What the Continental Champion is Playing These Days

The Drums of War Block format is shaping up to be focused on two distinct things: big allies that are hard to kill and Vanquish effects. Both those facts shape up very well for Horde Mage decks.
Will of the Forsaken is a power that was just outside the realm of tournament worthiness in Constructed, but it¡¯s making a huge impact in the slower Block format. In a format where it seems like every deck is packing at least four Vanquishes, Will of the Forsaken is a power that can be difficult for a lot of decks to handle. When you look at the cards that are already popular in the format, cards like Deadliness, Slash and Dash, Hesriana, Wub's Cursed Hexblade, Horrify, and several others are almost completely worthless against this type of deck.
With 16 Will of the Forsaken allies in Corey's version and 20 in Chris's deck, most of their opponents will find themselves reduced to trying to kill allies the old fashioned way, dealing fatal damage to them. That's where Dethvir steps in. Any kind of AoE damage can't kill the forsaken because Dethvir steps up and takes one for the team. In this area, Chris's deck has a little bit of added versatility with the inclusion of Undercity.
With the Undead capitol location, Chris has the option to continuously heal damage from Dethvir. This ability cannot be underestimated. It allows Chris's deck the option to trade Dethvir's health to maintain board position. Just looking at what is shaping up to be a common scenario in the Block format, Dethvir lets you attack an opposing Sivandra with your own letting Dethvir take the damage and keeping your own Sivandra. When you add Undercity to the equation, you can make even more favorable trades. In fact, in our example once you remove Sivandra from your opponent's graveyard, it's only like the combat never even took place.
So, it's becoming obvious why Will of the Forsaken is a strong choice, but why is Mage taking the front seat when it comes to playing the Undead?
There are only a couple of cards that are present in both versions of the deck. First is one of the Constructed Mage staples, The Taste of Arcana. Both decks are designed heavily around maintaining tempo; Taste is one of the most tempo-centric cards in the game, and this is the type of deck where it really shines. The deck seeks to gain an early advantage in board position so that it can then lean on its interrupts in Taste and Nether Fissure to help maintain that advantageous position.
Another card that was in both decks is Mana Ruby. The card is turning out to be one of the most powerful cards in the format. It's not uncommon for this deck to draw 6 or 7 cards off of Ruby. In this deck it ¡°only¡± draws a full hand. In some of the Alliance decks, I've seen a Ruby combo with some of the Spigotgulp family to turn down an opponent's entire resource row, clear his entire board of allies, then draw a full hand of cards.
Mana Ruby is one of the biggest reasons to play Mage with this deck. I was playtesting against a similar deck with new Darkmoon Faire Champion, Phillip Martin, and I think he summed this card up best. ¡°You do realize if I ready with that card in play, I win right?¡±
Corey's deck is more aggressive. He chose to play the only non-Will of the Forsaken ally, Keldor the Lost. This guy is a tempo machine. When your deck is built around establishing and maintaining tempo, being able to delay all of your opponent's allies from entering play for an extra turn is exactly what you're looking for. With an Eye of the Storm, you will even be able to do it at no resource cost, which is the part that the tempo-craving deck really wants.
Corey also chose to go with a lower overall cost and play the damage over time card Everlasting Cold. Combo'd with some of the frost effects in the deck like Blizzard or Brittilize, it can become a significant source of damage all its own. While your opponent scrambles to handle the board, the damage from these types of cards slowly builds up until you suddenly find yourself down to your last few health and scrambling to remove a Mage's DoT.
Article source:entertainment.upperdeck.com.

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