The Brothers' Daily Deck Tech: Anvil Warfare

Every workday while the set is new, Insight is taking a quick look at one deck featuring the latest additions from The Brothers' War. What is it good for, huh? Plenty of opportunities to make sacrifices at least. This black-red Standard archetype got so many fresh tools, something simply got to stick!

If you're a child of the 21st century, you may be used to one-drops attacking for 2. But have you met Goblin Blast-Runner? This one can attack for 3 a turn, with menace, continuously from turn three on. All it takes is one Oni-Cult Anvil, which, once fired up, conveniently feeds itself.

Maybe the Blast-Runner will even attack for 4. It can do so when you control another new card, Mechanized Warfare, which conveniently boosts said Anvil too. Suddenly its 1/1 Constructs hit for 2, and its activated ability deals 2. If you have multiple Anvils, and/or multiple Warfares, things can escalate quickly. Meanwhile, the enchantment also improves Bloodtithe Harvester, Voldaren Epicure, Sokenzan Smelter, and Ob Nixilis, the Adversary. It even enables Voltage Surge to deal 5 damage—enough to kill an opposing Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

Ironically, Sheoldred is the original list's only card with "red" in its name and at the same time its only source of damage that doesn't benefit from Warfare. I'm inclined to cut it, partly for this reason and partly to lift some pressure from the mana base, which could struggle with both the total and the type of mana. Mostly, however, I want to make room for some number of Experimental Synthesizer. The new Mishra's Research Desk may indeed be better, but it clearly doesn't support Surge/Anvil/Smelter as well as Synthesizer does.

If you run both of these semi-/demi-Reckless Impulse effects, each offering their own kind of encore, the engine should rarely run out of fodder. The production line keeps moving, and the industrialized war rages on.

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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.

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