Fun Shards of Alara Rares For Deckbuilding

This is just a notes post. I have built decks around some of these rares in the past, and would like to build decks with the ones I haven't gotten to, as well as additional build-arounds with the ones I have played before. Oh, and there's a Mythic Rare in here as well.

[Modern] White Green Devotion Shadowmoor Plus Deck

This is a three-for-one deck. It has devotion, I am using the cards from Shadowmoor that became really affordable, I am placing them in a devotion, and I am even using a Shard of Alara card from the batch I just got: Knight of New Alara.

Most casual decks that let me build my army fold over.

I can wear my opponent out for the win.

Now, against a black deck with a lot of removal, this deck does not stand a chance. Once my devotion pieces are removed, I am done. This is the Achilles' heal of a Devotion deck without Hexproof or Indestructible.

Even when I can take out my opponent's enchantment, I am down to a 1/1 token.

The same happens against decks playing red that can remove my early drops.

But if I encounter decks that try to outbuild me, most of the time, I can win. Here are three wins. In this first one, I had 10 Green mana to spare.

Here, I have 4 mana to spare.

This deck was pimped out, but could not outrace me. Once I have my devotion combo, I can play out my whole hand of high converted mana cost creatures.

A Few Mage Cycles

I am looking for new ideas to build decks with. There have been several mage cycles. Here are the ones I have dug up. I am sure I am missing a cycle or two. For now, this is just a place holder to know where to look for these.

Mirage had a shard cycle. All are one-drops.

The original Ravnica had ten guild mages. All of these are two-drop hybrids.

Shards of Alara remade the Mirage mages. All of these are three-drops.

And Return to Ravnica has another cycle of guild mages. We are back to two-drops, although these are harder to cast than the hybrids from the original Ravnica block.

Vanilla Creatures

It would be really cool if some day Wizards designed a bunch of non-creature cards to prefer Vanilla creatures (creatures without any abilities). Here are the ones in Modern minus 8th and 9th Edition (I don't like White cards). If we made these the only creatures in a hypothetical set, the colors would not be in balance, and neither would the mana curve. I wasn't there when these were created, but they mostly look like hole-fillers. A few are under-costed, which is great. This is especially true for the big Green creatures and some of the small White creatures.

Solitaire Vintage Electrostatic Pummeler 'let's find out' Deck

This is a fun card, and also a good card to find out how the online client works, just for fun! This deck is not that workable, it's just a 'let's find out' deck. To make it workable, I would add black and tutor for Electrostatic Pummeler.

Here is a turn 3 in Solitaire with a lot of Energy and a way to trigger a lot more Energy.

Tons of Energy.

I am at 54 Energy.

Then a draw a ton with Paradoxical Outcome in hopes of getting one of my Pummelers. Again, it's a lot easier to add black and tutor, here I am being lazy.

Now I have my Pummeller.

I am at 72 Energy.

I cast two more cards and I am at 102 Energy. This is a fictitious experiment, of course.

Here is my 2,147,483,647/2,147,483,647 Electrostatic Pummeler.

I guess this is the lowest negative life the client will account for. I just hit for over 2 billion life.

Of course, Panharmonicon is so much fun. Look at all that Energy!