During the recent spate of articles on all things Ravnica, it becomes hard for a writer like me to find a nice niche to write about the new set without duplicating someone else’s effort. I looked at various articles and then poured over the cards themselves before lighting upon a pretty basic idea.
Honestly, you would have thought that a deck builder like me would have thought of the idea sooner. The plan is pretty simple: I’m going to look through the Ravnica card list until I find an interesting card, then I’ll build a quick deck around that card. I’ll explain the deck, maybe go over a few alternative card suggestions for the deck (or other ideas for using the Ravnica card that I pulled), then head to the next interesting card. I’ll stop once I have a decent article-sized amount of space.
Ravnica is one of the best sets to come out of the woodwork in some time. There are plenty of ideas and combo-riffic pleasures to be found here. It should be a relatively easy task to find a bunch of deck ideas within this set.
“Less gab and more deck!” you say? I head your words.
Ravnica Deck Idea #1: Tolsimir Wolfblood is Quite Alarming
I really like the flavor of Tolsimir. He brings a 4/4 legendary token creature with him for the cost of a simple tap effect, plus he can pump other creatures as well. I also love his name; he feels like he would fit perfectly in the Legends expansion set. Since his ability requires a simple tapping effect, it should be an easy matter to abuse him. Let’s see what we can find:
Creatures (17)
- 2 Wall of Blossoms
- 4 Birds of Paradise
- 2 Thornscape Battlemage
- 3 Sunscape Battlemage
- 2 Meddling Mage
- 4 Tolsimir Wolfblood
Lands (24)
Spells (19)
This deck (also called Tolsimir Wolfblood is Quite Alarming) is built around the Tolsimir Wolfblood/Intruder Alarm combo. The idea is to try and get out your combo quickly without being too obvious. With Tolsimir and Intruder Alarm in play, you can tap Tolsimir to add any number of wolves under your control. Now, because each is a legendary wolf named Voja, you can’t have more than one out safely. As such, you need to find something else to do with your Vojas; enter the Blasting Station! You can tap the Station to sacrifice a Voja, then watch it untap when the next Voja comes into play. With these three permanents in play, you can deal an unlimited amount of damage to every player at the table.
In order to get the combo more reliably, I added a pair of Enlightened Tutors to the deck. Each can get an Intruder Alarm or Blasting Station as needed. I also have a Sterling Grove to protect the Intruder Alarm (or search one up). Rounding out the Tutor effects are a trio of Eladamri’s Calls for Tolsimir himself. I also added some raw card sifting and drawing with a full set of Impulses, the Walls of Blossoms and a Scroll Rack.
I used several creatures that could also be retrieved by an Eladamri’s Call if necessary. If you need to pop an artifact, a flying creature, or just want to draw a few cards, you can get a Battlemage. If you have out a Birds of Paradise, you can even use the Red kicker of Thornscape Battlemage. Meddling Mages help slow down opponents by naming vital spells. Naming Counterspell can allow you to force through your combo, for example.
You can easily substitute some cards in here for what you don’t have. Eternal Witness would be a good fit. Telling Time could substitute for Impulse. Mox Diamond could slide in for Birds, or you could even cut the Birds altogether and add Sakura-Tribe Elders. The Battlemagi and Meddling Magi could be traded for a few other 187 creatures, like Cloudchaser Aven, Uktabi Orangutan, and Man o’-War.
The essential part of the TWQA deck is the key trio of cards, not the extra stuff. Although I tried to build a versatile selection of cards to help you survive the mid-game and handle some threats, you can easily change this to suit your tastes.
There are several other powerful combinations with Tolsimir Wolfblood and Intruder Alarm: You could have out Mana Echoes and other wolves, for example, giving you an unlimited amount of mana. Add Inheritance to that combo and you could draw your deck. Alternatively, you could add Pandemonium or Goblin Bombardment to the combo instead of Blasting Station. I chose the Station because it was colorless and I felt the deck needed to stay at three colors if possible. Angelic Chorus, Moonlit Wake, or Dross Harvester can be used to give you an unlimited amount of life.
