The Victorious Force

Commander / EDH Aggro Indestructible Multiplayer RW (Boros) Soldiers Tokens

NV_1980

Creature (32)

• 1x Aegis of the Gods
• 1x Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon
• 1x Arabella, Abandoned Doll
• 1x Baird, Argivian Recruiter
• 1x Ballyrush Banneret
• 1x Brimaz, King of Oreskos
• 1x Commander Mustard
• 1x Darien, King of Kjeldor
• 1x Daru Warchief
• 1x Delney, Streetwise Lookout
• 1x Enduring Courage
• 1x Enduring Innocence
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Field Marshal
• 1x Frontline Medic
• 1x Goldnight Commander
• 1x Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart
• 1x Hero of Bladehold
• 1x Intrepid Hero
• 1x Knight-Captain of Eos
• 1x Legion Loyalist
• 1x Lightning, Army of One
• 1x Mentor of the Meek
• 1x Mirror Entity
• 1x Myrel, Shield of Argive
• 1x Odric, Lunarch Marshal
• 1x Precinct Captain
• 1x Purphoros, God of the Forge
• 1x Skyknight Vanguard
• 1x Swiftblade Vindicator
• 1x Tajic, Legion's Edge
• 1x Weathered Wayfarer

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Elspeth, Storm Slayer

Sorcery (1)

• 1x Martial Coup

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Arid Mesa
• 1x Battlefield Forge
• 1x Bloodstained Mire
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Clifftop Retreat
• 1x Command Tower
• 1x Flooded Strand
• 1x Hanweir Battlements  ^{Flip  Meld}
• 1x Mana Confluence
• 1x Marsh Flats
• 1x Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1x Minas Tirith
• 6x Mountain
• 7x Plains
• 1x Plateau
• 1x Reflecting Pool
• 1x Rugged Prairie
• 1x Sacred Foundry
• 1x Slayers' Stronghold
• 1x Spectator Seating
• 1x Temple of Triumph
• 1x Windswept Heath
• 1x Wooded Foothills

Enchantment (8)

• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Assemble the Legion
• 1x Cathars' Crusade
• 1x Land Tax
• 1x Smothering TitheGC
• 1x True Conviction
• 1x Warleader's Call
• 1x Windcrag Siege

Commander (1)

Artifact (14)

• 1x Akroma's Memorial
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Boros Signet
• 1x Dolmen Gate
• 1x Herald's Horn
• 1x Horn of Gondor
• 1x Idol of Oblivion
• 1x Mind's Eye
• 1x Pearl Medallion
• 1x Ruby Medallion
• 1x Sensei's Divining Top
• 1x Slate of Ancestry
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Urza's Incubator

Instant (8)

• 1x Akroma's Will
• 1x Deflecting Swat
• 1x Enlightened TutorGC
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Magmaquake
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Starstorm
• 1x Swords to Plowshares

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Welcome to The Victorious Force! {R}{W}

Hi there! Welcome to the description of this Boros, soldier-tribe deck; commanded by Iroas, God of Victory *list*. Born out of the imaginations of Akros’ soldiers, this deity of Theros has inspired millions of his followers to perform untold numbers of heroic deeds. Together, they have made Akros an almost impenetrable fortress and wealthy beyond measure, as the city’s safety allows its population to thrive and develop itself to its fullest potential without noticeable threats from the outside being able to interfere. This projection of power hasn’t managed to stop overambitious warlords or arrogant, wannabe deities from occasionally trying to conquer and/or plunder Akros in the past. Thus far, the only noticeable results such assaults have had (aside from a manageable amount of Akroan casualties) is the creation of one the most highly trained, experienced and hardened military force across all planes of existence, that relishes the opportunity to utilize its skills from time to time.

Now you, a new enemy, stands at the foot of the Titan’s Stairs. Iroas’ children have spotted your forces and have prepared a strong welcoming committee of well-armed soldiers. Towering above them, a centaur-like being of massive proportions stirs within the Theros sky. It aims its spear at your army as the first hoplite formation at the top of the stairs turns towards you; spears extended and shields raised. It bends its throwing arm and then chucks it with unbelievable force. Let the battle commence! This deck is meant to be played casually. It’s not meant to be used in a competitive fashion, but of course anyone is welcome to try! Feel free to comment on anything you (dis)like throughout this description; hope you will enjoy it!

