Creature (15)
- 3x Ajani's Pridemate
- 1x Mogis, God of Slaughter
- 3x Nyx-Fleece Ram
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4x
Soulfire Grand Master
- 4x Wall of Limbs
Land (21)
Instant (13)
- 1x Arcbond
- 2x Crackling Doom
- 3x Deflecting Palm
- 1x Lightning Strike
- 2x Magma Jet
- 2x Stoke the Flames
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2x
Stoke the Flames
Sorcery (6)
Sideboard
Creature (4)
Enchantment (4)
Maybeboard
Creature (5)
Land (5)
Instant (15)
- 1x Ajani's Presence
- 1x Feat of Resistance
- 1x Harsh Sustenance
- 1x Magma Spray
- 2x Mardu Charm
- 1x Sandblast
- 1x Spark Jolt
- 4x Utter End
- 1x Valorous Stance
- 2x Wild Slash
Sorcery (2)
I'm not the first, nor will i be the last, to try this burn = lifegain idea. This is just my take on it.
SoulFIRIN MAH LAZER!!
Soulfire Grand Master | Art by Johannes Voss
As anyone familar with the IM A FIRIN MAH LAZER!! Meme, also known as Shoop da Whoop, knows it's all about a faceless mouth and eyes suddenly without warning shooting a powerful stream of laser. That's how this deck goes about it's business and wins as well. Frequent burn damage and Life gain as you sit back and defensively built up your wall. Then suddenly without warning you surprise them with a Deflecting Palm for lethal damage or you FIRE YA LAZAH!! with your Wall of Limbs's activated ability for dealing the remaining amount of damage in one shot.
GAME OVER!
Very simple concept really. Get your burn spells ready. Get a very early Soulfire Grand Master in play to give all burn spells played some clean life gain. Follow it all up by a Ajani's Pridemate or Wall of Limbs to take full advantage of life gained.
Burn spells can be reused and serve a second purpose late in the game to help clear the way for a Ajani's Pridemate. Now you can go ahead and attack with the occasional massive Ajani's Pridemate swinging for lethal damage. Take them out the ol' fashioned way works just fine but that's no fun. Why not play defensively and wait til you get enough mana built up for something truley magical to happen in the form of a...
MASSIVE Wall of Limbs
Wall of Limbs | Art by Yeong-Hao Han
and then when the time is right...
With all the fun flavor aside...
I wanted to try to make a deck around Lifegain in Standard that is semi-competitive but super-synergystic.
This deck is just that.
Turn on... I see .
Burning...
Hard.... Loose... & Clean
And I see ...
One hundred plus through and
Yes, admittedly gaining Life and keep adding disembodied arms and legs to a giant wall of said arms and legs seems like a fragile win con at best but... when you include Burn Lifegain with the new Fate Reforged card Soulfire Grand Master it takes it to a whole new magnitude.
Any suggestions please leave them in the comments. I'm always ears to how I can improve or make this better. And if you liked it please leave a vote +1
Creatures (15)
4x Soulfire Grand Master - Key card. Makes this damage = lifegain deck tick. Soulfire Grand Master and the +/- 18 burn spells in the deck result in insane amounts of lifelink / recurring direct damage because don't forget you may return burn spells you cast (esp. the cheap ones) to your hand by paying 4 mana. Soulfire's buyback ability can keep any of the cheap instant/sorcery burns cards in your hand so you can recast and re-claim them over and over to be reused again and again. You can also do this to Hordeling Outburst and keep putting out 3 1/1 tokens. You need 7 mana to do it but it's a different option than burn spells.
3x Nyx-Fleece Ram - At first glance this doesn't look like a beast but in a deck based around gaining life and specifically separate life gain events it's a powerhouse. Especially when you have multiple Sheep in play. During each upkeep you'll gain life. For each Ram you control you'll trigger a separate instance of life-gain. Since they are seperate cards their obviously separate abilities. They resolve separately, and they cause life gain separately. Because each one causes a separate "Whenever you gain life" to trigger you'll put a counter on Ajani's Pridemate or Wall of Limbs for each one too! For every Nyx-fleece Rams you have in play you're literally pumping Ajani's Pridemate or Wall of Limbs with a +1/+1 counter each turn at the beginning of your turn.
Putting multiple counters on Anjani's Pridemate and Wall of Limbs each turn is what makes this deck tick.
Sustained lifegain triggers for continual counter generation... I'll take it. Give me four.
3x Ajani's Pridemate - Alternate way to deal fatal damage and finish them off. Burn spells then swing with a gigantic Ajani's Pridemate.
