Freezing Point: 9/32 - Boros
Hello everyone, and welcome to the seventh installment of Freezing Point! In this series I'm going to brew a 75% EDH deck of each color combination from the ground up. The intended meta for these will be a casual meta, though while not built competitively they will be spiked as hard as possible. You may be confused seeing some pricier cards in here like Imperial Seal and Mishra's Workshop but if those help the particular deck they're in then so be it. Really expensive cards supporting really bad strategies. It's like communism. You have good intentions but it never works out well.
The title of the series is good and all, but what does it mean or stand for? Well, if you look at the number of possible color identities for decks in Magic then you will notice that there are 32 (one colorless, five single-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five four-color, and one five-color). I wanted a title that could represent that idea. I wanted to go with calling the series 25 but some websites wouldn't display the superscript properly. Instead of that, I chose Freezing Point as the name as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to fit well.
While I haven't really ever wanted to be one of those people that had one of each color combination of EDH decks I did get inspired to brew them. I've looked at a lot of lists in my time and I usually enjoy seeing other people's established works and then working off that, either by improving it or making it suit my own style. I've learned a lot about EDH in recent history and decided that I would at least like to make each color combination of deck so that I have one that I can say is my deck and is not just 'the one that I play.'
With that being said, let's get into the deck. (complete list at end of the article)
What Boros does have though is really good hate cards. If you look at modern decks white especially is said to have the best sideboarding plans in the format because of the strong hate pieces available to it. The issue though is that people don't feel like playing 'mean' cards. They're afraid of being 'that guy' in their game. I have two main thoughts on this point. First off, I don't care. Wizards made these cards and they haven't been banned so they're all fair game. If someone didn't want their lands destroyed, for example, then they should counter or otherwise get rid of the spell or card threatening to do so.
Second, people will get better milage out of playing to the strengths of their colors. I don't try to play Grixis tokens or Rakdos life gain or Selesnya control. It just doesn't work. Each color of the pie has strengths and weakness. Now, if you're able to include some cards that help to mitigate drawbacks then that's great and can go amazingly for you, but I don't recommend trying to build around said drawbacks.
Free lesson for you there. Anyway, Boros is good at hate. And hate we shall.
I've chosen Anya as the general for this deck, almost with little contest. She has a great ability and scales well with how many sad opponents you have. She tends to only come down late game or at least when you feel she'll be the safest.
In the following sections, I'll break down what categories each of the cards fall into and see what they do for the overall strategy and gamelan.
Taking a look at our commander, we see that she has flying and she has two abilities that are active when one or more of our opponents are at 20 or less life (in this case), one of which scales. What can we include that will play well with these abilities? Cards that give all opponents equal opportunity to be hurt by them come to mind, like Manabarbs and Heartless Hidetsugu. We also notice that if we have three opponents who are all at 20 or less life we can two-shot someone, provided they don't die from life loss otherwise.
What risks do we encounter with this strategy? Lots of life gain and exiling effects. While we can't really stop mass exile effects we can stop targeted exile with various sets of boots. We can also prevent life gain with Leyline of Punishment-type effects. I personally am not worried about life gain with my meta, though those types of effects are ready in the sideboard. Based on how I usually see EDH games go I don't really see many (mass) exiling effects so I feel pretty safe there.
We have a flying, indestructible, merciless angel at the head of our merciless deck. Seems fitting enough. Shall we talk about the hate? Let's talk about the hate.
As I mentioned before, one drawback that Boros has is the lack of good card draw. One thing that red does have is wheels with the namesake Wheel of Fortune. Blue has excellent options too but is excluded here. We also have decent smaller draw spells like Tormenting Voice and Faithless Looting. Mind's Eye is a decent value engine for what we have going on here since we are intentionally drawing the game out. Alhammarret's Archive further amplifies our draw power.
We're not so much affected by board wipes because of our commander's indestructibility and our opponents sadness so they are usually welcome. We even have ways to destroy lands, so cards like Sun Titan and Crucible of Worlds are there to set us back up. I've also included Faith's Reward because board wipes should be made one-sided too if possible! We also have a couple pieces of spot removal with Chaos Warp and Swords to Plowshares. We also have a handful of rocks to help keep us ahead and to draw us a few cards if need be.
All cards owned and all rights reserved by Wizards of the Coast. I'm just some nerd who spent too much time staring at them.
The title of the series is good and all, but what does it mean or stand for? Well, if you look at the number of possible color identities for decks in Magic then you will notice that there are 32 (one colorless, five single-color, ten two-color, ten three-color, five four-color, and one five-color). I wanted a title that could represent that idea. I wanted to go with calling the series 25 but some websites wouldn't display the superscript properly. Instead of that, I chose Freezing Point as the name as water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It seems to fit well.
While I haven't really ever wanted to be one of those people that had one of each color combination of EDH decks I did get inspired to brew them. I've looked at a lot of lists in my time and I usually enjoy seeing other people's established works and then working off that, either by improving it or making it suit my own style. I've learned a lot about EDH in recent history and decided that I would at least like to make each color combination of deck so that I have one that I can say is my deck and is not just 'the one that I play.'
