Welcome back to our second of ten articles about the Pre Constructed decks in Magic: The Gathering Arena. Today we are going to continue our way through the aggressive strategies and talk about The Brazen Coalition. Red-Black Pirates.
If you read the last article about Boros Assault (which you can find here) then you’ll know that Boros was about as SMOrc as it gets. While the this R/B deck is rather aggressive, having a few keys cards slows it down a bit and gives it a little more staying power.
The purpose of The Brazen Coalition is to use a bunch of cheap aggressive pirates backed by some evasion (keywords like menace or flying that make it difficult to block) and removal spells (non-creature cards that kill an opposing creature) to chip in for enough damage over time and overwhelm your opponent. The philosophy of this deck is based on the premise that right now there aren’t enough cheap answers AND threats that your opponent can play to catch up to the fact that you’ll just be playing more cards than them (even if their cards are more individually powerful)
Key cards by rarity[]
The common slot is interesting because all of the cards essentially do the same thing. They are all 1 drop or 2 drop creatures that attack for 2 and have a creature type Pirate. This means that you have choices to make. The mains ones to consider would be Fanatical Firebrand, Grasping Scoundrel, Fathom Fleet Firebrand, and Goblin Trailblazer. I think that swapping the two grasping scoundrels they give you for two fanatical firebrands is one subtle key difference you can make to squeeze out 1 or 2 extra points per game that can really increase your win percentage. As far as the two drops are concerned, I think that the first Fathom Fleet Firebrand is better than the first Goblin Trailblazer, but Goblin Trailblazers number 2 3 and 4 are much better than FFF’s number 2 3 and 4. So I would certainly suggest keeping in the first FFF that you have and possibly adding a second one but additional two drop slots falling to our machete wielding goblin friend.
Aside from these early drops it should be noted that one copy of Pirate's Cutlass seems about right since you do not want multiple copies of this effect, Puncturing Blow is a great answer to The Scarab God and Reaver Ambush just helps you in your effort to clear blockers and swing in for damage. I’m pretty off Storm Fleet Arsonist as the 5 drop and this would be the first card I plan on cutting from the deck.
Uncommons is where this deck really starts to shine, finding Daring Buccaneer, Rigging Runner, Kitesail Freebooter, Forerunner of the Coalition, Lightning Strike, Dire Fleet Neckbreaker and even things like Walk the Plank and Fiery Cannonade, are all very important to this strategy.
Now because of the way that they built the deck for you, you have two copies of a lot of these cards, I would spend my first 3-4 Uncommon wildcards on fleshing out the second copy of everything that you don’t already have two of. Because of this my 3 will end up being Lightning Strike, Kitesail Freebooter and a copy of Unclaimed Territory.
Some of the Rares in this list are certainly helpful but I don’t think they are as pivotal as their Uncommon counterparts. Having some cards like Captain Lannery Storm, Fathom Fleet Captain and Fell Flagship are going to be helpful more often than not, but most of these cards are not as necessary to winning the game as most of the uncommons. So my two rare WC slots in this deck will actually go towards the mana base. Adding in two copies of Dragonskull Summit will heap ease the pain of having very color intense cards at all times. Vance's Blasting Cannons can certainly be helpful here and even an honorary pirate in Glorybringer will certainly win some games (but it’s not very on flavor)
The Mythic rare that they give you is Dire Fleet Ravager is ok at best. 5 mana is a lot and most of the time you’ll be losing more life than they will, but there will be some games where this card will be worth 3 life when it enters the battlefield and will allow you to swing for lethal a turn earlier. I think that your first Mythic Wildcard for this deck pretty easily is won over by Angrath, the Flame-Chained. The 5 drop planeswalker gives you some reach in the +1 ability, clears blockers with the -3, and sometimes will just be a 5 mana act of treason to steal their big dinosaur and win the game for you on the spot.
With all that being said here’s the first round of upgrades I would consider suggest.
23 Lands
2 Cinder Barrens
2 Dragonskull Summit
11 Mountain
7 Swamp
1 Unclaimed Territory
24 Creatures
2 Daring Buccaneer
4 Fanatical Firebrand
2 Rigging Runner
2 Dire Fleet Captain
1 Dire Fleet Poisoner
1 Fathom Fleet Captain
1 Fathom Fleet Firebrand
3 Goblin Trailblazer
2 Kitesail Freebooter
1 Storm Fleet Swashbuckler
1 Captain Lannery Storm
2 Forerunner of the Coalition
2 Dire Fleet Neckbreaker
2 Artifacts
1 Fell Flagship
1 Pirate's Cutlass
8 Instants
2 Magma Spray
1 Abrade
2 Lightning Strike
2 Fiery Cannonade
1 Reaver Ambush
2 Sorceries
1 Walk the Plank
1 Puncturing Blow
1 Planeswalkers
1 Angrath, the Flame-Chained
As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section below or come visit my stream at twitch.tv/draconis2000 to let me know what you think!
Thanks for reading,
Draconis