This series has been going for long enough that we've seen a nice transition from people having had similar sentiments to the ones I had when I started this series (which boiled down, pithily, to, "Don't be that guy") and wanting to know if the decks they already have are good examples of a 75% deck to people who built their whole decks during a time when most or all of our principles were established. Both have been gratifying.

This week, a reader named J. Engel sent me a deck based around Aurelia, the Warleader and built with the 75% principles in mind. This is the real test of a deck-building philosophy. Anyone can talk about a vague sense of "fairness" and use cards to justify his or her own personal biases and deck-building quirks. But if a neutral third party can follow your list of instructions and come up with something that meets all of your deckspectations, you know you're on to something. I would like to think I am on to something here, so let's take a look at what J. Engel has to say.

It sounds like this deck was almost entirely built with my advice in mind. Eschewing tutoring for moderate card-draw, leaving opponents’ mana bases alone despite being in the colors that give us cards like Armageddon and Wildfire, and skewing toward consistency rather than power without being so homogeneous that we always win the same way and building a deck that feels personal (J's name is angel in German) sounds like a great approach.

He finishes;

The deck needs to be fun to play with and fun to play against. It has to be capable of beating well-tuned decks without being arduous for fun decks. If it does all of these things, I am ready to call it a success. We're not going to nitpick and make sure it follows all of our 75% guidelines, because those are there to help us build, not to qualify or disqualify a deck when it's built. So how did we do?

Aurelia, the Warleader ? Commander | J. Engel

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Angel of Finality
• 1 Angel of Serenity
• 1 Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1 Angelic Arbiter
• 1 Angelic Skirmisher
• 1 Archangel of Thune
• 1 Archon of Justice
• 1 Balefire Liege
• 1 Boros Battleshaper
• 1 Boros Reckoner
• 1 Celestial Archon
• 1 Conquering Manticore
• 1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
• 1 Emancipation Angel
• 1 Fencing Ace
• 1 Firemane Avenger
• 1 Foundry Champion
• 1 Frontline Medic
• 1 Intrepid Hero
• 1 Kazandu Blademaster
• 1 Molten Primordial
• 1 Scion of Vitu-Ghazi
• 1 Springjack Shepherd
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Wildfire Cerberus
• 1 Darien, King of Kjeldor
• 1 Homura, Human Ascendant
• 1 Kongming, Sleeping Dragon
• 1 Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
• 1 Sensei Golden-Tail
• 1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion

• Spells (30)
• 1 Boros Fury-Shield
• 1 Leave No Trace
• 1 Massive Raid
• 1 Master Warcraft
• 1 Raise the Alarm
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 1 Captain's Call
• 1 Deploy to the Front
• 1 Gaze of Justice
• 1 Gift of Estates
• 1 Launch the Fleet
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Assemble the Legion
• 1 Endless Horizons
• 1 Legion's Initiative
• 1 Light From Within
• 1 Martial Law
• 1 Mobilization
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 Boros Cluestone
• 1 Boros Keyrune
• 1 Hall of Triumph
• 1 Journeyer's Kite
• 1 Loreseeker's Stone
• 1 Manriki-Gusari
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Moonsilver Spear
• 1 Pennon Blade
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Spear of Heliod

• Lands (38)
• 16 Mountain
• 16 Plains
• 1 Ancient Amphitheater
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Windbrisk Heights

Buy This Deck

Looking through the list, I don't see any cards I would cut on the basis of adhering to my vague don't-be-that-guy sensibilities. This seems almost pathologically fair. In fact, I want to see if we can't juice it a little while still maintaining our 75% principles and try to answer J's questions from the end of the e-mail. How is the mana-fixing and ramp? Does it need anything? Let's get into some trouble.