Why Iroas?

In the most basic terms, because he’s not kidding around. To this deity, victory really does mean victory, and how he accomplishes this is twofold. The first one involves making all the deck’s attackers completely invulnerable to damage. This ability by itself easily makes Iroas *list* one of the most powerful Theros deities. It gets better though because of his second perk; none of his attackers can be blocked by less than two creatures. In a go-wide deck, this pretty much assures many of its creatures will connect to opponents. Lastly, with enough devotion, Iroas’s own 7/4 indestructible body can be brought to bear, which is a steal for a measly CMC4.

Strengths and Weaknesses

The following ten parameters have been used to determine the strength of the deck. For each, a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad) has been allocated; when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck (maximum score is 50 points).

• Mana: indicates the availability of energy-sources within the deck.
• Ramp: indicates the speed at which mana sources within the deck can be made available.
• Card Advantage: indicates availability of filter- and draw resources represented within the deck.
• Overall speed: indicates the deck’s potential for pace, based on resource availability and mana curve.
• Combo: indicates the measure of combo-orientation of the deck.
• Army: indicates the deck’s creature-army strength.
• Commander: indicates how much the deck is commander-oriented/dependent (less dependency is better).
• Interaction: indicates how much this deck can mess with opponents’ board states and turn-phases.
• Resilience: indicates whether the deck can prevent and take punches.
• Spellpower: indicates the availability and strength of high-impact spells.

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Mana: 4

In terms of direct, additional energy this deck doesn’t offer all that much. Just three mana rocks. However, it carries no fewer than six permanents that cheapen the casting of spells (four of which specifically cheapen the casting of soldiers, which is what this deck is all about). Lastly, an enchantment that creates treasure tokens has been included.

Ramp: 1

White offers a few very helpful ramping options and as it happens, this deck contains two of the strongest ones.

Card Advantage: 3

There are two cards that offer direct draw, three cards that enable conditional draw (usually based in some way on what soldiers are doing), two cards that allow for the top-decking of soldiers, a card that can tutor for enchantments and a card that enables scrying and drawing (in a pinch).

Overall speed: 3

This deck features an average amount of resources and an average casting cost of just over 3.5 (with forty-two out of sixty-five non-land cards costing three or less mana to cast). This gives the deck a decent speed.

Combo: 1

Combos are fun but they’re often not needed to ensure one wins. In this deck, it’s really more about synergy options between soldiers and its tremendous potential for strong attacks.

Army: 5

In the most literal sense of the word, this deck has an actual army (so not a disorganized mob of monsters). Twenty-five soldiers, ordered and disciplined, stand ready to make life very difficult for this deck’s opponents. Don’t be fooled however, as this number increases substantially once they start to join the action. Eight soldiers and two other cards can generate additional soldiers in a heartbeat; some just one at a time while others can spawn entire squads. The deck also contains the means to double this token generation.

Commander: 3

Having Iroas *list* on the field will make it very difficult for the deck’s opposition to stop its attacks. Not just to block it, but more importantly to eliminate its attackers. This makes his presence very valuable, and the deck’s attack-strength does suffer when he’s not around to protect his children. However, some redundancy has been built in to compensate for his absence. Also, considering the number of creatures this deck can field, it’s not the end of the world if it loses some (permanently) during games.

Interaction: 5

Quite a lot of interaction going on in a deck that supposedly more combat oriented. Most prominently featured, is the deck’s ability to dish out non-combat damage to both opponents and creatures alike. It also contains a fair amount of strong inhibiting cards as well as some literal destruction/exile spells.

Resilience: 4

This is basically Iroas’ most important feature; the ability to keep his soldiers from dying. Aside from him providing this protection, the deck also contains five indestructible creatures (and the means to give all creatures indestructibility), four creatures with (or means to give creatures) lifelink and two (permanent) options to negate all damage.

Spellpower: 3

Some truly cool stuff in terms of non-creature, non-artifact spells in this deck. Bit of mass token, mass boost, mass protection and especially some mass destruction spells; fun for the whole family!

