First of all, I would like to say thank you for taking the time to look over my Primer. Originally, my first stab at compiling the deck started out as a Razia, Boros Archangel deck. The only issue I found during the deck planning was when you get right down to it, Razia is a pretty boring Commander... Sure, she can get there if you go Voltron, but really she is just a 6 power flyer that has a high mana cost, so I was not thrilled with her and didn't move forward with putting the deck together. Then, Tajic, Blade of the Legion came around, and I finally pulled the trigger on the deck (Note: Yes, I am aware Aurelia was already out by then...). However, over several games, I realized even Tajic was pretty boring as well - he needed creatures attacking each turn in order to be a General damage threat. Once I resided myself to the inconsistency that Tajic was as a Commander, I decided that the deck needed a big overhaul and while looking through my card collection, I saw Aurelia, the Warleader, then *facepalmed*, and made her my new commander.
Over the past two years, I was playing in a competitive meta at my local game shop (LGS) and Aurelia did enough work that rules were instituted that made her less powerful, such as limiting the number of combats and increasing infect to 12 instead of 10, so I did not get as much reps in with this list at the time. I would sometimes pull her out and play a game, but the deck really wasn't the same as it used to be. Now though, I have moved from that meta and now play in a more casual setting, so I am excited to play this deck more often because it has been one of my favorites for a long time
Aurelia is an interesting commander option when you are planning to build a Boros deck. There are many different commander options for each play style, but Aurelia stands out as the clear winner of the group: she has some pretty strong abilities that allows her to provide a lot of benefits to your creatures or make Aurelia into a beast if you want to go voltron.
Aurelia, the Warleader's Pros 1. Aurelia's Creature Traits - Flying, Vigilance, and Haste: All three of these traits allows Aurelia to be very effective at attacking and putting pressure on your opponents. You never need to worry about over-extending with her because she will not tap to attack, so if an opponent does not have a blocker, there is no reason not to swing at them. Haste allows you to wait to play her until you "need" her, which when you consider that EDH/Commander is a format with many board wipes, it allows you to consistently utilize her. 2. Aurelia allows for a lot of damage to be dealt each turn through the additional combat step she provides. The way to take advantage of this is to increase her power and toughness through enchantments or equipment. Seeing as she is in W and R, I find equipment as the better option since they can be moved between creatures and stay in play in case the creature is dealt with. 3. Her additional combat trigger untaps all creatures you control, regardless if they attacked or not. By doing this, Aurelia allows you to abuse utility creatures - such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Krenko, Mob Boss, Stoneforge Mystic, or Mother of Runes to name a couple of options. Beyond just utility creatures, being able to activate Heartless Hidetsugu multiple times on any given turn can just be downright ridiculous...
Aurelia, the Warleader's Cons 1. Aurelia's base power and toughness is low compared to other creatures for 6 CMC. 3/4 is not terrible in Commander but in a world where there are a lot of 5/5 Flying creatures at the same CMC as Aurelia, her power level can be trumped easily. To avoid just getting snuffed out by these stronger creatures, Aurelia requires cards that provide her with evasion or spot removal in order to get through other players with blockers. 2. Aurelia's aggressive creature traits paint her as an Aggro deck right away. Ever heard of a Combo/Control Aurelia deck? Me neither. Since Aurelia provides so much benefit to creatures and attacking, your opponents are going to have an idea what type of deck you are playing and can form strategies on how to stop it before you even draw your first card. Often the strategy will just be to tuck Aurelia, which is not fun when you're playing in WR... 3. Playing Aurelia anytime in a game is going to elevate your threat at the table, regardless of the board state. Even on T6 with nothing to support her, she can do 6 commander damage and put someone on a 2 to 3 turn clock. Generally this causes the group to start the Politics Game against you, which is never good... It is wise to not simply cast her right away, even if it might be your only option, because of the threat increase she causes.
Beyond just Aurelia, In terms of all available Boros Commanders, there are a lot of deck possibilities that you can go with that have commander options that are just as good or better than Aurelia. For simplicity, I will go over my take on each other general and why I really didn't like them for my deck:
Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran: Not a bad aggro Commander in all honesty, a Boros token deck with him can be very strong, but that pretty much is the only strategy I see with him. If I wanted to go tokens, which I have in the past, personally I would not go Boros, but I would go G/W with Rhys the Redeemed. G/W is far more stronger in the token department and if you want to go that route, you're better off over there.
Anax and Cymede: Heroic seems like a really good mechanic for limited and constructed, but in Commander I find it rather weak. If Heroic applied when they became the target of a spell OR ability, then we might be talking. Note: After playing in the pre-release of Theros, I learned that Heroic is pretty decent if you run enchantments and some buffs, but Anax and Cymede's Heroic does not impress me enough to make a deck built around it.
Basandra, Battle Seraph: I like casting spells in combat... Otherwise not terrible, but would really go against my preferred strategy and play style. Funny story, she is a really good counter commander to my deck. If you find her interesting, there is a primer for her by Raikou Rider.
Brion Stoutarm: Brion is a REALLY good combo deck. One of the guys in my play group made a deck for him and it was pretty solid. However, my only issue is that it seems to me that he doesn't really need to use combat to win. Honestly though, you can probably turn this deck into a Brion deck by doing ~10 creature changes and a couple changes to enchants and spells. If you're really interested in Brion, you should check out the primer by Arthanuse.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Gisela is a pretty good Commander. She provides a unique form of protection with her reduction in damage received, which is why even though she is not my general, she made it into this deck as one of the "Dudes". With some changes to cards to get more ways to double strike, she can get in there with General damage pretty fast. Personally though, Aurelia is better for what I am trying to do, but Gisela was always in the back of my mind as a possible Commander when I finally got bored with Tajic. A last note is if you wanted to be a little more spell based, Gisela doubles the damage of your burns and would be a wiser choice over Aurelia if that is your play style.
Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer: Again, another token type of Commander, only you need to play around with artifacts as well to ensure Metalcraft is online. If you want to go that way, there is a good primer by ChilesIsAwesome. Otherwise, see my points in my discussion on Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran.
Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas: Kalemne is a strong competitor for the commander for this deck, but the issue I immediately see with her is she wants you to run a more slower deck focusing on bigger creatures for experience counters to get her into lethal levels. In my experience, making the deck slower will not help make this list win more, so I would advise using Kalemne if you want to play with experience counters, but otherwise look for other options.
Razia, Boros Archangel: Like I said in the introduction section, originally I wanted to make this deck with Razia as the General because when I was constructing the idea, Gisela and Aurelia had not been printed yet. In terms of Boros Power-creep, for Voltron generals, she has fallen down in stock due to the two previously mentioned Commanders. However, if you want some flavor, or can't find a copy of either Gisela/Aurelia, Razia can work, just not as efficiently.
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: Also like I mentioned in the Introduction, after Razia I went with Tajic as my Commander. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad choice. If you like to run sweep effects (I mean, this is Boros, AKA White is in your colors...) and not lose your general, you found the best choice of a Commander - it is pretty agitating to your opponents when you cast Rout and beat in with Tajic. However, in a world where a lot of cards have/give trample, the 2/2 aggro general does not do much for blocking. Also, if you are unable to get enough creatures in play to make him get his +5/+5, most people will just let the 2 in and not even blink.
Summary: Most of the commanders here are great, it just depends on the strategy you are looking to employ with the deck. For this deck, Aurelia is the best choice because this deck was built towards combat, general or regular creatures, as the source for winning games. If you pick this deck up and begin to find people really hating on Aurelia too much, the second best option is to go with Gisela. She is a little less as powerful, but can still easily get the job done.
So, after reading my comments on Aurelia and my Boros Commander reviews, here are the pro's and con's of this decklist:
You're going to like this general/deck if...
1. You like the option of going either Voltron with equipment or getting their with other creatures.
2. In relation to the #1, you like having flexibility in your game plan and not always relying on the same couple of cards to win - Flexibility while not compromising the deck's strengths.
3. You find Sunforger amazing and like to build it into your deck.
4. You are not a huge fan of combo decks.
5. You like to let other players have fun while you're also having fun - AKA: You are not a control deck.
6. You like to be "responsive" (again, not "controlling") and like being able to deal with threats (see Sunforger's toolbox).
You're NOT going to like this general/deck if...
1. You like control decks that rely on counter magic and resource denial (Stax).
2. You like winning with spell based combos or damage.
3. You don't like Sunforger (For some weird reason...).
4. You don't like messing around with combat phases of other players.
5. You are not a fan of having your general immediately hated on as soon as you cast it - Aurelia provides a lot of threat to you when she is played.
My name is James and I am 27 years old currently living in Clarkston, WA. I've played MTG off and on for the past 17 years and have really enjoyed the fun times I've had and the many people I have met. I started playing EDH/Commander with my close friends back in 2008 and my obsession with the format has been non-stop since then. I've made decks of all types ranging from Rhys the Redeemed Tokens, Reaper King Control/Tribal, and Tibor and Lumia Control/Combo to name a few of my favorites.
Over time, I have found that I have a tendency to build my decks so that they are efficient and effective, meaning that they are not one-trick ponies, but rather able to adapt and compete against the wide range of decks in this format. That being said, often a card that I've selected for a deck has the requirement that it is useful in any situation and not just part of one possible combo.
Lastly, this deck was made in lines with my old "competitive" (I use this loosely because my meta's definition is very different from the CEDH thread/meta discussed on this forum) didn't allow infinite combos and as such I didn't include them. Granted this deck doesn't have many infinite options, but now I will have no issue taking infinite combat steps compared to how I used to avoid it in my previous iterations of the deck.
In 2014 and 2015 I started playing against many different forms of control, combo, and aggro in my local game store's (LGS's) EDH league. The only saving grace is the LGS's have house rules of no infinite combos, which helps this deck perform since it stops the combo players from just going off, but many people realize the power of Aurelia and are a lot quicker to shut this deck down before she becomes an issue. This has required me to shift to some more competitive creatures and tune the deck to be aggressive early enough to smoke out the nasty control decks.
Now in 2016, I have moved to any area that is developing a Commander scene. For now, I have no real idea what this deck is going to come up against, so I am starting to build it a little bit of how I want to play and not necessarily tuned to combat others. I don't think there will be any real big changes, more than likely I may tune it to be less cut throat than it has been in the past, but if there are big changes I will be sure to note them and discuss them in good detail in my responses.
In this section, I will go over my explanations on the cards I have selected for my deck and point out some of the cool interactions they have with other cards. For organizational purposes, each section is organized by the card's function in the list.
Creatures
Mother of Runes: A great way to get Aurelia into an opponent is by giving her protection from one of the colors of my opponent's creatures. The fact that she untaps once Aurelia attacks makes MoM viable as a defensive card if needed.
Weathered Wayfarer: As with many non-G decks, it is difficult sometimes to mana ramp into the cards we need right away. In comes this little guy, who makes it so that we can search our deck for any land if we have less lands, allowing us to grab mana fixing or even utility lands to help power this deck to victory. Any W deck should strongly consider running this guy when it can.
Knight of the White Orchid: Best case scenario, he is catching me up in land count compared to my opponents and keeping me in the game so to speak. Also, he specifically fetches a Plains - AKA: Plateau, Sacred Foundry, or Mistveil Plains. Worst case scenario, he is a 2/2 First strike. He might seem dumb in a world where 5/5 creatures exist, but factor in some equipment, first strike starts making him a little nasty.
Leonin Shikari: This gal was in this deck during an early iteration before I went heavy on double strikers. In general, it becomes really obnoxious for an opponent to remove a creature if we can instantly move Lightning Greaves, let alone the other swords if we have available mana to spend on the equipment costs.
Puresteel Paladin: Considering the deck has a decent number of equipment, this guy lets us keep some momentum going due to the card draw. Also, if I do have Metalcraft online, he can make Aurelia absolutely deadly on her first turn since the equip costs will be 0.
Imperial Recruiter: The value of being able to tutor for creatures outside of G and B is quite high and although Recruiter is limited in its targets, this deck has plenty of good creatures to grab. Want protection? Grab Mother of Runes. Want equipment? Stoneforge. Want double strike for Aurelia? Silverblade. Need control? Grand Abolisher. Need lands? Weathered Wayfarer or Knight of the White Orchid. I think you get the hint
Silverblade Paladin: I like the Soulbond mechanic in Commander, it is a cool way to make your creatures stronger. In this case, considering the Commander is a extra combat enabler, with Silverblade in play Aurelia will deal 12 General damage on her first turn. Factor in an equipment on her, it only gets better.
Sublime Archangel: Exalted has always been an interesting mechanic because while your one creature is attacking and getting stronger, you are forced to attack with only that one creature. However, think about it this way: If I only have Aurelia and Sublime Archangel in play on T6, when Aurelia attacks, she is a 5/6 on the first combat. Next swing, a 7/8. That is 12 total damage to an opponent instead of only 6. The damage increase can be even higher if there are a couple early game creatures in play.
Wrecking Ogre: Besides being a beat-stick, Wrecking Ogre really shines in making Aurelia be a one-turn kill against someone. If she can't be blocked, she becomes a 6/7, Double Strike. Doing the math, that is 24 damage in one turn. This generally catches people by surprise to, which makes it extra sweet and enjoyable.
Sun Titan: You should be able to tell by now that equipment are pretty strong in this deck and it is safe to say they are going to get destroyed. The only equipment that can't be retrieved by Sun Titan is Batterskull. Now, besides equipment, fetch lands are good choices to accelerate late game or to thin the deck of land draws. Destroyed my strong enchantments or mana rocks? Get them back! The Titan of the Sun cares not for your removal!
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Gisela.... oh such a mean card you can be... She speeds up the Aurelia clock to 2-turns just with her alone, but often she comes down and allows Aurelia to 1-turn someone. When she hits the table, heads up, because now you are the Archenemy in the game.
Equipment and Sunforger Toolbox
Equipment: O-Naginata: This equipment is situational, but considering Aurelia is a 3/4, it is perfect for her. It is cheap to put into play, gives her trample, and adds +3 to power. This is probably the second easiest way to make her a 2-turn kill clock on an opponent and makes her impossible to chump block.
Hero's Blade: Another cheap Aurelia equipment, only this time it immediately equips to her when she enters the battle field. Now she becomes a 6/6 flyer, which makes her a problem quickly. This is definitely the easiest way to make her a 2-turn clock, only she can be chumped.
Lightning Greaves: Shroud and haste with an equip cost of zero. As mentioned in Leonin Shikari's discussion, with her in play you can fizzle any targeted spell on your creatures.
Mask of Memory: Deck filtering and also a net +1 in cards. Put this on Aurelia, and we get +2 net cards a combat. Put this on a Double Striking Aurelia and we get +4 cards. RW decks usually have issues with draw and this equipment overcomes that big time.
Sword of the Animist: Land ramp can always be an issue and this equipment provides a good source of it. Play this early on a utility creature and swing if we need land - the land comes into play on attack and does not need to do damage to the player. the +1/+1 is nice too, but nothing to get super excited about.
Umezawa's Jitte: ERMERGERD utility! Throw this bad boy on Aurelia for 4 counters a turn, which can make Jitte get out of hand really fast. 4 counters on Jitte translates to one of 4 things: kill anything that is a 4/4 or below, gain 8 life, or make Aurelia a HUGE beater during combat - Note: first combat nets this equip 2 charges. You can use the charges to make her gain +4/+4 on the next swing to put someone on a higher commander damage clock. If you have some cash to spare, invest into a Jitte and never look back - I have always played with it in Commander and destroyed people with it.
Sunforger: There is a reason that Sunforger has a "Toolbox" assigned to it. See that section for more explanation, but to put it bluntly, this card lets you tutor for answers to many situations, depending of course on the Toolbox you make for it. For an additional reason, adding +4/+0 to Aurelia makes her get even more deadly when she attacks.
Grafted Exoskeleton: This card has a little bit of controversy associated with it. If your meta finds infect to be broken, or has house rules in places to prevent 10 poison counters kill you, then I would not use this equipment. That being said, and the tendency I have to travel with this deck to different stores and play groups, it is nice to have an equipment that can essentially "one-shot" (use Aurelia's two combats) a pesky opponent early.
I will now go over the cool effects of the Swords I play with. Without wasting time, let it be known that the +2/+2 and protections they provide are already good enough to include them anyways.
Sword of Feast and Famine: Untapping your lands is always good and making someone discard as well is pretty decent, unless they are in blue and already have 20+ cards in hand. Usually immediately destroyed by most people because of the untapping your lands effect, so play it with caution or at least hold it back until you can abuse it.
Sword of War and Peace: Life gain and more damage based on hand sizes. Hurts blue players badly, which makes me smile.
Sunforger Toolbox: Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares: Targeted creature removal is nice, especially if it is an RFG effect. I run both of the W cost RFG because there are plenty of Prophet of Kruphixs that need to go away...
Boros Charm: Utility is always nice. More often, I am using this to make my permanents indestructible in response to a board wipe. The double strike ability has helped on Aurelia for various sword procs. The evil part of me wants to kill someone with the 4 damage someday, but the odds of that happening are slim at best...
Valorous Stance: Utility is sweet - making Aurelia indestructible or dealing with a threat. Often, option 1 is used, but again I am a fan of utility lol...
