GW Hexproof is a non-interactive, explosive aggro deck that's based around playing a Hexproof creature (Slippery Bogle, Gladecover Scout or Silhana Ledgewalker) and arming it with powerful enchantments. In a few turns you'll be able to swing for massive damage, most likely with First Strike, Trample and even Lifelink. The deck is somewhat of an all or nothing deck, meaning that, if your opponent manages to handle your limited threats, the deck is often unable to stabilize and regain board position.
Pros: fast clock, non-interactive, fairly easy to pilot and hard to disrupt.
Cons: extremely susceptible to specific hate, difficult to come from behind, limited card draw and lack of late game stamina.
The Mana Base:
Blossoming Sands – Tapped lands, needed for the white component of the deck and gives 1 life as it comes in. Forest – Untapped lands covering the main color of the deck. Khalni Garden – Tapped lands, as well as producing green mana, produces a Plant token that can protect your creatures from edict effects. Plains – Untapped lands covering the secondary color of the deck.
Creatures:
Aura Gnarlid – Although not Hexproof, this creature can quickly grow out of removal reach and become evasive to boot. Gladecover Scout – Functionally operating as Slippery Bogles 5-8. Heliod's Pilgrim – Three mana but helps find our critical auras, effectively providing additional consistency to the deck. Silhana Ledgewalker – Two mana but with evasion against non-flyers, which may be useful when the opponent has many ground creatures. Slippery Bogle – One mana and Hexproof, our bread and butter creature.
Auras:
Abundant Growth – Mana fixing and card draw, also enables other colors to be played in the sideboard. Ancestral Mask – One of the main payoffs that can swiftly end the game when added to a board full of auras. Armadillo Cloak – Grants Lifelink which can be vital in races, as well as Trample. Cartouche of Solidarity – Power boost and further protection against edict effects. Cartouche of Strength – As well as the power boosts, this can act as a pseudo-removal spell, which the deck otherwise lacks. Ethereal Armor – Power boost that compounds as the game progresses for a single mana. Favor of the Overbeing – Gives +2/+2, Vigilance and Flying to Slippery Bogle! Rancor – The durability is not so important given that our creatures will not often be removed, and there is no toughness boost, but the Trample effect can be significant in winning damage races. Spider Umbra – Provides some much-needed defense against flyers. Utopia Sprawl – Mana fixing and ramp.
Spells:
Commune with the Gods – Improves consistency by finding whatever creature or enchantment you need.
Sideboard:
The sideboard has to be adjusted to your meta. These are the most played side board cards in GW Hexproof; mix and match according to your expected meta.
Hate Cards By Color:
It is imperative to know your opponent's deck and in particular which key hate cards you have to take care of or play around, because those cards may completely destroy our linear strategy.
B Chainer's Edict/Evincar's Justice/Geth's Verdict- to mitigate these, try to hold reserve creatures in hand and always aim for multiple creatures in play via Khalni Garden and Cartouche of Solidarity. Be careful because Chainer's Edict has Flashback and Evincar's Justice has Buyback. Echoing Decay- try to play different creatures and/or boost their toughness above 2. Pestilence- as with cards giving your opponent timing options, try to force it to fire ASAP. Beware that it can kill a Young Wolf by activating first for two and then again for one with the other trigger still on the stack. Shrivel- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
G Aura Flux- try to hold reserve enchantments in hand. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Gleeful Sabotage/Natural State- beware these cards when calculating combat math! Moment's Peace/Tangle- these cards may affect damage race calculations.
R Blazing Volley- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe. Electrickery- as per Blazing Volley but can hit every creature in play. Krak-Clan Shaman- as your opponent has the option as to when to use it, it is best to force this to happen ASAP. Prior to his coming out, try hard to get your hexproof creatures to 2+ toughness. Swirling Sandstorm- use Relic of Progenitus. Failing that, a reserve of creatures and enchantments will come in handy.
