Back during the first Innistrad I was a huge fan of Werewolves. I felt werewolves were super fun to play and built right were scary to play against. I had a lot of success with Werewolves until Avacyn Restored where Restoration Angel crapped upon werewolves.
Back then Werewolves were very scary and your opponent always had to worry about letting an attack by human side werewolves through because you can cast Moonmist and transform your werewolves. It was a pretty big game. Werewolves also thrived when as a Werewolf player you did not have to cast any spells. Cards like Shrine of Burning Rage ticked up every turn, and created a sense of inevitability where if the werewolves did not kill your opponent, the Shrine would. I built my werewolf deck decks with low mana curve and bypasses the super powerful ones like the one that gave all your wolves double strike. Instead I used mostly the green werewolves which were easier to cast but when flipped still caused a lot of damage.
This time around we do not have a lot of those advantages. First off, no Mayor of Avabruck which provided pumps for your werewolves and more bodies per turn when it was flipped. We also do not have the Powerhouse that was Huntmaster of the fells which was a huge tempo swing and allowed us to survive early aggro. Lastly we do not have Moonmist, which was a Huge game because at any moment your opponent had to worry about your werewolves flipping and making combat math impossible and even fogging your opponent for a turn.
So what do we have in our Benefit this time. Well first we actually have some pretty good 2 drops Duskwatch Recruiter Provides Card Draw. Pacifist is a big body two drop which turns terrifying when flipped. Kessig Foremaster makes combat Math annoying. Thats 3 solid 2 drops which allows us to keep a low curve. Village Messenger is not 3 powered when flipped like waif was but it is infinitely harder to block. Hermit of Natterknoll gives your opponent pause for casting spells on my turn because I then get card draw. This allows us to not cast spells on our turn, to flip our wolves and not have us getting punished.
But the two biggest benefits we have are Arlinn Kord which is a Very good Planeswalker, especially for werewolves, and allows our Human sided werewolves to become threats with her first ability. When she flips she is another Anthem to along with out Second Benefit with our Werewolf and wolf Anthem Howlpack Resurgence. This allows us to Flash in an enchantment to throw off combat math and make are unflipped werewolves still a threat.
Well first we actually have some pretty good 2 drops
"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
The question I have with any dedicated Werewolf deck is how do you develop a board state when you have to take every other turn off? We can hope our opp doesnt do anything but many times they will just to stop the transformation. Huntmaster of the Fells was awesome because both sides provided value. How do they expect werewolves to be good when their inherent requirement is the very thing that prevents them from being viable.
The werewolf deck would need something like a moonmist or a 2 drop enchantment which says you may play up to 1 spell on a turn and still flip them.
I want a good Werewolf deck(not necessarily tribal but even like the current dragons decks which have around 8-10 dragons) so bad but it just kills your tempo to just not do anything and often the payoff isn't good enough.
I've got a brew that, while likely very casual, is werewolf focused, with one exception. It's build around Zada and Silverfur Partisan. It has the potential to create massive amounts of board presence, but it likely just casual combo deck.
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Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
The question I have with any dedicated Werewolf deck is how do you develop a board state when you have to take every other turn off? We can hope our opp doesnt do anything but many times they will just to stop the transformation. Huntmaster of the Fells was awesome because both sides provided value. How do they expect werewolves to be good when their inherent requirement is the very thing that prevents them from being viable.
The werewolf deck would need something like a moonmist or a 2 drop enchantment which says you may play up to 1 spell on a turn and still flip them.
I want a good Werewolf deck(not necessarily tribal but even like the current dragons decks which have around 8-10 dragons) so bad but it just kills your tempo to just not do anything and often the payoff isn't good enough.
The human sides of the werewolves put enough pressure that we do not have to take a turn off until we can kill our opponent. They put on enough pressure on there human side that it really does not matter if we flip early. Plus just the nature of Werewolves makes your opponent overplay there hand and play cards when originally they did not want to to keep the werewolves from flipping. a 2 Mana 3/3 that can be a 4/4 trampler the next turn with the Enchantment is still very good.
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
The double red is what makes me not want to play that card especially since most of the deck is green. It could potentially be good, but not enough to make my deck harder to cast
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
Forgemaster is hard to block, as any one toughness creature trying to will die right away you need at least four toughness in order to have a chance at having a creature walk out of combat alive. The math is harder if it's on its night side. complicated combat math gives many people pause and can cause them to second guess things
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Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
Forgemaster is hard to block, as any one toughness creature trying to will die right away you need at least four toughness in order to have a chance at having a creature walk out of combat alive. The math is harder if it's on its night side. complicated combat math gives many people pause and can cause them to second guess things
Exactly, it is also a 2-drop which, as I have said, werewolves cannot have enough 2 drops.
