On my old site, Casting Commons, a MTGO player named nathanp01 submitted an article about his deck Domain Zoo which we published. No one has touched the site in over a year and unfortunately the article was lost for one reason or another. After digging around on the admin account I was unable to find it. Quite honestly I have no idea what happened and I’m not about to try to go through the mess of a WordPress site that has not been updated or maintained in a year. After digging through my email I was able to find the article and wanted to preserve it since it was a good piece of writing. I have no interest trying to repost this on the original site since it is clunky and takes forever to format. Some people on reddit enjoy useless trolling and think I deleted not only the article but every post on mtgsalvation referring to it. I find this interesting since I had long forgotten about the article or the deck. Here it is unedited straight from Nathan himself:





For about as long as pauper has been a format people have tried to make domain work, and to very little success. Most respectable brewers abandoned the concept a long time ago. Without dual lands, assembling domain just takes too much effort for too little payout. Then Wizards printed this card

Nylea’s Presence.

At first glance it just looks like a mediocre fixing spell. A worse abundant growth. Except the ruling is worded a bit differently than normal. “Every basic land type in addition to its other types.” That sounds familiar. After cross-referencing Presence with the domain mechanic, I concluded that we had a winner on our hands. Time to brew.

The first step was to search for every card with the domain mechanic at common. Two of them jumped out to me, Matca Rioters and Tribal Flames. Matca seems like a perfect fit. With a Nylea’s Presence out it becomes a 5/5 for 3, an incredible rate for any format, let alone pauper. By a similar token 5 damage for 2 mana is incredibly efficient as well. I started by adding 4 of each to the deck.

There was one other card that stood out to me from my gatherer search, Might of Alara (or if you’re some sicko that prefers old border cards, Gaea’s Might). It seems powerful, but I am reluctant to add pump to the deck at this point. Monoblack is big in the format so getting blown out by removal was not an appealing idea. Groundswell is very similar, and it seems like it might be more consistent. Besides, Matca Rioters doesn’t need much help in the size department. I added it to the list of cards that I *Might want to play.

The next card that I thought of was Wild Nacatl. It seems as though the direction the deck would be going naturally enabled the Nacatl, and the power level on the guy is just too high to pass up.

While Nylea’s Presence does enable domain, it’s also a fixer, and a decently costed one at that. As such seemed to be little downside to playing the best cards from every color in traditional zoo style, and abundant growth is the best way to do that in Pauper. It may not enable domain like presence does, but getting every color of mana at the cost of only one green is really a steal. I decided to add 4.

Now that we have 4 Nylea’s Presence and 4 Abundant Growth, Kor Skyfisher seems like a perfect fit. I had played the card in Kitty for a long time and was always impressed by it. The only complaint that I had was that the aggressive body was somewhat wasted in Kitty decks as they had no way to take advantage of it. Working in tangent with creatures like Matca Rioters and Wild Nacatl could really put a 2/3 flier for 2 to work, and they extra gas from bouncing abundant of presence really sealed the deal.

Seeing as how the deck was playing red mana, the next logical step was to add lightning bolt. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with 3 damage for 1 mana, especially in a deck where going to the face is relevant.

While at this point it seemed clear that the deck would be based around Nylea’s Presence, I really wanted to make sure that the deck could function without it. Fetch lands seemed like a great way to do that, as they can naturally find any color of mana to enable both Rioters and Nacatl in the absence of a presence. I started out with a base of 6 fetches, 12 forests, and one of each other basic.

Now I’m stumped. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough cards that could go into the deck, it’s that there’s too many. With all five colors at my disposal, there are simply so many options that picking the best one was far from obvious. After brainstorming some more I began to think about my other favorite card from the Kitty deck, Spreading Seas. It plays great with Kor Skyfisher, and the ability to passively disrupt my opponent’s mana somewhat seemed to play well into a beatdown strategy,

I had been looking for a home for Imperiosaur ever since it was shifted to common in Modern Masters, and this seemed as good a time as any to dish the dinosaur out. I planned on playing quite a few lands, so getting to 4 mana seemed relatively easy to do, and the lands that fetches get conveniently have to be basics. A 5/5 for 4 may not be as good as a 5/5 for 3, but it’s pretty darn close, and more than good enough to compete with the creatures of pauper

From there I threw in a couple Bonesplitters to fill the empty slots and it was time to test.

