While it’s hard to believe, it’s now been almost three months since Marvel Super Heroes hit store shelves. Though much of the hype around the set has died down now, with both The Hobbit and now Reality Fracture rising up in the interim, it still has plenty to offer. This past weekend, for example, Ironheart, Clever Champion, one of the spicier legends from the set, took down a Duel Commander event with an unusual brew.
Ironheart, Clever Champion in Duel Commander
This funky new Ironheart list comes to us via MTG player Fandenunu, and it’s built entirely around abusing the Commander’s Improvise ability. With this, unplayable zero-mana artifacts like Accorder’s Shield and Fountain of Youth suddenly become mana rocks for your other artifacts. Given the low cost of most other artifacts in the deck, it’s trivial to empty your hand early on here.
This playstyle is supported by an extensive card advantage package. Draw engines like Fateful Discovery and The Endstone mesh perfectly with the deck’s playstyle, and can come down for cheap thanks to Improvise. With cards like Upheaval and Paradoxical Outcome
Paradoxical OutcomeReturn any number of target nonland, nontoken permanents you control to their owners' hands. Draw a card for each card returned to your hand this way. to reset all your in-play artifacts, a massive part of Ironheart’s game plan is setting up a big turn with one of its many draw engines.
This go-wide play pattern is also crucial to the deck’s various win conditions, with The Antiquities War being perhaps the most explosive. While it needs to be set up in advance, turning a board full of cheap artifacts into 5/5s will win games in Duel Commander most of the time. Alternatively, you can drop either Kappa Cannoneer or The Fantasticar early, then trigger them with your rapid-fire artifact plays for quick wins.
What’s interesting about Fandenunu’s Ironheart list is that it pairs this aggressive playstyle with a grindy lockdown package. Cards like Defense Grid and Tangle Wire put your opponent on the back foot, while also providing you with mana thanks to Ironheart. In slower matchups, you can also ramp out Ugin, Eye of the Storms early and play it as a one-card Control package while you dig for a win.
A 200 IQ Meta Call?
In the current Duel Commander metagame, Ironheart, Clever Champion actually feels like a pretty good call. The dominant decks right now are mainly fair white value lists, with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Cloud, Midgar Mercenary being particularly widely-played. Against decks like these, Ironheart’s potential for explosive starts can easily get underneath for quick, surprising wins.
One thing worth noting here, however, is that Ironheart, despite being blue, does lack any kind of meaningful interaction. This means the deep removal suites of these white decks have free rein against your creatures, which is a problem since the deck doesn’t run a ton outside of its important win conditions. While its grindy capabilities help here to some degree, it is a notable weak spot for the deck, especially against prepared opponents.
This lack of interaction is also an issue against Reanimator decks like Terra, Magical Adept, and Combo lists like Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice. Without a way to prevent their plays early, Ironheart can easily find itself losing to a single big creature, or an unexpected pop-off. Since these decks can play at a similar speed to Ironheart, these matchups are essentially coin flips in many cases.
Another issue Ironheart faces in Duel Commander right now is a general lack of flexibility. Decks like Brigid, Clachan’s Heart and Slimefoot and Squee can pivot into multiple playstyles depending on the matchup, whereas Ironheart is effectively locked into the turbo artifact plan. While it can stall for a while, ultimately it needs to pull off an explosive play to win, which makes it vulnerable to artifact hate and related disruption.
Overall, while it’s certainly a novel list, Ironheart is unlikely to become a top-tier Duel Commander strategy any time soon. The deck feels a bit feast-or-famine right now, whereas consistency is what really makes a winner in this format. That said, it’s definitely one to watch, as a more balanced, refined version could really shake things up down the line.
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