Since the release of
Arcades, the Strategist
, I could finaly indulge my dream of building a defender deck that didn't involved
Doran, the Siege Tower
, whom I never liked the color identities.
Having acess to the Bant colors () open much more control posibilities, although I decided not to play counterspells in this deck (
Muddle the Mixture
being there for tutoring cards). But do not worry, this deck gets frustrating in other ways.
It could have been easy to "only" make of this deck an agro rush, flinging walls hitting for 6 to 8 at the opponent but I wanted to build something else: a game where, given the time to prepare, no harm could come to me.
Core concepts:
The walls: With the ability of Arcades at hands, an creature with defender becomes imediatly much more atractive. Casting their spells yield a extra cards and the deck profits from being able to cast scary creatures in term of combat capabilities for low mana costs.
As creatures goes, the walls of this deck are frightening in their own rights but it is often better to give them a litle boost with evasions abilities. It is what enchantments such as
Aqueous Form
and
Primal Rage
are here for.
Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
would also make them imposible to be blocked.
Blinking the walls
Once the defenders are cast, I gain further card advantage by blinking them with
Conjurer's Closet
,
Nephalia Smuggler
,
Mistmeadow Witch
or
Deadeye Navigator
. (I am considering adding
Brago, King Eternal
).
Blinking walls such has
Wall of Omens
,
Wall of Blossoms
and
Carven Caryatid
is especialy intressting since it yields 2 cards.
Of cours, the presence of
Panharmonicon
would make everything better.
In order to avoid having to dicard too much cards, the
Reliquary Tower
is in the deck (although drawing it is up to chance). I used to play
Spellbook
for redondancies but was adviced against this card.
The comfiest of pillow forts:
Enchantments can mitigate the treat posed by creatures (
Arrest
,
Prison Term
) and other permanent (
Faith's Fetters
,
Encrust
).
Against agro decks,
Propaganda
,
Ghostly Prison
and
Sphere of Safety
makes wonders at keeping you alive and the enemy pissed.
Lets not forget that those defender creatures could also be used to defend yourself (what a twist!).
Brave the Sands
can make them able to do both the agression and defense.
I get hexproof, you get hexproof, EVERYBODY get hexproof!!
Due to my personal fixation on giving my creature hexeproof (my group has a slight tendancy to blast, bounce or revoke anthing that moves) I love setting
Shalai, Voice of Plenty
up to protect both me and my creatures.
Once cast (if she didn't got countered), she remain vulnerable and have to be protected by an equipment, an aura, or (before a few modification to the deck) the
Hisoka's Guard
.
Shalai can be tutored with
Congregation at Dawn
or with
Hibernation's End
but I need to be sure I've something to protect her imedialtly since she imediatly attract some deadly attention.
Having finaly got my hands on an Acetism, I can protect my board if I manage to have Acetism and
Sterling Grove
up at the same time, Acetism protecting the creature (and allowing some recovery after a wrath) and Sterling grove protecting acetism (or any other enchantment that would be part of my pillow fort).
Going the distance, This setup can be perfected if
Estrid, the Masked
can placed a mask (her -1 ability) in
Sterling Grove
. I only managed to pull it off once but that was great!
Combos:
Axebane Guardian
with
Pemmin's Aura
, when at least another defender is present undder my control.
This combo can be tutored with
Congregation at Dawn
: draw
Axebane Guardian
then
Drift of Phantasms
, transmute the latter into
Pemmin's Aura
and voila.
This combo is well known and isn't going to win me any games soon. But infinite mana is a nice boon and if I could have managed to have a blinker such as
Mistmeadow Witch
or
Deadeye Navigator
, I could theoretically draw most of my library in order to set up my board.
Freed from the Real
achieve the same results as
Pemmin's Aura
in this combo but I prefer the latter since it is more polyvalent and can also be used outside of the combo (enchanting an enemy heavy hitter allows you to if it attacks you at the cost of , in late game, It can be used to give a bung of -1/+1 to a wall and hit hard).
A bit of a more convoluted sucession of event allows me to place everthing I want on the battlefield:
Using
Wargate
to throw the cards I want into the battlefield and blinking
Mnemonic Wall
to get Wargate back in my hand.
Assuming you can get your Infinite Mana combo going and a blinker such as
Mistmeadow Witch
or
Deadeye Navigator
, you can decide which permanant you'll put into the battlefield.
Weakness:
This game relies extensively on the presence of Arcades on the batlefield for generating card advantage or representing an kind of threat. Enchantements such as
Assault Formation
mimics the effect of the commander when it comes to the creatures with deffender but loosing Arcades during a game is often a huge setback. I had it stolen from my control a few times and that was a huge setback.
Also, this deck is realy suceptible to boardwipes and wrath.
Red Alert is functionaly identical and is a no-brainer. In the deck it goes!
Auras and equipments giving hexeproof or shroud are there to prevent Arcades or important creatures from being removed, but it will sometimes not be enough.
As for recovering from wrathes, the only solution I see is blinking out as much creatures as I can or starting from scratch.
Future modifications
On the list of the cards that I would love to add to this deck would be:
Asceticism
, making it easier to recover from wrath, and giving hexeproof to all I seriously might have a problem with hexeproof).
Wall of Kelp
, whoes capacit, when combined with
Wall of Mulch
would allow to draw 2 cards for and .
Shield Sphere
, as creatures goes, this one would be a no-brainer.
...whenever I'll get my hands on these.
I am debating if
Wall of Junk
should replace
Wall of Tanglecord
or
Guard Gomazoa
. Probably the latter since there are few situations where I have to block a large beast without trample.
EDIT: Off with the
Wall of Tanglecord
! The
Guard Gomazoa
earned my eternal loalt after consecutivly bolcking a Marit Lage Token thrice in the same game...
Cards such as
Nevermore
and
Amulet of Safekeeping
seemed way to overpowered to make for fun games. Casting
Nevermore
on the enemy commander is kind of unfair and since one of the member of my group plays a token deck, I decided against using the
Amulet of Safekeeping
(for now at least).
EDIT: Am I slowly but surely abanoning my moral here? Cause I've put the
Amulet of Safekeeping
in the deck, arguing that the first effect is vital to my pillow fort and the second effect only makes the token less effective. But I'll let you know if I've become a monster and start playing Esper Control.
Given the low amount of rituals and instants in this deck, I come to debate the relevance of the
Mnemonic Wall
but if I can manage a situation where I have both the wall and a blinker, I could re-use almost indefinitely those few rituals or instants.
EDIT: Turned out that even if Mnemonic Wall has a high CMC, it is still helpfull and can be part of a combo.
I'll have t replace a Forest by a Wastes
Thanks for your attention, I hope this list would inspire you and I would verry much like any tips, advices or sugestio you would propose.
