FNM All-Star February 2015

Schwing

Powerhouses

Welcome to my semi-regular FNM deck spot here on TEG Blog. For those of you who are unfamiliar with myself or my style of play I would brand myself solidly as a Johnny. I like to win, but I like to win in the manner of my choosing. I try to brew up something that will be more fun to play with than a typical standard deck (in my opinion obviously) but still brings enough pressure to actually be a threat to the more tuned options out there. With that being said, here is my latest concoction! A mixture of flavor, big powerful creatures and some ramp led this no sideboard having deck to a first place finish in our FNM last week.

R/G Dragon Hugs – Main Deck: 60 Cards   Sideboard: Non-Existent

Creatures: 26 Cards

Non-Creatures: 10 Cards

Lands: 24 Cards

 

Yes, I realize there is zero removal. This beast plays more like a combo deck than a midrange monsters deck which it also happens to resemble. The entire idea of the deck is to live long enough to kill your opponent in one swing with a haste imbued double power Atarka, World Render from Xenagos, God of Revels. There are several ways to accomplish this task. First off just naturally drawing parts of the combo, playing Xenagos, then follow it up with an Atarka at a later turn when you are ready to kill them. The other way is to sneak both of those pieces into play using See the Unwritten. This requires a creature with power 4 or greater to get both pieces but even firing off a “See” for one creature is usually pretty good as you can have played your Xenagos already leaving you searching for just an Atarka, or if your opponents board is getting gross you go searching for a Hornet Queen to slow things down.

The secret powerhouse of this deck are the Frontier Sieges. Turn three siege off a Sylvan Caryatid or Elvish Mystic really helps you make that jump to the six and seven mana spells when you call Khans to add double green to EACH of your main phases. In testing and at least once during tournament play I had the chance to play a turn three siege and then play another Caryatid or Elf during my second main for free, leaving me access to 8 mana on turn 4, not too shabby. Seeing multiple copies of the Siege was never a bad thing either. You can name the Dragons mode to machine gun their board with deathtouch flying jerks via Hornet Queen or just ramp even harder if you are not drawing lands, it keeps you in the fight. THIS CARD IS BONKERS.

Polukranos, World Eater is still a great card. It also happens to be the only way to interact with your opponents on their turn in this deck and it bumps heads with Siege Rhino very well. Stormbreath Dragon is just a jerk, plain and simple. Pro-White makes him a versatile blocker (Siege Rhino, U/W Aggro, Wingmates) and he randomly benefits from Atarka’s double strike ability if you can’t play one with Haste (8 damage in the air is nothing to scoff at)

Genesis HydraSarkhan, the Dragonspeaker and Nissa, Worldwaker are all in there as one-ofs just to add a little flavor to the deck, and something else to do when you aren’t drawing threats. The Hydra is basically another copy of “See” late game, and sometimes you just get two bodies mid game to help slow down any aggro coming your way.

With there being no removal in this thing you have to really time your blocks well. Trading away a courser or having to use Sarkhan to shoot something even if it means he dies next turn is ok. You are killing people in one turn so your goal is to survive as long as possible! Several of matches had my opponents staring in disbelief as I one shot them from 20 while being perilously close to death (5 health or less). The decks biggest strength is that people are not hip to the idea of being brought from 24 health (max) to zero with one creature swinging. Game two you should alter your play very little, just keep comboing! If they see it coming and are holding a kill spell just use Xenagos to pump up a Courser of Kruphix or one of your other Fatties and swing away until they either use their removal or they are dead.

I did not sideboard one time! The game plan was simple, I stuck to it and managed to not drop a single game. The explosive nature of this deck allows you to go so over the top with damage that you should be able to steal a few games just because your opponent had no idea what was about to happen. Just in case anyone is wondering I played against Sidisi Whip, Jeskai Burn and Mardu Mid-Range, so they weren’t terrible decks and I had to fight for survival the whole time.

I hope someone can take this and do something awesome with it, but feel free to run this beast at your store and report back here to let me know how it does!

Happy Smashing!
Brian

About EDD

EDD is a 31 year old Magic fan and part time blogger at The End Games.
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2 Responses to FNM All-Star February 2015

  1. Chris H says:

    What a sicko and no sideboard to boot. What about Crater’s Claws, or are you trying to minimize the number of non-creatures for See The Unwritten?

    • T.E.G. says:

      There was a 1 of Crater’s Claw for awhile to use with the Nykthos Shrine, but I moved over to the planeswalkers and one more Polukranos. I feel there is room for a more burn based strategy as well.

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