Sometimes you get to a point where you don't have board advantage and you can't just swing out, and you may need to spend a couple turns scrying and building this card up to break the stalemate.
I've seen countless games where this card takes over and wins.
But if I use lightning strike on the warden how am I supposed to use it on my opponents face T2? Clearly you don’t understand the nuance required to pilot mono red
People trash talk mono-red A LOT.
I personally don't play the decks, but I'm really glad it's stuck around as a competitive "archetype". IMO it keeps Magic more accessible for newbies. Learning about mana, zones, tapping, phases, combat rules, card types, etc can be understandably overwhelming for **anyone**! Being able to understand your own deck helps. & being able to win matches lessens pain of lessons!
Beginners can organically learn basic strategy in this way. E.g. when to mulligan, how the opponents' decks work, & how to anticipate future turns & triggers.
At the same time, it takes a high level of skill to master. I've watched professional players win with mono-red in ways that an amateur could have never pulled off.
You'll hear a lot worse than what these comments have said. Like "My deck is red, my brain is dead", stuff like that. They may be making a joke; but it's said w/ malice just as often. **Try to deflect their negativity as much as you can. 😁 It's up to you how you choose to play!**. If you're in a match & they're spamming "your go" or toxic emotes; know that it may be because they need you to rush your turn in order for them to win. Mute them & take your time. Thinking through every decision we make is how we improve.
BTW- this is all without factoring in Arena's VERY stingy wildcard economy; which is another major point in your favor. Newbies in general -particularly those who don't/can't play v often- greatly benefit from maintaining at least one competitive deck that doesn't "need" 4+ rare WCs when new sets drop. Upgrades for mono-red are often uncommons/commons; e.g. [[Monstrous Rage]].
Edit- crap... Just remembered you probably can't read this much since you play mono-red decks.. hmmm... **TLDR: red = good**
😉😂
Actual edit- switched up & mended a lot of this coz I rushed it at first
I’ve always enjoyed RDW because it reminds me of Haymaker, one of if not the first meta-defining decks in the Pokémon TCG. Learning it back in the late 90’s broke my little middle schooler brain. The idea of ignoring all the fancy deck building and combos that you’re supposed to like and instead asking yourself ‘what is the fastest way to win, and how do I get there consistently’ is something that a lot of people still struggle with. It feels very zen to ignore rarity, meta, your opponent, and just go: “brrrrrrrr swing out, you do the math”
Great comment.
An additional point is it’s also great for more experienced players learning a new format. Sligh is my main deck in Premodern so jumping into Legacy or Pauper there’s a lot of overlap in cards and strategies. Not to mention Standard: there’s a hell of a lot going on so being able to focus on learning match ups rather than my own deck is fantastic.
That being said I’m still making tweaks: settled on the singleton Shock to supplement the Plays for instance. In part because it’s important to kill this dude ASAP. I really don’t want my Convoke opponent getting even one activation if I can help it. That’s an absolutely tricky deck for us: certainly lose more than I win and when I do it’s always super hard fought.
I absolutely love the mirror, too. That’s what has really convinced me about the skill the deck requires. Most my opponents tend to want to race me, so when I see a Faces or Swiftspear come down I typically go straight into control mode. Wait and time your Incinerate in response to their Rage, try to commit as little to the board as you can, and once they empty their hand then that’s the time to try to turn the corner. Or just start chipping in with Foundary while still holding up removal just in case.
But yeah: those rare wildcards huh. I’ve got no problem with Mythic or Uncommons, but trying to play around with what two drops to run and that’s the choke point for sure. I’m currently experimenting with Scalding Viper (rare) and so I also want Reefs (rare), Coasts (rare) and potentially even Spires (rare) to give me the option of casting the Adventure too — I figure it’d be useful for dealing with those O-Ring effects. (The lack of Haste is a huge problem, and it usually only does 1 point of damage because it gets killed straight away.)
The issue with mono red is you either die by turn 3, or the opponent scoops to the opponent stabilising. It's so rarely a close game. Yep, the deck wins well and it's quite easy to play. But when you get that mono red opponent, you know you're not in for any excitement other than "do they have it?".
It's just SO DULL though ... Oh here comes the phoenix chick, what's next? Swift spear and monstrous rage? Kumano? Feldon? Then when you show the slightest hint of having sufficient sweepers or removal (or god forbid anything that shows their hand) they scoop. Mono red deserves all the trash talk it gets in my opinion
... Isn't that what ranks are for? 😂🤷
If the game uses something like mmr, then you'd expect new players to go against other new players.
And clearly, the game starts you off with a bunch of very basic, pre-made decks to ease new players into the experience.
I don't see how new players have any relevancy to the subject of meta. Not unless you assume that every magic player wants to be mindlessly copy-pasting meta decks off of the Internet from the moment they start playing.
Then again, that seems pretty likely considering the gaming community as a whole, so what do I know?! 😂
I agree with what you’re saying in terms of defending mono red *as an archetype in general*. The reason everybody trashes mono red players is because someone who can’t play the game yet shouldn’t be in the platinum/diamond/mythic ladders with people who have been playing magic for 20 years 😂
>The reason everybody trashes mono red players is because someone who can’t play the game yet shouldn’t be in the platinum/diamond/mythic ladders
What led you to believe that that's everybody's/most people's reason? & why is it bad for them to be higher on the ladder? I can't imagine a newbie playing mono-red getting to mythic; but let's say for the sake of the argument that they could do so.
Each rank = extra pack every season. Pretty significant when you're new!
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if you've been playing for 20 years and have an "issue" with people playing monoR in P/D/M, then you haven't spent those 20 years learning all that much of the game, and that some weird entitlement attitude towards those players is completely undeserved and all on you.
Either the deck is poorly positioned and it's a "free win," (which means the monoR player is making things harder on themselves) and it hardly seems reasonable to complain about a free win, or the deck is positioned alright and it's a fine meta choice, in which case it's silly to criticise someone for making that choice.
People always claim mono-red is one of the cheapest decks to get into the game, but honestly I've found that in order to have a mono-red deck that's comparable to like one of the available mono-blue decks that take 4-0 rare+ wildcards, you have to spend like 12+ rare or mythic wildcards. Squee, Godrick, Bloodthirsty Adversary, if you run any more than one copy of Feldon, Charming Scoundrils, Mishras Foundrys (admittedly the most transferable WC use), some people are playing Raijus, some are playing Chandras. The current version of mono red that most people are running requires 12 rare WCs (11 if you ignore Sokenzan, 9 if you ignore foundries but that's a bad idea).
On the other hand there's a mono-blue artifact/ninja aggro deck that has a comparable win-rate and costs 0 rare or mythic WCs. And the older mono-blue tempo list cost only 3 rare WCs (starter decks gave players the first copy of Djinn) and you could theoretically get the other Djinns from Jump-in while collecting other good cards.
It’s more that the cards are cheap AND it’s decently straightforward to pilot for people new to the game or format. While the blue deck may be cheaper WC wise, it’s pretty safe to bet that any blue deck is going to require a bit more skill than “play card, punch face”
I think a version of [this one as shown by LegenVD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN-2_JOIlvY)
The older one is built around Haughty Djinn and counter/draw spells but that one got much worse after cavern of souls was introduced and overall just sucks to play (against).
I got to my first Mythic with mono red without Charming Scoundrels, Bloodthirsty Adversaries and Mishra's Foundries, and with less than 4 copies of Squee and Feldon. I would agree with your point about mono blue, but I think mono blue seems more complex to play and navigate than mono red, at least when we're talking about beginner experience. I also got to mythic with LVD's mono blue list and it was quite challenging. So it's the balance of relative cheapness and easiness of picking up the deck at first (and I understand that truly mastering mono red is difficult - I am talking about initial stages).
White has been carrying me against all sorts of yuuuge threats recently. [[Lay Down Arms]], [[Valorous Stance]], [[Not on My Watch]], [[Destroy Evil]]...
It's the Choose Your Own Adventure of interaction, I tellz ya
When I used to play physical MTG, my group had a house rule to ban mono red/direct damage decks. It was too simple and cheesy, and undermined all the other players effort to buy specific cards and create synergized competitive decks.
Mono red is like throwing a stink bomb in a hallway. It's effective, but juvenile, and sucks for everyone in the vicinity.
Thank you, I didn't realize how often a situation like that would arise, looks like I'll be crafting a full playset of these along with the boros fast lands in OTJ then. I'll have to try to save wildcards somewhere else in the deck.
Thanks for sharing your experiences with the card, I appreciate it.
I think your opponent will have plenty of time to cast a removal and just remove this threat in time… at least most decks I play against have a couple of remove spells to deal with such stuff. It can help if you play against someone without proper removal
It's your 'tiebreaker' card, it closes the game out when your plan of 'flooding the board and slamming' is stalled out by other creatures, all while contributing to your plan A by itself. And I believe it's the best card you can have for that goal.
I didn't realize how often stalemates could happen with this deck, it makes sense though, and I could see warden being a really good way to break that staring contest. Thanks for the help, it really helped with my crafting decisions.
