I have been working on a decklist for the past couple of months that feels so great in my hands that it seems to have the potential to define metagame. It is currently undefeated in tournament play and helped me X-0 the most recent regional I attended. I started playing the deck back in December when I fell in love with Vindicator Zalreth and High Priestess Ishanna. After staring at the crafted materials that I made at the World Championship, I tried out several builds that could support my favorite cards. The game underwent a ton of changes and there was a move from raw rush power decks to intense late game control builds. I wanted a Warrior deck with staying power and aimed to drop some of the biggest, baddest equipment and allies that the game has ever seen.

Throughout January I played the deck online, ran the build locally, and worked on building a version to take down Regionals. Early in the year I ran into some problems when the Druid and Priest decks became so popular. Gift of the Wild builds were so powerful and sported such large characters that I had to take my original version back to the drawing board. Priest was tough but did not offer the same play challenges found in the Druid class. I will show you guys an early version of the build and comment about the evolution. I had originally planned on keeping this deck more of a secret, but most of the tech was either leaked or obvious. Night after night, players online, folks using the Magic Work Station, and others are piloting similar lists in anonymity. The time has come to start talking about one of the best-kept secrets (or not so well kept secrets) in the metagame.

December Version: Bloody Beginnings

Hero: Bloody Mary

Allies

4 Guardian Steelhorn
4 Susvayin
3 Doshura Risestrider
3 Guardian Steppestrider
2 Sister Rot
2 Vindicator Zalreth
1 High Priestess Ishanna
1 Abominable Greench

Abilities

4 Blood Rage
4 Intercept
4 Puncture
2 Cannibalize
3 Shield Bash

Equipment

3 Drillborer Disk
1 Draconian Deflector
2 Perdition’s Blade
1 Felsteel Reaper

Quests

4 Counterattack!
2 Chasing Ame
2 A New Plague
4 Donation of Silk
4 It’s a Secret to Everybody

To Build on Control

There are a couple of trends that have made control decks really tough. Most control decks have outstanding ways of drawing cards, answers to lots of different situations including removal, and some way of gaining health through healing. Most of the powerhouse control decks in the format meet these 3 criteria. If a deck is missing one of these elements, it usually plays flat or one-dimensional.

With these thoughts in mind, I wanted to build a deck that basically abused the Aldor allies. Zalreth is a house and seemed to be like an amazing ally when you consider the abuses that could be generated using Donation of Silk and the Abominable Greench. I had originally planned on using Zalreth in a deceptive way. He is huge, a protectors, and makes decks deal with his 5/5 frame. However, when he is destroyed, you are able to stack his effect on the chain, resolve a Donation of Silk and bring a tricky ally into play that your opponent did not suspect to be hitting the field. Namely, Greench or the High Priestess would serve this role and actually wrecked house.

I planned on trying out the “instant Tewa” type weapon in Felsteel Reaper and wanted a way to protect my allies and hero with an interrupt. If there was a fourth aspect of control to be added to many successful late game decks it would be the presence of an interrupt card. I also imagined that Bringer of Death would be popular and wanted access to Wreck. With these thoughts in mind, I began building and playing the deck.

January 5th, 2005

The deck makes it appearance outside of my playgroup and I faced a bunch of players from South Florida while we were playing at a regional tournament. The deck never lost a game and no one seemed familiar with the new cards. I began to understand the nature of the win condition against different types of decks and saw cards that were both weak and strong in various match-ups.

Initial testing showed that both Guardians were relatively weak. Players were used to these tricks and often played around them. Rush decks seemed to avoid the large protectors using Cyclone, removal, or some other nasty effect, and there seemed to be times when I wanted a more proactive solution in the deck. On the other hand, removal and Doshura Risestrider played very well. I wanted more ways to tap over characters and thought of Bhenn Checks-the-Sky and wanted to amp up the numbers of some of the later game characters. Puncture was great and did double duty against opposing allies and equipment. I was using it way too early in the matches in the early days of testing, and eventually learned to hold onto copies for more critical removal.

Finally, the 3 health allies on the Horde were making cards like Susveyn laughable. This card was more anemic then it had been in the past and needed replacement. The original versions handled the Alliance rush decks but seemed to struggle against some of the faster Horde decks. In the same week, a Priest list hit the web using Shadow Weaving. Shadow dealing effects and characters were everywhere and Morlug Soulslaver was making a huge comeback. I began considering Withering Shout.

After the first weeks of testing I was looking at cutting the armor and Shield Bash. It was great, but I needed to change cards up to beat the improved Horde rush. There was a big tournament in Germany and a Druid deck packing Gift of the Wild began giving the deck real problems.

