An Azorius (blue-white) bogles-esque deck's been hanging around in standard for a while. Now, the release of Dominaria has brought us some powerful red options for the same archetype. I've considered making a Jeskai (URW) version of the deck, but it seems that a Red-White Midrange version actually played a lot smoother and also has a more budget-friendly manabase. (Caugh, Spirebluff, caugh) So, welcome to my Boros Bogles deck.
The goal of the deck is presented in three words: Enchant. Equip. Exterminate. We basically generate a lot of value with various cards utilizing auras and equipment and beat down with huge, buffed up creatures.
The payoffs first. The exciting stuff.
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Perhaps our most powerful payoff is Valduk, Keeper of the Flame. For every aura of equipment on him, we get three extra trampling power in the form of 3/1 trampling, hasty elementals. And we don't actually have to attack with Valduk to get the tokens! This adds a surprise factor to the card since you could play it on something like turn 4, throw one or two cheap auras on it, and immediately attack with the elementals even though Valduk himself is still summoning sick. The only thing preventing him from being a four-of is the fact that he's legendary.
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Champion of the Flame is another formidable threat, growing rapidly as we enhance it with auras and equipment. It is a little underpowered in the early game and dies to literally any instant speed removal spell before we enchant/equip it. The fact that it has trample means that it will cause our opponent great misery if not removed ASAP.
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Kwende, Pride of Femeref is either the best card or the worst card of the deck depending on our draws. Best case scenario: we draw all of our auras that give creatures first strike and this card gives everything double strike. Worst case, it's a four-mana 4/2, which is not very exciting. Due to the high variance, Kwende is only a one-of. But we do have more copies in the sideboard for a tactic we'll talk about later. Also, isn't 'Kwende' a cool name...? Definitely gotta add it to the list of potential names for my future children.
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Adanto Vanguard isn't all that powerful, but it's a very safe play because it's almost a bogle since it can give itself indestructible. Remember that it will cost four life, though.
We also have quite a few helpers/enablers/whatever you want to call them. These cards either make casting auras and equipment easier, give us some benefit when we cast one, or just somehow help the theme. Let's see:
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Sram is definitely a kill-on-sight card for the opponent. I mean, it draws us cards. Turns every aura/equipment we play into a cantrip. What more should one want from an on-curve two drop 2/2 creature?
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Danitha Capashen, Paragon makes every aura and equipment cost one mana less. It comes down in turn three and our aura/equipment curve tops at four with On Serra's Wings, so it doesn't really help us accelerate. However, it is able to create explosive turns in the mid-to-late game where we can stick a bunch of auras/equipment on one of our payoff creatures. Also, do notice that she has three very useful keyword abilities, which makes her a good target to enchant/equip if we can't find something like a Valduk.
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Standing (or hovering) in front of you is only artificer angel in the whole multiverse. (At least I think so.) Tiana, Ship's Caretaker is arguably a very powerful card in the late game, letting us reuse all our auras/equipment. This effectively makes sure that the opponent can't get extra value by removing an enchanted creature. And being a 3/3 flier with first strike makes her a threat even without counting the abilities. It is only a one-of simply because as a five-drop, it comes in too late.
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Tragic Poet is just a one-of mostly there to fill the curve. We can use it to chump block and sacrifice it to bring back an enchantment. It's also my favourite card in the whole game. Literally drips flavour.
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At the bottom of the aura curve, we have perhaps the most versatile red and white auras in standard: the cartouches. Both of our cartouches offer great value. Cartouche of Solidarity makes a token, pumps one of our guys (or girls) and gives it first strike. ( Kwende synergy!) Cartouche of Zeal doesn't offer that much value, but it's still pretty good, giving our creature a buff + haste and making sure that the opponent loses a blocker.
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Frenzied Rage is a decent card, offering +2/+1 and menace, which helps us force through evasive damage.
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The aura curve tops with On Serra's Wings. It's a jack-of-all-trades card, making a creature legendary, pumping it, and giving it three keywords.
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As for equipment, there aren't that many good ones in standard right now, so we'll only be playing one Short Sword and two Forebear's Blades. It's nice that the former has a low equip cost and the latter must only be equipped once.
- For removal, we have a couple Abrades against aggressive creatures/random artifacts (most notably vehicles) and a couple Seal Aways as a universal solution to creatures. There's also one Cast Out just to have a mainboard answer to planeswalkers and enchantments. Look me in the eyes, Oath of Teferi...
We still got some other uncategorized stuff in the main deck:
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Treasure Map
is self-explanatory. It helps us find the cards we need, then gives us a source of ramp and card advantage. Scrying + making treasure + drawing cards = deal. It's an auto-include in almost all my decks.
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Sheltering Light is very important for our deck. In early playtesting of the deck, I relied on an angel to make sure we don't give our opponents value when they kill our enchanted creatures. But as it turned out, she wasn't very reliable. We don't have Heroic Intervention, Dive Down, Blossoming Defense, or counterspells in Boros, so this is probably the best anti-removal spell we've got.
Our mana base is quite simple.
22 land in total, six Plains, four Mountains, a playset of dual lands (Inspiring Vantage & Clifftop Retreat), and a couple of Scavenger Grounds and Field of Ruins as utility lands. I considered Zhalfirin Void, but the scry bonus didn't seem to justify the fact that it only produces colorless mana.
As for the sideboard, we have a quite a pile of jank.
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The more "normal" of our sideboard options include two Cast Outs for things like Superfriends, three copies of Fumigate against go-wide strategies, and two additional Treasure Map
s for the long games.
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Huatli, Warrior Poet is here to help us against most midrange matchups, gaining life, making tokens, and killing creatures. It is a very versatile card but offers very little synergy and thus is very underrated. It does help against a variety of matchups though.
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We also have Path of Mettle
, another relatively underrated card. It's usually used for both the long games and purely aggressive matchups. It pings everything when it hits the battlefield, which is good against aggro. It should be an easy flip since many of our creatures have the required keywords, and once we do that it does a ton of different things. Every turn we can choose to ramp, burn the opponent, or kill one of their dudes. And it's a land, which means the only thing we must watch out for is a bad strip mine. Though this card can be very good against many decks, it's useless against others, so it didn't make the cut into the main deck.
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Helm of the Host is incredibly fun, but incredibly janky. It's very powerful in the matchups where we can afford to spend a turn or two casting this and equipping it to a creature. If you put this on Sram, you can swim in card advantage...
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Now, this is where the jank comes in. Kwende, Pride of Femeref wants creatures with first strike. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. We can bring in a couple extra Kwendes and two copies of Warlord's Fury from the sideboard to turn this into a Kwende's Double Striking Fury Deck when we feel like it. Through playtesting, it's become evident that this can trip the opponent up after sideboarding even though it doesn't change our overall game plan that much.
We have some post-rotation choices listed in the maybeboard. Since our deck's main helpers and payoffs are from the newer sets, the deck will survive the coming rotation in decent shape. The only painful loss would be Sram. I would move into a Jeskai build and use cards like Curious Obsession and One With the Wind to replace the cartouches. That would be also beneficial in fighting removal/sweeper heavy matchups as it gives us Dive Down and Spell Pierce, two very useful cards. If we choose to go with that build, which I would if nothing of significance is released in Core Set 2019, we will lose some of our explosive power, but as said before, it'd make the long, slow games a lot easier for us. Then again it's all just speculation yet; only time will tell what this deck will become in the future.
As for now, remember to enchant, equip, and exterminate.