U Annul- provides a very efficient counter to our enchantments. Therefore, try to bait it out by playing the less important enchantments first. Aura Flux- you will need to keep only the most powerful enchantments, likely sacrificing those attached to your lands until you can blow it up. Fade Away- try not to play unnecessary creatures and maintain a minimum of powerful enchantments until you can blow it up.
W Celestial Flare- use Plant and Warrior tokens as support and fodder. Coalition Honor Guard- even worse than Standard Bearer as it doesn't die to Gut Shot! Play your own Standard Bearer. Holy Light- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe. Kor Sanctifiers- represents a good body that can also remove a powerful enchantment from play at sorcery speed. Standard Bearer is a must-kill creature that can single-handedly wreck your whole game plan. Either kill it, or play one of your own.
Match-up Analysis:
Burn: You are favored in this match, with the priority being to make use of life gain effects. This tends to increase your life total beyond the reach of the Burn opponent. Since they are R, be careful of sweeping damage effects such as Electrickery. Note that duplicate copies of Armadillo Cloak stack in terms of life gain!
Delver Variants: You really need to make some key enchantments stick to win this one. Beware of cards such as Spellstutter Sprite, Counterspell and Daze and try to play your key enchantments when their shields are down. This may necessitate deliberately playing less important enchantments into counter magic.
Elves: You have to race in this one, and it can be difficult. As they have limited removal, you can place your enchantments on non-Hexproof creatures. Circle of Protection: Green and Tangle/Fog are strong options.
Goblins and RG Aggro: Although this is a damage race of sorts, you are likely to need to hold back your creatures in defensive positions in the early game. Your opponent will keep attacking in and thus you will gradually deplete their resources. Ideally you can find some life gain and then start fighting back after a few turns. Since they are R, be careful of sweeping damage effects such as Electrickery. Note that duplicate copies of Armadillo Cloak stack in terms of life gain!
Mono Black Control and Variants: You are at risk to edict and sweeper effects here, so try to keep out additional creatures. For example, play out two creatures at once before equipping anything to avoid getting hit with an edict on the opponent's turn. Life gain plays a role as the B decks may try to drain your life with spells. You generally need to establish a fairly fast clock as they will become quite powerful as the game progresses.
Stompy: In this match up you have to carefully defend your life total early on. Be very wary of their instant speed tricks to avoid getting a key Hexproof creature killed. Your best option to win may be a suited up Silhana Ledgewalker since they have very few ways to interact with it. Due to the racing nature of the match-up, life gain is very important and you should try to kill their Vault Skirge before its toughness can be increased.
Tron: In this match you have to be aggressive and try to close out the game early, before their inevitability sets in. You can smash through Moment's Peace with Flaring Pain or else Dispel/Negate. Use this carefully and when their card is exhausted (remember that it has Flashback). You can also consider graveyard control via Relic of Progenitus to manage their looping effects. If playing on mtgo, absolutely make the Tron player finish their wins, because there is a reasonable chance that they would face time pressure in the later games.
I ran this deck in a mtgo league and finished 4-1, only losing to Mono White Herioc. I am just back to Pauper and that deck is relatively new, so I was not overly familiar with the cards.
My question is, how is this match-up for us? I saw the deck list now and could not figure out whether it is favorable or not. We may generate larger creatures, but they have a lot of access to protection from green.
Any thoughts on this match-up? Is it favorable? Also, how to play it? I suspect that we may have to play slower and wait until our creatures are much larger than theirs to avoid being blown out by instants?
when to crack the eggs...would you crack to draw a card when you have no use of the green mana generated, or wait for a payoff card?
Depends on how much you value the colored mana. If color fixing is not an issue (because you already have a Forest/Grove in the board), or the card you need to survive is colorless I would cycle it as soon as possible.
One small exception: Save the Chromatic Spheres against Lantern. The draw effect in that card is part of the mana ability and can't be responded to, which lets to you slip a card by their lock.
BTW I did stumble across this page yesterday, much of it remains relevant for us:
Does anyone know of any detailed Mulligan guides for the deck?
