Hey everybody!
It’s another game day blog here at spalanz.com, and this week I wanted to return to looking at some of the weird and wonderful decks I’ve been building for Magic the Gathering. Earlier this year, I started to write some blogs about the decks I’ve been playing, starting with the blue/black delights of House Dimir, and this is very much a continuation of that theme as I look at another of the guilds of Ravnica: the Boros Legion!
Boros is red/white, and is centred around the idea of lots of attacking creatures with lots of buffs. While I like both colours, I usually prefer to have them each paired with black (though I have also experimented with blue/red in more recent times).
Boros is a complicated entity on Ravnica, as it is an army led by angels. In the original Ravnica block, the Boros Legion was led by Razia, Archangel of the Boros Legion. There are distinct factions of the Boros and the Wojek, with complicated relationships and a power banding that stretches from the angels through to the general officers. As with all guilds from Ravnica, Boros have had two keywords in each block: Radiance in the original set, and Battalion in Return to Ravnica. We’ll get to Battalion shortly, but as I don’t have any cards from original Ravnica in this deck, I’ll just briefly mention Radiance now: it provides an effect on a target card and all cards that share a colour with it. There are a number of spells that buff your own chaps, but also spells that destroy cards. Not having played with any of these cards, I think I prefer the later keyword for the theme of the guild…
It feels almost deceptively simple to play red/white, however. The basic premise for the deck is to have a lot of creatures out attacking, and play spells to buff them during combat. That’s pretty much it. Playing specific Boros cards, however, grants even more buffs thanks to their keyword, Battalion. This is an ability word that provides an effect whenever the creature with Battalion attacks alongside two or more creatures. There aren’t actually that many creatures in this deck with Battalion – I wanted just a couple, with enough generic chaps to keep the deck interesting.
Indeed, I think building this Boros deck really helped to demonstrate to myself some of my key tenets of deckbuilding. I don’t like to have a strategy that hinges on just a couple of cards, but rather have a fairly wide strategy for the deck overall. This Boros deck really demonstrates that insofar as pretty much everything does the same thing, so no card or cards are more crucial than the rest, the deck will still work no matter what is removed. There are some things I’d like to swap out, as I’d really like to give all my creatures Haste, but I think I’d be too concerned with relying on a small number of cards.
There are also a number of cards from Theros block that feature the Inspired keyword, granting effects whenever the card is untapped. I really like these sorts of things, where the effect will trigger almost automatically (hence why I love Landfall so much!) God-Favored General is probably the best example of this, with the very Boros-like ability of creating soldier tokens whenever he becomes untapped. I’ve talked about this before of course, but I love to see how the colour combinations have consistency even when on different planes.
I have two god-cards in the deck, but the overall strategy doesn’t truly depend on them. Sure, if I can keep Iroas out and give my creatures menace as well as preventing all combat damage to them on my turn, then that’s pretty great, but it’s not going to end my day if Iroas is killed off or continually bounced, or whatever. As usual, the gods serve as a distraction while I try to overwhelm them with other dudes.
While legendary creatures do most often serve as distractions in my deck, I do like Tajic, Blade of the Legion, and am most sad when he dies quickly. It’s something of a shame for me that I’ve not yet found a good way to consistently get Haste for all my creatures, because I want to attack with him the minute he hits the battlefield – obviously, when I’ve got two other guys attacking with him. 7/7 for four mana is just too good to pass up!
I’ve also tried to get a lot of anthem-effects, which I always think are important in creature-heavy decks – the type of decks I like to play the most! Paragon of New Dawns is perhaps my favourite to play here, giving other white creatures +1/+1. There are more white than red creatures in the deck, and the muticoloured creatures count for this effect as well. Righteous Charge and Spear of Heliod are good for all creatures, though, and the combination has been quite effective when I’ve got a big board going all-in!
Creatures (23)
Heliod, God of the Sun
Daring Skyjek
God-Favored General (x2)
Paragon of New Dawns (x2)
Akroan Phalanx
Akroan Skyguard (x2)
Precinct Captain
Soldier of the Pantheon
Priest of Iroas (x2)
Towering Thunderfist
Akroan Hoplite (x2)
Iroas’s Champion (x2)
Tajic, Blade of the Legion
Iroas, God of Victory
Truefire Paladin (x2)
Wojek Halberdiers
Instants & Sorceries (8)
Martial Glory (x2)
Mortal’s Ardor (x2)
Boros Charm
Crowd’s Favor
Righteous Charge
Bolt of Keranos
Enchantments & Artifacts (6)
Spear of Heliod
Assemble the Legion
Gleam of Battle
Armory of Iroas
Boros Keyrune (x2)
Land (23)
Plains (x9)
Mountains (x9)
Temple of Triumph
Ancient Amphitheater
Boros Guildgate (x2)
Cathedral of War
This is a fairly basic red/white attack deck, with a fairly hefty landbase to accommodate those enchantments. It still needs a little bit of playing around with, to be sure, but it has been a lot of fun to play, especially when the board is just right and I can swing for 23 in a single turn!
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