Hi guys!

I'd like to share my CoA list, first and foremost for fun, secondly because I always have a few more cards I want to try, but have trouble deciding what to cut, so I thought I'd ask around for opinions.

The main focus is ETB/death-trigger creatures, reusing them (mostly via reanimation) and nibbling at my opponents with them until something big happens, all the while controlling the board with a lot of nukes in variety of flavors. This deck doesn't actually play the Child itself that often, simply because it's not needed and almost never attacks with it. It's more of a failsafe for when everything else fails. Most wins are the result of a big beater swooping on the by then weared-down opponent, Yosei lock or Last Stand + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth (don't laugh-it works ).

I make it a point NOT to use any kind of "I win" infinite combo, like Mike-Trike or Kiki-whatever.

Child of Alara

Ramp:
Sol Ring
Mana Vault
Grim Monolith
Expedition Map
Arbor Elf
Birds of Paradise
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Wood Elves (THE best card of the deck)

Nukes:
Engineered Explosives
Nihil Spellbomb
Swords to Plowshares
Pernicious Deed
Fleshbag Marauder
Vindicate
False Prophet
Damnation
Supreme Verdict
Parallax Wave
Decimate
Return to Dust (don't leave home without it!)
Living Death
Austere Command

Recursion:
Regrowth
Eternal Witness
Necromancy
Crucible of Worlds
Tilling Treefolk
Body Double
Karmic Guide
Reveillark
Genesis
Sun Titan

Card drawing:
Skullclamp
Sensei's Divining Top
Coiling Oracle
Raven Familiar
Fact or Fiction
Mulldrifter
Future Sight
Time Spiral
Read the Runes (sac outlet, IMO a very underrated card)

Tutors:
Vampiric Tutor
Demonic Tutor
Diabolic Intent (sac outlet)
Eladamri's Call
Survival of the Fittest
Intuition
Praetor's Grasp
Trinket Mage
Birthing Pod (sac outlet)
Academy Rector
Rune-Scarred Demon
Wargate

Multitask:
Garruk Wildspeaker
Liliana of the Dark Realms
Tezzeret the Seeker
Last Stand (my pet card, I have so much fun with this one )
Sheoldred, Whispering One

Other:
Maze of Ith
Flash
Karmic Justice
Mimic Vat
Rite of Replication
Yosei, the Morning Star
Kokusho, the Evening Star
Greater Gargadon
Sylvan Primordial

Lands:
Cabal Coffers
Command Tower
High Market
Phyrexian Tower
Reflecting Pool
Strip Mine
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Vesuva
All 6 duals without red
All 6 fetchlands without red
All 6 shocklands without red + Stomping Ground
...and in true singleton spirit: 1 of each basic land

Rigth now, I want to include Darksteel Ingot, Thespian's Stage, Chromatic Lantern and Angel of Serenity.

Thanks in advance!

Props for Final Stand; I haven't seen anyone play it before, and it's kinda cool.
Slops for the rest of the deck though; it doesn't look like fun

My main beef is with this statement:



I would almost always prefer to lose to an insta-combo-kill than get stuck under a Yosei lock. Same with 'Lark/Guide/Body Double loops; given the choice between losing to a limited combo now, or losing slowly to the same combo without limits over several turns, I'd prefer to lose now.

And Flash + Sylvan Primordial isn't much fun.

If you want to play on Inferno mode, that's cool. Put in some Altars or other unbound sac outlets and go nuts; there's no reason to pull punches. If you want to be social though, 5-color goodstuff grind isn't the way to go, and preventing yourself from going infinite doesn't change that. In its current configuration though, your deck falls into the Phantom Zone where its not really cutthroat but it's not quite friendly either. If your regular groups ok with it, power to you, but it's an awkward build to try to meet new players with.

That's a lot of creature hate. Especially with "nuke the board" commander. Does anyone like playing against the deck or is it a case of, "I'm used to being teamed up on, so I'll build a deck that can compete with that,"? Either way, blow up everything get's pretty tiresome. If there was ever an argument for your meta to shift and come right back at you Armageddon or Ruination, it's a "good stuff" 5c deck with that many "kill everything" cards on top of a "kill everything" general.

Survival without Squee? 5 color Survival was my original deck back when I started playing in '07. I've played Survival a lot. I've tried it without Squee and was consistently unimpressed. If you're going to play Skullclamp, Read the Runes, and Birthing Chamber alongside SotF, there's basically no excuse for not including Squee.

