I use the following ten parameters to determine the strength of the deck. For each, I allocate a score of 5 (very good), 4 (good), 3 (mediocre), 2 (bad) or 1 (very bad); when totalized this score represents the power rating of the deck (maximum score is 50 points).
- Mana: indicates the availability of mana 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.
Mana: 5
Luckily, my commander is a fantastic mana-dork herself and due to her guild-affiliation she also has access to a choice cut of the best mana providers out there. Five additional dorks, four mana-doublers and five excellent mana-rocks provide additional energy-generation support. A number of the chosen cards have been added specifically because they’re more effective when applied to fueling X-spells.
Ramp: 3
When a deck features green (or white), land-fetching suddenly becomes a very feasible option to quickly increase my land-count. This deck features six such options; one of them actually generates lands instead of fetching them.
Card Advantage: 2
This game cannot be played very effectively unless once every so often, one gets the opportunity to draw some more cards than one per turn. So some cards have been included to grant that option; four direct draw-, three ETB/LTB draw and one tutor.
Overall speed: 4
As Rosheen usually makes her appearance by turn three, the deck’s X-spells will start to become effective during this time as well. No matter whether this involves angry looking hydras or devastating damage spells; the opposition will be in for a bad time. Before this happens however, there’s plenty of resourcing available that can be applied in many, simple ways that makes this deck’s speed above average.
Combo: 1
Just a few minor combos; nothing super significant.
Army: 3
Though this deck’s army is not particularly large, well over half its creature-power depends completely on +1/+1 counters. Thus the creatures we do put onto the field, have a chance of being (or becoming) extraordinary large and thereby powerful. The army also features some great utility functions including mana enhancement, artifact/enchantment destruction and life-gain.
Commander: 4
I really enjoy having Rosh on the battlefield, as the mana she provides is excellent and can be doubled easily within this deck (or even tripled in some cases). However, she’s not instrumental for victory perse as there’s more resources where she came from. However, she is dependable and especially during the early game grants me significant energy advantage over the opposition.
Interaction: 1
One of the deck’s weaknesses. It does have a few minor destruction options and some non-combat pinging, but that’s about it.
Resilience: 2
The deck doesn’t really feature much that provides staying-power. Mostly, it just focuses on dealing as much damage as I possible fast. It does contain some ways that prevent the opposition from countering spells, some hexproof, a bit of regeneration and even a little life-gain has been added.
Spellpower: 5
Heeeell yes! Spell-power galore! Obviously there’s a nice number of non-combat damage spells in here (twelve cards) along with some awesome mana doublers (three spells) and a smattering of others (including some decent destruction stuff).
Total power score: 30
Granted, this deck needs a little room to operate, which can be tricky as it doesn’t have that many defensive measures available. When it does have this room though, even a little bit, it can come at you hard with creatures and spells that will be tough to match by other decks. Its army is moderately sized but lethal and its spells are powerful damage dealers that in some cases can end games outright.