I have seen some general comments here and there- but they do not seem to apply to all situations. For instance, what to do when at 6, 5 and 4 cards is often not mentioned; also the differences whether on the play/draw, and what opponent is being faced.
I ask because the Mulligan strategy seems to be one of the major ways of improving with the deck.
Second question- when to crack the eggs...would you crack to draw a card when you have no use of the green mana generated, or wait for a payoff card?
Thanks! The good news (if any) is that it is red only, and an enchantment. A possible sideboard card for people to use, though I do not think it is going to cause us major issues- as per Damping Sphere.
A query for the veterans...I've really enjoyed playing Tron these past few months and have tried out most of the color combinations. I understand the deck well now...the only thing I could never fully understand was, why World Breaker? Out of all the possible cards in the Magic universe, why is this particular one chosen? I see that it has high toughness and has reach, can remove a permanent of certain types and can come back from the graveyard...but does this make it the best possible choice for the slot?
Not that I don't think the card is good, I am just a little surprised that it is viewed as the best possible option.
A few observations based on recent games I played...
1) Against lifelink creatures such as Wurmcoil Engine...even if you do not have a Skullcrack or Atarkas Command, you can chump block with a creature and then kill it with a burn spell to avoid your opponent from gaining any life. I won a game in this manner- opponent at 5 life with Wurmcoil Engine, facing double Goblin Guide. I have Lightning Bolt and a land in hand. He attacks, I chump and Bolt my Goblin Guide. Next turn I draw a Lava Spike and hit him for 5 and the win.
2) I am finding Atarka's Command to be a very good spell, as recommended by others. It functions like Skullcrack but also leads to blazing fast wins in conjunction with creatures (I won on turn 3 due to this recently).
3) Considering why I lose matches, the main reasons (in order) are: life gain, creature beat downs and enchantments. Therefore, I changed my sideboard accordingly to include 2x Skullcrack (to support the 4x Atarka's Command in the main deck), 2x Deflecting Palm [take that Reality Smasher/Wurmcoil Engine!] and the usual 4x Destructive Revelry. I removed graveyard hate as I concur that those decks are usually slower than we are to begin with.
1) Against control, would you always play a spell when they tap out? Suppose they are at 12 or 8 life and they tap out; you have only a Boros Charm in your hand. Is there any instance where you would not play it, because the information given is more important than ensuring the spell is not countered?
2) Against creature decks, I was trying to think through the "algorithms" we should go through to make the optimum plays. By default we should I imagine harass the opponent directly, unless we calculate that we are going to lose a damage race. However, once we see that things are not in our favor, how do we go about thinking through the adjustments? It becomes very complex, what with our options to play creatures and block, and then continue to fire spells at the opponent or support our creatures against larger adversaries. So my question is, how to arrange these complex thoughts into something we can analyze well?
3) Against larger creatures (toughness 4 or more), what is the usual approach? Make chump blocks and continue to assault the opponent? I am thinking of cards such as Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher here.
I noticed that many MTGO decks are playing a single Stomping Ground to fuel four copies of Destructive Revelry from the sideboard. But in a meta full of land disruption, isn't this a very frail strategy? The opponent has so many ways to disable the land, meaning that you may get only one use out of it versus four out of fifteen slots used up in the sideboard.
If anything else is missing then let me know, thanks
GW Hexproof is a non-interactive, explosive aggro deck that's based around playing a Hexproof creature (Slippery Bogle, Gladecover Scout or Silhana Ledgewalker) and arming it with powerful enchantments. In a few turns you'll be able to swing for massive damage, most likely with First Strike, Trample and even Lifelink. The deck is somewhat of an all or nothing deck, meaning that, if your opponent manages to handle your limited threats, the deck is often unable to stabilize and regain board position.
Pros: fast clock, non-interactive, fairly easy to pilot and hard to disrupt.
Cons: extremely susceptible to specific hate, difficult to come from behind, limited card draw and lack of late game stamina.
