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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Abzan Lords

« on: February 13, 2019, 01:19:57 pm »

Hey guys. This is a deck I've been working on for a couple of weeks now. I've been trying to make Abzan work since Guilds. Let me know what you think and please don't hesitate to give recommendations or changes you'd make. I've included the justification for my card choices below as well as the style of the deck. Hope you enjoy.



Abzan Lords

This deck focuses on playing a single Silhana Wayfinder or Militia Bugler and rolling into another to quickly build up a board before playing multiple lord effects in quick succession. It also runs mana creatures to allow you to ramp into those lord effects quickly if needed. Every creature meets the requirements to be fetched and all have an additional upside to just being a body.

All the removal is versatile so you never have a 'dead spell' and the planeswalkers bring plenty of value. Ajani has his own lord effect in his +1 that also turns on your Incubation Druid and his -2 provides great value both at returning dead creatures and allowing a Wayfinder to begin the chain all over again while Vivien provides crucial card draw late game and can shut down Search for Azcanta, Hydroid Krasis and Wilderness Reclamation, 3 of the most played cards in the format. Her ultimate ability also provides a lord emblem for additional thematics.

Radiant Destiny is there for the vigilance. You will mostly be naming elf however you have the options of dryad, soldier and spirit may also see use. Trostani has great versatility. Besides lording, she also generates lifelink tokens that can help slow the game down against aggro and can return creatures taken by Thief of Sanity or Hostage Taker once they enter the battlefield. She is also searchable, being hit by both Wayfinder and Bugler which allows you to dig and fairly reliably hit her. Ethereal Absolution is the latest and most impactful lord effect, both buffing your creatures and debuffing your opponents. This make is a lot easier to trade your creatures with big drops your opponents make, such as a Carnage Tyrant or a big Wildgrowth Walker, as well as dealing with the explore package of Jadelight Ranger and Merfolk Branchwalker, Llanowar Elves and Pteromander straight off.

Arguel's Blood Fast is a 1 of in the deck with a surprising amount of versatility. An early Temple of Aclazotz helps you recover from creatures being targeted by burn spells and other removal in aggro matchups and can sometimes buy you enough extra life to allow you to stabilise while against control decks it keeps you up in card advantage. Flower / Flourish is the other unmentioned card. The flower side lets you fix your mana by giving you the option for a white or green mana. Since our black is only a splash searching for a swamp isn't as important and with our other tools we consistently hit it when needed. Flourish is the real winner though. A late game Flourish will typically be used to Alpha Strike our opponent for the win or threaten enough damage that they need to chump, whittling down on their board presence. This is especially effective because we have a bit of a 'go wide' strategy with many smaller but value-generating creatures.

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Deck Reviews / Re: [Standard] Elf Knight Aggro

« on: December 22, 2018, 11:25:20 pm »

Not yet. I'm missing a couple of cards. I'll try and grab them for this FNM and test it out for you.

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Deck Reviews / Re: [Standard] Elf Knight Aggro

« on: December 20, 2018, 12:49:19 am »

Why are there swamp lands and stuff in here?

For the sideboard. Arguels and Reaper for card draw

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Elf Knight Aggro

« on: September 18, 2018, 09:21:53 am »

Elf Knight Aggro

Very aggressive deck with lots of lords for the midgame.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] U/W Heart Midrange

« on: June 07, 2018, 12:08:53 pm »

U/W Heart Midrange

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Land Destruction

« on: May 23, 2018, 12:27:42 pm »

Land Destruction

Dig for Mending of Dominaria and Fall of the Thran. Destroy all lands. Get lots of mana ramp. Win

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Deck Reviews / Re: [Standard] Noble Nightrates Draw

« on: May 21, 2018, 01:44:48 pm »

Hey guys. This is a deck I've been working on for a while. I took a previous version to a tournament last week and did fairly well. I've made some slight tweaks. Please give me any recommendations. The description contains my reasons for using certain cards and my thoughts on the deck in general.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] Noble Nightrates Draw

« on: May 21, 2018, 01:42:27 pm »

Noble Nightrates Draw

Replace a Plains & a Swamp with 2 Plains/Swamp sub-type Cycling Dual Lands.

Knight of Grace and Knight of Malice get you early board control and their first strike allows you to block a number of early threats. The knights also have a synergistic ability that gives them additional power if the other is there, although any black or white permanent will effect it (Black for Grace, White for Malice). If you don't have either of those, Bloodcrazed Paladin can be an early drop, although it's power level is still low. If you don't play it early, save Bloodcrazed Paladin for board wipes when your opponent casts big spells such as Settle the Wreckage or Jaya's Immolating Inferno, or when either of you decides to trade several creatures.

Benalish Marshal and Kwende are good for the early midgame. Both have acceptable stats (a 3/3 and a 2/2 Double Strike) but they also provide support to your units in other ways. Benalish Marshal gives each other unit +1/+1 while Kwende gives your First Strike units Double Strike. Kwende not only buffs your Knights of Grace or Malice, but can also effects Lyra.

