Orzhov's Healing Touch
Modern*
SCORE: 7 | 22 COMMENTS | 1622 VIEWS | IN 2 FOLDERS
Several Weeks of Playtesting Later —April 13, 2014
tl;dr: the deck still isn't at 60 cards. Some of the full playsets will need to go down to three, I'm thinking most of the creatures for this (would take me from 20 to 15). Advice and suggestions are still appreciated!
After several weeks of playtesting, I'm satisfied with this deck in general. I like the playstyle of the deck, it just feels great when you combo cards like Trading Post, Sanguine Bond, and Bubbling Cauldron.
However, if you pull this deck out against someone who knows exactly what you're about to do, you're in for a rough match. A really heavy control deck, mill deck, or any sort of discard deck ends up making the game very frantic on your end.
To counter this, I'm thinking several things are going to need to change. First of all, 60 cards, and 60 cards only. 70 didn't seem much more to me initially, and I thought that for the most part I'd be fine with a few extra cards. It does, however seem to make all of the two ofs feel very scarce, and land ends up in short supply on occasion.
Secondly, in reference to the two ofs in the deck, I'll either need to find 4 of them, or remove them. Cards like Bubbling Cauldron will definitely gain sister cards, while Hold at Bay may end up out of the deck, or in a future sideboard.
Lands
As it stands, the current number (24) of lands I have seems to do the job just fine. At a deck size of 70, there are some instances when I feel my lands are stretched too thin, but when the deck size cuts down to 60, 24 lands should do the trick.
If I do need to, however, removing a single Plains and Swamp may be a quick solution to deck size, and 22 lands shouldn't hinder me too much, especially given the guildgates.
Creatures:
One of two single-kind cards in this deck currently is Bogbrew Witch, which I hadn't really paid any attention to before, as my primary attention was on the Angelic Accord + Trading Post synergy, but since my Festering Newts never seem to end up near by Bubbling Cauldrons (which may be helped when there are two more cauldrons), I'm definitely going to end up with 2 or 4 Witches in the deck in the next few playtests.
The second of the two is Oreskos Sun Guide. He's definitely a strong card in this deck, and is essentially a cheaper Servant of Tymaret, less the regenerate for another 3 mana and slightly less health, but with one more strength. On the subject of Servant of Tymaret, he's probably going to be out of the deck. At 3 mana he's more expensive and less... inspirational than Oreskos Sun Guide, and while his regeneration can be cheesed together with Bubbling Cauldron for a quick two turn max of +6 health, he doesn't come around often enough, and doesn't seem to be that effective in the long run, given his strength of 1.
Lastly, as far as creatures go, is Dawnstrike Paladin. He will most likely be gone from the deck, or be subject to the same sideboard treatment as some of the other cards I'm mentioning here. At 5 mana, he's not very affordable until late in the game, and the lifelink of 2 I would gain from attacking is the same as Child of Night. The vigilance is nice, but the aim of this deck is to gain enough health I don't need to worry about taking very much damage, and removing creatures that do pose a large threat.
The new creature tally looks something like:
4x Bogbrew Witch, 4x Child of Night, 4x Festering Newt, 4x Oreskos Sun Guide, 4x Soulmender.;
This does put me at a total of 20 creatures, which is two more than the previous iteration of the deck, but some consolidation in other areas of the deck should help me condense the total size down to 60.
Instants:
As of this update, there are 8 instants in the deck, 2 each of Congregate, Doom Blade, Hold at Bay, and Ultimate Price.
Congregate is a very solid instant, in battles against more than one opponent, if other players are starting to get aggressive, and a large amount of creatures appear on the battlefield in a single turn. playing Congregate just before my turn allows me to gain substantial health (2 per creature, including my own), and allows for the 4 mana it costs to be untapped right after use. At 2 cards in the deck, it doesn't appear incredibly often, and I may push it up to 4.
Doom Blade is very cheap removal at 2 mana. While it does require a non-black target, there are enough instances where it can be used, and Ultimate Price comes in to pick up the gap when Doom Blade Fails. Hold at Bay, however, may be leaving the deck. In playtesting I very rarely used this card, except to discard it via Trading Post for some quick health gain.
Artifacts:
The only thing that I think will change as far as Artifacts in this deck is the addition of two more Bubbling Cauldrons. In playtesting they didn't appear nearly as often as I'd like, and I ended up in more than one instance having to pull them from my graveyard with Trading Post.
Enchantments:
Ah, now here's where I think things get fuzzy. Obviously Angelic Accord is staying, there's no question on that. Sanguine Bond need to appear more often in my deck, the potential it has is incredible, especially with something like a Festering Newt + Bubbling Cauldron + Sanguine Bond + Trading Post combo happening in a single turn.
Divine Favor is really good on the surface. Cast on Child of Night, I would gain 3 health from Divine Favor itself, and a now 3/4 Child of Night for as long as I could keep it out on the field. In practice, however, this card doesn't show up enough, most likely due to only having two copies in the deck. Also, with the exponential potential of a Child of Night + Sunbond combo (+2/+2 on the first turn, +4/+4 on the second...) it makes more sense to remove Divine Favor, and replace it with two more Sunbond.
Pacifism + Stab Wound has proven to be a very interesting tactic, especially combined with some very strange Legend Rule scenarios. I like both cards, but I may have to keep them at 2 each in the deck for now.
At this point, I've done nothing but increase the total number of cards in the deck, so everything Is very awkward. I can remove things here and there from every category in the deck, and I feel like that may be my best bet. Perhaps -2 Oreskos Sun Guide, and -2 Bogbrew Witch (from the list above) will let me gain some ground on getting closer to 60 cards.
I'm in a very strange spot as far as this deck goes for now, and I'd love any suggestions or advice on furthering this deck. I don't really have a set budget on this deck, but I'd like to keep it sub $200.
Thanks for commenting, and thanks in advance for any help!