The Mana Base:
Forest – Untapped lands covering the main color of the deck.
Khalni Garden – Tapped lands, as well as producing green mana, produces a Plant token that can protect your creatures from edict effects.
Plains – Untapped lands covering the secondary color of the deck.
Gladecover Scout – Functionally operating as Slippery Bogles 5-8.
Heliod's Pilgrim – Three mana but helps find our critical auras, effectively providing additional consistency to the deck.
Silhana Ledgewalker – Two mana but with evasion against non-flyers, which may be useful when the opponent has many ground creatures.
Slippery Bogle – One mana and Hexproof, our bread and butter creature.
Ancestral Mask – One of the main payoffs that can swiftly end the game when added to a board full of auras.
Armadillo Cloak – Grants Lifelink which can be vital in races, as well as Trample.
Cartouche of Solidarity – Power boost and further protection against edict effects.
Cartouche of Strength – As well as the power boosts, this can act as a pseudo-removal spell, which the deck otherwise lacks.
Ethereal Armor – Power boost that compounds as the game progresses for a single mana.
Favor of the Overbeing – Gives +2/+2, Vigilance and Flying to Slippery Bogle!
Rancor – The durability is not so important given that our creatures will not often be removed, and there is no toughness boost, but the Trample effect can be significant in winning damage races.
Spider Umbra – Provides some much-needed defense against flyers.
Utopia Sprawl – Mana fixing and ramp.
4 Gladecover Scout
2 Heliod's Pilgrim
4 Silhana Ledgewalker
4 Slippery Bogle
Enchantments
4 Abundant Growth
4 Ancestral Mask
4 Armadillo Cloak
3 Cartouche of Solidarity
1 Cartouche of Strength
4 Ethereal Armor
4 Rancor
4 Utopia Sprawl
4 Blossoming Sands
11 Forest
2 Khalni Garden
1 Plains
1 Crimson Acolyte
1 Electrickery
2 Flaring Pain
3 Gut Shot
1 Lifelink
2 Obsidian Acolyte
1 Ray of Revelation
2 Young Wolf
2 Standard Bearer
The sideboard has to be adjusted to your meta. These are the most played side board cards in GW Hexproof; mix and match according to your expected meta.
0 Relic of Progenitus
Creatures
0 Crimson Acolyte
0 Gorilla Shaman
0 Obsidian Acolyte
0 Standard Bearer
0 Young Wolf
Enchantments
0 Circle of Protection: Green
0 Circle of Protection: Red
0 Circle of Protection: White
0 Lifelink
0 Dawn Charm
0 Dispel
0 Flaring Pain
0 Fling
0 Fog
0 Negate
0 Pyroblast
0 Tangle
0 Ancient Grudge
0 Electrickery
0 Gleeful Sabotage
0 Gut Shot
0 Natural State
0 Ray of Revelation
It is imperative to know your opponent's deck and in particular which key hate cards you have to take care of or play around, because those cards may completely destroy our linear strategy.
Chainer's Edict/Evincar's Justice/Geth's Verdict- to mitigate these, try to hold reserve creatures in hand and always aim for multiple creatures in play via Khalni Garden and Cartouche of Solidarity. Be careful because Chainer's Edict has Flashback and Evincar's Justice has Buyback.
Echoing Decay- try to play different creatures and/or boost their toughness above 2.
Pestilence- as with cards giving your opponent timing options, try to force it to fire ASAP. Beware that it can kill a Young Wolf by activating first for two and then again for one with the other trigger still on the stack.
Shrivel- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
G
Aura Flux- try to hold reserve enchantments in hand. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out.
Gleeful Sabotage/Natural State- beware these cards when calculating combat math!
Moment's Peace/Tangle- these cards may affect damage race calculations.
R
Blazing Volley- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
Electrickery- as per Blazing Volley but can hit every creature in play.
Krak-Clan Shaman- as your opponent has the option as to when to use it, it is best to force this to happen ASAP. Prior to his coming out, try hard to get your hexproof creatures to 2+ toughness.
