I'll always like the colors of red, white, and black the most in magic. They just seem to appeal to my sensibilities in life in general. But in magic, they're great because I want to kill stuff, have quality soldiers around me, and sometimes rage out and burn people. So it fits perfectly well that I'll have to play the Mardu Wedge.
This new look at a post rotation standard Mardu will have to survive despite high tactical losses as the rotational laser beam of standard cut Theros out of all of our lives. But it has not cut them out of our hearts. They will be remembered and celebrated over at the Theros-Khans Mardu memorial page: Sacrificing Armor for Speed.
Losses:
First and foremost, we cannot and will not be able to replace Goblin Rabblemaster's greatness and impact upon standard as a format. We have several format warping cards to mourn on this list, but this, to me at least, was by far the most impactful. I loved punking people early game by resolving a thoughtseize t1 or t 2 and then dropping this rowdy goblin. It wasn't a feeling any other wedge could offer to me. Neither was dropping him on an empty board on the play, only to have my GR devotion or Abzan opponent follow up with the dreaded Course of Kruphix only for it to get Crackling Doom'd and having them go to 11 on turn 4. We'll miss all the cheap games you could steal from people, bud. But we don't miss your attitude!
Thoughtseize:
As the Scottie Pippen to Goblin Rabblemaster's Michael Jordan, you couldnt not give a shoutout to Thoughtseize. You couldn't win a lot of games you won against Elspeth, rhino, dig through time, etc. that I would have a much harder time beating in g1 than normal. Now, we have to rely on crap like Transgress the Mind, Despise, and Duress to get it done. I'd have to say that in most cases, Despise is just more useful than duress. But, I'll most assuredly play both, and pack several in the board in order to supplement the 2-3x Despise and 2-4 Mardu Charm in the main deck.
Stormbreath Dragon:
This dude is such a champ. He's a big bro who flies and doesn't like righteous, uppity white mages cramping his style. Hits hard, fast, and late game is just game ending when his monstrous goes off. He will not be replaced for sure. Although, a white pair of birds might have something to say about it....
Lightning Strike:
I'll bet you're wondering why I haven't mentioned Brimaz just yet. Well, we probably just like having amazing, efficient, and versatile removal spells at two mana rather than difficult to cast, slow, defensive midrange threats like Brimaz. Realistically, LS is just better than Bmz, especially in a standard full of amazing answers to him. Sure, he dodges LS, but so many other things kill him that he just feels worse right now. Main deck Lightning Strike largely fended off the super aggro decks last time around, and they still had huge success in the format as a whole.
Between mainboard answers like this, Brimaz, and Mardu charm, my matchup never felt too bad despite main boarding 4x Random Morph against a red deck when I played Goblin Rabblemaster. When I did get tokens out and have him die, though, he was actually really great at providing chump blockers and helping to race. He still set up the butcher of the horde life gain engine, so he wasn't really something I boarded all the way out.
Anyway, Lightning strike will be missed greatly.
Brimaz, King of Oreskos:
I know, I know, he's the King of the Cats!!! How could I diss him by having him so far down? Well, we won't really be missing him as much as rabble. We liked having basically Rabblemaster 5-7 available at three, but since we were always more spell-heavy, I liked being around 12-16 creatures, and he wasn't as high-impact as a 2-of as some other cards. He's a nice weapon to have, to be sure, as a 3/4 for three that potentially generates tokens on each combat is nothing to sneeze at. He helps us beat up on other midrange decks in combat, and combined with burn, can get through just about any threat easily. Crackling doom was probably this guy's best friend.
Temples
:
This goes out to all the temples out there: the guys that never got thanked for fixing mana and our draws at the same time. That's a pretty rare card in any format, and allowing yourself to squeeze in extra library manipulation for free was just outstanding. That ability has sort of been replaced with the fetch-able duals lately, but they won't be that important to us. We're experimenting with a much different edge when people start playing the piss out of that new Atarka Red aggro combo deck. Our taplands will gain us so much extra life for free that we'll have a confident buffer against them. Added to 4x Seeker still doing his best lightning helix impression and the late game butcher-token life gain engine, we should do amazingly well with gaining life.
NOW, THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR
We will move on to the new list now. We got some sweet stuff from Battle for Zendkiar to take our Khans troops to new uncharted realms, but we didn't get a lot of stuff thats just amazingly exciting.
