I had a really tough time with this deck. I’d say this is was the most difficult to build deck that I’ve done so far in Duels. At first look through the card pool, I was thinking this was going to be an aggro deck for sure, with 4-6 cards that untap your creatures for combat tricks. The downfall to the aggro deck is that it is fairly easily disrupted. But while this was fairly successful, you guys know that I try to swing every deck as far into control as possible, I just didn’t think it was possible here. Then I saw some other people reporting some success with more controlling builds, so I tried out a couple. What I found was that some of the control tactics were situation. So what I had was an easily disrupted aggro deck, or a situationally decent control. When I combined the 2 in just the right card quantities, I got this list.
Creatures – 20
3 Boros Recruit
2 Boros Guildmage
2 Boros Swiftblade
2 Mentor of the Meek
3 Skyknight Legionnaire
1 Spitemare
2 Sunhome Enforcer
1 Balefire Liege
1 Basandra, Battle Seraph
1 Nobilis of War
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Balefire Dragon
Other Spells – 16
3 Lightning Helix
1 Rise of the Hobgoblins
2 Fire at Will
1 Intimidation Bolt
2 Rally the Righteous
2 Scourge of the Nobilis
1 Breath of Life
1 Faith’s Fetters
2 Glory of Warfare
1 Brightflame
Land – 24
3 Terramorphic Expanse
11 Mountain
10 Plains
General Strategy: So how does this deck distinguish itself from the other 12 control decks I’ve built? Simple. This deck still retains much of its aggro potential. Start off with cheap first strikers, and if your opponent is sitting around, but the pressure on them. This deck can still get turn 5-6 kills about as good as its pure-aggro counterpart at times. Those same first strikers make for a great defense as well. Your opponent will be reluctant to attack when you can double or triple block to take out a bigger creature using first strike and not lose anything. Then you have a lot of good late game cards, like the angels, the dragon, brightflame, and breath of life. It may seem odd to have a lot of 1-ofs when they could be 2-ofs, but oddly enough, it works. The key to making the deck more controlling is realizing that you don’t need any of the Veteran Armorers.
Boros Guildmage – A lot of people underestimated the guildmage at first. I knew it’s ability to grant first strike was going to be good, but even I didn’t realize how valuable the guildmage would be. It lived up to expectations and beyond. Both of its abilities have proven useful. It’s an auto-include for either the aggro or control build.
Spitemare – The best 4 mana creature in the deck. It’s kinda like a red/white version of Phyrexian Obliterator, and you should treat it as such.
Sunhome Enforcer – Celestial Light runs a 2/4 with lifelink at 4 mana, so this control deck probably should too. 4 toughness seems to be really good for defense in the duels format, and 2 power lets it trigger Mentor of the Meek as well.
Balefire Liege – I’ll admit, I underestimated the usefulness of his non-pumping abilities. They’re actually really good, so much so that you should probably be able to win if you’re given 1-2 turns with him on the field.
Basandra, Battle Seraph – Basandra is fun for control decks. See your Blood Artist? Yeah, it can attack me now. All those exalted creatures, yeah, they can all swing into my first strikers, and no more exalted boosts. Seriously, given a couple turns with this, you should have the field well under control. Force your opponent into attacking with their bigger stuff, right into your wall of first strikers. Combine with Rise of the Hobgoblins or Glory of Warfare for maximum enjoyment. On the negative side, having this out means you can’t play Fire at Will, or use Rally the Righteous to their full potential. But if you have Basandra out, you shouldn’t need those cards, and you can always play them before Basandra anyways (there’s also only 1 of her).
Sunblast Angel – Mass removal on a stick, nice to see you again.
Balefire Dragon – I have run 7 mana cards in control decks before, which featured no card draw whatsoever, so there shouldn’t be much of an issue here. More mass removal on a stick.
Bull Cerodon – Vigilance and haste is nice for a surprise attacker that can also block, but I’ve never had a strong desire for it. I think the 5+ mana creatures in the deck are all more central and synergistic with the deck. Not bad, but not what I’m looking for in a 6 mana card.
