I agree. The first few turns can be rough against aggro, but it recovers very well. I always feel like I can't lose once I resolve an obelisk and I never feel dead in the water, I always have answers

Those are some of the reason why I added the ground assualts. Extra potential at taking out things early. (Plus it's still great later too.)

I almost want to squeeze a restoration angel in here. A lot of games I have been a topdeck away from losing to a burn spell. When I see the obelisk, it is a nonissue, of course.

I have felt the same but I think obelisk is enough. The angel is pretty pricey too.

Do people rage quit and cry as much for you as they do for me when using this deck?

Yes, quite often. I'll stabalize with 8 or more life with 5+ cards on hand and they are topdecking. I know it must be frustrating, and that's why I love the list. Outside of a lone angel, the list is dead on. I am not sure if I will add one, but it is definitely card #61 if I do decide to change the deck. Probably over an inspiration or edict.

I wouldn't cut the edict for it personally.

I agree, inspiration would go first. Could use a lone suffer the past for lifegain and to help against graveyard shenanigans. Would cease to be ink-treader, but its really 5 color already (black sources, black activated ability, black cycle cost...
Not saying it or the angel are a must, just spitballing ideas to help combat early aggro damage that puts us in burn range, especially with banefire and cycling resounding thunder are uncounterable. I will keep it as is for now and see how the meta develops.

The idea behind this deck is to take advantage of the fact that Rhox War Monk and Wall of Omens completely shut down aggro decks by themselves, which means we can run more late game than would otherwise be feasible. Splashing red nets us ground assault and Wolly Thoctar, two more hyper efficient cards useful both early game and late game, and if we can manage to find double red we completely shut the door on token decks.

The problem now is that a lot of our best cards are gold or have heavy single colour requirements, so we need to run a lot of fixing. We need to run 4 Cultivates so we can hit our triple colour spells reliably, and adding in Traumatic visions and Satyr Wayfinders gives us more fixing and early plays.

With that said, we can afford to run the greediest, most expensive, and more powerful late game bombs available. Every late game card we run will either gain us life or nets us tremendous card advantage when we cast it, so it's impossible to go one for one with our deck using removal or counterspells. Genesis Hydra can be cast for 5 if we're pressured to find a tri-colour 3 drop or Wall/Wayfinder, but it's totally game breaking if you can cast it for 9 and grab a free Pellaka Wurm or Obelisk.

I'd like to fit Resounding Thunder into the deck, but I'm not sure what I can afford to cut. Anyone have suggestions or other ideas?

I think the 2 think twice should be the other 2 satyr wayfinder, the mana fixing is too important. I also don't like negate or the 1 dissolve. I think you will be tapping out too much to make use of them. Woolly thoctar seems strange because you are planning to go over the top with wurm and titan.

I would make these changes

- 2 think twice
- 1 negate
- 1 dissolve
- 2 woolly thoctar
- 1 genesis hydra

+ 2 satyr wayfinder
+ 4 resounding thunder
+ 1 banefire

I think 1 hydra is fine as it is basically a 9 drop and you already have 2 obelisk and Kozilek. Banefire supplements the removal and is also a maybe uncounterable finisher in this deck.

The negate and dissolve are there primarily to beat the control matchup. The games go extremely long so I'm often casting my spells with tons of excess mana, and I want to protect my threats from removal or counter magic. They also tend to run few finishers these days and expect obelisks to take over the match. If I don't counter an obelisk the only method I have to deal with it is Planar Cleansing, which isn't really enough when they might be holding up a counter as well. Adding burn to the deck gives us an alternate win condition, so the change might not hurt us too badly here.

The Thoctar serves much the same purpose as Resounding Thunder would, so I can see that swap pretty easily, especially if we drop a Hydra. Having a good amount of decent creatures to grab with the Hydra was important in my version because I often couldn't afford to wait until I could drop one for 9. I'll see if I can add a bit more red to the manabase and do some testing online with your version.

