Aurelia Equipment

GabrielleAngelfire
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Post by GabrielleAngelfire » 3 years ago

I'm in a bit of a strange position. I'm going to start playing Commander on PlayEDH, which is via webcam. Their deck classifications are different than the number system I'm used to. Unfortunately the deck I've loved for a long time likely isn't ideal to play in mid power because it's too slow, but it has WAY too much interaction for their "battlecruiser" deck power level. So I'm deciding to break apart my Archangel Avacyn deck and build something else. This is what I've come up with: https://archidekt.com/decks/699803#Aurelia_Equipment I really suck at deckbuilding. I think with angels, equipment, AND a sunforger package I may be trying to do too much. It's still really rusty, so any help is appreciated.
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Sinis
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Post by Sinis » 3 years ago

GabrielleAngelfire wrote:
3 years ago
I really suck at deckbuilding. I think with angels, equipment, AND a sunforger package I may be trying to do too much. It's still really rusty, so any help is appreciated.
I think the curve in your deck is probably too high. Often, the creatures that are best with equipment are small; the equipment is going to be what does the work, so having lots of creatures with 4/5/6 cost are going to gum up the works; tabling an equipment and equipping it is 3-5 mana, needing another 4-6 is a lot of tempo for just one creature.

I would recommend putting in some low-curve creatures that love equipment. Guys with doublestrike are welcome because they get double duty out of any weapon, but other creatures have good tempo/utility game in terms of picking up weapons. Among my favourites are: Kor Duelist, Mirran Crusader, Kazuul's Toll Collector, Armory Automaton, Puresteel Paladin and Leonin Shikari. Prophetic Flamespeaker is also a tight double striker that can give you card advantage while also having trample at a reasonable cost.

I would also use Aurelia as a way to punish players for not answering your board. If you get to untap with a creature holding equipment, Aurelia doubles what it's going to do. Aurelia as a the main game plan often doesn't work out IME; 6 mana is a lot, and having to cast her more than twice in Boros can be a very tall order.

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ISBPathfinder
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Post by ISBPathfinder » 3 years ago

Given your commander has higher defense than offense you might consider changing some of those wraths into the options where creatures do damage to themselves = their power such as Wave of Reckoning and Solar Blaze. Most of the time they will clear the board but they won't ever kill your commander. They almost always get all tokens with the exception of maybe like plant tokens. The upside is that you can cast them even with your commander out and they will clear the way for her. I could see those two coming in for Wrath of God and Blasphemous Act fairly easily.

Chandra, Torch of Defiance - I don't think this version of Chandra does enough. She is sort of small player poke and card advantage over time. I think she is going to be too hard to defend and won't last long enough to get you the value you are going to want from her. I would cut her for.... something else.

Angels - you probably don't want to force an angel theme. I could go through all of the angels but offhand I think cutting most of the angels should be considered. Your commander gives no incentive to try to push any sort of tribal mechanics. You can keep a few but I think a lot of them are in here to push this angel theme that I don't see a reason to keep. Lyra Dawnbringer, Avacyn, Archangel of Hope, Linvala, Keeper of Silence, and Gisela, Blade of Goldnight are the few I would maybe consider keeping and I would probably gut the rest myself for ramp. If you can ramp into your commander and or replaying her its probably going to be better than some random angel that doesn't have synergy with the deck. I personally do have a Weathered Wayfarer deck but the difference is having her as a commander and running tribal vs forcing tribal because your commander is an angel. I think you should probably go away from trying to have tribal elements beyond angels that are good standalone or just with your commander are good enough.

Sun Titan - I love sun titan but you don't have fetches and you only have like 20ish targets of which a good portion of your artifacts are ramp that don't sacrifice. I like rezing the equipment but that seems like about all he can do here.

Mox Tantalite - I hate this card. If you ever find this outside of your opening hand its going to be real rough. I would personally cut it for some other ramp. Wayfarer's Bauble comes to mind as a good alternative even if it isn't free its a good card. Drawing ramp later can suck but this one far more so than most given its forced delay coming in.



So, lets talk about some things that would make for some nice additions.

Relic of Progenitus / Scrabbling Claws / Soul-Guide Lantern / Phyrexian Furnace / Hallowed Moonlight - So, your grave yard hate looks a bit light. All of the cards I mentioned have a card draw cantrip option while also acting as grave hate as needed. The upside of most of these is if you don't need graveyard hate they cheaply move on and cantrip for you. But I would recommend adding at least two pieces of graveyard interaction. If looking at Phyrexian Furnace and Scrabbling Claws I would recommend maybe a third or more as well. I did in fact recommend cutting Angel of Finality above because she is all or nothing graveyard hate in that she is sorcery speed one player once kind of grave hate. She lacks any sort of draw if she is irrelevant and her timing is abysmal in that its sorcery speed grave hate. I like most of the cards I mentioned as you can slowly nibble at someone's bin, respond with them, and draw cards when they are irrelevant.