With that being said, let's get into the deck. (complete list at end of the article)
Overview
If you're here right now reading this article you've most likely been around EDH a bit. If you've been around EDH a bit you most likely know that Boros is generally looked at as one of the worst color combinations, or at least one of the least popular. One reason for this is because of the lack of being able to get good card advantage like the other the colors can.What Boros does have though is really good hate cards. If you look at modern decks white especially is said to have the best sideboarding plans in the format because of the strong hate pieces available to it. The issue though is that people don't feel like playing 'mean' cards. They're afraid of being 'that guy' in their game. I have two main thoughts on this point. First off, I don't care. Wizards made these cards and they haven't been banned so they're all fair game. If someone didn't want their lands destroyed, for example, then they should counter or otherwise get rid of the spell or card threatening to do so.Second, people will get better milage out of playing to the strengths of their colors. I don't try to play Grixis tokens or Rakdos life gain or Selesnya control. It just doesn't work. Each color of the pie has strengths and weakness. Now, if you're able to include some cards that help to mitigate drawbacks then that's great and can go amazingly for you, but I don't recommend trying to build around said drawbacks.
Free lesson for you there. Anyway, Boros is good at hate. And hate we shall.
I've chosen Anya as the general for this deck, almost with little contest. She has a great ability and scales well with how many sad opponents you have. She tends to only come down late game or at least when you feel she'll be the safest.
In the following sections, I'll break down what categories each of the cards fall into and see what they do for the overall strategy and gamelan.
Commander
Taking a look at our commander, we see that she has flying and she has two abilities that are active when one or more of our opponents are at 20 or less life (in this case), one of which scales. What can we include that will play well with these abilities? Cards that give all opponents equal opportunity to be hurt by them come to mind, like Manabarbs and Heartless Hidetsugu. We also notice that if we have three opponents who are all at 20 or less life we can two-shot someone, provided they don't die from life loss otherwise.What risks do we encounter with this strategy? Lots of life gain and exiling effects. While we can't really stop mass exile effects we can stop targeted exile with various sets of boots. We can also prevent life gain with Leyline of Punishment-type effects. I personally am not worried about life gain with my meta, though those types of effects are ready in the sideboard. Based on how I usually see EDH games go I don't really see many (mass) exiling effects so I feel pretty safe there.
We have a flying, indestructible, merciless angel at the head of our merciless deck. Seems fitting enough. Shall we talk about the hate? Let's talk about the hate.
Stax and incidental damage
We're going to hate on as many things as possible. We have Blood Moon and it's magus to hate on nearly every deck, even just a little bit. We prevent creatures from doing things as they enter and once they are out. We limit people's searching capabilities, make things come into play tapped, and make them cost most. If only we were playing blue; that way, our opponents tears could make our lands stronger.
Nearly anything our opponents do, we have a way to make them take damage for that. Have a land enter the battlefield? That's a shock. Have a creature enter the battlefield? That's a shock. Cast any spell what so ever? That's a shock. Feel like taking half of their life away? That's not a shock but it's still pretty awesome.
This may be a good time to talk about what you should be thinking about when playing and building a stax deck. Typically what you should always do is look for a good way to break parity. What does that mean? When you play a card that affects the whole table, you need to find a way to break out from under that effect; for example, if you make it so permanents don't untap you need to find a way to consistently make your permanents untap. Simple.
So how do we break parity in this deck? The first thing we do is play cards that primarily only interact with our opponents. So then what about the ones that affect us? We just suck it up. "But Magnivore, how is that viable?!" Well you see, since everyone is in pain and can't do anything and is bleeding constantly, we come in with our flying beating machine and take people out.
Draw and beatdown
As I mentioned before, one drawback that Boros has is the lack of good card draw. One thing that red does have is wheels with the namesake Wheel of Fortune. Blue has excellent options too but is excluded here. We also have decent smaller draw spells like Tormenting Voice and Faithless Looting. Mind's Eye is a decent value engine for what we have going on here since we are intentionally drawing the game out. Alhammarret's Archive further amplifies our draw power.
We have only a slight beatdown plan aside from Anya. Gisela helps to increase the beats on our opponents' faces and help to decrease the beats on our face. I've put in Sword of Fire and Ice as my equipment of choice for it's protection and draw capabilities, though Sword of War and Peace may be better for protection. You should make that call depending on what you see at your table.
I also have Helm of Obedience in here to kill off players, because sometimes you just need to put the poor thing out of it's misery for its own sake.
Removal and rocks
We're not so much affected by board wipes because of our commander's indestructibility and our opponents sadness so they are usually welcome. We even have ways to destroy lands, so cards like Sun Titan and Crucible of Worlds are there to set us back up. I've also included Faith's Reward because board wipes should be made one-sided too if possible! We also have a couple pieces of spot removal with Chaos Warp and Swords to Plowshares. We also have a handful of rocks to help keep us ahead and to draw us a few cards if need be.Conclusion
And that's the deck! Click on the word 'deck' in the previous sentence to be taken to the full deck list. Not every deck is super deep or has an intricate game plan behind it. The only play considerations I feel the need to mention are these. First, like I said before there is a little bit of a 'that guy' stigma behind playing decks like this. If your group is fine with it, or you're looking to find a new group then play this. Besides, if people really want to complain then they can be introduced to a real stax deck, whereas this is more of that off-brand faux stax decks.
Second, sequencing is very important here. Do you play a Blood Moon effect first or a searching restriction effect? Who should you attack first and why? Is it safe to play my commander right now or not? Control in general is a very difficult archetype to play because you need to be able to accurately predict what your opponents will, or can, do and when.
There you go, another little lesson for you! Please keep these things in mind as you progress through your Magic careers, wherever that may take you. Let me know of any words you have to say regarding this series, as I always look forward to hearing them. Be on the hunt for the next article of Freezing Point!
All cards owned and all rights reserved by Wizards of the Coast. I'm just some nerd who spent too much time staring at them.
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