V 1.1* Added 2x
Anguished Unmaking, 1x
Oath of Gideon* Removed 3x
Bounding KrasisReasoning: My biggest weakness was other decks doing the exact same thing as me, but one turn faster on the play. Anguished Unmaking is the best card for regaining that tempo by removing a Walker or a
Tireless Tracker that's getting out of hand. With all of our Bant creatures, we block amazingly and our life total isn't under that much duress, so we can afford to pay for it. Having an Oath of Gideon deficit also makes the mirror hell, so I should probably just be playing both. Oath makes Gideon, Chandra, and Sorin, flat out broken while boosting the others. I spent a while deciding between Bounding Krasis, Reflector Mage, and Baby Jace for the cuts - in the end, Bounding Krasis feels like the least powerful individual threat. It's good against countermagic decks and the exact card
Gaea's Revenge, but those are so rare, and Reflector Mage is better against almost everything else. Especially with all the Walkers running around generating 2/2 and 4/4 tokens, Reflector Mage is often straight removal. Baby Jace does get killed without doing anything a lot of the time, but for just two mana... did a removal spell kill Jace, or did Jace kill a removal spell? In a deck that does run other creatures, I don't think we're that unhappy with the exchange. If he survives, he accrues value every turn, and his walker form is definitely stronger than a Bounding Krasis or Reflector Mage.
---
Have you ever played Walkers.dec and thought that it was a good deck, but what it needed - what it really needed - was more Planeswalkers? I mean, a lot of those decks barely have half of the 14 available! Let's be bold, and play every single plausibly useful walker, alongside a shell that supports us being ridiculous.
First, who doesn't make the cut:
Kytheon, Hero of Akros - It's really hard to explain the 2/1 for 1 in your 5-color mythics deck. We probably can't even flip him.
Chandra, Fire of Kaladesh - We are not playing even close to enough red spells - or red mana - to justify this. She's simply not very good.
Liliana, Heretical Healer - A very good walker, whom we sadly can't afford the color cost of. Flipping reliably might also be a challenge.
Kiora, Master of the Depths - Can she select Planeswalkers with her -2? No? Okay, good try. Just doesn't impact the board enough.
...and that's it. We'll play everybody else.
We'll probably want some creatures too. Let's see what people
play in standard...
Sure, those creatures seem fine.
Five Color Super Friends (
)
(Midrange-Control)Creatures2x
Sylvan Advocate2x
Tireless Tracker3x
Reflector Mage1x
Archangel Avacyn/
Avacyn, the PurifierPlaneswalkers1x
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/
Jace, Telepath Unbound1x
Nissa, Vastwood Seer/
Nissa, Sage Animist1x
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar1x
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar1x
Nahiri, the Harbinger1x
Arlinn Kord/
Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon1x
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets1x
Ob Nixilis Reignited1x
Chandra, Flamecaller1x
Sorin, Grim NemesisRemoval2x
Anguished Unmaking2x
Radiant Flames2x
Planar OutburstMana Fixing/Utility2x
Oath of Nissa4x
Sylvan Ranger3x
Telling Time2x
Oath of GideonLands (25)2x
Plains2x
Island2x
Swamp2x
Mountain5x
Forest4x
Evolving Wilds1x
Rootbound Crag2x
Hinterland Harbor2x
Sunpetal Grove1x
Sunken Hollow1x
Prairie Stream1x
Shambling VentMana Sources:First, an explanation for the dual lands - most of this is to balance out our colors, but we do still have a little freedom. Let's assume we have all the numbers of colored sources correct and determine what the ideal lands are. First, we're most likely to have a basic Forest if we have any basic land. As such, any green check land is probably more likely to enter untapped than a random battle land. Let's start by maximizing the number of green checklands. We need five green sources from our dual lands, so we can have at most five green checklands. This means we get three non-green dual lands. If we're almost certainly fetching a basic forest first, then our non-green checklands would only function with 50% of our remaining basics, while battlelands would function with 100% of them. As such, let's make the remaining lands battlelands. What colors would we least care about missing early? Lategame colors - which, for us, is definitely Black (only appears in 5/6 CMC cards) and secondarily Red. We also need four white sources and four blue sources, and there are only two of each checkland, so two of our battlelands need to be White and two need to be Blue. At minimum, we have one
battleland. We'd then want a
and a
battle for our other two since this maximizes the number of likely-tapped black sources (and therefor, untapped of every other color in our checklands) - but there are no
battlelands. There is a
manland though... and it's quite good with Sylvan Advocate in a control-ish deck! We'll take it, even if it always enters tapped. That means that the rest of our non-green source needs are
, which decides our checklands. The basics are simply enough to fetch for every card's cost with extras in green. The redundant basics also help immunize us to mill eating our only fetchable source of a color. The seemingly excess Swamp (we don't use black that reliably) can now go towards paying for our Shambling Vent.
