The Deck:
This is the culmination of a deck idea that I've had for a while. The primary idea is to ramp as quickly as possible to play planeswalkers and develop a board state that gets to 5 mana so that you can start playing win cons.
The Ramp:
The classic package of
Arbor Elf
and
Utopia Sprawl
can generate a lot of mana very quickly and are the core ramp pieces in the deck.
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
acts as some good 3 drop ramp and
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
can act as 4 mana ramp if needed but has better uses in the deck. So, now that we have mana, what are we casting?
What to Cast:
The big card that acts as the deck's main finisher is
Sarkhan the Masterless
as he can turn your board into 4/4 flying dragons and smack in for a fair amount of damage. He can also be played on the defensive by making a 4/4 that deals 1 damage to every attacker your opponent throw at you which can mess with some deck's combat math.
The second big mana card that this deck is running is
Stormbreath Dragon
. There are a few reasons to do this. The first is that many of the walkers that this deck is running either buff creatures or make them uncounterabe and I thought this would be a great payoff for that ramp. It also synergises with
Sarkhan the Masterless
by being a dragon and providing that extra layer of defence. It also has protection from white, dodging some of the best removal in the format
Path to Exile
being the big one, but it also dodges
Fatal Push
. It can also become monstrous to finish out some games. Overall a great finisher for this deck.
Value Walkers:
3 mana is really easy to get to in this deck, and surprise surprise it's also the mana total that many good value walkers start becoming castable. Whereas previous versions of the deck have run
Sarkhan, Fireblood
, those versions were more dragon focused.
Chandra, Acolyte of Flame
is a newcomer with Core 2020. Tested her out at fnm and she turned out great. She can come down on turn 3, sits there and attacks for 2 damage with her second ability. Can act as a very slow
Snapcaster Mage
for
Lightning Bolt
and
Sweltering Suns
. She can also protect every other walker in the maindeck with her first ability.
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
is surprisingly useful for being kind of bad. While he does spend most of his time in the deck being a 3 mana card:Orcish Oraflame. His +1 ability can allow for 5 mana on turn 3 with some good hands and his -2 can be relevant as modern is full of small creatures.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
is a real powerhouse and needs no explanation.
Protecting Planeswalkers:
Lightning Bolt
is here, being a classic piece of removal.
Blood Moon
can cheese out some games.
Anger of the Gods
and
Sweltering Suns
are in mainboard as killing a few
Arbor Elf
s can be worth stopping a dangerous board state and every other creature (except the tokens from Nissa) don't die to these effects. (Note: These should all be
Anger of the Gods
but I don't have that many)
