So by now everybody has gotten their hooks or teeth into the Born of the Gods expansion and have probably started to brew up a hundred new decks or just stuck to minor modifications to current decks in the format. Well, I’m not exception. But I’m not going to look at Standard today, I want to look at Theros Block Constructed.
For those who don’t know what Block Constructed is, it is where you create a deck based off of cards from only a block. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? If you haven’t gotten it yet I will give you an example. The previous block involved Return to Ravnica, Gatecrash, and Dragon’s Maze, and if you constructed a deck out of only those cards then you would have a Block Constructed deck. So that means, if we move to the present block, that we are going to only use Theros and Born of the Gods for this exercise.
If you are asking why we would do something like this, and potentially ‘gimp’ ourselves in design space, you need to read my previous article about Pauper and how restricting your card selection forces you to look at things differently, challenges you more, and makes you see cards that you wouldn’t have normally looked at. Not to mention an exercise like this can prepare you for when the eventual standard format rotates.
I am going to use a focus card for this article, and one that caused a little bit of a stir when it wa previewed, Ragemonger.
I don’t know how many creatures or cards in the past have been able to reduce coloured cost of creature spells being cast, but there aren’t that many. Colourless cards have been printed throughout the ages starting from the days of Urza’s Incubator all the way through the Scourge with the Warchiefs, and beyond. But coloured cost is something special. It makes playing creatures much easier, most of them turning into colourless casing only, leaving you free to keep up whatever mana you need for your combat tricks and removal in your hand.
So, how can we abuse this? Let’s take a look at some of the more prominent Minotaurs that showed their heads in the last two sets.
Fanatic of Mogis, a devotion based Flametongue Kavu that hits your opponent’s life total instead of a creature. While sometimes that creature removal is preferred, it can’t be denied how much damage he can cause, especially if you remove the coloured mana costs. Can you imagine being able to spend three generic mana to get what he can do?
Felhide Spiritbinder, a creature with the new mechanic Inspired. When he becomes untapped, presumably during your untap step after having attacked with him the turn before, you can pay two mana to make a token copy of a creature you control and give it haste until the end of your turn. When you combine this with other minotaurs that have Enter the Battlefield abilities, such as the above mentioned Fanatic of Mogis, it can quickly get out of hand.
Kragma Warcaller is one of the biggest creatures that can be affected by Ragemonger, reducing his casting cost from five converted mana cost down to three. Would you like to play a turn four Warcaller for only three mana? Can you imagine how much damage that would punch your opponent for? Imagine if you copied it with Spellbinder?! Such potential.
Oracle of Bones, a new creature from Born of the Gods using the Tribute mechanic.which will either pump him up to a decent 5/3 or keep him at 3/1 and grant you a “free” instant or sorcery from your hand. (Side note: Going standard this can make split cards from Dragon’s Maze with fuse free, see Toil // Trouble)
And lastly the new Minotaur Lord, Rageblood Shaman. The last key piece to making a deck like this work is certainly a guy who will pump up your little cow army up and even give them the ability to trample over your opponent.
Now if we include a playset of each of these we have twenty-four of our sixty cards already spoken for. So what Black and/or Red (leaning more towards the Red) can we arm ourselves with?
Well, if we go expensive we can grab Hero’s Downfall for spot removal, Fall of the Hammer and Lightning Strike are cheaper ways to remove more roadblocks, Magma Jet to deal some damage and to dig for the key pieces. A playset of each of these and we have forty cards with which to bullrush our opponent. Trim that deck down a bit and we might be able to find something like this:
What do you think? It’s not Slivers, and it’s not Humans, it’s a tribal all of it’s own, and it ain’t no bull!
~ Gerald Knight
Extra Booty: Some things to consider if you want to take this into Standard, Boros Reckoner works amazingly well with Fanatic of Mogis and becomes cheaper with the Ragemonger. Any Black and/or Red Fuse cards from Dragon’s Maze become viable with the Oracle of Bones. Doom Blade is a cheap alternative to Hero’s Downfall and is also less mana restrictive. If you want to go really big you can include Mogis, God of Slaughter himself to keep the pressure on your opponent.
Xenagos, God of Revels – this is where I am really getting interested in playing a very aggressive GRuul deck. Looking at the recently spoiled Fanatic of Xenagos paired up with his God we already see a huge potential to end games quickly but then add Boon Satyr into the equation and we have what amounts to a serious beatdown.
Karametra, God of Harvests – while on the surface it appears to be a pretty interesting ramp card the fact that you need to follow her up with a stream of creatures to trigger the search out your lands. If it triggered whenever you had a creature enter play aside from being completely bah-roken it would have been much more reliable. It’s hard to feel out how this card is going to play out but it looks like it doesn’t quite live up to the expectation.
Mindreaver – a new and interesting spin on Grimoire Thief, this snappy little wizard could pose as a nuisance against some decks. While very situational and also requiring a spell to target him for his trigger you can often get lucky and hit a relevant spell on the first try. Just be sure to always keep up two blue or they’ll try to jam it through as soon as they see an opening. Would have been miles better if the cards were exiled face down the same as the Thief.
Ragemonger – minotaurs are the stuff made of legend and this block is certainly rife with their legendary lore. The most appealing part of this new minotaur is that you chain out additional copies for just one colorless mana so you can get a small army assembled with ease. And while the cost reduction only applies to red and black mana there is still a plethora of creatures it will work to make cheaper, and in multiples even your Boros Reckoners can become free.
Searing Blood – following along a similar vein of Searing Blaze, this guarantees a bolt to the dome as long as the targeted creature dies. Just be sure your opponent doesn’t have a buff to save his creature and you’ve basically got a handy two for one, in a sense. I can’t wait to hit a Firedrinker Satyr with this one and hit my opponent with a nasty five blast to the face.
Unravel the Æther – this one was definitely designed specifically to deal with the Gods Indestructibility within the block. The shuffling back into the library also prevents and kind of graveyard recursion shenanigans. While exile would have been much more permanent it also would have made the cost much higher.
Bile Blight – not too bad as a spot removal for the cost and capable of demolishing token armies, but it certainly isn;t enough of a catchall to warrant taking a spot from other removal. Also at issue if you are in a mirror match there is a high risk that you’ll be hindering yourself in the process. The time I’d most want to see this is when facing down multiple Boros Reckoner.
Thassa’s Rebuff – why not slot this into Mono-Blue Devotion shell, certainly not as a four-of but I could easily see utility with two. Sure you’ll have those turns where the devotion count just isn’t high enough but with Thassa, the Bident and Domestication in your deck as non-creature sources of devotion I wouldn’t think it to be all too hard to get what you need.
