Lands:
11 Forest
9 Island
2 Llanowar Reborn
Creatures:
3 Simic Guildmage
2 Verduran Enchantress
1 Dowsing Shaman
2 Bramble Elemental
Other Spells:
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Arcanum Wings
2 Utopia Vow
3 Quiet Disrepair
3 Reality Acid
2 Shielding Plax
2 Paradox Haze
1 Cloudstone Curio
2 Zur's Weirding
3 Verdant Embrace
2 Fool's Demise
1 Shape of the Wiitigo
1 Take Possession |
  Swap
Meet.
Description of deck by its author (quoted):
Akroma's Memorial gives all of your creatures
seven keyword abilities. The next card I'm going to look at gives one of
your creatures one of those abilities. The card is Arcanum Wings, and
it's notable for being twice as expensive as one of the worst cards with
a zebra in the artwork ever made: Flight. Why the price-hike? Is it
because of the name-brand label? Who wants to be the lamoid zebra
wearing plain old Flight, when all the cool kids are decked out in
Arcanum Wings? I'm sure that at least partially explains the cost
increase. The main reason, though, is that funky little keyword: aura
swap. The name is a little confusing, so allow me to explain: aura swap
is an activated ability that allows you to trade (or "swap," if you
will) an Arcanum Wings that's in play for an "aura" in your hand. You
could trade it for a Flight if you want, but you're better off trading
it for something a little more impressive, something a little more
expensive, something with a few more syllables, something like Flight of
Fancy. There are plenty of such auras in Standard that you don't even
have to turn to such behemoth-makers as Mythic Proportions. This is
precisely what Evan Landers did before he sent me his Standard legal
green-blue Aura toolbox deck.
It's always nice to get your auras at a discount, and
Evan traded his designer Wings for a pair of fungal fat-pants like Verdant
Embrace and some, uh, life-saving pants like Fool's Demise (a nice thing
to trade for in response to removal). I added some other high-priced auras
like Shape of the Wiitigo and Take Possession. As Evan says, "Besides the
tried and true combo of Simic Guildmage + Shielding Plax, this deck
contains many interesting Aura combos." Quiet Disrepair and Fool's Demise
will allow you steal artifact or enchantment creatures. Reality Acid does
much the same thing without being so limited. Paradox Haze speeds up your
Reality Acids, doubles the saproling production of Verdant Embrace, and
doubles your life-gain with Quiet Disrepair. Verduran Enchantress draws
you cards and Dowsing Shaman regrows your spent auras.
I made a few extra modifications to Evan's deck. The
deck is less focused than it could be, but I wanted to jam as many ideas
into it as I could to give everyone a glimpse of the various paths you
could go down. The first thing I did was add Zur's Weirding, which
combines with Quiet Disrepair's life-gain to deny your opponent any
further draws. I then added some Bramble Elementals, which turn into
fungus factories with any auras, and evasive fungus factories with Arcanum
Wings. I also liked Mark Gottlieb's Arcanum Wings + Shape of the Wiitigo +
Cloudstone Curio combo from Monday, and since I was already using
two-thirds of those cards, I shoehorned a Curio into the deck as well.
There's a lot going on here, but that just makes it
easier to make the concept your own. |
. |
