Orzhov's Healing Touch

Modern* StormedWolf

SCORE: 7 | 22 COMMENTS | 1622 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS

Culling the Deck and new Considerations —March 21, 2014

Since I've gotten a hold of the last elusive cards (2x Orzhov Guildgates, got the first two from a friend) I've been looking at the stats of the deck at it's core. I noticed a fairly large amount of cards with a CMC of 4. 4 mana isn't too terribly expensive, and the two cards at the core of the deck (Angelic Accord and Trading Post) happen to be 4 mana, I still think I can cut down that number.

I'm pondering the removal of Weight of the Underworld and Deathgaze Cockatrice

Weight of the Underworld looked good to me originally for a couple of reasons, it was a decent aura to lower the damage output and sturdiness of my opponents' creatures, but with only two of them in the deck, I don't think they'll come around often enough to be reliable, and I have more reliable -- and more complete for that matter -- removal through Doom Blade and Pacifism. I think replacing the two Weight of the Underworlds with two Ultimate Prices will be better in the long run; not only because it's complete removal of a (monocolored) creature, but also because it's CMC is only 2, more affordable than WotU when I'm still in the earlier stages of play.

Deathgaze Cockatrice is one of the things that really strikes me a misplaced in this deck. While the benefits of having a Flying creature with Deathtouch seem to outweigh the higher CMC, it doesn't fit in with the core purpose of lifegain. That being said, I've got a single Griffin Dreamfinder in my deck that I'm also not sure is in the right place. Recovering an enchantment is fine, but with all of my enchantments having duplicates I'm not entirely sure that I'll need Griffin Dreamfinder, especially considering its CMC of 5 is the highest (aside from Dawnstrike Paladin, with an equal CMC) in the entire deck.

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On to the new considerations:

Someone mentioned Sanquine Bond in a comment a while ago. Given that I've got 4 Festering Newts and a Bubbling Cauldron, I feel Sanguine Bond may not be necessary. However, If Bubbling Cauldron were to be destroyed (although I may considering adding another to the deck, as a replacement for one of the removals above) Sanguine Bond + Trading Post would be a replacement, and considering it wouldn't be constricted to the number of Festering Newts I've got in my deck, possibly even worth the total CMC of both cards being 9. That being said, I would of course be out of luck if I couldn't get the two cards in play concurrently, but that same chance is run with the Newt+Cauldron tactic. There's also a larger possibility that the 4 Trading Posts I've got in the deck, along with the 2 Sanguine Bonds I own would likely not be able to be entirely removed by my opponents.

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Once again, let me know if you think there's another card I should consider for this deck. I'd really like for it to be competitive at some point, but for now It's definitely more of a casual endeavor, however one that I'd still like to win with.

I've changed the deck to reflect the changes I've talked about above, let me know if you like the way it looks, or if you like a previous version, or a different version entirely, better.

Quick Edit: Liturgy of Blood was removed on some advice from comments. There aren't enough cards that would gain enough advantage from the mana gain for them to be worth the CMC