Swirling Sandstorm- use Relic of Progenitus. Failing that, a reserve of creatures and enchantments will come in handy.
U
Annul- provides a very efficient counter to our enchantments. Therefore, try to bait it out by playing the less important enchantments first.
Aura Flux- you will need to keep only the most powerful enchantments, likely sacrificing those attached to your lands until you can blow it up.
Fade Away- try not to play unnecessary creatures and maintain a minimum of powerful enchantments until you can blow it up.
W
Celestial Flare- use Plant and Warrior tokens as support and fodder.
Coalition Honor Guard- even worse than Standard Bearer as it doesn't die to Gut Shot! Play your own Standard Bearer.
Holy Light- try to play your creatures along with toughness-enhancing enchantments, or hold reserve creatures. Play an unimportant enchantment first to try and bait it out. Once at toughness 2+ your creatures are reasonably safe.
Kor Sanctifiers- represents a good body that can also remove a powerful enchantment from play at sorcery speed.
Standard Bearer is a must-kill creature that can single-handedly wreck your whole game plan. Either kill it, or play one of your own.
- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -1 Rancor
- +1 Crimson Acolyte
- +1 Lifelink
Delver Variants: You really need to make some key enchantments stick to win this one. Beware of cards such as Spellstutter Sprite, Counterspell and Daze and try to play your key enchantments when their shields are down. This may necessitate deliberately playing less important enchantments into counter magic.- -1 Armadillo Cloak
- -3 Rancor
- +1 Electrickery
- +3 Gut Shot
Elves: You have to race in this one, and it can be difficult. As they have limited removal, you can place your enchantments on non-Hexproof creatures. Circle of Protection: Green and Tangle/Fog are strong options.- -4 Armadillo Cloak
- -3 Rancor
- +3 Gut Shot
- +2 Standard Bearer
- +2 Young Wolf
Goblins and RG Aggro: Although this is a damage race of sorts, you are likely to need to hold back your creatures in defensive positions in the early game. Your opponent will keep attacking in and thus you will gradually deplete their resources. Ideally you can find some life gain and then start fighting back after a few turns. Since they are R, be careful of sweeping damage effects such as Electrickery. Note that duplicate copies of Armadillo Cloak stack in terms of life gain!- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -1 Rancor
- +1 Crimson Acolyte
- +1 Lifelink
GW Hexproof: The quintessential race! Post board the game may be decided by Standard Bearer so you may have to mulligan aggressively.- -2 Cartouche of Solidarity
- -2 Rancor
- -2 Slippery Bogle
- +3 Gut Shot
- +1 Ray of Revelation
- +2 Standard Bearer
Mono Black Control and Variants: You are at risk to edict and sweeper effects here, so try to keep out additional creatures. For example, play out two creatures at once before equipping anything to avoid getting hit with an edict on the opponent's turn. Life gain plays a role as the B decks may try to drain your life with spells. You generally need to establish a fairly fast clock as they will become quite powerful as the game progresses.- -1 Ancestral Mask
- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -4 Rancor
- +2 Obsidian Acolyte
- +2 Standard Bearer
- +2 Young Wolf
Stompy: In this match up you have to carefully defend your life total early on. Be very wary of their instant speed tricks to avoid getting a key Hexproof creature killed. Your best option to win may be a suited up Silhana Ledgewalker since they have very few ways to interact with it. Due to the racing nature of the match-up, life gain is very important and you should try to kill their Vault Skirge before its toughness can be increased.- -1 Ancestral Mask
- -1 Armadillo Cloak
- -1 Cartouche of Strength
- -3 Rancor
- +2 Gut Shot
- +2 Standard Bearer
- +2 Young Wolf
Tron: In this match you have to be aggressive and try to close out the game early, before their inevitability sets in. You can smash through Moment's Peace with Flaring Pain or else Dispel/Negate. Use this carefully and when their card is exhausted (remember that it has Flashback). You can also consider graveyard control via Relic of Progenitus to manage their looping effects. If playing on mtgo, absolutely make the Tron player finish their wins, because there is a reasonable chance that they would face time pressure in the later games.https://www.channelfireball.com/articles/deck-of-the-day-bogles-pauper/
Paul Cheon pilots the deck through a mtgo league:
https://www.channelfireball.com/videos/channel-cheon-pauper-bogles/
The Arctic Pauper show:
https://puremtgo.com/articles/arctic-pauper-show-%E2%80%93-bogles-20
Paupular Decks mtgo league:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgLw8Zsa1ww&list=PL62LJ8tCWqGUWJgz6ZymqEj0m4nBYtDX-
Kungfutrees mtgo league:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMGmGYz8Dsk&list=PLaUFF5spB9YESh5tIfArT77-EH4zlkFpD
PPS never mind, GW Hexproof needs a proper primer. Perhaps I will get to work on it...
