Aflatoxin-Empathic Bond deck

[Glorfindel]

Hi, I'm working on a life-death deck and am looking for some advice.  Here is the (unupgraded) deck:

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52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52g 52s 52s 52s 52s 52s 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5bv 5c3 5c3 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5c6 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8 5l8
The idea is to play an aflatoxin on one of your rustlers, let your side fill up with malignant cells, and then heal yourself with empathic bonds.  You can control enemy creatures using aflatoxins and carapaces.  Right now it works like a charm, and can take on level 5 opponents easily as long as they don't play a shield.  However, even a basic shield prevents all of your damage.

So here is the question:  Is there any way to modify the deck to take care of enemy shields?  Here are some ideas I've tried with varying results:
-Add a couple of Arsenics and use poison to kill the opponent
-Add some Emerald Dragons and try to get them out before your side fills up with cells
-Add some vultures and hope that you can make them larger by killing off enemy creatures

Any other ideas?  Or is this deck a non-starter?

[linkcat]

To get around shields, you could:
Change your mark to fire and add deflags.
Replace your light pillars with emerald ones.
Trim the deck to 30 cards.

[johannhowitzer]

Won't work on Jade/Mirror Shields.  You could drop rustlers to 4 or so and add a couple Emerald Dragons - the Rustlers are only necessary as 1) a target for Aflatoxin, and 2) a way to get enough Life for Bonds.  Neither of those is helped greatly by you having 6 of them.

Note that an early Fire Shield will shut this deck down - if you get around to upgrading the deck, do those Rustlers first!

[finkel]

Try emerald pillars instead of rustlers and light pillars, and mark of fire+deflags. I feel like that will give you better overall results.

Nice deck concept