Mao Zedong once said, "The only real defense is active defense." This deck is all about defensive synergy translating into an aggressive offense. Stall for time, ramp mana, draw cards, and even gain life with your army of defenders in preparation for decimating your opponent in a few swift blows. This is a casual budget deck and is still a work in progress. Input is appreciated.
ENCHANTMENTS
Assault Formation
is incredibly synergistic with this deck. It can help you stall out an aggro attack and destroy otherwise troublesome creatures just by blocking. In the right situation it could even put you on the offensive with your defender creatures.
DEFENDERS
Axebane Guardian
, Sylvan Caryatid, and
Overgrown Battlement
comprise the mana ramp element of the deck. The Caryatid and Guardian both can create mana of any color type and are used to fix the mana base and compensate for the lack of mountains in the deck. Getting just two of
Axebane Guardian
or
Overgrown Battlement
out in any combination can give you access to a huge amount of mana every turn either to Banefire/
Demonfire
your opponent with or can be used to quickly play out large numbers of defenders.
Wall of Omens
and
Carven Caryatid
are low mana cost defenders that give you bonus card draws and play well with the defender abilities that most of the other cards have in the deck.
Perimeter Captain is a 1-drop defender that ups your stalling power by giving you 2 life every time you block with a defender.
Stalwart Shield-Bearers
increase your defenders toughness which allows you to stall for longer and more effectively. It also leads to some very strong defenders and/or attackers when combined with
Assault Formation
's first and second abilities.
Tree of Redemption
keeps the player alive in a tough situation long enough to draw into a
Vent Sentinel
or the like and with
Assault Formation
in play is a major obstacle to attacking creatures.
WIN CONDITIONS
Vent Sentinel
+ an army of defenders is the bread and butter of this deck. In combination with the large number of defenders most likely played by this point, Sentinel's ability gives you the opportunity to burn for massive damage every turn. If there hasn't been too much disruption with your mana ramp up to this point, you won't have any problem triggering its ability and playing other defenders every turn, which will only make the Sentinel's ability hit for more damage. In some scenarios, you can use the burn ability to take out opponent's creatures as well.
Banefire allows the player to capitalize on the massive mana ramp in this deck and the amount of turns the player is able to stall for in order to hit for huge amounts of damage that can't be countered. Once you get a good number of defenders out, Banefire + tapping
Axebane Guardian
for mana is a brutal combination.
Demonfire
has the same purpose and basic functionality in this deck as Banefire. It is recommended to play
Demonfire
after you've emptied your hand to make it immune to countering.
By turn 5 you can often hit for 10+ burn damage with a Banefire or
Demonfire
with this deck. By turn 10 you can blast them for 30.
