In my quest to finding weird and quirky decks, I have often found myself staring at the card Lost In The Depths.

This card used to be one of the better pulls in draft. So good that it started causing problems for the format and the team saw no other option than to alter the card effect. Unsurprising, since the card replaced your deck with random cards at a cost of 2 mana less than the original. The real surprise was what Petrify & co decided to change it into.

So... you decimate your deck? that's the effect? turns out, yes it is. once cast, all cards in your deck of the targeted mana cost will simply vanish, leaving you with the remainder of your deck build for the rest of the game. Obviously this change didn't come without controversy, including furious players who felt cheated out of their favourite card. Others took up the challenge of finding ways to implement this card in their decks, however so far none seem to have successfully integrated this card.

Challenge accepted!

So let's think about this for a bit. Why would you want to size down your deck? to answer that question, think about all the times you found yourself wishing for a specific draw but for some reason, RNGsus was just not having it. Lost In The Depths (LitD) aims to provide the tools to trim the fat and go straight for the juicy bits of your deck. this sounds good in theory, however in practice it would be suicide to include this card in a deck not specifically tailored to it. after all, if you didn't want to draw a certain card, why would you include it in your deck to begin with? and what happens to the cards that would have been useful but can't be drawn anymore as collateral damage?

This Is Not A Zoo

The key to making this card work lies in how you plan the phases of your deck. you have an early game, a transition and a win condition. My method for now is to work in reverse and start with the win condition. I went with overwhelming force: take board control, then keep the pressure up by spawning bigger and bigger creatures until eventually the game is over.

Of course, you need something to get there. I hate to admit it, but it turns out this is where we take inspiration from zoo. however, we will focus all our creatures in the 2 mana slot. we want to be able to flip the switch at will, trimming out every card that we don't need. so don't be tempted to sprinkle in 3 mana drops or whatever, by the time we use LitD we want every draw to be useful. (Note: once we see more seasons enter the game, we will have a much wider selection of cards to pick from. this means that it will become easier over time to manage a mana slot this way.)

Ocular fiend is a powerful card, packing both a board clear and a big body in a good mana slot. at 6 mana, this is a great way to turn the tide: Runestorm at 5 mana, bag at 5.5 into 6 and fiend to assert dominance. if one fiend doesn't do it, play a second fiend at 6 mana, otherwise feel free to frontline your fiend in anticipation of 7 mana, where you drop porphyrion. at this point it is pretty much GG. Oh I included Namebinder for now, just to check if it's possible to flip my GP into something a bit more lategadme adequate towards the end. Blastwave seems to work fine for the start phase.

It's rumoured that Ocular Fiend will receive a nerf pretty soon so I may have to rethink my win condition when the time comes. That said, I am confident Lost In The Depths can work in other setups as well (I am looking at you, Circe!)

So far my research on this card. I hope it inspires you to start experimenting on your own. as usual, any suggestions or changes to this deck would be much appreciated. And if you have a cool idea for another deck experiment, let me know!