Lands:
4 Battlefield Forge
10 Mountain
3 New Benalia
6 Plains
Creatures:
3 Adder-Staff Boggart
4 Flamekin Harbinger
1 Hostility
2 Nova Chaser
3 Orcish Librarian
1 Purity
4 Sentry Oak
4 Springjack Knight
1 Squall Drifter
Other Spells:
2 Dolmen Gate
2 Entangling Trap
4 Lash Out
3 Pollen Lullaby
3 Rebellion of the Flamekin |
  Clash
and Burn.
Description of deck by its author
(quoted):
 Considering that there have been only 20 cards
with the clash ability ever printed in the history of the world, we have
a relatively high number of build-around-clash cards to go with them:
Sylvan Echoes, Entangling Trap, and Rebellion of the Flamekin. Of these,
Sylvan Echoes seems like the most difficult to use, since it not only
depends on frequent clashing to be truly worthwhile, but you have to
actually win those clashes as well. The other two enchantments are much
less demanding. Sure, you will need to come out on top in your clashes
for them to reach their maximum potential. Even if you don't win,
though, you still get a pretty nice reward for the clash alone.
Entangling Trap taps down a creature, but it has the potential to lock
it down for a whole extra turn. Rebellion of the Flamekin, meanwhile,
gives you a 3/1 Elemental Shaman token for a single mana, but the token
has haste if you won the clash. Winning the clashes is nice, but it's
like icing on the cake as long as you are clashing enough. For this
reason, I'm going to use these two enchantments instead of Sylvan
Echoes.
Most of the clash cards we've seen so far have been
one-shots. You play your spell, you clash, end of story. To get the most
out of these enchantments, you'll want to clash as much as possible.
Both Springjack Knight and Sentry Oak allow you to do so once each turn.
The Knight triggers a clash whenever he attacks, and the Oak does the
same at the beginning of combat. Conveniently, they share a colour with
Entangling Trap and they even form a bit of a combo. If you win the
Sentry Oak's clash, it seems likely that you will also win the
Springjack Knight's. Depending on your opponent's blocking options, you
can choose which creature would benefit most from the double strike. For
max damage, you can crack for 10 with a double striking Oak. To keep
your Knight alive against a one- or two-power creature, let him have the
double strike all to himself. Entangling Trap can dramatically narrow
your opponent's range of choices.
To increase your chances of clashing successfully,
there are a number of tools you can use. For this deck, I decided on
Flamekin Harbinger, which can fetch Rebellion of the Flamekin (it's a
tribal enchantment — Elemental) or put a relatively expensive card like
Hostility or Purity on top of your library. It can also fetch the
forgotten Elemental, Coldsnap's Squall Drifter, as well as Nova Chaser.
If you can increase your odds of winning a clash, Nova Chaser can hit
for the full 20 with Springjack Knight. The other way to make the
necessary adjustments to your library is to use the conveniently "timeshifted"
Orcish Librarian. New Benalia offers some help in this regard as well.
Lash Out is basically a no-brainer. Pollen Lullaby is
decent as well, a white Tangle if your clash is a success. I want to use
Dolmen Gate because it allows me to attack with my Springjack Knights
and Nova Chasers without worrying about losing them in combat. The Gate
provides some strong incentives to attack with everybody each turn, and
Pollen Lullaby helps to neutralize possible counterattacks.
There are other ways to clash every turn, but you
might have to leave Standard to do so. Putting Lash Out or Pollen
Lullaby on an Isochron Scepter seems pretty exciting, and if you're
going to do that, you might try Judge Unworthy and Magma Jet as well. |
