Once more, we return to the Arena, but our creatures have other plans. While some are just fine being summoned to the field, others would rather spend their time on their own adventures and misadventures first.
Suits me just fine, because my Golgari Adventures deck is set to make the most of their pioneering spirit.
Check out the decklist from MTGGoldfish.
The two most useful tools we have at our disposal are Edgewall Innkeeper and Lucky Clover, so much so that it can often be worthwhile to mulligan otherwise good hands if they don’t contain at least one of these cards. Both of them accrue tons of extra value, Edgewall Innkeeper in the form of extra cards and Lucky Clover by copying the effects of our adventures.
And we have a glut of powerful effects to copy, like Foulmire Knight that can exchange some life and mana for cards, and/or be played as a 1/1 with deathtouch to keep attacks at bay. Murderous Rider, one of the most powerful removal spells in the format, gets even better when copied, turning into a lifelink body with decent stats afterward. Beanstalk Giant also takes advantage of Lucky Clover, allowing us to place multiple basic lands untapped onto the battlefield to extend potential make another play on that same turn, even if it’s just a Foulmire Knight. When we’re ready to cast it, it can be a massive beater to quickly close out a game.
While we’re not really playing Lovestruck Beast for its adventure, it can certainly help gum up an incoming attack. With it’s own 1/1 human, along with our Innkeepers and Foulmire Knights, we have so many 1/1s in the deck that it’s quite likely by the time we can cast the Lovestruck Beast as a creature, we have satisfied the conditions to let it attack and block. And if either of them bite the dust (or any other valuable creature), we can use Order of Midnight to bring them back for a second chance.
What you may have noticed already is that despite being an adventure deck, we have accidentally included a large number of mono-black knights. For that reason, it is appropriate to include the Smitten Swordmaster as a potential late-game win condition. With a Lucky Clover or two out, and enough knights on board, the adventure half of the card can dramatically swing the game in an instant. It didn’t happen on stream, but I only took my opponent from 13 life to 0 with a single application of this card, copied by Lucky Clover. And in a pinch, it’s a body that we can use to fill out our board state.
As for non-theme pieces, Midnight Reaper can allow us to draw cards if our board gets cleared, which will keep us in the game. And with games running as long as they do, Casualties of War becomes a great removal tool to destroy just whatever has become a problem on the opponent’s board. 6-mana is actually perfectly reasonable to achieve, and with our ramp and otherwise low CMC we’ll likely be able to make additional plays on top of it to take advantage of the opening.
It may not be the best deck, but it is powerful and a ton of fun to play.
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