I could perhaps afford to drop a plains for a mountain, giving us 12 white and 10 red from the lands. I'd also like to go up to 13 green if we're running all the wayfinders and considering the importance of cultivate. I'm really pushing the limit on every colour here, but it seems to work out okay since I get a free mulligan. Still, I wonder if I should add a gate or two instead of a forest or mountain.

This deck started from our whiteless list. We were struggling with the token matchup and as there were no extra sweepers we needed a creature to block with. We looked at guard gomozoa but it wasn't good enough. The best creature for the job was Rhox War Monk. We could not support 5 colours so decided to drop black for white. Here is the deck.



The mana base is very good for a deck running anger if the gods, dissolve and rhox war monk as 3 drops. We have:

15 blue sources
13 red sources
8 green sources
8 white sources

Traumatic visions essentially adds 4 on to each of these numbers and the deck would struggle without it. We did have selesnya guildgate in for a while but realised we needed to separate the white and green producing lands a bit. It was no good having a jungle shrine in play with an basic island and a crumbling necropolis. You would have all your colours but still not be able to cast war monk. That is why we have arcane sanctum and savage lands.

Is there anything you don't like about the list or any obvious omissions.

Please don't suggest planar cleansing, the mana cannot support it.

EDIT: replace banefire with the second angelic edict

EDIT2: replace inferno titan with banefire

I have won my first four games with the deck VERY convincingly. I just beat Jund Devour on 38 life which was a terrible matchup before War Monk. I wiped his first wave with Anger and beat his second wave 8/8 Mycoloth with a Ground Assault.

It's possible the second Angelic Edict is better than Banefire. We have Kozilek as a hedge against control.

You could be right, as you know I am not a massive fan of banefire when we already have 4 thunder as uncounterable burn. The best use for it is as the 4th shock that scales well.

The second edict is better vs things like thrinax or chasm skulker and also gives is a second answer to angelic accord or beastmaster's ascension.

I will make that change I think.

Edict also gives us a couple of outs to terra stomper, a card our previous version struggled with.

I also like that baneslayer plus a burn spell can deal with a lot of big creatures with the baneslayer surviving due to first strike.

I still haven't lost with this deck, currently 11-0. Seaside Citadel into Island cycling Visions into T3 War Monk is a savage start for control. Even if they deal with it, they're down cards and you're up on life helping cruise well into the lategame.

This deck has ridiculous matchups against midrange and control just like the first version of the deck, but the aggro matchup is miles better. Red decks cannot beat a War Monk and Angelic Edict is such an amazing card to have access to. Planar Cleansing is not needed because you only counter the spells you can't kill.

I was worried about the mana but it's good.

Insane deck.

I replaced a banefire with an archangel and it is solid. The life can be clutch and another beater isn't a bad thing.

I assume as a beater it will be killed because its the only thing they can use removal on. Gonna give Monkeem a try, I knew they would be here soon.

I am curious why you guys feel the need for 25 lands in that build.

Because stumbling on land is how control loses. I'd like 26 or 27 but this is Duels so we can get away with 25.

25 does feel good here. Taking it for a spin for a few games. Lost one, the player quit though so should count as a win.. The computer drew a lucky treason, stealing my kozie while I was at 12 life..

2bestest - Let us know how you get on

Hakeem - how goes testing, still undefeated? I am 22-1, still loving it, I have had a few turn 3 wins vs aggro due to rhox war monk.

My loss was to another control deck that seemed inconsistent, it was 5 colour with lots of citp lands. But was geared towards control mirrors. They drew more cards than me and eventually killed me with a huge banefire.

I still have not lost a game with this deck, Monk; we hit a home run here.

For example, my mono-red opponent starts with a Denizen and I play a Necropolis. He casts Krenko's Command and bashes, I play Forest. He attacks again and passes, I cycle Visions for a Plains and cast War Monk when I untap.

Game over.