Everything in this deck is either a creature or artifact that creates creatures.
This contains no cards that cost over 4 mana.
*This is a "pinger" deck - a deck that includes several permanents that tap to deal damage, such as Ghost-Lit Raider
Noteworthy combos:
Combat Celebrant
+
Razorfin Hunter
(or anything else that can be tapped to deal damage) - I can tap Razorfin Hunter to deal 1 damage to a creature, attack with Combat Celebrant, then use its ability to untap Razorfin Hunter and tap it to deal another damage to the creature, all before blockers are chosen. It gets more impressive when you have 2 or 3 "tap to deal damage" cards in play.
Reef Worm
+
Spawning Pit
I can instantly upgrade Reef Worm into a 9/9 creature and gain 3 counters for Spawning Pit
Mimic Vat + Thalakos Deceiver
I can pay 3 mana to gain control of one more of my opponent's creatures every turn of mine...usually.
Mimic Vat
+
Watcher for Tomorrow
Every turn of mine (or on my opponent's turn instead), I can pay 3 mana to look at the top four cards of my library and place 1 into my hand at (approximately) my turn's end, or sooner if the Watcher for Tomorrow card dies somehow before then.
Mimic Vat + Spawning Pit + Crashing Drawbridge + Reef Worm - Every turn of mine (or, instead, on my opponent's turn), I can pay 3 mana to create a temporary 9/9 creature that can attack or defend and add 3-4 counters to Spawning Pit
*Also...there are lots of other cards in here that simply have good synergy together, such as Soul-Scar Mage and anything I can tap to deal damage. Another example is Crashing Drawbridge
and pretty much anything else in my deck. The hasting ability is invaluable - helping me destroy cards faster and giving cards like Thalakos Deceiver or Combat Celebrant much more of a surprise aspect.
How it works:
The only good lone attacker I have in here is Reef Worm. If I get that out by turn 4, along with a Spawning Pit I can, maybe, win by dealing lots of damage to my opponent's health early. Usually though, I'm going to win by destroying or gaining control of most if not all of my opponent's creatures before I deal much, if any, damage to their health. This is not an extremely long game deck like some white/blue decks...but oftentimes the longer the game lasts the better off I'll do. My creatures and artifacts will start having better synergy with each other over time the more I get in play. Once I get a couple cards like Spawning Pit, Reef Worm, Mimic Vat, or maybe some tough creature I've gained control of through Thalakos Deceiver even spread-out damage/mass-destruction spells (that can wreak havoc on my low-health deck in the early game) such as Arc Lightning or Tremor or Supreme Verdict often won't be that big of a deal to me. That's why, despite this being a half-blue deck, it contains no counter spells. I'm not sure I need them.
The big risk comes in the early game, before I can really do much of anything. I have six land cards that give me 2 mana, rather than 1, but I have to put a land back into my hand. I only have 21 lands, so I'm seldom going to have more than 1 land in my hand at a time anyway, past the first couple turns, so that's not as big of a deal as it might be for another deck with tons of lands, all waiting to enter play. That can help me play Reef Worm or Thalakos Deceiver early, and those are my main cards used for early, good defense. I have 6 of them, so there's a good chance I'll get at least 1 of them out early...but if I don't, I'm going to take a lot of damage early while trying to set up some useful combination of cards...and that'll be compounded if my opponent has cards like Arc Lightning.
Therefore, I'm pretty concerned about red decks that both deal lots of damage fast and have creature-destroying spells. I'm hoping that those decks often having low health creatures will mean I can use my "tap to deal damage" cards to quickly destroy them and make up for that weakness.
I'm not sure how I'd do against blue/white long game decks with few creatures. My deck is focused on getting rid of creatures, so if you don't have many creatures many of my cards won't serve much of a purpose. However, like those decks, my deck also gets better over time.
I'm not very concerned about black or green decks. Green decks often contain a mixture of small creatures with abilities and larger creatures and lots of mana...so there's plenty of stuff for me to destroy that'll often get moving more slowly than red decks. Black decks often contain several low health creatures with abilities that I can destroy quickly too.
I think my biggest weakness would be decks with lots of medium-sized creatures and spells that destroy multiple creatures at once. I'm thinking...some kind of red/white, red/green, pure red deck that does that sounds quite unpleasant to me.
I want this deck to be usable in Vintage and Legacy tournaments, and those sorts of tournaments that have fewer restrictions on cards. I've noticed that there are many instant-game-winning combinations that can be options to use in those sorts of environments, such as Combat Celebrant + Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker
which can give you infinite attack rounds by infinite creatures. I've also noticed that many of those combinations require low health, expensive creatures. That's why this is a "pinger" deck, so I can, hopefully, destroy all those low-health creatures before some insta-game-winning combo can happen.
What are your opinions? Do you think this deck seems too slow-moving to be useful in tournaments? Do you think it has other crippling weaknesses?
