Emille is a human planeswalker wielding red and white magic. Her greatest sorcery originates in divine fire, passed down by a line of mage-priests blessed by the late archangel Razia herself. Channeling purging blazes through her whip, she dances across the battlefield, her foes mesmerized by her fluid grace--if she hasn't torn them to pieces already.
Born into a family of pyromancers, Emille showed promise from a very early age. She was brought into the Izzet League when she came of age, following her father into researching and harnessing magical flames. Working together, the two developed an arrow whose head would burst into flames the moment it was fired from a bow. The invention made the two and their guild a great deal of money, the Legion and Cult most interested in the technology. The massive influx of funds allowed the League to push forward ambitious, dangerous, and even illegal projects. Of course, no one would know about any of them, for the all-knowing Niv-Mizzet would deny the operations' existence.
At the time the Parhelion started to fall and Zomaj Hauc was arrested for high treason, the Izzet League started to crumble underneath its own lies, many of its members likewise convicted by the Azorius Senate's high courts. Her parents were no exception--they were convicted of illegally harboring dragons for weapons research. The two of them sentenced to life in prison, Emille was effectively guildless and orphaned.
Her skill in manipulating flames attracted attention from the Boros Legion in cleaning up the mess the falling sanctuary created, as well as quelling violence caused by the disaster. Emille blazed through weapons training for almost every weapon the Legion used. When she was brought before what remained of the Legion's angels to be blessed with their grace and holiness, they explained to her superiors that she had great magical potetial within, and her pyromantic mastery came from the Legion's angels, not the League's dragonfire.
A red-winged angel by the name of Basandra stepped forward, acknowledging Emille's unique position. She had the offensive might of a mage-priest, yet the martial skills to be a powerful soldier. Over the course of several visits to Sunhome, the Boros war-angel showed Emille how to use the most exotic weapon the Legion ever employed--a seven-headed whip. She found the whip's weight cumbersome, even stinging herself with it a few times before getting the hang of its use. Three months later, Basandra made a special trip to the roof of Sunhome, blessing Emille with the title "Seven-Sting Dancer" in front of the entirety of the Legion's high-ranking officers.
Emille and Basandra patrolled the streets of downtown Ravnica, near the site of the recent Parhelion crash. The two quelled violence and provided rescue for several victims trapped underneath the wreckage. After nearly tearing herself apart from a misfired lash, she decided it would be better to use a whip with a single head. It would be faster and much easier to control. Though she could not deliver seven stings with it, as her bestowed title would suggest, she felt the title suited her well enough to be worth keeping.
Basandra's unique method of training Emille awakened a unique ability--channeling holy flames through her whip so that they would reach its tip at impact. When the two returned to Sunhome so Emille could show her newfound skill, everyone watching was mesmerized. The way she swung the whip around her, she seemed to write in a foreign language with a trail of holy fire, the cracking of her whip sounding like fireworks as she danced around. The traumatic experiences in the Izzet League and Boros Legion cultivated Emille's Spark, this final moment of triumph fully igniting it. She and Basandra wander the Multiverse, turning the tide of war by sharpening struggling soldiers' skills, endurance, and force of will.
---
"The whip is the most controversial weapon the Boros Legion utilizes. The uneducated population of Ravnica sees it as a weapon of torture, used to extract false confessions in the name of fake justice. But in the hands of responsible soldiers of the Legion, the whip is a weapon of subdual. It takes an inhuman amount of skill to actually kill someone with one, but it only takes a single, well-placed strike to incapacitate a foe from the pain. In the hands of others, the whip can be a weapon of art, its head flailing around its wielder or another performer without ever touching the person. Basandra of the Legion has versed me in both arts of the whip. When she bestowed the lash to me, I vowed never to use it in an unlawful, selfish manner."
-- Emille, dancer of the Legion
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Deck History
1.2. Fundamentals
1.3. Why Basandra?
2. DECKLIST
2.1. Current Decklist
2.2. Change Log
3. CARD CHOICES AND EXPLANATIONS
3.1. Lands
3.2. Draws
3.3. Attack Deterrents
3.4. Forced Attacking
3.5. Wraths
3.6. Sunforger Package
3.7. The Rest
3.8. Why Isn't Card X in the Build?
4. PLAYING THE DECK
4.1. Phase I: Pillowfort
4.2. Phase II: Incite Carnage
4.3. Phase III: Fireworks
4.4. A Good Starting Seven
5. POTENTIAL PROBLEMS
5.1. Dealing with Extraction/Meddling Mage Effects
5.2. Dealing with Wraths
5.3. Dealing with Countermagic
Basandra, Battle Seraph is probably the weakest commander in the weakest color pair in Commander. This deck will not function in cutthroat groups at all. It is designed to be played in laid-back groups that like seeing unique decks. Those of you who play in a combo-heavy meta, quit now. This deck has very little means to interact with combo decks, and no way to interact with entirely spell-based combo decks. Those of you who love playing "bad" cards together to make a good deck, keep on reading.
1.1. Deck History
The idea of a Basandra, Battle Seraph started out when she was released in Commander. She became my favorite angel in Magic art-wise, and she had a unique set of abilities. The deck's first iteration was a deck full of first strike/protection creatures, using Basandra's ability to set up bad exchanges in combat. After playing with it for a couple of months, the gears started turning.
Ghostly Prison effects started to make their way into the deck, causing foes to stop bothering with attacking me at all. As more Prison effects were added, the first strike and protection creatures became superfluous, and were slowly removed to make room for more enchantments that kept creatures away from me.
Basandra satisfied my inner Johnny--I saw the potential to build a Boros-colored control deck. You read that right: Boros-colored control. It's a great deckbuilding challenge, and it turned out to be one of the most unique and fun decks I have ever built--out of over 25 decks. This process has been a great example of building a good deck out of bad cards. If you like sitting behind a pile of enchantments and watching your opponents wail on each other, this is the perfect deck for you.
1.2. Fundamentals
Before I get into the decklist, I would like to reveal the deck's lynch pin: Repercussion. This card lets you turn sweepers and attack deterrents into damage. The deck can still win without it, but it's very hard to kill multiple people at once this way. Repercussion will potentially let you kill the entire table with one sweeper.
Whether you have Repercussion or not, the idea of the deck is the same: set up a giant pillowfort, then force everyone to attack into the pillowfort while you whittle your foes' life totals down with your creatures strong enough to survive the pillowfort. Most often it's Basandra herself, but there are a few other creatures that can do the job.
1.3. Why Basandra?
There are currently eight Boros-colored commanders in Magic. In a vacuum, Basandra is easily the weakest of the eight. However, four of the seven remaining commanders want to build a deck focused on attacking with lots of creatures. Basandra is best as the head of a Boros deck whose primary win condition is not attacking with a horde of creatures. This leaves three other commanders capable of doing the job.
Brion Stoutarm: A 4/4 ground creature doesn't do a very good job of guarding the pillowfort. Brion is very synergistic with cheap creatures having high power and low toughness. Because we set up things that globally punish attacking and globally force attacking, you will have to use his ability pre-combat to make him unable to attack.
