Inpromptu Deckbuild #3: Combatshaping

So, another challenge has been issued.

This time around, I was given the Boros Battleshaper. A decent rare, sees a bit of use in EDH (that I have seen) but never really made a splash in Standard. Looking at the CMC, its no real wonder why; its PAINFULLY expensive. But, what if we were to build around it? Well, I think you might be surprised.

One, you take your battleshaper. Seven mana for a 5/5, he's a decent body, but look at the potential in that ability. You can literally determine whether your opponent attacks into your wall of meat, or if his creatures are too scared to block your 7/7 swinging into his face. He's got the potential, but at the staggering cost of 7 mana I can see for a fact that he needs a slow deck to be built around him. I could go for control, Boros has quite a suite of control in this standard, but the combat-based ability of the Battleshaper makes me want a decent creature line up. What deck does slow/beefy? Mid range.


Midrange in mind, as an archetype it needs its bombs. Red/white isn't the bombiest of colours, so I'm thinking of splashing some green, and making this a Naya setup. Keeping within the colours at the moment however, I am excited at the major Boros bomb to be revealed recently (as of last Monday, in fact); Iroas, God of Victory is an excellent mid-game bomb (As early as turn 3 if you ramp into him) and he himself shapes combat. Your attacking creatures will be unable to be damaged by blockers, and each of them cannot be blocked by just one creature. If your opponent has two blockers left? Your entire field is Unblockable.

Splashing out into and keeping with the combat-heavy gods, it's hard to NOT be persuaded by Xenagos, God of Revels. A decent turn 4 play w/ ramp, He can double the power of your incredibly big creatures, ripe to take out your opponent's forced blockers, or straight past the ones that can't block. The addition of haste also makes any play after he hits the field VERY tense for your opponent, as he may just be staring down a 14/11 Iroas with haste.

Stemming out from the gods, the battleshaper presents an interesting opportunity; in being able to force combat in your favour, he can force potent bombs through to your opponent's face, or at least force to attempt chump blocks in the absence of double blocking your onslaught. As a result, I'm leaning towards Giant Adephage as a bomb to close out with. With the right setup, the Adephage can swing for 14 on the turn he's out with Xenagos, which can be sped up to turn 5 in the right condition. If you shape the combat right, at least some damage will go right to the face which, due to the Adephage's effect, produces a copy of the giant beetle, making your next combat hit hard. With Selesnya in the colours of Naya, some token shenanigans could be in order. Another non-God (But might as well be) is the ever-popular Polukranos, World Eater. In a deck that desperately wants ramp as much as this one does, Sooner or later you're going to have enough mana to make him truly Monstrous. And hey, he's removal on a creature, what's not to love?

Speaking of ramp, there are two stand-out entries at this point. First, the Sylvan Caryatid. This guy sees 4-of play in every green deck in Standard for a reason. 2 Mana for a 0/3 hexproof wall is fair enough... Then you make that wall able to tap for ANY colour of mana. Not just green. ANY colour. It's a triple-colour deck's dream. My one regret is that you can only carry 4 in a deck. I must say though, as much as the Caryatid's fixing is nice, it's not quite the ramping power of my other choice for ramp; Meet Xenagos, the Reveler. He does more than create interesting time travel paradoxes when he and his God Form are on the field at once, I assure you. His +1 ability is the main reason I chose him, he ramps. Hard. He makes the 7 drops viable by just being there. Dropping a creature on Turns 1-3 then him causes him to almost pay for himself on entry, then just create value from there. His 0 creates a creature, synergising with his god form; want to break a wall? Throw 4/4 hastes at it until problem is dealt with. I'm assuming unless your opponent has no idea of how to deal with planeswalkers he won't let you get near your ultimate, but if, for example, you were to make his combat so it was impossible to touch Xenagos until he ults, well... Enjoy your free creatures and lands, this deck runs very few noncreature nonlands.

Of course, this strategy is nice, but we need to get there. So we may well need a few early beaters. With the size of the creatures coming down in subsequent turns, my good friend Experiment One will have to make an appearance. He's quite frankly too nuts in most green archetypes to not, a mid game threat with an early game cost. A choice that may give me flak is the inclusion of Wayfaring Temple. Why did I include this? Well, for 3 you get a */* that gets bigger as your field grows. That's nice and all, Crusaders of Odric are routinely seen as end game bombs in my local meta. But, say if you were to get the opportunity to get a free shot at the opponent's face with this monster, you get a populate. An extra token (which is not as small as it sounds, potential targets include Giant Adephage tokens and tokens from Voice of Resurgence) and that makes it even bigger as a result. The potential to stomp your way to victory is pretty attractive, in my opinion. As previously mentioned as well, Voice of Resurgence makes a play in here as well. My reasoning? Well, for one, this card is nuts. Like, super nuts. Guaranteed at least one token whose P/T mirrors your Wayfaring Temples. Add onto the fact that it discourages any Red/Black/Blue/Any deck with instants from doing anything during your turn, is amazing. Psychological Warfare. As I close out the token-heavy section of the build, I feel the need to mention that with every token that hits the board, Xenagos (Planeswalker) becomes more valuable, due to that +1 ability of his.

