If you have read any amount of my Furious Witch's Road primer (https://curiosa.io/decks/cmah6ebes002ll704cycrhe8o) then you know how I feel about , and/or . If you have read recent updates to the deck you know my heart broke when I decided that the gothic meta was "forcing" me away from these cards to where I've ended up as a Mono Fire Witch (it has been performing extremely well). I say forced because it has felt as though I am required to draw sites early on and often without Land Surveyor which then makes the Surveyor useless when its drawn as a top deck. This has also translated to a need to play more sites which then also results in a few less drains. Despite this, I've always maintained that Earth is still the best support colour for Witch and that I have been waiting for my chance to go back to it.
We (The Assorted Animals) recently held our First Annual "Tournament Grounds" Championship Event (you can watch videos from this event on our youtube channel) and as I walked around the venue as acting Judge I had the pleasure of witnessing many decks, avatars and playstyles. Among them, the one that stood out the most was during a Top8 match involving an Imposter who was still mostly a control deck but had an early aggro plan to survive against opposing aggro but also put chip damage in for an easier kill down the lane. Witnessing this, it clicked right away: That right there HAS been the exact Witch's gameplan that had led me towards mono fire; i.e. I was draining less due to requiring more sites, still putting on an aggressive front, and then finishing the game with the crucial final 2-3 drains.
So we come back full circle. What if , and/or can still be accessed without actually using them, keeping our deck fully aggro but still encouraging a ramp situation that doesn't come at the cost of drawing spells. The provides exactly that. Removing the control element of the deck I was watching at our event and turning it into the exact build I would love for Furious Witch's Road we enter a new world of a Witch deck disguised as an Imposter: Furious WitchPoster.
Imposter lets us switch to Pathfinder early to accumulate mana through "free" site plays, increasing our chance of having access to the right threshold, double casting or even earthquake whenever we need it. Converting to this idea, I've also introduced some new cards that a) make more sense due to our Pathfinder option but b) also work in conjunction with what Imposter has to offer.
Here is the breakdown:
to be continued....