Well That Got Out of Hand Quickly

As a predominantly control player, I did not have a good feel for a heavy creature based strategy. I wanted to challenge myself to learn a play style other than control/Izzet spells, I worked on this brew for a few weeks and to my surprise ended up with a deck that dominated the Dominaria store championship and gave me my first Store Championship.

Having played through the mess that was Mardu Vehicles and Ramunap Red, I wanted to try a creature deck without playing the same decks I so thouroughy disliked. With the launch of Dominaria, a few cards sprang to mind as great pieces for a deck. 

As a player who really started in Kaladesh, I did not have a feel for how powerful a T1 Llanowar Elves really was. So many of the aggressive starts with this deck had an Elf in hand, and I quickly learned why so many green decks, no matter what they were built to do, ran four. 

How Did That Get Here

Turns out Llanowar Elves into a Drover of the Mighty into Thrashing Brontodon was a much more aggressive start than most folks realized. Without missing land drops it turned on a T4 Carnage Tyrant or Ghalta, Primal Hunger. With most of the best removal I faced being some version of 'damage to creature' or Cast Down, either of those two hitting the board that early wrapped most games up. 

What Does That Have?

It's about time we talk about the crowl jewel of the deck. It's not Carnage Tyrant, or Ghalta, Primal Hunger, or Lyra Dawnbringer. You might be asking, what's better than those?. The answer: all of them. I give you

Look at the keywords spread around creatures in this deck: Flying, Viginlance, Lifelink, Trample, Hexproof, First Strike, Reach, Indestructible, Deathtouch. Throw those, in any combination, one one character. Even excluding some of the big name cards, a 'slow' start with Llanowar Elves, Drover of the Might, Ramunap Hydra, into Majestic Myriarch gives you an 8/8 Vigilance, Reach Trample on T4. I remember a lot of folks wondered if Myriarch would be viable, and folks quickly seemed to cast it aside. I dont know if it would have been good enough on its own or to build around, but in a deck full of good threats, a card that could serve as a copy of all the good abilities on the baord was absolutely stunning. 

How the Store Was Won

During the store championship I faced a variety of matchups:

Naya Dinosaurs: This deck used Kenjali's Caller and Otepec Huntmaster to try to ramp into some big dinos. I'm not sure what these dinos were, as Steel Leaf Champion and Rhonas the Indomitable made quick work of G1, and an early Carnage Tyrant took G2. 

Mono-Blue Control: G1 was very slow and painful, drawing through most of the deck until Carnage Tyrant resolved. G2 I was able to board in Prowling Serpopard and Manglehorn to deal with the counterspells and the Icy Manipulator opposite me. 

Mono Green Stompy: The only matchup to go 3 games, this deck played many of the big threats like Steel Leaf Champion, Carnage Tyrant, and Ghalta, Primal Hunger. All three games were slugfests and races to get a big board or huge creature, but in G3 Majestic Myriarch ended up with too many abilities and could trade favorably in combat (deathtouch, indestructible) and others were able to finish off the game. 

Mardu and RB vehicles: I faced this a few times and was able to handle it easily each time. Having Thrashing Brontodon in the main board was huge, as I was able to remove things as early as T3, at which point I could usually resolve a big threat of my own on T4 or T5. The sideboard was also built to handle this deck, so Manglehorn and Dissenter's Deliverence got to shine a few times. 

The final turn: In a RB vehicles matchup, the opponent had used several Abrade and Unlicensed Disintegration to remove a lot of early creatures and a few threats, but they failed to assess the biggest threat on the board. This is the board as I moved to combat:

vs

They tried to block with Bomat Courrier before reading Steel Leaf Champion, then tried to block SLC with Scrapheap Scrounger before reading their own card. 

They had tried to race life totals then tried to switch to remove threats and build up some blockers to hold back, and by the time they felt safe the game was over.