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By: Flippers_Giraffe, Simon Smith
Sep 02 2015 12:00pm
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Here we are again back in my little corner of MTGO. Origins has been unleashed upon the world and I rather like it if I'm going to be honest. I had many doubts of another boring Core set with a ton of reprints and a few nice cards at Mythic level. But no there are tons of new and interesting cards in this set that will keep me deck building for a long time before I get bored. I'm a bit behind at the moment as I've had a hectic last few weeks my MTGO time has been nonexistent. While I'm discovering Origins, Battle for Zendikar is now just round the corner. It looks like Nissa and Gideon have near enough been confirmed from the artwork below.

I really enjoyed Zendikar the first time round so it will be interesting to see what Wizards do this time to make it different enough to still be interesting. 

For this article we welcome back my Art Attack series. For those that weren't reading my articles back in 2011 this is where I pick a MTGO card artist and build a deck using only cards by that particular person, here's a link to my last one which was based around Rebecca Guay. The only exception to the rules are lands as most artists aren't chosen to do both types of cards.

As the subject of the article gave it away I'm going to be building a deck around cards by Cynthia Sheppard. Cynthia started doing artwork for Magic cards from the Innistrad block where she was noticed for her skills painting Vampiric subjects. There has been a few interesting takes on cards for instance the new version of Rubinia Soulsinger which you may think was miss interpreted as Soulsigner which even I did when I first saw the card but it’s not true, the art brief for the card mentioned conscripting creatures into an army.

Another interesting thing is her homage on the artwork for Young Pyromancer to Chandra Nalaar, have you ever noticed what it says on her belt buckle?

Cynthia recently took the job as the Art Director for Magic the Gathering and has recently moved to Seattle. Which is quite amazing really when you think about going from artist to Art Director. Cynthia was recently featured in Illustrators Quarterly issue 10 Spring 2015 which you can purchase here, where you can read a lot more about her and look at lots of her artwork, 21 pages worth going back to 2009 before she was doing art for Wizards. Here she is beautifully posing with the magazine. 

Cynthia turned 31 last year which is when she finished her personal painting Momentum that was entered into the unpublished category of Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2015 where she won gold. The theme behind the art is subject vs. environment which is a digital painting. When I look at the painting I get the impression of an artist or writer looking for inspiration but failing to notice the stone horses carved out of the side of the mountain right next to him, it kind of reminds of when you look for something so hard you miss the obvious.

Looking at other artwork Cynthia has done I wanted to share the artwork for a book called Karen Memory which was written by Elizabeth Bear. I really like Steampunk imagery and the young lady on the front cover is quite outstanding, I was really impressed by the skin tones My main hobby is miniature painting and I know how hard it is to perfect painting skin, it’s one of the hardest and most daunting things to get right.

Cynthia's first and currently only Planeswalker is from the Khans of Tarkir set Sorin, Solemn Visitor which goes back to her love of Vampires, yes she is a bit of a geek just like us.

Lastly I want to show the original sketch for Sublime Archangel because it is also the main card in the deck I'm going to share with you today as well. The artwork had to be re-done as the weapon looked too much like the symbol from the Avacyn Restored set. I think both versions are quite stunning.

If you are interested in further reading the best places are her Website or Facebook page

Now for the main deck of the article, I had to choose my colours carefully as you see Cynthia hasn't done any artwork for any and I mean any removal spells, which made this deck a challenge to say the least. I decided than it wasn't worth trying to include Sorin early on, In the end I decided on a  deck.  

To start off we have a few of our small casting cost creatures one of which is a monster in the making Bloodcrazed Neonate, if you leave her unchecked she will grow to be a very large creature very quickly. Next again in red we have Impetuous Sunchaser who may seem like a fill in card but he's actually quite useful as he's a flyer. There is a drawback to both of these cards which is that they have to attack each turn but we want to be attacking anyway.

Next we have a mana producer in the form of Scorned Villager who can also shapeshift into an even better mana producer. It's a bit of a temperamental card to use but if you can keep the wolf version in play it's very good. 

