Inveera

Wow! That's really cool. It's like...it's like goodstuff hexproof + goodstuff enchantments = win. I've heard that a common problem with those types of decks is getting the ratio of creatures to enchantments to be good, but I feel that with the scrylands, you can probably pull it off. I might be inclined to put more in if I were you, but it looks like you've thought through the mana base well enough. I mean, you probably got it to be as cheap as possible while still being a decent mana base, so I wouldn't try to interject my financial ignorance into the deck. =P

Gurren Laagen? I should watch that. I recently watched Kill la Kill and I'm almost done with Onepunch-Man, so I was looking for more things to read/watch. Thanks! I'll give that a try.

Dude! I'd love to hear about your excursions in Vietnam. =) I've always wanted to take a trip with my class, but due to our number of people, coordinating might be tricky.

My deck hasn't been in an actual situation yet. I bought all of the cards and they came 10 days ago! The problem was that my friend was out of town until Tuesday and my other friend is so caught up with his new girlfriend that he doesn't really have time for us. =P I would love to Skype-battle with you and maybe your friend as well. I don't know how I didn't think of that idea sooner. However! To be fair, most of my decks get a shaky start, so just be warned that it'll probably leave a bad first impression. However! I will conquer those enchantments someday! Maybe I'll just sideboard four copies of Dismiss into Dream just to see if I can ever actually have the mana to play it. XD

Ah! My logic is as follows (it has a high probability of being wrong): The Jhessian and the Follower are my attempt at effecient two-drops. When I first made this deck, it was mostly 3+ mana creatures, and I desperately needed some two drops. Apparently a good aspect of tempo is creature efficiency, and 2/2 for 2 is pretty efficient. Usually only creatures in double green are more efficient, and I didn't pick any of those creatures because the probability that I'll be able to summon them by turn two is less likely (I understand that my currect two-drops also have two colored requirements, but my logic is that I want both colored mana anyway, so I'd rather mulligan with a Kiora's Follower and no Islands than to keep a Kalonian Tusker with no Islands because I'll need the blue mana very soon anyway, so that Kalonian Tusker is going to only minimally make up for not having blue mana.) Two drops are almost always going to be taken out by burn spells, so that's just something that I have to live with happening.

My choice on these exact two drops are because Kiora's Follower is a reliable source of mana ramp (maybe not, since I only have one thing that's four or more mana, but I've kept many a sample hand that only had two lands and a Kiora's Follower, and while I didn't draw lands for the first few turns, Kiora's Follower still allowed me to hit my three drops by turn three despite having two lands). He's even better than many green ramps because he can provide both green and blue, and his utilities and stats are far better than Voyaging Satyr.

Jhessian Infiltrator is simply a way to put a clock on my opponent, like you said. I understand that he, by himself, isn't going to put my opponent on edge, but if I can even get my opponent to 16 compared to my 20 by the time my opponent is able to start developing his board (because I've run out of counter fuel), then I'd like to think I'm in a good position. The best part that sets him apart from other 2/2s is that he can still keep the clock running after my opponent starts developing his board due to unblockability. I hear that early 2-power fliers are great for clocks, so this is following that idea.

As for the Coatl, I was actually going into this deck with the idea that I'll draw cards to make him more threatening earlier, but my logic turned into this: If I have my Lorescale Coatl on the battlefield, then because my deck is based around him, that should mean that I'm on the winning edge (considering I'm not massively behind and he's hitting the field on turn 20). To me, that means that card draw then becomes more win-more. However, if Lorescale Coatl isn't on the field, then card draw doesn't really help me out in a losing situation. If my interpretation of tempo is correct, I want to hit my control on the field on time. If I spend my third turn casting Divination, that means that it's a turn I spent not affecting the board and giving my opponent an extra turn to do something. Of course, now I have more control in my hand, but I would rather have controlled the board on the third turn rather than try to play catch-up on the fourth turn. Explore was my attempt to gain tempo even without a Lorescale Coatl on the field, but many a Sample Hand found it unreliable, as I would often cast it on the second turn, play the third land from my hand, but not draw into a fourth land, leaving me with three lands on the third turn, which would've happened without Explore anyway. I'd rather play something tempo-y on the second turn and done something else on the third turn. Of course, when you can draw into a fourth land, it's awesome, but I didn't find that to be consistent enough. Of course, since this is all hypothetical, I have no idea how actual games would go.

