Mardu Agony (Eldraine Build)

Standard Competitive Jank Midrange RBW (Mardu)

Heroicsoul

Land (24)

• 4x Blood Crypt
• 1x Castle Locthwain
• 3x Fabled Passage
• 4x Godless Shrine
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Plains
• 4x Sacred Foundry
• 3x Swamp
• 2x Temple of Silence
• 1x Temple of Triumph

Creature (20)

• 3x Charming Prince
• 3x Embodiment of Agonies
• 3x Murderous Rider
• 3x Rankle, Master of Pranks
• 3x Rotting Regisaur
• 2x Skarrgan Hellkite
• 3x Stormfist Crusader

Planeswalker (3)

• 3x Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord

Instant (8)

• 1x Bedevil
• 1x Mausoleum Secrets
• 3x Scorching Dragonfire
• 3x Shock

Sorcery (5)

• 2x Deafening Clarion
• 1x Kaya's Wrath
• 2x Legion's End

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Sideboard

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Deafening Clarion
• 2x Devout Decree
• 3x Duress
• 1x Kaya's Wrath

Instant (4)

• 2x Despark
• 2x Noxious Grasp

Planeswalker (2)

• 2x Liliana, Dreadhorde General

Artifact (2)

• 2x Sorcerous Spyglass

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This is an idea I had for a Standard deck that will mostly survive after rotation. The idea of the deck is to one for one your opponent and have cheap, impactful creatures. This is mostly based on personal thoughts on what would work well with this kind of deck, so I hope this can inspire someone to build upon this and find a way to make it successful. If not, I see it probably being tier 2 at best in the coming standard. In the space provided, I will attempt to rationalize my card choices so that they can be built on and improved. Many of the cards can be replaced depending on what you expect to face. This version I created tries to have answers against both aggro and control, and then sideboard accordingly, but this also means you can just draw the wrong half in a deck that naturally has less consistency from not playing 4-ofs. As this is a work in progress, I will be editing as new cards are announced from Throne of Eldraine. As you may want other options, I will keep the old cards, but put them in accordion blocks.

I personally built the deck around using the early game to fix our draws and smooth out the mana with the 2 drop creatures and spells, then try to keep the board clear with removal and eventually play a threat that they can't answer and win. Even going 3 colors, I believe most hands can be kept as long as they have at least 2 lands since we can get so many looks for what we need. With that in mind, I decided to use card selection instead of drawing cards, and try to cause the opponent to be empty handed where believe I have the advantage in finding reasonable top decks. All the spells are cheap so that we can have the opportunity to double or triple spell late game.

Manabase

This is the current mana base I came up with based on no dual lands in Throne of Eldraine. I think it functions well enough, but it only has an 80-90% chance to play any card on curve (except for Kaya's Wrath , which is at 75%). However, I attempted to make my early plays ways to help keep the mana consistent. Between rummaging, scrying, and surveiling the deck should be able to have enough of each color to work. This percentage does not take into account the ability the deck has to look for needed lands. As for how many lands to play, I could see going as low as 23 lands with the card selection the deck has, but 24 or 25 is probably correct. My version of the deck doesn't have a lot of high cost spells, so going land light to have better top decks seems like a good idea. with 24 or more lands, I want to try the new card Castle Locthwain as a way to hold up the instant speed removal or draw cards when the deck goes hellbent.

Creatures

3 Embodiment of Agonies - This is one of my favorite cards in M20. I read an article by Patrick Chaplin about different ideas for embodiment, and tried to build a deck around the rakdos variant. As I tested it, I started removing more and more of the cards that tried to break embodiment, and decided that just playing a fair game was enough to eventually win with a 7/7 flying demon. I also lowered the copies to 3 since I only really need to see 1 or 2 in the game for it to be good, and if I see it in my opening hand or early in the game it usually just ends up in the graveyard before it becomes useful. The only time I play it as a 2/2 or a 3/3 is when I need a blocker against aggro. One downside of having this card, however, is that I don't want too many of any card in my deck so that I can have enough different costs to make it big. This is the reason I don't play more than 3 of any card. In testing, the deck usually draws the game out until Embodiment gets anywhere from 5-9 power consistently.

