Tired of your creatures always dying by removal spells? This may be the perfect deck for you! The deck Bogles gets its name from the card Slippery Bogle. This creature can be cast for either 1 green or 1 blue mana, has base power and toughness 1/1, and has the hexproof keyword. Gladecover Scout is basically the same thing without hybrid mana. Other than the hexproof keyword, these don’t sound very intimidating as they can still be killed by big creatures in combat. Another creature common to this deck is Kor Spiritdancer. Unlike the other two creatures, the Spiritdancer does not have hexproof. Instead, it gets +2/+2 for each Aura attached to it and whenever you cast an Aura spell, you draw a card. With those abilities, it’s worth a playset, even if it can’t protect itself like the other creatures. Well, this deck is part green and how does green beat a big creature? With a bigger creature.
So let’s talk about how you get these creatures bigger: enchantments, which is most of what the deck runs. You want Rancor, Spider Umbra, Hyena Umbra, Daybreak Coronet, Ethereal Armor, and Spirit Mantle. These enchantments only cost 1 or 2 mana and provide more than just a power toughness boost. Rancor goes back to your hand if it would go to your graveyard, Spider and Hyena Umbra have totem armor, which means that if the enchanted creature would be destroyed (highly unlikely) you can choose to destroy those enchantments instead, and Daybreak Coronet provides a huge boost with some great keyword abilities. Spirit Mantle gives your creature protection from creatures essentially making it unblockable.
There are other cards in the deck for more shenanigans. Dryad Arbor is an interesting card from Future Sight. It’s played as a land so our opponents can’t respond to it, but since it’s also a creature it suffers from summoning sickness. Think of it as a free mana dork. Another plus to this card is that it shares the Forest type so you can grab it with a fetch land that allows you to grab a Forest card. To protect against burn decks and effects that can target the player, the deck runs a few copies of Leyline of Sanctity in the main board. As for removal, Path to Exile is as good as it gets, but for a budget version, Rabid Bite can be okay. Unlike other green fight effects, Rabid Bite only lets your creature deal damage allowing for a more one-sided removal effect. With typical fight effects, there is always a chance that your creature could die as well.
Something to keep in mind while playing this deck is to use your creatures wisely. Hexproof only works against removal spells that target creatures. It’s useless against boardwipes like Wrath of God and Damnation. If you were to play all of the creatures in your hand and then the opponent board wipes, you better hope you draw another creature fast. Try only having no more than one or two creatures on the field at a time.
Side Board: As I always say for the side board, it should be tailored to your local meta. One card I think is worth mentioning for the sideboard is Gaddock Teeg, everyone’s favorite hate card.The only 4 mana card in the deck is Leyline of Sanctity which you can go ahead and play if its in your opening hand. Besides that, Gaddock Teeg is great against Tron, which is pretty dominant at the time of this post.
I think a Bogle deck could splash some red if it wanted to. Dominaria introduced Champion of the Flame that gets +2/+2 for each aura attached to it, like Kor Spiritdancer, it also lacks the ability to protect itself. It does have trample and red would allow you to also run Fling and throw your creature right at your opponent after combat for massive damage. Imagine getting something with trample up to 10 power, attack, and then cast Fling for the win.
The main shell of a Bogles deck should look something like the following:
Slippery Bogle x4
Gladecover Scout x4
Kor Spiritdancer x4
Dryad Arbor x1-2
Path to Exile x2-4
Rancor x3-4
Spider Umbra x3-4
Hyena Umbra x3-4
Daybreak Coronet x3-4
Ethereal Armor x3-4
Spirit Mantle x2
Leyline of Sanctity x2-3
17-20 lands (including fetch lands (Windswept Heath), shock lands (Temple Garden), basic plains and forests and other utility lands)
As always, feel free to experiment with these cards. Bogles is already much cheaper than most modern decks, but if you need a budget version go ahead and try to build one. This is also a very simple deck with a straightforward game plan.