I've been running a Warstorm Surge in my build for a while now. I've found it to be a great finisher against control decks, especially when my creatures can't seem to make it past their first turn on the board. It has an advantage over Ogre Battledriver in that damage can be dealt even if your creature is taken off the board before the combat phase, and given the relatively (at least from what I've seen in the 360 lobby) low usage of enchantment removals, save for planar cleansing, its been pretty secure on the board.

And frankly, pairing Warstorm Surge with Ogre Battledriver makes for a hilariously enjoyable combination. Casting and swinging an Inferno Titan for a combined 20 damage on a single turn is fantastic.

I use the exact same combo for my Boros deck. Add in Cloudshift to that and it is insane. I was down to 2 HP with 2 Warstorm Surge on the field and a Cloudshift in hand. I topdeck Inferno Titan and did 30 damage...before attacking, lol. I won. ;P

Let me begin by thanking Hakeem for sharing his "Fattledriver" decklist with the community. I am loving this list and after playing it for about a day I have some insight that I feel could add to the conversation and possibly lead to a more balanced/optimized list.

Ground Assault- I like the idea of dropping the Shock count to 3 to add one more of these bad boys. I feel that most of my losses are due to Bane Slayer Angel resolving and flying right past my Dragon. Unless I pull a Ground Assault or Arbor Colossus I can never seem to catch up.

Wrecking Ogre- It was hard to make the cuts to test this guy, but man am I glad I did. He is just a great way to close a stalled/late game or just a turn 4 disruption to aggro that also triggers Garruk's Packleader.

Darksteel Ingot- This card feels like overkill at 3. I like the extra ramp because this deck needs it, but 2 of seems to be the sweet spot. After I reduced the count to 2 I haven't had a flooded ramp hand or missed a chance to ramp on turn 3 more than 1 time (I will say that I probably didn't mull aggressively enough in that game).

Genesis Hydra- I have noticed other lists running this card and I am curious how it is performing and what cuts you have made to make it fit. No trample or evasion is why he hasn't made the cut in my list so far. I am also confused about the interaction this card has with Ogre Battledriver. Does the Hydra resolve before or after he comes into play?

Warstorm Surge- I know this wasn't in the original list, but it has been a topic of conversation and I wanted to give my input. I played with this card for a handful of games and every time it was in my hand it would put me in an awkward place. This deck already takes a few turns to ramp which can put you behind early, so taking that extra turn to try and turn on the Surge can be too little too late. If I wait to play it until I have some big guys out to stall the board it seems like a waste of extra damage and usually that one extra fatty that the Surge replaced would end the game anyways. If you have had a different experience please let me know because I love the concept of this card.

This is my first post to a magic forum , so please don't hate on me for not knowing how to link to the cards. If someone PMs me about how to link to the cards I will edit the post. I want to thank the members of this forum for adding to my Magic playing ability over the past few of weeks. With that said I am eager for some card choice criticism!

After playing some more, I think I underestimated Ground Assault and made a mistake to cut it. I just don't want to spend too many slots on removal because it detracts from the main game plan. Perhaps we can just ignore shockable weenies altogether since we have Anger of the Gods/Siege Dragon against them; that allows us to include maximum Ground Assaults for those problematic big guys.

Wrecking Ogre was in Brew's initial list (not sure where he's at on the card right now), but I don't think it does enough here as a creature. It's a great pump spell with a Stomper or Wurm, but I feel like it's a bit win-more. One copy would be the most I'd go for if you want to run this card. If you feel you need aggro disruption, I'd be inclined to look at Nylea's Disciple as other posters have suggested.

I also don't particularly like the Hydra because it's a bit tougher to force through damage with him. As far as your question, it triggers when you cast the spell so it goes on the stack on top of the Hydra; if you grab a Battledriver, it will enter the battlefield before the Hydra and the Hydra will get the haste and power boost.

I can see going to two Ingots, I was there initially and it ran fine.

I was talking to mobius about the list the other night and he lambasted me for including the Elvish Visionary. His suggestion was the Jade Mage, and he's absolutely correct. Mage is better in combat, is a sink for your excess mana, and the tokens have insane synergy with the Battledriver. Pumping out armies of 3/1 hasters every turn is some nice redundancy in win conditions and gives you a solid way to continue spending mana once you start topdecking. Yes, mobius, I am bad at Magic.

I don't like Warstorm Surge here, it dilutes your threat density when it needs those threats to do anything.

Thanks for the input, I'm going to tweak and revisit the list tonight.

Here's how I will test Fattledriver tonight:

4 x Gruul Guildgate
12 x Forest
9 x Mountain

3 x Jade Mage
3 x Ground Assault
1 x Volcanic Geyser

4 x Cultivate
2 x Darksteel Ingot
2 x Anger of the Gods

3 x Nylea's Disciple
2 x Ogre Battledriver

3 x Garruk's Packleader
2 x Arbor Colossus
1 x Stormbreath Dragon

2 x Terra Stomper
1 x Soul of Zendikar
1 x Inferno Titan

3 x Pelakka Wurm
2 x Siege Dragon

Color me impressed with the new list; do your inner Timmy a favor and give it a shot!

Why Jade Mage? Just wondering...

he said why a couple posts above...better in combat, a mana sink and has synergy with battldriver.

This is interesting. May have to let Timmy out..

Mobius was such a great deck builder too. I want him back! (Commenting because of his statement about the addition of Jade Mage)

- This deck doesn't like Beastmaster Ascension

- If it doesn't draw Cultivate, it is somewhat prone to stalling at 3 or 4 land with a hand full of more expensive spells. Could use a few more spells in the 2-3 mana slots.

