Fak U Dolan, Y U do this?! T.T
My rendition of a Doran, the Siege Tower deck is a weird intermixture between aggro and control, with its' creature-heavy focus combined with (usually) one-sided board wipes and one-sided pillowfort-esque control cards. Here's a thorough breakdown:
The Doran deck has great "toughness matters" approach to beatdown, with Doran, the Siege Tower front and center of it all, making all creatures in the game attack with their toughness instead of their power, so note that e.g. a Rhox Faithmender should for all intents and purposes be considered a 5/5 lifelink effectively. This means, of course, that the deck offers almost no creatures with power equal to their toughness. Besides Doran, the deck runs Assault Formation to make toughness matter, but note this only affects your side of the board. This also has a built in temporary anthem mana sink, as well as allowing your defenders attacking, Tree of Perdition being the only noteworthy card here. Brave the Sands is fantastic for a toughness matters deck, because, mostly, this means you should never be scared to swing with your creatures every turn.
Ramp
Let's start with the ramp. Of course the deck runs the EDH staple Sol Ring, but besides that one only one mana rock is in the deck, namely Chromatic Lantern because of its' mana fixing potential. Instead, because the deck benefits highly being creature heavy, I opted using mana dork instead, namely Birds of Paradise, Sylvan Caryatid, Shaman of Forgotten Ways, Utopia Tree, and Bloom Tender. I'll add that Utopia Tree will be removed from the deck in favor of Llanowar Loamspeaker when it is released, as it just a straight upgrade, having a better stat-line with an added land-animation effect on top. Additionally the deck runs some straight ramp creatures in Primal Druid, Yavimaya Elder and Karametra, God of Harvests *f-etch*, as well as some cards that allows you to play more lands either from your deck or your hands, namely Exploration, Courser of Kruphix, Augur of Autumn, and Dryad of the Ilysian Grove. Note that Augur of Autumn also becomes a pseudo card draw engine if you have the coven effect active, which isn't difficult to do (eg. a 0, a 1 and, a 2 power creature on board). The creature Ramunap Excavator is basically a Crucible of Worlds on a body, and thus also works as a pseudo-ramp card with fetch lands like Marsh Flats, especially with a Exploration on the board.
Card Advantage
Now for how you are going to riffle through your deck. As mentioned above Augur of Autumn acts as a pseudo card draw engine, and that Yavimaya Elder can draw a card if you pay to sac him. Besides these, there are 9 other card draw engines in the deck, 7 of which are creatures. Beast Whisperer draws a card whenever you play a creature spell; Heartwood Storyteller lets anyone draw whenever anyone play a non-creature spell; Mangara, the Diplomat is generally hard to play around without you drawing cards; Runic Armasaur punishes other players using mana dorks or other activated abilities; Erebos, God of the Dead is a great mana sink card draw engine; Sapling of Colfenor lets you draw a card and gain life if the top card of your library is a creature card; Shadrix Silverquill may let you draw a card each of your combat phases; Welcoming Vampire is a Mentor of the Meek without the tax, a bigger body and evasion, though it may only trigger once each turn. Guardian Project effectively has the same effect as Beast Whisperer; Phyrexian Arena straight up lets you draw an additional card each of your turns. Note that Heartwood Storyteller will benefit you the most, unless you play against a The First Sliver deck or similar aggro deck, and that Welcoming Vampire can prog on other players' turns as well, with Brimaz, King of Oreskos and Arasta of the Endless Web. Besides card draw, there are two tutors in the deck, namely Vampiric TutorGC at instant speed, and Demonic TutorGC at sorcery speed, to search for answers when needed. There is also a few recursion cards, namely Unburial Rites which you can cast twice, and the aftermath part of Dusk / Dawn which acts as a mass graveyard fetch that targets almost every single creature in the deck.