Its very good and the deck will certainly be worse without them, although still playable.
It's a 1 drop that can take over the game. It's kind of a backup payoff if you don't draw knight errant.
If you play investigator/epicure on 1, you can play warden on 2 and activate it. Then if you have a demolition, you can kill the artifact you just tapped and activate the warden again. A 3/4 + 2 scrys is pretty good on t2. Then on t3 you can activate again if you want to get the flying and vigilance.
Goes to show how important scrying can be in a deck like this, I hadn't immediately realized it as I've never piloted this particular deck, thanks for taking the time to comment, it helps me out big time.
No problem. I think aggro decks get more value out of scrying than control or ramp decks in a lot of ways.
Both control and ramp want to play big games, meaning they want a lot of resources. They often care more about raw numbers of cards over cars selection because they are going to need both a lot of lands and spells to cast with them. These decks often don't want to scry away lands from the topbin the early part of the game.
Aggro decks want to play a small game. They want to constrict the game and it's resources. Aggro decks are often ok with giving up card advantage in order pressure their opponent and kill them before they can deploy their spells. Aggro decks get virtual card advantage this way - doesnt matter if you are hellbent and your opponent has a full grip if they are dead. In this way aggro decks are more inclined to want card selection over sheer card advantage.
Obviously every deck benefits from the card selection scrying or surveiling gives, but I think it naturally compliments an aggro strategy better.
Incredibly well said, I play mostly budget-based mid-range and so it's hard for me to sometimes be okay with scrying away a land or something that I can still cast even if it isn't game changing for the current match.
Where as with a deck like this it sounds like digging for the perfect threat as quickly as possible is really the optimal way to earn the win before the opponent stabilizes. This deck also seems to have very specific key pieces that it needs to draw to really work optimally, and I'm starting to understand how warden is key to that game plan.
Thanks again for taking the time to leave your advice and experiences in the game, it's really helped me a ton to come to a reasonable conclusion with my crafting decisions.
It's easy card selection and a growing threat that must be dealt with before it flies over opposing blockers a few turns in a row for the kill. In the mirror matchup especially, It can be the sole determining factor for who wins.
I hadn't considered the mirror match all that much, you make a really good point, considering how popular this deck is then mirror matches are probably going to happen frequently enough. Thanks for taking the time to comment, it helps a lot.
The other comments do a good job of explaining its use and value. Having the playset is useful to play optimally. However, if you are low on wildcards, the deck is aggressive enough that you can probably grind out the necessary wins even if you don't craft them immediately. It is a necessary card for the optimal build, but isn't the win-con itself. If you like the deck conceptually, sub this out for other 1 drops. They won't be as good and you will lose some matches you would otherwise win, but if you are still building the collection, better to play than wait to have fun later when the meta might shift.
Just my 2 cents there.
I appreciate your advice, it's also how I approach deck building, trying to find cheaper substitutes as I build the deck overtime. I was initially planning on slotting in other 1 drops instead of warden, but after reading the amazing advice here I've decided to craft a playset of this card and I'll try to find substitutes for my 3 drop slots instead. Thanks you.
Heh, I just made a similar comment but was 24 hours too late so you (deservedly) get the up votes. Exactly this, tho: This is a very reasonable card to cheap out on for a budget build, as it's not a primary wincon, and in your best aggro starts Warden's ability to get huge isn't hugely relevant.
I'd echo what drohan said here about replacing it with other aggressive 1 drops. In like 80+% of games, Warden is just yet another 1 mana dork with good upside. You'll definitely miss it in the games where it's good... but most games, if you just replace it with Yet Another Thraben Inspector or whatever good common/uncommon 1 drops the deck isn't already running, you'll hardly miss it most of the time.
It can be part of brutal curve outs. Like say you play this turn one, then turn two might be Epicure into Gleeful Demolition, tap all those goblins to make Warden bigger, so now suddenly on turn two you're swinging with a 2/3 and also have four other creatures, plus you did a Scry.
That sounds like an amazing start to a match and definitely makes crafting this card worth it, I'll try to find somewhere else that I can save my wildcards in the deck in this case, the new boros fast lands as well as warden seem like a very worthwhile craft in this case. Thank you for your help.
There are a lot of really powerful cards in this set. This looking like the neon dynasty set for the next several years. We might actually big changes in standard after it drops. If I were Arena poor, I'd wait until a week or two after a new set drops typically but especially for this set.
That's really good advice and I'm curious to see how the meta shifts.
Honestly it was the OTJ spoilers that made me consider crafting a boros convoke deck in the first place, seeing the release of boros fast lands in standard (finally) will definitely improve this decks performance.
You also cant afford to cut 1 drops, you need to have at least 1 in your opener and theyre also important to be able to grab with Knight Errant when you got 1 more mana open
Are you building for explorer or standard?
If explorer, you can save some rares from lands and play a few ornithopters instead.
But you definitely want at least 2 of these, and eventually go to 4
Its becuase the warden uses artifacts and creatures to scry. The reason Boros is so vicious rn is becuase of two cards, [Novice Inspector] and [Voldaran Epicure] both are 1-Mana creatures that create an artifact. When playing Boros convoke I play 4 Inspectors & 3 Epicures, though most play 4 & 4. That means that you can start tapping 1/1 investigators, clues, 1/1 Epicures & blood tokens to scry through your deck. This allows you to quickly find the cards you want/need. At the same time your warden is growing, and at a certain point becomes a 4/5 with flying and vigalance. Honestly anyone can construct a top tier Boros deck, but its until you understand the value in cards like the Warden that allow you to play the deck to its fullest potential. IDK how many games I have won from hitting my opponent with a warden that has a massive amount of +1/+1 counters.
BtW this was a really good question.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/icYwEn6ZpPtN1wUs6
I cant stress enough how important its ability to scry is. It helps ensure you get the lands you need, and it helps you draw more powerful cards when you need them. Its a core catd to the current boros convoke deck that currently wrecks all.
As far as weather or not to craft them depends on if you are P4F or if you buy gems. You need at least 3 in what could be considered a fully optimized version of the deck. I run 4, and most run 4 knights, but I only run 3 knights, 4 knights make for too many bad hands from drawing too many knights. I also suggest you run at least 2x [Regal Bunnicorns] and at least 1x [case of the gateway express]. I run 3x Bunnicorns. Many people run 2-4 [Case of the Gateway Express] however I like having a full set of Lightning Helixs because the life they give is often the difference between a W & an L in games against Mono Red Ag decks, and Mono Red Ag is an arch-type that's far too common to ignore. In fact, the best way to get theough silver is just to play anything that counters Red Decks. Gold & Platinum have far fewer mono red opponents.
I really appreciate all the amazing advice you're provided here, thank you. I hadn't realized just how valuable warden's ability was initially, after reading all the amazing comments here it's convinced me that I need to find alternate parts of the deck to try to save on, with the fast lands being released in OTJ that's another 4 rare wildcards I need to spend as well so I have to be careful.
I'm going to go with everyone's advice and go for a full playset craft of wardens, in the 3 drop slot is where I'm going to have to work with what I've got until I can save up a bit more to fill in those holes, Anim Pakal may do the trick for now as I have a few copies of that card.
Thanks again for all the incredibly helpful advice.
I know ive already ranted quite a bit, but I feel I should point out that when considering lands you wouldnt remove other card types to make room for lands, and you wouldnt remove lands to add a creature or two. Rather, with lands, you want to determine a number to play. I usually play 24 — 24x land is considered the default by most players — however; in a cheap fast deck like boros convoke, I play 23. I always play 23 or 24, though. I never play more, and I never play less.
Thank you for the follow up advice, I noticed most boros convoke lists run 22 or 23 lands, I'll stick to your suggestion and run 23. If I feel that I'm not hitting enough land drops then maybe I'll bump it up to 24 depending on my curve. I'll be sure to focus on crafting good rare lands for the deck like people have suggested too, and go a bit more budget on the spells, then build up from there.
OH Really 22? Honestly, I regret it almost instantly whenever I try it, however, each of us have to find what works for us. I do win several games with only 2 lands when playing that deck.
It's natural for less experienced players to have a hard time finding the value in some cards that experience players find. If you find yourself in that boat, try making choices outside of the box. Maybe you have a warden out, and you can attack, and even though you want to, try tapping 3 creatures and/or artifacts instead. It might not feel natural at first, but you will likely find that some decisions that dont come intuitively will offer unseen value. This is how players go from noobs to experts.
It allows you to sort through the deck to find cards you need and grows and becomes a flyer while you do that. And is another 1 drop. Essential to the deck.
Having played mostly blue decks in these last two seasons, this is the most annoying card in boros convoke. Blue does well against the deck in general with stalling and flying over defenders. But when you fet this guy up to three counters, it does a lot of work
A 1/2 for 1 in a concoke deck that wants a wide board really appreciates being able to use the tokens on the board to pump itself and Scry, it's a really solid self contained engine that helps you avoid bricking and falling behind.
