This Tempo deck was a heavy hitter in M20 Standard for about a month, until Eldraine came out and the format rotated. Although it's heyday was short, I loved this deck; so I built a Modern version of it, mostly out of spite.
If you're not aware,
Feather, the Redeemed
is a legendary creature from War of the Spark who, upon casting an instant or a sorcery that targets a creature you control, returns them to your hand to be reused once more. This allows us to reuse cantrips like
Fists of Flame
(generating card advantage), pump spells, and direct damage like
Reckless Rage
. In addition, what was formerly just bland draft chaff becomes an amazing protection in this deck with
Gods Willing
.
As a 2/3 flier,
Feather, the Redeemed
is not a very threatening creature; sure, you can pump her with
Defiant Strike
, but that also leaves her more vulnerable. To help us with that, we've included
Swiftblade Vindicator
and
Tenth District Legionnaire
, who become very formidable threats with just a couple of pumps.
An awesome combo that just is only capable in Modern (and Pioneer, I suppose) is with
Zada, Hedron Grinder
. With this card and just 2 other creatures out, a simple card like
Defiant Strike
becomes a reusable white
Ancestral Recall
, which is considered one of the most broken cards in Magic history.
I'm not a veteran Modern player, so I'm no expert in the art of sideboarding. I have included
Sheltering Light
, however, because it's effectively the same as
Gods Willing
, except better.
Besides Feather, the most important card in this deck is
Dreadhorde Arcanist
. Usually we want to save Feather until turn 4 (so that we have open mana to protect her), but before that we may want to cast our instants to protect our creatures before she can come out to reclaim them. Dreadhorde Arcanist provides a cheap and simple way to recast them from the graveyard to make sure they're never lost!
The most important thing about this deck is the mana base; however, I'm poor. I'm splurging a little bit, however, with 4
Sunbaked Canyon
(for when the deck runs out of gas). To balance it out, I'm filling the rest up with
Battlefield Forge
.
