MTG Salvation

Originally, Mardu as a midrange variant has not really had a flourishing history of great tournament finishes and a reputation of being a "great" deck. Basically it was always overshadowed by their cousins of the GBx archetype: Jund, Abzan or the Rock. Mardu as a midrange deck was often referred to as being a deck, which can be functionable, but ultimately is a budget GBx deck for people who can't afford Tarmogoyfs. However, the deck still held onto an identidy, as it was called "Dega" (which is a made up name which should describe the colour combination, which was obviously long before Mardu as a clan came up) or "Team Italia".

One of the many problems Mardu had, was its inability to establish a realible and fast clock. The missing of Tarmogoyf really hurt there, and in the past, people always tried to replace Tarmogoyf with any similar creature in red, black or white. Cards like Hero of Bladehold, or Brimaz, King of Oreskos where among the most common ones. However, as you can imagine, both cards just didn't replace the strength of a classy Tarmogoyf. And basically every creature played in Mardu always kept diving into the token aspect of the colour combination. Mardu as a clan, typically is a great token deck. Obviously it has access to every card a typical BW Token deck has access to, as well as one of the "powerful 2 drop" cycle in red: Young Pyromancer. This always meant Mardu could go wide, but hardly big. And in the past this led to the so-called "X-1" problem, which means, that most of the creatures typically run in Mardu had only one toughness (any token, YP, Dark Confidant, Abbot of the Keral Keep) and this meant Mardu was very susceptible to any kind of sweeper. As Tron back in the days ran Pyroclasm Mardu was completely blown out by that. Even if it sounds crazy, it was the truth.

To summarize, Mardu historically was a good go-wide deck, with a real good ability to grind, but it lacked a good clock and was very susceptible to sweepers. All that combined meant it had an abysmal Tron matchup (which already was a very tough beat for a modern deck at that time) and was generally weak to fast combo decks. However, over the time, powerful new tools where printed for the archetype, which started to strengthen the deck.

The first dab in the Pyromancer kind of strategy was probably through the BR Blitzkrieg strategy. Basically this version was a Blood Moon deck utilizing similar cards like Mardu as their red and black spells, but leaving out on white completely and go in for the full Blood Moon plan. Finishers like Demigod of Revenge was commonly seen. A similar iteration to the Blitzkrieg deck was the Rat Moon deck, which looked pretty close to a now Mardu Pyromancer version. It still played no white spells and had the full 4 Blood Moon, but had Bedlam Reveler already in it.

Speaking of which, I think the most important printing the deck has gotten access to is Bedlam Reveler. Although Mardu didn't explode in popularity right away, it did take a few years before one name frequently kept popping up in magic online leagues 5-0 finishes: Selfeisek. Selfeisek managed to achieve many 5-0 runs before anybody knew about the deck in the first place. By that, a new version of the deck was used, which essentially was the first version of Mardu Pyromancer. Originally, more white was played (to be able to include Lightning Helixes) and more creatures (typically a pair of Monastery Swiftspear) was played by Selfeisek. Interestingly enough, while most Pros and most people playing the deck now dropped both those mentioned cards for good, Selfeisek keeps getting some 5-0 results and still holds on to Helixes.


Mardu Pyromancer really got heavy fame during the Pro Tour Rivals of Ixalan, which was the first modern Pro Tour after a long time. Famous Pros like Gerry Thompson played the deck to a great record, which caught some attention. Unfortunately, this short period of fame was again interrrupted by the shortly after unbanning of Bloodbraid Elf and Jace the Mind Sculptor. People immediatly switched back to Jund and blue based control decks, which let Mardu Pyromancer sink again in popularity. As the modern format warped, a few particular really strong decks started to became popular, namely Humans as well as Hollow One. Due to the high consistancy and linear gameplan, a deck like Jund playing BBE or a deck playing Jace just wasn't good enough. People did realize that it is important to interact as early as possible and a 4 drop which is dependant on RNG (BBE) was not good enough to keep up with that linear gameplan. So Mardu slowly took up some steam again. Mardu Pyromancer is a highly consistant deck, which can operate on a low land count and is able to efficiently interact with the opponent. All this combined led Mardu Pyromancer to the position it is today, probably the best midrange deck in the modern format like basically never before. Below are some top finishing decklists with different versions:

