The Mardu Horde: Storm the Fields

Commander / EDH RBW (Mardu) Sacrifice Tokens

Temur_Frontier

Creature (31)

• 1x Adaptive Automaton
• 1x Arashin Foremost
• 1x Archetype of Aggression
• 1x Blaring Captain
• 1x Blood-Chin Fanatic
• 1x Blood-Chin Rager
• 1x Bloodsoaked Champion
• 1x Brighthearth Banneret
• 1x Brutal Hordechief
• 1x Chief of the Edge
• 1x Combat Celebrant
• 1x Death-Greeter's Champion
• 1x Flamerush Rider
• 1x Frenzied Saddlebrute
• 1x God-Eternal Oketra
• 1x Honored Crop-Captain
• 1x Kargan Intimidator
• 1x Kargan Warleader
• 1x Laelia, the Blade Reforged
• 1x Mardu Shadowspear
• 1x Mardu Strike Leader
• 1x Mardu Woe-Reaper
• 1x Metallic Mimic
• 1x Mindblade Render
• 1x Moraug, Fury of Akoum
• 1x Ogre Battledriver
• 1x Rushblade Commander
• 1x Shakedown Heavy
• 1x Steward of Solidarity
• 1x Thrasher Brute
• 1x Ultramarines Honour Guard

Artifact (11)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Door of Destinies
• 1x Dragon Throne of Tarkir
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Glaring Spotlight
• 1x Oketra's Monument
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Talisman of Conviction
• 1x Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1x Talisman of Indulgence
• 1x Vanquisher's Banner

Land (36)

• 1x Command Tower
• 10x Mountain
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 10x Plains
• 1x Smoldering Marsh
• 10x Swamp
• 1x Temple of Malice
• 1x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of Triumph

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Ambition's Cost
• 1x Damn
• 1x Pact of the Serpent
• 1x Painful Truths
• 1x Read the Bones
• 1x Ruinous Ultimatum
• 1x Sign in Blood

Commander (1)

Enchantment (9)

• 1x Berserkers' Onslaught
• 1x Black Market Connections
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Chivalric Alliance
• 1x Mardu Ascendancy
• 1x Outpost Siege
• 1x Phyrexian Arena
• 1x Raiders' Spoils
• 1x Shared Animosity

Instant (5)

• 1x Akroma's Will
• 1x Mardu Charm
• 1x Savage Beating
• 1x Tears of Rage
• 1x Utter End

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The Tarkir Project

This deck is part of a series of flavor-focused decks built around the plane of Tarkir. The goal is to balance flavor, power, and fun as much as possible for each deck, bringing the associated clans to life while still being playable. Here are the rough guidelines for this project, where each deck should:

• Use a commander that is from the associated clan, ideally one of the Khans for the clan.
• Include as many cards associated with the given clan as possible; it does not matter if they are specifically from the Tarkir block. Any card, whether it was from the block or some anthology, counts as long as it clearly depicts the clan in question (this includes the Dragons of Tarkir clan counterpart as they are similar enough). Realistically, the target goal is roughly around 15 flavor cards per deck.
• The deck's overall playstyle should mirror the original vision of the clan's tactics as they were represented in the Tarkir block. I personally value this slightly more than number of flavor cards used.

You can check out the other decks in this series as they are listed on the side bar of this page and on my profile.

Who were the Mardu Horde?

Commander Choice

The only real options for commander were between the Mardu Khans Alesha, Who Smiles at Death and Zurgo Helmsmasher. Several different builds for both commanders were compared. Zurgo is strong on his own and is easy to build, leaving a lot of room for fluff Mardu flavor cards; however, voltron is (in my opinion) too boring and aggressive of a strategy, so it fails pretty hard in the fun factor. On the other hand, Alesha is very fun and is a more unique commander to build around than most. That said, she is very particular about card choice because there is so many different boxes she needs to check to function properly (i.e. sacrifice, protection, ETB value, enough creatures power 2 or less, etc.), making it very difficult to pack in Mardu flavor cards. Alesha does provide more of the Mardu playstyle than Zurgo does: swarming the board with small creatures and tokens feels like a makeshift army or Mongol horde which matches the Mardu style much more than going with a brute one man army. So, Alesha was the better choice, providing more fun and the Mardu playstyle, while Zurgo only would have provided Mardu flavor.

