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The Magic Chest 21: Noble Benefactor
If it wasn't for the fact that your opponent gets to tutor as well, this card would be very powerful. It still could be, if you could somehow nullify that drawback. One possibility is Mind Slash, which allows you to sacrifice creatures for a Coercion effect. Because you have to sacrifice the Noble Benefactor as a cost, the tutor effect triggers before the Mind Slash ability resolves, allowing you to get rid of anything bad your opponent could have tutored for. That's not the kind of deck I chose to build, though. Noble Benefactor's drawback can also be nullified if you can win in the same turn. That only gives your opponent a chance to use instants. You pretty much need to make it a combo deck, but that shouldn't be too big a problem. I eventually settled on a deck with Aluren and Ashnod's Altar. The idea is to get both of those in play and cast a Noble Benefactor (for free, because of the Aluren) and sacrifice it to the Altar. Use the Benefactor's ability to fetch another Benefactor and repeat until you sacrifice your last one. Use that one to fetch a graveyard recursion card like Death's Duet. (Living Death might be a better choice, but the two black mana could be a problem). Cast Death's Duet with 2 of the 8 colorless mana you still have in your mana pool and 1 black mana either from a land or by casting a Priest of Gix from your hand. If you already had a Death's Duet in your hand, you could have fetched a Priest of Gix instead. Return two of the Benefactors to your hand and cast them again, using Aluren. Sacrifice both and fetch a Death's Duet and a Priest of Gix. Cast the Priest of Gix and sacrifice it. Cast Death's Duet for two Benefactors again and repeat the process. When you've run out of Death's Duets, use the last two Benefactors to fetch a Drain Life and a Bog Initiate (to turn the colorless mana black). Let's see how much mana you'll have available for the Drain Life: you sacrifice a total of 12 Benefactors and 4 Priests of Gix for 44 mana. All you need to cast is 4 Death's Duets, costing 12 mana in total. 32 Mana is enough for a 30 point Drain Life. That means you could make do with just three Priests, or even two, but four is probably safer. Complicated? After going through the steps a few times, you should have the hang of it. The core of the deck consists of 22 cards: 4x Aluren, 4x Ashnod's Altar, 4x Noble Benefactor, 4x Death's Duet, 4x Priest of Gix, 1x Drain Life, 1x Bog Initiate. The sideboard should have an extra Drain Life and Bog Initiate in case you're facing discard. Nothing frustrates like getting your Drain Life Duressed on the first turn. The rest of the deck should be search cards, mana acceleration and perhaps a counter or two against the inevitable Disenchants. The ideal search card in this deck is probably Vampiric Tutor, but that's one of the more expensive rares, so I'll skip it. Demonic Consultation isn't even an option, because you could easily end up removing your Drain Life or some other vital card from the game. That leaves blue search cards: Lim-Dul's Vault: with enough life, this card will always find you the card you want and with a bit of luck, it'll also find you a second card you want or another searcher. It's sometimes worth skipping a set of 5 cards with one card you need and pay some life to find a set of 5 with more than one good card. Impulse: A staple blue searcher. Force of Will: Useful because it can be cast with no mana. Powersink: Ideally, powersink something during your opponent's turn to tap them out so you can go off the next turn without fear of Disenchants of Counterspells. Yavimaya Elder: It would be a good way to get enough mana and the right colors of it, but there isn't any room left for it. Land: Sacrifice lands are fine to use as acceleration. Keep in mind that Aluren requires 2 green mana, but you'll only have to cast it once, so Hickory Woodlot and Havenwood Battleground are good choices. The rest of the lands should mostly be able to make black and blue mana. Defense Grid: Invaluable against decks with alternate casting cost spells, like Fireblast and Force of Will. You could even consider playing them main deck instead of Force of Will if those cards are popular among the people you play with. Chill: Against burn decks and red-based land destruction. Gloom: To slow down white decks with a lot of Disenchants and to protect against CoP: Black. Soul Burn: As an alternative to Drain Life, in case of Lobotomy. With a lot of luck (ie: a perfect hand), you could pull off a turn three kill: Turn 1: Hickory Woodlot
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