Tag: MTG

Cube Archetype – Graveyard (BG)

Completing the Sultai/graveyard/zombies/sacrifice wedge of the cube is the Golgari graveyard section.

There will be some sacrifice effects, discard and self mill to fill up the graveyard and a variety of effects that make this desirable. Specifically the main pay off is “Creature cards in graveyards matter” in keeping with the old Innistrad [mtg_card]Spider Spawning[/mtg_card] draft deck, although there will be other benefits too. Sacrifice effects, death triggers and undying all play into this theme as well.

This section, if you look to the full list at the bottom of the post, is quite a bit longer than some of the others. This is largely because of the number of cards from Zombies/Vampires and just general goodstuff cards that play well into this archetype. [mtg_card]Murderous Cut[/mtg_card]  or [mtg_card]Whip of Erebos[/mtg_card] are happy in any black deck, it just happens to have an even bigger edge in this deck. This also leads to the conclusion that the person going all in on the graveyard deck won’t have a ridiculously good card pool as many of these will be shared with the other black or green decks.

The All-In Cards

As mentioned before a lot of the relevant cards in this colour pair are just “good cards” which happen to fit into the deck, either through being improved by a full graveyard or just being generally good. There are of course a few cards which just don’t work if you’re not in “the graveyard deck”.

Spider Spawning (sad note: the spider spawning deck was always overdrafted back in the day of Innistrad draft where I used to play so I never actually pulled it off successfully) and Boneyard Wurm both do precisely jack if you have no creature cards in your graveyard. Splinterfright and Nemesis of Mortals are both at least viable in another deck but in both cases they would be overshadowed by most of the other options available.

Corpseweft, Deathreap Ritual and Deadbridge Chant all stand out as cards that work a lot better when the graveyard is being filled, or in the case of Deadbridge Chant when you can selectively pull stuff OUT of the graveyard (Deadbridge Chant plus Scavenging Ooze/Deathrite Shaman/some delve cards makes “random” a lot less iffy).

The Standalone Cards

Sheoldred, Whispering One is a great top end in both this deck and…well…any deck that can get to that mana cost (a rampy green deck could conceivably get this out early enough to be a major pain). Outside of green the cube didnt really have much if anything over the CMC 6 level in its early iterations. Having got some play in ive reached the conclusion that I can push that up a bit across all the colours due to its midrange silliness level.

Whip of Erebos and Birthing Pod are both grindy value engines that fit into any deck in the colours (although pod requires a bit more set up). If you happen to get both so much the better.

The exploit cards in black all fill your graveyard while giving you some form of value, while also playing very nicely if you end up in the 3 colour zombie/graveyard deck.  Given that Gurmag Angler made it into modern and just what Tasigur does everywhere he goes I don’t think any explanation is really needed here.

The Filler Cards

I haven’t worked out yet just how good Tarmogoyf will be in this cube. Outside of the full on graveyard deck I don’t really have a handle on how quickly the different types will get into the graveyard. There aren’t a huge number of enchantments and they won’t be dying that much, and there aren’t that many lands that will end up in the graveyard (I might improve the land section in the near future with wasteland, strip mine and some other higher power goodies). My intuition says he belongs mostly in the BG deck….I may be wildly and hilariously wrong on that though.

There are plenty of other less dramatic cards that play with the graveyard and theres not much to be gained by writing about them, and theyre also pretty interchangeable.

Honorouble mention for failing to make the cut goes to Grisly Salvage…It really SHOULD be in here, but im trying to stick strictly to the numbers in each colour section and I really like what’s currently in the Golgari section. Without breaking a cycle (charms, RTR guildmages, guild leaders, maze runners) or taking out Deathrite Shaman (the card that prompted me to actually make the cube in the first place) the only one that really fits to go is Dreg Mangler…He may not last much longer.

Crossover With Other Archetypes

As ive mentioned before (and I shant bother retreading here) there is a lot of crossover between this deck and the UB zombie archetype, and to a lesser degree with the BR vampire deck.

Evolutionary Leap is most intended here, but works pretty well in any creature heavy green deck. Blanking your opponents removal spells is always nice but if you can get any repeatable reanimation or token generation then this becomes a source of gradual card advantage too, especially in something like GW tokens.

The Off-Colour Bleed Cards

Unburial Rites might as well be a WB card. You would definitely want at least a small white splash just to flash it back. Timely Hordemate (assuming it survives the next round of cuts) fits relatively well if you have some aggressive creatures (might let you recur a small value creature like a Sakur-Tribe Elder). The token makers in white give you some fodder creatures for the sac effects but the best one for this deck is clearly Lingering Souls, as you can at least get some use if you mill it.

Other colours also have a couple of nice graveyard fillers, Forbidden Alchemy in blue and Faithless Looting in red. Both also have flashback which is a bonus in this deck.

The bloodrush creatures in RG also are a good way to up your creatures in the graveyard count. Pyrewild Shaman in particular is good as you can recur him for multiple triggers off of cards such as Blood Artist.

The Sultai selection also has some good options. Sultai Ascendancy improves your draws and fills the graveyard. Sultai Soothsayer gives you a good defensive body, card selection and also fills the graveyard. Lastly Sidisi, Brood Tyrant once again fills the graveyard and also gets you blockers and combos with anything else you have that mills you.

The complete list

[d title="BG Cube Subtheme (Graveyard/Morbid) - December 2015"]
Black
1 Gravecrawler
1 Viscera Seer
1 Blood Artist
1 Sultai Emissary
1 Blood Bairn
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Erebos's Emissary
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1 Rakshasa Gravecaller
1 Shadowborn Demon
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Silumgar Butcher
1 Mikeaus, the Unhallowed
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Butcher of Malakir
1 Gurmag Angler
1 Sheoldred, Whispering One

1 Liliana of the Veil

1 Tragic Slip
1 Murderous Cut
1 Barter in Blood
1 Unburial Rites

1 Corpseweft
1 Whip of Erebos

Green
1 Boneyard Wurm
1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
1 Satyr Wayfinder
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Strangleroot Geist
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Eternal Witness
1 Splinterfright
1 Graverobber Spider
1 Lumberknot
1 Thragtusk
1 Vorapede
1 Hooting Mandrills
1 Nemesis of Mortals

1 Commune with the Gods
1 Mulch
1 Spider Spawning

1 Evolutionary Leap

1 Birthing Pod
1 Bow of Nylea

White
1 Timely Hordemate
1 Lingering Souls

Blue
1 Forbidden Alchemy

Red
1 Faithless Looting
Golgari
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Korozda Guildmage
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Dreg Mangler
1 Nyx Weaver
1 Pharika, God of Affliction
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Reaper of the Wilds
1 Deathreap Ritual
1 Golgari Rotwurm
1 Deadbridge Chant

Sultai
1 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
1 Sultai Soothsayer
1 Sultai Ascendancy
[/d]

While I make changes to the cube I do a lot of sim drafts just to see if enough of a given archetype appears that it’s even a thing. This one so far has definitely come across as less “all-in” than the previous vampire and zombie ones. It comes across a little more like a grindy midrange deck. This doesn’t strike me as a bad thing but I do plan to come back and review this section post SoI.

