Orzhov's Damaging Lifelink

Standard* birchmaster22

SCORE: 13 | 22 COMMENTS | 1890 VIEWS | IN 3 FOLDERS


Card Change —Sept. 20, 2020

I have made the following changes:

The deck's description has been altered to accommodate these changes.

MrBoombastic says... #1

Hi there!

Would be pretty cool to see a proper cleric deck in Standard. I like the idea and have some suggestions:

  • One of the things the deck is missing is some card draw, which Taborax, Hope's Demise brings alongside some strong beats and potentially even lifelink. He's also a great target for your Heliod, Sun-Crowned counters. I'd swap Grimdancer for him. You might want to start out with just 3 copies though and then maybe add a 4th if he's good enough to not mind drawing multiples.

  • Nullpriest of Oblivion is definitely an upgrade to Expedition Healer. It has lifegain + evasion and it even adds to the minor reanimation theme lategame. Great card here.

  • Impassioned Orator is a cheaper version of Kor Celebrant.

  • If you're playing on Arena, Hallowed Priest is both a cleric and synergizes well with the lifegain strategy. Apparently they don't have it in the TappedOut database. Maybe because it's an Arena-only card.

  • Both Emeria's Call and Agadeem's Awakening are great substitutes for lands. Unless you're on a budget, I think you should almost always play some amount of these instead of lands. Maybe 2 of each for a start. Just remember that they should be played as lands that once in a while double as a lategame bomb, if you have the mana for it.

  • Looking at your curve, I think you want more lands. Probably at least 25-26, including possible flip cards. Also needed if you're adding Hallowed Fountain, as they will otherwise make for some awkward openers where you're missing a color.

  • Definitely only play 60 cards in your deck, always. There's never any really good reason to play more than the minimum amount, as that makes for the most consistency. Having trouble cutting cards? Find some candidates for the worst cards in the deck and cut out some number of them, until you're down to 60. I suggest all the spells in this case. Cling to Dust is mainly a sideboard card against Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath and Revitalize doesn't do much either.

Hope that helps. I feel like putting something together on Arena myself now.

September 19, 2020 10:04 a.m.

birchmaster22 says... #2

Alright. I want to start off by saying thank you for all of these suggestions MrBoombastic. Now here are my responses:

  • Taborax, Hope's Demise was something that I always thought about putting in my deck, but replacing Grimdancer isn't something that I want to do. The main reason being the deathtouch counter, which has saved me more times than I can count on my hands when I playtested this deck. If anything, I might replace Expedition Healer and one of the Indulging Patrician for it, or Cling to Dust and 1 or 2 Revitalize depending on needs.

  • Nullpriest of Oblivion is probably going to be added in to replace whatever Taborax, Hope's Demise doesn't replace in the options above.

  • Impassioned Orator is indeed a direct upgrade. Only thing being... it's Core 2020, which is rotating out, so sadly not going to make it in the deck.

  • Hallowed Priest is indeed an arena-only card as it's part of the Arena Beginner Set, which isn't standard legal anyway. It's really just a reprinted Ajani's Pridemate.

  • I'm most definitely going to run some more of the modal lands. My friends have be egging me to do it for quite a while. Emeria's Call and Agadeem's Awakening are definitely going in.

  • In my personal experience, I have never run more than 23 lands at any given time if the deck itself isn't centered around the lands. My friends will also tell you the same thing. I'm not saying you're wrong, it's just my personal preference. And I'm not having any land troubles so far so I'm good for now. (And it's Radiant Fountain, not Hallowed Fountain)

  • I definitely agree with your statement, but in this particular case, I'm doing perfectly fine right now. I'm currently not having much, or any, consistency issue, so why fix something that's not broke. And I'm not having trouble choosing what to get rid of either, I just don't feel the need to do so right now. Should I find consistency issues in playtesting, I'll change up the deck, but until then, the disclaimer is staying.

Anyway, hope that clears some stuff up, and thanks again for your suggestions. If you have anything else you want to suggest or questions you want to ask, let me know.

September 19, 2020 12:01 p.m.

MrBoombastic says... #3

  • The thing about modal lands is that you get to play a lower land count, while still having access to more lands. Frank Karsten, one of the big brains when it comes to Magic and math, wrote an interesting article about land count a couple of years ago. Not the end-all be-all when it comes to how many lands to play, but worth a read for most brewers imo:

Note: With 22 lands in a 66 card deck, you're playing the equivalent of 20 lands in a 60 card deck. That's about the lowest amount you'd see in any hyper-aggro deck in Standard in recent years.

  • Just read up on the Arena Starter Kit - guess Impassioned Orator is only legal in Bo1 Standard on Arena then, my bad. I was taken aback by the Wizards homepage still stating that it's legal in all formats.

  • If you want to roll with 66 cards, that's totally cool. If it feels right, there's no need to change that. But cutting down to 60 cards will, with 100% certainty, make your deck better, no matter how consistent it feels. It just hightens your chances of drawing your best cards and there will always be cuttables.

  • Final question: are you triggering Indulging Patrician consistently enough for it to warrant a spot? Just noticed it isn't a cleric.

Thanks for the inspiration mate. I feel like this'll be fun to play around with. Good luck with the brew!

September 19, 2020 2:53 p.m.