Hordes of insectsUpdate: I managed to get hold of a Rhonas - result! More lands inserted to allow the Archfiend to be played when it comes to hand, the deck is becoming more stable and reliable.
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Update: Hazoret was just too expensive to be a good discard outlet, replaced with
tormenting voice, the cycling land were very rarely cycles and slowed down the game coming in tapped, sweltering sun's again is too expensive in its cycling cost. Samut never came out and the deck was successful anyway.
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I have been messing around with this deck thinking about the best ways to get -1/-1 tokens down, and working around
archfiend of ifnir, I now believe I have a workable deck, with hazoret as a discard outlet along with the cycling lands,
sweltering suns can also be used to cycle if it has already been used to clear the board. I may include a player of
tormenting voice, is it worth playing 4 archfiends? This will offer better consistency.
Sweltering suns would also be useful in multiplying insects, if I have 5 insects and 1
soul-Scar mage, in the second main phase I can cat
sweltering suns killing all my own creatures but creating 18 insects in their place!
The other key addition is a single samut, depending on how useful he is I may add another copy, but he well give all newly created insects hate, so in the previous example I could cast
sweltering suns in the first main phase and swing for legal.
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The key aim of the deck is to use
nest of scarabs to produce tokens through the use of -1/-1 counters.
Magma spray is good early removal, and with
soul-scar mage, can also be used to put down -1/-1 tokens on opponent's creatures, along with cut, and earth.
Bontu is a good all round card, and with a lot of tokens potentially around can easily be animated.
Glorybringer is generally an excellent card, and with
soul-scar mage, would be amazingly powerful, putting 4 -1/-1 counters on an opponent's creature and creating a bunch of tokens as well
Plague belcher is great with its menace, I may well change this to include a full play set.
Soul-scar mage is very good, making all the damage dealt by Glorybringers permanent!
Soul-scar mage and
blazing volley is also an awesome combo.
Disposess,
manglehorn and
harsh mentor are all sideboard choices to go up against vehicle or artifact heavy decks.
Watchers of the dead is the obvious choice to take delerium decks or the new token effect whereby creatures killed can come back as token copies.
When the new set comes out the plan is to definitely put in
the scorpion God, and
ammit eternal, and maybe
obelisk spider.