The Landbase is the fundamental part of every deck, and for Mardu Pyromancer this is no exception. Having a well tuned and working Landbase is the first key to success, and often times one of the most important ones when it comes down to deck piloting. We have high requirements for coloured mana in order to cast our spells, and therefore its extremeley important to have the correct landbase for the deck. The distribution of fetchlands is already of high importance. Why? Because by running an optimal configuration allows you to perfectly fetch for the basic lands we have in our deck (out of the 3 fetchlands stated below, each can get each shock dual anyway). Generally, considering colour requirements: red > black > white. Among the lands, which are absolutely required to run this deck, are the following (considering a standard 20 land landbase):

Our creaturebase represent our powerful, valuable threats able to take over the game on their own and grind out the opponent. The creaturebase offers no real flexibilty, since the whole decks strategy is manifested on the creaturebase. Ideally, it is considered best to run about 8-9 creatures in a Mardu Pyromancer deck.

In order to support our creatures and disrupt our opponents, Mardu Pyromancer utilizes one of the best and most efficient removals and disruption spells available. These spells are crucial to the deck and therefore, for some spells, there is no flexibility possible as their powerlevel will always be great in the modern format and helps executing the main strategy of the deck.

In order to have a starting point for building a Mardu Pyromancer deck, here is a basic decklist template anyone can use to get a feeling which cards are generally played and more importantly, how often. This list is not meant to be perfect, nor is it meant to be the "best" solution for any meta, but, according to the latest results, the safest list for an unknown meta.

Note: Feel free to ask for any feedback on your own decklist in this threat. However, pls, always state the reasoning and the purpose of a specific decklist, otherwise we won't be able to help accordingly. The reason behind this is, that specific metas sometimes require odd card choices. However, every meta is different. Therefore it is important for us to know in which meta a certain deck will be played in order to help the most effective way possible.

Rules of Thumb

Here are some general rules of thumb when it comes to building the deck, which you should more or less stick to. Don't consider them to be strict like anything, you can break the rules to a certain extend, but especially for new players the rules are highly recommended to stick to.

• The Landbase consists of 20 lands. Among them, 8 cards make up fetchlands, 4 cards make up fastlands, 3-4 make up shocklands and 4-5 are basics.


• The creaturebase is 8 creatures. 4 cards each make up Young Pyromancer as well as 4 Bedlam Reveler. It is possible to run 1 Hazoret mainboard or up to 2 Rabblemaster mainboard if needed.


• Since we have Bedlam Reveler as our main goal to cast, we need a high amount of instants and sorceries to support him. Typically this means running 28-30 instants and sorceries is crucial. Especially going below 28 is something which I would absolutely prevent. Among them there are 7 discard spells, 17-18 one mana spells (including the discard) and about 10 three mana spells. The rest is usually 2 mana spells.

All in all, here is a standard decklist which you can start to play with (selfeisek's newest version):

To get an idea of what to cut in which matchup, it’s important to recognize an opposing deck for what it is. For this purpose, I am going to categorize different deck types and will be dividing our deck into different categories of tools available for us, and then explain, what is good and what is bad.

The following kinds of decks are out there:

• Swarm aggro decks based on creatures (Zoo, Goblins)
• Aggro decks based on mostly non creature spells (Infect, Death’s Shadow, Burn, Grixis Shadow)
• Synergistic aggro decks (Affinity, Elves, Merfolk)
• Midrange decks based on goodstuff cards (Jund, Junk, Bant Eldrazi)
• Midrange decks including swingy/payoff cards (Abzan Company, Counters Company)
• Big Mana decks (Tron, RG Breach, RG Titanshift, Amulet Titan, Eldrazi Tron)
• Combo decks based on spells mostly (Ad Nauseam)
• Combo decks based on the GY (Goryo’s Vengeance, Living End, BR Hollow One)
• Control decks with an heavy endgame (Grixis Control, Jeskai Control, UW Control)