Firemane Angel – 6 mana for a 4/3 with first strike is rather meh. You should probably never reach 10 mana anyways, and the lifegain is fairly unnecessary with all the other lifegain in this deck. It’s just too expensive for what it does.
Hammerfist Giant – Here’s an example of the situational control I was talking about. If you want the giant to survive its own ability, you need to have a Glory of Warfare or Scourge of the Nobilis on it. And if you even want to use its ability, you have to wait a turn. Oh, and for the 6 mana pricetag, it doesn’t hit flyers either, which is a major weakness of this deck.
Mentor of the Meek – It felt like the control deck was missing something, and that something was card draw. Sure, it’s not the best, but it’s far from unusable. If your opponent feels that threatened by the card draw and removes it, well then that’s less removal they’ll have for your big guns. Sure, it conflicts with the Liege and the Glory of Warfare, but if I have those out, I’m probably doing ok anyways. And for the Glory of Warfare, since this isn’t a strict aggro deck anymore, I don’t need to drop it on turn 4 all the time when I have it. Mentor of the Meek has filled the gap of the missing card draw for the control deck.
Fire at Will/Intimidation Bolt – I’ve seen some people remove these in their control builds, and I don’t get it. They can be used offensively or defensively (for the Bolt, just attack, then kill the blocker before blockers are declared). They make for decent removal, and you can combine them with some of the first strikers to take out larger creatures.
Rally the Righteous – It was between this and To Arms. To Arms is cheaper and draws a card, but I find myself getting more mileage from Rally. Rally can be used offensively and defensively, which I think is key given the potential aggressiveness of this control deck. Sure, you may end up boosting your opponent’s red/white creatures too, but I find this hardly matters when all your stuff has first strike. It’s also useful for helping to take down multiple creatures. The key with all of the 2-3 mana instants in this deck is to keep your opponent guessing, and then get them to fall into your trap of Rally or Fire at Will, etc.
Scourge of the Nobilis – This card is tricky to play. It’s an aura, so always be weary of the potential 2 for 1. However, it’s also one of the most rewarding. Stick it on pretty much anything, but especially a Boros Swiftblade, and you can end the game very fast. All the lifegain can also help you for your defense. Firebreathing and first/double strike is also a nasty combination. You can also throw it on a Sunhome Enforcer to get double the lifegain, since the Enforcer doesn’t have lifelink. Be careful when playing this though, especially against removal heavy decks. You may want to save it for later, or when they’re tapped out.
Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran – This was the hardest card for me to cut, and it was between this and Nobilis of War. Nobilis just had 2 things that made it stand out enough for me to cut Agrus Kos. First, Nobilis can boost things the turn it comes into play, since it doesn’t need to be attacking itself. Second, the 4 toughness, which allows Nobilis to survive combat with 3/3s, and it isn’t killed by a single Lightning Bolt, Searing Spear, Arc Lightning, Lightning Helix, etc. and that’s enough for me to warrant keeping the Nobilis over Agrus Kos.
Rise of the Hobgoblins – Now we’re getting into the 1-ofs that seem strange on paper. In practice, the follow 3 cards I never like seeing in the early game, especially in multiples, and I rarely want multiple of them anyways. Rise can give you tokens and give all your stuff first strike for one mana. It’s been great, but I don’t really ever want to play this before turn 4. Multiples are also a little redundant unless the first one gets destroyed.
Brightflame – You guys know by now I don’t care much for X spells. I only run 2 X spells in Born of Flame, and I skipped Volcanic Geyser and Invoke the Firemind in Mindstorms altogether. Brightflame seems even worse on paper, taking 5 mana to do 1 damage. However, for a late game card, it’s been surprisingly not bad. Don’t expect to take out big creatures with it, but you can expect to gain a boatload of life from it. This is defiantly a card you don’t want to see early on, and you probably won’t need a second one. One copy seems to be the right fit here too.
Breath of Life – Kinda like Regrowth from SaS, this deck doesn’t have a second Liege, or Basandra, or Sunblast, but Breath of Life can sorta act as your second copy of those. Again, I don’t find myself wanting this until late in the game, so 1 copy is again good. It can also be useful against black discard spells or mill earlier in the game as well. They make you discard one of your big creatures, you get to bring it to the field on turn 4.