It has only been a week but the vanguard players like myself, are already enjoying the new avatars; especially the new cute lady Braids(mainly because it is easier to get than Mirri, lol!). Cute she is, but don't be fooled by the looks of her; she is a typical blue mage with full of trickery. And she cheats. She really does. First of all let's look at the avatar.

As I said, during the last week, many players were playing this new avatar and I saw many different deck types that were abusing this avatar's abilities. Many of them were only using the last ability of it; the creature part. People were putting into play Platinum Angel or Angel of Despair or Akroma, Angel of Wrath or even bigger creatures like Darksteel Colossus one after another and for a mere cost of 4! Ridiculous isn't it?

Some other players were playing mono black discard decks. During early game they cast spells like Duress, Ravenous Rats and/or Stupor. And just when I expect something harmonious with the whole discard theme, guess what happens? They put into play Darksteel Colossus! My God! Was it all for that?

Anyway...

I never was a Timmy and never ever will be and I never wanted to play Darksteel Colossus so I leave that Timmy part to... well... to Timmies.

So I said "Let's make something out of this avatar" and started thinking. The artifact part of the avatar is obviously Johnny. There had to be a way to make it work and put into play some interesting artifacts that interact with each other and do something awesome. And after 2 days of thinking and researching, I ended up with a balanced mixture of creatures and artifacts. Here's the list;

Let's get deeper a bit. First of all this deck is versatile. It has 2 ways of playing and this mainly depends on your opponent's deck/avatar/way of playing. If you are playing against a slow deck, don't even think of putting all those artifacts you have into play; you just play plain aggro. Bogardan Hellkite or Bringer of the Blue Dawn or even Grozoth(although it is not put into deck for aggro purposes) will do the job. In a few turns the game's over.

But that is the rare case... 

Sometimes(actually almost always),  before playing your tricks, you feel the (heavy) pressure of your opponent's creatures and this is when Kindle the Carnage becomes your saviour. There are really some crazy aggro decks out in the "jungle of vanguard" and you need to protect yourself from those savage predators!

Normally, your first goal is to feel "safe".  Darksteel Forge along with Mycosynth Lattice is the way to feel safe when playing this deck. If you have those two artifacts in front of you, it means that your permanents are untouchable. But of course not always you start the game with those two cards in hand, so you have to tutor for them. And this is the reason Grozoth is in the deck. It is your tutor card for your key cards.

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and/or

and/or

During some games, my opponent immediately conceded when I put into play Grozoth through my avatar and fetch 2 Bringer of the Blue Dawn, 1 Blazing Archon and 1 Darksteel Forge. Well, what can I say, he/she was going to lose anyway :).

After you turn all permanents into artifacts(which happens much faster than you think) and  make yours indestructible and sometime in between clear the board via Kindle the Carnage, nothing can stop you.

But please allow me to add insult to the injury...

This card is a joke. I mean it. During many games, I was able to cast it on turn 5(with a "little" help from Gilded Lotus) and the game was over that moment (and once I managed to cast it on turn 4).

One last card I want to talk about is Smash.  This long forgotten and totally useless-looking card turns into a Vindicate while each and every permanent on the board is an artifact! It is even better than Vindicate because it has the same converted mana cost but it is an instant and it allows you to draw a card!

Okay, this is pretty much it. Of course this deck isn't perfect (as nothing is perfect) and there is always room for improvement. The one thing I think is to drop one Grozoth and add one Bringer of the Black Dawn. There were one or two games I lost because I needed a certain card (mostly Kindle the Carnage) and I just couldn't get it via the cards I was drawing with Bringer of the Blue Dawn and defeat was then inevitable. The ability of Bringer of the Black Dawn can help to avoid this situation although this help has a price.

Or you can drop one Obliterate and add one Summoning Station. That was a card I added into the deck in earlier versions but cut it while perfecting the deck. I like focused decks and having 2x of this and that is not something I like. But I still think that one copy of Summoning Station wouldn't hurt.

I don't have a sideboard. I didn't make this deck to play in a tourney or in the tourney room. But it turned out to be much more stronger than I first thought, I must admit that. But if you have a such idea, I can advise you one or two things.

1- There are REALLY extremely fast aggro decks out there. Pyroclasm, Starstorm or even Inflame could be a solution to this problem. Believe me, affinity in vanguard is as bad as it is in normal extended.
2- You may also want to drop the Urza lands to add black mana. This will slow down the deck for sure but in return you will have access to cards like Extirpate, Cabal Therapy, Persecute or Cranial Extraction.
3- If you choose to add black mana into the deck, you can always replace Kindle the Carnage with Damnation.
4- Speaking of the mana base, you can keep the Cloudposts and add 4x Vesuva and then add 8x Swamp. Vesuva can copy your Cloudpost and this way you won't be missing the Urza lands that much.
5- Also against "Graverobbers" you may want to add Tormod's Crypt into your sideboard.

Okay folks. That's it for now. I hope you enjoyed the article and will enjoy this deck as much as I do. 

Take care,
Nafiz ERMAN, a.k.a. Lord Erman