How do you shuffle a big deck? How do you tutor a big deck? For years, I’ve been haphazardly adding and pulling cards from it. The deck has become uneven. For example, a few years ago, I realized I was playing roughly forty percent of the Looters, such as Cephalid Looter and friends. So, I added in the rest in order to be consistent. But that was the exception, so it was time for a good cleansing.

And I am adding in a lot of cards.

The result is a bigger deck, but also a few cards yanked for failing to make the grade. Today, I will give you another list of cards that were offed. Then, I’ll end with a list of cards that are being added from Born of the Gods.

Quagnoth – These days, I skip 6-mana creatures that have very little to offer. I added this to my deck years ago when I realized that my creature count was too low and I was searching for bodies. It’s been on my watch list for a while, and it’s time to dump him. For 6 mana, you need more than an uncounterable 4/5 shroud creature. Shroud is fine, but it’s not as though people would tend to target the vanilla 4/5 anyway. So it can feel superfluous, and I can’t equip him, so it gets in the way. Quagnoth was never sexy and never strong. Time to go home, buddy.

(Cards that were on my old watch list have often headed back to my deck, and that includes the Hound of Griselbrand, Cao Ren, Wei Commander, and Liu Bei, Lord of Shu.)

Chaos Confetti – I would put this card back in my deck today if I found a playgroup that embraced this card and Un- cards like my previous one. Our rule for this card was that you could use it (and Blacker Lotus) if you had one already torn up. So I had the pieces of a spare Chaos Confetti that was torn, and I used them whenever I drew this effect, and I would then I would remove the Confetti from the game and place it into the really-removed-from-the-game zone.

Naya Battlemage – I don't generally play tappers like Master Decoy. Unless they do something else, like Icy Manipulator or Opposition, I steer clear. Because the Naya B-Mage can pump or tap, I tossed it in, but I've been very disappointed with the results. I rarely pump, and tapping is just not strong at the multiplayer table. You have to tap down an attacker before the person attacks, so you often don't know if the creature was coming your way or not. So it’s useful more to tap down blockers and such, and that's not nearly as flexible as it is in duels, so it's a card that needs to be pulled from the deck.

Aven Mimeomancer – I had such high hopes for this card. Each upkeep, I can make your big beater a 3/1 flyer! Or I can make my Birds of Paradise a 3/1 flyer—it works both ways here. But the problem is that if the board state is even close to the Mimeomancer breaking things open, its 1 toughness allows it to be killed by anything from Singe or Zap on up. It just doesn't have the chops to push the battlefield in the right direction.

Rivals' Duel – I often look for removal spells that can provide card advantage. A deck like mine can’t always rely on drawing powerful card-draw spells, so little advantage like this is valuable. So the idea is that you can force two creatures to fight each other, and perhaps they will both die. But there are too many restrictions on the effect: sorcery speed, the targets can't be of the same creature type, and the targets have to have similar enough stats to kill each other in the fight. After playing with it for a while, I observed that it almost never provides card advantage, and that turns it into a clunky 4-mana removal spell. I don't need that either. Time to bench my foil copy.

Morkrut Banshee – Why doesn't the Banshee fly? If it flew, it would be in the same space as cards like Serra Angel, Sengir Vampire, and more. But I'm tired of this body being on the ground and watching as smaller dorks fly in the air over her. I don't always get to trigger her ability, and I don’t always get to kill what I want when I do. But if she flew, she'd be worth it. The foil brings out her fangs and the moon, and she'd be all flying over the landscape as a feasible 4/4 for 5 mana and sometimes killing something on arrival. But no, this Banshee has to suck. I love flexibility in a card. She’s the opposite. Her ability is too limited to kill, to deal damage, to block, or to be effective.

Woebringer Demon – This is a card that has been on my watch list for a while (it's a 4/4 flyer for 5 mana like the above Banshee should have been). You look at the Demon and think, “It's a new The Abyss on a stick; great!” But the problem is that it looks good in theory, but it usually just does little. Someone almost always has no creatures in play. Someone else has enough stupid dorks to protect his or her massive beater. And then it usually kills itself very quickly, and then you have barely helped your board position (if at all). On the very rare occasion that it actually is played on a board that matters, it invariably is countered or killed. Just once in the years of playing it can I remember it actually taking over a game. That's a fun story, but cards cannot live on one story alone.

Meishin, the Mind Cage – Pulling this foil hurts. I almost left it in on principle. I love this card so much that I have extolled its virtues in several articles. How can I pull it from my signature deck if it's so good? And it is. It has taken over games. But that was way back, and in years, it has done nothing but sit in my hand and suck. It's too situational in a deck that's not specifically built around it. Plus, in a day when ramping strategies morph into large beaters that can overcome the -X/-0 on it, it’s not even the shutdown card it used to be. Meishin is fun, but it needs another avenue of expression.

And, with that, I’ve pulled out another thirteen cards from Abe’s Deck of Happiness and Joy! It’s benching time for these vets. So, what cards from Born of the Gods will be making the cut?

"Born of the Gods Additions"

• Creatures (19)
• 1 Arbiter of the Ideal
• 1 Archetype of Endurance
• 1 Archetype of Finality
• 1 Archetype of Imagination
• 1 Champion of Stray Souls
• 1 Chromanticore
• 1 Courser of Kruphix
• 1 Eater of Hope
• 1 Flame-Wreathed Phoenix
• 1 Forgestoker Dragon
• 1 Nessian Wilds Ravager
• 1 Perplexing Chimera
• 1 Satyr Wayfinder
• 1 Silent Sentinel
• 1 Ephara, God of the Polis
• 1 Karametra, God of Harvests
• 1 Mogis, God of Slaughter
• 1 Tromokratis
• 1 Xenagos, God of Revels

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Kiora, the Crashing Wave

• Spells (11)
• 1 Fated Infatuation
• 1 Fated Intervention
• 1 Fated Retribution
• 1 Fated Return
• 1 Nullify
• 1 Unravel the Aether
• 1 Gild
• 1 Peregrination
• 1 Plea for Guidance
• 1 Astral Cornucopia
• 1 Gorgon's Head

• Lands (3)
• 1 Temple of Enlightenment
• 1 Temple of Malice
• 1 Temple of Plenty

Buy This Deck

It’s another addition of thirty-four cards to my deck; it just keeps going!

See you next week,

Abe Sargent