Magic deckbuilding
Posted: Sun Sep 27, 2015 12:45 pm
So Magic is a computer game now adays, and really dedicated tournament types play the online version obsessively in order to improve their skills. I don't have time for that shit, but this still seems like the most appropriate subforum for deckbuilding discussion because the aforementioned computer version exists.
So here's the deal: I'm making a Mardu Valor deck. This is difficult because I am spoiled for choice and finding it difficult to settle on a 60 card decklist. There are simply many many cards that combo together very nicely and it's hard to pick. Especially for the creatures. Let's start with the basic outline of Mardu Valor:
Valor in Akros is hands down the most undervalued card in Standard today. What it does is gives your creatures a bonus on the turn creatures come into play. So if you can lay down a lot of creatures in a turn and/or attack with creatures on the turn they come into play, you can have bonuses that are big and count for beating your opponent down. So when Mardu Ascendancy lays down 1 extra goblin per attacking creature card and has those Goblins be attacking right away, that gets very big, very fast. If you attack with two creatures, both are +2/+2 and there are two extra 3/3 Goblins attacking. If you attack with three creatures, all three are +3/+3 and you get three extra attacking Goblins who are all 4/4s. If you do it with four creatures attacking, the extra goblins alone are coming in for 20 damage. You could get really insane numbers (and attack with six Grey Ogres would be swinging for 90 damage, for example), but you'll never need to because even a few bits and bobs of the combo are enough to wipe your opponent out.
And then you have the core black creatures.
These two Orcs are cheap and powerful. And they help trigger off the same things that your core enchantments do. You can flameshadow a Merciless Executioner to kill two creatures or play the Merciless Execuioner with the Valor in play to get +1/+1 on all your creatures on the turn you play a removal spell. An Ambuscade Shaman makes all the Mardu Goblins swing in for 3 damage each, and a flameshadow of one is a 6 point ball lightning. Both cards are an easy four-of.
Now a bit about Instants:
You are at heart a combo deck, and that means you're going to need to defend yourself. Killing your opponent's big creatures is a good start of course. And laying down a bunch of surprise warriors can be a good defense as well (or pop them out in order to have extra attacking bodies next turn). Once Valor in Akros is in play, you can also use surprise warriors as a combat trick by giving all your currently fighting creatures +X/+X, and just leave the extra warriors behind as defense or to make an even stupidly larger attack next turn if the game isn't over.
But really this all comes down to the creatures doing the heavy lifting. And that's where we get really spoiled for choice. Let's start with the Mardu leadership, because they are thematically appropriate.
These creatures make creatures for attacking. This can snowball pretty quickly. If Alesha has a creature to grab in the graveyard, her attacking triggers Mardu Ascendancy twice, and both her grab and the Mardu Goblins trigger the Valor. The grabbed creature is a non-token coming into play and can be flameshadowed (which is only helpful if they have a coming into play effect or you have Valor going, because it's too late to declare them as attackers). The Mardu Strike Leader makes bonus warriors that trigger Valor (and which stay around and can attack next turn), and so does his Flame Shadow. A Flameshadowed dashing Strike Leader can come onto the board and trigger Valor in Akros four times, and then do it again next turn with even more bodies.
The Thopter Corps have a lot to recommend them as well. Pia and Kirran or the Engineer make extra creatures for coming into play, which means that their Flameshadows make extra creatures as well (and those bonus thopters don't go away at the end of the turn or the instant they notice that they are a double of a legendary creature in the case of Pia and Kirran). A Flameshadow of Pia and Kirran triggers Valor in Akros six times and allows you to to kill a Dragonlord with a goblin token. Hangarback Walkers can make a shit tonne of creatures when killed, and you can profitably pop them with your own Executioner Orcs. If the Engineer is in play, all the thopters you make can attack the turn they come into play and they all see and are seen by the Valor in Akros simultaneously. So a walker with just four tokens on it can potentially be making four 5/5 fliers with haste (which would be game in most cases even when you hadn't done the opponent any damage at all).
All three of them are technically small enough to be grabbed with Alesha, and even returning a 0/0 Hangarback Walker is still a threat on the attack if you have Valor in Akros, Mardu Ascendancy, or an Ambuscade Shaman in play.