That said, there's a lot of fun tinkering you can do with this mana base, depending on exactly what you're trying to improve. I think this setup gives the best chance of all our lands coming into play untapped (with the bonus power of a shambling vent) but I'm open to alternative suggestions.
Now let's check the number of sources, which up till now was assumed. Fun math time. We're fairly colored mana hungry (yes, that is a double in every color you see) so let's count Evolving Wilds and Sylvan Ranger as a combined 7 sources of each color (4 for green). I'll count the two Oaths of Nissa as 0.5 each, 1.5 each for Planeswalkers (except green). I'll count the Telling Times as 0.66 sources each (except blue). And I'll ignore all other sources of mana or cards, since they're all unreliable. This gives us:
Land sources: 9
9
7
6
14 (5 untapped)
First observation; we probably won't cast Oath of Nissa on turn 1 very often. Sad, but what can you do.
Nonland sources: 7
5
7
7
2
For a total of:
16
14 (16 if we need
and Telling Time counts)
14
13
16 (20 if we need
and Oath/Ranger count)
+2 for each Planeswalker.
And our requirements are:
: 18 for Gideon, 16 otherwise.
: 16 for Jace, 13 otherwise.
: 16 for Ob Nix, 12 otherwise
: 15 for Chandra, 12 otherwise
: 19 for Nissa, 14 otherwise
Perfect. It's a good thing we've got Oath of Nissa... imagine what we could do with a full four copies!
StrategyOne thing you'll notice is that this deck has a relatively low curve for a walkers deck. No bonus 6 drops, the bare minimum of 5s, and a lot of extra 2s and 3s - alongside only 25 lands. The reason for this is just how much card draw and card cycling this deck has. Let's take a look:
Ways to Draw/Cycle Cards:
1x
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/
Jace, Telepath Unbound1x
Nissa, Vastwood Seer/
Nissa, Sage Animist2x
Tireless Tracker1x
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar1x
Nahiri, the Harbinger1x
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets1x
Ob Nixilis Reignited1x
Chandra, Flamecaller1x
Sorin, Grim Nemesis2x
Oath of Nissa4x
Sylvan Ranger3x
Telling TimeOh look - it's over half our non-land cards! In effect, we get to sculpt the hand we desire - and we desire a lot of Planeswalkers.
You'll also notice the lack of single target removal spells - that's because our walkers are our single target removal. For decks that go wide, our plan is to stall them out as long as possible with Sylvan Ranger chump blocks, Reflector Mage and Bounding Krasis silliness and Walkers making tokens until we draw into one of our five board wipes (four spells and Chandra). With how much selection and card draw we have, this isn't unreasonable.
Our creature base is literally the best individual creatures in duals. Tireless Tracker is #1, Avacyn is #2, and Sylvan Advocate is #3, especially in a deck with even a single creature land. Reflector Mage might or might not be #4, but it's certainly close - and it's fantastic for our strategy of defending and disrupting long enough to get a few walkers online, then running away with the game.
If you're trying to figure out the best Nahiri ultimate target... it's usually Baby Jace or Baby Nissa. Pick whichever you don't have an adult copy of yet. If you flip them, they don't return to your hand at the end of the turn.
As long as you've got your mana covered and you have anything else worth doing, don't cast Oath of Nissa or Telling Time. Their value is selection, and it's a waste to cast them before you have specific things you're looking for.
Telling Time can do some (
very poor)
Brainstorm impersonations. Notable interactions are: 1) Telling Time and put the highest CMC card on top for Sorin. 2) Telling Time and put a land on top to get an extra land drop with Nissa. 3) Telling time with Chandra in play and a bad hand - put the best card on top of the deck and the worst card in your hand, then 0 Chandra. 4) Telling Time with a way to shuffle the deck (Evolving Wilds, Sylvan Ranger, Nissa, Nahiri) and shuffle if you don't want the second card, but keep if you do.
