Lands:
22 PlainsCreatures:
4 Hand of Honor
4 Descendant of Kiyomaro
2 Blinding Angel
4 Genju of the Fields
Other Spells:
4 Festival of the Guildpact
4 Devouring Light
4 Chastise
4 Faith's Fetters
3 Gift of Estates
3 Terashi's Grasp
2 Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang |
 Blind
Faith.
Description of deck by its author (quoted):
Two perfectly fine first-turn plays are Genju
of the Fields and Festival of the Guildpact. In fact, my guess is that
Festival is the most confusing card in the decklist. It's there because
this deck desperately wants card-drawing and accomplishes it through the
cantrip Festival and sort of through the land-thinning of Gift of
Estates. Anyway, I put Festival in there as a one-mana cantrip so I
don't mind using it this way during the first few turns (later in the
game, of course, it has more utility).
After that, the game goes one of two ways. Either I have a “beatdown”
draw against a slower opponent and start attacking with Hand of Honor,
Genju, and Descendant of Kiyomaro, or I just lay land and remove threats
with Chastise, Faith's Fetters, and Devouring Light. Usually it's the
latter, but the deck does have the ability to surprise a manascrewed or
Mono-Black opponent with aggression. For the sake of argument, though,
let's say that I'm taking a defensive stance and the game proceeds past
turn 6 or 7.
What happens throughout the game if everything is working is that I gain
life. A lot of life. In fact, it's not unusual for me to hit forty life
and beyond if I've successfully stifled my opponent's offense. Twice
I've gone over a hundred. One of the tricks I'm not sure many people
realize is that you can activate Genju of the Fields multiple times,
gaining life for each activation. As you can imagine, this adds up
quickly. Sometimes an opponent will concede when my life skyrockets,
figuring that I'll win eventually so why bother? More often, I'm
planning my attacks and counterattacks carefully. I usually am able to
do between four and ten damage with my little guys by simply looking for
opportunities and being patient.
Ideally I'm not playing Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang or Blinding Angel
until I'm relatively sure they can survive a few combat phases.
Sometimes I'll cast one to test the waters, but they are too valuable a
part of my strategy to lose right away. My two fliers and the Genju are
my “finishers.” They clean up for me when I have a huge pad of life and
my opponent has mostly exhausted the cards in her hand.
That's the deck. Although it was originally a Hunted Lammasu deck, it's
now built around the idea that a few hard-to-deal-with creatures, a pad
of life, and a lot of defense can win me games. So far, as I said
earlier, it's sort of startled with me with how well it plays.
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