Homebrew Decklist: Doran Lark

Since Reveillark is the Homebrew Pick of the Week I tried to find creative ways to utilize its ability. Out of the hoards of great lark targets that are currently type II legal, Doran, The Siege Tower is one of the most efficient and hilarious. Instead of getting back your little 2/2 with some decent ability you are essentially getting a 5/5 with an ability that severely changes the game state. Coupled with cards like the freshly printed Grizzled Leotau and Lorwyn's Treefolk Harbinger it makes your side of the board extremely mana efficient and, at times, just plain scary! Since both of those are also great lark targets it makes sense to build a deck around this idea of putting out low mana creatures with less than two power and huge toughness. That was the idea behind this week's Homebrewed deck: Doran Lark!



Doran Lark


Creatures:

3 x Doran, the Siege Tower
4 x Grizzled Leotau
4 x Tidehollow Sculler
4 x Birds of Paradise
4 x Treefolk Harbinger
3 x Ranger of Eos
2 x Reveillark


Other Spells:

4 x Crib Swap
2 x Behemoth Sledge
4 x Captured Sunlight
4 x Maelstrom Pulse


Lands:

2 x Brushland
2 x Fetid Heath
2 x Forest
3 x Llanowar Wastes
4 x Murmuring Bosk
3 x Plains
1 x Swamp
2 x Treetop Village
1 x Twilight Mire
2 x Wooded Bastion

The general idea of this deck is to get highly efficient creatures out quickly along with Doran to seal the deal. Tidehollow Sculler keeps their big threats at bay or at least forces them to use a path on your Sculler instead of Doran later on. Birds of Paradise is the main fixer for the deck and allows a turn two Doran which is blisteringly fast. It also can swing for one flying damage if once you get your Doran on the field. Treefolk Harbinger both tutors up Doran and can beat for 3 once he is out. It can also grab a forest if you find yourself up against a wall or getting mana screwed. All for one green! Grizzled Leotau is both a great lark target and a great card to pair with Doran both early and late game. Ranger of Eos is good in this deck because he can grab both your Birds and your Harbinger for yet another explosive play.


Maelstrom Pulse and Crib Swap are your main removal cards in the deck. The Pulse keeps tokens and basically any non-land permanents from becomming a problem. These are going to be especially good against the even stronger post ARB Black/White tokens match up. You may be asking yourself why I'm using Crib Swap instead of Path to Exile. Two reasons: 1) With a deck this efficient I'm not worried about spending the extra two mana to get a card with a lesser drawback 2) It can be tutored with a Treefolk Harbinger. This gives those Harbingers a viable target (besides a forest) if you already have a Doran in your hand or on the field.


The last two cards are fresh off the printing press and are especially fun/awesome in a deck like this. The first is Behemoth Sledge which is basically a colored Loxodon Warhammer. It is far superior to the Hammer in this deck because once Doran hits the field, the sledge remains equally useful while the Hammer loses quite a bit of its potency. It seems to be made for Doran and is very fun/funny to play in this deck. Cascade has brought a wave of useful cards to the meta and one of the most fun and great in this deck is Captured Sunlight. It mitigates the hurt of your numerous pain lands and can pretty much cascade into anything in the deck besides your Ranger.


Wait!!!!! What about Reveillark?


This deck probably seems like more of a Doran deck than a Reveillark deck and well...it is. Lark brings back most of the cards in the deck and makes for explosive middle and late game plays. It's the card that inspired me to build the deck and it is what makes it all the more potent against a slew of decks full of various types of spot and mass removal. It is the glue that holds the deck together, its foundation, its very life force!! OK enough with the metaphors already! I think you get the point! I'm still working out the kinks so let me know what you think of the decklist and how you think I can improve on it.

(Links and pictures provided by mtgfanatic.com and magiccards.info respectively)