Creature (20)
- 2x Eldrazi Obligator
- 3x Hangarback Walker
- 2x Pia and Kiran Nalaar
- 3x Reality Smasher
- 3x Thopter Engineer
- 4x Vile Aggregate
- 3x Whirler Rogue
Land (26)
Sideboard
Enchantment (2)
Instant (7)
Sorcery (6)
CONFIDENTIAL
Ghirapur's Bureau of Investigation agents Pia and Kiran Nalaar reporting :Agents found presence of concealment magic on Tarkir. Codename Whirler Rogue successfully brought back interesting artifact, Ghostfire Blade , to Kaladesh. Strange and powerful colorless magic, deserves further research. Tarkir mission : Success
CLASSIFIED
Ghirapur, Plane of Kaladesh, where craftsmans, thoptersmiths, artisans and inventors infuse a semblance of life into their creations by harnessing the power of the Aether, a magical resource, of which supply is jealously controlled by the Consuls, the dirigeants of the plane.
Natural magic, a very common trait on other planes, is an attribute that very few Kaladesh inhabitants possess ( even fewer are aware of it ) and thoses people are under high surveillance. The Consuls know that controlling the flow of magic means controlling the plane : this is why they have developed such an intricate organisation, which mission is to gather as much strategic informations as possible, a regroupment better known as the Thopter Spy Network
TOP-SECRET
Consul's Intelligence Agency captain Baral reporting :Previous researchs on Ghostfire led us to another plane, Zendikar. Deployed Hangarback Walker to investigate the plane. Found intriguing life form, called Eldrazi. Consume everything that lives, seem unaware of our construct's presence.
Even more intriguing, they emanate a strange magic, similar to Ghostfire, that warps Aether. We gathered a few specimens and brought them back with us for scientific purposes.
What is up everybody ! My name is -Sylex- and I've decided to build a deck that attacks the meta from a very different angle. I'm proud of what I've came with and I think you should definitely give it a shot at FNM !
When you first looked at the cards, you might've asked yourself : ''Mmmkay, kewl, but there's no more Ensoul Artifact in Standard... this deck is dead, right ? ''
Well, guess what ? I found the cards that are going to bring back this archetype into the spotlight : Vile Aggregate , Ghostfire Blade and Thopter Spy Network. Thoses cards are very powerful and your opponents are likely to be underprepared to deal with them since they don't show up anywhere in Top 8's of big events.
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This creature brings excellent value in this deck :
The card gives you 2 bodies for 3 mana and one of them is a thopter, which can be equipped with Ghostfire Blade and swing right away. It also grows Vile Aggregate by 1.
On top of that, Thopter Engineer gives to all of your artifact creatures ( Even Hangarback Walker ) haste, which makes them a lot deadlier, plus she's also a pretty good blocker when you need one.
This terrifying big baddie is incredibly strong, both on offense and defense :
Vile Aggregate is often a 2/5 or 3/5 trample for only that keeps getting bigger as you play more spells while also being a formidable wall of undercosted stats when blocking is required. Once you equip a Ghostfire Blade or two on this Eldrazi, it's going to be nearly unkillable in combat.
It's a pivotal piece in the strategy of this deck where it works as your primary threat and has synergy with almost every other card, especially Whirler Rogue which grants it +2/+0 and unblockable.
Have you ever heard of the Red Lingering Souls ?
Pia and Kiran Nalaar , while they are excellent on their own, are especially great in this deck where they have a ton of synergy with the other cards and lots of thopters to sacrifice.The Kiran's are amazing when the matchs tend to go long and you have a lot of time to make use out of the multiple bodies and the sacrifice ability.
Also, curving turn 3 Vile Aggregate into Ma and Pa on the following turn is absolutely brutal :-D
This uncommon from Magic: Origins has a power level that's well above certain rare cards.
4 mana worth of stats spread across 3 bodies with a relevant activated ability you can use right away : The raw card quality is present and I think I've came up with the best deck for this card to shine.
I also want to remind you how busted Whirler Rogue is when it's paired with Vile Aggregate :-)
There's a key interaction that you should keep in mind with this card : Since Ghostfire Blade is an equipment, it doesn't tap when you attack with the equippped creature. You can tap Blade and another artifact to give unblockable to one of your creatures.
