Rowan, Scion of War
Pzbw7z's Rowan Deck
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Creatures
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- Rowan, Scion of War: Rowan's ability can often be activated at the start of the main phase. The life-loss abilities or spells can be activated or cast in response. This obviously doesn't help if someone really wants to remove Rowan as it can be done on an opponent's turn or during our Upkeep, but it might catch a player off guard who is waiting for a threat to manifest.
- Blood Celebrant: This little guy is, pound for pound, our best life-loser. It requires a single to get it rolling, but that mana will be available for use afterward - and can be converted into another color if we want.
- Blood Pet: A little mana store. The deck is mana hungry, but this guy is not essential.
- Foulmire Knight // Profane Insight: The adventure is synergistic, cards are good and Deathtouch is very relevant as it can guard our life total. We want to use our life, not lose it to our opponents. Still, this guy is not essential.
- Immolating Souleater: Very synergistic, cheap and easy to cast.
- Myr Convert: A dork with synergy.
- Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty: Birgi's mana-making ability combined with Rowan's cost-reducing ability allows Searing Touch to go infinite.
- Imperial Recruiter: He tutors for one of our life-losers.
- Mischievous Poltergeist: One-life increments are clearly superior to increments of two or more; this little guy's issues are its casting cost and it's one toughness.
- Priest of Gix: During any turn where we have cost reduction in effect, this little guy is gas - a straight-up ritual!
- Priest of Urabrask: Ditto.
- Simian Spirit Guide: This guy provides a little gas which is particularly useful when trying to power through Peer into the Abyss or Commune with Lava.
- Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire: His Boast ability is nice and Deathtouch is relevant, but this guy is very much non-essential.
- Wall of Blood: One-life increments are what we what, and it's not entirely out of question that the ability could be used for it's intended purpose or at least provide a little deterrent. Two toughness is also better than one.
- Heartless Hidetsugu: Works well with Wound Reflection. But, failing that, he does half of the job and provides a big discount for Rowan. He's a removal magnet and people will try to remove him on sight. Or, at least, they should, but that can also be said of Rowan. A haste enabler is a big help, if we do manage to get him in play. This guy is not subtle but also not essential.
- Storm-Kiln Artist: He makes Treasures. This ability, combined with Rowan's, allows Searing Touch to go infinite.
- K'rrik, Son of Yawgmoth : He can make from life, which can mean more spells as well as more life-loss. K'rrik is very synergistic with our plan.
Lands
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Card choice discussion for lands:
- Barbarian Ring: A nice land for Rowan. The activated ability is not entirely useless.
- Blightstep Pathway // Searstep Pathway : We can choose one of our colors.
- Blood Crypt: This is on point with our strategy as well as being among the best Rakdos lands. The land types are helpful even without fetches.
- Bloodstained Mire : This is on point for our game plan. It gets Blood Crypt or Smoldering March, or just whichever basic land we need and costs one life..
- Cabal Pit: Another nice land for Rowan. The activated ability is not entirely useless.
- Castle Locthwain: Life loss and card draw - what's not to love? This isn't playable in high-power decks generally due to the lower number of basic Swamps played in those decks.
- City of Brass: This is very much in Rowan's balliwick.
- Command Tower: What needs to be said?
- Dragonskull Summit: We have plenty of Swamps and Mountains; this is a solid budget land. This is not playable in high-power decks.
- Graven Cairns: This makes any combination of and we want.
- Hall of the Bandit Lord: Life-loss and haste when casting Rowan - what's not to love?
- Ifnir Deadlands: Comes in untapped, taps for colorless or provides Black with a little life loss. All positives. The activated ability could be used in a pinch.
- Luxury Suite: A solid, untapped dual land.
- Marsh Flats: This can get Blood Crypt or Smoldering Marsh as well as a basic Swamp. It also costs a life, which is a plus for us.
- Mount Doom: This is solid for Rowan.
- Mountain: The deck has substantially more pips, but we need a fair few of these.
