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Nice to see a break from Standard and some attention to new Extended.

The sideboard was lacking, and Relic of Progenitus feels both counterproductive to your own graveyard shenanigans and too specific to carry it maindeck. Spreading seas looks a better proposition to shut down manabases and those Grove of the Burnwillows.

Jul 7, 2010 -- 12:03AM, morticianjohn wrote:

At this point in the game your opponent allegedly had (according to you) a faerie token that was being targetted by riftwing cloudskate , a faerie token that was tapped because it had attacked you the previous turn and a bitterblossom in play. I don't really understand how path to exile stops a mistbind clique here.

I would assume he cast Path to Exile on the Clique in response to the champion ability.  Since the Clique wasn't on the battlefield when the champion ability resolved, the "tap all lands" ability wouldn't have triggered if his opponent chose to exile a Faerie.

The deck looks terrific, the strategy is pretty original, good article and good deck. 

I do disagree with the note on Fauna Shaman, though.  A deck like this seems to want to stick to two colours max, since it relies on consistently getting into the right board position.  Adding green might not be a good option, unless of course you start using the G/W hybrid stuff, like that 2/2 with persist or Heartmender.  I guess the main argument against going green is the consistency you sacrifice.  A proper manabase could probably fix that right up. 

Also, regarding the usual pet peeves about it being budget or not, check out the M2011 Spoiler.  For those who do not want to know yet, let's just say a lot of commons and uncommons are really good, both as fillers and enablers.  It's like Wizards has actually read the complaints about powerful cards being too rare too often.  There's plenty of options now for Knight of the White Orchid, from Squadron Hawk to Augury Owl.  Granted, they don't get you ahead a turn like the Knight, but they do come with significant card advantage or selection.  Besides that, the Knights are the only creatures in the deck that do not fly (aside from Body Double, but that's just a side note).  So I vote for the sideboard addition of both a defensive enchantment spell and an offensive weapon: Gravitational Shift.  Not maindeck, mind, that's just suicide against Faeries.  The boosting effect is symmetrical, sadly. 

In case anyone can't fit the Archmages into their budget, Renegade Doppelganger is cheaper, but not by much, and it doesn't give you the same spell-lockdown with Reveillark.  I suppose you could just try and bypass counterspells with a Leyline of Anticipation.  Or you could opt for that miscalculation drake thingie in Time Spiral.  Other than that, I'm stumped on what you'd get for that one.  Another probably ill-placed idea would be MistMeadow Witch, and/or Turn to Mist.  They don't counter, but they protect your creatures from anything but repeated burn.  And it's the repeated burn that's the problem, so...hmm...Meddling Mage comes to mind, but who can afford a playset of that? Honestly, the Relics seem kinda necessary in the long run.  That or Stonecloaker. 
Stonecloaker goes way up in value here, despite not being a 'Lark target.  (Not sure about the name: 3/2, flying, flash, required a creature bounce when it came into play and removed a target card in a graveyard from the game)

Thought as much.  The strategy would improve in the abstract, but in the meta it'd just suck, agreed.  I do think Stonecloaker is the silver bullet to put in this deck.  It saves a creature from burn, removes something from the graveyard, and it has flash, and it creates an extra leaves-play trigger for the Reveillark.  What to cut, though, not a clue.  I'd say the Archmages, since the Cloaker is closest to what the mages do, and the Archmages, while excellent cards in their own right (have two, used'em, got plenty of of fun with 'em) they might be a bit slow for what they are supposed to do. 

What they're supposed to do, I presume, is hitting the table and creating card advantage, like extra Mulldrifters.  They either do this by blocking more than once or acting like Negates, or both.  Thing is, at that kind of mana you need to ask yourself what you're really getting.  What you're really getting is a late Negate, usually too late to stop Planeswalkers, and something that can trade with Bloodbraid Elf while keeping at least one removal spell at bay. 

Now, the Cloaker will actually stop one removal spell, but not mass removal.  This should be a concern, except your whole deck is based on a reanimation engine that triggers on leaves play...triggers.   Even Hallowed Burial won't stop trouble from happening.  So that's not too big of an issue.  Problem permanents like Beastmaster Ascension or Eldrazi Monument can still be bounced by your Cloudskates, assuming they also don't come too late, and the lifegain in the deck would only need a small sideboard addition (lone Missionaries, anyone?) to really give red burn an uphill climb.  Besides that, there is again the problem of timing: will your Archmage be active by the time those things hit? There's good enough acceleration, but they're all mid-game acceleration for the most part, early threats will stick regardless.  There's no question that it is good, but is it good here, I wonder? Aside from showing up again later in the game, I'm not sure whether they out-perform that many cards. 

Then there's the Planeswalker aspect.  If they tap out for Jace, having a flying flashy 3-power creature is very good, especially one with a trigger. 

Of course, there's a big problem with the Cloaker, and likely the reason it was omitted from the main deck: as it stands, the deck looks like it wants to tap out a lot.  Keeping mana open for a creature that can't be reanimated (barring Body Double shenanigans) might be too much.  Aside from that, it might mess up the curve a bit, I dunno.  Just theorycrafting here. 

Still, made my case for Cloaker, if not over Archmage, at least over the Relics in main. 

Oh, and if the deck should evolve to more lifegain-oriented places...recurring Lone Missionaries, Aven Riftwatchers and (gasp!) Serra Ascendant, maybe with Ascendant Master, would be downright silly. 

Anyways, again good article and good ideas. 

I've been a fan of Reveillark since shortly after it's release and the idea of pairing it with Fauna Shaman seems really exciting. A Survival of the Fittest type toolbox deck may be viable in the new extended. It just depends on if you can get her to live a turn or somehow get multiple activations out of her. Some interesting things for this type of deck not mentioned:

Acidic Slime
Gaddock Teeg
Thousand-Year Elixir
Whitemane Lion
Venser, Shaper Savant
Momentary Blink
Sower of Temptation
Coiling Oracle
Oracle of Mul Daya

Im sure there's much more. that is just my first thoughts