Cube Archetype – Zombie Tribal (BUg)

Continuing in updating my cube to make the themes a bit more noticeable, today I’m looking at Zombies.

Originally this was the BG archetype but while there are a few good BG zombies there are very few straight up green zombies. There are however some BU zombies I’m quite fond of and some acceptable mono blue zombie creatures.

The BG “happen to be zombies, actually graveyard matters” cards will stay in and become part of a kind of 3 colour arc of graveyard matters decks (the black part of Rakdos vampires, Golgari sacrifice and Dimir zombies, plus Sidisi herself in Sultai can all to a degree mix and match).

The All-In Cards

Much like vampires we have a pair of lords, one mono black, one dual colour. [mtg_card]Death Baron[/mtg_card] nearly made the cut over [mtg_card]Lord of the Undead[/mtg_card] but I thought that in a primarily midrange/control cube which is designed to encourage big silly plays mass deathtouch could be a little on the OP side (or at least really annoying to play against).

[mtg_card]Endless Ranks of the Dead[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Lich Lord of Unx[/mtg_card] are both aimed at giving you a huge horde of zombie tokens. Endless ranks is dead outside of a heavy tribal deck and I do want a few cards like this in each theme.

The Standalone Cards

As expected for the titan cycle [mtg_card]Grave Titan[/mtg_card] is a bomb in its own right. [mtg_card]Liliana’s Reaver[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Sidisi, Undead Vizier[/mtg_card] are both great in any black deck.

[mtg_card]Mikaeus, the Unhallowed[/mtg_card] basically goes into ANY deck which has few or no humans. The undying is a little better in a deck with sacrifice effects but is still perfectly good in isolation.

[mtg_card]Grimgrin, Corpse-Born[/mtg_card] is a little on the clunky side BUT is a huge trundling value engine as long as you can keep him fed (happy time occurs if you have a [mtg_card]gravecrawler[/mtg_card]).

[mtg_card]Army of the Damned[/mtg_card] is a card I glossed over as too slow and clunky when I first built the cube, but after playing it (and realising my concerns about rampant aggro were hilariously unrealistic) I decided I could push up the top of the curves and put in a few over the top items like this.

The Filler Cards

[mtg_card]Deranged Assistant[/mtg_card] is an enabler for the graveyard cards in here (plus this isn’t a quick deck so every little helps). [mtg_card]Havengul Runebinder[/mtg_card] obviously plays better the more zombies you have. The actual blue zombies all either fill or eat your graveyard (roll on Shadows over Innistrad for more blue zombies).

Black has a bit more selection, but zombies arent great at the sub 3 CMC level. [mtg_card]Gravecrawler[/mtg_card] sits at 1 and is best used as combo fuel with sac outlets like Grimgrin. 2 has [mtg_card]Blood Scrivener[/mtg_card] (not terrible if you ever manage to grind a game out long enough to empty your hand), [mtg_card]Highborn Ghoul[/mtg_card] (blech, true filler) and [mtg_card]Sultai Emissary[/mtg_card] (I really quite like this guy, I only just remembered he was a zombie).

Once you pass CMC 3 the selection opens up and we have the more interesting [mtg_card]Nantuko Husk[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Lifebane Zombie[/mtg_card], and [mtg_card]Ghoulraiser[/mtg_card] all having useful effects stapled on. We also have [mtg_card]Rakshasa Gravecaller[/mtg_card] (conveniently makes zombies, plus one of my absolute favourites from DoT) and [mtg_card]Silumgar Butcher[/mtg_card] (I’ll just sac this here [mtg_card]Gravecrawler[/mtg_card]).

Crossover With Other Archetypes

[mtg_card]Pontiff of Blight[/mtg_card] is great in the zombie deck (especially as its slightly slower to get rolling than some of the other decks and would be happy to gain a little extra life to stay in the game) but is intended mainly for the BW taxman deck.

[mtg_card]Corpseweft[/mtg_card] gets a mention here also as its much more at home in the GB deck which will have a full graveyard a bit more often. UB cares more about getting its stuff back out (Ghoulraiser, Lord of the Undead, Gravecrawler, etc) and has less means of getting cards into the yard.

The Off-Colour Bleed Cards

[mtg_card]Golgari Rotwurm[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Lotleth Troll[/mtg_card] all serve as strong creatures with a means of filling the graveyard up (again, this is going to be Golgari’s thing) while also being zombies. In addition all our tribal lords synergise with at least one of these guys.

[mtg_card]Dreg mangler[/mtg_card] is just a decent body with the benefit of working from the graveyard (Golgari is rapidly filling up with things I like too much to remove so I wouldn’t be surprised to see him go at some point).

[mtg_card]Varolz, the Scar-Striped[/mtg_card] is an honourable mention as he isn’t a zombie at all (although I briefly thought he was) but is a pretty strong addition to the deck regardless as both a strong sac outlet and a use for whatever youve put in your graveyard.

[mtg_card]Sidisi, Brood Tyrant[/mtg_card] works as great in both the GB and UB decks, or a combination of the two, Lord of the Undead and Cemetery Reaper both love a full graveyard and there are some incidental self mill cards floating around the general Sultai section of the cube (such as Forbidden Alchemy, Mulch, Splinterfright and Nyx Weaver).

The complete list

[d title="BUg Cube Subtheme (Zombies) - November 2015"]
Black
1 Gravecrawler
1 Blood Scrivener
1 Highborn Ghoul
1 Sultai Emissary
1 Cemetery Reaper
1 Fleshbag Marauder
1 Geralf's Messenger
1 Ghoulraiser
1 Lifebane Zombie
1 Lord of the Undead
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Liliana's Reaver
1 Rakshasa Gravecaller
1 Sidisi, Undead Vizier
1 Silumgar Butcher
1 Grave Titan
1 Mikaeus, the Unhallowed
1 Pontiff of Blight

1 Moan of the Unhallowed
1 Army of the Damned

1 Corpseweft
1 Endless Ranks of the Dead

Blue
1 Screeching Skaab
1 Armored Skaab
1 Skaab Ruinator
1 Stitched Drake
1 Havengul Runebinder
1 Relentless Skaabs
1 Skaab Goliath

1 Deranged Assistant
1 Forbidden Alchemy

Dimir 
1 Diregraf Captain
1 Lich Lord of Unx
1 Grimgrin, Corpse-Born
1 Possessed Skaab
Golgari 
1 Lotleth Troll
1 Dreg Mangler
1 Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
1 Golgari Rotwurm

Sultai
1 Sidisi, Brood Tyrant
[/d]

In the future I’d definitely like to improve the quality here and add a couple more early game cards. Innistrad 2 is pretty guaranteed to at least buff up the Vampire and Zombie tribes (hopefully not with some kind of parasitic ingest esque mechanic stapled on). In an unrelated aside I would love to see more werewolves too…I want modern werewolves to be a thing…I know it wont…but give me just a few more and I’ll try dammit (another decent 1 and 2 drop and at least the deck will be roughly the right shape).

