Sunday, April 29, 2012

Skullbriar, the Walking Grave

A new idea just caught my eye. Skullbriar, while I origionally dismissed it, is the perfect general for this deck. The idea is a deck that just doesn't stop coming. Creatures can start out relitively small and just grow as the game goes on. Grow is probably the perfect term for this deck, so let's get to growing.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Avacyn has been fully previewed and the release is just around the corner. The card I am most looking forward to is Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. Between the amazing art and the colorful flavor this 7 mana legendary angel has caught my attention and I just have to build a deck around her. Now that the general is picked where do we go from here?

Theme

Every deck needs a theme. With Gisela at the head there are a few themes that spring to mind.

Angels: the first thing that a player sees when they see most generals is their creature type. Tribal decks are fun to play with and against and the angel tribe just received a lot of great additions. The largest weakness of a tribal deck is that you need to be able to recover from a board wipe while also being careful about overextending.

Damage manipulation: Gisela has two abilities that manipulate damage, and she is red/white both colors excel in this department. We could fill a deck with cards that redirect damage (captain's maneuver) and manipulate how much damage is being done (furnace of wrath).

Aggro: Boros is known to be an aggressive color match. With efficient creatures running around and following it up with burn to finish off an opponent. This strategy does not translate to multiplayer very well, but is sometimes fun to play a deck that has the goal of getting reactions out of players rather than sitting back. Gisela would be a great general for this deck as she can give you the late game power to break through once things have stabilized.

Control: Red and white can be used very effectively as control. Together they have no trouble taking care of any permanents and they work well together to stay alive by reacting to any threat. Control is typically the strongest archetype in commander and Gisela has the late game body/ability to back up a control plan.

The deck I'm envisioning has a subtheme of damage manipulation while playing a various assorted army. I will take a look at an angel subtheme as we go along.