Naya Runes

 A little break form Elden Ring (I have roommates, so the TV is not always available, after all) to talk about a deck that I think has become fairly popular. It's relatively cheap to put together, with most of its staple cards being uncommon or common.

The deck is Naya Runes!

Runes are a cycle of auras from Kaldheim that you can place on any permanent, though they're primarily intended for creatures or equipment. Each costs one generic and one colored mana, and each creates an effect on the creature or any creature the equipment is attached to, such as +1/+1 and trample, flying, deathtouch, lifelink, etc.

More excitingly, these auras all let you draw a card when they enter the battlefield.

Now, let's talk about the two other key pieces:

Jukai Naturalist is a 2/2 human monk enchantment creature for GW (or is it WG? Can't remember the convention there) with lifelink. They also reduce the cost of enchantments by 1.

Runeforge Champion, then, is the first rare we're talking about, and is a 2/3 dwarf warrior for 2W. He has two important effects: first, when he enters the battlefield, you can search your library or graveyard for a rune card and put it into your hand. Next, he allows you to pay just 1 to cast any rune.

These two together create the most exciting effect of the deck: with the cost reduced to 1, that is further reduced by the Jukai Naturalist, and thus each rune is free. If you get lucky, the rune draws you another rune, and you can chain a bunch of these together.

And any deck that lets you cast a bunch of spells and draw a lot of cards is going to feel good.

So, we run Runes of Might, Sustenance, and Speed - I think 4 of the first two and 3 of the latter. Sustenance grants Lifelink, Speed grants +1/+0 and haste, and Might gives +1/+1 and trample.

Next, to fill things out, we have Generous Visitor, a 1/1 spirit for G that lets you put a +1/+1 counter on any creature whenever you cast an enchantment. This, of course, can be huge if we get a big rune-chain, but the deck has a lot of enchantments anyway, so it's a nice buffer.

Next, Kami of Transience is a 2/2 green spirit for 1G that has trample and gets a +1/+1 counter each time you cast an enchantment spell - these can get quite big. The massive benefit of these is that if an enchantment you control goes to the graveyard, you can choose to bring this back from the graveyard at the end of the turn, making this a recurring problem for your opponent.

Now, we like to have a lot of cards available to us, and that's where Showdown of the Skalds comes in. This saga starts by exiling the top four cards of our library and letting us play them this turn and the next turn, for 2WR. Then, the next two turns, each time you cast a spell, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on a targeted creature.

Where things get downright mean is Hallowed Haunting. This enchantment for 2WW causes you to create a Spirit creature token each time you cast an enchantment spell with "this creature's power and toughness are equal to the number of spirits you control," meaning that things can get out of hand real quick. Furthermore, if you control seven or more enchantments, your creatures all get flying and vigilance, and at this point you've probably got an unstoppable army to sweep the opponent.

Commune with Spirits is a nice utility spell - for G, this sorcery lets you look at the top four cards of your library and put a land or an enchantment card into your hand, and put the other three on the bottom of your library. Early-game this can work a bit like Environmental Sciences to smooth out your mana curve, while late-game it can help you dredge up runes or Showdown of the Skalds to keep up your card advantage.

Anyway, this is a fun deck that I also appreciate isn't profoundly annoying to play against - there are answers that can be brought against the deck, but it's also highly resilient and bounces back from board wipes with relative ease.