Taking the Initiative: R/W Purphoros Deck Tech

Hey guys, what's going on? This week I want to talk to you guys about the deck I hyped up in my Dragon's Maze article a couple weeks ago. Before I start on the deck though I want to say a brief something about GP: OKC a couple weekends ago. After building a very impressive W/R Heroic deck I barely missed making day two by one win finishing the tournament at X-3. I feel that I played alot better there than in Houston, my first two round losses being very close matches going game three both times. However I scrubbed out pretty hard in the 8th round by flooding out hard against a pretty solid GW list in game one and drawing only two lands in game two. So despite my improved play, the cards just didn't want to come through for me. Anyway, let's take a look at what is slowly beating out my former MG: Geist list and becoming my favorite deck I've built.



For those who want an interactive version of the list, or want to have it open while you read on you can find it here. So the list is as follows:
Mainboard:
4x Soldier of the Pantheon
4x Legion Loyalist
4x Ash Zealot
3x Imposing Sovereign
2x Truefire Paladin
4x Boros Reckoner
3x Viashino Firstblade
3x Purphoros, God of the Forge
3x Legion's Initiative
4x Boros Charm
3x Lightning Strike
4x Sacred Foundry
2x Temple of Triumph
10x Mountain
7x Plains
Sideboard:
1x Plains
3x Banisher Priest
1x Legion's Initiative
3x Skullcrack
3x Glare of Heresy
1x Legion's Initiative
2x Wear // Tear
2x Burning Earth

Its about to get crazy.

So if you couldn't tell by my earlier praise or the title of this article, Legion's Initiative is the main draw for this list. On the surface Initiative simply seems like a slight buff to the creatures. Giving our red creatures +1/+0, the white ones +0/+1, and the gold ones +1/+1. At that point it might seem better to just run a more white focused list and run Spear of Heliod, but I'm taking this list further by having the deck center more around the almost blink ability of Initiative. So what are some of the shenanigans the list can do with Initiative? Well first off it can help your creatures survive a wrath effect when you don't have a Boros Charm in hand. Another nifty think you can do is have it act as a reset for your creatures, allowing you to swing in then blink out and bring them back to block. Along those same lines, if you can battalion Legion Loyalist you can swing all in and allow first strike damage to go through and then pull your creatures out of combat before regular damage resolves. The real reason for Legion's Initiative is to abuse the ability of Purphoros. So thanks to the way ETB triggers work when multiple creatures enter the battlefield at the same time; you end up dealing several points of damage to your opponent even if you have a couple creatures enter at the same time.

The man that helped forge the plan.

Alright, with the main point for the deck out of the way let's look at the other cards that help this deck perform. The deck uses two one drops, Legion Loyalist and Soldier of the Pantheon. Loyalist is just a little haster allowing us to get in a couple points of early damage, but his main point is the battalion. Not only does the battalion have synergy with Legion's Initiative, but if Mono-Blue devotion or G/W tokens start becoming more popular than the "can't be blocked by creature tokens" becomes a major selling point on the card. Soldier of the Pantheon is a great creature that can hold off a good number of creatures in the format while gaining you a few points of life. Moving up the curve to the two drop slots there are three creatures that go down in number with each creature. Ash Zealot is a pretty easy include to the deck. While it's certainly not as strong with Snapcaster out of the format, a 2/2 first strike haster for two that helps Purphoros hit devotion quickly is certainly a good thing. Next up is Imposing Sovereign, a creature that I quickly grew fond of as soon as it was released. With so many big hasters in the format as well as creatures that just spawn more creatures like Burning-Tree Emissary and the new super star Master of Waves, she gives you the ability to get around blockers that would be spawned off of these creatures. As well as taking care of token creatures created before blocker from cards like Advent of the Wurm, Call of the Conclave, and Selesnya Charm. Rounding out the two drops is Truefire Paladin. I really like the card, but I don't think its impactful enough in the deck for it to have a higher number. It still has a spot in the list since it's a good late game sink to make it bigger, and as well serves as a good blocker against most of the smaller creature decks. The higher end of our curve is the creature that needs no introduction, Boros Reckoner, and his new best friend Viashino Firstblade. Firstblade greatly benefits from initiative, not only does it make him a base 3/3 but the blink also resets his ETB effect. Rounding out the mainboard is a full playset of boros charms, allowing your creatures to survive board wipes and terrible combat esperiences as well as dealing four to your opponent's face. And three Lightning strikes serving as removal and a way to help increase the already quick clock the deck can present.

A little bundle of fun.

Moving on let's take a look at the current sideboard configuration. Some of these cards are up for grabs on spots and numbers, but at least a few of them are locked in. Firstly, there is a fourth Legion's Initiative. This is for the control/BW midrange matchups where an in play Initiative will almost certainly seal the deal in your favor, so the fourth one helps get around counter spells and Thoughtseize. The next couple cards that are auto includes are the three Skullcracks, which should by now be standard sideboard fare in almost any red based aggro list to help combat Sphinx's Rev and the now very high numbers GW list can put up in their Trostani strategy. Up next is a pretty interesting sideboard card thanks to Legion's Initiative, Banisher Priest. It is very fun to continuely reset Banisher Priests of  of cracking Legion's Initiative by taking your opponents creatures and giving them back summoning sick ones or even exiling for good different tokens. Its all good fun and can easily make opponents go almost full tilt in some cases. Because of the double whie in the Banisher Priests I threw a plains into the sideboard to be swapped out with a mountain to help smooth out the cost to play them. Rounding out the sideboard are three Glare of Heresy to help in the GW, Boros Reckoner, or Elspeth matchups. And for the control matchup are two Burning Earth and two Wear // Tear. Burning Earth to hurt the control decks with a more greedy mana base while doing very little damage to us. The Wear // Tear can help combat things like Detention Spheres taking our guys and Pithing Needles shutting down our Legion's Initiative fun.

More exiles. More fun.

Alright guys, well that's the list. Its done very well for me in testing and FNMs. I'm hoping I can make it to SCG Dallas next month and take this deck to the top, but GP: Fort Worth is going to be out of the question. Feel free to test this deck for yourselves and make changes where you see fit. The topic of my next article is up for grabs, but keep an eye out for it either later this week or early next week.

Thanks for reading,
Zack

He's still going strong!