# Strategy Specifications
## Deck Name And Archetype

Doc Aurlock - GU Pauper is a Pauper Commander Simic deck with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` as the command-zone identity and a registered 100-card main deck plus a 10-card Veles policy sideboard. The active format validation passes under the supplied Pauper Commander contract: the main deck is exactly 100 cards, nonbasic main-deck cards are singleton, basic lands are allowed in quantity, and the sideboard is exactly 10 cards. Do not judge this list as a 60-card Pauper deck, and do not flag the 100-card construction as an over-size issue.

The registered mana base is `19 Island`, `20 Forest`, and `Simic Guildgate`, so the deck is legally two-color but tactically color-sensitive. Runtime mulligans and sequencing should prioritize hands that produce both green and blue by turn 3, because blue cards such as `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, `Deep Analysis`, and `Dispel` can strand in Forest-heavy starts, while green cards such as `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Elephant Ambush`, and large creatures can strand in Island-heavy starts. Treat `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` as development tools only when Veles exposes legal actions and the visible hand/lands make their color or land-drop value real.

The source archetype tags are `midrange`, `tribal`, `midrange,tribal`; normalize them for play as Simic midrange with tribal or creature-synergy texture, not as a stock format deck. This is a rogue/hybrid Pauper Commander build whose decisions should come from its registered cards and Veles legal actions, not from imported assumptions about familiar commander packages, format staples, or absent utility cards. The deck’s practical role is flexible midrange: stabilize with blockers and tempo, convert graveyard or alternate-zone value through `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` when legal, and close with evasive, oversized, or token pressure.

The main strategic concern is whether card flow turns into board presence before the opponent’s clock becomes lethal. The list has velocity from `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Tapping at the Window`, and `Eureka Moment`, but those cards should be judged by whether they find lands, interaction, or closers on time. Stabilizing and closing threats include `Aeromunculus`, `Slippery Bogle`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`.

The interaction suite is broad but mostly conditional, so the pilot must spend it on visible threats and stack objects rather than theoretical danger. `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Winged Coatl`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` should be reserved for board states where they preserve life, answer evasion, win combat, or buy the turn needed to deploy a larger stabilizer. Combat-enhancement cards such as `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, and `Sylvan Might` require blowout awareness because investing multiple resources into one creature can lose tempo if the opponent has visible or represented interaction.

The registered sideboard is `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Spore Frog`, `Relic of Progenitus`, and `Gleeful Sabotage`. Sideboard decisions must be driven by public information, legal target patterns, and matchup evidence: bring narrow answers only when they answer observed cards, colors, stack threats, graveyard pressure, artifacts, enchantments, flying swarms, or damage bursts. Exact executable sideboard plans belong only in `## Sideboard Map`.

Opponent information is currently unspecified, so runtime play must respect visible board state, public zones, revealed information, match context supplied by Veles, and rules-engine legal actions. Do not invent hidden cards, unobserved removal, unknown combat tricks, graveyard contents, commander identity, or legality certainty. Card text check required for obscure or newer registered cards whenever Veles exposes a legal action whose exact strategic value is not clear from visible action text.

## Thesis

Doc Aurlock - GU Pauper assembles color-stable development, early creatures, graveyard or alternate-zone value, and late oversized pressure. Prioritize hands and lines that produce both green and blue, create a board before falling behind, and let `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` multiply legal value from flashback, adventure, graveyard, or exile actions only when Veles exposes those actions.

The deck wins by stabilizing first and closing second. Early blockers and trades from `Coiling Oracle`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Shambleshark`, `Slippery Bogle`, and token makers buy time; velocity cards find lands, interaction, or finishers; larger bodies such as `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, and `Elephant Ambush` turn the corner.

The deck is not trying to race blindly, hold up permission forever, or stack auras and pump onto one creature without a reason. `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, and `Sylvan Might` should be used when they win combat, create lethal or near-lethal pressure, protect a key threat through visible legal play, or punish tapped-out opponents; do not spend them merely because mana is available.

The priority is to convert card flow into board impact. `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, and `Eureka Moment` are successful when they produce land drops, correct colors, stabilizers, interaction, or closing threats before the opponent’s clock becomes decisive.

## Role Package

- Threats: Use `Slippery Bogle`, `Aeromunculus`, `Freestrider Commando`, `Loan Shark`, `Drix Fatemaker`, `Mechanozoa`, `Sinister Cryologist`, `Pond Prophet`, `Quandrix Pledgemage`, `Snapping Voidcraw`, and `Undercover Crocodelf` as pressure or board presence when their legal text and visible board position support it. Card text check required for newer or obscure threat bodies before assuming evasion, counters, combat triggers, or draw triggers.

- Payoffs: Treat `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` as the main ways to end games after stabilization. Commit these when the deck can survive the crack-back or when waiting risks losing tempo, cards, or commander-window value.

- Engines: Build around `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` only when the current hand, graveyard, exile, adventure, or flashback actions make the commander immediately relevant. Pair it with legal actions from `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Silent Departure`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Moment's Peace`, `Sylvan Might`, `Artful Dodge`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` when Veles shows they are available.

- Velocity: Use `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, and `Behold the Multiverse` to hit colors, land drops, and relevant action density. Avoid taking pure card-selection lines under pressure if a legal stabilizer, blocker, or removal spell is already available.

- Interaction: Spend `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Winged Coatl`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` on visible threats, lethal races, evasive pressure, or tempo turns that unlock a larger play. Do not use narrow interaction on low-impact permanents while a stronger board problem is already public.

- Protection: Use `Shielding Plax`, `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Bioshift`, `Square Up`, `Sylvan Might`, `Artful Dodge`, `Needlethorn Drake`, and `Winged Coatl` as combat or threat-preservation tools, not default mana sinks. Prefer protection or pump when it preserves the best clock, forces a favorable exchange, or converts a stabilized board into a closing line.

- Recursion and graveyard value: Treat `Retrieve the Esper`, `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Silent Departure`, `Moment's Peace`, `Sylvan Might`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` as value only when the graveyard, mana, and legal-action output make them real. Card text check required for `Retrieve the Esper` before assuming exact recursion targets.

- Mana: Use `Forest`, `Island`, `Simic Guildgate`, `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` to keep both colors live. Prioritize untangling color requirements over casting a lower-impact spell on curve.

- Sideboard modules: Use `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Spore Frog`, `Relic of Progenitus`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` as evidence-driven role cards. Match them to observed red spells, stack fights, burst damage, artifacts, enchantments, flying pressure, graveyard reliance, or combat clocks rather than theoretical matchup labels.

## Primary Win Conditions

- Stabilize into oversized pressure: Use `Coiling Oracle`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Shambleshark`, `Slippery Bogle`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, and `Fractal Summoning` to contest the board until large threats are legal. Execute by committing `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, or `Djinn of Fool's Fall` once the crack-back is survivable or the opponent cannot race the visible body. Protect this line from disruption by holding `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Silent Departure`, `Temporal Spring`, `Fog`, or `Moment's Peace` for the threat that invalidates combat math. Prioritize this path when the deck has enough mana, both colors, and at least one stabilizing body already present.

- Convert graveyard and alternate-zone value into inevitability: Cast `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` when the current hand, graveyard, exile, adventure, or flashback actions make immediate value legal rather than speculative. Execute through legal follow-up actions involving `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Silent Departure`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Moment's Peace`, `Sylvan Might`, `Artful Dodge`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` only when Veles exposes them. Protect this line by not casting the commander into obvious tempo loss without a same-turn or next-turn value action. Prioritize this path in long games, against removal-light visible boards, or when the hand otherwise lacks enough pressure.

- Win through evasive or forced-damage combat: Use `Artful Dodge`, `Aeromunculus`, `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, and `Sylvan Might` to turn a stable board into a fast clock. Execute only after checking visible blockers, removal mana, and whether one protected or evasive attacker creates lethal or forces a decisive trade. Disruption risk is highest when multiple resources are stacked onto one creature, so avoid aura or pump commitment if losing that creature would reopen the game. Prioritize this path when the opponent has stabilized the ground but cannot answer a known evasive attacker.

## Secondary Win Conditions

- Token pressure can close games without exposing one creature: Use `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Biomathematician`, `Wavesifter`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, and `Fractal Summoning` to spread threats across the battlefield. This line is strongest when opposing removal is single-target, when life totals make multiple small attacks relevant, or when a large creature would be too slow. Card text check required for exact token size or extra effects when Veles action text is ambiguous.

- Tempo-locking a key permanent can buy the winning turn: Use `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Winged Coatl`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` to interrupt one visible threat long enough for existing attackers to finish. This is not a hard lock; treat it as a bridge from stabilization to lethal, not as a plan to answer every card indefinitely.

- Incremental creature value can win stalled games: Use `Freestrider Commando`, `Loan Shark`, `Drix Fatemaker`, `Mechanozoa`, `Sinister Cryologist`, `Pond Prophet`, `Quandrix Pledgemage`, `Snapping Voidcraw`, `Trapjaw Kelpie`, and `Undercover Crocodelf` as role creatures when their visible text, legal triggers, or board size make them relevant. Card text check required before assuming evasion, counters, card draw, graveyard value, or combat triggers.

## Emergency Lines

- Behind on life: Stop racing unless lethal is visible. Prioritize `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Winged Coatl`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Silent Departure`, and token blockers before slow card draw, and use `Artful Dodge` or pump only if it ends the game or removes the need to survive another attack.

- Behind on board: Trade resources for time. Use `Ravenform` or `Temporal Spring` on the public permanent creating the largest immediate damage or inevitability problem, and commit `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, or `Scuttlegator` as stabilizers before speculative selection.

- Behind on cards: Convert legal graveyard and draw actions before committing low-impact bodies. Prefer `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Eureka Moment`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Scour All Possibilities`, and `Tapping at the Window` when life total and board state allow the tempo spend.

- Behind on mana or colors: Use `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, `Simic Guildgate`, `Forest`, `Island`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` to restore development. Do not keep spending turns on blue-only velocity if green sources are required for the stabilizer, or green-only development if blue interaction is the only answer.

- Engine removed or graveyard denied: Shift to battlefield pressure. Treat `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` as a bonus rather than a dependency, and win through large creatures, token pressure, and combat tempo if legal graveyard value is unavailable.

- Opposing combo or inevitability visible: Shorten the clock while preserving one relevant interruption. Commit the fastest legal threat, hold stack or board interaction when Veles shows it matters, and avoid slow selection unless it finds a specific public answer or lethal setup.

## Resource Model

- Life is a spendable buffer only when the next combat step is controlled. Use life to buy time for `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Eureka Moment`, or graveyard actions only if visible attackers do not create a short clock; when under pressure, convert life preservation into board time with `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Snakeform`, `Silent Departure`, or `Applied Biomancy`.

- Hand size is strongest when it contains both mana development and one stabilizer. Prioritize hands and draw lines that turn cards into battlefield presence through `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, or `Starbreach Whale`; do not spend multiple turns on velocity if no legal play catches up on board.

- Mana is the deck's main bottleneck because the list is two-color singleton with many expensive plays. Treat `Forest`, `Island`, `Simic Guildgate`, `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` as development resources first, then as enablers for double-spell turns or commander-plus-flashback turns after the board is stable.

- Board presence protects the slow value engine. Early creatures such as `Slippery Bogle`, `Shambleshark`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Pond Prophet`, `Karfell Harbinger`, and `Vigean Hydropon` should trade, block, or enable later turns rather than preserve theoretical long-term value when life is under attack.

- Graveyard value is a tactical extension of the hand, not a guarantee. Use `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` to improve legal graveyard, adventure, exile, flashback, or aftermath-style actions only when Veles exposes those actions; key cards to monitor include `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Silent Departure`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`.

- Exile and alternate-zone resources must follow engine legality. Do not assume `Ravenform`, adventure halves, flashback-like actions, or command-zone sequencing produce future actions unless Veles lists them; if a card is exiled by an opponent effect or graveyard hate, pivot to battlefield pressure.

- Lands are both resource count and color access. Missing either `Forest` or `Island` matters more than total land count when the hand contains `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, or `Dispel` after sideboarding.

- Sacrifice fodder is incidental and should not be promised. Tokens or expendable bodies from `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Biomathematician`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, or `Wavesifter` can protect life and attacks when legal text confirms them; Card text check required before relying on exact token sizes or sacrifice synergies.

- Tempo is gained by denying one decisive turn. `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` should be spent where they change combat, stop lethal, protect a winning attack, or prevent a snowball permanent from converting immediately.

- Information is a resource for avoiding overcommitment. Use public zones, revealed cards, visible mana, current stack objects, and Veles legal actions to decide whether to expose `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might`; never infer hidden removal with certainty.

- Sideboard bullets are narrow resources that must match observed facts. `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Spore Frog`, `Relic of Progenitus`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` are valuable only when their legal targets, prevented damage, stack role, or board impact is visible or strongly supported by public game context.

## Mana Guide

- Keep hands that can cast a legal early play and reach both colors by turn 3. A hand with only `Forest` should be suspicious if it strands `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, `Dispel`, or `Negate`; a hand with only `Island` should be suspicious if it strands `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual`, or large green creatures.

- Sequence tapped fixing early when tempo allows. Play `Simic Guildgate` before untapped basics if no one-mana legal action matters this turn, but prefer untapped `Forest` or `Island` when the turn requires `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Fog`, `Dispel`, `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, or another visible instant-speed action.

- Choose land drops to unlock the next two turns, not only the current spell. Prioritize the missing color over redundant basics unless a same-turn legal action prevents lethal or creates a necessary blocker.

- Cast draw-before-land-drop when it can change the land choice. If Veles offers `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Behold the Multiverse`, or `Eureka Moment` before a land drop and mana remains for the intended play, consider drawing or selecting first to find the correct `Forest`, `Island`, or `Simic Guildgate`.

- Play land-before-draw when the spell requires the mana or when holding the land risks wasting the turn. If the only legal draw spell needs the land to be cast, or if the hand already contains the needed color and curve play, make the land drop first and preserve tempo.

- Use `Growth Spiral` and `Coiling Oracle` as development bridges when behind on mana. Prefer them before speculative threats if they can create a legal extra land, reveal acceleration, or fix the next turn; Card text check required if action text does not show the exact land-putting effect.

- Use `Path to the Festival`, `Eureka Moment`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` to fix expensive turns only when the board can survive the tempo spend. If the opponent is presenting lethal or a short clock, prioritize blockers, bounce, `Fog`, or `Moment's Peace` over slow mana repair unless the repair enables the survival action immediately.

- Do not treat `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` as a land or a color source. It is a spell-side or adventure-style card whose exact legal mode must come from Veles; it should affect mana planning only by requiring enough green mana after `Forest`, `Island`, `Simic Guildgate`, ramp, or draw sequencing has already produced a stable land base.

- Preserve colored mana for interaction when the matchup or board demands it. Do not tap the only blue source before a visible stack fight involving `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, or `Applied Biomancy`, and do not tap the only green source before a required `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Winged Coatl`, or green stabilizer unless Veles shows no relevant window remains.

- Spend excess mana on graveyard or flashback actions after stabilizing. When both colors are established and the board is safe, convert unused mana into `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Silent Departure`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting` only through legal Veles actions.

## Mulligan Guide

- Strong keep: Keep two-to-four-land hands with both `Forest` and `Island`, or `Simic Guildgate` plus an untapped source, when they also contain a legal early play such as `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Slippery Bogle`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Think Twice`, or `Otherworldly Gaze`. These hands can develop, fix, and survive long enough for `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Deep Analysis`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, or a large creature to matter.

- Medium keep: Keep three-land single-color hands only when the hand already has legal selection or fixing for the missing color. `Forest` plus `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, or `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` is acceptable if Veles shows castable actions; `Island` plus `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, or `Behold the Multiverse` is acceptable when the hand can find `Forest` before green cards clog the turn.

- Risky keep: Keep slow hands with `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Eureka Moment`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, or `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` only with three lands, both colors, and at least one early blocker or selection spell. These hands are better on the play against slow opponents and worse on the draw against visible pressure.

- Automatic ship: Mulligan zero-land, one-land without a one-mana selection action, five-plus-land hands with no card flow, and single-color hands that cannot cast any visible spell before turn 3. Ship `Forest`-heavy hands that strand `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, or sideboard `Dispel`; ship `Island`-heavy hands that strand `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual`, or green finishers.

- Matchup-dependent keep: Keep `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Snakeform`, or `Applied Biomancy` higher against creature pressure; keep `Ravenform`, `Temporal Spring`, and `Silent Departure` higher against a single visible threat plan; keep `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, and `Behold the Multiverse` higher against slow opponents. After sideboarding, keep `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Spore Frog`, `Relic of Progenitus`, or `Gleeful Sabotage` only when the matchup label or public Game 1 information supports them.

- Play/draw adjustment: On the play, accept a slightly slower hand if it has both colors and a turn-2 play; on the draw, require an earlier stabilizer, legal selection, or interaction because falling behind makes `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` and flashback value less safe. Do not keep a hand because it has a large finisher unless the hand also reaches the mana and survives the first attacks.

- Trap hand: Treat aura-or-pump hands with `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might` as weak without a durable creature and mana to protect tempo. Treat graveyard-value hands with `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Elephant Ambush`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting` as incomplete unless the front-side plan is also legal and functional.

## Turn Arc

- Turn 1: Prefer a land that unlocks turn 2, usually the missing color or `Simic Guildgate` when no untapped one-mana action matters. Cast `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Slippery Bogle`, or sideboard one-mana interaction only when Veles lists the action and it improves the next two turns or prevents immediate damage.

- Turn 2: Prefer development that fixes or blocks. `Coiling Oracle` and `Growth Spiral` are top priorities when they can advance mana; `Shambleshark`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Pond Prophet`, `Karfell Harbinger`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, or `Tapping at the Window` are acceptable when they are legal and match the visible board. Hold `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Dispel`, or `Hydroblast` only when the opponent can punish tapping out.

