I've scrapped my old hatebear deck and updated it to an Abzan beatdown deck after noticing that disruptive gameplans don't work as good in the current modern meta.
So lets break it down to the pieces:
Noble Hierarch
and
Birds of Paradise
provide sufficient mana and additional damage. The mana will be necessary to manage your tricoloured manacosts.
Loxodon Smiter
and
Wilt-Leaf Liege
are your beatdown-allstars. They both mess with discard decks - keep one of these in your hand until they force you to discard and then watch them weep since now they have to deal with a 4/4 monstrum. The smiter is also uncounterable which makes him very valueable against control decks.
Wilt-Leaf Liege
boosts most creatures by +2/+2 and your tokens/manadorks by 1.
Voice of Resurgence
will most often force your opponent to not play any spells during your turn - thus making counterspelling very unlikely. The elemental token poses a problem even after a complete boardwipe and scales really well with our next card:
Lingering Souls
. This baby rakes in value even when countered and gets you 2-4 spirit tokens.
Kitchen Finks
are the allstars against burn, affinity, scapeshift and any beatdown deck in general. They are a pain to get rid of and net you 4 life most of the time.
Siege Rhino
is incredibly powerful - a 4/5 with trample with a built in
Lightning Helix
for 4 mana? Totally busted! It turns around the tide of battle the moment it enters on the battlefield.
Qasali Pridemage
eats up any annoying artifacts/enchantments, provides additional damage through Exalted triggers.
Scavenging Ooze
has been recently added. It's very universal since there are always Tarmogoyfs, Snapcasters and graveyard shenanigans around.
Abrupt Decay
is your universal removal spell. It's very potent against
Splinter Twin
/
Deceiver Exarch
decks, but can also handle almost any other threat, since 70% of the cards played in modern have a cost of 3 or lower.
Path to Exile
is your other removal spell that should be used on targets that are otherwise tough to deal with.
Wurmcoil Engine
,
Kitchen Finks
,
Vengevine
etc.
Sigarda, Host of Herons
is currently being tested by me. I put her in as a late game finisher. Her having hexproof and flying helps a lot when trying to close out a game. She also deals well with Lilliana of the Veil and
Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
.
Edit: I have scratched Sigarda for now -
Lingering Souls
is enough to deal with Lilliana of the Veil. Control decks on the other hand either countered her or got rid of her through global spells.
Added
Sorin, Solemn Visitor
for testing instead of a 3rd Kitchen Finks. Sorin does something the turn he comes into play, is not that easily removed and synergizes incredibly well with
Lingering Souls
.
Edit: Can confirm that Sorin is a beast in this deck - the much needed lifegain won me several games.
Gavony Township
lets you win stalled out games in the long run and lets you make use of your manadorks when out of cards.
Vault of the Archangel
has been recently added. I replaced a
Gavony Township
with it. Just like Sorin - this can save you when you're low on health or keep your opponent from attacking since you can trade your tokens for any of his bigger threats. Also works nicely against Boggles.
As for the sideboard:
Choke
number has been reduced to 1, since it wasn't that effective - it gets countered most of the time. When you sneak it in after they tap out (which doesn't happen often) it wins you the game, though. Especially potent against Merfolk and Scapeshift.
Leyline of Sanctity
against Burn, Scapeshift, Storm and Discard decks. Increased the number to 4, since I want it in my opening hand.
Edit: Leyline of Sanctity has been scratched completely. It was pretty unreliable. You have about a 40% chance to get it in your opening hand and mulliganing for it would put you behind. Most decks also developed a strategy against Leylines. Burn decks run
Destructive Revelry
,
Scapeshift
and Storm decks return it to your hand through various spells.
Stony Silence
is a must have against Affinty and one of your hardest matchups: Tron.
Thoughtseize
has been replaced with
Memoricide
for the time being. While being more expensive - it deals with a whole package of threats. Incredibly potent against one trick pony decks like
Scapeshift
.
Edit: Memoricide got countered most of the time or came into play too late. Thoughtseize helps against Boggles and Infect on the play and messes with control/combo decks. However, I think the card is not that powerful in this deck.
Scavenging Ooze
has been replaced with
Relic of Progenitus
since you need a tool to deal with the whole graveyard. Relic is far better than
Rest in Peace
since you make use of the graveyard yourself - also it replaces itself which is noteworthy.
Fracturing Gust
against Affinty and Boggles.
Edit: Has been taken out for now.
Spellskite
is an allstar against Bogles, Infect, Twin and Burn to some extend.
Kor Firewalker
has been added after taking out
Leyline of Sanctity
. Works well against Storm and wins the game by himself against Burn.
Gaddock Teeg
is a sideboard allstar. He cripples Collected Company, Scapeshift, Control and Tron decks. Make sure to boost him through
Gavony Township
or
Wilt-Leaf Liege
to get him out of
Pyroclasm
/
Lightning Bolt
/
Anger of the Gods
range.
With
Hollow One
decks being all over the place, it seems like it's
Anafenza, the Foremost
's time to shine.
I love this deck!
