Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012: Top 3 decks
In any game, players always have that one question, “Which character is the best?”
Aside from the arguments you had with your brother when you were five, tier lists are actually important and well-recognized. So much so that most competitive games have them.
Some are created by a self-appointed group who claim to be the best at game while others are created merely by skilled players with a platform. Mine is obviously the latter.
I have not spent months arguing against other players about which deck is better, but by playing this game competitively since release, I have gained enough knowledge to tell which are the best decks in Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. Without further ado, here’s an in-depth review of the top tier decks and why they usually win.
Realm of Illusion
From the time the game came out this was one my favorites. The first night I played this deck over and over and did not lose once. Realm was one of the best decks before any of the expansions came out but was fairly consistently agreed to be the third best deck behind Unquenchable Fire and Blood Hunger. Obviously you can see that things have changed in my mind to move Realm up to the top tier while the others sit below it.
The first reason is Realm of Illusion received extremely powerful cards in the update. It got a much needed game winning spell in Bribery. This card is so powerful and at five mana is feasible to cast and still have some left over to protect the fatty of your choice from their deck.
In addition, Curfew saves your guys from their removal as well as comboing extremely well with Aether Adept and sometimes frustrating them if they only have one creature out.
Cultural Exchange was a terrible choice for the deck and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it run but the other three cards are staples.
In addition to these add-ons there was a change in philosophy on how to run Realm. I don’t know if others had thought of running the deck as more of a control deck with draw power and tempo before just recently but at least among the YouTube crowd that was not common. Maybe a Divination or two and perhaps Concentrate but Mind Spring and Jace’s Ingenuity were laughed at. It turns out that this deck with all those draw cards plus the card advantage from Repulse and Aether Adept can control most decks to the point where your opponent will be frustrated and you will be winning on board with a counter in hand.
All of that is just theorizing. As for real matchups this deck still has unfavorable matchups against Unquenchable as well as Zombies and March. But other than those three this deck performs extremely well against the rest of the field. The reason it makes it into my top three is because of the fact that every time you see this deck, you know that if your opponent plays it well there’s pretty much nothing you can do to win.
Beknighted
This deck came out as part of DLC pack three, the latest expansion. Immediately people understood its power and rated it as the best deck in the game. Players have now recognized that while it is strong, it’s not far and away the champion.
Beknighted, being almost completely without removal, is only as powerful as its creatures. It’s filled with a whole bunch of two-power creatures with amazing abilities. Knight of the White Orchid and Benalish Cavalry are two examples. 2/2 first strike for 2 is already super powerful in this format. The fact that it can also get you a land is outstanding. Benalish is good because of flanking. It makes it unblockable to most creatures the turn or even two or three after it comes out.
The deck would be fine if its two power creatures were this powerful and nothing else was significant about the deck. But, Stainless put three Knight Exemplars in there. Some decks simply don’t have an answer for Exemplar hitting the table. Indestructible creatures are a force to be reckoned with. Obviously the removal filled decks laugh at that and just kill the exemplar but it’s difficult to have to save removal for exemplar when its 2 drops are so powerful.
Either way, the biggest issue with this deck and the reason why it is in my top tier is because of protection. Black and Red can’t deal with White Knight or Silver Knight respectively. Paladin En-Vec and Mirran Crusader make six creatures with protection, giving them almost a guaranteed win in those matchups if drawn.
The last element to this deck are the few cards that give flying. Serra’s Embrace, Windborne Charge and Armored Ascension all help with the final blow against decks that manage to stabilize.
In summary, knights are amazing because of the power level of their creatures; Knight Exemplars shut down entire decks, and protection is just an excellent overall ability.
March to War
Finally, March to War is powerful but almost impossible to discuss because it can be run in so many different ways to success. Overall though, the two themes of the deck are lifegain and token production.
In March to War, lifegain actually serves a purpose. Searing Meditation allows you to completely control the board just by having a Soul Warden or Recumbent Bliss on the field. Ajani’s Pridemate quickly becomes a huge threat at the 2-drop spot.
The lifegain cards are also all multi-purposeful. Lightning Helix kills a dude, Soul Warden has a 1/1 body to it, and Solemn Offering kills an artifact or enchantment. All this results in not only you gaining life, but also board position.
Now, for the other aspect of the deck… Squadron hawk and the token makers, raise the alarm and Conqueror’s Pledge, as well as Boros Swiftblade all benefit greatly from the pump spells. For example, a standard 2/2 would become a 3/3 if a Marshal’s Anthem is on the field, plus 1 more power for that one card.