Razia, Boros Archangel: The ability to redirect damage is nice for getting a creature through Minefields, but her paltry three toughness means she will often have to use her ability on herself. Eight mana is also a lot to pay for her. There's definitely an argument to be made for playing her--a six-power commander with haste can be a quick clock. I just don't think she's worth eight mana.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Now we're talking! This is a very solid choice for a control-oriented Boros deck. An evasive 5/5 with a super-Furnace of Rath built in will end the game in a hurry, and her Ghosts of the Innocent-esque ability will make you almost immune to the effects of your pillowfort. She's also quite the clock--Gisela wearing a Sunforger can instantly kill someone by fetching a Boros Charm if you have eight mana. The biggest strike against her, though, is because this style of deck plays very few creatures, she will not impact the board as soon as she is cast.
Realistically, though, the choice of commander for this style of deck is between Basandra and Gisela. Gisela is a highly respected commander, and it is well-known how quickly she can end games. Many people who play commander haven't even heard of Basandra, and will often not take her seriously. Once you start setting up, though, your foes will realize she means business...and by then, it may be too late.
From a purely functional perspective, Basandra offers something unique that none of the other Boros commanders do: redundancy. Just as a combustion engine cannot run without gas and air, Basandra cannot run without both a way to deter attacks from you and a way to force others to attack. By putting Basandra at the helm of the deck, you can have a way to force attacks on call. That's one less piece of the puzzle to worry about drawing from your deck. With Gisela at the helm, you need to run a lot more cards that force attacks in order to be able to see one in time for the rest of the table not to have a million answers for it.
Players being unable to cast spells while in combat is a huge boon, as well. Once the player enters the combat phase (usually not willingly), no one can disrupt anything you've set up. Planning on saving that creature? Better set it up before combat. Oh, you can't cast that spell for value outside combat? Too bad. It doesn't seem like a valuable ability until you see it in action.
Reason: I found that symmetrical draw gave the foes too much of an ability to answer problem enchantments, and we never wanted to draw extra cards until late in the game anyway.
Reason: Though these are good creatures to be playing, minimizing the creature count is very important. Kazuul in particular gives you creatures when you are attacked, so he actually serves as an INCENTIVE to attack you, not a deterrent. War-Riders is a card I overlooked a long time ago, and Oblivion Ring because sometimes you just need to tutor for an answer. You also don't need nearly as many ways to force attacking. Generally, multiple attack deterrents stack, but multiple ways to force attacking are redundant.
11/3/13:
- Path to Exile
- Circle of Flame
+ Unexpectedly Absent
+ Mystic Barrier
Reason: Circle of Flame was a very weak deterrent, Mystic Barrier further restricting everyone's combat options. Unexpectedly Absent, despite being an X spell, is not useless off Sunforger, and I like the added flexibility.
11/13/13:
- Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile
+ Chained to the Rocks
Reason: Trying to lower the creature count some more, and Chained to the Rocks is a sweet fit for the deck.
3. CARD CHOICES AND EXPLANATIONS
3.1. Lands
Forbidden Orchard: After people figure out what's going on, they'll be hesitant to drop creatures. This land allows you to give people creatures that are useless at worst and a liability to them at best.
Desert: This lets you ping creatures after they attack, doing extra Repercussion damage.
Reliquary Tower: As we are a control deck, having no maximum hand size is such a boon.
Terrain Generator: Lets us get ahead on mana, and is the reason for the high basic land count. I thought about running Blood Moon, but we have enough important utility lands that it isn't worth it. Blood Moon is really unfun for most people, too.
Thawing Glaciers: We durdle in this deck. A LOT. I know this land seems REALLY slow, but our combo-kill is slower yet. Being able to pull out a land every other turn helps a lot more than you think.
Mind's Eye: Probably the best colorless draw in the game.
Staff of Nin: Second best colorless draw in the game, and you can pick off guys with it when there's a Humility on the table.
Tower of Fortunes: Expensive, but gives you something to do with your mana once the pillowfort is set up. Repeatable Tidings is huge.
Urza's Blueprints: Highly underrated--I think this is one of the best pieces of colorless draw in the format. Six mana this turn, six mana the next, then fire and forget.
3.3. Attack Deterrents
These are the cards with which you set up the pillowfort. Probably the most important early to midgame cards in the deck.
Aurification: This will turn any creature that deals damage to you into a defender. Note that this card isn't just restricted to combat damage.
Blazing Archon: Stops people from attacking you outright, so you can use Basandra to force opponents to attack each other. He becomes a liability once you're down to one opponent, though.
Furnace of Rath: Doubles all damage your attack deterrents do. If you have Repercussion, it will quadruple Repercussion's damage.
Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, Windborn Muse: Little-known fact about these three cards... If you force a creature to attack, and the controller of the creature chooses not to pay for your Ghostly Prison, that creature must attack someone else.
Humility: A key enchantment in the deck, this card is backbreaking because most decks are built to get value out of creatures. Expect to get a lot of hate when you drop it, but you'd be surprised how many decks just can't deal with it.
Maze of Ith: One weak point we have is to large creatures that can actually survive our attack deterrents. This is a way to answer those things and try to get them away from us.
Mystic Barrier: Forcing the table to play a game of attack left or attack right seems cool when they have to attack if able.
Repercussion: The centerpiece of the deck. This card lets you kill entire tables at once with a damage-based sweeper, and will let you ding players' life totals every time one of their creatures attacks into a Powerstone Minefield.
Stuffy Doll: This is such an amazing deterrent to fat creatures, and it's great watching it walk through a Powerstone Minefield.
3.4. Forced Attacking
Once you're set up, you drop one of these cards to make people attack into the nonsense you spent time setting up.
Avatar of Slaughter: This forces EVERYONE to attack, as well as get tons of damage in because most of your guys are evasive. 8/8 double strikers tend to end games quickly.
Bullwhip: Primarily a flavor inclusion, but it's such an amazing flavor inclusion I couldn't leave it out. Besides, if you're building a deck like this, you're not planning on being competitive with it. Curse of the Nightly Hunt is something else to consider in this spot.
Fumiko the Lowblood: Will often survive combat when the foe's entire team is forced to attack. Also doesn't affect your own creatures, which is nice.
Gideon Jura: Forces a player's team to attack him. Paired with Powerstone, he does a great job at keeping players' boards clear. He can also attack through Powerstones and other things, though you need to remember Ghostly Prison doesn't protect him.
Grand Melee: When you cast this, make sure to declare your attack step first as to cast it postcombat. This, combined with your setup, should force the rest of the table to implode.
Master Warcraft: Lets you almost completely control a combat phase, and it's fetchable with Sunforger. Unfortunately, the players still get to decide which player or planeswalker each creature will attack.
War's Toll: An absolute HEADACHE for reactive decks. This is truly an all-or-nothing card. Mana-wise, it lets your opponents only cast spells during one step of an entire turn cycle, and they have to attack with everything or nothing. Probably one of my favorite red enchantments. Definitely underplayed in EDH in general.
3.5. Wraths
These cards are what combo with Repercussion to kill the table.
Blasphemous Act: In big games, this is 13 to all creatures for R. One of the strongest red sweepers printed in a long time.
Inferno, Magmaquake, Starstorm: Some of my favorite red sweepers because they are instants. The latter two are scalable, and Starstorm cycles as well.
Pyrohemia: Combos really well with Stuffy Doll or anything that reduces damage to your creatures. There are plenty of ways to ensure the drawback will never be relevant.
Sunblast Angel: The only non-damage sweeper in the deck. This will clear out creatures that were forced to attack last turn.
