|
Home Decks Combos Articles Visual Spoilers Features Art Links Search BLOG Forum |
|
|
|
Greetings! Today we are going to look at the Boros Legion and what we can do to break them! For those of you who are fans of Mr. Salazar's Building on a Budget column over on magicthegathering.com, you will see that my column is quite the same as his is in theory! I love Pre-con decks and what we can do with them. That and he is my idol... so I figured I'd start off with the deck I think he should have done first. Enter the Boros Guild! We begin out journey to enlightenment with the basic deck which looks like this:
At first glance it is easy to notice that the deck is big on creatures and combat tricks, so it's definitely meant for beatdown, and aggro at that. Hmm... how to begin? Well, I guess I should play test this bad boy, right? I’m way ahead of myself already! Oh I suppose I should make sure we all understand the guidelines I will be using this for. Being that I play casual almost all the time, granted under T2 rules, I am going to be using only T2 cards and only stuff that is fun and allows for major flexibility, not just "ok lets have 4 char and 4 helix and umm like 4 sunforgers and ooo how bout those nice dual lands!" You'll find none of that here, although you can expect the final version to utilize a 4 Battlefield forge, because they are actually not as hard to get as you’d think. Ok now that that’s out of the way, let’s get testing! 1st Test Run(Mike and Chad) Okay I utilize my friends Mike and Chad as playtesters for my decks. They have a collection as broad and they know what they’re doing…I think! Ok so game one was vs. Mike.
This was a fun game although it was rocky for both of us at the start. Turn 1 left me with few options as I had kept a hand of 3 land(mountain, plains, Sunhome), Boros Recruit, Argus, and a helix. I dropped the mountain and played the recruit, he played forest, Llanowar. Turn 2 I played plains and attacked with the recruit 1 damage to him. He responded with another forest and a another Llanowar.(hmm mana accel?) followed by a Guildmage.I quickly helixed the Guildmage at the end of his turn. I drew another mountain and played it, then attacked with the recruit again only this time he double blocked it. His next turn was the end, he played a plains and cast his Watchwolf and Birds of Paradise(bop). After that I drew some more land and didn’t get anything helpful at all. Game 1 to Mike. Game 2 vs Chad’s RB Ogre & Demon Chad was ready to go for game 2 and he played his RB Ogre & Demon deck. Ok this was gonna be hard no matter how I looked at it. He had pure synergy with his well tuned tournament winning deck. I asked him to not play it…he didn’t listen. Turn one I got war torch and mountain into play, he played a swamp and a Genju of the Fens on it. I was like "ok that’s easy enough to kill later"…wrong *lol*. I played a plains and a Swiftblade and attacked with the Goblin. He responded, on his turn, with a Sulfurous Springs casting a Raving Oni Slave, taking the 3 life. I drew my Sunforger!! Played it and he played a mountain and decided to shatter it! A few turns of standstill and he played his Yakora, the Prisoner and stomped over me with it and his 3 ogres he controlled. I felt helpless as I didn’t draw any helixes or creatures higher than a 1/1. 2 losses so far Game 3 vs Mike’s White Weenie deck I figured I had a shot here and I was right, Turn 1 Recruit. Turn 2 Swiftblade. Turn 3 Skyknight Legionnaire! First Strike ended the game quickly, and Rally the Righteous was the overkill on turn 8 when I killed his Hand of Honor with a helix and swept into victory with the Rally. Win #1!
Game 4 vs Chad’s green spirit deck He modified the Spiritcraft Pre-con from betrayers and got a big combo oriented deck utilizing only green spirits. Turn 1 was my Terrarion, he played forest and Traproot Kami. Turn 2 I played Viashino Slasher and a mountain. He plopped down an Okina, Temple to the Grandfathers and brought out a Child of Thorns and a Hana Kami. I played my plains and droped down a Skyknight using the Terrarion for some card drawing which helped greatly as I drew my first Helix that I would soon need. He responded with another forest and a Kodama’s Reach netting him 2 forests. He kept getting good cards from here, he grabbed Arashi, The Sky Asunder and Ayumi, The Last Visitor and well, that was that. He stomped me quickly after round six rolled around. Loss number three. Record: 1-3. Lets Fix It Up! Ok, so as I can tell from the games I played, albeit that they were not incredibly varied, I found that my weaknesses are most defiantly big creatures and well, SPEED! This deck is quick at first glance but it isn’t reliable enough yet to really win any games consistently. So then lets get to the cards that I think need to be gone. Removing- 2 Boros
Garrison
Removing- 1 Cyclopean
Snare I have been incredibly impressed by the usefulness of Terrarion since Ravnica’s initial realease when I played in the pre-release tourney. The snare is just bad, and I really see no use for it. Tapping something is great, last time I checked though, bouncing your own artifact into your hand was a really blue idea and not red or white, so I’m not sure why it is here. Poof! Bye-bye useless card.
The Viashino Slasher is great if you have some sort of way to pump its defense but being that it’ll usually be a 1/2 that maxes at 2/1 it really isn’t worth keeping around. The Guildmage however, is a hybrid card, maximizes the potential of creatures like Ordunn Commando and Greater Forgeling, and can give any one of your creatures first strike or haste as early as turn 3 is awesome I will probably add another after another round of testing. Removing- 1
Screeching Griffin, 1 Thundersong Trumpeter The Griffin and the Trumpeters are cards I don’t typically like, while having a flier is cool, one lonely flier is not really worth the trouble playing and 2 trumpeters seems to be plenty as they have not had a major influence on my games thus far. The Swiftblade, however, has had a tremendous affect on the outcome of every game I’ve played and double strike is amazing with just a single +1/+1. They are defiantly the most valuable asset the deck has along with the helixes. So here is the deck as it stands now:
I’ll be taking advice from the site’s users on the boards indirectly, I will not respond to the topic, although I may PM a user about an idea if I find it intriguing enough to use. So by all means feel free to parallel my article in the forum and to make any suggestions as I am still new to the Ravnica set and may have missed a few cards. So to everyone out there, have a wonderful week! Keep Hitchin’ a ride with: You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular
Articles of 2005 | |||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Charge
of the Boros V1.0. 
Game1
vs Mike’s Selesnya Token deck:
I
realized that these bounce lands are just not good enough for constructed in any
way shape or form, at least being that it kills the tempo and leaves you
helpless for a full turn when you could be burning your opponent with a helix
and giving yourself some extra life. I may go in the burn/control direction with
this deck, although its primary focus will be on the creatures as it is most
defiantly what the deck was originally made to be. Or maybe not, I’ll look for
some feedback from the users here before I make that decision.
Removing-
2 Viashino Slasher