This week: I begin a 2 article spotlight on mismatched themes and colors. I take a key word associated with Boros and jam that strategy in a mono color EDH deck.
Theros is one of my favorite planes. It borrows from my favorite mythology and pushes one of my favorite permanent types, enchantments. It has also introduced some powerful but oft-neglected mechanics. Ok, Tribute isn't great with 3 opponents, but you may be able to force some weird politics out of it one day. But for now that's too weird for me to work around. Heroic, however, can be incredibly powerful if you go all in the right way. Anax and Cyemede were the poster couple of the mechanic for years. Boros had a bad rap even then, and I wouldn't call the numbers the pair put up overwhelming by any stretch of the imagination. The association between heroic and red white continued with Feather The Redeemed. Players gravitated to Feather in greater numbers than Anax and Cymede. Getting back your single targeting instants and sorceries was well embraced card advantage for a color pair that is maligned for that aspect of the game. Boros colors continued to keep the Heroic dream alive. Mavinda, Students' Advocate plays on that same type of card advantage while expanding the recursion to other spells at a super premium price. Heroic Legionnaire expanded the sets Heroic showed up in, even if the keyword was missing
As weird as single targeting combat tricks is as a strategy in this format, we can get weirder. In designing this deck I asked myself “How can I get away from the well worn path of Heroic Boros?” What is so unlike red white that I wouldn't expect a go wide pump or go tall strategy? Blue. When I think Blue I don't think heroic, I think card draw, mill, tapping, bouncing, and obnoxious combos. I wanted to craft a deck that takes that Heroic strategy and does it in a blue way, and keep the card draw. Who would be a daring enough commander to encourage a self targeting strategy to overpower and out value opponents? Look no further than Orvar, The All Form. It basically reads Heroic: clone it. It does you one better because it expands the Heroic mechanic to all your other creatures. Just target your best creature and have a second “best creature.” I understand that casting and targeting are different conditions, but the tradeoff is well worth it for this experiment and to shift focus onto a color not known for combat tricks and single self target effects.
Orvar also leads us into a strategy that supports our plan better than you might expect: cloning. Your traditional clone will not satisfy a Heroic trigger. Spells vs abilities, enough said. But this is blue. We have more than enough instants and sorceries to target our creatures and make tokens of them. Think along the lines of Cackling Counterpart and even Fated Infatuation for a little Theros call back. Orvar essentially acts as Anointed Procession for these spells. I wouldn't go pointing these spells at Orvar without a Mirror Gallery in play. Sakashima Of A Thousand Faces would help us in a similar way, and if we suit Orvar up with Helm Of The Host we can profitably attack and double or triple those Heroic: Clone triggers in the future.
Glasspool Mimic lets us copy key creatures and gives the flexibility of being a land when mana now will be more beneficial than a copy later. I haven't messed around with a lot of those dual faced cards, but this one looks to add a little flexibility to our strategy. I also added Body Double if we want to recur a key creature that may happen to be dead already. Phyrexian Metamorph and Clever Impersonator round out the creature type clones for the deck. They may not target the way we need them to for Orvar, but the added options for targets will carry us a long way. Copying powerful artifacts and enchantments our opponents control could give us the edge we need if our back is to the wall.
False Demise and Fool's Demise. What a pair. Not only do we get Heroic triggers if these target the right creatures but they provide redundancy and board wipe protection. We also get to threaten opponents. Enchant a key creature an opponent controls and watch the likelihood of a boardwipe drop. If the creature is that oppressive even the other two opponents won't want to destroy all creatures because they'll be left with shields down and you'll have the best creature on the field. They work even better with Willbreaker on the field. Cast a Demise on an enemy creature and gain control of it. When it dies retain control of it. That's a power play. Willbreaker is a little at odds with Orvar because you turn your targeting spells onto opponents' creatures. But once you have control of the big threat or combo piece fall back to the old strategy for max effect.
All these clones are nice, but to what end you may ask. Clones offer an avenue to a Judo style deck. Unfamiliar? Judo style decks are a niche strategy that looks to use your opponent's strengths, powerful cards, against them. High variance for sure as it leans on the opponents. But we can do better and ensure our own path to victory regardless of what the opponents are packing. We can do that by looking back at Theros for any mono blue creatures that may happen to have the Heroic key work printed on them. A card like Triton Fortune Hunter will refill our hand the more it's targeted. It doesn't scale well, so clone as appropriate. Stormchaser Drake does the same thing just without the keyword. Battlefield Thurmatage acts as ramp for key spells and protects itself from targeted removal. Wavecrash Triton clears a path for our ever growing army to swing in profitably, and even let the other opponents attack profitably. Combat damage is always a viable strategy, don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Judo even harder with a Diluvial Primordial. Or two. Or three. I don't need to have all the answers in my deck but it helps if I can steal them from the rest of the table.