- Turn 3: Prefer stabilizing the battlefield before casting slow value. Cast `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` when the board is not under immediate threat or when legal graveyard/exile actions can follow soon; otherwise deploy blockers, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Silent Departure`, `Temporal Spring`, `Winged Coatl`, or `Eureka Moment` according to visible pressure and legal actions.

- Turns 4-5: Convert mana into either a protected board or a decisive tempo swing. Use `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Biomathematician`, `Wavesifter`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Elephant Ambush`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting` when life is stable; use `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Snakeform`, `Ravenform`, `Temporal Spring`, or `Silent Departure` when the opponent's next attack or key permanent matters more than card quantity.

- Late game: Turn stabilization into a clock with `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Aeromunculus`, or evasive `Artful Dodge` lines only when Veles confirms legality. Reuse graveyard actions from `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Moment's Peace`, `Silent Departure`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` before exposing fragile pump or aura lines into open interaction.

## Card Roles

- Commander role: `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` is the deck's value amplifier for legal graveyard, exile, adventure, and flashback-style actions, not a creature to cast automatically on curve. Deploy it when Veles shows enough mana, time, and follow-up actions to gain material value; hold it when the visible board demands `Snakeform`, `Ravenform`, `Moment's Peace`, `Fog`, `Winged Coatl`, or a blocker first. Avoid casting the commander into open interaction when no immediate legal discounted or alternate-zone action is available.

- Early development role: `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Karfell Harbinger`, `Pond Prophet`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` are the preferred cards for turning mixed-color hands into functional games. Cast these before slow draw when they improve land development or color access; hold only if Veles shows a higher-impact defensive action. Card text check required for `Pond Prophet` and exact `Karfell Harbinger` battlefield utility.

- Cheap body role: `Slippery Bogle`, `Shambleshark`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Vigean Hydropon`, and `Biomathematician` buy time or make combat awkward. Prioritize `Needlethorn Drake` and `Winged Coatl` against evasive or large attackers, `Chatter of the Squirrel` when an early body plus later graveyard value matters, and `Slippery Bogle` when aura or pump lines need a durable carrier. Do not spend `Winged Coatl` as a small attacker if holding flash-speed defense can change combat.

- Midgame board role: `Quandrix Pledgemage`, `Snapping Voidcraw`, `Aeromunculus`, `Wavesifter`, `Trapjaw Kelpie`, `Undercover Crocodelf`, `Freestrider Commando`, `Loan Shark`, `Drix Fatemaker`, `Mechanozoa`, and `Sinister Cryologist` are pressure, blockers, or value creatures whose exact use depends on visible text and Veles actions. Card text check required for `Snapping Voidcraw`, `Trapjaw Kelpie`, `Undercover Crocodelf`, `Freestrider Commando`, `Loan Shark`, `Drix Fatemaker`, `Mechanozoa`, and `Sinister Cryologist`; treat them as conditional role-fillers until the rules engine exposes their legal abilities. Prefer them when they stabilize combat or add pressure without consuming interaction mana.

- Large threat role: `Scuttlegator`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` are closers and stabilizers, not early-hand excuses to keep poor mana. Cast them after survival is secured or when they are the only legal way to stop the opponent's clock. Card text check required for `Germinating Wurm`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, and `Starbreach Whale`; use visible keywords, size, and legal modality rather than assumed text.

- Token and scaling threat role: `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` convert mana into board presence and help close after stabilization. Use these when the opponent's interaction is taxed or when multiple bodies are better than a single aura target; hold them when immediate removal, bounce, or fog prevents more damage. Value the graveyard or alternate-cast mode of `Elephant Ambush` and `Shadowbeast Sighting` when Veles shows it, especially with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` active.

- Card velocity role: `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Tapping at the Window`, and `Eureka Moment` find lands, interaction, or closers. Cast selection early when colors or land drops are missing; cast raw draw later when life total and board are stable. Do not spend a full turn on `Deep Analysis` or `Behold the Multiverse` while a visible attack requires `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Snakeform`, `Ravenform`, or a blocker. Card text check required for `Tapping at the Window` and `Secrets of the Key` exact selection limits.

- Mana expansion role: `Path to the Festival`, `Eureka Moment`, `Growth Spiral`, and `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` help the deck reach large spells without falling behind. Use them when they produce a next-turn payoff or fix a color bottleneck; delay them when the opponent's board makes a defensive legal action mandatory. Card text check required for exact `Path to the Festival` search constraints and `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` adventure handling.

- Tempo interaction role: `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Ravenform`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` change the opponent's development or remove a problematic permanent from the current battlefield. Save these for evasive threats, commanders, engines, or lethal pressure rather than spending them on replaceable creatures. Use `Silent Departure` graveyard mode only when Veles confirms legality and the tempo swing matters more than developing a threat.

- Combat interaction role: `Snakeform`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, `Sylvan Might`, `Artful Dodge`, `Favor of the Overbeing`, and `Shielding Plax` are tactical enhancers that can win combat, force damage, or protect a key creature, but they can also create blowout risk. Prefer `Snakeform` as interaction over a cantrip when it neutralizes a large attacker or blocker. Use `Artful Dodge` and `Sylvan Might` to close once a creature is already a credible clock; avoid aura or pump commitment when the opponent can answer the target and the deck has safer board development. Card text check required for exact `Bioshift`, `Square Up`, and `Favor of the Overbeing` effects.

- Prevention role: `Fog` and `Moment's Peace` are survival cards, not routine tempo plays. Spend them when they prevent lethal damage, preserve a stabilizing board, or buy the exact turn needed for `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Deep Analysis`, or graveyard value to turn the game. Prefer `Moment's Peace` when future flashback value is relevant and legal; do not cast either into noncombat damage unless Veles legal text confirms the prevention applies.

- Graveyard-value role: `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, and `Otherworldly Gaze` make the graveyard a resource. Sequence front-side spells so later graveyard actions remain available, but do not mill or discard blindly if the visible board needs an immediate blocker or removal spell. With `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, check Veles for cheaper legal graveyard or alternate-zone actions before spending mana on lower-impact hand spells.

- Utility and uncertain text role: `Dreams of Laguna` and `Retrieve the Esper` require card text verification before tactical reliance. Use them only through explicit Veles legal actions and visible targets; do not assume recursion, draw, bounce, or other effects from name alone. If a legal action exposes exact target text, choose targets that advance the current role: mana recovery when constrained, interaction when behind, and closing power when stabilized.

- Land role: `Forest`, `Island`, and `Simic Guildgate` are part of card-role evaluation because color failures strand spells. Prioritize early land sequencing that unlocks both `Coiling Oracle` or `Growth Spiral` and `Think Twice` or `Behold the Multiverse`; play `Simic Guildgate` on turns where entering tapped costs the least tempo. Do not keep or sequence as though total land count replaces actual green-blue access.

### Card Hover Notes

#### Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, command-zone core piece and value engine.
- Role type: engine piece; mana/fixing/ramp; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Make flashback, adventure/exile, graveyard, and plot lines mana-positive so this Simic midrange deck can stabilize and still double-spell.
- Timing: Cast when the board is stable enough to untap, or when same-turn discounted action matters; do not spend turn 2 on Doc if `Fog`, `Snakeform`, `Ravenform`, `Winged Coatl`, or a blocker is required.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}{U}` and commander tax on recasts; outputs `{2}` discounts for spells cast from graveyard or exile and `{2}` cheaper plotting from hand.
- Partners / packages: Discounts `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Silent Departure`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Freestrider Commando`, `Loan Shark`.
- Role peers: No direct peer; closest role overlap is `Karfell Harbinger` for mana support and `Snapping Voidcraw` for late resource conversion.
- Failure modes: Naked commander into removal with no immediate graveyard/exile/plot payoff loses tempo; commander tax can make recasts worse than deploying threats.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Higher priority in slow or removal-light games; lower priority when visible attackers demand combat interaction first.

#### Favor of the Overbeing
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, singleton enhancement slot.
- Role type: protection/evasion; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Turn a green-blue creature into a vigilant flyer with extra size, or give a single-color creature the relevant half of the Aura text.
- Timing: Cast when the enchanted creature attacks profitably now or blocks while racing; wait if opponent has visible removal and losing the target would collapse the turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G/U}` and a creature target; outputs +1/+1 and vigilance if enchanted creature is green, +1/+1 and flying if enchanted creature is blue.
- Partners / packages: Best on green-blue bodies such as `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Shambleshark`, `Pond Prophet`, `Quandrix Pledgemage`, `Aeromunculus`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Biomathematician`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, and `Drix Fatemaker`; `Slippery Bogle` is safer against opposing targeted spells because it already has hexproof.
- Role peers: `Shielding Plax` protects instead of granting evasion; `Artful Dodge` gives one-turn unblockability; `Sylvan Might` gives temporary trample and size.
- Failure modes: Does not itself protect from removal, sacrifice, sweepers, or bounce; enchanting a non-blue creature cannot grant flying.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against ground stalls; risky against removal-heavy opponents unless attached to `Slippery Bogle` or used for near-lethal damage.

#### Shambleshark
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, early flash threat and blocker.
- Role type: threat/clock; mechanic payoff; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Hold up interaction posture while adding a 2/1 that can grow from later creatures with greater power or toughness.
- Timing: Flash in before blocks to trade or at opponent end step if no combat exchange matters; cast main phase only when evolving future curve pressure is worth losing surprise.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}{U}`; outputs a flash body and +1/+1 counters from evolve when a larger creature enters under your control.
- Partners / packages: Evolves from `Aeromunculus`, `Biomathematician`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Mechanozoa`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Fractal Summoning` when X is large enough, and `Tumbleweed Rising` when it creates a larger token.
- Role peers: `Winged Coatl` is the defensive flash peer; `Needlethorn Drake` is a static flying deathtouch peer.
- Failure modes: A 2/1 trades down if cast into pingers or small tokens; evolve does nothing unless the entering creature has greater power or toughness.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better versus tempo and small attackers; less important when the opponent's creatures fly over it.

#### Bioshift
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, singleton counter-transfer combat trick.
- Role type: protection/evasion; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Reallocate +1/+1 counters from a vulnerable or nonattacking creature onto the creature that can block, attack, or survive this turn.
- Timing: Use in combat or in response to removal only when moving counters changes damage, survival, or clock; do not cast just to tidy counters.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G/U}` and two target creatures with the same controller; moves any number of +1/+1 counters from one target onto the other.
- Partners / packages: Moves counters from `Vigean Hydropon`, `Quandrix Pledgemage`, `Scuttlegator`, adapted `Aeromunculus`, `Drix Fatemaker` targets, `Biomathematician` Fractals, `Fractal Summoning` tokens, and plotted `Freestrider Commando` if it entered with counters.
- Role peers: `Drix Fatemaker` adds a counter and grants trample to countered creatures; `Square Up` changes base size without counters; `Sylvan Might` is temporary pump.
- Failure modes: Requires legal targets with the same controller; cannot move -1/-1 counters from `Trapjaw Kelpie` persist or counters from opponent creatures onto your creature.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong when counters are stranded on `Vigean Hydropon`; weak against decks where single-target removal punishes stack investment.

#### Pond Prophet
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, early card-flow body.
- Role type: card selection; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Replace itself while providing a small creature for blocking, conspire with `Gleeful Sabotage`, or carrying emergency pump.
- Timing: Cast on turn 2 when both colors or hybrid mana are available and board development matters; delay only when holding up `Fog`, `Think Twice`, `Dispel`, or `Hydroblast` is clearly better.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G/U}{G/U}`; outputs a 1/1 Frog Advisor and one card on entering.
- Partners / packages: Helps find land drops for `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Mechanozoa`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`; can receive `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, or `Sylvan Might` only when combat math justifies it.
- Role peers: `Coiling Oracle` may ramp instead of always drawing; `Sarulf's Packmate` draws on a larger body; `Think Twice` draws without adding a blocker.
- Failure modes: 1/1 body is low impact against flyers, pingers, or large attackers; drawing a card does not fix tempo if the current board needs removal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in attrition and midrange; side out more often against fast evasion when early body size is insufficient.

#### Quandrix Pledgemage
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, growing midgame threat.
- Role type: mechanic payoff; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Convert the deck's instant and sorcery density into permanent +1/+1 counters while pressuring or blocking.
- Timing: Deploy before casting clusters of `Think Twice`, `Growth Spiral`, `Snakeform`, `Moment's Peace`, `Scour All Possibilities`, or flashback spells; do not tap out for it when immediate interaction is needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G/U}{G/U}`; outputs a 2/2 that gets a +1/+1 counter whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell.
- Partners / packages: Grows from `Bioshift`, `Temporal Spring`, `Eureka Moment`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Square Up`, `Growth Spiral`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Snakeform`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Think Twice`, `Moment's Peace`, `Ravenform`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Path to the Festival`, `Dreams of Laguna`, `Sylvan Might`, and `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, and `Gleeful Sabotage`.
- Role peers: `Shambleshark` grows from creatures; `Drix Fatemaker` distributes one counter and grants trample to countered creatures.
- Failure modes: No evasion without help; holding spells too long just to grow it can lose board tempo.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against removal-light ground decks; needs `Artful Dodge`, `Favor of the Overbeing`, or `Drix Fatemaker` trample to break stalls.

#### Snapping Voidcraw
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, mana creature and late draw engine.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; engine piece.
- Deck-specific job: Jump from midgame into large threats and turn excess colorless-style mana into cards.
- Timing: Cast once both green and blue are available and survival is not dependent on instant interaction; activate draw only when `{3}{C}` plus tapping it does not prevent a stronger play.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}{U}`; taps for `{C}{C}`; `{3}{C}, {T}` draws a card.
- Partners / packages: Helps cast generic portions of `Scuttlegator`, `Mechanozoa`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`; draw ability supports long games with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Role peers: `Karfell Harbinger` makes restricted blue mana; `Path to the Festival` ramps basics; `Growth Spiral` and `Eureka Moment` accelerate through lands.
- Failure modes: `{C}{C}` does not pay colored costs; 1/3 body is not a reliable finisher; tapping for mana can remove a blocker.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus slower midrange; poor when the opponent is attacking wide and you need immediate blockers.

#### Scuttlegator
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, large stabilizer and finisher.
- Role type: threat/clock; mechanic payoff.
- Deck-specific job: Present a 6/6 wall early in late game, then become a 9/9 attacker after adapt puts counters on it.
- Timing: Cast when a 6/6 defender stabilizes or when you can soon pay `{6}{G/U}{G/U}` to adapt; do not rely on it to attack before it has a +1/+1 counter.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{4}{G/U}{G/U}`; adapt consumes `{6}{G/U}{G/U}` if it has no +1/+1 counters and outputs three +1/+1 counters plus attack permission through its own static ability.
- Partners / packages: `Bioshift` can move counters onto it or off it depending on combat needs; `Drix Fatemaker` can put a +1/+1 counter on it and grant trample to countered creatures; `Artful Dodge` can force a huge attack through.
- Role peers: `Spinewoods Paladin` attacks immediately with trample; `Mechanozoa` stabilizes with a stun counter; `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` is a reach body.
- Failure modes: Defender without counters cannot attack; adapt cannot be repeated while it has +1/+1 counters.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against ground beatdown; slower against flyers unless paired with `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Ravenform`, or deathtouch flyers.

#### Temporal Spring
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, sorcery-speed tempo answer.
- Role type: interaction-removal; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Set back the opponent's best permanent by putting it on top of its owner's library, buying a full draw step.
- Timing: Use before combat to clear a blocker, before opponent's turn to deny their best permanent, or on a commander/permanent engine when the tempo swing is worth sorcery speed.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}{U}` and target permanent; outputs tempo and known opponent draw, but does not permanently answer the card.
- Partners / packages: Buys time for `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, and `Elephant Ambush` to take over.
- Role peers: `Silent Departure` hits only target creature and returns it to hand; `Ravenform` exiles target artifact or creature but leaves a 1/1 Bird; `Applied Biomancy` can bounce a creature at instant speed.
- Failure modes: Bad against cheap enter-the-battlefield creatures the opponent wants to recast; cannot target spells on the stack.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against single high-cost permanents, commanders, auras/equipment named attacker or blocker in this notes, and noncreature engines; weaker against go-wide boards.

#### Eureka Moment
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, instant draw and land acceleration.
- Role type: card selection; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Refill while converting a land in hand into battlefield mana, helping this expensive singleton deck keep pace.
- Timing: Prefer opponent end step when holding interaction matters; cast main phase if the extra land immediately unlocks `Ravenform`, `Moment's Peace`, `Path to the Festival`, or a large stabilizer.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{2}{G}{U}`; outputs two drawn cards and may put a land card from hand onto the battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Finds and deploys `Island`, `Forest`, or `Simic Guildgate`; ramps toward `Scuttlegator`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Mechanozoa`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, and flashback costs on `Elephant Ambush` or `Shadowbeast Sighting`.
- Role peers: `Growth Spiral` is cheaper and draws one; `Coiling Oracle` may put the revealed land onto battlefield; `Path to the Festival` searches a basic land tapped.
- Failure modes: Four-mana draw that does not affect board can be fatal under pressure; extra-land clause fails without a land in hand.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in slow games and color bottlenecks; postpone against lethal combat unless it finds or enables the survival play.

