Deftblade Elite

Combos Browse all Suggest

Legality

Format Legality
1v1 Commander Legal
Archenemy Legal
Canadian Highlander Legal
Casual Legal
Commander / EDH Legal
Commander: Rule 0 Legal
Custom Legal
Duel Commander Legal
Highlander Legal
Legacy Legal
Leviathan Legal
Limited Legal
Oathbreaker Legal
Pauper Legal
Pauper Duel Commander Legal
Pauper EDH Legal
Planechase Legal
Premodern Legal
Quest Magic Legal
Tiny Leaders Legal
Vanguard Legal
Vintage Legal

Deftblade Elite

Creature — Human Soldier

Provoke (When this attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls untap and block it if able.)

: Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and dealt by Deftblade Elite this turn.

legendofa on Help with a mono white …

1 year ago

Trap Runner doesn't actually force a creature to block. The attacking creature just becomes blocked by nothing in particular.

Deftblade Elite, Swooping Talon, and Lowland Tracker are the three white creatures with provoke, which allows them to force blockers.

Spell_Slam on So, so, sorry.

1 year ago

The biggest (and probably only) advantage of the banding mechanic is that you are the one to decide how damage is spread out to your creatures when attacking. This can be leveraged.

Deftblade Elite and a bunch of banders means that you can not only force a creature to block your band, but you can prevent all combat damage to your creatures by moving it all to the Deftblade once you arrange combat damage.

Similarly, any creatures with protection are pretty strong. Guardian of the Guildpact comes to mind. You could also go with high-toughness creatures to soak up the damage for the team. Benalish Infantry and Shield Bearer are examples of good strategic use of banding creatures. You'll notice a lot of banding creatures have high toughness or first strike for these reasons.

Other than that... Wow. Unless you find a way to give your creatures trample, you're still dealing with all the drawbacks of banding.

With that in mind, I think you'll have a hard time winning using 8 walls. There's not much reason to play defensive banding creatures, honestly. If you want to run walls, well... Fortified Area? If not, there are lots of other banding creatures to choose from.

lespaul977 on

1 year ago

Squee_Spirit_Guide, good call on Honor of the Pure. It would be another great anthem card to have alongside Always Watching and Benalish Marshal. Admittedly, I wasn’t 100% sure about Serra's Embrace; I think I wanted it in there more out of nostalgia than anything else, but it does feel like filler compared to everything else I have going on.

I’m definitely going to look into options for replacing Deftblade Elite. With this being a soldier deck, I feel like I’ll need to put in one-drops to replace it so the deck can play fast enough (although White Knight does look pretty sweet). However, I think this deck could benefit from abilities given by larger creatures. What are your thoughts on this?

Thank you very much for the feedback!

Squee_Spirit_Guide on

1 year ago

Nice build, as usual! Straight to the point, and nice synergy. As far as suggestions, I think Honor of the Pure could be a nice buff alongside your Glorious Anthem, maybe in place of Serra's Embrace. I agree with Balaam__ that the Deftblade Elites are a little weak. I'd go for the classic White Knight or Knight of the Holy Nimbus for fun. He's a little on the expensive side, but Darien, King of Kjeldor could be really strong here as a one-of.

lespaul977 on

1 year ago

Balaam__, thank you for your suggestions! I think some removal cards would be great for the deck. I have Unified Strike in my collection, but I didn’t think it would be consistent enough to be worthwhile. I’ll see what I can find for one-drop soldiers that would add more benefits to the deck than Deftblade Elite. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Balaam__ on

1 year ago

Looks quite nice as far as synergy and mana curve and such, but I think Deftblade Elite could be replaced with something better. Even with the various buffs it would receive, I don’t think it brings enough value to the deck. Not exactly sure what could replace it but mono white Humans isn’t short on possibilities. Maybe some removal in the form of Path to Exile or Swords to Plowshares if you happen to have any.

ClockworkSwordfish on People are the Biggest Monsters

2 years ago

The deck looks very solid - it's smart that you included so many ways to spread indestructibility around, since board wipes are basically the only answer to a deck that builds up this many fearsome creatures! That said, there are a few card slots that I'm more... skeptical of. Possibly there's an opportunity to tighten these spots up!

Demystify is something of a, well, mystifying choice. It gets the job done, but even for the exact same mana cost there are a number of strictly superior options, including Erase, Wax / Wane and Light of Hope. For your build in particular, you might prefer something like Sundering Growth for the added effect and ability to nail artifacts as well. Since you're running very few ways to deal with artifacts, finding room for options like Nature's Claim, Sylvan Reclamation and Aura Shards is probably worthwhile!

The card advantage and lifegain of Camaraderie is great, but since you're aiming to grow such a buff army, you might find you often get more life from Shamanic Revelation, which even costs one mana less! The only advantage of Camaraderie is really the +1/+1 which feels pretty minor at six mana.

One other choice I was curious about was Mentor of the Meek. Normally he's great card advantage for a white deck, but seeing as your commander quickly gives all of your creatures a big static boost, it might quickly be the case that you never have a creature with power 2 or less coming into play, even if they're a 1/1 token. Do you find this ever backfires, or Kyler is active rarely enough that it doesn't often overlap?

To support your strategy, a few other cards that might be a good fit in this build come to mind. It's a little slow and clunky, but Hydra's Growth might be a great way to achieve truly ludicrous size on Kyler. Deftblade Elite is a super versatile one-drop that can do it all: help your other creatures get past blockers, or hold off a deadly attacker indefinitely. Thanks to the boosts your commander is handing out, though, it's conceivable that the Elite could quickly get big enough to kill off a utility creature every turn thanks to Provoke, too! Mother of Runes is also a superb one-drop that is great for protecting your commander from any unwanted interactions.

Yesterday on How exactly does Provoke work?

2 years ago

Also, the reason you might want to have an opponent's creature (untap and) block your creature it to remove that opponent's creature either from the battlefield, or just from blocking your main sources of damage.

Deftblade Elite is designed just to busy an opponent's large creature so that it can't block your other sources of damage that might die if blocked by a large creature your opponent controls. It doesn't especially benefit from being able to untap an opponent's creature, unless they control something with 1 toughness like a Birds of Paradise. Feral Throwback is more often large and can provoke creatures specifically to destroy them in combat, even if they were tapped moving into combat.

It's kind of like old, weird fighting (Blood Feud).

Load more
Have (1) reikitavi
Want (0)