So having seen some tiny leaders in action, I have an idea of a really strong, archetypal deck. One of the better win conditions in the format is Thespian Stage plus Dark Depths. The combo is easy to assemble
and, with a little love, hard to stop.
On the quest for finding out the best suited deck for the combo, the first question we should ask is, what color/colors do we want to be? This combo is colorless so we can actually go anywhere. Green is the obvious color to support lands, but Blue is also a strong contender with card draw and Intuition. Black has the best removal in the format in the form of edicts. White gives us Weathered Wayfarer but not a lot else on its own, and Red is pretty unsuited to this particular style of deck. Lets go through our options one by one.
The clear winner to focus a deck around the combo is green though. It has the most tricks and the closest tie to land. Black has tutors and Vampire Hexmage, and blue has Intuition. While solid contributors they just aren't deep enough to make the central point of the deck. Green definitely has enough depth. In fact it has enough that I had to cut a bunch of cards to make the following list.
Mono-Green
The general for mono-green Depths is a toss up between Azusa for speed, and Omnath for being a huge threat on his own. We don't have Seedborn Muse, but we can lean on some X spells for explosive plays. Ultimately I settled on Azusa since I want to be more land oriented.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking
Enchantments:
Exploration
Sylvan Library
Courser of Kruphix
Songs of the Dryads
Sorceries:
Gelatinous Genesis
Explore
Life From The Loam
Mulch
Sylvan Scrying
Genesis Wave
Artifacts:
Mox Diamond
Zuran Orb
Expedition Map
Sensei's Divining Top
Crucible of Worlds
Horn of Greed
Creatures:
Budoka Gardener
Fa'adiyah Seer
Genesis Hydra
Vinelasher Kudzu
Dungrove Elder
Reclamation Sage
Unyaro Bees
Instant:
Crop Rotation
Constant Mists
Sprout Swarm
Realms Uncharted
Land:
Ancient Tomb
Bazaar of Baghdad
Dark Depths
Deserted Temple
Dust Bowl
Glacial Chasm
Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
Misty Rainforest
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
Petrified Field
Scrying Sheets
8x Snow-Covered Forests
Thawing Glacier
Thespian's Stage
Tranquil Thicket
This is my first crack at a mono-green version of the deck. This one is very focused on getting the two lands together as fast as possible. There are some pay-offs for going big with our mana. Genesis Wave is going to be huge for us, but unfortunately limits the number of Hydras we can put in our deck. Scrying Sheets are a way to draw some extra cards every once in a while, but unless we dropped several more non-basics the percentage hits are going to be quite low. It goes up when you consider Top and Library. Courser is going to be an all star for us. It not only lets us gain a significant amount of life, but also extends the range of our Explores. Playing extra lands is all well and good, but you run out of them pretty fast unless you can draw cards. Its the same logic behind including Crucible of Worlds and lands that eat themselves or other lands. Courser is even better than that since it lets us use our library manipulation to essentially draw extra cards. We are somewhat lacking on removal, but that isn't green's strong suite. Between the Glacial Chasm and Constant Mists we should be ok to prevent getting attacked to death, but only having two disenchants is disconcerting.
I can see several ways to adjust the deck and what other colors we can add to spin the deck into other things, but they deserve their own post. Sideboards will vary wildly depending on your meta-game but having more solid disenchants is where I would start.
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