Wall of Omens - Its cheap, it cantrips, and it gives you some early defense as needed. Its really not a bad card to draw at any point of the game though given boros often has some issues with draw. Its also a Sun Titan rez target if you do keep him in, my issue with titan was more of your lack of targets.

True Conviction - There are several double strike / double damage / tripple damage now even option enchantments out there. In my mind True Conviction is still the king of these for a few reasons. First, that mass lifelink gives great staying power while you punch someone super hard. The other thing that is really big about this effect is hitting twice with equipment. It means twice the value generation for any equipment you have which is a big deal.

Fiery Confluence - the power to sweep tokens and utility creatures and also throw out several shatters is really versatile removal.

Heliod's Intervention - This card can kill just as many artifacts / enchantments as Return to Dust for the mana but where it really gets sweet is its ability to scale up beyond that. I would dare say I prefer this over Vandalblast given the ability to hit enchantments as well even if it doesn't hit all targets its versatility and scaling is really good. Not killing your own ramp / equipment is a really big deal to the point that you might want to consider this in place of Hour of Revelation if not alongside it.

Weathered Wayfarer - He can help fix lands correctly and give some card advantage hitting land drops into the game further. I think having additional cheap drops is not to be underrated from the standpoint of just playing a creature early and being able to drop an equipment and swing in if someone is open as well.

Magus of the Moat - Given that most of your gameplan seems to fly.... it seems like something I would at least entertain. Its great defense from token decks as in a lot of cases they don't have a ton of answers for creatures.

Dual Lands - You have 19 basics with no fetchlands. You also have a number of non basic lands that tap for mono color and several colorless lands. I think the RRWW casting cost of your commander will come to bite you. I am not saying that you need to go crazy and stock the lands with the best things but I think...... I am at the point that I would add more dual lands and I probably would even consider some Evolving Wilds over a few basics. I do think that Emeria, the Sky Ruin can be pulled off in a 2 color deck but generally speaking I would want to see fetchlands and fetchable dual lands that are plains. I think you might be better off not trying to do Emeria to be honest given the color complexity of your commander and how important she probably is going to be to cast on curve. If it were me, I would want to have Plateau and a full 7 fetches that can get it and Sacred Foundry if I were trying to push Emeria in here. I think the better solution is to go away from Emeria and make the landbase more likely able to cast your commander on curve. I hate to say it, but it might involve including things like Exotic Orchard, Grand Coliseum, Needle Spires, Path of Ancestry to name a few. I would suggest fetchlands and ABU duels but obviously if that was in the budget you would probably already be there. ETB tapped lands can be a problem if you have too many of them but I think having your colors is probably more important especially with a commander who tends to want to be out on or before curve like Aurelia.
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Post by cryogen » 3 years ago

Moved to decklist forum.
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RowanKeltizar
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Post by RowanKeltizar » 3 years ago

Card advantage is going to be something you will struggle with. I've been piloting Aurelia for quite a few years now. The thing is, board wipes and removal are inevitable and you need to be able to recover from that. Any creature based deck will struggle with this, but especially Boros since it naturally suffers from lack of draw.

Flawless Maneuver or Boros Charm can help in these scenarios if you happen to have them in hand. You can also go with a bit of white recursion like Marshal's Anthem. But this only goes so far. Inevitably, you will find yourself with an empty board and an empty hand and if that happens you might as well scoop :/

I know I keep saying this to everyone, but by far and away the best draw engine in these colors is Skullclamp and we have the tutors in these colors to get it into play consistently. It fits well into the equipment shell you already have. If Puresteel Paladin is active that is "0, Sacrifice a creature: draw 2 cards" I largely built the deck around this card going with a boros aggro swarm approach to make sure I always have tokens to clamp. It also works pretty well as defensive measure as any creature that's equipped to it that dies will replace itself and give you an extra card.

Creatures that produce tokens on attack are the ideal. Something like Hanweir Garrison will generate a lot of value, especially with the multiple attack phases that Aurelia can provide.

Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner fits amazingly well in this type of deck and can also be a respectable draw engine and can be tutored for with Imperial Recruiter.

Winota, Joiner of Forces is an incredible card but you may not be able to fit her in if you keep going the direction you are. She very well may be the strongest Boros commander right now simply because she can generate insane card advantage right from your deck onto the battlefield. She takes a fair amount of building around but can also fit pretty well in an Aurelia list. Aurelia by herself will be digging 12 cards deep. Stack your deck with enough humans and you will be getting some good value from her triggers.

I think you could still do a bit of angel tribal but mostly as support cards and hatebears. Linvala, Keeper of Silence, Emeria Angel, Angel of Finality, and Archangel of Tithes all could fit. But generally, I would lower your mana curve as much as possible.
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GabrielleAngelfire
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Post by GabrielleAngelfire » 3 years ago

I made a lot of the improvements people recommended. This is going to be one heck of an expensive deck. I'd have to buy the cards slowly, like $50 a month or so. Is Selesnya better colors for equipment? It's cat tribal without forcing the theme, too, because so many cats have equipment payoffs. If so I have a list I was working on. The new decklist is at https://archidekt.com/decks/699803#Aurelia_Equipment
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