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Alternatively, I could try to put in more 3 drops, like the already mentioned Centaur Healer , to fill the gap in the 3 mana slot. With 25 lands, getting to 4 mana on turn 4 should be likely enough.

You're not really suggesting to cut 2+ lands from this deck, are you? 23 or less lands, even with 4 ramp cards like Farseek is not enough. I don't even need to play an actual game with the deck to know it, goldfishing already confirms it.

Seraph of Dawn does what I want from the card in this slot better then any other Standard legal creature, except Restoration Angel , my two copies of which are in use in another deck and thus not available. The things I want are: defense against fliers, 4+ toughness to avoid being killed by Searing Spear and other red 3 damage spells as well as ward off 3 power creatures like Centaur tokens, a CMC of 4 or less to play it early enough. Lifelink and an evasion ability are already a bonus.

Moonsilver Spear is slow, I said so myself in the first post. But it is a central card, so rather than dropping it, I'd like to build the deck with it in mind.

You need to make a rather good argument for Druid's Deliverance for me to even consider it, because I think it's one of the most awful populate cards. Rootborn Defenses I have considered, but don't believe, I'll have the 3 mana available to cast it when I need to. And as I also said already, the sweepers I'm seeing recently aren't Day of Judgment types but things like Terminus .

Nov 25, 2012 -- 7:53AM, rawsugar wrote:

in a deck like this where youre likely to have mana free in the first few turns ramp is basically just another land. so yes you can swap it in for lands, a good deal of speed for a slight hit to consistency, its a good deal.

But if you don't run enough lands to drop one every turn until turn 3-4, there's no actual ramp, it just becomes a bad color fixer, worse than a Guildgate.

 

Nov 25, 2012 -- 7:53AM, rawsugar wrote:

id rather play something like O-ring than seraph. ill admit seraph would be quite useful vs RDW style but vs anything else its really bad - and vs RDW cmc 4 is just a turn too slow if he goes first - sideboard material perhaps but not for main imo - as for flyers there's not a lot of flyers seeing play that seraph would do better against than chumpblock. id actually consider one-eyed scarecrow over seraph...
I guess seraph makes some sense with the spear though ...but that means you're putting in a bad card to support a so-so card...

No more O-Rings available either, all my copies are in use in decks I do not want to take apart. Guess we'll have to agree to disagree on Seraph, at least until I get to actually play the deck. I'll keep your comment in mind, though.

Nov 25, 2012 -- 7:53AM, rawsugar wrote:

populate instants are basically conditional tokenproducers, that have the ability to do other stuff while getting the token. Treat populate as the maineffect and even druids deliverance makes sense. casting a couple of druid's deliverance at end of opponents turn is pretty sweet^^

rootborn defenses is more of a combattrick than antisweep to my mind.

But the condition is to have a token out, which I, at the moment, am hard pressed to assure in the early game. I'm more inclined to assume a worst case scenario, which means, populate is the additional effect, the card needs be good enough to warrant inclusion on its own, which Deliverance does not for me.

I'll keep Rootborn Defenses in reserve.

For the moment, I decided against Farseek and instead added three Centaur Healer s in place of Angel of Jubilation and a Garruk's Packleader . A fourth one might replace a Wolfir Avenger .

None is standard legal, except for Fog and I'd run Druid's Deliverance over it. Which I already consider bad.

Really now, are you guys even reading what I write?

Keep it Standard, as in STANDARD = Innistrad block + M13 + Return to Ravnica only.