The parrot pings for death: scoop inducing! I haven't had this much fun for a long while in this game! So many people just scoop when the parrot engine is up and running! This is a janky Mardu mutate deck that aims to put a deathtouch Porcuparrot onto the field and control the board with it.

The Core Strategy

The main stragety of the deck is to get Porcuparrot mutated onto a deathtouch creatrure onto the field. We stall the game with little annoying deathtouchers and protectors until we get to that point. When that's the case the parrot can assign a damage to other creatures. And because a deathtoucher assigned damage to them they die! When hitting the combo the name of the game becomes to protect the parrot. For that we have Alseid of Life's Bounty - giving color protection vs. targeted removal - and Selfless Savior -again vs. targeted removal, but also board wipes. We make sure to always keep them onto the field with Lurrus of the Drem Den. Having both, the Parrot and Lurrus, on the field puts the opponent in a real conundrum: Who should they remove?!

The Individual Cards

As mentioned earlier: This is a mardu mutate deck. While we really only care about the Porcuparrot mutation we also make use of Cubwarden and Snapdax, Apex of the Hunt. Cubwarden has decent stats and can gain us life should we be in a pickle. Snapdax is a good double striker which, mutated on a deathtouch or lifelink creature, becomes a real beast. Mutated onto deathtouch it kills just about everything - even his mutation effect does, because it shoots some damage at the target. Insatiable Hemophage is a backup mutation in cases we have to play the parrot without mutating it onto something. With the Hemophage we can give it deathtouch after the fact!

The mutation targets may seem a little bit overall. The basic mutation targets are the - as ever present - Stonecoil Serpent, Foulmire Knight, Bootnipper, a random Hooded Blightfang, and Lurrus of the Dream-Den: Stonecoil is just a good colorless mutation target. Foulmire and Blightfang are our parrot deathtouch base creatures. The same holds true for Boot Nipper, who can also give our mutations lifelink in a pinch. Gingerbrute can become an unblockable lifelinker or double striker. Lurrus becomes a mutated creature that can protect itself!

Secondary mutation targets are Murderous Rider and Crystalline Giant. The Rider is our only real removal in the deck. And the Giant is foremost a colorless creature. With the recent rotation three color mana bases are hard to navigate. Every remotely useful colorless card helps in such a deck. And if we're lucky we can also get decent abilities on the giant. Hope for hexproof!

Our "protection package" consists of a playset of Alseid of Life's Bounty and a couple of Selfless Savior - giving protection from a color of our choice or preventing destruction, respectively. To reccur them we can use Lurrus of the Fream Den that can also bring back our deathtouchers form the grave!

As we are only playing creatures we can also set Umori, the Collector as our companion. We can even play him!

Luckily we are mostly a two color deck, splashing red only for the Porcuparrot and non-mutated Snapdax. The mana requirements are not that hard to hit as we have mostly single mana pips on all our spells. With that said we can get around with a playset of Temple of Silence, a few [Temple of Triupmh and a random Temple of Malice - each with the possibility to smooth out our draws. The basic lands only contain two Mountain. We have a little more Swamps than Plains because our deathtouchers are all black. And we want those to get on the field as soon as possible to stall the game and then serve as mutation targets. And, yes, there should be some Savai Triomes in here - didn't bother to get them.