3.6. Sunforger Package
It's no secret that Sunforger is one of the most powerful Equipment in EDH, restricted only by it requiring the weakest two-color pair in the game. Though Sunforger is at its best in three color decks since it can fetch counterspells, it is still quite powerful with just red and white.
Boros Charm: Want to Austere Command my board away? Sorry, your princess is in another castle. We don't use the other modes too much, but two mana to save all your stuff is great.
Chaos Warp, Oblation, Unexpectedly Absent: Removal. UA is actually better than it looks because you can still cast it for 0 off a Sunforger in response to someone searching their deck.
These cards don't fit into any other category, but they're all pretty important to the deck still.
Gamble: One of the most unique cards in the game. It's a tutor in a color desperately lacking tutors. The drawback shouldn't be an issue with a deck that likes hoarding cards in hand.
Karmic Justice: Wipe my board. I DARE YOU. You know how weak this deck is to enchantment wraths? Well, if you drop this on the board, no one will want to cast Austere Commands. This card can make it easy for you to lock up your board position while you wait for your kill.
Oblivion Ring: Just in case you need to tutor for removal with Enlightened/Idyllic. I don't like running it, but sometimes you REALLY need removal.
Radiate: It basically says "Overload target spell." This, to be honest, is more of a "fun" card. Since Commander is more about being a wacky format, Radiate will allow you to make very wacky plays. I find the best things to point this at are targeted draw and removal, but you will find all kinds of silly things to point this at.
Replenish: Another way to recover from a board wipe, and this one can be played at any time, not just the same turn the Wrath was cast.
Sun Titan: Recurs Repercussion, fetchlands, and assorted other goodies. Wears a Sunforger well, too. Oh yeah, speaking of Sunforger, it recurs that, too!
Varchild's War-Riders: This gives opponents increasing numbers of useless tokens every turn, and those tokens will eventually become a big liability. Its combat stats are irrelevant because you shouldn't be doing much attacking or blocking in the deck anyway.
3.8. Why isn't Card X in the Build?
This section will grow as the deck is further modified, but I'm going to list in here a few cards that would make sense in the build, but were scrapped.
AEther Flash: A recent cut for some more hard attack deterrents. This is very strong against tokens, and can lock some decks out of the game completely with a little help. This with Humility is a hell of a combo, though.
Boros Battleshaper: This needs testing, but a seven mana forced attacker is something I don't think this deck wants to do. I will give it some time in the deck at a later date, though.
Boros Reckoner, Spitemare: With the deck's reliance on Humility, I don't think these guys are great. Even if you don't have a Humility, they often can't survive one wade through your minefield.
Howling Mine, etc.: I don't think symmetrical draw is a great idea. We can't use our cards better than most decks can.
Island Sanctuary: This thing is really good if you are playing symmetrical draw. Without symmetrical draw, I think the drawback of having to effectively skip your draw step is just a bit too much for it to be useful when you need it to be.
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs: He was in here for a long time, but I yanked him in the process of reducing this deck's creature count. Depending on the board state, it may actually be detrimental for you to receive his 3/3 Ogre tokens. I'd rather avoid that possibility entirely.
Mana rocks: I'm in the minority here, but I am not a fan of mana rocks outside artifact decks. Obviously you should play Sol Ring, but we're talking about Boros Signet, Mind Stone, and such. I feel these are only good on turn 2, because on turns 3 through at least 5, we're setting up our impenetrable fortress to keep opposing armies out. I'm paranoid about Austere Commands, Disks, and Akroma's Vengeances already--I would rather not lose my mana sources to them, as well.
Mark of Asylum, Light of Sanction: Once we're set up, we don't need this kind of narrow protection. Rune-Tail does the job fine.
Nevermore: I think this might be worth testing in the future. Austere Command is by far the most prevalent enchantment wrath in the format, and setting it to this seems like a good way to protect the fort.
Rage Nimbus: It's cute, but we really want to minimize our creature count.
Retaliate: If your deck is properly set up, creatures shouldn't be hitting you at all.
Swords to Plowshares: Believe it or not, your foes' life totals are highly relevant in this deck.
Stoneforge Mystic: Not going to play a tutor that can only find Sunforger. It's worth considering if you play Sword of Fire and Ice, though. There's definitely merit to SoFI because it gives your important guy pro-red and it draws extra cards. Basandra with SoFI makes a fine clock, too.
Wear//Tear: If you need a second Orim's Thunder, I feel this is the next thing to play. The thing that makes it a hard sell is you can't fuse it off Sunforger.
4. PLAYING THE DECK
Basandra typically has three phases in which she seeks to fabricate a win.
4.1. Phase I: Pillowfort
During the first few turns of the game, you want to play as many things as possible that discourage people from attacking you. Set up Ghostly Prison, Windborn Muse, Powerstone Minefield...anything to keep creatures away. The goal of this phase is to buy time. Have those other people send their dudes somewhere else.
I wouldn't cast Humility early in the game without a Circle of Flame or Minefield to back it up. If you drop Humility with no other protection, people are going to just swing with swaths of 1/1s. Believe me, that damage adds up fast. Dropping Humility is fine if you have a sweep in hand, but don't make the table hate you any more than necessary.
The removal in this deck is light for this very reason. Spot removal spells should be used as panic buttons to get rid of extremely troublesome permanents. You know how people harp about threat density in Commander decks? It's the same idea for this deck, except with attack deterrent density. Without your pile of enchantments protecting you, your life expectancy in a game drops to a turn or less.
4.2. Phase II: Incite Carnage
Once you've made it a nightmare for people to combat you, start dropping things that force people to combat. Be a little careful not to overextend too much during this phase. If you get enchantment wrathed and don't have an answer, it can quickly be GG...maybe before you even get another turn.
This part of the game is where Basandra comes in. If you don't have a card that forces attacks handy, cast Basandra. She wears a Sunforger very well and can essentially point-and-click remove creatures for R apiece...or send them at someone besides you.
4.3. Phase III: Fireworks
Once you have control of combat, just sit back and watch everyone else beat the living daylights out of each other. Maintain card advantage through your draw artifacts, and make a strike with Basandra or Avatar of Slaughter once there's only one opponent left. That, or combo-kill the table with Repercussion and a damage sweep.
4.4. A Good Starting Seven
There aren't too many hard and fast rules for deciding what to keep and what to ship, but I do have a few suggestions.
1) Draw engines in the opening hand usually aren't what you want to see. They're expensive to cast and often expensive to use, and you don't want to spend four mana per turn to draw a card until you have at least eight mana.
2) Mana flood early on isn't a bad thing. Tables tend to ignore decks that are having mana problems in favor of decks putting threats on the board. Wait for a Wheel--those get you out of jams when you seem to be drawing nothing but bricks.
3) Early attack deterrents should never be thrown back. You should aim for at least one in your opener, even if it's a bad one like Circle of Flame. Make sure you have something to keep your foes' creatures away.
4) This deck LOVES mana sinks. Don't be afraid to keep, say, five lands, Ghostly Prison, Illuminated Folio. You can sit behind shields all day, but if you can't keep up with the table's card advantage, your fortress will tumble eventually.
4.5. Sample Hands
I'm going to present some sample hands, generated with my real (physical) deck. I'll be adding more to this later. Some of these hands are from previous iterations of the build, and cards in here may not be in the deck now.