Now we go up a level to the three casting cost creatures, these two make a nice pair. First we have Prophetic Flamespeaker who may seem like a small threat to start with but with his young lady friend Trusted Forcemage it makes him big enough to be a threat to worry about. We also get to cast any cards he reveals as well so once he gets going the deck is on full go. I've found that the Trusted Forcemages Soulbond ability is quite useful in most games, I did think of removing her a few times but she has become quite an important part of the deck. 

Now I'm going to introduce you to the angels of the deck, of course as mentioned we have the very striking Sublime Archangel who makes Prophetic Flamespeaker even more deadly with her ability to hand out exalt everywhere. Then we have our new lass from Origins Archangel of Tithes who is a bit tricky to cast needing three white mana but I got round that with dual lands. While she's untapped creatures that attack you or a planeswalker you control have to pay 1 mana each, when she's attacking your opponents creatures can't block unless they pay one mana for each. I wouldn't say she was a game winner, just a very annoying card for your opponent to deal with.

The next two creatures are actually deck fillers they are ok but are over costed for what they offer. Canyon Lurkers are the first they can be cast via morph which isn't so bad but it's the toughness of two that really cause them to be lacklustre. They can work ok as a surprise blocker but not much else. The other creature is Markov Warlord who has an outrageous casting cost, if it wasn't for that he would be quite good. He's a 4/4 with haste and has a rather nice ability when he comes into play, you can choose up to two creatures an opponent controls and they can't block this turn.

As well as creatures we have a very small amount of spells in the deck. Reviving Melody is our way to bring back creatures from our graveyard, the second ability has no use in this deck as we aren't running any enchantments. Rush of Blood is our super pump spell, because it's at instant speed this card has won me a lot of games especially if the creature is being super exalted. Lastly we have Reap What Is Sown which is a super useful card letting us put three +1/+1 counters onto our creatures, again this is cast at instant speed making it an excellent surprise when attacking or blocking.

And here we have the final deck. I've been running it in the Legacy format as I have the dual lands rather than pain lands but it should fair just as well in Modern if you change the mana base. It is a really fun deck and plays quite smoothly but remember it has no removal so you need to be careful!!!

    Creatures     Lands
Archangel of Tithes 2 Mountain
3 Bloodcrazed Neonate Plains
2 Canyon Lurkers 4 Plateau
Impetuous Sunchaser 1 Raging Ravine
Markov Warlord 4 Savannah
Prophetic Flamespeaker  4 Taiga
Scorned Villager  4 Windswept Heath
Sublime Archangel 4 Wooded Foothills
Trusted Forcemage    
       
  Spells    
4 Reap What Is Sown    
2 Reviving Melody    
Rush of Blood    
       

 

 

For the next deck of the article we visit the Standard format and I have another theme deck for you. This time I'm going for an all Origins deck, I had already purchased two Archangel of Tithes for my Cynthia Sheppard deck so decided to expand out to a third and build up from there. Looking through the cards in the set I decided I wanted to have a play with the Renown mechanic. Renown works when a creature deals damage to an opponent. The creature gains a +1/+1 counter for each Renown level it has and usually has a funky ability as well.

Our one mana drops are Honored Hierarch who starts life as a 1/1 creature but when his Renown kicks in he becomes a 2/2 with Vigilance and can tap to add one mana of any colour to our mana pool. The second one drop is Anointer of Champions she can tap to give an attacking creature +1/+1, yeah it's not the most amazing card in the set but it is valuable as there wasn't many one drops to pick out of to help our mana curve. She looks quite nice in my hand and in play so I'll forgive her.

We have a few cards up next at two mana. The first is Enlightened Ascetic who destroys an enchantment of our choice if you wish when it comes into play. The second is a lot more useful on the fighting front Consul's Lieutenant Who starts life as a 2/1 creature with First Strike and Renown 1, when he triggers his Renown any creatures that attack in the same turn as him get +1/+1 which has come in handy a lot of times.