#### Wavesifter
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, evasive value creature or cheap Clue burst.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; threat/clock; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Either add a 3/2 flyer plus two Clues or evoke for `{G}{U}` to investigate twice and sacrifice itself.
- Timing: Hard-cast when the flying body matters; evoke when you need card material now, trigger creature-entering effects, or cannot afford five mana.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{3}{G}{U}` or evoke `{G}{U}`; outputs flying pressure and two Clue artifact tokens with `{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card`.
- Mode map: Hard-cast `Wavesifter` for a lasting 3/2 flyer and two Clues; evoke for `{G}{U}` when two future card draws matter more than keeping the creature, accepting it is sacrificed when it enters.
- Partners / packages: Clues fuel long games with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`; flying body carries `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, or `Sylvan Might`; entering as a 3/2 can evolve `Shambleshark`.
- Role peers: `Secrets of the Key` creates Clues without a body; `Undercover Crocodelf` investigates on combat damage; `Starbreach Whale` is a larger flyer with surveil.
- Failure modes: Clues require extra mana to convert; evoking while behind on board may leave no blocker.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good versus attrition and ground stalls; weaker versus fast flyers that outsize 3/2.

#### Fractal Summoning
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, scalable token threat.
- Role type: threat/clock; engine payoff.
- Deck-specific job: Turn spare mana into a single Fractal with X +1/+1 counters, scaling from blocker to finisher.
- Timing: Cast for X high enough to change combat; avoid small X unless you need an emergency body or magecraft trigger.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{X}{G/U}{G/U}`; outputs a 0/0 green and blue Fractal token with X +1/+1 counters.
- Partners / packages: `Biomathematician` puts a +1/+1 counter on each Fractal you control; `Bioshift` can move the counters; `Drix Fatemaker` gives trample to creatures with +1/+1 counters; `Artful Dodge` can force a large token through.
- Role peers: `Tumbleweed Rising` sizes from greatest power among creatures you control; `Shadowbeast Sighting` makes a fixed 4/4; `Elephant Ambush` makes an instant-speed 3/3.
- Failure modes: A zero or tiny X token is low value; one large token is vulnerable to bounce, exile, or sacrifice effects.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong after stabilization and versus single-target removal only when backed by other threats; weaker into open removal if all mana goes into one creature.

#### Shielding Plax
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, protective Aura that replaces itself.
- Role type: protection/evasion; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Make the chosen creature unable to be targeted by spells or abilities opponents control while drawing a card.
- Timing: Cast on `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` or a real finisher when the opponent's targeted interaction matters; avoid on low-impact bodies unless card replacement is enough.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{2}{G/U}` and target creature to enchant; outputs one card on entering and opponent-targeting shield for enchanted creature.
- Partners / packages: Protects `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Scuttlegator`, `Fractal Summoning` token, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Mechanozoa`, or an enhanced `Slippery Bogle` from opponent-controlled targeted spells and abilities; it does not stop sweepers, sacrifice, combat damage, or your own targeting restrictions.
- Role peers: `Favor of the Overbeing` adds evasion/size without protection; `Slippery Bogle` has built-in hexproof; `Dispel` and `Negate` protect from stack interaction after sideboard.
- Failure modes: Aura target can be removed in response; making a creature untargetable by opponents does not protect it from edicts or global effects.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High value against spot-removal decks; lower value versus go-wide creature pressure or sweepers.

#### Aeromunculus
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, evasive midgame attacker.
- Role type: threat/clock; mechanic payoff.
- Deck-specific job: Provide flying pressure that can adapt into a larger clock once mana is available.
- Timing: Cast early enough to chip through ground stalls; adapt for `{2}{G}{U}` only when the +1/+1 counter matters and you do not need interaction mana.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}{U}`; adapt consumes `{2}{G}{U}` and puts one +1/+1 counter on it if it has none.
- Partners / packages: Carries `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, and `Sylvan Might`; a +1/+1 counter enables `Drix Fatemaker` trample bonus and `Bioshift` movement.
- Role peers: `Needlethorn Drake` is a smaller defensive flyer with deathtouch; `Djinn of Fool's Fall` and `Starbreach Whale` are larger flying finishers.
- Failure modes: Adapt is a mana sink, not protection; once it has a +1/+1 counter, adapt cannot add another.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus ground stalls and planeswalker-style pressure if present; sideboard `Scattershot Archer` matters against opposing one-toughness flyers, not your own creature.

#### Slippery Bogle
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, durable one-drop threat.
- Role type: threat/clock; protection/evasion.
- Deck-specific job: Provide an early hexproof body that safely carries Auras or pump against targeted removal.
- Timing: Cast early when a future `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Artful Dodge`, `Square Up`, or `Sylvan Might` line is plausible; block only when preserving life outweighs its named attacker or blocker in this note role.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G/U}`; outputs a 1/1 creature with hexproof, meaning opponents cannot target it with spells or abilities they control.
- Partners / packages: Best recipient for `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Artful Dodge`, `Square Up`, and `Sylvan Might`; `Shielding Plax` is less necessary for opponent-targeted protection but still draws a card.
- Role peers: `Pond Prophet` replaces itself but lacks protection; `Chatter of the Squirrel` creates a disposable 1/1; no direct peer for one-mana hexproof.
- Failure modes: Hexproof does not stop blockers, sweepers, sacrifice effects, or your own targeting; 1/1 clock is too slow without enhancement.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus targeted removal; weaker versus go-wide blockers unless paired with unblockability, flying Aura text, or trample.

#### Winged Coatl
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, flash flying deathtouch stabilizer.
- Role type: interaction-removal; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Ambush a key attacker or deter flyers while leaving mana open.
- Timing: Prefer holding until combat so flash and deathtouch threaten a high-value trade; cast end step only if opponent refuses to attack and you need pressure.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}{U}`; outputs a 1/1 flyer with flash and deathtouch.
- Partners / packages: Combines with `Snakeform` or `Applied Biomancy` to reshape combat; carries `Favor of the Overbeing` poorly unless shifting from defense to a fast clock is needed.
- Role peers: `Needlethorn Drake` has flying/deathtouch without flash; `Shambleshark` has flash but not deathtouch or flying; `Fog` and `Moment's Peace` stop combat without killing a creature.
- Failure modes: One toughness dies to any damage before combat; using it as a chip attacker can leave no answer for a larger flyer.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High priority against single large attackers, commanders, and evasive threats; less useful against token swarms unless it trades with the best creature.

#### Square Up
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, combat sizing trick.
- Role type: protection/evasion; interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Make a small creature a base 4/4 until end of turn to win combat or push damage.
- Timing: Use after blocks or when damage math is clear; precombat use only if it creates a safe attack or lethal window.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G/U}` and target creature; outputs base power and toughness 4/4 until end of turn, not + counters.
- Partners / packages: Turns `Slippery Bogle`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Pond Prophet`, `Coiling Oracle`, or a small token into a real combat body; combines with deathtouch on `Needlethorn Drake` or `Winged Coatl` to survive many trades.
- Role peers: `Sylvan Might` gives +2/+2 and trample; `Bioshift` moves existing +1/+1 counters; `Applied Biomancy` can pump +1/+1 and/or bounce.
- Failure modes: Does not add to already-large base stats if 4/4 is not an upgrade; removal in response can trade your spell for no effect.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Useful versus midrange combat; weak versus removal-heavy control unless saved for lethal or a must-win block.

#### Coiling Oracle
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, early development creature.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Reveal the top card to either ramp a land directly onto the battlefield or put a nonland into hand while adding a blocker.
- Timing: Cast before discretionary land drop if the revealed land could change sequencing; cast before slow card draw when color or mana development is the bottleneck.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}{U}`; outputs a 1/1 and either a land from library to battlefield or a nonland card to hand.
- Partners / packages: Finds or ramps `Island`, `Forest`, and `Simic Guildgate`; sets up mana for `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, and `Starbreach Whale`.
- Role peers: `Growth Spiral` draws and may put a land from hand; `Pond Prophet` always draws one without ramp; `Path to the Festival` searches a basic land tapped.
- Failure modes: Requires both green and blue; 1/1 body is expendable but not a serious stabilizer alone.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Keep higher in almost every opener because the deck is color-sensitive; board impact is low against fast flyers.

#### Growth Spiral
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, cheap instant development.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Draw a card and turn a land in hand into instant-speed acceleration.
- Timing: Cast before land drop when it could reveal or enable a better land choice; hold to opponent end step if keeping `Fog`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, or `Think Twice` mana open matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}{U}`; outputs one card drawn and may put a land card from hand onto battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Deploys `Island`, `Forest`, or `Simic Guildgate`; accelerates into `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Eureka Moment`, `Ravenform`, `Path to the Festival`, and large finishers.
- Role peers: `Eureka Moment` draws two and may put a land; `Coiling Oracle` may ramp from library; `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` allows an additional land play as an adventure.
- Failure modes: Does not ramp without a land in hand; using both colors for it can strand same-turn interaction.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in keep decisions with mixed lands; against aggro, cast only if acceleration leads to immediate stabilization.

#### Applied Biomancy
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, flexible instant pump/bounce.
- Role type: modal utility; interaction-removal; protection/evasion.
- Deck-specific job: Either increase your creature's combat size, return a creature to its owner's hand, or do both when both targets matter.
- Timing: Hold for combat or opponent tempo turns; main-phase bounce only when clearing a blocker or forcing lethal.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}{U}` and legal targets; outputs temporary +1/+1, creature bounce, or both.
- Mode map: Choose +1/+1 on target creature to win combat or preserve a key attacker; choose return target creature to owner's hand to remove an attacker, blocker, or Aura-stacked creature for tempo; choose both when your creature and the bounced creature each change the exchange.
- Partners / packages: Protects attacks from `Aeromunculus`, `Slippery Bogle`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Spinewoods Paladin`; bounces opposing blockers so `Artful Dodge` or `Sylvan Might` can finish.
- Role peers: `Silent Departure` bounces at sorcery speed with flashback; `Temporal Spring` handles any target permanent to top of library; `Snakeform` neutralizes instead of bouncing.
- Failure modes: Requires legal target creature for each chosen mode; bounce can retrigger opponent enter abilities.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against creature tempo and Aura stacks; weaker against noncreature engines.

#### Biomathematician
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, Fractal support creature.
- Role type: mechanic enabler; engine payoff; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Add a 2/2 body and grow current or new Fractal tokens with +1/+1 counters.
- Timing: Cast when you have or need Fractal material; better after `Fractal Summoning` if the existing token matters, but acceptable before if board presence is needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}{U}`; outputs a 2/2 and a 0/0 green and blue Fractal token, then puts a +1/+1 counter on each Fractal you control.
- Partners / packages: Directly upgrades `Fractal Summoning` tokens; counters can be moved by `Bioshift`; countered Fractals gain trample from `Drix Fatemaker`.
- Role peers: `Fractal Summoning` is the scalable Fractal maker; `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` make non-Fractal tokens.
- Failure modes: If no Fractal survives and the new token only gets one counter, the token is small; 2/2 does not stabilize against large attackers.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in go-wide or attrition games; lower impact against flyers unless bodies buy time.

#### Needlethorn Drake
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, defensive evasive creature.
- Role type: interaction-removal; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Threaten trades with large attackers and flyers while chipping in when the air is clear.
- Timing: Cast early against evasive or single-large-creature pressure; preserve as a blocker unless attacking is safe and relevant.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}{U}`; outputs a 1/1 flying deathtouch creature.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with `Square Up` to survive combat as a 4/4; can receive `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, or `Sylvan Might` when switching to offense.
- Role peers: `Winged Coatl` is the flash version; `Scattershot Archer` answers one-toughness flyers after sideboard; `Snakeform` helps small bodies trade.
- Failure modes: Dies to one damage; attacking can remove your best deterrent against a larger flyer.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High value against flyers, commanders, and large attackers; low pressure against control unless enhanced.

#### Snakeform
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, cantripping combat answer.
- Role type: interaction-removal; card selection.
- Deck-specific job: Strip a creature's abilities, make it a 1/1 green Snake until end of turn, and draw a card so small blockers can trade up.
- Timing: Use during combat after attacks/blocks when ability loss or 1/1 sizing changes outcome; can be used precombat to clear a blocker for lethal if needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{2}{G/U}` and target creature; outputs temporary ability loss, base 1/1 green Snake status, and one card drawn.
- Partners / packages: Makes `Coiling Oracle`, `Pond Prophet`, `Chatter of the Squirrel` token, `Needlethorn Drake`, or `Winged Coatl` trade profitably; preserves card flow for `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` games.
- Role peers: `Ravenform` permanently exiles artifact or creature at sorcery speed; `Applied Biomancy` bounces; `Temporal Spring` delays any permanent.
- Failure modes: Damage is not removed by Snakeform; indestructible or replacement effects may still matter after abilities are removed depending on timing.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against keyword-heavy threats and combat commanders; poor against noncreature combo.

#### Silent Departure
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, repeatable sorcery-speed bounce.
- Role type: interaction-removal; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Return a target creature to its owner's hand once from hand and again from graveyard through flashback.
- Timing: Cast before combat to clear a blocker, or on your main phase to reset a large attacker; flashback when the tempo swing is worth `{4}{U}` or cheaper with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` from hand or flashback `{4}{U}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs creature tempo.
- Mode map: Hand cast is cheap sorcery bounce; flashback is expensive graveyard reuse that becomes more attractive with Doc's `{2}` discount.
- Partners / packages: Protects attacks from `Slippery Bogle`, `Aeromunculus`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Spinewoods Paladin`; feeds graveyard-value plan with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Role peers: `Applied Biomancy` is instant-speed creature bounce; `Temporal Spring` puts any permanent on top of library; `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` adventure text is missing in reference, so only use Veles-visible action text.
- Failure modes: Sorcery timing cannot stop an attacker midcombat; bouncing enter-the-battlefield creatures may help opponent later.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus expensive single threats and Aura named attacker or blocker in this notes; weak versus go-wide cheap creatures.

#### Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, adventure threat/flex tempo slot.
- Role type: threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Serve as a late blue creature or an adventure interaction spell when Veles exposes the exact legal action.
- Timing: Use `Capsizing Wave` only when its visible target/effect changes tempo; cast `Sword Coast Serpent` when seven mana produces a needed finisher or stabilizer.
- Inputs / outputs: Creature side consumes `{5}{U}{U}`; adventure side consumes `{1}{U}`. Card Reference lacks oracle text for both faces, so text-sensitive claims must follow Veles action text.
- Mode map: `Capsizing Wave` is an Instant — Adventure with missing reference metadata; use only legal target/effect text shown by Veles. `Sword Coast Serpent` is a Creature — Serpent Dragon with missing reference metadata; treat size/keywords/abilities as unknown unless the engine displays them.
- Partners / packages: Doc discounts the creature if cast from exile after adventure; large-threat sequencing overlaps with `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, and `Mechanozoa`.
- Role peers: `Ravenform`, `Silent Departure`, `Temporal Spring`, and `Applied Biomancy` are known interaction peers; `Djinn of Fool's Fall` and `Starbreach Whale` are known blue flyers.
- Failure modes: Missing metadata prevents reliable tactical assumptions about Capsizing Wave's exact restrictions or Serpent combat stats.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best when Veles confirms the adventure solves a visible threat or the creature closes a stabilized game.

#### Artful Dodge
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, unblockability finisher.
- Role type: protection/evasion; reach/finisher; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Make one creature unblockable for a decisive attack, then repeat from graveyard with flashback.
- Timing: Cast precombat only when the target is attacking this turn and damage matters; save flashback for lethal, commander damage pressure if tracked, or a huge `Fractal Summoning`/`Scuttlegator` hit.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` from hand or flashback `{U}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs one target creature can't be blocked this turn.
- Mode map: Hand cast creates immediate unblockability; flashback repeats the effect from graveyard and is especially efficient with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` but still exiles afterward.
- Partners / packages: Best with `Slippery Bogle`, `Scuttlegator`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Aeromunculus`, `Drix Fatemaker`-countered threats, and `Sylvan Might`.
- Role peers: `Favor of the Overbeing` can grant flying to blue creatures; `Sylvan Might` grants trample; `Applied Biomancy` can remove a blocker.
- Failure modes: Does not protect the target from removal; useless on defense and poor when target damage is too small.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against ground stalls; weak against instant-speed removal unless target is `Slippery Bogle` or protected by `Shielding Plax`.

#### Deep Analysis
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, raw card-advantage engine.
- Role type: card selection; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Draw two cards now and two later from graveyard to refuel in long games.
- Timing: Cast when life and board allow a sorcery-speed draw turn; flashback only when paying 3 life will not expose lethal or burn range.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{3}{U}` from hand targeting a player to draw two cards; flashback consumes `{1}{U}` and 3 life from graveyard, then exiles.
- Mode map: Hand cast is four-mana sorcery draw two for target player, usually yourself; flashback is cheaper mana but costs 3 life and becomes nearly free on mana with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Partners / packages: Finds `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, and finishers; surveil from `Otherworldly Gaze` or `Dreams of Laguna` can place it in graveyard.
- Role peers: `Think Twice` is safer instant-speed incremental draw; `Behold the Multiverse` filters before drawing; `Eureka Moment` draws while ramping.
- Failure modes: Life payment is dangerous against burn or evasive clocks; sorcery timing can lose to current board pressure.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus control and attrition; risky against red damage or aggro unless stabilized.

#### Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, adventure ramp into reach body.
- Role type: modal utility; mana/fixing/ramp; threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Use `Plant Beans` to make an additional land play, then later cast a 5-mana reach creature from exile.
- Timing: Cast `Plant Beans` when you have an extra land and time; cast `Beanstalk Wurm` when reach blocks flyers or a large body closes.
- Inputs / outputs: `Plant Beans` consumes `{1}{G}` and allows an additional land this turn, then exiles the card for later creature casting; `Beanstalk Wurm` consumes `{4}{G}` and outputs a reach creature.
- Mode map: `Plant Beans` is the ramp adventure and does not itself search or create a land; `Beanstalk Wurm` is the later creature side, discounted by Doc if cast from exile.
- Partners / packages: Additional land play uses `Forest`, `Island`, or `Simic Guildgate`; reach body supports flyer defense with `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, and `Scattershot Archer`.
- Role peers: `Growth Spiral` and `Eureka Moment` put a land from hand onto battlefield; `Path to the Festival` searches a basic tapped; `Spinewoods Paladin` is a larger trample lifegain body.
- Failure modes: Plant Beans fails to ramp without an extra land; adventure line delays the creature.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in mana-hungry games and against flyers; too slow when immediate removal or fog is needed.

