Quite a few changes this week, I got some games in and it's doing much better; got my first win on the back of
saving grace and just bashing in for a bunch in the air.
Umezawa's Jitte put in a lot of work gaining life and pushing lethal.
The main themes I was noticing previously were:
1) nobody likes ensnaring bridge despite it being pretty strong,
2) The deck felt a bit short on ways to resolve stalled boards
So I added a few things:
Just some random comments on adds/subs
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Opposition is in that same camp as E-bridge kinda, but my thinking is that the deck will just present that as a win condition as opposed to a stall condition. Opp breaks board stalls in the air, but e-bridge does not.
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Moat is just too neat for this deck imho.
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Retribution of the Meek is the best alternative for a sweeper I could think of and way more efficient than
Fell the mighty which I was originally running.
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Dictate of Erebos is a problem card for me, tends to present locked down unfun board states. But my thought is 1) I don't tutor for it, and 2) I'll mostly use it as a combat trick for when I chump block, since the deck does not have that many ways to keep generating sacrifices and hard lock the board (pretty much just
skullclamp). And if I clamp+dictate that's a wincondition as opposed to just a lock.
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Propaganda effects have been very good for this deck and combine very well with
overburden.
*
Ephara, God of the Polis came in for
Sky Hussar. I don't think Hussar plays well with Opposition but also I found that it was slowing my clock too much tapping my dudes. Also I am already very good at remembering Ephara triggers so there's that.
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Spellstutter sprite is my new most embarrassing forget. I swapped it for
Dispersal Shield and no looking back.
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Moat third most embarrassing forget after Skullclamp and Spellstutter. I bought one specifically for this deck and it was very good the one time I played it.
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Flickering ward - just seems pretty strong and does some double duty protecting Alela.
Final parting comment: Play
Spellskite in your Alela decks. It makes a faerie and protects her and has waaaaay more utility than
swiftfoot boots type effects. It just does so much in EDH; the number of wincons it just straight up shuts off is really surprising.