Every workday ahead of the set's paper release, Insight takes a quick look at a deck featuring new cards from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. Today we enroll in the Bard Class, which can do some seriously messed-up stuff in Standard. Add 12 power to the battlefield on turn three? Yes, please!
Maybe I'm drinking Kool-Aid straight from the hyperbowl here, but looks positively insane. You get to cast a bunch of threats for next to nothing and they're bigger too? Excuse me?
Sure, you won't reach level two any earlier than on turn three. But if you've build your deck accordingly, you then almost get to go off. Standard even includes two legendary creatures that literally don't cost anything at all once you subtract one red and one green mana. and suddenly look quite impressive when they come down as 3/3 creatures for free.
But in an ideal world they'll actually come down as 4/4s. After all, leveling up Bard Class on turn three still leaves one mana unused, conveniently sufficient to pay for . So a chain of Grumgully, Gallia, and Targ Nar is entirely possible and will leave you with 12 power on the table. On turn three. Starting from a clean board. If you substitute Grumgully with , and place that one at the end of the chain, you get 11 power.
In longer games 's third level may also become relevant, especially as most of your creatures cost so little. Games without Bard Class are bound to look very different, but it is possible to build so much redundancy into the deck that the London mulligan fills in as a decent-ish tutor. Legends come with built-in redundancy, one could argue. Regardless, it's still a functional deck even without Class, despite a design that aims to extract maximum value from the enchantment.
The inclusion of a secondary mana engine— and —plays a huge role in this. Two extra mana every turn, from turn two on, go a long way in speeding up an otherwise sluggish parade of legends. Though even this aspect of the deck works best when you get to cast Magda plus Class on turn two.
One could consider some noncreature legends too. in particular looks tempting and would certainly catch people off guard when it costs as little as a single red mana to cast. I opted for maximum consistency instead, and that, naturally, includes as companion.
| Bard Class Warfare |
|---|
| Main Deck | Sideboard |
|---|
| | |
Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily Cardmarket.
For all the latest cards from the set check out
|