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Total power score: 32

Flooding the board with weenies is fun. Making the weenies not so weeny anymore is even more fun and this deck has massive means to accomplish this; with combat abilities, literal power/toughness boosts and the means to make them almost invulnerable in aggressive combat. The deck has decent speed, an almost inexhaustible army-supply at its call and more than enough ways to disrupt the opposition in other ways than through combat should it truly desire to. Like most Boros decks, it’s not overly reactionary though and its strengths in terms of draw and energy are mediocre at best.

General strategy

The goal is to accomplish battlefield dominance and overwhelm the opposition through massive, well-coordinated assaults on their positions using large units of soldiers that feature a multitude of strong combat abilities. Power is ever increased through a steady production (training) of new soldiers while deploying several means of protection to keep them from harm whenever possible. This ensures that the deck’s forces can keep growing while also surviving the battles they participate in; thereby almost guaranteeing that objectives are accomplished. Both these metrics are the best ones to use during games, to measure whether the deck’s progress is sufficient.

Starting hand

At least three cards in the starting hand ought to be lands (or two lands and a cheap-to-cast rock like Arcane Signet, Boros Signet or Sol Ring). It is recommended not to start a game without this hand (even if one has to mulligan down to three cards). The ideal hand would also contain some ramp like Land Tax or low-cost draw options like Sensei's Divining Top.

Early game

During the game’s first phase it’s recommended to start with a bit of resource-build, followed immediately by bringing forth the army’s primary protector, the Akroan god Iroas *list*. Some resources were already mentioned in the previous section, but one could additionally use cheapeners like Ballyrush Banneret, Daru Warchief, Herald's Horn, Pearl Medallion, Ruby Medallion or Urza's Incubator. Ramp in the form of Weathered Wayfarer could also be handy. For much needed additional draw, one can turn to cheap stuff like Esper Sentinel, Idol of Oblivion or Mentor of the Meek.

Once basic resources are in place, get some basic soldiers online. Some interesting ones to start with that can solidify one’s resilience and battlefield position easily, would be creatures like Aegis of the Gods, Intrepid Hero, Swiftblade Vindicator or Tajic, Legion's Edge. This early, one can also start to summon early soldier-generators to quickly increase the deck’s available combat force. Great starters in that sense are cards like Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, Baird, Argivian Recruiter, Brimaz, King of Oreskos, Horn of Gondor, Precinct Captain or Skyknight Vanguard.

Mid-game

With Iroas, resources and a small squad of soldiers on the battlefield, it’s time to get some of the heavier, harder-striking resources available and start some serious attacks. The options during this phase ought to come in four flavors; boosters, token generators, protectors and non-combat damage dealers. The most powerful boosters during this phase, would be cards like Cathars' Crusade, Commander Mustard, Enduring Courage, Field Marshal, Goldnight Commander, Legion Loyalist, Mirror Entity or Odric, Lunarch Marshal. More powerful soldier-generators, that would be apt to summon by this point, could be cards like Assemble the Legion, Darien, King of Kjeldor, Elspeth, Storm Slayer, Hero of Bladehold or Myrel, Shield of Argive.

To protect all these wonderful combatants, one can also apply some protection. These can be cards like Dolmen Gate (only if Iroas is incapacitated for some reason), Frontline Medic, Knight-Captain of Eos or Myrel, Shield of Argive. While keeping one’s own forces safe, it’s also possible to apply some non-combat damage to the opponents’ forces, or even against the literal opponents themselves. For this, one can use Arabella, Abandoned Doll, Magmaquake, Purphoros, God of the Forge, Starstorm or Warleader's Call.

End-game

Finishing games is mostly done through a continuation of attacks with ever larger numbers of soldiers at one’s call, though should some particularly devastating hammer blows be required, one could look to deploy cards like Lightning, Army of One or an over-powered boosting permanent like Akroma's Memorial or maybe True Conviction. A decent army on the field combined with a well-timed casting of Akroma's Will is also perfectly able to end an opponent or two.