Evasion
The evasion cards are straight forward. Behind the Scenes is a mass evasion card for your deck, most of the time, with an added temporary anthem mana sink ability. This really only falls short against token decks, like The Locust God, which can be counteracted with Magus of Tabernacle who offers token hate. Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa also offers mass evasion, unless your opponents runs reach of flying, the latter which this deck also has an answer for in Silklash Spider. Whispersilk Cloak and Access Tunnel grants great evasion options for single creatures, which may matter a lot with the decks infect creatures. Lastly, the deck offers some pseudo evasion in Gorm the Great, when an opponents has few creatures.
Staying alive
With the decks control sub-theme, it is important to have a few options to gain some life, to stay in the game until you can finish of the game. Mangara, the Diplomat and Rhox Faithmender straight up has lifelink, the latter of which doubles your life gain. Note that if Rhox Faithmender is alone on the board with Doran, the Siege Tower, it grants 10 life every time it attacks or blocks. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose and Vault of the Archangel are mass life link mana sinks, both with its' own additional effect (draining opponents' life total, or mass deathtouch). Trostani, Selesnya's Voice will gain you life whenever a creature enters the battlefield. Note that there aren't many tokens to populate, but Brimaz, King of Oreskos and Arasta of the Endless Web both grants tokens to populate. Ikra Sidiqi, the Usurper will gain you life whenever a creature you control connects with an opponent, effectively granting them conditional lifelink. Lastly Courser of Kruphix will net you an added bonus of 1 life whenever you play a land, and Sapling of Colfenor might gain you some life as well.
Control, destruction and tech cards
Besides the aggro theme, I mentioned that the decks sported a control sub-theme. Noetic Scales offers some big-creature hate, like The Ur-Dragon, as the controllers' of said big creatures need to hold a lot of cards on their hands to keep their creatures on the board. Meekstone is an absolutely amazing control card in this deck, due to its' one-sided nature. It is probably the golden pick in the deck. Note that cards like Seedborn MuseGC or vigilance in general will circumvent this effect, though. Ensnaring Bridge is a more flexible Moat effect, as you effectively choose the max power of creatures that may attack. Crackdown is effectively a budget option of Meekstone, as it does not affect white creatures, and cost way more to cast. White, however, usually does not sport the largest of creatures anyway. Arasta of the Endless Web is a pseudo control card, as it prevents storm decks going of without some repercussions.
Now, what regards destruction, most of the destruction in the game are mass effects, not single targeted. There are are few though. Vindicate is a great targeted removal, that can target anything. Maelstrom Pulse can't target lands, but it does however destroy every copy of what you destroy, so if you target a staple like Sol Ring, it will get rid of every players copy of it. The last targeted removal is on a creature with Fiend Hunter. Aura ShardsGC offers a repeatable artifact and enchantment hate, everytime you play a creature spell, which in this deck is a lot. Now for the mass removal: Fell the Mighty is a great and flexible board wipe, that effectively lets you choose the highest allowed power value on the board; Dusk / Dawn is an incredible board wipe that removes any creature with power 3 or greater, which is almost none of the creatures in this deck. And even so, some of the creatures it does target, like Erebos, God of the Dead and Karametra, God of Harvests *f-etch* are indestructible; Solar Tide gives you the option to destroy everything instead of only the high-power creatures, in case of a token deck popping of; Retribution of the Meek targets creatures with power 4 and greater, which make it worse than Dusk / Dawn, but it is still worth including in the deck; Slaughter the Strong is a highly beneficial sacrifice board wipe, as a total power of 4 amongst your creatures will be several creatures; Wave of Reckoning hits none of the creatures in the deck, except Yavimaya Elder who want to die really. Note that life link creatures prog the life gain from this board wipe; Toxic Deluge is the last board wipe, and should be considered a hail marry last resort kinda deal, as it will target your side of the board. Additionally, Silklash Spider is a repeatable flyer boardwipe on a stick.
