"Embrace every moment, for it could be your last" - Xenagos, God of Revels
Introduction
This deck is built to ramp fast and snowball hard, but it also tries to compromise as little resiliency as possible in doing so. Get to 5 mana, play Xenagos, then get to 6 and start swinging. Many of the creatures in this deck will always do 1 of 3 things.
- Cause stupendous amounts of damage (anything that does 20+ damage on a regular attack will qualify)
- Be very difficult to effectively answer
- Give you massive resource advantages while simultaneously doing damage.
Of course, being an aggro list, this is not exactly the type of list that one should bring to a cedh table. That being said, it is potent enough that the decks that can beat this consistently are basically cedh decks. This is a high power list that will be a serious mismatch in power level against the average deck.
Reasons to play the deck
However, if you are the target of a lot of removal and counterspells, it may slow you down enough so that your late game cannot compete with that of the other decks. We play a suite of cards to prevent this from happening, but we can only hope to find them consistently enough to be relevant. Plus, a lot of our support spells are creature-conditional and we want to be cautious as to not drop these support spells into open counterspells. Lastly, aggro decks naturally have trouble taking on multiple players at once and will often draw fire from multiple players who simply want to avoid losing half of their life total in an instant. That being said, the deck is unpredictable enough that players can often get killed out of nowhere.
Why should I play this deck:
- You like attacking
- You like an aggro deck that is less affected by boardwipes
- You want to be able to kill people from practically an empty board
- You like incredibly explosive jaw-dropping plays
- You want a deck that can be built on a budget and keep the damage output, but want to put money in later to make it more consistent.
- You like reminding your opponents that 40 life is NOT a safe life total.
- You're not a fan of a fairly linear gameplan.
- You hate being targeted for fear of being the cause of someone's instant death.
- You like playing control decks
- You want to play cedh. I managed to make the list one of the most aggro decks in the format, but this isn't a cut-throat cedh list. Again though, don't bring it to your average playgroup. You will wipe the floor with them.
I started playing EDH with the Mimeoplasm precon from 2011. I learned how to tune 100-card singleton decks with a basic reanimator deck. I then started building more decks on my own. However, one of them was a Gisela, Blade of Goldnight deck that failed. Why did it fail? It did not work because it was too fragile and had very little in the way of card advantage, but I liked how it had the potential to eliminate players quickly. So then I then started looking for other cheap ideas I could build. Then, I realized that no one in my area built a Xenagos, God of Revels deck even though the card seemed built for EDH. It looked so easy to build. I just think of any fatty that would become more awesome if I gave it double power and haste! I bought a bunch of cheap cards, sleeved it up, and gave it a test run.
The very first game I got, I played Xenagod, dropped a Hydra Omnivore, then proceeded to eat 16 out of everyone's life total by hitting an open player, then drew 16 cards off of it with Garruk, Primal Hunter. I got killed after that but I was sold on the deck instantly. I love drawing lots of cards and Xenagos is an enabler that is difficult to interact with! But it's not SO difficult that you can't.
These days, we are spoiled for options. Half of our creatures are downright terrifying when they hit the field and many of the support spells can chain together with the help of the creatures to gain immense resource and/or tempo advantages that will overwhelm a table in very short order if not stopped. I'm glad to have made the deck what it is today after about 5+ years of releases.
Creatures
- Joraga Treespeaker : This mana dork is a cut above the previous ones, all because it can produce 5 mana on turn 3. If it lives, turn 3 Xenagod always happens. This card is essentially a green Sol Ring and should be treated as such.
- Arbor Elf: Forests and ways to get them are plentiful in the deck and it has extra synergy with land enchantments
- Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer: A RED mana dork that is a cut above even birds on turn 1. Can fall off later when people have blockers but manadorks overall are poor topdecks anyway, so that downside is fairly insignificant. Stealing fast mana can make this game-winning.
- Sylvan Safekeeper: Losing a land and your haste is much better than losing your six-drop.
- Dockside Extortionist: Generates obscene mana in optimized metagames.
- Collector Ouphe: Shuts down so many decks. Just be mindful if our ramp hand is artifact fast mana.
- Combat Celebrant: This is an extra combat card that will amplify the threat of anything else you attack with. If you do have something big, it will do 4 to 8 chip damage on open players until you play that threat, in which case you are very likely taking someone out in one shot. It supports your deck and provides some useful chip damage, all for 3 mana! If necessary, you can exert it to make it 16 power to draw a boatload of cards, which is an extremely relevant option.
