Akroan Fireswarm

by patches9774 on 31 March 2014

Main Deck (60 cards)

Sideboard (15 cards)

Creatures (3)


Enchantments (4)

Submit a list of cards below to bulk import them all into your sideboard. Post one card per line using a format like "4x Birds of Paradise" or "1 Blaze", you can even enter just the card name by itself like "Wrath of God" for single cards.


Deck Description

This is a homebrew, strange, token-based aggro deck.

*Currently in flux, expect weird changes to come and go and for the description to occasionally not reflect the current state of the deck.*

How to Play

The main plays here are to (obviously) produce a bunch of tokens quickly with Akroan Crusaders and Young Pyromancer then to swing for huge damage with Akroan Hoplite mixed with Anax and Cymede to get trample on the Hoplite who can easily get swinging for 12-15 mid-game.

Five-Alarm Fire is a huge failsafe here, it gains a blaze counter any time a creature you control does any kind of combat damage, so you're never too sad about chump-ing a handful of tokens to kill their big creature because you can probably burn them for 5 right afterwards. Impetuous Sunchaser is good for stacking up some counters on it every turn, but they can be sided out for someone like Goblin Shortcutter for more strategic plays when facing a deck with fliers.

Barrage of Expendables is a great sideboard item, enabling you to pelt an opponent who is able to keep your tokens ineffective. My main motive for putting this into the sideboard, however, is to defend against Detention Sphere which could absolutely wreck this deck. Simply respond to the Sphere by sacrificing the targeted token or creature and save everyone else, all while hitting them for a damage and providing a possible finishing move later in the game.

I love the synergy of Coordinated Assault and Martial Glory with Akroan Crusader's and Anax and Cymede's heroic triggers, which can cause huge swings on the board state at instant speed.

Anax and Cymede has incredible potential in this deck, with a big field of tokens giving every one +1/+1 is absolutely no small matter, so it was a quick include. First Strike and Vigilance are just gravy.

Fall of the Hammer may seem strange in a deck with a bunch of weenie creatures, but it can prove very useful after declaring Akroan Hoplite as an attacker, or after using the +3/+0 portion of Martial Glory to trigger Akroan Crusader's heroic, enabling you to pop a creature for 4 damage (or 5 if you were fortunate enough to target Anax and Cymede with the +0/+3 portion of Martial Glory) and gain yet another 1/1 soldier with haste onto the field.

Hammer of Purphoros will come and go form this deck as it evolves, but the idea when it's there is that it is meant to both help spur Young Pyromancer's tokens into the fray just a bit faster and to help secure a late game board presence if you're unsuccessful in dropping your opponent early on. Spawn a Golem, swing, gain counters on Five-Alarm if nothing else, gg.

I'm toying with Satyr Nyx-Smith in the main-deck as some security in the same vein as Hammer of Purphoros, but maybe a bit more unwieldy. I am concerned about him being at 1 toughness and trying to make sure he attacks so he can untap, but there's always the possibility of using one of the many first-strike granting combat tricks to let him attack freely—but on the other hand I don't want to target him that often as I'd rather spend those spells on my heroic creatures. I'll test him out and either drop him or probably add some utility to make it easier for him to become tapped.

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The biggest threats I would anticipate seeing while running this deck are Ratchet Bomb, Detention Sphere, Illness in the Ranks, and Supreme Verdict.

My strategies for handling these obstacles are as follows:

Ratchet Bomb
This is easily the most difficult one to deal with, all they have to do is pay the two mana, drop it on the field and instantly sacrifice it to blow up every token I have. There aren't a ton of really viable strategies that would stop it in its tracks. I would likely want to side in a couple Wear // Tears to force their hand if they put it down prematurely, attempting to use it on my turn. I think my best bet here would be simply to not go so hard on the token route, or play very conservatively so they're only able to blow up a few tokens from Young Pyromancer or incidental soldiers from Crusader. I'd like to keep a Wear // Tear handy at all times if possible once they determine my tokens aren't going to be coming out in full force and decide to try to blow up my Crusaders or Hoplites/Sunchasers or even my Five-Alarm Fire.