#### Behold the Multiverse
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, instant card selection and draw.
- Role type: card selection; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Smooth draws with scry 2 then draw two, often split across turns with foretell.
- Timing: Foretell on a turn where spending `{2}` does not cost board survival; cast from exile later at instant speed for `{1}{U}`, especially with Doc reducing exile-cast costs.
- Inputs / outputs: Hard cast consumes `{3}{U}`; foretell consumes `{2}` during your turn to exile face down, then `{1}{U}` later to cast; outputs scry 2 and two cards drawn.
- Mode map: Hard cast when four mana is available now; foretell when you need to bank a cheaper future instant-speed draw and hide it from discard-like pressure.
- Partners / packages: Finds missing `Forest`, `Island`, `Simic Guildgate`, `Ravenform`, `Moment's Peace`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, or sideboard answers; Doc can reduce the foretold cast from exile.
- Role peers: `Scour All Possibilities` scries 2 and draws one with flashback; `Think Twice` is cheaper but lower selection; `Deep Analysis` draws more total cards at sorcery speed.
- Failure modes: Spending turn 2 on foretell can lose tempo versus fast starts; scrying threats on top is bad if immediate survival card is needed.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus control and midrange; cast only at safe windows against aggro.

#### Otherworldly Gaze
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, cheap graveyard setup and selection.
- Role type: card selection; mechanic enabler; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Surveil 3 to stack draws or stock flashback/graveyard resources, then do it again from graveyard.
- Timing: Use early to find missing land/color when no board play is required; flashback when top-card quality matters more than spending mana on board.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` from hand or `{1}{U}` flashback from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs surveil 3 by looking at top three cards, putting any number into graveyard and rest on top in any order.
- Mode map: Hand cast is cheap instant setup; flashback reuses it from graveyard and is discounted by `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Partners / packages: Can place `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Silent Departure`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting` into graveyard when mana supports later casts.
- Role peers: `Dreams of Laguna` surveils 1 then draws; `Scour All Possibilities` scries and draws; `Tapping at the Window` looks for creatures and mills rest.
- Failure modes: Selection without board impact can lose to pressure; milling non-flashback finishers is costly.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better in slow games and graveyard-value lines; weaker when sideboarding in `Relic of Progenitus`.

#### Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, adventure-style mana support slot.
- Role type: modal utility; mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Provide a green adventure/creature development option, but exact tactical use depends on Veles because reference text is missing.
- Timing: Use `Seasonal Ritual` only when Veles confirms the mana effect and it enables a concrete spell; cast `Rosethorn Acolyte` when a body or future mana role is shown as legal.
- Inputs / outputs: `Seasonal Ritual` costs `{G}` and `Rosethorn Acolyte` costs `{2}{G}`; Card Reference lacks oracle text for both faces, so exact mana output or creature ability cannot be assumed.
- Mode map: `Seasonal Ritual` is a Sorcery — Adventure with missing metadata; follow visible engine text. `Rosethorn Acolyte` is a Creature — Elf Druid with missing metadata; treat any tap ability or fixing as unverified unless shown by Veles.
- Partners / packages: Strategy context uses it with `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, and `Path to the Festival` as development support; Doc can discount the creature if cast from exile after adventure.
- Role peers: `Karfell Harbinger`, `Snapping Voidcraw`, `Growth Spiral`, and `Path to the Festival` have known mana text.
- Failure modes: Missing metadata prevents precise claims about fixing colors or mana amount.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Prioritize only when visible legal action fixes current mana or curves into a stabilizer.

#### Island
- Deck role: Main deck, 19 copies, basic blue mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Supply blue for commander, interaction, draw, flashback, foretell, and blue-heavy late plays.
- Timing: Sequence early when hand contains `Think Twice`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Ravenform`, `Silent Departure`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Deep Analysis`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Hydroblast`, or `Blue Elemental Blast`.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{U}`; enables blue costs but does not provide green.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with `Forest` and `Simic Guildgate` to cast `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Eureka Moment`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Needlethorn Drake`, and `Winged Coatl`.
- Role peers: `Simic Guildgate` provides blue or green but enters tapped; `Forest` supplies green.
- Failure modes: Island-heavy hands strand green cards such as `Path to the Festival`, `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, and `Spinewoods Paladin`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Preserve untapped blue when sideboard permission or instant interaction can decide the turn.

#### Scour All Possibilities
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, sorcery selection with flashback.
- Role type: card selection; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Scry 2 then draw one to find lands, interaction, or finishers, with a later graveyard reuse.
- Timing: Cast when sorcery-speed selection is safe; flashback for `{4}{U}` only when board is stable or Doc discount makes it efficient.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{U}` from hand or `{4}{U}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs scry 2 and one card drawn.
- Mode map: Front side is cheap filtering; flashback is late card selection that benefits from `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Partners / packages: Finds missing `Forest`, `Island`, `Simic Guildgate`, `Ravenform`, `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Scuttlegator`, or `Fractal Summoning`; can trigger `Quandrix Pledgemage`.
- Role peers: `Behold the Multiverse` draws two after scry 2 at instant speed; `Otherworldly Gaze` surveils without drawing; `Dreams of Laguna` surveils 1 then draws.
- Failure modes: Spending turn 2 on this instead of a blocker is bad against fast creatures; flashback is expensive without Doc.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in slow games and mulligan-smoothing; side out more often against flyer pressure or graveyard hate plans.

#### Simic Guildgate
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, tapped dual mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Provide either green or blue in a deck that otherwise has only basic `Forest` and `Island`.
- Timing: Play early when no untapped one-mana action is needed; avoid as the only turn-one land if holding `Slippery Bogle`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Fog`, or sideboard one-mana interaction.
- Inputs / outputs: Enters tapped; taps for `{G}` or `{U}`.
- Partners / packages: Enables two-color cards including `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, and `Eureka Moment`.
- Role peers: `Island` and `Forest` enter untapped but provide one color; `Path to the Festival` cannot search Simic Guildgate because it searches a basic land card.
- Failure modes: Entering tapped can cost a critical early interaction or blocker; one copy means do not assume access every game.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in openers with both colors needed; tempo liability versus aggressive starts.

#### Think Twice
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, instant-speed incremental draw.
- Role type: card selection; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Use spare mana to draw now and later from graveyard without tapping out in main phase.
- Timing: Prefer opponent end step after holding up `Fog`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Winged Coatl`, or sideboard counters; flashback when mana would otherwise go unused.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{U}` from hand or `{2}{U}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs one card each time.
- Mode map: Front side is cheap instant draw; flashback is a second instant draw from graveyard, reduced by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Triggers `Quandrix Pledgemage`; supports finding `Ravenform`, `Moment's Peace`, `Deep Analysis`, `Elephant Ambush`, or land drops while keeping interaction posture.
- Role peers: `Deep Analysis` is bigger sorcery draw; `Behold the Multiverse` filters and draws two; `Secrets of the Key` creates Clues instead of drawing immediately.
- Failure modes: Drawing one card may be too slow when a visible threat requires removal; flashback exiles it and can conflict with `Relic of Progenitus` timing.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus control and tempo; against aggro, use only after survival windows are covered.

#### Moment's Peace
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, repeatable combat-damage prevention.
- Role type: lifegain/stabilization; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Prevent all combat damage for one turn now and another turn later from graveyard.
- Timing: Cast only when combat damage would be lethal, erase a major attack, preserve a stabilizing crack-back, or buy the exact turn for a large play.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}` from hand or `{2}{G}` flashback from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs prevention of all combat damage this turn.
- Mode map: Hand cast is first fog; flashback is the second fog from graveyard and is reduced by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Buys time for `Deep Analysis`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, and `Fractal Summoning`.
- Role peers: `Fog` is cheaper but single-use; `Spore Frog` is creature-based sideboard prevention.
- Failure modes: Does not prevent noncombat damage, life loss, or milling; casting too early wastes the flashback resource.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High against go-wide and combat aggro; low versus control or spell combo.

#### Tumbleweed Rising
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, scalable token closer with plot.
- Role type: threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Create an Elemental sized to the greatest power among creatures you control, with plot enabling a future free cast.
- Timing: Cast when your greatest-power creature makes the token meaningful; plot for `{2}{G}` at sorcery speed when Doc reduces plotting or when saving mana for a later swing matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}` from hand or plot `{2}{G}` to exile from hand for later free sorcery-speed cast; outputs an X/X green Elemental where X is greatest power among creatures you control.
- Partners / packages: Sizes well with `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Mechanozoa`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, and large `Fractal Summoning`.
- Role peers: `Fractal Summoning` scales from mana; `Shadowbeast Sighting` makes a fixed 4/4; `Elephant Ambush` makes an instant 3/3.
- Failure modes: Bad with no sizable creature; plotted spells still require sorcery timing to cast later.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong after stabilizing with a large body; poor when behind on an empty board.

#### Ravenform
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, sorcery exile removal.
- Role type: interaction-removal; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Permanently exile a target artifact or creature, accepting that its controller receives a 1/1 blue Bird with flying.
- Timing: Use on threats that normal blockers cannot answer or on artifact creatures/engines that will decide the game; foretell when you can spend `{2}` now for a future `{U}` answer.
- Inputs / outputs: Hard cast consumes `{2}{U}`; foretell consumes `{2}` during your turn and later `{U}` from exile; outputs exile plus a 1/1 flying Bird for that permanent's controller.
- Mode map: Hard cast when removal is needed now; foretell when you can bank cheaper future interaction, especially with Doc reducing exile casts.
- Partners / packages: Handles blockers for `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Fractal Summoning`, or `Artful Dodge` lethal lines; pairs with `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, or `Scattershot Archer` to contain the Bird.
- Role peers: `Snakeform` is temporary and draws; `Temporal Spring` delays any permanent; `Silent Departure` bounces creatures.
- Failure modes: Sorcery speed cannot answer an attacking creature midcombat; giving a flyer matters if you lack aerial defense.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Save for high-impact artifact or creature threats, not replaceable small attackers.

#### Chatter of the Squirrel
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, early token and graveyard material.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Make a 1/1 blocker early and another later from graveyard.
- Timing: Cast on turn 1 when a body matters or when you need material before selection; flashback when `{1}{G}` produces a relevant blocker, attacker, or conspire body.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}` from hand or `{1}{G}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs one 1/1 green Squirrel token each cast.
- Mode map: Front side creates early board presence; flashback reuses it from graveyard and is discounted by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Token can block for `Deep Analysis` turns, tap for `Gleeful Sabotage` conspire if it shares green, or receive `Square Up` in emergency combat.
- Role peers: `Elephant Ambush` makes a larger instant token; `Shadowbeast Sighting` makes a 4/4; `Biomathematician` makes a Fractal plus counters.
- Failure modes: 1/1 token is low impact against trample, flyers, and sweepers; do not overvalue flashback when life needs a real answer.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good against early ground pressure and attrition; weak against evasive clocks.

#### Trapjaw Kelpie
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, flash resilient blocker.
- Role type: lifegain/stabilization; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Ambush combat and persist back once after dying if it had no -1/-1 counters.
- Timing: Flash in to block a meaningful attacker, or end step when a 3/3 body is safe; preserve surprise against attacks that would otherwise force `Fog`.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{4}{G/U}{G/U}`; outputs a 3/3 flash creature with persist, returning with a -1/-1 counter after dying if eligible.
- Partners / packages: Stabilizes until `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting`; can receive `Bioshift` only for +1/+1 counters, not its persist -1/-1 counter.
- Role peers: `Winged Coatl` is cheaper flash removal; `Elephant Ambush` is instant token generation; `Moment's Peace` prevents a combat step.
- Failure modes: Persist does not recur if it already had a -1/-1 counter; six mana is a lot to hold open.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus midrange combat; weaker against exile removal, bounce, and noncombat wins.

#### Undercover Crocodelf
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, disguised threat and Clue engine.
- Role type: threat/clock; engine piece; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Attack as a 5/5 that investigates on player combat damage, or enter disguised as a warded 2/2 before being turned face up.
- Timing: Disguise for `{3}` when you need a cheap face-down body with ward `{2}`; turn face up for `{3}{G/U}{G/U}` when a 5/5 attack or block matters.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{4}{G}{U}` normally, or `{3}` to cast face down and later disguise cost; outputs Clue tokens when it deals combat damage to a player.
- Mode map: Normal cast gives immediate known 5/5; disguise hides it as a 2/2 with ward `{2}` and lets you turn it face up any time for the disguise cost.
- Partners / packages: Clues pair with `Wavesifter` and `Secrets of the Key`; `Artful Dodge` can help it connect and investigate; `Shielding Plax` protects an exposed 5/5.
- Role peers: `Wavesifter` makes Clues immediately; `Mechanozoa` is another six-mana body with immediate board impact.
- Failure modes: No Clue unless it damages a player; face-down 2/2 may be outclassed before you can pay disguise.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus slow ground boards; weaker against flyers or removal if it cannot connect.

#### Vigean Hydropon
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, counter bank.
- Role type: mechanic enabler; engine fuel/material.
- Deck-specific job: Enter with five +1/+1 counters and graft them onto future creatures because it cannot attack or block.
- Timing: Cast when you can follow with creatures that need counters; avoid if the current board requires an actual blocker.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}{U}`; outputs a 0/0 with graft 5 that enters with five +1/+1 counters and may move one onto another creature when it enters.
- Partners / packages: Feeds counters to `Aeromunculus`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Slippery Bogle`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Scuttlegator`, and `Drix Fatemaker` trample recipients; `Bioshift` can move any number of its counters to a creature with the same controller.
- Role peers: `Drix Fatemaker` adds one counter and grants trample; `Biomathematician` grows Fractals; `Quandrix Pledgemage` grows itself.
- Failure modes: Cannot attack or block, so it does not stabilize immediately; moving too many counters can kill it if no counters remain.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in slower board-building games; poor when under lethal pressure.

#### Germinating Wurm
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, large body and life buffer.
- Role type: threat/clock; lifegain/stabilization; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Either warp early for a temporary 5/5 and 2 life, or cast normally for a lasting body.
- Timing: Warp for `{1}{G}` when temporary board impact or lifegain buys a turn; hard-cast for `{4}{G}` when you need the creature to stay.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{4}{G}`; warp consumes `{1}{G}`, then exiles it at the beginning of the next end step and lets you cast it from exile later; entering gains 2 life.
- Mode map: Warp is a short-term 5/5 plus 2 life and future exile access; normal cast is the stable threat.
- Partners / packages: Great-power sizing helps `Tumbleweed Rising`; Doc discounts later exile casting after warp; works with `Artful Dodge` or `Sylvan Might` as a large attacker.
- Role peers: `Spinewoods Paladin` gains 3 and has trample; `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` has reach; `Starbreach Whale` flies and surveils.
- Failure modes: Warped creature leaves at end step, so do not rely on it as a permanent blocker; 2 life is not enough against lethal by itself.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against aggro races and midrange; slower than interaction against a single must-answer threat.

#### Sarulf's Packmate
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, value creature with foretell.
- Role type: card selection; threat/clock; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Add a 3/3 body while drawing a card, with foretell smoothing future mana.
- Timing: Foretell on a safe turn to cast later for `{1}{G}`; cast normally when four mana and a board body are needed now.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{3}{G}`; foretell consumes `{2}` during your turn and later `{1}{G}` from exile; outputs a 3/3 and one card on entering.
- Mode map: Normal cast is immediate body plus draw; foretell splits the cost and lets Doc discount the exile cast.
- Partners / packages: Triggers `Shambleshark` evolve; finds land/interaction; supplies a solid body for `Tumbleweed Rising` sizing and `Sylvan Might`.
- Role peers: `Pond Prophet` is smaller and cheaper draw body; `Deep Analysis` draws more cards but no body; `Freestrider Commando` is a plotted 3/3/counter threat.
- Failure modes: Foretell does not affect the board immediately; 3/3 can be outclassed late.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good versus attrition; cast rather than foretell against fast creature pressure if a blocker matters.

#### Elephant Ambush
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, instant token stabilizer with flashback.
- Role type: threat/clock; recursion; lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Create a surprise 3/3 Elephant blocker or end-step attacker, then repeat from graveyard later.
- Timing: Hold through combat to ambush an attacker if possible; cast end step when no attack requires blocking.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{2}{G}{G}` from hand or flashback `{6}{G}{G}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs a 3/3 green Elephant token.
- Mode map: Front side is instant 3/3; flashback is expensive late repeat, much better with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
- Partners / packages: Buys time for `Deep Analysis`, `Scuttlegator`, and `Starbreach Whale`; provides creature size for `Tumbleweed Rising`; can be made unblockable by `Artful Dodge` if needed.
- Role peers: `Shadowbeast Sighting` makes a 4/4 at sorcery speed with flashback; `Chatter of the Squirrel` is cheaper but smaller; `Trapjaw Kelpie` is a flash creature.
- Failure modes: Double green can strain Island-heavy hands; flashback is costly without Doc.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against aggro and midrange attacks; weak against flyers unless it races or protects life on ground.

