Lands:
4 Forest
11 Islands
4 Yavimaya Coast
Creatures:
None
Other Spells:
4 Chromatic Sphere
4 Counterspell
4 Howling Mine
4 Memory Lapse
4 Moment's Peace
4 Nantuko Shrine
4 Opt
1 Overrun
4 Sleight of Hand
4 Syncopate
4 Temporal Spring
Sideboard:
4 Call of the Herd
4 Circular Logic
3 Compost
4 Creeping Mold |
  Scrambled
Eggs at Frank's Diner.
Description of deck by its author
(quoted):
This deck is a deck based around Nantuko
Shrine, an interesting card that seems like it may be useful. I first
heard about people trying to build Shrine decks about a week before
Osaka. It was an interesting concept that I simply didn't have time to
explore then, but that I packed away to try at a later time. I received
four different submissions about Shrine decks, and here is one of the
more interesting ones...
...Starting over from scratch, I made a new revision.
Since I still needed some cantrips to fuel the Shrine, I decided to keep
Opt, Sleight of Hand and Chromatic Sphere. Because these cantrips were
blue, I took the attitude that the new deck would be base blue, and that
the cantrips and the Mines would allow me to find the green mana for the
Shrines. I then added some countermagic to help deal with all my
opponent's answers to the Shrine, since they would definitely draw their
important spells for the matchup from the Howling Mines. The cards I
chose for this were Counterspell, Syncopate and Memory Lapse.
Counterspell was obvious for its guaranteed removal. Syncopate worked
well, as early Syncopates helped keep the opponent's graveyard from
growing, limiting their use of my Shrines. Memory Lapse worked in much
the same way. Although it still has the annoying effect of giving the
opponent the same spell next turn, when you are giving them extra cards
every turn of the Mine, you sort of expect them to be able to do
something nasty. Also, if it stops a Counterspell, you often don't care
that they draw it again, as long as the spell you just got through was
Nantuko Shrine. Finally, there was a really cool interaction with
countering you own spells late in the game. You could cast a spell with
3 copies in the graveyard, counter it, cast Opt, cast it again. In some
strange situations, this allowed you to cast a specific spell multiple
times to trigger the Shrines.
As the number of cantrips had fallen dramatically, I
also needed to add a few more lands. This is in contrast to where I
started out in Build 1, keeping the lands steady at 16.
Finally, the deck really needed a kill card to bring
games to a crashing halt. This card had been used in many Shrine decks,
so it wasn't particularly hard to find: Overrun. Yes, I realize that it
requires a lot of green mana to cast. However, by the time you need it,
you really should have the mana. This version seemed the most successful
I had made to date, and although the Howling Mines sometimes helped the
opponents too much, I found I really needed the cards it gave me.
...This deck started out winning very few games. It
has come along way without losing its theme. However, even with all the
progress made, I would only rate this one as tier 2 at best. The
original author noted that he built the deck for fun, and I hope that he
still finds this one fun, as he will have to work a little harder when
playing it. Should he be willing to take the extra effort, the deck will
pay off in a much better win ratio. If not, then I hope that he can at
least use the idea of Howling Mines to fuel his deck.
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