Chaos Warp: Sometimes, something needs to get off the battlefield. And considering everyone and their mother loves to interact with the graveyard, why not put the card into the library instead? Now, this play does come with a potential nasty side-effect of making the situation worse (thus the word 'Chaos'), but typically casting this card usually nets someone a new land. Also, this spells is quite effective at saving key components in this deck from RFG effects.
Oblation: See Chaos Warp. Difference here is the player that owns, not controls, the card gets to draw. I love doing this to someone who steals permanents from players since you effectively remove what they stole and give the owner (sometimes myself) cards too
Master Warcraft: Oh, Master Warcraft, you are a mean... mean... card... If I desire, I can ensure my opponents are absolutely decimated during my combat, or even theirs. Force no blocks, bad blocks, or directly kill someone off, anything is possible with this card if you're willing to make it happen.
Return to Dust: I really avoided including this card for a long time, but with the recent printings of Commander 2016 and the Kaladesh set, artifacts are a problem in a lot of games I play. Thus this little sucker was slipped in. I generally try to cast this on my own turn and during my main phase, but the fact it can get grabbed with Sunforger is beneficial to removing problem artifacts/enchantments as soon as they hit the field.
Mana Accel Cards, Creature Buffs/Extra Combats, and Sweep Effects
Mana Accel Cards: Chrome Mox: 0 cost mana ramp, only we have to discard a colored card to utilize it. I have no issues tossing any random card in this deck if it can get me an earlier Aurelia. Ramp is good, go to town with it!
Mana Crypt: If you have money to waste, waste it on this. Trust me - this card makes any deck suddenly explode out the gate.
Mox Diamond: The last 0 cost ramp we have, this one requiring you to discard a land card to allow it to stay in play. I suggest some caution with using it because if you only have 2 lands in hand and this guy, it may not be the best choice to play because you'll need mana and artifacts disappear a lot easier than lands. Use your best judgment when playing with it.
Land Tax: White's amazing ability to thin your deck of basic lands. And this is Commander! Even if my turn is first in a game, someone will ramp ahead of me most likely. Early, Mid, or Late game, doesn't matter - this card has a positive effect on your deck any stage of the game.
Sol Ring: My...... PRECIOUS!!!!..... (Honestly, I should not need to explain this choice.)
Boros Signet, Fellwar Stone, and Mind Stone: These guys are all in here to really just accelerate the deck and color fix to get an early Aurelia. Nothing special about them really, I just like them all enough to add them in the deck...
Wayfarer's Bauble: Putting a land into play to compete with all the G ramp decks out there is a good thing. Recurring with Sun Titen (assuming no better targets) also lets you keep going later to improve the potential draws in the deck.
Burnished Hart: This guy makes my next turn kinda obvious, but with mana rock acceleration, he can be popped as early as turn 2 if I have a "God Hand" (aka, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt) or Turn 3 or 4, making a Turn 4 or 5 Aurelia.
Solemn Simulacrum: Sad robot is value town. Nothing more needed to be said really... enjoy the land and hopefully you'll get to draw a card when he dies.
Creature Buffs/Extra Combats: Sigarda's Aid: Casting equipment with flash and auto equipping them to a creature when they come into play? Uhhh... Sign me up! This card allows this deck to be more flashy/secretive about what equipment we have in hand/available to use on our opponents. Who would've thought Sigarda would want to help Aurelia wreck face so much?
Aggravated Assault: The quick and dirty infinite combat combo makes an appearance in my list now, but it rarely gets to go off to be honest. In general this card lets me get a 3rd Aurelia combat per turn and speed up the kill clock on my opponents.
Citadel Siege: 99% of the time I pick Khans with this card. Why? Because "At the beginning of combat on your turn, put two +1/+1 counters on target creature you control." You know how many combats you get with Aurelia? 2. That means 4 +1/+1 counters on her per turn, making her turn into a death machine pretty quickly. Avoid pro-W and shroud cards on her when this is in play, trust me.
Seize the Day: An extra combat spell that has Flashback, so we really get two instances of an extra combat during the game. Keep in mind that Aurelia has vigilance, so don't target her with this spell unless you have to - it's nicer to untap another creature instead and swing with both.
Assemble the Legion: Not really a buffer card or an extra combat card and I really didn't want to make a 'token' section, so this is where Assemble gets put! This card is somewhat a 'backup finisher' to label it something because really it can become a huge issue for opponents if no one deals with it in short order. Even at 4 counters, you have 10 tokens in front of you or are already swinging them all over the place to combat others.
Savage Beating: Cast this during your 2nd attack with Aurelia for another phase and 2 rounds of double strike action! Or do it early if you know you are just going to win immediately. This card can catch people by surprise.
Sweep Effects: Cataclysm: An ultimate finisher - Choose Aurelia and an equipment attached to her. Watch the table scoop.
Catastrophe: Situational - Can I just win by knocking out the lands and keep creatures? Or do I need to wipe the creatures because the Brimaz, King of Oreskos player has gone nuts with tokens?
Card Draw / Tutor Effects
Enlightened Tutor: Tutor for any of my artifacts and enchantments, which also includes lands thanks to the artifact lands! The fact this tutor is also an instant allows for me to use it before my turn to ensure that the card I tutor for is available right away and that I have all my mana open to use it.
Faithless Looting: It took awhile for this card to warm up to me, but really though I am not netting more cards, the filtering aspect of this card is worth it to me. Filter away all the non-need cards and hope for better cards on the top of the deck. If I failed the first time, flash it back and hope again.
Sensei's Divining Top: I consider Top to be a draw, but really this card is in its own league. According to the statistics, 35% of the decks on MTGS use it. I find this fairly low in all honestly, but perhaps it is due to the cash value the card has.
Relic Seeker: A relatively low cost creature that usually is able to proc for the tutor effect. Nothing too special about it. It's main purpose is that it is a secondary tutor target for Imperial Recruiter if Stoneforge Mystic has already came into play or is in my hand.
Stoneforge Mystic: One of the best equipment tutors in the game - she broke Standard for a long time and didn't see much time, if any, in Modern. Best part is she can cheat the equipment in for cheaper than the casting cost! Mana efficiency is always appreciated in Boros.
Deal Broker: Looting for cards on a body that can use equipment to swing if I am desperate.
Wheel of Fortune: That blue player have a grip of 20 cards? Kiss those goodbye. Your opponents bragging about their hand a little too early? Dump it in the yard if your hand is meh! Red's cute way to draw another 7 has some advantages if you consider how your opponents are playing.
Reforge the Soul: Wheel of Fortune v 2.0, only can be cast cheaper if you Miracle it, also with Sensei's Divining Top you can use the top to draw it on an opponents turn then pay the Miracle cost. Instant speed hand cycling is clutch sometimes :). Generally though, I often end up drawing into the Miracle cost early game and fire it off even if my hand has a couple of good cards, but be careful because you might discard away a strong late game card and have it get RFG'ed, so I usually avoid discarding away Sword of Feast and Famine for that reason.
Stonehewer Giant: Super abusive equipment tutor - the fact that he tutors for an equipment and attaches it to a creature is ridiculous. If he sticks, Aurelia can become a killing machine very quickly. Grafted Exoskeleton is generally the equipment I tutor and put on Aurelia for instant death.
Godo, Bandit Warlord: Another good equipment tutor and combat phase enabler. You can get three attacks with Aurelia a turn by using him because she has Vigiliance: First combat, swing with Aurelia and leave Godo back. 2nd combat, swing with both. Godo just attacked for the first time, so you get a 3rd combat phase. Then Godo and Aurelia swing for good beats!
General Statement
Now, like the title of this post states, this deck has two possible strategies: Voltron with Aurelia or get in with overall creature damage. Often, how you choose to play this deck is really determined by your opening hand. If you start the game and notice you have some of the equipment tutors (Steelshaper's Gift, Stoneforge Mystic, Godo, Bandit Warlord, or Stonehewer Giant), then Voltron may be the wise way to go. However, if you have a grip of good creatures for damage (Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, etc.) then going more of a creature combat route is good too. I built this deck to be able to do good in either situation, so truthfully either will get you the win. That's the beauty of equipment over enchantments - they stay around when the creatures die or if we want to move them, so don't feel compelled to stick with just utilizing Aurelia or creatures.
Early Game - Develop a Board State
This deck has enough early mana access and hopefully you will net the draw power from Mask of Memory or Sensei's Divining Top as early as possible. When you look at an opening hand for this deck you are primarily looking for 3-4 lands and then a couple of cards to play within the first 3 to 4 turns of the game. Creatures or mana rock, just being able to play something early can help add up in the long run. From my experiences, odds are I will draw into something that can keep me rolling along if I have at least 3-4 lands in my opening hand because we will be able to draw as we go along - we do not have too much ramp so that we just keep over ramping.
Note: However, common Commander experience has shown that the issues with a RW deck is the early game stage. It is crucial that you are staying on pace with other decks as they ramp and develop their board. The trick to do this for RW is to include more artifact ramp, which I went a little skimpy on due to the cards I wanted to include. However, if you would like to fix this yourself as you're constructing a deck, look to these cards to assist you: Thran Dynamo, Boros Keyrune, and Coalition Relic.
Now back to explaining Early game, you honestly want to make sure other decks do not accelerate too fast for you to keep up with - even though this deck might have a lot of low cost spells, remember that Aurelia is a pretty hated General and casting her on turn 6, when you have no protection for her is not always the best strategy. If you are fortunate to have Enlightened Tutor in your opening hand, or are lucky to start the game with these next two cards, Sword of the Animist and Land Tax are good at keeping you on pace with the fast green decks. The land filtering also improves the odds of drawing into "gas" (cute word for good stuff), so never consider getting these two cards as a "bad choice" compared to grabbing other cards.
In short: Try not to paint the target on you too early. Make sure you are making your land drops each turn. Hold back the strong equipment like Sword of Feast and Famine, play them when you can take advantage of them instead of dumping them out to be removed before you can use them. Pay attention to who is making the first move in the game - you can start the Politics game early with that opponent being the target. They will most likely get the initial hate from the table and can overshadow your upcoming plays.
Mid Game - Start the "Pain Train"
Now is the time to commit to what we want to do: Voltron with Aurelia or effective creatures. Like I said before, your opening hand should help you decide this before we even get to this stage. If you had some form of equipment tutor and are going Voltron, getting an equipment in play a couple of turns before you cast Aurelia is clutch, unless you already have Sigarda's Aid in play (which means keep the equipment in your hand). If you draw a lot of equipment early, I do suggest tutoring for Sigarda's Aid because it will allow you to protect your equipment better by keeping them in your hand and not in play for people to just remove before you can use them.
Sword of Feast and Famine is probably the best equipment in this deck in allowing you to gain a large amount of tempo: swinging into someone who can't stop Aurelia will effectively catch you up to, and most likely pass, any green decks that have ramped. Also, if you're going with the more creature aggro route, this is the point which will start to make people in the game need to deal with your guys pronto. Keep any card draw options open: Cast Wheel of Fortune or Reforge the Soul to refill your hand if it is getting low, even if it causes you to ditch a couple of good cards - the hope is to draw into better cards with the fresh 7 you get.
In short: Getting Aurelia into play in the when you have 7 or 8 mana is the smart route to winning with this deck. You should try to have some sort of defense for her in play or someone else at the table is currently the target and playing her will not change that. Once in play, you should be ready to begin making the move towards dishing out some serious damage.
Late Game - Going for the Kill
At this point, this will be the time to start hitting people hard because they couldn't respond to the initial dudes or the equipment you have played. If they did respond, it is time to recover and respond. Worst case scenario, you have been shut down a couple of times and are trying to be relevant again.
During Late Game, I like to start exploiting Godo, Bandit Warlord's attack trigger. In short, what you can do is attack with Aurelia and keep Godo back on her first attack trigger. Then, on the second attack, you swing with Godo as well. Since this is the first combat for Godo, you get a 3rd phase that you can utilize with Aurelia or any other creature that has Vigilance. Bring Savage Beating into the picture, untapping my creatures and giving another combat phase, and you can truck in with everything on each of the three attacks during the turn.
A card to also consider deploying during Late Game is Master Warcraft. Usually I find the best use of this card is to play it during an opponents combat step because I can ensure the attacking opponent attacks with their important creatures. Note: You do not get to decide where the creatures attack, so that opponent could just send them all at you if you choose too many. However, even though that limitation exists, there are often times where I need to ensure Aurelia can get through to my opponents, so casting it during my turn lets me kill someone off easily. Pretty much just utilize Master Warcraft as you feel, just remember how strong the spell is and that it being cast should result in someone dying or an opponent should be open for an onslaught from the table.
Now, if you've the point where you want to win right away because the combo deck players are one turn away from winning or you're just out of non-combo options, getting Grafted Exoskeleton in play and on Aurelia will allow you to one-shot any opponent that can not block her. I usually hold this back until late game since it will draw a lot of aggro towards this deck, however don't feel compelled to wait until then if a combo/control player is drawing enough table hate.
Additionally, the only infinite combo we have in this deck is Sword of Feast and Famine and Aggravated Assault. All else fails and if people are going for their finishers, don't feel bad employing this combo to win. In my experience, people get annoyed at it, but realize they had awhile to deal with either Aurelia or the combo pieces themselves.
In short: More than likely at this point you are the threat or you're going to lose. Ensure you have responses available and try to not over-extend the deck. If you do, don't fret too much. The deck is loaded with big creatures and high damage output to get you to the win, it is just wise to not have to start relying on "Captain Top-Deck", because sometimes he likes to gift you land instead of value.
Hand: Sun Titan, Sublime Archangel, Master Warcraft, Boros Signet, Steelshaper's Gift, Mountain, Plains
Keep or Ditch?: Ditch
Reasoning: This is a what I like to call a trap hand. There are a couple of clutch cards, but not enough land to get it going. We can very easily get stuck on the 2 lands and only have access to 3 mana total, so I'd personally dump the hand away and hope for better.
Example #3
Hand: Puresteel Paladin, Solemn Simulacrum, Oblation, Wheel of Fortune, Land Tax, Evolving Wilds, Plains
Keep or Ditch?: Keep, but could be risky.
Reasoning: Land Tax + Plains keeps me in this game. I have yet to see someone nuke Land Tax early game, so I should get a couple land with ease. The Solemn Simulacrum will accel me on turn 4. If my draws stink as I go beyond, Wheel can refill my hand with better threats.
Considering this is an aggressive deck with either Voltron or Dudes, there are some situations you can run into that may become a problem for this deck. Here is a list of the type of issues I have run into and some solutions/tweaks you can utilize.
1. Pillow Fort/Stax Decks - Propaganda, No Mercy, Other negative effects (AKA: "Attack me, but be ready to pay the price for it!"): It may or may not be obvious, but these type of cards can start to be annoying because the real win condition in this deck is creature damage. Besides just not attacking them directly, the common answer I seek is to try to beat into these decks early rather than wait for them to play these type of cards and get the pillow fort online. Often, if someone pulls out a Zur the Enchanter deck, be ready for these type of cards. In the event these cards do come online, be ready to have Orim's Thunder ready. Also, if you play in a meta where these types of cards are common, considering putting a Return to Dust into your deck.
2. Artifact Hate - Most Notably Aura Shards, Vandalblast, and Shattering Spree: Equipment decks can be slightly clunky because often it takes one turn to play the equipment and then another to equip it to your creature. This give your opponents a good amount of time to respond to the artifacts with the hate cards common in this format (listed in the heading). If you have a lot of players packing the "come into play" hate cards, look to Torpor Orb or Hushwing Gryff to come to your aid. For spell effects, I've already included common ways to protect them in this deck, but including a Darksteel Forge would be the last possible defense I can think of...
3. Counterspell type Control Decks: In my style of playing, I personally do not make my decks to be able to prevent counter spells - though many decks have them, in most Commander games I play, my creatures and equipment are not as threatening at the time, or I have cheated them into play via Stonehewer Giant or Stoneforge Mystic to name a few. That all being said, if you want to make a better way to stop these type of decks and are building this deck on your own, I suggest two lands to you: Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Cavern of Souls (most likely naming Angel). These will help mitigate counterspells from ruining a lot of your powerful threats in the deck.
4. Decks that run Bribery, Acquire, or Sphinx Ambassador: Get ready to accept the fact that this deck is going to be the target of these effects most of the time: There are some nasty targets to pick from in this deck, most notably Sublime Archangel, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, and Sword of Feast and Famine to name a few. To prevent these cards that steal the good creatures/artifacts, the first real decision needs to be made during deck construction, because if you are in a meta that utilized these type of cards, put a Homeward Path or Leyline of Sanctity in your deck. However if you choose to run the bombs like I am running and not include a Homeward Path, then be ready to kill the selected creature somehow...
5. "Captain Top-Deck" - Otherwise known as "Lack of Draw": In my deck list, I included the three preferable methods I like to use to draw, however there are more that can be included to help make you able to draw more often. Cards like Temple Bell, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Staff of Nin, or even Staff of Domination can provide more necessary draw power. My only advice is to limit the number of drawing cards you put in the deck. What is the point in drawing a lot of cards each turn if you are not drawing enough threats to stay relevant in the game?
