Welcome ladies and gentlemen to the third article of the series, Vanguard: Across the Formats!

Those readers who have read either of the first two of these articles will be aware that the purpose of this article is to lift the illusion surrounding Vanguard; that it exists only as a standalone format. The beauty of Vanguard is that it is a Format enhancer; the rules can be applied to nearly any other format!

Each article I will take two random Vanguard cards or Avatars; meaning I will cover the original cards and the new online versions, as well as a random Magic format, and I will create a deck for each for your viewing pleasure. I do this with the hope that more people will be drawn to this unique and interesting rules format.

Prior to typing out this article I made use of the “paper and hat” method in order to choose two different avatars and a format. And I have to say, these ones caused me a few sleepless nights!

+

2HG: Two Decks are better than one!

Wow, now isn’t that one for the books – we’re going to format enhance a format enhancer! As most of you are no doubt aware by now, two-headed giant can be applied to any other format; much the same as Vanguard itself.

For those not in the know and those whose memory just isn’t what it used to be, here are the simple, scaled-down version rules for 2HG:

• Players play in teams of two: Each player has a separate deck but each player in a team shares a life total.
• Teams act at the same time: Partner, Partner, Opponent, and Opponent, repeat.
• If one player plays a card stating “You win”, their team wins the game. If a player plays a card that states “You Lose” or “Target player loses the game”, only the indicated player is removed from the game and play continues as a 2vs1 game.
• Control in terms of effects belongs to the player, not the team.
• Either player may block attacks directed at their team.
• Deck formats follow the format that 2HG has been applied to: Standard, Extended, Vintage, etc

Because I have a deep-rooted hatred for banned/restricted lists and prefer to rely on “sportsmanship”, as it were, I will be building these decks in what I consider to be the Casual Format: Anything but the Moxen and THE Lotus.

So back to our current match up; our avatar has a nice, balanced pump at the cost of one card in hand size. But considering we’re being given 12 additional hit points I think we can let that bit slide.

Now you see, the aim in 2HG is to have the two decks create some kind of synergy – a system by which they can aid one another – and since this avatar has an ability that targets, we’re already halfway there; but we also need to have a deck that can hold its own if need be.

And doesn’t pump just scream Green to you?

The Concept

Since we have pump as an on-hand ability, I suggest we use it; but to do that we need some mana to play around with and big creatures, preferably with trample… seems like we’ve come back to the realm of Green here, doesn’t it?

Before I explain the above deck, I need to confess something to you that most forum goers will already know of me: I am a combo junky. If a deck doesn’t have a combo or at least some interesting synergy it has no appeal to me.

Right, with that bit over with let’s get back to the deck. The aim of the deck is to drop a Brawn into the graveyard either through a Dawnstrider or through natural selection of combat damage/spells and abilities. Once you’ve done this you then want to ramp up your mana base as quickly as possible and start dropping multiple Wurm tokens into play.

Building mana in this deck is easy; with Explorations allowing for more than one land drop a turn, and that much love-hated Harrow pulling obscene numbers of lands out of your deck with some help from Civic Wayfinder and Eternal Witness. Even the Stampeding Wildebeests make some use of themselves, bouncing Witnesses back into your hand to recover those much-needed land pulls (or even sacrificed lands).

But wait, here’s the really nice part: Infinite mana! Here’s how it works: With either Fertile Ground or Heartbeat of Spring in play, along with Earthcraft and Doubling Season, you play a Squirrel Nest on any other land. Now you can tap the Squirrel Nest land to produce two tokens, which you then use to activate Earthcraft on the Squirrel-Nest-Land and the land enchanted with Fertile Ground. Repeat as much as you like; as the abilities on Earthcraft and Squirrel Nest are optional, meaning the combo is not an infinite loop.

Now before all you nay-sayers start bombarding me with PMs and emails saying “A four card combo, man that’s lame!” I would like to take this moment to point out that this combo is actually a by-product of a few ideas that were running through my head at the time.

Squirrel Nest and Earthcraft have another use in this deck; on their own they create infinite tokens at any time. What this means is, at the end of your opponent’s turn you could create more squirrels than he could ever block and they would untap and be ready to attack during your turn! Throw in the pump ability our Vanguard card is sporting and you have much fun there my friends.

Heartbeat and Wurmcalling allow for some serious, continual creation of some big, bad as can be tokens and the Fertile Grounds just add more spice to the mix.

And Doubling Season, whilst having the obvious advantage of turning one Wurmcalling into two tokens, also allows for a speedy buildup of mana thanks to Fungal Reaches, which in turn allows for the more expensive cards of the deck to be played.

Okay, whilst this deck is indeed a very nice deck, to play in a 2HG game you need a second deck! Time to swing back to the old hat of fate…

Truly Richard Garfield smiles upon me today! What a match up indeed; pump and double damage! Correction: STACKABLE DOUBLE DAMAGE! Because of the wording on good old Mishra, Double strike just became four times as good!

Let me explain; Double strike essentially means a creature gets to strike twice: once when First strike creatures would be able to and then again when normal creatures would. So of course, creatures with the double strike ability deal twice their power in damage, making them quite nasty as it is. Now consider that each of those strikes would deal double damage… you start to see my point, don’t you. Suddenly, 1/1 Double strike creatures deal four damage and Dragon Tyrant now attacks for 24! Nasty!

But wait, there’s more fun to be had here. If you read the text, Mishra never specifies that the damage need be from combat; only that the damage comes from a creature source such as ‘ping effects’ or those found on such creatures as Farrel’s Zealot or Ronin Cliffrider.

The Concept

But I’m a simple guy; I want to keep primarily to combat damage or things that play off of the creatures’ power. After all, our ally avatar does give away good pump, so it would be rude not to use it to its full potential.

“Olay, Olay! Olay, Olay! “Olay, Olay! Olay, Olay! Feeling hot, Hot, HOT!” …. Sorry, got caught up in the rhythm.

This deck goes for the quick burn; all puns intended. Simply drop creature, after creature, after creature, and watch your opponent melt around the edges.

With excess fire power to play with thanks to the Braid of Fire, Captive Flame allows us to avoid that disagreeable effect known as ‘manaburn’, whilst facilitating the roaring inferno that is our nice little damage forge: Stalking Vengeance and Scorched Rusalka.

With these two creatures in play, drop those Blistering Firecats and Spark Elementals. Watch them burn a path through your opponent’s front line and to add kindling to the flame, sacrifice them through the Rusalka for some directed burn.

Having some trouble getting your fire started? No problem; just drop a Thundermare and watch your opponent’s face as he realizes he’s about to be cremated!

Can I get away with one more overloaded sentence full of fire/burn references? I can? Great!

As the final candle on the cake, you can throw gasoline on the fire by using your ally’s inbuilt pump ability; making those Cats and Serpents not only a source of white hot pain as they leap across the field, but also making sure the after burn from our Stalking Vengeance is all the more painful.

Having completely burned out that line of jokes (it’s hard to stop); I’m going to call this the end of the article. But, before I go I’d like to invite you the reader to really flame my work (Seriously, someone stop me!).

Feel free to contact me either through the forum, either by the thread for this article (located here) or by PM. You are also welcome to reach me by email; my current email address is here, and I will try to answer as many of your questions as possible.

So until next time readers, this is Luthervamplord; signing off.

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
Find other articles from this series here.

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]

Articles Spotlights from 2007:
Lorwyn Theme Week Intro & Schedule of Events
Blink And Bounce: Timing is Key
Going Blind: XCB Metagaming - A Prolonged Conclusion.
The Science of Magic: Genetic Engineering, Part Two.
Shifting Lineaments: Casual Metagaming (Pt. 2).
The Dungeon Of Malefict: Pure Evil!
Land Week Introduction & Schedule.
Combofusion: Legends Timeshifted.
One Card to Rule Them All: Coastal Piracy
Irrational Love: Chimeras. The Lego's of Magic.