This hand is a fair starting hand. You can cast Rune-Tail on turn 2 and have Basandra be a hell of a blocker turn 4, worst-case scenario. This might be a bit loose, but like I said, flooding out and looking weak early is often okay in group games.
Our deck sadly can't do much with two lands. I'd hold onto Oblivion Ring just in case, but ship everything else. If you're playing with the free full mulligan option, I would definitely take a full seven here.
VERDICT: Ship Sunblast Angel, Blasphemous Act, Furnace of Rath, Orim's Thunder. We get Oblation, Starstorm, and Mountain, which I feel makes a fine six.
I know we don't have any spells we can cast in hand, but I feel this is a fine seven. We just need to hit another land before or on turn 4, and Urza's Blueprints is a good incentive to roll with it. I'd consider taking a full seven if the free full mulligan option is used, but I definitely wouldn't partial paris.
This is a snap keep, believe it or not. The idea is to see how long you can wait before sweeping the board, then casting Wheel of Fortune to set up before everyone can rebuild.
Tough call. It took me a while to think about this one, but I'd say the play is this.
VERDICT: Ship Repercussion and Brigid and hope for a white source. If you don't get one, then ship the Windborn Muse. I think you have to keep any hand after that.
It can be very hard to win if Repercussion is extracted from the deck. The combo-kill is the main win, but the deck has other wins. The deck's secondary win condition is Basandra beats, which is a three-turn clock with Sunforger. There are other kills such as Stuffy Doll, though that only works on one person. Though it is slow, you can also kill people with Boros Charm recursion through Sunforger and Mistveil Plains. If you want to have the potential for multiple Sunforger recursion in a single turn, you may want to consider Reito Lantern--it can also function as graveyard hate. People will not use Sadistic Sacrament on just Repercussion and Sunforger--it doesn't dilute the combo enough. If you see a lot of extraction effects, you may want to consider running Pull from Eternity.
5.2. Dealing with Wraths
Enchantment wipes are the bane of this deck. If your foes have a board presence, getting all your enchantments wiped out can mean GG. There will be games where someone casts Merciless Eviction and you sigh and go "Welp"--it happens. Thankfully there are very few cards that globally exile artifacts and enchantments. If you're scared of Austere Commands, remember--protection is always a Sunforger activation away. Again, if you're really scared of Merciless Eviction, Pull from Eternity is a card.
5.3. Dealing with Counterspells
As with any sort of combo deck, countermagic is problematic for this one. Because the focus of this deck is so narrow, it's hard to resolve relevant spells. Because counter-heavy decks tend to run so few threats, Humility makes a fantastic test spell. If Humility resolves, control has to deal with it before they can realistically win the game. You may want to consider Boseiju, Who Shelters All to make your sweep uncounterable, but only if you see a lot of countermagic in your meta.
6. ARCHENEMY
6.1. Overview
Basandra as Archenemy puts her in a very strange position. This is an extremely passive deck that wants to see its opponents attack each other. When your opponents cannot attack each other, you have to win through your combo most of the time, and they will get some attackers through your fortress. When being ganged up on, the biggest issue is that people will pay for your Ghostly Prison effects to get damage in, no matter how many effects you stack. Even Humility doesn't stop that much damage--you'll get buried in swaths of 1/1s. Basandra's scheme deck should address ways of dealing with enchantment wraths. With the entire table gunning for you, an enchantment wrath is virtually GG no matter what your life total is.
Approach My Molten Realm: Doubles the effectiveness of Repercussion and most of your attack deterrents. Be careful, though--it's a double-edged sword.
Choose Your Champion: This deck wants to durdle, and forcing all but one of the heroes to durdle seems very good, especially early on.
Every Hope Shall Vanish: Snag those Austere Commands out of your foes' hands before they're cast. You still can't do much about a topdecked one, but it still helps enough.
My Genius Knows No Bounds: Gives the deck efficient draw. The draw the deck naturally has is really inefficient.
Nature Shields Its Own: Gives one more layer of defense to your fortress. Excellent for when they can only get one or two guys through. Works on unblockables too.
Surrender Your Thoughts: Another good way to get problem instants and sorceries out of the heroes' hands.
Your Inescapable Doom: If you can put this out there, you don't need a real win condition. Just turtle and let the scheme do the work. If you can get both of them going at once, it's pretty devastating.
Well, that about covers everything. If you guys have any suggestions, just let me know and I'll take them into consideration. However I have done an extensive amount of testing with this deck, so don't be surprised if I don't add your suggestion to the primer.
This deck was featured on StarCityGames.com. Thanks, Sheldon!
The list has changed significantly since I posted it, and I really should update it. I know I've yanked a lot of the Mine effects for other colorless draw like Jayemdae Tome.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A mere ten days after the Mending, a young knight of Valeron and a young ranger of Eos made a discovery that would change Alara forever.
Nice deck! Seems fun to play with. 1 question though, how do you play againts control player?
Against control you just give then guys with Forbidden Orchard or other sources, then act as normal. You have a lot more repeatable CA than most control decks do.
Sadly I don't think this deck gets a single card out of Theros. =/
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
A mere ten days after the Mending, a young knight of Valeron and a young ranger of Eos made a discovery that would change Alara forever.
I know this deck has been out of the loop for a while, but there's no mention of Acorn Catapult anywhere which is odd because I don't know of a better deck for it than this.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer
Emille is a human planeswalker wielding red and white magic. Her greatest sorcery originates in divine fire, passed down by a line of mage-priests blessed by the late archangel Razia herself. Channeling purging blazes through her whip, she dances across the battlefield, her foes mesmerized by her fluid grace--if she hasn't torn them to pieces already.
Born into a family of pyromancers, Emille showed promise from a very early age. She was brought into the Izzet League when she came of age, following her father into researching and harnessing magical flames. Working together, the two developed an arrow whose head would burst into flames the moment it was fired from a bow. The invention made the two and their guild a great deal of money, the Legion and Cult most interested in the technology. The massive influx of funds allowed the League to push forward ambitious, dangerous, and even illegal projects. Of course, no one would know about any of them, for the all-knowing Niv-Mizzet would deny the operations' existence.
At the time the Parhelion started to fall and Zomaj Hauc was arrested for high treason, the Izzet League started to crumble underneath its own lies, many of its members likewise convicted by the Azorius Senate's high courts. Her parents were no exception--they were convicted of illegally harboring dragons for weapons research. The two of them sentenced to life in prison, Emille was effectively guildless and orphaned.
Her skill in manipulating flames attracted attention from the Boros Legion in cleaning up the mess the falling sanctuary created, as well as quelling violence caused by the disaster. Emille blazed through weapons training for almost every weapon the Legion used. When she was brought before what remained of the Legion's angels to be blessed with their grace and holiness, they explained to her superiors that she had great magical potetial within, and her pyromantic mastery came from the Legion's angels, not the League's dragonfire.
A red-winged angel by the name of Basandra stepped forward, acknowledging Emille's unique position. She had the offensive might of a mage-priest, yet the martial skills to be a powerful soldier. Over the course of several visits to Sunhome, the Boros war-angel showed Emille how to use the most exotic weapon the Legion ever employed--a seven-headed whip. She found the whip's weight cumbersome, even stinging herself with it a few times before getting the hang of its use. Three months later, Basandra made a special trip to the roof of Sunhome, blessing Emille with the title "Seven-Sting Dancer" in front of the entirety of the Legion's high-ranking officers.