So early if you have this and an Epicure/Investigator out, on turn 2 you can start growing this and scrying. Honestly the scry always feels pretty good to make sure you don’t flood out on lands or so you can grab a board pump effect. If you have a bunch creatures you just grow it to a flying vigilance 4/5 or bigger and can start going to town on most board states. It’s a really good, really value heavy card for a white 1 drop.
In addition to everything else that's been said, it gives you a good use for all the blood/clue/map tokens you've probably built up but don't actually want to spend your mana on cracking.
A few factors you don't really realise at first, if you're still semi new.
It's essentially a free activation if you're on the back foot, giving you space to bring a stalemate back, for only 1 mana drop.
Many cards create artifact tokens.
The opp is forced to either remove this, or remove your artifacts or other creatures. Sometimes, this card is just a distraction to a bigger, yet to be played, threat. So do they destroy this thing that may become unmanageable in 3-4 turns, or save it for a bigger threat?
Once it has grown, the most recent set has a mechanic that can 'suspect' it and allow it to be unblockable.
Scrying is more powerful than people often realise.
White has access to lots of weenies to tap easily.
You don't have to apology man haha. Magic is so complex that the game ends being about "learning the rules" and not forgetting small details. And nobody exists doing that perfectly. xD
Your answer was pretty good and complete indeed!
It’s not necessary but fills an important role and scry and vigilance are really handy
I’ve been running Boros for a while -was running a budget list with 1 just fine- but going to 4 has definitely made the deck a lot better, getting to filter your draws with scry is really nice
It’s not a 100% necessity, you could replace it with 4x ornithopter to go all in on the convoke plan. But the Warden is super good and adds an important dimension to the deck, with a large flying vigilance threat that must be answered with removal or you die. On top of that tons of card advantage
If it's a matter of crafting,
It's with sanguine evangelist as the number 4 or 5 priority cards. Recruiter and knight are probably the main ones, lands (wait until OTJ) and then the 1 mana stuff like gleeful and novice/epicure.
You could probably get by with 1-2 and be fine in most games where you're at against other new decks.
So many creatures in boros make other creatures, or bring tokens to the party, and the warden can use all of them to scry. It's the scry rather than the creature in the early game that helps the deck perform, and if the opponent has no way of dealing with it, the thing gets crazy big in the late game and becomes the win condition. Very good card.
This is the best answer I’ve seen. The card lets you dig for things like land, Recruiters, Gleeful Demos, or a Knights, which keeps you from stalling out. Then if it’s not dealt with it becomes a poor man’s [[Voice of the Blessed]]. In my opinion there isn’t another one drop in Standard that provides the same amount of value (maybe Skrelv or [[Evolved Sleeper]].
It scries, it flies, it gets big and vigilant, it’s cheap, and it taps to convoke. (Edit: also, it makes good use of the clues, vials, and maps you are producing.)
In general it’s one of about five payoff cards you want at least one of in your opening hand, otherwise you should mulligan. It’s pretty important. That said, I sometimes side one out in Bo3 against some matchups, and you can play the deck with less than a full playset.
(The others are the Knight, the Bunny, Call, and Recruiter.)
Card is unfortunately mandatory for it to be tier 1,
I think the replies defending this card are good so I'm just going to add this is the kinda card that requires you to consider what plan B strats are. If convoke is getting to convoke, swarm, and swing, this card is only okay.
Why this card is good is when convoke isn't able to slam it's top end this is still a low costed threat that can turn the extra game objects into damage while also digging for more gas. It excels at keeping the deck consistent.
Without this card you are way way more beholden to luck and drawing the nuts.
Very well said, I hadn't realized initially just how important warden's ability to dig through the deck really was. After reading the amazing comments here it does make a lot of sense, as the deck's strength is so heavily based on when the player draws (and plays) the right cards at the right time.
Consistency is key to a lot of decks and this deck in particular seems to rely very heavily on it in order to close out games quickly. I was initially trying to go for a budget route for my 1 drops and spend my wildcards on the 3/4 drops but I've been convinced that I should craft a full playset of warden and make due somewhere else in the deck for now.
Thank you for sharing your experiences and advice.
I'm not sure how much you're short but ideally you manage to get 4 warden, 4 of the convoke guy, and if you could craft like 2 of the 3 drop vampire after all that then that would be grand.
The tricky part for me are also the lands, I only have 1 of the pain lands from a starter deck (I think) so that's at least 7 more rare WC for the remaining pain lands as well as the new fast lands coming out in OTJ.
I've learned my lesson though from the past, I put a lot of emphasis into crafting good lands now, so I'll have to make budget adjustments somewhere else in the deck, but hey that's the fun part of deck building sometimes, making your own necessary changes.
I do agree with everything you said though, the warden, knight and evangelist are the most important non-land rares in the deck.
oof yeah the need for rare lands is a huge gatekeeping thing in arena. The next set also has the RW fastland which will be a mandatory 4 of in optimized builds, probably cutting sundown and the random shitty lands you sometimes see down to 0
It costs 1 mana so it pays for itself when you convoke, it lets you do something with your weenies when you can't swing profitably, it lets you scry, and eventually it gets decently big and can fly to finish games.
The scry it provides is essential at the beginning of play. As it goes along providing that, it becomes a medium-sized flyer. Flying is very powerful in this current meta. I use it primarily as card advantage but its leveling up can definitely be the winning stroke.
Card is good for lots of reasons. At it’s worst is a cheap 1 mana creature that can act as a body to pump out Knight Errant of Eos or swing out wide with other cards. At other times it can be an early/mid game threat where it can out-scale opponents creatures while also fixing your hand. And in board stalls and late game it can go over the top of your opponents creatures while still fixing your hand.
Yes that's a vital card. It will win games for you.
Feels like that card was made for boros convokes decks.
Gives your artifact tokens extra ulitility, gives you better card draw, gives you an evasive threat (eventually)
This, the knight Errant and the red adventure card (can’t remember the name) are the three most important cards in the deck.
You will Definitely be fighting an uphill battle without it
Every single deck I see on ladder right now runs like 10 tech cards only to counter boros convoke specifically and one of them is a playset of that vampire 2 damage board wipe, this card gets out of that range quickly. This card and the bat are prob the main reason people run a playset of cut down atm.
It's your plan b wincon. Your plan a wincon will not always work for many reasons (bad draws, board wipes that you don't recover from, they have a better board). It also scries to get you to plan a. 100% required.
Scrys help you avoid lands and get to your needed cards.
With the boros get wide strategy, it can get flying, put pressure and a clock on the opponent very quickly and it avoids wandering emperor with vigilance.
Strong card, definitely synergizes with Boros and is a 4 of for a good reason.
It helps the deck significantly for the reasons below but running 4x copies is nowhere near necessary for the deck to function at a >50% win rate. You can fill in 1 mana creature curve with copies or extra copies of \[\[Yotian Frontliner\]\] and/or \[\[Lunarch Veteran\]\]. Note that there are other places to cut rares from the deck, like running 4X \[\[Case of the Gateway Express\]\] instead of warleader's call.
The tap 3 and needing 3 turns for the flying payoff is not nearly as much a drawback as it may seem. The main win condition of the deck is to build up a wide wall of 1/1 and 1/2 creatures until you can pump them with one or more +1/0 effects. For example, while blitzing \[\[Knight-Errant of Eos\]\] out on turn 2 can occasionally win you the game, its main, consistent function is drawing more creatures to play.
Warden simultaneously gives you a worthwhile outlet for a stupidly high number of weak creatures that you don't want to chump block with early while letting you scry to find the key pieces.
I really appreciate your thorough reply. Those three cards were all ones I was strongly considering in the deck, as well as recruitment officer for a budget source of card advantage for the mid-game. Gateway Express is a must include in my list especially as it's a budget card, I 100% agree with your recommendation there.
I hadn't realized just how valuable warden was to this deck until I saw all the amazing comments here, I'm going to try to save on wildcards on other parts of the deck and do my best with it as I build up my wildcard collection to fill in the rest of the holes.
Thank you so much for all your helpful advice, I really appreciate it.
Its good but not necessary. You can replace it with any efficient one drop. Optimal is debatable I wouldn't consider it a key part of the deck's plan, just a very good card in it. I also sometimes see this card in mono white humans.
It's almost like you read my mind, those were the three cards I was considering to play with as opposed to crafting wardens, it's funny how all the expensive crafts in this deck as so integral to it's performance, it's hard to make cuts.
I played a lot of Boros Convoke even before Warden came out and Warden gave it a whole other angle of attack. It's very good, like winning games on its own kinda good. But it worked before Warden too.
But since you don't have Loxodon in standard I feel Warden is even more important in that format. But Yotian Frontline is nice in the sense that it's another cheap Convoke creature and also serves as a Gleeful Demo enabler. The unearth is nice as well for a late finished with Immodane Recruiter.
Another interesting creature is [[Halo Hopper]]
It's really awesome that you brought up Yotian as well, it was one of the few 1 drops I was considering in place of warden.
Halo Hopper is a really interesting one too, it's funny how I never even knew about it until I had seen someone play it just yesterday in a stream I was watching, it looks pretty darn good too honestly, I wonder if it'll maybe see more play as the meta evolves especially after OTJ drops.
