This deck isn't very good but it is pretty sweet.
I put in in budget since it costs about $75 without board and you could shave off quite a bit by choosing different lands and running a genesis wave or two less.
Defender is at its core a ramp strategy so the point of this deck is to make a lot of mana and then do silly things with it.
Our core defender ramp shell creatures are:
Axebane Guardian: The best. This guy makes casting Banefire a snap. This card plus Genesis Wave makes it possible for us to run Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker as a legitimate sideboard card.
Overgrown Battlement: Another huge mana multiplier.
Sylvan Caryatid: Helps us get red. And ramps a bit.
The most silly thing we can ramp into is Genesis Wave. Casting a wave for 6+ is always good. This is the most common way we find and play our 2-3 of's like Behemoth Sledge and Assault Formation. Or
Gaea's Revenge
from the board.
As far as the other walls go here is the thinking:
Wall of Omens: Gets us some card draw. Helps us turn on mana ramp at a low cost, feels great triggering off a Genesis Wave and doesn't die to a Lightning Bolt.
Wall of Tanglecord
: This card is our only shot at interacting with flyers pre-board. Has the biggest butt at 6 which makes this the most deadly card out of the box with Assault Formation. Also gives us something to do if we ever get stuck on a Gavony Township
+
Plains
.
Stalwart Shield-Bearers
: Honestly, I am not sure about these guys. They make our walls bigger which feels relevant in respect to burn, or goyfs or just big dumb things in general. If we get Assault Formation out, they help there too.
Utility:
Gavony Township: Putting Counters on our stuff seems like a thing we want to be doing.
Harmonize: Helps us filter for whatever it is we need. Will often be either a costs X spell we are ready to ramp into or a ramp enabler like Axebane Guardian or Overgrown Battlement to power out the costs x spell in our hand.
Behemoth Sledge: This card may in fact be a bit of a win more, but it feels awesome landing this, a few mana and a
Gaea's Revenge
off of a Genesis Wave.
Win Conditions:
Assault Formation: Cheap enchantment that lest us attack with our walls. We have a lot of mana ramp here so we can make lots of attackers with enough mana left to pump a time or two quite often.
Banefire: We don't have much trouble casting this big and it is a total middle finger to blue which feels wonderful. Can be stopped with Spellskite or Deflecting Palm, both pretty common in side boards across the land. With that in mind, I think its best to lean on these game 1, then board them out game 2 and move into
Gaea's Revenge
's and settle in for a more ground based game.
Genesis Wave: This is the card that makes the game go out of control. It is not uncommon to cast 2 Genesis Wave's in a game and when you do, the board state is hard to overcome. The mana ramp gets out of hand. You get your Behemoth Sledge's and Assault Formation's. You hit your
Gaea's Revenge
. You get some card draw off of Wall of Omens which draws you back into Genesis Wave or Banefire and if not, you probably picked up a Harmonize which does the same thing and which you have ample mana to cast.
This is also the most fun card to cast in the deck.
Sideboard:
Gaea's Revenge
: Another middle finger for blue. And basically every other color. This creature is great off a Genesis Wave and it is great when hardcast which we can generally do pretty quickly with our ramp options.
Path to Exile: We might want to bring this in for aggro flyer situations like when matched up against Grixis Delver of Secrets
. Or maybe infect if they have flyers.
Dawnglow Infusion: We can give ourselves a lot of life with this spell. Seems good againstt aggro or burn.
Perimeter Captain: more redundancy for life gain against aggro matchups. I have had hillarious games where I would be blocking some 2/2 Grizzly Bear with 5 defenders including 2 Perimeter Captain's gaining 20 life.
