What is this deck?
This deck is based on the werewolf tribe and strives to keep that flavour by excluding cards that does not match with this theme. I've decided to build the deck without going overboard on the budget while still keeping it fairly competetive.
The general strategy of the deck is to flood the board with wolves and werewolves, along with boosting cards such as Immerwolf, Mayor of Avabruck
, Howlpack Resurgence, Kessig Wolf Run and/or Moonmist. The deck can often get out more creatures on the battlefield than most opponnets can, and with Moonmist the werewolves will also often be stronger than most opponents creatures.
History
The first werewolf in Magic was Lesser Werewolf, released in 1994 in the expansion set Legends. The following year another werewolf was released in Homelands, the Greater Werewolf. This werewolf was later reprinted in fifth Edition with a new flavor text and an updated card layout. It was around this time that creature types went from largely being used for flavor-related reasons, to introducing some mechanical identity among some creature cards, namely Slivers and Licids. Five years later, in 2002, Judgement was released and along with it another werewolf, the Treacherous Werewolf. Until this point the werewolves have had the creature type Lycanthrope. Judgement changed this by giving Treacherous Werewolf the type Wolf instead.
For a long time it seemed like no new werewolf cards would be released again. Some minor changes was made to their type when Lorwyn was released in 2007, along with the Grand Creature Type Update. All the previously printed werewolves had their creature types changed from Lycanthrope to Human Wolf. The Lesser Werewolf was later reprinted in 2009 with the release of Masters Edition III, with the creature type Human Wolf clearly printed on it.
With the increasing prints of different wolves a big change happened for the werewolf tribe with the release of Innistrad in 2011. The block not only had 19 werewolves and 21 other cards referencing werewolves, it changed the werewolf tribe altogether:
- The werewolves prior to this set had their creature types changed from Human Wolf to Werewolf.
- The tribe had cards printed on both sides of them (Double-faced cards), which had previously been introduced in Kamigawa in a slightly different manner. This was a radical change of the card back. Until the double-faced cards release, no legal card could have a different print on the back than the regular Magic card back.
- On the front side the werewolves was given atleast the creature types Human and Werewolf, and on the back side they were only a Werewolf.
- The front side was named the day side with an icon next to its name repesenting a sun, and the back side was named the night side with a crescent moon icon and a slightly altered frame, textbox and white text for card type, name and power/toughness.
- They were given the keyword transform, which would turn them over so that its other face is up. When the permanent transforms, all counters, Auras and Equipment stay on the card, and the card neither enters nor leaves the battlefield.
- To be allowed to play with the new werewolves, the player must either have opaque sleeves for all cards, or use a checklist card to substitute for each werewolf card in the deck. These checklists were included in some of the booster packs. The checklist cards were shuffled into the deck while the actual double-faced card were kept outside the game.
- Because the werewolves can be transformed, some rules had to make exceptions for these double-faced cards. Some of these exceptions were; Cards such as Ixidron cannot turn a werewolf face down, and if a werewolf would be cloned, the clone cannot transform.
The most notable cards added to the werewolf tribe in the Innistrad block were Ancient Grudge, Daybreak Ranger
, Full Moon's Rise, Huntmaster of the Fells
, Immerwolf, Instigator Gang
, Kessig Wolf Run, Kruin Outlaw
, Mayor of Avabruck
, Mondronen Shaman
, Moonmist, Reckless Waif
and Wolfbitten Captive
.
The next time a werewolf were printed was in 2016 when the block Shadows over Innistrad was released. This block included 20 new werewolves (one of which was of the type Legendary - Ulrich of the Krallenhorde
), one werewolf planeswalker (Arlinn Kord
) and 10 other cards in some way referencing werewolves. This block also brought with it some changes to the werewolves:
- The converted mana cost of the night side is now based on the mana cost of the day side.
- The new Horrow/Eldrazi werewolves are not Human on the front side. Instead they have the types Werewolf Horror, indicating that their front side is their transformed state.
- The transform effect for the new Horror/Eldrazi werewolves was changed to an activated ability, which the player has to pay mana for.
- The new Horrow/Eldrazi werewolves were given a full moon icon on the front side, and a Emrakul icon on the back side to show that the creature has joined Emrakul's brood.
The most notable cards added to the werewolf tribe in the Innistrad block were Arlinn Kord
, Breakneck Rider
, Duskwatch Recruiter
, Geier Reach Bandit
, Howlpack Resurgence, Kessig Prowler
, Lambholt Pacifist
, Moonlight Hunt, Spirit of the Hunt, Ulrich of the Krallenhorde
, Village Messenger
and Waxing Moon.
The transform mechanic has been named Deciduous, which mean that it is not Evergreen, but may show up from time to time in a set that needs it (as seen in Ixalan). This gives hope of more werewolf cards to follow, maybe not in the near future but atleast the tribe could come back in a small or larger scale in a future set.
