My vote for the most underappreciated Online format: casual vanguard.  It opens up completely new card interactions and, with over 60 avatars and counting, the possibilities are vast.

The Internet already has a lot of decklists for tournament winning vanguard decks, but really nothing that I could find that's dedicated to the casual vanguard player.  That's where this column comes in.  Each article, I'll discuss three different decks for three different avatars, to give you ideas about how to create your own decks.  I'll be focusing on decks that are not only casual, but also affordable, and (most importantly) creative.  If you are like me, you are sick of seeing people use the Braids avatar for nothing but an Akroma, Angel of Wrath, or an Oni avatar for nothing but Ravenous Rats and Cosmic Larva.  Other options exist!  The goal of this column is to get you thinking from new angles when you approach this very fun format.

And if you're new to the vanguard format, try it out!

Deck 1. Erhnam Djinn

To start off, let's use an avatar that everybody has.  This way you can test the waters of the format before you decide to start spending money on nonbasic avatars.

People seem to think Erhnam can only go in Thallid decks, but it really is a versatile avatar.  Today's deck will focus on a great interaction it has with a seldom-used card called Death Match:

If you didn't catch the synergy there, with your Erhnam avatar, every creature you cast causes a second creature to come into play — in other words, you're getting double the -3/-3 triggers!

The danger of Death Match is of course that it's symmetrical, so we'll be packing our deck full of creatures that are either too big to die or that we want to die.  We'll also be using cards that get extra mileage out of Death Match's triggers.

If you're worried about how this deck will fare against creatureless decks, keep in mind that Vanguard is a format dominated by creature decks.  If you browse through the available avatars, you'll see that almost every single one mentions creatures specifically.  And for the few that don't, this deck still has several "outs."

Card choices:

• Glitterfang: Obviously, a cheap creature that you can cast every turn is a great way not only to get extra Death Match triggers, but also extra avatar triggers.  You can use this card in the early game to build up a small army of blockers to stall your opponent, or in the late game to spread two -3/-3's (or one -6/-6!) around the board every turn.
• Skulltap: Thanks to your avatar, you'll be having a lot of extra creatures around.  This card helps you draw into your all-important combos as soon as possible.
• Mogg War Marshal: For two mana you get three 1/1s.  Each one of those could mean a -3/-3 trigger in the late game.
• Rukh Egg: I love this guy in here.  First, you can point his own -3/-3 trigger at himself as a way of getting the Bird token out quicker.  Second, when the Bird comes into play, it puts another trigger on the stack, which you can point at your opponent.  And best of all, as a 4/4, your token will be big enough to survive an opponent's -3/-3 trigger!
• Sengir Autocrat: A guilty, nostalgic pleasure for me.  He's a 1-of in here on the rare occasion that spreading five -3/-3 counters around at the same time is actually helpful and not overkill.  It has come up for me a couple of times.
• Woebringer Demon: This is another great card in here.  Not only does your avatar give you more fodder for it than your opponent will likely have, but at 4/4 he too will survive an opponent's Death Match trigger.
• Sengir Nosferatu: Amazing with a Death Match, and a hard-to-kill finisher besides.  Every time you activate him, you create another Death Match trigger.  And at a 4/4, he... etc.
• Kher Keep: Another quick way to get extra Death Match triggers.  And fodder for your Woebringer Demons or even Skulltaps.

Sample, customizable decklist:

Avatar: Erhnam Djinn Land: 24 11 Mountain 11 Swamp 2 Kher Keep Creatures: 17 2 Shadow Guildmage 3 Glitterfang 4 Mogg War Marshal 1 Sengir Autocrat 4 Rukh Egg 2 Sengir Nosferatu 1 Woebringer Demon

Noncreatures: 19 2 Lightning Bolt 4 Skulltap 2 Magma Jet 3 Rakdos Signet 2 Smash 2 Ritual of the Machine 4 Death Match total: 60 cards

Deck 2. Rith, The Awakener



This is a fun avatar.  Today's deck is going to focus on cheap creatures with evasion, paired with other "combat damage to a player" triggers, paired with ways to ramp up that mana fast.  When this deck is at its best, you are hitting with four creatures in a single turn and paying 20 mana to get 4 new dragon tokens for the next turn (helpful against those Serra Angel avatars!).  And yes, I have done that.

Card choices:

• Scryb Sprites, Treetop Scout, Silhana Ledgewalker: These are of course your cheap evasion creatures.  After some playtesting, 12 seems to be the perfect number.  You always want one in your opening hand, but you don't usually need to draw a lot later on.  Also worth considering: Scryb Ranger.
• One With Nature, Keen Sense: These are what you want to put on your cheap evasion creatures.  If the whole avatar's gameplan is to deal combat damage to your opponent, why not use other cards that capitalize on that same trigger?  This is a funny deck in that One With Nature is actually better than the usually superior Keen Sense, since it helps ramp up your mana to pay for Rith's triggers.  And if you're attacking with an unblockable creature with 5 mana in play, you probably don't need to draw a lot of other cards anyway.
• Nature's Will: This ordinarily useless card becomes an all-star in this deck.  Consider these three scenarios.

1. Turn 1 land and creature.  Turn 2 second land, enchant the creature with One With Nature, attack and get a third land.  Turn 3 play a fourth land, tap out for Nature's Will, attack with your creature, get a fifth land into play, untap all five with Nature's Will and (if you stacked it all correctly) still be able to tap those five lands for a Dragon token that same turn!  That's a 5/5 with flying on Turn 3.  What every Rith player has dreamed of.
2. You have a 1/1, a dragon, five lands, and Nature's Will in play.  You connect with both, putting two Rith triggers (and the Nature's Will trigger) on the stack.  If you order them correctly, you can get 10 mana out of your five lands and pay for both Dragon tokens.
3. The scenario I hinted at earlier — With two Nature's Wills out at once, you can tap your lands three times.  With seven lands in play, that's 21 mana, or enough for 4 Dragon tokens at once!

