Razorclaw

Named after the leader of the Predacons, my goal with Razorclaw was essentially this: get 2 for 1 out of every card I cast. So: Avalanche Riders destroys a land in addition to being a creature. Mitotic Slime dies and gives me more creatures. Ohran Viper will kill any creature it damages but will draw me a card if it hits a player, and so on.

I also wanted to use what I thought was a cool interaction between Cream of the Crop and Primitive Etchings. Once those two cards were in play, I could cast a creature and increase the odds of being able to draw a free card off the Etchings every turn. This also explains the inclusion of Dryad Arbor.

The tricky part came when I read the rulings (after the deck was built) on Cream of the Crop, which say that if you have a creature with power equalling 1 then I get to look at the top card but I can't do anything about it. Let's take a look at the decklist:

11 Forest
3 Dryad Arbor
2 Fungal Reaches
1 Raging Ravine
5 Mountain
1 Mossfire Valley 

4 Ohran Viper
3 Wickerbough Elder
4 Caller of the Claw
4 Acidic Slime
4 Mitotic Slime
3 Avalanche Riders
2 Blisterstick Shaman
3 Pouncing Jaguar
2 Flametongue Kavu 

4 Cream of the Crop
4 Primitive Etchings

So, part of that is no friggin' good. Ohran Viper and Dryad Arbor need to come out, because they don't combo with Cream of the Crop. Now the other rule is: all creatures must have a power of 2 or more!

That presents some challenges too. Also: Fungal Reaches has no place in this deck: I am not trying to build up mana to cast some crazy spell: I need to get rolling.

So, perhaps it's time to bring in some Temple of Abandon into the mix instead. That fits the 2 for 1 theme and it can help set up Cream or Etchings.

Caller of the Claw can probably come out too: Mitotic Slime is there for that purpose and yes, it will suck if that gets Path'd, when doesn't that suck? Freeing up space to do something else is probably a better deal, although I'm not sure what right now. Satyr Hedonist might be a thought and so is, interestingly, Golden Hind which the only non-druid creature that taps for mana that I'm aware of.

But I also think that some interaction will serve well too: more Blisterstick Shaman or Flametongue Kavu or something along those lines. If I cannot maximize the value, a deck like this will suffer.