Primer: Mardu Midrange

[Aodh]

Does Sorin offer enough with fewer, larger creatures (as opposed to infinite 1/1s.dec)?

[Valdarith]

I think it does. It's an implicit two for one and can offer huge life swings when it lands since I'm playing a lot of high powered creatures.

[Aodh]

Fair enough. The mana looks pretty good. Can you afford 1 Forge -> 1 Mountain, or do you need the extra white for that Elspeth? Also, think the list can afford more temples? Your curve seems higher than traditional Mardu.

[Valdarith]

11 Mountains is enough to meet the Chains requirement, especially with four Magma Jet in the list. With the six scry lands I have eight total cipt lands out of 25. I like that ratio, but your concern regarding the curve is exactly why I chose to go with the full four Jets and Strikes. I want to interact early with the more aggressive decks and kill them with powerful cards.

[Aodh]

Sounds good! I only suggested the swap since you have 13 white sources, which is 1 more than necessary. 5 painlands and 4 fetches probably isn't too bad, but if so then that's probably the swap I'd make. Like the list.

[Christen]

I'd like to try Brutal Hordechief. We won't be locked down easily by the opposing board.

[Valdarith]

Brutal Hordechief seems pretty good in a deck maxing out on tokens. If Valorous Stance sees more play it seems like a natural counter strategy to Butcher, but if more people play Bile Blight and Lightning Strike I like it less. Seems like a meta call.

[Valdarith]

It seems strictly worse than Sorin vs control though.

[Christen]

Sorin is a champ vs control.

[Toblakai]

@Valdarith: Did you ever miss Rabblemaster in your build on the previous page?

[Valdarith]

Haven't even played it yet. It was a thought experiment and I'm missing the Flamewakes. I have an upcoming PPTQ and I'm trying to justify playing RW aggro vs Mardu and RW aggro keeps winning the argument.

[Toblakai]

Bringing this to FNM

[deck]Toothpaste[/deck]

I wanted to go a more Red direction for Stoke...Stoke was my main attraction to the RW build. I like having it to go straight to the dome on the back of the butchers, phoenixes and dragons.

[Sioux]

Played the Sam Black list from his FRF brewing article last night to an 4-0 finish. For reference:

[DECK]
Creatures:
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Butcher of the Horde
4 Merciless Executioner
4 Sultai Emissary
2 Tymaret, the Murder King

Spells:
4 Chained to the Rocks
3 Outpost Siege
4 Crackling Doom
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Hordeling Outburst

Lands:
4 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Mana Confluence
4 Nomad Outpost
3 Temple of Silence
3 Temple of Triumph
[/DECK]

Was by far the most fun I've had playing a standard deck in a long time. The deck just has so many angles of attack and sources of card advantage. Outpost Seige did not disappoint and I was able to use both the Chandra mode and the goblin bombardment mode to great effect. My favorite game was against a mono green devotion list. He had a fast start and got a arbor colossus going that I had to chump for several turns with raise the alarm and outburst tokens. I was eventually able to get 2 copies of outpost siege out one on khans the other on dragons. He plays several nylea diciples going up to the 40s in life, but runs out of gas. My siege finally draws me into several butchers and Im able to smash him in a few turns then finish him off by sacking all my tokens . I think I found what Im playing for awhile in standard. This deck is doing everything I want to be doing in magic

Woot, I took this baby all the way to 1st at FNM. Thank you, Sam Black.

I made some slight modifications to the side board for my meta what with all the Abzan this or that and whip decks hanging about but, it was only the inclusion of Hushwing Gryffs & Utter Ends instead of the play set of thoughtseize(I only have two and running only two seemed crappy to me).

I also only had one of the outpost sieges so I have a Kolaghan & a Palace siege as fillers but, they helped out a-friggin lot tonight. I even was able to trade from my winnings for several things I needed for my casual and commander decks including the two other outpost sieges I needed.

