I'm pretty new to Magic, only been playing about a year. My friend who got me into it plays at a higher level though and usually takes the win. Just wondering if you guys had any suggestions for making this deck more competitive. These cards are mostly things I've gotten from boosters.
And after typing it out, it seems like I have WAY too many singles.
Ummm depends on what you want to do, Aggro (a bunch of little guys, highest cost should be 4 or 5) or Midrange.
For Aggro, you want to be consistent with your little guys and sparse with the big guys.
4 Reckoners (or 3) is a must for most matchups because he is just ANNOYING to deal with in most cases.
You have a single Boros Elite, and while she's not the most amazing 1-drop, she handles the job if you don't want to commit to hard into the deck. I'd put her to four.
Legion Loyalist is a pretty cool 1-drop who enables battalion, he's good at 2-4.
Well to be honest it seems you're going midrange Boros.
Tajic is cool, quite honestly you should max your mana cost at 6, which is Aurelia. You seem to have quite a hefty amount of higher drops in the deck. In midrange I think the meat of the deck should be 3-drops (considering you don't have ramp in Boros colours).
So you need something early game to allow you to survive, a few one-drops maybe, or some resilient 2-drops such as Ash Zealot (who has a pretty hard mana cost for Boros sometimes). Eventually get to 3 mana and toss down Reckoners who will generally stabilize you.
When you get to four, Tajic will really help you blocking.
When you get to five, uhhh you could just throw down another 3 drop or 4 drop.
Six, slam Aurelia down on the table and destroy them.
Well really you should ditch the Battleshaper, a seven-drop should do something the moment it hits the field (it's good in Limited though).
Of course condense your deck to multiples of cards rather than singles
Glad you decided to choose the most awesome guild of all time!
Well, your deck is 59 cards, so bumping it up to 60 makes it legal for any constructed tournament that isn't block.
Now, my follow up question is how competitive do you want to get? That determines how I go about helping you out.
Furthermore, what kind of deck do you want to play? There are several different archetypes that help guide deck construction, and knowing which archetype you want to build can help provide structure to your deck.
If you don't know that I'm talking about, that's O.K. feel free to ask questions.
Ummm depends on what you want to do, Aggro (a bunch of little guys, highest cost should be 4 or 5) or Midrange.
For Aggro, you want to be consistent with your little guys and sparse with the big guys.
4 Reckoners (or 3) is a must for most matchups because he is just ANNOYING to deal with in most cases.
You have a single Boros Elite, and while she's not the most amazing 1-drop, she handles the job if you don't want to commit to hard into the deck. I'd put her to four.
Legion Loyalist is a pretty cool 1-drop who enables battalion, he's good at 2-4.
Well to be honest it seems you're going midrange Boros.
Tajic is cool, quite honestly you should max your mana cost at 6, which is Aurelia. You seem to have quite a hefty amount of higher drops in the deck. In midrange I think the meat of the deck should be 3-drops (considering you don't have ramp in Boros colours).
So you need something early game to allow you to survive, a few one-drops maybe, or some resilient 2-drops such as Ash Zealot (who has a pretty hard mana cost for Boros sometimes). Eventually get to 3 mana and toss down Reckoners who will generally stabilize you.
When you get to four, Tajic will really help you blocking.
When you get to five, uhhh you could just throw down another 3 drop or 4 drop.
Six, slam Aurelia down on the table and destroy them.
Well really you should ditch the Battleshaper, a seven-drop should do something the moment it hits the field (it's good in Limited though).
Of course condense your deck to multiples of cards rather than singles
Glad you decided to choose the most awesome guild of all time!
Yeah I was feeling I had too many heavy drops, They'll be the easiest to replace. Thanks for the tips!
Well, your deck is 59 cards, so bumping it up to 60 makes it legal for any constructed tournament that isn't block.
Now, my follow up question is how competitive do you want to get? That determines how I go about helping you out.
Furthermore, what kind of deck do you want to play? There are several different archetypes that help guide deck construction, and knowing which archetype you want to build can help provide structure to your deck.
If you don't know that I'm talking about, that's O.K. feel free to ask questions.
I'd atleast like to go to FNM or game day and not come in dead last lol. Midrange R/W aggro sounds good to me.
To run Boros Elite, Ash Zealot drops 1-2 you will need some expensive mana sources. Sacred Foundry will be useable in standard for another 15 months. Get as many as you can afford. Cliffside Retreat rotates sooner, but would help.
The Lantern fixes mana, but in aggro you don't want to have your 3 drop not be able to attack turn 4 and it doesn't help turns one and two.
