Magic 2011: Blades of Victory Review (Part 2 of 2)
Welcome back to our kickoff review of the Magic 2011 Intro Packs! For those unaware, Wizards heeded the outcry from the community and has reinstated the 60-card deck Intro Pack, complete with booster, rather than the somewhat short-lived 41-card model. This means, of course, that you will be seeing your premium foil rare a bit less often (as well as any other singletons), but that by adding duplicate cards the overall consistency of the deck should remain about the same (for example, the Breath of Fire deck packs in three Lightning Bolts… chances are, you can rely upon drawing at least one in a game).
To start us off, we took a look at Blades of Victory, a White Weenie deck with a twist of Black thrown in for removal. Despite a few misgivings in card selection, it had a solid look about it, and to test it out I went up against the Sam-piloted Stampede of Beasts deck. How did it do?
Game One
On the play, I make my first mistake of the game not shipping my hand, instead keeping one with perhaps one Land too many to start off with. Sam gets out early with a turn 2 Sylvan Ranger, which replaces itself in her hand with a land. My turn 3 Palace Guard looms large to hold back this colossal 1/1 threat, and even the Sacred Wolf she answers with is no match for the mighty 1/4.
Although seemingly mana-flooded (I would not miss a land drop for the entire 10-turn game), I am able to get a potent body out on turn 5 with a Serra Angel. While Sam used turn 4 to Cultivate, on 5 she drops a Llanowar Elves and Prized Unicorn. The Elves are mana ramp- nothing I can really do about that- but the Unicorn troubles me. With the dismal situation with my hand after all these land draws, I know I need to protect what little I manage to get out. The Angel’s demise is but a Giant Growth away, as she can do nothing to avoid blocking that Unicorn, so on turn 6 I swallow hard and Pacify it. The Angel draws first blood for 4, and we’re off.
Sam’s turn 6 gets a little more robust- another Llanowar Elves, paired this time with a Garruk’s Packleader. Next turn I Mind Rot her (she throws away a Runeclaw Bear and, somewhat concerningly, a Giant Spider), leaving two cards in hand. One of them is a Protean Hydra, which she elects to play as a 7/7. I sense danger starting to mount.
I attack with the Angel a third time on turn 8 (Sam’s now down to 8), but Sam topdecks a Chandra’s Outrage and burns it out of the sky. She swings in with the Hydra and Packleader, and I chump with the Palace Guard, taking some Trample damage in the process.
I draw my card on turn 9, sigh, and pass the turn. Siezing the opportunity, Sam drops Overwhelming Stampede and comes in for the alpha strike.
A quick aside on the hideousness of that card. Although for simplicity’s sake I write that we ‘roll’ to see who gets to choose to play or draw first, we actually already have it predetermined before the first game. When starting a playtest session, we play a warm-up game (we call it a ‘friendly’) which doesn’t get recorded (and for which we do, in fact, roll). Loser then gets the luxury of choice for the first of three ‘official’ games.
In our friendly game prior to this one, Sam had a Duskdale Wurm in play, along with a few other gadabouts and hangers-on. Although it looked like I might be able to pull the game off, Sam sealed the deal by Giant Growthing her 7/7 Wurm, then casting the Stampede. As my ragtag army looked downfield and saw 90-power’s worth of beating enter the red zone (all of her creatures gained +10/+10 and Trample), I can only imagine they soiled themselves as the cause was lost between a thunderous trampling of hooves and claws. The card is a monster, be warned.
This time, I cackle in triumph- I had just drawn a Safe Passage, and narrowly avoid a second hideous beating. But it’s a token victory, for having no answer to her next strike I can only concede.
Game Two
The next match immediately looks more promising, as I open with an Infantry Veteran then drop another Palace Guard on turn 3. Sam plays a turn 2 Runeclaw Bear, and we begin trading attacks (using the Veteran to pump up the Guard means that Sam cannot profitably trade, and she realises this). Turn 4 sees Sam with another Prized Unicorn, and a Spined Wurm on the turn following.
I have answers in my hand, though, in the form of a Doom Blade and a Pacifism. In a move that would come to haunt me, I drop the slower of the two on the Wurm to neutralise it, saving the Blade for later. We’re still whittling each other down, but when her Unicorn and Bear are joined by a Giant Spider on turn 6, I call and end to ground operations and play a timely turn 7 Serra Angel.
Sam’s response is devastating. She casts Fling, and opts to sacrifice the Pacified Wurm, smoking the Angel. The Doom Blade in my hand is small consolation (and indeed, is shortly burned to kill her thrun 8 Yavimaya Wurm). It was a backbreaking play, and having passed midgame and into endgame with no appreciable threat, Sam’s able to get there with a couple profitable attacks and closes with a perfectly-timed Lava Axe.