Card Choices

Lands

Reliable sources of mana, and some utility:

• Ancient TombGC: one of the strongest lands to start games with, even though its use does exact a heavy toll.
• Arid Mesa/Flooded Strand/Marsh Flats/Windswept Heath/Wooded Foothills: the lands used to filter through the deck, which enables finding cards that matter to the deck’s strategy quicker.
• Cavern of Souls: making it easier to have soldier-souls arrive on the battlefield.
• Command Tower/Mana Confluence/Reflecting Pool: great all-color mana lands that have very few disadvantages in their use.
• Clifftop Retreat/Plateau/Rugged Prairie/Sacred Foundry/Spectator Seating/Temple of Triumph: lands that provide Boros mana, that depending on circumstances enter the battlefield tapped or untapped. The best MTG has to offer on this front have been incorporated.
• Mikokoro, Center of the Sea: provides draw (for everyone) at a cheap price.
• Slayers' Stronghold: provides haste and other bonuses to (newly arrived) creatures.

Mana and ramp

The cards used to accelerate mana-availability:

• Arcane Signet: one of the easiest, all-color mana sources in existence; standard equipment in many EDH decks.
• Ballyrush Banneret: cheapens all the deck’s soldier spells.
• Boros Signet: sweet mana rock that provides Boros mana.
• Daru Warchief: boosts all soldiers on the field and cheapens their casting.
• Land Tax: makes it much easier to keep pace with decks that feature green and/or ramp faster.
• Pearl Medallion/Ruby Medallion: cheapens all the deck’s colored spells.
• Smothering TitheGC: so much Treasure from one of the best white enchantments ever.
• Sol Ring: the most ubiquitous mana-rock in EDH decks.
• Urza's Incubator: greatly reduces the casting cost of all soldiers.
• Weathered Wayfarer: tutors for any land when one’s behind on land count.

Card Advantage

The mechanisms that provide card advantage:

• Enduring Innocence: soldier tokens entering the battlefield allows this deck to draw.
• Enlightened TutorGC: great way to find a useful non-creature permanent that can provide more resources, tokens or boosts.
• Esper Sentinel: casting non-creature spells just became taxed, in the sense that whenever an opponent does that, this deck gets to draw.
• Herald's Horn: top-decking soldiers and cast them at reduced cost.
• Idol of Oblivion: this deck makes it easy to create soldier tokens, which allows its controller to draw based on that.
• Mentor of the Meek: with a little additional mana, a weenie entering the battlefield comes with some draw.
• Mind's Eye: you draw? Then this allows draw.
• Sensei's Divining Top: top-of-the-line filtering-mechanism.
• Slate of Ancestry: based on the presence of a whole squad of soldiers operational, drawing cards is going to be pretty spectacular.

Boosters and Tokens

Ways to make soldiers much more formidable:

