[Standard] The Best Offense is a Good Defense

[Dark Wolf]

Some of you may have seen the new deck that has been floating around on the edges of your local FNM. I've been meaning to try this deck, as I really feel it could prove to be a top deck depending on how things turn out in competitive play over the next few weeks. I'm not completely sold on the two color idea, thinking that perhaps three would be more potent, but for now I'll post the red/white version of this deck. The forums have been quite dead over the past week or so, so I thought it was time to bring a new deck into discussion that no one has posted yet. Here goes:

4 Perimeter Captain
4 Rage Nimbus
4 Vent Sentinel
4 Wall of Omens
4 Wall of Reverence

4 Chandra Nalaar
4 Earthquake
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Flame Slash

4 Arid Mesa
1 Jungle Shrine
10 Mountain
10 Plains

Sideboard:

4 Oblivion Ring
3 Journey to Nowhere
3 Caldera Hellion
3 Magma Phoenix
2 Banefire

I really like the idea of this deck. I'm not sure how it will stand up in the new meta, but I'm hoping that a deck like this could become a viable deck choice to take to a Grand Prix, Pro Tour, and so on. This deck looks like it could be really effective in the hands of the right player. Any comments anyone? Changes? Problems you see?

[browncoat]

No! Stop delete this thread now! This was my idea! Grrrrrrrrr!!!!!!

To explain, the reason I have been quieter than usual with irrational deck ideas is that I am one of the writers for deckconstruct with the topic of rogue and budget decks (sorry Alex if I am not supposed to reveal this). One of the decks that I have been working on is a similar deck to this. Seeing as you have started a discussion I will post my article here now. It is fairly short but you can start giving me feedback on how I need to work on my writing.

So without further ado, my article:

So you have drafted Rise of the Eldrazi and did pretty well with you defender deck packing vent steamers, overgrown battlements, and even a couple wall of omens. Now those defenders just go into you junk box that you will use to proxy cards while your friends spawn token generators are easily built around to ramp out eldrazi and your other friends levelers can become a similar theme deck. You can win with vent steamer but that is not reliable. Enter junk rare hellion eruption, turning your less than fearsome walls into a horde of hellions that are not limited by defender.

R/W walls
4 perimeter captain
4 ogre sentry
4 wall of omens
4 stalwart shield-bearer
4 vent steamer

4 lightning bolt
4 forked bolt
4 burst lightning
4 hellion eruption

13 mountains
11 plains

This deck is pretty straight forward. You have perimeter captain to block early threats and gain life as the game goes on. Ogre sentry and wall of omens stall and hold the field in the early game. Stalwart shield-bearer is almost a defender lord pumping them up to survive longer. Vent steamer is a alternate win-condition, even though it is weak against removal.

The removal suite is pretty standard for red. Lightning bolt is your baseline burn spell. Forked bolt allows you to deal with multiple one toughness creatures, which allows you to survive boros bushwacker or similar aggro decks. Burst lightning completes the group being a shock at least, killing pesky 4 toughness creatures, or finishing off the opponent.

Looking at Star City Games, a store that overprices cards, the deck costs around $25. $16 of this is the playset of wall of omens and lightning bolt. Wall of Omens is a card that is borderline on price for what I would consider putting in decks. As one of the over-hyped Rise of the Eldrazi cards, it may be hard to come by. While it is not to pricey at $1.50-$2 from reputable retailers the hype may make it hard to find. Currently it should be obtainable even though it is a card used in U/W tapout and U/W/R planeswalker control, decks that did well at the recent SCG 5K in Atlanta. It does not really have an easy replacement but is definitely going to be a solid card in standard in the coming months so getting a playset is a pretty good idea. Lightning bolt is a similarly useful card that red decks need a reason not to run and that reason has to be very solid to keep you from playing the best burn spell in magic. My local store has the deck priced at $18.80 assuming I purchase the wall of omens and the lightning bolts, $6.80 if you already have those.