Emille and Basandra patrolled the streets of downtown Ravnica, near the site of the recent Parhelion crash. The two quelled violence and provided rescue for several victims trapped underneath the wreckage. After nearly tearing herself apart from a misfired lash, she decided it would be better to use a whip with a single head. It would be faster and much easier to control. Though she could not deliver seven stings with it, as her bestowed title would suggest, she felt the title suited her well enough to be worth keeping.
Basandra's unique method of training Emille awakened a unique ability--channeling holy flames through her whip so that they would reach its tip at impact. When the two returned to Sunhome so Emille could show her newfound skill, everyone watching was mesmerized. The way she swung the whip around her, she seemed to write in a foreign language with a trail of holy fire, the cracking of her whip sounding like fireworks as she danced around. The traumatic experiences in the Izzet League and Boros Legion cultivated Emille's Spark, this final moment of triumph fully igniting it. She and Basandra wander the Multiverse, turning the tide of war by sharpening struggling soldiers' skills, endurance, and force of will.
---
"The whip is the most controversial weapon the Boros Legion utilizes. The uneducated population of Ravnica sees it as a weapon of torture, used to extract false confessions in the name of fake justice. But in the hands of responsible soldiers of the Legion, the whip is a weapon of subdual. It takes an inhuman amount of skill to actually kill someone with one, but it only takes a single, well-placed strike to incapacitate a foe from the pain. In the hands of others, the whip can be a weapon of art, its head flailing around its wielder or another performer without ever touching the person. Basandra of the Legion has versed me in both arts of the whip. When she bestowed the lash to me, I vowed never to use it in an unlawful, selfish manner."
-- Emille, dancer of the Legion
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1. Deck History
1.2. Fundamentals
1.3. Why Basandra?
2. DECKLIST
2.1. Current Decklist
2.2. Change Log
3. CARD CHOICES AND EXPLANATIONS
3.1. Lands
3.2. Draws
3.3. Attack Deterrents
3.4. Forced Attacking
3.5. Wraths
3.6. Sunforger Package
3.7. The Rest
3.8. Why Isn't Card X in the Build?
4. PLAYING THE DECK
4.1. Phase I: Pillowfort
4.2. Phase II: Incite Carnage
4.3. Phase III: Fireworks
4.4. A Good Starting Seven
5. POTENTIAL PROBLEMS
5.1. Dealing with Extraction/Meddling Mage Effects
5.2. Dealing with Wraths
5.3. Dealing with Countermagic
6. ARCHENEMY
6.1. Overview
6.2. Scheme Decklist
6.3. Card Explanations
1. INTRODUCTION
Basandra, Battle Seraph is probably the weakest commander in the weakest color pair in Commander. This deck will not function in cutthroat groups at all. It is designed to be played in laid-back groups that like seeing unique decks. Those of you who play in a combo-heavy meta, quit now. This deck has very little means to interact with combo decks, and no way to interact with entirely spell-based combo decks. Those of you who love playing "bad" cards together to make a good deck, keep on reading.
1.1. Deck History
The idea of a Basandra, Battle Seraph started out when she was released in Commander. She became my favorite angel in Magic art-wise, and she had a unique set of abilities. The deck's first iteration was a deck full of first strike/protection creatures, using Basandra's ability to set up bad exchanges in combat. After playing with it for a couple of months, the gears started turning.
Ghostly Prison effects started to make their way into the deck, causing foes to stop bothering with attacking me at all. As more Prison effects were added, the first strike and protection creatures became superfluous, and were slowly removed to make room for more enchantments that kept creatures away from me.
Basandra satisfied my inner Johnny--I saw the potential to build a Boros-colored control deck. You read that right: Boros-colored control. It's a great deckbuilding challenge, and it turned out to be one of the most unique and fun decks I have ever built--out of over 25 decks. This process has been a great example of building a good deck out of bad cards. If you like sitting behind a pile of enchantments and watching your opponents wail on each other, this is the perfect deck for you.
1.2. Fundamentals
Before I get into the decklist, I would like to reveal the deck's lynch pin: Repercussion. This card lets you turn sweepers and attack deterrents into damage. The deck can still win without it, but it's very hard to kill multiple people at once this way. Repercussion will potentially let you kill the entire table with one sweeper.
Whether you have Repercussion or not, the idea of the deck is the same: set up a giant pillowfort, then force everyone to attack into the pillowfort while you whittle your foes' life totals down with your creatures strong enough to survive the pillowfort. Most often it's Basandra herself, but there are a few other creatures that can do the job.
1.3. Why Basandra?
There are currently eight Boros-colored commanders in Magic. In a vacuum, Basandra is easily the weakest of the eight. However, four of the seven remaining commanders want to build a deck focused on attacking with lots of creatures. Basandra is best as the head of a Boros deck whose primary win condition is not attacking with a horde of creatures. This leaves three other commanders capable of doing the job.
Brion Stoutarm: A 4/4 ground creature doesn't do a very good job of guarding the pillowfort. Brion is very synergistic with cheap creatures having high power and low toughness. Because we set up things that globally punish attacking and globally force attacking, you will have to use his ability pre-combat to make him unable to attack.
Razia, Boros Archangel: The ability to redirect damage is nice for getting a creature through Minefields, but her paltry three toughness means she will often have to use her ability on herself. Eight mana is also a lot to pay for her. There's definitely an argument to be made for playing her--a six-power commander with haste can be a quick clock. I just don't think she's worth eight mana.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Now we're talking! This is a very solid choice for a control-oriented Boros deck. An evasive 5/5 with a super-Furnace of Rath built in will end the game in a hurry, and her Ghosts of the Innocent-esque ability will make you almost immune to the effects of your pillowfort. She's also quite the clock--Gisela wearing a Sunforger can instantly kill someone by fetching a Boros Charm if you have eight mana. The biggest strike against her, though, is because this style of deck plays very few creatures, she will not impact the board as soon as she is cast.
Realistically, though, the choice of commander for this style of deck is between Basandra and Gisela. Gisela is a highly respected commander, and it is well-known how quickly she can end games. Many people who play commander haven't even heard of Basandra, and will often not take her seriously. Once you start setting up, though, your foes will realize she means business...and by then, it may be too late.
From a purely functional perspective, Basandra offers something unique that none of the other Boros commanders do: redundancy. Just as a combustion engine cannot run without gas and air, Basandra cannot run without both a way to deter attacks from you and a way to force others to attack. By putting Basandra at the helm of the deck, you can have a way to force attacks on call. That's one less piece of the puzzle to worry about drawing from your deck. With Gisela at the helm, you need to run a lot more cards that force attacks in order to be able to see one in time for the rest of the table not to have a million answers for it.
Players being unable to cast spells while in combat is a huge boon, as well. Once the player enters the combat phase (usually not willingly), no one can disrupt anything you've set up. Planning on saving that creature? Better set it up before combat. Oh, you can't cast that spell for value outside combat? Too bad. It doesn't seem like a valuable ability until you see it in action.
