SD "The Magnificent Seven" SuperFriends

Requires [ORI] [B4Z] [OGW] [SOI]

2 Oath of Nissa
2 Oath of Gideon
2 Call the Gatewatch

There are various options for tutoring the Planeswalkers or using the Oath abilities. I chose the Nissa and Gideon because Nissa provides tutoring for 3 types, Planeswalker, Creature and Land. Pretty near indispensable.

Call of course I think has to be an auto include.

Because we have 7 Planeswalkers who are immediate targets the Gideon oath helps them when they land as the extra loyalty can count and it can help get certain ultimately quicker or allow the reduce ability with lower risk. In addition with the lo creature count the tokens can be valuable blockers.

3 Sylvan Ranger
3 Lifespring Druid
3 Natural Connection
2 Nissa's Renewal

The ramp suite has so many options now with the various new cards. Loam Larva provides reasonable early defence and a colour fixing. I am not sure why I didn't even consider Sylvan Ranger initially but yep, better. Lifespring Druid just makes colour fixing easier especially with a lot of double cost cards. Natural Connection just seems the simplest choice. Nissa's renewal is a great ramp but it's probably as important if not more so for the life gain.

2 Displacement Wave
2 Languish
2 Planar Outburst
3 Fog

This is the trickiest area with the colours selected. I did have languish but the idea of tainted remedy was partly if you get to the point of having stabilised and able to control the board, the last thing you want is life gain in particular for ramp decks and there are other life gain cards. It is probably unexpected if played and as a 2 of does not necessarily hurt the deck.

Yeah the hunt for a decent tainted remedy option continues. Languish back in.

Because decks with mill or hand destruction may hurt and running blue the 3 colour counterspell could be substituted. If I consider a side board version this would be an obvious include e.g. Scatter to the winds and broken concentration

Displacement Wave is particularly important as it allows you to establish your mana base and also recur both Oaths and the Skaabs for the key control sorceries.

Fog should be fairly obvious and is key to both protecting life total and keeping combat damage from Planeswalkers. Another good target for Skaab depending on the current stage of the game. With a fog in hand keeping g open is important.



1 Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 Ob Nixilis reignited
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Jace, Vryn's Prodigy
1 Jace, Unraveler of Secrets
1 Sorin, Grim Nemesis

This is probably one the one hand easy once you have the colours agreed however in white I decided against any White Planeswalkers. White is primarily for Planar Outburst as the main removal mechanism alongside Languish despite being a 2 of the inclusion of the Skaabs allows you to return over so can be cast early to keep life loss in check. While not including white Planeswalkers I therefore wanted to include all the other mono coloured Planeswalkers, besides with Nissa, Jace and Ob Nixilis card draw is decent in particular when 2 or more are out.

If you were a purist re the oath at least I play the white version of the oath so Gideon is represented.

1 Ulvenwald Hydra
3 possessed Skaab

Ulveneald is of course a win con but another source for mana fixing. The Skaabs as stated elsewhere are pretty key in this deck and being able to replicate over the main sorceries.

2 x Plains
2 x Island
3 x Swamp
5 x Forest
2 x Hissing Quagmire
2 x Sunken Hollow
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Westvale Abbey
3 x Evolving Wilds


The mana base is constructed to try and rely on untapped sources in particular as the game runs on. Westvale Abbey may seem out of place but it's another wincon. In particular with Nissa, Voice of Zendikar the token generation can provide fodder for the transformation. See example board state in one of my AI practices during tweaking and testing the build.



Green is key for mana so hence its heavily represented. At least with green you can usually fetch the others. It only runs 23 land but with the mana dorks and ramp I think it runs well enough. As it doesn't rely on a fast start a mulligan or two to get a decent starting hand with green in particular should mainly work out okay.

playing blue over red is a mistake in decks like these

Babs, need to understand the context of the quote. Funnily enough in staring out with this I had all 5 colours, crazy I know but in initial testing of the Planeswalkers red just seemed to be the weakest. I get that for control purposes enabling radiant flames for example would be ideal. Access to blue gives me extra draw with Jace and also Kiora who is not necessarily a power house but with few creatures her untapped can be useful as is untapping a land, in particular green.

Origins Chandra is a non starter as not enough R of course.

I guess I do need to look at the Planeswalkers in particular as removing red did also cut out Nahari and Arlin but who would be swapped in their stead.

Also if red goes you seem to indicate that it should replace blue. Blue is also essential for Skaab so they key sorceries become one-offs rather than recursive.

