{"ops":[{"insert":"The cycle of life and death is a well-worn law of nature. That which lives is destined to die and that which dies feeds what is still to live. Beasts, embodiments of nature in their wildness and ferocity, are no strangers to this cycle, and embody it in my submission for this month’s deckbuilding contest: “Beasts on Bikes.”\n\nLed by "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Coram, the Undertaker"}},{"insert":", this Beast typal deck aims to dump high power beasts into the graveyard to buff up Coram and then mass reanimate them to stampede over its opponents. To do this, the deck focuses on beasts’ predominant position among creature types with “Cycling” abilities with 21 cycling beasts in total, 14 of which are in our Jund color shard. Given beasts’ typically higher mana value, this gives us some initial card draw to go along with our early turns of ramp so we’re not just sitting around waiting for Coram to hit the board or our cheapest 3mv beasts. The ability to cycle our beasts in the early going also has the upside of likely giving Coram at least 6 power to play with right away, since 8 of our cycling beasts have 6+ power (including "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Titanoth Rex"}},{"insert":" with a whopping 11 power that can also give Coram some much needing trampling capability).\n\nCycling our big beastly friends is fun and all, but what if we were able to make better use of them than as simple draw fodder? That’s where the deck’s package of creature type reanimation spells comes in, with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Bloodline Bidding"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Haunting Voyage"}},{"insert":", and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Patriarch's Bidding"}},{"insert":" all able to return our cycled beasts back to the board en masse. Even without those, though, "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Raise the Draugr"}},{"insert":", "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Unbury"}},{"insert":", and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Return from Extinction"}},{"insert":" are all cheap ways to return multiple beasts to our hand to either be re-cycled or played out if we’re in the mid-to-late stage of the game. \n\nWith our draw and recursion packages good to go, it’s time to dish out some damage. Given the vast majority of our creatures are beasts (in fact all but "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ignoble Hierarch"}},{"insert":" and Coram) and have 4+ power (and even those that don’t have other ways to buff themselves or our board like "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Herald of Ilharg"}},{"insert":" and "},{"insert":{"card-link":"The Muckslinger Gang"}},{"insert":") a straightforward stompy approach is easy enough. Fill the board with big beasts via either recursion or ramp (or an "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Unpredictable Cyclone"}},{"insert":" hit that's likely to give us a 4+ mv beasty for free) and a trample enabler, and make the rest of the table have to do the math as they struggle to block our beefy beaters.\n\nThat said, the arguably more fun and certainly more explosive way to win here is to burn the table down with "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Aether Charge"}},{"insert":", whether via one of the aforementioned mass reanimation spells or an "},{"insert":{"card-link":"Ezuri's Predation"}},{"insert":" against a full board. Either way, our opponents are bound to be taking boatloads of damage while our board blossoms. \n"}]}