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
I think you need to have at least 2 breakneck rider. He is just such a good finisher with a couple other wolves out. Also silverfur partisan makes the deck much more resilient to removal so I think a couple of those are almost necessary.
I remember playing R/G Werewolves during the Innistrad standard. The werewolves in the set unfortunately look very underwhelming in comparison.
At the time, there was debate about whether the strategy should be passing the turn without a spell, or playing about 1 spell per turn and putting the pressure on the opponent to do something with the threat of wolves flipping.
Wolf Run Ramp and Delver decks ruled the day and the meta was overall very aggressive. I haven't played Standard in over a year but I'm thinking about getting in now due to Werewolves.
The big problem I see now is dealing with Ramp (Eldrazi?) and control decks without the shrine. Shrine of Burning Rage provided the clock.
This looks closer to what I would expect (e.g.: Using CoCo).
There are many good non creature RG cards in the format now, like Atarka's command. Hard to see what the perfect mix would be. I wonder if your list has room for Arlinn.
Having played comboless Atarka red for some time this deck excites me very much. I have some thoughts concerning this list. Will post later today after work!
This list is, or is close to what Ill probably run. I'll probably add more CoCo later on if it functions how I expect it to. I'll also have to see how well each werewolf functions and Ill switch around the numbers.
This list is, or is close to what Ill probably run. I'll probably add more CoCo later on if it functions how I expect it to. I'll also have to see how well each werewolf functions and Ill switch around the numbers.
Yeah a lot of my ideas on werewolves are going to come down to Testing. Which is why I am keeping the curve pretty small. I know I cannot wait to try them out.
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
I can't believe that more people aren't talking about this build...everyone is R/B vampires...but this deck, especially with collected company looks like it can get OUT OF HAND quick...plus Moonlight Hunt might be the best green removal I've seen in a long time...how are you guys feeling on Lambholt Pacifist and Silverfur Partisan? How many Arlinn Kord are you considering running? A full playset? What about Nissa, voice of zendikar? I know she's not exactly a wolf synergy card, but she seems like she could cause problems, maybe sideboard if control becomes a thing again.
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"I hope to have such a death—lying in triumph upon the broken bodies of those who slew me."
—Radha, Keldon warlord
I can't believe that more people aren't talking about this build...everyone is R/B vampires...but this deck, especially with collected company looks like it can get OUT OF HAND quick...plus Moonlight Hunt might be the best green removal I've seen in a long time...how are you guys feeling on Lambholt Pacifist and Silverfur Partisan? How many Arlinn Kord are you considering running? A full playset? What about Nissa, voice of zendikar? I know she's not exactly a wolf synergy card, but she seems like she could cause problems, maybe sideboard if control becomes a thing again.
I really like Pacifist a lot actually because she is a 3/3 for 2 and most likely will be able to attack the next turn or turn after as a 4/4. I think she is a very powerful card.
I like Partisan but not in a regular werewolf deck because alone he is just a 2/2. He is more a build around card, and green needs a lot more pump spells to make him way more busted.
With Arlinn I am a huge fan of her, and I say she is a 4 of in the non-collected company builds.
I do not like CoCo with werewolves because they have no enter the battlefield effects so flashing in two creatures does nothing during the combat step and not all that impressive on your turn. You are just getting vanilla creatures on your turn no matter what. They will not flip on the earliest until you pass your turn.
However, I do think Moonlight Hunt is a Tremendous Removal spell, with just two werewolves on the field it is already way better than Roast and Grasp of Darkness. It is a terrible topdeck but potentially a very good card.
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
I do not like CoCo with werewolves because they have no enter the battlefield effects so flashing in two creatures does nothing during the combat step and not all that impressive on your turn. You are just getting vanilla creatures on your turn no matter what. They will not flip on the earliest until you pass your turn.
I think you're under-appreciating how good 4 mana for 5-6 power can be at instant speed.
I do not like CoCo with werewolves because they have no enter the battlefield effects so flashing in two creatures does nothing during the combat step and not all that impressive on your turn. You are just getting vanilla creatures on your turn no matter what. They will not flip on the earliest until you pass your turn.
