Brutal Hordechief

Creature — Orc Warrior

Whenever a creature you control attacks, defending player loses 1 life and you gain 1 life.

{3}{RW}{RW}: Creatures your opponents control block this turn if able, and you choose how those creatures block.

Combos

• Archangel of Thune + Brutal Hordechief

Legality

Format	Legality
1v1 Commander	Legal
Archenemy	Legal
Arena	Legal
Block Constructed	Legal
Canadian Highlander	Legal
Casual	Legal
Commander / EDH	Legal
Commander: Rule 0	Legal
Custom	Legal
Duel Commander	Legal
Gladiator	Legal
Highlander	Legal
Historic	Legal
Legacy	Legal
Leviathan	Legal
Limited	Legal
Modern	Legal
Oathbreaker	Legal
Pioneer	Legal
Planechase	Legal
Quest Magic	Legal
Vanguard	Legal
Vintage	Legal

Discussion (43)

Crow_Umbra on two wind assault

2 months ago

Nice! Isshin is a lot of fun, and can quickly become arch-enemy, as I'm sure you've probably experienced. I think if you're going to move on from the Samurai, I'd suggest also trimming back on the equipment subtheme, as they can be pretty mana-intensive without additional equipment support.

I've personally had more experience with playing a more tokens go-wide take on Isshin, which I think can be pretty fun and dynamic. A few general suggestions if you do cut back on Samurai & Equipment, and decide to focus more on going wide:

• A few more creature token creators like Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon and Hero of Bladehold are pretty solid.

• Group slug effects that work with creature ETBs or as attack triggers are pretty helpful. Stuff like Impact Tremors, Warleader's Call, Brutal Hordechief, and Commissar Severina Raine are all solid options.

• Getting a bit more draw in your deck could be helpful. Chivalric Alliance, Breena, the Demagogue, & Firemane Commando are all pretty solid options. If you play in a more aggro meta, Nelly Borca, Impulsive Accuser and Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant can be some fun options to encourage or force your opponents to attack each other.

• Isshin thrives off maintaining board momentum, so anything to protect your board could be helpful: Reconnaissance, Dolmen Gate, & Clever Concealment can all be helpful. Reconnaissance can be especially helpful to save your creatures from unfavorable combat situations. This EDHRec article helps detail the timing if you're unfamiliar with it.

• Lastly, it might be helpful to trim out some of the creatures at the top end of your curve in the 7-9cmc range.

Just some quick ideas for how you could make use of those Samurai and Equipment slots if you decide to change them up. Hopefully these suggestions were helpful

Crow_Umbra on Isshin Mardu Tap and Win

4 months ago

Overall very solid deck. My only recommendations would be to cut your Dragon Engine and Samurai that aren't Isshin, and to slot in Dolmen Gate to help round out the board protection suite you have with Iroas, Reconnaissance, & Teferi's Protection. The Samurai, although flavorful, are your only cards that care about single attacking Warriors/Samurai, while most of your deck wants to go wide.

Some of the following could be potential creature slot replacements:

• Legion Loyalist - Another awesome 1 drop for Isshin, with great keyword anthems.

• Signal Pest - Low to the ground anthem effect.

• Captain Lannery Storm - Gets a bit more synergy with Breeches & your other Treasure producers.

• Commissar Severina Raine - Another addition to the group drain suite, & has a Skullclamp like effect stapled on to boot.

• Hammers of Moradin - Really helpful with clearing up attacking lanes. One of my favs & consistent stars in my Isshin deck.

• Professional Face-Breaker - Speaking of treasures, an excellent pairing with all of the Treasure production in the deck. I run a similar suite of Treasure producers that you do, & she can help turn some of that into Impulse draws.

• Skyhunter Strike Force - Excellent anthem for going wide, & gets doubled up by Isshin.

• Brutal Hordechief - Complimentary to Hellrider

• Ogre Battledriver - Decent Haste anthem with some added attack beef to creatures that ETB.

I hope these suggestions are helpful. Down to chat through more if you're interested. Best of luck

greyninja on If you could run any …

4 months ago

Shaman of the Great Hunt was one that always stood out to me as a potential legendary creature

Others too from Fate Reforged like Brutal Hordechief and Soulfire Grand Master

Crow_Umbra on Token Legion

4 months ago

In case you hadn't seen yet, but Caesar, Legion's Emperor is live on the site now.

