G/U Miracle control

[(nameless one)]

This is one of my learner deck projects featuring the Simic guild to create a tempo deck.


Miracle grow was a deck that revolve around Quirion Dryad and casting spells that protect it and at the same time making the said creature grow.

In this deck, it will follow the same principle without using Quirion Dryad as the main creature, but rather set of creatures that has the same role to follow the learner deck rules/challenge:



They will all follow the same set of rules to keep them mirrored and balanced:

5 rares/mythic using 2 legendary creatures of the same copy and 3 non-permanent spells of the same copy, with any number of common and uncommon cards. All the cards that will be used in the deck should have the legendary creature's commander color identity. The non-permanent spell will be of a designated color.

The deck has to feature three mechanics that ties to the guild: two of the guild's Ravnican mechanics and a guest mechanic.

The manabase should consist of basics, 4x guildgate and any number of utility land of the same copy (with an exception of following a cycle such as cycling or artifact lands):

The decks could only have 3 artifacts or enchantments (with the exception of Azorius [has 3 enchantments and 3 artifacts] and Simic [no artifacts or enchantments])



For the legendary creatures, I will be using Vorel of the Hull Clade

The non-permanent rare will be Trickbind (has to be blue, but the card can be changed)

The manabase consisting of 18 lands (3 Evolving Wilds, 2 Terramorphic Expanse, 9 basics and 4 Simic Guildgates)

A plethora of free or cheap cantrip (Brainstorm, Gush and Thought Scour) and free or cheap permission (Daze, Foil [Force of Will would have been nice but its not very casual/budget], Spell Pierce and Trickbind)

The main concern with this deck is building the creature base.

So far here how the deck looks:


2 Forest
7 Island
4 Simic Guildgate
3 Evolving Wilds
2 Terramorphic Expanse

4 Brainstorm
4 Gush
4 Thought Scour

4 Daze
4 Foil
3 Trickbind
3 Spell Pierce

2 Vorel of the Hull Clade
14 support creatures

As for creatures, here are what I am thinking of: 4x Shambleshark (Evolve has to be there), 4x Jace's Phantasm (I don't want to have Delver of Secrets since I will not be using DFCards/these will be sleeveless) and 2x Lorescale Coatl (they grow with every cantrip you play!). This leaves me with four creatures.

I checked all the Graft (http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3Agraft+t%3A%22creature%22+%28r%3Auncommon+or+r%3Acommon%29+ci%3Aug&v=card&s=cname) creatures out there and they suck. I am thinking of switching that mechanic to Threshold (http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3Athreshold+t%3A%22creature%22+%28r%3Auncommon+or+r%3Acommon%29+ci%3Aug&v=card&s=cname) (like what I did with Forecast to Miracles under the Azorius (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?26687-U-W-softlock-control-deck&p=749572#post749572) thread). This gives me access to Nimble Mongoose (maybe switch with the Phantasms) and Werebear (the last four creatures). However in doing so, I lessen the +1/+1 counter theme (which makes Vorel less useful).

Also, having flash creatures look great too. I would imagine having a surprise blocker a "budget tempo" thing to do.

Any suggestions to this creature base dilemma would be helpful.

[Slag]

Well, since you're running a bunch of alt-cost cards that return lands to your hand, you could run Sakura-Tribe Scout to replay the lands. If you run the scout and the coatl, you could pop in a couple of Sosuke's Summons to take advantage of the snakes. At that point, though, it would probably resemble the old saproling-opposition decks more than grow. To really capture the grow feel, you could use Kavu Predator as the dryad, and then something like skyshroud cutter and invigorate for +1/+1 counters. Alternatively, there are some cheap undying creatures in green that could get really big with Vorel. The undying creatures have the benefit of being good chump blockers early on.