There’s a lot of potential with Tolsimir and Intruder Alarm. Even a basic Opposition can tap down every single permanent that you want for the rest of the game. Good luck exploring your Tolsimir combos!
Ravnica Deck Idea #2: Sunforger Toolbox
The goal of this deck is to use Sunforger as a toolbox sort of equipment, allowing you to cast a variety of spells in order to suit the situation. We’ll need creatures and instants in order to make this deck work. Let’s see what we can do:
Creatures (16)
Lands (24)
Spells (20)
This deck can play as a simple aggro deck, using the Sunforger to allow a Skyknight to swing in the air for six damage. You’ll note that every creature is either a Knight or a Soldier, allowing the Steelshaper to pump all of your creatures when equipped. With a quartet of Shikari also involved, you can detach the Sunforger to play something and equip it again — and if you have enough mana, you can actually detach it a second time.
There are several instants available for our use in this deck. I really like Violent Eruption’s ability to take out several creatures when necessary. You have super tricks like Shunt, Orim’s Chant, and Fork available to really mess with people’s heads. You have everything from a tutor to a Tithe to removal (Lightning Helix, Order half of Order/Chaos, Blood Frenzy, Wing Shards, etc) plus Disenchant effects in Orim’s Thunder and Tempest of Light, pumping effects with Astral Steel and Blood Frenzy, and the ability to make all creatures unblockable for a turn (the Chaos half of Order/Chaos).
Between a creature base that really plays well with each other and a slate of powerful instants, you have great potential to have a solid deck with more than enough tricks up its sleeve.
If you use that Shikari/Sunforger trick mentioned earlier, then you can really abuse the Forger and Fork. Detach Sunforger to play whatever instant you need to. Then, while the spell is on the stack, re-equip the Sunforger, then detach it a second time, get Fork and Fork whatever you got the first time. This allows you to double up on any instant in your deck, if you need to.
If you don’t have cards like Fork, don’t worry, because there are plenty of other options. For example, Unhinged gives you Deal Damage, which is usually reusable burn. If you want to run more creatures, you could look at Taj-Nar Swordsmith to replace the Enlightened Tutor (and maybe a few other instants that you don’t have). Alternatively, you could run Leonin Den-Guard or Skyhunter Cub.
I was considering running Blue with the Sunforger so that I could run a full set of Suffocating Blasts, since I would love to have countermagic available to use when I detach a Sunforger. There is probably enough room for a third color, and Blue would be an ideal choice for its ability to draw and tutor. Black could add Terminate or Backlash.
Green doesn’t give us much, though. Who cares about Eladamri’s Call and Simoon?
I like the idea of a nice piece of equipment that brings the spells with it. Sunforger is an interesting card that does something not done before, and I respect that. I hope that you can find some ideas when you build your own Sunforger deck.
Ravnica Deck Idea #3: Grozoth, Bringer of the Team
I’ve had a lot of people ask what you can actually do with Grozoth. What can one do with Grozoth? Allow me to show you an option….
Creatures (18)
- 4 Colossus of Sardia
- 2 Bringer of the Red Dawn
- 2 Bringer of the Blue Dawn
- 4 Crimson Hellkite
- 2 Reya Dawnbringer
- 4 Grozoth
Lands (26)
- 11 Mountain
- 11 Island
- 4 Shivan Reef
Spells (16)
This deck is designed to get out a Grozoth early through either a Show and Tell or a Sneak Attack. After getting out an early Grozoth, you Tutor your deck for a bunch of nine-mana creatures and then either Sneak Attack your opponent or Pyromancy them to death.
Imagine this multiplayer turn: Sneak Attack out a Grozoth, get several nine-mana creatures. Sneak out the Colossus just retrieved. Sneak out Bringer of the Red Dawn, just retrieved. Sneak out a Shivan Hellkite, just retrieved. Attack with everything except the Grozoth (since it has defender). Deal a bunch of damage, potentially game-winning, almost certainly player-killing.
Or this turn: Sneak out a Grozoth, get several nine-mana creatures. Activate Pyromancy with nothing but nine-mana critters in your hand; your opponent takes nine. Activate again and another nine damage is dealt to the head.