These black warriors are all cheap and can be cast on curve. They are also small enough that you can grab them with Alesha. But of course you'd never bother using Alesha on the Champion because he can do it himself. The Champion can be returned to play (and flameshadowed, if necessary) at any time after you've declared an attack, which means it can be used as a combat trick once you have Valor going. The Skullhunter can be played after an attack as card advantage, and if he is grabbed by Alesha he triggers a discard. If you're playing him for the discard effect he can also be Flameshadowed to make him into a Mind Rot that also makes a warm body you can send to the Orcish Executioners or power Mardu Ascendancy. The Rager gives all your warriors menace, which means that big piles of Warriors (such as those generated by Secure the Waste) are extremely difficult to deal with, and you can whittle your opponent down severely if your combos don't work out.
These big dash creatures attack from nowhere and get even bigger when you have Valor in Akros or Ambuscade Shamans in play. The Pitiless Horde can be Flameshadowed for even more stomping action, and the Storm's Fury cannot. But she gives extra bonuses to all your other attackers, including any Mardu Goblins you happen to be making.
These Red dash creatures can attack the turn they come into play and are potentially replayed the next turn. They get bigger with Valor or Ambuscade Shamans and can be doubled up with Flameshadow. Both are a bit pricey and small, but they make blocking variously difficult. The Forerunners trample and thus can't be chump blocked, and the Heelcutter denies your opponent one blocker (two with a Flameshadow), which means that if they have something really gruesome or totally "having Lifelink" or something you can tell them to go pound sand.
That's some really impressive combo potential. If you dash him and have a Flameshadow, you could make two copies of something like an Ambuscade Shaman, who would themselves see each other and the original Ambuscade Shaman (and both the Riders would see the original Shaman), so that would go from having a Shaman and a Flameshadow in play to having five attackers, two of which were 5/5 and two were 8/8. Still, the fact that this guy can't do his thing at all unless you have another creature already in play that you are willing to attack with means that this is the first guy I'm pretty sold on cutting.
The Brutal Hordechief lifedrains your opponent for every attacking creature. So if you have a stupid huge pile of attackers (like you just Secured the Wastes or you have Mardu Ascendancy going), then you can whittle your opponent down fast and get yourself life back in the process. And when you're in a position where you could hammer your opponent down if only they didn't block, you can pay five mana to make that happen. The Wingmate Roc can be Flameshadowed for a second bonus bird token and gives back a fair chunk of life when you rush in all of those attackers. Still, in both cases there is some substantial counter synergy. The Hordechief's block reassignment only happens when you pay five mana, and thatt's going to be hard to do on a turn you dash things in to get Valor/Shaman bonuses. The Wingmate Roc puts down an admirable number of bodies, but does so after combat, so you don't get any benefit from Valor or Ambuscades at all.
Both these White warleaders are "small" enough to come back with Alesha. And they also potentially do shenanigans with +1/+1 tokens that could boost the fuck out of a Hangarback Walker and turn into a metric assload of Thopter Tokens. Attacks of over a hundred damage in the air are totally conceivable. They don't synergize that well with each other though, because Daghatar has Vigiliance and the General counts tapped creatures.
Deathtouch is a solid means of getting rid of enemy units. All of these guys are low power enough to get back with Alesha, and with a Brutal Hordechief you could force your opponent to throw big units under the bus and even arrange trades at 2:1 or better.
Speaking of ways to get rid of enemies, how about some that creatures that kill creatures and stay in play? The Hidden Dragonslayer can do that for you and also stays in play as a lifelinker to get life back. He's small enough that Alesha can return him to play for more lifelinking goodness, but he won't megamorph doing that and won't kill anything. You also can't flameshadow anything. The Winnower can be flame shadowed for a double kill, but you have to pay the full price up front so he's expensive. Also, he only kills a select list of things, but since that list includes Rhinos and all the Dragonlords, it might be OK. I don't think either of these troops are main board potential.