Also, I'm actually not quite a fan of aura enchantments. It's really just our different playstyles, but I've had many experiences where I would draw plenty of enchantments and few or no creatures to cast them on. I prefer cards that don't require monsters to be on your side of the field, but that's just a personal phobia. I'm positive it actually works quite well, but I can't get past it.

As for lands? I simply don't like duals for what are supposed to be fast dual-colored decks. I don't really have the money for lands that come in untapped, so that's what's happening with that.

Anyway, that's my thought process. You are definitely allowed to counter-argument as you like. =P Have a good day, Yoshi!

Yoshi! =D I eagerly await your reply. Your initial criticism is greatly appreciated and considered.

Oh! Knowledge and Power? I actually used that in the very first rough draft of this deck. The problems that I ran into were twofold. The first issue is that since it's so expensive, I have to sacrifice my ability to play one and two-mana instants for that. That alone wouldn't be so horrible, but the second problem is that it doesn't activate immediately. Once it hits the field, I have to wait for the end of my opponent's turn to actually make use of it (of course, I can use it immediately if I have three or four mana left open after casting it, but since this deck wants to kill quickly, I figure that if I'm getting to 8 or 9 mana on the field, I'm already behind).

I too wish to make my deck the best that it can be, but unfortunately I don't live with someone who plays the game, so I have to fine-tune the deck about every week or so. You're much luckier than I. Hopefully you can have good luck with the cards that I didn't choose to put in my deck, because then I would have to reconsider those cards and maybe make the deck better with their inclusion. In any case, I hope that we can both bring our A-game to these decks and build them as best as we can.

I appreciate your kind words, SavageTheCabbage. As a high schooler with little income, I'm always looking for cheap alternatives. I am happy that I could provide you with your own inspiration and could help with helping your wife find an alternative to aggro. XD I appreciate the deck as well, and I like how you use a lot of cards that I wished I could've used in my deck if I had the space. I wish you luck in your budgeting and hope that you and your wife progress together as Magic players. =)

Unfortunately, Battlewise Hoplite won't work because he's not in the right colors. I have, however, thought about omenspeaker. I'm looking for something with a more repeatable scry, but I'm more than happy to try it out. It's true that my creatures are a little lackluster in two-drops, but my goal is to stall with Scryfish, Voyage's End, Spark Jolt, and Magma Jet until I can get the third mana. I'd like to get more two-drops so I don't have to do that as much, but it's difficult finding just the right one. I have high hopes for Sigiled Skink, but I still have to try him out.

Gelectrode and Serum Visions won't work because I'm keeping this in Standard. Guttersnipe is nice, but he's not really what I'm looking for. I'm not really aiming for direct damage.

Nice! You're pretty chill. =P The invitation is the same from me.

[email protected]

It's a hard process, but we'll eventually be successful. =) If you want to make your deck even more dicky, try using Hidden Strings. When ciphered onto a flier or an Aqueous Form user, it can be devastating, because it essentially gives your creatures vigilance and gives them +1/+1 counters every turn. Good luck not getting mana/creature screwed!

God damn, that's surprisingly similar to a deck my friend uses. It's really annoying. Glad to hear that I'm getting advice from someone whose deck closely resembles his own. (There isn't a single card in that deck that I'm happy with my opponent playing)

Man! This is thought-out pretty well. I'm particularly keen on Magma Spray and Nullify. The only issue I'd have is that I don't want to lose the things that make this a scry deck in exchange for making it solely destroy heroic. I think sideboarding would, for now, be mostly dedicated to heroic. Since the sideboard is getting full of cards, I'll probably just write the names of the cards I'd like to test out in the description. Thank you for the ideas!

No no. I appreciate getting different perspectives. =) I would love to actually duel heroic decks more, but as it is, I can only speculate right now. It's true that my only source of removal is a Voyage's End and a Magma Jet against unpumped things. Tempo is really the problem here. Sure, I can block a few times with a Starfish or some Chimeras, but that'll just stall my demise. Things like Dissolve will also only be helpful at stalling. Turn and Burn seems like a great addition. My goal was to stay within the Theros block so that it could remain in Standard once Return to Ravnica rotated out, but after learning that that will be in October, I think I can break a little out of it to fit in Turn and Burn.

