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How about druids that got banned? Avenging Druid threw card upon card into the grave for a deck that reanimated Sutured Ghoul and attacked for a nasty win. His so called “carelessness” got him banned in the pre-rotated Extended. With the mana acceleration and cards in Extended at the time, the deck was crazy. You may know it’s post-banning form as Cephilid-Breakfast, a deck that used en-Kor creatures and Cephilid Illusionist to do the same thing as Avenging Druid. The deck was so good that they replaced 1 card with two other cards, in two different colors, and it was still good! Druids have always loved power. If you really want to, take a good hard look at some of the Threshold decks in Legacy: our friend the Werebear takes special place in some forms that deck comes up with. The one thing Druids like more than anything though, is enchantments, especially Auras. Enchantress decks in Extended were like those bullies that had different class schedules. You never saw much of them, but when you did, there was trouble. Consistently, Enchantress’ Presence, Argothian Enchantress and Verduran Enchantress, would, with the help of a few Aura cards, turn a helpless little Birds of Paradise into a 21/22 flying attacker. It was a deck that thrived on the “What in world?” factor, and did well as a Rogue deck. (See Tynion’s latest article about the wide world of Rogue. It’s a good read, I promise.) While Enchantress in Extended played with a lot of rares, I’ve gone ahead and built it as a budget deck for your Druids-week viewing pleasure! It’s more of a beatdown version, but I think you’ll find it quite pleasing. Minus 4 copies of Ancestral Mask and the addition of some other good enchantments, the deck is perfectly T2 legal. Let’s take a look.
The deck works by playing out a creature that’s either hard to block or can deal damage as if it wasn’t blocked, and then using Auras to make him really big and let him do the whole “HULK SMASH!” thing on your opponent. You try to start early by dropping Sakura-Tribe Elders and Treetop Scouts and prepare for the late game. Verduran Enchantress comes into play and then helps by refilling your hand every time you play an enchantment. Try to get him in your opening hand; it will make your late game considerably easier. Finally, Ancestral Mask and Blanchwood Armor act as finishers, letting your little men hit for big damage. There isn’t anything more satisfying then letting your Treetop Scout attack for lethal damage… well, there are a lot of other things, but I don’t have the time to go over them all. Rawr!
Things to Remember 1) Lone Wolf deals damage as if it wasn’t blocked. By this I mean that although it can be blocked and die to lethal damage, it can just decide to deal damage to a player as though it wasn’t blocked. This is a great way to get that damage through if your opponent has flying creatures and Treetop Scout won’t work out for you. 2) Be versatile with your Auras. If your opponent is playing a lot of removal, try to spread out your Auras instead of focusing them all on one creature so that you don’t loose all those cards to one kill spell. It’s not good policy to loose three or four cards to one of your opponent’s cards. 3) Magemarks give all enchanted creatures you control bonuses. This is especially good if you need to react to a large amount of creatures or lots of removal. Any creature you control that’s enchanted will be boosted by the Magemarks, which make them really handy. Suggestions for Card Additions If you want to drop the money for them, the old favorite common from Urza’s Block, Rancor, could be a major asset to this deck. For one green mana you get +2/+0 and trample that keeps on coming back over and over again. Talk about a nice investment! If you ever do decide to purchase the Rancors, I guarantee that they’ll see play in many decks to come. Also from the Urza’s block is Argothian Enchantress, a girl that does everything Verduran Enchantress can for a lot less mana. She’s worth a look into if you feel you need to get more draw for your mana, and if you’re willing to get on buy her from one of MDV's advertisers. If you’re looking into blue, may I suggest Mark of Eviction? It’ll let you play your Galvanic Arcs, and well, actually all the Auras on a creature over again, letting you get even more card draws. And, in a pinch, it can be used to bounce your opponent’s creatures, so you never know when something like that may come in handy. To splash blue, check out cards like Birds of Paradise or another if you want to grab Auras from all colors, another favorite card of mine, Joiner Adept. If you want another Druid for the deck, check out Fugitive Druid. Every time you target him with an Aura card, you get to draw a card. With a Verduran or Argothian Enchantress out, that’s two cards drawn for each Aura! Not a bad idea, in my humble opinion.
**As a quick side note, I just want you all to know that I haven’t forgotten about the contest I ran way back when. Finals has been keeping me from writing the results, but since I have some free time now, I’ll be able to get it done and sent to Streetz for your viewing pleasure!** (YAY! I want to see how my deck scores. -evil grin- ~Streetz~) Let's have a little talk. Now that that’s taken care of, let’s have a little talk. No, not THAT talk. We’re going to talk about Odyssey. Odyssey was full of druids. Druids were everywhere! The Nantuko started showing up in force, and things were good. But, are we going to use a druid from ODY in this next deck? NO! Well, kinda. I bring Odyssey up because Odyssey was the graveyard matters block, and with graveyard matters, you get… THRESHOLD!!! Imagine my surprise when I look through the Gatherer and discover… gasp!, a blue and green druid!
That’s right, it’s Wood Sage, with the uncanny ability to find you the creature you need and dump a lot of cards in the graveyard. Threshold anyone? Let’s take a look at the deck.
You start out with early small critters like Nimble Mongoose and Werebear. As soon you get Wood Sage and Sensei’s Divining Top, start looking for creature cards, and start dumping things into the grave. Trinket Mage has been added to make sure you can get a copy of the Top. After you hit threshold, the fun begins. Everything gets a lot bigger really quickly, and you get to go into beatdown mode. Wood Sage becomes a tutor instead of a Threshold enabler as you try to pound through those 20 points of damage. Things to Remember 2) Watch your library size. This deck mills itself out really quickly. Make sure you pay attention to your library size so you don’t Wood Sage yourself out of the game. 3) No-one has trample. Prepare for chump blocking, because it will happen frequently. You’re going to have to just beat through all the defenses your opponent can throw up to win. 4) Resist the urge to play too many creatures. Don’t overextend your hand! If you think your opponent may have Pyroclasm or Wrath of God hiding in his hand, hold back on playing all those creatures, and just wait it out. Use only what you need to win, don’t try to get all flashy or you might end up getting beat. Suggestions for Card Additions Some sort of finisher might be nice for this deck, so Overrun is my first suggestion for a card addition. Not only does it give +3/+3, it removes that nasty chump blocking problem so that you can get through with all that damage. Reminisce might be a good choice if someone in your group wants to play mill cards. Other ideas in this area would be Krosan Reclamation if you’re just looking to put dropped creatures back into your deck.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Next week, (hopefully) we’re going to have the contest results for you, plus a brand new deck for you to check out for your casual night. Death_By_Beebles If you have a supposed junk or dollar rare that you would like Death_By_Beebles to cover in Raiding the Dollar Bins, contact him at : deathbybeebles@yahoo.com I’d love to see what you guys are capable of coming up with. You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here. Most Popular
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Magic
Deck Vortex is trying something new, different and exciting. Druid’s week is a
week dedicated to all those little tree-hugging forest keepers that we love. The
strange thing is, these little guys and their cards have made some of the most
interesting decks in Magic history. You can’t ever forget one of the staples of
1/1 mana producers; Llanowar Elves. That’s right, in 9th Edition, he got a
little bit of a change, and became a Druid Elf, following R&D’s plan to make
each creature a better fit flavor-wise. And who can forget the Nantuko from
Odyssey block? Although most of them are Druids, their Shade brother caused
quite a stir in T2 and Block Constructed tournaments. And, although it isn’t
technically a druid, Oath of Druids from the oh-so-broken Urza’s Block caused a
major stir in the pre-rotation Extended format for quite some time.
Poor
Poor Enchantress. 
That's
Not How We Talk to Wood Sage. 
1)
Frantic Search untaps any three lands. Frantic search not only acts as a
Threshold enabler, but it also untaps three lands. So, if you draw into a
Chlorophant and you’ve tapped down all your forests already, untap those instead
of the islands you used to play the Search.
