Arms Race (Boros Aikido)

Commander / EDH Casual Counters Group Hug Multiplayer Pillow Fort Primer Redirection RW (Boros)

ShieldOfHolyShadows

Instant (22)

• 1x Aura Blast
• 1x Bolt Bend
• 1x Boros Fury-Shield
• 1x Channel Harm
• 1x Comeuppance
• 1x Deflecting Palm
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Destroy Evil
• 1x Excise the Imperfect
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Gideon's Sacrifice
• 1x Martyrdom
• 1x Mirror Strike
• 1x Reflect Damage
• 1x Return the Favor
• 1x Settle the Wreckage
• 1x Smash
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Topple the Statue
• 1x True Love's Kiss
• 1x Untimely Malfunction
• 1x Wyll's Reversal

Land (40)

• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Boros Garrison
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Demolition Field
• 1x Elegant Parlor
• 1x Field of Ruin
• 5x Mountain
• 1x Needleverge Pathway  ^Flip
• 19x Plains
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Sundown Pass
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x War Room

Creature (21)

• 1x Aerial Responder
• 1x Angel of Invention
• 1x Boros Reckoner
• 1x Brash Taunter
• 1x Donna Noble
• 1x Inspiring Overseer
• 1x Mogg Maniac
• 1x Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser
• 1x Nils, Discipline Enforcer
• 1x Orzhov Advokist
• 1x Phyrexian Vindicator
• 1x Scavenged Brawler
• 1x Selfless Squire
• 1x Skyscanner
• 1x Spiteful Sliver
• 1x Spitemare
• 1x Sunblade Angel
• 1x Truefire Captain
• 1x Windborn Muse
• 1x Wrathful Raptors
• 1x Wrathful Red Dragon

Artifact (10)

• 1x Agility Bobblehead
• 1x Altar of the Pantheon
• 1x Bonder's Ornament
• 1x Commander's Sphere
• 1x Cursed Mirror
• 1x Dragon's Hoard
• 1x Intelligence Bobblehead
• 1x Palantir of Orthanc
• 1x Pristine Talisman
• 1x Sonic Screwdriver

Commanders (2)

Enchantment (5)

• 1x Angelic Gift
• 1x Feather of Flight
• 1x Ghostly Prison
• 1x Saving Grace
• 1x The Sound of Drums

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Maybeboard

Instant (8)

• 1x Boros Charm
• 1x Galadriel's Dismissal
• 1x Ghostfire Slice
• 1x Make Your Move
• 1x Red Elemental Blast
• 1x Revitalize
• 1x Risk Factor
• 1x Unexplained Absence

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Always Watching
• 1x Brave the Sands
• 1x Search the Premises
• 1x Tenuous Truce

Sorcery (8)

• 1x Browbeat
• 1x Cleansing Wildfire
• 1x Ensnared by the Mara
• 1x Explosion of Riches
• 1x Geomancer's Gambit
• 1x Illicit Auction
• 1x Seize the Spotlight
• 1x Tempt with Bunnies

Land (1)

• 1x Ominous Cemetery

Creature (6)

• 1x Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 1x Khârn the Betrayer
• 1x Metropolis Reformer
• 1x Mother of Runes
• 1x Thraben Watcher
• 1x Wall of Mourning

Artifact (2)

• 1x Farsight Mask
• 1x Ivory Tower

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Boros aikido. Buff everyone's creatures and retaliate against anyone who attacks you.

Very casual, but more viable than it looks. PlayEDH rated as Low.

(Foils are cards I'm playtesting or need to adjust in my paper deck.)

What's "Aikido"? Show

"Aikido is a Japanese martial art that was created in the 1920s by Morihei Ueshiba. Aikido is a self-defense system that uses twisting and throwing techniques to turn an attacker's strength and momentum against them. It also uses pressure on vital nerve centers. Aikido is non-violent and non-competitive, and is based on the principle of using minimal force and causing minimal injury."

