pie chart

Syr Gwyn, Flaming Stick of Doom | Primer

Commander / EDH Aggro Casual Midrange Multiplayer RBW (Mardu)

hkhssweiss


Updated December 9th, 2019

35th EDH Deck - Mardu Beats

Retired


Introduction



"Perfection through Knowledge, Satisfaction through Ruthlessness, Harmony through Acceptance"


I'm the guy who loves playing decks that aren't that popular and will spends thousands of dollars refining them until I deem them complete, yes I am that type of person. I been introduced to Magic the Gathering back in middle school in the year of 2003, the block that I started in was the Kamigawa block and I found it very interesting. During that time I played a constructed deck on and off and eventually life happened and I stopped playing, flash forward almost exactly ten years later and I joined an anime/otaku club. Here I met people playing MTG and I also started getting back into it. Currently I am an avid competitive EDH player who has a tendency to play combo/control decks, I absolutely hate to lose but I enjoy a great match. I've been known in my group as always being threatening and able to win out of the blue so they love to make my life hard and deny me all of my resources, as you will see the reason a lot of my decks are built to win either with flair or questionable commanders. Now enough about me, go read further below that's what you actually came here for!

Ahhhh Syr Gwyn, you are made from pieces of various decks. Originally a lot of the cards came from my Nahiri deck which was than turned into my Balan deck, which than turned into my Mardu Partners deck. There is a lot of history that came from each of the equipment cards and each foil card has a story from where it came from. The conception of this deck was primarily to fulfill that casual void in my decks that is based around equipments. Syr Gwyn came around the time when I was building Korvold, I immediately fell in love with my mischievous Fae-Cursed dragon, but Syr Gwyn was more of a forlorn love. I had a lot of equipments that were eating dust in my binders so in it went and the tuning began!

In the beginning I had a lot of Knight cards in there to make use of Gwyn's ability to equip for free, so it turned into a heavy creature build with a lot of subpar knight effects like Stromgald Cabal (man was that a fun but seriously janky af card) and Knights' Charge for the going wide effects. My first couple games went pretty bad and I was not able to do much due to the deck being super linear as well as not being able to stop other people from comboing off. Now onto the next revision I added a lot more interaction and moving similar to the route of my Mardu Partners, which was a Sunforger control package. This is now the current iteration and we will see how this version will play out!

At this current point of time I'm still refining this deck and there will be updates as well, this is pretty much half assed written at like 4am in the morning but hey, if your still reading this than you will see that there will be changes coming up as I refine this list and change up the writing style, so keep watching as I tune this deck!

  • Dissassembled...

Sad day for Syr Gwyn. She wasn't able to perform up to my standard and she got the axe. Few choices as why I chose to retire her. 1) She wasn't fast enough for my taste to provide a threat on the board. 2) The choices were too limiting when building around her or with different packages. 3) Card draw was lacking even with access to the best card draws and tutors.

  • Minor Edits.
  • Moving toward Sunforger control package.
  • Took out unnecessary creatures, added in utility spells.

Played a couple games with Syr Gwyn and wasn't to happy with the interaction package, completely flopped on having a way to deal with grave based decks. Also not having enough removal to deal with utility enchantments and artifacts was a problem as well as the going wide strategies. To fix this we added in Fire Covenant , Silence , Rakdos Charm , as well as Disenchant . Depending on the types of decks we face we may need to add in some boardwipes as well, so current cards that might be included in a future revision might be Toxic Deluge , Damnation , Wrath of God , or Merciless Eviction .

As it stands right now, Sunforger is MVP as we can essentially negate the equip cost and start free casting from there. Might need to add some more weenies in the deck, looking on seeing to maybe add in Legion Loyalist but we run a pretty light creature count. Also added in Relic Seeker for that redundancy and creature tutor.

Took out a lot of knight cards as they were dead in my hand most of the time and did not want to cast a lot of them as they did not progress my board state, weren't threatening enough, or not enough utility.

  • Started the primer.
  • Paperlist up awhile back.
  • Testing out new cards.

Began editing the page for the primer, did some basic additions such as Intro, history, as well as updates to keep track on what I did. Built up the deck from scraps of other decks that are not part of my main decks and the equipments from my poor and well loved Nahiri. Version 1 of the deck includes a lot of Knight synergy and such.


Deck Breakdown


This is how you win.

Step 1: Grab Sunforger .

Step 2: Cast Syr Gwyn .

Step 3: ???

Step 4: $$$Profit$$$

No but seriously your main strategy is essentially to find Sunforger, get Syr Gwyn out as soon as possible so you can abuse Sunforgers ability and control the flow of the game to give you clear advantage. Use your tutors wisely, mainly you want to be able to protect Syr Gwyn so finding evasion pieces are always great, card advantage is also key if you want to last the mid game and late game.

Sword of the Animist should mainly be your first equipment you are looking for, we need the ramp and resources. We have some tech utility to reuse our resources like Mistveil Plains which allows us to reuse spells over and over again. Aside from that everything is a variable, depending on the situation you will fetch out different utility spells and equipment for every situation so this is a pilot dependent deck, how good it plays depends on how well you know the threat level of certain cards as well as the opposing decks. Every game is different so have fun and knock out some peeps!

Balan, Wandering Knight : Makes the cut for being a serious threat itself. If Syr Gwyn is not on the field Balan can be the primary contender for using the Sunforger package. Not only that Balan's ability bypasses the cost of the equipment making it a tremendous threat.