Game Three
Third time looks to be the charm, as I ship my first hand having learned the lessons of the first two games (although now as bad as the first game, I certainly drew into more land than I would have liked in the second). My gambit is rewarded with a delicious grip, including the deck’s actual “combo” of Ajani’s Pridemate and Mantra. What luck!
The Pridemate comes down on the second turn, followed by the Mantra. Sam, seeing the link, breaks it with Back to Nature before I’m able to gain any life, but I’m still carrying a ton of momentum. While Sam still hasn’t played a critter by turn 4, I drop down a White Knight and the War Priest of Thune. By now I’ve figured out that Sam’s deck has little to no enchantments in it, so no need to hang on to the Priest as I have before.
Things seem to be going my way, and moreso on turn turn 5 when I come in with the Knight, the Priest, and the Soldier (sounds like a joke, eh?). Her freshly-summoned Giant Spider opts to block my first-striker, a fatal mistake when I respond with Mighty Leap. Sam’s down to 12 life.
Sam replaces the Giant Spider on her next turn, and I cast Stabbing Pain to take it out of commission. It’s early to say, but I have a good feeling about that card- it’s a surprising amount of versatility packed into a 1-drop (pinger/pest kill spell, combat trick, and blocker removal, all in one). The Spider can only watch as my three amigos rush by to cut Sam in half to 6. I then drop a Warlord’s Axe and pass turn.
Sam casts Act of Treason on the Pridemate to get in for token damage (I’m down to 18), but she’s running out of tricks. I equip the Axe to my Knight, go all in, and that’s the end of the Spider. Sam’s down to 2. A last-ditch Awakener Druid gives Sam two blockers, but at 2 life she’d need one more to survive the round. She doesn’t get it.
Lessons Learned
I had some fun playing Blades, but learned a lot at the same time. I don’t typically pilot Weenie/Swarm decks (my preferred model is Grixis Control, despite its current weaknesses in Standard), and while a four-land hand is typically just fine in my personal deck, it’s nearly a death sentence in Weenie/Swarm. You just run out of gas too quickly, and are playing from the topdeck way too early.
Add on top of that the natural inefficiency of Blades of Victory. Cards like Safe Passage, Mind Rot, Mighty Leap, and most assuredly the dreadful Palace Guard (who would be soooo much better as a 2/3), all dilute the threat density of the deck. I steamrolled Sam in the third game because Blades performed exactly as it is intended to- an early swarm of attackers supported by some spells to get them through. Too many combat tricks, too much fat over meat, and you’re going to have a higher occurrence rate of suboptimal draws.
This means when piloting Blades, your most important play of the game might be the one you make before the game even starts- mulligan aggressively! A strong grip of six will trump a mediocre one of seven almost every time (and given the strength of the third game, I might even have been able to get there with an opening hand of 5). An opening hand of two land- drawing into a third one by turn 3- is probably the best start this deck can make.
In Summation
If this is what’s in store for M11, I’m sold already. Sure it isn’t the best White Weenie deck you’ll ever see- it has it’s usual share of filler- but it’s not meant to be balanced against Standard, but rather the other four Intro Packs. These decks are showcases, not world-beaters, and Blades of Victory is an excellent place to start if you have designs of tuning a solid White Weenie deck of your own. Add into that a very nice rare selection (Angelic Arbiter, Vengeful Archon), and this deck is an easy buy. While M10 was widely heralded as a groundbreaking core set and helped revitalise the game in its time, its theme decks were- let’s face it- somewhat lacklustre. M11 might well be the real deal.
Final Grade: 4.5/5.0
Magic 2011: Blades of Victory (Part 1 of 2)
Although you’d have to go as far back as Eventide’s Life Drain to find a White/Black preconstructed deck (Shards and Conflux would blend the two with Blue for Esper decks), Blades of Victory seems to like to pretend it’s a White Weenie deck with a “dark little secret.” The back-of-the-box blurb exhorts you to “command an army of knights and soldiers” and wield “righteous power.” While it is true that every creature in the deck is White, how, then, to account for the heavy reliance on Black? With the decklists now spoiled on the ‘mothership,’ we have the opportunity to delve into the deck and see how it’s been crafted.
Here Is Your Army
Like any good White Weenie deck, the path to victory lies in its creatures, and here Blades offers an effective- if somewhat pedestrain- selection of beaters. Let’s take a peek at how it curves out, and at the choices at each particular grouping:
4x 1-drops
5x 2-drops
Your early attackers, Blades gives you enough options here that you should reliably be putting on some early pressure. A pair of Elite Vanguards are strong initial plays; the pair of Infantry Veterans less so, but pack some utility for the mid-game that the Vanguards lack. In the 2-drop slots, you have a White Knight (solid), a War Priest of Thune (utility + body), a Silvercoat Lion (yawn) and a pair of Ajani’s Pridemates. The Pridemates here are only marginally better than the Lion, as there are only two ways to gain life in this deck: a singleton Ajani’s Mantra, and Condemn. The latter option, sadly, assumes that you’re using it on your own creature. Doubtless the pair of Pridemates are here as much to showcase something new and novel with the set as any real tactical choice.