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While Walker is an excellent card on it's own, this deck makes a perticularly good usage out of this great early blocker that produces Thopter tokens when it dies. This card is pretty simple to play : You just cast him on turn 2, then activate him a couple time to use your mana as efficiently as possible.
However you shouldn't overvalue Hangarback Walker, you can make good blocks with it even when it's not going to kill the attacking creature.
Also, try to think outside of the box with it when you're in a tough situation. Sometimes, killing your own Hangarback Walker with Roast is the right play. There's a lot of unexpected value in doing that, such as when you need to gain life with Tomb of the Spirit Dragon , produce blockers or make a Vile Aggregate a little bigger.
This efficient piece of removal is the deck's main way of interacting with small creatures. for 2 and sometimes 3 damage when spell mastery is active gets the job done for a lot of stuff in the current meta.
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Roast :
This is the best removal spell currently available in Red : , kills a Siege Rhino, Anafenza, the Foremost or pretty much anything else on the ground, no drawback, no questions asked.
Roast is sorcery speed, which makes it a little worse then Fiery Impulse when you want to 2-for-1 someone, but 5 damage for 2 mana is so efficient !
DTT is a incredibly powerful card ( Banned in Modern, Legacy and restricted in Vintage ! ) that makes a profitable use out of our otherwise useless graveyard.
It allows you to search for a variety of threats/answers depending on the situation. The only cards that you shouldn't exile with Dig Through Time are instants and sorceries since there must to be 2 in your graveyard for Spell Mastery to be active.
Each deck in the meta has answers for creatures mainboard, mostly efficient removal in the form of Fiery Impulse , Silkwrap , Wild Slash or more versatile and expensive removal spells in the form of Dromoka's Command, Abzan Charm, Ojutai's Command , Utter End, Kolaghan's Command.
What do theses card have in common ?
Except for Kolaghan's Command and the 4 mana Utter End, none of them is able to remove a Ghostfire Blade from the field. This enables the main strategy of the deck : Thopter swarm !
There's lot of ways to produce multiple Thopters in this deck and each Ghostfire Blade can turn any small thopter into a REAL threat, especially when you have 2 Blades in play.
If they try to answer each of your threat in a 1-for-1 fashion, you're going to win the game. They kill your 5/5 thopter ? Pay 2 colorless mana, equip your Blades to the second thopter, swing for 5. Every time, they will need to spend multiple removal spell to completely answer each of your threats, while you just deploy even more thopters or Vile Aggregate and answer their own threats with your efficient red removal
This card is a slow card-advantage engine, that allows you to have a Plan B towards victory if the games get grindy. It allows you to create a threat at each upkeep if you control an artifact ( another reason why the lack of answers for Ghostfire Blade is great ) and draw cards. It also works very nicely with Tomb of the Spirit Dragon and Vile Aggregate that gets bigger and bigger each turn.
This is basically a Bitterblossom without the lifeloss paired with an effect similar to Bident of Thassa ( You only get to draw 1 card ). If your opponent doesn't have an answer in the next few turns, he's going to lose to the slow value Thopter Spy Network generates.
Foundry of the Consuls and Tomb of the Spirit Dragon :
''Spell-lands'' are extremely good cards when games tend to go long and both players run low on cards. They allow you to get an edge on resources and getting value out of every card is a very important aspect of this deck.
Foundry of the Consuls can tap for mana in the early game and you can cash it in later in the game for 2 Thopter tokens.
Producing Thopters is especially great because it gives you targets for Ghostfire Blade , enables Thopter Spy Network to trigger on upkeep and makes your Vile Aggregate even bigger. It's also a very powerful tool versus control decks because it's free, uncounterable and impossible to answer profitably with single-target removal spells. The deck's strategy allows it to run 4 copies, which is really great as it provides a sort of a mana-flood insurance.
Tomb of the Spirit Dragon on the other hand is a very nice tool against aggro decks. It's not always easy to sequence your plays to get the maximum life out of it when you're tight on mana, but it wins you the game when you do it correctly.
Versus Aggro decks, this is an important way to grind them out of the game. Getting a few activation is often the difference between going to down to 2-3 life instead of 0 and it can also buy you a few turns versus Midrange decks with bigger creatures.