Converting Aikdo ideals to magic in a 100% accurate way would likely lead to winconless control or something like lantern control that specifically seeks to neutralize the opponent's will to fight while never truly harming them. However, I really like the perspective of basically the original Aikido primer where they believe that attacking an opponent's life total is actually less egregious than attacking their board or resources, meaning it's okay to knock opponents out of the game as long as you're letting them play their game (mostly) uninterrupted. The goal is to align your goals with your opponents' so that they have no reason to attack you and you benefit from their gameplan as well. On the mechanical level, this is achieved with incentives like Noble Heritage, rattlesnakes like Phyrexian Vindicator, pillowfort like Ghostly Prison, damage redirection like Deflecting Palm, and spell redirection like Deflecting Swat. Basically, you want to find a way to let your opponents do their thing, then turn their strength against them to win yourself.

Design Goals: Show

1. Maximize fun for the entire playgroup. - Obviously this can't be perfect, but my original playgroup played at sub-precon levels of power. I have trouble brewing at that level because I have a natural desire to optimize, so instead I gave myself a goal of maximizing the play experience of the group rather than the deck itsef. After a lot of research, playtesting, theory crafting, etc., I came to an answer that's obvious in hindsight: people want their decks to do something, so let them do their thing. You don't need to give them fancy toys to play with, they have their own already. So I don't bother with stuff like Rite of the Raging Storm, instead I give people choices that are actually choices. I don't force them to attack like Disrupt Decorum, I just try to give them the tools to empower themselves to do what they want. This deck had good games at sub-precon tables, and it has good games at upgraded precon tables.

2. Maximize fairness. One thing that can lead to not having fun in a casual setting is feeling like the game wasn't fair. This deck tries to make every action feel fair. If someone swing at you and you cast a response like Comeuppance, they're more likely to feel like they deserved it than if you did something like Ruinous Ultimatum. You are simply responding to their aggression, rather than beating them down. On the flip side, most of the buffs are also symmetrical, which keeps you from racing out of control. You can't get ahead of anyone unless they're refusing to work with you, which is their own fault. There's also a good amount of interaction to keep the game more balanced if one person if pulling far ahead of the others.

3. Maximize winrate. After all is said and done, I'm going to be playing to win and I'm very transparent about that. My goal is to slowly advance my board to a winning state, and if you're not careful, I will just outscale you. However, I want my wins to adhere to the other two goals, so they are fun and fair. That's usually achieved by being super telegraphed, or by being directly related to someone else's attempt to win and turning it back on them.

4. Maximize simplicity. It's annoying to deal with someone taking 30 minute turns every game. By minimizing my own playtime, everyone has more time to focus on their own stuff, and also reduces my threat profile. This also makes my life easier because I want to be able to play optimally even when I'm up until 3:00 AM and just barely functional.

Commander Choice: Show

Aikido lists are typically helmed by Queen Marchesa, giving access to almost every aikido card. My list started out this way as well, with a large focus on giving out +1/+1 counters for a more successful deflecting palm. As time went on, I kept finding myself wishing there were more cards that gave out counters because I couldn't reliably find them, and I really wished I could find a way to get that effect in the command zone. Eventually I realized that I technically could, by dropping black and running Noble Heritage instead. I was wary for a long time because it meant giving up staples like Inkshield, Rakdos Charm, Delirium, Backlash, Batwing Brume, and Vampire Nighthawk, so I wasn't convinced it was worth it. Eventually, I bit the bullet and locked in Noble Heritage + a red commander and I'm very happy with the results. (If you're interested in the original idea, you should definitely check out the discord in the Required Readings category.) Noble Heritage is excellent as pillowfort, politics, scaling, and priming other players' creatures to be aikido'd, all in the command zone. To accompany it, almost all of the red background commanders can be viable options. After playtesting a lot of them, my favorite by far is Ganax, Astral Hunter. Ganax's flying is super relevant, especially when playing defensive against flying decks that take the counters as well as being a proactive win condition as a 5 mana 7/8 easily swinging for commander damage kills against anyone who is slower than you are. His treasure generation isn't the primary factor, but they can help you keep mana up on turns you'd otherwise need to tap out. Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer is probably the most obvious choice, but Baeloth lacks the same natural evasion and is far more threatening to a table, leading to him being targeted and killed off far more than Ganax has been. Livaan, Cultist of Tiamat is probably my second favorite due to Livaan's lower cost making her far more consistent at being on the battlefield through wipes, plus her ability leads to some fun combat manipulation.There's also a debate for Wyll, Blade of Frontiers, being cheap and a Human, which is more beneficial for certain kindred cards.

Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser: Probably the next best boros commander. The draw is very useful and the goad can be quite strong. I don't run her as commander because I think Noble Heritage is better, as well as people dislike being constantly goaded.

