In this experiment, we channel all the mana we need and gain life with the power of a dragon’s claw while burning through our library with red spells.

Magic: The Gathering—Conspiracy brought several powerful new cards that couldn’t reasonably see play in a Standard-legal set, and that means we’ve received an influx of cards with more combo potential than what we might see in an entire normal block.

However, Treasonous Ogre’s second ability allows us to pay life, thus reducing our life total to ensure that steady stream of counters. This means, however, that we always have to have a lower life total than our opponent has, at least until the combat damage step.

But, of course, that’s not the real power of the Ogre either. Paying 3 life is just the cost of the ability; for paying 3 life, we gain . It’s not a great conversion rate, but Treasonous Ogre offers us a relatively unique and abusable effect.

Spending a bunch of life for a bunch of mana generates a ton of tempo, potentially allowing the Treasonous Ogre player to defeat his or her opponent before that player even has a chance to set up.

But the question I asked myself was, “Is there a way to make each I spend give me that 3 life back?”

Lucky Charms

Assuming we’re using our to cast spells, artifacts such as Dragon's Claw can refund us some of that life when we cast said spells. Hypothetically, if we were to have three Dragon's Claws, and we had sufficient spells that cost , we could break even on life and have virtual infinite mana. Of course, three is a lot of Dragon's Claws, and how many spells that cost can we reasonably have? Nonetheless, each Dragon's Claw or Staff of the Flame Magus will effectively reduce Treasonous Ogre’s life cost by 1.

For the list I assembled today, we’ll have four copies of Dragon's Claw and one Staff of the Flame Magus.

Steady Stream of Red

There aren’t a ton of options for this category—red isn’t exactly blue—but I was able to find a few hidden rubies.

Faithless Looting – This is probably the best card in this category for the deck. Though it’s card disadvantage, it digs us deeper than any of the other options, and we should have excess cards, such as lands, we won’t mind pitching. Flashing back for 9 life is pretty steep, but the option is there.

Crimson Wisps – If we play Treasonous Ogre and immediately start going off, we may want to attack with it later that turn. The haste here is nice, though we’re really just playing this for the draw.

Overmaster – Again, we mostly just want to draw a card here, but making our next sorcery uncounterable can be unreliably sweet. Faithless Looting might not be a huge deal, but there are a couple important spells we’ll go into later on.

Rite of Flame – This one doesn’t draw a card at all and thus doesn’t really fit in this category, but Rite of Flame does provide a way to generate mana without spending as much life, and that can help us on our way through the deck.

Manamorphose – Though this costs twice as much as the ones above it in the list, Manamorphose is the pinnacle of cycling through the library. Though it’s at its best with an active Pyromancer Ascension—both doubling the draw and not only refunding, but doubling the mana—it’s still quite strong here. Incidentally, this will be one of our primary sources while comboing out.

Mind the Children

Speaking of , we’ll need something to actually be digging toward with all this cycling. At this point, a storm spell such as Grapeshot or Empty the Warren may be sufficient. I’ve played my fair share of storm spells in my day, and feel free to run that in your Treasonous Ogre–fueled deck, but I’m going to forego storm here in favor of exploring other options.

Imagine paying 3 life to cast Crimson Wisps and then regaining 1 life with Dragon's Claw. Now imagine spending 15 more life for , spending that mana on spells, one of which is a Manamorphose for . We cast a Children of Korlis, keep for later, and sacrifice the Children to regain 18 life. At this point, we’ve played five red spells, thus gaining 5 life, spent 18 life, and then regained 18 life, putting us at 25 despite having generated all that mana.

Assuming we continue on in the process, casting more red spells and drawing into more, including another Children of Korlis or two, we can double-dip on the life-regaining. If we pay another 24 life for 8 red mana, that second Children of Korlis activation will give us back 42 life this time. That’s like a free 13 mana with Treasonous Ogre! If we stop considering the life conversion for a moment, and only consider the mana-to-mana ratio, that makes our second Children of Korlis considerably better than a Dark Ritual. Dark Ritual makes for , but Children of Korlis just made us for . And further copies of Children of Korlis will just be stronger.

Speaking of further copies of Children of Korlis, this list’s single copy of Proclamation of Rebirth can bring back three copies of it for only , amplifying the effects described in the past few paragraphs. Oh, and our Past in Flames lets us Proclamation of Rebirth again. In this deck’s ideal gameplay situation, we will have plenty of mana to spend on our Dragon Mantle activations. At that point, assuming we were able to go off early enough in the game, we should, at most, have only a trifle of a defense on our opponent’s part to work through. A bit of trample should do the job, and what better to use than another spell? Unfortunately, it doesn’t draw us a card, but Journey into Nyx’s Rouse the Mob gives us a bit of extra power as well as trample, and if we happen to want to attack with some Children or additional Ogres, strive gives us the option.

Legacy Mana

I don’t normally build budget decks, but I do try to at least half-consider money and the casual nature of my articles and my decks. However, for today, I’m going to throw a few expensive lands into the list and entertain the option that something resembling these concepts could show up in a Legacy tournament one day. That’s less based on my list in particular and more based on the raw power of Treasonous Ogre, but nonetheless, keep in mind that your just-for-fun edition of this deck doesn’t really need the mana base you’ll see below.

City of Traitors and Ancient Tomb are both lands that generate 2 mana. That lets us go off a turn earlier, potentially casting Treasonous Ogre on turn three and immediately going off.

Arid Mesa and Plateau are par for the course in a Legacy deck of these colors. The deck might even really want a few more fetch lands—after the first three or four lands, we really don’t want any more, and as we cycle through the deck with spells, we don’t want to be drawing into more unusable mana. Fetch lands can help clear out excess lands from the deck.

Note that Ancient Tomb and Arid Mesa both require life payments, which seems to cut into Treasonous Ogre’s potential. While that is true, the first copy of Children of Korlis regains us that life, assuming we paid the life the turn we go off, and with further Children, that initial life investment actually becomes paid back many times over.

Treasonous Children ? Legacy | Andrew Wilson

• Creatures (8)
• 4 Children of Korlis
• 4 Treasonous Ogre

• Spells (33)
• 1 Rouse the Mob
• 4 Crimson Wisps
• 4 Manamorphose
• 1 Proclamation of Rebirth
• 2 Past in Flames
• 4 Faithless Looting
• 4 Overmaster
• 4 Rite of Flame
• 4 Dragon Mantle
• 1 Staff of the Flame Magus
• 4 Dragon's Claw

• Lands (19)
• 1 Mountain
• 2 Forgotten Cave
• 4 Ancient Tomb
• 4 Arid Mesa
• 4 City of Traitors
• 4 Plateau

Buy This Deck

If you’ve ever wanted to play storm without the storm, if you’ve ever needed a good excuse to play a bunch of Dragon's Claws, or if you’ve just wanted to pay a bunch of life for mana and then regain massive chunks of life for just at a time, give this deck a try.

Andrew Wilson

@Silent7Seven

fissionessence at hotmail dot com