These Chiefs boost all other creatures with the appropriate creature type. Including other copies of themselves. If you went heavy into Warriors (Mardu Strike Leader, Blood-Chin Rager, Blood Soaked Champion, Secure the Wastes, and so on), the Chief of the Edge has your back. If you go all-in on Thopters, the Chief of the Foundry gives bonuses to all of them even when you aren't doing a Valor-based ultra kill.
These are cheap creatures from the new set that give you tokens to beat your opponent with when you don't do anything but topdeck lands. The Dragonmaster doesn't appreciably synergize with the Ambuscade Shaman, and even though she does trigger Valor in Akros every turn, she does so at the wrong time to be of any benefit to your dash creatures. Still, the Dragonmaster is a very short clock on the game once she starts going. The Stonewaker is subtler, and does trigger Ambuscade Shamans and Valor in Akros (though not Flameshadow).
This is a creature from the new set that is small enough to come back with Alesha and also flies and hands out permanent bonuses to other attackers. Note that you get the tokens for doing damage, so the other creatures wouldn't get the tokens in time to deal extra damage, but I think they might get the tokens in time to save them from lethal damage. Also puts tokens on Mardu goblins or Thopter Tokens, which puts a clock on the game if people can't stop the Liberator.
Sorin isn't a creature at all, but he can make one in a pinch. Also he can give you a lot of life and slow down the game considerably. If he gets the emblem out, he can ruin your opponent's day unless they are a rally deck or a token deck themselves. Similarly, new Gideon can create extra creatures or provide a persistent bonus to all the creatures you ever have. In either case, both Plainswalkers have a lot of abilities that synergize well with the rest of the creatures and enchantments in the deck.
This is a card in the new set that lets you trade creatures for life and cards. Not very much life, and it's kind of expensive. But the creatures can be blocked or blocking creatures that are about to die, nearly worthless tokens, flameshadows or stonewaked elementals that are about to wink out of existence, and you get real cards out of the deal.
So that's the problem in a nut shell. There are way too many cards that have strong synergies with the program. The White/Red/Black combos are strong, subtle, and modular. Each card works well with several others in interesting ways. And ultimately you're going to need to pare it all down and remember that you win the fucking game by dealing 20 life and getting all the pieces in place is never going to happen and also doesn't matter because you can win the damn game or get your head kicked in long before you have it all.
-Username17
So here's the deal: I'm making a Mardu Valor deck. This is difficult because I am spoiled for choice and finding it difficult to settle on a 60 card decklist. There are simply many many cards that combo together very nicely and it's hard to pick. Especially for the creatures. Let's start with the basic outline of Mardu Valor:
Valor in Akros is hands down the most undervalued card in Standard today. What it does is gives your creatures a bonus on the turn creatures come into play. So if you can lay down a lot of creatures in a turn and/or attack with creatures on the turn they come into play, you can have bonuses that are big and count for beating your opponent down. So when Mardu Ascendancy lays down 1 extra goblin per attacking creature card and has those Goblins be attacking right away, that gets very big, very fast. If you attack with two creatures, both are +2/+2 and there are two extra 3/3 Goblins attacking. If you attack with three creatures, all three are +3/+3 and you get three extra attacking Goblins who are all 4/4s. If you do it with four creatures attacking, the extra goblins alone are coming in for 20 damage. You could get really insane numbers (and attack with six Grey Ogres would be swinging for 90 damage, for example), but you'll never need to because even a few bits and bobs of the combo are enough to wipe your opponent out.
And then you have the core black creatures.
These two Orcs are cheap and powerful. And they help trigger off the same things that your core enchantments do. You can flameshadow a Merciless Executioner to kill two creatures or play the Merciless Execuioner with the Valor in play to get +1/+1 on all your creatures on the turn you play a removal spell. An Ambuscade Shaman makes all the Mardu Goblins swing in for 3 damage each, and a flameshadow of one is a 6 point ball lightning. Both cards are an easy four-of.
Now a bit about Instants:
You are at heart a combo deck, and that means you're going to need to defend yourself. Killing your opponent's big creatures is a good start of course. And laying down a bunch of surprise warriors can be a good defense as well (or pop them out in order to have extra attacking bodies next turn). Once Valor in Akros is in play, you can also use surprise warriors as a combat trick by giving all your currently fighting creatures +X/+X, and just leave the extra warriors behind as defense or to make an even stupidly larger attack next turn if the game isn't over.
