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Main » Articles » The Forgotten Realms's VIPs

The Forgotten Realms's VIPs

Mike Likes
Posted on August 19, 2021
 Reddit

Hello everyone. Having been a Dungeon Master for numerous years, there's just something I love about a good villain. I enjoy playing the part of the bad guy for my players to face, and possibly vanquish. This week I have a few decks for you from Magic Arena events that have won six or more matches in a row by players at Platinum or Mythic ranking. Each of these decks features a great villain as its focus. Let's get started.

Lolth, Spider Queen

The first deck I have for you features Lolth, Spider Queen. Lolth is the goddess worshipped by many drow (dark elves) in the city of Menzoberranzan, the City of Spiders and birthplace of Drizzt Do'Urden. Let's take a look at a deck featuring Lolth, Spider Queen.

Lolth, Spider Queen | AFR Standard | Random Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Lolth, Spider Queen
Lolth, Spider Queen is an interesting planeswalker, as she doesn't have a loyalty ability that will increase her loyalty counters. Instead, she will gain a loyalty counter whenever a creature you control dies. That would make her right at home in a deck filled with creatures, however this deck only includes six creature cards in the main deck. While you could use Lolth's -3 loyalty ability to create a pair of 2/1 Spider creature tokens, their deaths will only provide two loyalty counters, so you'll end up lower than where you started. However, we'll get back to the thought of adding loyalty counters when creature tokens die in a bit. For the most part, you'll use Lolth's 0 loyalty ability as a source of card drawing. The point of life it costs you will be worth the added options an additional card will provide.

Also helping you draw additional cards is Mazemind Tome. If you manage to get four or more page counters on it, you'll also gain four points of life to help offset the life lost drawing cards with Lolth's 0 loyalty ability. While drawing these extra cards, one creature to be on the lookout for is Death-Priest of Myrkul. With a copy of this Tiefling Cleric on the battlefield, you'll be able to create a 1/1 Skeleton creature token for a single mana as long as a creature died this turn. It doesn't matter if your creature died or your opponents's did; either way, you can create a Skeleton. You can even create a new Skeleton token if one you created on a previous turn died this turn. It can be self-perpetuating.

Another card to look for is Skeletal Swarming. This enchantment will automatically create a tapped 1/1 Skeleton creature token. It will create two of these tokens if a creature died this turn. Over the course of a few turns, you can have a large drudge of Skeletons. Skeletal Swarming also gives a bonus to each Skeleton you control. Each of them will get a boost to their power equal to the number of other Skeletons you control, plus they'll all get trample. Each Skeleton will have to attack each combat if able, but these other bonuses should help you overcome your opponent's defenses and allow you to deal quite a bit of damage to your opponent directly, thanks to trample.

Xanathar, Guild Kingpin

Next, we'll take a look at a deck that features Xanathar, Guild Kingpin. As the leader of the Xanathar Thieves' Guild in Skullport, Xanathar is one of the most infamous Beholders in all of the Forgotten Realms. Let's check out the deck featuring this nefarious eye tyrant.

Xanathar, Guild Kingpin | AFR Standard | Random Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Xanathar, Guild Kingpin
Xanathar, Guild Kingpin can be a very frustrating creature to play against. During your turn, your opponent won't be able to cast any spells, so you can cast anything you'd like without worrying that it might get countered. You also get to look at the top card of your opponent's library and you can play that spell using any color of mana to cast it. Doing this can allow you to put multiple cards that are owned by your opponent into play under your control. Let me tell you, there's no worse feeling than losing a match because you got beat by one of your own cards.

While Xanathar probably could win games on his own, you'll often see many underlings doing his bidding. This deck has a ton of those underlings, and many of them work well in conjunction with others. For example, Demon of Loathing and Tergrid, God of Fright // Tergrid's Lantern pair up nicely to help increase your forces. When Demon of Loathing deals combat damage to a player, that player sacrifices a creature. With Tergrid in play, whenever an opponent sacrifices a nontoken permanent, you'll be able to put that card onto the battlefield from their graveyard under your control. Since Demon of Loathing has trample, unless your opponent can somehow manage to soak up all seven points of power the demon has with blockers, you'll likely deal some combat damage to your opponent.

In this deck, Xanathar has a number of legendary creatures working for him. Iymrith, Desert Doom is a great blocker due to its hefty ward requirement while it's untapped. Drana, the Last Bloodchief is a great attacker, returning previously defeated creatures to the battlefield as Vampires with a +1/+1 counter. Grazilaxx, Illithid Scholar offers a means of drawing an extra card whenever you deal combat damage to a player. It also offers you a way of returning creatures to your hand from the battlefield, allowing for an additional use of any effect that happens when they enter the battlefield. Finally, Krydle of Baldur's Gate offers you the opportunity for one of your creatures to become unblockable, guaranteeing their damage will go through and enabling any effects that happen when combat damage is dealt to your opponent.

Tiamat

The final deck I have for you features Tiamat, Queen of the evil chromatic dragons. Let's take a look at it.

Tiamat | AFR Standard | Random Platinum/Mythic Ranked Player

Tiamat
Tiamat costs a whopping seven mana and requires mana of all colors. Because of this, you'll need to employ a couple of cards that will help produce the mana you need. Temple of the Dragon Queen seems appropriate in a deck featuring Tiamat. This land will provide you with one mana of any color chosen when you play it. You'll usually want to choose Black or Green, as the majority of lands in this deck can produce Red, White, and Blue mana.

The other card that will help you out tremendously is Orb of Dragonkind. This artifact will give you 2 mana in any combination of colors that you can use to cast Dragon spells or to activate the abilities of Dragons in play. Using the Orb of Dragonkind does require one mana, so it essentially ramps you up by one mana. Since it's not legendary, you can have multiple copies of Orb of Dragonkind in play, allowing for additional mana ramping.

When Tiamat enters the battlefield after being cast, you can search your library for up to five different Dragon cards, not named Tiamat. This deck includes some great Dragons to choose from, including Adult Gold Dragon, Old Gnawbone, and Terror of the Peaks. One card you might overlook that you can choose to get is Nadaar, Selfless Paladin. Since this card represents a Dragonborn Paladin, it's subtype is Dragon Knight. That makes it a legal target to choose with Tiamat, even though Nadaar doesn't look like your typical Dragon creature.

Wrapping Up

Whether you love them or you hate them, a good villain is an important part of a successful story. The villains in these decks have all had major storylines in Dungeons and Dragons, making them good focal points for these decks. Each deck plays very differently from the others, and I'm looking forward to playing all of them on Magic Arena.

What do you think of these decks? Do you have any suggestions for improvements? Let me know by leaving a comment below. Also, feel free to share this article with your friends anywhere on social media. And be sure to join me here again next week as I continue my search for innovative decks in Standard. I'll see you then!

-Mike Likes

TAGS articles, standard, metagame, constructed, analysis, decklist, arena, mike likes, mtg arena, afr standard, 08192021

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