This is a Standard deck I'm playing in MTG Arena. I'm pleased to report that this is my own concoction. The main idea was to leverage the Containment Priest by using temporary exile effects. After a few iterations and a bit of playtesting, it looks a little bit like a control deck. Removal heavy and threat light, it takes several turns to exhaust our opponent's resources, but card value and 2-for-1s tend to go the distance. In the late game, mythic rares provide card draw and card selection. Lastly, a deck centered around the weirdnesses provided by Containment Priest and Flicker of Fate is unfamiliar to most opponents; opponent's misplays involving our key cards are extremely common.
The biggest upside comes from Flicker of Fate, which is almost a Path to Exile with the Containment Priest in play. Calix, Destiny's Hand is a little underwhelming, his -3 ability is really strong with Saga enchantments and Containment Priest. You can temporarily exile something with Calix, Destiny's Hand and chain it to your Saga. When the Saga dies, the creature stays exiled if Containment Priest is on the battlefield. Containment Priest makes Glass Casket and Banishing Light harder for the opponent to play against. Because Containment Priest has flash, you can ambush the destruction of your removal enchantments by flashing in the Priest in response. This leaves a bad taste in the opponent's mouth, and they have to play around this for the rest of the match.
Nylea, Keen-Eyed is one of the worst cards in the deck, but it does power up Calix, Destiny's Hand a little bit, both by increasing the chance of his +1 ability paying off, and by providing an indestructible enchantment to tether Calix's -3 ability to. It's real value, however, is drawing cards at flash speed in a stalemate. When our back is to the wall, it digs for a sweeper (Realm-Cloaked Giant), it digs for a dork-killer and otherwise flexible small target removal (Skyclave Apparition), and a big threat answer (Giant Killer). When Nylea, Keen-Eyed whiffs you still have the option to keep the card, albeit on the top of your library to draw later. For this reason we want to activate this ability at the end of our opponent's turn so we can control our next draw, as well as to limit the amount of information we give the opponent for free...no need to reveal the card on top of our library until the moment before we untap. It's exceedingly unlikely to meet the devotion requirement to become a creature, for what it's worth.
Setessan Champion is another weak point in this list, which is why we only play two of them. It lives through Bonecrusher Giant, it blocks Skyclave Apparitions and other little nerds, and sometimes it draws us a card when we play it in sequence with Banishing Light or The First Iroan Games. Opponents need to respect that Setessan Champion can grow to a real threat, and it makes another spot to drop your The First Iroan Games +1/+1 counters. It's a creature to pull back with Elspeth Conquers Death, even though that's not too frequent. Unfortunately, it has no impact when it hits the battlefield, and 3 mana puts it in range of almost EVERY conditional removal spell in standard.
Flicker of Fate is a little better than it looks at first. Besides the Containment Priest combo, this deck offers some other value opportunites.
It protects Containment Priest. It resets sagas. It resets Banishing Light, which can help you target other permanent types with your most flexible removal. In extreme cases it to resets Skyclave Apparition, but that set of weird interactions gets it's own section. In a particular set of corner cases, it blinks Legion Angel to trigger another sideboard tutor. It is rare, but this comes up if the opponent forces certain discards, or if the next turn might somehow require hardcasting 2 Legion Angels in the same turn.
Flicker of Fate makes a great interaction with Skyclave Apparition's enter the battlefield effect. If Flicker of Fate hits Skyclave Apparition with the Apparition's first ability on the stack, the second ability will hit the stack before the first trigger resolves, which means no Illusion token is created from the first apparition target...this is weird and counter-intuitive, but it results in 2 of the opponent's permanents being exiled. When dust settles and the stack resolves, Skyclave Apparition reenters the battlefield and triggers again, a second piece of the opponent's board get's removed.
I think the rest of the card choices and interactions are pretty much self explanatory. The first card I would cut is Setessan Champion, but I haven't been to unhappy with it, so I haven't bothered to hunt for optimal replacements. Then maybe Nylea, Keen-Eyed, but I'm less sold on that cut. Nylea has been pretty clutch in a few matches, so now I need to start paying attention to how frequently I have it in hand when I don't want it at all. I almost never cast Emeria's Call
, so I don't hesitate to play it tapped on turn one. Same goes for Bala Ged Recovery
. This deck runs a lot of removal, so I tend to pull the Glass Casket trigger pretty easily. The only thing to remember about Glass Casket is that it is the least synergistic arrow in the removal quiver. It can't be recurred, or reset, and neither Nylea, Keen-Eyed nor Calix, Destiny's Hand can dig for it. Banishing Light is the most flexible removal in the deck, so it might be the one card to consider slow-rolling. Legion Angel, Emeria's Call
, and Crawling Barrens bring it home with the win conditions.
Lastly, I would consider adding Yorion, the Sky Nomad and a few other cards to go up to 80...I feel like the advantage could be worth it. I'm also considering cutting Settessan Champion and 1 Nylea, Keen-Eyed for 3 Yorion, The Sky Nomad. Maybe the Sky Nomad blinking sagas and removal permanents is better than 3 and 4 drops that don't dramatically effect the battlefield when they enter.
Please try out my deck! If you have any ideas or questions, please share!