Cube Archetype – Vampire Tribal (BRw)

Last Friday in place of our usual draft we had a cube draft night.

Due to some drop outs we had a less than ideal 6 players but good times were had by all with an abundance of silly decks. From the previous times I played the cube I was concerned about the possibility of there being too many aggro decks but we got quite a good assortment, including:

  • UGr +1/+1 Counters (splashing Sarkhan Unbroken and Borborygmos Enraged)
  • WBG Midrange (Seige Rhino, Tasigur, Wurmcoil and other goodstuff)
  • RWu aggro/soldier tribal (Field Marshall and Captain of the Watch with Assemble the Legion)
  • BG Midrange.
  • Jund Midrange (some vampires but not a tribal deck).
  • Something I’ve forgotten.

It all went well though and it’s put me in the mood to start work on improving the setup again. Specifically I want to look at the various archetypes (one in each two colour pair although some bleed into a third colour to include some cards I like, plus there are some miscellaneous tribal themes and an optional artifact deck).

Due to the cubes size (just over double the normal size to allow for lots of variance and for more players) to make an archetype actually appear in drafts and be noticeable a thing you can play you need a few more cards for it than you would normally have so if this looks like overkill its just to balance it. Also due to the variance theres a lean towards cards that work on their own without going all in on a theme with just a few hard themed cards.

In this example I’ve leaned towards there being quite a crossover with the BG graveyard/zombie deck (the sac outlets and death triggers in particular).

Today I’m looking at the BR theme (which has a very slight bleed into white) which is Vampire Tribal. The original build didnt have near enough cards to make the deck viable, nor were there enough tribe relevant effects to make you want to draft it. This version should improve slightly (the full list is at the end of the post).

The All-In Cards

There are a few cards which just don’t do a great deal while you aren’t running critical mass of vampires, Chief among these are the tribal lords Captivating Vampire and Stromkirk Captain, neither are playable without multiple other vampires but are all stars if you’ve got the numbers on your side.

These guys are also the big indicators that there is the possibility of drafting a tribal deck as a lot of the cards play well enough independently or are bombs in their own right.

Kalastria Highborn wants a vampire heavy deck but also works well if you have elements of the GB-Sacrifice/Zombie deck.

The Standalone Cards

There are plenty of vampires which are strong enough to be bombs in their own right and get taken by any deck playing the colour but get pushed a lot by being surrounded by more vampires.

Anowon is great on his own as in the event of there being no other vampires out he will still just kill everything BUT himself which is no bad thing for a black centric control deck.

Nighthawk, Drana and the Aristocrat all get improved greatly by having a lord in play (with a Stromkirk Captain in play nighthawk kills anything it touches and it costs a lot less to keep Aristocrat alive in combat) and Drana will keep some of your more fragile vamps from biting it (no pun intended, seriously its not even a good one).

Olivia gives the unique benefit of potentially turning everything with more than 1 toughness in your deck into a vampire, and that’s on top of being both removal and mind control.

And Malakir Bloodwitch…despite the textbox being a direct synonym for “PLAY MOAR VAMPIRES” would be absolutely fine as the only vampire in your deck (4/4 flying with pro-white for 5 is already bomb-level good, draining 1 on top of that is at least some degree of relevant).

The Filler Cards

There are a pile of other vampires to fill out the deck (most being just acceptable cards on their own, a couple like Bloodcrazed Neonate need a little more work to make good).

Between the high likelihood of seeing some planeswalkers in the draft and some of the shenanigans that could come about in the GU deck then Vampire Hexmage is a strong pick for any black deck. The same applies to Gatekeeper of Malakir, as he is strong in his own right and is another card which would play nice in a base-black control deck.

There are also a handful of red vampires from Innistrad in here to fill out the deck.

Crossover With Other Archetypes

Given vampires seem to change theme every time a block includes them (Original Zendikar had the “less than 10 life” theme, Innistrad had “the slith ability”, Return to Ravnica had Orzhov vampires and Battle for Zendikar has life gain…although on that front I wish Kalastria Healer was a “vampire enters the battlefield” rather than “ally enters the battlefield” for the purposes of this even though I know that would make absolutely no mechanical sense in the set) there’s quite a wide variety in effects.

This does mean that a few of the vampire cards fit pretty well into the other Bx decks in the cube.

Blood seeker is fine in the BW Taxman deck as one of many effects that gradually kill the enemy outside of combat.

Viscera Seer and Blood Bairn fit into the BG deck as sacrifice outlets and Blood Artist, Falkenrath Noble and Butcher of Malakir all serve as part of the payoff for those sacrifice effects.

The Off-Colour Bleed Cards

There are 3 vampires in BW which are included in here. They all serve roles in the defense oriented BW-Taxman deck but are perfectly acceptable splashes here given how multi colour the cube often leans. They’re all also cards I’m quite fond of, particularly the two Dragon’s Maze cards as I played them a lot when they were in standard (Tithe Drinker bumped the frustratingly bad Bloodcrazed Neonate out of my standard vampire deck and I played Blood Baron both in that deck and BW Midrange for his entire time in standard.

Technically in this section is [mtg_card]Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker[/mtg_card]. He is however absolutely sod all to do with the deck and is basically an alternate win-con for a UB deck, although he wouldn’t be an abysmal splash.