4x Wall of Limbs - We've already gone over how this is a key card and your Main Win Con.
The Idea is to pump it up and sacrifice it dealing enough direct damage to the opponent. The trick to the Wall of Limbs is how you go about putting enough of the +1/+1 counters on him to one shot them.
You'll do this predominantly through Burn Lifegain with Soulfire Grand Master and burn spells but there are some other key contributors such as Sunbond which really can amplify the counter gaining and speed things up.
Also keep in mind you don't need to do a full 20 damage. You just need to take their remaining life down. After the burn spells lower their health to the point where you can do enough damage all in one shot you are home free! When you've pumped up the Wall of Limbs enough to finish them off you only have one thing to worry about. The enemy of every player. Mana.
Gaining life and putting counters on it won't be hard. Getting enough mana to use it's ability, you need 7, will be.
Instead of ramping I chose to play defensively. Basically sit back building your wall up while you simultaneously slowly build up your mana until you have enough power in counters on the Wall to one shot your opponent for the win, and enough mana to be able to pull it off and actually do it.
Mogis, God of Slaughter
1x Mogis, God of Slaughter - Mogis has a very powerul ability which basically states during each opponents turn they either sacrifice a creature or take 2 damage.
When your running a deck that's strategy takes some time to reach fruition this means you'll need something to keep your opponents board in check, to control them so to speak. However, this deck is also about dealing fast damage and Mogis fits both fronts.
Every turn they must decide and choose, do I take the 2 direct damage or do i sacrifice a creature and allow them to put +1/+1 counters on their creature which if it keeps growing and growing and growing eventual death is next. Basically they're damned if they do and damned if they don't, you don't leave them any chance.
Whoah. Wait a minute... What am I talking about? Where did that part come from?
The reason you gain the +1/+1 counter on your Wall of Limbs is Eternal Thirst.
There's a lot of ways to gain counters on Wall of Limbs in this deck if you go this route. When they sacrifice each turn you get one or when it's your turn and you control a Nyx-Fleece Ram you gain life, when you deal damage with a instant/sorcery you'll get one and even when they attack you can counter their damage and send it back at them which will give you one too!
You will quickly amass counters before you know it. Eternal Thirst just speeds up the process even further. When you got 10 counters on your Wall of Limbs which shouldn't take too long you can probably finish them off by sacrificing it and paying the 7 mana.
And with Mogis doing direct 2 damage here and there to the player if they are at say 18 health it only takes 9 counters, 16 health it takes even less counters.
They take the 2 damage, which will slowly eat away at their total life with each passing turn or they lose a creature and you get another +1/+1 counter. Eventually you'll be gaining plenty of counters or they will run out of creatures in which case you will just continue to do 2 damage. When their board is empty even the most meek creature can attack in and deliver the death blow.
The lower they get in health the closer they are to imminent death whether by a simple burn spell or in one swift coup de grace delivered by your Wall of Limbs.
Did I mention he's Indestructible too? Which makes him hard to deal with but at just 4 mana easy to get out.
Include Mogis and just grind them to death.
Instant & Sorcery (19)
Anger of the Gods | Art by Noah Bradley
Sorcery (6)
Anger of the Gods
3x Anger of the Gods- Here's a Win Condition or at least a Clincher for this deck.
Yeah it's a board wipe but it's also so much more in this deck...
Basically throw out the card's text and read it as "You gain life equal to 3x the number of creatures on the board." Assuming that none of the damage is prevented.
Let me explain...
You'll want to get a Wall of Limbs out as soon as possible. It's base of 0/3 is good because you only need to gain life once before you can pull this off. He needs to be at toughness 4+ in order for this to work properly.
You also need to have a Soulfire Grand Master out.
So once you have those two things cast your Anger of the Gods and say by this time they have 3 creatures in play. Plus your 2 that's 5 creatures in play. It will net you 15 lifegain. It might kill off their creatures depending on their toughness and it will kill off your Soulfire Grand Master unless you have something like Valorous Stance (I do like the versatility of Valorous Stance to take care of creatures with toughness 4+ which Anger of the Gods cannot destroy/exile.) / Gods Willing / Ajani's Presence / Feat of Resistance or Mardu Ascendancy 's sacrifice ability will negate the 3 damage to all your creatures from Anger of the Gods (as well as survive things like Bile Blight but not Crux of Fate) + give you a way to put more red tokens out to tap for convoke on Stoke the Flames. Back on topic though, any of them listed cards can be added and used to save your creatures but if you do this right you won't need the creatures anymore is what I'm trying to get at. Why, because your win condition Wall of Limbs could be ready to activate.