4 Matca Rioters

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Kor Skyfisher

4 Imperiosaur

2 Bonesplitter

4 Tribal Flames

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Nylea’s Presence

4 Abundant Growth

4 Spreading Seas

3 Evolving Wilds

3 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Mountain

1 Swamp

1 Island

1 Plains

12 Forest

After the first few rounds with my new brew I knew I was onto something special.

One thing that instantly impressed me was the ability of a 5/5 to take over the game, and with 8 maindeck 5/5s all reasonably costed, this was happening often.

Skyfisher performed like a complete all-star in the list with so many cantripping things to bounce and how relevant a 2/3 flier proved to be. It really amazed me how much tempo it gained to bounce abundant growth instead of the 2 mana cantrips that have become the industry standard for fisher decks.

The card that probably impressed me the most was Wild Nacatl, which was originally included as more of a side note. The real wow-factor from Nylea’s Presence came from its interaction with Matca Rioters, but I began to think that the interaction with Nacatl was actually even stronger. Turn 1 Nacatl into turn 2 Nylea’s Presence proved to be a near game-winning play, and it compounded itself with additional Nacatls and Tribal Flames.

Surprisingly, the card that I was least impressed with of all that I tested was Lightning Bolt. Our creatures were so beefy that the opponent’s just couldn’t get into combat without being decimated, leaving the opponent with a bunch of useless 2/2s most games. Every time I drew Lightning Bolt I would look at the opposing board and see nothing that I wanted to kill, and most of the time I would have just preferred another threat. So I did something that I have done very few times in my career of playing Magic, cut 4 lightning bolt from the deck.

The next iteration of the brew was heavily inspired by Kitty, more so than earlier versions. It seemed as though Skyfisher was one of the best cards in the deck, so the natural next step was to include more of that effect. Drake Familiar is a card that I have always though was underappreciated, a 2/1 body for 2 mana is good efficiency, and getting extra value from it is even better.

After realizing what an idiot I was for playing Bonesplitter over Rancor in a deck full of 5/5s, I promptly made the switch and gave the updated version a shot.

4 Matca Rioters

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Kor Skyfisher

4 Imperiosaur

3 Drake Familiar

2 Mulldrifter

4 Tribal Flames

2 Rancor

4 Nylea’s Presence

4 Abundant Growth

3 Spreading Seas

3 Evolving Wilds

3 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Mountain

1 Swamp

1 Island

1 Plains

12 Forest

After a few matches I was not really liking the way the deck was going. Drake Familiar had a few issues going against it. While the body is somewhat reasonable for it’s cost, especially for trading with flipped delvers, the fact that it forces you to bounce an enchantment became to an issue. Skyfisher had the advantage of being a really solid creature when you couldn’t find an enchantment, while familiar just ended up being stranded in my hand. It also gave opponents an outlet for their 1 and 2 damage removal, which was dead otherwise.

The other issue with the faux Kitty plan was that I started becoming less and less happy with spreading seas. Between Abundant Growth, Nylea’s Presence, and the fetches we ended up durdling a lot already, and spreading seas just put it over the top. Blue decks were everywhere, and it just turned out to be too low impact too often to warrant the mana being wasted.

Another issue I started running into was rampant flooding. With so many expensive spells in the deck and lands being so important to enabling our spells, hands without a large proportion mana ended up as clear mulligans, yet through the course of the game this meant drawing far more lands than was necessary. I felt like I needed a way to deal with flooding while not reducing the land count any.

The next card that occurred to me is one of my personal favorites, Putrid Leech. With only one non-green mana in the cost, paying for it didn’t seem too difficult. It fit into the curve nicely while allowing us to be more proactive than the aura bounce plan that I had been playing before.

As far as stopping flood goes, you can’t do much better than Cenn’s Enlistment. It both ensures that we never draw another land that we don’t want and gives us a plan for the extreme late game. I decided to throw in a pair of enlistments and a few leeches to see how they fared.

4 Matca Rioters

2 Aura Gnarlid

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Kor Skyfisher

4 Imperiosaur

4 Tribal Flames

4 Nylea’s Presence

4 Abundant Growth

3 Putrid Leech

2 Cenn’s Enlistment

3 Rancor

3 Evolving Wilds

3 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Mountain

1 Swamp

1 Island

1 Plains

12 Forest

After the first couple games I saw a big improvement over the Spreading Seas list. Enlistment played a big part in easing flooding in quite a few games, and the body on Leech led to some explosive starts. Between Nacatl and Leech, we were able to put a ton of pressure out early and back them up with some enormous dudes and hard hitting burn. Leech played great with Nacatl and Cenn’s Enlistment played great with rancor.