#### Karfell Harbinger
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, restricted blue mana creature.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp; role glue.
- Deck-specific job: Block early and generate blue mana for foretell or instant/sorcery spells.
- Timing: Cast on turn 2 when blue development matters and a 1/3 blocks; tap only when the restricted mana can legally be spent.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{U}`; taps for `{U}` that can be spent only to foretell a card from hand or cast an instant or sorcery spell.
- Partners / packages: Pays for `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform` foretell, `Sarulf's Packmate` foretell, `Think Twice`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Temporal Spring`, `Deep Analysis`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Eureka Moment`, and sideboard counters.
- Role peers: `Snapping Voidcraw` makes `{C}{C}` with fewer spending options; `Path to the Festival` ramps basics; `Growth Spiral` accelerates with lands.
- Failure modes: Cannot spend its mana on creature spells, Aura spells, Clue activations, or generic permanent costs unless the spell is an instant/sorcery or foretell payment.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good against small ground creatures and spell-heavy hands; weak when you need green mana.

#### Dreams of Laguna
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, instant selection with flashback.
- Role type: card selection; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Surveil 1 then draw a card, smoothing topdeck quality while stocking flashback cards.
- Timing: Cast at opponent end step when holding interaction matters; flashback for `{3}{U}` when the board is safe or Doc discount helps.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{U}` from hand or `{3}{U}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; surveil 1 means look at top card and may put it into graveyard, then draw.
- Mode map: Front side is cheap instant filter/draw; flashback reuses it from graveyard for more mana.
- Partners / packages: Can bin `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Silent Departure`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting` when later casting is realistic.
- Role peers: `Otherworldly Gaze` surveils 3 without drawing; `Scour All Possibilities` scries 2 then draws at sorcery speed; `Think Twice` draws without selection.
- Failure modes: One-card surveil is modest; do not bin named lands when missing colors.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in attrition and color-smoothing; trim when graveyard hate or immediate board pressure dominates.

#### Shadowbeast Sighting
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, large token maker with flashback.
- Role type: threat/clock; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Create a 4/4 green Beast and later repeat from graveyard to win attrition.
- Timing: Cast when a sorcery-speed 4/4 stabilizes or pressures; flashback when seven mana or Doc discount makes the second 4/4 worth the turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{3}{G}` from hand or flashback `{6}{G}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs a 4/4 green Beast token.
- Mode map: Front side is efficient board presence; flashback is expensive inevitability.
- Partners / packages: Provides size for `Tumbleweed Rising`; combines with `Moment's Peace` or `Fog` to stabilize; works with `Artful Dodge` and `Sylvan Might` to close.
- Role peers: `Elephant Ambush` is instant but smaller; `Fractal Summoning` scales with mana; `Chatter of the Squirrel` is cheap material.
- Failure modes: Sorcery timing can be too slow against lethal; one token can be bounced or exiled.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus removal-light midrange and control; weaker against flyers if ground body cannot race.

#### Tapping at the Window
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, creature selection and graveyard setup.
- Role type: card selection; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Look at top three cards, may reveal a creature card into hand, and put the rest into graveyard, then flash back later.
- Timing: Cast when looking for a stabilizer or finisher; flashback when the creature hit matters more than spending mana on board now.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}` from hand or `{2}{G}` flashback from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs possible creature card to hand and graveyard fuel.
- Mode map: Front side digs for creatures early; flashback repeats the search with Doc discount possible.
- Partners / packages: Finds creatures such as `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Mechanozoa`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, and `Germinating Wurm`; mills flashback spells incidentally.
- Role peers: `Otherworldly Gaze` selects any card types but does not draw; `Scour All Possibilities` draws any card; `Pond Prophet` draws from battlefield.
- Failure modes: Cannot take noncreature interaction like `Ravenform`, `Fog`, or `Moment's Peace`; sorcery speed can be too slow while behind.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good when needing a creature role; weaker when the required answer is a spell.

#### Path to the Festival
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, basic-land ramp with flashback.
- Role type: tutor/search; mana/fixing/ramp; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Search for `Island` or `Forest`, put it onto battlefield tapped, then possibly scry 1 if enough basic land types are present.
- Timing: Cast when missing a color or ramping to five-plus mana is safe; flashback only if development matters more than a current board play.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{2}{G}` from hand or `{4}{G}` flashback from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; searches basic land card, puts it tapped, shuffles, then checks for three or more basic land types among named lands you control for scry 1.
- Mode map: Front side ramps/fixes; flashback repeats the basic search from graveyard, discounted by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Legal registered targets are `Island` and `Forest`; it cannot find `Simic Guildgate` because that is not basic.
- Role peers: `Growth Spiral` and `Eureka Moment` put named lands from hand; `Coiling Oracle` can reveal land from library to battlefield.
- Failure modes: In this deck with only Island and Forest basic land types, the three-basic-land-types scry condition normally cannot be met.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in slow games and color-stranded hands; too slow versus lethal pressure.

#### Retrieve the Esper
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, graveyard-scaling token maker.
- Role type: threat/clock; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Create a 3/3 blue Robot Warrior artifact creature token, upgraded to 5/5 if cast from graveyard.
- Timing: Cast from hand when a 3/3 artifact creature stabilizes; prefer graveyard casting through flashback when mana and Doc discount make the larger token efficient.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{3}{U}` from hand or flashback `{5}{U}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs a 3/3 token, or that token plus two +1/+1 counters if cast from graveyard.
- Mode map: Hand cast is baseline 3/3 token; flashback is a bigger 5/5 token because the spell was cast from graveyard.
- Partners / packages: `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` reduces flashback; `Bioshift` can move the two +1/+1 counters; `Drix Fatemaker` gives trample to creatures with +1/+1 counters.
- Role peers: `Shadowbeast Sighting` makes a 4/4 with flashback; `Elephant Ambush` makes instant 3/3; `Fractal Summoning` scales with mana.
- Failure modes: Sorcery-speed token does not answer flyers or immediate stack threats; artifact token may be vulnerable to artifact removal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in attrition and counter-synergy games; weaker versus exile-heavy removal.

#### Djinn of Fool's Fall
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, large flying plot threat.
- Role type: threat/clock.
- Deck-specific job: Provide a 4/3 flyer that can be plotted for later free sorcery-speed casting.
- Timing: Plot for `{3}{U}` when Doc discount or spare mana lets you bank pressure; hard-cast for `{4}{U}` when you need the flyer now.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{4}{U}` normally or plot `{3}{U}` from hand to exile for later free cast as a sorcery; outputs a 4/3 flying creature.
- Mode map: Normal cast gives immediate air pressure; plot delays board impact to create a future mana-free spell, discounted by Doc when plotting.
- Partners / packages: Carries `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, or `Sylvan Might`; sets up `Tumbleweed Rising` size; attacks over ground stalls with `Artful Dodge` unnecessary unless blockers fly/reach.
- Role peers: `Starbreach Whale` is a 3/5 flyer with surveil; `Aeromunculus` is cheaper and adaptable; `Wavesifter` is a 3/2 flyer with Clues.
- Failure modes: Plot has no immediate board impact; 3 toughness dies to common damage-based removal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus ground midrange/control; weaker against decks with reach/flying blockers or red removal.

#### Secrets of the Key
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, Clue producer with flashback.
- Role type: engine fuel/material; card selection; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Create one Clue now or two Clues when cast from graveyard, converting mana over time into cards.
- Timing: Cast when you can afford delayed draw; flashback when two Clues will matter and graveyard value is safe.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}` from hand or flashback `{3}{U}` from graveyard; outputs one Clue, or two Clues if cast from graveyard. Clues have `{2}, Sacrifice this token: Draw a card`.
- Mode map: Hand cast is cheap investigate; flashback is larger investigate twice from graveyard, reduced by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Works with `Wavesifter` and `Undercover Crocodelf` Clue plan; triggers `Quandrix Pledgemage`; finds interaction later without tapping out now.
- Role peers: `Think Twice` draws immediately; `Wavesifter` creates two Clues plus possible body; `Behold the Multiverse` filters and draws directly.
- Failure modes: Clues require future mana and sacrifice; too slow when current board needs a blocker or removal.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus control and attrition; weak versus fast aggro unless one-mana spell timing is all you can afford.

#### Spinewoods Paladin
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, lifegain trampling finisher with plot.
- Role type: threat/clock; lifegain/stabilization; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Stabilize with a 5/4 trample body and 3 life, or plot it for a later free threat.
- Timing: Cast normally when life and board need immediate help; plot for `{3}{G}` only when you can survive without the body this turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{4}{G}` normally or plot `{3}{G}` from hand to exile for later free sorcery-speed cast; entering gains 3 life.
- Mode map: Normal cast gives immediate 5/4 trample and life; plot banks a future mana-free creature and can be cheaper to plot with Doc.
- Partners / packages: Great `Tumbleweed Rising` size source; combines with `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Shielding Plax`, and `Moment's Peace` for closing races.
- Role peers: `Germinating Wurm` gains 2 and can warp; `Scuttlegator` is larger but needs counters to attack; `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans` has reach.
- Failure modes: Four toughness may still trade down; plotting while behind can lose before the free cast.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against aggro and ground stalls; less effective against exile removal or flyers unless life swing matters.

#### Freestrider Commando
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, plotted counter threat.
- Role type: threat/clock; modal utility; mechanic payoff.
- Deck-specific job: Become a 5/5 when cast without mana through plot, or act as a normal 3/3 when needed.
- Timing: Plot for `{3}{G}` when you can afford delayed impact and want the no-mana-spent bonus; cast for `{2}{G}` when an immediate 3/3 is required.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{2}{G}` for 3/3; plot exiles it from hand for later free sorcery-speed cast, making it enter with two +1/+1 counters because no mana was spent.
- Mode map: Immediate cast is tempo body; plot is delayed but larger, especially with Doc making plotting cheaper.
- Partners / packages: Counters work with `Bioshift` and `Drix Fatemaker` trample static; 5 power improves `Tumbleweed Rising`.
- Role peers: `Sarulf's Packmate` is a 3/3 that draws; `Germinating Wurm` is a 5/5 with life; `Fractal Summoning` makes scalable counters.
- Failure modes: Plotting into a board that needs a blocker is dangerous; normal 3/3 mode misses the counter payoff.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Better in slow games where delayed size matters; cast normally versus aggro if blocking now is required.

#### Loan Shark
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, plotted value creature.
- Role type: threat/clock; card selection; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Provide a 3/4 body that draws a card on entry only if you have cast two or more spells this turn.
- Timing: Plot when setting up a future two-spell turn; cast normally only when the body matters or you can satisfy the two-spell condition.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{3}{U}`; plot consumes `{3}{U}` from hand to exile for later free sorcery-speed cast; outputs 3/4 and conditional draw.
- Mode map: Normal cast is immediate body with possible draw; plot delays the body and can enable a free spell as part of the two-spell turn.
- Partners / packages: Cheap spells that help enable the draw include `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Artful Dodge`, `Think Twice`, `Growth Spiral`, `Snakeform`, and sideboard one-mana counters when legal.
- Role peers: `Sarulf's Packmate` draws unconditionally on entry; `Pond Prophet` is cheap draw body; `Behold the Multiverse` draws without a body.
- Failure modes: If it is the first spell or only spell that turn, it does not draw; plot timing is sorcery speed.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Good in slower games with planned double-spell turns; mediocre as a raw 3/4 against large threats.

#### Drix Fatemaker
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, counter support and trample enabler.
- Role type: mechanic enabler; protection/evasion; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Put a +1/+1 counter on target creature and grant trample to each creature you control with a +1/+1 counter.
- Timing: Cast or warp when the counter and trample turn a board into profitable attacks; hold if target creature would be removed before combat.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{3}{G}`; warp consumes `{1}{G}`, then exiles it at the beginning of the next end step and allows later casting from exile; outputs 3/2 and a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
- Mode map: Normal cast keeps the 3/2; warp gives temporary entry/counter/trample support and future exile access, discounted later by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Enables trample for `Fractal Summoning`, `Vigean Hydropon` recipients, `Quandrix Pledgemage`, `Scuttlegator`, `Aeromunculus`, `Freestrider Commando`, `Retrieve the Esper` flashback token, and `Bioshift` targets.
- Role peers: `Sylvan Might` grants one-turn trample; `Bioshift` moves counters; `Biomathematician` adds counters to Fractals.
- Failure modes: Trample only applies to creatures you control with +1/+1 counters; warp body leaves at end step.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong in ground stalls; poor when the opponent's key pressure is flying and trample does not matter.

#### Sylvan Might
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, pump-trample finisher with flashback.
- Role type: reach/finisher; protection/evasion; recursion.
- Deck-specific job: Give a target creature +2/+2 and trample to force damage through, then repeat from graveyard.
- Timing: Save for lethal, a must-win combat, or when trample converts a large blocked creature into decisive damage.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}` from hand or flashback `{2}{G}{G}` from graveyard, then exiles after flashback; outputs +2/+2 and trample until end of turn.
- Mode map: Front side is cheap combat push; flashback is repeat finisher and is reduced by Doc.
- Partners / packages: Best on `Scuttlegator`, large `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising` token, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Mechanozoa`, or `Slippery Bogle`.
- Role peers: `Square Up` sets base 4/4; `Artful Dodge` bypasses blockers; `Drix Fatemaker` grants trample to countered creatures.
- Failure modes: Does not protect from removal; using it on a small creature for minor damage is wasteful.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong against chump-blocking boards; weaker against instant-speed exile or bounce unless target is protected.

#### Starbreach Whale
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, flying stabilizer with surveil and warp.
- Role type: threat/clock; card selection; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Apply aerial pressure while surveil 2 improves draws or graveyard setup.
- Timing: Warp for `{1}{U}` when temporary flying blocker/attacker plus surveil matters; cast normally for `{4}{U}` when you need the 3/5 to stay.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{4}{U}`; warp consumes `{1}{U}`, exiles at next end step, then may be cast from exile later; entering surveils 2.
- Mode map: Warp is cheap temporary body plus surveil and future exile access; normal cast is durable 3/5 flyer.
- Partners / packages: Surveil can place flashback cards like `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, or `Shadowbeast Sighting`; Doc discounts later exile casting after warp.
- Role peers: `Djinn of Fool's Fall` is a 4/3 flyer with plot; `Wavesifter` is a 3/2 flyer with Clues; `Aeromunculus` is cheaper.
- Failure modes: Warped Whale leaves at end step; surveil 2 can mill needed named lands if misused.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus flyers and long games; cast normally when permanent aerial defense is required.

#### Mechanozoa
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, large tempo stabilizer with warp.
- Role type: threat/clock; interaction-removal; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Tap an opponent's artifact or creature and put a stun counter on it while presenting a 5/5 artifact creature.
- Timing: Warp for `{2}{U}` when tapping/stunning a blocker or attacker for a turn matters; hard-cast for `{4}{U}{U}` when a lasting 5/5 is needed.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{4}{U}{U}`; warp consumes `{2}{U}`, exiles it at next end step, then allows later casting from exile; entering taps target artifact or creature an opponent controls and puts a stun counter on it.
- Mode map: Warp is temporary 5/5 plus immediate stun tempo and future exile access; normal cast keeps the 5/5 after the stun effect.
- Partners / packages: Clears blockers for `Artful Dodge`-less attacks by `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Fractal Summoning`, or `Scuttlegator`; Doc discounts later exile casting after warp.
- Role peers: `Temporal Spring` delays any permanent; `Applied Biomancy` bounces creatures; `Ravenform` exiles artifact or creature.
- Failure modes: Requires an opponent artifact or creature target for the stun trigger; artifact creature type can expose it to artifact hate.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent against single large attackers/blockers; slower against spell combo or go-wide boards.

#### Sinister Cryologist
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, defensive tempo creature with warp.
- Role type: lifegain/stabilization; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Reduce an opposing creature's power by 3 for a turn while adding a 2/3 body.
- Timing: Warp for `{U}` when the -3/-0 changes combat this turn; cast normally for `{2}{U}` when the 2/3 body is needed to stay.
- Inputs / outputs: Normal cast consumes `{2}{U}`; warp consumes `{U}`, exiles it at next end step, then allows later casting from exile; entering gives target creature an opponent controls -3/-0 until end of turn.
- Mode map: Warp is cheap temporary combat shrink and future exile access; normal cast is lasting body plus shrink.
- Partners / packages: Buys time with `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Needlethorn Drake`, and `Winged Coatl`; Doc discounts later exile casting after warp.
- Role peers: `Snakeform` removes abilities and makes 1/1; `Applied Biomancy` can bounce; `Fog` prevents all combat damage.
- Failure modes: -3/-0 does not remove abilities or reduce toughness; warped body leaves at end step.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus one big attacker; weak versus noncombat damage or wide boards with many attackers.

#### Fog
- Deck role: Main deck, 1 copy, one-shot combat survival spell.
- Role type: lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Prevent all combat damage for the turn at the lowest possible mana cost.
- Timing: Use only when combat damage is lethal, wrecks your stabilizing crack-back, or buys the exact turn for a decisive play.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}`; outputs prevention of all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.
- Partners / packages: Buys time for `Deep Analysis`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, and `Starbreach Whale`.
- Role peers: `Moment's Peace` costs more but has flashback; `Spore Frog` is sideboard creature prevention.
- Failure modes: Does not stop noncombat damage, life loss, milling, or postcombat effects; casting it for minor damage wastes a scarce resource.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High value versus alpha strikes and go-wide combat; low value versus control or combo that does not win through combat.

#### Forest
- Deck role: Main deck, 20 copies, basic green mana resource.
- Role type: mana/fixing/ramp.
- Deck-specific job: Supply green for ramp, fogs, token makers, large creatures, and the commander.
- Timing: Sequence early when hand contains `Slippery Bogle`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Fog`, `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Path to the Festival`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, or `Spinewoods Paladin`.
- Inputs / outputs: Taps for `{G}`; enables green costs but does not provide blue.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with `Island` and `Simic Guildgate` to cast `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Growth Spiral`, `Eureka Moment`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Needlethorn Drake`, and `Winged Coatl`.
- Role peers: `Simic Guildgate` fixes both colors tapped; `Island` supplies blue.
- Failure modes: Forest-heavy hands strand blue cards such as `Think Twice`, `Ravenform`, `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Dispel`, and `Negate`.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Preserve untapped green against combat decks when `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Weather the Storm`, or `Spore Frog` could matter.

