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By: walkerdog, Tyler Walker
May 02 2012 10:03am
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I continued to play WR this week, along with a couple of drafts.  WR seems to be the strongest deck, but has two flaws.  It can be metagamed against extremely effectively by maindecking sideboard cards, and it can epic fail due to mana concerns.  I have tried a few builds, and I can give the pros and cons of the last 8 or so cards.

The core of the deck:

24 lands (4 RW duals of course)

I run 1 Evolving Wilds, and I think it is fine, but I don't blame you for cutting it.  The split is generally 12 Plains, 8 Mountains, 4 Duals.

Then:

4 Champion of the Parish
4 Doomed Traveler
4 Brimstone Volley
4 Hellrider
3 (Sometimes two or four, but I will say three on average) Devil's Play

That puts us up to 43 cards.

Let's start at the one-drops: Champion and Doomed Traveler are basically must-haves. Champion has to be in the deck (I think at least, and everyone seems to agree) as an overwhelming threat that can shred people that keep hands without 1CC removal. Doomed Traveler is much weaker, but complements the Champion while providing insurance against sweepers and removal in general. There are two other (very uncommon) options for the maindeck. Selfless Cathar and Stromkirk Noble are not the best cards, but you could go 1-drop heavy; The Noble is the far better card which isn't the best in the deck because with the Plains-tilted mana-base you will have a hard time getting him down on turn one, and he is just outclassed later on. The Cathar is weaker but pumps multiple creatures (maybe the token build?) and the Champion.  Geistflame is poor burn that really beats up on this deck; you may want some maindeck, but I am not a fan.  At the same time it is pretty sick in the sideboard...

I choose to stick with the staple one-drops: Champion and Traveler. Two drops are a mess.

There is a necessary amount of two-drops, but there are five viable options, and generally you just want ~8 twos.  You can play with Cloistered Youth, Elite Inquisitor, Gather the Townsfolk, Loyal Cathar, and Thalia, with honorable mention going to Mikaeus, the Lunarch. In the games I have played with all of these cards, I feel that I would order them as I did above in terms of usefulness.  This is because the Youth and the Inquisitor have the most effect on a game by themselves.  Then Gather does some silly things with Champion and Hellrider, but tends to underwhelm when you don't have those cards, while the Youth and Inquisitor can win even without the Champion or Hellrider.  Loyal Cathar is fantastic vs control decks, but between his mana cost and the relatively low power-level of the card against aggro and midrange, he isn't amazing.  Thalia is fine if you're playing slow durdly decks all day, but this deck already tends to get beat up by Geistflame, so why add to the pain?  Mikaeus is a love or hate card; I dropped him right away, but I know some people play 2-3 copies; however, I win against those decks.
 

With your choice of 8 2-drops, we're at 51 cards.  If you went with more 1 and 2-drops, depending on the other cards we talk about later, you might be able to shave off one land and go down to 23 lands.  Three-drops are where it becomes a little more cut-and-dry.  Brimstone Volley is rad.  I love it.  Midnight Haunting is much weaker, but I feel it is a necessary evil.  RW is a deck that doesn't have a ton of evasion, so when you can play a card that beats blocking and helps out Hellrider, you generally do it.  Fiend Hunter is my final three-drop of choice.  It kills (sort of) creatures, pumps Champion, and works fine with Hellrider.  Most of the other three-drops you'd consider are more sideboard options.

 Let's stop here for a moment.  If one were to cut the double-White casting cards, or most of them at least, you could tilt the mana-base slightly more Mountain-heavy, say, 9 Mountains, 11 Plains, and four duals.  This would give you a stronger support for Hellrider, which gives you even more incentive to run token-friendly cards (say Gather, which... isn't WW as a two-drop).  The three-drops will affect this too; if you run Fiend Hunter, you need the mana to hit him regularly, so he may be worth dropping from the deck. 

Moving into four-drop country, our options begin to narrow: Hellrider is the card.  He is just everything.  He is basically a 1-card combo with any creatures you have in play.  Instigator Gang is a pretty good option as a fifth Hellrider, even though he's a little weak compared to ol' HR Attack.  The four-drops seem to end here.

Five-drops are an interesting area.  Devil's Play is a fun card, but you have to treat it like a five-drop.  So when you count Devil's Play, and then cards like Geist-Honored Monk (Which is the five-drop the deck runs most frequently), you really don't want to go above four total at 24 lands.  If a man starts packing 5+ five-drops, he may want to move up to 25, or more, lands.  A woman probably already has 25 lands because they will be more disciplined than us guys and have a better deck if they want to put in the effort.

I run the three Devil's Play along with one Monk.  I'm not saying this is right, but it feels pretty good; there is nothing worse than seeing TWO Monks in your opening hand.  Except for seeing three I suppose.  Or four.  This brings us to our deck-building plan.  Aside from the core of the deck listed above, I can take this deck in three directions.  There is the option to go with an abundance of cheap drops (say, 10 1-drops, 12 2-drops, and 2-3 five-drops, and 23 lands.), to go with a lot of big guys (with more land and quite a few five-drops), or to go token-heavy.  You can also just stay fairly vanilla.  Tokens and Vanilla would be my picks as the most powerful, but Tokens tends to fold a little harder to sweepers which is why I've stayed with Vanilla during most of my matches with the deck.  Let me know how you've played the deck!

I have four configurations for your perusal here.  I haven't changed the sideboard on them because I'm pretty satisfied with where I'm at for boarding, but we'll go over that next!