Our deck has certain tools to interact with the opponent, which are the following:

• Targeted discard (IOK, TS, CB)
• Non targeted discard (Kolaghan’s Command, Liliana of the Veil)
• Single target removal (Bolt, Terminate, CB…)
• Edict effects (Liliana of the Veil)
• Mass removal (Anger of the Gods, Engineered Explosives)
• Burn (Bolt, KCommand, CB)
• Grindy cards (KCommand, Bedlam Reveler, Lingering Souls, LtlH)
• Threats (Young Pyromancer, Hazoret, Bedlam Reveler, Souls)
• CA engine (Looting, Bedlam Reveler)
• Graveyard Hate (Nihil Spellbomb, Surgical Extraction, Leyline of the Void)
• Land Destruction (Blood Moon, Molten Rain)

Our deck can attack the opponent on a lot of different axis, which gives us game against potentially every opponent. There is no single card which completely shuts down our strategy, which is the reason why Mardu Pyromancer overall performs great.

Let’s see what (in general) is useful against which kind of deck:


This chart should generally show, which tools are good against which kind of strategy. Here is a little bit of explanation for each matchup:

• For Swarm aggro, discard is generally not the best thing we have, as these decks empty the hands rather quickly and doesn’t help with dealing with the threats the opponents have on board. Single target removal is okay, but not the greatest thing, we generally are seeking for big impactful mass removal cards like Engineered Explosives or Anger of the Gods. Of course, threats are very impactful in this matchup. Cards like Bedlam Reveler hold off opposing creatures, as they tend to be bigger than the creatures of the swarm aggro player.
• Spell based aggro decks as Infect and Death’s Shadow often only have few creatures, but more non-creature spells to support them. For this reason, targeted discard is great against them, as well as single target removal. Sweeper are less good here, but still reasonable, when the sweeper is not too over costed. A good example would be: Playing Anger of the Gods against Burn is ok, but Damnation is too clunky and therefore not wanted. This decks are rather fast, and can also be seen as combo decks in some way, so finding answers for their threats is crucial.
• Synergistic aggro decks shine when they can combine a lot of cards which all support each other, among these decks like Affinity or Elves are the best examples. Targeted Discard is not completely bad against them, as there are a few key cards, which you may be able to snatch off their hand. For example: If you can, you want to discard Collected Company from the Elves player’s hand. You also do want to snatch Cranial Plating or Etched Champion from the Affinity player’s hand. However, it does not mean we should increase the amount of discard by sideboarding, since those can still wreck you if you topdeck them later on.
• In Midrange mirrors value, attrition and great topdecking are the most important aspects. For this reason we certainly want to cut all cards which could be potential bad topdecks later in the game. Some people say that discard can be kept in in these mirrors, which might be also an alternative way to sideboard in these matchups. However, the way I see it, is that, even if discard sounds great theoretically (like to discard the opponents removal so that your tarmogoyf lives), I think more often than not discard is going to wreck you. The simple reason of this is, that discard is only good in the early game. You want to discard their most potent card against your hand right at the beginning of the game. Nevertheless, the start of the game is only a small part of the whole game. Midrange decks tend to be slower decks, which play longer games generally and in those matchups, ultimately, it comes down to which player topdecks best at the end of the game. For this reason, threats and grindy cards are of most value in these matchups.
• Midrange swingy decks tend to similarly work like good stuff midrange decks, but they do play payoff cards like Collected Company. The most present example these days would be Abzan Company. This decks uses mana dorks to quickly ramp into bigger threats, which are sticky most of the time, to outclass the opponent. Collected Company is a great card in this deck, especially combined with the manadorks. For this reason discard is good against these decks. However, only targeted discard! Non targeted discard can seriously wreck you due to shenanigans like Loxodon Smiter.
• Big Mana decks are generally very difficult for us to deal with. The best strategy we have is put up a fast clock so that our opponent can’t get to a point where the decks just steamrolls. In the early game these kind of decks are weak, so we have to use this fact as an advantage. Nevertheless, our deck is usually not fast enough to close out the games very fast, although cards like Lightning Bolt and Hazoret the Fervent certainly help in this matchup. Targeted discard is great here, as well as burn and putting up a big threat.
• Combo spell based decks are decks like Ad Nauseam for example. The best thing we have against them is disruption combined with a fast clock. These decks can go off quite fast, but our job is to prevent or hinder the deck to combo off that fast. Each combo deck works differently, so figuring out how to disrupt the opponent is key here.
• Combo GY based decks are basically like spell based combo decks, but using the GY for their advantage. Obviously attacking their graveyard is important here, and for this reason, non-targeted discard is awful in this matchup. Targeted discard on the other hand, is much better.
• Control decks are generally decks, which are weak in the early game, but the longer the game goes, the easier it is for them to take over the game. As we are generally not that fast at closing out games, control decks can often times take the upper hand against us. The absolutely best thing we can do against them is trying to stick a Lingering Souls or Bedlam Reveler and start to dilute their resources. Targeted discard is phenomenal here, as hand information is incredibly useful here.

