My Mardu control deck about to deliver the finishing blow to an enemy (with, admittedly, a very janky UB Zombie build).

4 x Galvanic Bombardment
2 x Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim
2 x Oath of Chandra
2 x Declaration in Stone
2 x Oath of Liliana
2 x Anguished Unmaking
3 x Read the Bones
2 x Radiant Flames
1 x Gisela, the Broken Blade
2 x Languish
1 x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1 x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1 x Archangel Avacyn
1 x Mirrorwing Dragon
2 x Tragic Arrogance
1 x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1 x Linvala, the Preserver
1 x Flameblade Angel
1 x Ever After
1 x Chandra, Flamecaller
1 x Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1 x Bruna, the Fading Light
4 x Plains
4 x Swamp
3 x Mountain
2 x Shambling Vent
2 x Smoldering Marsh
2 x Clifftop Retreat
2 x Isolated Chapel
2 x Dragonskull Summit
4 x Evolving Wilds


Honestly considering cutting something - probably Tragic Arrogance - for Blessed Alliance. With this many sweepers I often have more issues with a single big dude and/or enchant than multiple PWs. Extremely solid list for me, aside from in about ~12 games (undefeated), I've never really used or wanted TA when I drew it. Mostly it gets pitched to Nahiri.

Is Flameblade Angel really better than the second Bruna or Emeria Shepherd?

It serves a few purposes, actually. 1) It's slightly lower on the curve. 2) It means I can block with tokens and damage the opponent. I have life gain in small doses, I can do attrition. 3) It punishes people for blocking with tokens, particularly blocking my Chandra tokens. Even if the opponent has 2 Sylvan Advocate, I can still use those tokens to do damage. 4) The extra bits of damage help in a race as well as attrition. 5) I use her as counter/removal bait. She's a big enough threat that she needs to be stopped, but not so important to my overall plan that she can't be sacrificed.

Usually the only way I see Bruna is if Nahiri calls her up and on when I actually draw her I don't hard cast her often. I don't think a second copy would help. Shepherd might be useful in a long game, but between Bruna and Ever After, I generally have that capability covered and neither Angel would serve the purposes Flameblade does. I was iffy about Flameblade at first too - I actually threw her in mostly on a whim - but I keep winning games with her on the board so I had to analyse why.

Posted a new mardu control deck in constructed, check it out if you want: http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=15478&p=475900#p475900

I hard cast Bruna all the time. I guess playing less creatures and no oaths allows me to go for full-on attrition, while your Mardus here look more like midrange-control decks. Maybe that's the way to go, but intuitively I'd go Abzan if I wanted that.

So, funny story, I've been running this deck all season and it's still my best-performing deck. Literally the only changes I've made are swapping Tragic Arrogance to Planar Outburst because I was wanting more late-game threats, and changing Ever After to Liliana, the Last Hope because she was pretty much just as useful at recursion, while _also_ being early game control and a late-game threat. The only card really still up for debate is I find myself often wishing Flameblade Angel were one mana less because I seem to always be wanting to play something else. She still gets out there sometimes, especially when I've got tokens running around, but the only things that seem close are Akoum Firebird, which is smaller and has to mindlessly attack, or Gilt-Leaf Winnower, which loses the crucial point of toughness that keeps it out of Radiant Flames/Avacyn's flip range and has evasion that's usually worse (albeit sometimes better), but does kill a dude on the way in. Mardu just generally wrecks the "win with creatures" game plan, either going big or wide. There's enough recursion to outlast most styles of control decks, all you really worry about is exile effects, burn decks, and sometimes manlands are a pain since barring Bombardment (which is size-restricted) your removal is at Sorcery speed.

It could use a skosh more life gain...maybe Kalitas...

Hey, all. I'm new to this but have been a long time Magic player.

Take a look at the list I'm using that had me lingering at rank 40 for a while. I'm about 35 now. It trades the early game for sweeper effects and seems to have enough lifegain to make up for it. Then it relies on heavyweight mythic cards to take over the game. I intend to run a second Blessed Alliance when I get one. That card is amazing.

2x Fall of the Titan
2x Oath of Chandra
1x Blessed Alliance
1x Declaration in Stone
3x Fleshbag Marauder (will replace 2x with Oath of Liliana)
2x Oath of Gideon
1x Kozilek's Return
2x Anguished Unmaking
3x Read The Bones
1x Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet
2x Suppression Bonds
2x Languish
1x Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
1x Nahiri, the Harbinger
1x Archangel Avacyn
2x Planar Outburst
1x Ob Nixilis Reignited
1x Linvala, the Preserver
1x Oblivion Sower
1x Chandra, Flamecaller
1x Sorin, Grim Nemesis
1x Emeria Shepherd
1x Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger

5x Plains
4x Swamp
2x Mountain
2x Needle Spires
1x Shambling Vent
2x Smoldering Marsh
2x Westvale Abbey
2x Clifftop Retreat
2x Isolated Chapel
1x Dragonskull Summit
3x Evolving Wilds

Please try it out and give me feedback. I've had to add a 26th land for consistency, but if you find success with cutting it to 25, let me know what you have going on.