If you're looking for a potential infinite combat combo, Aggravated Assault + Phyrexian Altar + Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon at 5+ power (or just enough token production on attack tbh).

Hellrider and Brutal Hordechief are some fun go-wide group slug options. Witty Roastmaster is another Impact Tremors effect, but might not be as necessary since you already have Corpse Knight.

Devilish Valet could also work to potentially one-shot somebody with enough creature token creation on an attack.

I'd also highly recommend Dolmen Gate and/or Reconnaissance as board protection effects. I get that you have some aristocratsy stuff going on, but this is mostly to save some of your key token creators that have to attack. In case you're unfamiliar with Reconnaissance, this EDHREC article helps detail some of its timing to act as a pseudo-Vigilance anthem, and save your creatures from combat after they've dealt damage.

Crow_Umbra on Isshin, Two Heavens As One - Eiganjo Uprising v1.3

5 months ago

CommanderNeyo(cool name btw, I feel like I've said that before), KBK7101 doesn't utilize any Universes Beyond cards in their decks, TBD on Universes Within printings.

On topic though, but Brutal Hordechief and Tectonic Giant are both decent group slug additions that could round out that suite.

DreadKhan on BBEG Deck Ideas

6 months ago

Yeah, I find decks that have too many different pots on the stove can be prone to drawing 'the wrong half of the deck', I'll keep an eye out for synergies where some of the pieces are useless without the other parts in my Kresh list! Interesting, to me running 3 colours is (at this point) mostly a disadvantage unless you're playing really strong decks, 3 colours is way harder to get the fixing right (or perhaps I should say more expensive), and 2 colours is already extremely versatile, but I could see wanting 3 or more for your 'archenemy' deck in particular. It's too bad they didn't give us any weird 2 colour Backgrounds, I don't think having 3 colours worth of Background/Commander is really game breaking.

I think if you're fine using those Assassins mostly as blockers then Marchesa is probably a good choice, there are plenty of Goad effects in Mardu to work with, as well as stuff like Brutal Hordechief and Master Warcraft, I think I've always wanted a deck that used stuff like that effectively. Oh, if you're using Goad, I'm not sure if you'd have enough mana to make it work in Mardu, but War Cadence might do some fun stuff with Goaded attackers.

Crow_Umbra on Isshin (Unfinished)

6 months ago

Brew discussions are one of my favorite aspects of MtG and EDH. I'll hop on Discord a couple times a month and talk with my best friend about our deck ideas. We end up chatting for a couple hours at a time as we deliberate on decisions lol.

I used to run Fervor until Rising of the Day dropped earlier this year.

• Ogre Battledriver is also a great Haste and Power boost for your creatures that ETB.

• A note with Elturel Survivors is that its +X buff is static, so that won't get doubled by Isshin. This is what allows the Myriad tokens to "see" the lands that your opponents control. So each Myriad copy will check for the number of lands its respective defending opponent controls.

• If you do want a Menace anthem, Goblin War Drums is also an option for the same CMC as Pyreheart Wolf, but is a bit more removal resistant. Hard to pass up on those death touch anthems though.

• If you like Adriana, Captain of the Guard, I'd recommend checking out Skyhunter Strike Force as a slighter CMC cheaper option, or as a redundant effect.

• The tough thing with Lightning Runner is that it still has to attack over two turns to get the full 8 energy with Isshin on the board. Without him that gets stretched out to over 4 turns. I took a quick look at Cardkingdom, and the cheapest non-foil Aurelia is about $6.99.

• The ETB group slug damage can get nasty once Isshin starts doubling up the token production on attacks, especially with Myrel. Some other budget effects are Corpse Knight and Witty Roastmaster. Purphoros, God of the Forge is still fairly out of budget, but a nice upgrade if you wanted to move that direction.

• Hellrider, Commissar Severina Raine, and Brutal Hordechief are a nice suite of group slug damage that encourage you to swing with big boards. Commissar is also like a budget Skullclamp on a stick. Speaking of which, Skullclamp is a great draw piece for all your small token creatures, and should be under $10, depending on the printing.