As a general advice for side boarding, always go for the question: “What can I cut from my main deck?” first rather than “What cards can I bring in?”. This applies to every matchup. For this reason, this guide is more focused on the cards to cut, whether on the cards to bring in, because generally, this is easier to determine.

With that general knowledge we got now from the last section of the primer, we should be able to create our own guide to sideboarding. I believe one key to success in sideboarding is the right approach to it. I think for proper sideboarding, it is not adviseable to simply learn cuts and bring ins for each matchup and call it a day. I guarantee that you will more often than not face an unexpected matchup which you don't prepared for preemptively. In such a case, correct sideboarding warrants great success. I want you to look at a card and know what it fundamentally does for us and against which type of deck we want that. If you learn to think that way, you can figure out each matchup by yourself. I can show you how I do it and what has brought me best success in my experience playing the deck. I’ll always go with the approach of creating a gauntlet with the most popular sideboard cards. It is the same gaunlet you will find in the Sideboard Guide section of the primer by the way. In the last section, explaining general guidelines for sideboarding, you saw a more general and theoretical approach of evaluating different areas of attack for all matchups. This theory is taken up as a next step here, to create this gauntlet and divide it into its own sections of use. In the following box you will see the sideboard gauntlet.


Now, this is simply an accomodation of most often used sideboard cards. Its a pile of cards. Not very helpful as of now. However, as a next step, we are gonna divide this pile of cards into 5 fundamental sections of areas of attack. By doing so, we can already distinguish all cards from another and also see which cards are doing similar things. These are the fundamental areas of attack:

• Graveyard Hate: This category explains itself. All cards that interact with the GY fall into this one.


• Destruction: Cards for the pure sake of destroying/dealing with specific problematic permanents, which goes beyond simple creature removal. A clock is included here as well.


• Lifegain: Obviously all cards that gain certain amounts of life.


• Discard: Cards that discard cards from opponents hands.


• Grind: A special category, since it defines the philosophy of our deck. Every card you would want in attrition based games, fall into that category, including removal.

If we take those categories, we will be able to put every common sideboard card in one, or even more of those sections:


Now that we divided all cards among the sections we created, we have to see what types of decks there are, to see what tools available to us are effective against a given deck. The simplest way to divide decktypes is according to the following way:

• Aggro: The most fundamental way to play magic, the only purpose of playing that sort of deck is getting the opponent dead fast. Games involving an aggro deck tend to focus on the early game and is characterized by efficiency and tempo. Synergies are very important here to create an early big advantage from which the opposing deck should not recover or hold up to.


• Midrange: When talking about midrange, terms like value, attrition or good topdecks come to mind. Midrange decks don't seek to kill the opponent fast naturally, it wants to go over the top of other decks and outvalue or outgrind them. This type of deck focuses on mid game primarily, its where the deck shines the most.