I do respect your views but just wondered where you would go with this or do you have a SuperFriends build yourself I could compare against. I guess my fundamental idea (and rightly or wrongly) is probably quite different if you did have a build. I am still testing but Skaab seems quite key as is Jace for his scry, draw ability, a lot of the other Planeswalkers have some type of draw ability e.g. Nissa, Ob Nixilis, Sorin.

But do come back and share further.

SD

My comments on this list:

-I would never run Loam Larva if I could run Sylvan Ranger. Both of them get you a land, but while Larva denies you a draw step in doing so, it has a mere +2 health over the ranger.

-Tainted Remedy is terrible. If your oppenent gains life, that's completely fine with you; you're in for the long game in which walkers excel more than Ramp's top threats. Languish keeps you alive instead, and you need some boardwipes.

-I don't love Kiora in your deck. You're only running 10 creatures, 6 of which (Loam Larva, Lifespring Druid) you're very unhappy to pick up later in the game. In stark contrast, whenever you reveal a Planeswalker with her, it's gone for you as you don't have a way to recur it from the graveyard. While you can get some value out of her +1, she still seems off.
If you want to stay in your colours, I'd suggest running Jace, Vryn's Prodigy over her.

-More removal seems very welcome for your deck to deal with potentially dangerous opponents, I'm mainly thinking Declaration in Stone here. Tough to say what you should cut for it, though.

Thanks, great comments and things to think about. Yes had languish over tainted remedy and agree most of the time it's useless. But as ramp decks are bound to rely on Nissa's reveloution I think it would make them think twice. Card draw is valuable and agree Kiora in general does not do much, not sure why I missed Other Jace but that is a good shout. In testing mana base working fine so will swap the tainted for languish and Jace for Kiora and test further. Re Devlaration in Stone will have a check but seems little else to swap for it.

EDIT: hmmmm that's interesting. The minute I make the change to Sylvan Elf the AI who we know counter decks runs the kindly stranger with the -1/-1 effect and not 1 but 3 in succession and also a return of the corpse hauler so for now it's a switch back to loam. I appreciate you miss a draw but it still fetches a land and overall p/t of 4 appears better than 2.

Also re late game draws of say Druid etc not necessarily with the vale land a lo creature feeds the sac for 5 and the mana dorks help at any time with all the double cost colours in the deck.

I have so many problems with this, "the AI counter picked me so I'm going to go back to intentionally making my deck slower"

ouch! Why so spikey? You are saying card draw beats defence. I get it. You are right either can do as good a job chumping but if it was versus RDW? Anyway you haven't expanded on why not red, enlighten me.

you run red because you can run oath of chandra, chandra (literally the best walker in the game) and radiant flames, nahiri and arlinn are nice additions on top of that. red is just a more powerful color then blue

Okay that makes sense. It's a different build but will give it a go. So red rather than blue. I assume still only Oath Chandra and not ORI which is great in mono red or maybe 2 colour but not for SF decks. I tend to prefer blue hence the direction, I also considered cutting black but I think Sorin is a must.

Thanks for the comments guys, settled on a final build for this version. When I get time again I will go back to the drawing board for a version with R. It will certainly add another string to removal but I really need to look at the overall Planeswalker selection and rethink sorcery completely if blue is out. It would be a whole new deck rather than a tweak.

It may have a stronger build but part of this stuff is being happy about how the deck should function and in particular with you as a player are happy about how it should run. I suspect in expert hands R would be as complex as blue can be i.e. not all burn to the face press A to win type operation, that does not appeal.

btw, duels doesn't have planar cleansing we have planar outburst

Ty

Humans Control

I had started by brewing and experimenting with ESPER control but was at times having issues with the three colours and it was not fast enough (though control decks are not supposed to be fast) but I switched to look at control.

The White humans shell element is probably pretty standard I guess. I also wanted to work a lifegainers element and the W humans already has a good amount of first strike.

The other element I tried to add in was a decent amount of enchantment removal but looking at dual purpose (creature, chant).

It's not tier 1 I think as yet but has been around 70% on results. Although it contains some control v Planeswalkers, over SuperFriends it is still weak against this type of deck.

