Hello, and welcome back to the Daily Deck-a-thon. For the week, we’ll be injecting life into the arm of Magic with your daily dosage of deck. It’s pretty simple. I build a brand new deck followed by some comments.
Today’s deck began while I was modifying Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy. I had just added Teferi’s Honor Guard to my deck. I had recently had a discussion with a friend about how flanking was better on offense than bushido (it is). I noticed that Teferi’s Honor Guard was the only creature with flanking in my deck. I thought about other flanking creatures. Could another fit into my deck?
Joreal’s Centaur was a good choice, but the casting costs was simply too Green. I didn’t want creatures with haste, first strike, or vigilance. Fallen Askari couldn’t block while Shadow Rider didn’t have the power that I normally want from my four drops. Cadaverous Knight was okay choice but its regeneration was too expensive.
There was, however, one creature with flanking that intrigued me. I wouldn’t be able to find a place for it in my highlander casual deck, but I could build a deck around it. I’d have to find a few cards to work with it, but I think many of you will fondly recall Knight of the Mists.
The obvious candidate for inclusion with the Knight is Unnatural Selection. Turn any creature into a Knight, then destroy it without the possibility of regeneration. Very effective, and easy to build a deck around:
Mist Information
4 Knight of the Mists
4 Man-o’-War
4 Coastal Drake
4 Shoreline Raider
2 Azami, Lady of Scrolls
4 Imagecrafter
4 Unnatural Selection
4 Counterspell
4 Portent
2 Forbid
24 Islands
The deck operates simply. You can change creature’s types with either the Imagecrafter or the Unnatural Selection. Make something a Knight, then kill it. Make something a Kavu, and bounce it or block it. Make one of your guys a wizard, then tap to draw a card. There were a host of ways I could go with the deck, but I decided to make this more about the Knight and less about the Unnatural Selection. That’s why you can find the Imagecrafters, Man-o’-War, and not a lot of different combos.
The Man-o’-War is always great tempo. It can allow you to develop while also being a creature. Being a creature is important in this deck, because then it can be turned into a wizard and tapped to draw a card while Azami is out.
If you need to get through, you can fly over opponents with Coastal Drake, or attack through Kavu with Shoreline Raider. Knight of the Mists can be a pretty good card all on its own as an attacker, though.
If you added White, you could play Zhalfirin Commander, which pumps Knights. Other options include Seaside Haven, Catapult Squad, and a lot of cards that affect soldiers.
If you went with Black, you could ensure that Rend Flesh could kill every creature, including spirits. If you went with a small zombie theme, you could add a slew of creature, from Lord of the Undead to Vengeful Dead and more.
Green could give you several benefits. The one I like the most is running Eladamri, Lord of Leaves. He makes your elves untargetable as well as give forestwalk. Whenver an opponent targets one of your creatures, you can simply turn that creature into an elf and automatically counter that spell or ability. I really like that. Other Green options include Wall of Mulch, allowing you to sacrifice creatures for cards, Ravenous Baloth, allowing you to sacrifice creatures for life, or any one of a billion cards that help elves.
Also in Green, you could run Seshiro, the Anointed and give your creatures a huge pump whenever its needed. If you want a lot of mana, you can turn a creature into a shaman for one Blue, then tap it for two Green through Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro. Krosan Warchief will allow you to regenerate any of your creatures.
Another idea would be play one or two really big legendary spirits and then run Lifespinner. Turn a few of your creatures into spirits, sacrifice them, and then bring a really big creature into play.
Even Red gives you a few options. All of the goblin goodness can be yours, including Goblin Grenade. You can give any creature haste with Goblin Warchief. Airdrop Condor will allow you to Fling creatures at your opponent’s head. The best combo may be Goblin Pyromancer. Play the Pyromancer, turning as many of your opponent’s creatures into goblins as you can, and watch them all die at the end of the end.
Other ideas include Goblin Warrens to make a bunch of Goblins, Goblin War Strike to deal a bunch of damage, or Siege-Gang Commander to start throwing creatures at your opponent’s head.
There are other ideas that I had for the deck. I could play Lord of Atlantis and turn my creatures into merfolk when I want islandwalk or the pump. There are already four merfolk in the deck that would constantly get use out of the Lord. I also thought about including Riptide Laboratory but I didn’t think that they added enough to the deck.
Other cards worth considering included Tribal Golem, Cut the Tethers, Crookshaw Elder, Mistform Ultimus, or maybe Keeper of the Nine Gales (although Tradewind Rider is probably better at that point). You could even run Mistform creature like the Dreamer if you have enough cards that care about your own creature type.
Well, I hope that you enjoy today’s deck. You can really enjoy the mono-Blue suggestion or take the idea and develop it in one of the other ways mentioned. Good luck with your Knight of the Mists decks (or your Unnatural Selection decks)!
Until Later,
Abe Sargent