Four-color creature-based midrange for Magic Duels.
Format at time of construction:
- Magic Duels Starter Set
- Magic Origins
- Battle for Zendikar
Inspired by the Standard 4-Color Dragons deck, I decided to try to build a comparable deck in Magic Duels. With the available cards, the deck I wound up with doesn't look much like that one. However, within the constraints of the format, it actually does behave somewhat similarly. The main difference is that this deck plays more of a midrange game.
To that end, I spend the early game stalling with bounce spells. Clutch of Currents and Roil Spout keep my opponent from gaining significant footing before I can deal with whatever they put down. They also give me a tempo advantage in the late game, stalling out threats while adding my own to the board. Radiant Flames gives me another option for dealing with small, early creatures. The bonus there is that in the late game, most of my own creatures are tough enough to survive the flames.
Turn 4 is where the fun begins. That's when I can start hitting my premium threats. Woodland Wanderer and Kird Chieftain are the heavy hitters here; thanks to the BFZ dual lands, I have a Forest on the table a lot of the time. Also, in an ideal situation, this is when Skyrider Elf can come down as a 4/4. Akoum Firebird is more useful for closing out the late game, between its haste and reanimation, but it can also come down here if I'm wanting for 4-mana threats. Tajuru Stalwart is technically a 3-drop, but it also makes a fine threat on turn 3 or 4 if I have three colors online.
Rhox Maulers is there to have another big, trampling body in the late game, though it doesn't hit until turn 5. Greenwarden of Murasa is just pure value. Reclamation Sage is a safety valve against decks that use threatening enchantments (or artifacts) for value; being a 2/1 creature, if I don't run into anything like that, it's not totally useless either. Chandra's Ignition lets me wipe the board late game if my opponent is going wide enough to get around my creatures (say, in a token strategy).
Rounding out the list: Reprisal is another situational safety valve, if my opponent gets creatures that I can't deal with. It doesn't happen often, but there are Eldrazi out there. Evolutionary Leap is another card that really comes in handy in the late game. If my opponent has answers to my board, or if I still have early game creatures like Reclamation Sage or a small Skyrider Elf, then I can just sack them in response and get better threats. I made sure to run enough green sources to keep one or two up most of the time.
The mana base is a work in progress, to say the least. Between that, only being able to run two each of rare lands, and the demands of a four-color deck in a format without true fetches nor tri-lands, it's not easy. However, when it works, it pays off in spades. I've recently made some revisions so that I have at least ten cards that can get me any one given color. (The Land Mana pie chart is slightly misleading in this respect, as it doesn't count Evolving Wilds toward any color.)
In terms of updates, the biggest one I'm thinking of (beyond continuous improvements to the mana base) is cutting white cards and filling in the spaces with a combination of blue and red removal. This reduces some of the strain on my mana base, though I'd certainly still splash some white and black sources for the sake of Converge. I'd also like to figure out some more quality big creatures that I can throw in; maybe adding an Eldrazi or two would be worthwhile? Earlier revisions of the deck played around with some Planeswalkers, which might also be worth playing around with again.