Staring at boards filled to the brim with land enchantments for too long gave me the bright idea of including Aura Gnarlid. The difference between Gnarlid and Rioter is remarkably small, and after playing with the cards a lot I concluded that Matca is likely the one to bias toward. Still, adding some number of Aura Gnarlids has a lot of utility. When games go long your chances of drawing an enormous unblockable Gnarlid exponentially increase, and they are close enough to one another in general play that it’s worth the split.

While the new additions were improvements to the deck, they by no means earned a solidified spot. It seemed to me that some way to stop flooding was necessary for the deck, but whether Cenn’s Enlistment would be the right fit was still up for debate. In some games the 1/1s weren’t enough, ready to be blocked by the sea of otherwise irrelevant 2/2s. In others I would flood out anyway, never seeing Enlistment in time to help me. In many games I drew Enlistment and had the mana to play it, but I spent all my mana on the top end of the curve without any time to get use repeatedly casting a low-impact 4-mana spell.

Putrid Leech turned out to be a great threat whenever I cast it, but the casting it was the problem. Black mana was attainable, but the issue was getting it early enough for the leech to be relevant. Not every hand could rely on having a fixer enchantment however, and the ones that didn’t were presented with an unfortunate dilemma: Use Terramorphic to assemble Naya lands for Wild Nacatl or find the Swamp to cast Leech. Hands had an average of 1 or 2 early fetches, so getting the black for leech had a significant chance of leaving red and white spells stranded in your hand and Wild Nacatls small, while getting the Plains or Mountain significantly lowered the rate at which leech could be played, cutting its effectiveness seriously. Still, leech was a strong enough card and played into our strategy well enough for it to beat out the competition.

After adding Leech, lowering the curve started becoming more and more attractive. Imperiosaur, while exceptionally powerful, began to seem a bit slow for the newer version. The inclusion of leech meant that games were over sooner, leaving less time for a 5/5 to take over the game and less need for it. I was seeing delver everywhere and running the dinosaur against them just felt awful.

The next revelation I had was how perfectly Qasali Pridemage fit into the deck. I had completely forgotten that the Cat Wizard was a common until this point, and felt like an idiot for not realizing sooner. Like Putrid Leech it represents a very efficient early body to provide pressure in tandem with Wild Nacatl. Unlike Putrid Leech, it has an innocuous mana cost and an ability that has utility in a lot of situations and some of the most popular matchups.

Not quite satisfied with Enlistment, I decided that Monstrify was worth a shot. Since they both have retrace, having them both as 1 of’s has quite a bit of utility while playing well with each other.

Blastoderm is very similar to Imperiosaur, and it’s a card that I had been considering switching in for a while. As a man of value, the fading just seemed too unthinkable to me, but since I was biasing the deck to be more aggressive shroud became too hard to pass up. The newest version included both Putrid Leech and Pridemage to play into a more aggressive strategy, with a pair of Blastoderms as finishers.

3 Matca Rioters

2 Aura Gnarlid

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Kor Skyfisher

3 Putrid Leech

2 Blastoderm

4 Tribal Flames

4 Nylea’s Presence

4 Abundant Growth

3 Qasali Pridemage

1 Cenn’s Enlistment

1 Monstrify

3 Rancor

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Mountain

1 Island

1 Plains

1 Swamp

10 Forest

Lowering the curve definitely proved effective from my next set of results. The new list had speed to compete with the tempo of the pauper format more directly.

Yet I still had the same issues with Putrid Leech and the retrace spells not being perfect fits for the deck. I wracked my brain for alternative ways to mitigate flood, without much success.

Squadron Hawk is a card that I noticed while exploring what other options I had. Just looking at it I was not impressed. A 1/1 for 2 just didn’t seem aggressive enough, no matter how many of them you have. Nevertheless I added the card to my list of potential inclusions.

One day I was *Brainstorming cards to mitigate flood and… wait, Brainstorm? That’s a good idea. Brainstorm could put lands back into the deck in the late game. We already have 8 shuffle effects naturally, so brainstorm could fit in without really making many changes. Hey, doesn’t Squadron Hawk shuffle our library? And isn’t there a combo with those two cards?

-Squadron Hawk, find 3 other hawks.