• Control: Control decks have only one purpose in mind: Controlling everything the opposing player might want to do and prevent that. Control decks are reactive by nature and run very few actual winconditions. Control decks shine in the mid to late game, and have a weakness for the early game. Its goal is to go from the early into mid and late game quite fast.


• Combo: Combo is a weird type of deck. In a certain way, combo decks are like aggro decks, in which they want to kill the opponent fast, through a certain combination of cards though, rather than simply attacking with creatures. Its primary focus is the early to mid game, focusing on card synergy.


• Big Mana: Big Mana is one type of deck that assembles huge amounts of mana by assembling certain types of lands or a big amount of lands fast. Those decks then try to win through powerful overcosted spells which are hard to deal with. This kind of deck focuses on the mid and late game and also on synergy.

Now that we defined the basic types of decks, we will divide our sideboard gauntlet among the different types of decks:


And there you have it. We completely divided our gauntlet in different areas of attack as well as uses for each type of deck. This should help you to identify your best sideboard for your own metagame. For determining the own metagame, I suggest reading Reid Duke's article: The Metagame. Last but not least, here is a recommended sideboard for the overall meta, kept up to date:

To conclude, these are the general guidelines for sideboarding in a given game. However, in specific cases, specific strategies are needed. For this reason, I want to go over all matchups present in this meta right now and go into a little bit more detail. In order to do so, I want to introduce you to my concept of Priority Lists. Since this deck is fairly different from meta to meta, I designed a gauntlet of most popular cards run in this deck. From that cards I created a list (the priority list) which contains cards I would cut in which matchup (and how often) and also in which order. The same goes for bringing in cards. If you dont have a certain card from that list in your 75, then simply skip it. Information on the matchup itself will be in the information text attached to the list. Next you can find the Gauntlet:

• Discard vs. Bolt?: The question is, if the opponent has played a turn 1 creature, should we use our turn 1 to bolt it or to play a discard spell? In most cases, always go for the bolt first. Turn 1 creatures in modern are often mana dorks or aggressive creatures which either help the opponent to quickyl ramp into much more threating stuff or to beat you down quickly. We should stop both those things by bolting the creature right away.


• Kolaghan's Command: One of the nicest interactions we can have with KCommand and our opponent, is when the opponent is in topdeck mode and draws his card for the turn. In the draw step, you can actually cast KCommand and let the opponent discard the freshly drawn card right away, often times effectively time walking yourself. Also, know the interaction of Kolaghan's Command with an opposing Spellskite: If you want to destroy Spellskite (destroy target artifact) and also want to deal 2 dmg to another opposing creature, spellskite can redirect the 2 dmg from Kolaghan's Command also to itself. Be aware of this.


• Kolaghan's Command and Regeneration: How does KCommand interact with regeneration? This might be a strange thing to ask, but it could matter in specific cases. Lets say you are facing Affinity and your opponent has both a Steel Overseer and Welding Jar on the BF. You would like to kill the Overseer because otherwise you will be dead to the added counters on the next turn. One nice way of doing that through the Welding Jar is by using KCommand. Cast it and choose deal 2 dmg as well as destroy target artifact on the Overseer. If the opponent pops the Welding Jar to give the Overseer a regeneration shield, then KCommand still destroys it. Kinda makes sense, but note the important nuances of this interaction: This is only possible because the "destroy artifact" mode comes before the "deal 2 dmg" mode. If the order of those modes are switched, then the Overseer would survive! And the reason of this is, that state-based actions are not performed during the resolving of a spell as well as the fact, that regeneration removes all dmg applied. So, if the Overseer has a regeneration shield on it and it first gets "destroyed" then the shield will pop and it regenerates the Seer. If you deal now 2 dmg to it afterwards, the 2 dmg will be marked on the Seer after the spell resolves and it will die. However, if it would be the other way round, and you deal 2 dmg to the seer first, it would not be destroyed right away, as it only "marks" 2 dmg and waits for state based actions to resolve. If the actual destruction comes after the dmg, the regeneration shiled will pop, and now it will clear all dmg marked to the creature, resulting in a surviving Overseer. So remember, the ordering of how the modes are applied matters (which is simpy the order of how they are listed in the spell)


