Overview:
This is a Gates-focused combo deck that uses Child of Alara as a board wipe deterrent while pursuing multiple win conditions through Maze's End, Dark Depths, or value-based gameplay. The deck employs extensive land tutoring and manipulation to achieve its goals.
Primer:
The deck's primary strategy revolves around accelerating land drops and specifically finding Gates through various tutors and land-search effects. It uses cards like Exploration, Burgeoning, and Oracle of Mul Daya to play multiple lands per turn, while cards like Amulet of Vigor help mitigate the drawback of Gates entering tapped. The deck can win through Maze's End's alternate win condition, create a 20/20 Marit Lage with Dark Depths, or generate overwhelming card advantage through Guild Summit and various value engines.
The deck should be piloted by establishing early ramp and card draw engines while setting up either the Gates win condition or Dark Depths combo. Child of Alara serves as a deterrent and reset button when needed. The deck includes several tutors and recursion effects to ensure consistency and resilience. The extensive suite of interaction pieces allows the deck to protect its key pieces while disrupting opponents' strategies.
Weaknesses:
- Vulnerable to land destruction and cards like Blood Moon or Back to Basics
- Relatively slow setup time required to assemble winning combinations
- Heavy reliance on lands entering the battlefield makes it susceptible to effects like Confounding Conundrum
- Can struggle against aggressive strategies due to Gates entering tapped
Most Important Cards:
- Maze's End
- Amulet of Vigor
- Dark Depths
- Guild Summit
- Exploration
- Oracle of Mul Daya
- Scapeshift
- Demonic Tutor
- Reshape the Earth
- Nine-Fingers Keene
Attribute Ratings:
- Speed: 6/10
- Resilience: 7/10
- Consistency: 8/10
- Interaction: 7/10
Rating Justification:
This deck operates at a power level between 6.5 and 7.0. While it includes powerful tutors and card advantage engines, its reliance on lands entering the battlefield and Gates entering tapped naturally limits its speed. The deck has multiple viable paths to victory and strong resilience through recursion, but it typically can't threaten wins before turn 6-7 without perfect draws. It's more powerful than typical focused decks (6.0) due to its consistency and interaction suite, but doesn't quite reach the speed of true high-power decks (7.5+).
Final power level rating: 6.5 - 7.0
The deck shows clear optimization with its mana base (36 lands plus numerous ramp effects), strong interaction package, and multiple win conditions, but its inherent speed limitations from the Gates strategy keep it from reaching higher power levels. The inclusion of cards like Mana Drain, Vampiric Tutor, and Smothering Tithe elevates its power level above casual builds, while maintaining a fair and interactive gameplay pattern.
Child of Alara