R/w Devotion at FNM

CDW

 

He'll bring out the Fanatic in YOU!



        After my less than stellar performance at the Billings State Championships I took a break from magic and focused on the real priorities in life.  Family, church, friends etc. and it helped remove the funk I'd allowed myself to fall into. Last week I decided to return to my comfort zone in Red based aggro decks.  Almost every deck I've ever played in a competitive scene has featured red in it.  The GW I took to the States Championship was a completely new beast and my lack of familiarity with designing a deck based upon these colors and attitude set me up for failure. 

 

       The red deck I chose to bring with me to a tournament in Milwaukee, Oregon was Boros or R/w Devotion build. 

 

Boros Fanatics

 

 

 

 

Creatures:26

Rakdos Cacklerx4

Firedrinker Satyrx2

Ash Zealotx4

Burning-Tree Emmisaryx4

Chandra's Phoenix x4

Boros Reckonerx3

Fanatic of Mogis x4

Purphoros, god of the Forgex1

 

Spells:13

Chained to the Rocksx1

Magma Jetx4

Lightning Strikex4

Boros Charmx4

 

Lands:21

Sacred Foundryx4

Temple of Triumphx3

Plainsx2

Mountainsx12

 

 

Quick Analysis

 

        This particular Red Devotion design splashes white for access to Boros Charm and non-red removal in the form of Chained to the Rocks.   The charm protects the decks board presence and devotion count.  While Chained to the Rocks allows the deck to efficiently remove threats, such as Desecration demon or Master of Waves, which are immune to many of red's threats and removal.  No Mutavaults removed the possibility of missing a turn three reckoner. 

 

 

The Tournament

 

        The venue of choice was Epic Games. An excellent shop located in Milwaukee, Oregon.  Every opponent I faced was at least a solid player and if you are the type of player seeking a competitive environment, this could be a great home for you.   We had almost thirty attendees. 

Note:  While the match scores are completely accurate, I'm writing the games from memory so I apologize to my opponents if they stumble upon this and see an inaccuracy. 

 

Match 1:  Matched up against a relaxed gentleman named Bruce, running Rakdos or RB Aggro.  This was a straightforward match as I used a mixture of burn and Ash Zealots to control the board until I began dropping Phoenixes in both mathes.  Scoring 2-0 in my favor.

Match 2:   My Second round opponent's last name was Nishimoto.  He ran a Mono-Black Devotion variant that seemed to focus on using lifegain to stall and deal damage using Sanguine Bond.  Game 1 he flooded and I overran him with phoenixes, even after I had mulliganed down to five.  Game two he quickly stabilized between removal and a turn four Desecration demon.  The last game came down to a timely Boros Charm deflecting his Heroe's Downfall from killing Boros Reckoner, allowing the Reckoner and a Phoenix to swing in for five.  He never recovered from this loss in tempo and I won the game shortly thereafter.  Boros Devotion goes 2-1 this round. 



 

Match 3:  Round 3 was Mono-Black again!  My opponent's name was Chris Cech.   His version of Mono-black seemed even very removal heavy and relied only on Grey Merchant for life gain.  I took game one as Chris drew mostly lands and all of his copies of underworld connections.  Game two, was extremely close, but an early and active Erebos stonewalled and pressured me as his plethora of removal allowed him to begin to attack in.  The final game came down to Chris facing a difficult choice after I put him down to four life, the same as mine.  He had Erebos, Nightveil Specter and a Grey Merchant upon the field.  They were facing a single phoenix as a blocker.  He failed to draw a removal spell and spent five minutes pondering whether to go for it and risk one of the cards in my hand being a kill spell, which would leave me alive to swing back for lethal, or staying back and blocking.  Finally he decided to go for it and I showed him a hand with two lands.  An excellent match against a great opponent.  Loss 1-2. 

Match 4: I played a Mono-Blue Devotion deck piloted by Max.  There isn't much to report here as I had a slow hand game one and succumb to his flyers and game two I mulligan twice before getting stuck on one land and dying soon after.  Loss 0-2. 