Where's the Solemn Simulacrum? I hear he likes ramping and dying. In fact, why play cards like Arbor Elf and Birds of Paradise over cards like Solemn and Farhaven Elf? The latter are much better with "blow up everything" cards and have better synergy with Skullclamp.

I love it With Urborg out, it's practically an OHKO on a weakened opponent for five mana (a moment of silence for Primeval Titan here). Even without Urborg however, with the dual lands it usually does something along the lines of WUBRG-Get 6 life, snipe an Oracle of Mul Daya, shave 8 life off an opponent, get 4 Saprolings AND loot 5 cards. That's a good deal, I'd say.


I get your sentiment. I do. Against one opponent it's a game over, but that's seldom the case. In majority of cases I play three-way games. I lock one guy, the second one exiles my yard or destroys the means of returning the dragon. Against more people, it's merely a good way of slowing them down. My friends often have some kind of response. As for the Primordial, that's really a one-time trick involving two cards, only one of which is ever going to be recurred. I consider it mercy not to play Terastodon.

The thing is-this is not my only deck. I adhere to the "Power scale" philosophy. I have multiple decks of different strategies and power levels (see my sig). If I meet someone new, first I try one of my less powerful decks. When he/she owns me with something I deem nasty, then it's "EAT THE CHILD!!!" time (man, did that come out wrong...).

By the way, that bit about infinite combos-basically I don't like combos that say: "Ok, board position and generally anything you do is meaningless, I tutor for this card and kill you." Yosei doesn't stop a token army, nor does it stop Uril. If my opponent has enough lands, it doesn't stop Skithiryx either. I think the same goes for the rest of my deck. It's built to be sturdy. Backup plans for packup plans. You'd say it relies heavily on recursion, but I've won games even after three Crypt effects. It's the most powerful of my guns, but I think it can still be said it wins in a fair way.

Thanks for the replies

P.S.: The Survival thing-right now I'm kind of torn between adding Squee or dropping Survival. I found that lately, I don't seem to have spare mana for it. IDK what's happening, maybe it's just me.

Oh and the Simulacrum...didn't fit yet. Strange, really. Perhaps you could help me identify something to lay off? Thx ^_^

Cards I don't like:
Engineered Explosives: I find that these types of cards don't do too well in EDH. I mean, sure they're an answer to tokens, but even then I can easily think of more and better ones. Not to mention that if your opponent has a nice big dragon army, this thing just goes poop.
Pernicious Deed: Same deal, although this one is a LOT better.
Parallax Wave: Something tells me Admonition Angel or something of that nature would be far better.


Cards I think you'd enjoy:
DEADEYE NAVIGATOR!!!: With a total of 13 ETB creatures in your deck, this thing is perfect.
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed: You said no infinite combo, but Dark Mike by himself is fine, and works really well with your deck.
Yavimaya Druid: It's what would happen if Wood Elves decided to go political.
Skyshroud Claim: ALL THE MANA! IT ROCKS (pun intended).

DANGER! INCOMING: WALL OF TEXT! DANGER!

Constructive! Thanks!

I must say, I wouldn't play Engineered Explosives if not for one card - Trinket Mage. Here's the thing: as I said, one of the biggest strengths of the deck is its resilience. And that comes mostly from the number of options and responses. I play 5 black tutoring effects plus Intuition and a whole ensemble of restricted ones. Trinket Mage, Academy Rector, Wargate, Eladamri's Call... If you take a closer look, you'll see that the deck is built in such a way those cards can be as broad as possible.

Just for creature removal, I have Damnation (Sorcery), Parallax Wave (Enchantment), Explosives (Artifact w/cost <= 1), False Prophet (Creature), among others.
Recursion? Living Death (Sorcery), Necromancy (Enchantment), Sun Titan (Creature)...
Sac outlet? High Market, Greater Gargadon, Birthing Pod, Fleshbag Marauder, Read the Runes...
Body Double allows Reveillark to resurrect any creature in any graveyard. As does Necromancy for Sun Titan and both of these for Wargate. Tezzeret can find a creature tutor/sac outlet (Birthing Pod).
You get the idea.

I draw Trinket -> I usually search for the Top or Skullclamp of course, but if need be, I can also find a sac outlet for Yosei (TM -> Expedition Map -> Phyrexian Tower), or, in that same line, protect myself with Maze of Ith.