 


I wouldn't run the above build, but I've seen similar builds succeed.  Here is the opposite of that!

 


I like the next deck, but I'm not sure if it is a great idea against sweepers.

 


Here is where I am, although in writing this article I'm having a hard time not talking myself back into some tokeny-goodness!

 

 

Sideboarding:

You have a lot of sideboard options, but I recommend this sideboard, at least roughly. Slayer is a great card, although the printing of Huntmaster of the Fells harmed him quite a bit.  Butcher's Cleaver is a solid aggro mirror option.  It's not going to win the game for you, but it can be better than something like Champion, for example, since the mirror will generally have plenty of Geistflame and Fiend Hunter and such to blow him away before he can do much.

Falkenrath Marauders are a very metal card.  Also, they rock against control decks.  UGBx decks sometimes just fold to this dude.  I have had a few games where I faced opponents who played removal for the first couple turns, then Witchbane Orb on turn four, followed by Curse of Death's Hold on turn five to wipe my team.  My answer was Marauders, who grew to a 3/3.  He had Dead Weight for them.  I attacked again, and then he just died.  He ended the game with two Victim of the Night in his hand (Blankssssssssssss) and a couple of Tragic Slip/Dead Weight.  I'm not saying that you have to run them.  I'm saying you have to run them if you're metal. 

The Orb, the Cage, and the Nevermore are pretty sweet against the control/combo decks.  Many will side in something like one Ancient Grudge, or two Naturalize against you, but playing a few of these cards is really hard for them to overcome.  You can play Nevermore naming Ancient Grudge with an Orb in play (good game if they are a burn deck as a finisher), or you can play it naming Act when you have a full board.  There is a lot of pretty sweet interactions that one can access with these cards, furthermore, the mixture of artifact and enchantment is harsh for opponents trying to guess right.

Geistflame is another mirror card.  It is for Champions and tokens.  It's not perfect, but in combination with the Cleaver, you get a little better matchup than you do with your maindeck cards like Devil's Play.

Matchups:

The Mirror:

The mirror is very frequently.  The only real "tech" that I have come up with for playing is to try to land the second Hellrider by leaving your mana open and killing their Hellrider on their turn, then untapping and playing yours on your turn.  Other than that, it's a pretty random matchup.  Side in Geistflames and Cleavers.  Side out a mixture of Devil's Play and Champions (if you're on the draw, if you're on the play, Midnight Haunting).

+3 Geistflame, +2 Cleaver, -2 Devil's Play, -3 Champion/Midnight Haunting

UGBx Control Decks:
Red is the key here.  If they don't have it, you don't have to worry about Blasphemous Act and Huntmaster!  It's much easier that way.  Either way, flood the board with 2 cards worth of threats, then sit back on Midnight Haunting and Brimstone Volley.  Add threats as they pick them off and Volley him for five whenever you can without running out of the threats. You want to side out cards that are useless (a.e. Devil's Play and some token producers) for good cards against him.  You take out some of your burn and your 1/1s because the control players love to slam an Orb/Curse back-to-back and try to blow you out.  If they do, your sideboarded Marauders, Orb (break their Curse!), and Nevermore (generally naming either a wincon for them, such as Garruk) or naming Ancient Grudge (if you have 2 artifacts out that they can't beat) will usually lay a beating.  After boarding, play out threats, get in what burn you can, and grind it out with your sideboard cards.

If they are using Red, it is just much harder.  They have access to Act, Huntmaster, and Devil's Play now, and probably will be very hard to beat.  Mull for fast hands and hope that you can overwhelm them (or that their mana craps the bed).

+1 Marauder, +2 Orb + 2 Nevermore +2 Cage, -3 Fiend Hunter, -2 Devil's Play, and -2 1/1s of some sort.

UGx Dredge builds
These decks play similarly (but less removal-heavy) to the UBRG decks from above.  They have bigger threats, less removal, and gain more life.  You can flood the board with less risk, although they do occasionally have Act, so be careful!  Other than that, kill their mana-men, and let their other guys live if you can afford to.  Side in some Nevermore if they have Act, and Cages

 +2 Nevermore (vs Red), + 2 Cage, -1 Monk, -2 Devil's Play, -1 Fiend Hunter

These are the main decks you will see.  I hope I've answered all the questions you might have about block RW Humans up til this point.  I feel that it is probably the best deck (or nearly) and that it is a serious threat in any DE/2man/Pro Tour.  Good luck, and tell me about your block experience!

4 Comments

Rally the Peasants by PHahn at Wed, 05/02/2012 - 11:46
PHahn's picture
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If you're running RW tokens, Rally the Peasants is a very, very good card to put in it. I'd go as far as to say maybe over Devil's Play. I think RW Humans is about to get very good with the addition of Cavern of Souls and Slayer's Stronghold.

Slayer's Stronghold will be a by walkerdog at Wed, 05/02/2012 - 14:03
walkerdog's picture

Slayer's Stronghold will be a GREAT addition and allow the deck to be more threatening while still running more lands. I'm pumped for it! Cavern will be fine, but won't support token-heavy builds quite as much.

Ive always been a fan of by Paul Leicht at Wed, 05/02/2012 - 12:44
Paul Leicht's picture

Ive always been a fan of boros. No love for blasphemous act?

It is all about winning baby. by Moryn at Fri, 11/29/2013 - 21:46
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It is all about winning baby. Everybody loves winners. - Phillip Elden