- Selvala, Heart of the Wilds: The card draw on this card is a very minor part of the card. It will likely draw you a card and draw a card for one or two people and that's it. Where the payoff is in the mana production. Early on it will produce 1, which is not great but passable considering what it turns into later. Later on, this card can make 12-40 mana and enable some insanely busted sequences that are almost beyond imagining if you have the cards for it. Combining this with Sneak Attack and card draw basically makes your entire deck combo off.
- Somberwald Sage: Super dork. Three mana for creatures is quite good because it enables you to play a 6-drop and then play additional spells after the attack, such as one of the card draw effects. Or use the mana you save to activate Kessig Wolf Run before you attack. Good card.
- Wilderness Elemental: In metas with tons of nonbasic lands (ie not budget ones), this can probably hit for 20 damage, potentially as soon as turn 4. Probably the best damage-to-cost rate card outside of Godo.
- Dragonborn Champion: This is Toski, Bearer of Secrets for our deck, but instead of being indestructible it is self-enabling! Can draw a surprising number of cards, especially if you combo it with extra combat creatures.
- Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion: It hits hard, it is cheap, it loots away situational cards, it generates mana, and it gets in for damage as you play Xenagod. The best 4-drop attacker for this deck. When your hand is decently full, it is absolutely ridiculous, and even when it isn't it is still passable.
- Elder Gargaroth: It's consistent card draw on a beater. Not amazing, but card advantage is always good.
- Quartzwood Crasher: It costs 5 mana and makes on average a 12/12 trampler (or bigger) on hitting someone. This creates big threats that must be answered separately and by itself provides a 2-turn clock. Very good.
- Malignus: The one-shot monster. This has no trample but when its power is doubled, they must kill or block this, or else they will simply die. When you give it trample, it becomes truly terrifying. Also, the "damage can't be prevented" clause is surprisingly relevant. This guy is your way of beating infinite life.
- Carnage Tyrant: If you absolutely need something to get through, play this. Hexproof is the single best keyword in this deck next to trample, but the rate on this card makes it the only one able to survive in speedier metas. It has 7 power so that extra combats kill a player at full health.
- Godo, Bandit Warlord: We combine this with Embercleave to do 48 damage to an opponent out of nowhere. Best attacker in the deck. Going for this first allows your follow-up attackers to do 24-30 damage with 3 open mana. If you need players dead fast, go for this creature first.
- Moraug, Fury of Akoum: This is a multifunctional malignus-like card that also later in the game acts like a single or double extra combat card. By itself with a land drop it can do 13+27 = 40 damage to an unblocked player and with a fetchland kill two unblocked players. In the pure damage-amp role it can provide two extra combats to another attacker with a fetchland. This card is why it is important to hold your land drops until you absolutely know you don't need or can't utilize a potential trigger from this.
- Scourge of the Throne: This is a free extra combat given to a very well-costed dragon. The only condition is that you attack the person with the highest life. Sometimes, that person is you, but usually it isn't. Attacking someone with this at 40 will reduce that player to 7 from both hits because you get a second Xenagod trigger on the extra combat. Keep in mind that if you want a specific person dead, you can attack the highest life player with the first hit, and then send the 22-damage hit toward that other player. Also keep in mind that this card is far less reliable at attacking who you want if your opponents play fetch lands, but it will still 2-shot the target of your choice given you drew one of the many lands that can lower your life total.
- Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient and Old Gnawbone: These pair of dragons will generate a metric ton of mana upon hitting an opponent. Gnawbone will usually hit for 14 and Klauth will too as often by the time you hit 7 mana you will have Xenagos online as a creature and so adds his six power to Klauth's 8. They both have minor advantages and disadvantages (gnawbone can keep its mana for the next turn, klauth only needs to attack to get the mana) but when you combine it with power-based card draw you will very often win on the spot. It is unsurprising when I say that these two win the game if they get to attack even once.