The complete list

[d title="BRw Cube Subtheme (Vampires) - November 2015"]
Black
1 Vampire Lacerator
1 Viscera Seer
1 Blood Artist
1 Blood Seeker
1 Child of Night
1 Gatekeeper of Malakir
1 Kalastria Highborn
1 Vampire Hexmage
1 Blood Bairn
1 Captivating Vampire
1 Drana, Liberator of Malakir
1 Markov Patrician
1 Vampire Nighthawk
1 Bloodline Keeper
1 Falkenrath Noble
1 Mirri the Cursed
1 Anowon, the Ruin Sage
1 Malakir Bloodwitch
1 Tasigur, the Golden Fang
1 Butcher of Malakir

Red
1 Stromkirk Noble
1 Bloodcrazed Neonate
1 Crossway Vampire
1 Markov Blademaster
1 Rakish Heir
1 Vampiric Fury

Rakdos
1 Stromkirk Captain
1 Falkenrath Aristocrat
1 Olivia Voldaren

Orzhov
1 Tithe Drinker
1 Drana's Emissary
1 Blood Baron of Vizkopa

Dimir
1 Mirko Vosk, Mind Drinker
[/d]

I have yet to obtain 100% of this but it (and changes to the other decks) will be going in before the next time the cube comes out to play.

Battle for Zendikar – Casual Deckbuilding 1

While I don’t often get to play standard (I have a nice casual draft I like to go to on Fridays) I still cant help having the odd brewing session. Today I’m looking at some decks which are distinctly on the “filthy casual” end of the standard spectrum.

Sideboards on these are EXTREMELY placeholderey and in a lot of cases contain cards I just generally like. If you want to use any of these…well you know your metas better than I do.

BW Warriors

This one is probably the closest thing to competitive here (the pre rotation version of this got me 4 wins at a GP). Thankfully the deck didnt lose too much to rotation (the main hits were [mtg_card]Hero’s Downfall[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Temple of Silence[/mtg_card]) and what we did lose pretty much got a 1:1 replacement.

The creatures are solid, and in this version I’ve upped [mtg_card]Arashin Foremost[/mtg_card] to 4 as he really was the best card in the deck back at the GP and I only ever wanted more. [mtg_card]Brutal Hordechief[/mtg_card] has been demoted to sideboard and also the first card to remove should you want to slot in something for your meta.

Extra copies of [mtg_card]Blood-Chin Rager[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Mardu Strike Leader[/mtg_card] reside in the sideboard, the former for creature heavy matchups, the latter for control.

The removal is still pretty solid. [mtg_card]Valorous Stance[/mtg_card] is still great, [mtg_card]Ruinous Path[/mtg_card] does the job (it’s just here as unconditional removal, the awaken is pretty unlikely to happen very often in this deck) and [mtg_card]Ultimate Price[/mtg_card]/[mtg_card]Murderous Cut[/mtg_card] are pretty flexible between main and side depending on what you expect to play against more.

With [mtg_card]Thoughtseize[/mtg_card] gone I’ve opted for [mtg_card]Despise[/mtg_card]. I found this decks downfall being things like multiple [mtg_card]Siege Rhino[/mtg_card]s or [mtg_card]Dragonlord Atarka[/mtg_card] more than control.

[d title="BW Warriors - October 2015"]
Creatures
4 Arashin Foremost
2 Mardu Strike Leader
4 Chief of the Edge 
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Battle Brawler 
2 Blood-Chin Rager 
4 Bloodsoaked Champion 
4 Mardu Woe-Reaper

Removal
4 Ruinous Path 
2 Ultimate Price

Utility
2 Secure the Wastes 
4 Valorous Stance 

Land
4 Shambling Vent 
4 Caves of Koilos 
8 Plains
6 Swamp 

Sideboard
4 Despise
2 Murderous Cut
1 Utter End
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Blood-Chin Rager
2 Mardu Strike Leader
2 Brutal Hordechief
[/d]

UG Morph/Manifest

This one a little further towards the silly end of the scale. It uses [mtg_card]Whisperwood Elemental[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Temur War Shaman[/mtg_card] to get extra creatures on the board, then uses their “turns face up” abilities for various effects.

The deck lacks any traditional hard removal but there are some flexible options in Temur War Shamans fight ability and Fleetfeather Cockatrices bounce. You also have some anti control options in [mtg_card]Scatter to the Winds[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Stratus Dancer[/mtg_card]s counterspell abilities and [mtg_card]Mistfire Weaver[/mtg_card] to protect a key creature.

The win conditions are either getting a face up [mtg_card]Sagu Mauler[/mtg_card], chipping in with your flyers or flooding the board through [mtg_card]Whisperwood Elemental[/mtg_card]s.

The sideboard adds some more counter options, some more [mtg_card]Sagu Maulers[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Mistfire Weaver[/mtg_card]s.

[d title="GU Morph/Manifest - October 2015"]
Creatures
4 Den Protector
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Stratus Dancer
4 Icefeather Aven
4 Deathmist Raptor
2 Mistfire Weaver
4 Whisperwood Elemental
2 Temur War Shaman
2 Sagu Mauler

Enchantments
2 Secret Plans
2 Trail of Mystery

Spells
2 Scatter to the Winds

Lands
4 Lumbering Falls
4 Yavimaya Coast
4 Thornwood Falls
8 Forest
4 Island

Sideboard
2 Ainok Survivalist
2 Silumgar Sorcerer
2 Kheru Spellsnatcher
2 Mistfire Weaver
2 Sagu Mauler
3 Disdainful Stroke
2 Scatter to the Winds
[/d]

RUG Midrange

This is a less competitive and less expensive (read less [mtg_card]hangarback walker[/mtg_card]ey) version of some of the temur decks floating around at the moment.

The land base is a bit on the pricey end but theyre good cards to be getting.

The ramp is…worse than we’d like but w cant always have [mtg_card]Birds of Paradise[/mtg_card].

[d title="RUG Midrange - October 2015"]
Creatures
2 Frost Walker
4 Whisperer of the Wilds
4 Rattleclaw Mystic
4 Savage Knuckleblade
2 Yasova Dragonclaw
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Icefall Regent
2 Surrak Dragonclaw
2 Dragonlord Atarka

Planeswalkers
2 Kiora, Master of the Depths
2 Sarkhan Unbroken

Enchantments
2 Temur Ascendancy

Spells
2 Crater's Claws
2 Exquisite Firecraft

Lands
2 Cinder Glade
4 Forest
4 Frontier Bivouac
2 Island
4 Lumbering Falls
4 Mountain
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard
4 Radiant Flames
2 Roast
2 Stubborn Denial
2 Temur Ascendancy
2 Harbinger of the Hunt
2 Heir of the Wilds
1 Dig Through Time
[/d]

Introductory decks for new players/casual games

A few months ago a couple of friends expressed an interest in learning to play and I started thinking about what I had which would be suited to teaching a new player (or for a first few paper games for someone who had only played duels).

All I really had at the time that was playable were my commander decks, which aren’t really the best introduction and the cube which…well I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this.

I did have some modern and standard decks but nothing which is on any kind of similar power level or which is intact from one week to the next (I sacrificed many decks to build the cube).

