Anyone who's familiar with Magic: the Gathering has probably heard of 'The Rock'. Basically it's a midrange control/beat down deck that seeks to trade cards with the opponent, usually on a relatively one-for-one basis, run them out of threats, and then it usually wins with attrition and big creatures. Without further ado, here is my take on "
Baduruu
Rock". It's going pretty well for me, but I'm open to feedback because I think it could probably be better:
The Man with the Master Plan:
1
Baduruu
Allies:
4
Furrion Terror
3
Infernal Gargoyle
3
Shadow Knight
2 Wendith Eagle-Eye
2
Scourge Colossus
Weapons:
4
Grundler's Double
4
Soul Seeker
1
Golden Katar
Removal:
4
Death Trap
4
Snare Trap
2 Perfect Shot
3
Shriek of Vengeance
2
Ley Line Nexus
1
Acid Jet
Miscellaneous:
1
Arthyle's Crypt
Basically the plan is to control the early game with your traps, then land an Ally and a grundlers double. Then you basically want to keep your opponent's side of the board clear while getting little bits of damage in here and there, trying to empty out their hand. By this point you should be able to seal the deal with a fattie or two. Of course, all good plans eventually go pear-shaped, but this deck can pull out of seemingly losing board positions, so never give up unless its really hopeless.
I was taking a more defensive approach at first, with Into The Forest and
Rain Delay
instead of some gargoyles and Wendiths, but the extra creatures all help out, and make winning less dependent on protecting the first dude you stick. Terror is in there to help against swarms, Wendith plus a weapon eats nearly any fattie your opponent might throw down, Knight is obvious, Colossus could possibly be replaced for those looking to build this on the cheap (Kairos works pretty well, or more Knights/ fatties of yr choice), but he is an auto-win against some stuff if you get him down in time. Gargoyle has been the most recent addition, but he's always been a great creature and he works really well to turn on the card draw from Grundler. Very often, you may find yourself using your weapons to push through the last points of damage before yr opponent can recover.
It can have a little bit of problems against rush opponents if they clog up the board before you can get down your traps, But soul seeker and terror are usually enough to let you recover. Also,
Golden Katar
is a pretty hard defensive wall for some strategies to get through, and it's usually good for 4-6 damage to the opponent. It may not be necessary, but when I had only 8 weapons, I sometimes found myself without a target for
Baduruu
's ability. 9 seems to be right in the sweet spot.
Warriors and wolves can be a pain in the ass, because they can incapacitate your big guys. I don't really feel like
Sacrificial Lamb
is justifiable in this build, but maybe it would be good.
Anyhow, thoughts from anybody? I find it very fun to play and I have a good win loss record with it, Although I haven't put in enough testing to really say what its problematic matchups are yet.
(And yes, I realize if the opponent is paying attention they will know exactly what traps I play, because I don't include enchanted Forest or rolling boulders or any of those, but I feel like they would weaken the consistency. Traps are in there to kill dudes. If your opponent doesn't use dudes, start resourcing your traps. If he doesn't use small dudes but he uses fatties, resource the snare traps. It may be obvious, but I feel like this approach to playing traps works better than trying to keep the opponent guessing which necessitates including less necessary cards.)
EDIT: Forgot to mention one thing:
Wulven Savage
can be a HUGE pain in the ass for this deck if the opponent buffs him out of range of Furrion Terror's ability. I might try replacing the Perfect Shots with
Flaming Arrow
or
Poison Arrow
, but I feel like they're slightly less versatile overall. Anyone have advice on how to deal with this guy? If
Elementalis
gets him pumped up, it's race or die, which kinda sucks.
Bookmarks