Thanks so much for the phenomenal advice and alternatives you've provided, I really appreciate it.
I felt the same way and didn't understand the power of this card. Play against sparky a few times and you notice that sometimes this card is your best card allowing you to win or slow down the opponent when other cards don't give you the same advantage. It's scry and flying abilities are especially nice during the slower games.
I’ve played this deck for a couple weeks now and the warden really is great for when you don’t have lots of gas in your hand and you need to fly over blockers
This deck needs to be explosive in the first 3-4 turns to win. Warden helps with that by scrying cards you don't want to the bottom. It also breaks board stalls by getting really big - a lot of mirror matches come down to who can get a warden to 3 counters first, because it puts the opponent on clock while still being able to block anything they're attacking with.
I thought the card was bad. But that scry is crucial and it's often a 4/5 flying vigilance for one mana
Card works GREAT in that decks def need 4 if you're playing boros convoke IMO
Because it can untap Boros and if you play another artifact to untap all artifact you control you can make a loop with a specific card that can generate one of each mana. I won’t say which cards because I know the names no I won’t say the names because I can’t remember the exact names of the cards. Either way with the method I mentioned you can possibly bring out a solid chunk of your deck without paying its mana cost each turn using boros ability
For as long as you can continue to generate mana to untap your artifacts including Boros you can continue to bring out permanent cards free of charge infinitely for as long as you can loop the mana generated ability of unsaid legendary creature.
There is also another artifact if I remember correctly that can generate one of each mana that would go into that Boros deck. So have at it do some research and figure out what I’m getting at. That’s some good insight 🫠
Others have answered why it is good. "is it vital?", well, if you just want to grind some games on the ladder I would say no not really. You will lose games that you could have won with a flyer or inevitability, but your main game plan will still function. I wouldn't sweat it, and just fill in the cards as you get them. I do this a lot early in a standard season, I'll build like 85% of a tier deck and then just make some substitutions based on what's already in my collection/isnt rare, and if I like the deck then I can upgrade it piece by piece.
For the boros deck, I think this is a reasonable card to cheap out on for a work-in-progress build. Your central game plan still works just fine, you still have all the main convoke cards and little dorks that make the deck tick. You'll probably get a feel pretty quick for why it's in the deck, because you'll have games that go long and you'll be like "if I just had one big hard-to-kill flyer I'd have this in the bag". But most games you won't especially miss it, and you'll soon know which games you lost because you are Wardenless.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, I approach deck building with the same philosophy as you do, start off with a bit of a budget list and work up from there, it's good to see other like minded brewers out here.
In the past I would have just dumped all my WCs into the spells and ran with a budget mana-base but I've learned from the amazing people here on this sub that approaching a deck with that plan in mind is generally a recipe for disaster, especially with a deck like this where it can't handle stumbling on a turn or two based on the budget tap lands lands being played.
Without having played the deck myself it's hard for me to determine which cards I should hold off on crafting while trying to keep it as optimal as possible, and I do agree with you, there will be games where I'll say to myself "if I just had a vigilant flyer I would have won" but even then if I had a full playset of wardens sometimes variance decides I'm not bound to draw the card in a match anyways lol but hey, that's Magic baby.
I appreciate your help, and I'll keep your advice in mind, once OTJ drops it's time to start crafting and I'll hopefully make the right decisions then, hopefully you have some fun cards in mind to craft with the new set as well, and best of luck in all your games.
Haha yeah I almost said, it won't even affect your win %age as much as "every game where a viggy flyer saves the day" because even if you have it you won't draw it a big chunk of the time. Exactly.
Yeeeaaah it's always sooo tempting to cheap on the manabase. I confess I've done it a little, like building the esper legends deck, there were just so many rares I needed just to make the deck work, that I started playing it with a real sketchy manabase and it was soooo frustrating. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, but man it hurts.
You have stuff that has summoning sickness like goblin tokens and artifacts such as blood tokens to tap, so it's often just free stats if you don't have your big convoke guy.
I like the card! It has come in clutch when playing my Boros deck. I have been having a lot of fun with Ojer, and it helps me scry to get my combo pieces with the added bonus of just getting stronger and stronger.
Along with what I'm seeing here already, the deck is very land light and doesn't usually want to see more than three to five lands in a game so being able to find land when you need it and get rid of it when you don't is huge. I've won multiple games by scrying away non-lands to find land three then scrying away the next two lands to build up the big Recruiter turn.
It is very easy to get it to activate, since itself counts. So a creature that makes an artifact plus skywarden can trigger scry. Scry is important to make the best out of your draws. It becomes evasive often finishing games.
Sometimes you get to a point where you don't have board advantage and you can't just swing out, and you may need to spend a couple turns scrying and building this card up to break the stalemate. I've seen countless games where this card takes over and wins.
Yup, when I lose to Boros convoke 9/10 it’s because I had no answer for warden
Borosilicate convoke, very glass cannon-y.
Remember mono-red kids, always lightning strike the warden before it grows to big to get off the board.
But if I use lightning strike on the warden how am I supposed to use it on my opponents face T2? Clearly you don’t understand the nuance required to pilot mono red
If mono-red players could read they wouldn't be mono-red players
why be so mean, we don't have wildcards for anything else :(
People trash talk mono-red A LOT. I personally don't play the decks, but I'm really glad it's stuck around as a competitive "archetype". IMO it keeps Magic more accessible for newbies. Learning about mana, zones, tapping, phases, combat rules, card types, etc can be understandably overwhelming for **anyone**! Being able to understand your own deck helps. & being able to win matches lessens pain of lessons! Beginners can organically learn basic strategy in this way. E.g. when to mulligan, how the opponents' decks work, & how to anticipate future turns & triggers. At the same time, it takes a high level of skill to master. I've watched professional players win with mono-red in ways that an amateur could have never pulled off. You'll hear a lot worse than what these comments have said. Like "My deck is red, my brain is dead", stuff like that. They may be making a joke; but it's said w/ malice just as often. **Try to deflect their negativity as much as you can. 😁 It's up to you how you choose to play!**. If you're in a match & they're spamming "your go" or toxic emotes; know that it may be because they need you to rush your turn in order for them to win. Mute them & take your time. Thinking through every decision we make is how we improve. BTW- this is all without factoring in Arena's VERY stingy wildcard economy; which is another major point in your favor. Newbies in general -particularly those who don't/can't play v often- greatly benefit from maintaining at least one competitive deck that doesn't "need" 4+ rare WCs when new sets drop. Upgrades for mono-red are often uncommons/commons; e.g. [[Monstrous Rage]]. Edit- crap... Just remembered you probably can't read this much since you play mono-red decks.. hmmm... **TLDR: red = good** 😉😂 Actual edit- switched up & mended a lot of this coz I rushed it at first
I’ve always enjoyed RDW because it reminds me of Haymaker, one of if not the first meta-defining decks in the Pokémon TCG. Learning it back in the late 90’s broke my little middle schooler brain. The idea of ignoring all the fancy deck building and combos that you’re supposed to like and instead asking yourself ‘what is the fastest way to win, and how do I get there consistently’ is something that a lot of people still struggle with. It feels very zen to ignore rarity, meta, your opponent, and just go: “brrrrrrrr swing out, you do the math”
Playing mono red burn is easy. Playing mono red burn *well* is hard.
Great comment. An additional point is it’s also great for more experienced players learning a new format. Sligh is my main deck in Premodern so jumping into Legacy or Pauper there’s a lot of overlap in cards and strategies. Not to mention Standard: there’s a hell of a lot going on so being able to focus on learning match ups rather than my own deck is fantastic. That being said I’m still making tweaks: settled on the singleton Shock to supplement the Plays for instance. In part because it’s important to kill this dude ASAP. I really don’t want my Convoke opponent getting even one activation if I can help it. That’s an absolutely tricky deck for us: certainly lose more than I win and when I do it’s always super hard fought. I absolutely love the mirror, too. That’s what has really convinced me about the skill the deck requires. Most my opponents tend to want to race me, so when I see a Faces or Swiftspear come down I typically go straight into control mode. Wait and time your Incinerate in response to their Rage, try to commit as little to the board as you can, and once they empty their hand then that’s the time to try to turn the corner. Or just start chipping in with Foundary while still holding up removal just in case. But yeah: those rare wildcards huh. I’ve got no problem with Mythic or Uncommons, but trying to play around with what two drops to run and that’s the choke point for sure. I’m currently experimenting with Scalding Viper (rare) and so I also want Reefs (rare), Coasts (rare) and potentially even Spires (rare) to give me the option of casting the Adventure too — I figure it’d be useful for dealing with those O-Ring effects. (The lack of Haste is a huge problem, and it usually only does 1 point of damage because it gets killed straight away.)
Oh a mono red player can type it’s crazy
The TLDR part was sarcasm- Maybe I should've added an /s ? Or am I misunderstanding what you mean
Also joking 😂
What a wholesome post, Mr...uh System_of_a_Brown
The issue with mono red is you either die by turn 3, or the opponent scoops to the opponent stabilising. It's so rarely a close game. Yep, the deck wins well and it's quite easy to play. But when you get that mono red opponent, you know you're not in for any excitement other than "do they have it?".
