Rabblemaster doesn't play nice with Raffiq. I also think you can find better options then Timberland Guide and Knight of the Skyward Eye. So what is this deck really trying to do? Seems like mix of exalted and midrange with 4 colors.

You make a good point about the Rabblemasters.

I don't agree with you on Knight of the Skyward Eye at all. IMO one of the most undervalued cards in the game. Early game grizzly to apply pressure that is still relevant in the late game (as a 5/5 attacking/blocking each turn) that can easily close games out by itself should it stick around for too long and screws with peoples combat math.

You may be right about Timberland Guide, as I have never been a huge fan of the card. That said, if there was any deck that can make it work, it would be this one. At worst, it is a 2/2 grizzly for , at best, it leaves behind a 1/1 attacker/blocker and it turns your Nacatls into 4/4's, Thoctars into 6/5's, turns Knights into 6/6's with their ability, and also buffs up Knights/Priests out of the range of Shock/Dead Weight/Righteous Blow/Obelisk.

The Squires sort of serve the same purpose. At worst a 2/2 for early game, and fuel for all your other stuff in the mid-late game.

The Squires/Guides allow us to push out even more damage early on with our abundance of creatures that are relatively undercosted for their P/T (Nacatl/Thoctar/Vengevine, and to a lesser extent Knights because of their activated ability). Plays like T1 Nacatl, T2 Squire/Guide attack for 3, T3 Squire/Guide attack for 5 seems pretty sweet if the deck can pull it off relatively consistently.

Priests help keep the lines of attack clear and answer major threats alongside Shock and Banefire, which also serve as extra reach once your big beaters smash in.

Visionaries help us keep our hand full of fuel while still dropping threats. Not the greatest with Exalted admittedly, and I considered trying Mentor of the Meek, but I think the deck runs too many cards that come in above 2 power to actually be worthwhile.

Baneslayer is there just because he is too good NOT to use, especially if we can reliably cast him in the mid-late game.

Rafiq is mainly just there because I want to see if I can make the mana work to get him in here. The idea of Nacatl/Thoctar/buffed Knight with Exalted AND Doublestrike just seems too juicy to me to NOT try and at least make work.

You are probably right about Rabblemaster though. When I first thought of it with Exalted/Rafiq, it didn't seem terrible, with Rabblemaster hanging back each turn making a 1/1 token to attack in as a 2/2 with Doublestrike each turn. I didn't stop to think that if the token survived until the next turn though it completely shuts off Exalted due to making another token and the "Goblins must attack" thing. Not to mention Exalted doing nothing to really help attacking with Rabblemaster himself (since you want it to be with as many tokens as possible).

Good call on that.

So then:

-2 Rabblemaster.

+2 Sigil Blessing (which is something I completely forgot existed until you pointed out my derp with Rabblemaster, and should have probably already have been in the deck to begin with).

Keep in mind that this is a completely tentative list as well. Have yet to actually test it, and probably wont be able to until sometime tomorrow. Mostly this is me just trying to shoehorn Rafiq into a Naya shell.

I ran a deck sort of like this.. but mine had Rhox War Monk and Brimaz in it too. I wanted all the best value 3 drops in one deck, all or whom could withstand Anger of the Gods. They are powerful enough to win the game on their own. You can just jam a bunch of removal in there with them and be pretty close to done.

The mana was subpar, but consistent enough to have one of those badass 3 drops out on T3 regularly.

My only concern is that the deck seems a bit at odds with where its going. By that I mean that if you decide to go either exalted you can probably make the deck better by adding; 3 x Rhox War Monk, 2 x Battlegrace Angel, 3 x Sigiled Paladin and Brimaz, King of Oreskos (still triggers Exalted) while adding protection with Gods Willing or Negate. You could possibly even make use of Artful Dodge and Bident of Thassa, Time Warp, Triton Shorestalker, Cloudfin Raptor, Elder of Laurels or even Enlarge. If you decide to Naya you can probably improve it by adding Cultivate that way you can get Wild Nacatl's full potential out. That would also help you trigger a Garruk's Packleader and would allow you to add Goblin Rabblemaster back in the deck. If Naya is mainly green you can also add, Terra Stomper, Arbor Colossus and even Pelakka Wurm. At worst you could also trigger Triumph of Ferocity and make good use of Prey Upon. With ramp you could also have access to a Stormbreath Dragon or Inferno Titan and be able to cash in on Ground Assaults and Banefires. You could even scare someone's boots off with a Ogre Battledriver, Warstorm Surge and a Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, even a singleton Fling wouldn't sound like a bad idea.

At the end of the day these are all just suggestions, if you do decide to go with your setup then you can replace Timberland Guide with something like Truefire Paladin which adds a ton of flexibility. A Rhox War Monk is also a nice replacement given its fit as both nice a big body (Naya) and something that you probably want to exalt thanks to life link (Bant). I hope this gives you some ideas.

All valid suggestions.

I understand that the deck looks odd on its face. Mostly because, as I said, the deck is shoehorning for Rafiq, which probably is just bad, but I just wanted to see if I could make it work with the Nacatl plan.