Aside from gaining ridiculous amounts of life this can really pump your Wall of Limbs or Ajani's Pridemate up fast with +1/+1 counters. Especially if one of them has a Sunbond on it. That'll really make a creature gigantic in a jiffy. If you had a Sunbond on the Wall of Limbs that 15 life is 15 +1/+1 counters. Plus the one counter it puts on itself from it's own text. This is why you might want to wait to cast Anger of the Gods, wiping the board (your creatures included) in the process, until your truly ready to take advantage of it. Once you have a Sunbond out on Wall of Limbs first your setting yourself up for a victory in the next turn or two, you only need the 7 mana.That's what makes Anger of the Gods so amazing in this deck.
When you anger against a field of tokens and or even just mid-game average board it's gaining you insane amounts of life. 3 for every one because of your Soulfire Grand Master .Creatures dont necessarily have to be dealt lethal damage by the Anger of the Gods to be exiled either. After being dealt damage, if they would die for any reason that turn, as in another burn spell or combat damage, theyll still be exiled instead of going to the graveyard.
Hordeling Outburst
3x Hordeling Outburst - This at first glance might confuse some but it's place here is deliberate because it's so good alongside Stoke the Flames . Why is it so good? It creates 3 red tokens, now you can tap them for red mana and convoke out a stoke the flames with just one other creature on the board for free. Using any lands for another spell that turn or to use Soulfire Grand Master's ability for and return your Stoke the Flames to your hand to be recast again and again.
Mardu Ascendancy can also put out the tokens in abundance that you need to convoke Stoke the Flames with.
Stoke the Flames | Art by Ryan Barger
Stoke The Flames | Art by Mathias Kollros
Instant (13)
4x Stoke the Flames - Your main burn spell. Almost always cost's 0 to cast it. You can save your mana and tap any creatures to pay for . By just tapping everything you have you should almost always be able to cast it for free, if not for just or . The Hordeling tokens are especially important because they tap for the two red colored mana need in it's cost () to cast it for free through convoke.
Then you can use your land produced mana on something else that turn. A great play would be to use Soulfire Grand Master's ability for and then convoke cast Stoke the Flames tapping creatures to pay for it's cost. Then return it to your hand and reuse it next turn. Sustainable 4 damage each turn is pretty good.
I almost always deal the damage to the player and if that's the case they won't have very long before you overcome them with damage. It's 4 either to the face or take out a blocker in the way of Ajani's Pridemate or a problamatic creature threat they control. And don't forget that's 4 lifegain each time you cast it in this deck with Soulfire. Each time you do your triggering Wall of Limbs or Ajani's Pridemate for more and more counters.
It won't be long before your Wall of Limbs or Ajani's Pridemate are loaded up fast with +1/+1 counters. Especially if one of them has a Sunbond on it. That'll really make a creature gigantic in a jiffy.
2x Crackling Doom - An important card for dealing with opponents biggest threats. The 2 damage is also a nice little lifegain trigger to get those counters rolling but really the important part of this card and why I chose it over others is it also makes them sacrifice which is important to keeping board control.
2x Magma Jet - The Scry is nice to set up next few turns. Plus it's cheap enough to where in the midgame you can pay Soulfire's and still pay it's [ which brings it back to your hand for a Scry 2 every turn. You can really sift through your deck now for just the cards you need.
1x Lightning Strike - A cheap burn spell and remember it's turned into a Lightning Helix in this deck basically. You can buy it back fairly easy too.
1x Arcbond - See comments. Thanks to Johnny115115 for the suggestion. Casting a Arcbond on a Soulfire Grand Master which has lifelink. (Damage dealt by this creature also causes you to gain that much life.) and then casting Anger of the Gods into the field is insane amounts of lifegain and if your Wall of Limbs or Ajani's Pridemate are Sunbond 'ed your turning all that lifegain into straight +1/+1 counters.
Your Soulfire Grand Master and all other creatures take 3 damage each from Anger of the Gods and you gain that life then the Soulfire itself deals 3 damage to all creatures and 3 to each player and because it has lifelink you DO GAIN LIFE for all that damage too!
The creature you target has to have Lifelink.
3x Deflecting Palm - This is actually a very dangerous card in this deck. It can completely shut them down actually. The idea is they swing in full attack mode, maybe you tapped out your creatures, they're thinking damage but wait you cast an instant Deflecting Palm and now you're thinking damage! And that means Lifegain too of course!
