Much Abrew: Mardu Mobilize (Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Much Abrew About Nothing! This week, we're heading to Tarkir: Dragonstorm Standard to check out the Mardu clan, which I think sneakily might be one of the strongest in the set. Our goal today is to go all-in on mobilize and the shenanigans that making a bunch of temporary tokens offers—and there are some super-strong ones! How good are Voice of Victory, Zurgo, Thunder's Decree, and friends in Standard? Let's get to the video and find out!
Much Abrew: Mardu Mobilize
Discussion
- Record-wise, Mardu Mobilize crushed it. We went 9-1 with the deck to move up to Diamond on Magic Arena. It seems like Mardu just might be legit!
- The core of the deck are our three mobilize creatures: Stadium Headliner, Voice of Victory, and Zurgo, Thunder's Decree. Stadium Headliner gives us a one-drop that works with our theme, and while it's the weakest of the bunch, it does fill an important hole in our curve. Voice of Victory is insane as a synergistic two-drop that attacks for thee and also shuts down instant-speed interaction. Finally, Zurgo is like a mini–Hero of Bladehold that lets us keep around our mobilize Warriors through our end step, which leads to some incredibly explosive turns. These three cards, and the Warriors they make, are the foundation of our deck today.
- We've also got a couple of backup creatures. Skrelv is weird. I felt like the deck needed another one-drop but couldn't find one I really wanted, so I ended up with Skrelv to protect our mobilize creatures. It feels fine, but I'm hoping to upgrade to something more aggressive. (If you have ideas, let me know in the comments.) Meanwhile, Frontline Rush can make a couple of 1/1 bodies if needed but also be an absurd pump spell. We can attack, making a bunch of mobilize tokens, and then use Frontline Rush to pump an unblocked creature to (hopefully) close out the game on the spot.
- Now, we have our mobilize payoffs. The most important and best is Warleader's Call, which is absurd in our deck. The hybrid Glorious Anthem / Impact Tremors does everything our deck wants, pumping our small creatures and damaging our opponent as we create our mobilize tokens, and it leads to some incredibly explosive draws. For example, let's say we play a Voice of Victory on Turn 2 and then Warleader's Call on Turn 3. Our Voice essentially attacks for eight, as a 2/4 that makes two 2/2s dealing two damage with Warleader's Call when they enter, which is an incredible amount of damage early in the game.
- Finally, we have four cards that are all very different but also do essentially the same thing by doubling up the damage of our mobilize cards. Neriv, Heart of the Storm doubles the damage of creatures that entered this turn, like our mobilize tokens. Initially, I started with four copies. But then I realized that Mishra, Claimed by Gix is still in Standard. It might be even better than Neriv since we can attack with our team and stack our triggers so our mobilize tokens are created first and then Mishra drains equal to the number of creatures we control, which is another way of doubling our mobilize damage. All-Out Assault is just a one-of, but it basically triples our mobilize damage output by both pumping our team +1/+1 and giving us an extra combat step, which allows Stadium Headliner, Voice of Victory, and Zurgo, Thunder's Decree to trigger a second time to make even more tokens. Finally, we have the ever-busted Elspeth, Storm Slayer, which literally doubles the number of mobilize tokens we make with its static ability while also giving us another way to make tokens, some extra removal, and a finisher by sending our team to the air for an alpha strike.
- While the deck feels great overall, the one drawback is the mana. While it is functional, be warned that you'll occasionally have games where you are missing a color and get severely punished as a result, which we saw in some of the games that we lost. (It didn't really feel like our opponent overpowered us; we just sort of lost to ourselves by not being able to cast our spells.) Thankfully, this doesn't seem to be a deal breaker because our record was great. But it is worth keeping in mind that this is the cost of playing a three-color non-green aggro deck in our current format.
- So, should you play Mardu Mobilize in Standard? I think the answer is an easy yes. Sure, sometimes our three-color mana can be clunky, but our 9-1 record speaks for itself. Plus, the deck felt super explosive and competitive. If you like synergistic aggro decks or weird token synergies, give Mardu Mobilize a shot! The deck is super fast and also super fun!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter or Bluesky @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