6. Slow Early Game: I say this because it's true: this deck has a high CMC curve and the first several turns may just be "Plains/Mountain, Pass turn." My non-competitive meta is a pretty slow/casual play style, more often games end somewhere between turn 12-16. If the meta you play in has decks that are pretty quick to get going, subbing out some of the higher mana cost creatures like Godo, Bandit Warlord, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, and Sun Titan for some 2-4 CMC creatures may be a necessary move. Subbing in some of the artifact acceleration cards posted in the Early Game section may also be helpful if you find your early game lacking.
7. Tuck Effects (such as Hinder, Spin into Myth, Condemn, etc.): Most people I play with or stores I visit really hate these type of cards, so I rarely see them in use when I sit down to play. However, considering what this deck is setup to do and the amount of power Aurelia brings to the table, cards that put her on the bottom of the library are a good counter to her. However, like previously stated in this primer, Aurelia is not crucial to winning with this deck. Even if she does get tucked, the deck has Gamble to tutor her back. Also, Reverberate can copy someone else's tutor / creature fetch. If you begin to find that you may need more solutions to these type of effects, Skyship Weatherlight is an awesome creature/artifact tutor (when used to only grab one card) that not many people know about and you can also look to include Reiterate as another copying method to utilize other player's tutors.Thank you Rule Committee, you made a huge Boros weakness go away
This section is going to expand as people provide feedback to this thread, but for now these are some cards I decided to not use.
Instants and Sorceries
Act of Treason / "Gain control of target X" spells: Main reason is that there are not enough sac outlets to benefit from these effects. If you needed to prevent an annoying blocker situation, the deck is able to get around most creatures via protection from the Swords, so again not necessary for that purpose. Finally factor in the appearance of Homeward Path in most decks due to the sheer amount of people purchasing the pre-cons to understand how these cards have lost a lot of power recently. Zealous Conscripts is in this deck because it targets permanents, so I can steal away a planeswalker ult sometimes and good artifacts until the end of turn.
Chaos Warp: Oblation's cousin, Chaos Warp is a great tuck spell to deal with enemy generals or annoying combo pieces. The reason I only run with Oblation is because often I have used that spell to save one of my own cards (usually an equipment) from being RFG'ed or destroyed, so I prefer to get the two cards on the top instead of the random permanent. Added in 12/16/16 update - see card discussion section
Cloudshift: Cloudshift is suggested often by people who think that it gives a lot of awesome value with Aurelia's attack trigger, and they are right to play with it if they are simply looking for more attack phases. However I find that since I primarily use equipment as my buffing strategies that blinking Aurelia makes her weaker and requires me to use mana to re-equip her.
Insurrection: This card is really a "Win more" card. As I mentioned in my discussion of the meta I play in, my play group does not swarm people with creatures. The deck already has a couple of ways to influence combat, so I did not find Insurrection necessary.
Return to Dust: Truthfully, a good card to include, but I always find myself wanting to cast on my main phase. It is painful to me to have to utilize this when I use Sunforger, so I went with Orim's Thunder instead. However, RtD is a strong card so have no regrets if you include this in your own Sunforger Toolbox. Added in 12/16/16 update - see card discussion section
Creatures
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Avacyn is amazing, but I feel like she is too easily stolen from via Bribery and Clone-like cards. Giving my opponents indestructibility makes it a lot harder for Aurelia and this deck to win, so I just decided against using her.
Boros Reckoner: Reckoner is an efficient 3 CMC creature with an awesome effect that makes him annoying to block, especially with creatures that have higher power than him, but I find that otherwise his first strike option doesn't make him threatening enough late game.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Elesh was in this deck for a long time, but in the end I felt like his purpose was more for controlling the board instead of being aggressive, thus he/she/it (whatever sex Elesh is...) got the cut.
Heartless Hidetsugu: While insanely effective, he also does a lot of damage to myself as well. Giving him infect seems funny since it will one shot everyone at the table (including myself). I would give him a go if I wanted to be really competitive for a tournament, but for casual play I will take a pass.
Kargan Dragonlord: While he is another cool level up creature, I think he is just a little bit too slow to make a huge difference in my games. If I had all R mana each turn, on T5 he could be an 8/8 Flying Trample if every mana was spent into his level up on each turn. He may make the cut someday if I get bored with some of the other creatures in the deck, but for now I will hold off on finding a home for him.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence: Linvala is an awesome creature and causes a lot of issues for my opponents, I just find she would give this deck too much control and I just don't want to be "that guy" with this deck.
Serra Ascendant: Serra was a card in this deck for a short time, and it is always cute to play a 6/6 Flying, Lifelink, but the reality is this card makes people really, really, REALLY hate you. Drawing so much aggro from the table in the early stages of the game is a dumb idea and should always be avoided when possible.
Artifacts
Loxodon Warhammer: Similar to Whispersilk Cloak, I spent awhile trying to think what I would cut to justify this gem. It really came down to this guy or Sword of Vengeance, which translates to what is more important: Vigilance or Lifelink? In my assessment of both cards, Vigilance is a lot stronger in this format, especially since First Strike is provided as well.
Sword of Body and Mind: Like I mentioned in my discussion of my playgroup, a lot of decks I play against love creatures in graveyards. For that reason, making someone mill 10 cards is not ideal. Plus, who cares about a 2/2 wolf? The weakest Sword of them all IMO, and thus not used.
Whispersilk Cloak: The last equipment card I cut before finalizing the original deck. Like I said above, I do not find it hard to get through blockers when I am attacking with my creatures, so I found the cloak easy to cut.
Enchantments
True Conviction / Rage Reflection: While good enchantments, I do not like their 6 CMC cost and find that they would be a huge commitment for not much of a gain right now. If I ever included one of the two, it would definitely be True Conviction because it provides Lifelink as well.
Reason: I was pretty much waiting for a new dual land to come out and saw this gem on the horizon. I am a huge fan of the Scry mechanic in Limited/Standard. In this deck, it can let me send down a card that can be tutored for later or a pesky land I don't really need.
Reason: After tirelessly defending Ajani Vengeant for months, I finally found him lacking when I played him and my opponents had nothing to "lock down" in play. I've also wanted to put Scroll Rack in a deck to try it out as a "card draw" option, so we'll see how this works out over the next couple weeks. I have high hopes for it because often I have cards in my hand that I don't need (Sunforger Toolbox, high cost creatures, etc.) and could use something else instead.
Reason: I was able to pick up a Clifftop Retreat and figured it could replace a basic land pretty easily. This deck is a lot more heavy white, so I cut a Mountain over a Plains.
Reason: Through a couple of games, I noticed Gauntlet of Power was a "win-more" type of card and it was assisting other players do more then I'd like. To replace it, Boros Charm has been a card I was considering for awhile because of its utility and ability to be a part of the Sunforger Toolbox.
Reason: It took me awhile to get a copy of Burnished Heart, so this is why this change took so long. Burnished is great at making up for the lack of ramp associated with Boros decks. Also, Sun Titan can recur Burnished early for consistent ramping (if needed).
Reason: I've had only two opportunities to utilize his awesomeness and then before the next turn, someone wiped the board. Often, when "Dudes" mode is on, I am not swarming the board, but utilizing two strong creatures with some equipment out there. I decided to add Serra Ascendant to the deck to bring in a cheap dude that can be amazing depending on my life total. We'll see how this works out and go from there.
Reason: Similar as above, all she seems good at doing is pumping out dudes. Battlecry is cute, but not much of a strong gain. I decided to replace her with Figure of Destiny to bring in a potentially good beater to assist with early damage potential.
Reason: This card had its uses, but was somewhat lack-luster if I drew into it without a board wipe ready. Often, before an opponent would wipe the board, they would force my hand and pop the enchantment and then wipe on the 2nd main phase. For a replacement, my Umezawa's Jitte finally became free, so I decided to try it out. It took only 1 game of getting 4 counters a turn due to Aurelia attacks to show it was a smart change.
Reason: I am curious to see how Opal Palace will work out, I see some good potential with the land making Aurelia a lot bigger later in the game. Time will tell on this card.
Reason: I have been tired of how Temple Bell has benefited my opponents when I utilize it. I am going to give Chandra a shot because her +0 is basically an extra draw for me and her +1 allows me to reduce available blockers my opponent might have. Honestly, the -7 will probably never be used to any benefit for me, but I believe the other two are enough justification for the move.
Reason: Windbrisk Heights has not been easy to trigger now and days, often getting LD'ed before I can fire it off, so cutting it makes strong sense to me. Emeria is kind of a slow play for late game recoveries, but a lot of my dual lands are Plains as well and I do have access to enough mana accel outlets to get the 7 Plains online relatively quickly.
01/16/2014:
Time for the first phase of a bunch of changes, I am not going to go card by card (a lot of details are also listed in posts), but I will give an overall analysis at the end of this list:
Reason(s): This was the first wave of big changes I am making to try to reduce my overall CMC in the deck. Lately, a lot of my games are relying on Aurelia as my win-con because I am drawing into high CMC threats (Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Planar Portal) where I would much rather draw into some more early game cards that are good even in late game. Some cards in here are being cut because I felt like they were dead draws more often then not (Wild Ricochet) or required specific cards in play to get the best results from them (Decree of Annihilation). The land changes were made primarily for Puresteel Paladin and facilitating his Metalcraft.
Tithe was always on my list to be put in the deck, so I am going to see how it goes (which should be just fine) and Reforge the Soul made sense since I currently play with Wheel of Fortune. Restoration Angel is in the deck now to allow for some protection of my Non-Angel creatures and allow for ETB abuse if needed. Enlightened Tutor is also just awesome and allows me to tutor for a wide range of awesomeness (including lands now).
Reasons: Two major reasons here:
1. I wanted to again lower the CMC of the deck and Boros Battleshaper, while providing a cool effect, just would be a dead draw in tight situations. He was more fun than effective. Sublime Archangel has been on my list to test, so I am going to give her a shot or replace her with a Mirran Crusader if she doesn't perform well.
2. Serra Ascendant just causes too much drama in games. People either complain that she is too ridiculous for just a W mana. Losing a source of Lifelink is difficult for this deck, so I may need to start evaluating some of the other creatures I use with this cut. To replace Serra, Student of Warfare is an awesome fit in because he can become awesome as the game progresses with his level ups, eventually getting double strike to allow for my equipments to proc a lot.
Reasons: Elspeth, Knight-Errant, while being awesome as a potential win-con, the likelihood of her ultimate ever going off is slim to none. If I draw her late game, she doesn't really bring much to the table and only creates a diversion from people attacking directly into me, so Mirran Crusader finally is getting the home he deserves in this deck. I have enjoyed what Sword of Vengeance does for me, but I am more curious to see how Grafted Exoskeleton will effect my games instead. I think in 1v1, or even some multi-player games, being able to take the combo/control player out of the game early by doing 10 infect damage with Aurelia will be great. If the Exoskeleton gets hated out too often, I will probably go back to SoV since it has done well buffing my normal dudes.
Reason: Urabrask has been a good card, but I find that giving all my creatures haste is not crucial in this deck due to my equipment package and Aurelia herself having haste. Thundermaw has been on my watch list for some time and I am excited to see if he will pan out like I think he will.
Reason: Elesh was in this deck for a long time and frankly was awesome at shutting down Token decks, but in the end I felt like Elesh's purpose only for controlling the board instead of being aggressive, thus he/she/it (whatever sex Elesh is...) got the cut. With the printing of Iroas, I had to make room for him since he will provide great benefits/perks towards the aggro strategy this deck uses
Reason: The infinite combat step combo (Aggravated Assault + A Creature + Sword of Feast and Famine) needed to be cut out due to my new Meta's No Infinite Combo policy. That cut, along with my dislike in Frontline Medic, allowed me to begin exploring the Knight theme that I was talking about lately. The Armillary change was driven because I wanted a method to mana accel instead of just get lands out of the deck.
Reason: I wanted to continue the change of including more Knights since they have a "tendency" to be good "sword bearers". en-Vec has solid protections and can act as a good attacker into many different decks and the Cavalier effectively gives 9 creatures Double Strike, which is awesome. Kor Duelist is solid for an early game creature to equip and attack, especially with the Mask, which will allow for some great filtering and draws.
For the reasons on the cuts: Scroll Rack was needed in another deck, so it had to go. Figure of Destiny and Restoration Angel have been a little meh in the new meta I play in, so I cut them for the Knights. And the Anvil was great for giving me more draw, but I didn't like that it helped my opponents too. I believe the Mask is a better choice for this deck since I can get more combats and triggers out of it.
Reason: Student has not been really living up to my desires lately - the mana commitment required was annoying in two separate games lately. In an effort to get more competitive, Terminus was added as another sweaper effect that I can employ if my opponents are going ridiculous and I do not have Aurelia in play. The land change was simply done to try to make my early game plays more available and not clunky. Though land filtering is excellent, I personally hate drawing into a filter land when I desperately need an actual land to play something...
Reason: These changes are driven for two reasons - 1. I wanted to add more Double Strike creatures to the deck and 2. I wanted to lower the mana curve even further. These changes are all a test, so I don't have a bunch of comments other than I think they will be good lol...
Reason: I've been playing a little bit lately and noticed I need a little bit more acceleration cards to get threats out earlier. I've always been a fan of relic, so I will give it a shot for now and see what happens.
07/09/2015:
Huge overhaul, too much to go through the nitty-gritty of it....
Reason: I really neglected this list for too long and now I am finally giving it the attention it deserves. With Origins about to come out, there are a couple of equipments that I am excited to possibly trial and Relic Seeker seems like an auto-include for this list. I have always kept this deck sleeved up and ready to play, but it has fallen from grace a bit as I build more and more decks, but I am starting to love it a lot again
02/22/2016:
Huge overhaul, content update, and actually getting this post setup to where the deck really is... I spent too much time focusing on my Daretti primer and neglected this post...
Reasons: The big thing is I wanted to move away from the gimmicky double strike creatures and tune the deck more towards Aurelia. I don't call this deck a voltron deck still though, because there are several creatures I can equip and murder my opponents with. So all of those guys were cut to add in more equipment that are cheap and benefit Aurelia. I added 2 of the legal moxes to make for some earlier mana access and cut out two meh ramp cards. The land changes were made because Command Beacon is awesome when Aurelia is costing 10+ mana to get into play and Arid Mesa is just a staple (no idea why I took it out really...) and needed to be in the deck again. I did not really touch the Sunforger package because I am content with it, but there is potentially some more work to be done with those cards. The big trick is to see if the more equipment and focusing more on Aurelia makes this deck more consistent than the double striking creatures, which were always okay to draw when I had an equipment package, but meh to draw if I was looking for answers to problematic situations...
12/16/2016:
Making up for being lazy and not updating this list with my changes. Again, huge thanks to the people the continue to comment and use this list for inspiration. I love that I am able to help others with this Primer
Reasons: I'll do this in a list form this time instead of a massive text wall lol...
Archetype was providing trample but more often than not I didn't need it...
Grand Abolisher was more of a target painter than a help - experience shows people interacting on my turn isn't a big deal as much as I thought
Tithe was unnecessary mana fetching, Wild Ricochet was rarely used, and Orim's Thunder wasn't good enough to solve issues. All 3 in my Sunforger package were meh at best. Recent experience showed I needed more instant speed RFG removal, so adding Return to Dust became valuable and adding Chaos Warp and Oblation for shuffling (close enough to RFG...) into decks also completed the package upgrade.
Relic Seeker is a tutorable (via Imperial Recruiter) equipment fetching and not too difficult to proc off.
Sigarda's Aid is AMAZING for this deck and needed in as soon as it came out, thus it got a spot lol...
Assemble the Legion is a pet card of mine atm and has actually been successful at creating issues for opponents during the mid/late stage of games. A token armada with Aurelia letting them attack twice can add up quickly.
Everyone I've talked to hates LD, so Armageddon became more of an issue than a help. Removed to be 'Mr. Nice Guy' to others.
Land changes were made to get more useful 2 generator (Ancient Tomb), add unblockable (Rogue's Passage), more fetching (Terramorphic), and fixing (Command Tower). Temple of the False God is a dead draw unless at 5+ lands, so it left along with some basic lands.
Last but not least...
I would like to say thanks for taking the time to read this Primer. I hope you find it enlightening and a fun deck to play around with yourself. I have thoroughly enjoyed the deck and look forward to any suggestions or comments you have regarding it!
Please do not use the words primer in the title unless the primer committee has actually looked at your list please
Also some minor spelling problems
Sure, she can get their if you go Voltron
Anvil of bargarden is spelt anvil of bogardan
Otherwise it looks fine and good luck with getting primer status (also you might wanna read the primer guide line just to make sure I didn't miss anything)
Thanks for the catch on the spelling - I didn't notice those on my edits. Also, I was not aware of the Primer committee, so I apologize there as well. I would remove it if I could find a way to edit the title.
Yeah i got a warning for using primer in my title, too. To remove it, when editing, use "go advanced", that will let you edit just like if it was the first time you created the post, with all the options.
The deck is really cool and the explanation too, but to get the official primer tag you need to wait a month since the creation of the primer.
