Big Fat Flier

Hello Brewers! This won’t be a long deck tech because I don’t have the time but I don’t want this idea to slip pass me!

So this deck tech is my attempt to revisit my Favorable Winds deck that used flying pirates like Siren Stormtamer and Kitesail Freebooter to win a tempo-based game and crash in the skies. My general issues with this deck is that without favorable winds, the deck folds to removal and now with Rivals out, cards like Moment of Craving and Golden Demise hoses this deck even before it takes off (get it?).

So my way to fix this problem is go big and make them go bigger! Red is not known for flying creatures apart from dragons but surprisingly we have a lot of good choices in standard that can take advantage of bigger bodies and occasional synergy.

From 4 through 6 drops we have the set’s biggest and meanest fliers in our color. Rekindling Phoenix is becoming the next best 4-drop once Chandra, Torch of Defiance cycles out.  A 4/3 body that keeps coming back is worth every penny but with Favorable Winds, we are looking at a 5/4 haste that clocks the opponent out in 4 turns.

Glorybringer remains king of the 5-drop fliers thanks to its ability to come down angry and can take down medium-sized creatures with him. What’s better than a 4/4 removal on a stick? A 5/5 removal in a stick, of course!

Lastly we have The Locust God. He’s very cheap now but this deck looks like a great home for him. Favorable Winds turns him into a 5/5 and makes all his 1/1 insects into 2/2s. With multiple Favorable Winds out, each draw you take leaves behind a flying Lightning Bolt.

Let’s step back and see what we can play before turn 4, and there’s a lot to choose from.

Warkite Marauder synergizes well with Glorybringer so you can kill almost anything without Hexproof. It also helps us make our small removal package kill big things like Gods, Dinosaurs among many things thanks to its ability to Vanilla-fy the creature into a 0/1 do-nothing.

Whirler Virtuoso doesn’t fly but with Favorable Winds out, one of these can put out 4-5 power on the board with one casting (2/3 body of a 2/2 or a 3/3 flying Thopter).

We will also play a handful of removal to make sure we get to our mid-game as well a light counter magic suite just to avoid that sweeper that can ruin our game.

For removal we definitely need to play Harnessed Lightning because it helps generate energy to fuel our Whirler Virtuoso for some thopter actions later once we get a couple of Favorable Winds out. I won’t say we have plenty of ways to generate energy but having incidental synergies built into the deck can be relevant sometimes. Magma Spray is there in case we need to exile recurring nuisances like Scrapheap, Khenras, Wanderers or even a Scarab God if we can deal enough to send it to the graveyard for exiling.

We will play a very light counter suite that will help us against early threats or cards we have no way to deal with: Sweepers, Enchantment Removal and Planeswalkers. A well-timed Spell Pierce can ruin our opponent’s plan of Settling or Fumigating our board and lose the game. Negate is there to hard counter draw spells that helps our opponent find the answers to our threats. The Essence Scatter is not just for early creature hate but it’s also there to counter Scarab Gods, Angel of Sanctions, Ravenous Chupacabras and Hazoret.

Here’s the UR Fat Fliers list!

Creatures: 17

3 Warkite Marauder

4 Whirler Virtuoso

4 Rekindling Phoenix

4 Glorybringer

2 The Locust God

Enchantment: 4

4 Favorable Winds

Spells: 14

3 Magma Spray

4 Harnessed Lightning

3 Essence Scatter

1 Spell Pierce

3 Negate

Lands: 25

4 Aether Hub

4 Spirebluff Canal

3 Highland Lake

8 Mountain

6 Island

Sideboard: 15

1 Magma Spray

2 Disallow

3 Supreme Will

3 Torrential Gearhulk

3 Lightning Strike

3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

The sideboard is purely transformative which converts the Aggressive deck into a UR Control Shell. To do the full transformation, we do the following 15-card swap:

1. 4x Favorable Winds
2. 3x Warkite Marauder
3. 4x Whirler Virtuoso
4. 1-2x Glorybringer
5. 1x Spell Pierce
6. 1-2x Negate

Once we go control-mode, we swap out our conditional counter magic with more hard counters like Disallow and Supreme Will. We also take out our little fliers and play Torrential Gearhulk instead. We will be heavier on spells with the new configuration so we can hit more things with the Gearhulk. Negates can stay in and Essence Scatter comes out if you are up against hand disruption.

We will also put in the 4th copy of Magma Spray but also 3 copies of Lightning Strike to have more 2-drop answers to creatures together with Essence Scatter. This is better than Abrade because it hits Planeswalkers but if you have a lot of GPG decks in your meta, then feel free to use Abrade over Lightning Strike.

Lastly we have 3 copies of Chandra, Torch of Defiance to round-up the UR Control package. She will be a good source of inevitability after ticking her up a few times.

For your convenience, here’s how I would switch it to a control configuration.

Creatures: 11

4 Rekindling Phoenix

3 Glorybringer

1 The Locust God

3 Torrential Gearhulk

Planeswalker: 3

3 Chandra, Torch of Defiance

Spells: 21

4 Magma Spray

4 Harnessed Lightning

3 Lightning Strike

2 Disallow

3 Supreme Will

2 Negate

3 Essence Scatter

Lands: 25 (no changes)

That’s it, sorry it ended up long but guess what: I did have the time 🙂

Cheers,

Vanson