Killing creatures is easy, but how do you close the game? Pearl Lake Ancient has seen some play in Standard, but it’s hardly the nail in the coffin that
Aetherling was. Elspeth, Sun’s Champion is great, but it can be killed or overwhelmed. We need something a little more resilient and ALLARTUS may have
found the answer.
Of course, Villainous Wealth for five or six might not get you anywhere, so some serious ramping might need to be done. Thankfully, there’s a convenient
way to double our mana in Dictate of Karametra. Maybe the prospect of trying to win games with a two-card combo is overwhelming, but remember we have
access to Dig Through Time to make that worry seem trivial.
Dictate of Karametra isn’t just part of the win condition though. With cards like Silence the Believers and In Garruk’s Wake, we have some real uses for a
Mana Flare. Once our opponent is hellbent, this Mana Flare will seem rather one-sided.
Now that we have a win condition that is almost foolproof, we can construct our deck around it. Things like Hero’s Downfall and Dissolve are certainly
great, but Sylvan Caryatid is probably going to have to do some mana fixing. Things like Kiora, the Crashing Wave can also help.
Is Villainous Wealth the real deal? It certainly seems like it.
Creatures (7)
Planeswalkers (3)
Lands (25)
Spells (25)
