Aether Vial - allows us to cheat in our creatures at instant speed has a lot of synergy in our deck and provides us rampy goodness.
Aven Mindcensor - our flying hate machine, Mindcensor allows us to put it in at Instant speed to counteract fetches or Path to Exile triggers if need be. Synergizes well with Ghost Quarter as well. I also like to flash it in either with Aether Vial or manually when our opponents try to take out our Leonin Arbiter. Also makes for a good flying blocker.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos
- excellent beater, I have contemplated putting more of him in here but I feel I lose a lot of cards for an extra one. He does extremely well as a beat down monster and excellent blocker, forcing our opponents to use 2 burn spells to remove him is also excellent. His tokens get out of hand very quickly as well especially with a
Wilt-Leaf Liege
in play.
Kitchen Finks - excellent lifegain tool if we're falling behind from all our shocks and Horizon Canopys hurting us. Also becomes quite large and in charge with
Wilt-Leaf Liege
.
Leonin Arbiter - our hate lion, Leo just sits on his chair and says no you can't fetch or look in your library unless you pay 2. Also makes our Path to Exile basically a Swords to Plowshares with no drawbacks or giving them life. Has synergies with Ghost Quarter as well so a turn 2 Leo + Ghost Quarter can really unravel our opponent.
Loxodon Smiter - big 4/4 with uncounterable and synergizes well against discard strategies allowing us to get a free 4/4. Works well with
Wilt-Leaf Liege
making him a 6/6 which our opponents will need to deal with very quickly. Also really nice landing a Path to Exile on a Reality Smasher to cheat our Smiter or Liege into play.
Noble Hierarch - our much needed mana ramp and source of Exalted triggers for early damage. It's always debatable whether or not to play a Hierarch or Vial on t1 but if you have Leonin Arbiter and Ghost Quarter you definitely want to run out the Hierarch first. Also great for running out our bigger stuff quicker like Loxodon Smiter on t2.
Qasali Pridemage - excellent in this meta and gets quite big with
Wilt-Leaf Liege
in play. The Exalted triggers will also help us get in a lot of early game damage. Deals with all the problematic Enchantment/Artifacts currently in the meta as well.
Scavenging Ooze - ah good old scooze helps us with controlling what our opponents can keep in their GY, whilst also gaining us a little bit of life advantage. Can also get out of hand very quickly and deal a lot of damage. Seeing as we run no recursion when our creatures die Scooze can exile them and get bigger in the process.
Sigarda, Host of Herons - the big queen of this deck. If you land a Sigarda in play it's very hard for your opponents to win from there. I have contemplated sideboarding her but the amount of games she's won me kinda contradicts doing so. Will require more testing I think. She'd most likely get sided for another Kitchen Finks or Linvala, Keeper of Silence.
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - the Death and Taxes queen. Thalia makes our opponents think twice about using removal to gain an advantage. Also has First Strike so is an excellent blocker early on. She also generally makes our opponents use removal unwisely allowing us to bring in more creatures that will outrace our opponents. Will make our opponents unable to counter big threats unless they have the extra 1 mana to cast counters.
Voice of Resurgence - another tool for counter magic and prevents our opponents casting anything during our turn for fear of getting the beats from a elemental who's power/toughness are equal to the amount of creatures we control. Multiple voices can get out of hand very quickly and also get buffed from
Wilt-Leaf Liege
. It's also an excellent aggro tool early game as most opponents won't allow you to get the elemental token into play. With as many creatures as we run Voice is very powerful in this deck.
Wilt-Leaf Liege
- synergizes with most of our deck making all our creatures very powerful and if not dealt with quickly we'll outrace our opponents. She synergizes well against discard strategies as well allowing us to cheat her in as early as turn 1. I often go for a discard proof hand on game 2 against Jund/Abzan decks and Wilt-Leaf is my go to gal as well as Smitty.
Path to Exile - excellent removal in this deck due to synergies with Leonin Arbiter and Aven Mindcensor can allow us to remove big threats without allowing our opponents to get any tempo swing.
