Defense of the Heart Combo (DIII)

[morgan_coke]

Well, it's not really a combo, it's just defense of the heart and 3 creatures under your opponents' control, but you get the idea.

Defense of the Heart 3G
Enchantment, Rare, Urza's Legacy

At the beginning of your upkeep, if an opponent controls three or more creatures, sacrifice Defense of the Heart, search your library for up to 2 creatures, and put those cards onto the battlefield. Then shuffle.

Basically it's a four mana Tooth and Nail that won't put things from your hand onto the battlefield. The two creature combinations I came up with are Iona, Shield of Emeria + Painter's Servant, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn + Xenagos, God of Revels. The emrakul/xenagos combo hits for 30 trampling damage that turn, so that's generally going to be your choice. Iona/Painter is for times when you think that might not work. Both creature pairings are vulnerable to Karakas. So, that's a downside, but since this is only a 2 color deck, you can afford to run Wastelands. Or hell, Ghost Quarter would work just as well, since you simply need to kill the Karakas before your guys hit the field.

The deck runs the full suite of give-dudes-to-your opponent cards: Beast Within, Swan Song, and Forbidden Orchard. To minimize the damage from these while also keeping creatures in play for your opponent, the deck also runs the full four Moment's Peace. Jace, the Mind Sculptor acts as a secondary win condition and combines with brainstorm to put any creatures you draw back into your deck for DotH to find them. Ponder/Brainstorm helps find DotH quickly. DRS provides graveyard interaction and acceleration. Wasteland is pretty much literally there to hit things like Maze of Ith, Glacial Chasm, and most especially, Karakas. Here's the tentative decklist:

Creatures - 8
4x Deathrite Shaman
1x Painter's Servant
1x Xenagos, God of Revels
1x Iona, Shield of Emeria
1x Emrakul, the Aeons Torn

Planeswalkers - 3
3x Jace, the Mind Sculptor

Instants and Sorceries
4x Swan Song
4x Brainstorm
4x Ponder
4x Moment's Peace
4x Beast Within
4x Force of Will

Enchantments - 4
Defense of the Heart

Lands - 21
4x Forbidden Orchard
4x Tropical Island
4x Wasteland
1x Forest
2x Island
4x Misty Rainforest
1x Windswept Heath
1x Flooded Strand

Sideboard
1x Progenitus
1x Sundering Titan
3x Vendilion Clique
4x Spell Pierce
4x Tormod's Crypt
2x Nature's Claim

The board is basically hate for faster combos, hate for graveyards, some alternate creatures in case you need them, and some more ways to interact with blue control to ensure your DotH lands and stays in play long enough to pop.

Curious to hear others' thought's on this. Thanks in advance for ideas and suggestions.

[ac3eb]

This is a cool concept and one that I've seen other people try. The biggest problem I have with this approach is that the entire deck is essentially 100% in on the Heart combo win. It is unlikely that Jace can get there given that you're giving your opponents extra creatures over and over. Additionally, resolving a 4-mana spell is often tough and relatively slow (even fighting through a daze gets a big complicated if you're under pressure). One simple-though-not-very-elegant solution is to add something like Show and Tell. Naturally this means that you'd have to change the number and type of creatures you're running since, for example, painter's servant isn't particularly great on its own. However, even running the classic emrakul-griselbrand combo would probably do the trick. The 4 maindeck moment's peace can help you get there if you can't kill that exact same turn. Just my thoughts!

[Worldslayer]

Is Architect of Thought perhaps better than Jtms here? I get that the Brainstorm is relevant, but Jace has a hard enough time being a relevant magic card outside of Miracles as it is, and Orchard/Swan Song aren't doing him any favors.

Also has application against Empty the Warrens, I guess.

[Darkenslight]

Don't play Iona main, play a second copy of Xenagos.

[pfiremc13]

This deck does have the problems mentioned earlier, but I love the idea...

What if you ran something like elephant grass in addition to moment's peace? They do pretty much the same thing but elephant grass can stick around longer.

I would run hunted phantasm and hunted troll to activate doth immediately as well as giving you alternate wincons.

