#bogles

[screampotato]

Sometimes it is very fun to be Scottish, driving across a foggy bog at night discussing kelpies, skelpies and bogles.

[the-fae-folk]

can you tell us about another place? not a city or a court, but some other kind of place. **STAR**

Far from here, past the deep desert canyons and the open plains, there is a forest in a deep valley with mountains that rise high on either side. The trees there are made of blue and purple glass, growing high with reaching branches and bearing white flowers that bloom even in the coldest of winters and leaves of soft green that let the light filter softly down. Some trees rise high above the rest, towering over the canopy with great arms full of yellow leaves that are slightly translucent.

Here and there amidst the valley tower colossal god-trees of immense size, these too are glass, but of a fuliginous colour. But high in the branches these trees give birth to great globes of glass fruit that shine with a luminous center and give light to the forest and the mountains. Deep in the forest there are springs of a strange red water that glows like captured fire and bubbles cold and swift down into pools, rivers, and lakes below. Narrow paved paths lead labyrinthine beneath the canopy and alongside the pools. Those who dwell here call their home “Mairiil’s Grove” after the ancient Ogress Matriarch who crafted and planted the first seeds for the trees as a gift to the Bogles, Kobolds, Pixies, and Sprite tribes that lived in the valley in thanks for their aid in a time of need.

[pauper-planes]

Let's Look At - Bogles/Hexproof

Welcome to what I hope will be an ongoing series looking at different decks and archetypes in the format. I wanted to start strong so today we’ll be looking at a deck archetype that holds a special place in my heart and was the first deck I made in paper, Bogles.

Bogles, also known as Hexproof can be a powerful aggressive deck. The core of the deck is Green/White, but many builds splash one-off cards in other colours. The main aim of the deck is to get a single hexproof creature onto the battlefield, and then attach an increasing amount of enchantments to it, to attack for large amounts of damage. If you enjoy combat and giant creatures, this may well be the deck for you. A word of warning though, while it’s a great deck to pick up and an easy one to start with, it does come with some baggage.  Some players actively dislike hexproof decks and will be very vocal in this opinion, so be careful.

If you are a player who dislikes Hexproof, scroll to the bottom of the article for a guide on how to beat Bogles.

Hexproof?

Hexproof is a keyword that is found mostly on creatures, though there are the odd exceptions. Hexproof means that the creature can’t be targeted by spells or abilities an opponent controls. This means that your hexproof creature can’t be targeted by a lot of your opponent’s removal spells.

Core Cards

Let’s take a look at the core spells of the deck

First up we have the mainstay creatures of the deck. There’s the deck’s namesake, Slippery Bogle, and Gladecover Scout at 1 mana, and Silhana Ledgewalker at 2. These are your hexproof threats, you need to get one of these on the battlefield as early as possible. In fact, these are so important, that when you play the deck you’ll often find yourself mulliganing aggressively to make sure you start the game with one in hand.

Next up are your Land enchantments, Abundant Growth and Utopia Sprawl. These are crucial for fixing your colours and drawing some colours. Utopia Sprawl also helps ramp you, which can be vital if you’re racing towards being able to play multiple spells per turn.

Finally, we have the core creature enchantments. Ethereal Armor and Ancestral Mask can both make your creatures extremely large very quickly. Ancestral Mask also has the benefit of counting your opponent’s enchantments too. Rancor is vital as it can be recurred if your opponent does manage to remove your creature, ensuring you have an enchantment back in hand for a new creature. It also provides trample which prevents your opponent from sticking small creatures in the way of your massive attacks. Armadillo Cloak also provides trample, but it also helps you win a race by gaining life when the creature deals damage. 

An important note here, Armadillo Cloak does not give lifelink, it has a triggered ability. This means that you gain life for each Cloak on the creature.

Flex Slots

So that’s the core of the deck. But we have some flexible slots available to play about with. A couple of options that are very good in the main deck are Cartouche of Solidarity which gives you a 1/1 warrior token as sacrifice fodder for removal spells like Chainer’s Edict. Fling gives the deck a way to win against Stonehorn Dignitary decks, which look to take away all of your combat steps leaving you with a giant Bogle that does nothing. Heliod’s Pilgrim lets you search for a specific enchantment to help you in a certain situation. Kor Skyfisher has been included in builds of the deck for a while, it can pick up your land enchantments to let you draw more cards or reset your fixing, for a while it had faded out of use but has seen an increase in play recently.

The current builds of Bogles have begun to leverage the powerful artifact Arcum’s Astrolabe. Switching to a mana base of Snow Lands allows for Astrolabe to act as another Abundant Growth, drawing you cards and fixing your mana to make sure you can hit your splash colours. Astrolabe is also the main reason that many decks are running 4 Kor Skyfisher in the main again, as the Astrolabe/Skyfisher package is a powerful one.

Sample Decks

Here’s an example of a recent 5-0 Bogles deck from the Magic Online Pauper League. https://www.mtggoldfish.com/deck/2362944#paper

As you can see to make room for the Astrolabe package, they’ve had to trim down the creature numbers, dropping to just 2 Ledgewalkers. Astrolabe also provides sideboard flexibility, allowing the deck to run 4 colours. This decklist is a great example of a good sideboard for an unknown meta. With some common staples in the list. I’m not going to go too in-depth on the sideboard here as I’d like to try to write up a sideboarding guide as a bonus article.

In case you’re interested my personal paper build of Bogles can be found here: https://deckstats.net/decks/129277/1291932-bogles

Aura Gnarlid has been a favourite pet card of mine, often acting as a massive unblockable threat in the late-game. In fact, I’m so attached to the fuzzy critter that I didn’t have the heart to break up the deck to convert it to the snow version, which I’m lobbying to be referred to as “Snowgles”. That means that I’ve just finished putting together a second copy of the deck with all the Astrolabe goodness, you can find that here: https://deckstats.net/decks/129277/1406459-snowgles

How to beat Bogles?

