This deck holds the distinction of being the first truly constructed deck I've really built. Generally, I fall much more in the "buy lots of cards then see what you've got" camp, adding singles here and there to fill holes. But this little card,
Arcanum Wings
, from Future Sight kept catching my eye, begging for its day of glory.
The original idea was to use
Arcanum Wings
to sneak Celestial Mantle into a completely different mono-blue deck, purely for the shock value. Logistically, that proved to be a nightmare, so then I shifted gears and started designing this deck using those cards as the centerpiece. The fact that Celestial Mantle requires dealing damage to your opponent to trigger its ability led me to consider using primarily unblockable creatures.
From there, one thing pretty much led to another, and I filled out most of the deck with powerful enchantments from a variety of sets. Not wanting to rely on only 1 set of 4
Arcanum Wings
as the mode for getting these on the battlefield, I added a set of
Academy Researchers
and a couple of their buddy Eldrazi Conscription for good measure. A secondary removal theme bubbled up, which is how I ended up with
Nettlevine Blight
and Cephalid Constable, who becomes a pretty potent bouncer when equipped with
Epic Proportions
& the like.
So there it is. Somehow I've created a blue aggro deck. The major risk I've found with the deck is drawing too many auras upfront, which cramps your hand with stuff you can't play for several turns. Surprisingly, however, this hasn't seemed to be much of an issue. Since every single creature or castable spell is CMC 3 or under, it's still moved fairly quickly. Also, it's a very expensive deck to buy as singles, particularly the key enchantments, which is a drawback. I wouldn't have put this together if I hadn't already had the majority of it. However, that said, it's a lot of fun, and it's played very well in the extremely limited number of casual games I've played it in.
UPDATE 3/21/15: Removed slower creatures in favor of Triton Shorestalker. This has been a great help, since it allows for a turn one drop, turn 2
Arcanum Wings
, turn 3 Aura Swap for one of the big enchantments. In my last game, this allowed me to hit with Celestial Mantle on turn 3, which pretty much locked the game down from there. Also updated by adding in a full count of Invisible Stalker. I realized the deck was weak against removal, so its hexproof goes a long way. Also removed
Nettlevine Blight
for an additional two
Epic Proportions
, since the former has turned out to be just way too slow for this deck.
Thoughts welcome. The deck is designed for casual play, and not intended to be tournament quality. Thanks!