Aryel, Arvad and Josu Vess are some nice mid-game creatures, each with their own secondary purpose. Arvad can remove ramped threats you otherwise can't deal with such as Zacama and Ghalta as well as having lifelink and synergizing with other Vampires while Vess has Menace and can be pumped late game.

Aryel is the big player of this deck. Her first ability allows you to pump out more knights, filling your board or allowing you to chump dangerous threats but it's her second ability that really shines. By tapping knights you can remove creatures and because all of your creatures are knights this means you can remove some big threats as early as turn 6.

By the mid to late game your big removal should hit the field. With 2 Vraska, Relic Seeker, 2 Vona, Butcher of Magan and 2 Profane Procession you should draw into one of these by turn 8 or 9, and can really begin to effect the board. It is important to note that only 1 or these 3 are limited to creatures, so enchantments such as Path of Discovery, Revel in Riches and most important, Seal Away and Cast Away are open to this removal.

Vraska is the only Planeswalker in this deck. She was run for a number of reasons, one of which is that I really like this card, but the other because she's really good. Her +2 ability also allows her to make a 2/2 pirate. This can be good because it bypasses most counterspells and also gives her some protection while her loyalty increases. Her second ability is the real reason we play her. For -3 she can instantly remove a creature, artifact or enchantment, and with a base loyalty or 6 she can do this at least twice unless your opponent chooses to devote resources to killing her. Vraska's ultimate is extremely situational and will barely ever be used but if you do the effects can be devastating. For -10 you bring an opponents life to one. This ability shouldn't be one you aim to use but rather one you use if there's nothing worth removing and you have a large board, or else know your opponent has a board wipe.

Vona is the second remover and the only one able to destroy Planeswalkers. Vona's strength lies in her ability to attack, even if you wish to use her removal. Her lifelink ability is also very helpful, particularly against aggro decks. The downside to her is that her removal is VERY expensive life-wise, and her lifelink ability is needed to balance that. However even without removal, a 4/4 for 5 Legendary with Vigilance and Lifelink is not to bad.

Profane Procession is the final piece of removal used specifically for creatures. One of the counters of this deck is giant creatures. This deck's largest creature is Josu Vess at 4/5 or Lyra in the sideboard at 5/5, although Elenda can slowly be pumped. Arvad is a temporary response to this with deathtouch but if your opponent has a second you can really only block. Profane was chosen over standard removal such as Cast Down, Walk the Plank or Cast Away for a couple of reasons. It can be used multiple times and you won't often need a lot of removal in the early game, so if you do you can sideboard this out. It also allows you to cast the creatures you exile eventually so even if you can't hit that one massive creature you can exile several semi-large creatures and attempt to swamp the board.

There are a couple of lategame finishers or combo's in this deck. We're running 1 Blackblade Reforged and 2 Helm of the Host as well as the Vess we discussed earlier. Blackblade Reforged pumps a creature by the number of lands you control. Often, by the time we play it it can be giving +6/+6 or even more. Helm of the Host can be attached to any creature to create knights for Aryel. It can also be attached to Arvad. Although the tokens aren't legendary, they still stack with each giving legendary creatures +2/+2. Since Aryel, the non-token Arvad, Josu Vess, Vona, Elenda and Lyra are all legendary and can be pumped. Attaching it to Benalish Marshal is another way of pumping your creatures and each Lyra (both token and non-token) pumps each other Lyra while retaining First Strike, Lifelink and Vigilance.

This deck is very weak to aggro and running Divest allows us to either discard some of their early creatures or against other opponents some of their key creatures, such as Raff or Lyra in U/W Control. It also just gives us card knowledge which if crucial in how we play. We also play 2 Arguel's Blood Fast. With a lot of low-cost spells, it can be easy to have no cards in hand by turn 5 or 6. This enchantment just allows us refill it or draw into the spells or lands we need. History of Benalia is the final non-creature main we play. It's extremely versatile as it both fills our board with knights Aryel can interact with and pumps all our knights to swing in big.

Our sideboard contains draw and removal. Cast Down, Fatal Push and Seal Away are early removal to put in against aggro decks, often pulling out Vona and Profane Procession while Urza is some late game removal for specific matchups against graveyard interaction and non-legend decks. Lyra and On Serra's Wings are our only flyers and are vital in certain matchups. Elenda is a variant big creature that also combo's with Urza to be pumped and some of our card draw. 2 Champion of Dusk let us draw cards equal to the number of Vampires in play and are also 4/4 knights so they can effect board presence and combo with Aryel. Arvad also combo's with the Champions and can be useful if we play legend heavy. Our final draw is Vanquisher's Banner which gives all our knights +1/+1 and lets us draw a card whenever we cast a knight.


Vigilance is very important in this deck as Seal Away is such a popular form of removal in this format. It also allows us to attack and then pull off our abilities or block if need be.

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Deck Reviews / [Standard] B/W Knights

« on: May 09, 2018, 03:14:14 am »

B/W Knights

Knight of Grace + Knight of Malice for early agro. Aryel + Knights to remove opponents key creatures. Kwende doubles damage output. History combos for larger removal + big swings. Arvad + Helm of the Host for large legendary creatures. Vess for mass blockers. Evra for game finisher.


I'm new to Magic but any recommendations you have would be great.