Lastly, the tech cards. Arasta of the Endless Web has already been covered. Erebos, God of the Dead is the greatest answer to heavy life gain decks like Oloro, Ageless Ascetic there is. Magus of the Tabernacle heavily punishes any deck that goes wide, most notable token decks. Ramunap Excavator is a great answer against decks that sports land destruction cards like Strip Mine, Armageddon or Casualties of War. Now, for the deceptively good tech cards, namely Gluntch, the Bestower and Shadrix Silverquill. These allow you to buff the power of opponents creatures with +1/+1 counters. The reason why this is great is because of the many, many boardwipes where the total power of the creature matters. So if a creature is outside kill range, you can have it get some +1/+1 counter for it to perish to the board wipe. Both of these also enables some diplomacy to be had at the table. Note that early on, you can choose a player who has no creatures to put +1/+1 counters on their creatures.
Finishing the game
Finishing off a game is always a tall order. For this, cards like Guiltfeeder hits like a speeding truck on steroids if it connects, which its' built in evasion helps with. Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose might finish off an opponent every now and again, and same is to be said about Shaman of Forgotten Ways. The Tree of Perdition can severely soften up an opponent if played early enough, with the added benefit of a formidable blocker. Shadrix Silverquill and Stoneskin is at least a 30 damage swing if it connects, so that might also finish of an opponent. The true finisher of the deck, however, is infect. The deck offers three infect creatures, namely Blightwidow, Priests of Norn, and Tangle Angler. All of these become more imposing in the light of the decks temporary anthem effects like Behind the Scenes and Assault Formation, but the real MVP of the deck is 3cmc flash enchantment Stoneskin, which will outright kill any player if you cast it on a connecting infect creature. If your infect creatures are still in the deck, or even worse are dead, however, Triumph of the Hordes will turn your entire board into infect creatures with trample and an anthem effect.
Noteworthy lands
Besides the previously mentioned Vault of the Archangel and Access Tunnel, there are a few noteworthy lands in the deck. These are Forbidding Watchtower which can turn into a 5/5 creature effectively; Khalni Garden which creatures a 0/1 creature that will protect you against sacrifice effects like Diabolic Edict; Yavimaya Hollow which will make your commander more sticky on the board. Note that the bounce lands like Selesnya Sanctuary are extra potent with Exploration and similar effects.
Maybeboard discussion
There are a few cards that didn't make the cut. I'm going to break them down here. Axebane Guardian is a great mana dork if your deck is filled to the brim with defender cards. This is not the case, however, so he was cut from the list. A similar situation is to be described about Wakestone Gargoyle. Speaking of mana dorks, Faeburrow Elder is a great mana dork, in a 4+ color deck, but seeing as it costs two different colors to cast, is a 3cmc creature, effectively does the same as Bloom Tender, and will die to a Wave of Reckoning, it didn't make the cut. And speaking of mana, the great mana rocks Arcane Signet, Golgari Signet, Selesnya Signet, and Orzhov Signet was cut in favor of more creature based ramp, due to the decks creature heavy theme. If the deck would lack more straight ramp Sakura-Tribe Elder and Skyshroud Claim could be considered.
Abzan Beastmaster was cut due to me finding him to be a sub-par card draw engine, with his disadvantageous stat line and conditional card draw. Colfenor, the Last Yew offers some superb late game card advantage, but I found him to be too expensive in the light of him dying to most of the decks board wipes. If you feel like the decks could use one more tutor effect Eladamri's Call is a great option with it being at instant speed.
God-Eternakl Oketra was a difficult cut, as she hits like a truck, creates tokens, and keeps appearing no matter how often she is destroyed. However, her dying to most board wipes was the reason she wasn't not included in the final draft. Skinshifter I simply felt was too bothersome to include, as you need to keep mana open for him to transform. Mana you could use on other things.
In regards to removal Giant Killer would be an option for more targeted creature removal. Sculpted Sunburst is yet another one-sided board wipe, but as it was sub-par in comparison to those who made the cut, this was not included.
If you feel like the deck lacks evasion options Rogue's Passage and Tawnos's Wand are great options.
Lastly, if your playgroup is heavy on commander-hate, consider Mask of Avacyn or Swiftfoot Boots.
RIP Kharis & the Beholder
