Here we go. A new deck. A new entry point. A new way to play. I've been making casual decks for each of the Alara shards for new players to try so they can play fun and quick games to get them into magic. Now we move on to the Tarkir clans. I predict it will be easiest to make this Abzan deck, then the Mardu deck will be second easiest, followed by Jeskai, then Temur and Sultai will both be equally difficult to build, especially because they didn't exactly have versions that could be budget or simple to play with. Anyway, today we're building Abzan midrange, a deck that has been known to eat up standard play the same way Jund did in it's standard format. The idea is you take away your opponent's stuff, and then then have to deal with your things, which is going to be very, very hard for them.
Our creatures are all pretty amazing. Four
Thraben Inspector
and four
Warden of the First Tree
start our curve off, both of which are pretty amazing early on, and both do great in the late game with a mana sink and some card advantage.
Scavenging Ooze
and
Gifted Aetherborn
do amazing on turn two and some awesome lifegain.
Scavenging Ooze
plays especially well at both attacking and blocking when you pump it up and take cards away from your opponents graveyard. At the top of our curve, we have good old
Siege Rhino
and our old friend from Alara,
Ranger of Eos
.
Siege Rhino
is a late game BOMB. Good against aggro with it's big toughness and lifegain, good against control with trample, high power, and life drain. Can't be hit with burn or conditional removal, and still cheap enough to be played amongst a million other spells.
Ranger of Eos
might be a bit of a pet card, but it does amazing card advantage, drawing two cards and making a body for four mana. It's especially amazing when it gets us cards when we can cast them, and when you grab a
Thraben Inspector
it does double card advantage duty.
Our noncreature spells don't slouch either. Our set of one mana removal is amazing.
Path to Exile
takes out whatever creature for so, so cheap.
Bloodchief's Thirst
can also take out our opponent's planeswalkers too, if we need it.
Blackmail
strips our opponent's hand of unstoppable threats.
Abzan Charm
is removal, card draw, and an emergency aggro button whenever we need it.
Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
is an amazing card. It boosts our current creatures, or gets the creatures we need if we don't have any.
Basically, you play cards that get rid of dangerous things, or you play dangerous things, or you play cards that get you dangerous things. Good luck, and have fun playing magic.