2. DECKLIST
2.1. Current Decklist
1 Basandra, Battle Seraph
Land: 39
1 Ancient Amphitheater
1 Arid Mesa
1 Battlefield Forge
1 Boros Garrison
1 Clifftop Retreat
1 Forbidden Orchard
1 Plateau
1 Sacred Foundry
1 Desert
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Strip Mine
1 Terrain Generator
1 Thawing Glaciers
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Serra's Sanctum
14 Mountain
10 Plains
Draw: 7
1 Illuminated Folio
1 Jayemdae Tome
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Staff of Nin
1 Tower of Fortunes
1 Urza's Blueprints
1 Wheel of Fortune
Attack Deterrents: 15
1 Aurification
1 Blazing Archon
1 Caltrops
1 Furnace of Rath
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
1 Humility
1 Lightmine Field
1 Maze of Ith
1 Mystic Barrier
1 Powerstone Minefield
1 Repercussion
1 Sphere of Safety
1 Stuffy Doll
1 Windborn Muse
1 Avatar of Slaughter
1 Fumiko the Lowblood
1 Gideon Jura
1 Goblin Diplomats
1 Grand Melee
1 War's Toll
Wraths: 6
1 Blasphemous Act
1 Chain Reaction
1 Inferno
1 Magmaquake
1 Pyrohemia
1 Starstorm
Sunforger Package: 11
1 Sunforger
1 Boros Charm
1 Chaos Warp
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Faith's Reward
1 Master Warcraft
1 Oblation
1 Orim's Thunder
1 Reiterate
1 Unexpectedly Absent
1 Wild Ricochet
The Rest: 15
1 Academy Rector
1 Chained to the Rocks
1 Gamble
1 Greater Auramancy
1 Idyllic Tutor
1 Karmic Justice
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Radiate
1 Replenish
1 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Sun Titan
1 Varchild's War-Riders
- Font of Mythos
- Temple Bell
+ Staff of Nin
+ Tower of Fortunes
+ Urza's Blueprints
- Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
- Rage Nimbus
- Spitemare
- Wall of Nets
+ Gamble
+ Oblivion Ring
+ Pyrohemia
+ Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
+ Varchild's War-Riders
11/3/13:
- Circle of Flame
+ Unexpectedly Absent
+ Mystic Barrier
11/13/13:
+ Chained to the Rocks
Reason: Trying to lower the creature count some more, and Chained to the Rocks is a sweet fit for the deck.
3. CARD CHOICES AND EXPLANATIONS
3.1. Lands
Forbidden Orchard: After people figure out what's going on, they'll be hesitant to drop creatures. This land allows you to give people creatures that are useless at worst and a liability to them at best.
Desert: This lets you ping creatures after they attack, doing extra Repercussion damage.
Reliquary Tower: As we are a control deck, having no maximum hand size is such a boon.
Terrain Generator: Lets us get ahead on mana, and is the reason for the high basic land count. I thought about running Blood Moon, but we have enough important utility lands that it isn't worth it. Blood Moon is really unfun for most people, too.
Thawing Glaciers: We durdle in this deck. A LOT. I know this land seems REALLY slow, but our combo-kill is slower yet. Being able to pull out a land every other turn helps a lot more than you think.
Mistveil Plains: Lets you recycle Sunforger targets.
3.2. Draw
With Boros being the most draw-starved color combination, we have to play a lot of colorless draw. Figured I'd pull out the best of the best.
Illuminated Folio: We hoard cards in hand, so it's a Honden of Seeing Winds with a one-mana upkeep.
Mind's Eye: Probably the best colorless draw in the game.
Staff of Nin: Second best colorless draw in the game, and you can pick off guys with it when there's a Humility on the table.
Tower of Fortunes: Expensive, but gives you something to do with your mana once the pillowfort is set up. Repeatable Tidings is huge.
Urza's Blueprints: Highly underrated--I think this is one of the best pieces of colorless draw in the format. Six mana this turn, six mana the next, then fire and forget.
3.3. Attack Deterrents
These are the cards with which you set up the pillowfort. Probably the most important early to midgame cards in the deck.
Aurification: This will turn any creature that deals damage to you into a defender. Note that this card isn't just restricted to combat damage.
Blazing Archon: Stops people from attacking you outright, so you can use Basandra to force opponents to attack each other. He becomes a liability once you're down to one opponent, though.
Caltrops, Lightmine Field, Powerstone Minefield: Punishes attacking.
Furnace of Rath: Doubles all damage your attack deterrents do. If you have Repercussion, it will quadruple Repercussion's damage.
Ghostly Prison, Sphere of Safety, Windborn Muse: Little-known fact about these three cards... If you force a creature to attack, and the controller of the creature chooses not to pay for your Ghostly Prison, that creature must attack someone else.
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight: Another Furnace that doubles as a win condition.
Humility: A key enchantment in the deck, this card is backbreaking because most decks are built to get value out of creatures. Expect to get a lot of hate when you drop it, but you'd be surprised how many decks just can't deal with it.
Maze of Ith: One weak point we have is to large creatures that can actually survive our attack deterrents. This is a way to answer those things and try to get them away from us.
Mystic Barrier: Forcing the table to play a game of attack left or attack right seems cool when they have to attack if able.
Repercussion: The centerpiece of the deck. This card lets you kill entire tables at once with a damage-based sweeper, and will let you ding players' life totals every time one of their creatures attacks into a Powerstone Minefield.
Stuffy Doll: This is such an amazing deterrent to fat creatures, and it's great watching it walk through a Powerstone Minefield.
3.4. Forced Attacking
Once you're set up, you drop one of these cards to make people attack into the nonsense you spent time setting up.
Avatar of Slaughter: This forces EVERYONE to attack, as well as get tons of damage in because most of your guys are evasive. 8/8 double strikers tend to end games quickly.
Bullwhip: Primarily a flavor inclusion, but it's such an amazing flavor inclusion I couldn't leave it out. Besides, if you're building a deck like this, you're not planning on being competitive with it. Curse of the Nightly Hunt is something else to consider in this spot.
Fumiko the Lowblood: Will often survive combat when the foe's entire team is forced to attack. Also doesn't affect your own creatures, which is nice.
Gideon Jura: Forces a player's team to attack him. Paired with Powerstone, he does a great job at keeping players' boards clear. He can also attack through Powerstones and other things, though you need to remember Ghostly Prison doesn't protect him.
Grand Melee: When you cast this, make sure to declare your attack step first as to cast it postcombat. This, combined with your setup, should force the rest of the table to implode.
Master Warcraft: Lets you almost completely control a combat phase, and it's fetchable with Sunforger. Unfortunately, the players still get to decide which player or planeswalker each creature will attack.
War's Toll: An absolute HEADACHE for reactive decks. This is truly an all-or-nothing card. Mana-wise, it lets your opponents only cast spells during one step of an entire turn cycle, and they have to attack with everything or nothing. Probably one of my favorite red enchantments. Definitely underplayed in EDH in general.
3.5. Wraths
These cards are what combo with Repercussion to kill the table.
Blasphemous Act: In big games, this is 13 to all creatures for R. One of the strongest red sweepers printed in a long time.
Chain Reaction: 2RR Wrath of God. Simple as that.
Inferno, Magmaquake, Starstorm: Some of my favorite red sweepers because they are instants. The latter two are scalable, and Starstorm cycles as well.
Pyrohemia: Combos really well with Stuffy Doll or anything that reduces damage to your creatures. There are plenty of ways to ensure the drawback will never be relevant.