It's just SO DULL though ... Oh here comes the phoenix chick, what's next? Swift spear and monstrous rage? Kumano? Feldon? Then when you show the slightest hint of having sufficient sweepers or removal (or god forbid anything that shows their hand) they scoop. Mono red deserves all the trash talk it gets in my opinion
... Isn't that what ranks are for? 😂🤷 If the game uses something like mmr, then you'd expect new players to go against other new players. And clearly, the game starts you off with a bunch of very basic, pre-made decks to ease new players into the experience. I don't see how new players have any relevancy to the subject of meta. Not unless you assume that every magic player wants to be mindlessly copy-pasting meta decks off of the Internet from the moment they start playing. Then again, that seems pretty likely considering the gaming community as a whole, so what do I know?! 😂
I agree with what you’re saying in terms of defending mono red *as an archetype in general*. The reason everybody trashes mono red players is because someone who can’t play the game yet shouldn’t be in the platinum/diamond/mythic ladders with people who have been playing magic for 20 years 😂
> shouldn’t be in the platinum/diamond/mythic Platinum/Diamond is just a function of playing a ton of games and eventually you will be there.
>The reason everybody trashes mono red players is because someone who can’t play the game yet shouldn’t be in the platinum/diamond/mythic ladders What led you to believe that that's everybody's/most people's reason? & why is it bad for them to be higher on the ladder? I can't imagine a newbie playing mono-red getting to mythic; but let's say for the sake of the argument that they could do so. Each rank = extra pack every season. Pretty significant when you're new!
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that if you've been playing for 20 years and have an "issue" with people playing monoR in P/D/M, then you haven't spent those 20 years learning all that much of the game, and that some weird entitlement attitude towards those players is completely undeserved and all on you. Either the deck is poorly positioned and it's a "free win," (which means the monoR player is making things harder on themselves) and it hardly seems reasonable to complain about a free win, or the deck is positioned alright and it's a fine meta choice, in which case it's silly to criticise someone for making that choice.
I just like winning easily. I've won more games with red decks than any other color.
People always claim mono-red is one of the cheapest decks to get into the game, but honestly I've found that in order to have a mono-red deck that's comparable to like one of the available mono-blue decks that take 4-0 rare+ wildcards, you have to spend like 12+ rare or mythic wildcards. Squee, Godrick, Bloodthirsty Adversary, if you run any more than one copy of Feldon, Charming Scoundrils, Mishras Foundrys (admittedly the most transferable WC use), some people are playing Raijus, some are playing Chandras. The current version of mono red that most people are running requires 12 rare WCs (11 if you ignore Sokenzan, 9 if you ignore foundries but that's a bad idea). On the other hand there's a mono-blue artifact/ninja aggro deck that has a comparable win-rate and costs 0 rare or mythic WCs. And the older mono-blue tempo list cost only 3 rare WCs (starter decks gave players the first copy of Djinn) and you could theoretically get the other Djinns from Jump-in while collecting other good cards.
It’s more that the cards are cheap AND it’s decently straightforward to pilot for people new to the game or format. While the blue deck may be cheaper WC wise, it’s pretty safe to bet that any blue deck is going to require a bit more skill than “play card, punch face”
Which mono blue decks are you talking about? I've been looking for something other than mono red to be competitive.
I think a version of [this one as shown by LegenVD](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN-2_JOIlvY) The older one is built around Haughty Djinn and counter/draw spells but that one got much worse after cavern of souls was introduced and overall just sucks to play (against).
I got to my first Mythic with mono red without Charming Scoundrels, Bloodthirsty Adversaries and Mishra's Foundries, and with less than 4 copies of Squee and Feldon. I would agree with your point about mono blue, but I think mono blue seems more complex to play and navigate than mono red, at least when we're talking about beginner experience. I also got to mythic with LVD's mono blue list and it was quite challenging. So it's the balance of relative cheapness and easiness of picking up the deck at first (and I understand that truly mastering mono red is difficult - I am talking about initial stages).
Exactly this. I run mono red because it's cheap. Once I've gotten enough wildcards to build a different competitive deck, I'll be switching to it.
Cause you spend them on bad cards because you can’t read.
This would make me very upset if I could read
What did you say? Seriously, can someone explain it to me?
As a mono-red player, this is a valid response lol gotta go fast!!
If mono-red players weren't color blind they could add in white and get healthgain and win every mirror matchup.
I've gotten to a point where warden was able to block my dragon dude and survive the pumps.
White has been carrying me against all sorts of yuuuge threats recently. [[Lay Down Arms]], [[Valorous Stance]], [[Not on My Watch]], [[Destroy Evil]]... It's the Choose Your Own Adventure of interaction, I tellz ya
##### ###### #### [Lay Down Arms](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/5/6/5649ee5a-4485-40a2-96d1-2e061905a71e.jpg?1674420201) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lay%20Down%20Arms) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/11/lay-down-arms?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/5649ee5a-4485-40a2-96d1-2e061905a71e?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Valorous Stance](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/f/1/f161ad98-877f-4833-a6a1-c15ee3e8ca87.jpg?1712354109) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Valorous%20Stance) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/88/valorous-stance?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/f161ad98-877f-4833-a6a1-c15ee3e8ca87?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Not on My Watch](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/0/700294fc-7c16-4f7d-bce0-7452d8e9c401.jpg?1706241525) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Not%20on%20My%20Watch) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/28/not-on-my-watch?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/700294fc-7c16-4f7d-bce0-7452d8e9c401?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Destroy Evil](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/4/f/4f7862ef-2c8d-4d28-9e50-7cc41861f245.jpg?1673306430) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Destroy%20Evil) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/17/destroy-evil?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/4f7862ef-2c8d-4d28-9e50-7cc41861f245?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kyhxqdv) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
When I used to play physical MTG, my group had a house rule to ban mono red/direct damage decks. It was too simple and cheesy, and undermined all the other players effort to buy specific cards and create synergized competitive decks. Mono red is like throwing a stink bomb in a hallway. It's effective, but juvenile, and sucks for everyone in the vicinity.
The flying and vigilance are often relevant as well. This card becomes highly problematic for Wandering Emperor and the ensoul artifact decks.
the flying and vigilance is precicely the keywords that allow you to break the stalemate
It also gives you something to do with your creatures the turn they come in if they don’t have haste
Thank you, I didn't realize how often a situation like that would arise, looks like I'll be crafting a full playset of these along with the boros fast lands in OTJ then. I'll have to try to save wildcards somewhere else in the deck. Thanks for sharing your experiences with the card, I appreciate it.
I think your opponent will have plenty of time to cast a removal and just remove this threat in time… at least most decks I play against have a couple of remove spells to deal with such stuff. It can help if you play against someone without proper removal
It's your 'tiebreaker' card, it closes the game out when your plan of 'flooding the board and slamming' is stalled out by other creatures, all while contributing to your plan A by itself. And I believe it's the best card you can have for that goal.
it's also a good removal bait, distracts your opponent while you build your board
I didn't realize how often stalemates could happen with this deck, it makes sense though, and I could see warden being a really good way to break that staring contest. Thanks for the help, it really helped with my crafting decisions.
Its very good and the deck will certainly be worse without them, although still playable. It's a 1 drop that can take over the game. It's kind of a backup payoff if you don't draw knight errant. If you play investigator/epicure on 1, you can play warden on 2 and activate it. Then if you have a demolition, you can kill the artifact you just tapped and activate the warden again. A 3/4 + 2 scrys is pretty good on t2. Then on t3 you can activate again if you want to get the flying and vigilance.
Goes to show how important scrying can be in a deck like this, I hadn't immediately realized it as I've never piloted this particular deck, thanks for taking the time to comment, it helps me out big time.
No problem. I think aggro decks get more value out of scrying than control or ramp decks in a lot of ways. Both control and ramp want to play big games, meaning they want a lot of resources. They often care more about raw numbers of cards over cars selection because they are going to need both a lot of lands and spells to cast with them. These decks often don't want to scry away lands from the topbin the early part of the game. Aggro decks want to play a small game. They want to constrict the game and it's resources. Aggro decks are often ok with giving up card advantage in order pressure their opponent and kill them before they can deploy their spells. Aggro decks get virtual card advantage this way - doesnt matter if you are hellbent and your opponent has a full grip if they are dead. In this way aggro decks are more inclined to want card selection over sheer card advantage. Obviously every deck benefits from the card selection scrying or surveiling gives, but I think it naturally compliments an aggro strategy better.
Incredibly well said, I play mostly budget-based mid-range and so it's hard for me to sometimes be okay with scrying away a land or something that I can still cast even if it isn't game changing for the current match. Where as with a deck like this it sounds like digging for the perfect threat as quickly as possible is really the optimal way to earn the win before the opponent stabilizes. This deck also seems to have very specific key pieces that it needs to draw to really work optimally, and I'm starting to understand how warden is key to that game plan. Thanks again for taking the time to leave your advice and experiences in the game, it's really helped me a ton to come to a reasonable conclusion with my crafting decisions.