[mc]So, have been running Hole in the Earth's and running almost unbeaten.
Decided to try and run GodofAtheism's (you're updated with one with the changes you were talking about making) and had a rough time.

So figured I'd go back to Hole in the Earth's. Doing great. Then ran into GodofAtheism's deck... and lost painfully... [/mc]

*Shrugs.* Deck got me to rank 40. Maybe you need to adjust to how you pilot it? Might be using too much single target removal early when you should sweeper first in most cases, then use single target to clean up the second wave. I still haven't changed Flameblade out but then I haven't seen her in like ten games to evaluate her performance. The other potential problem I can see is over-using the life drain effects (Unmaking, Read, Ob Nox) without using the life gain (Sorin, Gisela, Vents) enough. You could try making the swap to Kalitas.

Did you keep track of what, specifically, you're losing to?

Thanks for the feedback!

I've noticed Fall of the Titan is a big difference between the decks. I swear by that card. It's allowed me to make my opponents sac their Gaia's Revenge, Ulamog, or whatever big nasty creature they have by burning out up to two of their only other creatures with a Fleshbag on the stack. Also, when you target a planeswalker and an opponent with it, then redirect the opponent's damage to the planeswalker, it becomes "RX -> deal X damage to target planeswalker" whenever you need it. That's saved me quite a bit too. (Am I cheating when I do that?)

I have been getting beat by Burn or RDW. I figured I'd be ok sacrificing that matchup to do pretty well with the rest. But now with a second Blessed Alliance and a few other cards, I made some changes to see how it would go. I still have to test some more. I didn't know what to cut, so I went for Oath of Gideon. It's been there to clog up the board early on and help flip a Westvale Abbey on occasion, but I didn't know what else to cut to make room for the Liliana, the Last Hope I just opened. She's great, and now I'm not afraid to pitch my high-cost creatures to Nahiri, the Harbinger because I can get them back with Liliana. So, these are the changes I've made, though I may change back depending on more testing:

-2 Oath of Gideon
-2 Fleshbag Marauder

+1 Blessed Alliance
+1 Oath of Liliana
+1 Declaration in Stone
+1 Liliana, the Last Hope

Thoughts?

Let's say you're exploiting Stainless' ineptitude.

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 Dragonskull Summit
2 x Isolated Chapel
4 x Evolving Wilds


It's basically a deck Joly had with some changes. It's the deck I wanted to run in the tourney, but it falls flat against Esper. Probably should have run it. It would have done well against the creature based decks. I think it would have done better against Covert's spirits than the PW deck I went with.

Ulamog is the only card I think should be removed. Maybe another Bruna? Idk. I've don't know if I've ever hard cast it. Only with Nahiri. The nice thing is Bruna can grab Garrison back from the grave too. I've ultimated Nahiri to grab Garrison on a few occasions too. Esp with a Gideon emblem.

FWIW, I ended up finally cutting the Aylis and Flameblade for 3 Blessed Alliance, because **** Gideon pretty much. Unmaking can't be my only way to deal with him and enchants and five other things. The life gain will be appreciated as well with all my non-Sorin draw (and Unmaking) being life based. I almost cut Mirrorwing for a 4th Read, but having a 3rd threat that survives Languish is nice.

Agreed

I think Cathartic Reunion will start showing up in Mardu control lists. It opens up the ability to run 27 lands, too.

I think it is too slow and makes a bad match-up (Esper) only worse.

Also discarding 3 effectively to draw 3 feels REALLY bad for control before you even see the top 3.

I mean sure, Mardu reanimation might see use for this card but still it is too slow/inconsistent in this aggro meta. Besides that, a lot of removal exile's your just reanimated fatty so you can't reanimate it again.

Decklist from KOTH against Infamousgemini except +1 angelic purge, -1 fragmentize

3 blessed alliance
2 harnessed lightning
2 declaration in stone

3 filigree familiar
2 anguished unmaking
3 unlicensed disintegration
1 angelic purge
2 read the bones
2 radiant flames
1 liliana, the last hope

2 languish
1 Gideon, ally of zendikar
1 chandra, torch of defiance
1 nahiri, the harbinger

1 cataclysmic gearhulk
2 planar outburst
1 ob nixilis, reignited

1 noxious gearhulk
1 combustible gearhulk
1 chandra, flamecaller
1 sorin, grim nemesis

2 plains
3 swamp
2 mountain
2 needle spires
2 shambling vent
2 smoldering marsh
2 clifftop retreat
2 isolated chapel
2 dragonskull summit
3 aether hub
4 evolving wilds

Basically created to punish aggro and midrange.

Try Twin Bolt instead of declarations, sweepers or white hulk.

Also: ew, white hulk?