Mardu Flavor

Mardu flavor cards work well in more limited settings like Standard, but that kind of cheap aggro has very little function in multiplayer EDH. So, unfortunately, the list of Mardu flavor cards is pretty small. Barring lands and cards which could pass for being part of the Mardu clan (stuff like Ogre Battledriver and Ruinous Ultimatum are pretty Mardu-like, but do not count because they are not actually Mardu), here is a list of the Mardu flavor cards used in the build:

Mardu Playstyle & Power Level

The Mardu clan from the Tarkir block was known for its aggression and swarms of small creatures and tokens. This build certainly maintains that playstyle, for the most part. It is less aggressive, favoring a more mid-range setup to try and deal with multiple opponents simultaneously. However, it does still feature that feel of commanding an army or a Mongol horde as it constantly churns out weak creatures; it does have a new feature in the form of "necromancy", though, with Alesha, it is more flavored as her inspiring her troops to pick themselves up off of death's door and keep fighting. The main goal of the deck is to get as many creatures on the board as possible using ETB effects from cards like Ponyback Brigade, pinging opponents for it, then going wide with anthem effects and such. The deck also uses ETB support to trigger these effects again, such as with Conjurer's Closet, Luminous Broodmoth, Mirror March, and Teleportation Circle.

As for the deck's power level, as with all the decks in this series, the goal was to maintain a midrange battlecruiser style with a clear focus that was decently fast and well supported by resources such as draw and ramp. Essentially, these decks should perform well in your average meta, not too casual and certainly not competitive. The Mardu build seems to fit well enough, but it definitely struggles more so than the other clans. The deck has potential to deal thousands of damage, assuming it has the time to setup and build upon its win conditions over multiple turns in the late game. This is because, since the deck lacks the best resource colors (blue for draw and green for ramp), it takes a while to setup the deck's engine before it can really begin working toward a win condition. Unless the deck lucks out with a good hand, it usually spends the early and even mid-game scrambling to find slow cards like Burnished Hart and Welcoming Vampire just to keep the deck moving. If the deck turns out to be too slow and inconsistent, it could be improved by trimming down on high mana costs in favor of cheap tutors to get access to key pieces early as well as by adding board wipes to reset the game state once the deck has enough resources to begin working on its win conditions.

Win Conditions

The deck's win conditions are the best part of this deck as it has some really fun options for setting up wins. Most of the following win conditions rely on token generators which function off of ETBs like Ponyback Brigade; these cards are low enough power to be revived by Alesha over and over or they can be re-triggered with cards like Conjurer's Closet. The main goal is to go wide with anthems and pinging opponents for damage leading up to that. Cards like Corpse Knight, Impact Tremors, Outpost Siege, and Purphoros, God of the Forge are great on their own for getting enemies low, but they become win conditions when paired with Panharmonicon. The deck features several strong anthems such as Cathars' Crusade and Minthara, Merciless Soul which can make a field of tokens swing for lethal; but the best anthem is likely Goldnight Commander if you can set him up properly, for he can quickly pump up your creatures for quite a lot. Then there are cards that allow these tokens to swing through like Brutal Hordechief and Odric, Master Tactician, but those cards work even better for setting up a kill with Alesha, Who Smiles at Death+Master of Cruelties.

Date added	2 years
Last updated	11 months
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	6 - 0 Mythic Rares 36 - 0 Rares 24 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.14
Tokens	Copy Clone, Goblin 1/1 R, Knight 2/2 WU, Shapeshifter 3/2 C, Treasure, Ultramarines Honour Guard 2/2 W, Warrior 1/1 W, Warrior 1/1 W w/ Vigilance, Warrior 2/1 B, Zombie Warrior 4/4 B