#### Hydroblast
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-red interaction bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; modal utility; interaction-stack; interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Answer decisive red stack spells or red permanents for one blue mana.
- Timing: Bring in only against observed red spells/permanents; hold for red threats that change life total, remove your stabilizer, or stop your closing turn.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}`; outputs either counter target spell if it's red or destroy target permanent if it's red.
- Mode map: Counter mode targets a spell on the stack and checks if it is red; destroy mode targets a red permanent already on battlefield.
- Partners / packages: Protects `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` lines against red interaction or burn.
- Role peers: `Blue Elemental Blast` counters target red spell or destroys target red permanent with slightly different counter wording; `Dispel` hits only instant spells; `Negate` hits noncreature spells.
- Failure modes: Dead against nonred threats; do not hold it while a nonred board kills you.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring versus burn, red removal, red tempo, and red commanders/permanents shown by public information.

#### Blue Elemental Blast
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-red redundancy bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; modal utility; interaction-stack; interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Provide a second one-mana blue answer to red spells or red permanents.
- Timing: Sideboard in when the opponent's red cards decide combat, life total, or stack exchanges; use on the current red threat if waiting risks lethal.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}`; outputs either counter target red spell or destroy target red permanent.
- Mode map: Counter mode legally targets a red spell on the stack; destroy mode targets a red permanent.
- Partners / packages: Pairs with `Hydroblast` to defend `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, large threats, or survival spells from red pressure.
- Role peers: `Hydroblast` is nearly identical but says counter target spell if it's red; `Dispel` can counter red instants but not red creatures/permanents; `Weather the Storm` gains life instead of answering a card.
- Failure modes: Cannot answer nonred spells or permanents; holding up blue mana can slow development if red target density is low.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best versus burn and red tempo; cut if Game 1 red cards were incidental.

#### Dispel
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, cheap instant-only stack interaction.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-stack.
- Deck-specific job: Counter target instant spell that would remove a threat, win a stack fight, or deal lethal.
- Timing: Bring in against instant-heavy opponents; hold for decisive instant spells rather than low-impact cantrips unless tempo demands it.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{U}`; outputs counter target instant spell on the stack.
- Partners / packages: Protects `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Shielding Plax` targets, `Fractal Summoning`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` from instant-speed answers.
- Role peers: `Negate` hits noncreature spells but costs `{1}{U}`; `Hydroblast` and `Blue Elemental Blast` answer red spells/permanents only.
- Failure modes: Cannot counter creatures, sorceries, artifacts, enchantments, planeswalkers, or abilities; do not hold for a resolved permanent.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: High value versus control, tempo, burn instants, and counter wars; low versus creature-heavy decks.

#### Negate
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, broad noncreature stack interaction.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-stack.
- Deck-specific job: Counter noncreature spells that would beat your board, protect a combo/engine, or stop your stabilization.
- Timing: Bring in against control, combo, artifacts/enchantments on stack, removal-heavy decks, and spell engines; hold for high-impact noncreature spells.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{U}`; outputs counter target noncreature spell on the stack.
- Partners / packages: Protects `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Deep Analysis`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Fractal Summoning`, and enhanced threats from noncreature interaction.
- Role peers: `Dispel` is cheaper but instant-only; `Hydroblast` and `Blue Elemental Blast` are cheaper but red-restricted.
- Failure modes: Cannot counter creature spells or resolved permanents; holding two mana open can delay board development.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus control/combo and permanent-based engines cast as noncreature spells; weak versus low-curve creature swarms.

#### Weather the Storm
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-burn and spell-chain life burst.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Gain 3 life plus 3 more for each spell cast before it this turn through storm copies.
- Timing: Bring in against burn, spell-chain aggro, or races where life total is the bottleneck; cast after the opponent has added to storm count when safe.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}`; outputs 3 life from original plus copied life gain for each spell cast before it this turn.
- Partners / packages: Buys turns for `Moment's Peace`, `Fog`, `Spore Frog`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Deep Analysis` recovery.
- Role peers: `Spinewoods Paladin` and `Germinating Wurm` gain life on creatures; `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, and `Spore Frog` prevent combat damage rather than noncombat burn.
- Failure modes: Does not affect board, prevent commander damage already dealt, or counter burn spells; weak if cast as a single 3-life spell against large creatures.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best after multiple red spells or storm-like turns; poor versus slow control without damage pressure.

#### Return to Nature
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, flexible artifact/enchantment/graveyard answer.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; modal utility; hate piece; interaction-removal.
- Deck-specific job: Destroy the public artifact/enchantment that matters or exile a specific graveyard card.
- Timing: Bring in when artifacts, enchantments, or graveyard cards are visible and strategically important; hold until the target changes the game or must be answered.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}`; outputs one chosen effect against target artifact, target enchantment, or target card from a graveyard.
- Mode map: Destroy target artifact; destroy target enchantment; exile target card from a graveyard. Graveyard mode targets a card, not a player.
- Partners / packages: Covers permanent problems that `Ravenform` cannot hit if nonartifact enchantment; graveyard mode competes with preserving your own `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`.
- Role peers: `Gleeful Sabotage` destroys artifact/enchantment at sorcery speed and can copy; `Relic of Progenitus` is broader graveyard hate.
- Failure modes: Dead without relevant targets; one-for-one graveyard exile must happen before costs like flashback/delve/escape are paid.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring versus artifact/enchantment engines and graveyard decks with named public cards.

#### Scattershot Archer
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, anti-flyer creature bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-removal; hate piece.
- Deck-specific job: Repeatedly deal 1 damage to each creature with flying, pressuring small evasive boards.
- Timing: Bring in against visible one-toughness flyers or multiple small flyers; activate before combat or after damage setup when it kills or weakens attackers.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}` to cast; tapping outputs 1 damage to each creature with flying.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Ravenform` Bird token cleanup, and reach from `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`.
- Role peers: `Needlethorn Drake` and `Winged Coatl` trade with single flyers; `Ravenform` answers one artifact or creature but creates a 1/1 flyer.
- Failure modes: Hits your own flying creatures too, including `Aeromunculus`, `Wavesifter`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, and `Starbreach Whale`; one damage does not kill large flyers.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Strong versus flyer swarms and Ravenform tokens; poor against ground decks or noncombat strategies.

#### Spore Frog
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, creature-based fog bullet.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; lifegain/stabilization.
- Deck-specific job: Sit on battlefield and threaten to sacrifice for a full combat-damage prevention turn.
- Timing: Bring in against combat decks; cast early when visible attacks are building, sacrifice only when combat damage would be lethal or swing the game.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{G}` to cast; sacrifice ability consumes Spore Frog and prevents all combat damage that would be dealt this turn.
- Partners / packages: Adds redundancy with `Fog` and `Moment's Peace`; buys time for `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, and `Starbreach Whale`.
- Role peers: `Fog` is instant and cannot be killed first; `Moment's Peace` has flashback.
- Failure modes: Opponent can remove or tap it before combat if they have legal action; does not stop noncombat damage or life loss.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Excellent versus go-wide or single alpha attacks; side out versus control/combo without combat kills.

#### Relic of Progenitus
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, graveyard hate artifact.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; hate piece.
- Deck-specific job: Pressure opposing graveyards incrementally or clear all graveyards and draw a card when the exchange favors you.
- Timing: Bring in only when opponent graveyard is a public resource; use tap ability before key graveyard casts, and full exile before the opponent can pay graveyard-based costs.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}` to cast; tap ability makes target player exile a card from their graveyard, chosen by that player; `{1}, Exile Relic` exiles all graveyards and draws a card.
- Mode map: Tap mode is incremental and target player chooses the card; sacrifice/exile mode is a full graveyard reset plus card draw.
- Partners / packages: Conflicts with your own `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Silent Departure`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Moment's Peace`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`.
- Role peers: `Return to Nature` exiles one target graveyard card; `Negate` can counter graveyard enablers on stack.
- Failure modes: Firing too early can hurt your Doc plan more than opponent; exiling after flashback costs are paid will not undo that spell.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Bring versus recursion, flashback, escape, delve, threshold, or reanimation shown in public zones.

#### Gleeful Sabotage
- Deck role: Sideboard, 1 copy, sorcery artifact/enchantment removal with conspire.
- Role type: sideboard bullet; interaction-removal; modal utility.
- Deck-specific job: Destroy one artifact or enchantment, or copy the spell by tapping two same-color creatures through conspire.
- Timing: Bring in when public artifact/enchantment targets matter; cast when destroying one or two targets changes combat, graveyard access, or engine pressure.
- Inputs / outputs: Consumes `{1}{G}` and target artifact or enchantment; conspire may tap two untapped creatures you control that share a color with it as you cast, creating a copy with optional new target.
- Mode map: Normal cast destroys one target artifact or enchantment; conspire line can destroy a second legal target if you can tap two untapped green creatures such as `Chatter of the Squirrel` token, `Slippery Bogle`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Biomathematician`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, or green Beast/Elephant tokens.
- Partners / packages: Complements `Return to Nature`; creature tokens from `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Fractal Summoning`, and `Tumbleweed Rising` can support conspire if they share green.
- Role peers: `Return to Nature` is instant and also hits graveyard cards; `Ravenform` exiles artifact creatures only among artifacts.
- Failure modes: Sorcery speed; no value without legal artifact/enchantment targets; tapping creatures can weaken blocks or attacks.
- Matchup / visibility hooks: Best versus artifact/enchantment density or two public must-answer permanents.

## Interaction Priorities
- Exile priority: Use `Ravenform` first on a visible permanent that will beat this deck through normal blockers, especially an evasive commander, a large scaling creature, an artifact creature, or a value engine that will outdraw `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, and `Behold the Multiverse`. Do not spend `Ravenform` on a replaceable small attacker if `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Snakeform`, or a token maker can cover the turn.

- Bounce and delay priority: Use `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` to break the opponent's best current turn, not to tidy up low-impact permanents. Prioritize commanders, aura-stacked creatures, evasive lethal attackers, equipment carriers, and mana-heavy threats when returning or delaying them denies a full turn cycle. Card text check required for exact `Applied Biomancy` and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` modes; follow Veles target legality.

- Combat interaction priority: Use `Snakeform` as a true answer when it lets a small body trade with a large attacker or turns off a visible combat keyword that matters this turn. Treat `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, and `Sylvan Might` as combat leverage only when the targeted creature survives the exchange or the damage meaningfully changes the race; avoid using them just to win a low-value trade into open interaction.

- Counter priority after sideboarding: Spend `Dispel` and `Negate` on stack actions that answer `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, stop a stabilizing `Elephant Ambush` or `Shadowbeast Sighting`, remove a key blocker, force lethal, or invalidate `Fog` and `Moment's Peace`. Spend `Hydroblast` and `Blue Elemental Blast` only when Veles exposes a legal red spell or red permanent whose resolution changes the game; do not hold them forever if a current legal target protects life total or commander access.

- Artifact, enchantment, and graveyard priority after sideboarding: Use `Return to Nature` and `Gleeful Sabotage` on public permanents that suppress combat, invalidate graveyard value, or create an unavoidable clock; do not fire them at cosmetic targets while a creature race is unresolved. Use `Relic of Progenitus` against visible graveyard engines, but preserve this deck's own `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` unless the opponent's graveyard is more dangerous than the lost value.

- Bait priority: Lead with replaceable pressure or card flow before committing `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, `Shielding Plax`, `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, or `Starbreach Whale` into obvious open mana. `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Pond Prophet`, `Shambleshark`, and ordinary draw spells can test whether the opponent is spending interaction before the deck exposes a key engine or finisher.

- Ignore priority: Ignore small grounded creatures when life total is high and the board can absorb attacks with tokens, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Biomathematician`, `Fractal Summoning`, or `Tumbleweed Rising`. Change this rule against swarm, evasion, burn, or commander-damage pressure: if the opponent's visible clock drops the deck below two safe turn cycles, interaction must shift from value targets to immediate damage prevention.

## Combat And Trading Rules
- Attack only when the crack-back is covered by blockers, prevention, or a faster clock. This deck wins many games by stabilizing first, so early damage from `Slippery Bogle`, `Aeromunculus`, `Quandrix Pledgemage`, or tokens matters only if it does not expose `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` or the life total to a losing race.

- Trade low-value bodies for time when the hand contains card draw or large follow-up threats. Accept trades with `Coiling Oracle`, `Chatter of the Squirrel` tokens, `Biomathematician` bodies, and expendable creatures if they buy turns for `Deep Analysis`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, or `Starbreach Whale`.

- Preserve unique stabilizers unless the trade prevents lethal or removes the opponent's best permanent. `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Spore Frog` after sideboarding, and large blockers should not be thrown into medium attackers if `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Snakeform`, or a bounce spell can create a better turn.

- Protect engines before auras and pump. Cast `Shielding Plax` or use protection-like legal actions on `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` or a closing threat when that card is already central to the game; do not load `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might` onto a creature just because mana is available. A single enhanced creature is fragile unless Veles shows the opponent is tapped low or the damage ends the game soon.

- Spend `Fog` and `Moment's Peace` at low life, against alpha attacks, or when a preserved board wins the next turn cycle. Do not prevent a small attack if taking the damage keeps mana open for `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Deep Analysis`, or a decisive creature. At 8 or less life, reassess every attack as potentially lethal through pump or evasion; at 4 or less life, survival beats card advantage unless Veles shows no relevant combat damage.

- Race differently by archetype. Against control or slow value, attack with safe evasive or resilient threats and force them to answer `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Fractal Summoning`, and `Tumbleweed Rising`. Against aggro, block early and value life over chip damage. Against flyers or unblockable pressure, prioritize `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Scattershot Archer`, and bounce over ground-board development.

- Close once stabilized. When the opponent's attacks no longer threaten lethal, turn `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Aeromunculus`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, and `Starbreach Whale` into a clock instead of drawing indefinitely. Card text check required for uncertain closers; use visible power, evasion, and legal attack text rather than assumed abilities.

## Selection And Tutor Rules
- Treat this deck as pseudo-selection, not true tutoring. `Path to the Festival` is the closest registered search effect and should prioritize color correction before luxury ramp; use it to secure missing `Island`, missing `Forest`, or `Simic Guildgate` if Veles shows that target is legal and the next turns need both colors.

- Sequence land-drop information before blind draw when possible. If holding `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, or `Path to the Festival`, prefer casting the effect before making a discretionary land drop when Veles allows it and the hand contains multiple land options; after the reveal or draw, play the land that unlocks the next legal blue and green actions.

- Use cheap filtering to solve the current bottleneck. `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Think Twice`, and `Behold the Multiverse` should look first for missing lands, then missing color, then interaction, then closing pressure. Do not spend selection chasing a large finisher while the current board demands `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Silent Departure`, or `Temporal Spring`.

- Bottom or deprioritize late cards when development is behind. Expensive threats such as `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Starbreach Whale`, `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, and `Djinn of Fool's Fall` are keepable through selection only when mana is already stable or the visible game is slow enough to reach them.

- Convert graveyard value into action after mana is stable. `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` can turn the graveyard into a second hand, especially with `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` if Veles exposes reduced or legal alternate-zone casting. Card text check required for the exact scope of `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`; obey legal actions rather than assuming every graveyard or exile option is discounted.

- Select threats by role, not raw size. Find `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Fog`, or `Moment's Peace` when survival is the problem; find `Aeromunculus`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Fractal Summoning`, or `Tumbleweed Rising` when the board is stable and the deck needs a clock. Card text check required for exact `Tumbleweed Rising` sizing and any unfamiliar newer card modes.

## Priority And Stack Rules
- Pass priority when no legal instant-speed action changes the current exchange. This deck has many cards that reward patience, so do not cast `Think Twice`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Behold the Multiverse`, or flashback spells into open combat or stack pressure if mana may be needed for `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Winged Coatl`, `Dispel`, or `Negate`.

- Respond to threats that beat the current board, not every spell. Use `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` when Veles shows a legal target that creates lethal pressure, removes the deck's stabilizer, invalidates combat, or locks out graveyard/value sequencing. Card text check required for exact timing and modes on `Applied Biomancy` and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`.

- Hold stack interaction after sideboarding for decisive exchanges. `Dispel` and `Negate` should protect `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, stop removal aimed at a committed finisher, counter a lethal or stabilizing stack action, or defend `Fog` and `Moment's Peace` when survival depends on prevention. `Hydroblast` and `Blue Elemental Blast` require Veles-confirmed legal red spell or permanent targets; never assume legality from matchup identity alone.

- Use combat windows deliberately. After attackers are declared, check whether `Winged Coatl`, `Snakeform`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might` changes blocks, saves life, or creates a favorable trade. After blockers are declared, spend pump or prevention only if visible damage math justifies it; avoid exposing a single creature to removal for a marginal trade.

- Time graveyard and alternate-zone actions around public risk. Cast flashback or adventure-style actions when mana would otherwise go unused, when `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` makes the line efficient through legal action text, or when the effect solves the board now. Do not exile, flash back, or consume graveyard resources before checking whether `Relic of Progenitus` after sideboarding, opposing graveyard pressure, or your own future `Deep Analysis`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` value matters more.

- Treat optional costs and triggers as board-state decisions. Pay for optional value only when it does not prevent interaction, commander access, or a stronger main-phase play. If Veles exposes optional payments, activated abilities, or trigger ordering for cards with uncertain text such as `Pond Prophet`, `Snapping Voidcraw`, `Trapjaw Kelpie`, `Undercover Crocodelf`, `Dreams of Laguna`, `Retrieve the Esper`, `Mechanozoa`, `Sinister Cryologist`, or `Starbreach Whale`, use visible outcomes and legal text; Card text check required before relying on hidden synergy.