There are the wizards starter decks (see here, theyre little 30 card dealies made of recent commons and uncommons) but I didn’t want to go and get these online, nor do I particularly like the decks themselves. I would much rather, if teaching someone to play, give them something with a higher power level, some more appealing cards  and a full 60 card deck.

That in mind I set out to make a set of decks for new players (and for the odd casual game where someone wants to test a deck, not modern level stuff just casual/standard level decks).

I settled on one deck in each colour, using a small number of rares and some favourite commons/uncommons that I don’t often get to use.

I also wanted some of the traditional archetypes such as green being big dumb creatures, and black being big on removal.

The original decks were including cards up to Khans block but I wanted to upgrade to some origins cards so here are the new versions.

[d title="New Player Training Deck - White - 10/09/2015"]

Creatures
4 Elite Vanguard
2 Doomed Traveler
2 Gideon's Lawkeeper
2 Consul's Lieutenant
2 Alabaster Mage
2 Precinct Captain
2 War Priest of Thune 
2 Attended Knight
2 Fiend Hunter 
2 Gideon's Avenger
2 Mausoleum Guard
2 War Oracle
2 Serra Angel

Spells
2 Midnight Haunting

Enchantments
2 Pacifism
2 Honor of the Pure

Artifacts
2 Bonesplitter

Land
24 Plains
[/d]

The white deck has a pretty clear theme of making tokens then buffing the whole team, so pretty traditional white weenie. There’s some “temporary removal” and [mtg_card]Serra Angel[/mtg_card] as an iconic white card (and just because its cool). This is also the only deck to have any equipment, and it’s as simple an equipment as you can really get.

[d title="New Player Training Deck - Blue - 10/09/2015"] 

Creatures
2 Palace Familiar
2 Mindshrieker
2 Azure Mage
2 Jeskai Elder
2 Jhessian Thief
2 Wind Drake
2 Watercourser
2 Mist Raven
2 Mistfire Adept
2 Tower Geist
2 Soulblade Djinn

Spells
2 Unsummon
2 Mana Leak
2 Dissolve
2 Crippling Chill
2 Divination

Enchantments
2 Domestication

Artifacts
2 Aether Spellbomb

Land
24 Island
[/d]

Blue is, as you would likely guess, the spell heavy tempo deck. Theres some prowess added from Khans and Origins along with a big pile of evasion.

Also this deck wants to draw a LOT of cards. Physically the creatures are a little weaker than the other decks but if you can stall out the game you should be able to drown your opponents in cards.

[d title="New Player Training Deck - Black - 10/09/2015"] 
Creature
2 Typhoid Rats
2 Malakir Cullblade
2 Hand of Silumgar
2 Child of Night
2 Onyx Mage
2 Blood Scrivener
2 Markov Patrician
2 Nantuko Husk
2 Soulcage Fiend
2 Undead Executioner
2 Rakshasa Gravecaller
2 Bloodgift Demon

Spells
2 Sign in Blood
2 Doom Blade
2 Murder
2 Tribute to Hunger
2 Gild

Enchantments
2 Shadows of the Past

Land
24 Swamp
[/d]

I’ve opted for a sacrifice/death trigger theme for black with an alternate win con of Shadows of the Past (or just an incredibly hench [mtg_card]Nantuko Husk[/mtg_card]).

[d title="New Player Training Deck - Red - 10/09/2015"] 
Creatures
2 Forge Devil
2 Lightning Berserker
4 Ashmouth Hound
2 Stormblood Berserker
2 Abbot of Keral Keep
2 Crimson Mage
2 Scab Clan Berserker
2 Acolyte of the Inferno
2 Goblin Heelcutter
2 Scourge of Geier Reach
2 Zealous Conscripts

Spells
2 Fiery Impulse
2 Tormenting Voice
4 Searing Spear
2 Pyrotechnics

Enchantment
2 Madcap Skills

Land
24 Mountain
[/d]

Red has a lot of creatures which are either hard to block or which punish blocking plus a good assortment of burn. Burn goes without saying. I’ve also allowed a little bit of dash into this one as its a fairly straightforward mechanic (the previous version actually had archwing dragon).

[d title="New Player Training Deck - Green - 10/09/2015"] 

Creature (26)
4 Llanowar Elves
2 Darkthicket Wolf
2 Jade Mage
2 Alpine Grizzly
2 Netcaster Spider
2 Briarpack Alpha
2 Somberwald Alpha
2 Giant Spider
2 Thragtusk
2 Woodborn Behemoth
2 Arbor Colossus
2 Garruk's Horde

Spells
2 Titanic Growth
2 Tread Upon
2 Prey Upon
2 Cultivate

Enchantment
2 Triumph of Ferocity

Land (24)
24 Forest

[/d]

Green is exactly what you would expect, ramp, big creatures some things that play off having the biggest baddest creature on the field.

I’ve played a fair few games with people who only have casual decks with these and they’ve worked pretty well for that. They’ve also been a success when taking people through their first couple of games.

The match ups weren’t perfect in the previous versions, for example green tended to die to the flyer heavy decks a little too often. These current versions contain some tweaks which I’m hoping will rebalance them slightly.

The KING of Draft Decks

Sometimes a draft just comes together and you get a fantastic polished machine of a deck, something that almost feels like constructed-lite. I was lucky enough to have one of those last Friday. For context this was a 6 man draft and in the end Blue seemed pretty open even with me hogging all the good red (Blue is traditionally rather under drafted in my group, at least in this set).

The draft opened with a Scab-Clan Berserker, and I followed that by sticking to red as my main colour throughout pack 1. In general I try and stick to 1 main colour in pack 1 just to stay open for later in the draft and that worked pretty well here as I pretty effectively staked out red and had my choice (mostly in pack 2 where i picked up Skysnare Spider, Undercity Troll and Valeron Wardens) of pretty much anything as support.

In fact for the entire draft red stayed wide open so I was able to pick up multiples of some of the better cards. In fact its only Undercity Troll that really convinced me to not try mono red.

Also as a fun little bonus I picked up a Hangarback Walker as my rare in pack 3, although he didn’t come out that much except as win-more in a couple of games. The walker was only hugely relevant in one odd game where I started with it and removal and pretty much had to play defensively for a long time (in that situation the Walker is an all star, constantly threatening to get beyond the reach of combat).

