Aggro Deck Ability Rankings

Deck Help forum

Posted on Aug. 28, 2013, 6:22 p.m. by gavoryn

When building an aggro deck, how do you determine the value of a keyword ability?

For example, which creature is best for a pure aggro deck?

Legion Loyalist , a 1/1 creature with Haste

Striking Sliver , a 1/1 creature with First Strike

Trained Caracal with Lifelink

Rakdos Cackler that could potentially be a 2/2 creature for only 1 mana.

Mainly interested in how to judge these abilities:

Double Strike

First Strike

Flying

Lifelink

Vigilance

Haste

Intimidate

Trample

Versus raw creature power.

Slycne says... #2

A lot of it changes depending on the composition of the rest of the deck.

Rakdos Cackler is the best, in a vacuum. Despite whatever those other keywords are, 2 power vs 1 power is a 100% increase in the clock it presents. 10 turns vs 20 turns.

In a the most general sense, evasion > creature combat > utility would be more or less how I break down the keywords. As aggro you'd rather avoid them blocking (unblockable, intimidate, etc), if blocking is inevitable then you want to win that combat or still get damage in (trample, first strike, etc) and finally if it happens to have an extra keyword it's a bonus (lifelink, vigilance, etc).

August 28, 2013 7:25 p.m.