*Three Tax (W/g/r)*

3 Enlightened Tutor

2 Land Tax

4 Empyrial Armor

4 Rancor

4 River Boa

3 Defiant Falcon

4 Thermal Glider

2 Devout Harpist

4 Soul Warden

4 Mogg Fanatic

4 Soltari Foot Soldier

1 Crimson Acolyte

4 Seal of Fire

4 Lotus Petal

1 Mountain

3 Forest

9 Plains

This deck probably looks a little strange. Without dual lands who in their right mind would run a three color deck with only 13 land (Even with dual lands who would want to). With a little closer examination, however, it can be seen that this deck has a strange synergy.

First, this deck, as indicated by the name, is made possible by the well beloved Land Tax. This card allows you to run fewer land than most decks (That and the fact that the mana curve is

0cc: 4 1cc:27 2cc:8 3cc:8). Land Tax also allows you to run very few of the off color lands. Best of all, it fuels Empyrial Armor. As long as you keep the land in hand and don’t play them, you can easily have a hand of 10 or 11 cards within a turn or two. That means your Soul Warden can wander over and beat your opponent to death in 2 turns if it needs to. Land Tax also thins the library pretty quickly to help you draw the game winning Empyrial Armor.

Having multiple Land Tax in play is nice, but it really isn’t necessary (at most you can use it 5 times before it’s useless). That is why there are only 2 in the deck. Of course with only 2 of any card in your deck you should never really expect to see it hit the table. That is why there are 3 Enlightened Tutor, another classic White power card. Not only can you fetch the Land Tax but if you already have the Land Tax and want to go for some beats you can fetch the Imperial Armor or pick up Seal of Fire to burn a defending creature to a crisp or yank out Lotus Petal so you can get colored mana without disturbing your Land tax or . . . well you get the idea.

As far as creatures go you have 26 to choose from. The River Boa is always good but in this deck he is mostly there as a regenerating blocker against Stompy. Don’t be afraid to use him as a beat stick if the opportunity presents itself, just remember that you are short on Forests so his Regeneration ability is a little weaker than normal. The Fanatics are there to remove blockers with Shadow and Flying, most of which have 1 on the backside. The White creatures are pretty self explanatory. Soul Warden produces a life boost and can come out on turn 1. Devout Harpist can also come out early and is your protection against other White decks with Empyrial Armor. The Crimson Acolyte is a nod to the meta-game. The other 11 creatures all have evasion abilities and the Defiant Falcons start a short rebel chain to grab the Thermal Gliders also for use in those duels against Red (Although this means you have 4 lands out and that is about the maximum you want to play with this deck).

You may think that this deck would be better if it went mono. First of all, while such a deck would be very good indeed (and I may play such a deck, hehehe), it underutilizes the insane power of Land Tax. The other colors also round out your deck. With River Boa you have a strong attacker against Blue decks which have their own Flyers and Shadow creatures and a good blocker against aggressive decks. The Red removal helps in the mirror match to deal with blockers and the Seals are begging to be broken across the face of the Voice of All, a chance they rarely see. You may wish to replace Rancor with Seal of Strength as this is good against the Sligh match up. A Seal of Fire for a Seal of Removal or substitution of Elvish Lyrist may be a good idea in order to protect against Story Circle, CoP or Propaganda. A final substitution may be the choice of Thornscape Apprentice or Quirion Ranger over River Boa. Either way, this adds 4 1cc drops. The Apprentice adds some pretty good blocker removal abilities for your attacking creatures. The Ranger allows for more Land Tax tricks.

A good draw for the deck would be:

Turn 1: Plains, Land Tax

Turn 2: Trigger Land Tax, Plains, Soltari Foot Soldier (hand size 5)

Turn 3: Trigger Land Tax, Lotus Petal, Empyrial Armor, attack for 8 (Hand size 7)

Turn 4: Trigger Land Tax, Attack for 12, Game Over.

While this was a perfect draw, there is flexibility in the deck that should allow you to generate mid/late game wins if necessary although this the early game is where this deck truly belongs. It can run without Land Tax, but not so well. Don’t forget that, at least at GenCon this year, when the No Land Mulligan was in force you could abuse the rule in a very hideous way.

- chaps_man@hotmail.com