Hun-Gurrr

A long while ago-or at least it feels like a long while ago, certainly it was before the blog-I attempted to make something happen with Greater Harvester. This is, admittedly, a 'win more' card because if you can do 5 damage a turn then winning will happen in short order but what the heck: there's nothing like overkill! The original idea was centered around blue to bounce and stall the opponent and it just didn't work, so I took the original deck in a different direction and set Harvester aside. Until now.

I call this Hun-Gurrr after the insatiable Decepticon leader of the Horrorcons, because Harvester needs to be fed. So, yeah: no arrested development there.

3 Whispersilk Cloak
1 Helm of Kaldra

4 Greater Harvester
4 Welkin Hawk
4 Butcher Ghoul4 Doomed Traveler
3 Ashling, the Extinguisher

2 Repentance
2 Steelshaper's Gift
4 Lingering Souls

4 Smother

10 Swamp
9 Plains
2 Salt Flats
2 Orzhov Guildgate
2 Vault of the Archangel

There were two things I needed to add to this deck: I wanted to use creatures I could sacrifice to not feel the pain of Harvester's drawback and I needed a way to ensure that once Harvester hit the table, it got through. Being chumped by 1/1 tokens is a fast way to waste a lot of time and mana and lose the game.

So I added white in order to 1) give me creatures that replaced themselves upon death and 2) help find equipment that will ensure that my Harvester gets through. It was Noah who suggested using equipment in addition to Whispersilk Cloak, so that the Steelshaper's Gifts wouldn't be dead cards in my hand, should I already have a Cloak. I thought the Helm had nice effects and might be fun: it's not Whispersilk but Trample, Haste and First Strike don't suck. Trample was the most important ability: if Harvester doesn't his a player, then there's no point.

The good news is that cards like Lingering Souls and Doomed Traveler lend themselves to flat out aggro play and I can just punch through with small creatures or, if need be, stall the game. Vault of the Archangel allows me turn all my tiny creatures into deadly ones while adding a little life. What it all adds up to, I hope is that if Harvester doesn't show up, I can still make a game out of it.

Ashling is there to shore up the theme a bit, without evoking Harvester's drawback. She's also a little easier to cast, which is nice because I've had to tilt the mana base to try and ensure that I can produce BBB fairly reliably.

Repentance is in there to help shore up the removal suite: Smother is good but it can't be the be all, end all. Let's see what happens!