After the success of my Theme Deck post – I posted it to /r/MagicTCG and got some real good feedback and heaps of page views – it was clear I’d have to do a follow up. I found it real fun to write up, too, so that’s probably part of it as well. Clearly the obvious sequel was to move onto the Intro Pack era of the game: Shards of Alara through to Eldritch Moon. That is 2008 to 2016 for anyone who doesn’t have an encyclopaedic knowledge of old Magic expansions.
There was a pretty solid pool to choose from this time around. So much so that I was able to stick to just the Intros, leaving Hold the Line and other Event Decks, Clash Packs, or Duel Decks as a potential future entry in this series. It also means I can be stricter with pluralisation (well, and it’s an easy way to bring the list down to a more manageable number) which means you’ll need to make your own judgement about if the aggressive Battle Cries needs the more defensive Battle Cry in it.
Other notable almosts were:
- Repel the Dark vs Repel the Darkness
- Doom Inevitable vs Yidaro, Wandering Monster AKA Godzilla, Doom Inevitable
- Call of Blood vs Call for Blood
- Dead Ahead vs DeadHead
- Life for Death vs Life // Death
I’d have probably stretched for the last one, if they had been in the right colours. Life for Death doesn’t feel like a Red/White deck. White/Black: sure. But Black/Green which would match both sides of the split card… that’s the most appropriate. Oh well. It was from New Phyrexia and was a pretty cool looking deck: probably one of the first from that block that I’d focus on building I think.
Alright. Onto it.
Honourable Mention — Desperate Stand
The deck is White and Black while the card is White and Red. The Strive cost means that splashing a mountain or two is probably not worth it, even with Evolving Wilds already in the list. With Zendikar being all about lands no doubt there’d have been other options and it could have been done… but the deck doesn’t really want the effect. While the card could be used defensively, it’s going to be far better if you’re playing aggressively. This deck is not doing that: it wants to stall, and then stall some more, until it eventually bleeds it’s opponent out 1 or 2 life at a time.
10 — Price of Glory
Yeah, it’s a red card. Yeah, the deck is black and white. There’s a strangely high representation of that colour combination in these decks. I’ll admit this card got this position mainly because I wasn’t aware of it and find it quite cool. A pretty unsubtle anti control deck sideboard card, but it has a certain charm. The deck itself is another “let’s just throw lots of lifelink creatures together and call it a day”. Sadly this theme was one they tended to reuse quite a bit for WB precons. But given that you’re a mindrangey creature deck maybe this effect could be a decent tempo play if you were on the beatdown? Would make your opponent have to weigh up defensive combat tricks when you piled in. Not worth splashing for, but I kinda want to pick up a playset and find something to do with them.
9 — Hunting Pack
Hunting Pack is a green card. Hunting Pack is a green based deck. So far, so good. But it’s doing an Elf tribal thing, and even given Elves having a reputation for ramping this particular build isn’t really doing that. The card is just too expensive and realistically the only time you’re getting more than one beast is up to your opponent. There’s time where this could mean some pretty heavy surprise blockers making for a bit of a blow out… I think it’s either going to be a win more card, or if things aren’t going well for you then you’ll probably die one land short from being able to cast it.
8 — Rapid Fire
Pounding the world like a battering ram
Forging the furnace for the final grand slam
Chopping away at the source soon the course will be gone
Cleaving a trail of destruction that’s second to none!
Good combat tricks are very welcome in a red and white deck with lots of small fast creatures… but this sadly is not one of them. First strike is great, but rampage seldomly does much. At half the cost without the timing restriction it could be an interesting “gotcha”, but realistically this would still be too narrow and situational.
Actually: compare this with Desperate Stand. This deck probably would be happy to play that card.
7 — Concerted Effort
Concerted Effort is a cool card, and pretty thematically appropriate for the deck too. It’s not specifically an Ally deck – that was Desperate Stand – but includes a few of them. Notably one of the rares, Veteran Warleader, which can rely on an Ally granting it First Strike, Trample or Vigilance. But that’s the only card in the deck which has those keywords, and that’s conditional on tapping another creature. The rest of the deck is a fairly unusual melange of Skies and +1/+1 counters. The latter is something which very much is a default strategy for Green White now, but it’s not often that you get such a heavy component of Flying creatures in that combination. Concentrated Effort, the card, would be almost guaranteed to give all your other creatures flying every time you played it… but the deck composition is already as such it’d probably be more impactful to simply play another flying creature.
6 — Breath of Fire
Even though it costs double Shock and does half as much I’d say that most red Intro Packs could still probably find space for Breath of Fire. Even a deck which already plays 3 Lightning Bolts. I’d cut one of the bigger, less impactful, creatures or even the Lava Axes in this situation.
5 — Brute Force
Brute Force is a colourshifted Giant Growth, which Brute Force already includes two copies of. I guess the question then becomes does the deck want this effect in red or green? Or a split to keep people guessing? More than 4 copies? Probably not. But it’s good enough for this silly little exercise.
4 — Feast of Flesh
I’m probably overrating Feast of Flesh I think. The card is an interesting Kindle variant, one damage for the first copy isn’t fantastic, but it only costs one mana and gives you one life too. Obviously each extra copy is that much better. The deck is chock full of removal which all has different requirements, and Feast of Flesh fits in quite nicely. With the whole vibe of the Phyrexians just systematically taking over Mirrodin, growing exponentially in strength. So this is a flavour pick? Yeah, that’s clearly it.
3 — Swift Justice
Swift Justice is a pretty clear upgrade for Skillful Lunge in Swift Justice. Well, not strictly so because you’re only getting +1/+0 and first strike rather than +2/+0. But at only one white mana and with the added lifelink it’s a change I’d be happy to make.
2 — Mob Rule
M13’s Intro Packs were essentially all mono colour, with ever so slight a splash. Mob Rule was an aggressive Red deck with a three mana green instant that gave a creature deathtouch until EOT for some reason. Though, to be fair, the blue deck had a great red splash for three copies of Searing Spear. The curse of symmetry perhaps? The other 4 decks seemed to gain a bit more for their splashes than this did. But notably this was the deck which introduced Krenko, which has been an all star choice for a Goblin Commander ever since. He’s essentially doing much the same in this deck, even though it’s not a proper tribal strategy. It is certainly a strategy that Mob Rule would make a good finisher for however. It doesn’t matter if you take the big creatures or little creatures: whatever leaves them with the least amount of blockers so you can push through that last bit of damage.
1 — Relentless Dead
Relentless Dead is a Zombie deck. Relentless Dead is a Zombie. As easy as that.
While the deck operates more on a token generating and flashback type axis, there’s enough other things going on for the card to take advantage of. The self-mill aspect which was a big part of Innistrad and Dark Ascension, for example, which dumps things into the graveyard that you can bring directly into play. The main thing Relentless Dead is missing is a way to repeatedly and reliably sacrifice Relentless Dead to reuse it’s death triggers. But it’s such a pushed creature anyway even just dropping in turn two and attacking each turn with it is still good enough. Especially if you can follow it with a Diregraf Captain.
So there we go. This is all very arbitrary and no doubt you could justify a very different order than what I’ve done. Or that Unlikely Alliance should have definitely been included. Fight me about this, I dare you!
Beats and Skies 
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