Arena Standard - Winota, Leader of the Pack (2021)

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I want to lead off by saying I've submitted a Winota/Dogs deck before. It was well recieved and the MTGA assistant gave it a 62% win rate (which is darn good), and it was absolute rubbish compared to the deck I present to you now, so I straight up deleted it altogether. Forget about "pawblade", and re-enter rotation proof Winota, Leader of the Pack.

AND wouldn't you know it, for you paper players this deck comes in at less than $70. That's not a bad budget to beat your local game store competitors into submission.

On turn one we have only one play, selfless savior. We will use this card to attack early against control, and we will use it later potentially to protect Winota.

On turn two we have several plays to make up for our lack of one drops. In the order we wish to play them are Alpine Watchdog, Pack Leader, Alpine Houndmaster, and Igneous Cur. Pack Leader pumps all of our other pups, protects our pups from combat damage on the attack, and triggers Winota along with all of our other pups over and over again because they do not take combat damage, and therefore, will not be blocked into our graveyard. In my first rendition of this deck I said we didn't need igneous cur because we didn't run hallow blade... I was dead wrong; now we run two copies each of igneous cur and alpine Watchdog. Why? Because both get pumped by Pack Leader and both trigger Winota, not to mention the card advantage we get against control decks. Simply put, Alpine houndmaster is deceptively powerful in more than one way (more on the other way in a bit).

On turn three we have three plays Anax, Bolt Hound, and Subira. If we have Pack Leader, and especially if we also have selfless savior on the field on the battlefield the play is bolt hound and attack with everything as this will overrun our opponent nine times out of ten. If we are worried about getting our board swept by a control deck, we play Anax so if our board does get swept, we can still play Winota on turn four and have plenty of non-human creatures to trigger her ability. Subira is the last turn three play we wish to make, but that doesn't make it any less powerful. We will mainly use her to refill our hand should for some weird reason we don't have one; I've yet to run out of gas with this deck. 

On turn four we have two different plays; Winota, and Basri's Lieutenant. Hopefully we never have to outright play Basri's Lt. because we want to cheat it and alpine houndmaster out with Winota. We have to be careful though. If our opponent is expecting Winota they may be holding removal for it, but that is why we have selfless savior. Basri's Lt. is great because when it enters the battlefield we get to put a +1/1 counter on one of our creatures, and on top of that, if that creature dies, it is replaced with a non-human knight that can trigger Winota. That being said, if we aren't presenting lethal damage, we should use the +1/1 counter to protect a creature that otherwise wouldn't trigger Winota.

We also run three copies of Embercleave. In my original, non-extensive deck guide, I said "because duh". I regret that. Allow me to explain exactly how we wish to use embercleave. Our main target is, of course Anax, because Anax's power increases with devotion to red so putting embercleave on Anax always makes him at least a 4/3 double strike, but I've found his power is often a little bit more than that by this time. Our other main target for it are alpine houndmaster (because if we attack all out it normally attacks as a 7/2, and giving a 7/2 double strike can, and does end games in short fashion). Do not be afraid to slap embercleave on Pack Leader, or bolt hound, or anything else in the absence of other targets, as our opponent should also find that scenario equally hard to deal with.

*This deck regularly wins best of one games by round four, five, or six. The deck wins against Ugin decks before Ugin can be played. I've found it's only true weakness to be decks that are able to play Elder Gargaroth on curve (without embercleave on curve we will most like lose to this card). I want to include the caveat that while you will get triggers with Winota, you may whiff on some, but this deck can win with an onlslaught of pups alone, so I've deemed it worth it to miss on a few triggers for a more powerful early game. I know there are many variations of this deck out there and they are all quite similar, but forget about jamming seasoned hallowblade, Kenrith or any other jank, because I honestly feel this is the optimal competitive version and I am willing to stake the BillyRed name on it.* 

Thank y'all for y'all's support, it means the world to me. If there is a card, cards, or deck theme you'd like to see put together, I'd love to brew it up for you. I'm very excited about giving y'all tons of fresh content for the upcoming set release. Again, thank you my friends, and as always, good luck!

p.s. This is another one of my late night submitions, and I do all of these deck guides from my cell phone, so please excuse any typos. I swear I've got a college degree in something ;)

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4 comments

BillyRed
I cant thank you, and the community in general, for the support I've gotten since I began posting decks! It literally mean the world to me. While it would be great to get an affiliation for all the work I spend writing deck guides and generally making sure MTG players worldwide have fun with the decks I brew (ahem... for you fellas with the money, I sure am running low on wild cards to playtest decks), I'm proud do do it for the love of one of the greatest strategy games ever made. Enjoy!
Rayvenhaus
Love this idea, looking forward to playing it.
BillyRed
Of course! Thanks for showing love!
Sirrius
thanks for the brew man
BillyRed
Last Updated: 14 Sep 2020
Created: 13 Sep 2020
1248 694 4

Mainboard - 60 cards (15 distinct)

Creature (32)
$0.47€0.230.03
$0.24€0.070.03
$0.49€0.270.02
$0.20€0.060.03
$0.25€0.080.03
$0.25€0.120.03
$0.30€0.140.03
$0.35€0.210.02
$0.39€0.320.02
$4.90€5.260.18
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (3)
$6.91€5.410.36
Land (25)
$0.49€0.320.06
$0.40€0.310.02

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