Enchantment tempo/control deck with
Daxos the Returned
at the helm. A bit difficult to try and make him consistently value and get him online quickly. Something like 4+ counters starts making him usable, especially at higher (6+) mana. At that point we hopefully have other stuff to combo with Daxos and his tokens or have decent draw and/or board control (to keep protecting/ramping Daxos).
Control Cards/Pillowfort
Daxos takes time to get online. Because of this and the fact you want to stay alive while Daxos is taking his sweet ass time, you need decent board control. Of course due to enchantments buffing Daxos and playing enchantments being the whole idea of the deck, enchantments are used to accomplish most things in the deck (stax effects, single target removal, etc) .
Control Enchantments
Authority of the Consuls
,
Rule of Law
,
Curse of Exhaustion
,
Ghostly Prison
,
Solitary Confinement
,
Righteous Aura
,
No Mercy
,
Parallax Wave
and
Bitterblossom
all give you control and help you buy time for getting stuff rolling.
Single target control
Oblivion Ring
,
Banishing Light
,
Cast Out
,
Grasp of Fate
,
Profane Procession
(slower but multiuse) and
Darksteel Mutation
. All good single target removal.
Also have good single target spells like Swords of Plowshares (could have
Path to Exile
as well) and
Anguished Unmaking
for some extra instant speed responses.
Most of the creatures in the deck, be it the ones that make tokens (
Monastery Mentor
,
Ophiomancer
) or ones that try to control your opponent and their board (
Archfiend of Depravity
,
Eidolon of Rhetoric
) are in the deck primarily for their abilities (to help you control boards/opponents and survive to get Daxos going) more so then for beating your enemies to death. However, it shouldn't be underestimated how nice it can be to have a couple creatures for the times you actually get the chance to be the one in control of board and get some damage in (without having to rely on Daxos 100% of the time). This is especially true for bigger guys like
Archfiend of Depravity
Sidisi, Undead Vizier
and
Sun Titan
who have fairly big bodies, can be painful to block and possibly worth giving protection with
Flickering Ward
,
Cho-Manno's Blessing
.
.
Other Control
Currently trying out
Peacekeeper
cause it's pretty nice pillowforting against creatures and Sun Titan brings him back.
The deck currently contains 4 board wipes.
Wrath of God
and
Day of Judgment
(basically same 4 mana board wipe),
Toxic Deluge
(even cheaper at mana 3 but with the cost of additional life to cast) and
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
(board wipe for bigger stuff and utility/pressure in other situations).
If you'd like to add more board wipes
Merciless Eviction
&
Extinguish All Hope
are also good. These might also be better then some of the above listed cheaper alternatives if your opponents don't build heavy boards early or you really want the exile from merciless eviction.
Other useful enchantments not currently in the deck
Stuff like
Nevermore
,
Gideon's Intervention
and
Teferi's Protection
are good for trying to disrupt/survive more combo orientated decks. A lot of situational and match dependent enchantments, such as graveyard hate or stuff like
Contamination
(vs. a deck with no black) can of course be good.
Discard Control Package
You can also play more discard orientated control, atlhough I haven't tried that. You can use cards like
Waste Not
,
Oppression
,
Words of Waste
,
Mindslicer
,
Necrogen Mists
,
Bottomless Pit
and
Thoughtrender Lamia
. Might be some other decent discard enchantments as well, along the other possible spells you can slot in. With this kinda of discard package I'd imagine you really want Daxos to be able to make tokens for you to take the game, aka. have Daxos and his token nicely setup. Probably definitely need
Crucible of Worlds
for this kinda deck and I'm sure there are other cards to turn the table more your way with discard stuff you could play.
Stuff You Can Combo with Daxos the Returned and his Tokens
The tokens Daxos makes can be churned out any time he is on board, if you have the mana. The tokens he makes are enchantment creatures. This means making his tokens has a few direct interactions with other cards in the deck.
Skybind
allows you to bounce other nonenchantment permanents you control (exiled and returned beginning of the next end step) when an enchantment enters the battlefield under your control. This can be very useful for resetting your mana rocks (
Gilded Lotus
(yes!),
Sol Ring
,
Coalition Relic
) or lands (especially if you had
Serra's Sanctum
,
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
,
Cabal Coffers
). It can also be used to protect Daxos if needed. Best way to use it (apart from probably bouncing Gilded Lotus) is to bounce enemy board during their upkeep by making your tokens then. Lets you deny your opponents of lands, artifacts, creatures (great for killing tokens) during their turn.
Skybind
is 5 mana and you preferably want at least a couple triggers of it to make it good, so it does usually require a decent amount of mana to utilise properly.
Cloudstone Curio
lets you bounce your enchantments/creatures when you make a token with Daxos. Good protection if you can get it on board and have Daxos & mana setup.
Other Combos
Necropotence
+
Solitary Confinement
is the dream bubble to be in, as it sets you up for the "immune from damage and all the cards you want" setup. Definition of "Team work makes the dream work". Good times for Daxos. Usually gets dealt with pretty quick when they have an answer. People get jealous.
Parallax Wave
+
Opalescence
(and
Oblivion Ring
for good measure if you get that too) can be used to permanently exile all the enemy creatures (and with oblivion ring non-land permanents as well) as long as you have the two enchantments on board. Does make all your enchantments creatures so be careful for a board wipe cause you will lose it all. Better have something if it all goes pear shaped to follow up with.
Going Offensive
A lot of the time your main way of doing something, is by making tokens with Daxos and hitting your opponent. This is why
Anointed Procession
,
Cathars' Crusade
and
True Conviction
are in the deck.
These cards also work very well with your other token generators
Monastery Mentor
/
Sigil of the Empty Throne
/
Luminarch Ascension
and can really hurt your opponent.
Bitterblossom
is very good early on for creating pressure/blockers and is a free token every turn which is great.
Elspeth, Sun's Champion
who was already mentioned in the board wipe section, also works as a nice token generator and if you manage to ult her, she makes your tokens stronger & a lot harder to block (as everything has flying).
´´
Thoughts/Opinions?
Pretty much what I see as an fairly optimised list (minus the good black tutors, best mana ramp/cabal/urborg, moat/abyss/few other expensive enchantment cards). Although that being said I'm consistently playing around with trying out a different card or two, so the deck is constantly seeing changes to it. Trying to see how to best achieve setting up early game control and getting Daxos set up nicely. Daxos tends to need cheap (1-3) mana enchantments to buff up faster but is still pretty slow, so requires good control as well and a few nice utility cards (like the combos mentioned earlier) for mid/late game.
Commenting
Comments on improvements/new ideas are welcome. I do however believe that cutting out heavier stuff in favor of keeping average deck cost lower is very important, so as to increase consistency of setting up early game control and getting those counters rolling asap.
Sideboard
Sideboard is currently just a list of stuff I've been playing around with lately.
Flip
