Overview:

Arcades, the Strategist leverages high-toughness defender creatures as both card advantage engines and combat threats. The deck focuses on deploying walls for value, using Arcades' ability to turn them into attackers, and winning through incremental combat damage. Key synergies include ETB-based card draw, defensive scaling effects, and backup toughness-to-damage enablers.

Primer:

Core Strategy: This deck aims to flood the board with defender creatures that replace themselves via Arcades' draw trigger, then swing with massive toughness-based damage. The gameplan progresses through three phases:

1. Setup (Turns 1-4): Play mana-efficient walls like Wall of Omens and Wall of Blossoms for early card advantage. Use ramp from Axebane Guardian and Overgrown Battlement to accelerate into Arcades.

2. Engine Activation (Turns 4-6): Protect Arcades with Lightning Greaves and counterspells. Deploy key enhancers like High Alert and Assault Formation as redundancy. Generate tokens with Wingmantle Chaplain to maintain pressure.

3. Closing (Turns 7+): Use evasion enablers like Tetsuko Umezawa and Rogue's Passage to push damage. Finish with overwhelming boards from Last March of the Ents or Unnatural Growth.

Mulligan Priorities:

• 3 lands with green/white/blue access
• At least 1 early defender (≤3 CMC)
• Arcades protection or redundancy pieces Avoid hands without early plays or color fixing.

Key Tips:

• Sequence defenders post-Arcades for maximum draw
• Use Eerie Interlude/Clever Concealment to dodge wipes
• Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth enables Traproot Kami as a massive blocker

Avoid Traps:

• Overcommitting before establishing card draw
• Keeping hands reliant solely on Arcades without backups
• Wasting interaction on non-critical threats

Weaknesses:

Critical:

• Commander dependency (3+ removals cripple strategy)

Moderate:

• Limited combo protection
• Slow recovery from mass removal

Minor:

• Weak to flying/swarm strategies
• Minimal graveyard interaction

Most Important Cards:

• High Alert
• Assault Formation
• Wingmantle Chaplain
• Teferi's Ageless Insight
• Cyclonic Rift
• Axebane Guardian
• Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive
• Panharmonicon
• Last March of the Ents
• Unnatural Growth

Attribute Ratings:

Speed: 5/10

• No fast mana or combo kills. Relies on incremental combat damage typically closing T8-10.

Resilience: 4/10

• Vulnerable to repeated commander removal. Limited recursion beyond Creeping Renaissance. Some blink/phase protection against wipes.

Consistency: 6/10

• Strong draw engine with Arcades + walls. Redundant toughness-to-damage effects. Lacks tutors for key pieces.

Interaction: 5/10

• 8 targeted removals/counters. Lacks free interaction. Relies on Propaganda for passive defense.

Rating Justification:

This deck sits between Optimized Casual (5.0) and High-Power Casual (5.5). It exceeds precon-level synergy with strong card advantage and redundancy but lacks the speed (T8-10 wins vs T8-10 benchmark) and protection of higher tiers. The absence of infinite combos and reliance on combat damage anchor it below true optimized builds.

Power level: 5.0 - 5.5