Introduction
This deck is built around two ideas:
- Power Conduit can take counters off of Sagas to repeat their abilities from turn to turn.
- The third ability of The Raven's Warning puts a sideboard card on top of your deck. If that card is a creature, you can cheat it into play by casting Reason / Believe from the graveyard.
This is my favorite deck I've built. The wishboard leads to interesting choices and varied gameplay, but at the same time, the deck feels synergistic and cohesive. It's also a lot of fun to build around. I hope you enjoy!
Gameplan
The deck starts defensively, and grinds out value from Sagas until it can find the pieces for a big power spike, which usually come from the sideboard. Sometimes that power spike is a big sideboard creature, and sometimes it is a lock.
With the right opening hand, you can get Emrakul out as soon as turn 4. But the deck doesn't necessarily need these big power spikes quickly to win. It can also be a threat by gradually making the Saga value grind more and more dangerous.
Depending on your sideboard choices, the deck can play like a combo deck, like a prison deck, or like a value engine deck. No two games feel alike, but these strategies are not in conflict with one another because they are chosen situationally from the sideboard.
Notable Mechanics
Individual Card Discussion
Key Cards
- Power Conduit: The key card. It significantly improves every Saga.
- The Raven's Warning: The Saga the deck is built around. The third ability enables your wincons, but the first two abilities are a great source of life, creature tokens, and card draw. The second ability also gives information about the opponent's hand, letting you make more informed choices from the wishboard.
- Reason / Believe: Believe cheats out big sideboard creatures, and Reason helps you hit your land drops for a turn 4 Emrakul.
Other Sagas
- The Birth of Meletis: Fetches lands early, and goes wide with blockers.
- Binding the Old Gods: Destroys one non-land permanent a turn as early as turn 3.
- Scroll of Isildur: Situational, but stealing an artifact every turn (without necessarily needing to return it) can be very effective against some decks. Best in a meta with The One Ring.
- Fall of the Thran: In addition to the lock, it can also be played fairly to buy time. We are usually the less-affected player, since we have mana dorks and we don't need to cast spells to generate value.
Tutors
Board Wipes
Ramp
Other
- Ghostly Prison: Enables the Fall of the Thran lock, and works well with the ability to go wide with tokens.
- The Reality Chip: Significantly improves Tribute Mage by giving it a second possible fetch target. It might seem like an odd duck at first glance, but it synergizes well across the deck's many strategies. It blocks early on. It leverages ramp to get card advantage. It plays cards from the top of your deck, getting sideboard cards into play faster (including non-creatures).
- Hall of Heliod's Generosity: Works well with Sagas and can recur Out of Time the turn it is sacrificed.
Sideboard creatures (in general order of utility)
- Craterhoof Behemoth: Can win the game that same turn with enough creatures in play.
- Iona, Shield of Emeria: Can lock the opponent out entirely.
- Emrakul, the Aeons Torn: Doesn't get you the extra turn and can't win instantly like Craterhoof or Iona, but it's a strong, reliable choice, especially if you haven't seen your opponent's hand.
- Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur: If you know the above 3 can't win or will be removed, it can be a good source of cards.
- Terastodon: Situational, but useful for attacking the manabase. Can steal wins against Amulet Titan.
- Platinum Angel: Sometimes your only choice if none of the other options can keep you from losing next turn. Can set up a better creature for the next turn.
Sideboard non-creatures (in general order of utility)
- Starfield of Nyx: Takes the deck to the next gear in terms of grinding out Saga value.
- Fall of the Thran: Another way to get the lock piece.
- Binding the Old Gods: The fourth copy of one of the most powerful maindeck cards. A good choice if you can't generate five mana.
- Overwhelming Splendor: Expensive, but a wincon in its own right against some decks.
- Wheel of Sun and Moon: An answer to mill decks, but also lets you eventually deck the opponent with the Fall of the Thran lock.
- Swamp: If you can't afford Reason / Believe this turn, a guaranteed land can enable the combo next turn. A basic land feels like a boring choice, but I'm not convinced other options are strictly better.
- The Immortal Sun: An answer to planeswalker decks.
- Out of Time and Cyclonic Rift: If you need these urgently, it's probably too late, but they can be useful if you have The Reality Chip or card draw to play them that same turn. They are the only two cards that reasonably get sideboarded between games.
Stray Observations
- When building around Power Conduit, look for Sagas that get most of their value out of one ability. Binding the Old Gods is a great example.
- Also look for Sagas like Scroll of Isildur, which typically have a short-term effect that we can prolong indefinitely.
- Unfortunately, the deck folds completely to Solemnity. It's such an unwinnable matchup that I don't even try to have an answer for it.
- Like any deck with a wishboard, the deck is strongest in game 1 and weaker after that. There's an argument to be made that the sideboard should have fewer wish targets and more typical sideboard cards, but I like getting the most possible utility out of the wishboard.
- Though not inspired by it, the deck is an odd cousin of Dice Factory. Many of the choices that keep it from going in a similar colorless direction are informed by the focus on The Raven's Warning.
- In general, I think the Power Conduit + Saga archetype is underutilized. This deck is built around The Raven's Warning in particular, but I think the approach would be effective across many colors and strategies.
Conclusion
When deckbuilding, I enjoy finding an interesting design space and taking that idea as far as it can go. This isn't a tier deck, but it is the most powerful deck with Power Conduit and The Raven's Warning that I could build. In casual settings, it feels strong and optimized.
If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to share. And if you do pick up the deck, enjoy! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have.
