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I'm attracted to the underdogs.  Think "the MtG equivalents of Charlie Brown's Christmas tree."  Today's decks all capitalize on things most people pass over.

Deck 1 Raksha Golden Cub

I remember opening a Rolling Stones back when Stronghold first came out.  Two things were clear: it was vastly superior to Animate Wall, and I had to build a deck around it.

You can imagine my heartbreak when WotC started giving defender to non-wall creatures but leaving Rolling Stones in the past, still only affecting walls.  And if you can imagine that, you can then imagine my delight when this card was finally printed, the hidden gem of our first deck:

Sure, it's more expensive than Rolling Stones, but it hits all creatures with defender, and it can even do some attacking of its own.  You can probably figure out half of today's first deck already: it obviously has a lot of creatures with defender, and (because of the avatar) it has a lot of equipment as well.  Let's look at my choices for each, before getting to the last "surprise" element of the deck.

Defenders (of the universe)
I ended up going white-blue for this deck, as they generally get the best walls.  Here are the top picks across the two colors:

• Order of the Stars
• Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch (remember, we can equip these 0-power walls before we attack with them)
• Oona's Gatewarden
• Angelic Wall
• Opal-Eye, Konda's Yojimbo
• Plumeveil
• Psychic Membrane
• Wall of Swords
• Wall of Reverence
• Sunweb
• Illusionary Wall (yes, there were 4 of these in my old Rolling Stones deck)

Woolly Razorback might at first seem good with a Wakestone Gargoyle, but remember, even if you get him to lose defender, he's still not dealing any damage as long as he has those ice counters.

Another tip: "Daunting Defender is neither."  (Get it?  I thought of that just now.)

Other colors do have good walls, too, like Wall of Razors, Carven Caryatid, and possibly Wall of Blood, but really not many.  WU really seems like the best route.

Equipment
This part is all pretty customizable, but here are my favorite picks.  (With the exception of Bonesplitter, which I put two of in my deck, the rest all became 1-ofs.  Because I'm like that.)

• Bonesplitter
• Peregrine Mask (haaaaa)
• Empyrial Plate
• Neurok Stealthsuit
• Vorrac Battlehorns
• Vulshok Gauntlets
• Fireshrieker

You might be wondering why anybody in their right mind would play Vulshok Gauntlets in a deck, ever, under any circumstance.  My reasoning is (1) underdogs, remember? and (2) for the games I can't get a Wakestone Gargoyle online, my backup plan is to put a Gauntlets on a Skyhunter Prowler for the kill.  Hey, I'm not saying you have to leave that part in your version of the deck too!

Lastly,

The Surprise
So what keeps this from being a boring old paint-by-numbers Wakestone Gargoyle deck?  It also has a secondary theme:

Heyyyyy, two overlooked gems in the same deck!*  And they're both at the core of its strategy.

Let's look at what your army can potentially have in this deck:

Flying, from any one of four flying walls, the Peregrine Mask, or Skyhunter Prowler. Vigilance, from the Skyhunter Prowler again, or from our equipment-helping friend Stonehewer Giant. First strike, from our avatar. Double strike, from Fireshrieker. Protection from any color, thanks to Order of the Stars. Protection from creatures, thanks to Beloved Chaplain (a favorite Concerted Effort trick of mine). Really, all that's missing is landwalk, fear, and trample, but with all of the above abilities going on I haven't found those to be very necessary.

I've mentioned almost every card in the deck by now, so let's just get to the list.

Avatar: Raksha Land (23): 3 Seat of the Synod 3 Ancient Den 1 Lonely Sandbar 8 Island 8 Plains Creatures (23): 2 Order of the Stars 2 Oona's Gatewarden 2 Beloved Chaplain 2 Kaijin of the Vanishing Touch 1 Courier Hawk 2 Skyhunter Prowler 1 Psychic Membrane 2 Trinket Mage 2 Plumeveil 1 Wall of Swords 1 Sunweb 4 Wakestone Gargoyle

Noncreatures (14): 2 Bonesplitter 1 Peregrine Mask 1 Empyrial Plate 1 Neurok Stealthsuit 1 Vorrac Battlehorns 1 Vulshok Gauntlets 2 Disenchant 1 Fireshrieker 2 Concerted Effort 2 Tidings

This deck has even more 1- and 2-ofs than I usually run.  As you may have surmised from the above descriptions, there was a lot I wanted to cram in, between all the defenders out there and all of the cards that combo with Concerted Effort.  This was my solution.

And now for something completely etc:

Deck 2 Braids, Conjurer Adept

                       What a cutie!

According to conventional wisdom, there's really only one thing to do with this avatar.  Activate its first ability on Turn Two, so you have an extra land, and then activate its third ability on Turn Three, so you have an Akroma.  That is, pretty literally, the only thing anybody has ever used this avatar for.  Ever.

Until now!  This deck's "hidden" gem is that ability I've never seen anybody use, that ability that if you look closely enough you'll notice is actually squeezed between those first and third abilities.  The one about putting noncreature artifacts in play.

Here's why you should use Braids' second ability.  One, because Akroma is boooooring.  And two, because your opponent is way less likely to be able to capitalize off of the second ability than they are the third ability.

This deck is going to focus its entire energy towards that second ability.  So!  First step, let's use some cards that will let us activate the ability a turn early.  4x each of Llanowar Elves and Boreal Druid will all but ensure that we always open with a mana elf.  I don't want to necessarily say you should mulligan any hand that doesn't have both a mana elf and a noncreature artifact, but you should definitely consider it.  This deck's whole plan is to go Turn One elf and Turn Two artifact.