• Akroma's Memorial: massively powerful abilities for all the deck’s creatures.
• Akroma's Will: casting this while having a (moderately) large army of soldiers on the battlefield basically equals good-game.
• Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon: why should one only create soldiers? Gnomes can be fun too and the fact that Anim himself can just sit there and generate them as a result of others attacking is just hilarious.
• Anointed Procession: every token soldier comes with a free brother or sister.
• Assemble the Legion: a clarion call sounds, the city-doors swing open and out they pour; armed to the teeth and ready to lay it on the line for the city’s defense. And every one of them, serves as an example for the many more that will follow.
• Baird, Argivian Recruiter: once they’ve shown that they’ve gained some battle-experience, he’ll move on to train the next batch of recruits.
• Brimaz, King of Oreskos: the ruler that proves cats can be wonderful soldiers.
• Cathars' Crusade: as the phalanx increases in size, it drastically increases in strength as all soldiers gain a moral boost from fighting amongst ever more of their comrades. This card works exceedingly well with many of the token generators in this deck.
• Darien, King of Kjeldor: that next incoming attack had better finish this deck off, or the next turn is going to be very painful for its opponents.
• Delney, Streetwise Lookout: makes loads of the deck’s creatures much harder to block, but even more significantly he doubles the effectiveness of a massive number of triggered abilities.
• Elspeth, Storm Slayer: acts as both a token generator as well as a booster, which is spectacularly powerful. She can even perform point-removal! One of the strongest planeswalkers ever created.
• Enduring Courage: an insane power-booster, especially when the deck has gained the possibility to generate tokens in larger numbers.
• Field Marshal: ensures that the members of the phalanx can always strike first!
• Goldnight Commander: he provides a one-time boost per turn, but it’s still so massively powerful once one starts generating tokens in earnest.
• Greymond, Avacyn's Stalwart: massive ability as well as power/toughness boosts for humans in this deck.
• Hero of Bladehold: she never comes at them alone!
• Horn of Gondor: this deck mostly consists of humans, so if this enters the field during the late- or mid-game, it’s can have some incredible token-generation potential.
• Knight-Captain of Eos: if one has enough soldiers (and a bit of white mana in reserve), one can basically become completely immune to combat damage.
• Legion Loyalist: hell of a booster; potentially only a one-time deal depending on when in games one uses him, but still.
• Lightning, Army of One: an extremely capable combatant by herself but outdoes herself by ensuring everyone that damages stuff after her deals twice the amount they’d normally deal.
• Mirror Entity: with enough available mana (which doesn’t need to be all that much), this is a severe boosting-threat against almost any defensive (or attacking) force.
• Myrel, Shield of Argive: she’s a Grand Abolisher and Horn of Gondor rolled into one; perhaps even worse because her soldier-generating ability doesn’t require an activation cost (aside from her attacking).
• Precinct Captain: hitting an enemy can be very inspiring to aspiring soldiers.
• Skyknight Vanguard: look up in the sky! It’s our allies! Quick, they’re distracted; now is our chance to hit them where it hurts!
• Tajic, Legion's Edge: he will take one for the team; maybe even a hundred. As long as the team remains intact, he doesn’t mind.
• True Conviction: soldiers hitting them once is bad enough (for them). But also, always hitting them first, and then hitting them again while providing life-points to their controller each time is almost too painful to contemplate.
• Windcrag Siege: plenty of triggers will go off when creatures attack, so why not double them?

Non-combat damage and other interaction

Non-soldier ways to destroy stuff.

• Arabella, Abandoned Doll: depending how large an army of weenies one has, she will deal a considerable amount of damage whenever she attacks.
• Commander Mustard: the army will already deal damage before it can even come into contact; not to mention they’ll gain massive abilities from this commander.
• Deflecting Swat: a spell that was directed at something suddenly finds itself receiving a major course-correction.
• Heliod's Intervention: one of the few ways in which this deck can get rid of opposing enchantments and artifacts.
• Intrepid Hero: opposing brawn is in serious trouble with this guy around.
• Magmaquake/Martial Coup/Starstorm: get destroyed (preferably while one’s own force is still well-protected from harm by Iroas)!
• Path to Exile/Swords to Plowshares: what one cannot destroy, can still be exiled.
• Purphoros, God of the Forge: every soldier entering the battlefield on this side, acts as the conductor of our god’s thunder hammer.
• Warleader's Call: boosts one’s soldiers and deals some damage whenever new ones appear.

Protection and Utility

The methods one can use to ensure all eventualities are covered.

• Aegis of the Gods: an in-theme creature that protects the deck’s controller from all manner of targeted spells that force discards, sacrifice or cause other manners of pain.
• Dolmen Gate/Frontline Medic: redundance for Iroas’ most powerful ability.
• Swiftblade Vindicator: a simple soldier with nasty abilities that gets noticeably powerful when even the tiniest bits of improvements are made to his power/toughness scores.

Thank you for reading!

Appreciate the time you took to read this description. Hopefully it was entertaining and useful to you. If so, feel free to leave a +1 and/or feedback of any kind in the comments below. Thanks again!

Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	21 - 0 Mythic Rares 53 - 0 Rares 11 - 0 Uncommons 2 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.00
Tokens	Cat Soldier 1/1 W, Eldrazi 10/10 C, Eldrazi Horror 3/2 C, Gnome 1/1 C, Goblin 1/1 R, Human Soldier 1/1 W, Soldier, Soldier 1/1 RW, Soldier 1/1 W, Treasure