This may all seem underwhelming, until you spot it. Sage of Hours. Pull enough counters off of it and get an extra turn. Chaining extra turns can be frowned on. We certainly don't want to devolve into playing solitaire. This deck isn't looking to go infinite, even with +1/+1 counters, so don't be afraid to have a little fun with this. Be a good steward of that extra time and play through the extra turn quickly. And be a good sport about the Sage eating removal when it comes his way. Or not. Imagine having four counters on Sage Of Hours with cards and mana at your disposal. Someone targets the Sage looking to exile it for good, but all of a sudden you play Unsubstantiate, not to counter the removal, but to bounce the Sage. Targeting Sage of Hours will be enough to put the 5th counter on it, just retain priority, remove the now 5 +1/+1 counters from it to take an extra turn after this, then let the Sage return to the safety of your hand and dodge enemy removal. Change the Unsubstantiate to String Of Disappearances, pay the extra 2 blue and bounce the offending player's best blocker to add insult to injury. These bounce spells are pulling triple duty as heroic triggers, protection spells, and removal spells. That's a lot of mileage for little mana. Just be careful with Echoing Truth. Don't do something stupid and bounce all your copies to save a creature. With all that risk comes the reward of using it offensively and bouncing away a ton of treasure tokens or clearing a swarming token army.
You can increase the odds of finding the Sage with a tutor like Muddle The Mixture. White is good at finding small value creatures so this feels on brand. The counter portion is just a good bit of protection. You can even extend the tutor chain with Spellseaker to tutor up Muddle to get the Sage. That is a long way around to get the most game warping card in the deck.
A good portion of the remainder of the deck is devoted to Heroic triggers. Some put extra counters on the Sage like Expanded Anatomy. Some protect and allow damage to be pushed through, like Crypsis. Some do both, Stealth Mission. This helps emulate Boros in the most direct of ways, leaning into the combat step. Go wide and tall, then shrink your best creature and get an extra combat step. Along with all the other steps. Cash in on that aggression with cards like Open Into Wonder. It targets multiple creatures making them unblockable and further rewarding you with card draw. The rest of the cards fall into two camps, having “draw a card” in the text box, or having some type of inherent recursion.
I got ahead of myself. There are some classic Blue control elements here. Quicksilver Fountain does a fine Blood Moon impression. Raven Form reminds you of Generous Gift, which will in turn remind you of Pongify. You can go further down that rabbit hole if you want, I'm cutting it off. Long story short, this does a fine Boros impression.
The last part of the deck I want to touch on is the ramp. Red White is not synonymous with ramp. It mirrors mono Blue in a traditional reliance on mana rocks. Thought Vessel and Sky Diamond are here to that effect. Midnight Clock provides ramp now and cards later. Coupled with proliferators like Sword Of Truth And Justice and Steady Progress we have more control as to when the clock runs out. Apprentice Wizard may seem underwhelming at first, but with the clone plan it can become incredibly profitable. Go ahead an make 3 copies then turn 4 blue mana in 16 colorless to fuel a massive Blue Sun's Zenith. If rocks and mana dorks seem too fragile Dreamscape Artist and Mitotic Manipulation are present to address that. Someone may look at the artist and just see a very killable dork. Once it gets moving, meaning it can be tapped, you're free to sacrifice one land to pull two out of your deck. The discard clause is less oppressive with the ability to draw cards already in this deck. Mitotic Manipulation is easy to overlook since decks only play one copy of each spell, (cue Silent Petitioner, Relentless Rats talk). There may not be copies of spells in the deck, but there are a bunch of islands. How many cards do you think you'll have to reveal from the top of you deck before you see an island? You've got seven chances.
Here's the deck as it stands.
Sage of Hours Fated Infatuation False Demise
Willbreaker Cackling Counterpart Fool's Demise
Triton Fortune Hunter Body Double Hidden Strings
Battlefield Thurmatage Phyrexian Metamorph Triton Tactics
Wavecrash Triton Clever Impersonator Taigam's Strike
Stormchaser Drake Replication Technique Expanded Anatomy
Warwing Siren Quasi Duplicate Crypsis
Artisan of Forms Helm of The Host Stealth Mission
Diluvian Primordial Sakashima of a Thousand Faces Open Into Wonder
Flux Channeler Pongify Awakened Awareness
Thrumming Bird Ravenform Ordeal of Thassa
Augur of Bolas Lesser Reincarnation Slip Out The Back
Spellseeker Curse of Swine March of Swirling Mists
Muddle The Mixture Unsubstantiate Blue Sun's Zenith
Essence Capture String of Disappearances Mitotic Manipulation
Sword of Truth and Justice Echoing Truth Dreamscape Artist
Steady Progress Into The Roil Midnight Clock
Teferi's Veil Force Away Fact or Fiction
Quicksilver Fountain Call to Heel Thought Vessel
Karn's Temporal Sundering Withdraw Sky Diamond
Glasspool Mimic/Shore Iceberg Apprentice Wizard
Island X 28 Endless Sands Safe Haven
Rogue's Passage Saprazzan Skerry Saprazzan Cove
Soldevi Excavation Mysic Sanctuary Sykline Cascade
All the main categories you consider in a deck are there: removal, draw, protection, ramp etc. We can go tall or wide and lean into combat like any traditional Boros player would.
The deck is also wide open to tinkering. There are so many spells that target a creature that could be swapped in. If you want to lean into the +1/+1 counter strategy look at the arcbound cycle of creature. Make a ton of copies of something like Arcboun Ravager. When they die move the counters onto you primary modular beater. If you're feeling a little craftier you can do a Fumiko Of The Low Blood impression with goad. Smack someone with a Coveted Peacock or copy Jeering Homonculus every turn to open an avenue for you to attack profitably while making your other opponents block unprofitably. Live the dream and kill someone with a peacock. Red has some of the best goad options, like Disrupt Decorum, but Blood Thirsty Blade and Sly Instigator will do the job repeatedly.
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