3 x Expedition Envoy
2 x Hanweir Militia Captain
2 x Thalia's Lieutenant
3 x Consul's Lieutenant
2 x Topan Freeblade
2 x Declaration in Stone
2 x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 x Knight of the Pilgrim's Road
2 x Graveblade Marauder
2 x Always Watching
3 x Murder
2 x Collective Effort
1 x Gisela, the Broken Blade
2 x Kytheon's Irregulars
1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 x Isolation Zone
2 x Suppression Bonds
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

7 x Plains
4 x Swamp
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Westvale Abbey
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Evolving Wilds
4 x Forsaken Sanctuary

Mardu Angels

3 x Blessed Alliance
2 x Grasp of Darkness
2 x Declaration in Stone
2 x Hanweir Garrison
2 x Anguished Unmaking
1 x Collective Effort
4 x Read the Bones
2 x Radiant Flames
1 x Liliana, the Last Hope
1 x Gisela, the Broken Blade
1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 x Languish
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Nahiri, the harbinger
1 x Archangel Avacyn
2 x Planar Outburst
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Linvala, the Preserver
1 x Chandra, Flamecaller
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 x Bruna, the Fading Light
1 x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

4 x plains
4 x swamp
2 x mountain
2 x needle spires
2 x shambling vent
2 x Smoldering marsh
2 x Clifftop retreat
2 x isolated chapel
2 x Dragonskull summit
4 x evolving wilds


The mana tends to work okay in this deck, although low on creatures with a high PW count it relies on using the removal early to keep threats down then start to get planeswalkers out and protect them with removal or creatures to hand.

It relies on good draw access via read the bones to find necessary pieces. It can also work well with decks that use a lot of removal by using the man lands like shambling vent and needle spires that are only prone to instants.

Bruna, the Fading Light as a high end can fetch either Avacyn or Grisela.

Has fared around 80% in versus. It can suffer from mana flood more than mana screw from experience.

Solid mardu control, not very much angelic too me. How has Ulamog performed? Do you often have enough lands to get him out? I was thinking about Emeria Shepherd instead of him.

Haha, normally Ulamong mana is game won as you have control over the board. Mana seems to be okay in general which is always a concern with 3 colour decks and no real mana fixing. Emeria is probably not a bad shout as often with all the control out you can lose pieces but you would need to tweak mana base for white. I found the deck handles aggro fairly well and with a PW deck it can depend but the anguished unmaking can usually handle that but of course as ever depends on the draw.

Liliana's Scarecrows

2 x Sanitarium Skeleton
1 x Sinister Concoction
3 x Heir of Falkenrath
1 x Shadows of the past
2 x Grasp of Darkness
2 x Reave Soul
2 x Murderous Compulsion
2 x Harvest Hand
1 x Liliana, Heretical Healer
1 x Liliana, the Last Hope
3 x Kindly Stranger
1 x Oath of Liliana
3 x Murder
1 x Erebos's Titan
1 x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2 x Elusive Tormentor
2 x Stromkirk Mentor
2 x Languish
2 x Biting Rain
1 x Bitter Revelation
2 x Ghoulsteed
2 x Rabid Bloodsucker
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited

17 x Swamp
3 x Mortuary Mire


I thought it was time to revisit viability of mono decks, with a lot more cards of single colour it should be feasible to build better mono decks.

This is my mono black. I guess one thing to focus on is if you go vamps or zombies. This is a bit of a mix but taking some from both. Heir of Falkenrath tends to be the MVP, always transform and key discards are higher cost cards in particular Rabid Bloodsucker as its a 2 edged sword as it deals damage to you. It adds more air power and a lot of decks bar outright removal can struggle with that.

Oath of Liliana gives removal but can trigger off the 3 planeswalkers. Kindly Stranger of course gets a lot better transformed but you can look to that mid game onwards with a few tools like Bitter Revelation and sinister concoction to help get there.

As its a mono deck I only run 20 lands. The Mortuary Mire is handy to return creatures sacked for Heir of Falkenreath. Sticking a flier with the transformed Harvest Hand gives menace which can be telling.

There is a few possibilities to return creatures too for both lo and hi cost curve so the creature count is higher than billed.

There are quite a few paths to victory for it so it can be interesting to run. One plan is if you are lucking to get either Liliana out use removal including languish to keep the loyalty ticking up. With a few zombie creatures Liliana the last hope's ultimate can get off to a good start but of course any PW ultimate tends to be game over in reality.

