Welcome to War of the Spark take one.

I like fun self-made combos. Feather, the Redeemed is a great choice to toss out there and harness the power of your deck.

Here is our Feather. Note that our good Angel wants to have enough creatures to target and enough spells to be pertinent. Luckily, there isn't an "other" clause in here, so Feather can self-target for card advantage all day long.

Note that this card feels a lot like a previous Red card out there, Zada, Hedron Grinder

Where Feather will give you another copy as long as you target one of your own dorks, Zada fork-ed it to all of your stuff. Both of them have uses, but they may not cross the streams as much as you might initially expect.

Here, let me show you:

This is Titan's Strength, and it was often twinned with Zada. Target Zada, and then all of you other dorks get big, and you scry 1 a bunch of times. If you were to add Titan's Strength to Feather, you'd only get a basic Giant Growth trick you could play, and replay, only getting a single Scry 1 out of the deal. It's not that exciting. Zada gave you a pseudo-Overrun effect and would scry a bunch too. But Feather? She'll just give you the card again later, and you'll need to spend more mana and such. It's slower and less power.

Now, let's look at a card that works a little better in a Feather shell:

This is Repulse. Zada is almost never going to want to trade bouncing your entire team for a few cards. Zada might occasionally want use this as protection from mass removal, which would be a cool trick! But overall? This just isn't where you would normally want to be. But Feather? Bounce and draw a card and put it back into your hand for later? It's like a Capsize with buyback that replaces itself but doesn't require buyback mana. Its usefulness and power are stronger in a Feather shell than a Zada one.

So what are the best cards to harness the power of your Feather deck?

Great question! Here are some that strike me as pretty potent!

Honorable Mention - Ire of Kaminari

This may strike some folks as unorthodox but follow me on this. I'll get you to the promised land like Moses. The amount of damage you can fling at someone's face with Ire can be game-ending amount of damage if you have committed to an Arcane spell-based deck. Unlike other of these effects from Kamigawa Block, the Arcane spells don't need Spirits, so Feather will work with them nicely.

Here's how it works.

Imagine you have a small number of Arcane spells with Splice in your hand:

Such as these! And then you have in hand a single cheap Arcane spell to use.

Now you normally would do something like this:

1. Spend a Red mana to cast Unnatural Speed on one of your dorks.
2. Spend a White mana to splice Spiritual Visit.
3. Spend 2 mana to splice Glacial Ray

Result? For, you have made a 1/1 dork, given a guy haste, and dealt two damage somewhere, and only the initial card would be gone from your hand, as the rest were spliced.

Now if you add Feather to this mix? You exile the Speed, and put it back, and you didn't even lose a card. You gained a strong set of effects that you can use over and over again.

And Ire can win the game out of nowhere as a finisher of choice. Enjoy the Arcane route!

10. Pyromancer's Goggles

If your deck's instants and sorcery are mostly Red, then you can get free forks by tapping this for the Red mana to make one. For example, if you cast Titan's Strength on your dork with this card, then the following would happen:

1. Your Dork gets +3/+1 and you scry 1
2. Another Dork get's the same effect (or you can target the same dork twice)
3. You exile the Strength and you put into your hand later for later use.

Net result for a single Red mana? Two scrys, a big pump, and the card hasn't left. It's worth it!

Also, a quick shout out to Chandra, the Firebrand who can fork a sorcery or instant.

9.Mirari

Speaking of free forks, how about Mirari? Sure, it's three mana for the fork rather than nothing, but unlike the Goggles of Jaya and Chandra it will work on spells that aren't Red, so that has a lot of value to me as well. Unlike the Goggles it also can be used for multiple spells, which is always a nice boost to sales. And face punches.

8. Djinn Illuminatus

Outside of Commander, you can run the Illuminatus in a non-Blue deck. Like this one! You can cast a spell, and then fork it for each mana you invest to do so again. That will give you a powerful punch to the face.

Here, take a dorky spell like Bandage.

You cast bandage on Feather. If you control the Djinn Illuminatus, then you get a free card for each additional White Mana you invest on more Bandages. You can also exile the first Bandage you cast and then recast it on a later turn, while also netting these other effects too. It's so strong!

How can you not be excited to Illuminate Some Battlefields?

