Intro
The idea for this deck is to passively generate small creatures each turn and to make the most out of each one. It shares a lot of similarities with zoo decks.
The Deck
Code:
GU_1_3_BCYBCYCABCABCDjCDjIChIChKABKABKALHAFHAFCFYCFYKAUKAUCEeCEeICkICkKDfICbCBGCBGCFgICiICiCBMKDo
Overview
The deck runs a lot of cheap creatures, but also runs the following cards to generate even more:
We pair these with other cards that take advantage of creature spam:
Giras draws a card each time a token creature is summoned. Paired with our Battle Cleric, Denholm, and lots of cheap 1 drops (some with echo), we can achieve an insane amount of card draw. With Giras on the board, we become much more likely to find our board buffs and game winners.
Asterius is Asterius.
Anubian Redeemer gets buffed when you inevitably have to sack your token creatures, but it also buffs on your opponent's turn when they kill one. If things are going well, it hits the board and immediately becomes a 5/7. 7 health is very tricky to deal with at 5 mana (and even at 6 for most decks).
PoD and Radiant Dawn are fairly obvious. We can run 3 board buffs because we don't depend as much on cards from hand to generate creatures on board.
Aggressive Superior is a questionable call, but I think I like it. The flexibility from empower is nice. On the other hand, 7 mana is late, and we'd would definitely have wanted to buff a board full of creatures by then, which would make the 'set to 5/5' less valuable. I think a more traditional light 2 drop could easily be slotted in here.
Ward
The bane of any zoo deck is AOE board clears. We actually sneak in quite a bit of ward in this deck:
Serene Blade is nice in this deck. With something like Cleric on board, we can afford to lose tempo equipping the relic. Cleric will generate an acolyte at the end of the turn and it will be 3/3 with ward. That is already worth the 3 mana to equip. For this reason, I generally don't hold on to this early game. It's much better to ward and buff an Anubian Redeemer at 5 mana than your early zoo creatures. An exception to this is the combo with Call of the Light:
- At 3 mana, equip the Serene Blade
- At 4 mana, cast call of the light + 2 acolytes. If you saved a pip, cast all 3.
Something like this is terrible against aggro nature. Once you give up board, you'll never get it back. However, against a control magic user who just wants to ping off your creatures early, it is a solid strategy.
Serene Blade + Denholm is also fantastic.
Anti Sleep
Radiant Dawn fits in this deck naturally but doubles as anti-sleep tech.
Anti-Relic
Hard to tech against everything, and this deck currently doesn't have any relic removal. However, relic removal is fairly consistent in the sanctum. Additionally, an iron-tooth goblin could easily replace an Aggressive Superior. It's strictly better when played at 2 mana.
Gameplay
I matched up against a Dralamar deck, but we had enough early game strength to win (right) before 7 mana. This game also showed the potential of Empyrean Pacifist with echo cards or with Thaeric Extortionist. If I had a second Extortionist, I'd run that.
Conclusion
I'm sure there's more optimization that could be done on this deck, but this gets the main idea across. Generate value passively and use the card advantage to buff your side. Have any suggestions to make the deck better? Leave a comment! I'm sure there are cards I'm not thinking of that could work well.