RowanKeltizar wrote: ↑3 years ago
Something for me to mull over. To my eyes, one big issue with Winota is that she doesn't have haste nor any built in evasion or protection for a commander that a deck built around her will be pretty reliant on.
She doesn't actually need to attack (and she is a Human so doesn't trigger herself either). So its a just a case of get some non-Humans out, and play her and you get to have triggers the same turn she is played, which is why you can get those very early busted starts.
Personally, I'm not sure I'm ready to go so creature heavy as Winota is asking for. Feels like putting my eggs in one basket and limiting my options too much. Boros needs all the help it can get. No
Austere Command,
Smothering Tithe, or
Sword of Feast and Famine for example scares me... a lot. I think as a 1v1 commander she is excellent, similar to
Kaalia of the Vast but in a competitive multiplayer environment I see her not performing quite as well. I could be wrong.
Like a lot of commanders over the last couple of years, it boils down to "do opponents have an answer for your commander within a two turn window?". If no then you win the game. So yes the deck is not that robust. I mean the hate-bears can buy you time, but its not like you are expecting anything but to be able to trigger Winota in games to win.
Purphoros, God of the Forge even though it's not a human, I feel like you're generating so many tokens and ETBs that this would hit pretty hard. It's nice not to completely rely on combat damage to win.
Throne of the God-Pharaoh kind of falls in this same vein, scaling up your damage to a multiplayer setting.
Too be honest games come down to exponential triggers that provide inevitability no matter what and not actual math for lethal damage. In a way often it comes down to not wanting opponents to conceded before you get to have your next handful of triggers, so killing them outright can spoil your fun.
But I will say if you did want to try and be a bit more robust, then Purphoros could provide a longer game plan in the absence of Winota being able to stay on the battlefield.
I notice you don't really have any wipes slotted in and that worries me a bit.
Cataclysm (
Tragic Arrogance if you don't want the LD) has performed very well for me as semi one sided board wipe. You can also do the time honored trick of making your own army indestructible and then using a more traditional wipe like
Wrath of God.
Martial Coup,
Winds of Abandon, or even
Hour of Reckoning might also be some things to consider.
If a board wipe isn't being played, then you are going to be very happy.
If its a creature based game, then you are going to come out on top more times than other creature decks imo.
But
Martial Coup is a really good proactive game plan. If you have one in your starting hand, or draw it early in the game, then you can just be patient and wait till opponents have committed a lot to the board. Definitely worth it in the right meta.
I actually did have
Ghostway and
Eerie Interlude when I started playing her, but cut them for two reasons. I rarely found myself having mana spare when passing the turn.
There are just too many proactive cards in the deck to take the risk of not advancing your board. The examples are especially if you are playing hate-bear creatures that are going to put your opponents in a difficult position.
The other reason is that a lot of the board becomes tokens, which the exile effects don't help with.
I do play
Return to the Ranks as a safety net.
Gerrard, Weatherlight Hero also helps against
Toxic Deluge/
All is Dust type effects.
Idol of Endurance is an interesting new card from Core 2021 that you could use against board wipes. The neat thing about this card is that you can get around graveyard hate that might come after you've cast it. Although it doesn't allow you to bring back creatures after you've cast it either.
Luminous Broodmoth is another creature you could look at to protect against board wipes that specifically put cards into your graveyard.
As a side note, I think it's really odd that tokens don't have the human type when they probably should.
Hero of Bladehold as an example. She is a "Human Knight" but she makes "1/1 white Soldier tokens"
Call the Coppercoats is an example of card that makes tokens with the human creature type as I would expect. Very odd, but it certainly works in Winota's favor!
Certainly an over site that has just basically stuck for decades.
As far as I can tell the first time Soldier tokens were referenced was
Kjeldoran Outpost in Alliances.
Darien, King of Kjeldor is a Human, so his Soldiers should definitely be Human as well.
Human Soldiers as a combined type looked to have started in Fallen Empires.
But it does look like at least in recent times the full "Human Soldiers tokens" are being printed, rather than just Soldiers.
This is the case for Ikoria and Commander 2020 (except on old reprints).
The new
Basri Ket still creates non-Human Soldier tokens, but this might literally just be because they are not Humans.
So I feel like from now on out we are not going to see this oversight anymore, which obviously sucks for Winota decks
Some cards that peaked my interest in Core 2021 for Winota is
Alpine Houndmaster as it represents getting two more non-Human creatures;
Alpine Watchdog and
Igneous Cur (not spoiled on Nexus yet). Much in the same way as using
Ranger-Captain of Eos and
Ranger of Eos to get further resources.
The creatures are very vanilla however, so represent weak cards in general, but its these type of cards that you can use to power through metas that have heavy board wipes.
Rather than trying to protect your board, you have proactive cards instead that allow you to claw your way back with triggers fairly quickly or allow you to get the ball rolling.
Mangara, the Diplomat is an new Human that packs a lot of interesting power. Again another card that you could include to make the deck a little bit more robust if Plan A doesn't take hold.
Zacama
