TLDR: Renegade Rallier lets you play Emrakul, the Aeons Torn + Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast
on turn three and acts like a mini bloodbraid elf in long games. Lukka + Emrakul works surprisingly well with Ensnaring Bridge. Karn, the Great Creator is nuts when you have alot of mana, or in any slow game. BloodMoon / Magus of the Moon is good right now. Wren and Six makes getting your bird bolted a non issue. Path to Exile is also very good right now. Veil of Summer only works for us.
The Nature of Midrange
The highly polarized pressures of the modern meta game have kept all but a select few fair decks from competing. Jund has stood as the posterchild for midrange in almost every meta game. The reason being is the flexibility of their disruption (inquisition and thoughtsieze) and high card quality. Any deck that doesn't present a fast enough clock must incorporate a way to stop the opponents clock, and hand disruption is the fastest and most reliable method in a wide field of possible decks. Color pairings without black have traditionally struggled in the midrange category either due to a very slow clock or limited disruption. We have seen recently two (non-black) midrange strategies rise to tier 1; gruul (Ponza) and Uro piles. The reason for Uro's rise is force of negation, and the reason for gruul's rise is Uro. I dont feel the need to explain why force of negation allows fair blue decks to compete, I'm sure the reader understands. Uro together with force created a deck that can disrupt the fastest combo decks and outgrind the other fair decks. Enter blood moon, as it usually does when 3+ color decks are in abundance.
Why do I think you should play this deck?
Because you love Naya colors, dont have money for new fetches, you hate playing whats meta, and because ponza doesnt play the best midrange game.
The main reason to play this deck is to go over the top of other midrange decks, and be uniquely positioned to steal game 1 against some of the new archetypes coming out of battle for zendikar.
Card Choices
Lukka, Coppercoat Outcast:
Lukka was the card I hoped would give GR the power to play a strong midrange game. I think with this list he does that exceptionally well. Everyone wants to cheat out Emrakul early, but the question is how early? Decks that focus on doing this can make it happen potentially on turn one, however they can also lose everything to fatal push or bolt. The answer is dependant on what you personally want to do, and how good at winning the deck is. I have not enjoyed playing all in lukka and have not played it enough to know its win percentage. I have enjoyed midrange Lukka, and I have had alot of success. Lukka has been so good because his abilities do such different things. Being able to ruch out Emrakul in fast games, dig for creatures in long games, and kill quickly under ensnaring bridge has made the card impactful in every matchup.
Karn, the Great Creator:
I am playing Karn because I love playing with this card, but you should play with it because its a hugely impactful and versatile four drop (we want at least one good one in arbor elf utopia sprawl decks) that doesnt interfere with Lukka's -2. An early karn plus liquimetal can be lights out for almost any deck that cant answer it. Of course the main function of karn is to generate value in long games with Mazemind Tome, Wurmcoil Engine, and Engineered Explosives and lock down creature decks with Ensnaring Bridge
Magus of the Moon:
Magus is played over bloodmoon because of Lukka, plain and simple. Bloodmoon of course has advantages over magus, but magus has benefits as well, most notably being immune to Force of Negation. The moon effect is the main source of disruption we have as a fair deck, it feels irreplaceable.
Renegade Rallier: FLEX?
When I tried Rallier I felt like I discovered the missing link to effectively play Lukka. Putting emrakul on the field is great but it doesn't win on the spot. It needs to happen pretty early for to steal a game. Planebound Accomplice is seemingly the best at doing this but offers very little outside this interaction. Rallier doesnt have the ceiling of planebound, but it is much more consistent and versatile. Rallier is usually just a 3/2 that puts a fetchland on the field. This may not seem amazing but ramping twice allows us to play lukka on turn 3. If the rallier sticks around, which it often will since trading a removal spell for it generally seems bad, he turns on lukka's minus 2. Even if lukka isnt the followup, the goal of this deck is play cards that replace themselves and having mana is necessary to deploy our extra cards quickly.
Seasoned Pyromancer:
Need I talk about this card? its perfect for this deck (like it is for every red deck haha), we need to be able to discard emrakul and draw specific cards. Most importantly, we need blockers to protect karn, lukka, and wrenn. tied for best card in deck with Utopia Sprawl and Wrenn and Six.
Tireless Tracker: FLEX?
The pinnacle of slow three drop value creatures. Tracker rounds out the three drop creature suite and cements our valuetown game plan. Bad in fast games most of the time, but an easy three for one in any slow game. We make alot of mana, play alot of lands, and want to draw specific cards. Tracker shines in any long game but especially when Ensnaring Bridge creates a board stall.
Wrenn and Six:
Like pyromancer its expensive for a reason. If you've played ramp and have had your bird bolted you know it can feel like you've already lost. Not if your a slow deck and you follow with Wrenn! It feels like you've have already won when this happens. wrenn is the last value card in the deck (value card being one that creates card advantage) and with it we have a total of 22. Normally having this much value means you are deficient in other areas, either a slow clock or very limited interaction. However, the deficiency suffered here is minimized by the versatility of Karn Lukka and Wrenn. decks like GW valuetown consistently generate value but are also consistently slow and uninteractive. we consistently generate value but also consistently have either a fast clock or strong interaction.
Path to Exile: FLEX?
Obviously path has many upsides, but it has downsides particularly in blood moon decks. in relation to magus and path, in most matchups it is evident that one card is very strong and the other card is very weak. It has always been a weakness of moon that some matchups it will do nothing, path also has this weakness but its much less common. Most fair decks recognize that some of their cards will be bad in some matchups and they will have to rely on their other cards being very good to cover that weakness. The point is that there are seldom times where magus of the moon makes you not want to path your opponents creature and that both cards are so strong on their own that they still amount to higher win percentage despite the weaknesses.
What's the point?
I feel like this deck is very viable but I have limited ablity to test it (Not willing to buy into magic online yet). The deck is super fun and im sure there is room for lots of innovation.
Please leave a comment and give the deck a try.