Abzan Vehicles

2 x Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter
1 x Gearshift Ace
2 x Syndicate Trafficker
1 x Sage of Shaila's Claim
2 x Scrapheap Scrounger
3 x Narnam Cobra
2 x Smuggler's Copter
3 x Blessed Alliance
1 x Thriving Rhino
3 x Foundry Inspector
1 x Filigree Familiar
2 x Renegade Freighter
2 x Aetherstorm Roc
1 x Bristling Hydra
2 x Fleetwheel Cruiser
2 x Bomat Bazaar Barge
1 x Angel of Invention
1 x Verdurous Gearhulk
3 x Arborback Stomper
1 x Skysovereign, Consul Flagship

5 x Plains
3 x Swamp
5 x Forest
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Canopy Vista
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Sunpetal Grove
3 x Aether Hub


My version of Kaladesh vehicles in Abzan. There is a sub consideration to energy. The control element is primarily via Blessed Alliance but the main idea is to get fast and cheap vehicles out with either good power, evasion, speed, trample or combinations. For mana base went for basics and dual lands that have a good chance to come out untapped.

Apart from early defence via blessed Alliance the Narnam Cobra offers good cheap ground defence. The synergy of Syndicate Trafficker and Scrapheap Scrounger also can work to keep a good board. There is a decent amount of life gain in conjunction with trample via Arborback Stomper, not recognised as a strong 5 drop in general but helps here. With energy also as a mechanic the few creatures provide a good curve and provide energy when it can turn a game.

Pretty good fun to play and options for when board stalls happen primarily via flyers but late game Oviya can turn out big artifact creatures that need an answer.

- Flash

A simple but effective Flash Deck
2 x Selfless Spirit
2 x Blessed Alliance
2 x Horribly Awry
2 x Disperse
2 x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 x Spell Queller
3 x Reflector Mage
3 x Skywhaler's Shot
2 x Scatter to the Winds
2 x Broken Concentration
1 x Gisela, the Broken Blade
2 x Aetherstorm Roc
3 x Spire Patrol
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Angel of Invention
1 x Archangel Avacyn
2 x Soulblade Djinn
2 x Windrider Patrol
1 x Cloudblazer

5 x Plains
4 x Island
2 x Prairie Stream
2 x Glacial Fortress
3 x Aether Hub
4 x Evolving Wilds
4 x Meandering River




The main idea is to establish early control of the board and then use spell counters and flyers to ride to the win. Use the disperse to recover your own creatures that are disabled by enchantments or to bounce a planeswalker that is troublesome. Soulblade Djinn which is late game can be powerful off the back of a counter spell to boost all creatures and Windrider for the same cost has a useful scry 2 when dealing damage.

A version of Mardu Vehicles inspired by the winning deck from latest AER Pro Tour.

Mardu Vehicles


1 x Kytheon, Hero of Akros
2 x Toolcraft Exemplar
2 x Anointer of Champions
1 x Stoneforge Acolyte
3 x Inventor's Apprentice
2 x Ruinous Gremlin
3 x Shock
3 x Veteran Motorist
2 x Scrapheap Scrounger
1 x Heart of Kiran
2 x Smuggler's Copter
2 x Thalia, Heretic Cathar
2 x Pia Nalaar
2 x Thopter Engineer
2 x Aethersphere Harvester
2 x Cultivator's Caravan
3 x Unlicensed Disintegration
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Chandra, Torch of Defiance

3 x Plains
3 x Mountain
1 x Needle Spires
2 x Smoldering Marsh
2 x Clifftop Retreat
2 x Isolated Chapel
3 x Aether Hub
3 x Forsaken Sanctuary
4 x Stone Quarry


Necessary changes due to the lack of some cards and rarity restrictions. 2 Gideons rather than 3. No Thraben Inspector so as a 4 of I substituted 2 Ruinous Gremlin (useful artifact removal) and 2 Anointer of Champions (useful to get early +1 damage in). I run 2 rather than 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar as she tends to be MVP a lot of the time. 3 veteran motorist as its uncommon in duels. Scry 2 is very useful. 2 Scrapheap Scrounger rather than 4. Rather than 4 Heart of Kiran I run the 1 and both smuggler's copter. An additional 1 shock in place of the extra unlicensed disintegration. As an additional artifact I think Mobile Garrison works well.

The mana is similar but slower as we do not have the special lands but the total mana by type from land is the same based on using Duels nearest equivalent Duel Lands (Forsaken Sanctuary for Concealed Courtyard, Stone Quarry for Inspiring Vantage. 1 extra Aether Hub, 1 extra Smoldering Marsh for the Foreboding Ruins. Isolated Chapel and Clifftop Retreat in place of Spire of Industry.

It's a pretty sweet deck. Give it a try.

Some mods given good feedback from Sjokwaave. Intended to up the curve and smooth out the mana.