Introduction
This deck is meant to be as competitive as I can make it in these colors. The deck is still focused on multiplayer play, but it could still hold its own on a 1v1 as well. By utilizing creatures the deck is meant to control the board with removal as you search out your combos
The deck is primarily combo into the a win based, maintaining a presence by utilizing the graveyard instead of refreshing a hand.
I am looking to improve the deck, mosltly by putting in cards that make the deck more consistent and replacing less competitive cards with more
The Primer
Overview
Reading this decklist
Reading this decklist
This decklist is organized into costume categories deemed suitable for the roles the cards preform. As the deck evolves these categories are subject to change.
- Land: Lands are Lands.
- Utility: Something that provides a vague use or many uses - see Whip of Erebos.
- Aggro: Things that tap and swing, also included pump effects like Cathars' Crusade.
- Removal: Cards that remove other cards currently on the board.
- Wincon: Combo cards that are usually capable of winning the game.
- Recursion: Self-explanatory.
- CardAdvantage: Draw power and tutor effects.
- Mana: Mana rocks / Mana ramp.
Deck colors
Deck colors
Why choose Mardu. Well the initial reasoning behind me playing this deck was that I wanted to play a deck where i could get as much value out of Stigma Lasher as I could, which led to a card that could reliably bring back stigma lasher with relative consistency.
Additionally Mardu give us access to two of the best removal colors for creatures, , and for artifacts and enchantments, . This allows us to give ourselves a deck with access to incredible amounts of board control.
Deck strengths
Deck strengths
As stated earlier the deck as is strong in the department of sustainability. With the ability to recur creatures from the graveyard the deck is able to consistently produce threats and keep itself on the board. The deck is able to be incredibly explosive and win out of no where with combos and grave interactions. A strong quality to running this deck is looking carefully at all the resources available to you and taking some risks to get the things that you need.
Deck weaknesses
Deck weaknesses
Due to the deck's inherent ability to use the graveyard it is pretty heavily dependent on the graveyard not getting targeted by removal. Ramp and card draw aren't much an issue when you get Mentor of the Meek or Burnished Hart in your graveyard, but if they get removed the deck sometimes runs out of steam fairly quickly.
You are playing Mardu, something that you are going to have to be aware of is you are probably never going to be ahead on mana than your opponents. There is very little ramp, and green decks will almost always out pace you. Use politics and removal to deal with their acceleration.
The Strategy
General strategy
General strategy
This deck was built to be an aggro deck with with heavy reactive control elements that only Mardu can produce.
To main plan to to build board state and plan around your opponents, before ruining their day by removing everything they play by abusing the numerous ETB effects of your creatures.
Early game
Early game
The goal of the early game is about establishing a board state of some small kind. Start ramping or establishing a card draw engine. Don't be afraid to use Alesha early to keep your hands fresh as you move into mid game. When I talk about establishing a board state it isn't about playing actual threats, you want to build you mana base and keep you hand full into the mid game where you can start launching combos down upon your unsuspecting enemies. use this period to get the obvious cards out Ashnod's Altar, Chromatic Lantern, Skullclamp and of course Sol Ring. You can set up your grave using Entomb and Buried Alive.
Notable Early Cards:
Mid game
Mid game
This is where we move into the control part of the game. By this time you should have a pretty solid hand still loaded with the actual threats you'll want to be dropping. You going to want to use your removal to help set up the combos, getting ready to be explosive in one turn. If you don't have a combo yet you can still hold out, present a decent board state but try to stay under the radar.
The Plan:
- Get Alesha, Who Smiles at Death out
- Use removal to keep board clean of major threats
- Abuse your reanimate prowess to draw/tutor/ etc until you get combo pieces.
Late game
Late game
Late game is where we are going to want to activate our combos. You've been controlling the game, maintaining a board state that isn't too aggressive, and now you want to win.
You've been getting mana the entire game and you should have enough to go off in one turn. You are going to want to lay the cards on the table in one go. Make sure you don't wait too long though, you are playing weenies and more powerful creature decks are likely to overrun your weenies the later the deck goes on.
Mulligans
Mulligans
Your playing Mardu, and not the most ramp spells in the world. You are going to want to at least keep three lands, four is optimal with something to play. 3 lands and a Burnished Hart is a beautiful hand, you can pitch anything else you don't like.
I usually don't keep major win-cons in my opening hand, small things like Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit and Village Bell-Ringer are alright. Of course don't keep high CMC cards either, but you'd be hard pressed to have too many in your opening hand anyway.
Combos and synergies
Combos and synergies
The combos for this deck are your bread and butter. They are going to be how you win most of your matches and what you are going to be focusing on playing the entire game. These combos can come out of absolutely nowhere, with his deck never give up until you have lost because I have pulled out some crazy wins with this deck.
Let's start With the actual win condition combos
The rest are synergies that I have found to be quite useful in many rounds of testing and gameplay
Purphoros, God of the Forge + Siege-Gang Commander or Beetleback Chief with Alesha recursion it dishes out a lot of damage each turn. King Macar, the Gold-Cursed + Reconnaissance
swing and untap it to remove a creature that turn and obtain some mana acceleration. When Purphoros, God of the Forge is a creature and you use the above combos with True Conviction, Whip of Erebos, or Vault of the Archangel you can allow for much life gain to be had .