Some cards that seem to fit are not included. Wall of reverence is the notable defender missing but it does not really fit. Without many creatures with high powers, the life gain effect is pretty useless. A 1/6 wall is not bad but is nothing game-breaking. Path to Exile is another notable exception. First it is partially disqualified by cost, even if it is apparently down to $7 a piece. The second, and more important, strike against it is that you don't want to accelerate your opponent by giving them more land. Though having a single card answer to pesky creatures that you can't burn would be useful. Maybe running oust in the sideboard would be a suitable compromise.

If you have them arid mesa could stabilize the mana-base. Otherwise no other enemy color lands (excluding tri-lands) are available in standard so sticking to the basic mana-base should be fine.

[valk]

both very good decks that I like alot. Defenders are back in vogue!
With combo decks not such a big part of standard, wall-sorcery-instant-planeswalker decks I feel make themselves very playable.

I really like the hellion eruption slant on the red deck with browncoats, and chandra from dark wolfs. I know that chandra could work really well as I'm playing a W/U version that is so similar, but uses jace the mndsculptor and a select few attackers to win instead of any spell damage. It's just so satisfying watching big fatties pound on the walls as the planeswalkers just build up. But to that effect, you need browncoats suggestion of the shieldbearers. The +2 defense can be critical as a game drags on.

Worth mentioning for these decks after my decks experience is I found myself wanting wall of denial instead of guard gomazoa. Love my jellyfish but removal is a sod, though it's better than nothing. Rage nimbus is a good inclusion, and maybe be put into browncoats list. Big flyers are common enough to be problems. Vampires, angels, sphinx...

Overall though, the idea of walling up and unleashing hellion eruption is just brilliant. Maybe even the devestating summons too. Unleash both at once and oh my...

[browncoat]

(2010-05-10 11:20 AM)valk Wrote:  Worth mentioning for these decks after my decks experience is I found myself wanting wall of denial instead of guard gomazoa. Love my jellyfish but removal is a sod, though it's better than nothing. Rage nimbus is a good inclusion, and maybe be put into browncoats list. Big flyers are common enough to be problems. Vampires, angels, sphinx...

I thought about wall of denial for inclusion but their was no other reason to run blue, and you can't get a solid mana-base on a budget. The decks real weakness is removal as you need 3-4 walls to stick to function properly. The advantage of wall over other strategies weak to removal is that defenders are harder to judge in strength which leads opponenets to kill the wrong creatures. Hellion eruption does not care about how strong your creatures are, just that you have them. I thought about rage nimbus but decided that if it had 4 toughness I would run it. Being in bolt range does not make it terribly good, and depending on a shield-bearer to keep nimbus alive is not a good plan.

(2010-05-10 11:20 AM)valk Wrote:  Overall though, the idea of walling up and unleashing hellion eruption is just brilliant. Maybe even the devestating summons too. Unleash both at once and oh my...

I actually stole the idea from a Scourge deck that I saw in Inquest magazine way back when Scourge was new. It used day of the dragons which is a far better finisher as they have evasion and the sacrificed walls come back. Devastating summons is definitely a good idea, I did not talk about it as it is currently getting discussed a lot and I the price has been fluctuating (when I came up with my decklist it was pricier that it is now).

[valk]

There is that 4/5 spirit defender from white as another flying wall. Expensive though. On that thought though, red damage removal is not commonly mixed with the major flier decks is it? So the rage nimbus should not be too much more vulnerable against the decks he's more important against.

All in all though, I'd be interested to see how they go. Post up results if you try them!

[browncoat]

(2010-05-10 17:14 PM)valk Wrote:  There is that 4/5 spirit defender from white as another flying wall. Expensive though. On that thought though, red damage removal is not commonly mixed with the major flier decks is it? So the rage nimbus should not be too much more vulnerable against the decks he's more important against.

Most decks run a bit of removal but being weak to bolt is really wretched. I also don't think that bothering with having maindeck methods of dealing with fliers is necessary as nimbus is useless against walletslayer and hordes of vampires. It is useful against sphinx of jwar isle but any decks running the sphinx will just drop some removal or wrath before dropping it, forcing you to topdeck one or keep one in your hand neither of which protects it from removal.