I had a game with this tonight against
The Gitrog Monster midrange lands,
Krav, the Unredeemed and
Regna, the Redeemer lifegain/aristocrats, and
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow high powered ninja bullcrap.
This game was very close; I kept a 1 lander with
Weathered Wayfarer and rode it to land drops, with the new addition of
Orzhov Basilica proving itself to be great here (essentially getting me 2 land drops in 1), then
Land Tax helping out a little.
The critical turn of this game came when I stuck
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet and
Breena, the Demagogue and had a bunch of counters on them, and was prepping up to cast
Hour of Revelation plus
Flawless Maneuver to make a million zombies off the huge board -- but
Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow forced my hand by casting
Elspeth, Sun's Champion off the top with some ninja bullcrap from
Regna, the Redeemer, then minusing her. I had to blow
Flawless Maneuver there which was unfortunate.
Still, Yuriko had amassed an unassailable board, but I got to untap and put some damage on him and Krav/Regna, then I went for a
Toxic Deluge for x=5 which would have left me with a huge board -- but Yuriko countered it. Then I followed up with
Hour of Revelation leaving me with 11 zombies from
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet which was enough to close the game out.
After I killed Yuriko and Krav/Regna I was able to
Scholarship Sponsor myself +4 lands and, having left Gitrog with an empty board, he scooped to my zombie swarm (plus sponsor, hawk, and my full hand).
Overall I think my curve toppers might be a bit too expensive, with cards like
Archon of Cruelty regularly rotting in my hand while 3 and 4 drops like Kalitas do great. I find myself wondering if this might be a
Stoneforge Mystic deck rather than a
Archon of Coronation deck, but I'm still going to noodle on that quite a bit. Breena really, really does not like protection swords or
Lightning Greaves which makes things kinda awkward with equipment (used to have a
Sword of Truth and Justice but the nonbo was offputting).
It's also possible that going for persist combo with a little more +1/+1 counter theme would be better, with cards like
Archangel of Thune and
Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit.
The core of the deck being Breena plus the goofy come-from-behind ramp seems to be going very well but I think filling out the rest is going to take some work.
Another kinda theme that's struck my fancy is the idea of protecting Breena with reanimationish effects like
Sun Titan,
Angelic Renewal,
Reanimate and similar. A problem with those is that they lose all of her counters. Really wish there were more
Flawless Maneuver effects, and stuff like
Heroic Intervention in white.
A couple other things I might like to explore as themes:
Proclamation of Rebirth + 1 drops, or
Ranger of Eos.dec.
Just very efficient beatdown dudes like
Hero of Bladehold and
Brimaz, King of Oreskos, maybe even
Precinct Captain? Probably a few other similar 2-5 cmc guys who put a lot of pressure on.
Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is another recent one that's quite good.
The interesting thing about Breena's ability is that her ability go super tall and only ever need to attack with 2 creatures makes 1) evasion very good, and 2) creatures that get out of hand or have good keywords like lifelink and vigilance also very good.
Lifegain and lifegain trigger stuff can be good, but you really don't need a swarm, or want to force other people to sweep. You just want to swing at the two people who have the highest life every turn and get through. Given Lifegain's ability go go super tall with
Ajani's Pridemate effects that might be something to think on. Just wonder if I can get them through blockers? Dunno.
A card like
Sunscorch Regent seems like it might fit the bill as a kinda template, maybe stuff like
Wingmate Roc?
I did add
Esper Sentinel recently and he looks to be very good.