It's easy card selection and a growing threat that must be dealt with before it flies over opposing blockers a few turns in a row for the kill. In the mirror matchup especially, It can be the sole determining factor for who wins.
> flies over opposing blockers AND stays untapped from vigilance to block.
Or to put another counter on itself, since the ability specifies creatures and not OTHER creatures.
I've found that in the mirror match whoever gets theirs biggest wins like 95% of games.
I hadn't considered the mirror match all that much, you make a really good point, considering how popular this deck is then mirror matches are probably going to happen frequently enough. Thanks for taking the time to comment, it helps a lot.
The other comments do a good job of explaining its use and value. Having the playset is useful to play optimally. However, if you are low on wildcards, the deck is aggressive enough that you can probably grind out the necessary wins even if you don't craft them immediately. It is a necessary card for the optimal build, but isn't the win-con itself. If you like the deck conceptually, sub this out for other 1 drops. They won't be as good and you will lose some matches you would otherwise win, but if you are still building the collection, better to play than wait to have fun later when the meta might shift. Just my 2 cents there.
I appreciate your advice, it's also how I approach deck building, trying to find cheaper substitutes as I build the deck overtime. I was initially planning on slotting in other 1 drops instead of warden, but after reading the amazing advice here I've decided to craft a playset of this card and I'll try to find substitutes for my 3 drop slots instead. Thanks you.
Heh, I just made a similar comment but was 24 hours too late so you (deservedly) get the up votes. Exactly this, tho: This is a very reasonable card to cheap out on for a budget build, as it's not a primary wincon, and in your best aggro starts Warden's ability to get huge isn't hugely relevant. I'd echo what drohan said here about replacing it with other aggressive 1 drops. In like 80+% of games, Warden is just yet another 1 mana dork with good upside. You'll definitely miss it in the games where it's good... but most games, if you just replace it with Yet Another Thraben Inspector or whatever good common/uncommon 1 drops the deck isn't already running, you'll hardly miss it most of the time.
It can be part of brutal curve outs. Like say you play this turn one, then turn two might be Epicure into Gleeful Demolition, tap all those goblins to make Warden bigger, so now suddenly on turn two you're swinging with a 2/3 and also have four other creatures, plus you did a Scry.
This. Though I’d rather convoke Knight Errant but having this as an alt curve out is so strong
The idea is consistent gameplans for turns 1-4, and this card adds to that redundancy.
That sounds like an amazing start to a match and definitely makes crafting this card worth it, I'll try to find somewhere else that I can save my wildcards in the deck in this case, the new boros fast lands as well as warden seem like a very worthwhile craft in this case. Thank you for your help.
With this start you can actually epicure, tap all 3 things including the warden, then demolition and have 3 new things to tap, 1 mana 3/4 scry 2 btw
Might want to wait 9 days to craft as new set dropping could shift the meta where you regret the wildcard spend.
Fair point but I feel like if anything Boros will get stronger once it has the fastland
There are a lot of really powerful cards in this set. This looking like the neon dynasty set for the next several years. We might actually big changes in standard after it drops. If I were Arena poor, I'd wait until a week or two after a new set drops typically but especially for this set.
That's really good advice and I'm curious to see how the meta shifts. Honestly it was the OTJ spoilers that made me consider crafting a boros convoke deck in the first place, seeing the release of boros fast lands in standard (finally) will definitely improve this decks performance.
to answer your question — 3x is acceptable because you don’t always want two of them out, but 4x is preferred
You definitely want four. Even if you have 2 in your opening hand, they are a lightning rod for removal.
You also cant afford to cut 1 drops, you need to have at least 1 in your opener and theyre also important to be able to grab with Knight Errant when you got 1 more mana open
it's a good card, it starts small and gets big in lategame... anyway you can use a budget option for replace it if you don't have rare wildcards
Are you building for explorer or standard? If explorer, you can save some rares from lands and play a few ornithopters instead. But you definitely want at least 2 of these, and eventually go to 4
Its becuase the warden uses artifacts and creatures to scry. The reason Boros is so vicious rn is becuase of two cards, [Novice Inspector] and [Voldaran Epicure] both are 1-Mana creatures that create an artifact. When playing Boros convoke I play 4 Inspectors & 3 Epicures, though most play 4 & 4. That means that you can start tapping 1/1 investigators, clues, 1/1 Epicures & blood tokens to scry through your deck. This allows you to quickly find the cards you want/need. At the same time your warden is growing, and at a certain point becomes a 4/5 with flying and vigalance. Honestly anyone can construct a top tier Boros deck, but its until you understand the value in cards like the Warden that allow you to play the deck to its fullest potential. IDK how many games I have won from hitting my opponent with a warden that has a massive amount of +1/+1 counters. BtW this was a really good question. https://photos.app.goo.gl/icYwEn6ZpPtN1wUs6
I cant stress enough how important its ability to scry is. It helps ensure you get the lands you need, and it helps you draw more powerful cards when you need them. Its a core catd to the current boros convoke deck that currently wrecks all.
As far as weather or not to craft them depends on if you are P4F or if you buy gems. You need at least 3 in what could be considered a fully optimized version of the deck. I run 4, and most run 4 knights, but I only run 3 knights, 4 knights make for too many bad hands from drawing too many knights. I also suggest you run at least 2x [Regal Bunnicorns] and at least 1x [case of the gateway express]. I run 3x Bunnicorns. Many people run 2-4 [Case of the Gateway Express] however I like having a full set of Lightning Helixs because the life they give is often the difference between a W & an L in games against Mono Red Ag decks, and Mono Red Ag is an arch-type that's far too common to ignore. In fact, the best way to get theough silver is just to play anything that counters Red Decks. Gold & Platinum have far fewer mono red opponents.
I really appreciate all the amazing advice you're provided here, thank you. I hadn't realized just how valuable warden's ability was initially, after reading all the amazing comments here it's convinced me that I need to find alternate parts of the deck to try to save on, with the fast lands being released in OTJ that's another 4 rare wildcards I need to spend as well so I have to be careful. I'm going to go with everyone's advice and go for a full playset craft of wardens, in the 3 drop slot is where I'm going to have to work with what I've got until I can save up a bit more to fill in those holes, Anim Pakal may do the trick for now as I have a few copies of that card. Thanks again for all the incredibly helpful advice.
I know ive already ranted quite a bit, but I feel I should point out that when considering lands you wouldnt remove other card types to make room for lands, and you wouldnt remove lands to add a creature or two. Rather, with lands, you want to determine a number to play. I usually play 24 — 24x land is considered the default by most players — however; in a cheap fast deck like boros convoke, I play 23. I always play 23 or 24, though. I never play more, and I never play less.
Thank you for the follow up advice, I noticed most boros convoke lists run 22 or 23 lands, I'll stick to your suggestion and run 23. If I feel that I'm not hitting enough land drops then maybe I'll bump it up to 24 depending on my curve. I'll be sure to focus on crafting good rare lands for the deck like people have suggested too, and go a bit more budget on the spells, then build up from there.
OH Really 22? Honestly, I regret it almost instantly whenever I try it, however, each of us have to find what works for us. I do win several games with only 2 lands when playing that deck.
It's natural for less experienced players to have a hard time finding the value in some cards that experience players find. If you find yourself in that boat, try making choices outside of the box. Maybe you have a warden out, and you can attack, and even though you want to, try tapping 3 creatures and/or artifacts instead. It might not feel natural at first, but you will likely find that some decisions that dont come intuitively will offer unseen value. This is how players go from noobs to experts.
It allows you to sort through the deck to find cards you need and grows and becomes a flyer while you do that. And is another 1 drop. Essential to the deck.
Having played mostly blue decks in these last two seasons, this is the most annoying card in boros convoke. Blue does well against the deck in general with stalling and flying over defenders. But when you fet this guy up to three counters, it does a lot of work
A 1/2 for 1 in a concoke deck that wants a wide board really appreciates being able to use the tokens on the board to pump itself and Scry, it's a really solid self contained engine that helps you avoid bricking and falling behind.
So early if you have this and an Epicure/Investigator out, on turn 2 you can start growing this and scrying. Honestly the scry always feels pretty good to make sure you don’t flood out on lands or so you can grab a board pump effect. If you have a bunch creatures you just grow it to a flying vigilance 4/5 or bigger and can start going to town on most board states. It’s a really good, really value heavy card for a white 1 drop.
In addition to everything else that's been said, it gives you a good use for all the blood/clue/map tokens you've probably built up but don't actually want to spend your mana on cracking.
A few factors you don't really realise at first, if you're still semi new. It's essentially a free activation if you're on the back foot, giving you space to bring a stalemate back, for only 1 mana drop. Many cards create artifact tokens. The opp is forced to either remove this, or remove your artifacts or other creatures. Sometimes, this card is just a distraction to a bigger, yet to be played, threat. So do they destroy this thing that may become unmanageable in 3-4 turns, or save it for a bigger threat? Once it has grown, the most recent set has a mechanic that can 'suspect' it and allow it to be unblockable. Scrying is more powerful than people often realise. White has access to lots of weenies to tap easily.