Brilliant! Thanks for that. I have spent years utilizing posts in this forum, but not contributing to it. I feel it is time to change that
I figured I should go over some match-ups I had recently in some games and some notable situations:
Game 1: 5 Player Multiplayer, Decks: Aurelia, the Warleader (me), Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer, Tajic, Blade of the Legion, Maelstrom Wanderer, and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: Pretty much was an outright aggro fest (I mean, there were 3 Boros decks...). Aurelia ended up getting there really quickly because I was able to get Aurelia + Silverblade Paladin + Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (Note: This translates to 24 General damage each turn to someone un-protected). I picked off Maelstrom, Ruric Thar, and Tajic in the next couple turns, then after a Rout from Jor Kadeen, I recovered into Sword of Feast and Famine and got in with Aurelia again for the win. I noticed early I had the two creatures to make Voltron Aurelia the choice, so I went that way and won.
Hmm interesting deck. Do you find the lack of card draw in boros colors RW to be stifling to your strategy?
Why are you running Ajani Vengeant? He is a bad planeswalker in EDH.
Your curve is awfully high, and you don't have a lot of mana rocks to back it up, how does that affect your games?
I like Aurelia, but I feel you are trying to do too much, and have way too many creatures likely clogging up your hand. This deck seems inconsistent, and even your title lends to that assertion; pick one.. voltron or swarm, don't try to do both, it won't work out.
You need to cut some creatures and try to focus more around utility and decide if you want to play voltron or overwhelm. If you are finding this deck to be a success, more power to you, but at first glance it does not seem consistent.
Why are you running Ajani Vengeant? He is a bad planeswalker in EDH.
Two major reasons:
1. He keeps a permanent tapped down and is in Boros. Things like Crystal Shard, Cabal Coffers, Maze of Ith, etc, are now taken offline. These cards are powerful and preventing them from untapping every turn does actually provide some necessary utility.
2. The life gain when Archangel of Thune is in play is cute and effective at getting counters on creatures.
Beyond that, yes I agree he is a "weak" planeswalker. But my meta I play in makes him stronger than he is on paper, and thus he was included.
Your curve is awfully high, and you don't have a lot of mana rocks to back it up, how does that affect your games?
It doesn't effect my games because I am never afraid to use a Reverberate, Reiterate, or Wild Ricochet on a Green ramp spell. Also, in my opinion, the rocks I use are good enough to keep me going. Also, my land situation is pretty much almost completely "perfect" (AKA: I have the necessary duals) so I am never really color screwed either (thus no Boros Signet).
I like Aurelia, but I feel you are trying to do too much, and have way too many creatures likely clogging up your hand. This deck seems inconsistent, and even your title lends to that assertion; pick one.. voltron or swarm, don't try to do both, it won't work out.
You need to cut some creatures and try to focus more around utility and decide if you want to play voltron or overwhelm. If you are finding this deck to be a success, more power to you, but at first glance it does not seem consistent.
I would argue that inconsistency in this deck is actually a strength, not a weakness. I assume if someone is willing to look at my decklist and say "Hey, I want to spend the $500+ to make this deck!" that they are going to want to get their money's worth. With my friends and other people I play with, they are always on the fence on how to respond to the deck because the different options to win.
"Should I waste my RFG on Silverblade Paladin because he helped Aurelia one shot me before?" - These type of thoughts are what I want my opponents to think. Like Puff Daddy said in Get Him To The Greek: "I'm mind f$%^#@g you right now....."
Obviously this deck is not a perfect Voltron or swarm, it is a hybrid of them both. Since it is a hybrid, sacrifices on card choices were made to make the deck cohesive enough to function and not dead draw. In respect to your "If you are finding this deck to be a success, more power to you", I am currently hovering around a 75% win rate with this deck and in my games I play (always 4+ multiplayer EDH). But, this deck really does require a lot of paying attention to the board state and knowing when to not over-commit, something that took me awhile to grasp as a magic player (Note: I thank drafting and standard for really setting those skills into my head).
I appreciate it Both criticism and praise are appreciated the same by me: I find it as a way to explain my process more to others and also learn a new thing or two!
Game Result:
Win, Game ended on Turn 10 with Sword of Feast and Famine + Aggravated Assault combo. One of the guys that was playing has played this deck a couple times before said this after the game concluded:
He is pretty much right on the money with that statement, so if you are considering building this deck, be careful about when you play this sword: be sure you are ready to save it or are about to win to prevent people from RFG'ing it immediately.
Game Result:
Loss, but was close. I was able to get in and finished the Tariel player with ease and used Master Warcraft during Thromok's turn to kill the Oros player, but then the Thromok player used Soulblast to hit me for 49 damage (I was at 45). Pretty fun match honestly: 2 aggro decks in a game is always a good, quick match.
Major takeaways from this game: Burnished Hart was awesome at getting my land count high early, especially when I drew into Sun Titan. I am starting to think I need some better ways to protect my artifacts early, I have tried to equip Sunforger in several games and it is always getting destroyed in response to the equip...
I was just browsing through here and I've got to say, I love the deck. It looks brilliantly designed, though a tad expensive, but it's got to be a blast to play and is very versatile. I'm a ginormous fan of RW (as you can probably see in my sig) and run a Gisela voltron that focuses on hitting 21 in one shot. Your primer's convinced me to invest in a Sword of Feast and Famine for her, and possibly a couple other things.
I was just browsing through here and I've got to say, I love the deck. It looks brilliantly designed, though a tad expensive, but it's got to be a blast to play and is very versatile. I'm a ginormous fan of RW (as you can probably see in my sig) and run a Gisela voltron that focuses on hitting 21 in one shot. Your primer's convinced me to invest in a Sword of Feast and Famine for her, and possibly a couple other things.
Two thumbs up on this one.
Thanks for the compliments! I understand what you mean in terms of cost, but there are a lot of budget options for the folks out there. The biggest place where you can save money is the lands. The dual lands are nice and make things more reliant, but they are not a necessity when making the deck.
I am glad you are investing in a Sword of Feast and Famine, that card should be in any Voltron deck for sure.
I've played a few games lately and come to the point where there are three cards that are falling down in value. So I made several changes to see what will occur in some games down the road.
I explained the changes up in the change log, but I figured I would include it here as well:
Odric, Master Tactician: I've had only two opportunities to utilize his awesomeness and then before the next turn, someone wiped the board. Often, when "Dudes" mode is on, I am not swarming the board, but utilizing two strong creatures with some equipment out there. I decided to add Serra Ascendant to the deck to bring in a cheap dude that can be amazing depending on my life total.
Hero of Bladehold: Similar as above, all she seems good at doing is pumping out dudes. Battlecry is cute, but not much of a strong gain. I decided to replace her with Figure of Destiny to bring in a potentially good beater to assist with early damage potential.
Legion's Initiative: This card had its uses, but was somewhat lack-luster if I drew into it without a board wipe ready. Often, before an opponent would wipe the board, they would force my hand and pop the enchantment and then wipe on the 2nd main phase. For a replacement, my Umezawa's Jitte finally became free, so I decided to try it out. It took only 1 game of getting 4 counters a turn due to Aurelia attacks to show it was a smart change.
Other cards now on the "I might want to add" list: Angel of Jubilation - Primarily due to a couple of decks I play against do a lot of sac interactions and could really hurt their gameplans, she also turns into a nice creature buffer similar to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.
I've had several games the past 2 months since making some changes and I have come to find that I need to get some more lower cost "Dudes" in the deck to replace some of the higher CMC creatures.
On the shortlist, I have the following cards to replace, but I am waiting for the Vancouver PTQ to get them via trades instead of just buying them:
Serra Ascendant: He doesn't apply to what I just said, but I feel wrong playing him.... just wrong... so I am looking to replace him with a Soldier of the Pantheon to keep the CMC the same. Also, the protection is nice to allow him as an equipment muel.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: The benefit she provides is too risky to give to other people playing with a Clone or Bribery. Plus the CMC is just too high and annoying to commit to to bring her into play. The card I am looking at to replace her is most likely a Restoration Angel, this will allow me to re-utilize some ETB triggers and provide some evasion to protect a creature if I need it.
Quicksilver Amulet: Reducing the number of high-CMC creatures makes this card less necessary imo. Though the ability to flash in a creature before my turn holds promise, I don't think that alone justifies the card. Sublime Archangel is on the top of the list to replace this card. She would fit perfectly into the deck in either Voltron or Dudes mode.
Decree of Annihilation: With Avacyn on the short list, this board wipe becomes less attractive. If I want the LD, then an Armageddon would do just fine. Otherwise, I could use a Hallowed Burial or Wrath of God to keep a sweep effect available to use.
Beyond the cards on the short list, two changes were made and explained in the changelog section:
Have you considered using Kamahl, Pit Fighter (haste, pinger, beater) or Knollspine Dragon (Draw) in your deck?
Kamahl, Pit Fighter is kinda weak IMO. If I wanted a creature with haste for around 6 CMC, I would go with either Stormbreath Dragon or Thundermaw Hellkite because I find their other abilities much stronger. The problem I have right now is I only have one copy of each of them and they are in another deck at the moment.
Knollspine Dragon is in the same situaiton: I have only one copy and he is in the same deck as the other two. Additionally, he costs a lot to get his draw and requires me to hold back all my mana if I want it by T7. Usually I am equipping Aurelia on T7 to swing for strong damage, so I never have that much free mana.
I played Aurelia many times, and after a while, I just became a massive target for everyone. I would get Shatterspree'd, milled than gy ransacked, etc etc. After a while I came to the conclusion that although Aurelia is fun, it's really hard to win in Boros colours without MLD. I personally ended up switching to a Tajic build with MLD and board wipes.
That being said, love seeing the decklist. My Aurelia made useage of things like the double strike bloodrush Ogre and other double strike enablers. Aurelia was silly if she resolved...
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EDH WUGDerevi Voltron AttritionWUG WGRMayael of the Cheated CreaturesWGR
I played Aurelia many times, and after a while, I just became a massive target for everyone. I would get Shatterspree'd, milled than gy ransacked, etc etc. After a while I came to the conclusion that although Aurelia is fun, it's really hard to win in Boros colours without MLD. I personally ended up switching to a Tajic build with MLD and board wipes.
That being said, love seeing the decklist. My Aurelia made useage of things like the double strike bloodrush Ogre and other double strike enablers. Aurelia was silly if she resolved...
I find it ironic that we have had the exact opposite experiences lol. I credit that to the difference in play groups - my circle of decks do not run large counts (6+) of counter spells, so a turn 5-6 Aurelia has always resolved.
The MLD strat is acceptable, I just don't like doing it personally. I have only ever done the Decree of Annihilation cycle + Avacyn, Angel of Hope 3 times and each time it was a GG for me. But each victory was kinda a little hollow and not satisfying.
Wrecking Ogre, which I think is what you meant, is cute, but I think he is a little slow or is only good for late game hits. What I aim for is being able to give double strike on the first combat Aurelia sees. So right now, Concerted Effort is on my watch list with the number of creatures I have that provide double strike. Additionally, Aurelia would make all my creatures at least have flying and vigilance on my next attack as well.
Concerted effort was a beast for me as well, as was True Conviction.
I do still miss Aurelia, I hope you have some better luck with her than I did!
True Conviction is great and I utilized it a lot back in the day, but the 6 CMC commitment to get it out most likely puts Aurelia a turn back, or I have to skip T7 as my equipment phase. Concerted Effort just feels a little better as well, because I am a huge supporter of Vigilance lol
What about Ring of Three Wishes instead of Planar Portal? You rarely use it more than three times anyway (It should be destroyed or you should win by that time)
plus the art of the Ring is amazing, it is like Aurelia and her ring
EDIT: I would include Tithe and cut Plains. Personally I don't think that running Land Tax, Weathered Wayfarer and Tithe is overkill, Tithe is in 99% cases better than basic plains, because if emergency it is plainscycling for W (Can search Duals), but in normal case it is card advantage, thinning deck and shuffling the library (sensei, Scroll Rack).
I am starting to find that Planar Portal is just really clunky anyways and I am not enjoying it. I think the ring would make it a little less clunky, but honestly I am considering swapping out the portal for Reforge the Soul instead. I already run Wheel of Fortune and love the effect I get when casting it.
And I completely hear you on Tithe. But I absolutely HATE being greedy and going down to 37 lands. The odds of me getting mana screwed go way up as I start to thin down that count below 38. What would you cut instead?
Hard to answer without knowing your meta, but according to my meta, I would cut Reverberate, because I think three copies of this effect is more than enough (with Wild Ricochet and Reiterate).
Wild Ricochet can copy them too. You just don't choose new target for the original spell (because it doesn't target anything) but you can copy it.
I should've been more clear: Those spells are generally cast on my T2 or T3 when I am playing, and on those turns I most likely have mana available for Reverberate. T4 and beyond, I am generally tapping out to put creatures and equipment in play, so keeping 4 mana up for Wild Ricochet is a lot more taxing then only 2 for Reverberate.
Plus, my Reverberate is a foil copy and looks awesome while my Wild Ricochet is a boring non-foil lol....
While this may not make the cut, one card I find incredibly helpful in my EDH is Rakka Mar. Army-in-A-Can is really helpful, and pooping out 2 lightning bolts on legs per turn via abusing Aurelias untap is sweet.
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EDH Decks: UBOona, Fae BeaterBU RPurphoros, God of GoblinsR XScion of the Ur-DragonX RWAurelia, the WarwinnerWR UBROprah, the MindrazerUBR
Wouldn't you rather Swiftfoot Boots instead of Lightning Greaves? LG makes it impossible to equip other equipments
Not really, because I prefer the 0 equip cost over the 1 that the Swiftfoot Boots requires. I honestly don't run into the issue of not being able to move Lightning Greaves from my main creature. However, I feel like either card is an option, so if you like the boots more, go for it!
While this may not make the cut, one card I find incredibly helpful in my EDH is Rakka Mar. Army-in-A-Can is really helpful, and pooping out 2 lightning bolts on legs per turn via abusing Aurelias untap is sweet.
While cute, Rakka Mar fits a deck that is more interested in a token theme, which this deck is not built towards. You're right about the double activations, but that also requires me to keep 2 R open for her activations, which in Boros, is a fairly large commitment for each turn.
As always, thanks for the suggestions and discussion! I am sorry my reply was a little late - I was stuck on business and my work computer blocks this forum lol...
Introduction
First of all, I would like to say thank you for taking the time to look over my Primer. Originally, my first stab at compiling the deck started out as a Razia, Boros Archangel deck. The only issue I found during the deck planning was when you get right down to it, Razia is a pretty boring Commander... Sure, she can get there if you go Voltron, but really she is just a 6 power flyer that has a high mana cost, so I was not thrilled with her and didn't move forward with putting the deck together. Then, Tajic, Blade of the Legion came around, and I finally pulled the trigger on the deck (Note: Yes, I am aware Aurelia was already out by then...). However, over several games, I realized even Tajic was pretty boring as well - he needed creatures attacking each turn in order to be a General damage threat. Once I resided myself to the inconsistency that Tajic was as a Commander, I decided that the deck needed a big overhaul and while looking through my card collection, I saw Aurelia, the Warleader, then *facepalmed*, and made her my new commander.
Over the past two years, I was playing in a competitive meta at my local game shop (LGS) and Aurelia did enough work that rules were instituted that made her less powerful, such as limiting the number of combats and increasing infect to 12 instead of 10, so I did not get as much reps in with this list at the time. I would sometimes pull her out and play a game, but the deck really wasn't the same as it used to be. Now though, I have moved from that meta and now play in a more casual setting, so I am excited to play this deck more often because it has been one of my favorites for a long time
Now, you may ask yourself "Why Aurelia?"
Aurelia is an interesting commander option when you are planning to build a Boros deck. There are many different commander options for each play style, but Aurelia stands out as the clear winner of the group: she has some pretty strong abilities that allows her to provide a lot of benefits to your creatures or make Aurelia into a beast if you want to go voltron.
Aurelia, the Warleader's Pros
1. Aurelia's Creature Traits - Flying, Vigilance, and Haste: All three of these traits allows Aurelia to be very effective at attacking and putting pressure on your opponents. You never need to worry about over-extending with her because she will not tap to attack, so if an opponent does not have a blocker, there is no reason not to swing at them. Haste allows you to wait to play her until you "need" her, which when you consider that EDH/Commander is a format with many board wipes, it allows you to consistently utilize her.
2. Aurelia allows for a lot of damage to be dealt each turn through the additional combat step she provides. The way to take advantage of this is to increase her power and toughness through enchantments or equipment. Seeing as she is in W and R, I find equipment as the better option since they can be moved between creatures and stay in play in case the creature is dealt with.
3. Her additional combat trigger untaps all creatures you control, regardless if they attacked or not. By doing this, Aurelia allows you to abuse utility creatures - such as Kiki-Jiki, Mirror Breaker, Krenko, Mob Boss, Stoneforge Mystic, or Mother of Runes to name a couple of options. Beyond just utility creatures, being able to activate Heartless Hidetsugu multiple times on any given turn can just be downright ridiculous...
Aurelia, the Warleader's Cons
1. Aurelia's base power and toughness is low compared to other creatures for 6 CMC. 3/4 is not terrible in Commander but in a world where there are a lot of 5/5 Flying creatures at the same CMC as Aurelia, her power level can be trumped easily. To avoid just getting snuffed out by these stronger creatures, Aurelia requires cards that provide her with evasion or spot removal in order to get through other players with blockers.