I think you're under-appreciating how good 4 mana for 5-6 power can be at instant speed.
Assuming you hit 2 creatures...
If you have 28-30 targets this is not a problem. All the good werewolves are 2-3 cmc -- so this is not a problem either.
28-30 creatures is not an unreasonable assumption to make at all w/ werewolves.
That leaves space for 3-4 Arlins, 4 CoCos, 1-3 removal spells.
I know that if we are going to push CoCo, we want to have our non land cards to be minimal, but I played a pre-release with Uncaged Fury and boy does that hit hard...it's a three drop, which means it's way worse than temur battle rage, but with Howlpack Resurgence, huge werewolves with double strike and trample can instantly end games...anyways, probably too cute to work, but just a thought.
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"I hope to have such a death—lying in triumph upon the broken bodies of those who slew me."
—Radha, Keldon warlord
I played werewolves religiously in SOM-INN standard (and ended up crushing delver decks at events I went to due to different tempo plays with Huntmaster of the Fells and/or Moonmist) until Thragtusk got printed and warped standard for a year. What I learned playing the deck previously is that the werewolf deck plays like a human tribal deck with the option of going into overdrive if your opponent trips up.
Cards I think to watch for playability are: Dual shot, due to the 2-for-1 potential, but it's not as good as Arc Trail which available in SOM-INN unfortunately: Sparkmage's Gambit, for the same reasons as Dual Shot but trading instant-speed for making creatures unable to block. Fall of the Titans, for being a late-game mana sink with a similar functionality to Bonfire of the Damned, but trades hitting the whole board for instant speed. Chandra, Flamecaller, as another late-game threat and Planeswalkers that lets us do things on our turn without actually playing anything.
Looking to tweak my list, I feel like this could work well, but needs more removal potentially?
4th Kord and Rider incase the match up is faster and Chandra's are too slow (more 'walkers can shore up a control match up better aswell).
Dual shot for weenie/aggro.
4th Hermit for a possible control match up.
3 Partisans for decks with lots of targeted spells/removal.
Moonlight Hunt and Forgemaster for creature-heavy slug feats.
What do you guys think? (Apologies for any formatting errors or typos, I'm on mobile)
I use the Duels Of The Planeswalkers layout, though I'm right-handed and keep my deck and GY to the left. I dare you to ask me how tempting it is to hold flying creatures in a floating pattern over the table.
You need more CoCo hits. 25-30 is roughly the sweet spot.
I agree. If you play co co having 15 misses in the deck is terrifying. You need to up the creature count. 18 is nowhere near enough.
And again my problem with playing CoCo is that the wolves have no ETB and you are missing out on being able to play great spells with werewolves such as Arlinn Kord as a full 4 or Howlpack Resurgence.
Here all all the spells I would love to play with werewolf
If I play CoCo, it limits my deck construction because I have to have 25 Plus creatures and nothing feels worse then wiffing on CoCo
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"Some call it a Habit, Cardboard Crack Addict
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Yea, those are MTG Bars. What can I say, I am a dork
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Back then Werewolves were very scary and your opponent always had to worry about letting an attack by human side werewolves through because you can cast Moonmist and transform your werewolves. It was a pretty big game. Werewolves also thrived when as a Werewolf player you did not have to cast any spells. Cards like Shrine of Burning Rage ticked up every turn, and created a sense of inevitability where if the werewolves did not kill your opponent, the Shrine would. I built my werewolf deck decks with low mana curve and bypasses the super powerful ones like the one that gave all your wolves double strike. Instead I used mostly the green werewolves which were easier to cast but when flipped still caused a lot of damage.
This time around we do not have a lot of those advantages. First off, no Mayor of Avabruck which provided pumps for your werewolves and more bodies per turn when it was flipped. We also do not have the Powerhouse that was Huntmaster of the fells which was a huge tempo swing and allowed us to survive early aggro. Lastly we do not have Moonmist, which was a Huge game because at any moment your opponent had to worry about your werewolves flipping and making combat math impossible and even fogging your opponent for a turn.
So what do we have in our Benefit this time. Well first we actually have some pretty good 2 drops Duskwatch Recruiter Provides Card Draw. Pacifist is a big body two drop which turns terrifying when flipped. Kessig Foremaster makes combat Math annoying. Thats 3 solid 2 drops which allows us to keep a low curve. Village Messenger is not 3 powered when flipped like waif was but it is infinitely harder to block. Hermit of Natterknoll gives your opponent pause for casting spells on my turn because I then get card draw. This allows us to not cast spells on our turn, to flip our wolves and not have us getting punished.
