UPDATE: Check out my better version of this deck: Dune Boardwipe Bees/Burn
Hey, this is the second and improved version of another deck I have. Feel free to go check it out if you want! Any comments or reccomendations would be appreciated!
so here's the gameplan: Increase board presence, wipe board to deal massive damage, gain massive life, or make tons of 1/1 flying deathtouch creatures to swing with or even to block with. This can easily happen by turn 4, and it's easy to set up a solid enough defense to get us there; the creatures themselves are scary on their own, burning opponents etc to penalize them for attacking. Playtesting so far, this deck has been unstoppable. If you lose a game to blue, which happens a lot since they can just counter Blasphemous Act, just sideboard all your cards and begin the blue hate. Works pretty dang well so far, any feedback would be appreciated! Please, if you have the time, at least leave a comment telling me what you think, and perhaps a recommendation or two!
More specifically:Ragged Veins, Spiteful Shadows, Boros Reckoner, and Spitemare all have the capability to directly burn the opponent for 13 with a Blasphemous Act or a Chain Reaction, or even a well timed Shivan Meteor suspended on turn 3, giving you a turn to play a threat and forcing your opponent to either respond and use up their removal, or get F'd when it hits the board. Or, if you survive long enough an Earthquake, Bonfire of the Damned, Magmaquake, or a Clan Defiance can do enough damage to finish them off or wipe the board and recover. From the creatures and enchantments, there are therefore at least 15 different ways to set yourself up for a swing at your opponent's face for 13 damage, while wiping the opponent's board presence away. Also, Spitemare and Boros Reckoner are extremely underrated blockers. Your opponent swings with a 5/5 on the ground? Great, block and burn your opponent's face for 5. The number of creatures and enchantments you get out doesn't need to be a lot in order to be ready for lethal. Lost of creatures, however, lowers the cost of Blasphemous Act and increase the damage from Chain Reaction. These are the two biggest hitting cards in our deck, with Shivan Meteor coming in third. Which makes Forbidden Orchard the unsung hero of this deck. It is almost always worth it to give your opponents more 1/1's, because a chain or act can easily win you the game, or get you extremely close.
With that being said, first off, give your opponent AS MANY creatures as you want, don't even worry about it. To a certain extent, that is, as many as it takes to deliver a lethal blow or guarantee a win. Once you get to around 8 or 9 creatures total, you're good, as you can cast Blasphemous Act for a measly 1 red mana. If you're opponent has a lot of creatures when Blasphemous Act or chain reaction hits, or if there are a lot of creatures in general, these guys absolutely kill it:
Ghostly Prisons are a SUPER nice feature, not essential but helpful, since you are usually assembling a whole army of 1/1's for your opponent, but if you make them pay 2 for each attacking creature the army quickly becomes useless, and you can increase its size for your own benefit without worry. This almost made me consider adding Windborn Muse but creature removal is so common, and I have other bigger threats for 4 mana that I want my opponent to be worried about.
Hornet Nest: assuming you crack off one of the boardwipes for something around 10+ damage, you now have a totally cleared board and have 10 or so attackers to swing with next turn, all with flying and all with deathtouch. that alone is powerful enough to often times end a game.
Soulfire Grand Master... This guy is a beast, period. If you crack off either boardwipe with him on the field, you will gain a LOT of life. Period. With act, it's 13 life for every creature on the board.
Should I include Swans of Bryn Argoll? I could use card draw but often times that seems unneccesary.
Speaking of lifegain, Blood Artists are amazing as well. I took them out of this deck but have been considering adding them back in. They may not be as powerful (usually) as the other guys when a boardwipe goes off, unless there are a lot of creatures, but a few copies of him can easily turn the tide in your favor. You become very hard to attack with one or two of them and a Boros Reckoner... and there's lifegain to boot. Soulfire Grand Master and Blood Artist both worked together very well and extremely fast if you could tap as many forbidden forests as possible, giving your opponent tons of creatures while also decreasing the cost of Blasphemous Act.
Athreos, God of Passage was great sometimes, but as nice as his effect were, I don't really see the point of him as many times his effect ended up being so "kill you more" when you can often get a lethal hit in early anyways, or gain enough life that you don't have to worry about damage until you can build up a big board state again. I took him out in favor of bigger boardwipes/more shivan meteors.
Guys, this deck is so much fun. Seriously, try it out, I love it so far and it is MUCH more effective than you would imagine it would be on paper.
Finally, sideboard: Just TONS of blue hate. Because simply put, we fold to counterspells. Almost every time. With this sideboard you have a much better chance of surviving games 2 and 3. The cards are Vexing Shusher because vexing shusher, Defense Grid because blue sucks and I hate it, and
gutteral response
because it is hilarious to counter a spell with green or red mana. I also included Dragonlord Dromoka just because, even though I'll probably never be able to cast him, so I'm looking for a replacement. I have Grand Abolisher but it seems like he always manages to get countered, defeating the purpose of using him in the first place. since I don't run tons of white I usually can't cast him t2 anyways. Anyways, most other strategies we can deal with, minus heavy creature removal or powerful discard. There's enough threats in this deck that every draw ends up being another major threat for the opponent to deal with, but it's difficult.
Another note: I've been looking for a better way to deal with planeswalkers like liliana, while still keeping the same theme and synergy my deck has. I've been relying on targeting a player and redirecting to the planeswalker with things like Earthquake or Magmaquake, but those cards are mana heavy and I feel like there has to be a cheaper solution in red for them.
This deck honestly gains enough life to deal with burn last minute, you'll find yourself sweeping the board and gaining life or moving in for the kill with a few health left, and then coming back and destroying when they run out of cards. Which is the reason I left out Leyline of Sanctity, it's a GREAT card, but I don't think we need it. Maybe it should replace Batwing Brume, as I haven't had a chance to make it useful in a game yet...
By the way, the idea behind Batwing Brume was since you're giving them 1/1's, TONS of them sometimes, why not when you're in a pinch just fog and deal a bunch of surprise damage? Seemed like a win, it's like a 2 mana burn for 5-10 dmg late game, if you can bait them into attacking.
Another weird thought: could this deck be home for Blood Moon? since all my wincons are mostly red, I feel like that could turn the tables mid game. If I chose to pursue that, it might inspire me to use more basic lands and fetches... something I've been thinking about. Let me know what you think.
it's pretty solid for a homebrew! (Inspired by a deck built around blasphemous act, but I decided on things like hornet's nest for some extra cool effects) But PLEASE leave a comment, anything, a recommendation would be great, looking for any cards that seem like they would have good synergy with this style of deck, and especially any any-color lands or ways to fix my mana for this 4-color deck. It's fairly consistent but I would like it to be even better if possible. thanks!