## Sideboard Map
- Treat the sideboard as role compression, not a second deck. Each sideboard card should enter only when the opponent's visible plan or matchup label makes its text likely to matter before the game is decided; this deck cannot afford to dilute mana development, card velocity, or closing power for narrow answers without public targets.

- Use `Hydroblast` against red decks with decisive red spells or red permanents. Its role is cheap stack or permanent interaction that protects life total, preserves `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, or stops a red threat that invalidates combat. It is bad when the opponent is not red, when the red cards are low impact compared with creatures already on board, or when holding one blue mana prevents a stronger legal play. Its role changes from defense to protection once the deck has stabilized behind `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Moment's Peace`, or a large creature.

- Use `Blue Elemental Blast` under the same red-matchup rules as `Hydroblast`, with Veles-confirmed legal red targets. It is strongest when redundancy matters against burn, red removal, or red tempo plays. It is bad when the opponent's pressure is colorless, green, black, white, or blue, or when visible board pressure requires bodies rather than stack interaction.

- Use `Dispel` against decks where instants decide the game. Its best jobs are protecting `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`, defending `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, or a pumped/evasive attacker, and stopping instant-speed removal, counters, or lethal burn. It is bad against creature-heavy boards with few instant targets and when the deck needs proactive stabilization. Role changes: early it protects mana-efficient development; late it protects the single turn that converts stabilization into lethal pressure.

- Use `Negate` against control, combo, fog, removal-heavy, artifact/enchantment, or spell-engine opponents. It should answer noncreature threats that beat the deck's board, stop sweep-like effects if visible through legal action text, or protect a commander/value spell from a decisive noncreature answer. It is bad against low-curve creature decks where passing with two mana leaves the board underdeveloped. Role changes: before stabilization it is a shield against haymakers; after stabilization it is closing protection.

- Use `Weather the Storm` against burn, spell-chain aggro, and racing games where life total is the bottleneck. It is strongest when the opponent has cast multiple spells in a turn or when one life burst buys enough turns for `Deep Analysis`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, or a large stabilizer to matter. It is bad against slow decks, poison-like pressure if any is shown by rules text, commander damage concerns if the format engine exposes them, or boards where a creature answer is required. Card text check required for exact storm handling; obey Veles legal text.

- Use `Return to Nature` when artifacts, enchantments, or graveyard cards are public and important. Its role is flexible removal or graveyard interaction, especially when a single permanent prevents combat, blocks graveyard value, or threatens a combo turn. It is bad when there is no visible legal target worth a card or when holding it strands development. Role changes: against graveyard decks it can be a timing-sensitive denial piece; against artifact/enchantment decks it is a clean answer to the permanent that matters most.

- Use `Scattershot Archer` against flyers and small evasive boards. It is strongest when visible opposing creatures attack over ground blockers and the deck needs repeatable pressure on one-toughness flyers. It is bad against ground-heavy decks, large flyers outside its effective range, and removal-heavy games where a low-impact creature does not change combat. Role changes: early it buys life and blocks; late it can make `Artful Dodge`, `Aeromunculus`, or large ground threats race more safely by shrinking aerial pressure.

- Use `Spore Frog` against creature rushes, go-wide combat, and large single-combat lethal turns. Its role is emergency time buying while the deck reaches `Moment's Peace`, `Fog`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Scuttlegator`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, or `Starbreach Whale`. It is bad against spell combo, control, and matchups where the opponent wins without combat. Role changes: with graveyard or recursion effects only if Veles exposes them legally, it may become repeatable prevention; otherwise treat it as one turn of breathing room.

- Use `Relic of Progenitus` against graveyard-centric opponents only when the public graveyard matters more to them than to this deck. It can disrupt recursion, flashback, reanimation, threshold-style pressure, or graveyard combo lines, but it also threatens this deck's own `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`. It is bad when the opponent's graveyard is irrelevant or when the deck's own graveyard value is the best path to win. Role changes: early it deters graveyard setup; late it can cash in only when the exchange is visibly favorable.

- Use `Gleeful Sabotage` against artifact or enchantment density, especially when two targets are public or when a single permanent shuts down combat or graveyard value. It is bad against decks with few public artifacts or enchantments and when the deck cannot spare a creature for any legal conspire-like option. Card text check required for exact additional-copy mechanics; do not assume a copied mode unless Veles exposes it as legal.

Red Spell Pressure
Side in: Hydroblast; Blue Elemental Blast; Weather the Storm
Cut: Bioshift; Square Up; Otherworldly Gaze

- Add role cards: `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, and `Weather the Storm` when red damage, red removal, or red tempo is the visible axis. Reduce main-deck emphasis: single-creature pump and low-impact filtering when the game is about surviving burst damage and protecting a stabilizer.

Instant/Control Stack Pressure
Side in: Dispel; Negate
Cut: Bioshift; Square Up

- Add role cards: `Dispel` and `Negate` when the opponent's decisive plays happen on the stack or when protecting `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` is central. Reduce main-deck emphasis: combat-only tricks that require a creature to already survive interaction.

Artifact/Enchantment Pressure
Side in: Return to Nature; Gleeful Sabotage
Cut: Fog; Bioshift

- Add role cards: `Return to Nature` and `Gleeful Sabotage` when public permanents are likely to decide combat, mana, graveyard access, or card flow. Reduce main-deck emphasis: narrow combat prevention if the opponent's plan is permanent-based rather than attack-based.

Flyer And Small Evasion Pressure
Side in: Scattershot Archer; Spore Frog
Cut: Otherworldly Gaze; Scour All Possibilities

- Add role cards: `Scattershot Archer` and `Spore Frog` when the opponent attacks around ground blockers or threatens a fast combat clock. Reduce main-deck emphasis: slow selection that does not immediately produce a blocker, removal spell, prevention spell, or race.

Graveyard Pressure
Side in: Relic of Progenitus; Return to Nature; Negate
Cut: Sylvan Might; Scour All Possibilities; Otherworldly Gaze

- Add role cards: `Relic of Progenitus`, `Return to Nature`, and `Negate` only when public graveyard use is a major opposing resource. Reduce main-deck emphasis: self-graveyard cards when graveyard denial is necessary, while preserving enough card draw and threats to close.

- Prefer balanced plans over maximum quantity plans unless the matchup is extreme. Bringing in all ten sideboard cards is almost never correct because the main deck needs enough creatures, lands, draw, and late threats to function.

- Reassess after each game using public evidence. If a sideboard card had no legal target, no prevented damage, or no protected exchange, lower its priority for the next game; if it stopped the turn that mattered, keep that role even if the card looked narrow before play began.

## Matchup Guidance

- Aggro: Prioritize survival, two-color development, and blockers before slow graveyard value. Keep hands that can cast early green and blue spells, then use `Coiling Oracle`, `Shambleshark`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Biomathematician`, `Vigean Hydropon`, and token makers to stop early damage without spending the entire turn on selection. Use `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Snakeform`, `Silent Departure`, and `Ravenform` only when the visible attack, evasive threat, or combat step is meaningfully changing the race; do not spend them on a creature that can be contained by a normal block. Add role cards: `Spore Frog`, `Weather the Storm`, and sometimes `Scattershot Archer` when the public pressure is combat-based or evasive. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Bioshift`, and `Square Up` when they do not immediately create a blocker, answer, or clock.

- Control: Protect card advantage and commander value instead of racing into open mana. Cast `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` when there is immediate or near-immediate legal value from graveyard, exile, adventure, or flashback actions, or when waiting lets the opponent pull too far ahead; avoid casting the commander as a naked threat into obvious removal when `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Secrets of the Key`, or `Eureka Moment` can develop safely. Use `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, and `Starbreach Whale` as closing pressure only after checking visible stack interaction and mana. Add role cards: `Dispel` and `Negate` when public games show counterspells, sweepers, removal, or decisive noncreature spells. Reduce main-deck emphasis: fragile pump auras and small combat tricks that lose badly to one removal spell.

- Combo: Identify the opponent's public engine card, stack window, or graveyard requirement before spending disruption. Use `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, and `Applied Biomancy` on the visible permanent or creature that actually enables the combo, not on the first legal target. Hold `Dispel` or `Negate` for the spell that starts, protects, or completes the combo line when Veles shows a legal stack action; do not counter a low-impact setup spell if the opponent still has a clearer payoff window coming. Add role cards: `Negate`, `Dispel`, `Relic of Progenitus`, and `Return to Nature` according to the public combo resource. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, and creature-only blockers when the opponent is not winning through combat.

- Tempo: Fight for mana efficiency and avoid spending a full turn on a spell that can be bounced, countered, or ignored. Prefer early plays that affect the board while maintaining development, such as `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Karfell Harbinger`, `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual`, `Pond Prophet`, and `Wavesifter`, when their legal text advances mana or material. Use `Artful Dodge`, `Aeromunculus`, and `Sylvan Might` as race tools only after the opposing blockers and open mana are visible; a temporary damage push is poor if it exposes the only relevant creature. Add role cards: `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Hydroblast`, or `Blue Elemental Blast` when tempo is backed by stack interaction or red removal. Reduce main-deck emphasis: expensive stabilizers that are not castable on curve and selection spells that leave the board empty.

- Midrange: Trade resources when the exchange makes your later flashback, adventure, token, or large-creature cards stronger. Accept trades with small creatures when `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Germinating Wurm`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, or `Starbreach Whale` will dominate the next stage. Preserve `Ravenform`, `Temporal Spring`, and `Snakeform` for creatures that outsize your board, carry critical abilities, or invalidate ground combat. Add role cards: `Return to Nature`, `Negate`, or `Relic of Progenitus` only if public information shows permanents, stack threats, or graveyard recursion that matter more than creature density. Reduce main-deck emphasis: narrow pump if the opponent is removal-heavy, or slow selection if the board is already under pressure.

- Big mana: Pressure early while disrupting the first visible payoff or mana engine. Use `Slippery Bogle`, `Aeromunculus`, `Artful Dodge`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` to build a clock before the opponent's larger spells dominate, but keep interaction for the first public threat that actually changes the game. `Temporal Spring` is strongest when it sets back a key permanent or large spell line; `Ravenform` and `Snakeform` should answer the large creature that cannot be raced. Add role cards: `Negate`, `Return to Nature`, or `Gleeful Sabotage` when big mana relies on public noncreature permanents. Reduce main-deck emphasis: pure prevention effects if the opponent's first decisive turn is not a combat attack.

- Graveyard: Deny the opponent's graveyard only when public zones prove it is more important than your own. This deck uses its own graveyard through `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`, so `Relic of Progenitus` can hurt the pilot if fired casually. Use graveyard hate after the opponent commits a named card or resource that Veles shows in a public zone, and avoid clearing your own best follow-up unless survival or combo prevention requires it. Add role cards: `Relic of Progenitus`, `Return to Nature`, and sometimes `Negate`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: self-mill or graveyard-dependent lines only when denying the opponent is the higher-value plan.

- Artifact/enchantment: Answer the permanent that blocks combat, breaks parity, fixes an engine, or threatens a combo, not the first artifact or enchantment that appears. Use `Return to Nature` and `Gleeful Sabotage` when Veles shows legal targets with visible strategic impact; Card text check required for exact `Gleeful Sabotage` copy mechanics, so choose only legal action IDs exposed by the engine. `Temporal Spring` can buy tempo against a permanent if destruction is unavailable, while `Ravenform` should be reserved for artifact creatures or other legal high-impact targets. Add role cards: `Return to Nature` and `Gleeful Sabotage`. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Fog`, `Bioshift`, or `Square Up` when the fight is over static permanents rather than combat math.

- Go-wide: Preserve life-total shields and scalable blockers until the turn they swing the damage race. `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Spore Frog`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Biomathematician`, and `Wavesifter` are important because they either prevent one decisive attack or add bodies that trade across the board. Use `Needlethorn Drake` and `Winged Coatl` to punish key attackers, but do not rely on one deathtouch-style blocker against many attackers if a prevention action is legal. Add role cards: `Spore Frog`, `Weather the Storm`, and `Scattershot Archer` if evasion is part of the swarm. Reduce main-deck emphasis: one-creature aura or pump lines that still lose to multiple attackers.

- Single-threat: Keep removal, bounce, transformation, and deathtouch blockers for the one visible creature that matters. `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Silent Departure`, `Temporal Spring`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Needlethorn Drake`, and `Winged Coatl` are the core answers, while `Shielding Plax`, `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Square Up`, and `Sylvan Might` should be used carefully because enhancing one creature can lose to a single opposing answer. If the opponent's threat has evasion, prioritize answer timing over building a ground board. Add role cards: `Negate` for stack-based protection or threat deployment, `Return to Nature` for aura/equipment-style public permanents, and `Spore Frog` only if one attack step is the bottleneck. Reduce main-deck emphasis: slow draw when the answer window is immediate.

- Burn: Treat life total as the primary resource and avoid paying unnecessary life or taking preventable attacks. Stabilize with cheap blockers, then use `Weather the Storm`, `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, `Spore Frog`, and efficient interaction to buy turns for `Deep Analysis`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Elephant Ambush`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, or another stabilizer. Add role cards: `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, and `Weather the Storm`, with `Dispel` if the burn deck shows instant-speed stack pressure. Reduce main-deck emphasis: `Deep Analysis` timing if life payment or tempo loss is exposed by Veles, plus low-impact filtering that does not affect the current race.

- Removal-heavy decks: Diversify threats and avoid putting all pressure onto one enhanced creature unless the legal line wins or forces a decisive exchange. Lead with card flow, recursive value, token makers, and naturally resilient threats before committing `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Bioshift`, `Square Up`, or `Sylvan Might`; use `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` when it can immediately convert graveyard or alternate-zone cards into material. `Slippery Bogle` may carry enhancements better than fragile creatures if Veles confirms the legal action, but do not assume it is immune to every visible answer. Add role cards: `Dispel` and `Negate` when removal or sweepers are stack-based. Reduce main-deck emphasis: all-in combat tricks when the opponent repeatedly answers single creatures.

## Specific Matchup Notes
These notes are general/archetype-only because exact opponents are absent; revealed cards, Veles legal actions, public zones, commander identity, and combat state override every matchup assumption. Use matchup labels only to choose a starting posture, then update from visible cards, missed land drops, graveyards, stack actions, and whether the opponent is presenting combat pressure, noncreature engines, graveyard recursion, or removal density.

- Aggro and go-wide opponents: Stabilize before drawing extra cards that do not affect the board. Prioritize early `Coiling Oracle`, `Shambleshark`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Biomathematician`, `Wavesifter`, `Chatter of the Squirrel`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting` when they produce blockers or trades. Hold `Fog`, `Moment's Peace`, and `Spore Frog` for attack steps that change lethal math or preserve a stabilizing crack-back. Add role cards: `Spore Frog`, `Weather the Storm`, and `Scattershot Archer` when damage is wide, evasive, or burst-oriented. Priority targets: evasive attackers, anthem-like public permanents, and creatures that make blocking impossible.

- Red damage or spell-pressure opponents: Treat life total and untapped mana as tactical resources. Add role cards: `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Weather the Storm`, `Dispel`, and sometimes `Negate` if public information shows important noncreature stack threats. Delay `Deep Analysis` if paying life or spending a turn on draw lets visible damage become lethal. Priority targets: red stack threats, haste attackers, pingers, and permanents that convert every spell into damage.

- Blue tempo or control opponents: Force them to answer multiple medium threats rather than one enhanced creature. Use `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Eureka Moment`, and flashback/adventure-style legal actions to fight on spare mana, but commit `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` only when immediate value or protection from tempo loss is visible. Add role cards: `Dispel` and `Negate`. Priority targets: counter windows around `Ravenform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Deep Analysis`, large creatures, and any stack action that would strand a critical turn.

- Black removal or attrition opponents: Diversify threats and preserve graveyard value. Use token makers, flashback cards, `Sarulf's Packmate`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave` as separate pressure points instead of investing every resource into `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might`. Add role cards: `Relic of Progenitus` only when their public graveyard matters more than yours, plus `Dispel` or `Negate` if removal is stack-based. Priority targets: sacrifice engines, recursion pieces, and creatures that invalidate ground stalls.

- Graveyard decks: Use graveyard hate after a public card or engine is visible, not because the matchup label suggests it. `Relic of Progenitus` can weaken your own `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Silent Departure`, `Artful Dodge`, `Sylvan Might`, `Moment's Peace`, `Elephant Ambush`, and `Shadowbeast Sighting`, so activate only when the opposing graveyard threat is worth the self-cost. Add role cards: `Relic of Progenitus`, `Return to Nature`, and `Negate` when legal targets or stack threats appear. Priority targets: recursive threats, flashback-like public spells, and graveyard-dependent engines.

- Artifact or enchantment engines: Answer the public permanent that changes combat, mana, recursion, or inevitability. Add role cards: `Return to Nature` and `Gleeful Sabotage`; Card text check required for exact `Gleeful Sabotage` copy handling, so follow only Veles legal action IDs. Use `Temporal Spring` as a tempo answer when destruction is unavailable, and reserve `Ravenform` for legal artifact-creature or high-impact creature targets. Priority targets: mana engines, lock pieces, evasive equipment-style threats, and enchantments that stop your large creatures from closing.

## Risk Summary
- Mana risk: Two-color 100-card singleton mana with `19 Island`, `20 Forest`, and `Simic Guildgate` can strand the wrong half of the hand. Flag keeps where `Forest`-heavy hands cannot cast `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, or `Dispel`, and flag `Island`-heavy hands that delay `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual`, or large green creatures.

- Matchup risk: The deck can choose the wrong role because it has both defensive tools and slow value. Against fast boards, spending early mana on `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, or `Secrets of the Key` can lose tempo; against slow decks, overcommitting small creatures into visible removal can waste the late-game edge.

