Ian's soldiers

How does it play?

Just from my perspective (you don't need to take anything I say) you could use a bit of adjusting, and definitely a better mana curve.

Two of my biggest things are both sideboarded (for consideration?), Honor of the Pure and Timely Reinforcements are good strong maindeck for any white deck, not only soldiers. These fit as very good second and third turn plays. (From my experience at least one of Timely's abilities will be worth it.) Honor should most likely replace Mobilization as vigilance is not necessarily very useful.

Captain of the watch is a good lord and all, but is nothing compared to Hero of Bladehold. (Battlecry works wonders here) Realistically, Captain won't even make it onto the field before the game is over.

Though Daru Warchief is good, he's not necessarily cost efficient, and most likely won't be useful late game. I would suggest replacing him with a good drop one such as Boros Loyalist, whom plays well off of hero of bladehold.

Last, I suggest switching out the armoursmith for the automaton lord.

Best of Luck!

Not saying you have to do all, or even any of what I'm saying to put in here but below are some changes that I personally would make with this deck.

Pull the mother of runes and replace with a few Champion of the Parish they are a great one drop lead in that gets pumped by each following human creature coming in. Also maybe have a Loyal Sentry thrown in there as well, even one of those is enough to have your opponents hesitate about attacking in a lot of cases.

I would probably also replace either Ballyrush Banneret or the Preemptive Captain with some Precinct Captain and an Odric, Master Tactician or two. Ballyrush and Preemptive Captain are both getting your soldiers in cheaper so 4 of both are probably not necessary. Also, Precinct Captain is great and with just three other Soldiers out Odric will be unstoppable, deciding which of your opponent's creatures to kill off by assigning blocking or just say no blockers and deal all damage directly to your opponent.

Captain of the Watch and Vigilance are both vastly underestimated. Vigilance and First Strike are staples of Soldiers and so are pretty easy to build into a Soldier deck, the combo is pretty powerful allowing you to attack well and then still defend whatever the opponent throws your way. With Ballyrush Banneret or Preemptive Captain you are bringing in Soldiers cheap or free so the high mana cost of Captain of the Watch is negligible and having her in will give all of your soldiers Vigilance, pumping all your soldiers with another +1/+1, as well as adding in three more. Also, the combination of Preemptive Captain and Captain of the Watch is pretty cool since swinging will bring in 4 total creatures for free and immediately will increase the damage inflicted of whatever your attacking with.

One or two Emeria, the Sky Ruin is also worth looking at so that if the game does last long enough to get 7 plains out you can start bringing back Soldiers from your graveyard for free each upkeep. Also, Door of Destinies might be strongest in a more token oriented Soldier deck but may be worth consideration here as well since it can pump your Soldiers pretty fast.

Just a few options to consider in case you haven't thought of some of these.


My Soldier deck is a bit different as it is more of a token deck than yours but if you want to see what I've done with it here's the link.

http://mtgvault.com/ora12154/decks/soldiers-muster/

A second or third mother of runes in the sideboard, as that can guarentee the protection lasts, as often, in my experience, people kill my mother of runes on the stack of using the abilty. A second one guarentees the ability