Alright so I guess I'm going to write some stuff here. This is my first EDH deck, now nearing its final form. I have designed it to be relatively fair and playable in all sorts of environments. It can play aggro, resource denial, or long drawn out games. The main game plans generally involve slapping Helm of the Host on Aurelia, the Warleader for a combo kill, or abusing Sunforger for value and protection until I can kill my opponents through conventional means.
It is also quite possible to just aggro out opponents while they set up their boards or prepare their combos. The multiple combat phases provided by Aurelia make this easier than expected, as cards like Hero of Bladehold and Brimaz, King of Oreskos, when paired with anthem effects or Hero of Bladehold's own Battle Cry ability, rack up a lot of damage extremely quickly. I would say Hero of Bladehold is an essential component of most of this deck's quick kills. The other MVP is Final Fortune, allowing you (for a mere RR) to turn two combat phases into four. When your opponents' shields are down, this can often transform a fairly safe turn for them into a full table sweep. This makes it a much better option than most additional combat phase spells I see floating around in other lists. It is also a target for Sunforger, because tutoring and casting ghetto Time Walk at intant speed is fair and balanced. Speaking of, Sunforger package:
Sunforger, the best card in the worst colors
This thing provides power, a plethora of answers and card advantage. It's a force to be reckoned with and quite often the first thing that will be tutored up by Stonehewer Giant. I have chosen all my interactive spells based on Sunforger.
- Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, format staples for a damn good reason
- Chaos Warp, Unexpectedly Absent. Very good answers to whatever type of permanent ails you. Unexpectedly Absent may not sound fantastic off of Sunforger as X=0, but keep in mind it can be cast in response to a shuffle effect to shuffle the target back into the owner's deck; and even when you can't set that up, getting rid of any type of permanent off Sunforger, even if only temporarily, is extremely handy.
- Wear / Tear. Disenchant effect of choice. A lot of players favor Return to Dust. That does have more raw power. But I've found that being able to answer a turn 1 Sol Ring quickly is much more important in the average game than the 2-for-1 provided by Return to Dust. Vandalblast was a consideration, but Sorcery speed makes it unusable with Sunforger, and I just don't have enough open slots to add it to my sorceries.
- Reverberate, Lapse of Certainty. Lets you play permission against blue players. Lapse can also save your board against many other threats and most non-Supreme Verdict sweepers, which makes it more valuable to me than pure protection spells. A lot of my builds of this deck also contained Pyroblast but I eventually had to cut it to add an extra basic land for curve reasons. I did it with a heavy heart, Pyroblast is amazing and is unlikely to ever be a dead card in any pod.
- Boros Charm, some extra damage out of nowhere, also plays extremely well with wrath effects, and even more so with Armageddon
- Final Fortune. Tragically underrated card. High risk, high reward, which is a concept most Boros players should be comfortable with.
- Enlightened Tutor. Instant speed tutor, don't mind if I do.
Killing the spirit of EDH
Now most Boros players probably agree when I say, the UGx players just have way too many goddamn lands. This is what this package here is for. Armageddon, Catastrophe and Cataclysm, if they resolve early, can often spell the end for ramp decks. Your opponents are likely to use all their extra land drops and land tutors in the early turns while you develop your board. A well-timed MLD spell can quite often leave them in topdeck mode, with no more mana in hand and uncastable payoff spells. Same goes for us though, we do run a somewhat high curve. So the deck is designed to be able to recover fairly well from an Armageddon. Land Tax, Sword of the Animist, Dowsing Dagger
and Flagstones of Trokair, along with a heavy focus on mana rocks, lets you rebuild more easily. Most of these can be tutored for when your plan involves MLD. Some may say it's against the spirit of the format to play the mana denial game, but if they didn't want their lands blown up, they shouldn't drop so many of the damn things. Boros players can't afford to ignore such a juicy target.
Mass land destruction can also be used to capitalize on your board advantage (if you have it) by resetting everyone's mana while you beat down with creatures. It is a very dangerous strategy as any sort of fast and cheap interaction can neuter your board in response and leave you with nothing to damage your opponents with. No one ever said the MLD plan was flawless.
This probably won't convince anyone that Boros is a good choice in EDH. Realistically speaking, it isn't, it's the weakest color combination. But this deck allows one to play many different styles and grind out games with some of the more powerful decks in the format. Victory won't come easy when your wincon involves dealing 120 points of damage across 3 opponents, but experience assures me that it can be done. Aurelia, the Warleader is consistently the underdog at any table I play at, but I do get my fair share of heartwarming underdog victories.
