Megatron

I know that it's Simic week back at the Mothership but after the past two weeks, I just can't muster the effort to grind through a U/G deck right now. Plus, I already did 1000 Shards early on and that's got to be the most Simicky Simic deck ever.

I will say that with the arrival of Gatecrash, I've made a few tweaks to make Shards even more about the counters (Cloudfin Raptor for Gaea's Skyfolk, notably) and I'm considering Experiment One instead of Simic Initiate, because the Experiment can get bigger than the Initiate. But I am reluctant to replace anything with 0 toughness because of the 0 + Mirrorweave = everything else dies combo. Still, I may put this in the 'light testing' rotation to see what happens.

Since the Simic deck is mostly done (Noah asked me yesterday if a deck was 'finished' and I had to laugh. Nothing is ever finished.) let's go with a distinctly Simic-like deck.

5 Forest
4 Island
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Tree of Tales
3 Simic Growth Chamber 

3 Arcbound Crusher
3 Arcbound Overseer
3 Arcbound Ravager
2 Arcbound Reclaimer
2 Arcbound Slith
4 Arcbound Stinger
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Copper Gnomes
2 Etherium Sculptor
1 Triskelion

          3 Darksteel Forge
          2 Lifeline

1 Fabricate 

3 Naturalize 

I called this deck Megatron because of artwork on Arcbound Overseer. It's probably just me but I see a resemblance. The basic idea was to use the synergy between Arcbound creatures, Lifeline and Darksteel forge to create an overwhelming advantage.

Man, did I hate Lifeline back in the day. I would actively campaign against anyone playing that card, regardless of the board state. It was such a discouraging card to play against, and I have Jason to thank for brutalizing me with it. Cards like Lifeline are why I continue to run effects like Naturalize in nearly every deck I build. Between that and the use of Evolution Vat in the early build (I think there was even a Novijen, Heart of Progress) these were the only roles for green to play.

But, like I said, a good idea is a good idea and using Lifeline's ability to take Arcbound Ravager and repeatedly sacrifice creatures to make it huge, while not actually losing a creature falls under that. Darksteel Forge is an incredibly disheartening card to see from an opponent's point of view and Copper Gnomes allows me to cheat it, the Overseer, or Lifeline into play.

It's been a little while since I've played this deck so the tests should be interesting. The curve on this deck feels high, with plays coming in at 4+ mana that have a broad variance in strength. Arcbound creatures didn't get a boost from the Scars of Mirrodin block, but +1 counters certainly have become a thing in the past few years, especially in Green, so I look forward to seeing what happens!