Imminent BURN (Historic)

This is a deck that I've been working on for the historic format that leverages the power of Imminent Doom.

I started with pairing it with Dreadhorde Arcanist since they both do well with getting value out of casting spells. I replaced Arcanist's usual partner of Young Pyromancer with the enchantment. This changed the direction of the deck a bit and moved it more towards a burn strategy, while also making one of the core pieces less vulnerable to removal.

Once we were focused on casting spells and burning everything, wizards also started to be a sub-theme. Soul-Scar Mage and Magmatic Channeler have really great synergy here and of course help casting Wizard's Lightning.

I wanted to keep the overall CMC low for this deck, but wanted to include some X costing spells to maximize the damage output when Imminent Doom reached over 3 counters. I found that simply using the DFC lands filled this role and allowed for cutting back on the land count over all. While it only has 14 normal lands, Agadeem and Shatterskull will primarily be used as lands early and bigger X spells in the late game. I see Spikefield Hazard as mostly a spell in this deck, but having the option to play it as a tapped red source is helpful at times.

I enjoyed playing the deck, but found it was still lacking something. This was also during the time Uro was still legal, so I put it on the shelf for awhile. Forward to the release of Historic Anthology 4 with Death's Shadow. This seemed like a perfect fit for the deck since it already wanted to play so many life payment lands. Along with Scourge of the Skyclaves, this turns a weakness of the deck into a potential strength! I don't think going all in on plan is correct for this deck though and feel like it gives it more mid to late game options without forcing it to play a "suicide" strategy every game. I like a 2/2 split between Shadow and Scourge since they can play differently and I don't want too many too early. Channeler can discard them for later use with a claim // fame though.

Why the Blue splash?
Well I was only playing Blood Crypt before, but after adding Shadow and Scourge I was interested in more life payment options in the lands. I tried deserts first, but their sac abilities didn't seem useful enough for needing 5 mana. I'm currently testing using Watery Grave and Steam Vents instead. With access to blue mana there may be room for counter spells in the sideboard, and I want to test Sea Gate Stormcaller in the main deck as well.