Has anyone thought the possibility to kill a man with a shield?
So this is a nice little homebrew that I made during my spare time, and so I want to share it with you guys. You build a nice wall of, well, walls in front of you. It only takes 4 mana to summon around 1-2 creatures, plus you get ramp walls such as Overgrown Battlement and Axebane Guardian, which lets you crack your wall a bit for an extra green mana while Axebane Guardian provides one mana of any color for every Defender you control! And, not only you have a shield that can rapidly grow, you get cards that give you a nice bit of healing and even (somewhat) outright counter Trample! These cards are Perimeter Captain, Pride Guardian and Wall of Essence. Heck, are you getting invaded by Flying monsters? Pop a Wall of Tanglecord, Wall of Vines and Wall of Denial! Need an extra draw for X and/or Y reason?Wall of Omens. Or maybe you just want to add a layer of armor to your shield with Stalwart Shield-Bearers.
"That's... a lot of walls and protection. That's all nice and dandy, but how am I supposed to attack with them when they have 0 power?"
Easy, that's where Assault Formation, Arcades, the Strategist and Colossus of Akros comes in.
Assault Formation is plain and simple: All cards you control with Defender assign damage with Toughness instead of their power. This means +2/+0 is bad, and +0/+2 is good. So whenever you block, you deal damage first based on your toughness before damage calculation, unless the enemy has First Strike. Now, in order to make your Defenders attack, you'll need to pay a so at least one Defender is able to attack. You can buff your walls further by paying and add a +0/+1 on all the creatures you control. With Stalwart Shield-Bearers, you can get a LOT of toughness on your walls!
Now, if Assault Formation isn't available or got removed/cancelled somehow, then Arcades, the Strategist is your best bet. Flying, Vigilance, 3/5 AND Assault Formation's effects without the mana cost! This card also lets you draw a card every time a creature you control with Defender enters the field. While Arcades himself isn't really a strong card, the fact that you need 4-5 mana (at least one ) to summon 1-3 creatures at any time, and two of them allows you to get even more land and mana to get even more creatures is terrifying! And last, but not least, you have Colossus of Akros. THIS is the spear to your shield. Don't let that ability and summoning cost turn you away from victory. Remember, you have a lot of mana to play with, especially with Axebane Guardian!
So, an optimal starting hand would be at least 2-3 lands, one of them should at least be , and Axebane Guardian, Overgrown Battlement, a Perimeter Captain and a Wall of Vines
With that hand, in turn 4, you already have 8 mana to play around with! 8! And even if you don't start with lands in your hand, Axebane Guardian will GUARANTEE it! Oh, and by the way, Overgrown Battlement counts as 2 mana if Axebane is in play.
Food for thought.~
As amazing as all of this sounds, however, with the existence of board wipe, land hate, hand hate and overall Control decks, this deck just loses to these archetypes. And, unfortunately, this deck doesn't run counterspells or any other instant, sorcery, enchantments and artifacts that protect you and your creatures. If anyone wants to lend a hand (hah) and suggest cards, I'm all for it.
