This is a brew that tries to use the Eldraine spoiled
Dance of the Manse
as a value engine in a midrange-controlley deck.
The current iteration tries to use both artifacts and enchantments but a version which is more artifact heavy may be a better solution ( thanks to Emry too ) with all the artifact support cards we have.
On the other hand, we would lose many controlling enchantments which are quite good, with
Oath of Kaya
being the best.
It was quite difficult choosing a splashing color. In the end, I went with black ( and Esper on the whole ) particularly for
Oath of Kaya
.
There are many interesting cards in other colors, with some particularly interesting ones in Green and Golgari ( but a four-color mana base without any support will probably be difficult to run with the coming standard worsened available lands ).
I still think that esper is the right choice.
Oath of Kaya
is too good to pass up. It puts itself in the graveyard for us, being legendary, and can be recurred without a too high mana cost dealing bursts of damage and lifegain, acting as a good win condition.
Furthermore, in esper we get a good chunk of control spells, like the best wrath and discard in the format, that can help us stabilize.
While we, unfortunately, miss a sudden-win combo, we have some wincons in both
Oath of Kaya
and
Vantress Gargoyle
.
While the former does not need introductions, the second may seem like a not so great choice but with the ability to easily recur and the fact that the game will aim to go long, naturally filling the opponent's graveyard, I think that it can become a safe enough threat in this deck.
Lastly, we can win trough a sudden 6+
Dance of the Manse
.
On the first turn, we are either looking at dropping a
Witching Well
to shape our draws or an
Inquisitive Puppet
to chump block some early creatures against more aggro decks like cavalcade.
The former is probably one of the best cards in the deck, providing some good topdeck control, card advantage ( which is otherwise kind of missing in the deck ) and being easily recurred with both
Emry, Lurker of the Loch
and
Dance of the Manse
.
The latter is a good cheap artifact which smooths our draws and gains us some survival when needed.
Another good creature in this slot may be
Gingerbrute
which provides us with some recurring lifegain and does not have an anti-synergy ability that exiles the card. Furthermore, haste works well if we are able to recur it with a 6+
Dance of the Manse
.
Nonetheless, I think that the scry is more important for the deck in its current state.
On the 2 cmc slots, we have some disruption to slow our opponent down.
Thought Erasure
is a great card against most decks and the surveil gives us more topdeck control and the chance to put something in the graveyard to later recur. While it cannot recur I still feel that it helps the deck a lot being able to remove problematic cards that we cannot interact with ( noncreature basically ).
Glass Casket
slows creature decks down or can remove some early non-attacking creature like mana dorks or utility creatures that may become a problem if left unchecked. I feel that this card may be better played as a 2x but am still unsure about it.
Vantress Gargoyle
is one of our wincon. It is a good blocker on turn two and may be used to do some milling to start enabling itself.
I've decided for a 2x only for now but this card may be good enough that it requires some more copies.
While
Dance of the Manse
is, technically, in this slot, we won't play it turn two.
I started with a 4x of the card and decided to leave on out. I feel that we don't want to see one too early when we don't have enough value cards to recur. It may even go down to a 2x if I decide to move the deck to a more
Emry, Lurker of the Loch
based one.
On the 3 cmc slot, we find our best-recurred wincon,
Oath of Kaya
of which I've written a bit above.
We want to see as many of them as possible to gain value while putting some copies in the graveyard.
Mirrormade
is a copy of our best cards, enough said.
Prison Realm
is our best removal, saving us from the planeswalker and 3feri hell that you can find in the current standard.
Emry, Lurker of the Loch
is just a great card. With 8x 1-cmc artifacts we are more than enough able to play it as early as turn two. It does everything we need, it fills our graveyard and let us recur some of our cheap artifacts.
It almost surely warrants more than one slot ( and probably is a better build around than
Dance of the Manse
currently ) but I've to try the deck before understanding what cards should be removed.
She works great with both our 1-cmc artifacts and our gargoyle wincon and should provide crazy value if left unchecked.
Kaya's Wrath
is a safe choice that acts as a stabilizer.
We mostly have 1-for-1 removals which may let us get behind on board against go wide or cheap creatures decks.
Playing it gives us some breathing space and may enable
Doom Foretold
to hit more interesting targets than a cheap creature.
Talking about
Doom Foretold
, I feel that it warrants a slot as it brings some decent value and enables us to hit some different types of permanents and to fill our graveyard with some of our enchantments. We should usually be able to have enough permanents to win the sacrifice race and get our reward.
Cavalier of Dawn
seems like a good top of the curve with a decent body and an almost-universal removal clause that gives us back our best card when it dies. He may go away for a second Emry.
While the deck seems like it can be loads of fun, I don't think it can be particularly competitive.
We have many cards which are not easily dealt with by the current meta, but they are probably weaker than some non-correctly-typed alternatives.
A more toolboxy approach would be great, especially since we have decent control of our topdeck, but there aren't enough strong hate artifact and enchantments cards currently in the meta.
Furthermore, there are so many good graveyard hate cards and exile effects that, even if the deck was to be played, it probably wouldn't be able to survive a BO3 as it relies too much on the graveyard.
With our colors, we would probably be better off playing a more standard control shell.
I still have a lot of hope for
Dance of the Manse
as it should become better if any good enchantment or artifact is released in the Eldraine block ( which will probably happen ) and especially when we will hit Theros which should have an enchantment theme in it.
