Alright, so I've had almost no time to playtest and the one deck I was brewing was too inconsistent on three colors to work. I liked the principle, and it had some very explosive games, but I think I can make something almost as good with better mana in two colors. So, let's have a look at the evolution of my deck for this event.
I started off with my BW Tokens. I love this archetype, probably to my detriment. I was digging through red though and found some very interesting cards and wanted to test them. I tested a variation of my tokens deck with Rally the Peasants, Thatcher's Revolt, and Zealous Conscripts. Loved it when it worked. There were a few very satisfying surprised looks on the faces of opponents that didn't see what was coming when they get first turn Champion of the Parish, second turn Intangible Virtue, third turn Thatcher's Revolt for a total of 10 damage in the form of a hard to stop ball lightning effect. That's right, I just compared Thatcher's Revolt to a Ball Lightning. But in this deck it was better than Ball Lightning in some very dumbfounding ways. In addition to permanently buffing Champion, it made some hard to stop damage that came across after you dropped a few anthem effects. Adding more non-basic lands just unbalanced the manabase too much to be acceptable and made for some bad games where I was essentially time-walking for the other player after not having a relevant drop till turn 3 or 4.
So, I went back to the drawing board. I still love the Tokens archtypes. I think with the right twists, it can over run a lot of the bad matchups for aggro decks in the format. I think Hero of Bladehold has made new friends with what is possibly my favorite three drop critter in the format right now. Champion of Lambholt. I didn't realize just how good she was until a good friend of mine and I started doing some playtesting on a WG Humans deck I suggested to him. After thinking about it more, and goofing around with it some in my head and on paper, I decided that GW Human/Tokens can be really nasty and have some great plays. It immediately has some amazing perks. It has a better curve than BW because of having a mana dork to play as a 1 drop, bringing the first turn a long way from "land, go." Next, it offers a lord in the Mayor on the two spot, helping round out some great two drops with an anthem on a body. At the three position, green brings Champ of Lambholt, which is a house. And for some true end game success, Green offers us some solutions to bad match ups. Against control with a ton of board wipes, how about a few Kessig Cagebreakers to get the ball rolling back in my favor again? Or how about Sigarda as a solution to things like Killing Wave and other nastiness of that nature.
Of course, as a few end-game cards to really spice the deck up, how about Entreat the Angels? It's already a great card, but I think paying 5 mana for an Archangel is way better than paying 7. And if you miracle it into play, you can get 3 of those angels for the same price... So... If I draw this on accident on turn 5, with 1 Intangible Virtue on the field, you're telling me I get three 5/5 flyers with vigilance? Sounds like a game winner to me. Even on turn 3 for 1 of those, I'd be thrilled.
So, where does that leave me? With very little time to playtest this deck until the weekend and with a few more key cards to trade for or borrow. Fortunatly, I think I know where I can get a few of the ones that I really need to put the cap on the thing. I'm naming the deck, I just haven't figured out what yet.
So here's the list as I see it right now.
2 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Champion of the Parish
2 Hero of Bladehold
2 Angel of Jubilation
4 Champion of Lambholt
2 Mayor of Avabruck
2 Sigarda, Host of Herons
2 Angels of Jubilation
(18 Creatures)
4 Gather the Townsfolk
4 Midnight Haunting
4 Intangible Virtue
2 Entreat the Angels
1 Sword of War and Peace
1 Sword of Feast and Famine
1 Angelic Destiny
(17 Spells)
2 Sunpetal Grove
4 Razorverge Thicket
3 Cavern of Souls
2 Gavony Township
7 Forest
7 Plains
(25 Lands)
That's about it for me. My sideboard is still in the air, but I've got some ideas. More to follow as I get in some testing and some trading in the next week or so.
SD13
No comments:
Post a Comment