• Faithless Looting: Looting as a card is straight forward ability-wise, but can be quite difficult to play effectively. In general, I would always wait on casting Looting until you know what you are up against. Exceptions to this rule is if you have great discard targets (like Souls), need to find landdrops or if you have the opportunity to power out a Reveler. Don't always play Looting asap. Keep it in your hand as a resource, it is impactful enough if you cast it later as well. As a general rule though, Looting should be used differently depending on what matchup we are facing. If you are up against a grindy matchup (like the mirror, GBx decks or Control) then usually its better to sandbag Looting if you really don't have anything you want to discard. Don't fall into the trap and Looting in an attrition based game when it means you will ditch some valuable CA cards. Also be aware of CA in general. Sometimes its better to not loot even if you have Souls in hand. The simple reason is that Souls has a fron half as well, which might be more useful for you in a particular situation. On the other side, playing against combo, aggro or Big Mana decks means you won't have much time to fully develop your CA cards and gain full advantage of them. Mardu is an efficient deck, but modern is a fast format nonetheless. Looting here has the task of finding you specific answers you need. The good thing about this is that usually in these kind of matchups you have more dead cards to discard anyway (at least game 1) which means you have additional reason to fire up Looting more early than late here. It should help you to find specific hate cards needed for that matchup (like Blood Moon against Tron)


• Looting or Discard turn 1?: This question basically has been answered in the point above. In general, discard is always the correct move. There are some exceptions of course, but speaking in a general way, you should be playing discard first (even if you have kept a one lander including Looting and hand disruption).


• What colours to make with Manamorphose?: Often times, it can be tough to decide which mana you want to produce if you cast Manamorphose. After all you don't know what you will draw. If you have 3 lands in play, and one of them is a Blackcleave Cliffs, the safest you can do is produce 1 red and 1 white mana. That way you have access to any mana needed to cast any given spell in the deck besides Liliana of the Veil or Liliana, the Last Hope. In other cases, you have to differentiate on what is most likely to be drawn with Manamorphose that I can cast vs. what I want to draw with Manamorphose that I want to cast. If you are in need of a specific card in order to stay in the game (like a souls for needed chump blockers) then producing white is a safe option. Maybe you didn't draw the needed Souls, but it was still the correct choice, since the other card you drew also didn't help you if you were able to cast it.


• Liliana of the Veil: You really don't need to activate Liliana's abilities every turn. Its totally fine to just let Liliana stay if you need all the cards in your hand.


• What to take with discard on turn 1?: This is question, which is very hard to answer. If you play Jund for a long time, you will get a feeling for what to take in given matchup. In short, it depends on the cards you have in your hand (e.g. if I have removal for a creature in my opponents hand, its not necessarily needed to discard the creature), on the cards which are on the battlefield (is my opponent manascrewed? Do I need to take an expensive card out of my opponent's hand? Or does my opponent have a powerful spell which interacts with a permanent on the field which could harm me (Like Become Immense + an Infect creature)) as well as the strategy of the opponent's deck (taking key cards for a certain combo etc.). Its hard to find the correct decision, but practise and experience do help a lot for this! As a general order of priority, I would suggest the following:


1. Take the card you can't deal with
2. Take the card that's next on the opponents manacurve
3. Take removal that kills Young Pyromancer
Now this order might me interchanged, for example if Young Pyromancer is key in a given matchup, its almost always correct to just take the removal right away to deploy YP. There is actually a great article of Reid Duke on SCG talking about Thoughtseizing the opponent, so its very much worth it to check it out: Thoughtseize You



