This is my spike deck. If you want to get 20 mana by turn five and then throw it all in your opponent's face, this is how you do it. If that's not your cup of tea, you can use it to summon some really big, burly creatures. Or better yet, why not both?
-Setup-
If you see a
Voyaging Satyr
or an
Arbor Elf
in your opening hand, you're off to a great start. Simply throw down as many
Overgrowth
s or
Utopia Sprawl
's as you can muster on one
Forest
and keep untapping them for stupid amounts of mana. I highly recommend downloading an app that has a mana pool counter, as I routinely need it when I'm adding and multiplying the mana together from all the different sources.
-Planeswalkers-
Garruk Wildspeaker
is really versatile in this deck; his +1 can bump up your mana further or in a pinch spawn a defender.
Nissa, Worldwaker
Is obviously better if you have a bunch of
Forest
s out, but her ability to turn land into creatures can be useful for the same reasons as above: defenders or extra mana. And if by some miracle from the heavens you get her -7... unf. Your opponent had better hope you don't have an X cost spell in your hand
-Creatures-
Sylvan Primordial
is a killer in multiplayer games, but even in a duel, he can remove that pesky thing your opponent threw down. How would you like to summon him on turn three?
Savageborn Hydra
is another extremely versatile card. You can put it down for cheap if you've got nothing better to do and metamorphose it into a monster over time or just drop it down pre-monsterized. Regardless, the Double Strike is gonna make your opponent run out of blockers really quickly, and then soon out of life. I've been thinking about adding some Eldrazi, but I'm not sure what. Some of the BFZ ones loom pretty appealing.
-Burn, Baby, Burn-
The creatures are annoying to deal with, but, honestly, are the secondary win-con. The real dangers of this deck are
Clan Defiance
and
Devil's Play
. Unless your opponents have made themselves hexproof, any defense they could have will be completely bypassed.
Clan Defiance
busts a hole or two in your opponent's creature defenses and hits them as well.
Devil's Play
, though not quite as awful in one fell swoop as
Clan Defiance
, can be flashed back to the field for extra damage or to remove any creatures left standing.
Bonfire of the Damned
, however, is quite possibly the single scariest card here. Even if you don't miracle it, just pick an opponent. Every creature they control probably just died, and they just took a pretty decent chunk of their controller's life with them. One of the most awful things this deck can do is a late-game miracle. Everything dies, then swing into them with a big, ugly
Savageborn Hydra
or wave of Ooze tokens for massive effect. Or if nothing else, use
Kessig Wolf Run
to pump something up for the kill.
-Sideboard-
If you find you need to pop more artifacts or enchantments than
Sylvan Primordial
allows, there are some
Consign to Dust
s on standby. More mana equals more destruction!
Street Spasm
is a must in multiplayer games. It's not quite as devastating as
Bonfire of the Damned
, but it has the advantage of keeping every opponent under control.
Banefire
is a must-have against control or Boros decks as it can't be countered or redirected.
Predator's Rapport
is the only good way to get life-gain, but I would only really consider it in a multiplayer game. A recent addition to the deck is
Gelatinous Genesis
. At small amounts of mana, I spawn a few blockers. At large amounts, I summon an oozing pile of titans.
This deck plays hard ball fast, and can completely bypass even the most solid creature defense to get right to the opponent.
