This was in response to me advising you to trim to three copies.

I believe that was before I had bushwhacker no?

It is my best win con but generally I don't want two at once.. though that has been awesome at times too.. doing it back to back turn after turn.

Hakeem, I'm 44-2 with your deck and I think it might be the best non premium deck out there.

I got some questions on how you run turn two and three. If you drop a hoplite on turn one, would you rather enchant it on turn two or play a hero or paladin? I know it depends on the board but all things being equal, which is better. The enchant play is much more agro which is true to the deck. Playing a second creature gives u more flexibility and options maybe.

Would u play paladin or hero first?

Turn three can be tough too. Rabblemaster is amazing so I usually prioritize him over dropping enchants on existing creatures. I think I prefer rabblemaster to playing brizmaz and then mentor. Is that about right?

Finally who are your ideal enchant targets? I'm guessing brizmaz and then paladin but getting wings on a rabblemaster is fun too.

Just curious if all these decisions are obvious and automatic for you? For me, they give me pause.

You're 44-2, perhaps you should be answering the questions. I went 7-3 in my ten game challenge, which was disappointing for this deck.

Anyway, you hit the nail on the head when you said there are a lot of factors, so it sometimes comes down to what I expect my opponent is playing and whether he has untapped mana (and of what colors).

Generally I like to advance my board before playing enchantments if the option is there, but against a red opponent who is tapped out I will enchant to bring my creature out of Shock range if possible. I don't like enchanting against blue unless I can protect against bounce with Gods Willing. I will actually do a lot of things a turn late if I have Gods Willing in hand because it can be a total blowout.

I would definitely play out a Paladin before a Hero because Hero is a bomb.

Rabblemaster is obviously a beating against a lot of decks so jamming him early is always recommended; the same goes for Brimaz. If you happen to have Gods Willing, though, it can be worth it to wait until T4 to deploy either of them with protection up. I don't like casting a naked T3 Mentor in a lot of matchups if I can avoid it, but against green it's okay and against blue if you know it will resolve then get it out there.

And if none of that works, you just jam a Baneslayer, Stormbreath, or Titan!

How have you found the Wrecking Ogres?

dammit, i lost my massive reply on my stupid tablet! Now I got to start over. Ok, I'll try to be brief...

It's funny you mention blue as a concern, i completely wreck blue like it's my job with this deck. Even azorius can't get close. RDW seems to be the big problem if I get a slow start (sometimes I play nothing until turn 3, i usually still win but it's more nerve-wracking).

You're right, if I'm 44-2, then I'm probably playing it right. I usually hang onto enchantments. I see if I need instants first, then I play creatures after, then enchantments last.

Titan Inferno is the nuts. Another huge win con when all appears lost. Bye bye paladin of new dawn, and then the banisher priest giving me back my stuff.

How do I find Wrecking Ogre? It's the biggest win con in the deck for me. They never see it coming and it's difficult to block properly in anticipation of it. For instance, this guy had me totally dead to rights with eight life to my one. He was going to swing with his fliers for lethal next turn. I decide to alpha strike with garbage just to see. He lets a small 1/1 by, voluntarily. I guess he's worried I had a boost to kill one of his fliers. As you know, boosting Wrecking Ogre into a 1/1 hits for eight, and that's game. yay.

Wrecking Ogre on Stormbreath is always gg.

Baneslayer has barely shown up in 46 matches. On time this guy was sitting on a Arbor Collosus and I didn't want to lose the Baneslayer so I put Nimbus Wings on something small and he killed it with Colossus' monstrosity, I then drop Baneslayer and he rage quits.

Ok, I've also been playing Paladins before Heroes. That's good to know. I find I use the untapped mana as a threat when swinging with Paladin, he decides to let him through and then I drop Hero.

Twice, I've had both Rabblemasters out and it's HEAVEN when that happens. There are so many ways to abuse Mentor in this deck too. I love it.

You can keep 2-land hands and totally win easily enough too. I keep 2 to 5 land hands. 2 lands only if I get one of each tho.

That's funny, I was 1-3 with this deck and decided to delete it. Maybe I'll give it another shot

As Barney alluded to, it's not as straight forward as a lot of other aggressive decks because there are usually multiple lines of play available.

And all the major decision points are at turn two. Agro isn't supposed to have decision points. Often the best decision is the least aggressive option. The deck is very resilient with lots of options that don't cost much. Save those priests!!!

The paladins are such a nasty threat. If you haven't won by turn six, you will then. Either the titan or the combo of gods willing with wrecking ogre

I've always been a better player than deck builder so I'm glad I'm getting the most gas I can out of this deck. I plan on going until I get 100 wins to see how it does overall.

While I do find his build very good, 44-2 sounds insane! What kinds of people are playing on Ipad?!

Randoms are often not very great but jesus!

