What man has borne before!
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of Care
And they complain no more."
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hymn to the Night
Noble Shadowheart: Fight the Moonlight is a deck that encourages your opponents to kill each other so you don't have to. To achieve this, it employs its key card, Noble Heritage, to protect itself while growing your opponents' creatures larger so that they're better equipped to harm each other. When combined with various defensive cards that make attacking you unprofitable, Noble Heritage gives them a reward for doing anything but. Shadowheart, Dark Justiciar herself plays more of a support role, drawing cards as necessary, but mostly she's a vehicle for that sweet, sweet background.
The key to this deck is to appear non-threatening and slowly grind your opponents down. You'll be a relevant contender in most games you play, and this ability to be relevant without threatening is the secret to this deck's power. Sure, a 9/6 Ebondeath, Dracolich that will draw me 9 cards in pretty threatening, but like a boa constrictor by the time you realize what's going on it's too late.
There's something I like to think of as the Three Tier Defense System for this deck.
1) Noble Heritage protection
2) Pillowfort protection
3) Fog protection
Layering these makes attacking us incredibly unattractive, making our opponents much more likely to attack each other and thus do your job for you. While this is a political deck, there's no need to be so overt about that fact. Drawing attention to yourself is how you die, so uh, don't do that.
I'm intentionally not playing tutors or highly expensive cards because I want this to be one of those decks I can play at both high and mid power tables and not be out of place. There's no hard, fast rule for budget of individual cards, but I'm trying to keep the overall price of the deck below $400. Is Deadly Rollick better than Path to Exile here? Probably, but Path is a buck and Rollick is forty. I don't think it's worth the budget allocation. That said, key cards like Teferi's Protection and solid, mid-priced value cards like Agadeem's Awakening are easy includes.
Lands
Not much to say. We're developing a board state in the early turns of the game so it's important that we run enough lands to hit our first five land drops pretty consistently with mulligans, and 42 is a sweet spot for that. Being in two colors gives us the luxury of playing some pretty solid tech lands so we're running the lands that already compliment the game plan from protection to recursion to disruption.
Ramp
While Orzhov doesn't have many amazing ramp options the catch-up ramp creatures in white do a lot of work. Space Marine Scout is a beating with just two rounds of Heritage triggers and Weathered Wayfarer, while not technically ramp, gives us the ability to constantly make sure we're keeping pace with the land leader at the table. I would run the sacrifice lands to power them up a bit but I find those lands to be somewhat risky. There's not a lot of land destruction in the format but being blown out by it is never a good time, so Scorched Ruins is right out.
Oh, and no Sol Ring. Be the change you wish to see in the world.
Card Advantage
Since we have a strong card draw engine in the command zone, recursion is favored here, but Bob and Breena, the Demagogue are just too strong here to pass up. Nullpriest of Oblivion doesn't look impressive here but two relevant keywords makes it punch far above its weight class here. Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor is a recent addition, but I expect him to do well. Card draw is generally useful and since we're probably more creature-heavy than most decks in the format we're poised to take advantage of that triggered ability. Further, he encourages violence against other players than me, so he plays two roles. Finally, if you really want to, you can use his activated ability to make someone scoop while it's on the stack. Seems solid to me.
Spot Removal
Orzhov has the best removal in the format, so we're playing the cream of the crop here. One mana creature removal, a plethora of artifact and enchantment removal, and when in doubt, kill-anything cards make sure you're able to take on most problematic permanents here. Hopeful Initiate is great here, and Skyclave Apparition puts in work, too. Due to the nature of the commanders you really want as many creatures as possible, but a balance must be struck between body, mana value, and speed.
Board Wipes
Again, Orzhov is top tier for removal. Seven seems really high for a deck that depends on the red zone to win, but look closer. Three are to one degree or another asymmetrical, and the other four are either extremely efficient or thorough. This deck can struggle to get through board states occasionally so being able to break stalemates can be useful, and to be frank, sometimes you just need to blow stuff up because someone ran away with the game.
Other Disruption
Kind of a catch-all section for cards that don't directly blow stuff up on the field but do disrupt your opponents in some way. Most of it is graveyard hate, but Dreamstealer is just too good too fun to not run, even if this deck wants to stay under the radar. Super Hypnotic Specter is a card I will always try to play.
Protection
We depend on a lot of permanents to be successful, so protecting our investments is paramount. As noted above, Heritage doesn't work without Shadowheart, so protecting her is our first priority. Loran's Escape and Mother of Runes help out quite a bit. Mom acts as a rattlesnake for removal which is great, and Escape is one of those cards virtually no one will expect. It's not a one mana counterspell, but it performs a similar role in an aggressive deck. The mass protection spells like Teferi's Protection protect us from board wipes (theirs and ours) allowing us to emerge with a vastly superior board position in the wake of one. These cards win games, make no mistake.
Pillowfort
The other key component in keeping our opponents off of us. Some of them, like Windborn Muse and High Priest of Penance are proactive, causing opponents to second guess attacking in the first place, while cards like Inkshield or Comeuppance are more reactive and lead to massive blowouts. These are part of the Three Tier Defense System I mentioned above. My favorite here is Orzhov Advokist since it functions very similarly to Heritage, taking the pressure off of us to keep both of our commanders in play.
Beats
Yes, we got the beat(s). I know, you saw Aerial Responder and thought about why I'm running a draft card. Hear me out. Vigilance is a keyword that does a lot of heavy lifting in this deck since we can swing with impunity. Flying is probably the best evasion. Lifelink gives us some more sustain. All of these individually aren't amazing, but throw them together on a 3mv creature that just so happens to curve between our commanders and you've got a serious beatstick. Ebondeath, Dracolich and God-Eternal Oketra are recursive and give us a strong sense of inevitability, while Shadrix Silverquill fills multiple roles, but double strike makes him a rather effective finisher. Sun Titan needs no introduction.
A lot of theory and experimentation went into this deck to get it into the state it's in now, as you can see from this thread, and I'm quite proud of it. Let me know what you think.