One Strike At A Time, After Time
I mean, I kinda knew that having new samurai would mean that I had to build a new deck, and yep, here we are. Throw in a little luck of picking up The Wandering Emperor early when it wasn't so expensive, and I found myself building a fun new casual goodness. It's still very much in playtesting, but so far so decent, and that's what's the goal : )
So, it's kind of a boros control deck that seeks to voltron up one creature and use the rest either as enablers or as a bunch of attackers lining up and getting ready for one final strike. It has pretty good matchups against creature strategies, but can sputter a bit when it comes to spell decks.
That being said, this deck does a few things very well, so, here's a bit of the nitty-gritty : )
Beloved Princess is a great creature to buff. Give her +1s from The Wandering Emperor or getting See Red ,which is especially good, and she becomes very hard to deal with. A big lifegain creature that is burning through small blockers is going to snowball fast. She's a low investment but high effect creature and she always gets some incidental value off the emperor after flashing in the walker.
Peerless Samurai similarly becomes a nice attacker after a buff or two. In a deck where we are tapping and removing creatures, menace is a delightful ability : )
Brought Back is borderline broken with The Wandering Emperor. The emperor is the strongest card in the deck and bringing her back at instant speed and then getting a removal effect, then buffing your creatures on your turn is just...it's so good. Having the emperor come back tapped doesn't affect her ability to fire off instant speed triggers as far as I know.
Norika Yamazaki, the Poet has been super good in testing. Especially since I added Hyena Umbra, she's great. Having recursion on umbras that are protecting your threats as is really made a big difference so far. I'd probably add one or two more Norikas if I had them on hand.
Half-Elf Monk has been surprisingly great, and I love being able to say that. I've been trying to use her since AFR, and this is finally the deck to make her work. She taps creatures for the emperor, takes out blockers, or just locks down their best threat. The combination of vigilance and the tap another creature is deceptively good. You get an attack, a block, and an activation all in the same turn cycle, so it's a very active card. And your opponent's Eldrazi may seem very scary, but they can't hurt anyone if they keep getting slapped around by kung fu.
Sensei Golden-Tail Is mostly here for that awesome foxy samurai flavor, but he's also really good with See Red Giving him first strike can make him a very good target for this voltron kinda plays.
Otherwise, I think it all kinda might explain itself. Warriors, samurai, and all of it playing a war of attrition style creature deck that doesn't beat you down as much as it softly, slowly, pushes you over.
Oh, and Warrior Angel is my favorite card ever and she's a warrior, and she can absolutely be a bomb if I actually get to a point where I can play her. Just having a duelist's rapier on her makes every swing change 10 life, and that isn't bad at all : )
Quick Side Note I was just looking back at this deck and realized that it's basically whooshy clothes tribal. Not intentional, but I do enjoy it now that I see it : )
