Admittedly, [scryfall]Temur Battle Rage[/scryfall] sort of speaks to me, but I don’t think its that good. Especially not for pushing damage through. For that, [scryfall]Titan’s Strength[/scryfall] is going to be better most of the time. Its cheaper and does three fairly reliably. It also works well with [scryfall]Prophetic Flamespeaker[/scryfall]. So, Battle Rage might work as some sort of poor fifth [scryfall]Titan’s Strength[/scryfall], but not much more than that.

I did, however, find some other cards I might be interested in using.

Actually, nothing amazing. None of these cards feel like I should be building a deck around them, but I think they may have their uses. Lets take a look at them one by one.

[scryfall]Break Through the Line[/scryfall] seems a bit hard to discern. It might not be worth a card, but on the other hand, if I can push [scryfall]Prophetic Flamespeaker[/scryfall] through again and again, it just might be worth it. (And yes, I am a bit obsessed with that card.) I wouldn’t put more than one or two in my deck, but in a world of ubiquitous [scryfall]Siege Rhino[/scryfall]s, it just might be worth it.

[scryfall]Mardu Scout[/scryfall] has a toughness of 1 in a world of 1/1 tokens, which is pretty bad, but on the other hand, three power is great and the Dash can lead to getting through that final important bit of damage. Also, perhaps the double red in the casting cost might be important. Devotion is still a thing and gaining those important bibs for [scryfall]Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx[/scryfall] or even [scryfall]Fanatic of Mogis[/scryfall]. (Yes, I miss [scryfall]Ash Zealot[/scryfall].)

[scryfall]Arcbond[/scryfall] seems very powerful, but very situational. Its important to note that you can use it and choose a creature an opponent controls. Than just block it with everything you have and hopefully its enough to finish the job (and if you’re playing monored, you should have done plenty of damage at that point). This is Christmas Wonderland material however, so don’t expect that to happen very often. Also, its usually you, who is going to be taking majority of the damage, but its also an instant speed sweeper in conjunction with [scryfall]Lightning Strike[/scryfall]. In this format, you might sometimes need to get rid of those tokens fast, so who knows, but I’d still prefer [scryfall]Anger of the Gods[/scryfall] for that.

[scryfall]Wild Slash[/scryfall] is strictly better than [scryfall]Shock[/scryfall], so I’d say its playable. Importantly, when I think about he format, there aren’t that many creatures with toughness of 3 (well, [scryfall]Sidisi, Brood Tyrant[/scryfall]) which need to be killed as fast as possible. There’s plenty of such creatures with toughness of 2, however, such as [scryfall]Goblin Rabblemaster[/scryfall], [scryfall]Seeker of the Way[/scryfall], and the new additions in [scryfall]Monastery Mentor[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Soulfire Grand Master[/scryfall]. Probably very playable.

[scryfall]Flamewake Phoenix[/scryfall] seems to be in a bad place. What deck needs it? You can’t really use it in a Red Deck Wins type of deck, but there’s probably plenty of better creatures for a deck that can trigger the Ferocious frequently enough. Sure, there’s [scryfall]Ashcloud Phoenix[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Stormbreath Dragon[/scryfall], but if you can keep those on the board, you don’t really need a lowly 2/2 anymore. However, the double R in the casting cost… That’s something.

… and then there’s [scryfall]Goblin Heelcutter[/scryfall], which is not quite as nice a name as [scryfall]Ankle Shanker[/scryfall]. With many Abzan decks now playing with only a handful of creatures, this might actually be a very nice addition to a deck. There isn’t much room at three or four drops in monored aggressive decks and its really hard to take away [scryfall]Goblin Rabblemaster[/scryfall], as it can win on its own quite fast. Not sure about the Dash, but in this scenario its pretty much a must. You don’t want to cast anything for four. It can be quite good in certain situations. A couple of years ago I had [scryfall]Archwing Dragon[/scryfall]s in my sideboard because so much of the removal of the UWR decks of that time were sorcery speed (although they also played plenty of counters and flash creatures).

So, where does this leave us?

Monored Devotion

Recently, Conley Woods unveiled this deck. It could benefit from a couple of cards from above. I haven’t played the deck, so I don’t know how important [scryfall]Generator Servant[/scryfall] is to the deck. Can you just replace it with [scryfall]Mardu Scout[/scryfall]? Probably worth a try, if that’s the kind of deck you’d like to play. Also, [scryfall]Flamewake Phoenix[/scryfall] could probably be in the deck, but I’m just not sure what I’d drop for it. It would have to be either [scryfall]Goblin Rabblemaster[/scryfall] or [scryfall]Prophetic Flamespeaker[/scryfall]. Probably the latter, because I’ve found its pretty awkward in most games where it comes out. Not against tokens, but against everything else.

Well, actually, if tokens rule, than [scryfall]Generator Servant[/scryfall] into [scryfall]Shockmaw Dragon[/scryfall] might be good.