[alderon666]

Play Vendillion Clique instead of the Jaces. They play defense a little bit and can help you both get counters out of the opponents hand and putting your big dudes back into your deck.

[apple713]

you play kiki / perstermite for instant win. haste'd emrakul is nice but as someone that plays sneak and show sometimes its not enough... just win the game bro. if you want to play a "cute" deck play edh.

also consider


hunted phantasm
hunted dragon
hunted troll


the issue with this is that the more of these subpar cards you use the less your deck becomes competitive.

giving the opponent a 3/3 beast isn't a great idea especially since you are not running very much removal. consider running something like ensnaring bridge to prevent attackers.

[Gako]

Wincons are a little odd. Aren't you running a suboptimal number of blue cards for FoW? Also Defense of the Heart seems a little too slow to me...

[Ahtii]

you play kiki / perstermite for instant win. haste'd emrakul is nice but as someone that plays sneak and show sometimes its not enough... just win the game bro. if you want to play a "cute" deck play edh.


I think 30 power haste emrakul is better and safer than Kiki / pestermite. It doesnt get wrecked by.. uhm.. lightning bolt , abrupt decay , swords to plowshares... yea you get the point.

[rufus]

I like Kiki-Jiki + Lightning Crafter as an alternative line of play. Still has bolt issues, but it gets around Ensnaring Bridge. Pestermite is a decent utility card in hand.

FWIW, Your opponent can often still use bolts to prevent Defense of the Heart from going off by zapping tokens.

[Ahtii]

Yes , or they could just attack with creatures and bolt to head. Or counter / Tseize away Defense, leaving you pretty cold. I understand this deck is not nearly competetive level, but would be bummer to once manage to assemble the combo and then lose to bolt or stp :( atleast xenagos + emrakul gets around most of the stuff are expected to see in maindeck games.

[Darkenslight]

Yes , or they could just attack with creatures and bolt to head. Or counter / Tseize away Defense, leaving you pretty cold. I understand this deck is not nearly competetive level, but would be bummer to once manage to assemble the combo and then lose to bolt or stp :( atleast xenagos + emrakul gets around most of the stuff are expected to see in maindeck games.

Indeed - it does almost the same thing as Xenagos+Blightsteel - Other combinations include Painter's Servant and Trinket Mage in the board, fetching Grindstone, or Triskelion + Mephidross Vampire for creature-wipe purposes. Thinking on the deck some more, I would consider the possibility of going R/G and playing Sneak Attack and Through the Breach, like the Mono-R Sneak decks.

[bruizar]

1x Terastodon in sideboard? Deals with bridge, and is 18 damage with xenagos

[Matsaya]

Terastodon is only 18-3=15 damages if you want to deal with a bridge.

Note that it also deals with maze.

[Mystical_Jackass]

My first thought was always Enchantress shell, you get Elephant Grass, Sterling Grove, etc. but its kind of nice that it doesn't drop to tranquility or reverent silence.
Really it comes down to 1) how can you consistently cast a 4 cmc spell on turn 3-4, and 2) how can you protect it for a turn and ensure opponent won't Grip it?


One idea might be to splash white, then run Meddling Mage, Gitaxian Probe, and maybe even a couple a couple E. Tutors. The tutors could functionally get a Bridge to just not die, this could cut back on fog. Another idea would be running a few Eternal Witness for resilience.


EDIT:
I just thought of an idea that's either completely retarded or good, but what about making this a "Sneak & Show" deck, except maybe use Defense instead of Sneak. I know Goblins and some decks will being in answers like Stingscourger... so if you Probe and see they've got that, drop a Defense instead and their response does nothing, then go off next turn. Meh? Cause in their deck if they had a S&T and Sneak in hand with no creature they're sorta screwed but you'd still pull it off in this deck, or u can bait out a counter then hardcast it next turn either way. I mean it almost kind of makes sense just running U/G with S&T, you're already running Swan, brainstorm, ponder, FoW, and Emrakul and there's no clear reason not to just run S&T for more consistency right.