Exploring Ezuri's Brigade

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metalmagic

26 April 2012

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In the comments of my last article, I had some really interesting ideas thrown at me for decks to build for this article, and it wasn't until a moment ago that I decided how to choose which one to build for the next article. Whomever's deck I build in each article will be the person to choose which one I build for the next article, that way I am unbiased in the choosing. mossflower's deck was the previous deck, and he said he liked Miasma's idea for a deck utilizing and abusing Ezuri's Brigade, so that is the deck I will make and go over in this article. At the end of this, Miasma will choose a new idea from the comments for me to make for the next article, and that’s how it will be from here on out.

I will also feature in this article the 'Custom Card from a Builder's Viewpoint.' Nearly every deck, rogue decks especially, feel like there is just something missing from it, and a small section at the end of the article will go over a custom card I will create for the specific deck at hand. If the section is liked, I will continue it; if not, I will leave it out of the next article.

Notice I used future tenses in the first two paragraphs. I have NOT built the deck OR made the custom card before typing this. This deck will also not feature anything from Avacyn Restored, so please do not suggest anything from the forthcoming set that is spoiled by the time this article is complete.

The last few paragraphs were written after I completed the deck, however. I had a bit of down time while writing this due to school, work, and SCG Birmingham, so sorry for the long period of time between articles. That is something I hope to cut down on during the summer. Now, let’s begin.

Ezuri's Brigade - This card is just dying to be abused. I’m sure people have tried again and again to use it effectively, but how do we do that? There are a few questions that need be answered before we begin. What style of deck is this? What are the deck's main goals? What do we need to make it function properly? What colors should it be?

Let's answer these questions. ‘What style of deck is this?’ Is this deck aggro, control, midrange, combo, etc.? Since the deck is based around a powerful creature that can come down early based on his color's capabilities, this deck will more than likely be an aggro deck, although midrange is very possible, using Ezuri's Brigade as a finisher in something like a BUG Tezzeret build. We will go with the aggro/ramp(ish) approach.

‘What are the deck's main goals?’ We want the deck to hit hard, and fast. We want metalcraft to be online the turn we can untap with an Ezuri's Brigade on the field. We want to have enough threats that the deck doesn't die to removal, and we want to apply pressure early on to force our opponents to have answers to what we are doing… or die.

‘What do we need to make it function properly?’ Well, we need reliable, useful artifacts that fit the theme. We need the big creatures to apply said pressure, and possibly a combination of the two previous statements.

‘What colors should it be?’ The deck could easily be mono-Green, but could just as easily fit into a GR shell. We'll see how this develops as we make the deck. It's always good to leave options open, both in deck building AND in actual playing. The inclusion of Red will give us access to some pretty powerful cards including Kessig Wolf Run and Galvanic Blast, which, if the deck works out as planned, should be a 1 mana Flame Javelin most of the time.

Disclaimer - I am going to use some VERY unorthodox cards in the designing of this deck. They may not all make it into the finished product, however. I am getting nifty ideas typing this up, so I hope everyone can appreciate the uniqueness I want to bring to the table, which is what these articles are about. I also hope you enjoy long sentences with lots of commas.

Now that we have our goals set and a plan to achieve them, let’s get down to specific cards that will allow us to do so.

• Ezuri's Brigade is an auto-include, as it is what the deck is based around.
• Sphere of the Suns serves the dual purpose of getting that turn 3 Brigade and helps turn on metalcraft.
• Phyrexian Metamorph copies the Brigade (or anything else) meaning even more pressure early on, and is an artifact itself, so it will also help turn on metalcraft.
• Signal Pest boosts your other creatures and helps drive us toward metalcraft, starting on turn 1.
• Slash Panther is a potentially awkward card that doesn't see standard play, but I feel it has some merit here. Turn 3 Brigade followed by a turn 4 Panther (even if you miss your 4th land drop) means you will be attacking for 12 damage with two creatures on turn 4, if metalcraft is active. It will instead be 14 if a Signal Pest is out.
• Strangleroot Geist is a beating, as has been proven recently, and I don’t see any reason not to at least consider it right now.
• Solemn Simulacrum is usually a great 3-for-1, mana ramp, and an artifact creature for metalcraft.
• Birds of Paradise is such a traditional card it would be hard to not even consider it. It also helps if this deck ends up being multicolored.
• Green Sun's Zenith is a magnificent card. I think that is all I need to say.
• Acidic Slime is a great option for a GSZ target and has so much utility that it needs to be considered.
• Mirran Mettle is a possible include just because it can come out of nowhere and win games.
• Mycosynth Wellspring/Ichor Wellspring either act as deck thinners or card draw respectively, and they both have advantages over the other, so either and/or both would be fine to run. They are also artifacts for metalcraft.
• Mox Opal is a freer version of mana ramp, as opposed to Sphere of the Suns, but can only do so once metalcraft is online.
• Carapace Forger is a bear that can become a threat very quickly.
• Precursor Golem automatically enables metalcraft on turn 4-5 even with no other artifacts out and presents a large threat. Also combos very well with Mirran Mettle.
• Rampant Growth is another traditional ramp card that should at least be considered.
• Primeval Titan is kind of good I hear. He works as a deck thinner and a finisher.
• Wurmcoil Engine helps activate metalcraft, even more so after he dies. He is another great finisher in case the Brigades just aren't enough.
• Swords of Mirrodin are magnificent in here. They can be thrown down and equipped very early, and they are a huge beating on anything with trample. If Kessig Wolf Run is included, anything can have trample.

I think we have a pretty good list of cards to start building from now. I really didn't find any cards in Red that I wanted in here other than Galvanic Blast, although that card and Kessig Wolf Run alone are good enough to warrant the inclusion of at least a few red sources in the land slots. Let's start this off like my other list (and like every list I make), including everything as a 4-of to see how big the deck would be so we'll know what needs to get cut. With 20 (22, but we’ll say only 2 of each relevant Sword and 2 of each Wellspring) different cards from which to choose including Galvanic Blast as a 4-of, we have 80 cards already. Its obvious huge cuts will have to be made, and many of the cards put up for consideration will not make an appearance.

First, let's cut all of the 'cute' cards or cards that are too situational. Mirran Mettle is the first card I notice. Combat tricks are always fun, but temporary boosts rarely see any play. They are good with infect, and that’s about it other than a 1-of Mutagenic Growth in recent delver lists for that surprise win. This deck is an aggro deck that tries to simultaneously have metalcraft the turn after we untap with Ezuri's Brigade, and keep it. Carapace Forger is slower than Strangleroot Geist and isn't as resilient, so it gets cut. Our other two drops we WANT include Sphere of the Suns and probably some number of Rampant Growths, so that is at least 9 other 2-drops the deck already contains. The Wellsprings are fun cards, but unfortunately they just aren’t very functional in this deck, unlike in some very interesting Tezzeret lists I have seen lately. They also get the axe. Mox Opal is in some cases better than Sphere of the Suns, but I think it also has to be left out due to its inconsistency. Slash Panther is a fun card and I really wanted to use it, but I'm afraid it just isn’t good enough. I know I'll probably get some criticism for even considering it, but that's fine. People's opinions and play styles differ, which I understand.

We are now down to exactly 60 cards, which is quite a bit better than before. This is the point where I look at the power level of cards and overall functionality and synergy with the deck and its game plan. Precursor Golem is one of my favorite cards, and it is the centerpiece of my two previous decks here on TappedOut, one of which inspired a bunch of offspring by various users, which I love to see. Unfortunately, I feel it is too fragile for this deck. It single-handedly enables metalcraft whenever I want to cast it, but with all of the opposing Galvanic Blasts, Slagstorms, and Vapor Snags (mainly Vapor Snag - there is nothing like getting time walked and bolted at the same time for 1 measly opposing blue mana) running around Standard, I don’t feel the benefits gained from it merit its inclusion. Since this deck is NOT based around Kessig Wolf Run, Primeval Titan does not need to present in large numbers, and neither does Wurmcoil Engine. We will set them as 2- and 1-ofs, respectively. This brings our total down to 51 cards. Now we are getting somewhere. While we're on the subject of cards that don’t need a huge presence in the deck, Acidic Slime should definitely not be more than a 2-of in the deck, but it is an important card in this metagame. Solemn Simulacrum also does not need to be present as more than 2-of due to Ezuri's Brigade already filling up four of the 4 CMC slots, bringing us down to 47 cards.

Let's look at the current quantities of the remaining cards we have.

• 4x Ezuri's Brigade
• 4x Sphere of the Suns
• 4x Phyrexian Metamorph
• 4x Signal Pest
• 4x Strangleroot Geist
• 2x Solemn Simulacrum
• 4x Birds of Paradise
• 4x Green Sun's Zenith
• 2x Acidic Slime
• 4x Rampant Growth
• 2x Primeval Titan
• 1x Wurmcoil Engine
• 2x Sword of War and Peace
• 2x Sword of Feast and Famine
• 4x Galvanic Blast

Now, pretty much all the cuts from here on out are either arbitrary or from personal preference, but I'll try to explain my reasoning for the rest. Four of each Rampant Growth and Sphere of the Suns seems like overkill to me, and I really dislike Rampant Growth. It doesn't help with metalcraft like the sphere does, and it is a terrible late game draw. Having four of them only increases the odds to draw it late game, and I know how frustrating it can be. I do like ramping early on though, so I cut them down to a 1-of. If you see it early, it's good. If you don't see it early, the odds of drawing it are very low, meaning your bad late-game draws will be minimized. I love swords, but Sword of War and Peace is much more relevant than Sword of Feast and Famine currently, so I chose to run just one SoFaF.

We are down to 43 cards, so a few cuts still need to be made. The rest are the arbitrary cuts, as they don't really have too much reason to them other than needing to get the card count down. I ended up slashing one Primeval Titan, two Green Sun's Zenith, two Birds of Paradise, and one Solemn Simulacrum. This brings our total down to 37 cards. I feel that 23 land, along with 7 sources of early ramp, is more than sufficient for the relatively low average casting cost of the deck. The Birds are the only one I had some reason to cut, and that’s because of the way the sideboard ends up looking and because Gut Shots hurt.

Land is the only thing lacking from the mainboard, so let’s look at which lands we could feasibly use.

• Kessig Wolf Run
• Inkmoth Nexus
• Rootbound Crag
• Copperline Gorge
• Forest
• Mountain

The presence of red is very minute in the mainboard, but I still feel that running four of each of the RG duals is necessary because the little parts that are Red are very important, and it enables us to use as many red sideboard cards as we need. Inkmoth Nexus enables metalcraft for some neat combat tricks (that most people see coming) and can change how the opponent will block, and is a win condition on its own. It also happens to be a 5-turn clock if you drop it turn one and tap it for a Signal Pest. Those two alone normally won’t win the game, but more often than not you can get at least 4 poison in there very early, which is huge. Kessig Wolf Run just seems like an auto-include an 99% of RG Aggro decks, and this is no exception. It adds additional reach when you need it, and it also kills any illusions that aren't copying a Drogskol Captain.

A deck's mana base is probably the most important aspect of the deck. It enables the deck to run the way the pilot wants, helps prevent mana screw with the correct assortment of lands, and can do various other things like act as a win condition, help decks stabilize, provide blockers, etc. I’ll spare everyone the time of reading my thought process for deciding numbers of lands, so here's how it ended up looking:

• 3x Kessig Wolf Run
• 3x Inkmoth Nexus
• 4x Rootbound Crag
• 4x Copperline Gorge
• 2x Mountain
• 7x Forest

I think many others could have come to the same mana base as I did for 23 available slots, so I don't think it deserves that much attention. The only thing is that you do not want TOO many 'colorless' lands, or you will find too often that you can't cast certain cards. Green is the most dominant color here, and quite a few card require double Green to cast, so out of the 'colored' lands, only two do not produce Green. You can see the finished result, sideboard included, here:

Affinity Brigade

Modern* metalmagic

SCORE: 7 | 7 COMMENTS | 1521 VIEWS

And now for the 'Create-A-Card' section that I promised would be present! This brief section is just for a custom card, created by me, that goes well with the deck. Most decks feel like they are just missing something, and the custom card section is one I will include in all of the following articles for requested decks. So, what does this card look like? First, I wanted an effect similar to Master's Call to help with metalcraft, but I also wanted it to resemble Giantbaiting and/or One Dozen Eyes while not being too powerful, so this is what I came up with.

Nature’s Ambush - 2RG

Instant

Conspire

Choose one - Put a 2/2 red and green artifact Beast creature token into play; or put two 1/1 red and green artifact Spider creature tokens with reach into play.

Entwine - R/G R/G

I'm still not sure I'd run this card in the deck, but it does solve a couple problems. You can trade your small dudes with an Insectile Aberration  ^Flip, you can enable metalcraft with just this one card, and you can cast it for very cheap based on the number of creatures you have out already. I didn’t include reminder text because it is on the previous cards I mentioned for influence.

This article is coming to an end, so I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to read it! Please leave feedback to help me tailor these articles to what the community wants to read. Did I explain everything thoroughly enough? Was the custom card section decent enough to include in the next article? Was anything too ambiguous? Let me know!

As an aside - I have this deck built currently, and it is the one with which I primarily play. I have played in two FNMs with it, coming in 5th and 1st respectively (out of around 20 people each time), and I also took it to SCG Birmingham, which I plan to cover in a slightly detailed report very soon, so everyone can see how it performed.

Leave me suggestions for cards/combos to build the next deck around! Since this deck idea was submitted by Miasma, I will let him choose a deck from the suggestions to build next; this way I am unbiased in the choosing and it’s fair for everyone. This is how it will be done from here on out unless a better idea is presented. Thanks again for reading, and give me plenty of criticism to mull over! Be brutally honest, I can take it. Until next time, happy brewing.