It all starts out with the decks ramp in the form of
Elvish Mystic, and while not a necessity for the deck is certainly welcome to speed it up. While it is the decks two drop you can hold back from playing your
Scavenging Ooze until you have some free mana open and targets in the grave to boost him especially against burn spells from red. The deck is capable of pushing a powerful assault right out of the gate with the hasty
Dreg Mangler especially if you’re lucky with
Mystic first turn. The other three drops in the deck really double as fives with the Bestow creatures
Boon Satyr and BNG newcomer
Herald of Torment either fortifying your other creatures on the board but also easily dropping unbestowed to pound the assault. We find the true powerhouse in four drop
Reaper of the Wilds which at 4/5 is already a force to be reckoned as is but tack on incidental Deathtouch to kill high toughness creatures or Hexproof to protect itself from spot removal as a bonus. But the real value from
Reaper is the Scry 1 which trigger whenever ANY creature dies. So it effectively throws a Scry onto each of your removal spell or even any chump blocks.
Speaking of removal spells is chock full of them with
Hero’s Downfall,
Abrupt Decay and another BNG newcomer
Bile Blight able to take down a variety of different problems. There is also
Golgari charm with the versatility to either sweep away token armies, rid the board of pesky enchantments like
Underworld Connections or
Bident of Thassa and perhaps most importantly save your troops from sweepers like
Supreme Verdict. We wrap up the package with a full set of
Thoughtseize which not only provide invaluable information about the opponents game plan but also as a way to deal with otherwise difficult to deal with threats like an Indestructible god.