- Emrakul, the Promised End: This is our only 8+ drop. Generally in a given game, if this isn't the only creature you drew and your permanents are getting removed, it can feasibly cost 9 or even 8 mana to hard cast. This eldrazi has a combination of size, evasion, resilience, and a cast trigger of varying effectiveness but one that grants an angle of attack that is otherwise unavailable to a deck like this. Taking control of someone else's turn is brutal, especially considering the number of decks that flat out lose off of sacrificing all their permanents or paying all of their life. Lastly, cards like Sneak Attack that can cheat the cost make this card easier to play. It alone allows the deck to reasonably win in the late-game.
- Mana Crypt: It is even more broken than Sol Ring in this deck because you are the aggressive deck where your life total matters less. With Scourge of the Throne being a card this damage even turns into an upside occasionally.
-Embercleave: 1-card combo with Godo, Bandit Warlord for evasive one-shotting of opponents. Also.. passable when on its own.
- Carpet of Flowers: Blue is such a good color that it is often correct to mainboard this. Also, if you only have an opponent who has one island, this card is passable, two makes it good, and 3+ makes it amazing.
- Kenrith's Transformation: It essentially removes a relevant creature and draws you a card. A 3/3 is completely insignficant against this deck.
- Sylvan Library: Library manipulation is good when you need the correct ratio of everything. Landing this on turn 2 is a significant factor in ensuring you win the game. The draw is especially important as I wouldn't consider it good enough on the library manipulation alone.
- Survival of the Fittest - This is a tutor with a fearsome reputation for a reason. Being able to turn dorks into the specific beef needed to win the game is huge.
- Frontier Siege - (almost) Always choose Khans. It is not difficult to be able to spend the mana you get on EACH main phase almost every turn.
- Greater Good: This card is greater than good. You plop it down, then if you have any big guy that you double in power, you can draw a metric ton of cards. Even if they kill your guy outside of your turn, it is still insane value.
- Gamble: Unconditional tutor in red! If you need ramp, go for Mana Crypt. If you need draw, go for that. A threat? Pick any you want. Extra Combat? Go for Seize the Day. Drew a bunch of cards and didn't play your land drop? Get Reliquary Tower. Just hope you don't discard anything too important and try not to play this when your hand size is 3 or fewer cards unless desperate.
- Green Sun's Zenith: It gets any green creature in your deck. Card is busted in half.
- Sylvan Tutor: Cheap creature tutor for 1 mana. Gets Godo or ramp, whichever is needed.
- Time of Need: Gets some of the best threats in the deck for a low 2 mana. Can also get Selvala, Heart of the Wilds or Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer for ramp if needed.
- Life's Legacy: Draws a lot. You lose the guy, but is immune to blowouts. Try to avoid getting it countered.
- Finale of Devastation: Paying an extra 2 mana is generally not worth it for most threats, but it can still act as okay ramp or be a 5-drop beater in a pinch. Paying 8 mana to get Godo is still worth it. Get Dryad Arbor for ramp. If you can generate 12+ mana, it effectively wins the game too.
- Wheel of Fortune - Unconditional draw 7 for 3 mana. Ideal to play out a hand fast before refilling. Be careful that you aren't helping another deck more unless you absolutely need the cards. This is more of an emergency card than another and should not be misused.
- Jeska's Will: Better Seething Song that often also has a "draw 3" tacked on. Actually quite insanely good.
- Seize the Day: It's two extra combats in one card! You only get to untap one guy, but that is all you need. This card can enable one-shots by itself with the extra Xenagod triggers.
- Relentless Assault: It's an extra combat spell. Worse than Seize the Day but extra combats are so good here we play this anyway!
- Chandra's Ignition: It clears the board, leaves your big guy behind, and offers a boatload of damage to all your opponents! It's a lovely card, and can wipe out a whole table if it goes through.
- Escape to the Wilds: This is a very strong unconditional draw effect. It both ramps and gets you 5 cards, of which you will likely play 4 of them by the end of your next turn. My list has 20 one-drops, so playing a land and a 1-drop the turn you play this makes playing 4 of those cards very feasible. Would be more difficult to justify in higher-curve lists.
- Rishkar's Expertise: So, it costs six mana, but it draws cards and it allows you to cast something costing up to 5 for free! That leads to a stupid number of plays. Extra combats are probably one of the best.
- Blasphemous Act: In multiplayer it usually costs one. It does 13 damage, which sometimes your guys can survive!
Instants
- Worldly Tutor: Basic one mana tutor. Gets what you need in a pinch.
