A Dance of Ogres

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How to play an Ogre Rush deck

Step 1 - Building the deck

The decklist I use uses a lot of legendaries, but the only required one is [Card=40]Magnus King of Meroval[/Card].

Here is a substitute decklist that is almost as strong, and much cheaper to craft:

Additionally, the following cards are less reliable/consistent, but can have some wow moments and are fun to try:

  • [Card=204]Krog the Ogre King[/Card]
  • [Card=64]Imperial Drain[/Card] use one only

Step 2 - Mulligan

First, Mulligan for any cards that give you faeria discounts. You also keep [Card=202]Seifer[/Card], and Time of Legends if going second.
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Second, you can also follow these helpful rules:

  1. If you start with 2 of [Card=247]Ogre Dance[/Card] / [Card=357]Blood Song[/Card], dont mulligan a non-[Card=250]Ignus[/Card] creature. You dont want a 3 Ogre Dance hand.
  2. You can keep one of [Card=192]Kobold Warlord[/Card] / [Card=206]Boulder Thrower[/Card] / [Card=38]Kings Guard[/Card] if going second.
  3. If you have [Card=40]Magnus[/Card], dont keep [Card=249]Red Devil[/Card].

Step 3 - Land Placement

There are two basic ways to place land with this deck. Playing land is straightforward and easy with this deck.

This is your standard land configuration. Its pretty simple.
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This is how you place land against rush. The goal is to only allow him lands on one side of your orb, where you will create a wall of big creatures.
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Remember, controlling wells is not very important in this deck. Having multiple routes to the enemy orb is more important. This is because your cards mostly cost about 7, so without discounts you play about one card every two turns whether or not you control a well.

Step 4 - Playing Creatures

Your best initial creature play is [Card=40]Magnus[/Card], followed by [Card=202]Seifer[/Card].

After that you typically want [Card=249]Red Devil[/Card] the most, but it depends on your hand and the enemy board. Use your best judgement.

Always save [Card=358]Hellfire[/Card] for removal. Dont use it for orb damage unless you have a fairly guaranteed kill.

Step 5 - Which to play? Bold Bargainer, Ogre Dance or Blood Song?

Most of the difficulty in this deck comes from manipulating these three cards. There are no hard rules, it depends on the game and your hand. But here are some helpful ideas.

  1. Bold Bargainer is usually the best, because he gives you a creature on the board even if the bargain RNG goes badly.
  2. Ogre Dance > Blood Song when you have a hand of 4+ cards.
  3. Blood Song > Ogre Dance when you have a hand of 2-3 cards.

Step 6 - Using the Power Wheel

Once you have 3 mountains and at least 2 in good attack positions, you can really just stop building lands.

In that situation, +1 card is better than +1f in this deck, unless +1f gets you a specific play. This is because about half your deck is bargain cards that net you something around a 3f gain, so +1 card is equivalent to about +1.5f.

And thats about it. It is really a fairly simple deck to play, once you get used to playing your bargain cards in the correct order. That does take a little getting used to, since no other decks have that kind of mechanic to that degree.

Enjoy!

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