3 Legion Warboss - The other important 3-drop creature. I like having warboss in the deck because it can put a ton of pressure on the opponent. It draws in removal spells early to hopefully get an important threat to resolve, and if they don't answer it it will just win on it's own fairly quickly. However, it is mainly in the deck to help against control decks that go bigger than me, because without it there isn't a fast enough clock that to stop us from getting pushed out of the game. Against any creature strategy it gets boarded out usually. Depending on what the meta looks like, I believe this can be switched out for Rotting Regisaur . Even though it forces us to discard, the dino is better in midrange match-ups because we don't try to draw a ton of cards. If we are expecting to fight more control, I would leave warboss in as it also wins the game quickly, but can leave a creature the turn it comes down and doesn't give us card disadvantage if they answer it on our next turn. Depending on what I'm testing, I will switch between the two cards.

3 Rix Maadi Reveler - While tormenting voice might be a better card in terms of tempo, I like reveler because it's a blocker that can help fix my hand, apply pressure to planeswalkers, and can be a card draw engine late when we run out of cards. It helps get rid of any embodiment of agonies when they are dead cards, and works well with sorin since he can bring one back if need be or we can draw 3 with his +2.

3 Charming Prince - Replaced Dreadhorde Invasion in my original list. As I am already playing a bear that gives card selection, you can guess I really like this card. Being able to look for more answers or threats, gain life against aggro, and blink a Reveler to draw a card or Embodiment to make it bigger/ give pseudo-vigilance sounds great. I would even add some other creatures with good ETB effects just for more options with this card. The only problem is it doesn't fill the graveyard for Embodiment like Reveler does, but it can scry for cards that do if that's what you are looking for.

3 Rankle, Master of Pranks - A good card for us to try and keep parity with the card advantage the opponent is trying to gain. This deck naturally empties its hand faster than other midrange or control decks and wants cards in the graveyard, so having a creature that can help lower the cards in the opponent's hand at the same time, as well as try and draw to an out if we need it or help clear the board if they aren't going wide. When Rankle isn't answered, it usually wins us the game by putting us so far ahead.

2 Knight of the Ebon Legion - Currently removed as I have been lowering the mana the deck has, and this causes us to not really require a mana sink. Most of the time when I play it, it ends up being just a 1/2 and more of a "win more" card if it does start going off. I am going to test some higher cmc creatures in it's place.

Reasoning for Knight of Ebon Legion Show

This is still a very good card, and if you don't want to go down the self discard path and end up with plenty of mana to spend, this would be great to have.

2 Murderous Rider - While not best used in this deck, it is still an amazing card that I feel is a must play in black. It's a creature, it's a kill spell, all it needs to do now is my taxes and it's perfect. It works well with Mausoleum Secrets as it is a creature if we discard it and can go back into our deck if the creature dies for us to find.

2 Skarrgan Hellkite - Skarrgan Hellkite is a card that I am almost always happy to play against a deck. It's good against control when they run out of answers because of the other creatures, can usually take down a planeswalker on board or threaten a good amount of damage, and can be a good mana sink if there isn't a threat of removal for it. It might not be the most powerful card, but it is versatile enough that I think it's worth a spot.

1 Cavalier of Night - Removed for another Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord

Reasoning for Cavalier Show

This spot can be replaced with doom whisperer, because I think both have good and bad points and can go either way with having one in the deck. I don't want to have a ton of expensive cards that can be bounced for no value and possibly not do anything, so that's why there is only 1. The nice thing about cavalier is if they try to just kill it, it can bring back a warboss or 6/6+ embodiment and those can be even scarier. Lifelink is also relevant as this deck can hurt itself a lot.

Enchantments

Dreadhorde Invasion is a contender for this deck, but I replaced it for more mana cost diversity and card selection in Charming Prince

Reason for Dreadhorde Invasion Show

2 Dreadhorde Invasion - This is basically 2 more creatures, but I find it works well as another tough to answer threat that can eventually put me too far ahead. It can be a cheap blocker that will save me more than the 1 life it costs each turn, or it can be a giant creature that threatens to gain a bunch of life if a removal spell isn't pointed at it multiple times. It does have the problem of killing you if you aren't able to stabilize against an aggressive strategy, so I tend to board it out against those types of decks.

