[Competitive] 10-0 with Arlinn (600 pts)

[RedReVenge]

Hello everyone,

I'm a long time player and first time poster.

I recently picked up all three sets at my local shop for ~40 dollars. One of the first strategies that my buddy developed was Twinflame + Seize the Day + a Goblin creature. Essentially this little guy would wreck anything figure that he touches. This got me thinking. How can I exploit Twinflame for maximum damage output?

This led me to creating the following list:

Arlinn Kord, Goldnight Outcast [340]
Kessig Rangers [90]
Blazing Firecats [100]
Mad Prophet [70]

Spells:

Primeval Light [35]
Bountiful Harvest [15]
Titanic Growth [10]
Groundswell [10]
Snare the Skies [10]
Equestrian Skill [10]

Stubborn Resilience [30]
Senseless Rage [20]
Power of Fire [20]
Stroke of Flames [15]
Twinflame [15]
Chandra's Fury [10]

So far I am undefeated with this list. Here's the plan:

Basically we use Stroke of Flames / Chandra's Fury to buff Arlinn to 5 attacks. We use positioning and her obnoxious range to weaken threats. Along the way we can summon our Kessig Rangers for support. If our opponent chooses to engage Arlin, then we can resort to Twinflame + Titanic Growth + Kessig Rangers to destroy that target.

If Arlinn needs extra help, I can summon Firecats or Prophet for immediate damage output. If you don't like the Firecats you can always swap them for Goblins, however I found that having 4 defense and 2 life is better than having 3 life and 2 defense. This is because of the plethora of spells that automatically kill creatures.

I love Stubborn Resilience because once the Kessig squad is down to 1 model, that model becomes an absolute beast. Equestrian Skill is also extremely potent on the Rangers. This allows them to move out of LOS/Range after shooting. The cards that I'm currently testing are: Senseless Rage and Bountiful Harvest.

Lastly, what are the weaknesses to this list? What should I change? From what I've experienced, I believe this list is an absolute powerhouse. I can't even beat it when my friends pilot it!

 

[Kajoq]

Seems like a solid list! The deck is focused and doesn't have much in the way of potentially dead draws. Bountiful Havest is probably a little more symmetric than you'd really like since you have a number of enchants yourself, but sometimes you need something to break through Unsummon no matter what.

As far as bad matchups, Have you tried it against @capsocrates ' Sorin and the Auto-Wounders squad? (Sorin, Avacyn, Eldrazi Ruiner)
I feel like Caps is on to something there with that being a 'meta' squad that everything needs to be able to at have a reasonable matchup against to be considered truly competitive.

 

[lefton4ya]

I'll have to try that. Thanks for posing.

 

[Khamul]

As far as bad matchups, Have you tried it against @capsocrates ' Sorin and the Auto-Wounders squad? (Sorin, Avacyn, Eldrazi Ruiner)
I feel like Caps is on to something there with that being a 'meta' squad that everything needs to be able to at have a reasonable matchup against to be considered truly competitive.

Funny that you ask, because I played three games against that Sorin-Army today, and... lost all three. However, my opponent and me agreed that all of those losses were due to sheer bad luck.

Game 1 Arlinn got cornered by the Eldrazi and I tried to burst it down with a Stroke-boosted Prophet and Firecat and a boosted Arlinn, all of these with height advantage. Missed the kill by one point, then at the Eldrazi's turn Corpse Lunge + Lifelink + First Strike, and my army was devastated, with Eldrazi at full health again x(

Game 2 I got an opening on Sorin, with the 2 hasters and Groundswell on Arlinn. Did 3 damage in the haste attacks, and then Arlinn completely whiffed. After that, the Eldrazi laid waste to my army.

Game 2 I finally managed to mow down Sorin with the Kessig Rangers (Twinflame + Snare the skies) But this should still not be a win: After the Eldrazi survived the hasters (again...), it rolled SIX SWORDS on Arlinn, with her of course getting no shields... Elrazi died soon after but Avacyn killed the rest of my army.

What I learned from these games? I love that Arlinn build. No Planeswalker is safe with all the burst damage she can dish out. I'm still a bit salty about my losses against Sorin & the Auto-Wounders... That Army definitely is a deal.
I've already figured that targeting the Eldrazi is useless as long as Sorin's alive. So sniping down Sorin should be top priority.
Any additional advice?

Anyways, I love that build and I'll definitely try to master it. It seems like a real blast to play
Thanks for sharing the list.

 

[RedReVenge]

Seems like a solid list! The deck is focused and doesn't have much in the way of potentially dead draws. Bountiful Havest is probably a little more symmetric than you'd really like since you have a number of enchants yourself, but sometimes you need something to break through Unsummon no matter what.

As far as bad matchups, Have you tried it against @capsocrates ' Sorin and the Auto-Wounders squad? (Sorin, Avacyn, Eldrazi Ruiner)
I feel like Caps is on to something there with that being a 'meta' squad that everything needs to be able to at have a reasonable matchup against to be considered truly competitive.

I have not played against that list yet. I definitely plan to play against the auto-wound list for my next game. I think the key to playing this list is the Kessig Rangers. Twin Flame + Titanic Growth on a Kessig figure. This allows him to roll 6 dice (7 with height advantage). You also get to shoot with him twice! On average you should do 3 wounds per volley (this turns to 6 wounds due to twinflame) and after his second volley, a total of 12 wounds!

Eldrazi Monster gets +5 Defense against ranged attacks. So on average it should save ~2 wounds per volley. 12 - 4 wounds = 8 wounds dealt (dead Eldrazi). This also doesn't factor in the other Ranger that gets to shoot.

If you are having trouble drawing the card combo, then just stall the game with Arlin's movement [7]. Once you draw Twinflame + Titanic Growth, plan to set up the combo. I forgot to mention that Snare the Skies is a perfect card that gives our Rangers Range 7. This is extremely powerful and typically surprises the opponent!

Note: My playgroup plays with 3 Master sets of terrain + a few expansions.

 

[Sir Heroscape]

As far as bad matchups, Have you tried it against @capsocrates ' Sorin and the Auto-Wounders squad? (Sorin, Avacyn, Eldrazi Ruiner)
I feel like Caps is on to something there with that being a 'meta' squad that everything needs to be able to at have a reasonable matchup against to be considered truly competitive.

Funny that you ask, because I played three games against that Sorin-Army today, and... lost all three. However, my opponent and me agreed that all of those losses were due to sheer bad luck.

Game 1 Arlinn got cornered by the Eldrazi and I tried to burst it down with a Stroke-boosted Prophet and Firecat and a boosted Arlinn, all of these with height advantage. Missed the kill by one point, then at the Eldrazi's turn Corpse Lunge + Lifelink + First Strike, and my army was devastated, with Eldrazi at full health again x(

Game 2 I got an opening on Sorin, with the 2 hasters and Groundswell on Arlinn. Did 3 damage in the haste attacks, and then Arlinn completely whiffed. After that, the Eldrazi laid waste to my army.

Game 2 I finally managed to mow down Sorin with the Kessig Rangers (Twinflame + Snare the skies) But this should still not be a win: After the Eldrazi survived the hasters (again...), it rolled SIX SWORDS on Arlinn, with her of course getting no shields... Elrazi died soon after but Avacyn killed the rest of my army.

What I learned from these games? I love that Arlinn build. No Planeswalker is safe with all the burst damage she can dish out. I'm still a bit salty about my losses against Sorin & the Auto-Wounders... That Army definitely is a deal.
I've already figured that targeting the Eldrazi is useless as long as Sorin's alive. So sniping down Sorin should be top priority.
Any additional advice?

Anyways, I love that build and I'll definitely try to master it. It seems like a real blast to play
Thanks for sharing the list.

Check out my latest battle video and see what you think. @Tiranx and I just used @capsocrates army vs. heroscape.