Game 1 Abzan aggro sans Whip, 2 - 1
Game 2 Mardu Minotaurs, 2 - 1
Game 3 Jund Aggro, 2 - 1
Game 4 Abzan Aggro with Whip, 2 - 0

All of these decks brought the hurt and quickly especially after sideboarding token and enchantment hate in game 2 or 3 but, Sam Black's brew is just oddly synergistic enough that almost all efforts to stop me or overwhelm me failed, whiffed, or were easily dealt with. I don't mean winning with this deck is by any means easy considering I had quite a few gut calls and risk vs reward situations in several games but, I never once felt panic and never found myself in a outright board state clash with anyone. This deck just makes fatties and their best creatures dead or exiled in a nice consistent manner and let's not even start on all the card advantage interactions. I know it is early in the standard season so I shouldn't expect this success to last but, I liked playing this list. I think I'll stick with it for a while.

[stuffydollfan]

I like the new build. I'm playing a copy of Sam Black's list but with just a few modifications of my own...

[deck]Creatures: 19

2 Humble Defector
4 Butcher of the Horde
4 Merciless Executioner
4 Sultai Emissary
2 Tymaret, the Murder King
3 Kolaghan. the Storm's Fury

Spells: 17
4 Chained to the Rocks
2 Outpost Siege
3 Crackling Doom
4 Raise the Alarm
4 Hordeling Outburst

Lands: 24
5 Mountain
1 Plains
1 Swamp
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Evolving Wilds
1 Mana Confluence
4 Nomad Outpost
3 Temple of Silence
3 Temple of Triumph[/deck]

Removed all of the 4 Bloodsoaked Champion, 1 Outpost Siege, and a 1 Crackling Doom, and added 2 Humble Defector, 3 [card]Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury[/card], and a land.
My thought process was that while the champion is synergistic in the deck, I wanted to add more power and threats from above. I just added some defectors to try them out. And since dragons are expensive, the land count just had to go up by one.

So far I've only been playing on MTGO tournament practice but the results seem pretty promising. Though I haven't faced a large sample of tier 1 decks.

There are still other cards that I want to try out, like Chandra, Pyromaster in place of the Outpost Siege, 2 more Humble Defector in place of 2 Tymaret, the Murder King, and either Stormbreath Dragon or Wingmate Roc for my 5 drop. Sideboard is still WIP.

[Wrathberry]

im so not sure how to play my mardu deck this gameday. anyone here who tested a build more than 3 games?

i want to keep the good old mardu style, without those sac shinegans and so on.. but there are so many options, that i just dont get it


btw: can anyone post a sample decklist of this r/w aggro you talk about?

[Valdarith]

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=80817

[Jamie]

so its just a r/w deck with crackling doom and a weaker sideboard

[dpaine88]

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30 ... Mardu.html

Great article

[lorddax]

Anyone having success playing Mardu? These colors seem really strong right now.

[Valdarith]

I played against a PTQ/Open/GP grinder in my first round at my IQ yesterday. He's been on RW aggro touching black for Crackling Doom and claims to have had success with it. He didn't do so well at this tournament but there was a lot of UB control in the room so that really hurt his chances. I'm personally not a fan of it. It's not nearly as strong as you would think.

[Jedi_Knight]

Ok, coming back to to game after another hiatus. Should I pick up Mardu (because DRAGONS!) or should I just wait to see which comes out after this weekend?

[Valdarith]

I would not touch Mardu with a 10-foot pole right now. It's just not a high performing deck.

[Jedi_Knight]

Thanks. Well then, we'll see. The second option is always Jeskai because burning people is always fun.

[Valdarith]

I think Jeskai is a great place to be. It's the easiest deck to tune for an expected meta and it's pretty hard to outright hate on.

I'm also biased though since I've had the most success with Jeskai since KTK.

[Pedros]

Ok guys I am probably crazy... however I think I found my love in this format.

Here comes... MARDU DRAGONS aka "ARDDRA". I solves it. mARDu DRAgons. ARDDRA.

Testing so far:
5-0 vs WG agro
5-0 vs BW agro (heavy black splash white humans)
3-2 vs RDW
5-0 vs Abzan agro
3-2 vs UB control.
5-0 vs Temur planeswalkers control

Played 2 pre and 3 post board games. vs red 2 times I couldnt draw 3rd land to cast anger when they overextended into my grandmaster (next turn slash and command me for 20, however if I had 3rd land I would gan ~18 life and sweep a board)

1-1 pre board, 2-1 post board vs control

Mana base needs to be tweeked (I would prefer to have 2 haven of the spirit dragon here. Deck is heavy red, with white secondary and black 3rd)

Needs to tweek maindeck and decide on sideboard (for games played thus far it looks good. Might want some plagues/4rd anger vs tokens/red? Dont know if I want 6 discard or some planeswalkers vs control to complement 4 phoenixes. And I think phoenixes are slightly better than rabblemaster here. Thoughts on that?)