2. Aurelia's aggressive creature traits paint her as an Aggro deck right away. Ever heard of a Combo/Control Aurelia deck? Me neither. Since Aurelia provides so much benefit to creatures and attacking, your opponents are going to have an idea what type of deck you are playing and can form strategies on how to stop it before you even draw your first card. Often the strategy will just be to tuck Aurelia, which is not fun when you're playing in WR...
3. Playing Aurelia anytime in a game is going to elevate your threat at the table, regardless of the board state. Even on T6 with nothing to support her, she can do 6 commander damage and put someone on a 2 to 3 turn clock. Generally this causes the group to start the Politics Game against you, which is never good... It is wise to not simply cast her right away, even if it might be your only option, because of the threat increase she causes.
Beyond just Aurelia, In terms of all available Boros Commanders, there are a lot of deck possibilities that you can go with that have commander options that are just as good or better than Aurelia. For simplicity, I will go over my take on each other general and why I really didn't like them for my deck:
Anax and Cymede: Heroic seems like a really good mechanic for limited and constructed, but in Commander I find it rather weak. If Heroic applied when they became the target of a spell OR ability, then we might be talking. Note: After playing in the pre-release of Theros, I learned that Heroic is pretty decent if you run enchantments and some buffs, but Anax and Cymede's Heroic does not impress me enough to make a deck built around it.
Basandra, Battle Seraph: I like casting spells in combat... Otherwise not terrible, but would really go against my preferred strategy and play style. Funny story, she is a really good counter commander to my deck. If you find her interesting, there is a primer for her by Raikou Rider.
Brion Stoutarm: Brion is a REALLY good combo deck. One of the guys in my play group made a deck for him and it was pretty solid. However, my only issue is that it seems to me that he doesn't really need to use combat to win. Honestly though, you can probably turn this deck into a Brion deck by doing ~10 creature changes and a couple changes to enchants and spells. If you're really interested in Brion, you should check out the primer by Arthanuse.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Gisela is a pretty good Commander. She provides a unique form of protection with her reduction in damage received, which is why even though she is not my general, she made it into this deck as one of the "Dudes". With some changes to cards to get more ways to double strike, she can get in there with General damage pretty fast. Personally though, Aurelia is better for what I am trying to do, but Gisela was always in the back of my mind as a possible Commander when I finally got bored with Tajic. A last note is if you wanted to be a little more spell based, Gisela doubles the damage of your burns and would be a wiser choice over Aurelia if that is your play style.
Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer: Again, another token type of Commander, only you need to play around with artifacts as well to ensure Metalcraft is online. If you want to go that way, there is a good primer by ChilesIsAwesome. Otherwise, see my points in my discussion on Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran.
Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas: Kalemne is a strong competitor for the commander for this deck, but the issue I immediately see with her is she wants you to run a more slower deck focusing on bigger creatures for experience counters to get her into lethal levels. In my experience, making the deck slower will not help make this list win more, so I would advise using Kalemne if you want to play with experience counters, but otherwise look for other options.
Razia, Boros Archangel: Like I said in the introduction section, originally I wanted to make this deck with Razia as the General because when I was constructing the idea, Gisela and Aurelia had not been printed yet. In terms of Boros Power-creep, for Voltron generals, she has fallen down in stock due to the two previously mentioned Commanders. However, if you want some flavor, or can't find a copy of either Gisela/Aurelia, Razia can work, just not as efficiently.
Tajic, Blade of the Legion: Also like I mentioned in the Introduction, after Razia I went with Tajic as my Commander. In retrospect, it wasn't a bad choice. If you like to run sweep effects (I mean, this is Boros, AKA White is in your colors...) and not lose your general, you found the best choice of a Commander - it is pretty agitating to your opponents when you cast Rout and beat in with Tajic. However, in a world where a lot of cards have/give trample, the 2/2 aggro general does not do much for blocking. Also, if you are unable to get enough creatures in play to make him get his +5/+5, most people will just let the 2 in and not even blink.
Summary: Most of the commanders here are great, it just depends on the strategy you are looking to employ with the deck. For this deck, Aurelia is the best choice because this deck was built towards combat, general or regular creatures, as the source for winning games. If you pick this deck up and begin to find people really hating on Aurelia too much, the second best option is to go with Gisela. She is a little less as powerful, but can still easily get the job done.
So, after reading my comments on Aurelia and my Boros Commander reviews, here are the pro's and con's of this decklist:
You're going to like this general/deck if...
1. You like the option of going either Voltron with equipment or getting their with other creatures.
2. In relation to the #1, you like having flexibility in your game plan and not always relying on the same couple of cards to win - Flexibility while not compromising the deck's strengths.
3. You find Sunforger amazing and like to build it into your deck.
4. You are not a huge fan of combo decks.
5. You like to let other players have fun while you're also having fun - AKA: You are not a control deck.
6. You like to be "responsive" (again, not "controlling") and like being able to deal with threats (see Sunforger's toolbox).
You're NOT going to like this general/deck if...
1. You like control decks that rely on counter magic and resource denial (Stax).
2. You like winning with spell based combos or damage.
3. You don't like Sunforger (For some weird reason...).
4. You don't like messing around with combat phases of other players.
5. You are not a fan of having your general immediately hated on as soon as you cast it - Aurelia provides a lot of threat to you when she is played.
A little more background before the decklist...
Who am I?
My name is James and I am 27 years old currently living in Clarkston, WA. I've played MTG off and on for the past 17 years and have really enjoyed the fun times I've had and the many people I have met. I started playing EDH/Commander with my close friends back in 2008 and my obsession with the format has been non-stop since then. I've made decks of all types ranging from Rhys the Redeemed Tokens, Reaper King Control/Tribal, and Tibor and Lumia Control/Combo to name a few of my favorites.
Over time, I have found that I have a tendency to build my decks so that they are efficient and effective, meaning that they are not one-trick ponies, but rather able to adapt and compete against the wide range of decks in this format. That being said, often a card that I've selected for a deck has the requirement that it is useful in any situation and not just part of one possible combo.
Lastly, this deck was made in lines with my old "competitive" (I use this loosely because my meta's definition is very different from the CEDH thread/meta discussed on this forum) didn't allow infinite combos and as such I didn't include them. Granted this deck doesn't have many infinite options, but now I will have no issue taking infinite combat steps compared to how I used to avoid it in my previous iterations of the deck.
My Meta
This deck was originally made in a casual meta with my close friends. The main "power house" decks I used to play against in that group were The Mimeoplasm, Karrthus, Tyrant of Jund, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Tariel, Reckoner of Souls, Karador, Ghost Chieftain, Mayael the Anima, and Thromok the Insatiable. TLDR: They liked to ramp a lot and get their mana curve up fairly high ASAP. Also, there were are a lot of decks in the playgroup that use graveyard interactions, so I purposely said "F@#% it" to Anger because it would just get removed from the graveyard anyways.
In 2014 and 2015 I started playing against many different forms of control, combo, and aggro in my local game store's (LGS's) EDH league. The only saving grace is the LGS's have house rules of no infinite combos, which helps this deck perform since it stops the combo players from just going off, but many people realize the power of Aurelia and are a lot quicker to shut this deck down before she becomes an issue. This has required me to shift to some more competitive creatures and tune the deck to be aggressive early enough to smoke out the nasty control decks.
Now in 2016, I have moved to any area that is developing a Commander scene. For now, I have no real idea what this deck is going to come up against, so I am starting to build it a little bit of how I want to play and not necessarily tuned to combat others. I don't think there will be any real big changes, more than likely I may tune it to be less cut throat than it has been in the past, but if there are big changes I will be sure to note them and discuss them in good detail in my responses.
With that being said, The Decklist
Deck by Function
1 Aurelia, the WarleaderFoil
Creatures (Qty: 12)
1 Mother of Runes
1 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Knight of the White OrchidFoil
2 Leonin ShikariFoil
2 Puresteel PaladinFoil
3 Imperial RecruiterFoil
3 Silverblade PaladinFoil
4 Hero of BladeholdFoil
4 Sublime ArchangelFoil
5 Wrecking OgreFoil
6 Sun TitanFoil
7 Gisela, Blade of GoldnightFoil
Equipment (Qty: 12)
1 O-NaginataFoil
2 Hero's BladeFoil
2 Lightning GreavesFoil
2 Mask of MemoryFoil
2 Sword of the AnimistFoil
2 Umezawa's JitteFoil
3 SunforgerFoil
3 Sword of Feast and FamineFoil
3 Sword of War and PeaceFoil
3 Sword of Light and ShadowFoil
3 Sword of Fire and IceFoil
4 Grafted ExoskeletonFoil
Sunforger Toolbox (Qty: 8)
1 Path to ExileFoil
1 Swords to PlowsharesFoil
2 Boros CharmFoil
2 Valorous StanceFoil
3 Chaos Warp
3 OblationFoil
4 Master WarcraftFoil
4 Return to DustFoil
0 Chrome MoxFoil
0 Mana CryptFoil
0 Mox DiamondFoil
1 Land Tax
1 Sol RingFoil
1 Wayfarer's BaubleFoil
2 Boros SignetFoil
2 Fellwar StoneFoil
2 Mind StoneFoil
3 Burnished HartFoil
4 Solemn SimulacrumFoil
Creature Buffs / Extra Combat (Qty: 6)
1 Sigarda's AidFoil
3 Aggravated AssaultFoil
4 Citadel SiegeFoil
4 Seize the DayFoil
5 Assemble the LegionFoil
5 Savage BeatingFoil
Sweep Effects (Qty: 2)
4 CataclysmFoil
6 Catastrophe
Card Draw / Tutors (Qty: 11)
1 Enlightened TutorFoil
1 Faithless LootingFoil
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Steelshaper's GiftFoil
2 Relic SeekerFoil
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Deal BrokerFoil
3 Wheel of Fortune
5 Reforge the SoulFoil
5 Stonehewer GiantFoil
6 Godo, Bandit WarlordFoil
0 Ancient TombFoil
0 Arid Mesa
0 Battlefield Forge
0 Boros Garrison
0 Clifftop Retreat
0 Command Beacon
0 Command Tower
0 Evolving WildsFoil
0 High MarketFoil
0 Mistveil PlainsFoil
0 Plateau
0 Rogue's PassageFoil
0 Sacred FoundryFoil
0 Slayers' Stronghold
0 Spinerock Knoll
0 Temple of TriumphFoil
0 Terramorphic ExpanseFoil
10 MountainFoil
10 PlainsFoil
Deck by Card Types
1 Aurelia, the Warleader
Creatures (Qty: 23)
1 Mother of Runes
1 Weathered Wayfarer
2 Knight of the White Orchid
2 Leonin Shikari
2 Puresteel Paladin
2 Relic Seeker
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Burnished Hart
3 Deal Broker
3 Imperial Recruiter
3 Silverblade Paladin
4 Hero of Bladehold
4 Solemn Simulacrum
4 Sublime Archangel
5 Stonehewer Giant
5 Wrecking Ogre
6 Godo, Bandit Warlord
6 Sun Titan
7 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Sorcery (Qty: 7)
1 Faithless Looting
1 Steelshaper's Gift
3 Wheel of Fortune
4 Cataclysm
4 Seize the Day
5 Reforge the Soul
6 Catastrophe
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Path to Exile
1 Swords to Plowshares
2 Boros Charm
2 Valorous Stance
3 Chaos Warp
3 Oblation
4 Master Warcraft
4 Return to Dust
5 Savage Beating
Enchantments (Qty: 5)
1 Land Tax
1 Sigarda's Aid
3 Aggravated Assault
4 Citadel Siege
5 Assemble the Legion
Artifacts (Qty: 21)
0 Chrome Mox
0 Mana Crypt
0 Mox Diamond
1 O-Naginata
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Wayfarer's Bauble
2 Boros Signet
2 Fellwar Stone
2 Hero's Blade
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Mask of Memory
2 Mind Stone
2 Sword of the Animist
2 Umezawa's Jitte
3 Sunforger
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Sword of War and Peace
3 Sword of Light and Shadow
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
4 Grafted Exoskeleton
0 Ancient Tomb
0 Arid Mesa
0 Battlefield Forge
0 Boros Garrison
0 Clifftop Retreat
0 Command Beacon
0 Command Tower
0 Evolving Wilds
0 High Market
0 Mistveil Plains
0 Plateau
0 Rogue's Passage
0 Sacred Foundry
0 Slayers' Stronghold
0 Spinerock Knoll
0 Temple of Triumph
0 Terramorphic Expanse
10 Mountain
10 Plains
Decklist Statistics
You can find the comprehensive statistics by clicking here.
Average CMC: 2.76 (including Aurelia)
Net Value for the Deck: $992.44 (non-foil values, updated 12/16/2016)
Card Explanations
In this section, I will go over my explanations on the cards I have selected for my deck and point out some of the cool interactions they have with other cards. For organizational purposes, each section is organized by the card's function in the list.
Creatures
Weathered Wayfarer: As with many non-G decks, it is difficult sometimes to mana ramp into the cards we need right away. In comes this little guy, who makes it so that we can search our deck for any land if we have less lands, allowing us to grab mana fixing or even utility lands to help power this deck to victory. Any W deck should strongly consider running this guy when it can.
Knight of the White Orchid: Best case scenario, he is catching me up in land count compared to my opponents and keeping me in the game so to speak. Also, he specifically fetches a Plains - AKA: Plateau, Sacred Foundry, or Mistveil Plains. Worst case scenario, he is a 2/2 First strike. He might seem dumb in a world where 5/5 creatures exist, but factor in some equipment, first strike starts making him a little nasty.
Leonin Shikari: This gal was in this deck during an early iteration before I went heavy on double strikers. In general, it becomes really obnoxious for an opponent to remove a creature if we can instantly move Lightning Greaves, let alone the other swords if we have available mana to spend on the equipment costs.
Puresteel Paladin: Considering the deck has a decent number of equipment, this guy lets us keep some momentum going due to the card draw. Also, if I do have Metalcraft online, he can make Aurelia absolutely deadly on her first turn since the equip costs will be 0.
Imperial Recruiter: The value of being able to tutor for creatures outside of G and B is quite high and although Recruiter is limited in its targets, this deck has plenty of good creatures to grab. Want protection? Grab Mother of Runes. Want equipment? Stoneforge. Want double strike for Aurelia? Silverblade. Need control? Grand Abolisher. Need lands? Weathered Wayfarer or Knight of the White Orchid. I think you get the hint
Silverblade Paladin: I like the Soulbond mechanic in Commander, it is a cool way to make your creatures stronger. In this case, considering the Commander is a extra combat enabler, with Silverblade in play Aurelia will deal 12 General damage on her first turn. Factor in an equipment on her, it only gets better.
Sublime Archangel: Exalted has always been an interesting mechanic because while your one creature is attacking and getting stronger, you are forced to attack with only that one creature. However, think about it this way: If I only have Aurelia and Sublime Archangel in play on T6, when Aurelia attacks, she is a 5/6 on the first combat. Next swing, a 7/8. That is 12 total damage to an opponent instead of only 6. The damage increase can be even higher if there are a couple early game creatures in play.
Wrecking Ogre: Besides being a beat-stick, Wrecking Ogre really shines in making Aurelia be a one-turn kill against someone. If she can't be blocked, she becomes a 6/7, Double Strike. Doing the math, that is 24 damage in one turn. This generally catches people by surprise to, which makes it extra sweet and enjoyable.
Sun Titan: You should be able to tell by now that equipment are pretty strong in this deck and it is safe to say they are going to get destroyed. The only equipment that can't be retrieved by Sun Titan is Batterskull. Now, besides equipment, fetch lands are good choices to accelerate late game or to thin the deck of land draws. Destroyed my strong enchantments or mana rocks? Get them back! The Titan of the Sun cares not for your removal!
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Gisela.... oh such a mean card you can be... She speeds up the Aurelia clock to 2-turns just with her alone, but often she comes down and allows Aurelia to 1-turn someone. When she hits the table, heads up, because now you are the Archenemy in the game.
Equipment and Sunforger Toolbox
O-Naginata: This equipment is situational, but considering Aurelia is a 3/4, it is perfect for her. It is cheap to put into play, gives her trample, and adds +3 to power. This is probably the second easiest way to make her a 2-turn kill clock on an opponent and makes her impossible to chump block.
Hero's Blade: Another cheap Aurelia equipment, only this time it immediately equips to her when she enters the battle field. Now she becomes a 6/6 flyer, which makes her a problem quickly. This is definitely the easiest way to make her a 2-turn clock, only she can be chumped.
Lightning Greaves: Shroud and haste with an equip cost of zero. As mentioned in Leonin Shikari's discussion, with her in play you can fizzle any targeted spell on your creatures.
Mask of Memory: Deck filtering and also a net +1 in cards. Put this on Aurelia, and we get +2 net cards a combat. Put this on a Double Striking Aurelia and we get +4 cards. RW decks usually have issues with draw and this equipment overcomes that big time.
Sword of the Animist: Land ramp can always be an issue and this equipment provides a good source of it. Play this early on a utility creature and swing if we need land - the land comes into play on attack and does not need to do damage to the player. the +1/+1 is nice too, but nothing to get super excited about.
