Little did they know, the whole point of the deck was to get
Urza's Armor
on the battlefield and ping them into oblivion...
So, the focus of the deck is to get
Urza's Armor
out on the battlefield and then as many Pestilence-style effects out to burn away my opponents' life totals. Since there aren't enough cards that just do that theme, I added cards to make a Rakdos, Lord of Riots deck, since I would incidentally be damaging my opponents anyway (satisfying his casting restriction).
All of these cards are in here to deal damage one point at a time.
Urza's Armor
will protect me from those single sources, nullifying the "balanced aspect'' of those effects. Also, most of these effects are global effects, because I'm going for maximum
Urza's Armor
utility. I've avoided most single-target damage effects because I'm optimizing for
Urza's Armor
, not for Rakdos, Lord of Riots (which would just need 1 point of damage to be castable).
Here they blow:- Pestilence- Pestilence Demon-
Plague Spitter
-
Thrashing Wumpus
-
Urborg Stalker
-
Warmonger
-
Collapsing Borders
-
Festering Evil
-
Last Laugh
-
Lim-Dul's Hex
-
Noxious Field
-
Oath of Mages
- Pyrohemia- Spiteful Visions-
Barbed Wire
-
Copper Tablet
Mana Accelerators
Since most of my damage effects are activated abilities, I'll need lots of mana to make them viable. Enter my mana accelerators.
Recursion
Since the deck is centered around getting
Urza's Armor
and lots of enchantments out on the battlefield, it'd kinda suck if those got taken away from me. Enter my (small amount of) recursion effects!
Silly Cards
Since the deck is already somewhat gimmick-focused, I decided to throw in a few cards that synergized well with
Urza's Armor
that I wouldn't normally run in another situation. I accept that these aren't the most powerful choices to put in the deck, but I wanted to feed my Timmy side a bit with this deck.
-
Collapsing Borders
: As a 2-color deck, I will net no damage from this card (if
Urza's Armor
is out)
-
Oath of Mages
: Since the one point of damage will always be prevented for me, my opponents should decide to punish each other instead.
-
Mana Clash
: I want to see how many flips it'll take for this spell to resolve. And if
Urza's Armor
is out, it's got virtually no downside for me if the clash goes a bit long.
-
Myr Superion
: With no creature sources of mana, this can only get cast if Rakdos, Lord of Riots brings it down to zero mana. Shouldn't be too hard to accomplish, but still a nice mini-goal for me if I draw into the card.
Miscellaneous
I just have a few more things to point out.
Most of the other creatures in the deck are full generic mana casting costs in the hope that they become freebies from Rakdos, Lord of Riots' cost reduction. That being said, some of those selections are more filler than powerful. I'd be willing to replace some of these cards if there are better suggestions out there (with the caveat that I'm still looking for generic mana casting costs).
I'd be willing to part with
Pilgrim of the Fires
,
Rattleblaze Scarecrow
,
Scuttling Doom Engine
,
Nullstone Gargoyle
, Darksteel Colossus, and
Snare Thopter
.
A quick point on timing:Dictate of the Twin Gods can work with
Urza's Armor
in this deck, provided I stack the effects appropriately. Supposing both are out on my battlefield and I pay an activation of Pestilence. I could order the effects such that first
Urza's Armor
reduces the damage dealt to my life total by 1 (so, 0 damage), then Dictate of the Twin Gods would try to double 0 damage.
Maybeboard
Withering Wisps
+ Extraplanar Lens: I might add
Withering Wisps
in order to have more redundancy for Pestilence effects. The caveat for that would be exchanging my regular Swamps for Snow-Covered Swamps. If I'm already making that switch, Extraplanar Lens seems like a fine addition to accelerate how many times I can pay into my Pestilence effects. However, I don't want to make that purchase just yet, so they both remain in the maybeboard for now.
