Deck # 2: The 13th House (EDH / Commander) [Revision 140]

"Astrology has no thirteenth house back home in England, Mother Pharika. It stops at twelve. So I turned to the tarot, and the thirteenth card of the tarot is Death."

 Dr. Kylie Moriarty is attacked by a vengeful Sorin, who was in England as Count Dracula for a Halloween party, seeing as he caught her taking a DNA sample from Vivien Reid while treating a cut on Vivien's arm.  When she won't give up her genetic sample, Sorin kidnaps Kylie and brings her to Theros, planning to destroy her.  But Sorin when tries to use magic against Kylie, she reflects it back, and Sorin is hurt by it.  Immediately, Kylie forgets about the battle and starts tending to Sorin's injuries.  Still enraged, Sorin vows to kill Kylie right then and there.  To both of their surprise, Vivien, who has been following, intervenes and stops the battle.  It's not that Vivien was on Kylie's side.  She simply wanted answers from the doctor.  

 Once the fight is over, Kylie reveals her discoveries about the ecological damage the planeswalkers are doing, and that planeswalkers are too dangerous to be free.  Realizing that Kylie is not evil, Sorin Vivien drop their anger and allow Kylie to take genetic samples of them before they leave.  Kylie's medical expertise catches the attention of Pharika, God of Affliction, who is out walking with Erebos and Nylea.

 Kylie's medical knowledge outstrips even Pharika's, and so she invites the Brit to teach her all her medical secrets, in return for being granted all of Pharika's knowledge of Theros medicine.  The exchange of knowledge goes quite well, to the point where Pharika becomes the only deity Kylie considers to be real and worthy of worship.  

 Pharika has a prophecy that an attack is coming.  Vivien challenges the two healers that all their medical mastery won't be of any use against an attacker of the type Pharika describes. 

 Kylie and Pharika begin crafting clones, starting with clones of Sorin/Dracula.  Erebos objects, but is actually convinced by Pharika to allow himself to be cloned, too, Before she knows it, they have also taken enough genetic material to clone Nylea herself, though they don't tell her this until after she leaves to another part of Theros, called to a greater matter.  (This is how I do things.  I don't have the original anything.  I mean, in real life I have every card I'm posting in these decks, but I explained to a player one day when he asked "How can we have the same legendary.  Why are they fighting for both of us?" I replied to him, as it was a private match and not a tournament, "Well, I'm playing a mad scientist.  So, your creatures are the real thing and mine are simply clones Dr. Moriarty has produced."  We agreed on that, and that is how I justify using legendary and planeswalker cards.  They are all clones).  

 Kylie's medical mastery brings forth powerful healing, complete with  several ways to bring the whole graveyard back, or only part of it if all Kylie needs at a given moment is the Mirrorpool back.  She also creates a Helix Pinnacle.  Pharika, with help from the cloned planeswalkers, prepares a squadron of demon clones who provide knowledge in exchange for service.  Qasali Slingers loves this, because draw from the demons means cat tokens from Jolrael.  Thus making good use of Liquimetal Coating, a clone of Qasali Slingers and Jolrael, and creatures and spells to work against newly metal-coated creatures in an emergency:  Kylie knows Eternal Witness would allow her to regain access to any of the cards that suited her, while Dwell on the Past, Gaea's Blessing, Krosan Reclamation, Blessed Respite, and the Loaming Shaman aid this plan in a lesser way.  

It is Mirrorpool and Selesnya Eulogist that prove to be this deck's real power, meaning the five cards that return it either to hand or library become essential.  While Mirrorpool sacrifices itself to make clones of any creature I have, from Essence Warden to Verdant Sun's Avatar, from Qasali Slingers to Eternal Witness, the real fun is when I make a clone of Rune-Scarred Demon or the production of even one cat token.  Once I have one clone, populate means I can have whatever amount I need at the time, which can erase an army that's attacking me (or at least erase the threats my gods can't block away) or let me go looking, first for the Archetype, then for whatever else is most helpful in the moment.    