Aurelia, the Law Above: If I could swap Ganax but keep Noble Heritage, I would probably run Aurelia. Flying and vigilance are the best keywords for this deck, and haste would help add a bit more punch for commander kills. The attack triggers are a bit inconsistent if you're not running goad, and this deck can't usually get 3 open attackers. A list run by Aurelia would look very different from this one.

Aikido Color comparisons:

Boros (RW): Fundamental aikido. You can build a list without at least once of these colors, but they are the core and heart of the playstyle. Pros: far more consistent manabase, more flexibility in the command zone, allows for color pip intensive cards like Phyrexian Vindicator and Truefire Captain. Cons: Harder to find some basic effects like card draw, loses powerful Aikdo staples like Inkshield.

Mardu (RWB): The classic, Boros plus black to cover its weaknesses. Pros: Black adds draw, removal, and a lot of strategic or political cards to the pool. Cons: less consistent manabase, typically less proactive gameplan.

Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis (RWUG): Dubbed "4c Turbo aikido" by its creator, the goal is to draw and ramp everyone at the table for faster and smoother aikido games. Pros: Ton of draw and ramp, tons of card options. Cons: I've tested the deck and almost always been color screwed, plus it can be risky to feed cards into combo players.

Deck Theory: Show

The deck is built around game theory. If someone isn't going to attack you, then objectively they should take the counters. If they do, and another player doesn't, the person who hasn't taken the counters loses winrate because their opponents get a combined +6/+6 (numbers obviously variable based on number of players) per turn, and are likely to be killed off quickly. Then when it's just you and the people taking your counters, odds are that their creatures have outscaled their lifetotals, and you can kill them with an aikido turnaround card.

There's also a major focus on player psychology. This deck is intentionally invisible. It doesn't draw attention to itself. It doesn't interfere unless necessary. It doesn't force anyone to do anything. It's not the strongest at the table. It's not running combos, it's just playing down fair magic cards. And the instants are almost entirely reactive. Meaning people don't notice you unless they're going for chip damage (which is fine) or a lethal, which you can punish in a spectacular fashion.

Normal group hug has everyone drawing cards, but that helps control and combo far more than creature-based decks. By buffing board presence exclusively, we subtly shift the balance towards decks that use creatures as their win condition and help prevent them from stalling out as much. And by encouraging damage as a win condition, it makes it easier to kill someone with a turnaround card later. The ability to give out so many total stats also makes it an excellent king-slayer build, as any player who becomes archenemy has to deal with you giving out stat boosts and having interaction to pick apart their win conditions.

The longer the game goes on, the better of a position you'll be in. Noble Heritage is most impactful when you can force a board stall, where everyone is just sitting there and growing, but not gaining massive amounts of life. If you have a Crawlspace or Ghostly Prison out, people are encouraged to buff one creature up to be huge, and if they attack with it, it's easier to punish than an army of tokens.

The deck can be proactive with its own large creatures, which helps a lot when there's a combo or stax player you need to help rush down. And if the game stalls out, the reckoner creatures plus the flying creatures can usually slowly wear someone down.

Intentional Exclusions: Show

Sunforger: This is a Sunforger deck minus the actual card because it's such a dramatic change to the gameplay. Sunforger makes you archenemy and removes the "wow" factor when you're tutoring your answers every turn.

Duelist's Heritage: Great card, but I want to minimize the number of decisions I have to make and I want to avoid blatantly picking on someone, especially if they're behind on board already. I want my buffs to be my opponents' choice, not my own when I can.

Blood Moon and Magus of the Moon: Great effects but I don't want to be the bad guy.

Teferi's Protection: Too meta and I have enough fogs and redirections to usually be able to skip a fog without an aikido theme, even one of the best ones ever printed. Plus, if I save my board, I immediately become archenemy, and I'd prefer to win a little bit more subtly than that.

Boros Charm: See above about board wipes, but also I want to avoid introducing infinite loops with the reckoner creatures.

Blasphemous Act and Star of Extinction: I want to try to minimize board wipes and rely on pillowfort tools instead. Damage based wipes like these will win the game, but winning out of nowhere just makes people remember you as a combo deck and makes them need to kill you in future games.