Sunblast Angel: The only non-damage sweeper in the deck. This will clear out creatures that were forced to attack last turn.
3.6. Sunforger Package
It's no secret that Sunforger is one of the most powerful Equipment in EDH, restricted only by it requiring the weakest two-color pair in the game. Though Sunforger is at its best in three color decks since it can fetch counterspells, it is still quite powerful with just red and white.
Boros Charm: Want to Austere Command my board away? Sorry, your princess is in another castle. We don't use the other modes too much, but two mana to save all your stuff is great.
Chaos Warp, Oblation, Unexpectedly Absent: Removal. UA is actually better than it looks because you can still cast it for 0 off a Sunforger in response to someone searching their deck.
Enlightened Tutor: Finds combo pieces or draw engines. I use this to find Mind's Eye a lot.
Faith's Reward: Lets you bounce back from an Austere Command without recovering everyone else's boards.
Orim's Thunder: One of the best two-for-ones on color, and you can kick it off Sunforger.
Reiterate, Wild Ricochet: Cast that Time Stretch or that big X spell, please! You can also pay Reiterate's buyback cost if you cast it with Sunforger.
3.7. The Rest
These cards don't fit into any other category, but they're all pretty important to the deck still.
Gamble: One of the most unique cards in the game. It's a tutor in a color desperately lacking tutors. The drawback shouldn't be an issue with a deck that likes hoarding cards in hand.
Greater Auramancy: Unfortunately, we aren't in color identity for Privileged Position. This is almost as good, though.
Hunted Dragon: A 6/6 hasty dragon that gives an opponent three useless ground creatures. The "drawback" is typically the best part of him.
Idyllic Tutor: Find a combo piece.
Karmic Justice: Wipe my board. I DARE YOU. You know how weak this deck is to enchantment wraths? Well, if you drop this on the board, no one will want to cast Austere Commands. This card can make it easy for you to lock up your board position while you wait for your kill.
Oblivion Ring: Just in case you need to tutor for removal with Enlightened/Idyllic. I don't like running it, but sometimes you REALLY need removal.
Radiate: It basically says "Overload target spell." This, to be honest, is more of a "fun" card. Since Commander is more about being a wacky format, Radiate will allow you to make very wacky plays. I find the best things to point this at are targeted draw and removal, but you will find all kinds of silly things to point this at.
Replenish: Another way to recover from a board wipe, and this one can be played at any time, not just the same turn the Wrath was cast.
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant: This will make all your sweepers one-sided, and will always keep Pyrohemia on.
Solemn Simulacrum: Ramp in non-ramp colors.
Sun Titan: Recurs Repercussion, fetchlands, and assorted other goodies. Wears a Sunforger well, too. Oh yeah, speaking of Sunforger, it recurs that, too!
Varchild's War-Riders: This gives opponents increasing numbers of useless tokens every turn, and those tokens will eventually become a big liability. Its combat stats are irrelevant because you shouldn't be doing much attacking or blocking in the deck anyway.
3.8. Why isn't Card X in the Build?
This section will grow as the deck is further modified, but I'm going to list in here a few cards that would make sense in the build, but were scrapped.
AEther Flash: A recent cut for some more hard attack deterrents. This is very strong against tokens, and can lock some decks out of the game completely with a little help. This with Humility is a hell of a combo, though.
Ballista Squad: Too mana-intensive.
Boros Battleshaper: This needs testing, but a seven mana forced attacker is something I don't think this deck wants to do. I will give it some time in the deck at a later date, though.
Boros Reckoner, Spitemare: With the deck's reliance on Humility, I don't think these guys are great. Even if you don't have a Humility, they often can't survive one wade through your minefield.
Howling Mine, etc.: I don't think symmetrical draw is a great idea. We can't use our cards better than most decks can.
Island Sanctuary: This thing is really good if you are playing symmetrical draw. Without symmetrical draw, I think the drawback of having to effectively skip your draw step is just a bit too much for it to be useful when you need it to be.
Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs: He was in here for a long time, but I yanked him in the process of reducing this deck's creature count. Depending on the board state, it may actually be detrimental for you to receive his 3/3 Ogre tokens. I'd rather avoid that possibility entirely.
Mana rocks: I'm in the minority here, but I am not a fan of mana rocks outside artifact decks. Obviously you should play Sol Ring, but we're talking about Boros Signet, Mind Stone, and such. I feel these are only good on turn 2, because on turns 3 through at least 5, we're setting up our impenetrable fortress to keep opposing armies out. I'm paranoid about Austere Commands, Disks, and Akroma's Vengeances already--I would rather not lose my mana sources to them, as well.
Mark of Asylum, Light of Sanction: Once we're set up, we don't need this kind of narrow protection. Rune-Tail does the job fine.
Nevermore: I think this might be worth testing in the future. Austere Command is by far the most prevalent enchantment wrath in the format, and setting it to this seems like a good way to protect the fort.
Rage Nimbus: It's cute, but we really want to minimize our creature count.
Retaliate: If your deck is properly set up, creatures shouldn't be hitting you at all.
Swords to Plowshares: Believe it or not, your foes' life totals are highly relevant in this deck.
Stoneforge Mystic: Not going to play a tutor that can only find Sunforger. It's worth considering if you play Sword of Fire and Ice, though. There's definitely merit to SoFI because it gives your important guy pro-red and it draws extra cards. Basandra with SoFI makes a fine clock, too.
Volcanic Fallout: Used to be part of the Sunforger package, but 2 damage just isn't strong enough.
Wall of Nets: Creatures are a liability.
Wear//Tear: If you need a second Orim's Thunder, I feel this is the next thing to play. The thing that makes it a hard sell is you can't fuse it off Sunforger.
4. PLAYING THE DECK
Basandra typically has three phases in which she seeks to fabricate a win.
4.1. Phase I: Pillowfort
During the first few turns of the game, you want to play as many things as possible that discourage people from attacking you. Set up Ghostly Prison, Windborn Muse, Powerstone Minefield...anything to keep creatures away. The goal of this phase is to buy time. Have those other people send their dudes somewhere else.
I wouldn't cast Humility early in the game without a Circle of Flame or Minefield to back it up. If you drop Humility with no other protection, people are going to just swing with swaths of 1/1s. Believe me, that damage adds up fast. Dropping Humility is fine if you have a sweep in hand, but don't make the table hate you any more than necessary.
The removal in this deck is light for this very reason. Spot removal spells should be used as panic buttons to get rid of extremely troublesome permanents. You know how people harp about threat density in Commander decks? It's the same idea for this deck, except with attack deterrent density. Without your pile of enchantments protecting you, your life expectancy in a game drops to a turn or less.
4.2. Phase II: Incite Carnage
Once you've made it a nightmare for people to combat you, start dropping things that force people to combat. Be a little careful not to overextend too much during this phase. If you get enchantment wrathed and don't have an answer, it can quickly be GG...maybe before you even get another turn.
This part of the game is where Basandra comes in. If you don't have a card that forces attacks handy, cast Basandra. She wears a Sunforger very well and can essentially point-and-click remove creatures for R apiece...or send them at someone besides you.
4.3. Phase III: Fireworks
Once you have control of combat, just sit back and watch everyone else beat the living daylights out of each other. Maintain card advantage through your draw artifacts, and make a strike with Basandra or Avatar of Slaughter once there's only one opponent left. That, or combo-kill the table with Repercussion and a damage sweep.