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTlO911sQRM"]video[/ame]

 

[Unhinged Manchild]

As far as bad matchups, Have you tried it against @capsocrates ' Sorin and the Auto-Wounders squad? (Sorin, Avacyn, Eldrazi Ruiner)
I feel like Caps is on to something there with that being a 'meta' squad that everything needs to be able to at have a reasonable matchup against to be considered truly competitive.

Funny that you ask, because I played three games against that Sorin-Army today, and... lost all three. However, my opponent and me agreed that all of those losses were due to sheer bad luck.

Game 1 Arlinn got cornered by the Eldrazi and I tried to burst it down with a Stroke-boosted Prophet and Firecat and a boosted Arlinn, all of these with height advantage. Missed the kill by one point, then at the Eldrazi's turn Corpse Lunge + Lifelink + First Strike, and my army was devastated, with Eldrazi at full health again x(

Game 2 I got an opening on Sorin, with the 2 hasters and Groundswell on Arlinn. Did 3 damage in the haste attacks, and then Arlinn completely whiffed. After that, the Eldrazi laid waste to my army.

Game 2 I finally managed to mow down Sorin with the Kessig Rangers (Twinflame + Snare the skies) But this should still not be a win: After the Eldrazi survived the hasters (again...), it rolled SIX SWORDS on Arlinn, with her of course getting no shields... Elrazi died soon after but Avacyn killed the rest of my army.

What I learned from these games? I love that Arlinn build. No Planeswalker is safe with all the burst damage she can dish out. I'm still a bit salty about my losses against Sorin & the Auto-Wounders... That Army definitely is a deal.
I've already figured that targeting the Eldrazi is useless as long as Sorin's alive. So sniping down Sorin should be top priority.
Any additional advice?

Anyways, I love that build and I'll definitely try to master it. It seems like a real blast to play
Thanks for sharing the list.

Interesting, I've both used an Arlinn build very similar to OP and even watched other players go at it, and in 5 games I've not seen this Arlinn build lose against Sorin + heroes. Perhaps we don't know how to use Sorin to combat Arlinn, idk. 100% agree that Arlinn should look to gun down Sorin if he comes anywhere near. My favorite Arlinn build, personally:

Arlinn Kord, Goldnight Outcast [340]
Kessig Rangers [90]
Blazing Firecats [100]
Mad Prophet [70]

600 pts

Deck:
Overrun [25]
Leaf Arrow [20]
Bountiful Harvest [15]
Titanic Growth [10]
Groundswell [10]
Snare the Skies [10]
Stubborn Resilience [30] (or Firebreathing [30])
Senseless Rage [20]
Power of Fire [20]
Stoke of Flames [15] (or Paths Revealed [15])
Twinflame [15]
Seize the Day [10]
200 pts

The primary wincon is Twinflame, stupid OP card. Twinflame + Titanic Growth + Kessig double attack, although it's generally fine to just go Twinflame + Kessig double attack as long as your Kessig is tossing 5+ dice (high ground, snare the skies, power of fire, stoke the flames, overrun, power glyph, power counters from Arlinn howl.) Another easy wincon is Firecats + Twinflame + Seize the Day + (2 additional power.) It mimics what the Kessigs do, although it's usually easier with Kessigs due to range. Basically, everything here is for stacking squad power and nuking the enemy Planeswalker with high move/high range creatures.

Most armies just lose to the onslaught of attack dice here. There are way too many high probability opportunities here for killing anyone that gets remotely close to your walker.

Sorin (assuming ruiner + avacyn build) pretty much has to remain far away until your squads are destroyed, and/or until he can confirm Twinflame and maybe even Titanic Growth have been used or destroyed via his black spells like Liliana's Caress or Barter in Blood (no technical access to Duress and Mental Agony, since those are enchant squads and this Sorin build has no squads,) but he's not going to pull that off with any reasonable consistency. IMO Sorin should probably toss Avacyn out early, due to her high mobility, which allows him to hang further back. Perhaps Avacyn can attempt to force Arlinn's hand in expending powerful spells (especially in hoping to bait out sorceries like Twinflame, Titanic Growth, and Overrun.) But, Firecats and Prophet exist for Arlinn, granting her a potentially powerful turn against a nearby Avacyn, even without playing a spell. If Avacyn is unable to make the necessary impact (kill at least one whole squad and/or bait Twinflame/Titanic Growth,) and I'd hazard a guess that she often does not, the game is probably nearly lost at that point.