 Xenic Poltergeist works with Liquimetal Coating to turn an enchantment into a creature, allowing instant protection for Epic Struggle, Rite of Passage, Whip of Erebos, Death's Presence, or any of the artifacts (Helix Pinnacle does not need such protection).  Mind you, it only works when the Archetype is in play.  Still, this protection doesn't last long.  

 Pestilence Demon and Rite of Passage only work when they're together, and Pharika demands he act only at the location of her most treasured secret, the Leyline of Vitality, which provides a 0/1 to all creatures in addition to its healing power.  Using his powers to harm all players and creatures one point at a time instead of all at once, Dr. Moriarty can effectively destroy her enemies' army, while slowly bolstering her own.  It's slow, but effective.  And anyone who doesn't survive the initial blast, such as a harpy token, can allow someone else to survive by giving their life to someone else with Death's Presence.  But with the Leyline present, everyone (on Kylie & Pharika's side) should weather the initial blast nicely.  Nylea can also intervene to protect a harpy token, a medic, or anyone else if she chooses to.  This can strengthen anyone who survives it, especially the secret weapon creatures.  And once you do survive, the Urban Daggertooth will proliferate the counters you've gained.  It will also proliferate Vivien and Sorin, the Helix Pinnacle, and any infect counters you (the opponents) might have gained.  

 Kozilek, the Great Distortion, turns out to be the threat to Theros Pharika foresaw.  Once Kylie and Pharika are finished, Vivien reports his arrival and they go to meet him.  His powers are vast, and he almost destroys them, but Pharika stops him with her powerful miracle.  She uses his own victims against him, promising the dead new life is they stand against their killer (Kozilek).  Kozilek distorts the people, even with the power of Pharika's miracle.  Though she hesitates to use it because of exactly what it is, Kylie uses the magic of an Unspeakable Symbol to empower her reflection spell, which turns Kozilek's distortive powers back on him temporarily.  
 In this mix of wild magic coming from Kozilek, Pharika, and Kylie, a strange effect happens that none of them control; the resurrected but distorted dead draw off this three-way magic to form into spirits with a Conspiracy.  The spirits fight Kozilek.  They do not defeat him, but they do deplete his energy as he defeats them.  Pharika is then able to knock Kozilek out in single combat, just him and her, using the combined power of her miracle and the symbol while everyone, now transformed into half-spirits and led by Kylie, cuts off his escape routes.  Almost a miracle in itself, Kozilek is exhausted.  He is defeated temporarily at Pharika's scaled hand.  
 Genetic material is extracted from him, and by the power of the gods, he is banished back to Zendikar with no memory that there even was a Theros.  

 In the lab, Kylie and Pharika work on creating a clone of Kozilek, but a modified clone who will protect either England or Theros, and only takes orders from Kylie, Pharika, and Vivien.  This Kozilek, under Kylie's medications and magic bolstered by Pharika's divine power, is interested in protection and serves as the Great Correction rather than the Great Distortion.  He cancels hostile energy, which Kylie teaches him to control and use as limited counterspelling.  He corrects a critical weakness in the deck: only one reflect spell and no counterspells.  Since I can reclaim cards from my graveyard as it suits me, discarding cards to counter spells is not a serious threat in this deck.  

 And finally, I have air control with tokens.  Angels, vampires with flying and lifelink, and Harpies wait to serve as guards - or if need be, a swarm of attackers.  The cat tokens compliment Qasali Slinger and work as emergency removal by turning attackers into cat food.  

 The spirits go around Theros causing chaos, and they refuse to listen to Erebos.  But they tell him, when pressed, that they consider Pharika their master.  When she wants them, they will serve her.  When she doesn't, they are wild and make people discard while spreading new lands.  They would be absolute menaces to Theros and need intervention from the other gods, but it's Kylie who intervenes.  She brings an old Zoologist friend of hers over from England and hires him to keep the spirits in check, which he does.  Erebos pays him, which allows Erebos to pretend that he's in control of the spirits and satisfy himself.  

 Let the 13th House rise.  This will be the final revision.