-Brainstorm, drawing 3 and putting 2 hawks on the top of your library

-Cast the 3rd squak, searching your library for two more, which are conveniently right on top of it

As soon as I realized this I cut the leeches and retrace spells to give squak and brainstorm a try

3 Matca Rioters

1 Aura Gnarlid

4 Wild Nacatl

4 Kor Skyfisher

4 Squadron Hawk

3 Brainstorm

4 Tribal Flames

4 Nylea’s Presence

4 Abundant Growth

2 Aura Gnarlid

3 Qasali Pridemage

3 Rancor

4 Evolving Wilds

4 Terramorphic Expanse

1 Mountain

1 Island

1 Plains

10 Forest

There’s a reason that everyone plays brainstorm in legacy, and I could now see why. One of my biggest concerns about playing it came from including casting costs off of the Naya base, but this was barely a factor. In order to get the most value out of Brainstorm I naturally found myself waiting on casting it as long as I could, so by the time I actually wanted to play brainstorm the mana was almost always there. Brainstorm didn’t just turn out to be good when flooding out though. With all the fetch lands I naturally fetch all the time, so a spare mana here or there could lead to the ability to turn a bad hand into a great one.

What really surprised me was how good the Hawks were. I was skeptical because of how unimpressive 1/1s seemed and how little they played into the zoo strategy, but the reality is that they were too awesome against the metagame for that to matter. Before Squaks I had lots of trouble with the Mono Black matchup. They would just kill my efficient creatures one by one until I was forced to topdeck against their ridiculous late game. Squak not only had excellent play against Diabolic Edict effects so common in black, it also provided a way to directly compete with Black’s card advantage.

It also wasn’t obvious how well Squad Hawk performed against delver decks. Delver operates by making 1 for 1 trades and by casting 1/1 fliers, two things that Squadron Hawk blows out of the water. With a two mana 4 for 1 a ton more delver matches started going my way, and considering what a big part of the metagame delver is this means a ton more general success.

Needless to say, anytime I could get the Squak, Brainstorm combo going it was awesome, but the cards ended up being powerful enough on their won that the combo is just gravy.

The more observant of you may have noticed that a swamp is mysteriously missing from this list. A domain list without a swamp? Shocking I know. This is not some mistake. In both the maindeck and the sideboard I had no black cards whatsoever, nor did I have any black cards that I wanted to play. Swamp is a strictly colorless land in the deck. Forest, on the other hand, has all the colors of the rainbow. Lots of hands have two or so lands and a fixer enchantment. Normally these hands are great, but without a green source to cast Abundant Growth or Nylea’s Presence they’re instant mulligans.

But Swamp has utility for activating domain, right? Well, yes, but not as much as you might think. I was already playing 4 Nylea’s Presence, which bypass straight to full domain, swamp or no. What this means is that the only time that swamp is actually good is when I don’t have a Nylea’s presence, I do have all other land types, and I have an extra fetch to use on it. And how good is it? It will occasionally give rioters a +1/+1 boost or give an extra damage to an already powerful Tribal Flames. The choice not to play swamp may not have been as obvious as I make it seem here, but that is the reasoning I used for the switch. I still think the swamp was debatable though.

After a lot of testing and tuning I came up with a list that I liked and decided to try my luck at a Premier Event. I ended up in 5th place. Here’s the list I used.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/218007

Young wolf and staggershock may strike you as new technology, but they really weren’t. Unlike Squadron Hawk and Brainstorm I didn’t come up with the cards in some breakthrough of deck improvement, I included them as maindeck hedges against the metagame. Monoblack was very popular and was giving me issues, so I decided to put some Young Wolves main. Small creature strategies were on the rise and delver was everywhere, so I included Staggershock. While these card are powerful their placement was by no means solidified in the deck, and their power level varies wildly based on what the opposing strategy is.

After this finish the secret of the Domain deck was effectively out. It even went to for as to appear on the Daily Decks at the (Wizards) hyperlink

http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/deck/1423

website, though unfortunately under someone else’s username. People started playing it in the Tournament Practice room, writing threads about it, and contacting me with thoughts. One such person is LordSaturn with the crazy idea including Unearth in the list. I politely shot it down. That card couldn’t be good without a reliable way to fill our own graveyard, right? Besides, it costs a black mana, and we saw how much that restricted the effectiveness of Putrid Leech.