Against two of my friends. It did fairly well, winning as much as losing against one of my friend's heroic deck, which kills everything else. Hopefully the suggestions you guys make can make this deck win more often. =)

I like the Fated spells, but I think that their mana cost is too steep color-wise to include. Fated Conflagration being 5 on its own is pretty hefty, and making three of those red mana makes it even more difficult.

I really liked Spite of Mogis, but I preferred Spark Jolt due to its immediate usage on the first turn and its instantaneous effect. Spite of Mogis being a sorcery is a problem for me. However, I feel that its late-game applications are good enough that it should merit some testing. At the very least, I'll sideboard that and Lost in a Labyrinth until I can try them out.

I had it in there at first, but it had a couple problems. The first was the high mana cost. I would be more likely to play it if it costed four, because five seems a little steep. I was rarely able to put it on the field not because the game had ended before I had five lands, but because I had other things that I wanted to play instead. When it did hit the field, the constant mana sink was also a problem because I, again, still had things I wanted to play.

I put Aqueous Form down to 2 for two reasons. The first was that whenever I got it into my hand at the beginning of the game without Flamespeaker or Stormcaller, it was a pretty dead draw. It's not something I want two of in my hand, because there are many situations where I'd rather have another card than Aqueous Form. The second reason is that with Thassa, she can act as a pseudo-Aqueous Form. I don't really need to run 4 copies if Thassa can make them umblockable for only two mana per turn.

I actually considered a lot of these myself. =P I actually only recently was able to play a cheaper version of this deck, so I don't know whether these cards will work better or worse than the ones you proposed, but this is my two cents on those cards.

I really liked Stormchaser Chimera. It seemed like it would be a hard hitter and would be helpful to scry, but I had some issues with it. The cost to do the scry seems a bit steep when I have so many other cards that can scry for less. The power boost also seemed a little weak, since much of the time I would be revealing a 3CMC or less. While a 5/3 flyer is pretty good, that's as strong (realistically) that it can be, often going for less. I chose Prescient Chimera instead because you'll be able to scry for 3 CMC or less (cost of instants). While he may be weaker than Stormchaser Chimera after Stormchaser scrys, I prefer the consistency of Prescient. However, since I haven't played with either yet, I am open to the idea. I also chose him over Prognostic Sphinx because Prescient Chimera essentially doubles the scry power of any instants I have, which means that a single instant will cause Flamespeaker to go up to 6/3. This can also be used on my opponent's turn for extra shenanigans, a luxury I don't have with Prognostic Sphinx. Like the Stormchaser, though, I am more than willing to test out the Prognostic Sphinx over Prescient Chimera.

I also was wishing that I could get more 2-mana creatures in the deck. However, I didn't like omenspeaker as much because, unlike Sigiled Starfish, it didn't have a repeatable effect. I figured that once mid-to-late-game rolled around, it's role would end up being chump-block fodder the turn after it's summoned. Sigiled Skink I also considered, but my main issue with it was that it didn't have the longevity that creatures like Sigiled Starfish has. The fact that he has to head into battle means that I'll likely only get one or two scrys off of him. I like Stormcaller better because it's the best (and only) source of a more-than-once-per-turn scry. I've been able to power up Flamespeaker Adept to a 6/3 solely because of Stormcaller.

I actually really want to play Titan's Strength because the scenario you describe sounds so fun. The reality is that I didn't have any copies when I made the deck, so I went with Spark Jolt instead. After playing with Spark Jolt, I really liked it, so I kept it in. Though once I manage to get some copies of Titan's Strength, I'm going to try using it. For now, though, I like Spark Jolt because of its ability to take out turn-one threats. However, only its scry ability is really applicable late-game, so that's probably where Titan's Strength needs to come in, since it's other effect is highly relevant.

Lastly, I used Voyage's End for the single reason of countering heroic. Seriously, if that mechanic wasn't in standard, you can bet I would run Lost in Labyrinth instead. However, as it stands, removing a bunch of auras and counters is really what I'm looking for.

You might read this and think I didn't appreciate your input. I actually really do. All I wished to do was describe my reasons for not using those cards in hopes someone might enlighten me on why my reasons are wrong or to show me a new perspective I hadn't noticed. I plan on testing out several of these cards over the life of this deck so I can see for myself whether I was right or wrong. This is just my impression based on my few battles with this deck and the face-value of the cards. Thank you for your comment! It really made me think about my decisions.