Card Choices Explained
Lands
Lands
Lands for the most part are self explanatory, they get you mana or they do just what they tell you they do, nothing special. I'll offer some small explanation for some.
Phyrexian Tower + Volrath's Stronghold
can be a powerful recursion tool. For the reason why this deck is good Bojuka Bog provide incredible value for opposing recursion themed decks. Arcane Lighthouse helps us get rid of those pesky Lazav, Dimir Masterminds and other such cards. This deck has a lot of target removal that really doesn't like hexproof.Thespian's Stage can give us other lands that we might need or want, or just copy our own for mana fixing and what not. Rogue's Passage become invaluable later game when you need Alesha to swing safely, also goes well with Master of Cruelties. Maze of Ith helps protect me, replaced Mystifying Maze for it and haven't regretted it yet.Creatures
Creatures
Creatures is what this deck is all about; it is the lifeblood of the entire system. These are Alesha's weenies; this is what makes the deck fun and these are what are going to make you smile when you pay the deck. Now I'm going to exclude most of the previously mentioned cards like the Wincons and the more obviously targeted removal creatures (I hope you all can guess what they are used for), but I'll explain some of the other choice creatures I've decided to add.
Vampire Hexmage It deals with plainswalkers nice and simple. The weenies sometimes have a hard time getting through due to their small stature, well this takes care of that problem Dimir House Guard Transmute is a powerful mechanic as most of you are aware. When I dont need to transmute however, or if I already have, I can recur it for a nice sac outlet. Mesmeric Fiend For the same reasons why I need to add Tidehollow Sculler to this deck, with a sac outlet with removes threats before I ever need to worry about them. Anger Its a great card. Live it, learn it, love it. Gonti, Lord of Luxury This guy has been great value for me. Being able to take opponents cards and use them is fantastic. It acts like card advantage, it can remove some of their combo pieces, and it's fun. I have been loving this card. Disciple of Bolas While black has admittedly better card draw, disciple does quite a bit of work in a deck that can recur its creatures. Drawing a few cards for 2 mana isn't so bad when you really need those cards. Fulminator Mage I'm mentioning this one for the fact that I did have a meaner card in here which was Avalanche Riders. If I ever feel the need to put it back in I can replace this card for it. Destroying Lands is very important sometimes. Stigma Lasher While he is no longer in the deck he is still in this primer becuase I do love him ever so much, and if I go against another life gain deck, he'll be put right back in. Liliana, Heretical Healer
Recurable planeswalker with relevant recursion abilities, over all good addition to the deck.Other cards
Other cards
Tragic Arrogance Trying the test this one out, usually the only creature I need is Alesha, helps me remove other things as well. And I like politics, this helps me play with it a bit. Entomb and Buried Alive The grave is just another hand to Alesha. Sudden Spoiling This card is bonkers good with weenies vs and bigger agro deck. Lets your weenies actually kill things, and gets rid of pesky indestructible creatures to boot. Strionic Resonator Mostly used to copy Alesha's recursion ability. Sure it costs 4 mana, but usually it is more than worth it.
Other Information
Building this deck
Building this deck
As Explained before building this deck all started with Stigma Lasher and with the intent to have fun with creatures. As this deck continues to grow and evolve I'm sure will become more consistent and cut throat, but as it stands right now it is a really fun deck that is capable of winning more often than not.
I will continue to tweak and improve things, and test new cards out to see how they work. With time and effort this deck will slowly become better, but I don't want to leave the central creature theme. The creatures and the weenies remain the number one reason why I actually have fun playing the deck, and I wish to continue playing it for a very long time.
Potential Cuts
Potential Cuts
The cards below are possible cards worth cutting for the additions in the further in the primer
Tragic Arrogance Could be replaced with a better boardwipe. More testing is neededPotential Additions
Potential Additions
The cards below are possible cards worth adding to the deck for improvement
Tidehollow Sculler As mentioned earlier needs to be added to the deck. Provides me with another Mesmeric Fiend effect and consistency is good.Victimize, Exhume, Reanimate, etc. Provides secondary ways to reanimate is Alesha isn't currently able to reanimate for me. Might be worth looking into.Withered Wretch Deals with opposing reanimator/ flashback cards for low cost. Consider for mainboard or sideboard depending on opposing decks.>/li> Vampiric Tutor, Demonic Tutor, etc for obvious reasons
Feedback
All comments, questions, suggestions and criticisms are always welcome. I am highly interested in your opinions and how you feel about the deck.
As the deck continues to grow I'll add a list of cards that I don't want added to the deck and similar functions, but for now it is all in the open.Keep in Mind that I am looking to make the deck more consistent with the already present plan, and that I do want to make it a stronger deck, but other than that all sort of comments are welcome
Additionally, if while reading this primer you happen to notice grammatical errors, broken or wrong links, spelling errors, or just want to help edit the primer feel free to post those suggestions or corrections as well.
As always if you like the deck, primer, or just the name go ahead and give it a +1 upvote! Hope you all enjoyed the deck.
The coding for this primer was developed by
Epochalyptik here.
