DavidF

After have considered your deck, I'd strongly suggest sideboarding: -2 Survival Cache, -4 Wall of Omens +3 Phyrexian Revoker +3 Ratchet Bomb. There is no need to contend with either life gain nor tempo against elfs (they will simply win).

Targets for Phyrexian Revoker: Argentum Armor, Ezuri, Renegade Leader, or Nissa Revane if situation is critical.

Target for Ratchet Bomb: 1x counters.

Cheers

A worthy deck, have you checked out Genesis Wave?

Thanks, I had economy in mind since I mostly play Legacy. They rotate standard to often for my taste. So I wanted to create a minimum-priced standard deck, yet still contendable on tournaments.

The board cards Ratchet Bomb and Phyrexian Revoker are legacy-worthy so I really don't mind paying 3x the main decks worth for those :)

Hope to hear some feedback after you have tried it against your own deck. Cheers.

I enjoy this deck. Did a little research on the archetype - more or less a Deadguy Ale version with emphasis on lifelink. I will be debuting an own interpretation of this deck type (listed here on mtgvault) on a local tournament with high expectations.

In my build i removed Stillmoon Cavalier, Elspeth and Hymn, and replaced them with:
Vampire Nighthawk, Gatekeeper of Malakir, Rest for the Weary and Smallpox.

I have also taken a different approach to the choice of lands.

Smallpox might have "bad mojo" with Tidehollow Sculler in the deck - but I prefer it over Hymn since it's never a dead card and it's more versatile, disrupting 4 different resource types at the same time.

I'd remove Vedalken Orrery and use Leyline of Anticipation instead.

Cho-Manno, Revolutionary is not a soldier.

I'd go for 4x Field Martial instead of the Armorer/Armorsmith's and since all nonland cards are of Soldier type (part from Cho-Manno), I'd also throw in 4x Enlistment Officer's.

I have added 2x Luminarch Ascension. It actually plays extremely well with Delaying Shield, since all damage is delayed until your upkeep - you will recieve a counter even if "damage" has been dealt.

I removed the Catapult Squad to make room for Luminarch Ascension. Their real practical function was to stall the game in order to draw a Wrath of God, so I also added 2x Sensei's Divining Top for card advantage.

I'm a big fan of Luminarch Ascention, but I wouldn't know what card's should it should replace, or if it would be a good fit.

Might update the deck after some trial and error.

I am sorry for the confusion, and will try to clarify. WotC has some simplified rules on plainswalkers at http://www.wizards.com/Magic/TCG/Article.aspx?x=magic/rules/planeswalkers, or you can read "119. Damage" in the comprehensive rules.

Basicly, in most cases when you cause damage to a player, you may chose to assign that damage to the players planeswalkers in form of loss of loyalty counters. So, if you use burn spells such as Lightning Bolt to deal damage to a player, you may chose to assign that damage to his planeswalker instead.

Delaying Shield say "If you would be dealt damage, put that many delay counters on Delaying Shield instead.". This means that a Shock does not result in damage - meaning that there will be no damage to assign to any planeswalker. In a sense, Delaying Shield makes planeswalkers imune to burn spells.

Combat damage however is a different story.


Of course, this is just a bonus, the main reason why I selected Delaying Shield is partially since you may pay mana to prevent loss of life, but also since damage is converted into life loss; you gain full imunity from poison counters, life link and triggered conditional cards such as hypnotic spectre, umezawa's jitte, worldslayer (just to mention a few).

... an update: after double-checking the comprehensive rules, the above statement actually only applies to non-combat damage. Sorry for the confusion :)

Hey Miracles, thanks for writing. Delaying Shield negates combat damage - instead of receiving combat damage, you put an equal amount of counters on Delaying Shield instead. This means that you never recieve any damage, so no damage can ever be assigned your planeswalker when Delaying Shield is present.

I've found the sky ruins to be a bit of a gamble. It's a good card, but there is only 10 plains in the deck. The other 10 is used for manland or land fetch. All in all, you should never really be in a position where you have +6 mana past the manlands, since you won't really need it, as most cards in the deck cost 2 or 3.

Martial Coup is a good card, while it's sort of a combination of Day of Judgment and Conqueror's Pledge, it's somewhat to mana expensive for this type of deck, and it's a bit of a downfall not being able to choose wether creatures should be destroyed or not when casting 5+ tokens.

Mobilization is sort of the same deal - it's a bit to mana expensive for the deck, while it's still a good card. You should probably be prepared for that most free mana in mid-game will go to negate damage from Delaying Shield, leaving no room for "extra mana" to dump into new tokens.

... I think a more viable option would be Kjeldoran Outpost.

I've found it interesting with the concept of using 3x spells / 21x land. Would you care to explain the logic behind it?

Thank you kindly sir.

Well, this is just a piece for the deck challenge showing it's possible to hard-cast expensive creatures within a mono-white deck without using P9 cards.

A more extensive usage of this mana engine is used in my latest white token deck tokenroll (http://www.mtgvault.com/ViewDeck.aspx?DeckID=132376)

... On second thought, if you mulligan down to 4 cards, if one of them is a draw-card there at least is a small chance - i think i will take your advice - leave street wraith in and replace the cycling with brainstorm, ponder and such.

I think that would in like 9.9/10 cases lead to a loss - turn 0 you "only" have to worry about leyline of the void and force of will. Turn 1 potentially means discarded cards, exiled cards from library, added casting costs, wasteland/sinkhole on Gemstone Caverns...

I think the best bet is to mulligan and use serum powder down to 4 cards as starting hand, if you don't have the right cards by then - concede.

Hm, must have been looking at an outdated ban list then, thanks for letting me know.

Some suggestions for soldier horde: conquerors' pledge, nomads assembly, raise the alarm, martial coup and kjeldoran outpost. With extraplanar lens you'll have plenty of mana, i'd change the circles to Haazda Shield Mate.

Your opponent will (if able) play the entire hand as quick as possible and have no hand to discard. Throw in Anvil of Bogardan - forces each player both to draw and discard a card every turn. a card

I can see alot of potential here.