4.4. A Good Starting Seven
There aren't too many hard and fast rules for deciding what to keep and what to ship, but I do have a few suggestions.
1) Draw engines in the opening hand usually aren't what you want to see. They're expensive to cast and often expensive to use, and you don't want to spend four mana per turn to draw a card until you have at least eight mana.
2) Mana flood early on isn't a bad thing. Tables tend to ignore decks that are having mana problems in favor of decks putting threats on the board. Wait for a Wheel--those get you out of jams when you seem to be drawing nothing but bricks.
3) Early attack deterrents should never be thrown back. You should aim for at least one in your opener, even if it's a bad one like Circle of Flame. Make sure you have something to keep your foes' creatures away.
4) This deck LOVES mana sinks. Don't be afraid to keep, say, five lands, Ghostly Prison, Illuminated Folio. You can sit behind shields all day, but if you can't keep up with the table's card advantage, your fortress will tumble eventually.
4.5. Sample Hands
I'm going to present some sample hands, generated with my real (physical) deck. I'll be adding more to this later. Some of these hands are from previous iterations of the build, and cards in here may not be in the deck now.
HAND 1: Mistveil Plains, Sol Ring, Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant, Clifftop Retreat, Plains, Plains, Plains
VERDICT: KEEP
HAND 2: Avatar of Slaughter, Idyllic Tutor, Mountain, Mountain, Mountain, Mountain, Plains
VERDICT: Ship Mountain, Mountain, Avatar of Slaughter. We get Mountain, Sunforger. Definitely better than an 8-drop.
HAND 3: Mistveil Plains, Plateau, Oblivion Ring, Sunblast Angel, Blasphemous Act, Furnace of Rath, Orim's Thunder
VERDICT: Ship Sunblast Angel, Blasphemous Act, Furnace of Rath, Orim's Thunder. We get Oblation, Starstorm, and Mountain, which I feel makes a fine six.
HAND 4: Urza's Blueprints, Master Warcraft, Chain Reaction, Windborn Muse, Mountain, Mountain, Plains
VERDICT: KEEP
HAND 5: Chaos Warp, Chain Reaction, Wheel of Fortune, Desert, Mountain, Mountain, Plains
VERDICT: KEEP
HAND 6: Repercussion, Brigid, Hero of Kinsbaile, Enlightened Tutor, Windborn Muse, Strip Mine, Mountain, Mountain
VERDICT: Ship Repercussion and Brigid and hope for a white source. If you don't get one, then ship the Windborn Muse. I think you have to keep any hand after that.
5. POTENTIAL PROBLEMS
5.1. Dealing with Extraction/Meddling Mage effects
It can be very hard to win if Repercussion is extracted from the deck. The combo-kill is the main win, but the deck has other wins. The deck's secondary win condition is Basandra beats, which is a three-turn clock with Sunforger. There are other kills such as Stuffy Doll, though that only works on one person. Though it is slow, you can also kill people with Boros Charm recursion through Sunforger and Mistveil Plains. If you want to have the potential for multiple Sunforger recursion in a single turn, you may want to consider Reito Lantern--it can also function as graveyard hate. People will not use Sadistic Sacrament on just Repercussion and Sunforger--it doesn't dilute the combo enough. If you see a lot of extraction effects, you may want to consider running Pull from Eternity.
5.2. Dealing with Wraths
Enchantment wipes are the bane of this deck. If your foes have a board presence, getting all your enchantments wiped out can mean GG. There will be games where someone casts Merciless Eviction and you sigh and go "Welp"--it happens. Thankfully there are very few cards that globally exile artifacts and enchantments. If you're scared of Austere Commands, remember--protection is always a Sunforger activation away. Again, if you're really scared of Merciless Eviction, Pull from Eternity is a card.
5.3. Dealing with Counterspells
As with any sort of combo deck, countermagic is problematic for this one. Because the focus of this deck is so narrow, it's hard to resolve relevant spells. Because counter-heavy decks tend to run so few threats, Humility makes a fantastic test spell. If Humility resolves, control has to deal with it before they can realistically win the game. You may want to consider Boseiju, Who Shelters All to make your sweep uncounterable, but only if you see a lot of countermagic in your meta.
6. ARCHENEMY
6.1. Overview
Basandra as Archenemy puts her in a very strange position. This is an extremely passive deck that wants to see its opponents attack each other. When your opponents cannot attack each other, you have to win through your combo most of the time, and they will get some attackers through your fortress. When being ganged up on, the biggest issue is that people will pay for your Ghostly Prison effects to get damage in, no matter how many effects you stack. Even Humility doesn't stop that much damage--you'll get buried in swaths of 1/1s. Basandra's scheme deck should address ways of dealing with enchantment wraths. With the entire table gunning for you, an enchantment wrath is virtually GG no matter what your life total is.
6.2. Scheme Decklist
2 Choose Your Champion
2 Every Hope Shall Vanish
2 My Genius Knows No Bounds
2 Nature Shields Its Own
2 Surrender Your Thoughts
2 Which of You Burns Brightest?
2 Your Fate Is Thrice Sealed
2 Your Inescapable Doom
2 Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom
Approach My Molten Realm: Doubles the effectiveness of Repercussion and most of your attack deterrents. Be careful, though--it's a double-edged sword.
Choose Your Champion: This deck wants to durdle, and forcing all but one of the heroes to durdle seems very good, especially early on.
Every Hope Shall Vanish: Snag those Austere Commands out of your foes' hands before they're cast. You still can't do much about a topdecked one, but it still helps enough.
My Genius Knows No Bounds: Gives the deck efficient draw. The draw the deck naturally has is really inefficient.
Nature Shields Its Own: Gives one more layer of defense to your fortress. Excellent for when they can only get one or two guys through. Works on unblockables too.
Surrender Your Thoughts: Another good way to get problem instants and sorceries out of the heroes' hands.
Which of You Burns Brightest?: Repercussion with this should kill a player. More sweeps are always nice, period.
Your Fate Is Thrice Sealed: Efficient card draw that ramps. What's not to like?
Your Inescapable Doom: If you can put this out there, you don't need a real win condition. Just turtle and let the scheme do the work. If you can get both of them going at once, it's pretty devastating.
Your Puny Minds Cannot Fathom: I hear Tidings is a good card.
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Well, that about covers everything. If you guys have any suggestions, just let me know and I'll take them into consideration. However I have done an extensive amount of testing with this deck, so don't be surprised if I don't add your suggestion to the primer.
Have fun playing Boros Control!
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
This deck was featured on StarCityGames.com. Thanks, Sheldon!
The list has changed significantly since I posted it, and I really should update it. I know I've yanked a lot of the Mine effects for other colorless draw like Jayemdae Tome.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Check out my expected lands table at:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Airj6A6lYAz_dG05T2JETnVTak1xQ0tqOHNSdEJLWVE&hl=en_US#gid=0
Sorry for the delays.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
Against control you just give then guys with Forbidden Orchard or other sources, then act as normal. You have a lot more repeatable CA than most control decks do.
Sadly I don't think this deck gets a single card out of Theros. =/
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
I guess while I'm here, some cards that could help update the deck: Warmonger Hellkite, Iroas, God of Victory, possibly Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker?