Amalia Aguirre's Wildgrowth Ride [Primer]

Pioneer BGW (Abzan, Junk) Collected Company Combo Competitive Explore Infinite Combo Lifegain Primer

TheJankTrain

Land (21)

• 1x Brushland
• 1x Caves of Koilos
• 1x Concealed Courtyard
• 2x Field of Ruin
• 2x Forest
• 3x Godless Shrine
• 2x Indatha Triome
• 1x Llanowar Wastes
• 2x Overgrown Tomb
• 1x Plains
• 1x Razorverge Thicket
• 1x Swamp
• 3x Temple Garden

Creature (25)

• 4x Amalia Benavides Aguirre
• 2x Cenote Scout
• 4x Dina, Soul Steeper
• 3x Fiend Artisan
• 4x Lunarch Veteran  ^Flip
• 4x Prosperous Innkeeper
• 4x Wildgrowth Walker

Instant (8)

• 2x Chord of Calling
• 4x Collected Company
• 2x Tamiyo's Safekeeping

Sorcery (3)

• 3x Helping Hand

Planeswalker (3)

• 3x Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler

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Sideboard

Creature (5)

• 1x Masked Vandal
• 1x Melira, the Living Cure
• 1x Scavenging Ooze
• 1x Skyclave Apparition
• 1x Werefox Bodyguard

Instant (4)

• 2x Fatal Push
• 2x Get Lost

Artifact (2)

• 2x Damping Sphere

Sorcery (4)

• 2x Go Blank
• 2x Thoughtseize

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Abzan's Got A New Waifu!

If you're like me, you saw Amalia Benavides Aguirre get spoiled and immediately realised its potential with Wildgrowth Walker for a turn 3 kill using just three cards. That being said, when I started building this deck, even I couldn't have predicted just how formidable it can really be. Turn 3 is the nut, but this deck can consistently win on turn 4 or 5 even when your opponent is disrupting your plays, and even has other angles of attack beyond just an infinite combo that even politely shuts itself off once you're ready to win!

Having already had a blast piloting this deck, I've decided to write what I hope to be an evolving primer on how you too can understand Abzan's newest creature toolbox. Without further ado then, let's get into Amalia Aguirre's Wildgrowth Ride. Next stop: A 21/21!

The Deck's Core Show

As mentioned in the introduction, the deck revolves around an (almost) two card combo: Amalia Benavides Aguirre and Wildgrowth Walker. With both out the two will combo off each other until Amelia hits 20 power, after which she'll wrath the board and end the cycle, allowing you to swing for 21 damage (she gets one last explore trigger) as early as turn 3.

An important note with this combination though is that neither Amalia nor Walker have 'may' clauses in their abilities. As you can explore on an empty library, should the walker survive Amalia's boardwipe or the loop is triggered after Amalia has gone above 20 power, the pair will infinitely explore, thus ending the game in the draw. In the unlikely event that you manage to combo off and your opponent survives, you'll need a fresh Amalia before starting it again.

I say this is 'almost' a two card combo as technically on their own the two can't quite begin the cycle: You need to either explore (to trigger the Wildgrowth Walker) or gain life (to trigger Amalia) first. My original plan with the deck was to run an explore package using Twists and Turns   and Jadelight Spelunker, along with Kellan, Daring Traveler to both dig for creatures and create maps that can be used to start the cycle. While I definitely think there's potential in here, and exploring did indeed let you dig deeper, ultimately I found that this angle just wasn't as quick or effective as the lifegain angle, as lifegain simply has a lot more support than explore does.

Kickstart the Explore Engine Show

With us focusing on the lifegain angle, a few creatures are obvious 4-of includes. These are Lunarch Veteran   and Prosperous Innkeeper, both of which can handily start our combo off while also providing a sneaky additional angle of attack that'll be explored later. Inkeeper can also be used to set up for a turn 3 Collected Company or even to just cast two 2-drops on turn 4 to begin the combo and win the game on the spot. Now is where it's also relevant to point out that Tamiyo's Safekeeping provides two points of lfiegain, and can be used to start the combo at instant-speed. Again, remember to not target the walker with it, else you'll end the game in a draw.

Finally, one relic of the explore package did indeed make it through to the deck as it currently stands: Cenote Scout. We only run two of these as although they're useful to dig, they really add nothing other than a 1-mana method of starting the combo - highly relevant as our tutors all care about the CMC of tutored cards.

Finding the Puzzle Pieces Show

Pioneer has quite a few useful pieces to help tutor up creatures - Chord of Calling is the obvious one that requires no introduction, but we also run three copies of Fiend Artisan, which can act as a repeatable tutoring and can grow to a surprisingly large body to swing in for damage in the event that our opponent manages to disrupt us out of the combo. Other cards that help us find the combo but aren't tutors are Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and Collected Company. Again, Company requires no introduction, but Tyvar acts as a sort of baby CoCo in this deck as all our creaatures are 2CMC or less, and as a bonus synergises well with Fiend Artisan by both untapping it and allowing it to activate the turn it comes in.

One last relevant thing to mention with Collected Company is the maths behind it. With the 25 creatures we run in the mainboard there's an 80.5% chance of us hitting at least two creatures, but our sideboard is primarily cards to help with the control match or one-of toolbox creatures to tutor up when they're needed. Because of this, Company's odds can go down as low as 66% post-sideboard, which reduces the number of copies you should run.

Lifegain, Lifedrain Show

Although we obviously need to run black so that we can cast Amalia, I had initially overlooked a very powerful alternate angle of attack that we can go down with access to black mana: Lifedrain. More specifically, Dina, Soul Steeper, which does a few interesting things in this deck. As we have eight different cards doing their best Soul Sister impersonation, we can actually drain our opponents surprisingly low through casual pings over the course of the game. She also, crucially, kills during the combo, which can help if Amalia's got summoning sickness or our opponent has instant-speed blockers once the board's been wiped.

Withstanding Disruption Show

We have a few ways to keep ourselves going in the face of sustained disruption. Helping Hand can bring a piece back from the graveyard if it gets discarded or killed, and Tamiyo's Safekeeping can either protect one of our pieces or be used to start the combo in response to instant-speed interaction by an opponent. Tyvar can also pull a creature back from the graveyard, providing another layer of security as well as digging for our pieces.

The Sideboard (WIP) Show

WIP

And there we go! I hope with this guide you're ready to take our latest vampire waifu to success!

Top Ranked	Achieved #5 position in Pioneer 5 months ago Achieved #2 position in Pioneer Combo 5 months ago Achieved #2 position in Pioneer Lifegain 5 months ago
Date added	6 months
Last updated	6 months
Legality	This deck is Pioneer legal.
Rarity (main - side)	3 - 2 Mythic Rares 28 - 6 Rares 19 - 6 Uncommons 6 - 1 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.15
Tokens	Illusion */* U, Map, Treasure