There’s a gutshot hole in the curve next:
2x 3-drop
…and they’re as weak as they look. Palace Guards may have their place, but in an aggressive swarm deck the last thing you want are a pair of dedicated blockers. If you get to the point where they are saving your bacon, you’re likely already stalling out.
The Guards evoke a wee bit of deep-seated nostalgia …but the moment passes quickly and it’s time to move on.
Calling the Cavalry
Rounding out the neat symmetry of the deck are a rather solid tail-end of beaters:
2x 4-drop
4x 5-drop
2x 7-drop
One thing of note here is in the move to restoring the decks to a rightful sixty cards, the designers have tended to use a lot of duplicates. This is a good thing, as it provides a degree of consistency and predictability that a successful deck replies upon. In Blades’ case, that results in pairs of Cloud Crusaders, dreadfully dull Siege Mastodons, and the ever-popular Serra Angels. Of these, only the Angels seem like a legitimate threat for their cost, though some air support in the form of the Crusaders is not unwelcome.
The deck saves its rare slots, though, for two last bombs on the tail end of the curve: Angelic Arbiter (the premium foil rare) and Vengeful Archon. There’s been some murmuring already about the roles of these cards in the EDH format, which makes the deck all the more appealing to that segment.
The Arbiter is a control card- it looks to hamper your opponents’ options during their turn, essentially saying “cast or attack: pick one.” Not only that, but it’s meaty 5/6 body should accelerate the end of the game even without its ability. Able to withstand the premier flyers of the Standard format (Baneslayer Angel, Spinxes, etc), you’re not likely to find a greater airborne threat to the Arbiter in the other precons. A worthy bomb!
The Vengeful Archon is even more robust: 7/7. Add in a very useful damage-redirection ability, and you’ve got a pair of closers that rank right next to Mariano Rivera.
But, of course, in the absence of any acceleration you’ll need to survive a minimum of seven turns to play either, and almost certainly more. Turn 4 is typically the last of the early, reliable land drops, and things slow down quite a bit after this. Interestingly, this fact has only somewhat recently begun to be accounted for in card design (certainly the developers realised it long ago), which accounts for the percieved ‘power creep’ of some cards. Truly, though, in general if you can’t close the deal on your opponent by the time they lay down a seventh land, you can’t complain when the game-enders start rolling out. Only in multiplayer can a game that lasts an hour be reliably called ‘fun.’
So if you won’t be seeing any bombs until late in the game, you’ve got a serious liability in the 3-drop slot, and your early 1- and 2-drop weenies are only good for so long, how is Blades expecting you to ‘get there?’
Therein lies the answer to the question posed at the beginning.
Fade to Black
Pound for pound, Black boasts some of the most effective and efficient removal of all time. White is historically no slouch, but exile-options like Path or O-Ring aren’t available in the format. So what’s a White mage to do? Splash!
Blades of Victory has a solid removal suite that dips into the Black pool for added effectiveness. On its own, White offers Condemn and a pair of Pacifisms, the latter of which are decent if vulnerable solutions. For added punch, Black brings in the iconic Doom Blade, Assassinate, and an intriguing new option, Stabbing Pain. If the goal of the deck’s removal is to remove obstacles to your weenie army as you enter the midgame and the red zone thickens up, Stabbing Pain has some intriguing utility. It can either tap down a solid defender, or kill off an opposing weenie (particularly a utility creature, which often have 1 toughness). It might not be the most solid removal on its own, but it complements the Black options nicely as the other two are similarly conditional (Doom Blade is a dead draw against Black, Assassinate requires the creature to be tapped).
The rest of the noncreature complement consists mainly of Black disruption (Duress, Mind Rot), combat tricks (Mighty Leap, BCSM magnet Safe Passage, Inspired Charge) and creature enhancements (two Armored Ascensions). The aforementioned Ajani’s Mantra and a Warlord’s Axe round out the deck.
In summary, Blades of Victory has the look of a solidly-performing White Weenie deck. Like many preconstructeds it takes a more generalist approach (Black discruption, creature enchantments, some of the combat cleverness and the whole Ajani’s lifegain aspect) to show off aspects of the set, which might weaken the deck somewhat but paradoxically enough adds to their appeal. Much of the enjoyment of the preconstructed products are in the playing of cards you might not normally play, yet having these “weaknesses” balanced against other precons in a set. You certainly wouldn’t take Blades to a Standard tourney and expect to taste much Victory, but if this deck is anything to go by, M11 seems like a very solid step forward for Core Set preconstruction. You could do worse than to buy this just to break it down or modify it.
Join me next time when we give Blades a test drive and see if it lives up to expectations!
Ertai's Lament 