- Veil of Summer: It's an Autumn's Veil that stops even more and replaces itself. Insane. Doesn't stop white removal spells but you can't have everything.
- Crop Rotation: You get a land at instant speed. Counts as ramp with Ancient Tomb and is a way to get Reliquary Tower without needing a land drop.
- Nature's Claim: Kills troublesome artifacts and enchantments for one! The 4 life practically doesn't matter.
- Heroic Intervention: Sometimes your path to victory will come down to one piece of spot removal, and having this in hand (and you only really need 1) may sometimes be what you need to secure it. 2 mana is a lot but sometimes you can spare it later in the game.
- Tibalt's Trickery: Red's counterspell. Can backfire, so please use it on only things that are absolutely essential to stop.
- Beast Within: Green's vindicate. 3/3 beast can be chump fodder for your guys but is generally irrelevant.
- Chaos Warp: Red's vindicate. Can occasionally backfire. Awesome to use on your stuff that got stolen.
- Deflecting Swat: Xenagos is sticky once you get him down, so this is reliably free and it stops almost any interaction that can possibly stop you.
- Hunter's Insight: Draws you cards on hit for only 3 mana! The disadvantage is that you have to play this precombat, which can lead to blowouts.
-Vines of Vastwood: Foil enemy removal for 1 mana. Can be used on enemy creatures in a pinch to stop auras.
- Cavern of Souls: Name God, make Xenagos uncounterable. If he's already out, name something that you want to sneak under a counterspell. If you don't have anything, name human or dragon. Those are the two most common creature types in this deck.
- Kessig Wolf Run: The single most important land in the deck. It not only gives trample and a mana sink, but with Xenagod you get double the power boost off of this land. It makes the nasty non-trample threats that much more dangerous.
- Reliquary Tower: When you draw 12 or 24 cards and keep them all.
- Strip Mine: Nukes big mana lands and mazes. Pretty good. We do need the mana from this land pretty often though. Only use it if you need to.
- Urza's Saga: This land allows you to T3 xenagod without a ramp spell by getting a fast mana rock. Play it on T1, then on T3 float the mana in response to the search and sac effect to be on 3 colorless and 2 other lands on turn 3.
Forest, Joraga Treespeaker, Taiga, Scourge of the Throne, Veil of Summer, Mountain, Relentless Assault
This is a snap-keep. Joraga Treespeaker alone will always ensure a turn 3 god if it lives and you can probably turn 4 attack someone for 11+22 = 33 with Scourge of the Throne. Although we don't have a draw spell, the curve-out potential of this hand is too much to pass up. Keep in mind that don't have to play our creature on turn 4. We can hold Veil of Summer to try and ensure that our attack goes through removal.
Opening Hand #2
Fire-lit Thicket, Wild Growth, Finale of Devastation, Forest, Forest/card], [card]Old Gnawbone, Life's Legacy
This hand has ramp, it has a fatty, and it has a draw spell. However this hand is slightly imperfect because it has 2 lands and Old Gnawbone is a 7-drop. Nonetheless, it is acceptable enough to keep with the idea that maybe our draws will help solve a few issues.
Opening Hand #3:
Forest, Mountain, Wooded Foothills, Strip Mine, Pathbreaker Ibex, Malignus, Frontier Siege
This is a very slow hand. Frontier Siege is fine to play before a Xenagod but with a lack of ramp spells you will be doing nothing relevant before turn 6, which is really bad. It has lands but not much else going for it.
You should almost never keep 2 land hands without sol ring or treespeaker. This deck is hungry and we need to make sure we can go to 7 reliably every game.
(Anti-control cards)
Allosaurus Shepherd
Domri, Anarch of Bolas
Destiny Spinner
Pyroblast
Red Elemental Blast
(Graveyard hate)
Tormod's Crypt
Relic of Progenitus
Grafdigger's Cage
Ground Seal
Soul-Guide Lantern
(Destory all rocks)
Vandalblast
(Pillowforts are bothering you? Wreck everything)
Bane of Progress
(You want to screw over multicolor decks)
Blood Moon
Magus of the Moon
This deck has enough basics to operate under one of these. Sometimes your deck won't be fast enough so getting one of these out can buy you enough time to get your aggression going.
Choosing the Right Hate:
This deck has the space to run a number of hate cards or meta considerations.