Simply for the sake of testing every option I decided to test one out. It wasn’t bad. Actually it was really good. Actually… let’s add another.

http://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/219795

I contribute a large part of my success in this Premier Event to Lord Saturn’s amazing innovation of Unearth. As it turns out, the card is just insane. The complaints I had proved to be minimal, and the upside proved absurd. With Delver and Mono Black such a huge part of the metagame creatures hit the bin all the time, leaving unearth to scoop them up at the low, low cost of one mana. The fact that it cost black turned out to be insignificant for the same reason that it doesn’t bother brainstorm, it’s generally one of the last cards that you cast from your hand. If for some reason your really can’t find a black mana or a creature to reanimate the card can just cycle it self away. Another thing that I never considered was how powerful it is to be able choose which card out of your yard you want. Unearth could become a Disenchant effect when I wanted it with Pridemage, A value creature when I needed on with Skyfisher bouncing an aura, or just a 5/5 for one mana.

In Conclusion:

Aside from a few minor tweaks and twerks, this is more or less the list that I have arrived at. So what can we learn from my experience stumbling through deck creation? First, try cards. Give them an opportunity to surprise you. Often when brewing you will have epiphany moments like I did with brainstorm, but sometimes you don’t. It can be really difficult to convince yourself to play cards that you don’t have high hopes for but it’s important that you do. If I hadn’t tried cards that I didn’t think would be good I would have never discovered Squadron hawk or Unearth, two cards that are now some of the most important in the deck. It’s easy to get caught up in how you think things will play out when in reality things are a lot different. So the next time you see a card you find interesting but not so great, give it a try.

The next thing that all brewers need to get into a habit of doing is recording cards that they think can be good. Even if you try the card and it turns out it sucks, write it down. Maybe your deck changes enough that it become viable again. Maybe remembering the card gives you insight to other aspects of the deck, like “we’re soft to counters” or “we can’t keep up tempo against aggro decks.” There is no harm in just jotting the card down, but a lot to be gained.

To prove to you that I practice what I preach, here is the compiled list of cards that I collected in the course of brewing the deck. Some of these are very strong, but just didn’t fit the direction that I decided to go. With all these interesting and powerful cards there’s bound to be a deck in here somewhere, and it’s up to you to find it.

Lightning Bolt

Journey to Nowhere

Doom Blade

Tribal Flames

Diabolic Edict

Flame Slash

Reckless Abandon

Pillory of the sleepless

Staggershock

Blightning

Adventuring Gear

Zektar Shrine Expedition

Faithless Looting

Exclude

Unearth

Opaline Bracers

land grant

Undying Evil

Commune with nature

Blastoderm

Drake Familiar

Phyrexian Rager

Putrid Leech

Aura Gnarlid

Benevolent Bodyguard

Coiling Oracle

Qasali Pridemage

Guardian of the Guildpact

Young Wolf

Safehold Elite

Shambleshark

Vedalken Outlander

Wojek Halberdiers

Deft Duelist

Porcelain Legionnaire

Squadron Hawk

Keldon Marauders

Aven Riftwatcher

Steppe Lynx

Fireslinger

Avacyn’s Pilgrim

Mogg War Marshal

Scab-Clan Mauler

Ninja of the Deep Hours

Horned Kavu

Skarrgan Pit-Skulk

River Boa

Mire Boa

Skyshroud Ridgeback

Granger Guildmage

Spreading Seas

Rancor

Prismatic Strands

Utopia Sprawl

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Might of Alara

Gaea’s Might

Vines of Vastwood

Groundswell

Mutagenic Growth

Apostle’s Blessing

Mizzium Skin

Oona’s Grace

Cenn’s Enlistment

Monstify

Brainstorm

Moldervine Cloak

Compulsive research

Armadillo Cloak

Ethereal Armor

Snake Umbra

Eel Umbra

Sideboard:

Serene heart

Diabolic Edict

Ray of Revelation

Hydroblast

Pyroblast

Electrickery

Circle of Protection: Red

Serrated Arrows

Stone Rain

Thermokarst

Spreading Seas

Scattershot Archer

Gorilla Shaman

Chatter of the Squirrel

Squadron Hawk

Valeron Outlander

Obsidian Acolyte

Moment’s Peace

Branching Bolt

Skyshroud Archer

Orim’s Thunder

Snuff Out

Wandering Stream

Grazing Gladehart

Neurok Stealthsuit

Moldervine cloak

Cho-Manno’s Blessing

Pit Keeper

Opaline bracers

Mana Leak

Arcane Denial

Essence Scatter

Exclude

Standard Bearer

Thrill of the Hunt

Momentary Blink

Field Surgeon

Death Spark

So you may have noticed that I did not once mention the sideboard in that very long-winded history of the deck. The truth is the sideboard has changed so much and so often that it’s impossible to keep track of the changes that I have made, nor do I think it would be very educational. The sideboard options for the deck are so vast and the matchups so difficult to precisely optimize. Any input that I were to put in on how to build a sideboard for the deck would have to be at least the length of a whole other article in order to get any kind of coherent point across. If people want me to write such an article I would be willing to, but it felt like it would be better to leave it out in this deck biography.

