OCC: The Darien Crusades

by Puschkin on 02 October 2014

Main Deck (61 cards)

Sideboard (1 card)

Land (1)

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Deck Description

This is my second take on Personal Incarnation of the Obscure Card Challange
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/obscure-card-challenge-occ/

In the first try I made it a combo deck that just used Personal Incarnation to reduce my life to 1 and then win with Near-Death Experience:
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/occ-selfawareness-trip/
While that was fun, it wasn't really what you'd expect from a deck basing on Personal Incarnation. It was asked for a version with Darien, King of Kjeldor. This is the result. The deck name, BTW, is a hommage to one of my favourite RTS games ever, Total Annihilation: Kingdoms.

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Okay, so the main card of this deck is Darien. You use Personal Incarnation and Jade Monolith to redirect damage to yourself in order to produce soldier tokens. You get the lost life back via Children of Korlis, Sun Droplet, Angelheart Vial and Convalescent Care (you also draw cards with the latter two). Rhox Faithmender or multiple Sun Droplets allow you to even get back more life than you lost.

Field Marshal and Celestial Crusader pump your token army (we lack flyers, that's why I run Celestial Crusader). Unfortunately neither Personal Incarnation nor Darien himself are soldiers, so Daru Warchief isn't all that useful here.

Shaman En-Kor helps you redirecting incoming (combat) damage to whereever yo like, for example to Personal Incarnation and then to yourself.

Second Chance allows for some flashy sequences of play where you go from almost-dead to winning the game.

How to Play

The Talismans not only ramp your mana, they can also be used to damage yourself to get tokens or to multiply your life (multiple Sun Droplest and/or Faithmender combined with any of the lifegainers).

Since you can control how much damage you take and how much life you get back you can also control when to pop that Second Chance. In this deck, Second Chance is even better than Time Walk because you play it in advance, it doesn't need any mana the turn you use it. Ideally, you eat a lot of damage during your opponent's turn, get an equal amount of soldier tokens, then in your upkeep you pop the Second Chance (time it correctly, put Sun Droplets on the stack first so that the Chance resolves first!), get your Time Walk, get life back via all the tools you have and do an all-out attack, knowing that you have another turn for another attack or at least a turn where you can safely untap.

You don't have many flyers, so use Kirtar's effect wisely: Don't waste it on pure damage dealers since you have so many ways to get your life back, save Kirtar for creatures with nasty abilities.

Deck Tags

  • OCC
  • Casual
  • Life Gain
  • Soldier

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

6
Likes

This deck has been viewed 1,974 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

463000

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Not Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for OCC: The Darien Crusades

city of brass is another way to self deal damage

1
Posted 02 October 2014 at 15:56

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Yes, but unlike the Talismans I don't have the option to not get damage when using it. This could be problematic early on when I don't have (many) lifegainers and/or Darien.

Maybe Grand Coliseum.

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Posted 03 October 2014 at 12:21

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Hmm ... you sir are brilliant! I love this deck! You did a great job finding cards to benefit from and support personal incarnation.

Those enchantments with the old version of threshold give me an idea. How about you add some token generation ... with threshold! Thraben Doomsayer and Gather the Towsfolk should serve you well. As for boosting your tokens ... giving THEM lifelink (intangible virtue) or vigilance (serra's blessing) might help you further control your life total.

Anyway ... if you want, angels could help you out a bit. They are good sources of universal buffs, and could give you a handful more flyers.

Once again, excellent job. I really prefer this take on the deck.

Good luck, and happy deck building!

1
Posted 03 October 2014 at 02:18

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Thank you!

I am a bit confused about what you say of Threshold - the cards you linked have the fateful hour mechanic, not threshold. Anyway, the Thraben Doomsayer is excellent, I'll try to work him in somehow.

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Posted 03 October 2014 at 12:03

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Rats .... that's what I meant. Sorry for the confusion.

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Posted 03 October 2014 at 16:50

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How about soul warden, soul's attendant, or suture priest to give back your damage.

Also, could you make a deck around Abyssal Persecutor?

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Posted 03 January 2016 at 06:31

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I run 3 Children of Korlis, 4 Sun Droplets, 2 Angelheart Vials and 2 Convalescent Cares to get back lost life - do you think that's not enough?

Okay, I'll do a Persecutor deck next :)

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Posted 03 January 2016 at 13:32

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I guess it is, yeah.

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Posted 03 January 2016 at 18:37

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Here is your Abyssal Persecutor deck:

http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/ooc-spanish-persecution/

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Posted 05 January 2016 at 16:35

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Children of the Korn.. I haven't seen those since I ran them in my old Haakon deck with Ashes of the fallen. From what I understand it was quite annoying. One shot me, or nothing.
Interesting take on Darien, I do agree with the Hokey Pokey knight, Fateful Hour could be a godsend in this. Actually making me reconsider some of the choices in my Darien for Fateful hour stuff. Most intriguing. Especially since I've running 4 Precinct Captains that I don't really like in there.. hmm.. yea I'm gonna go tinker now.

http://www.mtgvault.com/themoc/decks/darien/

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Posted 29 September 2016 at 18:49

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