MTG Salvation

So, here is my take on Tribal Soldiers. It seems to be decent in 1-on-1 matches despite an awkward mana curve (often times only dropping land until turn four). In multiplayer it survives by being the least threatening deck at the table, until it swings for the win. I would like some help tuning it even further.





The Mystifying Maze really wants to be a Maze of Ith, but all of mine are in other decks. Any other suggestions?

Ancient Tomb is good ramp and can make tokens with Darien. It's hard to sort through the decklist when it's listed alphabetically like that. For example I wanted to know how much land you run without scanning over everything.

Deck listed edited for clarity. Currently, I only have one Ancient Tomb and it is in another deck. I might consider picking one up for this one though.

City of Brass, Tarnished Citadel, Grand Coliseum, and Jade Monolith (Particularly funny, as it means *any* creature to creature combat can be harnessed for token generation) have all more than earned their place during my own time playing Darien, King of Kjeldor. Having an on-demand source of damage is critical to leveraging the Board position advantage Darien offers, as once he's out, people will tend to only deal lethal damage to you until they can neutralize Darien. I can't recommend Ancient Tomb enough for this deck. It powers Darien out faster, and lets you proactive generate soldier tokens.

I would also suggest testing out Sun Droplet and Angelheart Vial, as they will provide decent synergy with the painlands and Darien, and help mitigate the painlands downsides even if Darien gets Tucked/Stolen.


You can also run Fire and Brimstone for Surprise Blockers (and a little damage to the opponent) with Darien, but it's pretty terrible.

Icatian Moneychanger can finance your troops! Bottle of Suleiman gets you either a 5/5 Flier or 5 soldiers. Goblin Lyre either nukes your opponent hard (since you're a token deck) or gives you even more soldiers. Jinxed Idol can either be sat on as a token engine, or sac a token to shunt it over to someone else, same with Jinxed Ring. Mana Crypt and Mana Vault get even more ridiculous in EDH since their downside becomes an upside. Torture Chamber provides you both a flow of tokens AND targeted creature removal.

I have considered putting City of Brass in the deck as well as a few more pain lands. The other cards sound interesting, but I have no idea what I would cut.

This deck has at least a couple dozen cards that would fit well, but obviously, only the 99 BEST cards get a spot. If you can point out an obvious switch for a better card, I will consider it.

I would say -1 oblivion ring and +1 Angelic chorus.

with chorus and darien on the board you can only die to damage in one shot. Best paired with a global pump to gain you more life than you lost.

I like Angelic Chorus, but I already have the effect in the deck three times stapled to creatures, two of which can be fetched by Ranger of Eos. O-Ring is an important piece of removal in this deck. Since this deck runs very little board wipe, O-Ring removes troublesome permanents.

No Conqueror's Pledge?

Since you have Crovax in the deck you can run Near Death Experience. If you ever have an Odd amount of life, just return him to your hand a bunch of times to get yourself at 1 life, then win!

Kind of douchey, but also hilarious if nobody at the table realizes it or has an answer before you win.

Also Mirror Entity Could be really good. It would just work to buff your tokens.

No Conqueror's Pledge as I don't really like one time token producers, especially really mana-intensive ones. I am even considering cutting Nomad's Assembly.

Near Death Experience seems really bad most of the time. Drawing it without having Crovax is just terrible and the deck has no way to tutor for either of them.

Mirror Entity is already in the deck and is pure win (except when you are mindslavered and it is activiated for 0).

Congregate?
Purity prevents non combat damage to you and turns it into life. Great for when someone tucks your general.

Where is your Coat of Arms?

I do not play Coat of Arms in EDH. We have too many tribal decks running around in our Meta. We have Slivers, A Lovisa Coldeyes deck, a Rhys Elf deck, Saproling deck, B/R Wort Goblins just off the top of my head.

Instead, I like Door of Destinies as it only pumps MY creatures.

land tax is a shoe-in for mono white

Good Morning

I really love it when I see these Darien, King of Kjeldor decklists pop up as it gives me the chance to revisit my decklist in addition to offering advice to yours...
You are more than welcome to check out my soldier decklist for ideas....follow the link in my sig.

First off, Auriok Champion IS on my wishlist....just haven't bought one yet. (many many have asked me that already)

Overall, I have less creatures and more spot board control. Boardwipes, I find don't work as well as it hurts you more ussually, and you ussually WANT some damage to get through....that's how Darien makes tokens.

Also, once Darien, King of Kjeldor is fielded, the battlefield stalls until either can do lethal since my opponents don't want to give a premature victory to me and my masses of tokens.

As such, I've added instant spot removal to catch my opponent off guard after their already committed to a 'lethal' attack:
Path to Exile, Condemn, Crib Swap and Retaliate all help in ensuring just enough damage gets through.
....basically any instant that can rob your opponent from thinking 'victory' to thinking 'crap...that's ALOT of tokens to deal with next turn'.

While on the offensive, I have more instant +1/+1 effects to boost my troops after my opponent has finished selecting blockers. Many 1/1 tokens, once cranked up a notch with Fortify, Swell of Courage, or Surge of Thoughtweft can make for some mass damage crossing the board.

Celestial Crusader, Cloudgoat Ranger, Knight-Captain of Eos and [card]Pentarch Paladin[card] have all been great troops to have in the collection.

I don't know how you do for card draw, but that's one area that I've had difficulty with since my average CMC is so low. As such, I've added Mindstorm Crown, Well Of Lost Dreams, and Illuminated Folio to assist in gathering the troops.

Special mentions #1 goes to Jade Monolith. For minimal cost, your troops can attack with impunity and if your opponent blocks, it feeds the fire and you get MORE troops out of the deal.

Special mentions #2 goes to Endless Horizons. Once I have 6 lands down, I don't really need any more, so I filter many of my lands out. (not all incase of land destructio) but enough such that I'm not drawing into lands when I want to be drawing into answers. It's not a huge threat that I have more lands entering play with EH either since my deck doesn't need them to function.

Lastly, I see that you have Nomad Stadium, but no City of Brass or Tarnished Citadel. Might as well get soldiers when you can as your opponent isn't going to want to give them to you willingly.

Lastly lastly, I see that you're deck may be a bit more competitive with some of the more expensive staples I see, but my deck has been able to beat Rafiq, Uril, and Zur in their competive states, so (shrugs) might be worth checking out...

Cheers