Dark Chalice

Hey, guys, this is my take on a chalice deck. It's a little greedy and a little harder to pilot, but it makes use of some tools added in Omens that I feel make it more consistent.

To start, we all know what a pain it is to face Chalice on the ladder, even in the mirror match (For anyone who is lucky enough to have not faced it, here's a list: Chalice Control). My main goal in adding shadow was to improve the mirror match, with a knowing loss in win-rate against some of the more aggressive decks; I'm looking at you Skycrag. With the addition of Slay and Banish from Omens, aggro/midrange strategies(Argenport Midrange/ Xenan Lifeforce/ FJS Vara Combo) have an easier time shutting down your Crystalline Chalice and getting rid of your fatties, namely Lumen Defender and Combrei Healer. There is also the addition of Praxis Horn to consider which, given too much time, can out value any chalice deck due to the deck's powerful recursion tools(Basically just Dawnwalker).

With all of that said, here are the new includes:
2x Slay
2x Banish
1x Steward of the Past
2x Celestial Omen
1x Azindel's Gift
1x Aid of the Hooru
1x A New Tomorrow

As you can tell, most of the additions are small, and they make getting your influence early a bit harder, but, for me at least, they have increased the consistency of the deck tremendously. Both Slay and Banish are in to help with the mirror and the Xenan/Shepherd's Horn decks. They are both also quality removal against pure aggro decks ala Skycrag and Burn Queen; you know, when wrathing your board of 3/7's to kill their one 7/3 Vadius just isn't worth it. The reason I chose Slay over more Eilyn's Choices is the same reason most chalice decks run Vanquish. You often want to hold your choices as a counter spell for Obliterate, Channel the Tempest, Grasping at Shadows, and Harsh Rule, so you run Vanquish as a 4th and 5th Choice. Well, that happens to leave you pretty vulnerable to decks that go wide incredibly quickly, notably the Elysian Shimmerpack decks and all Stonescar Decks. While Harsh Rule is generally the most efficient answer to these decks, a good portion of the time you can regain board control by spot removing one of their creatures.

Steward of the Past exists mostly as a tech card against the Vara combos and the Praxis/Elysian midrange strategies that make very good use of Vara, Fate-Touched and Dawnwalker, respectively. Azindel's Gift is probably in here just to satisfy my greed, but with the meta as slow as it is right now a lot of decks are not in red, meaning they have an incredibly hard time dealing with this card. Shatterglass Mage is just about the only card that can efficiently interact with this and most Praxis Midrange decks only run two and at most three. They will usually play one to destroy a Crystalline Chalice and if you follow up with this the turn after, most concede in the next two turns; the others either get lucky and draw their other copy, or you proceed to kill any threat they happen to top-deck until they die. All that is to say, against other control/ midrange decks that want to go to the mid-late game, landing this generally makes it impossible for them to keep up.

This brings us to the two super-value cards, Aid of the Hooru and A New Tomorrow. I'll start with Aid, seeing as how it might be one of my favorite cards from Omens. Aid is wonderful at all points in the game. Mid-game, stun their dudes, gain some armor, draw some cards, get some dudes. It might be one of the best single cards to play on turn 12. In the late-game, this functions as a finisher after you have exhausted your opponent's resources. I believe this card is powerful enough to speak for itself; if you've never cast one, you should try it out sometime. Now, New Tomorrow might seem to be the weirdest card in this list but, in actuality, it has enabled me to win games I had no right to win. You see, you may think you know what the card does; read it again. It really says "For the rest of the game, draw only gas." The card seems bad outside of a Big Combrei build, but as soon as you experience the feeling of chaining Channel the Tempests into Aid of the Hooru into The Great Parliament all in just 2 turns, you know true power.

This brings us to the last addition, Celestial Omen. Remember when I said Aid of the Hooru is one of my favorite cards from Omens? Well, Celestial Omen is definitely my favorite. It allows you to do silly, greedy things like run one Azindel's Gift and one A New Tomorrow. The only reason this deck has two and not three is that I don't know what to drop in order to play the third copy. Whenever you draw an Omen, you've essentially just drawn another copy of whatever the best card in your deck is. Has your opponent been putting the beat down on you for the last two turns? Omens for a Harsh Rule. Are you going to hit 10 mana next turn? Omens for A New Tomorrow and proceed to snowball the game. No matter what situation you are in, Celestial Omen can probably get you out of it. Whenever I have this card in my deck, the only draw that beats it is the card I would have searched for if I had drawn Omens.

Well, if you made it to this point you are a stronger man than I, and I thank you. I'm still polishing the deck and would love some feedback If you would be so kind. I'm mostly fiddling with numbers, trying to figure out how to add Archive Curator to the mix without things getting wildly inconsistent.

Any and all suggestions are welcome, thank you!