Planeswalkers

3 Sorin, Vengeful Bloodlord - At first I had sorin in the deck just as a way to hopefully gain some life while also having another mana cost to fill the graveyard, but the more I tested with it the more powerful it became in this shell. It almost does everything I want. It gains life to help against aggro, it returns almost any creature the turn it comes down, it helps mitigate the life loss from dreadhorde invasion, it can even help kill planeswalkers if I am a little short on damage. Being able to play it, -3 to get back a 6/6 embodiment, and have it be able to do it again in a few turns feels very powerful. This might be the best deck for the card as we want cards in the graveyard to make the demon bigger, and that also allows us to grab whatever threat we need at the time with sorin and try to stabilize or get too far ahead. Sorin is probably the most impactful card in the deck, and can single-handedly win you games.

2 Chandra, Fire Artisan - removed from the deck for more spells. I felt that the 2 mana spells gave enough card advantage that chandra wasn't as important, and I needed more room for powerful removal spells.

Reason for Chandra, Fire Artisan Show

This is the other walker I have to play after the opponent hopefully spent their whole turn answering my 3 mana threat. I had Karn, Scion of Urza in this spot, but with him rotating and not being able to play with this deck much, I found her to be able to do the same thing I wanted Karn to do. Provide card advantage in my slow deck non-blue deck. Exiling the card is a shame, but since most of the spells in the deck are low cmc, it usually isn't a big deal. Chandra also has the nice combo with Sorin where if I am able to -7 with both of them out, that is a 14 point life swing. Having both of them unanswered usually means I am very far ahead anyway though, so it doesn't really matter much.

Spells

3 Discovery / Dispersal - This card, along with Rix Maadi, pretty much keeps the whole deck together. It helps get rid of cards we don't want to draw in the match up, helps us fuel embodiment and Sorin, and gives us more looks late in the game when we need to draw something impactful. The front half is so useful in the deck, I never really felt the need for blue to use the back half. It can also give us a better chance of finding the single copy of the cards in our deck.

2 Disfigure - replaced with Legion's End as the card felt dead in a lot of match ups or when the opponent had a lot of x/3s. Could add back in if having a turn 1 answer is important in the upcoming meta. Legion's End is useful as we have plenty of unconditional removal for bigger creatures, but needed something cheap for early plays. I had justice strike as well, but with the mana base change it became too hard to play consistently. The ability of Legion's End to get multiple creatures, tokens, and cards in hand is also a plus. I see a Field of Ruin deck being popular still makes this even stronger.

Reason for Disfigure Show

The reason i chose this over Shock as a 1 mana removal is because of cards like Adanto Vangaurd. However, depending on the meta either can be useful, as long as the manabase is adjusted to fit turn one red better. Necrotic Wound could also be an option, however I don't play enough creatures or ways to fuel it to make it effective and having a turn 1 play can be important depending on the game.

2 Angrath's Rampage - A useful 2 mana spell that can pretty much answer anything you want as long as you are not behind on board. Against strategies that spew a ton of creatures on the field or play Tamiyo, Collector of Tales it isn't that good, but even then it can be useful if I have the right answers.

2 Justice Strike - removed because mana bases will probably be worse after rotation.

Reason for Justice Strike Show

This card I have the least confidence in. I added it so that it can be a cheap spell that can still kill creatures late, however it can be difficult to cast on curve and does not work on creatures like Deputy of Detention and Cavalier of Thorns .

2 Deafening Clarion - A really powerful board wipe that is part of the reason I added white. Being able to clear most the board for 3 mana and also heal if I have big enough creatures is great. I have 2 in the main and 1 in the board because I don't want to have too many dead cards in bad matchups game 1. Finding a way to play Kaya's Wrath or a different unconditional board wipe would be nice and could use more testing. The mana usually isn't a problem to cast clarion because I usually don't want to cast embodiment on curve so going 1BB into 1RW won't usually happen until I can double spell. It does kill most of the early creatures though, but in games where clarion is good, most of the early creatures are just looking to trade anyway.

2 Carnival / Carnage - This is just a versatile spell with a unique mana cost, which makes it useful enough. Neither the front half or the back half are great which is why there is only 1 in this build. If the meta turns into a lot of x/1s, adding 1 more is reasonable. This is mainly in the deck to help make Embodiment bigger and can be a good pick for discarding if need be.