The Vexing Devil will probably go away for damage, but that won't help you get battalion, so should go unless you don't want to use battalion.
You probably want at least 9 1-drops. The Rakdos Cackler counts.
Ok, so I kind of feel that 3 Frontline Medics might be a bit too much, same goes with the Spark Troopers. Should I add in more Boros Charms, and should I ditch Planar cleansing?
Ok, so I kind of feel that 3 Frontline Medics might be a bit too much, same goes with the Spark Troopers. Should I add in more Boros Charms, and should I ditch Planar cleansing?
Yes, ditch Planar Cleansing.
Yes, add more Boros Charms.
No, your numbers on Medics and Troopers are fine! If you have a Medic on the board, they'll be targeted as soon as possible (in all likelihood), so multiples are wanted ... and the Troopers will give you sustainability to outlast decks that burn out quickly, hopefully. They're also good finishers and great for you just starting out at FNM until you really start to define a solid deck.
Put Bonfire in your main deck, not in the sideboard. Get rid of Chromatic Lantern altogether. It is not a sideboard card, and not needed for your main, either.
Move Pithing Needle to the sideboard to take its place.
I would find some Searing Spears to put in here, too.
You're at only 20 lands, but with the average mana cost of your cards you should be running 22-23, at least. You need to cut some fat. I'd say cut the Serra (too slow to come out at it's cost) and the Vexing Devil (it has it's moments, but you don't need an 11th 1-drop in this deck and your others are better). Add in 2 Plains and 1 Mountain.
Do whatever you can to get Sacred Foundy. Mana is the heart of every deck, and FNM is not fun when you don't have the amount or type of mana you need to cast what's in your hand. Losing when you had the cards to play royally sucks.
Works towards more multiples of certain cards:
4x Boros Reckoner
4x Boros Charm
Cards you'll look first to replace are:
Angelic Overseer
Viashino Firstblade
Odric, Master Tactician
Reverberate
Doing even just half of these will really start to improve your deck. Especially the lands!
These will help you with everything aggressive. Get the clifftop retreats and sacred foundries. The foundries will hold price and potentially go up more after they rotate as they're staples in multiple decks in modern. You primarily want low costing beaters to kill your opponents as fast as possible.
Ok after scrounging around and buying a couple cards I think this is what I'll try at a weekend tournament.
Ok, so I kind of feel that 3 Frontline Medics might be a bit too much, same goes with the Spark Troopers. Should I add in more Boros Charms, and should I ditch Planar cleansing?
What those other guys said. I like legion's Initiative as a 4-drop. So the pattern you want is like:
turn 1: Aggressive 1-drop: Boros Elite or cackler
2: aggressive 2 drop or two aggressive 1-drops
3: aggressive 3 drop (medic is great) or 2-drop + 1-drop
4: now you can have battalion working and drop LI to pump your guys while saving the mana to exile if you fear a sweeper. Or you can blast one of their guys with a Spear and lay down a 3 drop. Or lay down a four drop.
Of course this is ideal and things never go according to plan, but if it's not even possible for your deck without statistics and your opponent messing with you, it won't work.
Lay out your 1 drops in a column, then your 2 drops next to them, then the three drops, and so on. You need about 8 to have about a 2/3rds chance of getting one in your hand in the early game. See the problem? You're going to be passing turn two, dropping LI early or mortaring something that doesn't need it too often. If you want battalion to work you need more 2 drops.
Ok thinking this will be the final workings until I try it out tomorrow lol. My pal is going to be nice enough to trade me 3 Sacred Foundries for some of my rare lands. I tried to go with everyone's advice and get rid of certain cards, bump others, and try to make the ratio better between drops.
Hope it goes well, thanks for everyone's help. Wouldn't say no to further advice though
Quick suggestion: Take out Assemble the Legion, Aurelia's Fury, and Gideon. Replace them with the three Searing Spears in your SB.
I second this.
You don't want to get to the point of needing those cards to win, you want to win, and win quickly. Searing Spears will either clear the road for your guys to attack, get rid of threats if you're on the defensive, or finish off the opponent after an attack phase.