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Hangarback Walker is a very good card in this deck, but unfortunately, his price tag is very high. But you can still play this deck without them !
There's a very simple and inexpensive way to do that. You just have to replace the 4 Hangarback Walker by 4 Runed Servitor .
Walker is miles above Runed Servitor in terms of playability, but servitor can still do a decent job as a replacement. I do recommend you to try and purchase at least 1-2 Hangarback Walker , the card is a good long-term investment and you might just really enjoy playing them.
Another budget replacement could be replacing Dig Through Time with Treasure Cruise. Dig is relatively inexpensive, but quantity over quality isn't such a dramatic tradeoff if you compare Treasure Cruise to Dig Through Time
Difficulty : Easy
This is a relatively straightforward matchup. The main plan is to burn all of their creatures as soon as possible and hope for the best. Game 1 can be tough if they have a very fast start, but game 2 and 3 are very easy with all the disruption you have access to in the form of burn spells and Dispel
Once you've burned down all of their creatures and get a Tomb of the Spirit Dragon going or start to pressure them with Vile Aggregate , the game is pretty much over for them. Thoses conditions are easy to set up, which is why Red Aggro is a very favorable matchup for this deck.
In :
+2 Dispel, +3 Encase in Ice , +1 Fiery Impulse , +1 Roast , +2 Seismic Rupture , +1 Touch of the Void
Out :
-4 Ghostfire Blade , -1 Thopter Spy Network, -1 Whirler Rogue, -1 Brutal Expulsion , -3 Pilgrim's Eye
Ghostfire Blade is the best card in this matchup. Why ? It's cheap enough to go right underneath the most commonly played counterspells and unassuming enough that they won't bother to find an answer for it until it's too late. It turns all of our creatures and tokens into real threats that can win the game on their own, which is exactly what you want to have vs Control decks
Game 1, apply as much pressure as you can, but try to not overextend. Their 1-for-1 removal spells are pretty much useless against us and if you find an opportunity to resolve a Thopter Spy Network, go for it.
Game 2 and 3 are a lot easier. Control decks rely heavily on having specific answers in their sideboards and like I said, they're not going to be fully prepared for us. The only thing you really have to watchout for is Virulent Plague. Other then that, the sheer amount of countermagic you bring in on game 2 and 3 is usually enough to screw their game plan. Dispel'ing a Dig Through Time feels sooooo good :-D
In :
+2 Dispel, +3 Disdainful Stroke, +1 Negate, +1 Stratus Dancer
Out :
-1 Fiery Impulse , -1 Draconic Roar , -3 Roast , -1 Brutal Expulsion , -1 Whirler Rogue
This matchup is favorable because most of their removal spells don't answer our threats in a 1-for-1 ratio. The only card you really have to watch out for is Kolaghan's Command, but aside from that, their low threat density makes our removal spells much more effective then they would normally be. They can wait and try to answer our threats and leave the board empty for a couple of turns, but once they drop a creature, there's often a burn spell sitting in our hand. The game is going to end shortly after you resolve a Thopter Spy Network since they have little to no way to answer it.
Game 2 and 3 aren't that different from the first game. Try to protect your Ghostfire Blade with Dispel, don't overextend into a Radiant Flames , get Thopter Spy Network active as soon as possible and the game should be yours pretty easily.
In :
+2 Dispel, +1 Negate (On the draw) OR +1 Stratus Dancer (On the play), +1 Touch of the Void
Out :
-1 Wild Slash , -2 Pilgrim's Eye , -1 Whirler Rogue
Difficulty : Medium
This matchup is favorable, but only by a really slight margin. I would say it's a 60/40, which isn't bad but isn't an auto-win either.
The only way you can win game 1 is if you go really, really wide with your thopters before they start dropping their huge 7 mana + spells. If you curve out well, it's possible to outrace Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, even 2 or 3 of them in a row ! It's a little more complicated when it's Dragonlord Atarka but at least they can't fetch her with Sanctum of Ugin
One funny thing is that our deck can almost completely ignore Ugin, the Spirit Dragon : It exiles the thopter producing creatures such as Thopter Engineer and Whirler Rogue but it can't kill our thopters, Ghostfire Blade or Vile Aggregate .
Game 2 and 3 are a little easier. The plan is to board in countermagic and slow them down as much as possible. You can't prevent them from eventually casting their huge threats, but countering their ramp spells can buy you 1 or even 2 turns and it should be your priority. Always keep mana up for countermagic if they're about to cast a Explosive Vegetation on their turn. Even if spot removal is bad against them, I always keep Wild Slash and bring in Touch of the Void to have a way to finish them off, it comes in handy more often then you'd think.
In :
+1 Negate, +3 Disdainful Stroke, +1 Stratus Dancer, +1 Touch of the Void
Out :
-2 Fiery Impulse , -1 Draconic Roar , -3 Roast
This matchup is kinda weird. I haven't played enough against it to have certitudes on wether it's favorable or not, but I'd say it's usually the first player who assembles most of his synergy cards who wins.
By that, I mean if he casts Rally the Ancestors with a bunch of creature in his graveyard, 2 Zulaport Cutthroat and a Nantuko Husk you're dead while on the other hand, if you have Vile Aggregate , a bunch of thopters and Whirler Rogue, you win. Also, Brutal Expulsion is an absolute blowout each time you get to cast it, the card really shines against them.
2 unusual decks clashing together almost feel like it's some good ol' kitchen table Magic and I like that, it's a lot different from Siege Rhino into Wingmate Roc mirrors :-)
Games 2 and 3 are almost identical to game 1 in terms of outcome ( the first player who assembles his pieces wins ), there's not much to be said here. You've got Dispel/Negate/Stratus Dancer to counter his Rally and Touch of the Void to exile his Zulaport Cutthroat.
In :
+2 Dispel, +1 Touch of the Void , +1 Negate ( On the draw ) OR Stratus Dancer ( On the play )
Out :
-1 Wild Slash , -1 Fiery Impulse , -1 Draconic Roar , -1 Pilgrim's Eye
Difficulty : Hard
This is by far the worst matchup for this deck. The classic T3 Anafenza, the Foremost into T4 Siege Rhino is going to give you headaches since the synergy between our cards can't immediatly stabilize versus this combination of raw card quality. Just to put it short, they're heavily favored versus this deck, I would say 70/30 for them. Roast is our best tool in this matchup and keeping a hand with 1 or 2 of them is a very good place to be versus Abzan.
The thing that annoys me with Abzan isn't the deck itself, it's popularity of the deck. I play at 2 LGS : ''The Begginer'' which is a semi-casual store with few serious players with netdecks and ''Hobby Games'' which is a much more competitive environment, almost entirely made of serious players with meta decks.
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Conclusion:
Thanks for viewing my deck !
Don't forget to upvote if you've enjoyed the deck ! It makes me happy to see that people are liking my creations and it motivates me to keep posting more crazy stuff :-)
if you have any suggestion/ideas/questions for me, go ahead and leave them in the comment section below !
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Revision 9 See all
(8 years ago)
| -1 | Brutal Expulsion | main |
| +3 | Devour in Flames | side |
| -1 | Draconic Roar | main |
| +2 | Eldrazi Obligator | main |
| -1 | Encase in Ice | side |
| -1 | Foundry of the Consuls | main |
| -1 | Island | main |
| +1 | Mountain | main |
| +1 | Negate | side |
| -3 | Pilgrim's Eye | main |
| +3 | Reality Smasher | main |
| +3 | Ruins of Oran-Rief | main |
| -1 | Stratus Dancer | side |
| -2 | Swiftwater Cliffs | main |
| -1 | Thopter Spy Network | main |
| -1 | Tomb of the Spirit Dragon | main |
| -1 | Touch of the Void | side |
| +2 | Wandering Fumarole | main |
| -1 | Wild Slash | main |
| Top Ranked |
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| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 8 years |
| Legality | This deck is not Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 26 - 0 Rares 20 - 9 Uncommons 2 - 6 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.76 |
| Tokens | Thopter 1/1 C |
| Folders | Deck 1, Decks I'll test out., Artifacts, Fun looking decks, fave, STDs to play , decks i want, Token Deck, Standard, Interesting Decks |
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