Thursday 7 December 2017

Holiday Hodown


There wasn't really any strategy to today's deck when I started creating it. Actually quite the opposite, I was thinking about it being December, Christmas etc and then I thought hey, MtG has the Christmas colours, why not write about a deck with holiday/winter-type cards? And thus, Holiday Hodown [or HoHo] was born!

Now obviously, a deck such as Holiday Hodown should be Red and Green, so the real question is whether or not to include White. I decided to do so because I had considered it immediately as a Christmas colour when the deck concept was conceived. Unlike the other decks that I write about, HoHo isn't that well tuned or researched despite being a mathematical equation. Don’t believe that? It's actually quite simple: WRG + Christmas = deck.

So even with the holiday theme being an inspiration to HoHo, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t need a strategy as well. When looking through the possible Christmas-y type cards, I decided to concentrate on a pretty simple premise: protect your butt with various cards as you collect the Stormbind/Squees ‘combo’ to destroy the opponent.

White. Let’s start with White and see why it earned its place in HoHo. When playing a deck with White, it should almost always start with 4 Swords to Plowshares. This is the single greatest creature removal card in the game, and has had that title since Alpha. We also want mom around to lend us her support and get us to the mid-late game. Lastly, White also gives us the lesser-known Blinking Spirit, which used to be a powerhouse card back in the day and does a good job here protecting its owner’s butt.


Red.

Alrighty so we’ve covered White, let’s see what the two main colours get us; starting with Red. Lightning Bolt. Moving on.


Ok ok, other than Bolt, Red gives us two key cards in the deck actually – it’s the R in Stormbind and it gives us our pal Squee. Now while he can protect us early on, we actually want the Nabob in our hands to drop to Stormbind. In this way, his Legend-status doesn’t even matter. It’s also worth noting that Stormbind doesn’t stack, however the play set is there as excess copies can just be used with the one in play to damage the opponent or their creatures.

Green.

Elves! Yep, and we went with the winter-themed Elves due to their added holiday-status. With G, we also get to play trees, both as creatures and as library manipulation/card draw. Nemata in particular was chosen because she can also act as an alternate win condition. Sylvan Library is awesome at re-stocking your hand, and isn’t two-sided the way Mine is. I did a 2/2 split however, as you want to keep drawing with Mine, which just isn’t possible with Library.

I had considered Land Tax in the deck, but it wasn’t really in the theme and is better in a Seismic Edge-type deck. There is certainly room to customize as you want, so put some personality into your own holiday deck and enjoy. Happy Brewing and Happy Holidays!


Holiday Hodown

4 Taiga
4 Plateau
1 Snow-Covered Plains
1 Snow-Covered Forest
4 Wooded Foothills
4 Windswepth Heath
4 City of Traitors

Total: 22

Creatures

4 Mother of Runes
4 Blinking Spirit
1 Nemata, Grove Guardian
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
1 Goblin Snowman
4 Fyndhorn Elves
1 Mirrorwood Treefolk
1 Weatherseed Treefolk
1 Groundskeeper

Total: 21

Spells

4 Stormbind
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Lightning Bolt
1 Enlightened Tutor
2 Sylvan Library
2 Howling Mine

Total: 17

Sideboard

4 Tormod’s Crypt
4 Orim’s Chant
1 Replenish
2 Disenchant
2 Humility
2 Pyroclasm