A note on removal usage: against aggro, just fire wraths off the turn before you'd have to take damage - if you're already taking damage, fire them off instantly. We don't have to "get everything" with them, as long as we slow down an aggro deck enough that they have to rebuild, we'll draw to answers faster than they draw to meaningful threats. We just need to keep our life total high. For example: Baby Nissa and Baby Jace are there to chump block (or trade if you get lucky). Arlinn should always start with a wolf, so that you safe yourself 3 life when they have to kill her to stop the bolt and you get some value before she dies. Etc, you get the idea.
Against midrangier or walker decks, you might think the wraths are much worse - and you'd be right - but they're still valuable. The best way to use a Planar Outburst is to alpha strike with everything on the board, hope they don't block, then wrath the board and pump out post-wrath creatures from walkers. The best way to use Radiant Flames is to alpha strike with everything that has 3 or less toughness, hope they *do* block, then Radiant Flames grabbing the 4 and 5 toughness creatures that blocked as well. And Radiant Flames can pair nicely alongside Chandra to take down bigger creatures. If you have Avacyn, they need to block in a way that nothing trades, or they get blown out. Gang blocks get blown out by Anguished Unmaking. What's the point of all this? The way opponents need to block is
completely different for each trick you could have - and anything except a psychic read is usually a disaster. This means you can make some very aggressive attacks and trust your opponent to play around the wrong things. If they try to play around everything - chump block big threats, let the smaller threats go unblocked - then they end up losing to every one of your tricks the next turn. tl;dr - Radiant Flames is still good against 5-toughness creatures if you set up combat right.
MulligansThis deck can have many odd hands, so what's worth mulliganing is a good question. You're looking for the following:
Zero Lands: Mulligan all
One Land: A Forest, an Oath of Nissa, another piece of mana fixing, and some threats (After first mulligan, keep this if the land is
any Green source)
Two Lands: A castable Oath of Nissa
or Telling Time
or Sylvan Ranger, and a threat that you're within one land of casting
Three Lands: Any hand with at least two copies of [Threat/Oath of Nissa/Telling Time] that can be cast off the lands and mana fixing you already have available
Four Lands: Same as three lands
Five Lands: A threat that can be played by turn four with the lands in hand
and Oath of Nissa, Telling Time, or a Planeswalker
Six Lands: Mulligan all
Seven Lands: Mulligan all
Card ChoicesStill figuring this out a little; we have access to so many tricks in five colors that it's hard to narrow down the best. Here are my thoughts:
Amazing1x
Nissa, Vastwood Seer/
Nissa, Sage Animist1x
Nissa, Voice of Zendikar1x
Gideon, Ally of Zendikar1x
Nahiri, the Harbinger1x
Arlinn Kord/
Arlinn, Embraced by the Moon1x
Jace, Unraveler of Secrets1x
Ob Nixilis Reignited1x
Chandra, Flamecaller1x
Sorin, Grim NemesisYou didn't try this deck to
not play planeswalkers. Every one of these cards has an immediate impact on the board if needed, can protect itself, and can threaten to win the game on its own.
1x
Archangel Avacyn/
Avacyn, the PurifierThe best creature in this deck; honorary Planeswalker for having so many lines of text. Always a blowout, every time, even if they know she's coming. Revealing her off Oath of Nissa has been known to prompt concessions.
2x
Planar OutburstThe best removal in this deck. Unconditional kill everything except walkers. I'm sold.
2x
Oath of Nissa4x
Sylvan Ranger3x
Telling TimeAmazing mana fixing and selection; the deck doesn't run without it.
Excellent1x
Jace, Vryn's Prodigy/
Jace, Telepath Unbound2x
Sylvan Advocate2x
Radiant FlamesBaby Jace is by far the worst walker in this deck - and even has uniqueness issues with his adult form - but I think he still makes the cut. Looting is good for us, and he's cheap. Flashing back Wraths wins games.
Sylvan Advocate is incredibly cheap. Having a 2-mana play that eats removal is worth a lot here. They also buff our singleton Shambling Vent, any lands we awaken with Planar Outburst, and Nissa's ultimate in case we need to overkill somebody.
Radiant Flames is a worse Planar Outburst, but much better in the matchup we most need it; aggro. Earlier today I 5-for-1'd a Mono White Humans player with it to steal a game. Feels good.