2 Legion Loyalists
2 Pyrewild Shaman
1 Utvara Hellkite
1 Frontline Medic
1 Sunhome Guildmage
1 Spark Trooper
1 Angelic Overseer
1 Viashino Firstblade
1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion
1 Daring Skyjek
1 Ash Zealot
1 Firemane Avenger
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
1 Serra Avenger
1 Knight of Glory
1 Boros Battleshaper
1 Angel of Glory's Rise
1 Foundry Champion
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Boros Elite
1 Vexing Devil
1 Wojek Halberdiers
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Reverberate
1 Boros Charm
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Legion's Initiative
1 Assemble the Legion
1 Rest in Peace
1 Martial Law
Planeswalkers
1 Gideon, Champion of Justice
Artifacts
1 Pithing Needle
1 Chromatic Lantern
Lands
9 Mountains
7 Plains
3 Boros Guldgates
1 Slayers' Stronghold
I'm pretty new to Magic, only been playing about a year. My friend who got me into it plays at a higher level though and usually takes the win. Just wondering if you guys had any suggestions for making this deck more competitive. These cards are mostly things I've gotten from boosters.
And after typing it out, it seems like I have WAY too many singles.
For Aggro, you want to be consistent with your little guys and sparse with the big guys.
4 Reckoners (or 3) is a must for most matchups because he is just ANNOYING to deal with in most cases.
You have a single Boros Elite, and while she's not the most amazing 1-drop, she handles the job if you don't want to commit to hard into the deck. I'd put her to four.
Legion Loyalist is a pretty cool 1-drop who enables battalion, he's good at 2-4.
Well to be honest it seems you're going midrange Boros.
Tajic is cool, quite honestly you should max your mana cost at 6, which is Aurelia. You seem to have quite a hefty amount of higher drops in the deck. In midrange I think the meat of the deck should be 3-drops (considering you don't have ramp in Boros colours).
So you need something early game to allow you to survive, a few one-drops maybe, or some resilient 2-drops such as Ash Zealot (who has a pretty hard mana cost for Boros sometimes). Eventually get to 3 mana and toss down Reckoners who will generally stabilize you.
When you get to four, Tajic will really help you blocking.
When you get to five, uhhh you could just throw down another 3 drop or 4 drop.
Six, slam Aurelia down on the table and destroy them.
Well really you should ditch the Battleshaper, a seven-drop should do something the moment it hits the field (it's good in Limited though).
Of course condense your deck to multiples of cards rather than singles
Glad you decided to choose the most awesome guild of all time!
Now, my follow up question is how competitive do you want to get? That determines how I go about helping you out.
Furthermore, what kind of deck do you want to play? There are several different archetypes that help guide deck construction, and knowing which archetype you want to build can help provide structure to your deck.
If you don't know that I'm talking about, that's O.K. feel free to ask questions.
Yeah I was feeling I had too many heavy drops, They'll be the easiest to replace. Thanks for the tips!
I'd atleast like to go to FNM or game day and not come in dead last lol. Midrange R/W aggro sounds good to me.
What archtypes are there for boros?
The Lantern fixes mana, but in aggro you don't want to have your 3 drop not be able to attack turn 4 and it doesn't help turns one and two.
The Vexing Devil will probably go away for damage, but that won't help you get battalion, so should go unless you don't want to use battalion.
You probably want at least 9 1-drops. The Rakdos Cackler counts.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
4 Boros Elite
3 Rakdos Cackler
3 Legion Loyalist
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Frontline Medic
3 Spark Trooper
2 Firemane Avenger
1 Angelic Overseer
1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
1 Serra Avenger
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Viashino Firstblade
1 Vexing Devil
2 Legion's Initiative
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Aurelia's Fury
1 Boros Charm
1 Reverberate
1 Planar Cleansing
1 Assemble the Legion
Planeswalker
1 Gideon, Champion of Justice
Artifacts
1 Pithing Needle
Lands
2 Boros Guildgate
8 Plains
9 Mountains
1 Slayers' Stronghold
3 Pyrewild Shaman
3 Viashino Firstblade
2 Sunhome Guildmage
2 Knight of Glory
1 Foundry Champion
1 Bonfire of the Damned
1 Rest in Peace
1 Ash Zealot
1 Chromatic Lantern
Ok, so I kind of feel that 3 Frontline Medics might be a bit too much, same goes with the Spark Troopers. Should I add in more Boros Charms, and should I ditch Planar cleansing?
Yes, ditch Planar Cleansing.
Yes, add more Boros Charms.
No, your numbers on Medics and Troopers are fine! If you have a Medic on the board, they'll be targeted as soon as possible (in all likelihood), so multiples are wanted ... and the Troopers will give you sustainability to outlast decks that burn out quickly, hopefully. They're also good finishers and great for you just starting out at FNM until you really start to define a solid deck.
Put Bonfire in your main deck, not in the sideboard. Get rid of Chromatic Lantern altogether. It is not a sideboard card, and not needed for your main, either.