Red Elemental Blast effects (blue is more prevalent in these metas), Blood Moon effects, and graveyard hate are all solid choices. Cutting some of the "go really big" cards can be acceptable if you are less likely to pull them off in a given game.
Lastly, playing smaller cards that can give you an advantage even through removal may prove more beneficial if every deck in your meta is packing buckets of spot removal for some reason.
You are not the most threatening deck sometimes, and you may get the "advantage" of being left alone while you pummel a combo deck that, by all standards, probably deserved it.
Berserk effects (Berserk, Temur Battle Rage, Fatal Frenzy Fling) - They are generally cheaper than extra combat effects and generally grant an evasive boost and double damage. However, this generally will not finish off a player compared to an extra combat spell because the 50% extra damage you get from an extra combat is important. It is the difference between eliminating a full-health player and leaving them at 8 life. Also, many of them cause you to lose the creature, which frees up opposing spot removal for your next fatty. They also don't do as much as an extra combat in the possible event that you have two fatties out. Lastly, unlike extra combat spells, these must be played before damage, which can lead to blowouts if people can interact with you during your turn. Nonetheless, costing 1-2 mana in comparison to the 4-5 of an extra combat is extremely relevant and I would not fault anyone for playing a card like Temur Battle Rage in their decks.
Swords - The protections from all except Sword of Light and Shadow make Xenagod unable to grant his considerable bonus and haste to the equipped creature. Light and shadow is also better because the creature recursion effect is highly desirable here. If you need to play a sword, play that one.
8-drop creatures (Living Hive, Woodfall Primus) - They cost too much to get an effect that we can get with our other cards. We are an aggro deck first and foremost, which means we do not to let up pressure if we can. This is why we prioritize six-drops, as they allow us to get swinging IMMEDIATELY after Xenagod hits the field. If you have eight drops, you are waiting AT LEAST two turns but most likely more because hitting 8 mana sources in a row without missing one in a turn is not easy for most decks. Terastodon, while normally a great card, is especially bad here because the number of elephants you give opponents are a serious speedbump to your gameplan. Our pillowfort trasher of choice is Bane of Progress.
Tooth and Nail - We're really not doing anything overly crazy with the card. This card is at its best fetching out combo pieces. We are not a combo deck, thus getting two beatsticks is not super crazy. I suppose the best we could do is grab Scourge of the Throne and Atarka to knock some heads. 3 doses of 22-24 damage. Also it doesn't scale well to the early game. It is a paperweight in the early and mid game where we want it most.
Most Eldrazi (Kozilek, Butcher of Truth) - Again, it costs too much. While the benefits are great, 10+ mana is hard to pull off in a timely enough manner. We play a lot of ramp, but we do it to speed out Xenagod and so we don't stumble on our tempo, not to ramp to 10. Also, many of them do not have evasion. With Eldritch Moon, I opted to make an exception for Emrakul, the Promised End because of its combination of power, evasion, resilience, cost reduction (can cost as low as 8-9) and the ability to attack opponents from an angle previously not available to the deck.
- This list plays enough ramp to try and speed out Xenagos by turn 3 or 4. You always want to find a hand with a ramp spell and something mean to attack with before or after you drop Xenagod. When you mulligan you will want at least those two. Any other goodies are bonuses.
- Don't use the London mulligan to get rid of card draw. It is quite essential to the deck. If your hand is awkward, consider bottoming a spare big creature or support card instead.
- You will sometimes find hands that have a bunch of ramp spells and not a lot of drawing or killing business. Generally, hands that over-ramp are fragile hands. They are keepable, but be mindful that your draws can fail to hit enough meaningful cards in a particular game. Keep in mind that we're not a "go really big" ramp deck and we only play ramp to hit 5-7 mana more quickly. We can hit 9 (and in games we eventually will), but can't reliably hit 9 as a "critical turn". There's a reason why Tooth and Nail is not in this list.
- This deck plays to politics by threatening others with lots of damage if they interfere with your business. When being political, the best place to be is second place. You can beat up whoever is in first place, no one will interfere with you, and you can get some serious resource advantage sometimes in the process.
- Lastly, try not to make Xenagod into a creature if possible. That leaves him open to more removal, theft opportunities, or worse. You rarely need to over-commit your attackers with the deck so this doesn't often pop up. That being said, opportunties to abuse his 6 power and ability to potentially commander kill DO come up, so use your best judgment in determining the risk vs reward.
