Recently at Pro Tour Khans of Tarkir, Brad Nelson played a sweet deck that didn’t initially catch my attention. As I was reviewing the successful decks from the event, thanks to Corbin’s article, I came upon it once again.

This time I saw it in a completely different light. I’ve been working on Purphoros, God of the Forge decks ever since the card was spoiled and with a new format surrounding us, I started down the path of breaking him once more. So, when I saw that Brad had already been successful with a similar shell to what I was building on, my heart leaped for joy.

I didn’t quite like some of the card choices he made, but the fact that he was successful with a similar strategy filled me with hope. Here’s his deck that he did well with at the Pro Tour.

This version of the deck is geared towards a very aggressive role with usually one early creature and then burn spells to follow up. Playing Monastery Swiftspear turn one and following up with burn spells to kill their creatures and Sarkhan to finish them off, for instance, is a common winning line of play.

I will say that Chained to the Rocks is at its best in this deck and is one point in favor of this version. Making your removal so cheap allows you to play two spells a turn in the mid game and that allows you to pull further ahead of your opponent or catch up if you’re behind. Still, Monastery Swiftspear and Searing Blood seem awkwardly positioned in this metagame and I don’t think that utilizing them is the best thing we can be doing. Much of the meta is midrange or control decks now and we need more tools to fight them.

My thought process for the deck was closer to Brad’s sideboard plan against decks that tend to play out over more turns. Basically, board into more planeswalkers to gain card advantage over your opponent and give yourself more viable threats over the course of the whole game. My starting point was Purphoros and I built the deck trying to abuse this powerful Theros god. Here’s what I’ve been testing.

Purphoros! Turn three play Brimaz or Rabblemaster then turn four play my favorite god and trigger him on the attack. This is part of my ideal sequence for the deck.

If you have the choice of three drops, save your Hordeling Outburst for after you draw Purphoros. It seems obvious because six free damage just for playing your spell is ridiculous, but still important to remember. Sometimes you need to override this line of thought though, like if you think your opponent is holding up mana for a removal spell, often you can play Outburst to blank their removal.

This deck is testing quite well so far and I’ve been really pleased with the results. I’m a little worried about any pseudo-mirror matches like Mono Red or Jeskai so I may try to find room for Ajani Steadfast in the sideboard to help gain some life back. Seeker of the Way can help with this, but often he's killed on sight because of his ability to help in racing situations.

Originally I had Chained to the Rocks in this deck but once I removed more mountains for non-basic lands, being able to chain a creature was not reliable enough. Banishing Light and Suspension Field are more expensive which is unfortunate, but they are definitely powerful enough to be used in this deck.

Gods Willing is a new addition to the deck. I just cut one Brimaz and one Raise the Alarm for two Gods Willings. Players are not respecting the existence of this card so often it will be a complete blow out. In many games, your opponent will only have one or two removal spells, so the tempo and additional damage you gain from protecting one of your major threats can win you the game. This protection spell is also great against Bile Blight so all of your tokens don’t get removed by one spell. I need to test this change more, but I think it’s a step in the right direction.

You may have noticed Magma Spray in the sideboard. This card is not getting enough love in Standard right now. It is so good against many of the red threats right now and I think players are getting too caught up in the bonus scry 2 from Magma Jet to give this card a try. When your opponent has cheap creatures or Ashcloud Phoenix, there’s no better card to bring in than Magma Spray. So remember, when you are shooting lava at creatures, spray it, don’t jet it.

While I was building this deck, the original version also had blue mana for cards like Jeskai Ascendancy. The red-white version brings more consistency, but I do like the card advantage aspect of the blue inclusion. I have not determined which deck is better, but here is where I was at with the Jeskai Tokens deck.

In this deck, the manabase is consistent enough to support the third color, but you must take some extra damage in order to do so as well as occasionally lose tempo because your lands come into play tapped more often.

Adding blue does come with additional benefits though, like Negate. There are so many potent non-creature spells right now, that I even included a couple Negate main deck. It protects your creatures from removal as well as prevents your opponent from playing some of their more potent spells. Maybe that’s too ambitious of a main deck inclusion but I think it seems great in the meta right now.

With only a couple blue cards making it into the deck, I’m leaning towards the version without blue mana, but Bident of Thassa plus tokens may be too great an interaction to pass up.

Financial Implications

Brad has been pronouncing Hordeling Outburst to be amazing all over the internet. It’s an uncommon but the card is amazing. I’m sure you can find some copies in draft leftovers and this is a card players are going to want. It will be even better once Bile Blight rotates out of the format, but even now it is still quite good.

In case you haven’t noticed, this six-mana powerhouse has been trending upward for the past month or two. I’ve been moving Elspeth, Sun's Champion steadily at each price increase and I don’t expect that to stop anytime soon. She is $27 now and I could see her going even higher. This should be no surprise to any of you. I hope you picked up your copies while they were under $20 at the suggestion of other writers here at Quiet Spec.

The Boros temple is the only Theros temple that is on the move, and for good reason. With all the Jeskai decks playing this land as well as the Boros decks in addition to any players trying to win with Naya, this temple is seeing a tremendous amount of play. It has potential to rise even more from where it’s at right now.

The non-Caves of Koilos pain lands have jumped up a lot in recent weeks, and since the price bump have steadily been creeping up a little more each week. These lands are the core of most manabases in Standard and could easily increase even more from where they are now.

Hopefully you stocked up over the summer, but if not, there is still time to trade into these lands before they go up even more. Battlefield Forge may be the biggest gainer, but the other ones are not far behind.

I don’t know about you, but when Brimaz popped up over $30, I was surprised. Most of the time, I don’t see him getting much play. We all know he is powerful and I try to play him all the time, but most successful decks leave him out of their lists.

Regardless, his price has surged upward in the last few weeks. Since the summer, he has doubled in price! I would be extremely surprised if he increased much more in value, so now seems like a good time to lock in some profit.

Despite not seeing much constructed play, Purphoros has remained one of the financially relevant cards from Theros. In fact, he is still the highest valued god from that set. If decks like mine start creeping into the metagame, we could see a quick double up from the god of the forge. I believe in Purphoros because with how my deck is set up, he is good at every stage of the game even the turn you play him.

Trade for your Purphoros’s now. They are a good long-term investment with possible short-term implications as well. Most competitive players devalue him as well, so they will be eager to trade them to you.

If you followed my advice from last week, you have some Hushwing Gryffs in your possession now that are worth twice as much as they were last week. If the metagame progresses like it has been, I expect the gryff to continue to grow in price. We could easily reach $5 in a month or before if the card continues posting good results. I’ve been selling quickly even at $3 and I would be sold out if I hadn’t purchased more last week as I suggested everyone to do.

Well that’s all for me for this week. Have you been jamming some games with Red-White? What does your version look like? Is Purphoros the way of the future or just a casual card that I keep trying to make good enough? Let me know in the comments.

Until next time,
Unleash the Token Force!

Mike Lanigan
MtgJedi on Twitter
Jedicouncilman23@gmail.com