Umezawa's Jitte: ERMERGERD utility! Throw this bad boy on Aurelia for 4 counters a turn, which can make Jitte get out of hand really fast. 4 counters on Jitte translates to one of 4 things: kill anything that is a 4/4 or below, gain 8 life, or make Aurelia a HUGE beater during combat - Note: first combat nets this equip 2 charges. You can use the charges to make her gain +4/+4 on the next swing to put someone on a higher commander damage clock. If you have some cash to spare, invest into a Jitte and never look back - I have always played with it in Commander and destroyed people with it.
Sunforger: There is a reason that Sunforger has a "Toolbox" assigned to it. See that section for more explanation, but to put it bluntly, this card lets you tutor for answers to many situations, depending of course on the Toolbox you make for it. For an additional reason, adding +4/+0 to Aurelia makes her get even more deadly when she attacks.
Grafted Exoskeleton: This card has a little bit of controversy associated with it. If your meta finds infect to be broken, or has house rules in places to prevent 10 poison counters kill you, then I would not use this equipment. That being said, and the tendency I have to travel with this deck to different stores and play groups, it is nice to have an equipment that can essentially "one-shot" (use Aurelia's two combats) a pesky opponent early.
I will now go over the cool effects of the Swords I play with. Without wasting time, let it be known that the +2/+2 and protections they provide are already good enough to include them anyways.
Sword of Feast and Famine: Untapping your lands is always good and making someone discard as well is pretty decent, unless they are in blue and already have 20+ cards in hand. Usually immediately destroyed by most people because of the untapping your lands effect, so play it with caution or at least hold it back until you can abuse it.
Sword of War and Peace: Life gain and more damage based on hand sizes. Hurts blue players badly, which makes me smile.
Sword of Light and Shadow: Being able to recur a creature to my hand from my graveyard is great when we are a combat deck. High Market + Solemn Simulacrum is pretty cute with this sword online.
Sunforger Toolbox:
Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares: Targeted creature removal is nice, especially if it is an RFG effect. I run both of the W cost RFG because there are plenty of Prophet of Kruphixs that need to go away...
Boros Charm: Utility is always nice. More often, I am using this to make my permanents indestructible in response to a board wipe. The double strike ability has helped on Aurelia for various sword procs. The evil part of me wants to kill someone with the 4 damage someday, but the odds of that happening are slim at best...
Valorous Stance: Utility is sweet - making Aurelia indestructible or dealing with a threat. Often, option 1 is used, but again I am a fan of utility lol...
Chaos Warp: Sometimes, something needs to get off the battlefield. And considering everyone and their mother loves to interact with the graveyard, why not put the card into the library instead? Now, this play does come with a potential nasty side-effect of making the situation worse (thus the word 'Chaos'), but typically casting this card usually nets someone a new land. Also, this spells is quite effective at saving key components in this deck from RFG effects.
Oblation: See Chaos Warp. Difference here is the player that owns, not controls, the card gets to draw. I love doing this to someone who steals permanents from players since you effectively remove what they stole and give the owner (sometimes myself) cards too
Master Warcraft: Oh, Master Warcraft, you are a mean... mean... card... If I desire, I can ensure my opponents are absolutely decimated during my combat, or even theirs. Force no blocks, bad blocks, or directly kill someone off, anything is possible with this card if you're willing to make it happen.
Return to Dust: I really avoided including this card for a long time, but with the recent printings of Commander 2016 and the Kaladesh set, artifacts are a problem in a lot of games I play. Thus this little sucker was slipped in. I generally try to cast this on my own turn and during my main phase, but the fact it can get grabbed with Sunforger is beneficial to removing problem artifacts/enchantments as soon as they hit the field.
Mana Accel Cards, Creature Buffs/Extra Combats, and Sweep Effects
Mana Accel Cards:
Chrome Mox: 0 cost mana ramp, only we have to discard a colored card to utilize it. I have no issues tossing any random card in this deck if it can get me an earlier Aurelia. Ramp is good, go to town with it!
Mana Crypt: If you have money to waste, waste it on this. Trust me - this card makes any deck suddenly explode out the gate.
Mox Diamond: The last 0 cost ramp we have, this one requiring you to discard a land card to allow it to stay in play. I suggest some caution with using it because if you only have 2 lands in hand and this guy, it may not be the best choice to play because you'll need mana and artifacts disappear a lot easier than lands. Use your best judgment when playing with it.
Land Tax: White's amazing ability to thin your deck of basic lands. And this is Commander! Even if my turn is first in a game, someone will ramp ahead of me most likely. Early, Mid, or Late game, doesn't matter - this card has a positive effect on your deck any stage of the game.
Sol Ring: My...... PRECIOUS!!!!..... (Honestly, I should not need to explain this choice.)
Boros Signet, Fellwar Stone, and Mind Stone: These guys are all in here to really just accelerate the deck and color fix to get an early Aurelia. Nothing special about them really, I just like them all enough to add them in the deck...
Wayfarer's Bauble: Putting a land into play to compete with all the G ramp decks out there is a good thing. Recurring with Sun Titen (assuming no better targets) also lets you keep going later to improve the potential draws in the deck.
Burnished Hart: This guy makes my next turn kinda obvious, but with mana rock acceleration, he can be popped as early as turn 2 if I have a "God Hand" (aka, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt) or Turn 3 or 4, making a Turn 4 or 5 Aurelia.
Solemn Simulacrum: Sad robot is value town. Nothing more needed to be said really... enjoy the land and hopefully you'll get to draw a card when he dies.
Creature Buffs/Extra Combats:
Sigarda's Aid: Casting equipment with flash and auto equipping them to a creature when they come into play? Uhhh... Sign me up! This card allows this deck to be more flashy/secretive about what equipment we have in hand/available to use on our opponents. Who would've thought Sigarda would want to help Aurelia wreck face so much?
Aggravated Assault: The quick and dirty infinite combat combo makes an appearance in my list now, but it rarely gets to go off to be honest. In general this card lets me get a 3rd Aurelia combat per turn and speed up the kill clock on my opponents.
Citadel Siege: 99% of the time I pick Khans with this card. Why? Because "At the beginning of combat on your turn, put two +1/+1 counters on target creature you control." You know how many combats you get with Aurelia? 2. That means 4 +1/+1 counters on her per turn, making her turn into a death machine pretty quickly. Avoid pro-W and shroud cards on her when this is in play, trust me.
Seize the Day: An extra combat spell that has Flashback, so we really get two instances of an extra combat during the game. Keep in mind that Aurelia has vigilance, so don't target her with this spell unless you have to - it's nicer to untap another creature instead and swing with both.
Assemble the Legion: Not really a buffer card or an extra combat card and I really didn't want to make a 'token' section, so this is where Assemble gets put! This card is somewhat a 'backup finisher' to label it something because really it can become a huge issue for opponents if no one deals with it in short order. Even at 4 counters, you have 10 tokens in front of you or are already swinging them all over the place to combat others.
Savage Beating: Cast this during your 2nd attack with Aurelia for another phase and 2 rounds of double strike action! Or do it early if you know you are just going to win immediately. This card can catch people by surprise.
Sweep Effects:
Cataclysm: An ultimate finisher - Choose Aurelia and an equipment attached to her. Watch the table scoop.
Catastrophe: Situational - Can I just win by knocking out the lands and keep creatures? Or do I need to wipe the creatures because the Brimaz, King of Oreskos player has gone nuts with tokens?
Card Draw / Tutor Effects
Enlightened Tutor: Tutor for any of my artifacts and enchantments, which also includes lands thanks to the artifact lands! The fact this tutor is also an instant allows for me to use it before my turn to ensure that the card I tutor for is available right away and that I have all my mana open to use it.
Faithless Looting: It took awhile for this card to warm up to me, but really though I am not netting more cards, the filtering aspect of this card is worth it to me. Filter away all the non-need cards and hope for better cards on the top of the deck. If I failed the first time, flash it back and hope again.
Sensei's Divining Top: I consider Top to be a draw, but really this card is in its own league. According to the statistics, 35% of the decks on MTGS use it. I find this fairly low in all honestly, but perhaps it is due to the cash value the card has.
Steelshaper's Gift: A equipment tutor in the form of a spell. Early game Lightning Greaves is always a nice grab.
Relic Seeker: A relatively low cost creature that usually is able to proc for the tutor effect. Nothing too special about it. It's main purpose is that it is a secondary tutor target for Imperial Recruiter if Stoneforge Mystic has already came into play or is in my hand.
Stoneforge Mystic: One of the best equipment tutors in the game - she broke Standard for a long time and didn't see much time, if any, in Modern. Best part is she can cheat the equipment in for cheaper than the casting cost! Mana efficiency is always appreciated in Boros.
Deal Broker: Looting for cards on a body that can use equipment to swing if I am desperate.
Wheel of Fortune: That blue player have a grip of 20 cards? Kiss those goodbye. Your opponents bragging about their hand a little too early? Dump it in the yard if your hand is meh! Red's cute way to draw another 7 has some advantages if you consider how your opponents are playing.
Reforge the Soul: Wheel of Fortune v 2.0, only can be cast cheaper if you Miracle it, also with Sensei's Divining Top you can use the top to draw it on an opponents turn then pay the Miracle cost. Instant speed hand cycling is clutch sometimes :). Generally though, I often end up drawing into the Miracle cost early game and fire it off even if my hand has a couple of good cards, but be careful because you might discard away a strong late game card and have it get RFG'ed, so I usually avoid discarding away Sword of Feast and Famine for that reason.
Stonehewer Giant: Super abusive equipment tutor - the fact that he tutors for an equipment and attaches it to a creature is ridiculous. If he sticks, Aurelia can become a killing machine very quickly. Grafted Exoskeleton is generally the equipment I tutor and put on Aurelia for instant death.
Godo, Bandit Warlord: Another good equipment tutor and combat phase enabler. You can get three attacks with Aurelia a turn by using him because she has Vigiliance: First combat, swing with Aurelia and leave Godo back. 2nd combat, swing with both. Godo just attacked for the first time, so you get a 3rd combat phase. Then Godo and Aurelia swing for good beats!
Playing the Deck - Tips and Tricks
Now, like the title of this post states, this deck has two possible strategies: Voltron with Aurelia or get in with overall creature damage. Often, how you choose to play this deck is really determined by your opening hand. If you start the game and notice you have some of the equipment tutors (Steelshaper's Gift, Stoneforge Mystic, Godo, Bandit Warlord, or Stonehewer Giant), then Voltron may be the wise way to go. However, if you have a grip of good creatures for damage (Hero of Bladehold, Sun Titan, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, etc.) then going more of a creature combat route is good too. I built this deck to be able to do good in either situation, so truthfully either will get you the win. That's the beauty of equipment over enchantments - they stay around when the creatures die or if we want to move them, so don't feel compelled to stick with just utilizing Aurelia or creatures.
Early Game - Develop a Board State
This deck has enough early mana access and hopefully you will net the draw power from Mask of Memory or Sensei's Divining Top as early as possible. When you look at an opening hand for this deck you are primarily looking for 3-4 lands and then a couple of cards to play within the first 3 to 4 turns of the game. Creatures or mana rock, just being able to play something early can help add up in the long run. From my experiences, odds are I will draw into something that can keep me rolling along if I have at least 3-4 lands in my opening hand because we will be able to draw as we go along - we do not have too much ramp so that we just keep over ramping.
Note: However, common Commander experience has shown that the issues with a RW deck is the early game stage. It is crucial that you are staying on pace with other decks as they ramp and develop their board. The trick to do this for RW is to include more artifact ramp, which I went a little skimpy on due to the cards I wanted to include. However, if you would like to fix this yourself as you're constructing a deck, look to these cards to assist you: Thran Dynamo, Boros Keyrune, and Coalition Relic.
Now back to explaining Early game, you honestly want to make sure other decks do not accelerate too fast for you to keep up with - even though this deck might have a lot of low cost spells, remember that Aurelia is a pretty hated General and casting her on turn 6, when you have no protection for her is not always the best strategy. If you are fortunate to have Enlightened Tutor in your opening hand, or are lucky to start the game with these next two cards, Sword of the Animist and Land Tax are good at keeping you on pace with the fast green decks. The land filtering also improves the odds of drawing into "gas" (cute word for good stuff), so never consider getting these two cards as a "bad choice" compared to grabbing other cards.
In short: Try not to paint the target on you too early. Make sure you are making your land drops each turn. Hold back the strong equipment like Sword of Feast and Famine, play them when you can take advantage of them instead of dumping them out to be removed before you can use them. Pay attention to who is making the first move in the game - you can start the Politics game early with that opponent being the target. They will most likely get the initial hate from the table and can overshadow your upcoming plays.
Mid Game - Start the "Pain Train"
Now is the time to commit to what we want to do: Voltron with Aurelia or effective creatures. Like I said before, your opening hand should help you decide this before we even get to this stage. If you had some form of equipment tutor and are going Voltron, getting an equipment in play a couple of turns before you cast Aurelia is clutch, unless you already have Sigarda's Aid in play (which means keep the equipment in your hand). If you draw a lot of equipment early, I do suggest tutoring for Sigarda's Aid because it will allow you to protect your equipment better by keeping them in your hand and not in play for people to just remove before you can use them.
Sword of Feast and Famine is probably the best equipment in this deck in allowing you to gain a large amount of tempo: swinging into someone who can't stop Aurelia will effectively catch you up to, and most likely pass, any green decks that have ramped. Also, if you're going with the more creature aggro route, this is the point which will start to make people in the game need to deal with your guys pronto. Keep any card draw options open: Cast Wheel of Fortune or Reforge the Soul to refill your hand if it is getting low, even if it causes you to ditch a couple of good cards - the hope is to draw into better cards with the fresh 7 you get.
In short: Getting Aurelia into play in the when you have 7 or 8 mana is the smart route to winning with this deck. You should try to have some sort of defense for her in play or someone else at the table is currently the target and playing her will not change that. Once in play, you should be ready to begin making the move towards dishing out some serious damage.
Late Game - Going for the Kill
At this point, this will be the time to start hitting people hard because they couldn't respond to the initial dudes or the equipment you have played. If they did respond, it is time to recover and respond. Worst case scenario, you have been shut down a couple of times and are trying to be relevant again.
During Late Game, I like to start exploiting Godo, Bandit Warlord's attack trigger. In short, what you can do is attack with Aurelia and keep Godo back on her first attack trigger. Then, on the second attack, you swing with Godo as well. Since this is the first combat for Godo, you get a 3rd phase that you can utilize with Aurelia or any other creature that has Vigilance. Bring Savage Beating into the picture, untapping my creatures and giving another combat phase, and you can truck in with everything on each of the three attacks during the turn.
A card to also consider deploying during Late Game is Master Warcraft. Usually I find the best use of this card is to play it during an opponents combat step because I can ensure the attacking opponent attacks with their important creatures. Note: You do not get to decide where the creatures attack, so that opponent could just send them all at you if you choose too many. However, even though that limitation exists, there are often times where I need to ensure Aurelia can get through to my opponents, so casting it during my turn lets me kill someone off easily. Pretty much just utilize Master Warcraft as you feel, just remember how strong the spell is and that it being cast should result in someone dying or an opponent should be open for an onslaught from the table.
Now, if you've the point where you want to win right away because the combo deck players are one turn away from winning or you're just out of non-combo options, getting Grafted Exoskeleton in play and on Aurelia will allow you to one-shot any opponent that can not block her. I usually hold this back until late game since it will draw a lot of aggro towards this deck, however don't feel compelled to wait until then if a combo/control player is drawing enough table hate.
Additionally, the only infinite combo we have in this deck is Sword of Feast and Famine and Aggravated Assault. All else fails and if people are going for their finishers, don't feel bad employing this combo to win. In my experience, people get annoyed at it, but realize they had awhile to deal with either Aurelia or the combo pieces themselves.
In short: More than likely at this point you are the threat or you're going to lose. Ensure you have responses available and try to not over-extend the deck. If you do, don't fret too much. The deck is loaded with big creatures and high damage output to get you to the win, it is just wise to not have to start relying on "Captain Top-Deck", because sometimes he likes to gift you land instead of value.
Example Hands
Example #1
Hand: Mask of Memory, Swords to Plowshares, Sensei's Divining Top, Mountain x2, Plains x2
Keep or Ditch?: Keep
Reasoning: Strong hand, Top will let me filter my draws, so the outlook is very promising.
Example #2
Hand: Sun Titan, Sublime Archangel, Master Warcraft, Boros Signet, Steelshaper's Gift, Mountain, Plains
Keep or Ditch?: Ditch
Reasoning: This is a what I like to call a trap hand. There are a couple of clutch cards, but not enough land to get it going. We can very easily get stuck on the 2 lands and only have access to 3 mana total, so I'd personally dump the hand away and hope for better.
Example #3
Hand: Puresteel Paladin, Solemn Simulacrum, Oblation, Wheel of Fortune, Land Tax, Evolving Wilds, Plains
Keep or Ditch?: Keep, but could be risky.
Reasoning: Land Tax + Plains keeps me in this game. I have yet to see someone nuke Land Tax early game, so I should get a couple land with ease. The Solemn Simulacrum will accel me on turn 4. If my draws stink as I go beyond, Wheel can refill my hand with better threats.
Potential Difficulties When Playing
Considering this is an aggressive deck with either Voltron or Dudes, there are some situations you can run into that may become a problem for this deck. Here is a list of the type of issues I have run into and some solutions/tweaks you can utilize.
