EDH Deck Tech Boros Pain and Gain

Editors Note: We would like to introduce John! In today's article we have asked John to write a Double Masters 2022: EDH Deck Tech! If you are new to the format or want to try out a new deck let us introduce you to "Firesong and Sunspeaker Boros Pain and Gain!" Throughtout this article John will be fully breaking down the deck, explaining all the key cards and ways to win!

Double Masters 2022 has finally arrived and it is incredible. Some of these cards have needed a reprint for quite some time. But let's face it, this is a premium product. If you are new to Magic, this can feel pretty overwhelming, not to mention expensive.

With that in mind, I have built a budget deck with one of my favourite commanders from the set. This deck can be bought on Magic Madhouse for £81.88, including the mana base (lands and mana rocks). If we exclude the mana base its much lower at £63.85

The complete deck list can be found on my moxfield.

Let's get into it.

I wouldn't usually dedicate a section to ramp, but I must stress that this deck needs to ramp out in the early game.

So we are including 10 Mana rocks. We also include Mana Geyser, Simian Spirit Guide and Knight of White Orchard to get our commander out as early as possible. We also have Storm-kiln Artist that will generate a treasure when we cast or copy an instant and sorcery card, which can quickly get out of hand.

We are playing red. What's more red than big burn spells? We want to cause as much pain as possible, not only to lower our opponent's life total as fast as possible but also because we gain life from our red spells.

Electrodominance is very good here; we can sink as much mana as we want, gain that life back and then cast another spell for free. If we can sink 9 mana into this, then we can follow it up with a Star of extinction, which will not only gain us 20 life from each creature it hits but will wipe the board, putting us so far ahead that it will be tough for our opponents to catch back up.

If we have our Stormwild Capridor out on the battlefield, we will have a 21/23 flyer on the board poised to take a player out whilst our opponents scramble to recover from a devastating blow.

Targeting one thing is fine, but we want to target each of our opponents at once. Guttersnipe, Kessig Flamebreather and Electrostatic Field are particularly good for this. A deck like this doesn't want to go 1 on 1, so we need to tick our opponents down collectively; getting additional life is just extra good stuff.

We can also benefit from this in other ways. We have a tonne of cards that care specifically about non-combat damage. Syr Carrah, the Bold gets us card advantage when we deal damage with our spells. Toralf, God of Fury, takes any excess damage and lets us direct it to any other target.

Because we are gaining life with all this damage, we can use Dawn of Hope to refill our hands and use Angelic Accord to generate big flying blockers on our end step. We will likely consistently have over 40 lives, so drawing from Cosmos Elixir will not be a problem.

We want to try and get as much use out of our damage spells as possible. Radiant Scrollwielder lets us get a random instant or sorcery back from our graveyard. We can also use Dual Casting to copy any instant or sorcery we want, but our most versatile card for this is Arcane Bombardment which will trigger off the first instant or sorcery we cast each turn.

The most direct way we will win is by bringing as much pain as possible. Dictate of the Twin gods, Angrath's Marauders, Torbran, Thane of Red Fell and Rem Karalous, Stalwart Slayer help us pile the damage on and because it's the source that's dealing the additional damage; we gain more life through the lifelink.

We also have a way to win with Felidar Sovereign, who says if we have 40 or more life at the beginning of our Upkeep, we win the game. If we can keep this around with cards like Indestructibility, then it can be a real problem for our opponents to deal with.

Finally, we have Brash Taunter and Stuffy Doll that we can use to hurt our opponents, especially when we pair these up with Blasphemous Act. Wiping the board and then dealing 13 damage to each of our opponents can close the game out.

If you are new to the format, this is an excellent entry-level deck to try and build on a budget in which the total includes all your mana base. If you have enough land or mana rocks, you can save some money there too.

It's likely that in a deck focused on causing as much damage to our opponents as possible, we will be targeted. We want to start our game unassumingly, then we have an explosive turn playing the big burn spells and taking everyone out in one glorious swoop. Maybe pack some burn cream for FNM too.