Aurelia, the Warleader ? Commander | J. Alt

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Angel of Finality
• 1 Angel of Serenity
• 1 Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1 Angelic Arbiter
• 1 Angelic Skirmisher
• 1 Archangel of Thune
• 1 Archon of Justice
• 1 Balefire Liege
• 1 Boros Battleshaper
• 1 Boros Reckoner
• 1 Celestial Archon
• 1 Conquering Manticore
• 1 Duergar Hedge-Mage
• 1 Emancipation Angel
• 1 Firemane Avenger
• 1 Foundry Champion
• 1 Frontline Medic
• 1 Intrepid Hero
• 1 Kazandu Blademaster
• 1 Molten Primordial
• 1 Scion of Vitu-Ghazi
• 1 Springjack Shepherd
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Weathered Wayfarer
• 1 Wildfire Cerberus
• 1 Darien, King of Kjeldor
• 1 Homura, Human Ascendant
• 1 Kongming, Sleeping Dragon
• 1 Michiko Konda, Truth Seeker
• 1 Sensei Golden-Tail
• 1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion

• Spells (30)
• 1 Boros Fury-Shield
• 1 Leave No Trace
• 1 Massive Raid
• 1 Master Warcraft
• 1 Oblation
• 1 Wear // Tear
• 1 Captain's Call
• 1 Gaze of Justice
• 1 Gift of Estates
• 1 Insurrection
• 1 Launch the Fleet
• 1 Martial Coup
• 1 Assemble the Legion
• 1 Endless Horizons
• 1 Legion's Initiative
• 1 Light From Within
• 1 Mobilization
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 True Conviction
• 1 Boros Cluestone
• 1 Boros Keyrune
• 1 Hall of Triumph
• 1 Journeyer's Kite
• 1 Loreseeker's Stone
• 1 Manriki-Gusari
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Pennon Blade
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Sunforger
• 1 Spear of Heliod

• Lands (38)
• 13 Plains
• 14 Mountain
• 1 Ancient Amphitheater
• 1 Boros Garrison
• 1 Boros Guildgate
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1 Miren, the Moaning Well
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
• 1 Temple of Triumph
• 1 Windbrisk Heights
• 1 Shinka, the Bloodsoaked Keep

Buy This Deck

I left most of the deck intact, but I felt that there were some things we could tighten up.

I like the Equipment package, but 75% doesn't necessarily mean budget. I didn't want to make the deck a ton more expensive on principle since this feels to an extent as though it were built to be within a general price range, so while I'm not adding Stoneforge Mystic and Sword of Feast and Famine et al, I feel okay adding Sunforger. That fetches a lot of fun spells and can help you out in a jam in addition to helping you hit harder, especially with a double striker.

I changed a few of the spells around–nothing major. Don't be afraid to jam that Insurrection in a deck like this. If your friends hate that spell, joke's on them because if you're trying to get there with tokens, Master Warcraft can be just as devastating if you have the most creatures. I like Endless Horizons as mana-ramp. I might even jam Land Tax, but you don't have to. Weathered Wayfarer does a great approximation anyway. Brightflame seems cheeky and fun and on-theme, but Leave No Trace is a saucy spell that should see more play, and Boros Fury-Shield is a blast from my past. That card saw little Standard play except in a deck I ran, and it blew people out. I realize I sound like a Timmy right now, but I assure you, I was spiking hard at that point in my career, and Fury-Shield was a card that broke combat wide open. Limited combat tricks are rarely good enough to port to Standard, but this got there. Some of the same people who criticized my use of this spell advocated a play set of Plaxmantas. It was a weird time for Standard. We had Kamigawa block for a whole year and forgot how to be good at Magic, so give us a break, okay?

What did we learn from this exercise? Well, we learned that some people may be a bit overcautious when building 75%, but that's not a bad way to be. Once we sleeve this up and jam a few games, we'll know what our liabilities are and how to shore them up. We can play some bigger creatures and better Equipment and not even come close to being too good to take this deck into a game with our casual friends. J. Engel talked about taking the deck to a card shop when finished. I think that's a good idea. A few games can really help expose the deck's strengths and weaknesses. My initial inclination is that the deck can be a great deal more powerful and still do what we want it to do. I'm looking forward to J. taking a few cracks and some practice games and telling me how it performs.

What do you think? Which cards are you fine with telling a perfect stranger not to run, and what absolutely should be in here? How did he do? Should we add another principle to our list to give first-time 75% deck-builders more guidance? Leave it in the comments section. If you have a deck you'd like me to take a look at, hit me up at altjason17 at gmail dot com. Thanks for reading, and we'll see you next week!