The deck is in concept form but I wanted to get the conversation started. The deck takes advantage of Ancient Ziggurat to play multifunctional creature that allow you to “soft lock” your opponent. All of your creatures are white so Brave the Elements protects them from removal as well as lets you swing through their team if they have blockers.The deck is also packing what I call "PLAN B" (Plan Baneslayer Angel), which consist of hoping for an unanswered turn five Baneslayer and flying into victory.
Creatures
4 Tidehollow Sculler
4 Meddling Mage
4 Ethersworn Canonist
4 Qasali Pridemage
3 Kor Hookmaster
3 Dauntless Escort
2 Baneslayer Angel
Spells
4 Path to Exile
4 Zealous Persecution
4 Brave the Elements
Land
4 Ancient Ziggurat
4 Verdant Catacombs
4 Marsh Flats
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Plains
2 Forest
2 Swamp
1 Island
Sideboard
4 Great Sable Stag
3 Harm's Way
2 Baneslayer Angel
1 Kor Hookmaster
1 Dauntless Escort
4 Duress
Weakness
At the moment I honestly couldn't tell you what the strengths of the deck are but I do see some problems "on paper" When you play the creatures in the right order (pre-emtive to your opponents plays) the deck will do well, but it seems like you could draw the "wrong" creature at the "wrong" time and then the deck becomes a bad aggro deck. The deck lacks card draw and probably loses to a successful sweeper; I am hoping the cards in the deck make that difficult to accomplish.
Control Elements
Tidehollow Sculler – This card can sometimes win you games by snaging a timely win condition or mana ramp spell. His key role is hand disruption and he serves as a peek for the Meddling Mage.
Meddling Mage – MM can also be pseudo hand destruction, since he can make cards the opponent's hand dead. He also can stop turbo fog from fogging and can slow cascade by naming things like Bloodbraid Elf. Depending on what you see with Sculler you may want to shut down their removal spells.
Ethersworn Canonist - This card stops cascade until they can remove it. It also slows the game down and keeps you from being rushed to death. You have a small advantage by being able to play Sculler and another creature. This creature is Key to soft-locking.
Dauntless Escort – Escort keeps your guys( or guy) alive, allowing you to keep your lock pieces in place as well as giving you block options, since you can block and then sac him to keep your guys alive.
Removal
Qasali Pridemage – This helps you remove troublesome Enchantments and Artifacts but it most commonly lets you get more damage in early, or pumps a Baneslayer in the air late.
Kor Hookmaster – This is essentially a creature removal spell, good for dealing with Baneslayer or other big creatures. Slows the Boros deck down and also taps the off color blocker which can allow you to use Brave the Elements for an Alpha Swing.
Path to Exile – This clears the way for attacks and keeps you from dying to a fattie.
Zealous Persecution- Against some decks this is a Wrath of God. It’s a powerful card on defense and offence and the only reason that a strategy like this can deliver a kill before your opponent stabilizes.
Other
Baneslayer Angel – Always good to have "Plan B".
Brave the Elements- This card fules the deck by stopping removal, making your guys super blockers or unblockable. This also allow you to cast Baneslayer on Turn 6 with protection.
Sideboard
This is a speculative sideboard since I dont know what the actual problems with the deck are (It may turn out that the deck is just incurably sucky, if thats the case we'll scrap it). I tried to add creature based answers to problems, this maximizes the use of Ziggurat and it gives me something to swing with. Also I perfer white creatures because of Brave the Elements.
Great Sable Stag – Good against Vampires, Jund and Counterspells. There are only a few answers to Stag and Meddling Mage can lock those down.
Harm's Way – This should help in the red match-up and keep you and your guys alive.
Baneslayer Angel – Plan B, Phase 2.
Kor Hookmaster – More Removal.
Dauntless Escort – More “Keep my dudes alive”
Duress – This could be Spell Pierce, but I have two swamps and currenly ten ways to fetch them. This also adds 4 more peeks for the Meddling Mages.
Other Cards to Consider- Creature Tools
These are creatures that didn't find their way into the deck yet, but they are options to deal with issues that may arise with the deck.
Sages of the Anima- Draw Engine that may be useful. The thing is that you really want your spells, especially Brave the Elements.
Vampire Hexmage- If planes walkers become a problem then this guy is a good assassin in that respect.
Knotvine Paladin - This guy looks like he belongs in the deck. 2/2 for two mana and he's white. It could be a good option to beat through your oppenents defenses. I remember running him in Doran- He was a Beast!
Knight of the Reliquary - There really is no tool-boxy lands for the Knight to fetch but with all the fetchlands - She could get big really fast.
Knight of New Alara - This is an anthem effect that may be a really good plan against Honor of the Pure White Decks.
Emeria Angel- This is an anti- aggro, token making machine.
Stoic Angel- Also anti-aggro. It goes with the lock theme and it's white. I may add these instead of Hookmasters, it really depends on how the deck plays out.
Steppe Lynx- I run alot of fetches, this guy could be a good Aggro creature. Plus it's white so it get's Braved.
White Knight: Another pro-black creature that can stand up to Jund and Vampires.
Other Cards to consider- Spell Options
You you want one mana answers because of Ziggurat.
Spell Pierce - I may need another Island to run this reliably. But it's a great card out of the Sideboard against, Honor of the Pure, Harrow, Tendrils of Corruption, Cruel Ultimatum and Board Sweepers.
Pithing Needle- Kills Planeswalkers and Luminarch Ascension. I dont see problems with thes cards because of Pridemage and The fact that I can kill a Planeswalker with dudes.
Feel Free to post your thoughts in the comments. Thanks for reading.
JM
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