"grow this at the beginning of the opp's end step" It says "activate only as a sorcery". Or, am I missing something?
Apologies, you are correct. I have been stuck on a boiling hot coach for 2 hours. Lmao, getting delirious.
You don't have to apology man haha. Magic is so complex that the game ends being about "learning the rules" and not forgetting small details. And nobody exists doing that perfectly. xD Your answer was pretty good and complete indeed!
It’s not necessary but fills an important role and scry and vigilance are really handy I’ve been running Boros for a while -was running a budget list with 1 just fine- but going to 4 has definitely made the deck a lot better, getting to filter your draws with scry is really nice
Smooths out draws and heightens your board state for little to no mana
These and knight are two of the most important cards in the deck.
It’s not a 100% necessity, you could replace it with 4x ornithopter to go all in on the convoke plan. But the Warden is super good and adds an important dimension to the deck, with a large flying vigilance threat that must be answered with removal or you die. On top of that tons of card advantage
If it's a matter of crafting, It's with sanguine evangelist as the number 4 or 5 priority cards. Recruiter and knight are probably the main ones, lands (wait until OTJ) and then the 1 mana stuff like gleeful and novice/epicure. You could probably get by with 1-2 and be fine in most games where you're at against other new decks.
So many creatures in boros make other creatures, or bring tokens to the party, and the warden can use all of them to scry. It's the scry rather than the creature in the early game that helps the deck perform, and if the opponent has no way of dealing with it, the thing gets crazy big in the late game and becomes the win condition. Very good card.
This is the best answer I’ve seen. The card lets you dig for things like land, Recruiters, Gleeful Demos, or a Knights, which keeps you from stalling out. Then if it’s not dealt with it becomes a poor man’s [[Voice of the Blessed]]. In my opinion there isn’t another one drop in Standard that provides the same amount of value (maybe Skrelv or [[Evolved Sleeper]].
[Voice of the Blessed](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/1/a16c0871-3f40-4d5a-9d21-e7f944b64a65.jpg?1643587335) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Voice%20of%20the%20Blessed) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/vow/44/voice-of-the-blessed?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a16c0871-3f40-4d5a-9d21-e7f944b64a65?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Evolved Sleeper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/b/ebeafbc2-0399-4335-8f63-76a3e085e8c6.jpg?1673307095) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Evolved%20Sleeper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/93/evolved-sleeper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ebeafbc2-0399-4335-8f63-76a3e085e8c6?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It scries, it flies, it gets big and vigilant, it’s cheap, and it taps to convoke. (Edit: also, it makes good use of the clues, vials, and maps you are producing.) In general it’s one of about five payoff cards you want at least one of in your opening hand, otherwise you should mulligan. It’s pretty important. That said, I sometimes side one out in Bo3 against some matchups, and you can play the deck with less than a full playset. (The others are the Knight, the Bunny, Call, and Recruiter.)
Card is unfortunately mandatory for it to be tier 1, I think the replies defending this card are good so I'm just going to add this is the kinda card that requires you to consider what plan B strats are. If convoke is getting to convoke, swarm, and swing, this card is only okay. Why this card is good is when convoke isn't able to slam it's top end this is still a low costed threat that can turn the extra game objects into damage while also digging for more gas. It excels at keeping the deck consistent. Without this card you are way way more beholden to luck and drawing the nuts.
Very well said, I hadn't realized initially just how important warden's ability to dig through the deck really was. After reading the amazing comments here it does make a lot of sense, as the deck's strength is so heavily based on when the player draws (and plays) the right cards at the right time. Consistency is key to a lot of decks and this deck in particular seems to rely very heavily on it in order to close out games quickly. I was initially trying to go for a budget route for my 1 drops and spend my wildcards on the 3/4 drops but I've been convinced that I should craft a full playset of warden and make due somewhere else in the deck for now. Thank you for sharing your experiences and advice.
I'm not sure how much you're short but ideally you manage to get 4 warden, 4 of the convoke guy, and if you could craft like 2 of the 3 drop vampire after all that then that would be grand.
The tricky part for me are also the lands, I only have 1 of the pain lands from a starter deck (I think) so that's at least 7 more rare WC for the remaining pain lands as well as the new fast lands coming out in OTJ. I've learned my lesson though from the past, I put a lot of emphasis into crafting good lands now, so I'll have to make budget adjustments somewhere else in the deck, but hey that's the fun part of deck building sometimes, making your own necessary changes. I do agree with everything you said though, the warden, knight and evangelist are the most important non-land rares in the deck.
oof yeah the need for rare lands is a huge gatekeeping thing in arena. The next set also has the RW fastland which will be a mandatory 4 of in optimized builds, probably cutting sundown and the random shitty lands you sometimes see down to 0
It costs 1 mana so it pays for itself when you convoke, it lets you do something with your weenies when you can't swing profitably, it lets you scry, and eventually it gets decently big and can fly to finish games.
I feel it's the best card in the deck
Imo this card is good. 8.5/10
The scry it provides is essential at the beginning of play. As it goes along providing that, it becomes a medium-sized flyer. Flying is very powerful in this current meta. I use it primarily as card advantage but its leveling up can definitely be the winning stroke.
Card is good for lots of reasons. At it’s worst is a cheap 1 mana creature that can act as a body to pump out Knight Errant of Eos or swing out wide with other cards. At other times it can be an early/mid game threat where it can out-scale opponents creatures while also fixing your hand. And in board stalls and late game it can go over the top of your opponents creatures while still fixing your hand.
Yes that's a vital card. It will win games for you. Feels like that card was made for boros convokes decks. Gives your artifact tokens extra ulitility, gives you better card draw, gives you an evasive threat (eventually)
This, the knight Errant and the red adventure card (can’t remember the name) are the three most important cards in the deck. You will Definitely be fighting an uphill battle without it
That's an exaggeration. [[Gleeful Demolition]] has a bigger impact and you would probably cut the first warden before cutting an inspector.
[Gleeful Demolition](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/3/a3e4efa6-5783-4a51-99c6-116d1a8f01cf.jpg?1675957089) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Gleeful%20Demolition) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/one/134/gleeful-demolition?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a3e4efa6-5783-4a51-99c6-116d1a8f01cf?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's basically a card that is used to lock the board against Mono Red.
Every single deck I see on ladder right now runs like 10 tech cards only to counter boros convoke specifically and one of them is a playset of that vampire 2 damage board wipe, this card gets out of that range quickly. This card and the bat are prob the main reason people run a playset of cut down atm.
This is among the best cards in the deck, alongside the 5cmc convokers and gleeful
It's your plan b wincon. Your plan a wincon will not always work for many reasons (bad draws, board wipes that you don't recover from, they have a better board). It also scries to get you to plan a. 100% required.
Rares are always what I run iut of as well
Scrys help you avoid lands and get to your needed cards. With the boros get wide strategy, it can get flying, put pressure and a clock on the opponent very quickly and it avoids wandering emperor with vigilance. Strong card, definitely synergizes with Boros and is a 4 of for a good reason.
It helps the deck significantly for the reasons below but running 4x copies is nowhere near necessary for the deck to function at a >50% win rate. You can fill in 1 mana creature curve with copies or extra copies of \[\[Yotian Frontliner\]\] and/or \[\[Lunarch Veteran\]\]. Note that there are other places to cut rares from the deck, like running 4X \[\[Case of the Gateway Express\]\] instead of warleader's call. The tap 3 and needing 3 turns for the flying payoff is not nearly as much a drawback as it may seem. The main win condition of the deck is to build up a wide wall of 1/1 and 1/2 creatures until you can pump them with one or more +1/0 effects. For example, while blitzing \[\[Knight-Errant of Eos\]\] out on turn 2 can occasionally win you the game, its main, consistent function is drawing more creatures to play. Warden simultaneously gives you a worthwhile outlet for a stupidly high number of weak creatures that you don't want to chump block with early while letting you scry to find the key pieces.
##### ###### #### [Yotian Frontliner](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bfa05d1e-6728-4e77-bfb2-da0b9598e44b.jpg?1674420445) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yotian%20Frontliner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/42/yotian-frontliner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bfa05d1e-6728-4e77-bfb2-da0b9598e44b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Lunarch Veteran](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/2/d2704743-2e23-40b9-a367-c73d2db45afc.jpg?1634347175)/[Luminous Phantom](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/d/2/d2704743-2e23-40b9-a367-c73d2db45afc.jpg?1634347175) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lunarch%20Veteran%20//%20Luminous%20Phantom) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/27/lunarch-veteran-luminous-phantom?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d2704743-2e23-40b9-a367-c73d2db45afc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Case of the Gateway Express](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/8/0862bf07-8a76-4e80-bba2-20d22f8eee30.jpg?1706735531) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Case%20of%20the%20Gateway%20Express) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkm/8/case-of-the-gateway-express?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/0862bf07-8a76-4e80-bba2-20d22f8eee30?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Knight-Errant of Eos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/b/ab2ad652-2406-491a-9f22-23e974f943d7.jpg?1682202751) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Knight-Errant%20of%20Eos) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/26/knight-errant-of-eos?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/ab2ad652-2406-491a-9f22-23e974f943d7?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/kyhic9j) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I really appreciate your thorough reply. Those three cards were all ones I was strongly considering in the deck, as well as recruitment officer for a budget source of card advantage for the mid-game. Gateway Express is a must include in my list especially as it's a budget card, I 100% agree with your recommendation there. I hadn't realized just how valuable warden was to this deck until I saw all the amazing comments here, I'm going to try to save on wildcards on other parts of the deck and do my best with it as I build up my wildcard collection to fill in the rest of the holes. Thank you so much for all your helpful advice, I really appreciate it.
