Hello and welcome back to Bad Brews!
This is the game we play where we crack open a pack from one of the latest sets and build a standard deck out of it. This week we are tackling Oath of the Gatewatch, the set where the planeswalkers come together to assemble voltron or something. This set features fun cards like Oath of Chandra, or Kozilek, the Great Distortion.
In this week's pack we will find...
[one_fifth]
[/one_fifth]
[one_fifth]
[/one_fifth]
[one_fifth]
[/one_fifth]
[one_fifth]
[/one_fifth]
[one_fifth_last]
[/one_fifth_last]
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth]
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth]
[one_fourth]
[/one_fourth]
[one_fourth_last]
[/one_fourth_last]
[one_third]
[/one_third]
[one_third]
[/one_third]
[one_third_last]
[/one_third_last]
And for the rare we find...
But for those of you counting along you may notice that we are short one card. That's because this pack has a foil in it. And that foil is:
As per the rules of the game, we have to use both the foil and the rare in this pack which means we are going to build an Eldrazi tribal deck. Why? Because that's what Stoneforge Masterwork was built for. Well, not really that, exactly, since I think it was built for destroying the Eldrazi, but you get my point. The Stoneforge Masterwork gives +1/+1 for each creature that shares a type with equipped creature.
Immobilizer Eldrazi is an interesting card. For starters it's a 2/1 for two mana, which while not great is still pretty good. It’s ability is really what makes it worth it. Stopping creatures from blocking is always a great ability especially when you want to land a big punch.
Now for the rest of the cards in the pack, it’s time to pick a second colour for the rest of the deck. Let's go with White as there are just a ton of white cards in the pack.
Affa Protector is the first card that we are going to look at. For three mana we can get a 1/4 with vigilance, that's just good value. Swing in for a small amount of damage then be able to block large creatures afterwards.
Up next we have Makindi Aeronaut, another simple creature with big toughness for only two mana. While not as versatile as the Affa Protector, it is still a pretty awesome pull. Again we get to ping our opponent for one damage, this time we get to do it in the air, which is of course means it is much harder to block.
Warden of Geometries is our next card. For only four mana we not only get a 2/3 with vigilance we also get a colourless mana source. This will be great for activating our Immobilizer Eldrazi’s ability, as well as casting all the rest of the colourless spells in our deck.
Expedition Raptor is pretty expensive for what it is a 2/2 with flying. Sure it has the ability to support 2 when it comes onto the battlefield, which is nice, you know being able to pump up creatures when it enters. However, at five mana it’s hard to justify it. But since it's in the pack it's in the deck.
Reality Hemorrhage is a devoid spell that is going to do some interesting work for us. While it isn’t as good as some of the other removal in the format it is again going in the deck. At two mana it is also effective for what it does.
Walker of the Wastes gets a nice little pump for each Waste on the battlefield. While that only means it can get up to an 8/8 for five mana it is still really effective assuming we have four Wastes in our deck. Also it has trample, which is awesome. No chump blocking for this guy.
When we want to get rid of an enemy there is nothing better than dealing with it when its opponent thinks it's going to make a big splash. With Immolating Glare we get some real value from a two drop. Blowing up our opponents biggest attacking creature is great.
Wow, now that we have all the cards out of the pack, out of the way. We now have to deal with the fact that we need more cards from standard.
Obviously for Walker of the Wastes we need to put in some Wastes. Not only does it work at a mana source, but it works as a pump for our Walker. As an additional source of mana we are going to throw in some copies of Battlefield Forge. Not only is it a colourless source, it also deals with any coloured spells we might need to cast.
To be honest, we could stop right there and have a functional deck to play with, but we will want to see a few more cards in this deck before we give up. The first one is going to be Endless One, while it can function as a one drop if we need it to, we get the best value from this card by playing it in the late game. Either way, have fun fighting this guy.
The last card we are going to want to add is Molten Nursery, whenever we cast a colourless spell - which in this deck will be often - we get to deal one damage to a creature or player. While a lot of the time we will be doing damage directly to the players face, we may also want to save some for the post combat step where we get to blow up a creature that is at its weak point.
So let's take a look at the deck.
Let's talk strategy for a bit here. In the most basic terms we are going to try to keep our opponent off the field with cards like Reality Hemorrhage and Molten Nursery until we can amass a field of Eldrazi to sweep into their creatures and trample over them for the win. Slam down Immobilizer Eldrazi and Walker of the Wastes and then equip Stoneforge Masterwork to give it the boost it so desperately needs to just wreck any chump blockers on the field. As an added bonus, it isn’t legendary which means we can use our extra masterworks to deal extra damage to our opponent. Sure, there aren’t as many Eldrazi in the deck as we might like, but most of the other creatures are Ally creatures which means we can still smash face, especially when equipped to something with evasion like Makindi Aeronaut.
Well that's it for this week's Bad Brews, please be sure to come back next time when I do another terrible brew. If you think I left out something from this deck, or you have suggestions for a sideboard, feel free to leave a comment below. And as always, may your brews be as bad as mine.
