So, for a whiles now I've been wanting to assemble a B/R Heartless deck. Something about the loose synergy of a random assortment of cards really appeals to me. Played the deck last night in a casual Standard tournament, and didn't do too bad. Let's start with the list.
Heartless Hellrider [RB]
---Lands (23)---
3x Blackcleave Cliffs
4x Dragonskull Summit
14x Mountain
2x Swamp
---Creatures (25)---
1x Balefire Dragon
4x Hellrider
1x Inferno Titan
1x Moltensteel Dragon
4x Myr Superion
4x Phyrexian Metamorph
4x Priest of Urabrask
1x Sheoldred, Whispering One
3x Solemn Simulacrum
2x Urabrask, the Hidden
---Enchantments (4)---
4x Heartless Summoning
---Sorceries (8)---
1x Devil's Play
4x Faithless Looting
3x Galvanic Blast
So, the main goal of the deck is fast damage. Hellriders can hit hard early on, especially with friends to work with.
Heartless Summoning or Priest of Urabrask get out Myr Superions.
Heartless Summoning turns Priests of Urabrask into red Dark Rituals and Phyrexian Metamorphs into quick copiers. That spells big things out fast and bunches of annoying things, respectively.
Not too complicated, right?
Summary time!
Now, I noticed the lack of reactive spells in the deck, so I decided to make the sideboard pretty much just that. In other words, I could switch into a control deck at a moment's notice. Ideally, Heartless Summoning and the Myr Superions would be the first ones to go out in the switch.
- 2x Kruin Outlaw: 2/2 first strike isn't bad on the defensive.
- 2x Dismember
- 2x Tragic Slip
- 2x Brimstone Volley: I will note that this spell loves a Heartless Priest of Urabrask
- 3x Curse of Death's Hold: Eats little things.
- 4x Shatter
Shame I had to do this in a hurry. I'd have preferred Manic Vandals, Slagstorms, and some Ratchet Bombs. Or something.
Round 1 - [WG] White Sun Myr (2-0)
- A deck that uses the Galvanizer combo as well as huge mana in general to pop out massive White Sun's Zeniths. Zenithes. Zeni?
I felt bad in game one. That's one heck of a way to start a tournament. Turn two Heartless Summoning. Turn three Priest of Urabrask, generating enough mana to drop the Balefire Dragon. Which proceeded to eat all the little Myrs until my opponent was dead. Ouch.
Game two was a bit slower. Heartless Summoning showed a turn three Priest -> Solemn Simulacrum + Moltensteel Dragon. Risk was worth the reward; as turn four saw the phyrexian firebreather hit him for 6 as I played another Simulacrum, and turn five saw me slice my life in half to help the Dragon bring him into a metalcrafty Galvanic Blast range. Felt awesome.
Round 2 - [WU] Human Aggro (0-2)
- A casual Standard deck I've helped construct / assemble. Human oriented, it plays a mix of aggressive humans and suppressive whiteyness.
This round was silly. Game one was good. Mulliganed. Heartlessed into a Hellrider. Hellrider, with backup, works quite well. Without it, not so much. An Elite Inquisitor stopped his swings. Urabrask popped out, but was quickly shut down by an Oblivion Ring. A Vigilance flip human comes out and gets enchanted by Spirit Mantle. Inferno Titan comes out. Nope, another Oblivion Ring. The kill only aggravates the vigilance human, and my last turn sees him get trampley and finish off was his vigilance (and an Invisible Stalker) began.
Game two was absurd. I sideboard in control, end up mulliganing again. Nada in the kill department. Which sucked, considering she played a turn one Champion of the Parish followed by two more on turn two. Needless to say, I was quickly buried under a mass of +1/+1 counters.
Round 3 - [UB] Zombies (2-0)
- From what I've gathered, he's got one-ofs Gravecrawler, Rooftop Storm, and Grimgrin, Corpse-Born in addition to his normal zombies to set up a cute combo; Grimgrin sacs Gravecrawler for a +1/+1 counter, then Gravecrawler comes back due to there being a zombie on the field plus having a zero cost from Rooftop Storm. Rinsed/repeat leads to an ∞/∞ Grimgrin. Now mix that infinite sacrificing with life loss the playset of Diregraf Captain in the deck can generate.
Ah, zombies. So fun. Game one saw Faithless Looting to set up a Heartless Summoning. Turn three I kamikaze'd Priest of Urabrask into a Solemn Simulacrum and three more from Phyrexian Metamorphs, leaving me with 14 life and six land. Those land get relevant, as I have to blow about four more Faithless Lootings to start hitting win conditions that can chew through the horde he's building. That's done by a combination of Hellrider and Inferno Titan, but only after I'd hit six life.
Game two was something different altogether. Turn three Priest of Urabrask into a Superion. Hellrider pops out the next turn, the Superion eating his blocker. Another Hellrider and a Metamorph Superion come out after that, eating another random zombie, and anything I play on the last turn is hardly relevant after, though I did pop out an Urabrask, burn up his little blocker, and swing for ~26 damage. Brag brag brag.
So, not too bad overall. I'm rather pleased with the ability of the deck to blow out an opponent quickly. And be able to manage without a drawn Heartless Summoning. And manage a three mana game with a Heartless around. And keep a bad hand then fix it with Faithless Looting. Hell, Faithless Looting gets it's own mention. I can draw a land on an empty hand, flashback it, then keep the best one of the three cards drawn that turn. Screw card advantage when digging for something relevant/helpful makes for a better priority.
Sorry about the mass of text. I do feel the deck needs a few more fatties to keep the game going, but I might be wrong on that vibe. Also, without a Heartless or Looting, turns one-through-three can feel pretty slow. Off the bat, I'd support nixxing a Superion and a Metamorph for something playable in those slots. Maybe two mainboard Slagstorms in addition to that, for getting a last push if the Hellriders fail just short of the finish line. Because Devil's Play can't always do it.
Meh, more rambling...
Until next time!
No comments:
Post a Comment