1. Pillow Fort/Stax Decks - Propaganda, No Mercy, Other negative effects (AKA: "Attack me, but be ready to pay the price for it!"): It may or may not be obvious, but these type of cards can start to be annoying because the real win condition in this deck is creature damage. Besides just not attacking them directly, the common answer I seek is to try to beat into these decks early rather than wait for them to play these type of cards and get the pillow fort online. Often, if someone pulls out a Zur the Enchanter deck, be ready for these type of cards. In the event these cards do come online, be ready to have Orim's Thunder ready. Also, if you play in a meta where these types of cards are common, considering putting a Return to Dust into your deck.
2. Artifact Hate - Most Notably Aura Shards, Vandalblast, and Shattering Spree: Equipment decks can be slightly clunky because often it takes one turn to play the equipment and then another to equip it to your creature. This give your opponents a good amount of time to respond to the artifacts with the hate cards common in this format (listed in the heading). If you have a lot of players packing the "come into play" hate cards, look to Torpor Orb or Hushwing Gryff to come to your aid. For spell effects, I've already included common ways to protect them in this deck, but including a Darksteel Forge would be the last possible defense I can think of...
3. Counterspell type Control Decks: In my style of playing, I personally do not make my decks to be able to prevent counter spells - though many decks have them, in most Commander games I play, my creatures and equipment are not as threatening at the time, or I have cheated them into play via Stonehewer Giant or Stoneforge Mystic to name a few. That all being said, if you want to make a better way to stop these type of decks and are building this deck on your own, I suggest two lands to you: Boseiju, Who Shelters All and Cavern of Souls (most likely naming Angel). These will help mitigate counterspells from ruining a lot of your powerful threats in the deck.
4. Decks that run Bribery, Acquire, or Sphinx Ambassador: Get ready to accept the fact that this deck is going to be the target of these effects most of the time: There are some nasty targets to pick from in this deck, most notably Sublime Archangel, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, and Sword of Feast and Famine to name a few. To prevent these cards that steal the good creatures/artifacts, the first real decision needs to be made during deck construction, because if you are in a meta that utilized these type of cards, put a Homeward Path or Leyline of Sanctity in your deck. However if you choose to run the bombs like I am running and not include a Homeward Path, then be ready to kill the selected creature somehow...
5. "Captain Top-Deck" - Otherwise known as "Lack of Draw": In my deck list, I included the three preferable methods I like to use to draw, however there are more that can be included to help make you able to draw more often. Cards like Temple Bell, Howling Mine, Font of Mythos, Staff of Nin, or even Staff of Domination can provide more necessary draw power. My only advice is to limit the number of drawing cards you put in the deck. What is the point in drawing a lot of cards each turn if you are not drawing enough threats to stay relevant in the game?
6. Slow Early Game: I say this because it's true: this deck has a high CMC curve and the first several turns may just be "Plains/Mountain, Pass turn." My non-competitive meta is a pretty slow/casual play style, more often games end somewhere between turn 12-16. If the meta you play in has decks that are pretty quick to get going, subbing out some of the higher mana cost creatures like Godo, Bandit Warlord, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, and Sun Titan for some 2-4 CMC creatures may be a necessary move. Subbing in some of the artifact acceleration cards posted in the Early Game section may also be helpful if you find your early game lacking.
7. Tuck Effects (such as Hinder, Spin into Myth, Condemn, etc.): Most people I play with or stores I visit really hate these type of cards, so I rarely see them in use when I sit down to play. However, considering what this deck is setup to do and the amount of power Aurelia brings to the table, cards that put her on the bottom of the library are a good counter to her. However, like previously stated in this primer, Aurelia is not crucial to winning with this deck. Even if she does get tucked, the deck has Gamble to tutor her back. Also, Reverberate can copy someone else's tutor / creature fetch. If you begin to find that you may need more solutions to these type of effects, Skyship Weatherlight is an awesome creature/artifact tutor (when used to only grab one card) that not many people know about and you can also look to include Reiterate as another copying method to utilize other player's tutors.Thank you Rule Committee, you made a huge Boros weakness go awayNotable Exclusions from the Deck
This section is going to expand as people provide feedback to this thread, but for now these are some cards I decided to not use.
Instants and Sorceries
Act of Treason / "Gain control of target X" spells: Main reason is that there are not enough sac outlets to benefit from these effects. If you needed to prevent an annoying blocker situation, the deck is able to get around most creatures via protection from the Swords, so again not necessary for that purpose. Finally factor in the appearance of Homeward Path in most decks due to the sheer amount of people purchasing the pre-cons to understand how these cards have lost a lot of power recently. Zealous Conscripts is in this deck because it targets permanents, so I can steal away a planeswalker ult sometimes and good artifacts until the end of turn.
Chaos Warp: Oblation's cousin, Chaos Warp is a great tuck spell to deal with enemy generals or annoying combo pieces. The reason I only run with Oblation is because often I have used that spell to save one of my own cards (usually an equipment) from being RFG'ed or destroyed, so I prefer to get the two cards on the top instead of the random permanent.Added in 12/16/16 update - see card discussion sectionCloudshift: Cloudshift is suggested often by people who think that it gives a lot of awesome value with Aurelia's attack trigger, and they are right to play with it if they are simply looking for more attack phases. However I find that since I primarily use equipment as my buffing strategies that blinking Aurelia makes her weaker and requires me to use mana to re-equip her.
Insurrection: This card is really a "Win more" card. As I mentioned in my discussion of the meta I play in, my play group does not swarm people with creatures. The deck already has a couple of ways to influence combat, so I did not find Insurrection necessary.
Return to Dust: Truthfully, a good card to include, but I always find myself wanting to cast on my main phase. It is painful to me to have to utilize this when I use Sunforger, so I went with Orim's Thunder instead. However, RtD is a strong card so have no regrets if you include this in your own Sunforger Toolbox.Added in 12/16/16 update - see card discussion sectionCreatures
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Avacyn is amazing, but I feel like she is too easily stolen from via Bribery and Clone-like cards. Giving my opponents indestructibility makes it a lot harder for Aurelia and this deck to win, so I just decided against using her.
Boros Reckoner: Reckoner is an efficient 3 CMC creature with an awesome effect that makes him annoying to block, especially with creatures that have higher power than him, but I find that otherwise his first strike option doesn't make him threatening enough late game.
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite: Elesh was in this deck for a long time, but in the end I felt like his purpose was more for controlling the board instead of being aggressive, thus he/she/it (whatever sex Elesh is...) got the cut.
Heartless Hidetsugu: While insanely effective, he also does a lot of damage to myself as well. Giving him infect seems funny since it will one shot everyone at the table (including myself). I would give him a go if I wanted to be really competitive for a tournament, but for casual play I will take a pass.
Hellkite Charger: Him with Sword of Feast and Famine is also an infinite combat phase combo, but I hate making it too easy to win. Plus, Hellkite Charger is a lot easier to deal with in my meta than Aggravated Assault.
Kargan Dragonlord: While he is another cool level up creature, I think he is just a little bit too slow to make a huge difference in my games. If I had all R mana each turn, on T5 he could be an 8/8 Flying Trample if every mana was spent into his level up on each turn. He may make the cut someday if I get bored with some of the other creatures in the deck, but for now I will hold off on finding a home for him.
Linvala, Keeper of Silence: Linvala is an awesome creature and causes a lot of issues for my opponents, I just find she would give this deck too much control and I just don't want to be "that guy" with this deck.
Serra Ascendant: Serra was a card in this deck for a short time, and it is always cute to play a 6/6 Flying, Lifelink, but the reality is this card makes people really, really, REALLY hate you. Drawing so much aggro from the table in the early stages of the game is a dumb idea and should always be avoided when possible.
Artifacts
Loxodon Warhammer: Similar to Whispersilk Cloak, I spent awhile trying to think what I would cut to justify this gem. It really came down to this guy or Sword of Vengeance, which translates to what is more important: Vigilance or Lifelink? In my assessment of both cards, Vigilance is a lot stronger in this format, especially since First Strike is provided as well.
Sword of Body and Mind: Like I mentioned in my discussion of my playgroup, a lot of decks I play against love creatures in graveyards. For that reason, making someone mill 10 cards is not ideal. Plus, who cares about a 2/2 wolf? The weakest Sword of them all IMO, and thus not used.
Whispersilk Cloak: The last equipment card I cut before finalizing the original deck. Like I said above, I do not find it hard to get through blockers when I am attacking with my creatures, so I found the cloak easy to cut.
Enchantments
True Conviction / Rage Reflection: While good enchantments, I do not like their 6 CMC cost and find that they would be a huge commitment for not much of a gain right now. If I ever included one of the two, it would definitely be True Conviction because it provides Lifelink as well.
More to come as people comment!
Change Log
9/27/2013:
Out: Transguild Promenade
In: Temple of Triumph
Reason: I was pretty much waiting for a new dual land to come out and saw this gem on the horizon. I am a huge fan of the Scry mechanic in Limited/Standard. In this deck, it can let me send down a card that can be tutored for later or a pesky land I don't really need.
10/5/2013:
Out: Ajani Vengeant
In: Scroll Rack
Reason: After tirelessly defending Ajani Vengeant for months, I finally found him lacking when I played him and my opponents had nothing to "lock down" in play. I've also wanted to put Scroll Rack in a deck to try it out as a "card draw" option, so we'll see how this works out over the next couple weeks. I have high hopes for it because often I have cards in my hand that I don't need (Sunforger Toolbox, high cost creatures, etc.) and could use something else instead.
10/31/2013:
Out: Mountain
In: Clifftop Retreat
Reason: I was able to pick up a Clifftop Retreat and figured it could replace a basic land pretty easily. This deck is a lot more heavy white, so I cut a Mountain over a Plains.
Out: Gauntlet of Power
In: Boros Charm
Reason: Through a couple of games, I noticed Gauntlet of Power was a "win-more" type of card and it was assisting other players do more then I'd like. To replace it, Boros Charm has been a card I was considering for awhile because of its utility and ability to be a part of the Sunforger Toolbox.
11/01/2013:
Out: Walking Atlas
In: Burnished Hart
Reason: It took me awhile to get a copy of Burnished Heart, so this is why this change took so long. Burnished is great at making up for the lack of ramp associated with Boros decks. Also, Sun Titan can recur Burnished early for consistent ramping (if needed).
11/09/2013:
Out: Odric, Master Tactician
In: Serra Ascendant
Reason: I've had only two opportunities to utilize his awesomeness and then before the next turn, someone wiped the board. Often, when "Dudes" mode is on, I am not swarming the board, but utilizing two strong creatures with some equipment out there. I decided to add Serra Ascendant to the deck to bring in a cheap dude that can be amazing depending on my life total. We'll see how this works out and go from there.
Out: Hero of Bladehold
In: Figure of Destiny
Reason: Similar as above, all she seems good at doing is pumping out dudes. Battlecry is cute, but not much of a strong gain. I decided to replace her with Figure of Destiny to bring in a potentially good beater to assist with early damage potential.
Out: Legion's Initiative
In: Umezawa's Jitte
Reason: This card had its uses, but was somewhat lack-luster if I drew into it without a board wipe ready. Often, before an opponent would wipe the board, they would force my hand and pop the enchantment and then wipe on the 2nd main phase. For a replacement, my Umezawa's Jitte finally became free, so I decided to try it out. It took only 1 game of getting 4 counters a turn due to Aurelia attacks to show it was a smart change.
Out: Plains
In: Opal Palace
Reason: I am curious to see how Opal Palace will work out, I see some good potential with the land making Aurelia a lot bigger later in the game. Time will tell on this card.
01/04/2014:
Out: Temple Bell
In: Chandra, Pyromaster
Reason: I have been tired of how Temple Bell has benefited my opponents when I utilize it. I am going to give Chandra a shot because her +0 is basically an extra draw for me and her +1 allows me to reduce available blockers my opponent might have. Honestly, the -7 will probably never be used to any benefit for me, but I believe the other two are enough justification for the move.
Out: Windbrisk Heights
In: Emeria, the Sky Ruin
Reason: Windbrisk Heights has not been easy to trigger now and days, often getting LD'ed before I can fire it off, so cutting it makes strong sense to me. Emeria is kind of a slow play for late game recoveries, but a lot of my dual lands are Plains as well and I do have access to enough mana accel outlets to get the 7 Plains online relatively quickly.
01/16/2014:
Time for the first phase of a bunch of changes, I am not going to go card by card (a lot of details are also listed in posts), but I will give an overall analysis at the end of this list:
Out: Plains >>>> In: Ancient Den
Out: Mountain >>>> In: Great Furnace
Out: Decree of Annihilation >>>> In: Concerted Effort
Out: Wild Ricochet >>>> In: Tithe
Out: Planar Portal >>>> In: Reforge the Soul
Out: Quicksilver Amulet >>>> In: Enlightened Tutor
Out: Akroma, Angel of Wrath >>>> In: Restoration Angel
Out: Avacyn, Angel of Hope >>>> In: Puresteel Paladin
Reason(s): This was the first wave of big changes I am making to try to reduce my overall CMC in the deck. Lately, a lot of my games are relying on Aurelia as my win-con because I am drawing into high CMC threats (Akroma, Angel of Wrath, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Planar Portal) where I would much rather draw into some more early game cards that are good even in late game. Some cards in here are being cut because I felt like they were dead draws more often then not (Wild Ricochet) or required specific cards in play to get the best results from them (Decree of Annihilation). The land changes were made primarily for Puresteel Paladin and facilitating his Metalcraft.
Tithe was always on my list to be put in the deck, so I am going to see how it goes (which should be just fine) and Reforge the Soul made sense since I currently play with Wheel of Fortune. Restoration Angel is in the deck now to allow for some protection of my Non-Angel creatures and allow for ETB abuse if needed. Enlightened Tutor is also just awesome and allows me to tutor for a wide range of awesomeness (including lands now).
02/15/2014:
Out: Boros Battleshaper >>>> In: Sublime Archangel
Out: Serra Ascendant >>>> In: Student of Warfare
Reasons: Two major reasons here:
1. I wanted to again lower the CMC of the deck and Boros Battleshaper, while providing a cool effect, just would be a dead draw in tight situations. He was more fun than effective. Sublime Archangel has been on my list to test, so I am going to give her a shot or replace her with a Mirran Crusader if she doesn't perform well.
2. Serra Ascendant just causes too much drama in games. People either complain that she is too ridiculous for just a W mana. Losing a source of Lifelink is difficult for this deck, so I may need to start evaluating some of the other creatures I use with this cut. To replace Serra, Student of Warfare is an awesome fit in because he can become awesome as the game progresses with his level ups, eventually getting double strike to allow for my equipments to proc a lot.
02/26/2014:
Out: Elspeth, Knight-Errant >>>> In: Mirran Crusader
Out: Sword of Vengeance >>>> In: Grafted Exoskeleton
Reasons: Elspeth, Knight-Errant, while being awesome as a potential win-con, the likelihood of her ultimate ever going off is slim to none. If I draw her late game, she doesn't really bring much to the table and only creates a diversion from people attacking directly into me, so Mirran Crusader finally is getting the home he deserves in this deck. I have enjoyed what Sword of Vengeance does for me, but I am more curious to see how Grafted Exoskeleton will effect my games instead. I think in 1v1, or even some multi-player games, being able to take the combo/control player out of the game early by doing 10 infect damage with Aurelia will be great. If the Exoskeleton gets hated out too often, I will probably go back to SoV since it has done well buffing my normal dudes.
04/03/2014:
Out: Urabrask the Hidden >>>> In: Thundermaw Hellkite
Reason: Urabrask has been a good card, but I find that giving all my creatures haste is not crucial in this deck due to my equipment package and Aurelia herself having haste. Thundermaw has been on my watch list for some time and I am excited to see if he will pan out like I think he will.
05/09/2014:
Out: Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite >>>> In: Iroas, God of Victory
Reason: Elesh was in this deck for a long time and frankly was awesome at shutting down Token decks, but in the end I felt like Elesh's purpose only for controlling the board instead of being aggressive, thus he/she/it (whatever sex Elesh is...) got the cut. With the printing of Iroas, I had to make room for him since he will provide great benefits/perks towards the aggro strategy this deck uses
05/20/2014:
Out: Frontline Medic >>>> In: Fiendslayer Paladin
Out: Armillary Sphere >>>> In: Knight Exemplar
Out: Aggravated Assault >>>> In: Wayfarer's Bauble
Reason: The infinite combat step combo (Aggravated Assault + A Creature + Sword of Feast and Famine) needed to be cut out due to my new Meta's No Infinite Combo policy. That cut, along with my dislike in Frontline Medic, allowed me to begin exploring the Knight theme that I was talking about lately. The Armillary change was driven because I wanted a method to mana accel instead of just get lands out of the deck.
06/12/2014:
Out: Figure of Destiny >>>> In: Kor Duelist
Out: Restoration Angel >>>> In: Kinsbaile Cavalier
Out: Scroll Rack >>>> In: Paladin en-Vec
Out: Anvil of Bogardan >>>> In: Mask of Memory
Reason: I wanted to continue the change of including more Knights since they have a "tendency" to be good "sword bearers". en-Vec has solid protections and can act as a good attacker into many different decks and the Cavalier effectively gives 9 creatures Double Strike, which is awesome. Kor Duelist is solid for an early game creature to equip and attack, especially with the Mask, which will allow for some great filtering and draws.