Detention Sphere
I detailed a bit of a defense against this earlier, using Barrage of Expendables as a save-the-day measure and leaving them helpless. However, any UW player running D-Sphere will be running more than one and should have no problem getting two Spheres in hand at one time. This could catch me by surprise, as they could exile any and all Barrages, then any creature or token group they don't like the looks of. Of course, this all has the disadvantage (for my opponent) of being sorcery speed, leaving me room to side in Wear // Tear and blow up the first Sphere in response to the second, hopefully allowing me to sacrifice the creature targeted by the second Sphere with my newly reclaimed Barrage and fizzle his play out. That may be thinking too specifically, but it seems like a pretty worst case scenario that isn't impossible to have pan out in my favor.

Illness in the Ranks
I'm not sure if this is a popular sideboard item at all or not. I can see it having some use against Elspeth and some minimal impact on Pack Rat. I don't have any great response to this at instant speed since it can drop all my tokens off the field as soon as it hits the field. The only hope I would have is to get a heroic trigger off Anax and Cymede and Wear // Tear it. That's a huge card and mana disadvantage for me, but I can always opt to just lose the tokens depending on my board state. I can be happy for at least having the option available if I'm fixing to close out the game and that's their only hope. My main hope with this is just that it's not really popular enough for me to have to deal with it very often. If it is more popular in the metagame than I thought, I will have to adjust accordingly. Perhaps go heavy token in game 1, and side out into a Five-Alarm Fire/beatdown focused plan with Goblin Shortcutters and Sunchasers playing more of a role than Akroan Crusader and Young Pyromancer.

Supreme Verdict
This will take some testing to get a good idea against. I'm not super worried about it, as I have to reasonable courses of action: I can try to race against it, hit them as much and as fast as I can before they have the mana to play it, but I don't really like that idea; I'd need to put in more direct damage spells to finish them off after the board wipe and my deck fizzles down. Option 2 is just to play conservatively, hit them lightly but always be threatening them with Five-Alarm fire, hopefully get them to try and wait too long for me to show more board presence before they wipe, but always keep a couple options in hand if they Verdict early. I could also try adding in some Rootborn Defenses (those could prove very useful against both Verdict and getting a lot of counters on Five-Alarm without losing anyone), but keeping 3 mana open at all times can be tricky. Playtesting should sort out which is the best route.

Deck Tags

  • Budget
  • Token
  • Aggro
  • Boros

Deck at a Glance

Social Stats

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Like

This deck has been viewed 971 times.

Mana Curve

Mana Symbol Occurrence

1200400

Card Legality

  • Not Legal in Standard
  • Legal in Modern
  • Legal in Vintage
  • Legal in Legacy

Deck discussion for Akroan Fireswarm

why not add Assemble the legion? its a very good card in producing tokens in the late game....

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Posted 05 April 2014 at 03:20

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Still considering whether I want to or not. The way I see it, I could get a lot more use and probably close the game out more times on turn 5 using the mana I would need to put down Assemble the Legion for other things. After I get the cards for playtesting I'll see how things pan out and reconsider it if it seems like it could actually add to the deck.

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Posted 05 April 2014 at 04:07

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okay :)
But how about massive raid?? its good since your strategy is to produce a bunch of tokens.

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Posted 05 April 2014 at 05:40

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I have actually been tossing it in and out, I like the idea of it, but it can be a really bad draw in the early game because you'll want to save it until you have more tokens to make it most effective and three mana is a lot in this deck, hard to find the right time to play it instead of triggering multiple heroics or first strikes, etc.

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Posted 05 April 2014 at 05:53

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oh, okay. can you help me with my peasant boros? im having trouble in what to include

http://www.mtgvault.com/borzorius/decks/boros-peasant/

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Posted 07 April 2014 at 05:00

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