- Boy is it a endless stream of fat fat fat! I wouldn't want to play against it.

- It is just stampeding over the current meta on Steam. I went 23-4. Notable loss to Dimir (once) and Golgari Spiders (twice, both times mana stall).

- I'm not playing it any more.

Are you referring to my list? If so, you could add the third Ingot or a 26th land to help from stalling on mana and probably drop to two Nylea's Disciple. Geyser is a potential cut, too, but I like having one in the list. I find 25 land plus 4 Cultivate and 2 Ingot to be sufficient, though. I was stomping all over people last night with it; hasted Inferno Titans are just bonkers.

Ogre Battledriver is actually a very scary card here.

Yeah, your last list with Jade Mages. I've reviewed the videos and updated the stats (23-4). Volcanic Geyser was fine, finished people off, killed Baneslayer, good stuff. I'm not very impressed with Jade Mages. Their primary contribution was being Shock magnets.

Another thing that surprised me was the life expectancy of Garruk's Packleader. It lives a long and happy life, full of card draw, didn't even catch a single Reprisal. A stark contrast to the '14 Sealed where it normally didn't live to see your next turn.

I think Jade Mage would have more value in the later game if you run out of other fatties to play, while Visionary is better in the early game when you're trying to ramp up and it does retain some value later on.

Thought I'd try Fattledriver too. But I started by making my own list. I just won a game with it. (mulliganed to 5, turn 3 cultivate, turn 4 bbattledriver, turn 5 Terra stomper)

Hakeem posted two builds. Here are the cards common between them: (the "mandatory" cards)
1 Volcanic Geyser
4 Cultivate
2-3 Darksteel Ingot
2 Anger of the Gods
2 Ogre Battledriver
3 Garruk's Packleader
2 Arbor Colossus
1 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Terra Stomper
1 Inferno Titan
3 Pelakka Wurm
2 Siege Dragon
and all the lands (12 forest, 9 mountain, 4 gates)

The cards cut from the first build:
4 Shock
,4 Elvish Visionary
and one of the Darksteel Ingots

The cards added to the second build :
3 Jade Mage
3 Ground Assault
3 Nylea's Disciple

here's the build I happened to make:


My build differs in a number of ways
- Elvish Pioneer ramp
- no premiums (don't have em)
- no Siege Dragon. Oddly the last card I cut from the deck was Charmbreaker. Meaning that they were in the prelimenary list but not Siege Dragons. So it seems I think even more highly of Charmbreaker than I do Siege. (Even if its just Cultivate every turn.. why not! Charmbreaker the Primeval Titan!) Still it seems the deck has pleny of fat as it is (or just enough) so I should be able to make do.

so out of the "mandatory" cards these I cut:
-3 packleader (because premium)
-2 or 3 ingots (because premium)
-1 Volcanic Geyser (because why??)
-2 Siege Dragon (I'll have to get back to you on these)

edit: 3 wins 0 losses
although the pioneers were a little awkward that last game

edit: 5-0
I cheated a win that last game. Topdecked the 2nd Anger of the Gods against a monowhite tokens with Paragon. He probably hates me now.
I'm considering dropping some mountains for forests.
Also, Genesis Hydra seems like it would be really nice for this deck!
And I want Charmbreakers!

considering dropping the battledrivers for 2 hydra or Charmbreaker :3

edit: 6-0
t1 pioneer
t2 cultivate
t3 Battledriver
t4... I got nothing. with 6 lands in play.
Definitely planning to cut the Sparkmages for more fat. This is the second game where I am playing and attacking with 2/1 Sparkmages instead of fat.
Should I make the changes now or keep this winning streak going? *scratches head*

edit: 8-0

In the late game you should have a bellowing and stampeding horde on your side of the table. If the opponent let you keep the Battledriver, it means they are already out of responses and Jade Mage is just win more. However, mages must be good at restoring your board presence after a wipe, meaning you gotta keep one in your hand until the right time. Somehow, I never ran into a wipe yesterday.

I was considering replacing the Sparkmages with Jade Mages. But I dunno how much of an improvement that would be. Jade Mages seem like fun with a battledriver out, but the opponent is likely to have blockers, and the +2/+0 doesn't carry over into later turns meaning I'd be using Jade Mage as *just* a Jade Mage.

Also, is it just me or is Battledriver best when the creature has flying or trample. That's why I was thinking of replacing Colossus, and maybe adding Shivan and/or Siege Dragons. If I add all the dragons, I could call it Dragondriver, and that might be fun at least.

edit: I'm 11-0!
edit: 13-0
edit: 14-0

Anger of the Gods really only kills your battledriver, and Planar Cleansing shouldn't be a huge issue as long as you don't overextend your fatties against a white deck without having backup fat in your hand. I'll post my build sometime soon, but until then I'll say this: I'm not running Arbor Colossus, am running Warstorm Surges, and running 3 Meteorites.

Finally lost a game. The grand total is 15 wins 1 loss. (14 wins in a row)

The deck that beat me is Bant control with Baneslayer, Genesis Hydra, Pelakka, I or Ruin Expedition, Planar Cleansing, Triplicate Spirits, Beastmaster Ascension and Selesnya Edvangel. This particular opponent has beaten me in the past. Bant control seems to be her signature deck.

The Baneslayer took me all the way down to 1 life before I shock + anger to get rid of it. My Pelakka survived but it got Planar Cleansinged. She casts Genesis Hydra for 9 getting reset-life-total angel. I Ground Assault the angel. Ogre Battledriver chumps the hydra. Only another Ground Assault could help me now. I top deck another Anger. gg!

pics unrelated

After intense smashing of everything, this deck is 7/5 stars