- Firebreathing or Kessig Wolf Run + Xenagos: Always do it pre-combat to double the benefits from the Xenagos buff unless you expect the creature to die, just want to give it trample, or you have other post-combat plays.
- Nonbasic Land Search for Ancient Tomb: Our nonbasic land search spells such as Crop Rotation count as ramp spells when you get Ancient Tomb. Don't forget this when choosing your opening hand!
- Gambling for Mana Crypt: Gamble in opening hands basically always gets Mana Crypt. However, never do this if you have decent ramp and your chance of failure (hitting a card you don't want to lose) is above 25%. When you draw it later in the game, the same rule applies for getting any other card except Seize the Day and if you have no other choice.
- Reliquary Tower (Or a land tutor) + Mass card draw: If we can, NEVER play our land drop before drawing a bunch of cards. The reason being is that we may need that land drop to play a Reliquary Tower so we don't inevitably start discarding a lot of our gas. If we can draw or tutor into that tower and play it before the end of the turn, we will have hand sizes that'll make monoblue players jealous. We draw pretty infrequently (once like this a game on average) so having it out will ensure that we never run out of options. If you don't find it, it isn't the end of the world. We'll have beatdown gas that will last days if opponents try to answer us 1 for 1.
- Extra combats + Xenagos: Xenagos gives his power-doubling buff at the beginning of EACH combat on our turns. This means that every extra combat gives us an additional doubling multiplier. This means that instead of hitting someone for 2x its printed power, you get to hit someone for 2x and again (or someone else) for 4x base damage. 6 times base damage will kill a player at 40 life with almost all of our fatties available.
- Multiple extra combats + Xenagos + Old Gnawbone or Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient [/card] or Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion: This is a particularly disgusting setup that generally requires you to hit a fair dose of card draw before this route becomes feasible. Both of these fatties basically refund the mana you spend to attack with them and more, and so you can keep chaining all of your extra combats with the mana generated from these guys through each attack. This can oftentimes kill multiple unprepared players in an instant and this synergy is a big reason why this deck has gotten the reputation of "killing people out of nowhere" in my playgroup.
- Sneak Attack chains: Sneak Attack chains often will involve some kind of mana producing creature such as the one above along with a card draw effect that will hopefully draw into an extra combat. This will allow you to maintain your tempo as you draw and continue to pressure life totals. The other type of sneak attack chain is Pathbreaker Ibex + a massive creature like Scourge of the Throne or Malignus. While it makes Xenagod into a creature, in this case it is beneficial as it allows Xenagod himself to take out a player by himself and this chain will often wipe all players. Sneak attack + Selvala, Heart of the Wilds + card draw is essentially a guaranteed table wipe.
- Godo, Bandit Warlord: Godo deserves a spot on this list by himself by being undisputably the most effective attacking creature in this list. A list that runs godo will also run an Embercleave because when you run the two together you get an attacker that does more damage than anything else in this list with built-in evasion. What happens is that Godo will fetch an Embercleave onto the battlefield and attach it to himself. Then he will become a 4/4 doublestrike trample, which is doubled to an 8/8 on the first attack. He does 16 damage on the first attack and untaps himself to swing a second time. The second combat will double his power again and make his second attack do 32 damage. These attacks can both target the same player for a total of 48 trample damage. If he dies, he leaves behind his equipment for the next beatstick to pick up and one-shot with. His effectiveness is so proven that running godo + any extra combat is more likely to win the game than aggravated assault combos.
- Pathbreaker Ibex duos: These cards are threats that can amplify the damage of follow-up threats and are a good reason to commit more than one big creature to the board. The following are a list of duos that, if you untap with one, you will likely wipe a player or a table.
By turn 5, you should hopefully be up and attacking your first target for a boatload of damage. The first swing is the most important. While we expect our cards to eat removal, getting a hit in that can generate some kind of resource advantage that will set us up for the entire game and is the reason why we play the 1 mana "answers to their answers". Additionally, because we are a mana hungry deck, around 10-11 cards in the deck are dedicated card draw options.
Pick your first target based on board position, ability to win quickly, and long-game potential. Slam down your first guy and immediately start attacking. While you attack this opponent, do not overcommit by playing another threat without good reason. We don't want to let ourselves get set back by mass removal, Xenagos can only grant his considerable buff to one creature at a time, and our clock rarely changes even with the addition of another threat (there are situations where you can make an exception to this rule when you actually play the deck).
