Put on top of this, the fact that you'll likely combo these artifacts with enchantments, and enchantment hate being at an all-time low, this is another advantage to the decks strategy. A deck might have shatter effects, or they might have disenchant effects, but they won't have both. If you have 8 anthem-enchantments/planeswalkers, and 16-30 artifacts, a sideboard plan of 4x nature's claim just isn't going to cut it to stop your plan.
There are a couple main themes I could see pursuing:
WHITE: Tempered Steel, Myrsmith, Ajani Goldmane, Dispatch
Ajani and Tempered Steel are solid anthem effects, pumping your little guys. I'd give the nod to Tempered Steel in general, since Vigilance is not amazing, and Ajani basically only has one ability (-1) for this deck, making him somewhat more limited, especially as we drive the "theme" of the deck. He does pump our non-artifact guys, but I'd rather "double up", at -1 casting cost.
Dispatch is superb removal. If we build the deck "right", it's very close to a Swords to Plowshares, debatably the #1 white card of all time, if some reliable sources are to be believed. It is almost certainly the best removal spell we'd have access to.
Myrsmith is not amazing, but it provides a stream of artifact guys, so it is definitely worth keeping in the back of our minds at least.
BLUE: Grand Architect, Mana Leak, Trinket Mage, Treasure Mage
Grand Architect is the main seller here, and it combines fairly well with Treasure Mage to pump out the larger end of the artifact creature scale. (Wurmcoil, Battlesphere, Myr Superion) If we are "going big", the anthem effects are not as big a deal. Grand Architect's anthem effect is probably better than Ajani, just because it will induce more screw-ups.
Mana Leak is among the worse "removal" spells, but it is a reasonable answer to sweepers, or the big planeswalkers (Gideon, Jace) that wreck an aggro player's day. Trinket Mage is okay, but obviously dependant on having quite a few 0's and 1's that are great. (Hex Parasite?)
GREEN: Beastmaster Ascension, Garruk
Both of these provide a sort of anthem effect, both are fairly lethal. I'd give the edge to BMA, because:
1) It's less green, easier to splash off less duals. (more room for utility lands)
2) It's cheaper, easier to play in our aggro deck.
3) It's immune to non-enchantment removal, unlike Garruk.
4) Creating green blockers is at an all-time low in terms of usefulness.
Colored Artifacts:
Colored artifacts don't have any advantage in this deck. In fact, they probably have a disadvantage, because they are potentially non-immune to the effects we'd otherwise ignore. However, the reason they are colored is that they have Phyrexian mana in their mana costs, which means we (the aggro deck), can throw away life (a resource we care less about) in order to get improved stats. That's something at least. However, with a swarm-aggro strategy, we care less about the individual stats on our creatures, and more about how many of them there are.
A few of them stand out above the others: Vault Skirge, Phyrexian Metamorph, and Porcelan Legionairre
The white creature is a 3-power first-striker for 2, which is fairly impressive. Unfortunately, the things it is blocking are going to tend to be 3/4, or 3/3 flyers.
The Blue option gives some uniqueness. It copies most any non-anthem effect in the deck, which could be great. A standard clone has never been so cheap as this.
Artifact Guys:
0: Memnite, Ornithopter
1: Signal Pest, Hex Parasite,
2: Glint Hawk Idol, Gold Myr, Necropede, Ichorclaw Myr, Perilous Myr, Phyrexian Revoker, Steel Overseer, Myr Superion
3: Myr Galvinizer, Myr Propotagor, Origin Spellbomb, Etched Champion, Palladium Myr
4: Lodestone Golem, Molten-Tail Masticore
5: Precursor Golem
6: Thopter Assembly, Wurmcoil Engine
7: Myr Battlesphere
Artifact Token Generators: (Not already mentioned)
Master's Call
Myr Turbine
Shrine of the Loyal Legions
Since I love me some midrange, I'd be headed towards Lodestone, Battlesphere, Wurmcoil, Glint Hawk Idol, and the like. Unfortunately, that pushes me more towards Blue, to power them out, rather than the Green I initially planned, for 8x anthem.
For combo, the Metamorph gives you some double-ups on the 2xGalvinizer + Palladium(or 2x small myr) infinite mana combo.
For pure aggro, there are definately some aggressively costed creatures. As you edge into BMA, Myrsmith, Master's Call, and the like become more plausible.
This definitely needs some more thought. Whether it is better or worse than a "standard" Green-based Beastmaster Ascension list, I don't know. I definitely like the idea of having 8 anthems. Whether you can reliably turn the BMA on though, I am not sure.
What do you think?
No comments:
Post a Comment