Icaria Blue Ramp

This is my newest version of Icaria Blue for Dark Frontier.

A big part of this deck is playing cards earlier than you should normally be allowed to via Bulltetshaper and Yushkov, the Usurper. Another goal is to provide the opponent with must answers all while maintaining card advantage.

My favorite combo is Bulletshaper to Eclipse Dragon on T3, then using Eclipse Dragons' ability to either counter your opponent with Eilyn's Choice, go up in card advantage with Wisdom of the Elders, or simply use a torch. It's very efficient and really puts you in an amazing spot with little downside, unless your opponent decides to kill Eclipse Dragon (which at that point they are likely spending multiple cards to get rid of him).

Rizahn, Xo, Peaks, and Icaria are your desired top ends. Peaks is still an amazing card and when combined with any of the 3 cost units and above it's hard to beat the card advantage. I have seriously considered finding something to remove for multiple main deck peaks, but I simply cannot find something in this main deck to remove and even more so I feel the consistency level is higher when you have 6 merchants that you can grab it with.

Which also brings me to the reason for my merchants. I know we all remember the days of 8 merchant decks (and this still is kinda prevalent I feel, less so due to Even Golem). 8 merchants to me always felt like too many, and 4 too little. By going to 6 I feel I have enough opportunity without bogging my deck down with merchants. I also chose to split it 50/50 in case I get hit with something like Royal Decree, In Cold Blood, Avigraft, or any other "you can't play this card anymore" kind of effects. To be locked out of the market is absolutely devastating. So I feel the 50/50 split works perfect. Only downside is that Howling Peak Smuggler cannot grab Adjudicators Gavel.

Permafrost is fairly good pseudo removal imo, and I feel is fairly important in this meta where having creatures in the void isn't a downside for many decks and is actually an upside. This works great against Even Xenan decks that prey on spamming even golem and Memory Dredger. I also like it for pretty much anything else because it is just cheap cheap removal.

Herald's Song provides early card draw and can act like a treasure trove if you don't have anything you want to get rid of since you can just discard the echo'ed Herald's Song that you get. It also can enable Privilege of Rank in a pinch, can act as fodder for Bulletshaper, and can help fill your void with spells for Rizahn's ability. Oh and you can market cycle it like Xo if you really want to.

Pristine Light and Harsh Rule make for good removal. I have thought a lot about putting vanquish in the deck, and I honestly probably should, but I feel with Eilyn's Choice, Pristine Light, Harsh Rule, Permafrost, Torch, and Rizahn I have a fairly good spread of removal. I have considered many times exchanging a Pristine Light for another Harsh Rule as sometimes it can be dead in hand, but I like Pristine Light's ability to draw your units back. This can be useful with Rizahn as you can re-proc his ability, same with Yushkov really. And if you have a Xo down you can reactivate his fate ability which has proved useful to me before.

For my market I have Icaria as a great top end and adjudicators gavel for ruining void synergies. I also like to sue Bore for those pesky relic decks. Howling peka like I said is really good card advantaage and and deep forged plate is a must in a rakano deck. I feel I want Martyr's Chains but I don't think there is room.