn Denials to either stop early plays such as if we are on the play and our opponent plays something like Serum Visions turn one or to counter a two drop spell such as Cathartic Reunion or other spells of the sort. Plus it’s not too expensive and having more lands that can come into play untapped that can tap for blue helps.
Breeding Pool: I decided to use Windswept Heath as the fetchlands for this deck mainly because they are the least expensive out of all of them and Breeding Pool allows us to search up an untapped blue source.
Lumbering Falls: In the original iteration of this deck there were no creature lands but now I feel that was a mistake. While Lumbering Falls doesn’t turn into a very threatening creature it helps us push threw damage after board wipes and the likes and with having hex proof it is very hard to get off the board. Also it helps to fix our mana and it’s relativly cheap.
Raging Ravine: The same can be said for raging ravine that can be said about lumbering falls. While the ability to have raging ravine grow can be beneficial in some circumstances.
Sheltered Thicket: This is mainly used for fetching on our opponents end step so we don’t have to shock ourselves / lose the ability to fetch up a shock land later in the game. It can also be fetched up and cycled late game turning a dead draw into fuel for the fire.
Shivan Reef: as the title suggests this is still a budget deck so this mana base won’t be optimal and we need all the untapped blue / red sources we can get our hands on and Shivan Reef fills that need and won’t hurt our wallets too bad.
Stomping Ground: Can be fetched with Windswept Heath and allows us to get an untapped red source.
Wandering-Fumarol: Works well both on defense and offense and I just really enjoy creature lands.
Wooded Foothills: The cheapest fetch land in our colors. Combine with the two shocks in our deck we can get an untapped source of any of our colors. If you have the money you can switch it out to any combination of Scalding-Tarns or Misty-Rainforests they are just both a lot more price wise than Wooded Foothills
Yavimaya Coast: Just some more naturally untapped mana sources.
Also in the original version of this deck there were a lot more mana dorks but I feel that having extra mana is not as important as having impactful creatures / spells so I cut most of them from this version.
Birds of Paradise: I personally had a copy of BoP from when I drafted Conspiracy Two. If it is too expensive for the budget just cut it and put in another Elvish Mystic. Birds is simply the best 1 mana mana dork and helps us ramp and fix our colors.
Huntmaster of the Fells
: Huntmaster is just a very impressive creature in general. The ability to recuringly create tokens and gain us life helps us grind out longer games and on occasion when it flips it can help clear the board of smaller creatures while also providing some extra reach.
Reality Shift: I originally was thinking about running Pongify or Rapid Hybridization in this slot but I feel that the exiling effect makes up for the extra mana cost and that by giving opponent a smaller bodied creature it will help our tempo. It is worth noting that we can exile a token or something of the likes to in effect draw a card or turn a dead draw into a 2/2.
Scavenging Ooze: The Ooze is just a very good utility creature. It helps to eat up our opponents grave yards, Gains life, and can also become a pretty big creature.
Savage Knuckleblade: Knuckleblade is one of the most mana efficient creatures I know of. While our mana base is a little strange having those 6 mama dorks helps to allow us to cast Knuckleblade on curve. Being a 3 mana 4/4 means it is often bigger than anything else on the field when we first play it. Also it has the ability to gain haste, dodge removal, or to become a 6/6 until end of turn.
Goblin Rabblemaster: The rabblemaster can easily win a game on an empty board and by spreading out its power over many bodies it is hard to block effectively.
Shaman of the Great Hunt: Shaman does everything that we want to do in this deck. He comes down as a 4 power hasty attacker to help us push out damage. He helps to buff our own creatures so they can become better than our opponents. And he also helps us to draw more cards so we don’t run out of gas.
Lightning Bolt: Since we are in red we should be playing Lightning Bolt and in the decks current build it is the only source of removal in the main board.
Serum Visions One easy way for us to lose is to just not draw important creatures. Serum Visions helps us to keep out hand full of important creatures and also to set up our draws.
Mana Leak: In this current build of the deck I decided to slim down on removal and instead try and counter spells instead. Mana leak is one of the cheapest and most reliable counter spells in modern and fits pretty well in this deck.
Stubborn Denial: Not many decks are going to expect the denial in game 1 and we can sneak out some free counters when we don’t have ferousious but when we do stubborn denial is one of the best counter spells around and helps to keep our board from being wiped or to keep our opponents from playing key combo spells.
Xenagos, the Reveler: Xenagos is pretty cheap dollar wise and I feel that his +1 allows for us to have some really explosive turns. Also his 0 ability helps us to keep creatures on the field and his ultimate can actually win us the game if we flip some decent creatures.
Tireless Tracker: having the ability to both draw is cards when the game gets grindy and also grow bigger makes Tireless Tracker an amazing three drop and helps to keep us drawing action and also helps us keep a strong board presence.
Voltaic Brawler: We can’t afford Tarmagoyf but I still feel that is is important to have strong early game creatures and Voltaic Brawler being able to become a 4/3 trampler helps us get in early damage and even while it’s on defense it is often a 3/2 meaning it can still trade up with some decent creatures.
The current side board that I have in the list is more for Control/Midrange match ups and I will put a more Aggro preventative sideboard down here.
Sideboard
4x Feed the Clan
3x Forced Adaptation
3x Pyroclasm
2x Orbs of Warding
3x Unsummon
Also I am going to put some other more aggressive creatures down here incase you prefer to make the deck more aggressive.
Cloudfin Raptor
Strangleroot Geist
Pia-And-Kiran-Naalar
Boon Satyr
Heir of the Wilds
Frost Walker
Voltaic Brawler
Aethersphere Harvester