1 Mausoleum Secrets - This card might be too cute, but it helps mitigate the fact that I have a lot of single copies. We don't play a lot of creatures, so usually it will only be able to get a 2 or 3 cmc card, but that's usually good enough for this deck. This is a good reason as to why most cards in the deck are black.

1 Bedevil - while i really like this card, I think there is enough removal that we don't need a lot of this effect. The reason I have this card over Mortify in the main deck is because it handles planeswalkers and Bolas's Citadel . If enchantments become important again, they can be switched. This loses to Murderous Rider in number in the deck because of the more difficult casting cost and it is more likely a dead card.

1 Finale of Eternity - A nice card to match Mausoleum. Usually just used as a board wipe I can tutor for if I don't find a lot of creatures. The game usually ends before I get to 12 mana to return cards from my graveyard.

1 Consecrate / Consume - replaced with Kaya's Wrath because having an unconditional board wipe that can be grabbed off Mausoleum is useful when you need an answer to multiple creatures. Most cards Consume answer, Kaya's wrath also answers. Don't see switching back unless decks have giant indestructible creatures.

Reason for Consecreate / Consume Show

Another unique cmc that can handle indestructible and hexproof creatures. could also help exile a key graveyard card from the opponent or even from mine if I need to cycle. I like it little better than Bedeck / Bedazzle because Bedazzle is usually not very useful, but I could also see it used to help fight Field of the Dead .

Sideboard

I can't go into detail on the current sideboard, because it is likely to change once a meta becomes apparent and I know what I need answers to. Currently, I just have more narrow removal or cards that help against more controlling decks.

Honorable Mentions

These are cards that I tried using in the deck, but removed for one reason or another. I believe they can still work if you want to build the deck differently.

Doom Whisperer - It might just be correct to play this, but I wanted to try the cavalier instead. Ends games quickly and is able to fill the graveyard for embodiment.

Yarok's Fenlurker - This card was fine to disrupt the opponent, but didn't really feel powerful enough for me to keep in. Could work in some U/B build with discard.

Liliana, Dreadhorde General - I had this as another finisher, but decided to cut it because I wanted to cut a land and it felt a little too expensive.

The Elderspell - I have a bunch of ways to kill planeswalkers, so I didn't think this was necessary. It could be a nice one of in the 75 for mausoleum though.

Final Payment - another option for a 2 mana removal spell. with the amount of life gain we can get, paying 5 to kill a creature is reasonable. it could replace either 2 mana kill spell in the main deck, just depends on what you expect to need.

Rotting Regisaur - this is good 3 drop you can use instead of warboss and are fine with going hellbent sooner. Basically acts as more copies of Embodiment that you can play on turn 3. I would play more copies of Rankle too to try and abuse the shared discard effect when it connects.

Match ups

In this section, I will add what I found when testing this deck against the meta. As we haven't gotten to rotation yet, for right now I will test against brews other people are testing.

G/B/x Midrange - this was my first test to see how we matched up against a traditional midrange deck. Because the deck goes for higher cmc spells, we lose if we try to play at sorcery speed. We want to be the control deck in the match up and answer all the spells as they play them until we can double spell because we play more powerful cheap creatures. If we give the deck a turn to resolve a big spell, it puts us so far behind we could end up losing on the spot. As an aside, we do better if the deck is playing more fair creatures. It's hard to play sorin on an empty board against a bunch of hasty creatures, but we don't care much about a card like Wicked Wolf because our main threats are bigger or fly over, and if the opponent is making enough food to pump the wolf bigger, they aren't playing spells we actually care about. I like Embodiment of Agonies better against decks that play Oko, Thief of Crowns as all the card can do is make the card into a bigger ground creature as all its power is in counters. Post-board games I will board out one of my 3 drop threats to add more removal against the less synergistic version. I am not sure which creature is better to board out right now, but taking out embodiment has worked for me in testing. Having to discard with regisaur isn't that big a downfall when being controlling because the deck can just discard the 2 mana creatures or lands it doesn't need until both decks are hellbent.

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	2 - 2 Mythic Rares 47 - 2 Rares 0 - 8 Uncommons 6 - 3 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.81
Tokens	Zombie 2/2 B