I played in a pre-release today and took it all the way - no land swap, btw. I lost my list for the entire card pool, but here was my broken deck:
Green Lovin':
Kavu Chameleon
Kavu Climber
Kavu Titan
Nomadic Elf
Quirion Trailblazer
Spider of some sort
4/4 Kavu with R: Haste
Llanowar Emissary
Red Blaze:
Scorching Lava
Zap
Tribal Flames
Breath of Darigaaz
Black Flying Death:
Recover
Phyrexian Slayer
Phyrexian Battleflies
Spite/Malice
Agonizing Demise
Broken Gold:
2 Plague Spores
2 Shivan Zombie
Smouldering Tar
Land:
7 Mountains
6 Swamps
6 Forests
1 Keldon Necropolis
1 Green tap land, common, sacs
I would sideboard in another Recover versus removal, or Mage's Battle against a deck with bombs, or some 1/1 elf w/ kicker 8 that got bunch of counters.
Comments:
Whole lotta removal. Consider that I had 4 non-black bury effects, 4 burn, and a Necropolis. I also had some beef in green, with a bunch of Kavu.
Card comment:
Agonizing Demise
3B
Instant
Bury target creature. R1 Kicker, deal power to controller.
I counted. I cast Agonizing Demise 8 times during the tourney, and I used kicker EVERY TIME. Got a Rith with it once.
Kavu Titan
1G
Creature - Kavu
2/2 Kicker G2 - gets 3 +1/+1 counters and trample.
Sheesh, this guy is a beast. I thought kicker was supposed to be poor, but geez, 5/5 trample for only 5? I also never falied to use kicker on this guy.
Llanowar Emissary
G2
Creature - Wizard
2/3 1R kicker - bury traget artifact
I thought this guy would be great. I never once faced an artifact worthy of its ability. I only paid its kicker once, and that was becasue I had the mana available and took out a Cameo. There appears to be no artifacts in thi scycle worthy of main deck kill. Enchantments a-go-go, but no artifacts. Sigh
Spider Guy
G2
Creature - Spider
2/3 Can block flyers Kicker 3 - +1/+1 counter
Talk about a worthless kicker. This boy got cast 13 times, and NEVER with kicker. 3 mana for a counter? Please, 2/3 is sufficient to block just about any non-legend flyer in the set, it appears. I certainly never saw a common flyer other than Faerie Squadron which could punch through.
Kavu Chameleon
GG3
4/4
Cannot be countered
G: Becomes color of choice until end of turn
I thought its color ability would be quite useful. Boy was I wrong. And uncounterable, considering its CC, by anything except a rare counter or Exclude. So, its counter-ability is pretty weak in constructed. Still a 4/4 though.
Smouldering Tar
RB2
Enchantment
During your upkeep target player loses a life
Sac: Deal 4 damage to critter. Use as sorcery
Seems a whole lot better than it really is. I used it as kill twice, and as a one sided copper tabletin two games. Total games decided by tar? Only one.
Breath of Darigaaz
R1
Sorcery
Earthquake for 1. Kicker 2 - Quake for 4
Number of times cast: 3
Number of games it won: 3
Not used a lot, but really good.
Recover
B2
Raise dead in a cantrip.
I had two but played only one due to my prominance of removal. I felt that fewer creature battles would take place, so it would become less useful in duplicates. If I had it to do over again, I'd take out a Shivan Zombie for the other Recover. It's a really good card.
Keldon Necropolis
Legendary Land
Tap: Colorless mana
R4, Tap: Sac critter, deal 2 to creature or player
Only used once, in response to Armidillo Cloak. Creature dies. Cloak was thus countered. I won. it was worth the slot I gave it. That Cloak is broken.
Plague Spores
BR4
Sorcery
Bury target creature and target land
This puppy might be my MVP, simply becasue it yielded 3-for-1 advantage so often. Fertile Ground, Your best Creature, and That Land? Sure! Tower Drake, Island, and Armidillo Cloak? Sure. used to further mana screw, and take out any creature you card about - man it was great.
General Impressions:
The only black creatures I ever cared to kill could die to my burn. Thus the bury of non-black creatures cards are really nice due to what creatures deserve it. Green Kavus, Hasted Kavus, Stupid Djinns (White should NOT have a Djinn), and Rith all walked into this kill.
Artifacts that I worried about were non-existant. Enchntments are legion.
Unlike others' impressions, I do NOT think gold cards ruin limited. The massive amount of mono-cards which are only good with other colors hurts lmited play. They say that there are 66 gold cards, which hurt the set. Assume that 16 re just so good as be be great in limited (like the Cloak of Armidillos). That leaves 50 cards which are poor. Ice Age has more cards that sucked than that. And these cards are good with the right colors. But, geez, Apprentices, off-color kickers, other color activations, man, it gets nasty.
So, I wouldn't get rid of gold cards, I would just lower the amount of cards that rely on other colors to be playable.
Thoughts.
-Anxiety
21 land?!?! Didn't you ever get overrun by creature swarms?
Maybe not considering the insane amount of removal right up to Breath of Darigaaz and considering the fatties, but I still think that was a lot. :)
Better safe than sorry? (Coming from a guy who has been mana flooded at these things.)
Considering the High CC of ANY worthwhile creature I got, and the High CC of my kill, including 2 Plague Spores, I decided to go a little land heavy. Normally, I go 18 land. I did not consider the Necropolis a land. Just a permanent that made mana. So I went 20 land, by my calculations. And I usually play one or two cards over 40, so I can win a stalemate.
There was one game, where my first play was Battleflies. I then proceeded to play thirteen straight land-drops. I had 3 other cards during this time - Plague Spores, Agonizing Demise, and Smouldering Tar. I got my opponent down to 3 before he lava'd my Flies. I then proceeded to draw more mana, followed eventually by a horde of Kavu, all of which were pissed because they had been roused from their slumber under a pile of land cards in my dekc. So they stomped down my opponent's gathered forces.
It was a Slaughter.
-Anxiety
Wow. :)
Wish I could get mana flood like that!
Too bad you didn't open Soul Burns, then.