I am finally getting back into playing and plan on playing in a LGS this Thursday. Because of this, I decided to get some reps in online. I played this deck against
Sigarda, Host of Herons,
Arcades, the Strategist, and
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa.
I started off with a hand with 2 lands and a
Wood Elves. Had I had a green source, I would have been tempted to keep it but the right play was to ship it. The next hand had 4 lands and a
Fiend Artisan. Not much else went with it but it was good enough to keep.
I started off with land into land into Fiend Artisan. Sigarda started with a
Leyline of Sanctity in play (which didn't mean much to me) and Ixhel got down an early
Contagion Clasp. This was after Arcades ramped into their Commander with Sol Ring and Ixhel put the counter onto Arcades. I thought this was an odd choice as Fiend Artisan could have easily been picked off but I got lucky there as I think they expected to be able to kill Arcades eventually with the Clasp.
Sigarda also got down a
Karmic Justice which did change some of my play decisions (I never got
Bane of Progress off Artisan which I think I would have had Justice not been around). But ultimately, I think it triggered a single time all game. I do think the threat of it changed the rest of our play patterns but not sure if that threat was enough for them?
Anyway, Arcades started going off with their Walls but Sigarda got down a
Dueling Grounds to stem the tide a bit. I ended up casting
Three Visits into
Skullwinder the following turn to get it back. I gave Sigarda their
Nature's Claim back after they used it to blow up Arcades's
Meekstone. I did this even though Ixhel's yard was empty since the Claim could come in handy later. Which it did (sort of).
Shortly afterwards, I got
Junji, the Midnight Sky down to mainly use as a blocker since my yard was empty but Ixhel exiled it and hit me with their Commander. This was the only time their Commander hit me or anyone else.
From here, Sigarda and Arcades were going after one another. Arcades, at one point, cast
Cyclonic Rift to help get in a bunch of damage. Which, to be fair to both of them, they were both quite threatening. Arcades was building an army, fueled in part by their
Feed the Pack, and Sigarda was trying to go Voltron. Basically, each was trying to take the other out first and Arcades came excruciatingly close and got them to 1 life. Mostly thanks to Rift allowing them to hit for around 30 in one turn but Sigarda was able to gain a bunch of life back thanks to
Shadowspear and
Unquestioned Authority to ensure life gain and unblockable. They also had
Daybreak Coronet for lifelink.
Unfortunately, Ixhel seemed stuck on lands but got to 6 I think (by turn 9) so they could do some things. Just not a lot. There was a situation where I could have helped killed Sigarda. Arcades attacked them when they were at 7 life and Sigarda blocked. I could have blown up their Shadowspear and Coronet with
Outland Liberator // Frenzied Trapbreaker thanks to having
Luminous Broodmoth on the field to get two cracks at it. This, of course, would have triggered their Karmic Justice and I didn't feel like intervening as they clearly wanted to go after one another and, to be honest, I wasn't entirely sure SIgarda was a bigger threat. Especially since I still had Fiend Artisan to get me to
False Prophet.
I ended up casting
Kura, the Boundless Sky off of a
Rishkar's Expertise which drew me 4 cards thanks to Fiend Artisan being big-ish.
Bazaar of Baghdad was also helping filter through the deck. I didn't activate it too often but it came in handy to get to my land drops at a couple crucial moments. I think I had 5 or 6 cards in a row without a land so Bazaar got me there.
With Fiend Artisan, I sacrificed Kura to get False Prophet. I also got
Diamond Valley,
Phyrexian Tower, and
Takenuma, Abandoned Mire off the death of Kura. These came in handy not only to sac Prophet but to sac
Cavalier of Thorns later on in response to a
Farewell.
Eventually, Sigarda made it through and killed Arcades. Ixhel tried building more with a
The Great Henge but Sigarda tried blowing it up with
Nature's Claim. They cast
Teferi's Protection in response so I used my Outland Liberator to blow it up. But now, because Ixhel was Protected, Sigarda came after me so I just sacrificed False Prophet. This exiled everything and left me with a flying False Prophet thanks to the Broodmoth that was still around. This gave me another go at it if I needed it.
As part of this, since I sacrificed Prophet to Phyrexian Tower, I used Takenuma and got Cavalier. This got me a land but then Ixhel cast Farewell the next turn. I simply sacrificed Cavalier to get
Ashen Rider on top as I had plenty of mana to cast it and Ixhel decided that was enough and scooped it up.
All in all, the deck performed very well. A couple small stumbles on land earlier on as I didn't get much for ramp but it all worked out well. The one takeway I think ties into one of the more recent conversations and that is around creature based wraths. False Prophet almost certainly won the game here but that was really the only option.
Cataclysmic Gearhulk wouldn't have worked thanks to Sigarda's ability (it would have helped against Arcades though) and I don't have
Massacre Girl. I think she is still the next best option though I am not entirely sure she could have killed everything. I think so as luckily there was a couple 1/1 tokens to keep her going but there is a potential when trying to kill bigger things that she just won't trigger enough.
I do have noncreature based ramp of course so perhaps the stuff I have, especially considering I can get to Prophet with a number of other cards, is enough. And this is simply one of the worst matchups for Gearhulk so it is hard to say it is a bad options overall.
I do like the way the deck performed and I don't think I had any major missteps along the way. I look forward to playing it some more in the near future.