Edge and Scale, Bring Forth the Victory

Standard Femme_Fatale

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Game Day Changes Mark 3 —Nov. 9, 2014

While I know that this is 2 weeks after game day (I actually wrote this 2 MONTHS after game day, was really procrastinating on writing this...), I had constantly thought about my games throughout that time was tweaking my deck again and again while accepting people's suggestions here and there after doing a little introspection.

Mainboard Changes

Removed:

Added:

One of the big things I noticed that constantly occurred in my games was that I always fell to combat tricks and removal. Things like flashing in a Pearl Lake Ancient or swinging with some Gods Willing in hand or blocking with Raise the Alarm ... I just fell for each and every single one of them because I couldn't deal with them. So instead of focusing on creatures, I decided to focus on combat tricks myself. Methods to force damage through or save my creatures or life a few more turns. Two of the most biggest additions to that here are Gods Willing and Raise the Alarm. While Gods Willing doesn't seem to be of much use in Mardu aggro-midrange, I can assure you it is really useful with all of the removal present in the game. People are splashing a 4th colour just to run more removal. It is also extremely useful for actually getting and protecting Goblin Rabblemaster through their defenses. It helped to keep it off of the chopping block. More on that later.

So what about the cards I removed? Both Chief of the Edge and Chief of the Scale no longer held their impact in my deck without all of those 2 drop warriors. And with so many toughness heavy cards or ones with first strike or deathtouch, evasion is the only real way to go. I can't just buff a medium amount of creatures, that are prone to removal, a small amount and hope to succeed. Another issue is their cost. In a three colour standard deck that doesn't have access to a smooth mana base like modern does, a 2 cmc card with both mana requiring coloured mana can wreak havoc on the mana base. Frequently I'm finding myself unable to play them until turn 3 or 4.

I removed Ruthless Ripper because although the deathtouch was good, there are a LOT of token productions and evasion in the standard. So a simple deathtouch doesn't do much good when it dies to a 1/1 token all the time or gets first striked, protectioned or even indestructibled (new words abounds!).

Looking at Butcher of the Horde as a 4 of, I put it like that because mardu really has no other big beaters. Butcher of the Horde is the best mardu has got and in order to stay in head to toe with the other midrange decks, it has got to stay in there. While we do have the gods, those are conditionals, as they are mainly there for utility. And Iroas, God of Victory *list* is EXCELLENT for his utility! Being able to make all my tokens pseudo-indestructible keeping alive each turn for the next swing? AWESOME!

Finally, we have Goblin Rabblemaster. Now I, and like many others before and after me, saw that Goblin Rabblemaster no longer held up to his "rabble red" status. And that was because he was easy to remove, had little to no power against any board state, and had no evasion. Sure he was a threat the moment he hit the board, but he was a threat that anyone could deal with at any time. So if I'm beating on the Goblin Rabblemaster, why is he in here? This is because with the way my deck slowly evolved over time, Goblin Rabblemaster had become supported by the deck to gain the things he lacks. Iroas, God of Victory *list* gives him evasion and protection. Gods Willing also gives him evasion and protection. Ajani Steadfast gives him resilience during attacking, and Butcher of the Horde makes use of his tokens when they are just being tossed into the fray. Spear of Heliod makes his tokens a threat, and finally, he adds devotion to Purphoros, God of the Forge to make it more likely to have him as a creature, then the 2cmc warriors would have done. Okay, yes he does damage every turn with purphoros out, but you knew that already. Another thing to note is that vs the warriors, he is much easier to cast. I no longer have to worry about having 4 Chief of the Edges in my hand and no mana to play them with at 5 turns in the game. Trust me, that actually happened. I never got to play one of them.