This is Version two of a great WUBR midrange build centered around Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Chandra, Flamecaller.
The first day Gwellers and chandra were spoiled, I spent hours brewing the original version of this deck on Untap.In with a guy named Tempura, so a lot of credit goes to him. He also has been completely part of the development of the deck.
Anyway, the deck tries to maximize the potential in the Gwellers and have as much recursion as possible. And believe me, in testing, when Gwellers resolve, its like I'm playing Snapcaster Mage in standard. The value is that gross. Just imagine playing a Gwellers, flashing back K command to make an opponent discard and return your jace or mentor. 5 mana, you get a 4/4 menace, a card out of your opponent's hand and a creature that can run away with the game by themselves back in your hand.
The deck has the shell of a normal Jeskai Black grindy brew. Lets go through the card choices.
Creatures:
Jace and soulfires are obvious. Great throughout the game, and soulfire helps keep your life total up when we're using 10 fetches and 3 Read the Bones.
The deck is built around gwellers, and we have 3 of them. We don't want a playset because then there would be too many 5 drops
Mentor - This slot was originally 2 copies of Dragonmaster Outcast. However, we found that While outcast and mentor can both run away with games, Mentor is better from behind, which is what we needed. Once we get ahead, winning off the value train is easy. But getting into that winning position is harder, and mentor helps with that.
Spells:
Impulses and duresses are normal includes for early game distruption, and can be used later if needed off flashbacks
K command and crackling doom are the obvious spells to return multiple times with Gwellers and Jace.
Read the Bones - The card draw spell of choice in this deck. These were originally all
Painful Truths
, but we found that the synergy with Gweller made RtB just plain better.
Jeskai Charm
- Very early in testing, we realized that the deck was very weak to Gideon, Ally of Zendikar. When gideon attacks, we can doom him, but otherwise we can't really interact. So jeskai charm filled that role, and also does other things, like gain tempo, or burn an opponent out with multiple recursions. This include also allowed us to reasonably fit in an aggro package in the sideboard.
Roast - this slot was originally a Murderous Cut However, we usually needed our yard mostly intact until late in the game, so Cut was very lackluster. We also needed more potential lifegain with soulfire. This solved both issues.
Chandra, flamecaller - An incredible card, Our finisher of choice. Drop her, swing for 6 spread out and present a must kill walker on 5 is the usual play. Other options are tons of card draw and delve fuel, or a decent board wipe. People down her saying that the + won't have an effect at that point in the game, but they haven't played with her. You're usually removing their threats, and Chandra is just a versatile finisher.
And Cruise is just cruise.
The manabase for this deck is very solid. The deck is heavy on red, with 22 pips in cards, while black white and blue are 13, 11, and 7 respectively. The mana is fine, with extra black sources that are OK because of the amount of Double black cards in the board. You also have 3
Mystic Monastery
specifically to help play a jace or soulfire on 2.
Sideboard:as of right now the board is just in the making because nobody really knows how the meta will look come OGW. But I assumed that there would be a lot of the same, with a good amount of aggro and a lot of eldrazi decks. So I tried to prime my board for that. The aggro package with 3 riders and 2 more charms is great to go slightly over the top of aggro, and go underneath Eldrazi. We also have specific hate cards for each of those matchups in Radiant Flames or Flaying Tendrils and Infinite Obliteration. The best part about those is that they synergize with Gweller. The rest of the Board is situational one ofs and two ofs for abzan, the mirror, and just generally grindy games.
Tell me how good you think this can be, and a +1 and or comment if you like it would be appreciated
