Intrigued by the building of KOC's pool challenge.
Lessee. The BOMB cards are like Kheru Spellsnatcher and maybe Flying Crane Technique. Armament Corps is also very good, and there are a few other cards dotted about that pool I really like. Suspension field is the best removal spell in the pool.
Fixing is on the low end of what I expect from a KTK pool, looks pretty dotted around different colours. 4 red lands, 3 green ones, 4 blue, 3 black, 1 white. 3 Jeskai fixers, 1 mardu, 1 abzan, 3 temur, 3 sultai. Lot of the fixing is ally coloured, unfortunately.
Green looks pretty deep, a decent amount of high quality creatures. With armament corps and abzan guide, I'd like to at least see where base green/white takes us, even though the fixing looks pretty shallow.
Green:
Highland Game
Alpine Grizzly x 2
Savage Punch
sultai flayer
hooting mandrills
awaken the bear
sagu archer
archer's parapet
White:
Suspension Field
Kill Shot x 2
Alabaster Kirin
Feat of Resistance
Black:
Throttle
Sultai Scavenger
Multi:
Chief of the Edge
Armament Corps
Abzan Guide
Eh. I'm playables short, even if I add some more marginal morphs, but the power level just doesn't look high enough to me. I'm going to lose a lot of games to my opponents doing more busted things. Plus, I'm not playing any of my bombs. Black probably to be avoided except maybe as a splash colour.
Staying base green, what about green/blue/something
Green:
Highland Game
Alpine Grizzly x 2
Savage Punch
sultai flayer
hooting mandrills
awaken the bear
sagu archer
Blue:
Kheru Spellsnatcher
Dig Through Time (really good card in this format, but I don't think it's quite bomb status unless you have real nutso cards to search for).
Jeskai Windscout
Crippling Chill
Waterwhirl (bit concerned about the density of creatures at this point - also this spell is strong but situational, and especially bad if you are lacking board presence, which could be a problem if the creature count is low. This being the case, I'm inclined to add wetland sambar too.)
Wetland Sambar
Singing Bell Strike
Splashing red gets me all the nice snowhorn riders and the avalanche tuskers:
Snowhorn Rider x 2
Avalance Tusker
I'm looking at this build and seeing a remarkable lack of 4 power creatures for temur ascendancy. Egh. And a lack of creatures in general.
Also can add:
Arc Lightning
Mardu Heart-Piercer
Both are solid cards, but beginning to leave the territory where I'm comfortable splashing for them. Plus, I'm still not at enough playables. 13 creatures. Lots of awkward. Still like it better than the abzan build by quite a bit. Worst case scenario, go back to this, splash white for crane technique and suspension field, leaving myself short on creatures but solid otherwise. Could also add the second crippling chill.
Base U/R then. Probably playing white?
Blue:
Kheru Spellsnatcher
Dig Through Time
Jeskai Windscout
Crippling Chill
Waterwhirl
Wetland Sambar
Singing Bell Strike
Red:
Ainok Tracker
Tormenting Voice
War-Name Aspirant
Summit Prowler
Horde Ambusher
Valley Dasher (looking to cut this)
Mardu Heart-Piercer
Act of treason (eh)
Mardu Warshrieker (maybe)
Arc Lightning
Deck already feels deeper, and we can definitely play that crane technique
White:
Kill Shot
Suspension Field
Flying Crane Technique
Efreet Weaponmaster
20 cards. It's a start! I wonder if I can touch green, play the snowhorn riders. Splashing powerful morphs always feels good - either my mana works out and I get a sweet creature like snowhorn rider or if I sense trouble I can play to trade them with my opponent's morphs. Plus, the Frontier Bivouac is giving me a free green source already, since I'm playing it for the u/r part regardless.
Green:
Snowhorn Rider
Snowhorn Rider
That's 22. Lessee if the mana works out or I have to rejig the build a bit.
Green:
Bivouac
rugged highlands
Forest
probably a bare minimum.
Honestly I'm not convinced. Let's cut the snowhorn riders (also I miscounted and that's 23 cards) and add a crippling chill. Not thrilled for the valley dasher to be in the deck. Can add any 1 of disdainful stroke, cancel, blinding spray, weave fate. Let's go with weave fate for "reasons". (I like drawing cards).
Mana base again:
White:
Tranquil Cove
mm...
I probably want, what, 5 to 6 white sources? Lets add 4 plains and see how the other colours work out.
Red:
Bivouac
Saltwater Cliffs
7 mountains
Blue:
Bivouac
Cove
Cliffs
6 islands
That's 20 lands. Mana's gonna be sketch then. I think I can most easily skimp on white, since if I miss on white for a while that's not a disaster, but missing red is a problem, and I have double blue spells.
So:
Ainok Tracker
Tormenting Voice
War-Name Aspirant
Summit Prowler
Horde Ambusher
Valley Dasher (looking to cut this)
Mardu Heart-Piercer
Act of treason
Mardu Warshrieker
Arc Lightning
Kheru Spellsnatcher
Dig Through Time
Jeskai Windscout
Crippling Chill
Waterwhirl
Wetland Sambar
Singing Bell Strike
Kill Shot
Suspension Field
Flying Crane Technique
Efreet Weaponmaster
Frontier Bivouac
Saltwater Cliffs
Tranquil Cove
3 plains
5 islands
7 mountains
I think that's the deck. The mana is sketchier than I'd like, but frankly the fixing in this pool sucks and no colours that I have fixing for are really deep enough. Still, the card quality is very high and I have a solid gameplan.
