Another Defenders build, for casual pauper. Centered around Axebane Guardian with blue splashed for a sweet mana combo and fetchability, and red for our wincon.
I've liked the idea of a defenders deck for a while, but didn't know how to make it work. The Axebane Guardian + Freed from the Real combo seemed like a good starting point. Through this and any other creature in the deck, we have access to unlimited mana in whatever colors we want. Sweet deal. As gimmicky as it is, it still has turn 4 kill potential and only runs about $20 and is fun to play with. And if fun isn't the point, why are you here?
Here's the rundown:
Axebane Guardian is our combo centerpiece alongside Freed from the Real, but Overgrown Battlement helps us ramp like crazy pretty quickly. Gatecreeper Vine is awesome for thinning any of our lands out of our deck and into our hand. Drift of Phantasms gives us a big flying body that can fetch Freed from the Real via transmute, and
Wall of Tanglecord
gives us a small early mana dump for reach when we need it as well as being our biggest blocker - 2 mana means an opponent's Gurmag Angler is useless.
Our actual win conditions lie in Vent Sentinel and
Pyromatics
. Vent Sentinel doesn't rely on our combo at all, but since we run 24 creatures all with defender, his ping is a huge threat. If we end up with
Pyromatics
in our hand sooner than that and our combo is set up, they can't stop us from replicating it forever.
Abundant Growth gives us a modest draw, but more importantly lets us transmute more easily if we haven't hit an island or Gatecreeper Vine in our deck yet. Finally, Train of Thought is a perfect fit as it solidifies the win. If our combo is set up, we can again abuse the replicate mechanic to put our whole deck into our hand, and with infinite mana, we can cast all of it, which is hilarious and awesome. If our combo isn't set up, we should still have a pretty sizable mana pool anyway if we get into trouble and need to crack it early.
As far as sideboarding goes, Moment's Peace serves double duty via buyback. Natural State burns away non-creatures. Sheltering Word helps us protect ourselves and heal us up. Muddle the Mixture gives us both a hard counter and a tutor for
Pyromatics
. A pair of Relic of Progenitus sits here for standard-setting graveyard hate, especially with Striped Riverwinder and the emergence of UB Reanimator decks. A copy of Reclaim is in mostly so if an important piece gets knocked out of play, we can bring it back. Lignify is potentially a good way to stop Ulamog's Crusher's Annihilator, but it isn't here for now.
My biggest concern for this deck is getting countered. Removal is so prominent we can't really afford to lose pieces over and over, and once someone's identified our end game, we need a rebuttal. Defender recursion helps and we can search for days, but not forever, especially if we got overwhelmed by offense. All that being said, going all-in with the combo should sideboard in more protection. I love a well-rounded sideboard, and right now it aims to extend a game (since we're not winning too fast anyway). I'd recommend
Gigadrowse
, Dispel, Pyroblast, and Apostle's Blessing, as well as maindecking in Rolling Thunder. A land count at 20 (with only 4 tap lands) and creature count at 24 with the given mechanics seems to work out well.
I spent a lot of time looking at a red/green version of this, but it lacks a lot of utility, and our offense is flat to begin with. Bringing in blue gives us an absurd amount of counter and draw options, as well as our infinite mana piece. There are definitely great cards in blue/green that could run a version that utilizes something like
Doorkeeper
over Vent Sentinel as well as our red
Pyromatics
. On top of that, some really fun cards are in the Maybeboard like Ulvenwald Captive
and
Dragon Egg
(which I want to work so bad, but my feeling is as soon as it hits the board, they stop swinging) and combining Thermo-Alchemist with
Snake Umbra
for consistent draws. I'm happy with this version at this point, but I like having options open.
Any critique is welcome and appreciated!
Thanks for checking this out and happy brewing!