[deck]4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Crackling Doom
3 Anger of the Gods
2 Read the Bones
4 Nomad Outpost
3 Temple of Triumph
1 Temple of Malice
3 Temple of Silence
4 Bloodstained Mire
3 Battlefield Forge
2 Caves of Koilos
1 Swamp
3 Mountain
1 Ultimate Price
1 Utter End
3 Soulfire Grand Master
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Dragonlord Kolaghan
4 Draconic Roar
2 Kolaghan's Command
2 Foul-Tongue Invocation
3 Seeker of the Way
1 Haven of the Spirit Dragon

2 Read the Bones
4 Thoughtseize
2 Duress
4 Flamewake Phoenix
3 Surge of Righteousness
[/deck]

[Jedi_Knight]

After getting back into Standard for GDs (playing UR Dragons aka Jeff Hoogland deck) with one deck and trying Abzan Aggro and few other decks (there were 12 people the first day and 16 second day so we switched decks few times with some of the better fellas) I am gonna go ahead and say: fuck it. I miss my Dreadbore. OH SO MUCH. I did get my 2 Thunderbreak Promos but I still miss Dreadbore!!!

Also, piss on non-red Dragonlords. I want a deck that beats the Esper menace that seems to be plaguing standard now. But I don't want to just tap my creatures sideways and hope for nuts. I still have nightmares about Thragtusk into Resto into Thragtusk (or Rev for 8 with no Skullcrack in hand) playing Burning-Tree-Vomit-Your-Hand-On-The-Table. I had success last year with BR so until I get back on the track, I'll stay where my loyalties lie.

And that is either Mardu or BR.

As for the option to go Mardu, Crackling Doom is the incentive. It wrecks Dragonlords. Soulfire... never played with him so don't know. Seeker is OK but certainly more plausible in more aggresive shells. Also Kolaghan's Command is teh shit. These cards (doom and command) are never dead which couldn't be said about Mardu Charm or Rakdos Charm. Having a MB answer for the ocassional Whip... oh the delight!

As far as Phoenix goes: in a deck with 10 dragons he is as close to Chandra's Phoenix as we will get. I highly reccomend him over Rabble. Then again I prefer consistency not explosivness.

Be brave Pedros, you're not alone!

[Jedi_Knight]

After a good night's sleep I must add that Phoenix is kinda hard to cast in Mardu - not so much in BR.

[Jedi_Knight]

Bought the cards for BR Dragons, so far about 25 games (tournament practice room + 1x 3-1 daily: beat esper twice, close match with Abzan Control and lost to RDW due to risky keep - double anger, command, foul-toungue, dragon and mountain + temple... third land never came). Deck seems solid and actually has rather good matchup against Esper but I guess that's due to Exper players being under pressure hence making more mistakes (like slamming their Dragonlords without backup). UB is tougher since they don't stumble on mana and usually they have more card draw. Phoenix is a house and for what it's worth I consider him a fine alternative to Rabble. Tried siding him against Abzan aggro on the play: well, don't do that.

As far as I am concerned there may not be a strong reason to go white. The offer is basically Crackling Doom but Foul-Tongue Invocation does the same thing against Esper and the lifegain is tremendously useful against aggro.

From limited experience:
Aggro is a coin flip: much better after SB. Also kill Berserker on sight. That dashing dude is ridiculous.
Midrange is all about removal: Abzan will always be the aggressor here. I guess Genesis Hydra and the likes would be a real problem but no one seems to be playing Devotion anymore.
Control (especially Esper Dragons) is doable G1 and gets significantly better after SB. [card]Kolaghan's Command[/card] is just ridiculous against them: "discard a card, take back dragon, return phoenix next turn?" 10 hand disruption effects really messes them up.

I am really liking the deck albeit it is not polished: Chandra seems weird, as does Monument in her place. 26 lands may be better, Removal suite needs work and SB does too. I added one LS and may go for more in exchange for DR.