But the two biggest benefits we have are Arlinn Kord which is a Very good Planeswalker, especially for werewolves, and allows our Human sided werewolves to become threats with her first ability. When she flips she is another Anthem to along with out Second Benefit with our Werewolf and wolf Anthem Howlpack Resurgence. This allows us to Flash in an enchantment to throw off combat math and make are unflipped werewolves still a threat.
Well first we actually have some pretty good 2 drops
So without further Ado here is my Werewolf Deck
4 Geier Reach Bandit
4 Hermit of the Natterknolls
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Kessig Forgemaster
4 Lambholdt Pacifist
4 Village Messenger
4 Howlpack Resurgence
4 Arlinn Kord
4 Moonlight Hunt
Lands (24)
4 Game Trail
4 Cinder Glade
8 Mountain
8 Forest
4 Roast
2 Dual Shot
2 Rabid Bite
2 Pulse of Murasa
4 Atarka’s Command
1 Natural State
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
The werewolf deck would need something like a moonmist or a 2 drop enchantment which says you may play up to 1 spell on a turn and still flip them.
I want a good Werewolf deck(not necessarily tribal but even like the current dragons decks which have around 8-10 dragons) so bad but it just kills your tempo to just not do anything and often the payoff isn't good enough.
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
The human sides of the werewolves put enough pressure that we do not have to take a turn off until we can kill our opponent. They put on enough pressure on there human side that it really does not matter if we flip early. Plus just the nature of Werewolves makes your opponent overplay there hand and play cards when originally they did not want to to keep the werewolves from flipping. a 2 Mana 3/3 that can be a 4/4 trampler the next turn with the Enchantment is still very good.
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
The double red is what makes me not want to play that card especially since most of the deck is green. It could potentially be good, but not enough to make my deck harder to cast
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
Standard - Some kind of control
Modern - UB Mill (casual)
EDH - Meren's Grave Shenanigans
Exactly, it is also a 2-drop which, as I have said, werewolves cannot have enough 2 drops.
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
At the time, there was debate about whether the strategy should be passing the turn without a spell, or playing about 1 spell per turn and putting the pressure on the opponent to do something with the threat of wolves flipping.
Wolf Run Ramp and Delver decks ruled the day and the meta was overall very aggressive. I haven't played Standard in over a year but I'm thinking about getting in now due to Werewolves.
The big problem I see now is dealing with Ramp (Eldrazi?) and control decks without the shrine. Shrine of Burning Rage provided the clock.
Creature
4x Village Messenger // Moonrise Intruder
3x Breakneck Rider // Neck Breaker
4x Scourge Wolf
4x Geier Reach Bandit // Vildin-Pack Alpha
4x Duskwatch Recruiter // Krallenhorde Howler
3x Hinterland Logger // Timber Shredder
3x Hermit of the Natterknolls // Lone Wolf of the Natterknolls
3x Lambholt Pacifist // Lambholt Butcher
Instant
3x Moonlight Hunt
3x Collected Company
Enchantment
2x Howlpack Resurgence
Land
24
Sideboard
4x Silverfur Partisan
RBUGrixis ControlUBR
GUSimic MerfolkUG
WUUW ControlUW
RBUGrixis ControlUBR
BUUB MillUB
Colorless Eldrazi Tron
WRBurnRW
GUSimic MerfolkUG
UMono U TurnsU
WGGenesis Wave EnchantressGW
This looks closer to what I would expect (e.g.: Using CoCo).
There are many good non creature RG cards in the format now, like Atarka's command. Hard to see what the perfect mix would be. I wonder if your list has room for Arlinn.
This list is, or is close to what Ill probably run. I'll probably add more CoCo later on if it functions how I expect it to. I'll also have to see how well each werewolf functions and Ill switch around the numbers.
Yeah a lot of my ideas on werewolves are going to come down to Testing. Which is why I am keeping the curve pretty small. I know I cannot wait to try them out.
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
—Radha, Keldon warlord
I really like Pacifist a lot actually because she is a 3/3 for 2 and most likely will be able to attack the next turn or turn after as a 4/4. I think she is a very powerful card.