Hello Bogle-haters, here’s the section where we look at how to beat the deck. Bogles players, it’s always useful to know how your strategy can be stopped, it helps you play smarter.

There are a few ways to stop a Bogles deck. You can bring in enchantment removal to get rid of key enchantments, Leave No Trace is a very good example of such a card. Another option is to use counterspells to try to stop them from getting a creature big enough to threaten you. There are also some specific cards that work very well to shut down the deck’s whole plan.

I mentioned Stonehorn Dignitary earlier, big mana decks like Tron will use their mana to flicker it multiple times preventing Bogles from ever attacking again. With the recent prevalence of this deck, they do run two copies of Fling to counter this strategy, but hopefully by the time they’ve found a Fling you’ve got counter magic in hand.

Geth’s Verdict and Chainer’s Edict don’t target a creature, so they can be used to force the Bogles player to sacrifice a creature. Often you’ll find that a Bogles player will look to spend as much mana as possible on enchantments, so you can often find a hole where they only have one creature on their side of the board opening them up a being very disappointed as they have to sacrifice it.

Standard Bearer is a fantastic anti-Bogle card for white decks. If you’ve paid attention to most of the core enchantments in the deck, you’ll notice they all say “enchant creature”. This means they can enchant your creatures as well. Standard Bearer will force those enchantments to target it, effectively preventing the Bogles player from casting any more enchantments until they find a way to remove it.

Aura Flux is not a card you want to add to your sideboard against an unknown field, but if your Local Game Store meta has a known Bogles player, this can be a very powerful way to prevent them from keeping a lot of auras on the board.

Summary

So there you have it, that’s Bogles. I’ve not gone too deep on strategies for this deck because the deck itself is fairly linear. It’s easy to pick up and play if you’re new to the format, or just enjoy smashing in with giant creatures. There are more complex lines to be found as you begin to learn the deck and the metagame around it, so it’s a deck that will grow with you. It may not be a top-tier deck right now, but it’s a tonne of fun to play and I know that I’m almost always likely going to have a build lurking in paper for when I have the urge to suit up a 1/1 and get attacking.

In the meantime I hope this has been useful for you, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with feedback or questions, either here on Tumblr or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PauperPlanes

[misteryada]

Force of Virtue 2WW Enchantment If it's not your turn, you may exile a white card from your hand rather than pay this spell's mana cost. Flash Creatures you control get +1/+1.

Wondering if I should put these in Bogles? Like maybe a 2-of. A boardwide +1 for free could have some positive effects for the deck over having to stack it on a single creature. Also enchantment count for Ethereal Armor.

@island-delver-go @breya-etherium-shaper any other modern players that follow me, opinions?

[jeskaim]

FNM 5/25/18 - Return of the Bogles

Tonight was a night I was looking forward to: the night I take my Bogles deck out for another spin.  Since it’s Memorial Day weekend we didn’t get as big of a turnout as we did last week for Modern but we got six players which is enough to fire even though there were only three rounds.

First round I went up against mono-green Infect and won that pretty easily.  The first and third games he just drew all lands and no spells which made winning easy for me.  Second round I went up against a Tron-like deck and won that one as well.  I was super happy about that because Tron is another deck I’ve never beaten before and even though it wasn’t pure Tron I still won.  I haven’t played against it since the last store I went to so it was good to find out I can (sort of) beat it.

Third round was against my dreaded foe: Storm.  Whether or not it was the same guy I played against last time I don’t know but he won the first game and I won the second.  I kept a hand with ZERO “bogles” in it but had a Leyline of Sanctity and a Rest in Peace so as much as I didn’t want to keep it I had to and I’m sure glad I did.  Then the third round I started out strong and had Eidelon of Rhetoric in my hand (the 1/4 Enchantment Creature that makes it so each player can only cast one spell per turn) and thought I had a chance at winning but then he cast a Blood Moon and completely screwed me up so I lost.  I won second place though so I got a promo (Cast Down) and three packs which I didn’t get anything that good out of.

Overall I had a good night and went 2-1 which is better than average for me.  Now that I’m back to playing Modern again I can get used to the different decks and find strategies to beat them.  Next week I’m leaning towards Draft to test my luck again.

[mtg-talk]

Gods are cool and all but my Bogles deck reeeeeally wants this card. Might replace Hyena Umbra. I think the token it makes is more valuable than Totem Armor. I see a lot more Liliana than I see Wraths....

[misteryada]

I’m currently weighing the viability of Cartouche of Solidarity in G/W Bogles. The only spot I think it could take is Hyena Umbra, but the Totem Armor protects against possible boardwipes. On the other hand, the token of the Cartouche helps vs Liliana, and “creature you control” fights a sideboard Spellskite.

I also have Spider Umbras I could swap for but I don’t want to lean too heavy on one color and like the idea to be able to block flyers.

@island-delver-go @imperialseal Anyone else that has knowledge in Modern could possibly weigh in?

[mtg-talk]

GP Pitt

Just finished a modern side event at GP Pitt! Went 3-1-Split, ended with 540 Tix. Now I just have to figure out what to get off the prize wall. Bogles still working for me, after some minor tweaking last minute. Wins against Sun Titan ETB tribal, GW Allies, and BW Eldrazi. My one match loss was to Jund. I sideboarded a little wrong, and made a judgement call that didn't work out. All in all a fun day, the most magic I've been able to play in a while. I COULD come back Sunday but I don't think I want to make the drive. Anyone else putting up good results this weekend?