I got in another game online. 2 different players ended up with
Field of the Dead which I mention only because of some comments about Land Destruction. I think we talked about it in
@toctheyounger's thread.
This game was against
Titania, Protector of Argoth,
Jhoira of the Ghitu, and
Tazri, Beacon of Unity.
I started off with turn 1
Land Tax but I went first so it didn't do anything until turn 4 after I missed a land drop. I did only keep a 2 lander after 2 Mulligans and I figured with 2 green decks they would ramp soon enough. Luckily I did draw into a third land for turn 3 and just cast
Rhystic Study that I drew into. I also had
Epiphany at the Drownyard but I really didn't want to fire it off since I figured I might only get 1 land and the opponent wouldn't give me that pile. Or, at least, I didn't want to try for it.
I drew two cards off Study and then my card for turn and still missed my land so I just cast
Death Baron. Study then did draw me into a 2 lands before my next turn along with a Sol Ring. So I just cast Sol Ring into
Search for Azcanta // Azcanta, the Sunken Ruin and left up
Delay. A sidenote here:
Counterspell would have been a dead card since I only had 2 blue mana and I used one for Search.
During this, Land Tax was starting to get me lands and I was pitching cards. On one turn, after Land Tax resolved and I drew for turn, I had 14 cards in hand. I discarded to hand size and was able to transform Search the next turn with 7 basic lands in the graveyard.
Titania had gotten down a
Nissa, Who Shakes the World and Titania and then cast
Scapeshift. I did have
Hour of Revelation in hand which I was going to fire off but Jhoira ended up having a
Blasphemous Act to clear the board of creatures since Titania had 7 Elementals and 7 Zombies. They then cast
Whirlpool Warrior which I knew they would activate eventually. They did so after Titania got their Scapeshift back but before they had the mana to cast it.
This got rid of my Hour (so I didn't have an answer to Nissa) and my new hand wasn't great. And Titania had
Dark Depths and
Thespian's Stage so Marit Lage came down along with
Akroma's Memorial and a bunch more tokens as they rebuilt pretty good. But Jhoira was able to work with Tazri to draw a card thanks to
Betrayal and they drew
Cyclonic Rift. We didn't know that is what they drew, but that is what they said. I had
Toxic Deluge in hand to wipe the board but I figured I would wait since I also had
Teferi's Protection in case they couldn't deal with Titania's board. And then Tazri cast
Nevinyrral, Urborg Tyrant with no sac outlet on board. They did end up casting
Pongify on him to then get his death trigger and they did it in response to Rift (which Jhoira copied with
Narset's Reversal) so we were all basically back to square one. And then I countered Nissa on the way back down.
My hand still wasn't great but I did have a
Zombie Apocalypse in hand so I just cast that using the Mana Drain mana from countering Nissa and then used the extra 2 mana to exile things with
Withered Wretch. I left up the rest of my mana instead of casting Varina since Jhoira still had Rift in hand and I wanted to be absolutely sure I could cast Protection and it gave me extra mana to activate Azcanta as well.
Next turn I was at 16 (I took a beating from Titania from their army but they didn't send Marit Lage at me) and now they had
Ashaya, Soul of the Wild on the field which was pretty big. They swung her at me and I just exiled her with
Path to Exile. I went down to 12.
After Apocalypse, which did clear some of Titania's board thanks to
Noxious Ghoul (if I had one more Zombie, Ashaya would have died too), Titania was at 34, Jhoira was at 5, and Tazri at 10 thanks to
Corpse Knight and the damage the others took from Titania's big attack. I ended up casting Varina since I knew Rift was a possibility and Varina let me kill them at Instant timing. They chose to let Varina resolve (I am not sure if this was wrong or not but they did die so it was probably wrong) so I then swung into Titania with my 9 zombies. I gained my 9 life and looted. I already had
Akroma's Will in hand but chose to wait to cast it until after I attacked just to give another reason for Jhoira not to Rift. I realize this eliminated the benefit of Vigilance but it wasn't a big deal.
I ended up activating
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in combat after blockers were declared before I cast Will. Again, I was just trying to make sure Will resolved so I exiled a bunch of cards in my yard and I got 15 mana from Nykthos so it was pretty easy to ensure I was able to create enough zombies for Knight to kill Jhoira. I then cast Will and
Fact or Fiction (which got me 4 lands and a Counterspell; I took the Counterspell) and I went from 21 life to 125.
On Tazri's turn they were pretty much dead. They didn't have a wrath and I had counterspell to stop it anyway (or Protection if I wanted) and I was able to just swing out on my next turn to kill them.
Overall, with the exception of that one missed land drop, the deck worked really well. Land Tax was huge in getting Search to transform as well as giving me fodder for Varina. It also let me use
Sevinne's Reclamation to bring back 3 lands to help ramp further. I don't think there is even much to say here. I never saw any cards I didn't like and everything had its impact that I wanted. I did only have 20 cards left in my yard at the end of the game which was interesting since we "only" went to turn 11.
The Field of the Dead Jhoira had didn't do a ton but the FotD that Titania had did a lot. They had an army of zombies twice with it. And both ended up being dealt with by other players but I did have cards to deal with those armies. It is hard to say what would have happened if they didn't wrath but even facing two I didn't really feel like I need things like
Strip Mine. And Strip Mine wouldn't have even worked against Titania anyway as they had plenty of ways to get it back (they got other lands instead).