I like Partisan but not in a regular werewolf deck because alone he is just a 2/2. He is more a build around card, and green needs a lot more pump spells to make him way more busted.
With Arlinn I am a huge fan of her, and I say she is a 4 of in the non-collected company builds.
I do not like CoCo with werewolves because they have no enter the battlefield effects so flashing in two creatures does nothing during the combat step and not all that impressive on your turn. You are just getting vanilla creatures on your turn no matter what. They will not flip on the earliest until you pass your turn.
However, I do think Moonlight Hunt is a Tremendous Removal spell, with just two werewolves on the field it is already way better than Roast and Grasp of Darkness. It is a terrible topdeck but potentially a very good card.
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"
I think you're under-appreciating how good 4 mana for 5-6 power can be at instant speed.
If you have 28-30 targets this is not a problem. All the good werewolves are 2-3 cmc -- so this is not a problem either.
28-30 creatures is not an unreasonable assumption to make at all w/ werewolves.
That leaves space for 3-4 Arlins, 4 CoCos, 1-3 removal spells.
—Radha, Keldon warlord
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Geier Reach Bandit
4 Collected Company
The idea behind these picks is that Duskwatch Recruiter gives a mana sink that finds more doods, Krallenhorde Howler makes those doods cheaper, and Vildin Pack-Alpha puts those doods into overdrive as soon as they hit. Collected Company allows for passing of turns and flooding the field, and Arlinn Kord is basically a slower Huntmaster of the Fells that lets us do stuff on our turn without casting spells.
I played werewolves religiously in SOM-INN standard (and ended up crushing delver decks at events I went to due to different tempo plays with Huntmaster of the Fells and/or Moonmist) until Thragtusk got printed and warped standard for a year. What I learned playing the deck previously is that the werewolf deck plays like a human tribal deck with the option of going into overdrive if your opponent trips up.
This is the list I made originally to work with:
4 Village Messenger
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
4 Breakneck Rider
4 Hermit of the Natterknolls
4 Geier Reach Bandit
4 Oath of Nissa
Instants:
4 Collected Company
4 Atarka's Command
Planeswalkers:
4 Arlinn Kord
4 Cinderglade
4 Game Trail
8 Mountain
8 Forest
Cards I think to watch for playability are:
Dual shot, due to the 2-for-1 potential, but it's not as good as Arc Trail which available in SOM-INN unfortunately:
Sparkmage's Gambit, for the same reasons as Dual Shot but trading instant-speed for making creatures unable to block.
Fall of the Titans, for being a late-game mana sink with a similar functionality to Bonfire of the Damned, but trades hitting the whole board for instant speed.
Chandra, Flamecaller, as another late-game threat and Planeswalkers that lets us do things on our turn without actually playing anything.
Looking to tweak my list, I feel like this could work well, but needs more removal potentially?
4 Village Messenger
4 Duskwatch Recruiter
3 Breakneck Rider
3 Hermit of the Natterknolls
4 Geier Reach Bandit
Enchantments:
3 Oath of Nissa
Instants:
4 Collected Company
4 Atarka's Command
2 Fall of the Titans
3 Arlinn Kord
2 Chandra, Flamecaller
Lands:
4 Cinderglade
4 Game Trail
8 Mountain
8 Forest
1 Arlinn Kord
1 Breakneck Rider
3 Dual Shot
1 Hermit of the Nstterknolls
3 Moonlight Hunt
3 Kessig Forgemaster
3 Silverfur Partisan
4th Kord and Rider incase the match up is faster and Chandra's are too slow (more 'walkers can shore up a control match up better aswell).
Dual shot for weenie/aggro.
4th Hermit for a possible control match up.
3 Partisans for decks with lots of targeted spells/removal.
Moonlight Hunt and Forgemaster for creature-heavy slug feats.
What do you guys think? (Apologies for any formatting errors or typos, I'm on mobile)
I agree. If you play co co having 15 misses in the deck is terrifying. You need to up the creature count. 18 is nowhere near enough.
And again my problem with playing CoCo is that the wolves have no ETB and you are missing out on being able to play great spells with werewolves such as Arlinn Kord as a full 4 or Howlpack Resurgence.
Here all all the spells I would love to play with werewolf
If I play CoCo, it limits my deck construction because I have to have 25 Plus creatures and nothing feels worse then wiffing on CoCo
Tried to pull away, but now I'm Back At it
Love is Emphatic, cards need to be played
Hailing from the BA, accumulating CA"