By the end of the draft I had the following

[d title="Draft - 28/08/2015"]

Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
3 Subterranean Scout
1 Undercity Troll
1 Leaf Gilder
2 Akroan Sergeant
2 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
1 Thopter Engineer
1 Scab-Clan Berserker
1 Valeron Wardens
2 Firefiend Elemental
1 Skysnare Spider

Spells
2 Titan's Strength
3 Fiery Impulse
1 Ravaging Blaze
1 Wild Instincts

Land
9 Mountain
8 Forest

Sideboard
1 Thopter Engineer
1 Lightning Javelin
1 Goblin Glory Chaser
1 Magmatic Insight
1 Cobblebrute
1 Volcanic Rambler
1 Smash to Smithereens
1 Mage-ring Bully
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Evolutionary Leap
1 Vastwood Gorger
1 Hydrolash
1 negate
1 Nivix barrier
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Fetid Imp
1 Heavy Infantry
1 Throwing Knife
[/d]

Round one was vs BG Elves and opened with a truly ridiculous start of T2 Undercity Troll, T3 Valeron Wardens, T4 Firefiend Elemental. By the end of the game I had a full board on top of about 6 cards in hand from a stream of renown triggers. It was a sort of magical christmas land moment.

Game 2 wasn’t so outright ridiculous but still progressed similarly.  I did over extend a little but decided the odds of the one card that could stop me, Eyeblight Massacre (which admittedly my opponent had in his deck), actually appearing was limited enough and the risk did pay off.

Round 2 was a UB control build. In games 1 and 3 he just didn’t have the blockers to survive the relentless onslaught of dudes. Game 2 my opponent got pretty much all removal until a [mtg_card]Possessed Skaab[/mtg_card] to return MORE REMOVAL while I got badly flooded out (it happens to us all from time to time) and couldn’t maintain any kind of relevant board presence.

Round 3 was a tempo-ey UW flyers deck. Again the early rush proved too much except for one bizarre game where I opened on [mtg_card]Hangarback Walker[/mtg_card] + a guy and my opponent removed the guy and put [mtg_card]Grasp of the Hieromancer[/mtg_card] on a creature putting me in a strange defensive position of having to bluff the boardstate into allowing me to appear to need to chump with the walker then pump him to get large enough to trade. That series of things drained enough of my opponents toys though that I was able to rebuild afterwords with an assortment of Thopter makers.

Sadly over the entire course of the night I never saw [mtg_card]Skysnare Spider[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Ravaging Blaze[/mtg_card].

As a thought experiment I’ve put together what is probably the best mono-red deck you could get from this pool.

[d title="Draft Mono R Variant - 28/08/2015"]

Creatures
1 Hangarback Walker
1 Goblin Glory Chaser
3 Subterranean Scout
2 Akroan Sergeant
2 Ghirapur Gearcrafter
2 Thopter Engineer
1 Scab-Clan Berserker
2 Firefiend Elemental
1 Cobblebrute
1 Volcanic Rambler

Spells
2 Titan's Strength
3 Fiery Impulse
1 Ravaging Blaze
1 Lightning Javelin

Land
17 Mountain


Sideboard
1 Magmatic Insight
1 Smash to Smithereens
1 Mage-ring Bully
1 Elvish Visionary
1 Evolutionary Leap
1 Vastwood Gorger
1 Undercity Troll
1 Leaf Gilder
1 Valeron Wardens
1 Wild Instincts
1 Skysnare Spider
1 Hydrolash
1 negate
1 Nivix barrier
1 Nantuko Husk
1 Fetid Imp
1 Heavy Infantry
1 Throwing Knife
[/d]

The question to me is do you run [mtg_card]Goblin Glory Chaser[/mtg_card] or [mtg_card]Throwing Knife[/mtg_card]…Im genuinely not sure…probably the Knife.

 

NOTES FROM A WEEK LATER:

This Friday just gone I managed to end up with an extremely similar deck, albeit slightly slower. I don’t have the full list to hand but this time I had 3 [mtg_card]Lightning Javelin[/mtg_card], 1 [mtg_card]Exquisite Firecraft[/mtg_card] and 3 [mtg_card]Fiery Impulse[/mtg_card]…yeah…quite happy with that. Creature wise I lost the thopter makers and Hangarback, getting double [mtg_card]Zendikar Incarnate[/mtg_card], another [mtg_card]Undercity Troll[/mtg_card] and a couple of [mtg_card]Yeva’s Forcemage[/mtg_card].

I didn’t manage 3-0 this time, instead i won the first two rounds then lost to a bizarre [mtg_card]Angels Tomb[/mtg_card]+[mtg_card]War Horn[/mtg_card]+[mtg_card]Flameshadow Conjuring[/mtg_card]+wide assortment of 1 drop creatures deck. I didn’t see THAT coming I can say that much.

 

GP London – How It Went

In my last post I shared my “fun casual” deck list for GP London. I was expecting to play a few rounds, get my arse handed to me and progress to side events. In the end that’s not quite how it went.

As a reminder here is the deck list:

[d title="BW Warriors - August 2015"]
Creatures
2 Brutal Hordechief
2 Arashin Foremost
2 Mardu Strike Leader
4 Chief of the Edge 
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Battle Brawler 
2 Blood-Chin Rager 
4 Bloodsoaked Champion 
4 Mardu Woe-Reaper

Removal
4 Hero's Downfall 
2 Ultimate Price

Utility
2 Secure the Wastes 
4 Valorous Stance 

Land
4 Temple of Silence 
4 Caves of Koilos 
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
7 Plains
6 Swamp 

Sideboard
1 Ajani Steadfast
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Blood-Chin Fanatic
2 Mardu Strike Leader
2 Banishing Light
4 Thoughtseize 
[/d]

Oh yeah, I lost every dice roll so just assume I’m always going second in the first game.

General Impressions

I have to say well done to SCG, the entire day was run as smooth as anything. The morning of the event I got an email confirming everything and giving me my seat number for the player’s meeting, which was kept pleasantly brief (with an improvement to the god-awful PA of the previous GP London) and (seriously this made the day so much better) gave out a web address where you could enter your name and get your pairings for the current round. I cannot stress enough how much more pleasant this was than the pairings sheet scrums I’ve seen in all my other large events.

There were no inexplicable delays between rounds (there was one fairly long one but we decided it was probably a GW Devotion mirror as there was a crowd around an ongoing game).

Also there was what seemed to be too much space booked for the main event so there was a lot of space to spread out in so there were plenty of tables for casual play and space to get away from the crowds (which were nicely spread out). Having spent the day hardly seeing anyone overly serious or in a bad mood I really do think that the extra space, more elbow room at tables, online pairings etc really contributed to the general good mood.

Within a few minutes from the start of the players meeting pairings appeared online and everyone was able to meander off to their games without any undue kerfuffle.

Round 1 – Esper Control

My first round was against an opponent playing a home-brew Esper control deck.

