Thanks to everybody who helped take this down to Bant from Abzan. The deck is much more violent than I could have ever previously imagined!
A few things to start us off:
I do not play a TON of magic right now, so i have 0 dollars i am willing to put towards the deck. As a result, I acquire cards through my extensive trade binder. What this means is that it takes some time to acquire dual lands and cards suggested so keep that in mind.
With that out of the way, how does this deck work?
Like all hardened scales decks, this one is aggro. In addition it also has this gimmicky almost control feel to it. So here are the ropes.
Hardened Scales is a major team player and buffs all of our creatures. Even just one on the field can mean life or death for the opponent and can make our
Managorger Hydra
s huge really fast.
Our main Ace in the hole if you will come from our friends in the combat trick section. Funny cards like Dromoka's Command and
Feat of Resistance
add a pretty funny little synergy to the deck, allowing for game ending kills or conventional removal, all while buffing our creatures and/or giving them protection from threats. Hilarious.
So why Bant? This question comes up a lot, but I can defend it xD! So I switched from Abzan counters to Bant primarily due to cards like
Stubborn Denial
and Negate. Keep in mind that the Negates in here are simply to fill in space for
Stubborn Denial
s until I get a hold of them, but the 1 extra mana negate costs is hardly game changing in any scenario. At any rate, these counters are simply to counter off kill spells, field wipes, or anything that can possibly jeopardize the game. Neat right?
Next are our main 3 supporters. We have Lumbering Falls, Abzan Falconer, and
Silkwrap
s to support our established fields and grow our army.
Silkwrap
is in here almost exclusively for Jace, Vyrn's Prodigy (and most of the other flipwalkers for that matter). If you hit the
Silkwrap
on turn 3 you can kill off the turn 2 Jace, which always leaves the control player a little red.
I chose Abzan Falconer because few decks really can deal with flying right now. Just the notion of giving your field flying can really make things difficult for the opponent. These guys are disposable depending on the match up and may be traded out in the sideboard.
Finally the most important things in the deck: The beatdown creatures. We have fantastic picks like
Managorger Hydra
,
Endless One
,
Avatar of the Resolute
,
Woodland Wanderer
, and
Servant of the Scale
. These creatures are all crazy together and can destroy the game in minutes. I do not think much elaboration is needed here xD. What's especially overlooked are all the interactions that
Servant of the Scale
provides. For example, with a hardened scales in play, I can get many 2/2s and then play
Avatar of the Resolute
for a huge number of +1/+1 counters. The next option is with an established field with at least 1
Managorger Hydra
. With this, my
Servant of the Scale
s can be used as chump blockers, along with buffing my hydras. The third option is to grow the army.
Servant of the Scale
are almost exclusively chump blockers. With Hardened Scales in play, my servants can then effectively die and then place several counters onto my dishers like
Managorger Hydra
or
Woodland Wanderer
. Nifty little card.
So where do I want this deck to go?
Let's be honest, everybody wants a Tier 1 deck that consistently gets first place every FNM and destroys the metagame. Unfortunately, this is a very unrealistic goal, especially if I am not willing to spend any actual money on acquiring cards. So I'm gonna set a goal to try to get at least 3-2 at FNM for now and then the further we refine this deck (along with trading for the materials we need like dual lands) I might push the goal to 4-1. Will it get first? Maybe. But let's keep our pants on for now xD.
~Echo
