This is quite the deck built out of cards I would never have thought ever playable, let alone hilariously fun. To start Lotus Field, Hidden Strings and Pore Over Pages these cards generate a silly amount of mana very quickly and with a few other card draw spells generate huge card advantage.
To start, here is my list. Originally I saw AspiringSpike on twitch playing this deck and I've done a bit of tinkering with the sideboard so all credit to them on the original list I started out with.
The Deck
Let's go over what we generally would like to see in your opening hand. The most important cards to see in your opening seven are Arboreal Grazer, Growth Spiral a few non-field lands, and of course a Lotus Field. Grazer continues to be a hugely important piece in even more decks. It's the little sloth that just enables some even more silly things this year land-wise. Next is Growth Spiral. This card is pretty self-explanatory for why it's great. It draws cards and allows you to make another land drop.
Next is the lands in opening hand. What you want to see is a few non Lotus Field lands with some blue or green mana. You want to be able to cast a grazer and or a spiral turn one or two. Hands without Lotus Field can also be supplemented with Sylvan Scrying (it's not just for finding tron lands). Once you have a Lotus Field on the battlefield the fun begins. Typically you need two to really generate enough mana to go off. So, if you don't have time to play and sacrifice two more lands to another field, I'd recommend Thespian's Stage if you can play it with an untapped Lotus Field on the battlefield. Boom. You have two fields due to stage's activated ability.
So ok. You've assembled your two Lotus Fields, but what do you want to see in your hand to really have some fun and win some matches? First, a few untap effects. Hidden Strings is the gold standard as it nets you 4 mana. Pore Over the Pages is a Shadows uncommon that does everything this deck wants to do while netting 1 mana.
So now you've assembled your lands and have some of these spells in hand. You have a silly amount of mana floating and it's possible your opponent has nodded off a bit. Now it's time to cast Granted. This is really where you need to make decisions. It's possible with the mainboard Omniscience that you can cast whatever you'd like at this point. If you do have the Omniscience, your first wish target is Enter The Infinite. It'll find you the last Fae Of Wishes that you need to grab Jace, Wielder of Mysteries and win the game.
The Sideboard/Wishboard
I'm going to quickly go over the sideboard/wishboard and then go over a few tournament matches that I have played recently.
The sideboard is rather limited. I typically only board in at maximum 6 cards. Leyline Of Sanctity comes in for matches with hand disruption as well as burn. Mystical Dispute is a key card to winning control match-ups and preventing Jace, Wielder Of Mysteries from being killed at the last moment.
Let's go over the non win-con wish targets. Fog seems pretty self-explanatory. It buys you that extra turn to win the game while preventing on combat damage triggers. Ugin, The Spirit Dragon hits the field and usually puts aggressive hand dumping decks out of commission while providing a clock to win the game. Anger Of The Gods is a great way of hampering aggressive decks, phoenix or the "dredge"-style decks. Kiora, Master Of The Depths is a great way for extra untaps and finding those sometimes elusive Lotus Fields. Lastly we have Finale Of Revelation. I'm still testing this card and I see this as my flex spot for now. There are so many great options to possible play and I have so many different cards to test. Lost Legacy, and Hour Of Revelation are next on the testing block.
The Games
Round 1 – Esper Hero of Precinct One
Game One I mulled to 5. I couldn't find playable lands and spells but I did have a pretty good start with Grazering two lands onto the battlefield and followed up by a Lotus Field on turn two. Sadly I wasn't able to find enough draw power to wish out what I need and win the game.
Game Two my hand was nearly picture perfect. Leyline Of Sanctity to protect myself from some hand disruption and Arboreal Grazer to ramp out my hand led to a turn 4 win while they spent time with Teferi, Time Raveler to bounce my Leyline to pick apart my hand the next turn.
Game Three started off with another Leyline Of Sanctity and locked out 2 hand disruption pieces, I was able to chain off Growth Spiral and ramp out very hard a timely Mystical Dispute led me to win without too much opposition they spent most of this game creating 1/1 creatures off of Hero Of Precinct One and attempting to race me which wasn't a strategy that paid off. This was my first match with this build in my testing leading up to this I primarily tested vs. different control shells and I was extremely happy with how it matched up against a deck that had a nice mix of attacking and spells to try to pick apart my hand.
Round 2 – Izzet Phoenix
Game One I started out with the Arboreal Grazer start leading to a turn 2 where I passed with a tapped Lotus Field and a Thespian's Stage I looked at my hand and spells and decided I was unable to win the game. Izzet Phoenix had a good amount of spells and was setting up a big swing with phoenix's. I untapped and started to combo off. I ended up casting Omniscience leaving two mana up my opponent in response to the second Granted cast Petty Theft bouncing the Omniscience essentially winning the game.
Game Two my opponent couldn't get a hand that seemed to do anything too serious, so I was able to essentially goldfish.
Game Three I had a reasonable start but my opponent spent their turn 4 casting Chandra, Torch Of Defiance thinking that this game would go much longer. Instead I untapped combo'd off and was off to round 3 undefeated.
Round 3 – Mono Black Zombies
Game One is a great match up. My opponent hadn't seen what I was on and kept a relatively slow hand with a few removal spells. Due to the lack of mainboard hand hate I was able to combo off on turn 5 without much danger.
Game Two my opponent started out with 3 creatures and hand hate to put me in a bad position. I found a line of play to keep myself alive but it relied upon a set of draws off of one Pore Over the Pages but I just couldn't find what I needed.
Game Three I had probably the best hand I had seen yet. Arboreal Grazer is truly the gift that just keeps on giving. In combination with a Dig Through Time I was able to float a ton of mana tutor out the Ugin, the Spirit Dragon for style points and end round three with a win.
Round 4 – 4-Colour Elementals
Game One my opponent and I drew but played it out. We were both on new decks. Game one went my way, going relatively quick but nothing too special other than chaining off three Pore Over the Pages.
Game Two went their way with some quick 1, 2 ,3 elementals. My opponent was able to put enough damage onto the field to with the game even with a whiff on a Collected Company.
Game Three went the way of game one with one exception. I floated a serious amount of mana and followed it up with a Omniscience they negated, I cast Dig and found the Mystical Dispute and won the game.
All in all for the first time I've played this deck I learned a few things. This deck has great matchups. It is hard to interact with and is tons of fun. I think with some tinkering this might be solidly tier 2 but will definitely win you some games. I'm going to continue testing my list and bring it to some competitive magic tournaments in the next year.
Alex Frank