List for reference:
http://www.starcitygames.com/article/30 ... -CVM-.html

[Jedi_Knight]

4-0 FNM, small report inc.

[deck]
Creatures (10)

4 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Thunderbreak Regent
2 Dragonlord Kolaghan

Planeswalkers (2)

2 Chandra, Pyromaster

Lands (27)

6 Mountain
5 Swamp
4 Bloodfell Caves
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Haven of the Spirit Dragon
1 Radiant Fountain
4 Temple of Malice
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Spells (21)

3 Draconic Roar
1 Lightning Strike
3 Foul-Tongue Invocation
3 Hero's Downfall
1 Murderous Cut
2 Kolaghan's Command
1 Crux of Fate
3 Read the Bones
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
4 Flamewake Phoenix
1 Ultimate Price
1 Foul-Tongue Invocation
1 Kolaghan's Command
1 Ugin, the Spirit Dragon
2 Anger of the Gods
1 Risen Executioner
3 Duress
1 Bile Blight
[/deck]
Yep, as I write this I realize I have sleeved too many lands. That's why I play paper: to train. Apparently I also make it harder for myself.

R1 MonoU Devo
G1 I leave his Frostwalkers alive for too long and then active thassa with new small morhpling finishes me. G2 I topdeck Cut for his last Master of Waves and Dragons do it from here and G3 is a slaughter: I boarded Phoenixes G2 which was a mistake so I promtply board them out and Thoughtseizes back in... well double Thoughtseize into opponent's mana screw gets me here quickly.

R2 Monored
G1 Opp keeps 5 lander, I keep double Thoughtseize hand on the play. Enough said. G2 I am not able to stabilize bacause of not enough removal. G3 gets to topdeck battle with me stabilizing at about 4 life (yeah well, Stoke the Flames and I am dead) but opponent drawing blanks. I realize I have to close the game as quickly as possible (even then I realized that too late, should have attacked with one of my 2 dragons sooner). Opp boarded in Roast so we had a good laugh. I end the game at 1 life: had the roast been any Shock I would have been dead. Life-gain cards (Radiant Fountain, the caves and Foul-Tongue Invocation) really saved me there.

R3 Jan Kšandr Bant Heroic
This fella ended 9th on GP Kraków and he is unusual for his playstyle: the young ones (well, teenagers ) here in Czech Republic play everything as quickly as possible. He took his time thinking everything through: for me that's a sign he is few levels higher than the rest of the guys. Also had a really nice chat which was a pleasent surprise. As for the games: G1 I don't play around God's Willing, figuring if the last card in his hand is protection there is no way I could play around that. Turns out it wasn't. Everything he gets into play gets removed and Stormbreath with Kolaghan finishes it. G2 he mulls to 5 and I Seize his only creature so he promptly scoops.

R4 Monored with Searing Blood
Talkavite Slovak... but Searing Blood is no good against me. G1 everything gets removed and Kolaghan finishes him. G2 goes grindy with me Duressing (yep, boarded that since he showed me only a few creatures and all sorts of burn) him and finding triple Searing Blood hand. I keep my Dragon in hand until I have mana to Kolaghan him and he does exactly that: double Searing Blood on his turn. I made the call that life total is more important than one dragon and kill him in response to second Searing Blood (also force opp to discard the LS he just drew). From then, believe it or not, Chandra, the Pyromaster pinged him to death. Yep, literally one by one from 6 life while clearing the board. Felt awesome.

Notes:
Too many lands!
SB needs work. Thought field would be infested with Esper: turns out no Esper around. I boarded basically the same 6 cards every match and wanted to take out life loss cards while not having enough SB cards to board.
The singleton Cut works better than HDF. Saved quite a few life in the few games I drew it since I didn't have mana for double HDF (apparently 27 lands is still not enough )
No BB in main since they didn't have any at store: not intentional, would love 3 copies across mainboard and SB.
Chandra feels weird. Bought Outpost Sieges to try them instead.
Haven of the Spirit Dragon is just super good. May up their count to three since I am playing only 2 colors. Also Command. Feels good to kill something and force them to discard or return my dragon.

So that's it. Love the deck.

[magicdownunder]

@Jedi_Knight:

Is Chandra, Pyromaster good enough for the deck? The list runs so many removals (which makes the drawing ability rather awkward) and its not like the +1 ability is all that great...

