I can't rightly explain where this idea came from exactly, but today while sifting through cards I stumbled across two that I'd never seen before. First, I was overjoyed to see Polymorphist's Jest. It's just so, so... It's wonderful. I love the art, I love the name, and I love what it does. One of my oldest and first favorite combat tricks in the first deck I ever built was in a mono-white deck that was a mixed bag of random. Humble does one very simple thing: take a creature of any size or type with any sort of nasty business and make it a 0/1 with nothing that can be chump blocked by damn near anything and die. Jest does this to their whole field. Love it. I immediately thought of Turn to Frog and the gears started churning.
Some time later I stumbled across one of the weirdest looking cards I've ever seen, and the text is so blunt that I thought it was one of those "create a magic card" cards. Turns out Godhead of Awe was totally a thing. Who knew?
So now I'm really in the zone thinking about how I can exploit this and started looking for Artifacts or Enchantments or some kind of effect that gives opponents creatures at least -0/-1 so that when these things get played their creatures just die. The closest thing I could find in Blue was Cumber Stone and Dampening Pulse. Now the 1/1 army is a 0/1 army. I did have access to white and Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite wasn't hard to find. Perfect.
Reverence.
Now I just need tempo and control cards that fit the bill until I can get the Norn / Godhead combo online. Pongify, Rapid Hybridization, and Swan Song all stop threats from happening and give your opponent an eventually useless token. Diminish, Turn to Frog, and Polymorphist's Jest all slow down the incoming damage to a crawl which should continue buying you time. It's OK to take 1-3 damage a turn as long as you find what you need there really won't be much to stop you. You're opponent should feel quite pathetic if they don't have an answer to Godhead of Awe (of all things...).
Another thought that came to mind was creating tokens on my side as well that can be traded with an attacking creature just like in the days of Humble. Secure the Wastes and Increasing Devotion fit that bill the best. I'm OK with trading creatures with my opponent, I'm not trying to win yet.
Eventually the shrinking effects lose their luster once you have a Godhead of Awe, but save them for backups. I wanted a way other than Elesh Norn to start turning the tides on my opponent and I was thinking of cards like Knighthood that would give my creatures first strike so we aren't just trading anymore. Cumber Stone does make their tokens pretty much useless, but not quite what I wanted. Archetype of Courage is absolutely perfect because not only do my tokens have First Strike, but there's no way for yours to have it. By the time you get to Elesh Norn they can't even have creatures and now all of my little dudes are actually 3/3's that are ready to close out this ridiculous game.
Serum Visions makes the deck playable by giving you Draw and Scry, it's about as close to just drawing 3 cards as you're going to get for one mana. Find that Godhead, find that Norn, win the game. It's just so silly.
I'm not even going to throw together a sideboard until I play this out and see if it even works, but it seems hilariously viable as a slow-roll tempo/control/mid-range deck that doesn't use about anything you'd expect to see in a deck that claims to be in any of those categories except maybe Swan Song and Serum Visions. People like those.
UPDATE - Sideboard has been created. Oh how I love the tricks.
Crovax, Ascendant Hero is Elesh Norn Lite. I do like how it accomplishes the same thing where it basically kills off opposing creatures when paired with Godhead of Awe, except when those creatures are white. The bonus here is that even without mana open he can be bounced back to your hand for 2 life which makes him harder to kill and would be swapped in against someone with burn or removal.
Marrow Shards can be payed for one white or two life which makes it a great combat trick. An opponent stuck with a bunch of 1/1 creatures can still chip away at your life even if you can block and kill one with the Godhead. Being tapped out and maybe just the Godhead means your defenses are down and your opponent will try to edge in damage however they can. Shards will wipe their board as soon as they try. I like it.
Thunderstaff basically negates their attacks from doing anything which I like. You can also use it's ability to push through essentially double the damage as a finisher. If your opponent doesn't have sweepers then going full out token rush is completely viable and wouldn't take long to overrun your opponent.
Jalira, Master Polymorphist was originally overlooked since it would most likely just give me a second Godhead which isn't desirable at all. Thinking about it, this would be a fine trick. Want to kill my Godhead? Sacrifice it to Jilira to evade the removal and it will probably get replaced with another. Nothing wrong with that. Don't have a Godhead? Sacrifice a token to go get one. The big drawback is that it would skip over Elesh Norn, but at least she just gets shuffled back into the library. Timing and strategy.
Polymorph and Mass Polymorph were completely overlooked somehow in the original build. Polymorph is amazing in the mainboard for the exact reason Jalira is on the table. Polymorph doesn't overlook Elesh Norn so if you sac a token you will get one of three things guaranteed, all of which are nice and part of your end game strategy. It made the cut for main board. Mass Polymorph stays in the sideboard because it takes a little rearranging to use. I would take out 3 of the Godheads and probably Archetype of Courage to add in Crovax and Requiem Angels. Playing Increasing Devotion on your fifth turn for 5 tokens and then Mass Polymorphing would give you a Crovax, Elesh Norn, Godhead, and Requiem Angel. Next turn you can Flashback the Increasing devotion for 10 creatures that would all be 4/4's and when they die they become 4/4's with Flying. If you got two Angels out of the deal then you would be getting two 4/4 flyers for every one on the ground that dies. That's a hell of a finisher. Go ahead, wipe my board. Die twice as hard.
Thanks for the suggestions of Thunderstaff and Marrow Shards by lagotripha, I like what they can do to change the strategy a little depending on what kind of deck I'm playing against. If they want to go wide with their own 1/1 tokens or wide with anything they would be severely gimped by adding these in.
UPDATED UPDATE - How the hell did I miss the ultimate protection of this ridiculous combo, Dovescape? Get set up with Godhead of Awe and Reverence and then drop this thing. The only thing allowed to be played by either player is creatures and they will always just be 1/1's anyway except they also can't attack. Doom Blade my Godhead? Nope. Have some Birds. Remove my Dovescape? Nope. Have some Birds. Play a big creature? Hey, is that a 1/1? Hilarious. It even plays brilliantly with Increasing Devotion and Secure the Wastes since instead of getting 5 or X 1/1 Tokens you get 5 or X 1/1 Flying Tokens. Upgrades!
What do you think? It'll make your friends laugh, I guarantee it. It's just too silly not to. Thanks for reading, let me know what you think :)