For the reasons on the cuts: Scroll Rack was needed in another deck, so it had to go. Figure of Destiny and Restoration Angel have been a little meh in the new meta I play in, so I cut them for the Knights. And the Anvil was great for giving me more draw, but I didn't like that it helped my opponents too. I believe the Mask is a better choice for this deck since I can get more combats and triggers out of it.
08/09/2014:
Out: Student of Warfare >>>> In: Terminus
Out: Terramorphic Expanse >>>> In: Battlefield Forge
Reason: Student has not been really living up to my desires lately - the mana commitment required was annoying in two separate games lately. In an effort to get more competitive, Terminus was added as another sweaper effect that I can employ if my opponents are going ridiculous and I do not have Aurelia in play. The land change was simply done to try to make my early game plays more available and not clunky. Though land filtering is excellent, I personally hate drawing into a filter land when I desperately need an actual land to play something...
08/20/2014:
Out: Reiterate >>>> In: Legion Loyalist
Out: Archangel of Thune >>>> In: Grand Abolisher
Out: Baneslayer Angel >>>> In: Warren Instigator
Out: Angelic Skirmisher >>>> In: Wrecking Ogre
Out: Gisela, Blade of Goldnight >>>> In: Zealous Conscripts
Reason: These changes are driven for two reasons - 1. I wanted to add more Double Strike creatures to the deck and 2. I wanted to lower the mana curve even further. These changes are all a test, so I don't have a bunch of comments other than I think they will be good lol...
09/28/2014:
Out: Thundermaw Hellkite >>>> In: Coalition Relic
Reason: I've been playing a little bit lately and noticed I need a little bit more acceleration cards to get threats out earlier. I've always been a fan of relic, so I will give it a shot for now and see what happens.
07/09/2015:
Huge overhaul, too much to go through the nitty-gritty of it....
Reason: I really neglected this list for too long and now I am finally giving it the attention it deserves. With Origins about to come out, there are a couple of equipments that I am excited to possibly trial and Relic Seeker seems like an auto-include for this list. I have always kept this deck sleeved up and ready to play, but it has fallen from grace a bit as I build more and more decks, but I am starting to love it a lot again
02/22/2016:
Huge overhaul, content update, and actually getting this post setup to where the deck really is... I spent too much time focusing on my Daretti primer and neglected this post...
In: Leonin Shikari, Imperial Recruiter, Hero of Bladehold, Hero's Blade, Sword of the Animist, O-Naginata, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox, Seize the Day, Command Beacon, and Arid Mesa
Out: Kor Duelist, Fencing Ace, Warren Instigator, Markov Blademaster, Mirran Crusader, Coldsteel Heart, Oath of Lieges, Tormenting Voice, Chandra, Pyromaster, Ancient Den, and Great Furnace
Reasons: The big thing is I wanted to move away from the gimmicky double strike creatures and tune the deck more towards Aurelia. I don't call this deck a voltron deck still though, because there are several creatures I can equip and murder my opponents with. So all of those guys were cut to add in more equipment that are cheap and benefit Aurelia. I added 2 of the legal moxes to make for some earlier mana access and cut out two meh ramp cards. The land changes were made because Command Beacon is awesome when Aurelia is costing 10+ mana to get into play and Arid Mesa is just a staple (no idea why I took it out really...) and needed to be in the deck again. I did not really touch the Sunforger package because I am content with it, but there is potentially some more work to be done with those cards. The big trick is to see if the more equipment and focusing more on Aurelia makes this deck more consistent than the double striking creatures, which were always okay to draw when I had an equipment package, but meh to draw if I was looking for answers to problematic situations...
12/16/2016:
Making up for being lazy and not updating this list with my changes. Again, huge thanks to the people the continue to comment and use this list for inspiration. I love that I am able to help others with this Primer
In: Oblation, Chaos Warp, Return to Dust, Relic Seeker, Assemble the Legion, Sigarda's Aid, Ancient Tomb, Rogue's Passage, Terramorphic Expanse, Command Tower
Out: Archetype of Aggression, Grand Abolisher, Tithe, Orim's Thunder, Wild Ricochet, Armageddon, Temple of the False God, 2x Plains, Mountain
Reasons: I'll do this in a list form this time instead of a massive text wall lol...
Last but not least...
I would like to say thanks for taking the time to read this Primer. I hope you find it enlightening and a fun deck to play around with yourself. I have thoroughly enjoyed the deck and look forward to any suggestions or comments you have regarding it!
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Also some minor spelling problems
Anvil of bargarden is spelt anvil of bogardan
Otherwise it looks fine and good luck with getting primer status (also you might wanna read the primer guide line just to make sure I didn't miss anything)
EDH
GWSigarda, Host of EnchantressGW[Primer]
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Brilliant! Thanks for that. I have spent years utilizing posts in this forum, but not contributing to it. I feel it is time to change that
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Game 1: 5 Player Multiplayer, Decks: Aurelia, the Warleader (me), Jor Kadeen, the Prevailer, Tajic, Blade of the Legion, Maelstrom Wanderer, and Ruric Thar, the Unbowed: Pretty much was an outright aggro fest (I mean, there were 3 Boros decks...). Aurelia ended up getting there really quickly because I was able to get Aurelia + Silverblade Paladin + Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (Note: This translates to 24 General damage each turn to someone un-protected). I picked off Maelstrom, Ruric Thar, and Tajic in the next couple turns, then after a Rout from Jor Kadeen, I recovered into Sword of Feast and Famine and got in with Aurelia again for the win. I noticed early I had the two creatures to make Voltron Aurelia the choice, so I went that way and won.
Game 2: 4 Player Multiplayer, Decks: Aurelia, the Warleader, Sheoldred, Whispering One, Mayael the Anima, and Sharuum the Hegemon: My opening hand consisted of Frontline Medic + Markov Blademaster. I decided to turn three get Markov into play and proceeded to go into Sheoldred a couple times to get her tokens up. Eventually I also top-decked both Angelic Skirmisher + Archangel of Thune and got them in play as soon as possible. Long story short, dudes got there by turn 9.
I will post some more games as I play these next couple weeks
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Why are you running Ajani Vengeant? He is a bad planeswalker in EDH.
Your curve is awfully high, and you don't have a lot of mana rocks to back it up, how does that affect your games?
I like Aurelia, but I feel you are trying to do too much, and have way too many creatures likely clogging up your hand. This deck seems inconsistent, and even your title lends to that assertion; pick one.. voltron or swarm, don't try to do both, it won't work out.
You need to cut some creatures and try to focus more around utility and decide if you want to play voltron or overwhelm. If you are finding this deck to be a success, more power to you, but at first glance it does not seem consistent.
/2cents.
Username: Cabz
No, not really. I have found that the four cards I use (Sensei's Divining Top, Anvil of Bogardan, Temple Bell, Wheel of Fortune) for drawing are satisfactory enough. This also doesn't include the card draw I see of off Sword of Fire and Ice as well.
Two major reasons:
1. He keeps a permanent tapped down and is in Boros. Things like Crystal Shard, Cabal Coffers, Maze of Ith, etc, are now taken offline. These cards are powerful and preventing them from untapping every turn does actually provide some necessary utility.
2. The life gain when Archangel of Thune is in play is cute and effective at getting counters on creatures.
Beyond that, yes I agree he is a "weak" planeswalker. But my meta I play in makes him stronger than he is on paper, and thus he was included.
It doesn't effect my games because I am never afraid to use a Reverberate, Reiterate, or Wild Ricochet on a Green ramp spell. Also, in my opinion, the rocks I use are good enough to keep me going. Also, my land situation is pretty much almost completely "perfect" (AKA: I have the necessary duals) so I am never really color screwed either (thus no Boros Signet).
If this becomes a problem, I am ready to include Coalition Relic (replacing Markov Blademaster) and Gilded Lotus (replacing Ajani Vengeant), in that order.
I would argue that inconsistency in this deck is actually a strength, not a weakness. I assume if someone is willing to look at my decklist and say "Hey, I want to spend the $500+ to make this deck!" that they are going to want to get their money's worth. With my friends and other people I play with, they are always on the fence on how to respond to the deck because the different options to win.
"Should I waste my RFG on Silverblade Paladin because he helped Aurelia one shot me before?" - These type of thoughts are what I want my opponents to think. Like Puff Daddy said in Get Him To The Greek: "I'm mind f$%^#@g you right now....."
Obviously this deck is not a perfect Voltron or swarm, it is a hybrid of them both. Since it is a hybrid, sacrifices on card choices were made to make the deck cohesive enough to function and not dead draw. In respect to your "If you are finding this deck to be a success, more power to you", I am currently hovering around a 75% win rate with this deck and in my games I play (always 4+ multiplayer EDH). But, this deck really does require a lot of paying attention to the board state and knowing when to not over-commit, something that took me awhile to grasp as a magic player (Note: I thank drafting and standard for really setting those skills into my head).
I appreciate it Both criticism and praise are appreciated the same by me: I find it as a way to explain my process more to others and also learn a new thing or two!
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Commanders my Opponents Played:
Daxos of Meletis, Mayael the Anima, and Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
Game Result:
Win, Game ended on Turn 10 with Sword of Feast and Famine + Aggravated Assault combo. One of the guys that was playing has played this deck a couple times before said this after the game concluded:
"If I ever see Sword of Feast and Famine in play, it needs to die immediately from here on out..."
He is pretty much right on the money with that statement, so if you are considering building this deck, be careful about when you play this sword: be sure you are ready to save it or are about to win to prevent people from RFG'ing it immediately.
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Commanders my Opponents Played:
Thromok the Insatiable, Oros, the Avenger, and Tariel, Reckoner of Souls
Game Result:
Loss, but was close. I was able to get in and finished the Tariel player with ease and used Master Warcraft during Thromok's turn to kill the Oros player, but then the Thromok player used Soulblast to hit me for 49 damage (I was at 45). Pretty fun match honestly: 2 aggro decks in a game is always a good, quick match.
Major takeaways from this game:
Burnished Hart was awesome at getting my land count high early, especially when I drew into Sun Titan. I am starting to think I need some better ways to protect my artifacts early, I have tried to equip Sunforger in several games and it is always getting destroyed in response to the equip...
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Two thumbs up on this one.
Thanks for the compliments! I understand what you mean in terms of cost, but there are a lot of budget options for the folks out there. The biggest place where you can save money is the lands. The dual lands are nice and make things more reliant, but they are not a necessity when making the deck.
I am glad you are investing in a Sword of Feast and Famine, that card should be in any Voltron deck for sure.
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I explained the changes up in the change log, but I figured I would include it here as well:
Odric, Master Tactician: I've had only two opportunities to utilize his awesomeness and then before the next turn, someone wiped the board. Often, when "Dudes" mode is on, I am not swarming the board, but utilizing two strong creatures with some equipment out there. I decided to add Serra Ascendant to the deck to bring in a cheap dude that can be amazing depending on my life total.
Hero of Bladehold: Similar as above, all she seems good at doing is pumping out dudes. Battlecry is cute, but not much of a strong gain. I decided to replace her with Figure of Destiny to bring in a potentially good beater to assist with early damage potential.
Legion's Initiative: This card had its uses, but was somewhat lack-luster if I drew into it without a board wipe ready. Often, before an opponent would wipe the board, they would force my hand and pop the enchantment and then wipe on the 2nd main phase. For a replacement, my Umezawa's Jitte finally became free, so I decided to try it out. It took only 1 game of getting 4 counters a turn due to Aurelia attacks to show it was a smart change.
Other cards now on the "I might want to add" list:
Angel of Jubilation - Primarily due to a couple of decks I play against do a lot of sac interactions and could really hurt their gameplans, she also turns into a nice creature buffer similar to Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite.
Kor Cartographer - A potential third ramp creature to pair with Burnished Hart and Knight of the White Orchid, only downside is she(?) costs 4cc and is not nice to see in the opening hand....
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On the shortlist, I have the following cards to replace, but I am waiting for the Vancouver PTQ to get them via trades instead of just buying them:
Serra Ascendant: He doesn't apply to what I just said, but I feel wrong playing him.... just wrong... so I am looking to replace him with a Soldier of the Pantheon to keep the CMC the same. Also, the protection is nice to allow him as an equipment muel.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope: The benefit she provides is too risky to give to other people playing with a Clone or Bribery. Plus the CMC is just too high and annoying to commit to to bring her into play. The card I am looking at to replace her is most likely a Restoration Angel, this will allow me to re-utilize some ETB triggers and provide some evasion to protect a creature if I need it.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath: Pretty much just a too-high CMC creature. Mirran Crusader or Boros Reckoner are the creatures I am considering to replace her with to provide a low CMC beater.
Quicksilver Amulet: Reducing the number of high-CMC creatures makes this card less necessary imo. Though the ability to flash in a creature before my turn holds promise, I don't think that alone justifies the card. Sublime Archangel is on the top of the list to replace this card. She would fit perfectly into the deck in either Voltron or Dudes mode.
Decree of Annihilation: With Avacyn on the short list, this board wipe becomes less attractive. If I want the LD, then an Armageddon would do just fine. Otherwise, I could use a Hallowed Burial or Wrath of God to keep a sweep effect available to use.
Beyond the cards on the short list, two changes were made and explained in the changelog section:
Temple Bell -----> Chandra, Pyromaster
Windbrisk Heights -----> Emeria, the Sky Ruin
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Kamahl, Pit Fighter is kinda weak IMO. If I wanted a creature with haste for around 6 CMC, I would go with either Stormbreath Dragon or Thundermaw Hellkite because I find their other abilities much stronger. The problem I have right now is I only have one copy of each of them and they are in another deck at the moment.
Knollspine Dragon is in the same situaiton: I have only one copy and he is in the same deck as the other two. Additionally, he costs a lot to get his draw and requires me to hold back all my mana if I want it by T7. Usually I am equipping Aurelia on T7 to swing for strong damage, so I never have that much free mana.
However, thank you for your suggestions
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That being said, love seeing the decklist. My Aurelia made useage of things like the double strike bloodrush Ogre and other double strike enablers. Aurelia was silly if she resolved...
WUGDerevi Voltron AttritionWUG
WGRMayael of the Cheated CreaturesWGR
I find it ironic that we have had the exact opposite experiences lol. I credit that to the difference in play groups - my circle of decks do not run large counts (6+) of counter spells, so a turn 5-6 Aurelia has always resolved.
The MLD strat is acceptable, I just don't like doing it personally. I have only ever done the Decree of Annihilation cycle + Avacyn, Angel of Hope 3 times and each time it was a GG for me. But each victory was kinda a little hollow and not satisfying.
Wrecking Ogre, which I think is what you meant, is cute, but I think he is a little slow or is only good for late game hits. What I aim for is being able to give double strike on the first combat Aurelia sees. So right now, Concerted Effort is on my watch list with the number of creatures I have that provide double strike. Additionally, Aurelia would make all my creatures at least have flying and vigilance on my next attack as well.
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I do still miss Aurelia, I hope you have some better luck with her than I did!
WUGDerevi Voltron AttritionWUG
WGRMayael of the Cheated CreaturesWGR
True Conviction is great and I utilized it a lot back in the day, but the 6 CMC commitment to get it out most likely puts Aurelia a turn back, or I have to skip T7 as my equipment phase. Concerted Effort just feels a little better as well, because I am a huge supporter of Vigilance lol
I am starting to find that Planar Portal is just really clunky anyways and I am not enjoying it. I think the ring would make it a little less clunky, but honestly I am considering swapping out the portal for Reforge the Soul instead. I already run Wheel of Fortune and love the effect I get when casting it.
And I completely hear you on Tithe. But I absolutely HATE being greedy and going down to 37 lands. The odds of me getting mana screwed go way up as I start to thin down that count below 38. What would you cut instead?
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Hmmm..... I agree with that line of thinking, though I am more apt to cut Wild Ricochet at this point simply because Reverberate has let me copy early Kodama's Reach, Cultivate, and Explosive Vegetation.
But you are right, 3 copy effects is overkill and Tithe would work very well for this deck.
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I should've been more clear: Those spells are generally cast on my T2 or T3 when I am playing, and on those turns I most likely have mana available for Reverberate. T4 and beyond, I am generally tapping out to put creatures and equipment in play, so keeping 4 mana up for Wild Ricochet is a lot more taxing then only 2 for Reverberate.
Plus, my Reverberate is a foil copy and looks awesome while my Wild Ricochet is a boring non-foil lol....
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LegacyUBRDelverRBU
UBOona, Fae BeaterBU
RPurphoros, God of GoblinsR
XScion of the Ur-DragonX
RWAurelia, the WarwinnerWR
UBROprah, the MindrazerUBR
Not really, because I prefer the 0 equip cost over the 1 that the Swiftfoot Boots requires. I honestly don't run into the issue of not being able to move Lightning Greaves from my main creature. However, I feel like either card is an option, so if you like the boots more, go for it!
While cute, Rakka Mar fits a deck that is more interested in a token theme, which this deck is not built towards. You're right about the double activations, but that also requires me to keep 2 R open for her activations, which in Boros, is a fairly large commitment for each turn.
As always, thanks for the suggestions and discussion! I am sorry my reply was a little late - I was stuck on business and my work computer blocks this forum lol...
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