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Daily Digest: Tuning B/W Warriors

B/W Warriors is a white (and black) hot deck right now, and GerryT has the latest evolution of the increasingly popular archetype! What’s left to change in this deck? Turns out, quite a bit…

B/W Warriors nearly took #GPKobe, and they would have gotten away with it too, if it weren’t for those meddling Goblins. Sam Black even took the deck to a 7-1 finish in the Standard portion of #SCGINVI. It’s clear that B/W Warriors has some chops, but what can we do to improve it?

Icculus13 decided to try their hand at it, taking the deck into Abzan Aggro territory. Den Protector is conveniently a Warrior, and Warden of the First Tree can become one. Sadly, Anafenza, the Foremost is merely a Soldier. Adding green gives the deck some staying power with Den Protector, Abzan Charm, and Collected Company, as well as some slightly more efficient creatures.

The manabase is interesting. Abzan Aggro uses Flooded Strand to find Plains, Canopy Vista, or Sunken Hollow, but this manabase is heavy on painlands. I guess when you’re trying to cast a black two-drop, Flooded Strand into Sunken Hollow is simply too slow. The painlands are definitely the best lands for the job.

The main thing this deck misses out on compared to the B/W version is the “go big” sideboard with Secure the Wastes and Mastery of the Unseen. The higher card quality and Collected Companies do a good job making up for that though. Abzan Ascendancy out of the sideboard looks like a nice one. The Wasteland Strangler synergies are gone also, but with Anafenza, the Foremost in the deck, it might be worth revisiting that.