Play-style Summary/Motivation
Typically after clicking on a link to view a deck list for an Arcades EDH deck, you would expect to find some "defender-tribal" aggro deck; however, I've already built that deck using this commander (it's meh). The reason why this deck is going to have a different focus is because I thought that building it with the aforementioned "aggro play-style" made the deck too commander dependent (and in my opinion, weaker). The focus of this deck is going to be around using some enchantments and planeswalkers to skirt the necessity of having
Arcades, the Strategist
in play.
Let's Talk About Creatures
Arcades, the Strategist
obviously has some great synergies with a particular brand of creatures. Similar to
Doran, the Siege Tower
, Arcades likes to play around with the idea of a creatures toughness; however, Arcades takes this a step further with adding a triggered ability (ETB in this case) for creatures with defender along with letting those creatures attack as though they didn't have defender. The triggered ability, drawing cards when a defender enters, is a pretty powerful in EDH. So lets see what sort of shenanigans we can come up with to trigger arcades ability as much as we can. I've put the important creatures into a few categories for inspection.
-
"Draw Walls":
Psychic Membrane
,
Wall of Blossoms
,
Wall of Mulch
, and
Wall of Omens
.
-
"Wall Re-enforcement":
Crenellated Wall
,
Sunscape Familiar
,
Suspicious Bookcase
,
Wall of Essence
,
Wall of Frost
,
Wall of Kelp
, and
Wall of Nets
.
-
"Value Walls":
Consulate Skygate
,
Fog Bank
,
Jeskai Barricade
,
Shield Sphere
,
Wall of Denial
, and
Wall of Junk
. (Also
Drift of Phantasms
even though its not a wall).
-
"Phat Ramp":
Axebane Guardian
and
Overgrown Battlement
.
-
"Big Bois":
Colossus of Akros
and
Tree of Redemption
.
-
"The Other Guys":
Arena Rector
,
Mentor of the Meek
, Pir, Imaginative Rascal + Toothy, Imaginary Friend
,
Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
, and
Sun Titan
.
Draw Walls
As stated in the first section, Arcades needs to be in play to get the nice card advantage from playing defenders; however, the draw walls allow us to still draw cards even if arcades is in the command zone. This can be useful in both in the early game and late game. In the early game it might be nice to play
Wall of Blossoms
or
Wall of Omens
to start generating some immediate value even before you are able to play arcades, but in the late game it might be nice to have
Psychic Membrane
or
Wall of Mulch
to generate some draw power when arcades might have a prohibitively high commander tax.
Wall Re-enforcement
The walls in this section provide a support backbone for some of the other synergies in the deck. The creatures
Crenellated Wall
and
Suspicious Bookcase
can be used to help out the offensive capabilities of other creatures by buffing them and making them unblockable (resp.). We have
Wall of Essence
to have some incidental life gain that can soften the blow from big hits, and we have
Wall of Kelp
for some combo synergies. One notable combo is Arcades, the Strategist + Wall of Kelp
makes for some nice card draw by abusing the trigger from Arcades while creating a "chump-blocker". On the defensive side of things we have
Wall of Frost
and
Wall of Nets
to tap down attackers and remove threats if attacked.
Value Walls
The creatures here are mainly for their usefulness as good blockers or big hitters; however, there are two that are fairly notable, namely
Jeskai Barricade
and
Drift of Phantasms
. The wall
Jeskai Barricade
provides us in some value with some valuable blink effects that can help us trigger Arcades or save a creature fro powerful removal. The other creature worth mentioning,
Drift of Phantasms
, may not be a wall but provides us a way to tutor for any of the many 3-drop (3-CMC) cards in the deck. Some examples of some good targets might be
Axebane Guardian
,
Mentor of the Meek
,
Pir, Imaginative Rascal
, or
Slaughter the Strong
. These creatures are probably the first thing that I would change out for other things since there abilities aren't so unique or pivotal.
Phat Ramp
So these two dorks,
Axebane Guardian
and
Overgrown Battlement
, can do some fairly big plays.
First, these can potentially tap for a lot of mana in this deck (especially if we consider the Axebane Guardian + High Alert
combo), and seeing that most of out walls have a low CMC we can probably dump our hand and fill it back up with the triggers from Arcades... or we could pay for the Monstrosity cost of
Colossus of Akros
and start swinging with an indestructible 20/20 trampler... or play some of our supporting cards to help us close out the game. In another way of putting it, if you play these at opportune times you could put yourself in a game winning position.
Big Bois
Speaking of game winning moves... let’s hope we get to untap with these guys! Well, since
Colossus of Akros
is indestructible there is a good chance that we will be untapping with him. As for
Tree of Redemption
, it seems like it would be a good idea to give him vigilance. Luckily, we have the combo Brave the Sands + Tree of Redemption
. Once this guy has vigilance maybe make him unblockable with
Suspicious Bookcase
,
Venser, the Sojourner
, or
Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
and swing. After blockers are declared and before damage is dealt, tap him to beef him up... a lot!
The Other Guys
These guys don't have defender but they still have some great value that helps smooth out the constancy of gameplay.
Arena Rector
is here to go and fetch up one of our planeswalkers to start trying to close out the game. Walls start dying? Never fear,
Sun Titan
is here; obviously he can fetch up other things that have died or otherwise been removed. Colfenor's Urn + Sun Titan
is a great combination since it will allow you to bring back walls more efficiently if you happen to be sacrificing them to
Wall of Mulch
. The others are there to help smooth out the deck by providing some great card draw synergizing with the deck.
On to the Rest of the Cards
Lets start here by talking about why we have so many planeswalkers in this deck. So, the more that I've played this deck I've noticed two things: my life total usually doesn't change due to combat damage and that even if someone would attack me, the decks defense is is good enough to keep them at bay (even if they have combat shenanigans). That leads me to think that the same should be considered for any planeswalkers I control. Since planeswalkers can provide instant recurring value and different options for what they can do, I thought that they would make an excellent addition to this EDH deck. The ones that I chose are the ones that I think help me close out the game the fastest once the "ult" and can also help support the deck if we aren't in a game ending setup (yet). You might could change these out pretty easily to better fit your own playstyle/meta.
The other cards that I haven't mentioned are redundant pillowfort effects (to increase the defensive capabilities of the deck) and other supporting cards that help us maintain our board-presence. One importaint card that needs to be mentioned exclusively (and is why we car about walls rather than just defenders) is
Fortified Area
. This card will give us control over how combat damage is assigned to our walls since they have banding; this becomes importaint if we are needing to control some big hitters that might be coming our way.