So what artifacts are worth sneaking into play?  First, ones that cost 4 mana or more.  (What's the fun of paying 3 to get an artifact that ordinarily costs 3?)

Next, ones that don't need mana once they're in play.  Yes, it's great to get an Altar of Shadows on Turn Two, but not if you can't use the thing.

Lastly, ones that aren't creatures.  Because we're using Braids' second ability, not her third.

On the creature control front, I settled on Icy Manipulator and Tawnos's Coffin.  For overall utility, Feroz's Ban and Thought Prison.  For defense, Urza's Armor and Summoning Station.  Because it's awesome, Mirror Universe.  For card draw, Farsight Mask and a card I want to highlight specifically:

If you felt like using a line of text on the
avatar as a "hidden gem" was a copout,
how about counting this as the gem?

Why am I highlighting this card?  One, so I can point out that this deck is literally 60 permanents and 0 nonpermanents, meaning every single activation of the Gate is guaranteed to work for you.

Two, because I want to make sure you don't miss the strategy Braids has with it.  Notice that Braids' second ability can be played as an instant.  So put the Gate into play during your opponent's turn — you'll get to use it before they do.

GOOD RIGHT?  This is why we're running four of it.

I've covered every card type but two.

1. Disenchant cards.  We need to use permanents, for the Gate's sake, so Seal of Primordium is better than Naturalize here.  I'm also using Steal Artifact though, because of...
2. The deck's kill condition, March of the Machines!  Now we can do even more with all of those expensive artifacts we've been accumulating.

Here's the decklist.  If you're going to tinker with it, I would probably focus on the artifacts first, as these are probably suboptimal.  The 4 Marches and 8 elves should almost definitely stay untouched though.

Avatar: Braids Land (22): 11 Forest 11 Island Creatures (8): 4 Llanowar Elves 4 Boreal Druid Enchantments (6): 1 Seal of Primordium 1 Steal Artifact 4 March of the Machines

Artifacts (24): 3 Icy Manipulator 2 Tawnos's Coffin 3 Farsight Mask 3 Thought Prison 2 Feroz's Ban 4 Gate to the Æther 1 Mirror Universe 3 Urza's Armor 3 Summoning Station

It's when I try to visualize some armor, a mirror, a station, and a "ban" punching a wizard in the face that I realize the limits of the human imagination.  Still, it's fun to recreate such a scenario during a game.

Deck 3 Heartwood Storyteller

You guessed it, we're running a bunch of creatures whose CC we want to reduce.  So what's the overlooked gem these creatures are all going to center around?

This is a card that got my Johnny senses tingling the moment I saw it.  What creatures had tap abilities that were good, cheap, and cumulative?  "Good" excludes cards like Giant Oyster, "cheap" excludes cards like Ghost-Lit Stalker, and "cumulative" excludes cards like Preacher.  I was sad when I realized that (aside from the haste part) Preacher really didn't benefit from the Elixir.

Every color obviously has a ton of cards that can combine with the Elixir.  White has two great options in the form of Mangara of Corondor and Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile.  But far and away the color with the most combos here is blue.  Consider the following:

• Card drawing / sifting: Archivist, Thought Courier, Survivor of the Unseen, and (although it does seem like overkill to me) Arcanis the Omnipotent
• Permission: Daring Apprentice (if the stack is juuuust right), Disruptive Pitmage
• Removal: Prodigal Sorcerer, Ovinomancer (see note below)
• Defense: Serendib Sorcerer, Minister of Impediments
• Miscellaneous: Musician, Puppeteer, Merfolk Thaumaturgist, Magus of the Jar

The note about Ovinomancer:

When he has the Elixir giving him haste, you can stack his "destroy target creature" ability on top of his "sacrifice Ovinomancer unless" ability.  In fact, you can then untap him and put a second destroy ability on top of it.  That way he'll be safely returned to your hand by the time he tries to sacrifice himself, and your lands can stay in play the whole time.  You just paid 3U to turn two creatures into sheep, without any drawback.

So how do we turn this into a deck?

The theme of my deck is going to be one I thought of when Urza's Saga first came out, and I realized I now had a Disruptive Student to put next to my Vodalian Mage.  Of course, neither of those are available online, but if we add a black splash to our blue deck, we can have an almost-identical (and actually a bit preferable) 8-card suite:

&

And remember, with our avatar, either one can come down on Turn Two, when your opponent is unlikely to have a lot of spare mana.  Especially given what our avatar does to him!

What about the mid and late games?  Let's tie up our opponent's mana in other ways, like our Musicians, Propagandas, and Spiketail Hatchlings.

Since we're tapping our opponent's land so much, we might as well go the old school Psychic Venom route.  And since we're splashing black, we might as well use another Elixir combo in the way of Skeleton Ship.  (Next to Musician, that's two Ice Age cards in one deck!  As I mentioned last article, I love Ice Age a disproportionate amount.)

The rest of the deck falls under control and kill conditions.  As always, feel free to tinker according to your likes.

Avatar: Heartwood Land (23): 14 Island 9 Swamp Creatures (24): 4 Thought Courier 2 Spiketail Hatchling 1 Spiketail Drakeling 2 Puppeteer 3 Musician 4 Mundungu 4 Disruptive Pitmage 1 Skeleton Ship 2 Jetting Glasskite

Noncreatures (13): 1 Magewright's Stone 2 Mana Leak 4 Psychic Venom 2 Propaganda 4 Thousand-Year Elixir

Why limit yourself to only one hidden gem per deck?

One way to make the deck better would probably be to have it go for the kill quicker.  As it is now, it makes the opponent squirm for a long time before finally finishing them off.  Not that that's not a strategy in itself.

See you next time, and have fun with vanguard!

 

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* Three if you count the Peregrine Mask!