Magic Deck Vortex: Casual Collection: Boros Fury.

Editors Note: This article was intended to be published in December and thus I sincerely apologize for the delay. ~Streetz~

Wow, finally some changes to the portfolio. I had expected to see Rootwalla, Mongrel, and Werebear all drop last month and they didn't. I also expected Qasali to lose value, and it may continue to lose more unless a Stoic Angel control deck can manage to utilize it better. I did not expect to see the mighty Thoctar go down in value, in fact I assumed it would go up. I have hopes that it will regain value and eventually push the $2.00 mark.

Last time we explored the fast powerful beats of Zoo. This month, isn't much different except instead of going ala Naya, we'll be going ala Boros. Sheer size trades for combat efficiency and lightning speed. Boros is all about the swarm and smother generating a player kill before an opponent has a chance to react. Much like Red-Green aggro, this is a deck that wins or stalls and struggles, bad hands as such should always be discarded.

Card #1: Boros Recruit (4)
Boros Recruit is as simple as a creature comes. It's a single mana for a little 1/1 that has first strike. The Recruit is, however, a capable partner of any deck that runs Boros Swiftblade and capable of offensively and defensively dominating the first few turns of the game. Give him a means to an end and this little guy will outshine his $0.19 each.

Card #2: Bonesplitter (4)
This is the best budget replacement for Jitte. It's cheap, it's fast, and it's highly effective on fast playing creatures (especially ones with first or double strike). This is the ideal equipment card for many Affinity and White Weenie decks as well. They pack a hell of a punch for a quarter each. Boros Recruit and Swiftblade will love you forever for these.

Card #3: Goblin Legionnaire (4)
Goblin Legionnaire is a card that never really found its place. Both offensive and defensive, it was out of place and out of time. If it were to shine anywhere it would be in Boros, but even in Boros it often doesn't quite make the deck list. We'll give it room and board for a quarter each, finally allowing this little solider the chance to shine.

Card #4: Firebolt (4)
Shock for a long time has been considered the fixed version of Lightning Bolt. It's two point damage removes many early games threats and late game converts nicely into direct damage. We're going to trade Shock's instant speed for double usage, allowing our early game threat removal to become late game burn as well. At $0.49 it's a fairly expensive common, but by no means bank breaking.

Card #5: Savannah Lions (2)
Our very first rare, and one of the oldest rares in the game at that. Savannah Lions is a simple creature, with an efficient 2/1 body for a mere one mana. Each of these little buggers will cost $4.99 and we definitely want four. It will be a major part of our first tourney-level deck and our first homebrew deck.

Card #6: Lightning Helix (2)
The most efficient burn spell ever printed hands down. It even trumps Lightning Bolt in most player's books including my own. This card is a pure winner and at $2.49 each a must have for any collection. A six point life swing for two mana is just hands down amazing.

I'm not going to lie, I've been back and forth about what tournament deck to build first. Boros Decks Win (BDW) or Red Deck Wins (RDW) have been most predominantly in my mind. Elf Ball, a homebrew, and some combo decks also were briefly considered. While we already have half the cards we need for Red Deck Wins, the problem is that the rares we still need are all far more expensive than the Boros ones. Boros rares also offer a little more modularity as they work in White Weenie, Red Deck Wins, Zoo, Gaea's Might, The Rock, and a few other niche decks. Hence, why we are moving towards Boros.

As the prices of Time Spiral drop with players unloading former Standard cards, we may be able to afford some of the needed cards for RDW. Until then, we're going to move towards Boros Deck Wins and some other variants. Don't worry though about having rares now, the straight up Pauper goodness will continue and even produce some decks with radically different playstyles to give you a break from aggro. This month though is all about learning the basics of Boros, so lets check out a primer on it.

Boros Deck Wins Primer

History
Boros Deck Wins is the logical combination of the classic White Weenie blitz aggro deck and your staple Red Deck Wins burn deck. The decks never really drew to that merger until the environment became ripe in Extended with the rotation of Wasteland, and the resulting increase in dual and trio-colors usage. Finally, when Ravinca released, players clamored over the power and efficiency of Lightning Helix and the merger took like wildfire.

Since its inception, Boros has shown some its head in Standard play several times and often splashes into Green to pick up Kird Apes and Tarmogoyfs. It's most recent incarnation, was a deck, called Eventide Boros, that utilized the power of Figure of Destiny and some other creatures that proved very able to take down the dominate deck of the time, Faeries. Traditional Boros features minor land destruction themes while a variant called Deadguy Boros features a minor influence on big burns instead. The theory behind land destruction is to delay your opponent a single turn, while the theory behind the big burns is to burn them out so they don't get another turn. A final variation includes a Black splash for Vindicate, and it's only a matter of time before Dark Confidant possibly gets built into Boros creating a true Deadguy Ale Boros.

Creatures
Boros decks differ vastly on many creature choices. Even though we're looking solely at one-two drop Red and White creatures, there are numerous substitution choices. For now, lets look at the roles these creatures provide:

Efficient One Drops
This slot is the heart of Boros featuring an early flood of one drop creatures that can overpower almost any two drop creature. Almost every Boros deck will start with 4x Savannah Lions and 3x Isamaru, Hound of Konda. Splash builds can include Wild Nacatl and Kird Ape for their natural growth. Figure of Destiny while expensive also fits quite nicely into this mix.

