Hi all, this is a fun deck centered on growing gargantuan creatures capable of wiping out the enemy by T5-T6. A bevy of defensive, disruptive, and supportive spells aid these growing giants.
I've kept the budget around ~$150, but if you have money to burn you could upgrade the hybrid lands and swap 4x Thoughtseize in for Inquisition of Kozilek.
The Growth Engine
The core of this deck is Corpsejack Menace
+
Hardened Scales
, which lets you increase counter drops by (X+1)*2. Every duplicate Scales or Corpsejack you add pushes this even higher! For the sake of this intro here I will just assume you've got 1x Scales (T1) and 1x Corpsejack (T4) in play, which is fairly common.
The Growers
4x
Scute Mob
- Get a couple of them on the field by T5 and on T6 each will sprout up from a 1/1 to 11/11, on T7 each is 21/21, etc. He's not an ideal T1 play but he'll do that, too, in a pinch.
3x
Vinelasher Kudzu
- With a T1 Scales down, you can play a T3 Kudzu at 3/3. If you play T1 Scales and T4 Corpsejack, Kudzu's growth would look like T2 (1/1), T3 (3/3), T4 (5/5), T5 (9/9), T6 (13/13). While best if played early, Kudzu can still sprout up pretty quickly once one or two Corpsejacks are in play.
4x Primordial Hydra - The star of the show. Your Hydras starting counter add is affected by your growth engine. Pay 5 for a T5 Hydra (8/8) -> T6 (26/26) trample Hydra. The X cost combined with his upkeep growth gives him some flexibility, too: T1 Scales -> T3 Hydra (3/3) -> T4 Corpsejack, Hydra grows to 7/7 -> T5 Hydra grows to 23/23 with trample.
As you can see, between these three creatures you can reliably establish a gargantuan force by T6.
The Defensive Lineup
The core of the defensive team is the Sylvan Caryatid, blocking for 0/3, or we can tap it for mana to play one of the following 1-drop defensive instants:
2x Path to Exile for targeted removal of critical enemy creatures.
3x Fog lets you dodge an enemy attack while your creatures double in size. With the enemy tapped from its failed offensive you can make a quick counterattack with your now larger force.
4x Inquisition of Kozilek allows us to discard our opponent's removal, or disrupt their combo so we can grow. A good T1 play.
If you're feeling risky you can also skip T3 defense and tap the Caryatid to get a T3 Corpsejack out, potentially accelerating us from a T6 26/26 trample Hydra to a T5 20/20 trample Hydra.
Other & Sideboard
3x Abzan Falconer - gives your jacked up Scute / Kudzu / Hydra army flying. Outlast can also be situationally useful with Scales + Corpsejack since you can pay and tap to boost your 2/3 Falconer to 6/7 with flying.
1x Abzan Charm can also be used for removal or it can generate counters if removal isn't needed.
4x Duress if the opponent has board wipe spells not covered by Inquisition. Again, swapping in Thoughtseize here would already cover this.
Yes this deck doesn't have a way to handle bounce spells, and would be at risk to abilities that force sacrifice. I think it also fails the Lightning Bolt test. I'm open to side-board suggestions on shoring up these weaknesses, or really any suggestions at all. With that said I realize that as a T5-T6 win deck this will never be especially competitive in a T4 win format.
It's been fun! This is my first deck and I've learned a lot in the process of working on it. Thank you for your comments, upvotes, and suggestions. Take care.
