Current revision of an Innistrad Werewolf deck. Plays out as an aggressive match-up with utility burn. So far performance is decent if not overwhelming, can stand on its own in the Tier 2 format if not yet stealing the show.
Card selection notes:
Creatures
Birds of Paradise: Our only non-werewolf creature, a bit of mana ramp and mana fixing never hurts, particularly in a deck running only 22 lands. Don't rely on the birds as a crutch though, good players know that this lowly 0/1 is worth the life loss of Dismember and Gut Shot. Currently running a pair because you don't want to be drawing into a bird when you want a beater, though I might change this to 3 after more play testing.
Mayor of Avabruck
: Probably doesn't need any explanation, but regardless this guy is your tribal lord and is a super star on the flip, yielding a beefy body and some nasty token spawning, all for 2 CMC. I wish I could run 8 of him. The 1 toughness does hurt though against removal, but I guess we can't have everything.
Gatstaf Shepherd
: At first glance he is just a bear that gets a bit better on the flip, but don't be fooled to much by his humble appearance. He fills an important spot in the curve and with the bonuses from our other werewolves (mayors, kruins, and instigators) he can wreak quite a bit of havok.
Kruin Outlaw: Our deck's serious beater, on the day side she is just a first-strike version of our shepherd. However, on the flip she just gets silly with double-strike (amazing ability) and blocker soaking (also amazing for aggro decks). Combining our Mayors, Full Moon's Rise's and our instigator gangs pumping her, it can quickly become GG.
Instigator Gang: Another heavy-hitter for our deck. On the day side the body is small for the 4 CMC, but the persistent Battlecry compensates a great deal. Like with many of our other wolves, when this puppy flips things just get stupid-awesome. We get a body more-than worthy of our mana investment (with trample no less), and a whooping +3 power bonus static for all our attacking creatures. Mana considerations prevent us from putting four of this lovely fellow in, but we can feel warm and fuzzy still with him as a three-of.
Reckless Waif
: Rounding out the last spot in our mainboard creature-feature is our deck's version of Delver of Secrets or Stromkirk Noble. She really shines when dropped round 1 and the opposing player has no opening round spells to cast. She puts the pressure on early and demands an answer, either in the form of sacrificial blockers, removal, or bounce. In either case that works for us, getting those cards out of the way for our bigger mid-game threats. Even mid or late game she provides a decent amount of power when flipped and helps bring in that last bit of lethal.
Spells
Incinerate: We don't have a great deal of room for the full suite of burn spells red has to offer, so we instead have to pick an assortment to provide utility removal and those last few bits of lethal damage. Incinerate is great at removing many of the smaller threats, though this spot can be interchanged readily with more galvanic blasts instead. I opted to run this as a 2 of instead of just four galvanic blasts because of the current meta favoring Honor of the Pure in the assorted White weenie and U/W decks with Mirran Crusader and what I anticipate to be an increase in popularity of Elite Inquisitor with the coming of Dark Ascension. The Tempered Steel match-up might see the importance of the extra 1 damage as well.
Galvanic Blast: Pretty self explanatory. You could interchangably run Shock instead, as it is incredibly unlikely we will ever hit metal-craft.
Brimstone Volley: Sometimes this is just a more expensive Incinerate, but the potential for the morbid ability is attractive, and having the option to hit the opposing player for a quarter of their life can't be ignored, as well as the ability to nuke a titan or hero after chump blocking with wolf token, shepherd, or waif.
Hunter's Insight: Our only card draw, it can be tricky to land as we lack evasion in our creatures, though a Birds of Paradise pumped from our Instigator Gang could be a surprise worth the trouble, and Kruin Outlaw on the flip increases or chance of getting one of our dudes through. In our deck this is strictly better than Lead the Stampede, as we want all those utility and burn spells and our creature count is low enough that stampede might only net us a 1-for-1 exchange quite often.
Moonmist: Our go-to werewolf-centric spell. We pack four of them because they are pretty much never a dead-draw, even if we just play it as a one-sided Fog it still serves a useful purpose. We want to maximize our chances of forcing the flip when we want to.
Full Moon's Rise: I would really like to reshape the deck to fit three of these in here. The static +1/+0 and trample is decent enough for the 2 CMC, with the trample being particularly helpful for our Hunter's Insight, but the sac ability to regenerate our wolves really makes this card shine. Might as well read as -Sacrifice Full Moon's Rise: Cancel target board sweeper except for Black Sun's Zenith- Not the mention the other uses, such as clearing out a big chunk of tokens thanks to a flipped Kruin's Outlaw and a would-be-suicide attack of your werewolves.
Red Sun's Zenith: A potential finisher, a recurring burn spell, and the exile creature when destroyed ability (very important) all make RSZ a good fit for our deck. You could run Devil's Play also in this spot, but the flash back cost is a bit steep for our mana base. Your mileage may vary.
Blasphemous Act: Our red Day of Judgment. Why a 9 CMC spell instead of the familiar and reliable Slagstorm? For starters, this baby can be almost free under the circumstances where you really need to clear a horde from the board (tokens match-up). Even with just four or five threats on the board, a situation very likely in an aggro matchup, you are hitting DoJ levels of mana cost. It's worth it, and is better than Slagstorm in my opinion because of the ability to remove titans, Hero of Bladehold, and illusions decks that have managed to chain their lords with images.
Lands
Forest: Seven of them, to help hit those birds early and getting those Gatstaf Shepherd
's and Mayor of Avabruck
's out when we want em (i.e. asap).
Mountain: Seven of them, for turn 1 Reckless Waif
and early burn when we need it.
Rootbound Crag and Copperline Gorge: Obvious land choices are obvious?
"Wait a minute!" you might be asking, "What about Kessig Wolf Run?"
My answer: wolf run is good, even great, but we don't want to rely on it, and screwing up our mana base with colorless mana producers can really hinder our game. If you want to run it in your deck be my guest, but I think I would rather focus on what this deck already has going for it. Besides, we lack the mana acceleration really needed to make Wolf Run so dangerous.
I can't wait for Dark Ascension to hit the shelves and see what more wolfy love there is to come. Good luck out there players.