Now that we have our creatures out of the way, how about some other ways to shape combat? The obvious place to go is combat tricks, but with big enough creatures the only trick I feel is relevant to put in is in defense: Pay No Heed. A white instant reprinted in the Core Set, it nullifies all damage one source would do. Most likely the only creature your opponent attacks with that turn, because he's forced to. This can turn already awkward situations into demoralising losses for your opponent, all for one white mana.

When you see the decklist, you may note there is a one-of on the board: Assemble the Legion. This is a card that I see all the time as a pseudo-sideboard card: If you see it ever, you've stalled out way too long, and this is something to help you end it. To its credit, it does that very well; the exponential growth in field makes Xenagos more valuable, gives you chump blockers, and makes your Elemental tokens/Wayfaring temples bigger. I can only see a one-of of this card being useful, but that's just my opinion!

Thats it for this deckbuild, the full link to my decklist can be found at here if you would like to check it out/give it a try. For now though, see you next time.

Deck Spotlight #4: Undying Assault

Feeling something a bit light-hearted for a blog post today. How does some Plants vs Zombies sound? Or Plants with Zombies? Plant Zombies? Close Enough.

Story time, being a Uni student with not much money and no car, my local meta centralises around my halls of residence, typically. Besides myself, there is perhaps only one other who enjoys the competitive aspect of magic, and we can play for hours with our multitudes of decks (I have 6 main decks with 3 in the works, he has about the same main, but 10 apart from that) and, being blunt, the others don't quite feel our competitive spirit. Quite the opposite.

When we're not locking horns in a competitive arena, my meta prefer large Free-for-all games, which surprisingly end up having the two with highly competitive minds/decks, even if we're not playing competitive decks, being the main targets. It's the way things will be anywhere, I've come to grips with that. So, one day, I decided to make a deck that would make people NOT want to target me (either my creatures or my deck, mill is/was a big thing in the meta) and, flicking through my binder, I found a copy of Varolz, the Scar-Striped in my collection. It was from then on that the idea hatched: A build up deck, which doesn't make enemies unless provoked, and if it does get targetted by creature or mill, it speeds up my clock. Glorious. IT fits the meta as well, as they prefer Field-building games anyhow. And so, Undying Assault was born.

First up, let's talk about the poster child of the deck, Varolz. Traded into shortly after the Dragon's Maze prerelease, as he was my favourite of the champions; as much as the Orzhov Syndicate have my heart guildwise, look at him. Makes EVERYTHING you have useful after death. Can regenerate, and doing so adds more fuel to his first powerful ability. A perfect opportunity for capitalisation, as most people underestimate his frail 2/2 body (Hell, even the Selesnya "Champion" can take 2 2/2s with no problem). The scavenge cost on each dead creature is equal to its cost, so high power, lost cost creatures will be the best way forward, along with as few spells as I can spare, as he is creature hungry.

Being a sucker for the Standard pool, I had a look around and found another guy I wanted to make a staple of in this deck: Corpsejack Menace (or as my local meta now calls him, "Not that Fuckface again") because, unsurprisingly, once he enters the field untouched, he instantly makes things a wee bit nuts. Suddenly, your scavenges go crazy, your evolvers (I'll get onto those later) start doubling output, and your hydras (Once again, I'll cover that in a sec) become incredibly efficient. Doubling counters is an ability that should NEVER be underestimated. Period.


