D. C. CVIII: Look Upon My Works, Ye Mighty, and Tremble!

Creatures
4x Blurry Counterpart
4x Blackleaf Shaman
4x Njel Crocodile
4x Siros Persuader

Instant/Sorcery
4x Wachet Charm
4x Life-Giving Waters
4x Peaceful Hours
4x Sudden Drought

Planeswalker
4x Setheret, Awoken (MISPRINT)

Lands
1x Dark Temple
11x Swamp
12x Island

{Spoiler}
A decade-old throwback to Penada: Clash of the Tribes and Pyramids of Atuum made by Daij_Djan . Despite my previous post on one off designs, it turns out well-made sets have the advantage of being able to search a pool of cards quickly for interesting synergies. What was tricky about finding synergies between these two sets is that Daij didn't include any cheap self-discard or a lot of self-mill, forcing you to look for alternative means within the set's mechanics to quickly put creatures in the graveyard to get the most out of their mechanics.



This deck is a control-combo deck focused made to showcase the power of Setheret, Awoken. Setheret is a powerful Planeswalker that can come down and immediately start removing threats to his rule, search for the exact card you need in any given situation, or prevent you from losing the game via life, so long as you can keep him alive. We are actually most interested in his last ability, as it allows us to power out the the aggressive combo of constantly duplicating a Blackleaf Shaman with Blurry Counterparts. Additionally, being a cheap Mirage creature means that we can play a Blurry Counterpart early as a removal spell so that it can be fuel for later Blackleaf Shamans. This is also why we run Njel Crocodile - while it may be normally be subpar removal, it serves a similar role as Blurry Counterpart as a 2-mana creature removal that we can play to stop aggressive threats and build towards our end goal.

For those of you who play MSEM and are wondering "Why not Red with its large number of cheap Mirage creatures?" Because Setheret is and these two sets alone lack good duals. Life-Giving Waters is pretty much only run to help alleviate the pains of working with an all-basics manabase. For similar reasons, no Evermorphing Terrain as these would only slow us down.




While it was tempting to also run Depraved Disciple, I decided against it and instead opted for Siros Persuader despite the painful manabase - we are just that badly in need of creatures that double as removal.* This is pretty much the only reason we run 1x copy of Dark Temple in the deck at all, to try and safely get rid of any stolen creatures - any more and I'd be a lot less certain about this deck's speed.

*To put it in more recent Magic terms, we're essentially looking to play how the Flash Rogues archetype seen in Pioneer and Arena might've played had it debuted in 2000s-era Standard power levels.

{Decklist}

• Creatures:
  
  
  
  • 2x Croaking Gluttony
  • 1x Element of Change
  • 3x Faceless Legion
  • 4x Paradise Flock
  • 2x Rahul, Chronomentor
  • 2x Student of Sharjaj
  • 4x Tolarian Tutor
  • 4x Updraft Adept
  • 2x Volture Medic
  
  
• Noncreatures:
  
  
  
  • 1x Gift of Eternal Rest
  • 3x Proper Scaling
  • 4x Tranquil Silence
  • 4x Updraft's Guidance
  
  
• Lands:
  
  
  
  • 7x Forest
  • 12x Island
  • 5x Plains
  
  

{Decklist with Renders}

• Creatures:
  
  
  

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• Noncreatures:
  
  
  

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• Lands: