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I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for Treefolk. Read into that however you like, but what it means is that I always had a tribal deck of Treefolk built and ready to play. With each coming set, assuming there were Treefolk in it, I would modify the deck in the hopes of improving it. Yet, the deck never did all that well. Even with Weatherseed Treefolk and the legendary Treefolk from the Invasion block. But then Lorwyn brought me some Treefolk goodness. If Timber Protector wasn’t enough, Wizards had to go ahead and make a three color Legendary Treefolk that broke rules similar to the way Masako the Humorless broke some rules in the Kamigawa block. If you haven’t seen the card, keep reading, as I’ll show you what it does. If you know what the card does, keep reading anyway as I will be putting some fun decks before you featuring Doran, the Siege Tower.
Well, now. Isn’t that innovative and rule breaking all at the same time. Scratch that – innovation and rule breaking are sometimes the same thing. Anyway, Doran makes us crazy deck builders really want to take it to the drawing (deckbuilding) board and let loose. Creatures assigning combat damage equal to its toughness? Did I read that right? Suddenly, with Doran in play, my 0/2 Icatian Moneychanger is a 2/2 in combat. Wall of Wood, normally a 0/3 is a 3/3, Bottle Gnomes ia 3/3 and Tormented Angel is a 5/5 flying beatstick. All at the same time, my opponents’ 4/1 creatures act like 1/1 creatures in combat. This kind of card interaction is something I feel I can take advantage of. Today I’m going to cover a few decks I surprisingly found online (already!) and then present my own deck for your viewing pleasure. Depending on how I feel, I may even post two decks. But first, let’s get to the first deck I found online. Towers are Walls, Right? This first deck I found in the MTGNews forums in a discussion thread about Doran, the Siege Tower. Know up front that this was a preliminary decklist as the original title had “first draft” included in it. Despite this being a preliminary decklist it still shows off a concept worth talking about – Doran and Walls.
To make this strategy viable and make sure he still has a win condition beyond Doran himself, Robert includes several Rolling Stones in his decklist. Rolling Stones will allow all of your defending creatures (i.e. Walls) to attack as if they don’t have defender. That’s a good start. Also, quick note… Forbidding Watchtower is an excellent inclusion in this deck as it becomes a 5/5 (normally 1/5) with Doran for the small price of 1W to activate its manly-landy-ness. Some issues I have with this deck include the lack of cohesiveness. Do you really need ten different walls in the deck – all at a quantity of one? Why not choose the best walls in the deck and go four each on those? Plus, there are a lot of mana heavy cards (i.e. double white mana, double black mana, etc) in a three color deck. That can be quite painful when you actually sit down and try the deck for the first time only to find yourself mana screwed because you haven’t drawn that second plains to cast Wall of Nets. Even with the mana base he has, this will prove to be a problem. (That and who really has all of those original dual lands in real life (Magic Workstation aside)???) Yes, I just did a parenthesis inside a parenthesis. Let’s see if we can fix this deck up real quick. First off, I like the interaction of Wall of Glare and Venom in this deck. I think I’ll keep that around. Note that Venom triggers upon blocking or being blocked, not upon dealing damage. This means you can block all of your opponent’s attackers (assuming they don’t have evasion) and kill them all at end of combat. The unfortunate result of this is losing your Wall of Glare. But I think most people would prefer a 1 to 4+ ratio assuming your opponent is gullible enough to attack while you have the pair in play. Next up, Birds of Paradise is a must considering the three different color mana requirements in Doran – who is really the star of this deck. But the other stars of the deck should really be walls – not Ornithopters. Ornithopters have great synergy with Doran potentially being a 2/2 flyer for zero mana. However, I’m going to cut the Ornithopters in favor of the wall theme going on in this deck. I’m then going to consolidate the Walls into Angelic Wall, Shield Sphere, Vine Trellis, Wall of Glare and Wall of Souls. I think all of these are excellent choices for this deck and mana friendly when you are dealing with a three color deck. Note I splashed Wall of Junk just for fun. Lastly, I’m going to add some concrete defensive pumping goodness in the form of Castle and Shield Wall. Shield Wall is an instant, which will be real nice to break a stalement after Doran is on the board.
I would encourage you, should you be brave enough to try this strategy, to find the walls that best fit your needs. Focus on only two different colors of walls or branch out into other colors. Red and Blue have some crazy choices like Wall of Stone, Wall of Water and Glacial Wall. Quick Sidenote: Wakestone Gargoyle makes a fine replacement for Rolling Stones, if you don't mind a more expensive version with a nice beater body. An Aggressive Approach to Doran Bennie Smith, the creator of this next deck, is a well-known figure in the Magic community. He has written for Star City Games, Scrye Magazine and Wizards of the Coast to name a few. He also has a knack for deckbuilding. This following deck was found in a Star City Games article not too long ago. It’s more aggressive in build and is more for a Standard tournament setting. Note: This is my deck name, not his:
Every creature in this deck, mind you Liliana Vess the Planeswalker isn’t a creature, benefits from Doran, the Siege Tower. Wall of Roots turns into a 5/5 for 1G, Birds of Paradise a 1/1 flyer for G, Ohran Viper a 3/3 for 1GG and Tarmoyf will always get an extra power out of Doran’s ability. The rest of the deck is control, mana boosting and Planeswalker goodness. I’m sure this deck would need quite a bit of testing to be viable in Standard right now… Who am I kidding? I don’t pay attention to Standard. But anyway, this is a nice efficient build for all of your Standard lovers out there to play with and test out. Combo’ing up Doran. If I haven’t mentioned it before, Doran has some serious combo potential. And I’m not talking synergy, I’m talking combo. Cards like Shield Wall, Solidarity, Hero’s Resolve, Spidersilk Armor, Defensive Maneuvers, Iron Will, Fortify… they all have synergy with Doran. They aren’t quite combo Llanowar Vanguard, Shield Mate, Crenellated Wall, Charging Paladin, Slagwurm Armor, Healer’s Headdress, Sword of the Paruns, Daru Spiritualist, Angelic Protector, Tireless Tribe, Task Force, Gift of the Woods, Holy Armor, Honor Guard… still just synergy. The combo potential I am referring to is a card that has wreaked havoc on every Standard environment it was ever in. The card? Ensnaring Bridge. The combo here? Well, let me spell it out for you. If you pack a deck full of 0/X creatures and Doran, the Siege Tower, and you manage to empty your hand… suddenly your opponents won’t be able to attack you and yet you will be able to attack them. You see, Doran ability doesn’t change the power of a creature; it just changes the way damage is assigned. Your opponent will not likely have any 0/X creatures in play and thus as long as you have an empty hand you will be able to attack and your opponent will not. While the Bridge is in play, that is. That’s smells of combo to me and I’ve built a deck around it.
I’ve also got a play set of Ensnaring Bridge. The key card with the Bridge is Tireless Tribe who is already synergistic with the Bridge. You can use him to boost with Doran-power and discard your hand leaving your opponent without an ability to attack you. However, should Tireless Tribe have trouble getting into your hand quick enough, I’ve built the deck to have a low mana curve so that you can easily get your cards onto the board without much hassle. Birds of Paradise and Utopia Mycon help to balance out your mana curve when you need to cast Doran early and when your lands aren’t helping you much. Hystrodon gives you some potential card advantage and Dancing Scimitar gives you some evasion (mind you the Scimitar acts like a 5/5 for 4 with Doran). Fists of Ironwood have synergy with Utopia Mycon while providing some of your key creatures trample and Spidersilk Armor acts like a dual-bladed enchantment. Overall, the deck is a fun efficient build of synergistic creatures with Doran and control elements with the Bridge.
Join me next time when I dip into a color of Magic I haven’t dipped into yet in this series. Thanks for reading – and let me know your thoughts of this article in the forums. ~Streetz~
You can discuss this article in the MDV forums
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Walls
of Doran - First Draft. 
As
you most likely know, most walls have a higher toughness than power. Most walls
are also aggressively costed since they won’t normally be able to attack. For
example, Robert uses Wall of Nets (0/7 for 1WW) and Angelic Wall (0/4 for 1W) as
part of his suite of Doran-synergistic creatures. The minute Doran hits the
table Wall of Nets is a 7/7 and Angelic Wall is a flying 4/4 creature in combat.
Three mana for a 7/7 and two mana for a 4/4 seems reasonable to me, if not
spectacular.
Quick
note – I’m assuming he is going to have some Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth lands in
there considering he is running Tendrils of Corruption in full form in the
decklist. And a lot of Forest-like lands considering the heavy green mana
symbols in some of the cards.
It
would seem I have a lot going on in this deck, and in a way, I do. I am using
several of the synergy cards I mentioned earlier like Slagwurm Armor, Spidersilk
Armor, Solidarity and Tireless Tribe to boost toughness. This toughness boost
translates into power boost while Doran is online.
I
was going to build a deck using just Treefolk and Doran but it seems my time has
run out. I’m sure most of you are reading this before school or work, during
your lunch break or after your daily activities so I don’t want to keep you too
long. 
I
do want you to enjoy the Lorwyn goodness found in Doran, the Siege Tower. Check
out the card, find something that strikes your fancy and build a deck. If your
lazy, just start off with one of the decks I’ve provided today and evolve it.
Make it your own and most importantly, have fun playing the game we all love:
Magic: the Gathering. Don't be afraid to branch out to other colors with
Doran as that something I didn't get a chance to do (yet).