NOTE: This deck is very much a work in progress. Not only is it still hypothetical and the color balance is out of whack, I was given the task of making something for around 40~50 canadian dollars, which this definitely is not. It will slowly edge towards it though and I am using this space to brainstorm with others (including the one who will eventually be playing this deck). Please keep this in mind as you keep reading.
The goal is to stay as safe as possible and then assemble wincombos from behind the walls of your pillow fortress.
Phelddagrif is maybe not the best choice here. If we want additional threat security and for our commander to actually be useful, we might want Rubinia Soulsinger instead. What Phelddagrif gives us, however, is a psychological advantage. People who ignore us will be surprised when we suddenly cast Approach of the Second Sun for the second time and win.
The most important aspect here is to stay safe, and the bestest way to protect ourselves is to make it impossible for damage to even reach us. Most of our wincons are painfully slow and paint HUGE targets on our faces, so we have to appear unassuming at first, carefully building our fortress walls. These cards are pretty much renowned as a good way to deter attackers: Propaganda, Norn's Annex, Windborn Muse, Ghostly Prison, Crawlspace, Sphere of Safety and Magus of the Moat should ensure most creature threats are kept at bay, or at least we won't be swarmed by a million 1/1 goblins with haste (Magus of the Tabernacle is also good against that). Edric, Spymaster of Trest is a good way to deter others from attacking us, as are these other cards offering incentives for attacking others: Orzhov Advokist, Curse of Verbosity and Curse of Vitality. (Note: I am purposefully avoiding Curse of Bounty here. Our deck doesn't really benefit a whole lot from it and we might fall on opponents that DO take an insane advantage, so we are keeping it far away from our list.) Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer should round up any creature that might look brave enough to defy our pillow walls. Going into overkill territory, if we manage to stick a Blazing Archon on the board the game has probably gone on too long already or a boardwipe is imminent.
If they still insist on charging through our walls, we will want some bouncers. And then we want to make them the bounciest they can be. Any indestructible creature with Pariah will protect us, but here we set our sights on
Darksteel Myr
, Dawn Elemental and Cho-Manno, Revolutionary.
Palisade Giant
, Protector of the Crown, Palace Guard, Wall of Glare and Guardian of the Gateless are all great at stopping incoming damage, as long as they survive. The best way to do that is to give them something like Indestructibility or
Ghostly Possession
or even
Gaseous Form
or
Heart of Light
in a pinch.(All of these are taken from BudgetMTGDecks' "5 Infinite Damage Prevention Combos you won't believe are Budget").
The other way to stay safe is to be a bit of a group hugger. We don't usually want to play Phelddagrif or its questing brother, but if we do we should be strategically generous with our hippos. Other good cards like Howling Mine(s), Well of Ideas, Tempt with Discovery, Selvala, Explorer Returned, Veteran Explorer, Forbidden Orchard,
Arbiter of Knollridge
and Reverse the Sands might encourage people to leave us alone for the simple benefit of drawing cards. We can of course try to capitalize on this through Horizon Chimera or even try to win with Psychosis Crawler. This all gets more hilarious when our Alms Collector lands in the soft, feathery safety of our fortress.
Speaking of wincons, the most obviously funny is Azor's Elocutors. All we have to do now is wait, but with so much hate suddenly coming our way, we need a steady supply of Fog, Haze of Pollen and
Commencement of Festivities
. Condemn takes care of big ugly beaters and Entrapment Maneuver also provides blockers for the rest of the army. It might be wise to save Comeuppance for that one opponent who think they are being clever with their direct damage spells when we have four filibusters. In the same vein as the Elocutors, Luminarch Ascension wants us to protect it. It is less immediately obvious than an actual "You Win!", but pumping out a 4/4 flying for 1W is definitely something we want to work towards. For budget reasons, Luminarch is out. Replacing it we have the great combo of Aphetto Alchemist + Illusionist's Bracers + Prodigal Sorcerer
for infinite damage goodness. We might need more ways to protect all of these pieces however...
Now how do we pay for all of this? The most explicit infinite mana combo in the deck is Freed from the Real + Oasis Ritualist
, tapping and exerting for 2 blue, using one to untap, tapping and exerting for 2 of another color, using the floating blue to untap, tap+exert for 2 blue, etc... Another, quicker way if we have the right lands is Freed from the Real + Hope Tender
, for a pretty obvious combo.
