Added another Seeker and 3 lightning Strikes to main, cut Wingmate Roc and Stoke the Flames. Wingmate is nice when you can get a raid trigger, but it is hard after game 1 as people play around it, also didn't like tapping tokens for Stoke, so brought in Lightning Strike. Makes the deck a little quicker and with Butcher and up to 7 planeswalkers in the deck, have enough 4+ mana drops
Permalink
A big difference in other decks of this type you will notice are no lightning strikes and 3 Gods Willing in the main, as well as 24 lands (most Mardu mids run 25) My reasons for this relate mainly to the card that you need to do the damage, but that too often does not hang around long enough, Butcher of the Horde. Butcher is a great card, but how often do you play him, haste him, then get Stoked or have a Hero's Downfall dropped on him. To counter this I am willing to give up some burn to protect him with Gods Willing. This will insure you can get another swing (with lifelink if needed) which can provide a vital 10 point life swing and if they don't have another card in hand to take him out, or you have another Gods Willing, then you should be looking at game.I think this deck fluctuates well between a quicker mid-range and control and I tested it after Sunday Magic yesterday when my build that was closer to the actual Melissa DeTora build (except I had Deflecting Palm main) went 2-2 for the second time after a 6-0-1 run the first time I used it.
Big fan of these decks and I run a similar one with a splash of blue. Only suggestion would be to get some in the sideboard, maybe Dawnbringer Charioteers, Akroan Skyguard or Wingmate Roc to give you protection/aggression from above. Skyguard would probably fit well due to the heroic trigger
My tweaked Mardu after first run through at FNM, feedback/suggestions welcome
I am tweaking my online orders of single to mirror this as we speak, thanks for sharing feedback
My post rotation agro/midrange
Good point on Clever, should have caught that. I think erase will be a huge card, using it in my Mardu deck to keep Butcher of the Hoard in play. This deck is just filthy if opponents can't answer Leviathan, and if you can get them both down, yikes!!
Yeah Angel can be a pain as you ramp up, I use it in my ensoul deck, much easier then you are dropping Ornithopters :) I think I am going to test as is forget the Void snare and throw in a second Military Int for the Angel as you suggest. Also going to cut Thassa to 2 and throw in Icy Blast X 2 since it should be easy to get the Skulkers to 4 or better then use Nykthos/Icy Blast to tap the opponents creatures for 2 turns if they are using an agro deck or a green ramp and have some heavies out before I can get the kill.
Love the synergy, going to do a small tweak and test, 3 Fate foretold and 2 dig through time for Military Intelligence, 4 Void snare for Hypnotic Siren for tempo control
Love the concept, maybe consider replacing Goblin Slide with Erase or Solemn offering so you can get Leviathan back if he gets exiled by an Enchantment. Maybe a couple of Clever impersonators to duplicate him as well.
Thank you
I am thinking this is right, I am going to try it at FNM and see :), thanks
Help me with a rule clarification, I was toying with the idea of Goblin Rabblemaster in place of Shandalar. The object being it gets on the board early and can generate some Goblin tokens. So if I get 3 tokens down, giving Rabblemaster the +3/+0 until end of turn, then I sacrifice him in the second main phase, do I get to draw 5 cards since his power is still pumped, or just two based on his base power?
Comments/Feedback welcomeThanks
Good call on Banishing Light, on my buy list. So take out flare for that perhaps?