Deck 2 : Wall or Nothing

Fog, as we previously discussed no one really plays this card and I’m hard pushed to say why... So we’ve teamed it up with a few other playable, yet under used, misfits and built a deck that is both competitive and inexpensive...

For this deck you will need...

4 Fog

4 Safe passage

4 Leyline of Vitality

3 Wall of Vines

3 Perimeter Captain

3 Stalwart Shield Bearers

4 Warmongers Chariot

3 Roc Egg

4 Asceticism

4 Heavy Arbalest

1 Elixir of Immortality

3 Gargoyle Sentinel

20 land - A mix of plains and forests ( this deck has a very cheap mana curve, but experiment with up to 24 land until you find it works for you. You could add overgrown battlements in place of the walls of vines and add some big green fatties if you feel you need them...)

Ok, so this deck uses a few rares. Asceticism and Leylines of Vitality, but oh my lord they're cheap and strangely the leyline is the only one of the set playable in multiples. If you think about it, the others all have very useful effects, but the vitality is the only one that has more than one effect, with two in play creatures get an extra +0 +2 and you gain two life every time you have a creature enter the battlefield.  So this deck is simple, it’s all about digging in, sitting back and gaining as much life as you can before returning fire with tricksy tappers or suicidal walls...

With this deck the mana curve is so shallow that you can afford to go to 5 or even 4 cards in search of the all important leyline, although getting a second one is amazing...   As soon as you find it you’re off...

Turn one you’re looking for a leyline, a couple of lands and one of the one drop walls, the vines or the captain.  

What’s clever about this deck is that as soon as you have the leyline, all of your creatures will come in with toughness of 4 or more and therefore out of the range of burn and of course you can add more leylines and stalwarts later in the game and extend the toughness even further.  Basically the idea is really really easy The Walls of Vines have reach and should come in at 0/4, the stalwart will pump them to 0/6 the captains will net you 2 life every time you block. 

When you are ready to swing in, use the Gargoyle Sentinels and equip the warmonger’s chariots on the Roc Eggs and swing them to their doom and don’t forget the arbalests, your creatures may be defenders, but it doesn’t mean they can’t cause damage, just remember to un-equip them before the next turn. There’s no way your opponent is going to waste doom blades, or mana leaks on one mana walls, at least not in the first game, so you’ll have to be careful when you play  asceticism, because he’ll likely have a handful ready. If the worst does happen and you lose your walls make sure you play the Elixir at the right time and simply start again...

  

Asceticism will save you from tapping, bouncing and stealing effects, which really only leaves you vulnerable to mass removal.  Sideboard  natures spiral and cheap umbras like snake umbra, hyena umbra and spider umbra against day of judgement and ratchet bomb, use fog early game and safe passage later for fireball, burn and seemingly suicidal rushes and remember you still get the 2 life gain from blocking defenders if you play fog...

Here's how quickly it gets going...

I have a feeling that The leylines are going to go up in value soon.  All it will take is a need for extra toughness or turn one and all the decks will be running them... Obviously card values fluctuate so it’s a good idea to look ahead and try to get them cheap while you can... I remember when Frost Titans were £4 and Grave Titans were £30... 

So we’re going to have some punts in the next article please feel free to add your own ideas...
Today’s pick is Mimic Vat, get them while you can. Currently they go for £3/4, but I predict they are going to be at least double that soon.