• Fetchlands: Generally, Bloodstained Mire is our best fetchland since it can get both our basic lands. If it comes down to getting any shockland in our deck, its doesn't matter which fetchland to use (Either Mire, Arid or Flats). So, if your intentions are to get a shockland anyway, then always use other fetchlands first for that. Think about the colour requirements we have in our deck. We want to have double red to be able to cast Revelver. Don't mess this up by fetching for the wrong lands in the first few turns and then you are stranded with a couple of tapped red mana sources (like a Blackcleave Cliffs) which prevent you from casting a potentially needed card. I would recommend that you start thinking through your fetching sequencing during looking at the opening hand. Does my hand get all colours I need in time? Does it produce a mana every turn? Do lands enter the BF tapped at some point? Fetchland have become a lot more valuable due to Fatal Push and Jace, the Mind Sculptor (if they fateseal you). Safe them if you are not wanting to thin your deck!


• Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet + Anger of the Gods: I think that some people might not know the interaction of Kalitas and Anger of the Gods. If you have Kalitas on board and play Anger of the Gods, with the intention of exiling the opponents board and getting a bunch of tokens, then I have to let you down here. If two replacement effects occur at the same time, the owner of the cards which the effects both have an effect on gets to choose which effect will take place! So, simply said, your opponent owns the creatures and therefore the opponent decides which exiling effect will take place. Obviously they will choose the one from Anger to prevent you getting a bunch of tokens from Kalitas.


• Fatal Push: You are able to target any creature with Fatal Push, not only possible ones due to the current revolt status. So Fatal Push can target a Tasigur for example. But due to its if clause, the creature just won't be destroyed. Most of the time this is not of technical interest, but sometimes you might need to get an instant into the graveyard to get Reveler into play sooner or simply make a token from YP. So Fatal Push checks the CMC only upon resolution.


• Liliana, the Last Hope: Liliana can help you win through an Ensnaring Bridge, since you can shrink your own creatures to be able to attack. Another thing is, if you somehow get to activate Lilis +1 on an Inkmoth Nexus or Blinkmoth Nexus remember that the -2/-1 effect remains until your next turn. That means, when you pass back to your opponent, the Nexi will turn into lands again and stay. However, during that turn, if the opponent decide to activate that Nexus again, it will die as a result of state based effects. Keep that in mind.


• Engineered Explosives: If you want to cast EE for 1, but your opponent has a Chalice on 1, you can just pay 2 mana of the same colour to get the same result. Similar to this, if you opponent has a Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in play, if you announce X=1 with EE, but paying 2 different colours of mana for the taxing cost, you will still get 2 counters on EE.


• Liliana of the Veil + Cryptic Command: Be very careful when you plus Lili against a Control deck when you are emtpy handed. In response to her activation, they can Cryptic bounce Lili, which results in we having to discard her. That can also happen to any other permanent which might be important for us.


• Terminating the Colonnade: If you want to kill an opposing Celestial Colonnade, do it at the beginning of combat. If the opponent wants to counter it using a Mana Leak by tapping the Colonnade, they can at least not attack that turn.