In the first game he started with [mtg_card]Harbinger of the Tides[/mtg_card] backed up by [mtg_card]Jace, Vryn’s Prodigy[/mtg_card] and assorted removal. Harbinger at least slowed me down but Jace did almost nothing after flipping (eventually dying to a [mtg_card]Hero’s Downfall[/mtg_card] I had no other targets for. He was able to play a [mtg_card]Dragonlord Ojutai[/mtg_card] but it was too late for it to do anything on the defensive but die to first strike damage so he swung to get the mini-[mtg_card]impulse[/mtg_card]. I was never able to get a massive game winning swing due to removal and bounce so I just had to grind the game out with [mtg_card]Battle Brawler[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Seeker of the Way[/mtg_card] and a [mtg_card]Chief of the Edge[/mtg_card].

In the second game I opened with [mtg_card]Chief of the Edge[/mtg_card] into [mtg_card]Arashin Foremost[/mtg_card] (all star of the entire day for me) into [mtg_card]Sorin, Solemn Visitor[/mtg_card] and my opponent wasn’t able to make a defence quickly enough.

Standing: 1-0

Round 2 – GW Hardened Scales

My second opponent was playing a GW Hardened Scales build. In the first game I didn’t really see much of this beyond a[mtg_card]Servant of the Scale[/mtg_card] and a [mtg_card]Den Protector[/mtg_card] as he got stuck on 2 mana for most of the game.

In the second game he went off pretty fast with a very early pair of [mtg_card]Hardened Scales[/mtg_card] followed by a [mtg_card]Managorger Hydra[/mtg_card], a [mtg_card]Dromoka’s Command[/mtg_card] and some things which didn’t really stick in my mind due to the 14/14 [mtg_card]Managorger Hydra[/mtg_card]. Luckily I had a [mtg_card]Valorous Stance[/mtg_card] in hand after taking a hit down to 6 life. At that point he had burned through enough of his cards that I was able to beat him down.

Standing: 2-0

Round 3 – Bant Heroic

By this point I was in a state of disbelief that I was doing this well (as I said I was expecting 3 rounds, drop, side events). Next up was Bant Heroic.

I lost the dice roll, as was the style at the time, and he opened up with favored hoplite, quickly buffing it up with a Dromoka’s Command and swinging for 3 then 4 a turn. I had an early [mtg_card]Seeker of the Way[/mtg_card] and removal to get each of his other creatures out of the way (leaving me gaining life to offset the hoplite and being able to keep hitting), eventually winning with a [mtg_card]Chief of the Edge[/mtg_card] and a bunch of EOT [mtg_card]Secure the Wastes[/mtg_card] tokens.

Game 2, on the draw I took a risky hand of a single [mtg_card]Temple of Silence[/mtg_card] and no other land with an aggressive 2 mana hand. It paid off with me drawing a basic off of the scry while my opponent mulliganed to 4 without seeing a land. What followed was basically a massacre.

Standing: 3-0

Round 4 – GR Ramp

It is at this point that things started to go downhill. This game in particular was pretty much the worst match up I can imagine.

Abzan I knew would be bad but I had some ways around that ([mtg_card]Blood-Chin Rager[/mtg_card] to get the team around single large creatures, a big [mtg_card]Secure the Wastes[/mtg_card] at EOT to swarm around defenders etc) but I hadn’t thought about some of the cards here.

In the first game I didn’t see a huge amount of his deck beyond ramp creatures and a pair of [mtg_card]Whisperwood Elementals[/mtg_card]. The quick production of lots of moderately sized guys pretty much put a wall up in front of my guys and I was beaten fairly easily.

Game two went in my favour due to mana screw on my opponents part (the great thing about aggro decks is being able to walk over any misstep from an opponent, even in a bad match).

Sadly in game three he got pretty much the ideal setup, ramp into [mtg_card]Whisperwood Elemental[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Dragonlord Atarka[/mtg_card] to clear my board and then [mtg_card]Genesis Hydra[/mtg_card] into [mtg_card]Polukranos, World Eater[/mtg_card]. Yeah, suffice it to say I lost that game hard.

Standing: 3-1

Round 5 – Abzan

It’s at this point in the day that i wrote “[mtg_card]Hangarback Walker[/mtg_card] Everywhere” in my notebook. Every direction I looked I could see them. Even the heroic deck had them. Anyway…

This was the Abzan match-up I was actually ready for. In game 1 my opponent started with [mtg_card]Fleecemane Lion[/mtg_card] followed by [mtg_card]Anafenza the Foremost[/mtg_card]. It amounted to little though because I got a couple of guys (I want to say a [mtg_card]Seeker of the Way[/mtg_card] and a [mtg_card]Chief of the Edge[/mtg_card] but that might be wrong) along with a pair of [mtg_card]Arashin Foremost[/mtg_card].

Game two was relatively easy too, going from [mtg_card]Seeker of the Way[/mtg_card] into [mtg_card]Chief of the Edge[/mtg_card] into [mtg_card]Sorin, Solemn Visitor[/mtg_card] pausing along the way to remove a series of big creatures to get the lifelink triggers.

Standing: 4-1

Round 6 – Abzan 2, this time its personal.

For my second Abzan match of the day I started by rapidly losing to a series of [mtg_card]Siege Rhino[/mtg_card]. I think I had to accept that would happen at least once.

Game 2 I made a pretty good opening and was a turn away from a massive game winning swing. Then [mtg_card]Drown in Sorrow[/mtg_card] happened. Sadface. I managed to rebuild a board presence to try again and was hit by [mtg_card]Languish[/mtg_card].

A double boardwipe followed up by big creatures is pretty much death to an aggro deck and I was rapidly killed, unable to build back up again.

Standing: 4-2

Round 7 – WRb Aggro/Burn

Game 1 opened with us both playing [mtg_card]Seeker of the Way[/mtg_card]. I lost mine to removal but followed up with a [mtg_card]Battle Brawler[/mtg_card] into [mtg_card]Arashin Foremost[/mtg_card] and was able to just pound my way through the opposing tokens and [mtg_card]Goblin Rabblemaster[/mtg_card].

Game 2 I lost most of my guys to a succession of burn spells and died to a pair of Rabblemasters (that adds up seriously quick…gotta get me some for modern goblins).

I had some hopes for the final game but while I made some good early progress I lost it to my opponent playing a [mtg_card]Soulfire Grand Master[/mtg_card] then wiping the board with [mtg_card]Anger of the Gods[/mtg_card] and then out come the Rabblemasters.

Standing: 4-3-Drop

The End

4-3-Drop may not seem like a huge deal but I was seriously happy to get that far, especially with a casual deck and no practice (beyond my weekly draft and the odd bit of casual).

