Post FRF Warriors

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Happy Tuesday MTG peeps,

As promised yesterday over on MTG Realm on Tumblr, we will be dropping a post regarding our thoughts for standard format Black / White Warriors.  

If you've been reading the MTG Realm blog for any length of time (apologies to you), you'll know that we have a thingy for weenie and token strategies.  There is nothing quite as satisfying than emptying your hand of low costing critters (sometimes with a pump spell), and turning cards sideways.  One of the very fist decklists we developed was the rather obvious 'build around' pair of 'Chief of the Edge' and 'Chief of the Scale' (the 'Chieves') from Khans of Tarkir.  Unfortunately, we scrapped this not long after in favour of Abzan Midrange and latter, Mardu Tokens.  You can see our article on this from November right here.

We thought that there would be no further goodies in the next set for our original list - second sets sometimes suck lemons - but we were pleasantly surprised.  Fast forward to Fate Reforged previews when Mardu Strike Leader and Brutal Hordechief were previewed.  Yep - we were estatic and wanted to revisit this 'tribe'.  First, let's have a looky-loo at a list :

Orzhov Warriors - Work in Progress by MTG Realm

30 Creatures
4x Mardu woe-Reaper
4x Bloodsoaked Champion
4x Tormented Hero
4x Mardu Shadowspear
4x Battle Brawler
4x Chief of the Edge
4x Mardu Strike Leader
2x Brutal Hordechief

9 Other Spells
3x Bile Blight
3x Pharika's Cure
2x Valorous Stance
1x Return to the Ranks

Strategy
This particular strategy is all about dropping as many early beaters as possible (there are 16 x 1-cmc creatures) to achieve an early game win.  In game two, carefully considered cards in the sideboard are brought in to provide an element of control while attempting to wrap up the game no later than turn five.

The sixteen cards with one converted mana cost are all 2/1, or theoretically a 2/1 in the case of Mardu Shadowspear.  Mardu Woe-Reaper is good against recursion / Whip decklists, and Bloodsoaked will typically always have 'raid' bring it back to the battlefield.

The 2-cmc cards are a bookset of Chief of the Edge (solid 'tribal' pump) and Battlebrawler, which in most games we've tested so far has typically been a 3/2 first striker.

A deckset of Mardu Strike Leader occupies the three slot.  Dropping 2/1 Warrior tokens  is neveer a bad thing - especially when they are potentially 3/1 with Edge Chief. 

Only two Brutal Hordefhief round out the creature side of the list and is meant to provide a route to push the last bit of damage through with either it's static ability or activated one.

For non-creature spells, we've packed light as to not dilute the strategy.  There are 3 Biles and 3 Cures in this list all very relevant to today's metagame where we see loads of goblin tokens (from Goblin Rabblemaster and Hordeling Outburst) as well as Manifest / Morph creatures.

A pair of Valrous Stance is our parachute if the game goes sideways and  one copy of Return to the Ranks serves as our reserve chute to get all our dudes back in the game.

Some Notes
There are a long list of cards we really, really want in this list like Sorin, Solemn Visitor, Mardu Ascendancy, Abzan Ascendancy, Obelisk of Urd, Athreos, God of Passage, Brimaz, etc. - the list goes on.  We cannot take these on, no matter how much we want to, so that our primary stategy is not diluted and our game one is slowed down.

Sideboard
As we've mentioned, this is still a work in progress.  Some considerations we've be having for sideboard includes, but is not limited to, Utter End, Thoughseize, Merciless Executioner, Hero's Downfall, Boon of Erebos, Drown in Sorrow, Sign in Blood, Read the Bones, etc.  All these will have to be considered against what decklists are posting good results in our neighbourhood.


That's it for now, Happy Brewing everyone !  
We'll update you as to how we did at next Friday Night Magic at our local gaming store OMG! Games, here in Barrie.
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