Your best Duels 2015 deck?

Online Magic forum

Posted on March 1, 2015, 2:23 p.m. by zandl

I've kinda gotten back into Duels 2015. After the meta diversified itself from being 40% Spider Spawning variants and 40% R/W Tokens, there is actually a lot of fun to be had.

I've been rocking Grixis Control from awhile now with decent success on the ranked 360 leaderboards (was in top 10 for awhile, then I started experimenting...). It had 3 Darksteel Ingot and 2 Obelisk of Alara as a stabilizer/finisher backed up by a ton of removal, counterspells, and bombs (i.e. Griselbrand and Inferno Titan).

I've grown bored of that, though. While it was consistent and strong, the games took forever and aggro decks were always a challenge unless I saw Anger of the Gods or got a lucky break. I decided to start looking for something faster with more strength in turns 4 and 5.

I looked to Green midrange strategies as an archetype to build around, what with Cultivate being amazing and giving me either Stormbreath Dragon or Arbor Colossus on turn 4. But then I started losing really hard to bigger control decks that could wipe out my first few threats and then go toe-to-toe with my later ones (or just cast Spider Spawning 7 times in one game). The search continued for an answer.

I'd been toying around with Goblin Tribal for awhile considering there are a ton of great Goblins in the game. With Goblin Bushwhacker, Krenko's Command, Goblin Rabblemaster, Goblin Arsonist, and Foundry Street Denizen, there's definitely potential. Add in Raid Bombardment, Trumpet Blast, Quest for the Goblin Lord, and Shock, and the deck essentially built itself. I wound up being stuck in games where I ran out of steam too early, especially when Rabblemaster would be killed early, could be blocked efficiently (I'm looking at you, Guard Gomazoa), or just didn't pop up at all. I needed some way to generate fuel in the mid-game turns without having to resort to utter garbage, like Burning Inquiry.

I turned my attention to a splash of Blue, seeing both Military Intelligence and Bident of Thassa as possible support. A few iterations of the deck went by and I found myself staring at an evenly split U/R Tempo list. It was fun and could hold up to a lot of different archetypes by drawing insane amounts of cards over the course of the game. Now my only problem was that I would lose my opening creatures and then peter out before I could get much from my draw engines.

Then, in February's small expansion, along came muthafuckin Young Pyromancer. After dropping 3 copies of Hellspark Elemental for the 3 copies of Young Pyromancer I received, there's been no looking back. This is what I'm currently sitting on:

U/R Tempo (11-2 ranked 1vs1 record)

Creatures: 19
4 Cloudfin Raptor
4 Triton Shorestalker
4 Goblin Arsonist
3 Young Pyromancer
2 Chasm Skulker
2 Goblin Rabblemaster

Other spells: 20
4 Vapor Snag
4 Shock
2 Void Snare
3 Military Intelligence
4 Krenko's Command
1 Trumpet Blast
2 Bident of Thassa

Lands: 21
9 Island
8 Mountain
4 Izzet Guildgate

Now we're cookin' with gas. The goal is to use either 1-drop creatures that have some form of evasion and/or an overwhelming force of tokens to crash through for damage and draw a ton of cards. After playing ranked 1vs1 on 360 this morning, the deck is currently sitting at a record of 11-2 with the only losses being caused by unreasonable land-flooding. (Seriously; how do I draw 13 lands out of the top 18 cards? Twice?)

What's your pride and joy in Duels 2015?

Spootyone says... #2

I'll preface this by saying I've never played nor owned a Duels game, but seeing this post made me wish I could buy one. The decks you're building and the meta that you're describing sounds a lot like how things were when I used to play casually at the beginning of my learning of the game.

I really miss those times :/

Nowadays I get a bit vexed by competitive magic, but not because of the competitiveness. It's more because the cards are all so strong. I miss getting to and being forced to play with lackluster cards like those mentioned here simply because there was no money to buy all the rares nor the desire to get them. I miss this kind of magic.

Freaking Cloudfin Raptor, man...I miss you, bud.

March 1, 2015 4:05 p.m.