I wanted to build a deck with a lot of heavy hitters, while at the same time including the removal that most red decks have. This deck started out as a Gruul deck, but I'm a huge fan of the angels,
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
,
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
and
Lyra Dawnbringer
, so I added white to the mix. The fact that Shalai's activated ability costs green was just an added bonus.
As long as I was adding white, I decided to include
Prison Realm
to deal with planeswalkers, and
Ajani, the Greathearted
for lifegain and pumping my creatures/planeswalkers. I felt that, if I was going to add an extra color,
Paradise Druid
would need to be at least a 3-of for mana fixing. Finally,
Sarkhan the Masterless
,
Carnage Tyrant
, and
Nissa, Who Shakes the World
were there for late-game.
Summary:
Ramp -
Llanowar Elves
/
Paradise Druid
/
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
Removal -
Shock
/
Lightning Strike
/
Domri's Ambush
/
Prison Realm
/
Skarrgan Hellkite
Big-Hitters -
Rekindling Phoenix
/
Lyra Dawnbringer
/
Carnage Tyrant
/
Aurelia, Exemplar of Justice
Protection -
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
Lifegain -
Ajani, the Greathearted
As far as the sideboard goes,
Thrashing Brontodon
and
Vivien Reid
were added to deal with artifacts and enchantments,
Tocatli Honor Guard
for ETB effeccts (especially "explore" triggers), and
Legion Warboss
for early-game pressure.
Absent are
Growth-Chamber Guardian
,
Thorn Lieutenant
and
Gruul Spellbreaker
. On their own, these cards just seemed to vanilla to me. There was nothing special about them, and I thought that, since I'm ramping with more than 20% of my deck, I could include more of the bigger threats.
Finally, Naya featured so many good creatures that it was hard to cut some of them to bring my deck down to 60. Here are some other options I was toying with:
Nullhide Ferox
,
God-Eternal Rhonas
,
Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
,
God-Eternal Oketra
,
Ripjaw Raptor
If you have any suggestions or comments, I gladly welcome them. Thanks!