Danitha Capashen, Paragon : A lot of keyword abilities that is relevant, but also the utility reduction. Has been useful but one of the cards to cut if needed for a flex spot.

Fervent Champion : Stupendous turn 1 creature, but great also when you have your Swords of X and Y on the field and no free-quip creatures are on the battlefield. One of the best equip knights printed so far.

Giver of Runes : Hot mom. Giving pro colors is great for getting the damage in as well as evading some of the targeted removal. Great all around card.

Kinsbaile Cavalier : Testing out card currently but double strike is evil, especially since we have a lot of equipments that do things when we do combat damage.

Knight Exemplar : In only because it can give my other Knights indestructible. Other than that flex card that can be taken out.

Leonin Shikari : In due to instant speed equip Sunforger. That in itself is great. Having your Swords of X and Y equip instant speed is also fabulous.

Mirran Crusader : Keywords and double proc, nuff said. Being a knight is a bonus.

Mother of Runes : OG mom, same as Giver of Runes but she can protect herself.

Puresteel Paladin : MVP knight, card draw and free-quip. What else more do you need?

Recruiter of the Guard : Being able to tutor about 80% of all my creatures sounds good to me. Iunno about you but I like having options.

Relic Seeker : Redundancy is key, being able to have options is also key.

Serra Ascendant : Yeah this card is just unfair...I like unfair cards.

Silverblade Paladin : I just like double strike, sue me.

Stoneforge Mystic : Yeah no equipment deck goes without one of these babies.

Stonehewer Giant : Mystics best friend, they go hand in hand. It's even better since he can also equip it automatically.

Sun Titan : Essentially almost our whole deck can be grabbed with this titan, no reason not to include.

Tymna the Weaver : Card draw is very important. Grabbing twice as many cards is also fairly important.

All mana rock cards are self explanatory.

Basilisk Collar : Makes our creatures to essentially rattlesnakes. That and we do tend to lose a lot of life extremely quick this help subsides it.

Bloodforged Battle-Axe : Okay this is a pet card, can be swapped out but boy is it fun to play with.

Conqueror's Flail : Having an Grand Abolisher effect on a creature is quite good. Leaves your turn uninterrupted.

Grafted Exoskeleton : Some people don't like this card because of infect, but some people just need to die.

Hammer of Nazahn : A bit costly being in the 4 CMC slot, but the utility is great and is worth it so far.

Lightning Greaves : Always protect the booty.

Loxodon Warhammer : More for the lifelink than the trample. A good card overall.

Sunforger : Bread and Butter of the deck. Half the reason why this deck is made is because of this card.

Sword of X and Y : I don't think there should be a reason why these cards are included in here. Each give utility protection as well as an additional effect which gives you advantage. The few swords that isn't here is Truth and Justice , Body and Mind , and War and Piece only due to the fact it doesn't provide enough utility to matter.

Sword of the Animist : The MVP equipment, this allows us to ramp up, deck thin, as well as give enough resources for us to stay in the game. Essential ramp equipment.

Umezawa's Jitte : One of the best equipment in the game right next to the Swords of X and Y. So many utility effect and you get the counters based on damage! That's right damage not combat damage, it's too good that it can be borderline unfair.

Sigarda's Aid : Uh...duh? turn 1 plays as well as free auto equip and instant speed casting of equipments? Yeah I'll take one.

Smothering Tithe : We are pretty mana hungry and giving us mana is never a good thing.

All tutor cards are self explanatory. They grab you what you want, duh~

Anguished Unmaking : 3 life is small price to pay to exile. One of the best cards for removal.

Boros Charm : Multi useful card, I wanna kill someone again with the last mode.

Chaos Warp : Can play the roulette to save yourself or deal with problematic permanents.

Crackling Doom : Pet favorite card, but also gets the job done when your looking at something bigger than you.

Dark Ritual : Getting an early Syr Gwyn is super nice, or just getting any equips out faster is also great.

Disenchant : All around staple removal.

Fire Covenant : Instant speed removal, all it cost is life. Life is a resource, use it.

Hide / Seek : Another pet card but it can help out in a tight spot but also no one ever sees it coming.

Path to Exile : Staple removal.

Rakdos Charm : Fucks with peoples grave yards. Our only real way to exile them.

Silence : Tech card, really stops people when they try to do stupid things.

Swords to Plowshares : Staple removal.

Teferi's Protection : Your panic button.

Wear / Tear : Love having multiple uses on one card. There for efficiency.

All tutor cards are self explanatory. They grab you what you want, duh~

Vandalblast : Pure asymmetrical blowout? Sign me up.

Inventors' Fair : Sometimes the lifegain helps, sometimes the tutor is just super relevant when we just have mana rocks and no equipment on the field. This solves the problem.

Mistveil Plains : Sunforger tech to reuse our spells again..and again...and again.


If there are any comments on how I can improve my deck more, please let me know!!

+1 Upvote if ya like dem Mardu Beats!!!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Comments

Casual

92% Competitive

Revision 6 See all

(5 years ago)

+1 Buried Ruin main
-1 Snow-Covered Mountain main
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #3 position overall 5 years ago
  • Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH 5 years ago
Date added 5 years
Last updated 4 years
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

7 - 0 Mythic Rares

50 - 0 Rares

24 - 0 Uncommons

4 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 2.28
Tokens Copy Clone, Treasure
Folders Glorious and disgusting decks, .Edh, EDH, EDH Decks to Try, Retired Decks, Ideas, EDH Deckstappedout, EDH ideas, syr gwn, EDH
Votes
Ignored suggestions
Shared with
Views