Next, the heart of the Swarm: the Scavenge creatures. It's rare that these guys see play long, as they're serve as, let's be honest, aggro fodder. They're the early game creatures that keep your opponent down so your bombs can grow. I could have loaded up with tons of Scavenge creatures, but with Varolz that's less of an issue, so I went with the most valuable Scavenge creatures: Slitherhead, a 1/1 for 1 that Scavenges for FREE. The only scavenge creature that Varolz doesn't add value too, but he doesn't need to. Opponents typically ignore him early, but a poke or five down the line they have to kill him, which feeds the swarm. Next in line is the Dreg Mangler, one of my votes for early game MVP. If you're on the play and hit your land drops, he's nigh-unanswerable on turn 3, if you're on the draw he's answerable but will either burn removal or your opponent's creatures of equal or greater size. Then he scavenges for 5, made cheaper with Varolz to 3. For my final scavenge creature, and to answer to those that think "3/3s are cool, but where's your meat?" I present the top end of my mana curve: Deadbridge Goliath. He's a solid 5/5 for 4, which is enough for at least a look in, but when he turns into a +5/+5 scavenge for 4 (increased exponentially by the presence of Corpsejack Menaces) his death and subsequent reraising ends games.

Carrying on the aggro theme, I mentioned that this deck would not be fully Scavenge fodder in the early game. What did I mean by that? Well, Meet Experiment One. My ideal turn 1 play, he would come out to provide much needed defense, regenerates by cannibalising himself, and his evolve trigger works with the Corpsejack Menaces, putting up to 8(!) counters on him per evolve trigger. Of course that rarely happens; Best so far is turn 5 experiment one into second corpsejack menace, creating a 5/5 and another 4/4 for a total of 5 mana. Ridiculous. As for the other inclusion I've seen questioned about in this deck is my election for 2 drop, the Kalonian Tusker. Upon the reasoning that 1) He's above the curve at 3/3 for 2, 2) scavenges for +3/+3 minimum when Varolz is on the field, and 3) evolves Experiment one straight out the gate potentially up to twice, justifies his inclusion in the deck.

Now for what you've all been waiting for: the bombs. The guys that end games very quickly once a scavenge or two is put onto them, getting obscene in the presence of Corpsejacks. First up, the Lotleth Troll. He's expensive, and with good reason. at BG, I have a 2/1 Trample, which regenerates for B. B being needed to cast him in the first place, he needs to be killed the turn he hits the board or he's going to be a problem. He's unpredictable in combat as suddenly, every single creature in hand is a combat trick. This goes from just +1/+1 to get you out of range of that burn spell, or +2/+2 to send you over the top of their blocker, or +8/+8 to finish the game out. Then, the turn after, every creature you've discarded to give him the edge becomes scavenge material to make the trampler ensure the game ends swiftly.

Or is that not enough? Would you prefer a trampler that grows quicker, AND puts your creatures into the grave, fresh for a scavenging? A new inclusion with Born of the Gods, Scourge of Skola Vale, has been doing work for me. First off, he comes in with counters. These are doubled if you have a corpsejack or two on the field. Alone he's a 2/2 trample for 3, respectable. With one corpsejack, he's a 4/4 trample for 3, absolutely absurd. In a long drawn out game, when he ETBs as a 32/32 trample, I have seen on the spot scoops from unprepared players. Second, his sacrifice ability. These counters are also affected by corpsejack, so it's entirely possible to sac a Deadbridge Goliath for 10 +1/+1 counters, then scavenge another 10 onto him the same turn, for 4 mana total. I give this as an example because it was the first time I'd playtested him in this environment. He subsequently ran through a Sliver tribal deck for the win the turn after, didn't even blink. That game sold me on this card completely.

Finally, no deck would be that great if it didnt have removal. For a quick run down of the removal suite, I elected to go with a playset of Putrefy as my 3 drop; if I had the budget I'd just as easily go for Hero's Downfall, but the added utility of artifact removal is nice. At 2 drop I also have a playset of Ultimate Price, As in my meta I come up against heavy black decks fairly often (hence the want for graveyard manipulation) and Doom Blade wouldn't have quite done the job. While it could be argued that Doom Blade would be quite good, Its hard to justify replacing the Ultimate Prices for them with Monocoloured creatures being very prevalent, and in the case of coming against a black deck I would not enjoy having 4 dead cards in the deck, and relying on my Putrefies.

Thats it for this deck folks, my full deck list including amounts of each card can be found here. I hope you enjoyed the ride; Until next time!

Inpromptu Deckbuild #2: The Cunning and the Cruel

So, it's blog post time again, ladies and gents.

This time around, things are a bit different; I've had a request. I've been asked to form a deck for a specific card this time around, and this time around that card is a black mythic from Theros, that isn't a god. I am, of course, talking about Hythonia the Cruel. This card is one that I (and my significant other) have been wanting to put into a deck since we pulled one out of a Theros pack, and promptly pulled a second one later that week. Queen of the Gorgons, she has the power to wipe a field of non-gorgons, leaving her only more powerful and with any number of friends she cares to have left behind. Question is, what can we do with her?