Explosives can't kill a dragon army? Yeah, neither can Mulldrifter. Or Reveillark. That's why I play about 8 other cards that can, including my general

And BTW my experience strongly disagrees with you on the Wave vs. Admonition Angel comparison. Angel is fine, I've played against it and it was tough, but it is in no way better for creature removal than the Wave. I generally try to stay away from creatures that do nothing if they are killed before you can untap because surprise, that happens a lot. Wave is cheaper, as an enchantment it's more resilient (which is the goal for this kind of effect) and it can be activated at will (the Angel can too, sure, but you need other cards to do that, like fetchlands). If anything, I'd like to add Angel of Serenity to the deck, but I certainy won't cut the Wave for it.

Funny thing - I've actually played Navigator at one point, but it got cut. It wasn't bad per se, just worse than other cards that wanted to be in. When I want to reuse the ETB trigger of something already in play, Rite of Replication is cheaper and arguably more reliable, plus it can duplicate death triggers as well (it can set off the Child, for exmple).
Didn't try Dark Mike yet, but I'm inclined to compare it with Living Dead by functionality. And IMO, Mike loses that one.
I assume, you mean Yavimaya Elder? If so, then Wood Elves A) puts the land into play and B) can find duals in a 5-color deck.
Skyshroud Claim looks good, but again - I already have Wood Elves, which can be much more easily reused. I often joke it's the best card in the deck, but as it turns out, it's not such an exaggeration. It's not a threat, nor an answer but you can't do either of those things without proper mana.

I see your points. BTW, I meant Yavimaya Dryad, not the Elder (although he is a great card)

I'm afraid that 1GG loses against 2G in this case, 5C and all

Do you seriously only run 31 land? Needs all ten fetch and a City of Brass. Probably Exotic Orchard too. And a Thespian Stage.

I know, right? Frankly, I don't know, what happened, but the manabase just kind of evolved into this and other than fatal weakness to Back to Basics, it works like a charm. It's actually more of a 4.5-color deck, since red is very scarce in there, so maybe that helps. Also, don't forget the "Ramp" section.

It doesn't matter if red is scarce when choosing to run fetches. Let's assume you pretty much never search for red duals. Each one of those fetches still basically says, "Search your library for a land of the color of your choice plus one of three other random useful colors." That's gold. I have over 40 fetches and I use literally every single one. I can't even say the same for my original duals. Fetches also accidentally are good against Back to Basics, which I'll get to below.

While we're on the subject of duals, add Krosan Verge. It's worth it to play "Enter the Battlefield tapped" lands if they accelerate you in the long run like this card and Vesuva/Thespian Stage targeting Cabal Coffers.

Don't play a basic mountain. Your commitment to red looks pretty similar to mine in my two 5c decks. You don't need it often enough to warrant ever drawing it and wishing it added 2+ colors, especially when it's in the same hand as a colorless producer like High Market (which is mandatory in Child).

You might not need any basics or Sakura-Tribe Elder at all. I've always found that it's not worth it to live in fear of some anti-social hose card like Back to Basics. It hurts your deck more to play additional non-multi-color lands than it helps to have a small chance to play around B2B. I'd play the red duals instead, so you incidentally draw your red instead of having to burn a fetch looking for it or searching up a basic mountain. That's totally a meta call though. If everyone runs B2B for your deck, I guess you have to adjust.

You should cut the Strip Mine. Cannibal lands are worth it in decks to whom color isn't at such a premium. But between Cabal Coffers, Thespian Stage, High Market, and Phyrexian Tower, you're going to get color screwed playing a 5 color deck. You just will. Those lands are more or less "worth it" though. The Strip Mine can be substituted by other cards in your spell slots.

I'd go with the following if you have access to all of them

10 fetch
10 dual
6 shock (no red)
Krosan Verge
Command Tower
Reflecting Pool
City of Brass
Exotic Orchard (if your meta features at least 3 of your 4 main colors)
Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
Cabal Coffers
Vesuva
Thespian Stage
Phyrexian Tower
High Market

Thanks for the tips, Trevor.

I defend Strip Mine on the same grounds as Engineered Explosives & co. I want to have the option to turn Expedition Map or Wargate or any tutor for that matter into land destruction, if need be. I'm not the kind of guy to play Armageddon, but some lands just have to go. I believe this way of "cross tutoring" or what should I call it is an essential part of the deck's successes.

While it may not look that way from the list, this manabase repeatedly proves to be working well. Amount and color of mana seldom is an issue in my games. And I've recovered from Geddons and whatnot quite a few times as well. With that stability, I'm willing to keep the basics in, if it makes the deck sturdier against cards I would otherwise lose to (and which my friends DO play).