We wanted a good card to replace Goblin Rabblemaster and Drana, Liberator of Malakir is pretty solid, but resembles more of a Brimaz-type character. She has no immediate board impact, which is tolerable because she very quickly overwhelms games and opponents if you get an attack with her. However, she doesnt come with her own army, so Hordeling Outburst is an automatic 4x in a world without Rabblemaster. Those tokens want to be pumped by Drana, and although that sounds really wrong when you put it that way, it still wants to happen. Especially if you still likes casting Butcher of the Horde, these two cards are very necessary. By the way, he hasnt gone anywhere either folks, and hes back to let you know not to sleep on his Mardu clique. We rock all four, and we curve him out by leading into Wingmate Roc. Yes, this is the pair of white birds I mentioned before. I wanted to let people know that this deck, which can always be attacking with creatures, really wants Wingmate Roc. And, running 25 lands, we should always be able to cast it on time. The card is moderately bad against control right now, and inarguably terrible to reset after a boardwipe, which a good 5 drop wants to be able to do, like a Stormbreath Dragon for example. Its not bad at all against midrange or even stabilization against aggro in game 1. But, it wouldnt become a 4x staple yet.
Seeker of the Way, Soulfire Grand Master, Hangarback Walker, Abbot of Keral Keep, and Hordeling Outburst will likely make up the lower tier members of the horde. The combo with Phoenix into Butcher of the Horde is really, really good. And it just keeps getting better each turn the Butcher lives. Its like a Great White and a remora; one just keeps taking chunks and the other keeps hanging around and cleaning up the scraps.
Lilliana, Heretical Healer might factor in here, as will the new 1B 2/1 that comes into play with a 1/1 scion token. Other fringe options at 2 and 3 drop creature include the 1R 2/1 that defected from Mardu to Jeskai and draws mad cards for the price of getting traded. That route would probably involve 4x Nantuko Husk and a lot of aristocrats type spells and creatures, including of course Bloodsoaked Champion and Merciless Executioner along with Bone Splinters and Altar's Reap in some capacity. We already have insane amounts of token generators, and we can even play retreat to emiria. Id probably play Mardu Ascendency over that card in a Mardu Aristocrats Redux type build. Id love to brew the possibilities of that list over and over again, but thatll wait for another time. And adding in Rally the Ancestors can add in a ridiculous finisher that would overwhelm any control opponent who tapped too many mana or ran out of counters.
Back to my deck, we probably have this distribution of creatures/threats, lands, and spells:
16 Creatures:
4x Seeker of the Way
3x Abbot of Keral Keep
1x Soulfire Grand Master
4x Hangarback Walker
4x Butcher of the Horde
20 Spells:
4xHordeling Outburst
2xRoast
4xCrackling Doom
2x Sorin, Solemn Visitor
1xMurderous Cut
4xWild Slash
1xValorous Stance
2xMardu Charm
24 Lands:
4x Bloodstained Mire
4x Wind-Scarred Crag
2x Scoured Barrens
3x Bloodfell Caves
3x Nomad Outpost
2x Swamp
2x Mountain
1x Caves of Koilos
3x Battlefield Forge
Sideboard:
2x Radiant Flames
2x Draconic Roar
2x Utter End
3x Outpost Siege
2x Dust Stalker
3x Duress
1x Despise
The manabase, as always, is a work in progress. It remains to be seen how the math checks out, as for these draft lists I am always just brainstorming. We replace Lightning Strike with Wild Slash over dragonic roar, because we dont have any dragons and we already can abuse the fact that were red and fast, so 4x maindeck wild slash is a thing. I like Roast in the main for all of its versatility. It can be decent against RDW, but amazing against midrange. I can say dragonic would be the opposite, but Id rather have excellence against midrange when so many of our other cards hate on RDW. We can hit turn 2 Hangarback Walkers with either, which is a best case scenario against that menace in game one. Usually we can then just ignore a spare 1/1, which is bad against us.
Based on my experience with Mardu as an archetype, I can say that this list looks promising. It remains to be seen whether Ill like
outpost seige
, Roast, and Despise enough to move them into main board status. But they definitely play a role where they do for a reason. And against the matchups they are good at in g2 they are invaluable. So, we have some testing to do, and overall Im happy that I was able to share, build, and break down strategy for this list.