7. Shelter

Shelter is one of my favorite old school protection spells as you replace the card, and it's just a two mana investment. You can keep a dork alive after blocking, or through direct damage, or from being targeted by removal or a steal spell, and so forth. It's different than hexproof or indestructible, and is both better and worse than those two effects, so I like to use it as another protection spell that can just be "cycled" for (). With Feather? It becomes both Feather protection (or of other dorks) as well as card advantage. In this shell? Shelter is really good! Enjoy it.

6. Volcanic Wind

I think that many Feather builds are going to want to go wide. The wider you are, the more potent Volcanic Wind can be. You can easily blast a few dorks, and then clear out room to swing hard. And if you point just a single damage at Feather or one of her Boros Buddies? You can reload your sweeper! That's a pretty potent card here, right? Right!

5. Primal Amulet

Primal Amulet is a solid entry into any Feather deck. You are clearly going to be casting and recasting sorceries and instants, so dropping their price is valuable. Then, should you wish, you can turn your Primal Amulet into a Pyromancer's Goggles variant land that taps for any color of mana and works on any color of card. You may not want to, as the cost reduction may be better for you in the meantime (note that transforming is a may effect).

4. Launch the Fleet and Twinflame

Strive is an ability that was in Journey into Nyx that let you invest more mana to make more targets for face-punching purposes. The idea was to have a powerful effect that could scale up as the game progressed while also suiting the early and alter games. You could easily Launch the Fleet on 1-or 2-drops early, and then keep going, or do so later and blow someone out with the many new dorks coming to play. And when Feather is out? You can toss these down and get ready to blow the game out as you get this card back to your hand to reuse turn after turn. Both of these effects are valuable game-ending threats that also work early. Strive for Victory!

3. Young Pyromancer

Young Pyromancer is great at pushing your board position and adding bodies to the battlefield. Because your Feather's sorcery/instant self-target will be re-cast again and again, you can rack up the dorks, with a cheap two mana body that comes down, ideally, the turn before Feather does. Shout out to Guttersnipe, although I think the Pyromancer is a better Feather Friend as it's faster, more aggressive, and makes bodies.

2. Aurelia's Fury

This instant direct damage powerhouse is great as it has three knobs you can turn as needed. You can kill opposing dorks, you can prevent your foes from casting anything good that's not a dork, and you can tap a damaged dork to remove any ability for it to attack or block. It's incredibly flexible. In any Feather deck, all you have to do it direct a single damage to one of your creatures, and then, sure, it'll tap, but you'll get the spell back to recast, and that strikes me as a pretty good trade. Fury's for the Wins.

Shout out to Rolling Thunder. It's slower as a sorcery and doesn't have the various knobs and wheels of the Fury of Aurelia, but it still works.

1. Anax and Cymede

Anax and Cymede are a strong heroic call-back to Feather. Feather will improve heroic triggers by giving you something that you can cast to target them over and over again. Anax and Cymede are useful as they will turn a self-target into a Baby Overrun effect that gives your whole team a +1/+1 boost and trample. They are also cheap, with first strike, vigilance, and haste, and they get the boost too, so you can give them a nice boost in combat. They are very strong.

Also note that many of the above effects, like Volcanic Wind or Launch the Fleet, will love hitting a ton of heroic triggers Smash away! As such, every heroic trigger is good here, but here are five in color triggers that I think are the best with Feather:

Tethmos High Priest - Your deck is likely to have a number of cheaper dorks, (such as Young Pyromancer) and getting one back onto the battlefield after they died is awesome.

Labyrinth Champion - A free two damage to someone's face, creature or 'walker is pretty cool!

Fabled Hero - Giving a double strike body +1/+1 counters is just nasty. But there is another giver of counters that's better...

Phalanx Leader - Give the team a counter each!

Akroan Crusader - Or just make a free creature! I really want to target an Akroan Crusader with a Young Pyromancer in play and get two dorks for the price of no cards lost!

All five of these are nasty. If you move into other colors you can net more powerful effects, but these five work really well. Because you are recasting Feather's spell, you can net a heroic trigger over and over again.

And there we are! I hope that you enjoyed my dive into Feather combos from all points previously in the history of the game. Anything in here inspire you? Anything you miss? Are you as excited for Feather Fun Times as I am? Let me know!