Howdy Pauper players! There's a lot of ideas floating around in this thread and I'm here to ask for more. Whether its a card I may not have thought of or if its more practical advice like "with 4 Meliras and 4 Wirewood heralds, you don't need transmute as well to find a copy," I'm to any ideas. I'll include a link to TappedOut for people to read the cards all in one place but it won't be a playable 75.
Behold! This deck aims to have several creatures out on the field at once and executing a combo with a free sac outlet and looping a persist creature with Ivy Lane Denizen (which cancels out the -1/-1 counter) for an infinite number.
Persist creatures:
- Safehold elite
- Rendclaw Trow (Putrid goblin is cheaper but not green to work with Ivy Lane Denizen)
Sac outlet:
- Vicsera seer (scrys to the next combo piece of infinite life or damage)
- Carrion feeder (can't block)
- Bloodthrone vampire (only 2 mana)
- Bloodflow connoisseur (permanent counters)
Melira:
- Ivy lane denizen
Tutor creature:
- Wirewood herald (searches for Ivy lane, Safehold elite, Essence warden - there's no pauper elf sac outlets)
Infinite life:
- Essence warden
For spells you can go in several directions
- Cards like Commune to Nature
- Cards to protect like Ranger's guile (only adds 1 to toughness to protect from damage), Apostle's blessing (protects from damage and removal), Vines of the vastwood (4/4 probably not needed), Mutagenic growth (free but doesn't protect 1 toughness guys from bolt)
- Cards like Unearth (doesn't bring back ivy land denizen), can be combined with other cards that fill the gy, like dredge... maybe playing one of each of the combo pieces in a TortEx deck for some sneaky wins would be really cool
- Cards to refill like Winding way and Lead the stampede (probably better to have the selection over quantity and have protection cards + Commune with nature cards to get the combo faster)
- Evolution charm which is great in every mode, fixes mana if you're stuck on 2 or missing black, slow Unearth, give flying to your fatty to steal games.
Other considerations:
Transmute:
- Shred memory (gets your persist creatures, sac outlet if you play Bloodthrone, Wirewood herald if you only need Ivy lane)
- Dimir house guard (gets Ivy lane)
Ashnod's altar for infinite mana
- Combo with Stream of life for infinite life
- Doesn't work with Consume spirit because it says black mana only
- Kaervek's torch if you somehow get red mana
Essense harvest is a neat little combo with your infinite P/T guy that might be able to sneak some wins past fog or blockers
Death denied (maybe with some self mill) to get back all of the pieces
The only Enters the Battlefield triggers I could find were Blood Seeker and Trespasser's Curse, which don't help us.
Lands:
Some number of
- Forest
- Swamp
- Jungle hollow
- Ash barrens
- Evolving wilds
- Bojuka bog
Questions to ponder:
- Which of the 3 growing threats fits best in the deck (Carrion Feeder, Bloodthrone, or Bloodflow) and how many would fit in the deck (and if we want a mix)
- We almost assuredly want 4-of both persisters, Ivy Lane, and Wirewood Herald, but how many Essence Wardens and Viscera Seers do we want? (from playing Melira combo in modern, I can say that Viscera Seer is a very innocuous card and can get a lot of value out of saccing creatures in response to removal and sweepers and really help you get a lot closer to being able to comboing off again)
- What direction to take the noncreature spells - is quantity better and should we play Winding Way + Lead the Stampede? or is quality better and should we play protection + selection spells?
- Depending on which route we take with the noncreature spells, how many of each or how many total would be a good place to start?
- How many lands to start out at?
- Sideboard? ...nah