I already have a Bant Exalted deck, so I am not looking to build something else completely around Exalted. The only things the deck has that have Exalted anyways are Rafiq (which as I said, is shoehorned in here) and the Squires, and the Squires actually serve a purpose outside of JUST stacking Exalted. It is another 1 drop that attacks in for 2 on T2. It makes our undercosted early plays like Nacatl/Thoctar even more efficient, and even when forced into the late game it isn't a completely dead draw, since it has the potential to help our other threats push damage through. They lose some value when you have multiple big threats on the table, but that isn't completely terrible because at that point you are probably already ahead anyways.


The idea for this was originally based off of a Naya Aggro deck I had built which ran Nacatl, Squire, and Knights to great effect and was definitely consistent. Adding the for Rafiq seemed like it would make some of the other cards it ran much less efficient (like Brimaz) to cast early, which is what lead me to the debate on Timberland Guide, which probably IS still incorrect, but it SEEMS like it could work.

Gonna test it out here in a little bit to see if I can make it fly or not. I realize it isn't a finely tuned tier 1 contender, but that wasn't the point (both my Bant Exalted and Naya aggro decks are more than competitive already), this is just me screwing around to see if I can make something work or not lol.

Let me know how it works out.

This is my kind of deck! It's not brainless aggro or yawn-inducing control. But it's not just ramp up and stomp face either. It's got tricks! I recommend cutting one card to add in a Banefire. Maybe a Cultivate? I feel like 3 Cultivates and 3 Ingots plus the Visionary's for card draw will provide all the fixing you need. The only problem I see with this deck is against blue, Izzet, Jeskai, etc countering all your key cards. They'll let the Ingots and Cultivates through to counter the main win conditions, but letting you ramp up so much makes Banefire extra juicy. I'd like to have two of them, but Idk what else to cut. Great deck though. Tons of fun.

I have to say, it's still pretty much as brainless as fattle driver evolved was but this seems like a fair build for surge (Brainless in playing not in it's composition.). Hakeem, how do you feel fattledriver was better overall?

That deck was a thought experiment for me based on my conversation, I didn't actually build or play it. The whole point with maxing on ramp was because of Genesis Hydra digging for Warstorm Surge.

I like Fattledriver better because it has a more consistent plan.

My thoughts exactly.

It's still a strong deck, and I like the tricks that Cloudshift can pull off, which makes it more fun for me than simply ramping into huge doods and smashing every turn.

Cloudshift is definitely a fun card and can completely blow out an unaware opponent.

Haven't really played with this deck for a month, but played a few matches now and remembered how fun it actually was. Although I love Act of Treason with Cloudshift, I realized it has absolutely no purpose in this deck at all, and that it was much more important to get Anger of the Gods back in. Also really wanted to squeeze in a Stormbreath Dragon, but couldn't quite figure out what to drop. I ended up dropping an Angelic Edict (down to a singleton total remaining in the deck). Not sure if it was the best call, but I really couldn't think of anything else to drop. The deck is surprisingly resilient, even when I don't draw Warstorm Surge. Cloudshift is such an amazing card in it's own right, so it's just absolute overkill if I can Cloudshift fatties with Warstorm Surge out.. But, that's the point, after all! It's not a top-tier deck, but I have a fairly decent win/loss-ratio with it. (About 70% after 30-ish random 1v1 matches, I'd say) And when I win, I win HARD.. Woohoo! Go Timmy, go..!

I feel its biggest weakness is versus Orzhov life-gain (Tribute to Hunger absolutely DESTROYS this deck all by itself), tokens (unless I can draw AotG) and super-fast aggro decks. But when I've gotten to the late-game, I've almost always won. I'm still fairly inexperienced with deckbuilding, and this is the first deck I've actually built myself (mostly), so any feedback and suggestions are very welcome. As long as you leave Cloudshift alone.

I'm actually considering adding a splash of black, only to get tutor-demon in there, but no idea what I would cut.

Newest version:

I'm making a new post for this deck because I've featured it on YouTube and I want to be able to link to it from there. The table will reflect any changes made after the recording of the deck tech.

This is how duels 2015 gonna be remembered by me...

Got 21 wins in a row in ranked with this deck.

Easy win in 3 minutes but not really fun

I really don't think splashing green for four cards is worth all the tempo loss from those gates. Boros tokens is one of the best decks, if not the best deck, in the game.

even with the gates its quite easy to canvoke Triplicate Spirits on turn 3 or turn 4 and then beastmaster...

"Angry Spirits" is a slower deck that protects itself early with cantrip/lifegain dorks + omens to later use and abuse any combination of Seance, Warstorm Surge, Big creatures, and/or Ogre Battledriver. Although the deck can do silly things when the opponent lets you have all of your pieces, the deck is still fine when it has almost any subset of pieces, as well as an assortment of big creatures when you just can't do anything fancy.

While I am extremely proud of how it has worked in my games, this is the first deck I have posted here, and any feedback or game experience is more than welcome! Let me know how it has worked for you!

I can't wait to jam Craterhoof into Naya Midrange because grabbing it off Genesis Hydra is going to be pretty sweet. Too bad the Hydra enters the battlefield after the 'Hoof trigger, but whatever.