Not a Sol Ring was stirring, nor even a BoP;
The big decks were shuffled by the players with care,
In hopes that St. Sheldon soon would be there;
Old Arix was nestled along the sea bed,
While visions of one-shots danced in his head.
Slumbering Isle: Do Not Disturb
Approximate Total Cost:
I've been intrigued by Arixmethes since he was first spoiled but it took me until now to actually figure out how to build a deck around him. What I ended up coming up with is a lot of fun and reasonably powerful.
Main tenets of what the deck does:
- Arixmethes is a land before he becomes a creature, so using effects that bounce all creatures or nonland permanents work well with him as it allows him to stay on the battlefield.
- Arixmethes has 12 power, so any effect that can double his power (or give him infect) allows him to one-shot opponents if unblocked, often out of seemingly nowhere.
- Arixmethes is a powerful ramp spell, so I want as much 2-cmc ramp as is (reasonably) possible in order to get him out on turn 3 consistently, allowing me to have 6-7 mana on turn 4.
- Play ramp and draw cards!
- Play a lot of artifacts or enchantments. This allows my big bounce spells to affect my board minimally.
- Play infinite combos. Yes, I can make infinite with Pemmin's Aura on Arixmethes, and can also do it with Freed from the Real, but that's not the goal of the deck.
- Play a bunch of landfall stuff. That's really the easy route to go in a UG land deck and I wanted this deck to play differently. Also, both Roil Elemental and Rampaging Baloths don't work well with my bounce spells.
- I'm normally loathe to play Cyclonic Rift, since I feel that it's overplayed and unbalanced for the format, however it's just another mass bounce spell in this deck, so I don't feel too bad about playing it. Yet.
- Thespian's Stage can copy Arixmethes with counters much the same way that it can copy Dark Depths. While the copy of Arixmethes won't be my commander, it can still be a good surprise attacker and get an opponent who's not expecting it.
