Amped Up

Concept

Amped Up is an aggressive combo deck based on creature tokens and an explosion of non-creature spell triggers.

Game Plan

The deck aims to rapidly kill the opponent with a swarm of creature tokens pumped or otherwise enhanced through non-creature spell triggers.

In the early game, the objective is to put on the battlefield some 1/1 goblin tokens and at least one combo enabler, while setting up a hand of at least a couple of instant-speed boosters.

When that is achieved, the deck is ready to go off in a single smashing attack.

Deck Composition

The deck can be looked at as a combination of four different packages:

• creatures

• enablers

• triggers

• utility

The enablers are key to the explosiveness of the combo. The deck is capable of winning even without an enabler on the battlefield. However, that would be much harder to achieve.

The creatures package

includes 8 to 12 sorcery-speed spells that generate multiple 1/1 token creatures, mostly goblins. The one-card-multiple-bodies factor is the key element here, as the combos allow spreading the bonuses across your entire army. The more bodies the better. In general, the 12-spell variants seem to be more consistent than the 8-spell ones.

There's not much variety in the card selection in this package. Options include: Dragon Fodder, Servo Exhibition, Krenko's Command, and Hordeling Outburst (3 bodies!). However, any similar card would work in these slots.

The enablers package

includes the key elements to the explosiveness of the deck. This is just two cards: Jeskai Ascendancy, an enchantment, and Zada, Hedron Grinder, a creature.

The Ascendancy is just phenomenal here, as it pumps your entire army for every non-creature spell you cast, and also provides a way to dig through your deck to search for more spells. All known versions include 2 Ascendancies.

Zada, offers a similar effect (without the card filtering) while being herself a body. Zada copies spells that target her onto all other creatures in your army. You pump Zada and she pumps everybody else. Known versions of this deck include 3 or 4 copies of Zada.

These two cards work very well in this deck when they are alone. However, they just do marvels when you have both on the battlefield; in this case, every single spell grants double bonuses to your entire army.

The triggers package

includes 11 to 13 cheap instant-speed spells that grant an attack bonus to a creature. This is the fuel you'll pump onto your attacking tokens, which the Zada-Ascendancy duo will create fireworks from...

The recipe is very simple: instant speed, low mana cost, and a power bonus. The superstar in this category is Defiant Strike (+1/+0), because it also comes with some icing on the power boost cake in the form of card draw, which will get you more fuel for the engine...

Other very strong options, which grant better power bonuses than the Strike (but no card-draw), include: Rush of Adrenaline (+2/+1 and trample), Titan's Strength (+3/+1 and scry), and Uncanny Speed (+3/+0 and haste).

An odd player in this package is Expedite, which grants haste and replaces itself, but does not offer a power bonus. Expedite is only included in some variants of the deck, in 3-4 copies.

The utility package

includes a few slots dedicated to card draw and removal spells. 

Card draw helps with keeping the up pressure and, since it's coming from instant and sorcery spells, also triggers the Ascendancy. Selection ranges from Oona's Grace, to Cathartic Reunion, and to Treasure Cruise. To a certain extent, Expedite can also be seen as a card-draw utility card.

Pure card draw takes between 3 and 4 slots, with additional 4 to 8 card-draw opportunities granted by a combination of Defiant Strike and Expedite.

Shock is the removal spell of choice. All known versions of the deck include a full play-set. Shock is the well know efficient removal option that can remove blockers, but also be shot directly 'to the face' for the final blow, while incidentally triggering the Ascendancy's pumping ability. Not bad at all for a 1 mana instant...

Conclusion

Amped Up is an aggressive combo-ish deck which tries to win with creatures on the battlefield and that offers some interesting timing/sequencing decisions to get the best value out of the many cheap weapons in its arsenal.

The deck doesn't really have a plan B if the explosive one-shot attack falls short of killing the opponent. However, card draw can sometimes enable a second attempt, if the opportunity materializes.

The deck plays on a weaker power level if it doesn't have access (because of removal, counters or just bad draws) to the crazy multiplication effects granted by the Ascendancy or Zada. Another vulnerability is against decks with life gain capabilities, which can keep your opponent out of reach long enough for them to mount their defences.

Signature Cards