• Lignify: Very important in this deck, and I wish I could use more than 4.  Basically, this deck's biggest worry is that the opponent will having flying creatures, and can therefore block our guys and prevent our triggers.  So a card that removes flying goes a long way towards helping our gameplan.  The fact that it removes every other ability while also preventing the creature from swinging is just an added bonus.  If you don't draw these, another way around fliers is our next card...
• Predator's Strike: Obviously not a powerhouse, but this can get us to trample over most blockers, dealing enough combat damage to put that all-important dragon trigger onto the stack.  Even one dragon token is usually enough to get the ball rolling, since tokens themselves can put other token triggers on the stack.  Predator's Strike also has the obvious bonus of helping our creatures to dodge lightning bolts, which, when you're a fragile 1/1 wearing an aura, are fairly common.
• Damping Matrix, Naturalize: Since this deck has a very straightforward gameplan, it has room to throw a few monkey wrenches into our opponent's works.  Damping Matrix is a card that will randomly win games against certain opponents, and has the added bonus of not affecting a single card in our deck (take a look!).

Sample, customizable decklist:

Avatar: Rith, the Awakener Land: 23 23 Forest Creatures: 14 4 Treetop Scout 4 Scryb Sprites 2 Llanowar Elves 4 Silhana Ledgewalker

Noncreatures: 23 4 One With Nature 4 Keen Sense 4 Lignify 2 Predator's Strike 2 Naturalize 2 Damping Matrix 4 Nature's Will 1 Harmonize Total: 60 cards

Deck 3. Birds of Paradise



To finish up today's article, we're going to use my all-time favorite avatar, Birds of Paradise.  This avatar is by far the most open-ended in terms of deckbuilding choices.  Every Malfegor avatar deck will probably be doing the same basic thing, but this avatar is virtually limitless.  As such, I'll definitely be returning to this avatar from different angles in future articles.

The Birds avatar is generally at its most gratifying when it's doing more than just playing cards with Sunburst or WUBRG casting costs.  We're trying to be more creative than that!  I like using Birds to complement color-intensive cards — for instance, as with today's deck, Pyrohemia — with synergistic cards outside of that card's color.  That way, you can pull off clever combos that are otherwise impractical, instead of just laying down mindless bombs.

(A quick note about today's decklist: like a lot of the decks I make, this one features a lot of 1-ofs.  This is because a varied decklist will cause varied gameplay, which will increase the number of times you can have fun playing with a single deck.  This is obviously an unfit strategy for tournaments, but this article is about casual vanguard, remember?)

So what nonred cards go well with Pyrohemia?

• Wall of Hope: You're no longer losing life with each Pyrohemia activation.
• Fatal Blow, Mortal Wound, Orzhov Euthanist: Instead of pinging a creature, you are now killing it.  I'm avoiding Death Pits of Rath since we don't want to kill our own creatures — doing that would cause Pyrohemia to die as well!  I do have an Ashling the Pilgrim avatar deck that uses Death Pits of Rath, but I'll save that for a future article.
• Galina's Knight, Opal Guardian: Protection from Red means Protection from Pyrohemia.  And also against a few random cards from our opponents' decks.
• Hunted Phantasm, Hunted Troll: These cards no longer have a drawback.
• Fungusaur, Fungus Sliver: ...will obviously grow large with all the pinging going around.
• Godhead of Awe: ...is pretty funny with Pyrohemia out.

And as for the red piece of the pie:

• Deep-Slumber Titan: ...was probably made with Pyrohemia in mind.  OK, WotC, I'll bite.
• Spitemare: Another no-brainer.  This also has some fun applications even without Pyrohemia in play.
• Varchild's War-Riders: This card has been one of my favorites since Alliances first came out.  I probably don't need to explain its synergies in this deck.
• Pyroclasm, Volcanic Spray: Our backups for when we don't draw a Pyrohemia, or when our Pyrohemia gets disenchanted.  Serum Visions and Beseech the Queen are also great backups.

And a quick note about the land: Like all Birds of Paradise avatar decks, this one makes ample use of nonbasics.  When you can tap them for any color mana, cards that normally tap for colorless (or nothing) are suddenly without drawback.  This particular deck does have some basics in it though, for the benefit of Farseek.  Since our most important spell is 4 mana, we want to have nonfragile acceleration.  The particular nonbasics I've chosen are just ideas, and are in no way mandatory.

Sample, highly customizable decklist:

Avatar: Birds of Paradise Lands: 24 9 Plains 3 Cabal Pit 2 Arena 1 Hall of the Bandit Lord 1 Nivix, Aerie of the Firemind 2 Novijen, Heart of Progress 2 Quicksand 1 Rix Maadi, Dungeon Palace 1 Skarrg, the Rage Pits 1 Stalking Stones 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion Creatures: 15 3 Wall of Hope 2 Galina's Knight 1 Varchild's War-Riders 1 Opal Guardian 1 Hunted Phantasm 1 Orzhov Euthanist 1 Deep-Slumber Titan 1 Spitemare 1 Fungus Sliver 1 Hunted Troll 2 Godhead of Awe

Noncreatures: 21 3 Serum Visions 2 Mortal Wound 1 Lightning Bolt 3 Farseek 1 Pyroclasm 3 Volcanic Spray 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Rending Vines 4 Pyrohemia 2 Beseech the Queen Total: 60 cards

See you next time, and have fun with Vanguard!