Move Pithing Needle to the sideboard to take its place.
I would find some Searing Spears to put in here, too.
You're at only 20 lands, but with the average mana cost of your cards you should be running 22-23, at least. You need to cut some fat. I'd say cut the Serra (too slow to come out at it's cost) and the Vexing Devil (it has it's moments, but you don't need an 11th 1-drop in this deck and your others are better). Add in 2 Plains and 1 Mountain.
Do whatever you can to get Sacred Foundy. Mana is the heart of every deck, and FNM is not fun when you don't have the amount or type of mana you need to cast what's in your hand. Losing when you had the cards to play royally sucks.
Works towards more multiples of certain cards:
4x Boros Reckoner
4x Boros Charm
Cards you'll look first to replace are:
Angelic Overseer
Viashino Firstblade
Odric, Master Tactician
Reverberate
Doing even just half of these will really start to improve your deck. Especially the lands!
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/forumdisplay.php?f=682
These will help you with everything aggressive. Get the clifftop retreats and sacred foundries. The foundries will hold price and potentially go up more after they rotate as they're staples in multiple decks in modern. You primarily want low costing beaters to kill your opponents as fast as possible.
Follow the link for nice cheap clothing.
Playing:
Death's Shadow Jund
Played:
Kiki Chord, Zoo variants, Goblins, Burn
What those other guys said. I like legion's Initiative as a 4-drop. So the pattern you want is like:
turn 1: Aggressive 1-drop: Boros Elite or cackler
2: aggressive 2 drop or two aggressive 1-drops
3: aggressive 3 drop (medic is great) or 2-drop + 1-drop
4: now you can have battalion working and drop LI to pump your guys while saving the mana to exile if you fear a sweeper. Or you can blast one of their guys with a Spear and lay down a 3 drop. Or lay down a four drop.
Of course this is ideal and things never go according to plan, but if it's not even possible for your deck without statistics and your opponent messing with you, it won't work.
Lay out your 1 drops in a column, then your 2 drops next to them, then the three drops, and so on. You need about 8 to have about a 2/3rds chance of getting one in your hand in the early game. See the problem? You're going to be passing turn two, dropping LI early or mortaring something that doesn't need it too often. If you want battalion to work you need more 2 drops.
tl;dr: looks better, have fun and get some 2 drops: Wojek Halbardiers, Mogg Flunkies, Gore-House Chainwalker, Bomber Corps, Daring Skyjek, Boros Mastiff, Keening Apparition may not all be good cards. When they allow battalion to trigger and the Medic makes all your guys indestructible they could be good for you.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.
4 Boros Elite
3 Legion Loyalist
3 Wojek Halberdiers
3 Bomber Corps
3 Boros Reckoner
3 Frontline Medic
2 Gore-house Chainwalker
2 Rakdos Cackler
2 Spark Trooper
1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
3 Boros Charm
2 Legion's Initiative
2 Mizzium Mortars
1 Aurelia's Fury
1 Assemble the Legion
Planeswalker
1 Gideon, Champion of Justice
Lands
3 Sacred Foundry
9 Plains
9 Mountains
1 Slayers' Stronghold
3 Searing Spear
3 Pyrewild Shaman
2 Daring Skyjek
2 Firemane Avenger
1 Rest in Peace
1 Ash Zealot
1 Spark Trooper
1 Odric, Master Tactician
1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion
1 Pithing Needle
Ok thinking this will be the final workings until I try it out tomorrow lol. My pal is going to be nice enough to trade me 3 Sacred Foundries for some of my rare lands. I tried to go with everyone's advice and get rid of certain cards, bump others, and try to make the ratio better between drops.
Hope it goes well, thanks for everyone's help. Wouldn't say no to further advice though
Standard: BG Golgari Midrange
Modern: U Merfolk GWUBR 5 Color Humans UBW Esper Gifts GW Bogles
I second this.
You don't want to get to the point of needing those cards to win, you want to win, and win quickly. Searing Spears will either clear the road for your guys to attack, get rid of threats if you're on the defensive, or finish off the opponent after an attack phase.
Good luck! Let us know what worked and didn't for you if you can.
RNA Standard: Grixis Midrange, Jund Deathwhirler, Sultai Vannifar
GRN Standard: Red Midrange, Mono-Blue Tempo, Wr Aggro, Gruul Experimental Dinosaurs, Sultai Midrange, Jeskai Midrange
Modern: Bant Spirits
Forcing a single archetype in all formats: too many colors, bad mana.