It's strong against a lot of decks actually vs aggro / tempo / or any creature heavy decks that rely on a strong board presence. They'll attack willy-nilly trying to outrace your burn damage and think nothing of it. But they'll be walking right into a trap. You can negate their biggest damaging source and send it back at them twicefold. Hitting them for a double damage counterpunch. And your not done. Where this ends it's effectiveness in most decks you still can bring it back to your hand through Soulfire Grand Master for just 4 mana. Early game this won't be possible but in the Mid-to-Late stages of a match you'll have the 6 mana to basically put them on ice. They know your holding it once you brought it back to your hand after the first cast. If they attack again they know you'll cast it and hit them back twice as hard which will deter a lot of attacks and give you time to build up your counters. If things get too out of hand just board wipe.
If you want you can even bring in some Dictate of the Twin Gods to really amplify the damage. It basically means if you hold on to it, patiently waiting for them to attack with a 5 power creature. Or forcing them to attack with Mogis's Warhound . If they do you can deal fatal (20) damage. Their 5 will be doubled to 10 then deflected back at them and doubled again from 10 to 20.
(THOUGHTS: I'm thinking I might have to thin my numbers here, less burn spells, and add more lands. It's important that we reach that 7 mana mark in this deck and since Soulfire's buyback ability works so well to return any of these to your hand it's not like we need a whole bunch of them. It's just whichever you happen to draw first you can reuse over and over again.)
Enchantments and Artifacts (5)
Enchantment (4)
3x Sunbond - You'll be gaining ridiculous amounts of counters simply by enchanting this bad boy on a creature, especially important to enchant a Wall of Limbs.
1x Citadel Siege - A little slower counter gain but it's sustainable counter gain, every turn during combat phase you can put it on a target creature. This can be used to save a Soulfire Grand Master from dying to a Anger of the Gods as well. A semi-important card when in the case of a match drawing on and becoming a longer drawn out battle.
Artifact (1)
1x Staff of the Flame Magus - It triggers everytime you play a burn spell basically. With every burn spell you cast it triggers a life gain event. Putting counters on creatures. I would've liked to add more of these Staff's of the _____ Magus because they can be quite powerful lifegain and counter generators if you get them out early and then play the rest of your cards, ie burn spells.
(If you want to run more of these, talking Staff of the Sun Magus too, it might be worth it. You can have more than one in play and each will be gaining you 1 life for each red/white spell you cast or land you play though keep in mind you don't run many basic lands. Also you might want to then run a playset of Shrapnel Blast to take full advantage of all those Artifacts. It's a cheap burn spell that does a whopping 5 damage at the cost of sacrificing only 1 of the Artifacts for the greater good. And of course 5 damage = 5 lifegain but don't forget first all costs of a spell must be paid in full before anything that triggers from casting it can trigger so you won't gain that 1 life for the sacrificed staff.)
Land (21)
4x Nomad Outpost - I really like when I draw one in my opening hand because it makes casting whatever you have in the opening turns so much easier.
3x Scoured Barrens - The important lifegain lands. Playing them they trigger and put counters on your creatures.
5x Mountain
5x Plains
(Might need more lands to reach that 7 mana instant kill win condition. Not sure how I would go about this though? What to take out and what to add? I personally would just add more of the most basic way to gain life in this deck.The new lands from Khans of Tarkir.(Scoured Barrens | Bloodfell Caves | Wind-Scarred Crag) and M15's Radiant Fountain. They enter and you gain life.)
Sideboard (15)
Still a work in progress, I suspect I'll change out a bunch of cards from the sideboard and the maybeboard or from any suggestions I receive in the comments.
3x Butcher of the Horde - One of the better creatures in Standard I feel but he can be sideboaded in taking out some Ajani's Pridemates if you think it'll work out better. His flying gives him evasion something the Pridemate doesn't have. And if you sac a token or two to him he'll have temorary Lifegain. You might not even need to FIRE YAH LAZAH!! to win if his 5 damage keeps hitting home because they have no answers to block it.
2x Gods Willing - Bring in vs control decks that are going to really mess this deck up if they can remove your Wall of Limbs or Ajani's Pridemate after you've built them up with counters. Besides that though you can choose to run them if you think it'll help keep your stuff alive during an casting of Anger of the Gods.
2x Mardu Ascendancy - Like Gods Willing and many of the Maybeboard cards this is specifically to let your stuff survive a Anger of the Gods board wipe. Before you sac it however it can help give you some red token creatures to tap to convoke out a Stoke the Flames.
