Lands:
7 Island
4 Nimbus Maze
6 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Urza's Factory
Creatures:
4 Auratouched Mage
4 Jodah's Avenger
4 Looter il-Kor
2 Spirit en-Dal
2 Thought Courier
1 Zur the Enchanter
Other Spells:
3 Daybreak Coronet
4 Pacifism
1 Pentarch Ward
2 Resurrection
2 Retether
1 Shape of the Wiitigo
3 Shielding Plax
4 Snake Cult Initiation |
   Ill
Coronet.
Description of deck by its author
(quoted):
Future Sight gave us Daybreak Coronet, the
latest of the super-auras. For a measly two mana, you get a
quasi-Armadillo Cloak, a Lance, a Vigilance, and some aura that gives a
creature +1/+1. That's a hell of a package deal. The only catch is that
you can only put it on a creature that already has an aura attached to
it. That's just asking to be three-for-oned. The inherent riskiness of
the card should come as no surprise, since the word "coronet" comes from
the French and means "all your eggs in one basket." Can someone
fact-check that? Try the Oxford Encyclopedia of Made-up Junk. I'm sure
it's in there.
So Daybreak Coronet helps the rich get richer, while
at the same time threatening to bankrupt you completely. Sounds like
we're comfortably within the boundaries of Johnny-Timmy Land. In order
to minimize the risk of the Coronet, there are a few things we can do.
Okay, one thing. We can play with creatures with the Troll Ascetic
version of shroud, so that gives us the Troll, Silhana Ledgewalker,
Plated Slagwurm, and anything with a Shielding Plax on it. If you use
the Plax, you've even got the first enchantment covered! You're all set
for Daybreak Coronet to be Day-broken. For variety's sake, I'm going to
avoid green and forego the use of all but the Plax (which is also a blue
card). To make sure my creatures get Plaxed in a timely manner, I'm
going to use Auratouched Mage and, to a lesser extent, Zur the
Enchanter.
The other Future Sight aura that I'm particularly fond
of is Snake Cult Initiation. For four mana, you can turn a lowly
Woodland Druid into the most poisonous creature in Magic history. Take
that, Marsh Viper! Auratouched Mage can easily undergo a Snake Cult
Initiation, but Zur will have to join some other strange club with weird
admission guidelines. I hear Wombats have interesting cults as well.
Picture, if you will, the ideal creature to enchant
with Snake Cult Initiation. To take advantage of the poisonous ability
you need the poisonous creature to deal combat damage. Evasion would be
nice, either flying, or shadow, or just plain unblockability would be
nice. Double strike would also be a nice trait to have, allowing your
creature's poisonous to kick in twice per combat step. The aura costs
four, which is a pretty big investment, so you don't want a creature
that is too fragile. Something like protection from red, shroud, or an
abnormally large butt would help out immensely. Last of all, you want a
creature small enough to make the poison kill necessary. Dragon Tyrant
fits the first few categories, but a 6/6 flying double striker kinda
makes winning with poison counters redundant. If only there was a more
appropriate creature. Oh, that's right, there is. I have seen the future
of my Snake Cult Initiation deck, and its name is Jodah's Avenger.
The deck can win one of two ways: either through
Daybreak Coronet-fuelled beats or poison. Besides Auratouched Mage and
Jodah's Avenger, Looter il-Kor and Spirit en-Dal make excellent targets
for you auras, especially Snake Cult Initiation. Later in the game,
Retether can turn any of your shadow guys into killing machines by
bringing back all of your spent SCIs. Since poisonous is cumulative
(i.e., four instances of poisonous 3 will result in twelve poison
counters), one hit from a quad-poisonous Looter will cause instant
death. |