But really this all comes down to the creatures doing the heavy lifting. And that's where we get really spoiled for choice. Let's start with the Mardu leadership, because they are thematically appropriate.
These creatures make creatures for attacking. This can snowball pretty quickly. If Alesha has a creature to grab in the graveyard, her attacking triggers Mardu Ascendancy twice, and both her grab and the Mardu Goblins trigger the Valor. The grabbed creature is a non-token coming into play and can be flameshadowed (which is only helpful if they have a coming into play effect or you have Valor going, because it's too late to declare them as attackers). The Mardu Strike Leader makes bonus warriors that trigger Valor (and which stay around and can attack next turn), and so does his Flame Shadow. A Flameshadowed dashing Strike Leader can come onto the board and trigger Valor in Akros four times, and then do it again next turn with even more bodies.
The Thopter Corps have a lot to recommend them as well. Pia and Kirran or the Engineer make extra creatures for coming into play, which means that their Flameshadows make extra creatures as well (and those bonus thopters don't go away at the end of the turn or the instant they notice that they are a double of a legendary creature in the case of Pia and Kirran). A Flameshadow of Pia and Kirran triggers Valor in Akros six times and allows you to to kill a Dragonlord with a goblin token. Hangarback Walkers can make a shit tonne of creatures when killed, and you can profitably pop them with your own Executioner Orcs. If the Engineer is in play, all the thopters you make can attack the turn they come into play and they all see and are seen by the Valor in Akros simultaneously. So a walker with just four tokens on it can potentially be making four 5/5 fliers with haste (which would be game in most cases even when you hadn't done the opponent any damage at all).
All three of them are technically small enough to be grabbed with Alesha, and even returning a 0/0 Hangarback Walker is still a threat on the attack if you have Valor in Akros, Mardu Ascendancy, or an Ambuscade Shaman in play.
These black warriors are all cheap and can be cast on curve. They are also small enough that you can grab them with Alesha. But of course you'd never bother using Alesha on the Champion because he can do it himself. The Champion can be returned to play (and flameshadowed, if necessary) at any time after you've declared an attack, which means it can be used as a combat trick once you have Valor going. The Skullhunter can be played after an attack as card advantage, and if he is grabbed by Alesha he triggers a discard. If you're playing him for the discard effect he can also be Flameshadowed to make him into a Mind Rot that also makes a warm body you can send to the Orcish Executioners or power Mardu Ascendancy. The Rager gives all your warriors menace, which means that big piles of Warriors (such as those generated by Secure the Waste) are extremely difficult to deal with, and you can whittle your opponent down severely if your combos don't work out.
These big dash creatures attack from nowhere and get even bigger when you have Valor in Akros or Ambuscade Shamans in play. The Pitiless Horde can be Flameshadowed for even more stomping action, and the Storm's Fury cannot. But she gives extra bonuses to all your other attackers, including any Mardu Goblins you happen to be making.
These Red dash creatures can attack the turn they come into play and are potentially replayed the next turn. They get bigger with Valor or Ambuscade Shamans and can be doubled up with Flameshadow. Both are a bit pricey and small, but they make blocking variously difficult. The Forerunners trample and thus can't be chump blocked, and the Heelcutter denies your opponent one blocker (two with a Flameshadow), which means that if they have something really gruesome or totally "having Lifelink" or something you can tell them to go pound sand.
That's some really impressive combo potential. If you dash him and have a Flameshadow, you could make two copies of something like an Ambuscade Shaman, who would themselves see each other and the original Ambuscade Shaman (and both the Riders would see the original Shaman), so that would go from having a Shaman and a Flameshadow in play to having five attackers, two of which were 5/5 and two were 8/8. Still, the fact that this guy can't do his thing at all unless you have another creature already in play that you are willing to attack with means that this is the first guy I'm pretty sold on cutting.