Match 5:  The final game was against a GR Ramp deck.  The deck focused on using early land destruction to slow its opponents and ramp into huge threats.  However like most land destruction decks in Standard it fell short.  My opponent would draw a few good ramp creatures, such as sylvan caryatid.  Allowing him to destroy one of my lands early on.  However, agro decks do not require any significant amount of land to function and all his land slaying efforts did was allow me to build my board.  Boros Reckone was a beast both games killing Ember Swallowers and swinging past Caryatids.  A relatively easy 2-0 win. 

 

 

Results and Thoughts

 

        My 3-2 finish was good enough to net me seventh place and fifteen dollars in store credit.  A positive beginning, after my break.  A real eye opener was how much I've missed playing red based decks.  The deck was a solid contender, but we can do better.  I will be experimenting with many variants based upon R/w and will report their results in the future.  This coming week we'll be taking a step into a Let's Build X article where I will select an underplayed or interesting card and build an aggro deck around it.  The card we will be examining is Lyev Skyknight, for you Azorius fans. 

 

 













Theros: Creatures of Interest

CDW

Epic...that is all.

        It's time to take a break from all the Golgari chatter.  Today Tallen is going to be discussing several of the interesting creatures brought to us by Theros.   And how they bring new tools to the aggro player.  Let's get into the red zone!  

        Whew...feeling a little warm under the collar for this one.  A 2/1 for one mana is pretty solid.  But this isn't new, considering Dryad Militant is a 2/1 as well.  However, our little soldier has some skills.  He's a one drop with protection from MULTICOLORED.  Yep, not just from creatures, our brave little man dodges any multicolored removal as well, with the bonus of gaining us extra life.  This is incredibly useful in a format filled with powerful multi-colored cards from the Return to Ravnica sets.  Is he a Champion of the Parish?  No, but he is incredibly powerful in his own way, giving white decks a great one drop for the future.

        An admission must be made.  Upon first glance this is a solid 3/3 for two mana and I wondered how this was any better than a Call of the Conclave.  Thankfully I read on and saw his monstrous affects.  Well, hello there... hexproof and indestructible 4/4.    This cat is a control player's nightmare.  The only cards or abilities capable of interacting with a monstrous Fleecemane Lion are sacrificial effects.  This card will see play in many G/W aggro decks.  

        Let's change it up a bit with a non-white card.  I love this guy, period.  If someone thought I was a fan of the previous creatures then you need to be enlightened.  I'm a black/red player at heart.  They are two of the most destructive and aggressive colors in Magic.  They are the essence of aggro, in my opinion.  So how can we use this guy?  First his sacrificial ability is very good for two mana.  Experienced aggro players know there comes a time in a game where you can get stalled out.  Tymaret allows your creatures to have value, even if the opponent has great blockers, such as Boros Reckoner on the field.  Ideal sacrificial targets are early game creatures, such as Rakdos Cackler and Spike Jester.  Both lose their great value as the game progresses and Tymaret let's each deal a last, spiteful, two damage, to help end the game.  His second ability is not as impressive, but a recursion affect with a steep cost can be useful in certain situations.  All in all I really like the tools he brings to my favorite colors.  

        Narnia fans, Tumnus is back and armed!  Boon Satyr has great potential in aggro-tempo decks.  Flash let's our satyr move at instant speed.  Allowing him to dodge board wipe affects, a desirable ability.  He's a 4 power creature for three mana cost and his Bestow mechanic can enhance other creatures. Should your opponent kill the enchanted creature, you still have a  4/2 satyr to work with.  Allowing us to avoid a two for one card loss.  Boon Satyr should find its way into several card slots in decks using green spells, especially the mono-green archetype.  

        One word to describe this creature, potential.  The fiery adept has potential with the good number of scry spells released by Theros.  She will likely find a home in a blue/red tempo deck, due to these colors having access to some of the best scry spells.   Two great examples of scry spells are voyage's end and magma jet.  Flamespeaker Adept is not for every deck, but in a deck built around her, like tempo, she will be able to exert a great deal of pressure on the opponent.  

          Hopefully this post has your aggro minds whirring with ideas and  teaches us to pay close attention to the less hyped cards before a new set is released.  We aggro players need to analyze our options to find the new workhorse creatures to build our game plan around.

TO BE CONTINUED....