Depending on the type of threat you have and the nature of your hand, you can either pursue one of two strategies. You can pursue either a heavy-damage strategy or a resource-generation strategy, both with their advantages and disadvantages.
Heavy-Damage Strategy:
This strategy is usually the default strategy for Xenagos players. It involves leading off with extremely high-damage creatures such as Godo, Bandit Warlord, Malignus, or Scourge of the Throne. The goal is to take out the most dangerous player very quickly while attempting to protect the threats if possible. Alternately, extra combat chains with the mana generating Old Gnawbone can do lethal or Combat Celebrant setups can turn any big creature into lethal in one turns of attacks.
Key cards
Big threats: Godo, Bandit Warlord, Malignus, Scourge of the Throne, Pathbreaker Ibex, Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Extra Combats: Combat Celebrant, Seize the Day, Relentless Assault, Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Advantages: Takes out players very fast, can even race powerful combo players. Can exploit momentary vulnerabilities to take out well-protected control players.
Disadvantages: Can run out of gas. More disadvantaged than other strategies if late-game is reached. Vulnerable to specialized hate pieces such as Glacial Chasm from drawing fewer cards than resource-generation strategy
Resource Generation Strategy:
This strategy aims for the generation of a massive resource advantage through its attacks instead of playing massive damage. You still can get in damage, but the priority is to generate large sums of mana or cards (or both) to draw a boatload of cards and have extremely powerful inevitability with the options that you have. These openers are more dependent on having different types of cards in your hand, but can be more powerful than the heavy-damage strategy and overall harder to stop once it gets going. Sometimes these starts even enable the deck to "go-off", chaining mana and spells into multiple lethal attacks into all players. With the 7-mana dragons, this strategy is as consistent and dangerous if not more so than the former!
Key cards Hellkite Tyrant (steals manarocks)
High-yield burst mana: Frontier Siege, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Dockside Extortionist,Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion, Old Gnawbone, Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient [/card],
Burst draw: Life's Legacy, Greater Good, Hunter's Insight, Rishkar's Expertise, Momentous Fall
Sneak Attack:Sneak Attack -allows for lethal to all players off burst draw.
Extra Combats: Combat Celebrant, Seize the Day, Relentless Assault, Moraug, Fury of Akoum
Advantages: Massive card and mana advantages lead to very high inevitability in following turns. Can allow deck to "go off" like a combo deck leading to instant wins with the right cards on board and cards drawn. Can pivot to heavy-damage strategy if cards drawn allow it. Can defeat specialized hate cards more easily with increased card draw.
Disadvantages: Requires more cards than simply ramp and a beater to execute. Sacrifice-based burst draw very vulnerable to counterspells. Low initial damage output can potentially enable opponents to combo off or go over the top of the strategy before you can finish off all players.
Whatever you do, you must maintain your pressure if at all possible, hence why we usually don't overextend. This deck has options late-game, although we are at a disadvantage because we don't carry the crazy late-game engines that other decks can run sometimes even with a successful resource generation strategy. We only stop pressure to refill, lay down countermeasures, or if there's a anti-creature lock on the board.
You generally perform optimally at this stage in the game. If you can eliminate players quickly, you're in good shape. If you can draw a LOT of cards with one of our draw effects, you are in even better shape. I will say from experience that your chances of winning go up exponentially with resolved card draw, even without a reliquary tower. The card draw is REALLY THAT IMPORTANT.
- Late-game, your deck acts like a sniper. This is both good and bad. It is good because you can usually take out the person in first place very quickly. It is bad because the person in first place should know that YOU are the biggest threat unless the person has the board firmly locked down.
- However, in most cases, your opponents are going at full speed and probably threatening you with their board positions instead of the other way around. This means that most of your conventional attackers and threats will no longer cut it, although you might have the mana to pull off crazy kills that aren't feasible with the midgame.
- One of the best ways to win from this position are interactions that will wipe the table. Cards like Chandra's Ignition can turn a single opening into a win or a massive amount of damage to everyone.
- The addition of Emrakul, the Promised End is a massive boon to the deck's lategame. Now, you can often pay 9 mana to play her, hit someone for 26 (likely lethal) and take control of someone else's turn and essentially take them out of the game (also likely lethal). When the cards are not flowing to you, this is your best shot at turning the tables.
