4 Sky Swallower
2 Drift of Phantasms
4 Aura Barbs
4 Utopia Sprawl
3 Wild Growth
4 Fertile Ground
3 Dawn's Reflection
3 Psychic Overload
4 Faith's Fetters
2 Steely Resolve
4 Enchantress's Presence
2 Copy Enchantment
11 Forest
10 Island |
   Barbs-B-Q.
Description of deck by it's author
(quoted):
There is yet another way you can build the
deck, and I alluded to it at the end of my article. It's the “play Sky
Swallower and float mana” plan. First off, there's the brokenness of
following Sky Swallower with either Balance, or Balancing Act, leaving
you with an 8/8 flier and your opponent with a single creature
populating an otherwise empty board. Another card I mentioned was Acidic
Soil, which would punish your opponent for taking all of your lands
away. Lower on the list of great Swallower followers (much, much lower)
is the card that Andrew Lee and AJ Richardson decided to use. It's a
card that even I wouldn't touch. Not with a ten-foot pole, or an
eleven-foot pole, or even two ten-foot-poles lined up end-to-end.
Aura Barbs!
Andrew was the first to suggest pairing Sky Swallower
with Aura Barbs, but AJ sent me a nifty-looking decklist which worked
“surprisingly well.” As AJ said:
“The idea is to get ten enchantments in play, float
eight mana, and play Sky Swallower followed by the kill card. Failing
that, eleven mana with five enchantments in play and two Aura Barbs.
Insane? Yes. Fun? Hell yes.”
To get the requisite mana, AJ filled the deck with
land-enhancing enchantments like Utopia Sprawl, Fertile Ground, and Dawn's
Reflection. I went a step further and included some Wild Growths. This
allowed me to play a lower-than-usual land count while making the deck as
enchantment-dense as possible. All of the enchantments turn into cantrips
with Enchantress's Presence on the table, so AJ used a full set of that
card and I included a pair of Drift of Phantasms to act as Presences five
and six. The Drifts can also be used to find Aura Barbs (when you want to
go for the kill), and Copy Enchantment (when you need extra “removal” or
want to double up on your Presences).
Faith's Fetters and Psychic Overload are your catch-all
answers to problem permanents. Fetters can either play its usual role of
Pacifism/Sacred Nectar, or it can answer cards like Oblivion Stone.
Psychic Overload's effect can be negated by your opponent if he or she can
discard two artifacts, but unless your opponent is playing a
Mirrodin-heavy decks, this will rarely be possible. If you expect to face
a lot of fast creature decks, you might want to replace these cards with
something like Ghostly Prison.
Just in case the Aura Barbs plan doesn't seem like it
will work out, AJ added Steely Resolve to the deck to further Plan B:
Suicide Sky Swallower. This might not be a great plan, but it certainly
can be effective. Besides, as AJ says, “how many times do you get to set
any 'choose a creature type' card to Leviathan?”
This is the kind of deck that can handle a bunch of
Naturalizes (there are way too many targets for your opponents to be able
to keep you down for long), but you will get destroyed by people
maindecking Primeval Light, Akroma's Vengeance, or Aura Shards. |
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