I would like to share a fresh decklist with you, it's one that I've been brewing for the last couple of days, and is one that I haven't seen anywhere else yet. I wanted to go a different route with Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist, than the usual red-voltron deck that's been going around everywhere. One might say it's comparable to running Bruna as a commander, but with a lower curve, more politics, and more than one voltron-target. A big pro that Ardenn has is that it scales nicely during the early, mid and late game: you're not being punished for placing your disruptive enchantments on "low"-cost threats early game, since you can move these around on other threats as the game goes.
Ardenn's enchantments
Approximate Total Cost:
In summary, it's a deck that's focused on enchantments and equipment..... *YAWN*......... please bear with me though. The enchantments and equipment's have been selected carefully for them to be multi-purpose: I want most of them to be useable on my own creatures (my commander Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker preferably, to get in for some sweet commander damage), but also on my opponents threats. The strategy for the deck is to let my opponents battle it off by boosting their creatures and deny their attacks on me (like Psychic Impetus), or incentivize attacks on my opponents so they choose for that themselves (Curse of Verbosity). Once one or two opponents are down, I want to place a lot of these enchantments and equipments with Ardenn's ability on one of my own creatures to finish them off efficiently.
Some honorable mentions:
- Pariah: stick it on an enemy creature, preferably one that I made indestructible with Darksteel Plate so I won't lose life or my Fog Bank to deviate combat damage.
- Spellskite, Mother of Runes (also usable on an attacking goaded enemy's creature to drain the defending player's life) and Bastion Protector can drop before I drop my commander, to give a first layer of protection
- Mirror Mockery: Place this on an enemy threat, suddenly this threat is only looking at my opponent(s) instead of at me. Fog bank serves a similar role, why attack me when you won't get damage in anyway?
- Duelist's Heritage: Nothing beats giving an enemy's creature double strike once's he declared his attackers (which he was forced to with one of the Goad enchantments). Great political tool as well.
- Inkmoth Nexus: Change your land into a 1/1 infect creature before combat, drop all enchantments and equipment on it with Ardenn and slam for victory (make sure you win, because end of turn all goes to the graveyard)
- Infiltration Lens & Skullclamp: send to an enemy creature with Ardenn and get some good draws. If opponent doesn't block the infiltration lens, all good, we like to see some damage get in. Skullclamp serves as a form of removal in this case as well.
- True-Name Nemesis, Kor Spiritdancer & Heavenly Blademaster: Great finishers beside my commander.
- Estrid's Invocation on Sage's Reverie? Hell yes, card advantage through the roof. Estrid also fits the whole scaling nicely theme since you can re-choose a new target based on that current needs everytime it's my turn. Also good synergy witht Archon of Sun's Grace - lifelink tokens every round!
- Assault Suit: Place it on Ishai, pass it around to your opponents, sweet commander damage made even on opponents' turn. Also gives my commander haste and a nice stat boost. Note I can also play this on my opponents commanders with Ardenn's ability.
- Spirit Link: put on opponents creatures to nullify attacks on me
- Flickering Ward, good all-round synergy in the deck, and a nice little draw engine with Kor Spiritdancer
- Parallax Wave, great flexible removal, used as a 4 mana-5 target removal to get in for the kill, or play slowly and eliminate 1 threat for 5 turns. Also recurrable with Starfield of Nyx.
- Imagine.. turn 3 Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist, then turn 4 immediately attach Helm of the Host with Ardenn's ability on whichever creature on the board and start generating tokens. Yes it works like this!
My intention for it is to be a fun interactive deck, but also one that has some good win-potential. Since I'm not an experienced deck-builder I'm really curious what you think about it, does it have potential? Or do you see certain weaknesses or improvements?
G'day!