Pick your targets wisely. Threat assessment is the most important skill to play the deck. Nonetheless you sometimes may be confronted with too many threats at once.
This deck is a lot harder to build properly than it looks. It can run into a ton of problems that you will inevitably face when building and playing the deck. Let's break down the most common barriers.
- Too many players- Aggro decks get notably worse the more players in a particular game. There is very little you can do to avoid this if you willingly choose to play this deck in a 6 player free for all. If you are facing this, go with the burst mana resource gain strategy. Getting a hit with Gnawbone/Klauth can generate enough value and damage to wipe any number of players.
- Maze of Ith - Thankfully a good amount of spot removal + land searches can find stuff that get rid of mazes. Nonetheless it sets you back a bit, so do it only if you need to.
- Blind Obedience effects- These are some of the more powerful hate cards that can practically deny your haste. These are high-priority targets for your removal.
- Opponent is building up faster- Answer whatever needs to be answered. Rocks for artifact ramp, sweepers for swarms. We can only carry so much removal without diluting the gameplan, but if it is so bad that the other players are worried about them more than a Xenagos deck, then you might have some backup for this.
- Opponent is killing everything you play- This is typically the biggest problem for these decks. This deck uses a low-cost approach to stop removal. However, adjust your strategy for adding resilience to your strategy, even at the cost of speed if necessary.
- Opponent is holding all counterspells for Xenagos- Try to force it through at a proper time or get Cavern of Souls or one of the anti-counterspell measures.
- Opponent has a pillow fort- Call in a Bane of Progress (if your list runs this card) and hope to hell that there is no Martyr's Bond or Karmic Justice out. Alternately, cards like Chandra's Ignition can kill outside of combat. Nonetheless, most Ghostly Prison effects aren't terrible to endure because you merely attack with one creature.
- You are not drawing into fatties- The fatty density is generally good enough that you'll find at least one or two per game. You have library manipulation, graveyard recursion, and mass draw to help with this. If you are afraid of not seeing threats, keep one in your opening hand. This leads to the other problems that is more common with initial Xenagos builds. My current number is 14 big threats + 6 tutors (I don't count gamble here) for a total of 20 potential threats. This is enough for at least one in an opening hand.
- Your mana curve is too high- You may be tempted at first glance to throw every gigantic stompy card into this deck no matter its cost. However, the clunkier your deck, the more likely you get stuck with dead cards in hand, and a deck like this cannot afford to be stuck with uncastable stuff. Lower the curve.
- You are not drawing into draw effects- This is an unfortunate effect of not drawing gas in a format where keeping up in cards is essential for many archetypes. The value of these cards is why we try not to mulligan them away when possible.
- Xenagos keeps eating enchantment exile- This typically means that your metagame is warped to either deal with this list or you're facing a billion B/W decks.
M21 update
- Sylvan Scrying
- Nature's Lore
- Ignite the Future
+ Arbor Elf
+ Overgrowth
+ Elder Gargaroth
Ikoria Update:
- Terror of Mount Velus
- World at War
+ Deflecting Swat
+ Quartzwood Crasher
Theros Beyond Death Update
- Siege Behemoth
- Blood Mist
- Aggravated Assault
- Yavimaya Hollow
- Return of the Wildspeaker
- Caustic Caterpillar
- Mosswort Bridge
- Blood Mist
- Spinerock Knoll
+ Wilderness Elemental
+ Finale of Devastation
+ World at War
+ Vines of Vastwood
+ Ignite the Future
+ Inkmoth Nexus
+ Dryad Arbor
+ Sylvan Tutor
Throne of Eldraine Update
-Added Blood Moon/Anti-Blue list for use against more competitive decks.
Added the following cards
-Kenrith's Transformation
-Escape to the Wilds
-Embercleave
-Godo, Bandit Warlord
-Time of Need
- Return of the Wildspeaker
- Dockside Extortionist
- Wild Growth
- Yavimaya Hollow
- Hull Breach
Removed the following cards
- Balefire Dragon
- Etali, Primal Storm
- Plated Crusher
- World at War
- Tireless Tracker
- Nature's Will
- Sakura-Tribe Elder
- Wasteland
- Force of Vigor
- Dense Foliage