Agitator Ant: People are way less likely to take these counters. If you're the only one taking them, you start to grow above the rest of the table and become the threat. It's also much worse for player 4 than player 2; people committing to attacking is much more difficult than them committing to NOT attacking you because so much can change over a turn or two.

Disrupt Decorum and Taunt from the Rampart: Goad is a board wipe and a win condition that makes people irrationally angry. I don't need to force people to attack if I can encourage them, and I prefer playing subtly if I can. Still, would be great inclusions

Olorin's Searing Light: It's very close to being on theme, but I don't like how it blasts everyone. If someone's working with me and taking the counters, I don't want to betray them by blasting them unprovoked. It's also harder than I expected to turn on the spell mastery.

Blazing Sunsteel and Fiendlash: There's two ways this deck goes accidentally infinite: the first one is a creature that doesn't die when it takes damage, and something that allows it to damage itself repeatedly. Example combos are Blazing Sunsteel + Brash Taunter , Boros Charm + Boros Reckoner + Fiendlash , Brash Taunter + Fiendlash + Gideon's Sacrifice , etc. I'm pretty sure I've removed all of the loops from this list, but it's been intentional.

Furnace of Rath and Dictate of the Twin Gods: The second way this deck goes infinite is a way to keep doubling damage infinitely. So, same requirement of a creature that doesn't die when it takes damage, but slightly more flexible, like Furnace of Rath + Gideon's Sacrifice + Phyrexian Vindicator or Boros Charm + Furnace of Rath + Spitemare

Crescendo of War: I adore this card. I've added it and cut it like 5 times. It's an incredibly fast clock and adds a lot of risk to a table. The reasons it's staying out of the list are that it's too likely to just hand a win to the token player with dozens more creatures than you, and the fact that it's just unnecessary to introduce so much risk when you can just take it slow and develop further.

Trouble in Pairs and Esper Sentinel: These cards are super staples. They draw a lot of cards and a lot of threat. They would definitely make my list better, but I don't want to increase the threat level that much.

Smothering Tithe: "Do you pay the two?" is super annoying and draws a ton of attention and aggro. Strong, but not what I'm going for.

Mangara, the Diplomat and Aerial Extortionist: Solid draw engines but I'm lazy and don't want to track triggers.

Jeska's Will: Red impulse draw is not great for this archetype. Most of the cards are situational and reactive, and you also don't want to be revealing cards.

Sol Ring: This is a casual deck that tries to play slightly slower than other casual decks. Sol ring leads to explosive starts that I don't really want.

Arcane Signet and other two mana rocks: two mana rocks are great, but they actually compete with the slot for Noble Heritage. I've decided to slot in 3 CMC rocks instead for the additional utility they have attached.

Ill-Tempered Loner  : I'm too lazy to track day/night and the flip side goes infinite with Brash Taunter.

Screaming Nemesis: A nuclear answer to a casual problem. It would definitely be a strong card, but it would draw way too much fear and aggro from anyone who actually wants lifegain in their lists. Not worth the attention in my list.

Gameplay Tips: Show

Mulligan: I recommend keeping any hand with at least 3 lands and a white mana source by turn two. The deck can function even if it starts with a hand of 7 lands, but it has too many non-games if you keep a hand with 2 or fewer.

Early game: The ideal early game is developing into Noble Heritage + Ganax as soon as possible. Typically, that looks like T1: Land, T2: Noble, T3: Ramp, T4: Ganax. Or it could be T3: 3 drop, T4: 3 or 4 drop, T5 Ganax.

Midgame: Midgame is having Ganax on the field and being free to develop more flexibly. With Noble Heritage, you have a lot more information about who's looking to attack you or not, which means you can decide whether you want to hold up mana for interaction or tap out to develop more onto the board. You want to be in a position where you are strong enough that people don't want to bother trying to get free damage on you, while being weak enough that people don't try to remove your stuff or kill you off. If you have opportunities, try to spread around a bit of commander damage, prioritizing anyone you'd struggle against in the 1v1, whether it's a combo/control player, or a lifegain deck that's harder to kill with burn damage. You also want to be sure to not overcommit into wipes, so you don't always need to drop redundant effects if you have an extra in your hand.

Late game: Someone is gearing up to win. Either they've already eliminated a player or two, or they're about to. By this time you'll probably have developed your hand and have a lot of aikido effects in your hand. Ideally anyone left is at low enough life that you can kill them with either a redirection effect or a full swing-out. Do whatever it takes to sneak in damage without dying yourself, ideally back up by a fog effect to stay safe even if you're fully tapped out.