2x Scouring Sands - This is a card that in most decks really isn't worth it. However this is not most decks. In this deck, or at least it's sideboard it's a powerhouse contributor. The soon to be everywhere Monastery Mentor Tokens is a major reason why I included this card to the sideboard. If you know the opponent is running Monastery Mentor or any of the token generators then sideboard in both copies game 2 and laugh in their face. Here's my reasoning for why it works in this deck and it could be worth bringing in vs aggro or heavy token decks. It basically is a mini version of one of the key cards in this deck. An opponent-centric pseudo-Anger of the Gods. Only focused on their creatures and less damage dealt to them but if they have a lot of tokens, which is a thing in this Standard Meta, it can deal 1 damage to each and that will add up of course meaning 1 life for every creature they control.
2x Spite of Mogis - Sideboarding in a few of these could be potent late game when you got a lot of instant and sorcery in your graveyard that you've already cast. The more you have the bigger the damage. It's this variable damage that I chose it over the 2x Mardu Charm I use to have. I think Spite of Mogis in this deck is strictly better, the fact that it cost 1 compared to 3 mana is a huge deal. It makes it way more returnable to hand via the Soulfire's ability. It being a lot easier because it's a lot cheaper. Also you get to Scry on top of everything else which is only upside and added benefit each turn you'll be casting it over and over again.
1x Eternal Thirst
1x Anger of the Gods - In case you want 4
1x Nyx-fleece Ram - In case you want 4
1x Sunbond - In case you want 4
Combos
Anger of the Gods + Soulfire Grand Master
Deflecting Palm + Soulfire Grand Master and them attacking
Hordeling Outburst + Stoke the Flames
Other Thoughts:
I really am thinking about adding in Prowess to this. You can add any of the Prowess creatures at your leisure. Any of them would do just fine and really benefit from a deck like this casting a lot of burn spells.
A few of my favorites:
Monastery Mentor
I really want to include this guy but unless I get some lucky pulls he's too expensive. He fits in perfectly though and generates tokens galore! Which could be used for convoke or to swarm and overwhelm your opponent going wide in an attack with a bunch of creatures. Plus it amplifies one of the main combos; Anger of the Gods + Soulfire Grand Master usually nets you at least 15 lifegain but this could be greatly amplified if a single Monastery Mentor is involved on either side of the board. (If you run some think about adding in a Purphoros, God of the Forge who takes full advantage of creatures enterring the battlefield.)
Harsh Sustenance
Sandblast is another trap like Deflecting Palm. They attack or block and you can deal 5 damage which is 5 life gain and 5 counters.
Cast Ordeal of Heliod on Wall of Limbs with Sunbond and already has 3 +1/+1 counters on it, you instantly gain 10 life and it gets 11 counters on the wall immediately.
Heat Ray could be a nice life gain burn spell when you built up a good mana base.
Soulfire Grand Master + Humble Defector + Scouring Sands = Draw 2, lose control of it but deals 1 damage to all their creatures gaining you life
Replace Scouring Sands with Searing Blood and you got 5 lifegain for just and 3 damage to the opponent life total to bring it that much lower.
Think I need to add a playset of Barrage of Boulders as a Finisher and another game clincher. It literally is a powerhouse in this deck. The ferocious ability figures to come into play through +1/+1 counters on Ajani's Pridemate or Wall of Limbs or any other creatures that have 4+ power. ( Bloodfire Enforcers says hi as well)In this deck, one can effectively play four copies of Wild Slash which aside from the Shock has an added effect that really matters. In a deck based all around direct damage it's important that it cannot be prevented in any way.
And of course all this means nothing if you cannot keep them alive and on the battlefield with all the counters. Through Regeneration or Protection you can.
Regenerate stops them from killing them off, keeping them alive with all them counters. Maybe enchant him with a Molting Snakeskin . There's a lot of cards like ' Feat of Resistance in the Maybeboard that are perfect protection at Instant speed, you can respond to any removal and not only give it protection against the color of that spell and thus negating it's effect but also put another +1/+1 counter on your Wall of Limbs in the process.
Props to xGhostx for The Evolution of Burn
Mardu is definitely here to stay as a competitive powerhouse contender so embrace it with open arms and run one of it's many variations or be crushed in it's wake!
Build yourself a Red-Black-White deck and enjoy Mardu in all of it's glory.
If you do please share it back here!
Gimme fuelGimme fireGimme that which I desire...
Ooooo...
On I burn!
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| Date added | 9 years |
| Last updated | 8 years |
| Key combos | |
| Legality | This deck is not Standard legal. |
| Rarity (main - side) | 5 - 0 Mythic Rares 10 - 6 Rares 27 - 6 Uncommons 1 - 3 Commons |
| Cards | 60 |
| Avg. CMC | 2.82 |
| Tokens | Goblin 1/1 R |
| Folders | Outdated Standard Decks - Finished, Aggro Decks |
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| Ignored suggestions | |
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