Remember that time I wanted to build a deck around Assemble the Legion? And that I was thinking about building it around Hellrider and spells that made you attack multiple times a turn? And that it was only last time I posted a deck? I still wanted to write about it, because it is quite a different approach then the other deck. All good things come come in twos, so here we go.
The card that made me want to go this way in the first place was Hellrider, a 3/3 for four with haste. Not really special in itself. But it also has this line of text: “whenever a creature you control attacks, Hellrider deals 1 damage to defending player”. This makes Hellrider a lot more interesting! If I combine the Hellrider with the armies of soldier tokens that Assemble the Legion can pop out, that will be a lot of damage done to opponents. Going wide is the way to go here.
So the Assemble the Legion makes a lot of attackers and the Hellrider does damage when they attack. Assemble the Legion only makes 1/1 creatures, so that would be two damage per creature that attacks (one damage from the Hellrider to the defending opponent and one from the creature attacking). In this case it takes quite a lot of time and soldiers to fight through opposing life totals. Luckily there are several ways to accomplish this and can be found in red and white!
There is another card that does something similar. Chance for Glory doesn’t give you an extra attack phase right away, but it gives you a whole extra turn! Sure, you must win that turn or else you’ll lose, but if you can squeeze in several attack phases with any amount of Hellriders on the board, that shouldn’t be too difficult. And did I say your creatures become indestructible?
The first way is making your creatures multiple times in a turn. For example, a card like Waves of Aggression untaps all your creatures and gives an extra combat phase in which the soldiers and the Hellrider can do extra damage. It has retrace to boot, so you can use the card multiple times by discarding a land and paying the mana cost. World at War almost does the same, but instead of retrace it has rebound, making sure you also have an extra attack phase in the turn after you played it.
The second way of making your creatures do more damage is by simply making them bigger. Glory of Warfare is especially interesting, since in your turn (in which you are planning to attack anyway) it makes your creatures stronger in power and when it’s not your turn, it increases the toughness of your creatures, making them better blockers, although I’m not sure that happens often.
Since you’ll be attacking with lots of creatures, there are some bound to do some combat damage. In that case, Five-Alarm Fire accumulates a lot of counters that can be spent on extra damage. ‘Cause more is better, right?
Of course your opponents are not just going to let you win, so you need something to defend yourself. Solar Flare clears the board of creatures. With Assemble the Legion in your deck, you don’t mind. Next upkeep your legions will be supplemented while your opponents have an empty board. There are also four copies of Journey to Nowhere if you don’t have a Blaze.
The deck needs some ramp, because the curve is quite high and you want to be able to cast Assemble the Legion relatively early. Boros Signet gives you the right colours, Mind Stone gives colourless mana, but can be used to draw a card and Hedron Archive serves a similar purpose.
Since you want to be able to cast your expensive cards, you need a solid foundation of land. 23 is the number with a rather even distribution of white and red mana. Forgotten Cave and Secluded Steppe can help sift through the deck, looking for the cards you need.
| RW Hell’s Legion | |||
| Creatures | Spells | Artifacts | Lands |
| 4 Hellrider | 4 Journey to Nowhere 1 Chance for Glory 1 Five-Alarm Fire 4 Solar Blaze 2 Glory of Warfare 4 Assemble the Legion 2 Waves of Aggression 2 World at War | Boros Signet Mind Stone Hedron Archive | 3 Forgotten Cave 3 Secluded Steppe 3 Wind-Scarred Crag 7 Plains 7 Mountain |
So this was another approach to a deck based around Assemble the Legion. Which one do you like most? Or maybe you have an altogether different approach. Let me know with a comment or a mail. See you at the next sixty!
Simply Sixty MtG 