- Prismatic Vista: This is solid as long as the Basic land count remains sufficient. The cool kids play with fewer Basics so Vista is not always seen in cEDH lists, but we're a long way from there.
- Ramunap Ruins: A Rowan-friendly land. It's nice to be able to get something out of it when we aren't interested in activating Rowan.
- Smoldering Marsh: We have ample Basic lands. This is not playable in high-power decks.
- Snow-Covered Mountain: Why not? This gets us closer to a Tainted Pact database, but there's still a long way to go.
- Snow-Covered Swamp: See above.
- Sulfurous Springs: Rowan-friendly.
- Swamp: We've a fair few cards that depend on Basics or Swamps, so we need a good number.
- Tomb of Urami: Essentially a -only pain land. We do have one Ogre, but that's not a big problem. If Heartless Hidetsugu is in play, we will be able to lose plenty of life
- Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth: This provides a little flexibility.
- Verdant Catacombs: This can get Blood Crypt or Smoldering Marsh as well as a basic Swamp. It also costs a life, which is a plus for us.
- War Room: Life for cards is a strong sub-theme for us.
- The other fetches would be groovy, but mine are in use elsewhere.
- Exotic Orchard: This is certainly in our budget range, and not at all a bad choice.
- Blackcleave Cliffs: When did this get so cheap? It will likely enter tapped, so it's not much better than what we've got.
- Fabled Passage: This is clearly better than Evolving wilds or Terramorphic Expanse and probably better than tapped dual lands.
- Haunted Ridge: This is is solid, if not great. Our land count is high enough that this will work well for us. This is not playable in lands that run fewer lands and more fast mana.
- Ancient Tomb: This really fuels Rowan's ability.
- Tarnished Citadel: Man, this has to be where Rowan lives! At least, when she's not on a budget.
- Mana Confluence: Basically another City of Brass and just as good for Rowan.
Artifacts
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Card discussion of artifacts.
- Jeweled Amulet - This can help get Rowan out a turn earlier.
- Lotus Petal - This is gas.
- Sol Ring - Even with Rowan's discount, this is still very useful, especially early.
- Arcane Signet - Solid in nearly any list with two-plus colors.
- Fellwar Stone - Pretty solid in multiplayer formats.
- Mind Stone - Mana plus a possible card. Decent for a budget list.
- Rakdos Signet - Solid, if inflexible.
- Talisman of Indulgence - This makes our mana and can lose life.
- Mox Diamond: If you got 'em, smoke 'em. This is out of the budget for most of us.
- Chrome Mox: This is basically a whole turn of acceleration.
- Lion's Eye Diamond: More, high-dollar goodness.
- Mana Crypt This is gas.
- Mana Vault: More gas.
- Sensei's Divining Top: Always useful.
- Defense Grid: This defends against pesky counter magic and interaction in general. It's especially good against those nasty, free spells.
- Wishclaw Talisman: This is a good tutor, but best used only for getting the last piece of a combo, a win-con, or a real haymaker that should win.
- Aetherflux Reservoir: Useful in more Storm-oriented lists.
- Bolas's Citadel: This is tougher in Rowan than in typical Rakdos lists as Rowan tends to run higher-MV spells, but it could still work. It combos magnificently with Sensei's Divining Top and Aetherflux Reservoir.
Enchantments
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Card discussion of Enchantments - all both of them!
- Greed - Card draw and life loss; what's not to like?
Instants
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Card discussion of Instants.
- Burnt Offering: This is gas. Big turns usually need colored mana no matter what Rowan's discount is. Providing , or a combination of both is just fantastic!
- Dark Ritual: Classical gas!
- Pyroblast: The ability to fight through counters or remove annoying permanents is essential.
- Red Elemental Blast: Ditto.
- Searing Touch: Our premier win-con. With Storm-Kiln Artist or Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty and a cost reduction of at least four to cover the buyback, this goes infinite.
- Vampiric Tutor: This needs no explanation.
- Abrade: A solid, flexible card.
- Bitter Triumph: This is more removal than ritual, but it provides a little bonus life loss if we want.