It's on xbox360, player matches. It's not the play that's been bad, just the builds. Really bad builds.

A few splashing of paragon of new dawn squadron hawk and wall of omens, but I've only seen brizmaz once

I;m 53-3 now but I honestly don't think that last loss should count. My 4/5 Paladin was quad-blocked by 4 4/4 angels and I had enough mana to pump him twice and throw a ogre on him to completely wipe the board. I think i would have been in a position to win then cuz I still had Mentor and Brizmas.

But the game went out of sync and I was only able to pump him once or twice without the ogre. Time ran out. Does this happen to other people on a regular basis? it's happened to me two or three times in the last day and it's infuriating. It won't let me play my pump cuz the game is out of sync.

I saw SteveO in a lobby too and really wanted to play him for the first time but it wouldn't let me join his session. If he's in UK maybe the ping would be so bad that it won't let us match up?

Yes, syncing can be a real B-word at times..

I feel syncing issues the most when I am playing my Fogger deck.. The games go so long and it is so crucial to get the game paused at specific times so frequently that there are a number of times where losses can result simply because sync didn't allow the pause to stick until the timer ran out. It's especially homophobic slur because those games generally go so long that it feels you just wasted a massive amount of time on a game that was lost because of lag spikes.. This is the reason why I don't use that deck much anymore.

You're right, you can't play those decks in that environment. It's a real buzzkill when the program decides to screw you like that. I swore so loud this morning, u would think I was playing call of duty.

I've avoided making decks that share colours in the past, but with the DLC it's allowed me to revisit some older archetypes, which has made me excited enough to start looking back at new ways to look at colour pairs. With that in mind, here's my second Boros deck I'm working on.



It's a progression from Boros Heroic, that's obviously already established as an archetype, but the addition of the new cards Asha's Favor and Sigiled Paladin are what get me excited. With these we get large amounts of the deck that have, or can be given, First Strike, for excellent attack and even better defence properties. Not only that, we also have a large Vigilance sub-theme (which benefits Furor a lot and Exalted compliments nicely) and Heroic elements that all the non-creature/land cards trigger.

Nothing too complex - just a very synergistic deck where you can mix and match abilites to see what suits your current situation best.

I've played a lot of Boros Heroic, so I don't think you should underestimate Nimbus Wings; evasion plus a back-end boost to get your creatures out of removal range is much better than the Inferno Fist potentially netting you an extra Shock. I'm also surprised by the absence of Gods Willing here, that card is amazing. I guess Swift Justice and Furor of the Bitten put you firmly in the hyper-aggressive category and Gods Willing is worse there because you don't want to be reactive. My heroic deck is more of a midrange deck that just happens to be capable of some very fast starts.

I also think it's a bit ambitious to include Satyr Hoplite and Sigiled Paladin in the same deck since you can never curve out with them, but that's a minor complaint. You probably have enough other two drops for that not to matter. I would still think about chopping a Mountain for a Plains since you have no spells but you would like to cast Paladin on T2 in the absence of a Hoplite.

Gods Willing is a consideration, but it's still early in testing, and I don't like potentially killing my own auras, which can be an issue. Inferno Fist is clunky. I may lose it. With the surprise first strike cards, I have enough sort-of removal.

Nimbus Wings is amazing, trust me. T2 Truefire into Wings gives you a 3/4 Vigilant flier with "firebreathing" which is ridiculous. A lot of decks just can't beat three in the air every turn because they can't swing through it to race you.

I think your 22-land version is probably better without Gods Willing. Furor and Justice are more proactive.

The gods willing problem of killing your own enchantment is really a non issue. Often you can just use it to boost a creature out of kill range, or you are protecting it from a dual colour and can take your pick. When u do end up frying your own enchantment, it's either that or losing the creature so it's not even a decision. The real problem is that you will be protecting it from red most of the time so I don't even run red enchantments

After tinkering around, it's going more towards a traditional Boros Aura deck, which is not where I want to be. The idea was to have a wall of First Striking Vigilance creatures that was impossible to penetrate, but the Heroic element is dragging me in that direction instead.

I need to take a step back and look at whether I want a traditional take, or to see if I can make something worthy of the original concept, or possibly abandon it.

I think I've got the traditional take pretty much nailed, as is my wont. Call my decks boring and I'll agree, but they're usually quite efficient and powerful.

If you want to flesh out your original concept, you could build a Dimir control deck splashing white for Asha's Favor and maybe Gods Willing. Load up on deathtouchers (Scorpion plus Agent, primarily), put Asha's Favor on them, and force attacks with Bident of Thassa. You get to attack every turn and they effectively can't block, and they can't really attack either. Not much outside of Baneslayer can even touch that and even she trades with a flying first-striking vigilant deathtoucher. Add in card draw and permission to protect your board and you could just chip away at them. Seems right up your alley, I may even work on it myself.