Beside that I agree BR control looks like a really sweet deck

[Jedi_Knight]

Nope, she is not. She is basically Outpost Siege with the ability to ping Goblin Tokens. Currently I am unhappy with 4 things:
1) Unable to apply presure early game. Any control matchup goes grindy and it is here that the card advantage engines (Command, Chandra, Read the Bones) are sorta "needed".
2) Removal suite. This needs rework in lieue of new metagame. Also not enough burn to close grindy games: with only 5 of them MB and only 2 live against control you're dependant on dragons doing the work which is a problem if opp manages to resolve Ugin.
3) Manabase. Radiant fountain did save a few games but that could also be solved by putting the 4th Invocation main. The deck IS mana hungry. Third Haven would be great too.
4) SB is a mess. Total mess. The only cards I am really sure I want are 4 Phoenixes and 1 or 2 Risen Executioners against control. The rest I have no clue.

I would say about 15 cards are not where I want to be. But I am the deckbuilder of "trial and error" since I am no LP. So far tried Dragon Whisperer - no, just no. Magma Jet is also a no: without Phoenix recursion it's just a way to smooth out draws. There is a hidden working list but I have yet to find it.

[Jedi_Knight]

Apparently [card]Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury[/card] is kinda better at closing games out of nowhere. The one thousand years older version of herself Dragonlord Kolaghan could just as easily be Sarkhan for her abilities rarely comes into play.

On the other hand curving Thunderbreak + young Kolaghan with opponent having no answers means 12 damage... Also getting 6 mana seems to be a tremendous problem.

[Jedi_Knight]

In other news, I am toying with the deck in more aggresive direction. UB control is a nightmare and aggro is a coinflip.

Also Mardu Midrange made 11th at SCG Open. http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=83733

[deck]
Creatures (9)

4 Seeker of the Way
2 Wingmate Roc
3 Brimaz, King of Oreskos

Planeswalkers (5)

3 Elspeth, Sun's Champion
2 Sorin, Solemn Visitor

Lands (25)

1 Mountain
4 Plains
2 Swamp
2 Battlefield Forge
1 Bloodstained Mire
2 Caves of Koilos
4 Nomad Outpost
3 Temple of Malice
3 Temple of Silence
2 Temple of Triumph
1 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth

Spells (21)

2 Outpost Siege
3 Bile Blight
4 Crackling Doom
3 Hero's Downfall
1 Kolaghan's Command
4 Mardu Charm
4 Thoughtseize

Sideboard
2 Wingmate Roc
1 Outpost Siege
1 Bile Blight
2 Utter End
1 Brimaz, King of Oreskos
1 Drown in Sorrow
2 Duress
1 End Hostilities
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Read the Bones

[/deck]

[Valdarith]

I don't like it, and I'm willing to bet his losses were to Esper Dragons.

Sullivan and Phillips were praising the overall strategy of the list but I could not disagree more. It's interesting that their comments are so diametrically opposed to Chapin and Flores.

[Pedrobear]

You can't reasonably play a deck which lose hard to the most played deck in the field.

[Jedi_Knight]

What did Chapin and Flores say? I don't know Flores and I don't have access to SCG Premium.

I too don't like the idea of the deck though. I do like my BR Dragons. Cutting Read the Bones for Sign in Blood since I have so many 3 drops. The deck is tremendously mana hungry. Also I am beginning to think I need some number of either Wild Slashes, Angers, Drowns or BBs main due to agggro being diffilult with all the life loss cards. The problem with this archetype is the cards fullfill a very specific role which is lost in matchup different than they are here for. Also fuck Draconic Roar, gonna stick with LS for a while.

[Valdarith]

http://www.toplevelpodcast.com/silumgars-scorn/

[Valdarith]

Listen to that podcast. A lot of good conversation there.

The deck posted in the article is very close to what I'll be running at a PPTQ this weekend. I'll be running Anger of the Gods in the board now that Abzan Megamorph is a thing.

[Lightning_Dolt]

I played the Chapin / Flores list this weekend and was not impressed. I am going to play the list from the open that finished top 16 if I go to GP Toronto this weekend.

[Lightning_Dolt]

The SCG list beat Esper several times.