My question is, how is this match-up for us? I saw the deck list now and could not figure out whether it is favorable or not. We may generate larger creatures, but they have a lot of access to protection from green.
Any thoughts on this match-up? Is it favorable? Also, how to play it? I suspect that we may have to play slower and wait until our creatures are much larger than theirs to avoid being blown out by instants?
BTW I did stumble across this page yesterday, much of it remains relevant for us:
http://mtgolibrary.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-modern-bible-of-rg-tron-part-1.html
I have seen some general comments here and there- but they do not seem to apply to all situations. For instance, what to do when at 6, 5 and 4 cards is often not mentioned; also the differences whether on the play/draw, and what opponent is being faced.
I ask because the Mulligan strategy seems to be one of the major ways of improving with the deck.
Second question- when to crack the eggs...would you crack to draw a card when you have no use of the green mana generated, or wait for a payoff card?
https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/1031017#online
Karplusan Forest, Burst Lightning and Lightning Bolt are all in the main deck.
Not that I don't think the card is good, I am just a little surprised that it is viewed as the best possible option.
1) Against lifelink creatures such as Wurmcoil Engine...even if you do not have a Skullcrack or Atarkas Command, you can chump block with a creature and then kill it with a burn spell to avoid your opponent from gaining any life. I won a game in this manner- opponent at 5 life with Wurmcoil Engine, facing double Goblin Guide. I have Lightning Bolt and a land in hand. He attacks, I chump and Bolt my Goblin Guide. Next turn I draw a Lava Spike and hit him for 5 and the win.
2) I am finding Atarka's Command to be a very good spell, as recommended by others. It functions like Skullcrack but also leads to blazing fast wins in conjunction with creatures (I won on turn 3 due to this recently).
3) Considering why I lose matches, the main reasons (in order) are: life gain, creature beat downs and enchantments. Therefore, I changed my sideboard accordingly to include 2x Skullcrack (to support the 4x Atarka's Command in the main deck), 2x Deflecting Palm [take that Reality Smasher/Wurmcoil Engine!] and the usual 4x Destructive Revelry. I removed graveyard hate as I concur that those decks are usually slower than we are to begin with.
1) Against control, would you always play a spell when they tap out? Suppose they are at 12 or 8 life and they tap out; you have only a Boros Charm in your hand. Is there any instance where you would not play it, because the information given is more important than ensuring the spell is not countered?
2) Against creature decks, I was trying to think through the "algorithms" we should go through to make the optimum plays. By default we should I imagine harass the opponent directly, unless we calculate that we are going to lose a damage race. However, once we see that things are not in our favor, how do we go about thinking through the adjustments? It becomes very complex, what with our options to play creatures and block, and then continue to fire spells at the opponent or support our creatures against larger adversaries. So my question is, how to arrange these complex thoughts into something we can analyze well?
3) Against larger creatures (toughness 4 or more), what is the usual approach? Make chump blocks and continue to assault the opponent? I am thinking of cards such as Thought-Knot Seer and Reality Smasher here.