Ruiner is likely too slow to do much, although if Sorin is running Harrowing Journey I think there is potential to specifically rush Ruiner at Arlinn and kill her, or at least force her to blow powerful wincons to kill him instead of using those on Sorin. Again, Ruiner really needs to apply some major pressure and/or make Arlinn use spells, so that Sorin can cleanup. After Ruiner dies, Twinflame needs to be gone, the haste creatures need to be out of Arlinn's reserve, and/or nearly all of Arlinn's squads dead, otherwise Sorin's chances of winning are probably slim. It's still not pretty because the 1v1 matchup of Arlinn-wolf versus Sorin is almost even; their stats are nearly identical. I'd give a slight nudge to Arlinn due to higher move (7 vs 6) and green's Bountiful Harvest spell healing 3 damage from PW compared to white's Near-death Experience healing 2 damage from PW.

Anyway, big analysis over, I personally think Super Jace (Beleren, not the ****ty Innistrad one) is the one that has the greatest consistency against Arlinn, thanks to things like unsummon, lantern geists, aetherspouts, psychic rebuttal, scatter arc, and misdirection, all often significantly delaying or outright terminating her attempts to kill him. His figure stats are also dummy high for some reason, which tends to help. Although I'd bet Arlinn still wins ~60% of those games.

 

[Unhinged Manchild]

I no longer believe that Arlinn has the strongest army composition, at least at the 600 pt army and 200pt/12 card library standard. Over the last few months, I've been talking to the fellas in the AotP discord, and we've attempted many fights on different maps against 2 variations of this Arlinn build. We've tried Nahiri squad spam, Kiora hero spam, and even the Sorin hero spam build mentioned in this thread against Arlinn, and Nahiri came out winning 1 out of 3, where the others were 0 for 3. Twinflame moment ig.

However, I revisited Jace Beleren and wanted to try some Eldrazi-based stuff, especially considering we are working on our custom AotP set (which will be Eldrazi-themed with colorless spells,) and found an excellent Jace/Ruiner combo at 600 that was using only official AotP release content AND it was pretty consistent against Arlinn, getting 4 wins in 6 games (3 different maps, 2 games each map.) It's a small sample size, but I believe it's close to the truth in the big picture.

Jace tends to be able to, in no particular order:

1. Kill Arlinn's creatures slowly, thanks mostly to Geists, Pore over the Pages, Aetherspouts, and his massive range/power.

2. Eliminate, limit, and/or turn Arlinn's spells against her via Psychic Rebuttal, Misdirection, Eerie Observation, Pieces of the Puzzle, Jace's Erasure, Unsummon, and Aetherspouts.

3. Kill Arlinn via his own giant range/power and/or the Ruiner getting tons of power and mobility from a combination of Ghostly Wings, Essence Flux, Roilmage's Trick and ofc eating the scions at the start of his turn.

I've found that Arlinn tends to need a well-played Primeval Light and/or Twinflame to win, but she runs many enchantments herself, so Primeval Light can be a double-edged sword. Luckily, her major wincons are Titanic Growth and Twinflame, two sorceries. Another thing going for Arlinn in this matchup is how she tends to win even in games where the Planeswalkers trade lives on back to back turns, since (spells generally removed from the equation) her creatures seem to have more offensive presence, while blue's Geists are mere road bumps when they can't be constantly healed and resummoned. Getting Twinflame in the opening hand is a huge indicator that Arlinn can win the game. If Twinflame isn't in her first hand, Jace tends to be able to delete it via Eerie Observation and Jace's Erasure, and the game often feels like a slow bleed out from there. But then there's the other half of the equation where Jace gets Essence Flux and Roilmage's Trick early (he has the means to do this more consistently thanks to Selective Memory and Focused Thoughts,) and Arlinn simply doesn't have the capacity to kill Jace or the Ruiner before she keels over.