#and baird is so cheap and supports such an aggressive deck that the opponent just doesn't have any time to get going

[dravidious]

You're astonishing

Started playing MTG Arena recently and remembered why I left; opponents keep playing cards that draw infinite cards or get infinite +1/+1 counters or otherwise just overpower anything I can play. But there's a trick: +1/+1 counters and cards in hand don't matter if you're already dead by turn 5. Thus, aggro is the only viable deck type.

This doubly applies to Brawl, which is why I've been having so much fun with this cheap bastard:

[15-dollars-and-a-dream]

Arcades Butt Brawl

This week in Brawl we’re playing with Arcades the Strategist

Arcades is a huge excitement for a lot of people, because it is support for Bant walls! Which is exactly what we’re going to play. 

Most of our deck is going to revolve around our walls! Most of which come in as a 2 mana 0/4 with defender, and probably an upside? Maybe? Now without our commander these are just going to be big dumb blockers, which isn’t entirely a bad thing! These guys allow us to keep up our defenses during the early game and then overwhelm the competition with some solid stats on aggressively costed creatures. And since we draw a card with every creature we drop, we’re just creating a stupid amount of value. 

Now these are not literally walls, but effectively do something similar. These cards help us lock our our opponents. Authority of the Consuls and Kinjalli’s Sunwing help our walls get damage through and slow down the opponent while Baird, Stewart of Argive gives us protection from the crack back. These cards set our opponents back making our incremental value even more portent.

Next up is our board wipes! Because we’re trying to play value creatures, we need to make sure that we can really control the board. BUT because we’re playing LOADS of creatures with 0 power, we have access to some really powerful one sided wraths! Slaughter the Strong can pretty much cripple other strategies at the table, while ours will allow us to keep pretty much our entire board. Dusk // Dawn does the same thing, and helps us recover from someone else’s board wipe. 

Lastly, we have our even further value engines! Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive basically reads “Your creatures cannot be blocked”. With the right timing we can basically just slap her down and kill someone even from full health! Mentor of the Meek makes sure we have card draw even when we don’t have our commander out, which is of the utmost importance. FInally, Radiant Destiny can give our whole team vigilance, so we can attack with our huge team and keep them back on defense. 

Without any further ado, here’s our list!

1x Aegis of the Heavens 1x Amaranthine Wall 1x Angel of the Dawn 1x Arcades, the Strategist *CMDR* 1x Authority of the Consuls 1x Baird, Steward of Argive 1x Botanical Sanctum 1x Cancel 1x Cast Out 1x Consulate Skygate 1x Deep Freeze 1x Desert of the Indomitable 1x Desert of the Mindful 1x Desert of the True 1x Disallow 1x Divination 1x Dusk 1x Essence Scatter 3x Forest 1x Forsake the Worldly 1x Glacial Fortress 1x Gleaming Barrier 1x Glimmer of Genius 1x Golden Guardian 1x Heroic Intervention 1x Hinterland Harbor 1x Irrigated Farmland 4x Island 1x Kinjalli's Sunwing 1x Lifecrafter's Bestiary 1x Llanowar Elves 1x Meandering River 1x Mentor of the Meek 4x Plains 1x Radiant Destiny 1x Reliquary Tower 1x River's Rebuke 1x Scattered Groves 1x Seal Away 1x Secrets of the Golden City 1x Settle the Wreckage 1x Shalai, Voice of Plenty 1x Slaughter the Strong 1x Sunpetal Grove 1x Supreme Will 1x Suspicious Bookcase 1x Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive 1x The Immortal Sun 1x Tranquil Expanse 1x Wall of Forgotten Pharaohs 1x Wall of Mist 1x Wall of Vines

Tips for play and Budget

The best tip i can give you for playing this deck is don’t just slap down your commander immediately. Since we only have one way to swing with the majority of our creatures, you really want to make it count when you do. If you’re afraid of this happening to you, feel free to throw in some other big bois too! 

As for budget options, remember that the core of the deck is pillowfort, so just take all the cheap walls as a pile and cut all the expensive stuff! The deck doesn’t need Disallow or The immortal Sun, they just make it a bit better!

Have a brawl!!

~T