What the fxxx?!
That's the whole point of this deck. From a pre-combat damage Become Immense to a Mogis's Marauder enabled zerg-rush, the whole point is to get damage through to your opponents and leave them wondering what just happened. Oh yeah, and to keep their hands full of removals wondering "what should I do with these?" ;)
INTRODUCTION
The idea for this deck from a cool budget build by Hector Cordova Jr. You can check out the original setup here . The shell seemed to jump straight at me, (got a soft spot for Golgari, what can I say?) hence I opted to test the B/G version and proceeded with a proxy. It performed reasonably well in playtests, so I decided to work on it a little more.
I had an existing Mono Black Agro deck thats already proven its worth, and with KTK in full swing now, I decided to strip it down and fit the useful parts into this shell. A couple months of trying out and modifications and voila! The card choices might seem suboptimal (only 2 Temple of Malady?) but this deck is essentially running with what I have in my possession already.
This is still very much a WIP, so any feedback / suggestions at all would be welcome. If you like this, please vote it and test it out .
THE MEAT & POTATOES
This deck works off of the synergy between Heir of the Wilds and ferocious triggers such as Reaper of the Wilds and Rakshasa Deathdealer with the occasional Boon Satyr also playing a minor role. Reaper of the Wilds and Rakshasa Deathdealer are reasonably removal-resistant, and opponents are reluctant to have anything to do with Deathtouch critters. More often than not, they would either burn your Heir or allow it through. Which is where Become Immense and Boon Satyr come in to rain down punishment upon them! If that doesnt cut it, theres always Mogis's Marauder to trigger intimidate and make sure damage goes through.
Note: against such a removal heavy meta as we have now, its imperative to leave enough mana open to make sure that we can buff our Reaper of the Wilds and Rakshasa Deathdealer so that they resist removal. Herein lies one of the main issues of this deck - card draw. We have none. Our biggest card advantage is our 2 critters make sure we dont lose them. So while it may seem tempting to bestow a Boon on any one of our creatures, bear in mind that the opponent probably has a handful of removal spells that they cant quite use just yet. Also, Ive had instances of opponents burning the critters twice (once in our turn to tap us out, the next when its their turn again), so keep this in mind as you decide whether or not to save the critter. Besides, with Become Immense, well get plenty of mileage from our healthy graveyard ;) .
SIDEBOARD
This took a while to deliberate upon, and is where I think I need the most help. Ive play-tested this deck with my team, utilizing existing decks as well as proxies of other Top 8 decks that weve managed to put together.
Jeskai Tempo: So far, we seem to manage fairly alright against this sideboarding 4x Mogis's Marauders into the deck makes a real impact.
Control: We ran this against a Dimir Control variant running Ashiok, Nightmare Weaver. So long as we move fast enough and get enough critters out early, were doing fine. Remove Despise and Bile Blight, replace with Hero's Downfall and Mogis's Marauder .
Abzan midrange: This is probably the most challenging match up weve faced yet. The huge amount of card quality in here can be overwhelming. What we need to worry about here is essentially their card advantage from critters like Brimaz, King of Oreskos , Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Ajani, Mentor of Heroes and Wingmate Roc. Not only that, they are well equipped with exile-based removals and clear-board cards to boot. My initial strategy had been to put in enough removals to match theirs (between 12-16 cards). The current plan is to board in Despise and Hero's Downfall to complement Thoughteize. The other issue is getting damage through once they start spewing out token creatures, they can pretty much chump block us to their hearts content and stabilize the board. This is where Nylea, God of the Hunt comes in to give our creatures trample and let us send damage through.
Ascendency: Havent had a chance to test this deck out just yet, but the SB has Back to Nature and Reclamation Sage on standby to destroy enchantments. Just be aware that we run enchantment creatures too.
UW Heroic/Transformers: This one is interesting one of our team members had built this very same deck way back when Return to Ravnica was still Standard (and naturally has been owning numerous FNMs since hehehe). With decks like this, we would want to make sure we have Despise , Hero's Downfall and Thoughtseize to remove their critters or their enablers. Once their creatures are on the board, it might be tricky to deal with since they run Gods Willing , Feat of Resistance and Ajani's Presence (those pesky kids!)
UR Robots: This deck relies on the utility of Ensoul Artifact to create humongous artefact creatures in turn 2 onwards and pound us with. So far, our deck has proven fairly resilient to this even without having to sideboard. We have sufficient removals to make sure his Darksteel Citadel doesnt turn into a 5/5 indestructible behemoth and so long as it doesnt happen that early, we still have a fighting chance. Consider boarding in Reclamation Sage and keep Bile Blight to deal with their Generator Servant.
OUTRO
Well guys, thats it for now. Hope you enjoy the deck. Please playtest this and chime in with any feedback or thoughts you may have I really appreciate it. Thanks!
