A New Take on Doran: Trying to Homebrew this Popular Deck Type

Modern Deck Help forum

Posted on July 9, 2015, 6:11 a.m. by Rayze_Darr

I don't like White. When I first played in High School, I built the most anti-white Red/Black deck that I could. When I picked the game back up more recently, I immediately gravitated towards a Green/Red. The next deck I made was Blue/Black. Then a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I had no decks with White or Black as their primary colors. So, I decided to try an Abzan/Junk deck, based around a card I had just pulled, Assault Formation.

It didn't take long for me to realize that I was far from the first person to do so, comboing in Doran, the Siege Tower and plenty of other cards that I quickly noticed were commonplace in this deck type. I had to do something to make the deck more unique... and less Green. Yes, I started this project to be my White deck, and I plan on keeping it that way.

After much, MUCH playtesting and changing today, this is where the deck stands:

Revenge of the Holy Phalanx of Disgruntled Foliage

High Toughness, Dorans and Assault Formations to turn that Toughness into Power. Lifegain through cards like Sheltering Word, and Vizkopa Guildmage to turn that into Burn. Then a splash of White, for both utility and some additional, cheap Scrying power, to allow me to keep my duplicate counts low.

Aggro, Lifegain, and Burn, all centered around a few, very Tough creatures. And yet, the deck is getting absolutely destroyed by any deck worth its salt. I've grown to love this project, and its failures in playtesting have been beyond heartbreaking. Any and all tips and suggestions to keep this dream alive are hugely appreciated!