Pure Aikido! Aikido is to use certain abilties to make the opponent lose by blocking, using momentum against him/her/whomever, and making the opponent harmless. This is like using damage prevention, damage redirection, using the opponent's creatures blocking against him/her/whoever, using the opponent's creatures attacking against him/her/whomever, counterspell and damage which is prevention and damage, and temporarily exiling at the most pure. If I used a normal exile card that is removal, it would cease to be aikido.
My win condition is to slowly sap their life through a few means.
I have 81 cards because I want to have a variety of win-conditions, and since I have quite a few drawing cards cards, it's somewhat balanced in number of cards that I need to have in my deck and my ability to access them.
"Piercing Block" of Essence Backlash and Ionize can deal quite some damage.
"Attack Return with Block" of Deflecting Palm is obvious. Harm's Way is useful with being a sort of Deflecting Palm as well as keeping Boros Reckoner, Harmonic Prodigy and Spellweaver Eternal alive.
"The Martial Art in Wisdom" of Deliberate, Opt, and Divination and Meldweb Curator with Archmage Emeritus
Wizard Combos:
Harmonic Prodigy with Archmage Emeritus can draw two cards per use of instant/sorcery.
Harmonic Prodigy with Irencrag Pyromancer can deal at least 6 damage together per turn.
Harmonic Prodigy with Boros Reckoner deals twice the received and sent damage.
Harmonic Prodigy with Spellweaver Eternal deals twice the afflict damage.
Harmonic Prodigy with Meldweb Curator to draw two more cards from the graveyard and put them on the library.Meldweb Curator is like a tutor card, which is very useful.
Clone is for putting some chaos into the battle. What will they do when they face their own image? Fatespinner is also a great chaotic card, as it will likely be the number one target of the battle.
The Stances of Readiness" Basri Ket is useful with Boros Reckoner the most, but if I have Basri Ket for any of my creatures, whenever they block or are blocked I can make them indestructible, which is a huge boon.
"Trick of Temporary Vulnerability with Attack Return" Especially with Gideon's Sacrifice, I can use Boros Reckoner with it and redirect damage, and with Basri Ket i can do it without dying. Spellweaver Eternal is also useful with Basri Ket as I can redirect damage over and over again without dying. I can also protect my Harmonic Prodigy as the carrier of my wizards.
1x Detention Sphere is a great choice for purely and truly aikido.
Oketra's Last Mercy is very useful, but I'm not sure if it's allowed in aikido, so I'm replacing it with Fatespinner.
Unfortunately, I think that aikido doesn't use pure counterspells. That would be like blocking but not aikido. So in good faith, I'm removing them.
The highest MV card I have is at 4, so I think that my manabase is just fine. I've noted that whenever drawing mana cards in a deck, without too little or too much, it's around 1/3 of the deck that makes for the best. Whenever I had 24 mana cards in a 60 card deck, I found myself often drawing too many throughout the game. Of course, this is dependent upon things like Arboreal Grazer but regardless...
I played with this Aikido deck against my deck deck:igne-natura-renovatur-integra-1
In both games I got manageable hands on hand drawing. Countered with Ionize in both games. Also relied heavily upon Irencrag Pyromancer.
Game I: In the first game I managed to get an irencrag and a Harmonic prodigy, thus dealing 6 damage with a deliberate. Thren while i was being continually burned, the opponent played an Eidolon. At 4 health I played another irencrag, and an Opt. Don't know if I lost the game or won it, or it was a tie?
Game II:
Opponent had difficulty drawing lands. I casted two irencrags and two clones of them. Put down a weaver and blocked his swiftspear. Used a ionize. Opponent finally got mana. Burned me to 8 health and I used a draw spell twice. I won.
Also, note that am using this chunky 80 card aikido deck, versus a competitive 60 card burn deck.
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