Feather gives all of the spells a delayed buyback , allowing cards such as Shelter or Blacksmith's Skill to protect key creatures each turn. Add Zada, Hedron Grinder effects to protect all creatures and multiply those draw triggers. These protection spells make Feather a very resilient deck against most non-blue forms of stack interaction. Unfortunately, until a colorshifted Suffocating Blast is printing in this deck will continue to lack a counterspell effect.
A common Feather build is "blink" centric, and I do include some, although their primary inclusion is to dodge removal spells while being absolutely ridiculous with the only EtB creature in my deck; Dockside Extortionist. I try to keep my decks mechanically distinct, and already have enough EtB/blink in my other decks that I'd like to skip that strategy as a focus here. This deck instead which wants to control the battlefield and combat with the use of cards such as Intimidation Bolt, Orim's Thunder and Ethereal haze. This deck can cast Path to Exile twice a turn to remove a threat, then use Mavinda, Students' Advocate and a source of tokens to ramp myself and have it back in my hand for the next turn. It can Ethereal Haze every turn by splicing on Hundred-Talon Strike for nearly free. It can target Heliod, God of the Sun with Heliod's Intervention every turn to repeatedly destroy noncreature problems.
This decks primary win conditions are either by buffing Feather and killing in combat (or a lot of combats with Zada, Hedron Grinder, Seize the Day and Show of Confidence), Alternatively, Arcbond either copied via Zada or with Martyrdom and a source of indestructible sets up a damage loop which will kill our opponents. Finally, Guttersnipe is a protect-able creature which will grind your opponent's life total down for simply conducting the deck's plan.
Decklist
Approximate Total Cost:
Items of note:
- divergent transformations is primarily a polymorph effect for tokens, which can be removal on opponents as well.
- arcbond with indestructible effects can heavily punish combats by your opponents. Add lifelink for massive lifegain and Zada to just end the game. If each creature has an arcbond effect and lifelink, the damage triggers will never end and you gain massive amounts of life while you opponents die. Similarly, lifelink on Guttersnipe works very well.
- arcbond with Martyrdom on an indestructible creature ends the game as soon as damage is dealt. Redirect the damage from you to the arcbond target and put another trigger on the stack.
- The inclusion of Pearl Medallion more easily let key control spells such as Aurelia's Fury be cast every turn. With enough mana or cost reduction, you can lock your opponents out of casting non-creature spells every upkeep. spells and cost reduction effects such as