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BW Pestilence walls

Pauper Casual Defender Theme/Gimmick Wall WB (Orzhov)

Jerenstein-Bear

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Land (21)

Creature (15)

Instant (8)

Enchantment (10)

Sorcery (6)

So, as is plainly obvious from the list, this deck is fairly casual and built around a single gimmick: Using walls in the early game to build toward a kill with pestilence in the late game. This is quite non-standard for pestilence which is what drew me to the idea in the first place, neither being the creature-light, black heavy control variant and functioning quite differently than the more creature-heavy, white focused variant making use of creatures like Thraben Inspector and Kor Skyfisher.

Each wall has it's own use and the gameplan will change based on which you end up with.

  • Cemetery Gate has 5 toughness which allows it to block well and it's protection from black means it will never be killed by Pestilence or Crypt Rats no matter how much you pump into them (I also like its aesthetic and this deck is more about the gimmick than viability so it's an auto-include regardless).

  • Wall of Glare is great against weenie strats since it can block any number of creatures.

  • Wall of Hope allows you to regain the life lost through your damage outlets, and if you have multiples on the field then you actually gain life when using them.

  • Wall of Resistance grows every time you pump your damage outlets or whenever it gets into a fight and can get rather large in just a few turns.

  • Finally, Guardian Zendikon lets you turn one of your lands into a 2/6 wall which is pretty good on its own and lets you make late game use of plains that normally would sit stagnant, but if used on Goldmire Bridge then you'll have an indestructible 2/6 which, in pauper, is pretty good for 3 cmc as there aren't a lot of tramplers out there that get much over that.

To support the wall strats, Alchemist's Gift can lifelink your Crypt Rats for big gains or deathtouch one of your walls which can mean lots of kills since Wall of Glare can block any number of creatures and Touch of Moonglove does the same while also potentially dealing a lot of damage, and Fortified Area adds damage to your blocks while letting you choose how damage is assigned to defenders which can devastate low toughness attackers since, again, Wall of Glare can block as many attackers as it wants and Guardian Zendikon already has 2 strength, making it a 3/6 with banding. For protective purposes, Gideon's Sacrifice can keep you from getting pinged by Pestilence, and if the damage is redirected to Cemetary Gate then all that damage will be negated. You can also redirect it to a Goldmire Bridge enchanted with Guardian Zendikon to do the same thanks to it being indestructible. Lastly, there's a copy of Protective Sphere thrown in for good measure to allow you to reduce damage from Pestilence and Crypt Rats as much as possible.

All in all, while not really a show-stopper, the deck is nonetheless fun and at the end of the day that's what the game is all about. I wouldn't play it if I was trying to top an event since one-trick ponies rarely do well in such circumstances, but in a casual environment you could do worse.

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Casual

99% Competitive