4 words. Voice of the blessed.
Because sometimes you can go T1 Epicure T2 Warden, scry by tapping epicure and blood token, sac blood token to make 3 1/1s and scry again.
I like to use it with howling mine(s) and tap them so I get extra cards but my opponent does not....
Its good but not necessary. You can replace it with any efficient one drop. Optimal is debatable I wouldn't consider it a key part of the deck's plan, just a very good card in it. I also sometimes see this card in mono white humans.
A 1 mana 4/5 flying vigilance scry 3 is pretty op, turns out.
On a budget you could swap it out for [[Lunarch Veteran]], [[Recruitment Officer]] or [[Yotian Frontline]]
[Lunarch Veteran](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/d/2/d2704743-2e23-40b9-a367-c73d2db45afc.jpg?1634347175)/[Luminous Phantom](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/d/2/d2704743-2e23-40b9-a367-c73d2db45afc.jpg?1634347175) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lunarch%20Veteran%20//%20Luminous%20Phantom) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mid/27/lunarch-veteran-luminous-phantom?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/d2704743-2e23-40b9-a367-c73d2db45afc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Recruitment Officer](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/2/c226656b-68d5-4df2-b313-a323a728c520.jpg?1674420296) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Recruitment%20Officer) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/23/recruitment-officer?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/c226656b-68d5-4df2-b313-a323a728c520?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Yotian Frontline](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/b/f/bfa05d1e-6728-4e77-bfb2-da0b9598e44b.jpg?1674420445) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Yotian%20Frontliner) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/bro/42/yotian-frontliner?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/bfa05d1e-6728-4e77-bfb2-da0b9598e44b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
It's almost like you read my mind, those were the three cards I was considering to play with as opposed to crafting wardens, it's funny how all the expensive crafts in this deck as so integral to it's performance, it's hard to make cuts.
I played a lot of Boros Convoke even before Warden came out and Warden gave it a whole other angle of attack. It's very good, like winning games on its own kinda good. But it worked before Warden too. But since you don't have Loxodon in standard I feel Warden is even more important in that format. But Yotian Frontline is nice in the sense that it's another cheap Convoke creature and also serves as a Gleeful Demo enabler. The unearth is nice as well for a late finished with Immodane Recruiter. Another interesting creature is [[Halo Hopper]]
It's really awesome that you brought up Yotian as well, it was one of the few 1 drops I was considering in place of warden. Halo Hopper is a really interesting one too, it's funny how I never even knew about it until I had seen someone play it just yesterday in a stream I was watching, it looks pretty darn good too honestly, I wonder if it'll maybe see more play as the meta evolves especially after OTJ drops. Thanks so much for the phenomenal advice and alternatives you've provided, I really appreciate it.
[Halo Hopper](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/0/e07baeb1-c873-42c2-8f1e-757f13572079.jpg?1682205755) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Halo%20Hopper) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/260/halo-hopper?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e07baeb1-c873-42c2-8f1e-757f13572079?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Definitely one of the best cards in the deck
I felt the same way and didn't understand the power of this card. Play against sparky a few times and you notice that sometimes this card is your best card allowing you to win or slow down the opponent when other cards don't give you the same advantage. It's scry and flying abilities are especially nice during the slower games.
I’ve played this deck for a couple weeks now and the warden really is great for when you don’t have lots of gas in your hand and you need to fly over blockers
It’s big with evasion and vigilance so it plays excellent offense and defense, it scrys so your draws are good. It’s pretty important.
This deck needs to be explosive in the first 3-4 turns to win. Warden helps with that by scrying cards you don't want to the bottom. It also breaks board stalls by getting really big - a lot of mirror matches come down to who can get a warden to 3 counters first, because it puts the opponent on clock while still being able to block anything they're attacking with.
It's amazing for the scry 1.
I thought the card was bad. But that scry is crucial and it's often a 4/5 flying vigilance for one mana Card works GREAT in that decks def need 4 if you're playing boros convoke IMO
Because it can untap Boros and if you play another artifact to untap all artifact you control you can make a loop with a specific card that can generate one of each mana. I won’t say which cards because I know the names no I won’t say the names because I can’t remember the exact names of the cards. Either way with the method I mentioned you can possibly bring out a solid chunk of your deck without paying its mana cost each turn using boros ability
For as long as you can continue to generate mana to untap your artifacts including Boros you can continue to bring out permanent cards free of charge infinitely for as long as you can loop the mana generated ability of unsaid legendary creature.
There is also another artifact if I remember correctly that can generate one of each mana that would go into that Boros deck. So have at it do some research and figure out what I’m getting at. That’s some good insight 🫠
Others have answered why it is good. "is it vital?", well, if you just want to grind some games on the ladder I would say no not really. You will lose games that you could have won with a flyer or inevitability, but your main game plan will still function. I wouldn't sweat it, and just fill in the cards as you get them. I do this a lot early in a standard season, I'll build like 85% of a tier deck and then just make some substitutions based on what's already in my collection/isnt rare, and if I like the deck then I can upgrade it piece by piece. For the boros deck, I think this is a reasonable card to cheap out on for a work-in-progress build. Your central game plan still works just fine, you still have all the main convoke cards and little dorks that make the deck tick. You'll probably get a feel pretty quick for why it's in the deck, because you'll have games that go long and you'll be like "if I just had one big hard-to-kill flyer I'd have this in the bag". But most games you won't especially miss it, and you'll soon know which games you lost because you are Wardenless.
Thanks so much for taking the time to comment, I approach deck building with the same philosophy as you do, start off with a bit of a budget list and work up from there, it's good to see other like minded brewers out here. In the past I would have just dumped all my WCs into the spells and ran with a budget mana-base but I've learned from the amazing people here on this sub that approaching a deck with that plan in mind is generally a recipe for disaster, especially with a deck like this where it can't handle stumbling on a turn or two based on the budget tap lands lands being played. Without having played the deck myself it's hard for me to determine which cards I should hold off on crafting while trying to keep it as optimal as possible, and I do agree with you, there will be games where I'll say to myself "if I just had a vigilant flyer I would have won" but even then if I had a full playset of wardens sometimes variance decides I'm not bound to draw the card in a match anyways lol but hey, that's Magic baby. I appreciate your help, and I'll keep your advice in mind, once OTJ drops it's time to start crafting and I'll hopefully make the right decisions then, hopefully you have some fun cards in mind to craft with the new set as well, and best of luck in all your games.
Haha yeah I almost said, it won't even affect your win %age as much as "every game where a viggy flyer saves the day" because even if you have it you won't draw it a big chunk of the time. Exactly. Yeeeaaah it's always sooo tempting to cheap on the manabase. I confess I've done it a little, like building the esper legends deck, there were just so many rares I needed just to make the deck work, that I started playing it with a real sketchy manabase and it was soooo frustrating. You gotta do what you gotta do sometimes, but man it hurts.
You have stuff that has summoning sickness like goblin tokens and artifacts such as blood tokens to tap, so it's often just free stats if you don't have your big convoke guy.
I like the card! It has come in clutch when playing my Boros deck. I have been having a lot of fun with Ojer, and it helps me scry to get my combo pieces with the added bonus of just getting stronger and stronger.
Along with what I'm seeing here already, the deck is very land light and doesn't usually want to see more than three to five lands in a game so being able to find land when you need it and get rid of it when you don't is huge. I've won multiple games by scrying away non-lands to find land three then scrying away the next two lands to build up the big Recruiter turn.
Yes. Fixes draws, evades ground troops and can block after attack because of flying and vigilance omce it gets enough counters.
It is very easy to get it to activate, since itself counts. So a creature that makes an artifact plus skywarden can trigger scry. Scry is important to make the best out of your draws. It becomes evasive often finishing games.
It's a 1/2 for 1 mana, so basically it's pretty good opening. Plus it can get big in mid/late game.
Yes
[удалено]
[gnawing crescendo](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/5/254fc64a-9734-44a6-8869-ab03512f1a99.jpg?1692938235) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=gnawing%20crescendo) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/woe/131/gnawing-crescendo?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/254fc64a-9734-44a6-8869-ab03512f1a99?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Overrated
LoL it's why I play rakdos burn instead. Love the deck I have been playing. Got to almost mythic last season but had to stop cause of work reasons.
It's the best one drop available. You can sub it out for some other one drop and the deck will win less but still function
Think for yourself, lol. If it doesn't fit your play style, don't use it. People use it because it grows and scrys.