- Commune with Lava: We can see a good many cards, sometimes a ridiculous amount of cards, with Rowan's discount.
- Infernal Grasp: Removal with a little ritual effect as well.
- Pyretic Ritual: With a two-mana discount, this is a equivalent of Dark Ritual.
- Rakdos Charm: A solid utility spell.
- Tibalt's Trickery: This is primarily just more anti-counter magic, but it can help with any combo-killing interaction. The results are unpredictable and the cure is sometimes worse than the disease.
- Deflecting Swat: This is a R staple; it can counter targeted interaction. It can change the target of a counter spell to itself, which causes the counter spell to fizzle. It can redirect abilities as well as spells. And it's usually free!
- Dismember: Another removal/ritual.
- Reiterate: This combos with Big Score to draw as many cards as we need to hit a win-con.
- Big Score: This can combo with Reiterate with a small cost reduction. We just draw as many cards as we want!
- Snuff Out: This is perhaps our premier removal spell as four is the magic number to go off with Searing Touch.
Sorceries
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Card discussion of Sorceries
- Claim the Firstborn - A cheap way to give Rowan haste or to simply untap her to allow a double bonus. Or triple, as the case may be.
- Imperial Seal - This is excellent with or without a mana discount.
- Insatiable Avarice - With a two-mana discount, this is Imperial Seal without the life loss. Perhaps more relevant - since we don't mind losing life, it is a budget Imperial Seal or a three-mana Ambition's Cost - or both!
- Vandalblast - Just a good utility spell.
- Black Sun's Zenith - A good board wipe and effective even if all creatures aren't removed; the counters are permanent.
- Crackle with Power - Rowan's signature spell. It allows us to win even of our life total is lower than our opponents.
- Demonic Tutor - Excellent without a mana reduction and better still with one.
- Diabolic Intent - This is an efficient tutor even without a cost reduction.
- Exsanguinate - With a little help, this is a quality win-con. We either need more life than our opponents, or we need to allow Rowan to tap twice, or we need a damage multiplier, but we can do all of those things.
- Feed the Swarm - Good removal, easy to cast and a little ritual effect if we cast it on our turn.
- Night's Whisper - The best of the pay two life, draw two card spells. Rowan, unusually, likes both parts!
- Sign in Blood - This can target any player, so there are corner cases where it can eliminate an opponent, but mostly it's draw two, pay two. Both of which are good.
- Jeska's Will - This is a rock star, or a Rakdos star, or, yeah, it combos with .
- Cut // Ribbons - Both halves are useful.
- Diabolic Tutor - With a little discount, this is solid. Two is a downer, and one is advised to run better tutors if circumstances permit, but this is not bad in Rowan and solid for its price point.
- Past in Flames|ISD - This can give a a second chance at our spells and allows for a big finish.
- Tentative Connection - This is one with Rowan, even without her bonus, so it's probably the best of these spells. At least, considering we aren't running Ad Nauseam or Bolas's Citadel. Yet.
- Coveted Prize - This will usually be a one tutor to hand. It doesn't get much better than that. Of course, Demonic Tutor would be one as well, but again, with budget in mind, Coveted Prize is fine.
- Dark Petition - This will usually be mana-positive. I know of no other tutor that will do that for us.
- Beseech the Queen - This will usually be free, so it's good for us irrespective of budget. Perhaps not so much if we were on Ad Nauseam or Bolas's Citadel, but until then, it feels good to tutor for free.
- Brass's Bounty - This will usually create a pile of treasure tokens for one . That's really, really helpful. Colored mana is the limitation for our big turns. Brass's Bounty smooths right over that issue.
- Peer into the Abyss - This should rarely fail to produce a win. Rituals and other ways of producing mana are one key, tutors are the other. And, of course, HALF of the deck!
- Blasphemous Act - This often won't need a Rowan cost reduction since it has it's own, built in. A Rowan cost reduction is always useful before a board wipe, as we may be able to recast Rowan afterward.