If any of you plan on picking up the deck it is important to consider that playing the deck is not as straightforward as it may seem. At first glance people see Wild Nacatl and tribal Flames and assume that it is an aggro deck, but this is not at all the case. While it is capable of playing the aggressor, it is equally capable of playing the control, and which role to take on has a lot to do with the individual matchup or draw. Learning which role to take on is one of the most difficult aspects of the deck, and requires a significant amount of experience with matchups to get right. The nuts and bolts of the deck can be quite tricky too. Things like which land to search out and which to enchant may seem innocuous, but they can have huge implications later if done carelessly. Understanding which hands are keepable is another big thing to watch out for.

If I could give two tips to aspiring Domain players they would be these. First, if you have Domain already via Nylea’s Presence or the full set of lands, enchant your fetch lands. An enchanted fetch can be tapped for mana immediately, effectively saving you a mana. This comes up all the time.

Next, don’t be afraid to keep hands with lot of lands. Between Squadron Hawk, Kor Skyfisher, and Brainstorm there are lots of ways to keep threats coming if you are a bit heavy on lands, while playing with fewer lands than you want is much more difficult.

So that’s it. The deck is finished, right? Heck no! There are still thousands of commons left to be tested in the five-color cardpool, and tons of individual directions to take the strategy. Building this deck has been the most difficult thing I have done in my career as a Magic player simply because there are so many options to be considered that finding anything remotely near optimal takes a tremendous effort. There are bound to be tons more cards that I haven’t even though of or considered. There’s lots more work to be done, and I need your help.

The deck looks cool, but it’s just for fun, right? Wrong! I have played this deck more than anyone and I can say without vanity that this thing is the real deal.

-Firstly it’s very independently strong. Cards like Wild Nacatl, Tribal Flames, Matca rioters, and Unearth more than meet the powerlevel of pauper decks.

-Second, it plays great against the metagame. Anyone familiar with competitive Pauper will have played against one deck in particular far more than any other. That deck just so happens to be one of domain’s best matchups. I try to make an effort to play as much as I can with the deck in the tournament practice room, and I haven’t lost the Delver matchup in literal months. Other matchups like affinity can be tough, but they get way better in game 2, which leads me to my next point…

-Third, sideboard. I am of the firm belief that Domain has the best sideboard in Pauper. With all 5 colors, there end up being so many cards to choose from that picking 15 becomes daunting. With the board we can have the tools to beat any deck in the metagame if we just devote enough board slots to it. This also gives us the ability to shift our strategy to any meta that could arise. You can add hosers for all your worst matchups, while tuning the maindeck to beat the most popular decks naturally. Or you can tune the board with only hate card cards, ignoring the worst matchups since you will be winning enough anyway for those matchups not to matter. Or you can fill the board with flexible answers to deal with any deck you might run into while still having options to improve the matchup against the staples of the format. The sideboard is where the skill of the deckbuilder is really able to shine. Being able to correctly predict the metagame and build a board to attack it is an incredible edge for a great builder, and I don’t think any deck rewards that skill so much as this one.

-Fourth, Unexpectedness. Running delver in a tournament ensures that you will see a vast number of decks designed specifically to hate you, simply due to its popularity in the meta. Affinity is not only popular enough to receive hate, but it also has a slew of incredibly effective hosers from all sorts of colors. Mono Black, while less hatable, is so popular that decks without boards specifically for them will fail to survive. But who is going to bring in hate against the domaindeck? Most decks have minimal sideboards for us at best, while ours is robust and exceedingly powerful against them. Many people still consider Domain to be a joke, and as such do not know the list, don’t know which cards to play around, and generally play sub optimally against us. Being rogue isn’t just for the cool factor.

As a closing note I want to implore you to give your suggestions. As long as my list of potential cards was, it’s still far from complete. There really are no bad ideas. A longer list is always better than a shorter one, and I’d rather consider a hundred goofy cards that miss out on the diamond in the ruff that I know is out there. There are far too many cards that this deck can play for my feeble mind to comprehend, but with the help of my fellow brewers we can make this wonderful deck the best that it can be. Until then, never stop brewing.





-nathanp01