Making the Cut

There were several cards that lacked the power needed to make the deck a contender. Here is a list of the cuts:

4 Susvayin
3 Guardian Steppestrider
2 Sister Rot
3 Shield Bash
3 Drillborer Disk
1 Draconian Deflector
2 Perdition’s Blade

The next stage was a major overhaul. I moved 3 shields and 3 Shield Bash to the sideboard and dropped a bunch of outdated allies. Some of the equipment needed changed and I wanted to include some new cards as well as alter some choices.

Here is a list of cards I wanted:
More Ishanna
More Felsteel Reaper
More Early Game Control
More Exhaustion Effects
More Removal
More Healing

Hero: Bloody Mary

Allies

4 Guardian Steelhorn
4 Bhenn Checks-the-Sky
4 One Thousand Battles
4 Doshura Risestrider
3 Vindicator Zalreth
2 High Priestess Ishanna
2 Abominable Greench

Abilities

4 Blood Rage
4 Intercept
4 Puncture
4 Withering Shout
3 Cannibalize

Equipment

2 Felsteel Reaper

Quests

4 Counterattack!
2 To Serve Kumisha
2 A New Plague
4 Donation of Silk
4 It’s a Secret to Everybody

Second Look: Orlando Regionals

I added in more of the best cards in the deck and sacrificed some of the toolbox style nature of the deck. Some of the cards were playing great, but there were still some problems. I loved playing more Reapers and more Ishanna, but I think I over-generalized the importance of some of the other high drops. The deck still functioned well, but I occasionally got way behind against the new Druid decks. After taking some severe beatings, I felt like I needed to add some cards that took better care of my hero early in the game. For a while I packed the Shield Bash back into the main to take care of the amazing abilities, but eventually found that it was not enough of a change. The boards were getting to be too overwhelming and I was not able to turn the corner with the deck.

After some additional cuts, I added in the Hellreaver and tried to capitalize on Withering Shout. I also wanted to deemphasize the deck’s reliance on Blood Rage for draw. There were some rush matches in which you were unable to drop the ability because you could not afford the health loss. Blood Rage is huge in the control match, but it is a tough call in rush. There were some classic quests that seemed to have synergy with Withering Shout and I felt like Haunted Mills might make a solid addition. Swift Discipline and the Mills opened some doors and allowed the deck to cut copies of Blood Rage. The extra copies went to the sideboard.

Ultimately, I began to like Varimathras over the inclusion of the Greench. The Greench seemed to be easily removed in certain situations and the deck had no real way of keeping him alive. The large 9-drop served as an instant 2-for-1 in the majority of cases and was very hard to kill. He made his debut right before the Regional.

A Second Look: Undefeated

Hero: Bloody Mary

Allies

4 Guardian Steelhorn
3 Bhenn Checks-the-Sky
3 One-Thousand Battles
4 Doshura Risestrider
2 Instructor Antheol
2 Vindicator Zalreth
2 High Priestess Ishanna
1 Varimathras

Abilities

3 Blood Rage
4 Intercept
3 Withering Shout
4 Puncture
3 Cannibalize

Equipment

3 Hellreaver
3 Felsteel Reaper

Quests

3 Counterattack!
4 Swift Discipline
3 To Serve Kumisha
4 Haunted Mills
2 Donation of Silk

After playing with the deck a while, I began to notice that more and more players were onto the control Warrior. As control grows, you might want to rethink the addition of Shield Bash, the Blood Rage, and the inclusion of Instructor Antheol. That guy is a house in the control match and gave me problems when I tested against Priest and Warlock builds. He seems pretty solid and should find a place in the deck. Shadala is another fine inclusion, but is fighting for a spot in a list that is currently pretty tight.

I think the deck is an excellent choice. There are about a million directions you can go with the list including some synergies with the new Treasure Pack cards and various takes on the win condition. The deck might not be able to survive a port into Alliance, but several players like the freshness provided by going through such an exercise. In any case, this deck seems like a winner and should be in your test gauntlet for the next major tournament. I do not typically spill my best tech, but this build seems to be growing in popularity and I wanted to give the readers a heads up. This build sports favorable match-ups against most of the field, could pack in some additional weapon and ability hate, and only has a couple of rough match-ups. I am 50% on running this deck in the Orlando DMF. Don’t be surprised to see this thing in the spotlight very soon.

Jeremy Blair is a writer and card player from Florida. He is currently dating Bloody Mary and looking to take her to the big dance. Thoughts, suggestions, and feedback to Tampakingpin@yahoo.com.