----------------------------------------------------------------- This is the deck I used for our RAV++ Singleton Event 16.11.2008. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The deck was meant to have a low mana-curve and to produce small creatures and some blockers quickly. Lots of combos centred around saprolings, counters, sacrifices, life-gain, card-draw, graveyard cycling, discard, madness and some removal should provide a large range of different play-styles with interesting and surprising games which usually provides fun. The deck was 61 cards with only 23 lands and Wall of Roots, Greenseeker, Fertilid and Tilling Treefolk to help getting mana. It was probably a bit too low a land count, but the deck certainly played in many different ways, it was mostly medium fast as I had planned it and it was mostly fun to play. In "Harvest Spike Feeder to stay alive mode" it was a bit slow and boring, but that was as much the fault of the opponent deck which was not able to take advantage of a situation with a big flyer that I could not block. The deck turned out to be short on mana not because of the mana curve (only 4 spells with 5 mana cost, one of them convoke, 4 with 1 mana, 11 with 2 mana, 11 with 3 mana, 8 with 4 mana), but because the effects I wanted to play often costed a bit of mana which was enough to lock up my development in the early game, especially when I had a low-on-mana start. The many Ravnica lands that give no coloured mana were there for flavour but certainly helped to lock me up without the right mana a couple of times and none of them ever did anything even remotely fun or useful. They should not have been in there. ----------------------------------------------------------------- The theme of the deck is really "what you can do with a creature". Of the 23 lands one is a creature, one can become a creature, one can produce creatures. Of 38 spells 33 are creatures, 2 instants do nothing else than to produce creature tokens, Doubling season simply doubles the token creature production, the Staff can only be used by creatures and the last instant will bring creatures back from the graveyard. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Land ---- Golgari Rot Farm - B/G Vivid March - B/G/W Savage Lands - B/G/R Gilt-Leaf Palace - B/G Saltcrusted Steppe - G/W (storage - was too slow) Selesnia Sanctuary - G/W Pendelhaven - G as good as Forest, no downsides Dryad Arbor - G and creature Llanowar Reborn - G (graft counter) Terramorphic expanse - colour fixer, land thinner Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree (was never useful) Orzhova, the Church of Deals (was never useful) Svogthos, the Restless Tomb (was never useful) Mouth of Ronom (was never needed) Snow-Covered Swamps (4 total) Snow-Covered Plains (1 total) Snow-Covered Forests (4 total) ------------------ 23 land (maybe this was not quite enough) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Spells ------ Big Game Hunter (removal, madness) Clockwork Hydra (counters, removal) Deathspore Thallid (counters, tokens and removal) Desecrator Hag (recover) Disciple of Tevesh Szat (removal) Essence Warden (life gain) Fertilid (counters, land search) Fleshwrither (Tutor mainly) Garza's Assassin (removal, recover) Golgari Guildmage (sacrifice for recover) Grave Scrabbler (recover, madness) Greenseeker (discard for madness, dredge, recover etc) Gutless Ghoul (life gain and sacrifice) Moonglove Changeling (for deathtouch) Moonglove Winnower (deathtouch) Ohran Viper Psychotrope Thallid (counters, tokens and card draw) Rakdos Guildmage (discard for madness and removal) Savra, Queen of the Golgari (lifegain and removal via sacrifice) Shambling Shell (counters + dredge into graveyard) Soproloth Ancient (counters + tokens) Spike Feeder (counters + life gain) Sporesower Thallid (counters + tokens) Thallid (counters and tokens) Thallid Germinator (counters and tokens) Thallid Shell-Dweller (counters and tokens) Thelon of Havenwood (flavour for fungus) Thoughtpicker Witch (draw control and sacrifice) Tilling Treefolk (recover dredged/discarded/sacrificed land) Undertaker (discard for recover, great with madness) Vhati il-Dal (removal, great with disciple, Hydra etc) Vitaspore Thallid (counters, tokens, sacrifice for haste) Wall of Roots ----------------- Doubling Season (for flavour with counters and tokens) Grim Harvest (recover) Scatter the seeds (tokens, convoke) Sprout Swarm (tokens, convoke) Thornbite Staff (removal to go with deathtouch) ----------------- Sideboard --------- Nullmage Shepherd Putrefy Eyeblight's Ending Trophy Hunter Gaea's Anthem Dryad Sophisticate Necrogenesis Civic Wayfinder Gleeful Sabotage Elvish Skysweeper Moldevine Cloak Fate Transfer Stromgald Crusader Dimir House Guard Stinkweed Imp