Efficient Two Drops
The two drops of Boros vary between evasion and defensive capabilities. The two typical evasion choices are flight (Leonin Skyhunter and Serra Avenger) or shadow (Soltari Priest). Shadow tends to be played over flight, due to the assured nature of it's damage. Silver and White Knight are popular choices as well for their color protection and first strike capabilities, although many other versions could be played effectively. Knight of the White Orchid is an excellent new choice from Shards of Alara, while Boros Swiftblade is a classic choice from the original run. Jotun Grunt often makes it off the sideboard for a limited time 4/4 graveyard eater. Tarmogoyf often gets included here along with Kird Ape on the Green splash.

Imploders
There are a few creatures that convert directly into damage. The classic choice for this slot is Mogg Fanatic, while Goblin Legionnaire and Cautery Sliver are also excellent creatures. Budget choices include Frostling, Karplusan Wolverine, Icatian Javelineers, and Druegar Assailaint.

Creature Burn
There's burn, and then there is creature burn. Unlike imploders these are your creatures that exist solely to deal massive damage and then die. Blistering Firecat is a feature of many Boros Decks, while cards like Ball Lightning, Spark Elemental, and Keldon Mauraders are acceptable for this slot. Hell's Thunder from Shards of Alara is quickly catching eyes as an Extended replacement to the rotated Firecat.

Burn Sticks
Ahh, repeated creature pings, or as many call them the burn stick. While imploders are meant to attack then blow up when their usefulness is up and creature burn is meant to be a one time blast, burn sticks are meant to repeatedly create little pings without the need to attack. Grim Lavamancer is the card of choice for many players, but it's rotated out, leaving Magus of the Scroll or perhaps Jaya Ballard as the only suitable replacements in Extended.

Spells

Lightning Helix
The only auto in burn of Boros. If you aren't running four, you aren't very smart, or it ain't legal for your tourney. Two mana for a six life point swing, um yea? I don't need to say anymore.

Land Destruction
Molten Rain offers land destruction plus a large chance of two damage. It has been a Boros staple since the beginning with many choosing between it and a delayed burn. In casual circles, Molten Rain isn't as good, but at tourney and against anything except Red Deck Wins it will generally do very well. Cryoclasm is also another great choice to run for that situational land destruction and burn effect.

Double Burns
Why burn once when you can burn twice? Utilizing flashback, the two staples of this are Firebolt for it's Shock-level, double whammy and Lava Dart for it's cheap ability to knock out two 1/1's. The final spell that might work in this slot is Flame Jab for it's retracability.

Delayed Burns
There are two burns that use mana now, to burn later. Seal of Fire has lost a lot of sway since Tarmogoyf started feeding on them, while Rift Bolt still holds sway with many players for it's next turn Lightning Bolt. Seal of Fire is more of a save for a rainy day burn, while Rift Bolt is used for it's efficiency. Personally I prefer Rift Bolt.

Big Burns
These are your 'three plus' cost burns, which to Boros is about as big as it gets. Flame Javelin, Char, and Pulse of the Forge are your best picks. Big burns typically are your best bets for finishing off a player or taking out a problem card like Tarmogoyf. Some players run Sudden Shock instead of these to handle Psychatog and Wild Mongrel, but those won't be issues in Extended anymore. You will need these spells to handle big creatures like Doran and Chamelon Colossus.

Planeswalkers
This is simply a prediction, but Ajani Vengeant and Elspeth, Knight-Errant both make excellent additions to Boros. Elspeth will lift up your creatures into evasive monsters, while Ajani can convert easily into an extra Lightning Helix then push down a defender on slower decks. I haven't seen any Boros deck run either of these at a tourney, but then again there hasn't been an Extended or Standard season since they were printed.

New Deck Type: Blitz Aggro/Weenie
A deck that relies on fast, efficient creatures to overpower other decks before they can respond. Blitz/Weenie decks are almost entirely composed of one or two drop creatures and feature ways to either augment their size or supplement their damage. The two best examples are White Weenie and Boros Deck Wins.

Over the next immediate months the focus of the collection will be on making this deck work. Don't worry about it starting out semi-weak, because each and every month its power will bolster towards a tournament level deck. The playstyle, if you didn't get it from the primer, is to overwhelm with speedy drops and force an opponent down before they can put down a stopper. Once they get a stopper down it's then a well-timed alpha strike and burn race.

You'll notice the stars. These indicate cards that are going to be changing over the coming months. The ones without stars will be sticking around each and every month until the end. It also gives you an indication of how close we are to completing the deck. While I'd love to keep Firebolt or Reckless Charge, I want this to be a tournament legal deck and sadly those two have rotated out of Extended.

Now for our budget deck. This month we'll introduce the beginnings of a burn deck that can evolve with each and every added burn spell to our collection. Burn decks run very easily and offer a refreshing change from aggro decks. The only strategy is to burn, burn, burn, and if it's still standing burn some more. When it's black, crispy, and smoldering your job is done. We don't have enough cards to run it at a tournament level yet, but you can easily see what kind of cards to throw in to make it work.

New Deck Type: Burn Deck
A deck that primarily wins by using quick effective burn spells to turn mana into direct damage. Creature-less burn decks typically come up a day late, dollar short, while good burn decks run a few disruptive creatures and burn sticks. I'll run a primer on Red Deck Wins (the primary burn deck) when the collection begins to work towards it's rare base.

New Format Type: Peasant Magic
A format similar to Pauper Magic that allows for a player to play a maximum of five uncommon cards. A twist to the format, is that if a card has ever been printed as a common, it is considered a common, the same goes for rares that were printed as uncommons or commons at one point.

Our first Peasant deck only contains two uncommons, and is obviously a little underpowered. While lacking the high powered burns, it's easy to twist and grow with your own cards. Keep a watch on this deck in the blog to see how it transforms with our collection over the months into a more refined form.

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