Good2x
Tireless Tracker3x
Reflector Mage3x
Bounding Krasis1x
Oath of GideonThis is where improvements can probably be made. This deck wants cheap and impactful plays - especially cards that can protect planeswalkers. I've gone with the Bant Standard Trifecta: Tracker, Reflector, and Krasis. Each of them is a 2-for-1 if you're just trying to slow down the tempo of the game, they're all only three mana, and they all function without any other assistance. I don't really care if they eat removal; they do their job the turn I play them. Notably, Tireless Tracker is probably at its worst in this deck because paying 2 mana to draw a card is not particularly impressive - we have a lot of ways of drawing cards, all costing about that much or less. That said, I think it would be insane to cut it from any green deck running creatures, so I'm not going to. But it isn't as stand-out miraculous as it is elsewhere. Bounding Krasis alongside Telling Time also gives us a bit of an instant speed game - and although we're not playing any counterspells, it might cause people to play around them anyway. Oath of Gideon is here as a one-of because the persistent effect is quite powerful if we can afford to take a turn off to cast it. And getting two 1/1s for 3 mana is only sort of taking a turn off. That said, the initial effect is so underwhelming that I don't think I need a second copy. Oath of Gideon is the first to go if somebody thinks of a better replacement.
Cards I might want insteadThis is just the cards I've strongly considered - it is by no means an exhaustive list.
Woodland Bellower - It feels strange not to be playing this; he's undeniably powerful. But I'm trying to lower the curve, and he's a 6-mana threat that can't remove anything or deal with fliers.
Greenwarden of Murasa Woodland Bellower's even slower cousin. Same opinions.
Oath of Jace - This card replaces itself while looting twice, then scrys twice a turn for the rest of the game. That said, it feels even less impactful on the turn I cast it and afterwards than Oath of Gideon and I'm not that worried about a long game. We have so much card selection and looting already that the extra scrys have a lot less value.
Felidar Cub - The rarely considered combination of aggro and control actually matches our deck reasonably well. It's a 2/2 for two that can attack, block, and remove enchantments - something we have trouble with.
Dispel - Counterspell decks getting you down? We could easily afford a 1-of Dispel for some incredible blowouts against Esper control style shells that almost lose on the spot to a resolved Sorin / Ob Nixilis / Chandra. I think it would be dead too often, but it's an interesting idea.
Spell Shrivel or
Confirm Suspicions - If you want to bring in a counterspell or two, these are your (good) choices on our mana base. Without anything to do besides Krasis if they don't cast anything, though, I'm unconvinced. I'd rather play tap-out control.
Fevered Visions - Play even harder into our cheap but powerful effects plan. Probably wins us games against bigger decks. Serious liability against aggro and mill, though.
Call the Gatewatch - Another card-replacing tutor. We've got eight targets - of whom Nahiri, Chandra, and Sorin can each get us out of some jams. That said, I prefer this card in a bigger and more controlling version of this deck, where it lets you skimp on threats. We've got plenty of threats, we just need to cast them efficiently.
Declaration in Stone /
Anguished Unmaking /
Oath of Chandra etc - Cheap, single target removal. I don't have any. The question is, when do you want this? You want it against aggro to slow down the game - fine, I've got Reflector Mage and Bounding Krasis doing that better. You want it against single threats that can take over by themselves - Ulamog, Gaea's Revenge, Avacyn. Again, I'll argue that Reflector Mage and Bounding Krasis into walkers does it better - because they always work, with upside rather than downside. Yes, they're less permanent - but they *will* buy you a turn, whereas removal is conditional to the threat and gives them cards or loses you life. Heck, Krasis can even tap down Gaea's Revenge, which is a good reminder to those who think it has true hexproof.
Fog - The "All In" card of Planeswalker decks. When you're willing to do anything to get another turn. Quite possibly justified as a 1-of, probably not more than that. It's strict card disadvantage.
Liliana, Heretical Healer +
Fleshbag Marauder - Because sometimes, ten Planeswalkers just aren't enough. Hell on the mana, though.
Kiora, Master of the Depths - I'm not sure she, well, does anything. She's basically a
From Beyond that can't block and dies if you attack it. We do play a number of creatures, so her -2 isn't a complete waste, but it's not worth four mana. That said, if you want a theme deck, she is the only non-flip Planeswalker that didn't make the cut.
And that's a wrap...Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? Complaints that I left out Kytheon, and he really does have a home here? Let's hear 'em.