The Brutal Hordechief lifedrains your opponent for every attacking creature. So if you have a stupid huge pile of attackers (like you just Secured the Wastes or you have Mardu Ascendancy going), then you can whittle your opponent down fast and get yourself life back in the process. And when you're in a position where you could hammer your opponent down if only they didn't block, you can pay five mana to make that happen. The Wingmate Roc can be Flameshadowed for a second bonus bird token and gives back a fair chunk of life when you rush in all of those attackers. Still, in both cases there is some substantial counter synergy. The Hordechief's block reassignment only happens when you pay five mana, and thatt's going to be hard to do on a turn you dash things in to get Valor/Shaman bonuses. The Wingmate Roc puts down an admirable number of bodies, but does so after combat, so you don't get any benefit from Valor or Ambuscades at all.
Both these White warleaders are "small" enough to come back with Alesha. And they also potentially do shenanigans with +1/+1 tokens that could boost the fuck out of a Hangarback Walker and turn into a metric assload of Thopter Tokens. Attacks of over a hundred damage in the air are totally conceivable. They don't synergize that well with each other though, because Daghatar has Vigiliance and the General counts tapped creatures.
Deathtouch is a solid means of getting rid of enemy units. All of these guys are low power enough to get back with Alesha, and with a Brutal Hordechief you could force your opponent to throw big units under the bus and even arrange trades at 2:1 or better.
Speaking of ways to get rid of enemies, how about some that creatures that kill creatures and stay in play? The Hidden Dragonslayer can do that for you and also stays in play as a lifelinker to get life back. He's small enough that Alesha can return him to play for more lifelinking goodness, but he won't megamorph doing that and won't kill anything. You also can't flameshadow anything. The Winnower can be flame shadowed for a double kill, but you have to pay the full price up front so he's expensive. Also, he only kills a select list of things, but since that list includes Rhinos and all the Dragonlords, it might be OK. I don't think either of these troops are main board potential.
These Chiefs boost all other creatures with the appropriate creature type. Including other copies of themselves. If you went heavy into Warriors (Mardu Strike Leader, Blood-Chin Rager, Blood Soaked Champion, Secure the Wastes, and so on), the Chief of the Edge has your back. If you go all-in on Thopters, the Chief of the Foundry gives bonuses to all of them even when you aren't doing a Valor-based ultra kill.
These are cheap creatures from the new set that give you tokens to beat your opponent with when you don't do anything but topdeck lands. The Dragonmaster doesn't appreciably synergize with the Ambuscade Shaman, and even though she does trigger Valor in Akros every turn, she does so at the wrong time to be of any benefit to your dash creatures. Still, the Dragonmaster is a very short clock on the game once she starts going. The Stonewaker is subtler, and does trigger Ambuscade Shamans and Valor in Akros (though not Flameshadow).
This is a creature from the new set that is small enough to come back with Alesha and also flies and hands out permanent bonuses to other attackers. Note that you get the tokens for doing damage, so the other creatures wouldn't get the tokens in time to deal extra damage, but I think they might get the tokens in time to save them from lethal damage. Also puts tokens on Mardu goblins or Thopter Tokens, which puts a clock on the game if people can't stop the Liberator.
Sorin isn't a creature at all, but he can make one in a pinch. Also he can give you a lot of life and slow down the game considerably. If he gets the emblem out, he can ruin your opponent's day unless they are a rally deck or a token deck themselves. Similarly, new Gideon can create extra creatures or provide a persistent bonus to all the creatures you ever have. In either case, both Plainswalkers have a lot of abilities that synergize well with the rest of the creatures and enchantments in the deck.
This is a card in the new set that lets you trade creatures for life and cards. Not very much life, and it's kind of expensive. But the creatures can be blocked or blocking creatures that are about to die, nearly worthless tokens, flameshadows or stonewaked elementals that are about to wink out of existence, and you get real cards out of the deal.
So that's the problem in a nut shell. There are way too many cards that have strong synergies with the program. The White/Red/Black combos are strong, subtle, and modular. Each card works well with several others in interesting ways. And ultimately you're going to need to pare it all down and remember that you win the fucking game by dealing 20 life and getting all the pieces in place is never going to happen and also doesn't matter because you can win the damn game or get your head kicked in long before you have it all.
-Username17