First things first, I'd want to be able to use her effect when I need it. So i'll need a lot of mana. This deck being standard, luckily I know exactly what I want. A source of mana so rich and easy to work into a build it would be nuts to try and find something else. I am referring, of course, to Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx. With enough devotion, the normally staggering 8 mana cost of Hythonia's ability becomes negligible. Sure, you lose your devotion after. And sure, it only works once. But usually, once is all you need.

So, what do we use with her? First kneejerk reaction goes towards Gorgons, of which there are pitiful few in the set, some are present the the Golgari Swarm in Ravnica but our best bet is a stab in the Theros block. The only real one we can see to actually impact in any meaningful way would be Reaper of the Wilds. The scry-on-death effect will cause a mass delve into your library after a Hythonia wipe, as well as her in-built hexproof generation to protect her from removal. I'm a big fan of her work.

Looking outside the Gorgon box, preferably down the lower end of the CMC spectrum, we have few choices to be excited about, but they are solid  when we do find them. For one, we have Nighthowler.  Provides two black devotion to the Nykthos buff pool, survives Hythonia's wipe (if bestowed) and either is super-buff or super-buffs whatever it's attached to after the fact. Value upon value upon value. Just what i'm looking for.

Out of pure necessity and as my favourite creature in the whole Theros block, Good old Gary is included in my list. With Thoughtseize and Underworld Connections being serious contenders in our noncreature spots, the Gray Merchant rears his ugly head to fuel another of my black monstrosities.

Another honorable mention in this deck is Sylvan Caryatid. A flexible mana dork, with hexproof, which can provide an early wall against those pesky aggro decks. Only disadvantages would be that she is not Hythonia proof, and she doesnt contribute to our devotion counter.

Im fairly happy with the creature count currently, as they all contribute towards the end goal, and the deck itself looks like it's leaning towards a control shell, so I may return but creature-light control decks are widespread. So, what next?

Thoughtseize. That's what. Getting into your opponent's head (or hand, in this case) seeing what he's thinking, and then DENYING him that strategy is a valuable strategy. Oh, it's one mana? Surely there must be some other setback. 2 life? I'll survive, but anything to eliminate that Detention Sphere, or that Gray Merchant. Literally the only thing this card can't touch is their land drop, which leaves a LOT of room to ruin their game, and possibly their day.

Next on the list of considerations, Golgari Charm. Usually a sideboard card against boardwipes like Supreme Verdict, but when your main win condition can expertly eliminate half of your creatures, a fallback in order to make it a one-sided field wipe for 2 extra mana (when you're probably swimming in the stuff from Nykthos) is nothing to be sniffed at. Also provides enchantment removal for the increasing impactful presence of enchantment creatures, and a Shrivel, which won't kill your creatures regardless.

Next, onwards to our suite of Removal. Being a control deck, being overwhelmed before you reach your ultimatum is not the best of ideas. As such, I have two suggestions for this decklist in particular. Bile Blight introduced in Born of the Gods is an incredibly versatile removal spell at BB, removing the prevalent Pack Rat as well as the host of tokens produced by Mono White and Mono Blue devotion decks. For everything else, however, there is always my good friend Hero's Downfall. Indiscriminate, same cost as murder, and ices planeswalkers, which are rising through the ranks with Superfriends builds being increasingly big (even moreso with a planeswalker lineup of Jace, Kiora, Elspeth and soon to be Ajani in Bant colours) and thats why I placed the Downfall over something like Putrefy. Putrefy would be a decent sideboard card by all means, but planeswalkers > artifacts in terms of wanting to remove them.

Speaking of planeswalkers, we have a very special inclusion in this set of colours: Vraska the Unseen. The reasons for including at least one include: Doesn't die to Hythonia, includes 1 black devotion, is a repeatable Bramblecrush (and stalls out attacks on you with her +1) and is also a gorgon, so flavourwise I'm a giggling schoolgirl. This hideously resistant inclusion to the deck will make opposing decks feel even more like they're running through tar the whole time, all the while you're fuelling your ultimatum.

To end out the deck, what's a control deck without a draw engine to fuel it? For this spot, look no further than Underworld Connections. Same as Vraska, adds black devotion (two this time, as opposed to one), is resistant to Hythonia's ability, and can draw you cards at instant speed. What's not to love?

Put those all together, and you have yourself one Deck List, containing one of the first ways (that I've seen) to give Hythonia the Cruel her competitive edge. It might not be incredible, but it'll be enough to beat a few people at FNM, maybe lose a few friends while you're at it. Have Fun!