You have a full set of Show and Tells so that you can play a big creature early in the game. Drop a Bringer of the Blue Dawn or Reya Dawnbringer with the Show and Tell. With a Sneak Attack out, Show and Telling out Reya gives allows you to Sneak out a creature and attack, followed by bringing it back to play with Reya the following turn.
I tossed in a quartet of Impulses for the early game. This deck could get into some serious mana gluts, especially in a multiplayer game after it pulled a bunch of creatures from the deck and killed a layer or two. Impulse can help find a business card. You might also consider running something like Seismic Assault. More card drawing or removal might also be helpful.
You could also use the theme of this deck to run cards like Fling, Rupture, Grab the Reins, or Surestrike Trident. A Grozoth with a Surestrike Trident will do some serious damage and both permanent remain in play to be used again.
There are tons of other ideas for Grozoth. Grozoth in a mono-blue deck could get a lot of creatures that are able to be sacrificed to, say, Homarid Spawning Bed. You could run a deck with Green and Grozoth a bunch of creatures into your hand before dropping Eureka. You could run a Fist of Suns deck and get a bunch of Bringers and spells that can be played for URGBW. You could try a Living Death or Recurring Nightmare deck where you discard the big creatures through various methods then reanimate them. There’s plenty of space to mine with a Grozoth.
Ravnica Deck Idea #4: Sanctioning Damage (a.k.a. "The Mad Wumper")
A very Abeish card from this set is Light of Sanction. I am all about dealing tons of damage to creatures from my own effects. You no longer have to worry about splash damage from a Wildfire or Earthquake. I love Earthquake – it’s one of my favorite spells of all time. Not having Earthquake in the last pair of basic sets is one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen. Any excuse I get to put an Earthquake in a deck, I’ll take.
As I start to flesh out my decklist, however, it seems a lot like other ideas I’ve had. Oh look, another deck with Subterranean Spirit; ho hum. AEther Flash and Powerstone Minefield; *sigh*. Let’s try stretching myself a bit and run something other than Red/White. How about trying out Black?
Creatures (18)
Lands (24)
Spells (18)
This deck tries to use Pestilence effects to dominate the table. Light of Sanction will prevent all damage that the Wisps and Wumpii (Wumpuses? Wumpum?) will deal to your own creatures. I am running the Wisps instead of an actual Pestilence because I want to drop my control card earlier. With these eight damaging effects, the Light of Sanction can come in quite handy in keeping your creatures alive.
I wanted there to be other options in case the Light of Sanction was Disenchanted or not able to be found. Cho-Manno and Cemetery Gate will both survive the mad Wumping. Either will also allow your Withering Wisps to stick around. Remember that Wisps go away shortly after the last creature bites it — so having a creature that sticks around is a nice benefit.
A player of this deck needs to be able to gain some life back. If you are becoming The Mad Wumper™, then you’ll want to have some form of life gain. Traditional creature-based effects like Congregate will not work here. I wanted creatures that gained you life at casting costs that did not conflict with the major cards in the deck: Enter Temple Acolyte and Radiant’s Dragoons. Both can give you some hefty life, and both can play defense until you set up your little combo.
If you don’t get out the combo, both can take some Wumping before dying. If you do get out the combo, then they can serve for enough damage to finish off a player. Once the Wumping gets going, you don’t need to deal that much damage from your creatures in order to win the game.
I rounded out the deck with some removal and some Scroll Racks. Scroll Racks are great ways of finding key cards in non-Blue decks. Black can often afford some card drawing, but in a deck where you’ll likely be taking some serious damage from the Wumping, you’ll find little space for Ambition’s Cost. The Vindicates are key because they can hit anything, and I also doubled up the destruction with Disenchants. The original is back, baby!
Whew! Four decks later, and my Ravnica juices are just warming up. You may see more Ravnica-themed deck articles in the future. Then again, maybe you won’t. I think that there are more potential cards and decks in Ravnica than in the entire Kamigawa Block. It’s a great set that hearkens back to glory sets of old. I hope that you have gotten some ideas from the decks today. If not, at least you might have some of your mental juices flowing, able to see more combos and decks from the set.
Until later,
Abe Sargent