- Draw risk: Velocity can delay losing without creating pressure. Check whether `Deep Analysis`, `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Eureka Moment`, and `Secrets of the Key` found lands, interaction, or closers, and avoid draw actions when Veles shows lethal or a critical permanent already on board.

- Over-sideboarding risk: Sideboard cards are narrow and singleton. Do not dilute creature density, flashback value, or closing power by adding `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Return to Nature`, `Gleeful Sabotage`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Relic of Progenitus`, `Spore Frog`, or `Weather the Storm` without public targets or a clear tactical role.

- Graveyard risk: Self-mill and flashback value conflict with `Relic of Progenitus`. Preserve your own graveyard when `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` or recursive legal actions can convert it into material, unless the opponent's public graveyard threatens a faster or decisive result.

- Sweeper and removal risk: Aura, counter, and pump lines can expose one creature to a blowout. Commit `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might` only when the resulting attack, block, protection, or clock justifies visible removal risk.

- Closer risk: Stabilizing is not winning. After blockers and prevention buy time, turn the corner with `Aeromunculus`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, or evasion from `Artful Dodge` before the opponent draws out.

- Interaction and sequencing risk: Spending `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Fog`, or `Moment's Peace` on low-impact turns can leave no answer for the visible decisive threat. Let Veles legal actions and public board state decide timing, then preserve mana for follow-up prompts when `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` changes graveyard, exile, adventure, or flashback sequencing.

## Test Feedback Checklist
- Deciding factor: For each game, name one primary cause and one secondary cause using public results and Veles logs. Classify the result as early mana, board stabilization, commander access, graveyard value, combat evasion, sideboard interaction, failure to close after stabilizing, or visible tactical mistake, and name the exact cards involved.

- Mulligans: Record whether the opener had at least two lands, both colors or a realistic path to both colors by turn 3, and one legal early play. Flag `Forest`-heavy keeps that stranded `Think Twice`, `Behold the Multiverse`, `Ravenform`, or `Dispel`, and flag `Island`-heavy keeps that stranded `Coiling Oracle`, `Growth Spiral`, `Path to the Festival`, `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual`, or green closers.

- Mana: Track every turn where total mana was available but color prevented the best legal action. Judge whether `Simic Guildgate`, `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` fixed development in time or arrived after tempo was already lost.

- Velocity: Check whether card flow converted into lands, interaction, or pressure. Review `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, and `Behold the Multiverse` for whether they found the next needed role or only spent mana while the opponent advanced.

- Commander and engine use: Verify whether `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` changed legal graveyard, exile, adventure, or flashback sequencing in a material way. If it was cast into visible pressure or removal without immediate value, note whether waiting, baiting interaction, or playing a separate threat was available.

- Removal and disruption: Record whether `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Winged Coatl`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` answered the public threat that mattered most. Mark uses that saved little life, missed evasion, or consumed mana needed for a stronger legal play.

- Combat: Evaluate whether trades supported the long game or delayed closing. Track when `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Spore Frog`, token makers, `Elephant Ambush`, `Shadowbeast Sighting`, or large creatures stabilized, and when `Favor of the Overbeing`, `Shielding Plax`, `Square Up`, `Bioshift`, or `Sylvan Might` exposed a single creature to a visible blowout.

- Sideboard impact: Judge sideboard cards by actual legal targets, prevented damage, stopped stack threats, or stabilized turns. Review `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Spore Frog`, `Relic of Progenitus`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` against public information, not matchup labels alone.

- Closing: Check whether stabilization became a clock quickly enough. Review missed chances to attack or commit `Aeromunculus`, `Slippery Bogle`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, or `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`.

- Role and mistakes: Record whether the pilot played control when it needed to race, or raced when it needed to preserve life. List stranded cards, underused flashback or graveyard actions, overperformers, underperformers, and whether the Deck Strategy and Veles Tactical Policy were followed.

## First Tuning Questions
- Mana structure: Does the deck need more reliable color access, or are losses mostly from keep decisions and sequencing? Use logged skipped actions to decide whether `19 Island`, `20 Forest`, and `Simic Guildgate` supported the actual curve.

- Early plays: Are the first three turns producing enough board presence against pressure decks? If not, ask whether `Slippery Bogle`, `Shambleshark`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Needlethorn Drake`, `Winged Coatl`, `Pond Prophet`, and `Quandrix Pledgemage` are the right early package.

- Velocity package: Are `Otherworldly Gaze`, `Scour All Possibilities`, `Tapping at the Window`, `Secrets of the Key`, `Think Twice`, `Deep Analysis`, and `Behold the Multiverse` finding action quickly enough? If draw spells often delay losing without finding closers, the deck has a card selection problem rather than a card quantity problem.

- Commander plan: Is `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius` creating enough mana or timing advantage to justify commander-centric decisions? If it regularly dies before value or waits too long in command zone, tune the pilot rules before changing cards.

- Interaction mix: Are `Ravenform`, `Snakeform`, `Temporal Spring`, `Silent Departure`, `Applied Biomancy`, `Fog`, and `Moment's Peace` answering the threats that actually decide games? If losses come from evasive creatures, stack threats, or artifacts/enchantments, examine sideboard role coverage before broadening main-deck answers.

- Closing power: Does the deck fail after stabilizing because the finishers are too slow or because the pilot misses attack windows? Review `Aeromunculus`, `Fractal Summoning`, `Tumbleweed Rising`, `Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans`, `Djinn of Fool's Fall`, `Spinewoods Paladin`, `Scuttlegator`, `Starbreach Whale`, and `Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave`.

- Sideboard slots: Which sideboard cards produced measurable impact in logs? Keep pressure on narrow slots by comparing `Hydroblast`, `Blue Elemental Blast`, `Dispel`, `Negate`, `Weather the Storm`, `Return to Nature`, `Scattershot Archer`, `Spore Frog`, `Relic of Progenitus`, and `Gleeful Sabotage` to actual targets and saved turns.

- Role conflict: Is the list losing because it mixes tempo, graveyard value, combat tricks, and large creatures without choosing the correct role? Separate pilot sequencing failures from structural conflicts before changing the archetype identity.

## Veles Tactical Policy

### Policy: Opening Hand Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: mulligan
Cards: Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius; Simic Guildgate; Island; Forest
Phase windows: pregame, mulligan
Runtime cues: opening hand, command-zone access, visible land colors
Use when: deciding keep or mulligan before the first turn.
Avoid when: Veles has already moved past mulligans.
Instructions: Keep hands with at least two lands, a path to both colors by turn 3, and one early legal play or card-flow spell. Mulligan one-land hands, color-locked hands without a fixer, and slow hands that cannot affect board or hand by turn 3.
Pilot skill floor: basic
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Early Setup Creature
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana; priority
Cards: Slippery Bogle; Shambleshark; Coiling Oracle; Needlethorn Drake; Winged Coatl; Pond Prophet; Quandrix Pledgemage
Phase windows: turns 1-4 main phases, early priority windows
Runtime cues: legal creature cast actions, current land colors, opponent pressure
Use when: choosing the first creature or stabilizing body.
Avoid when: holding up instant interaction prevents a visible lethal or high-damage attack.
Instructions: Establish a body before spending mana on low-impact selection against creature pressure. Prefer `Coiling Oracle` or `Pond Prophet` when development matters, defensive flyers or flash blockers when life total is pressured, and `Slippery Bogle` when a future aura/evasion line is visible.
Pilot skill floor: basic
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Commander Commitment Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: mana; priority
Cards: Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius; Deep Analysis; Think Twice; Otherworldly Gaze; Scour All Possibilities; Secrets of the Key; Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans
Phase windows: main phases with commander cast legal
Runtime cues: command-zone cast action, graveyard or exile cast actions, available mana
Use when: deciding whether to cast `Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius`.
Avoid when: commander would consume the turn while board pressure demands a blocker, removal, or fog.
Instructions: Cast the commander when it immediately improves legal graveyard, exile, flashback, or adventure sequencing, or when the board is stable enough that commander access will matter next turn. Do not expose commander into a losing board just because it is available.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Color Development
Priority: High
Decision families: mana
Cards: Island; Forest; Simic Guildgate; Growth Spiral; Coiling Oracle; Eureka Moment; Path to the Festival; Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual
Phase windows: land play, main phases, instant-speed ramp windows
Runtime cues: legal land play, color requirements in hand, available mana sources
Use when: choosing lands, ramp, or color-producing actions.
Avoid when: a survival interaction spell must remain castable this turn.
Instructions: Prioritize access to both green and blue by turn 3. Use `Simic Guildgate` early when tempo loss is acceptable, and sequence `Growth Spiral`, `Coiling Oracle`, `Eureka Moment`, `Path to the Festival`, and `Rosethorn Acolyte // Seasonal Ritual` to unlock stranded cards rather than merely increase total mana.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Velocity Versus Pressure
Priority: Medium
Decision families: selection; priority
Cards: Otherworldly Gaze; Scour All Possibilities; Tapping at the Window; Secrets of the Key; Think Twice; Deep Analysis; Behold the Multiverse
Phase windows: main phases, end steps, graveyard or flashback windows
Runtime cues: legal draw or selection actions, opponent battlefield, life total
Use when: choosing between drawing cards, selecting cards, or affecting board.
Avoid when: visible attackers threaten lethal or force a defensive action this turn.
Instructions: Use velocity to find land, interaction, or closing pressure, not as automatic mana use. Prefer instant-speed draw on opponent end step when holding interaction is relevant, and prefer board actions before sorcery-speed card flow when behind on creatures.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Removal And Tempo Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction; priority
Cards: Ravenform; Snakeform; Temporal Spring; Silent Departure; Applied Biomancy; Winged Coatl
Phase windows: main phases, combat, stack windows where legal
Runtime cues: legal target actions, visible attackers, visible evasive or high-impact permanents
Use when: deciding whether to spend removal, bounce, transform, or flash blocker interaction.
Avoid when: the target is low impact and a stronger visible threat is already present.
Instructions: Spend interaction on threats that determine combat, commander access, or clock speed. Preserve flexible answers for evasive or snowballing threats when life total permits, and use bounce or tempo plays when they create a safe attack or buy a full turn.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Fog Survival Gate
Priority: High
Decision families: combat; interaction
Cards: Fog; Moment's Peace; Spore Frog
Phase windows: declare attackers through combat damage, flashback windows if legal
Runtime cues: legal prevent-combat-damage action, visible attackers, life total after unblocked damage
Use when: combat damage from visible attackers would cause lethal or remove the ability to stabilize next turn.
Avoid when: blocking or removal handles the attack while preserving fog effects for a larger swing.
Instructions: Use fog effects to stop lethal, protect a stabilizing crack-back, or buy the exact turn needed for a large creature or draw spell. Do not fire them merely to preserve a high life total when trades and blocks are available.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Combat Trading
Priority: Medium
Decision families: combat
Cards: Needlethorn Drake; Winged Coatl; Elephant Ambush; Shadowbeast Sighting; Sarulf's Packmate; Scuttlegator; Spinewoods Paladin
Phase windows: declare attackers, declare blockers, combat damage
Runtime cues: legal attack or block actions, visible power/toughness, tapped status
Use when: choosing attacks, blocks, or ambush lines.
Avoid when: hidden combat tricks are unknown and a single exposed threat is the only route to winning.
Instructions: Trade small bodies for time when behind, but switch to attacks once a large creature or token package stabilizes the battlefield. Value deathtouch-style blockers and instant-speed bodies as ways to turn opponent attacks into material gains.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Pump And Aura Exposure
Priority: Medium
Decision families: combat; interaction
Cards: Favor of the Overbeing; Shielding Plax; Square Up; Bioshift; Sylvan Might; Applied Biomancy
Phase windows: main phases, combat tricks, target-choice prompts
Runtime cues: legal pump, aura, counter-move, or target actions
Use when: deciding whether to enhance a creature.
Avoid when: the target creature can be answered by visible mana or stack interaction and losing it would collapse the board.
Instructions: Use enhancement when it creates lethal pressure, wins combat, protects a key body, or turns an evasive creature into a clock. Avoid concentrating resources on one creature when the opponent can punish the target and the deck has alternative development.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Exact Artful Dodge Target
Priority: Low
Decision families: interaction; combat
Cards: Artful Dodge; Slippery Bogle
Phase windows: main phase before attacks, flashback windows if legal
Runtime cues: action:target Artful Dodge Slippery Bogle
Use when: the legal action text offers `Slippery Bogle` as target for `Artful Dodge` and the current line has already committed to attacking with that creature this turn.
Avoid when: no `Slippery Bogle` target action is visible.
Instructions: Select the visible `Slippery Bogle` target for `Artful Dodge` only after the attacking line is already selected by a reasoning policy.
Pilot skill floor: basic
No-API allowed: yes
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Large Threat Commitment
Priority: Medium
Decision families: mana; priority; combat
Cards: Fractal Summoning; Tumbleweed Rising; Beanstalk Wurm // Plant Beans; Djinn of Fool's Fall; Spinewoods Paladin; Scuttlegator; Starbreach Whale; Sword Coast Serpent // Capsizing Wave
Phase windows: main phases, late-game priority windows
Runtime cues: legal cast actions for large threats, opponent board, available interaction
Use when: choosing whether to tap out for a finisher or stabilizer.
Avoid when: the opponent threatens lethal on board and mana must stay open for interaction.
Instructions: Commit a large threat when it stabilizes combat, starts a clock, or turns card advantage into a win. Prefer resilient or immediately relevant bodies over slow threats when behind, and begin attacking once stabilization is established.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Graveyard And Alternate-Zone Use
Priority: Medium
Decision families: priority; selection; mana
Cards: Deep Analysis; Think Twice; Moment's Peace; Silent Departure; Otherworldly Gaze; Scour All Possibilities; Secrets of the Key; Artful Dodge; Sylvan Might; Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius
Phase windows: main phases, end steps, graveyard-cast prompts
Runtime cues: legal graveyard, flashback, escape-like, or alternate-zone actions
Use when: choosing between hand resources and graveyard resources.
Avoid when: spending graveyard mana prevents a necessary board play or interaction spell.
Instructions: Use graveyard actions to extend resources after hand development, not to dodge making board progress. With commander access, check whether the legal action cost or timing has changed before choosing the sequence.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Permission Commitment
Priority: High
Decision families: interaction; priority
Cards: Dispel; Negate; Hydroblast; Blue Elemental Blast
Phase windows: opponent stack windows, combat trick windows, sideboarded games
Runtime cues: legal counter or blast action, visible stack object, available mana
Use when: deciding whether to counter, blast, or hold permission.
Avoid when: the stack object is low impact and a later visible threat class is more dangerous.
Instructions: Spend permission on spells that decide the board, stop lethal, answer a protected threat, or prevent a swingy noncreature effect. Do not counter routine setup unless tempo or life total makes waiting worse.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Artifact Enchantment Graveyard Sideboard Use
Priority: Medium
Decision families: sideboard; interaction
Cards: Return to Nature; Gleeful Sabotage; Relic of Progenitus
Phase windows: sideboarding, main phases, instant windows if legal
Runtime cues: public artifacts, enchantments, graveyard reliance, legal target actions
Use when: sideboarded cards have visible targets or public matchup evidence.
Avoid when: no relevant permanent or graveyard pressure is visible.
Instructions: Bring and use these cards for observed artifacts, enchantments, or graveyard engines, not vague fear. Preserve `Relic of Progenitus` timing when your own graveyard resources matter unless the opponent graveyard is the immediate problem.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Anti-Red And Storm Sideboard
Priority: Medium
Decision families: sideboard; interaction
Cards: Hydroblast; Blue Elemental Blast; Weather the Storm; Spore Frog
Phase windows: sideboarding, opponent stack windows, combat, end steps
Runtime cues: opponent red spells, burn pressure, storm count, wide combat pressure
Use when: public information shows red damage, spell chains, or combat races.
Avoid when: the opponent is not presenting red spells, spell-chain damage, or combat pressure.
Instructions: Add these roles when they interact with actual threats. Use life-gain and fog cards to buy turns into larger stabilizers, and reserve blasts for red spells or permanents that materially affect the game.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Evasion Defense Sideboard
Priority: Medium
Decision families: sideboard; combat; interaction
Cards: Scattershot Archer; Spore Frog; Needlethorn Drake; Winged Coatl
Phase windows: sideboarding, combat, main phases
Runtime cues: visible flyers, legal sideboard configuration, legal cast or activation actions
Use when: opponent presents flying pressure or repeated evasive attacks.
Avoid when: the opponent wins through noncombat or ground threats instead.
Instructions: Use `Scattershot Archer` and extra fog bodies against flyer-heavy pressure, while keeping main-deck reach and flash blockers relevant. Do not dilute the deck against non-evasive creature plans unless life total pressure requires more combat stops.
Pilot skill floor: intermediate
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes

### Policy: Sideboard Plan Lock
Priority: High
Decision families: sideboard
Cards: Hydroblast; Blue Elemental Blast; Dispel; Negate; Weather the Storm; Return to Nature; Scattershot Archer; Spore Frog; Relic of Progenitus; Gleeful Sabotage
Phase windows: between games
Runtime cues: sideboard request, prior game public logs, opponent colors and threat types
Use when: submitting post-game sideboard choices.
Avoid when: the exact plan would exceed registered sideboard or main-deck counts.
Instructions: Sideboard from public evidence: red stack threats get blasts, noncreature stack threats get counters, graveyard plans get `Relic of Progenitus`, artifacts/enchantments get `Return to Nature` or `Gleeful Sabotage`, flyers get `Scattershot Archer`, and races get `Weather the Storm` or `Spore Frog`.
Pilot skill floor: advanced
No-API allowed: no
Light-model allowed: yes