• I'm currently running 35 lands in my Isshin deck, along with the 3 Talismans, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Sword of the Animist, and some Treasure production in the form of Captain Lannery Storm, Professional Face-Breaker, and a handful of other Treasure producers.

As for the instants and sorceries, I tend not to suggest cuts as much there, since I think that's where more meta & playgroup specific tech decisions can be made. Generally speaking, I recommend cutting out single target sorcery speed removal, and saving those sorcery slots for board wipes & draw, Also try to make your instant speed removal be as target-versatile as possible to cut down on how many permanent-specific options you need to include. Here are a few thoughts I do have:

• I'd suggest swapping Chaos Warp with Tibalt's Trickery. It's fun to catch people off guard with a red counter spell, and White & Black have a better go at removing the permanent types that Red typically can't. I think Chaos Warp is better if you're running a Red color combo that doesn't have access to Enchantment removal.

• Terminate or Condemn can be cut or swapped with Soul Partition. Soul Partition is great since it can (temporarily) remove a troublesome nonland permanent, or save one of your own if needed. Sometimes the extra {2} can throw off an oppoent's tempo if they really need to recast whatever you exiled, & sets them back a turn or two.

• I think Vindicate can be replaced with Generous Gift and/or Stroke of Midnight. I think that making your suite of removal be as versatile as possible across a few cards can help you save multiple slots that are more specific/situational on what they can remove. The creature tokens created by Generous Gift & Stroke of Midnight are fairly low impact, & typically die in chump blocks or board wipes.

• Mortify can probably replaced with Wear / Tear as an instant speed option that hits multiple targets.

• If you want some instant speed draw, I'd recommend checking out Plumb the Forbidden. It's an excellent response to your opponents board wiping, and since you can create copies of it, the copies will dodge counter spells.

• Fates' Reversal can probably be cut. Isshin doesn't really want single target recursion, and the Venture the Dungeon is better if you have other instances of Venturing to get its benefits. Lich-Knights' Conquest is a new option for mass recursion that you can throw some creature or treasure tokens into.

• A little off track from the instants and sorceries, but I'd recommend swapping out Paladin Class and replacing it with Flowering of the White Tree. The Ward 1 can make your opponents look for easier targets to remove, & helps some of your more aggro Legends stick around.

treeforcorvus on You "lose" the game

8 months ago

Looking pretty good! After some playtesting, I have more thoughts. Your landbase is pretty slow, and with 31 lands your deck wants a little more efficiency. Replace:

• Sandsteppe Citadel with Krosan Verge.
• Jungle Shrine with Mossfire Valley.
• Sandsteppe Citadel with Sungrass Prairie.
• Nomad Outpost with Shadowblood Ridge.
• Commander's Sphere with Chromatic Lantern: consider that each of the newer tri-lands cycle for 3 anyways, which means you have ~5 chromatic-lantern cost draws and cycling can't be conventionally countered.

You've got a pretty trim list now, but I still have some suggestions.

First off, you need more ramp. Warrior's Oath looks good, but since it can't be searched by Sunforger, you're better off with ramp. I strongly recommend Tempt with Discovery, which is one of the most powerful land-search cards for a multicolor deck using green: You get any land, and then if any opponents search for lands you get that many more of any land.

Although Black Market Connections is superb, you might find more utility in Rites of Flourishing or Elven Chorus.

Djeru and Hazoret looks great, but since you're only running 16-17 other Legendary creatures excluding your commander, the odds will be 20%-25%. Not great. Consider the power of being able to flicker your commander in & out of play, allowing it to re-position targets: Ephemerate is cheap, or Eerie Interlude can protect your creatures from Wrath spells, but both spells can also be fetched with Sunforger, which improves your deck synergy.

Odric, Master Tactician looks good on paper, but he's much better when a deck is built around him. Here are 4 better options:

• Brutal Hordechief. Since you run no wraths, this is damn good.
• Triumph of the Hordes: Game finisher!!
• Glory -protection allows your creatures to connect, and you can survive wrath cards.
• Filth + Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth gets unblockable creatures. If you go this route, replace Warrior's Oath with Crop Rotation.