But Squadron Hawk turns four 1/1 creatures into four 2/2 creatures, contributing 4 more power as one card played from your hand. The other three work exactly the same way. The tokens also completely turn off any deck based on removal that doesn’t have board-wiping cards. You really don’t care much if they are able to kill a few of your creatures, because you will always have more in reserve. March to War so consistently beats most other decks that I certainly rate it as top tier.
Even more DOTP 2012 tier info
Check out these videos for additional insight into the best decks of Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012.
Hey Daisho, the ancient depths have the draw power of the RoI and the raw power creature of Beknighted, but its away from most high profile players. There s a reason for that?
Ahn, what about the Grave whispers? Its a powerful and unique in his discard ways…
Ancient depths is a completely different deck than beknighted. It’s creatures are higher mana drop making it a ramp deck. What I meant when I said that the raw power of the creatures in beknighted was high I meant you get more value for what you pay for. In Ancient Depths, you get exactly what you pay for. You pay alot and you get alot.
All in all ancient depths is too inconsistent to be anywhere near decent in my opinion.
Grave whispers is a good deck. A main issue it has is that other decks have better cards than it does and they outspeed it. Usually if Grave Whispers goes first it will win but if not then your opponent will have too much time to set up before you can make them discard.
Most of Ancient Depths draw is land fetching cards, so in reality it does not have the same draw capabilities as Realm. In most cases you are drawing into more land fetches, where as in realm you are drawing control. The creature power in Ancient Depths is awesome but it take time to set up. With Beknighted, if you don’t have an answer for them, you can easily have lost the game by turn three because of how powerful their board position is. With Ancient Depths you need it to run almost perfectly to get the win with it. Most other decks in the game are far more versatile than it, and give you a lot more option to work with. That is why it finds itself in the depths of most players tier lists.
Agree with your overall point that Ancient Depths’s draw power has less to do with getting cards and more to do with fetching lands but it actually does have some draw power. Compulsive Research and Tidings flat out draw you cards. Coiling Oracle and Explore both have Cantrip and if you’ve been thinning your deck out of the lands it’s a higher percentage that you’ll be drawing actual cards even though you only have a few that do draw.
Even with the draw power I agree it’s far too slow to be anywhere near the top in terms of decks.
Nice points from both of you.
I just think that, ow, if u actually taking the lands away from the library, well, it ll be faster right? And it got some draw cards as Daisho pointed.
Basically the deck is just too random. You could play a game-ending creature on turn 3, or you could pull nothing for 10 turns straight. The land fetching helps turn the odds in your favor, but if your killer play gets countered or stalled, you have nothing but 1/1 chumps on the board.
Hey daisho, good picks in my view with march and knights (march is my fav deck), but I am kind of surprised with realm. It can be a great deck, but I just hate that most of the creatures can be killed by just targetting them with an ability and suck all the power out of the krovikans.
What are your thoughts on auramancer? I have long regarded that as a top tier deck. If they get totem armor or hexproof creatures out there it is a nightmare to stop for most decks. It can easily outpower any creature except maybe the annialator guys from ad with all the enchants. The only negative I have personally found is that this deck doesn’t drop a lot of creatures so it leaves aura with few blockers if your opponent can mass an array of creatures. Even with that though if you have enough life you can still swing anyways and take them out. What are your issues with this deck? March is my fav but I still respect the power of aura when I play it.
Like you said, Auramancer is a great deck IF you can get hexproof (or totem armor, to a lesser extent). Otherwise, the extreme concentration of auras with few decent creatures (sans auras) makes it to easy for all of your hard work to go for naught. It’s a very frustrating deck, like Ancient Depths, in that, if it gets going, it’s really hard to stop, but overall, I haven’t been particularly wowed by Auramancer.
On the other hand, I think it’s a downright travesty that Ghoulkeeper isn’t on this list. I mean, it’s a deck with relatively powerful cards, a ton of CHEAP-AS-BALLS resurrect, and a great amount of synergy between almost all of its cards–including Call to the Grave, which is a death sentence without a remove enchantment card. Personally, I very rarely ever beat the bastard, and it kills me. (Then reanimates my corpse to do its bidding.)
How exactly does Aether Adept combo with Curfew?
Basically it is really annoying for your opponent. Whatever creature he returns, you return Adept. When he replays the creature, you replay Adept. Basically the combo lets you waste three of his turns in a row.
Three turn win unquenchable fire and grave… underworld dreams and lilliana’s caress and wheel of fortune… and or the rack.. GAME OVER