I will say that aggro decks provide one serious benefit that the midrange and control player’s don’t get to experience. Every round was done in 20-30 minutes, leaving me plenty of time to chat to my opponents (seriously I had a really nice run of opponents, really made the day go smoother). A solid day of Magic is a very different experience to alternating Magic and a nice stroll in the sun/Lunch/bit of shopping.

And as a souvenir I was just able to catch Karl Kopinski before he finished and get a [mtg_card]Battle Brawler[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Blood-Chin Rager[/mtg_card] from my deck signed.

GP London – Deck Selection

At this point in my magic playing career I’ve come to the conclusion that my skill level is inversely proportional to the number of players attending the event in which I am competing. I’ve gone from winning and placing well in local leagues and tournaments to mediocre placements in large pre-releases to a pretty consistent 1-4/0-5 then drop in large events.

Part of it is a don’t play a great deal online and only have limited testing opportunities. Another part came down to odd match ups and completely consistently getting awful match ups (5 straight rounds vs merfolk in modern when playing as BG infect was a particularly bad one). Plus I think there may be an element of I just don’t play as well in that kind of environment.

In the last GP I went to (the sealed GP london for … I think it was gatecrash) I crashed out after an abysmal series of rounds (bad pool, plus I was worse at building sealed back then than I am now). Despite all of that I want to go anyway for another GP [mtg_card]Griselbrand[/mtg_card], to get the mat (I like Chandra and it’ll go nicely with my M14 game day mat) and for some general fun, after all if I do terribly I can just wander off to side events and buy stuff.

Given it’s been a fair old while since I’ve played standard or had any idea of the meta game (beyond knowing [mtg_card]Siege Rhino[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Tasigur, the Golden Fang[/mtg_card] are big deals) I doubt that I’m going to have any particular success with a very meta-gamey type arrangement so I may as well go for a fun option.

I had two major options in mind, the first being a pretty simple abzan midrange build. It was a traditional assortment of [mtg_card]Courser of Kruphix[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Siege Rhino[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Elspeth, Sun’s Champion[/mtg_card] along with removal and some guys to fill out the list.

I eventually ruled this out on the basis that it’s never been a deck type I’ve been that great at playing and given how common the big chunky midrange deck type is at the moment everyone will be well set up to deal with it.

My other option (and pretty much the only thing I have all the cards to build the deck in a half decent way) is warriors. I’ve had a few versions of this as we go from set to set. The original was a super budget build with [mtg_card]Raiders’ Spoils[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Spear of Heliod[/mtg_card] 4 of both chiefs and an assortment of budget creatures.

With fate reforged I bought in [mtg_card]Brutal Hordechief[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Mardu Strike Leader[/mtg_card] and the fantastically flexible [mtg_card]Valorous Stance[/mtg_card]. I also experimented with [mtg_card]Merciless Executioner[/mtg_card] but he rapidly got downgraded from main to sideboard to “in the box of cards again”. I like the card, he just doesn’t fit with what you’re trying to do in this deck.

With dragons the option to add this blocks “Three mana double white two two double strike with upside” dude came up. He isn’t [mtg_card]Silverblade Paladin[/mtg_card] but in this deck he’s better.

[d title="BW Warriors - August 2015"]
Creatures
2 Brutal Hordechief
2 Arashin Foremost
2 Mardu Strike Leader
4 Chief of the Edge 
4 Seeker of the Way
2 Battle Brawler 
2 Blood-Chin Rager 
4 Bloodsoaked Champion 
4 Mardu Woe-Reaper

Removal
4 Hero's Downfall 
2 Ultimate Price

Utility
2 Secure the Wastes 
4 Valorous Stance 

Land
4 Temple of Silence 
4 Caves of Koilos 
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth
7 Plains
6 Swamp 

Sideboard
1 Ajani Steadfast
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor
2 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
2 Blood-Chin Fanatic
2 Mardu Strike Leader
2 Banishing Light
4 Thoughtseize 
[/d]

With this version, pre sideboard at least, I’m going for a lower curve than I usually would with only [mtg_card]Brutal Hordechief[/mtg_card] at 4.

I was sad to drop [mtg_card]Chief of the Scale[/mtg_card] but this deck is very much trying to be aggressive and I think in the end that Rager and Brawler are better (the mass menace in particular could swing a few games).

[mtg_card]Seeker of the Way[/mtg_card] should be an asset against more aggressive opponents, especially considering the large amount of instant speed removal. “Shoot guy A, my seeker now survives and kills blocker B” isn’t an implausible scenario.

As mentioned, for removal I’ve gone for all instant speed and as much versatility as I can. [mtg_card]Hero’s Downfall[/mtg_card], for me at least, is an auto include in any black deck. The option to kill an opposing Sorin or Ajani (or just big dumb blocker) is too useful to turn up. Ultimate price is just for additional cheap removal. [mtg_card]Valorous Stance[/mtg_card] is replacing a full set of [mtg_card]God’s Willing[/mtg_card] that I ran in the previous version of the deck. I can see missing the option to just make a guy semi unblockable but the option for yet more removal is too good, especially vs the aforementioned rhinos.

Another bonus of the all instant speed removal is the possibility of holding up removal and, should it not be needed, dumping all my mana into secure the wastes at opponents EOT. even if its only for 3 the tokens still play pretty nicely with [mtg_card]Chief of the Edge[/mtg_card], [mtg_card]Brutal Hordechief[/mtg_card] etc (and Sorin post board)

The sideboard is still a work in progress but it gives me some options to take the deck a couple of ways.

[mtg_card]Blood-Chin Fanatic[/mtg_card] is an experimental option to use against midrange decks as an alternate way to get the last few points of damage through once they stabilise. The off-tribe [mtg_card]Brimaz, King of Oreskos[/mtg_card] is here as an anti aggro option, but also strikes me as possibly useful vs control brought in along with the extra [mtg_card]Mardu Strike Leader[/mtg_card]s.

[mtg_card]Banishing Light[/mtg_card] and [mtg_card]Thoughtseize[/mtg_card] are generic catch all options. [mtg_card]Sorin, Solemn Visitor[/mtg_card] is a more fun option which I imagine I’ll bring in in any matchup where I don’t see him immediately dying without providing much value.

Finally as is traditional my 15th sideboard card is just a random throw in for fun (call me OCD but I hate 1 and 3 ofs), although [mtg_card]Ajani Steadfast[/mtg_card] could come in handy against creature heavy decks to keep a guy that would otherwise die alive in combat every go.

All this being said everything above is wild conjecture so I’m looking forward to actually…you know…playing the damn thing.

What do you reckon the odds are on a traditional 0-4, drop, shop for cube foils result?