Rough wincon breakdown: Voltron- 75%. A remarkable number of decks just can't handle a simple flying beater. Aikido- 15%. Aikido handles hyper aggression as well as gives you freedom to attack with protection in your hand. Beatdown- 10%. There's a lot of generic flying creatures that can chip out damage, or you can swing in with a redirection creature if someone's low enough and they have to take some damage either way.

Reviews: Show

"I've gotten a few wins now with [this] boros aikido deck. Return the Favor does so much work."

"won 3 out of 4 with [this] Boros aikido this week. One game was Selfless Squire in response to a massive Crackle with Power. Rogue's Passage got squire through to win the game on my following turn. Other two wins were Martyrdom effects onto Boros Reckoner typed dudes in response to massive armies of tokens swings. Getting Mangara, the Diplomat and Monologue Tax on the board in one game felt so good. Having Noble Heritage in the command zone feels like cheating. This deck is the epitome of final boss energy. You just get left alone until its a 1v1 and you're always gonna be set up with so many ways to take the win from there. Aristocrat decks are the only thing I'm struggling against. Those decks usually seem vulnerable to Ganax attacks. But Ganax is never faster than a 3 turn clock."

"Noble Heritage is the mvp of the deck for sure. If everyone takes the counters, I know I'm safe to tap out and build my board state. Once someone stops taking counters, thats when I to start hold mana open to reflect damage and who I need to be prepare to reflect it to. Theyre basically declaring on my upkeep that theyre attacking me next turn or trying to win the game soon. That information at that time is so valuable. you really cooked with this list. It's been hard to enjoy playing any other deck."

"so, instead of incentivizing the board into killing each other via carrot and stick, you just incentivize the italian spiderman standoff and benefit from people going grow tall due to how you made your deck? Make sense that stuff like Rite of the raging storm doesnt give any benefit to the strategy, or duelist heritage, and that you have pillowforts to make the stall happen for you from a creature damage point of view"

"seems like your tools against go wide is to have martyr effects, which still works with go tall. And seems like the board is threatenign enough to be at least somewhat active in taking out combo / aristicrat players, but its still the same weakspot for aikido as for marchesa.

Good stuff man, managed to get a different spin on aikido thats mostly similar in a lot of how it plays out, but still ends up being different enough to be fun and 'new'"

Required Readings: Show

Phelddagrif: Show Weakness to Hide Your Strength

Tariel: You'll Thank Me For This

Political Subterfuge - Marchesa Aikido.

Aikido discord - Focused on Marchesa, but all decks welcome for discussion

Budget, cuts, upgrades, and personalization: Show

WIP

This section is highly likely to be outdated because of how often I make tweaks to the actual list, but I'll try to be sure the ideas are universally applicable.

Budget: My list is on the cheaper side because that's the way I prefer to build my decks, plus most of the cards here are non-meta filler. However, there are a few cards I've splurged on because they're fun and play well. However, the last I checked, you could cut the three most expensive cards in my list Deflecting Swat, Palantir of Orthanc, and Arid Mesa to cut the cost of the deck almost in half without a meaningful drop in power. Just swap them for something like Wild Ricochet, a card draw spell, and another basic.

Cut watchlist: Donna Noble to run boros charm without infinites, The Sound of Drums is fun but not strictly necessary to the gameplan, may swap it for a bit more draw, all of the flying+vigilance+lifelink creatures- they're a bit selfish and compete for counters with everything else. I like them, they're great stabilization tools, and they draw aggro away from Ganax, but I haven't decided if they're anti-synergy.

New card watchlist: card:

I thrive on attention so please go ahead and give my deck an upvote if you enjoy it: +1 Upvote

Date added	1 year
Last updated	2 hours
Key combos	Blazing Sunsteel + Brash Taunter Boros Charm + Boros Reckoner + Fiendlash Brash Taunter + Fiendlash + Gideon's Sacrifice Furnace of Rath + Gideon's Sacrifice + Phyrexian Vindicator Boros Charm + Furnace of Rath + Spitemare
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	4 - 0 Mythic Rares 32 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 17 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.28
Tokens	City's Blessing, Elephant 3/3 G, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure