Time to Duel - Episode 1: Mardu Superfriends Deck Tech
Tuition
ABadMagicPlayer100
29 June 2016
1277 views
29 June 2016
1277 views
Welcome one and all to the first installment of Time to Duel! In this series, I will show some possible deck ideas in Magic Duels and demonstrate the brews in battle. Today's episode is the most Spike-like of the decks I have built: Mardu Superfriends.
What is Superfriends?
Superfriends is a planeswalker-based deck, usually with a control strategy. This deck aims to control the board with efficient removal, and eventually wins by landing one, two, three, or even four of our powerful planeswalkers on the board: Ob Nixilis Reignited, Sorin, Grim Nemesis, Chandra, Flamecaller, or Nahiri, the Harbinger. All of these walkers gain incremental advantage until they eventually win the game through some form of damage, or most potently, with Nahiri's ultimate finding Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger to mill out the opponent regardless of Fog and blockers.
Strengths of the Deck
This deck, and its variants, are currently on top of the Duels metagame primarily because there is not a good answer to planeswalkers currently in the game. Some of the most effecient removal in Duels is also in our colors.
Weaknesses of the Deck
Like many other decks in Duels, this deck is very weak to Gaea's Revenge. In fact, a lack of blockers makes this deck especially susceptible. If you're playing this versus a green deck, it's usually correct to hold multiple sweepers at once. It's better to waste a Languish and a Radiant Flames than die. It's also a good idea to hold onto Planar Outburst unless absolultely necessary because it's the only card that can one-for-one with a Gaea's Revenge.
Strategy Tips
#1: Don't be afraid to use sweepers as single-creature removal
Late in the game, you'll often find yourself with no targeted removal, and for the most part this is fine. Use discretion against green decks because of Gaea's Revenge. Otherwise, it is often better to remove one creature with a sweeper than take a hit to your life total, or worse, your walkers.
#2: Sinister Concotion is bad
Sinister Concoction is in the deck to destroy larger threats in the early game or in a pinch. It's almost better for the threat of removal than the actual kill spell. Of course, it does enable madness, but if you draw multiples and don't have a better pitch, you should pitch the second one to activate the first rather than playing it.
#3: Don't forget Lightning Axe's second additional cost
Don't forget that you can cast Lightning Axe for . In the late game, you will struggle for card advantage, so definitely cast the axe for 6 unless there is some valid reason not to.
#4: Don't ultimate Sorin
Sorin, Grim Nemesis is a powerful card. The ultimate takes a turn off and can die to a sweeper, so it's always better to keep drawing cards. You will eventually win this way, and you can grind out because you will draw removal to stall until this happens.
Wrapping Up
I hope you enjoyed my first (of hopefully many) articles on Magic Duels. Let me know in the comments if you enjoyed this. If you do, I'll record some games; if you'd rather see another deck, I have several decks I'd love to show you all, including Bant Clues, Black/Green Aristocrats (with a twist), and a Blue/Red Tutelage deck that is currently in the works. I'm willing to take this series wherever you guys want to see it go, so please leave your feedback on what you'd like to see from this series. Thanks for reading, and happy tapping.
ABadMagicPlayer100 says... #2
Yeah, it was supposed to be in decklist format but looks as though that's broken.
June 29, 2016 1:42 p.m.
brokendwarf says... #4
If only you could have more than 1 of a mythic in Magic Duels. But then superfriends would be too good.
Since you're in the color and you have so much removal, what are your thoughts on Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet? Obviously not as game-ending as Ulamog is, but if you're picking stuff off early you could end up with a lot of zombies or a huge Kalitas. Survives a full powered Radiant Flames and one activation brings him past Languish.
I currently run a 4-color superfriends deck with a good number of creatures along with the Mardu sweepers. I'll have to try this deck out when I open more SOI.
June 29, 2016 6:55 p.m.
ABadMagicPlayer100 says... #5
brokendwarf I don't run him because I often would rather cast removal, but if I were to fun him I would probably swap out for a Suppression Bonds. I often find more copies of that than I need, but hesitate to take one out because of the number of similar decks I've encountered.
June 29, 2016 7:04 p.m.
ABadMagicPlayer100: Oh crap, that's my fault. I was in a rush when I posted this and totally forgot the deck list in that way doesn't work in these articles. If you get a TO decklist, I can edit this to link to that. Sorry about that.
June 29, 2016 10:15 p.m.
ABadMagicPlayer100 says... #7
@Spootyone deck is live right now - Time to Duel - Mardu Superfriends.
June 30, 2016 12:48 a.m.
ConfusedRadish says... #8
Awesome deck! you should make a video of you playing it against someone in duels.
June 30, 2016 1:27 a.m.
Well since you made me, I will just copy my text to the chat. Here you go:
So ABadMagicPlayer100, a few ideas. But first, I want to say that I do actually think your video was well crafted. Well explained, easy to follow. That said, I have 3 suggestions, two are very superficial, one is actually something to consider now. First, the superficial:
Mic. Clearly the least important, as your voice was clear enough to easily understand, it just sounds a little muffled.
Name. I dont think the name is stupid or anything, it makes it easy to find you on tappedout after all, but it just seems a little long. This would be purely for trying to get popular, as a name should be something that you personally like, but if you did want to make the username easier to remember, the general rule of thumb is to use two or three short words without numbers. Again, very unimportant unless you want to try and grow out to be a huge channel.
Now the important stuff:
Scripting. It might be tedious, but even a rough outline of what you want to say will help. There was a few noticeable points where there was a weird pause or you said "um."
So if you read this far, in summary:
I liked the video, there was just a few things I would suggest changing. As you may have noticed, none of them were major problems. Good luck with the endeavor, and I would indeed like to see some games with the deck.
I hope I didnt sound too condescending.
Also, I went ahead and changed your real name. Not sure if you wanted that out there or not, so I figured I should change it to be safe.
June 30, 2016 1:50 a.m.
ABadMagicPlayer100 says... #11
Spootyone, now that we know how to get the decklist working properly, can we use the version of it where we take it from the TO deck?
<div class="deck-list" data-stub="time-to-duel-mardu-superfriends"> </div>
July 4, 2016 4:17 p.m.
Done and done. I also centered the video link because well...it was bothering me lol
SpringingTiger says... #1
Suggestion for future articles: build the deck on tappedout and link to it, rather then listing the cards one by one in the article text. It'll be easier to read that way.
June 29, 2016 12:56 p.m.