Now the fun starts when you hit the three drops the first makes Renown a very useful ability in this deck which is Valeron Wardens. Valeron Wardens starts of as a 1/3 with Renown two but has a special ability that when a creature you controls becomes Renown you draw a card, that also includes Valeron Wardens itself. With the amount of Renown creatures in this deck it does get rather mad at times. The next card is another creature with Renown which is Citadel Castellan who starts life as a 2/3, she only needs to connect once and she's a massive 4/5 threat. The third three drop in the deck is Managorger Hydra who starts life as a 1/1 but gets a +1/+1 counter each time a spell is cast. I expect he will see lots of play in multiplayer Commander, he grows big very quickly and that's just in the Standard format.

Next up on the creature front and this is a very creature focused deck we have Kytheon's Irregulars They are a 4/3 Renown 1 creature and have a very useful ability for two white mana you can tap a creature, I've won a lot of games by using this ability when I cast Kytheon's Irregulars as it can be used the turn it comes into play. The next creature is our lovely Archangel of Tithes who I introduced in the first deck of the article, she's a lot more powerful in Standard. I notice her price is in constant flux on MTGOTraders, it seems people can't decide if she's good or not. I think she is very useful you just need to plan ahead with her abilities depending on the game state when she comes into play.

I'm running a couple of five mana creatures in this deck the first is a clunky creature as I wanted a useful way to deal with artifacts with a decent size body behind it which is where Conclave Naturalists fits perfectly. Lastly on the creature front we have our star player of the deck who works really well with our Renown creatures Patron of the Valiant, she's a 4/4 flying angel and when she enters play we get to put a +1/+1 counter on each creature that has a +1/+1 counter. This makes all our Renown creatures that already have counters even bigger.

She's a bit odd on the angel front as it looks like she has no legs and she has a really odd face mask. Steve Argyle didn't go with the first version of the artwork that he came up with as it wasn't Bant enough for the requested art brief. The original is on the left and the used version for the card on the right. The current version looks much better without the card frame.

Lastly there are a few non creature cards in the deck, the first is our only removal spell Divine Verdict. Then we have Animist's Awakening which is kind of like a card draw spell for Green. You pay one green and X and look at the top x cards of your deck and put any lands into play tapped and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. It helps thin your deck down which should mean there are less chances of drawing a land in following turns. In a different deck we would also benefit from the second ability of the card, if there are two or more instant or sorcery spells in your graveyard those lands come into play untapped. I'm also running a single copy of Sword of the Animist to help us find a bit more mana in the early game, it's been quite useful in the games it's come out in.

 

I've really enjoyed playing this deck since Origins came out, sometimes due to the lack of creature removal it has a few issues but because we have drops at every mana level it's not something that really hurts if you can keep the pressure on from the early game. The deck is really mad when all the Renown triggers start going off and the Managorger Hydra can be a game winner unless it's dealt with early on.

    Creatures     Artifacts 
Anointer of Champions 1 Sword of the Animist
3 Archangel of Tithes    
4 Citadel Castellan   Lands
Conclave Naturalists 4 Evolving Wilds
Consul's Lieutenant 8 Forest
Enlightened Ascetic 11 Plains
Honored Hierarch    
Kytheon's Irregulars    
Managorger Hydra    
Patron of the Valiant    
3 Valeron Wardens    
       
  Spells    
Divine Verdict    
Animist's Awakening    

That's all from me for now hopefully I'll be back soon, I already have enough decks for another article they just require a little bit of tinkering and I'll be sharing them with you all soon.

Thanks for reading,

Flip

My Article Archive

2 Comments

Like the deck by bingobongo at Thu, 09/03/2015 - 03:35
bingobongo's picture

Nice deck quite like it , been so focused on Modern since my return to magic not even really looked at the origin cards
Seems like a deck we both would have liked back when we was playing a lot together

keep up the good work Flip

Cheers bingobongo, I'm by Flippers_Giraffe at Thu, 09/03/2015 - 15:54
Flippers_Giraffe's picture

Cheers bingobongo, I'm keeping my eye out for you online.