• "Thoughtseize You" by Reid Duke. A great article evolving around what to take with discard, which is one of the key disciplines when playing Mardu. Every Mardu player should have read this article.
• "Who's the Beatdown" by Michael Flores. This is the article which is considered to be the fundamental article of magic. Maybe its the best article in the whole history of competitive Magic. Its about your role in the current status of the game. Knowing when you need to attack and when you need to defend, is crucial when playing Mardu, yet any deck even. There are also follow up articles, "Eight Core Principles of Who's the Beatdown" also by Michael Flores, as well as "Who's the Beatdown II" by Zvi Mowshowitz. Both these articles are also great reads and I can only recommend reading them.
• "Technical Play" by Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa. Its a really great article about the term Technical Play itself and what it encompasses.
• "The False Tempo Archetype" by Gerry Thompson. This is a great article about the tempo archetype and how it is easy to misunderstand them and therefore play badly against them.
• "Level One: The Full Course" by Reid Duke. Its pretty basic stuff linked here, but its still worth mentioned and to have a look at. I specifically want to point out "The Metagame", which is a great article describing how to identify, handle and fight a certain metagame in magic. Specifically for Mardu, this is very important to understand.
• "How many coloured manasources do you need to consistantly cast your spells?" by Frank Karsten: A great article I personally refer to many times. When building a manabase, this is fundamentally important, but is often overlooked by many people. Manabases tend to get greedier and greedier over time, which might lead to frustration due to easily avoidable losses caused by a bad manabase. Don't be that guy, always put enough coloured sources in your deck! An update to the original article was also made: "How many mana sources do you need to consistantly cast your spells - a guilds of ravnica update" by Frank Karsten. This is the new version of the mana source article and should be referred to when talking about mana bases.
• "How many lands do you need to consistantly hit your land drops?" by Frank Karsten, is a follow up article in the "How many?" series which is a great and important tool to have in mind when it comes down to basic deckbuilding.
• "Tempo and Card Advantage" by Eric: When playing Mardu, we are often dealing with the term "Card Advantage". But what does it actually mean and how can you abuse it? Read this article for more information about it. Further there is an article by Michael Flores which explaines Virtual Card Advantage and when it is mistaken as Card Advantage: "The End of Virtual Card Advantage" by Michael Flores.
• "Playing to win versus playing not to loose" by PVDR: This article is closely related to "Who's the Beatdown", and explains, what you should do, in order to win a difficult match in time. Some matches will end in extra turns, and often times you have the option to play for the win or play not to loose. Great read there.
• "Tight Plays" by Jeremy Neeman: A great article explaining the term "Tight Play" what is often referred to by us Mardu players. Another great article is about taking risks at the right time: "Risky Move" by Jeremy Neeman. Both articles are also very useful and important when playing Mardu.
• "6 Tips to Play Faster" by PVDR, a great article which helps to avoid get timed often. Sometimes we tend to go into extra turns, for which reason this is useful information.
• "Thoughtseizes and Fatal Pushes, Part I" by Reid Duke, is a series of articles that evaluate how to best utilize Thoughtseize and Fatal Push in the current state of modern (As of end 2017) this is generally a great way to enhance ones piloting ability and interesting read.
• "Understanding Standings, Part I: Tournament Structure (The Basics)" by Reid Duke, is a series of articles that explains how a typical tournament is executed. It is imperative to know how standings, pairings etc. work, to know best how you can advance and finish with a better record.
• "3 Tips to Mulligan Smarter" by PVDDR, is a great article about mulligan decisions. He explains in a sufficient way, why mulliganing is never only a matter of which 7 seven or lower cards you have in your hand, but also a huge matter in other contexts as well.
• "What did happen and what could happen" by Reid Duke, is a mind opening article for every long time Mardu player. Maybe at some point you startet autopiloting the deck and didn't give decicions enough time to reconsider? Give this article a read.
• "How many copies of any given card should you put in your deck" by Frank Karsten, is a follow up article to the "how many" series Frank made and talks about how many copies of a given card you need to have in order to draw one or multiples by a given turn. Very important resource when it comes to deckbuilding!
• "Creating a Fearless Magical Inventory" by Sam Stoddard, is a really great article showing the trap an experienced player can fall into. Ego can be a very bad thing, and really hurt your gameplan. I really recommend giving this article a read.
• "Coping With Loosing" is a podcast with sports psychologist Will Jonathan, Lance Austin and BBD. Its a great article to understand everything about loosing and its state in the game.
• The articles of Will Jonathan are a great source of understanding everything about the personal mental game within magic. They explain how you should deal with things such as bad luck, loosing, ego and sportsmanship. Great resource which is certainly helpful beyond magic as well.
• "How many games do you need for statistical significance" by Frank Karsten, is another article in the "How many" series. It greatly shows that results should always been taken with a grain of salt, and when talking about matchup win%, one should really have a feeling what 5 % up or down means. You may be surprized.
• "Getting a read isn't enough" by Reid Duke. This article greatly illustrates a good pathway how to deal with mental game information you might have gathered over the course of a game. Very valuable information and a must read. Also have a look at the follow up article: "How to smell blood and level up your game".