Magic: The Gathering — Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 Deck Pack 2 Guide

Deck Pack 2 for Magic: The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013 gives you exactly two new decks, and most guides never bother to name them. That is the real problem: you bought the pack and now want to know what is in it and how to win with each deck, not generic Magic theory.

So here is the straight answer. Deck Pack 2 is the second deck-pack DLC for Duels 2013, and it contains Grim Procession (the Orzhov, White/Black deck) and Berserker Rage (the Gruul, Red/Green deck). It shipped on PC (Steam), Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and iPad — it was never PC-only. Below is what each deck actually does and how to pilot it.

The short version

• Grim Procession (Orzhov, W/B): a control/attrition deck. Use early removal to survive, grind the opponent out, then close with flyers and recursion.
• Berserker Rage (Gruul, R/G): a green-red aggro deck built on undercosted fat creatures and pump. Curve out, push damage, and finish before the opponent stabilizes.
• Both decks reward mana discipline first. Keep hands that can cast their early plays on the right colors; a powerful spell you cannot cast is a dead card.
• Play your role. Race with Berserker Rage; trade resources and stall to a finisher with Grim Procession.

What Deck Pack 2 actually adds

Deck Pack 2 is the second of the game’s deck-pack releases, not a standalone expansion. It hands you two complete, prebuilt decks tuned around opposite game plans, which makes it a clean lesson in two of Magic’s core archetypes: a White/Black control shell and a Red/Green beatdown shell. Learn both and you understand most of what Duels 2013 is teaching.

You do not have to guess at the contents. Each deck has a defined guild, color pair, and a small set of signature cards that carry its plan. Read those cards, identify the plan, and the rest of the deck falls into place.

Grim Procession — the Orzhov (W/B) control deck

Grim Procession is the White/Black deck, and it wins by attrition. The opening turns are about not dying: spend early removal and disruption to keep the board clear, then shift to flying threats and recursion once the game grinds long. Its signature cards include Castigate, Unmake, Pillory of the Sleepless, and Damnation on the control side, with Bloodgift Demon, Divinity of Pride, Reanimate, and Debtor’s Knell doing the late-game heavy lifting.

The plan in practice:

• Trade your cheap removal for the opponent’s best early threats — you are buying time, not racing.
• Hold Damnation for the moment it answers two or more creatures; a board wipe that kills one creature is a waste.
• Use reanimation (Reanimate, Debtor’s Knell) to turn a creature that already died into a second threat — that recursion is what wins the long game.
• Close with evasion. Flyers like the demons get through a clogged ground board the rest of your deck cannot.

Berserker Rage — the Gruul (R/G) aggro deck

Berserker Rage is the Red/Green deck, and it does the opposite of Grim Procession: it attacks. The deck is built on undercosted large creatures and pump effects that make them bigger, so most of your decisions are about deploying threats on curve and pushing damage. Signature cards include Rancor, Berserk, Wildsize, Rumbling Slum, and Shivan Wurm, with Apocalypse Hydra available as an unlock.

The plan in practice:

• Curve out. A creature on turn two and three matters more than holding cards — your job is to start the clock early.
• Use pump as reach, not decoration. Rancor and Wildsize turn a stalled attacker into lethal damage, and Rancor comes back when its creature dies, so it survives a trade.
• Respect Berserk as a finisher. Doubling a creature’s power for one big swing ends games that look even.
• Do not overextend into removal. If the opponent is on a control deck, commit just enough to keep pressure rather than dumping your hand into a board wipe.

Start with mana discipline, not flashy cards

For both decks, the first thing to evaluate in any opening hand is its mana, not its headline rare. A keepable hand here is not just “two lands and spells.” It is a hand that can cast its early plays on the colors it needs and curve into the midgame without locking out.

Before you keep, check three things:

• Can the hand cast something meaningful by turn two or three?
• Do the lands produce the colors the first relevant spells need — White and Black for Grim Procession, Red and Green for Berserker Rage?
• Does the hand contain a plan, or only unrelated cards scattered across the curve?

This matters most in Grim Procession, where holding up the wrong color means your removal sits dead while the opponent develops. A spell you cannot cast is not power; it is dead cardboard until the mana supports it.

The concepts these two decks teach best

1. Card advantage decides the Grim Procession mirror-grind

The Orzhov deck punishes players who ignore two-for-one exchanges. If one of your cards answers two of the opponent’s, you pull ahead on material; if one of theirs answers two of yours, you fall behind. This is why Damnation is at its best against a developed board and why recursion like Debtor’s Knell is so strong — it forces the opponent to spend removal twice on the same threat. Prefer lines that replace themselves or trade up.

2. Tempo and pump turn Berserker Rage’s creatures into lethal

For the Gruul deck, raw creature size is only half the deck. Pump and trample-style reach are how you convert a board into damage the opponent cannot block. Rancor stacks evasion-by-force onto an attacker and returns after a trade, and Berserk exists to turn one good attack into a kill. Deploy threats to keep the clock running, then point pump at the swing that ends the game.

3. Evasion and recursion break board stalls

Once both players build a battlefield, ground creatures stop mattering unless one side pushes through cleanly. Grim Procession answers this with flyers and reanimation; Berserker Rage answers it with pump that forces damage through. If a match stalls, stop asking which card hits hardest and ask which card is hardest to answer permanently — that is usually where the winning line is hiding.

Common mistakes that waste games in Deck Pack 2

• Firing Damnation too early in Grim Procession. Hold the board wipe until it kills two or more creatures — a one-for-one sweeper throws away its whole value.
• Hoarding cards with Berserker Rage. This is an aggro deck; passing turns to “set up” lets a control opponent reach the late game where you lose.
• Misreading your color requirements. Keeping a Grim Procession hand with no Black source (or no White) leaves your removal or finishers stranded.
• Overextending into removal. Berserker Rage wants to apply pressure, not dump its whole hand into a sweeper.
• Forgetting Rancor comes back. Trading the creature it is on is fine — the aura returns to your hand, so you have not lost the card.

Practical takeaway

Deck Pack 2 is not a mystery and it is not generic content. It is two sharply different decks: Grim Procession, the Orzhov W/B control deck that survives on removal and grinds to a flying, recursive finish, and Berserker Rage, the Gruul R/G aggro deck that curves out and uses pump to push lethal. Pick the role the deck wants — control with one, race with the other — keep hands that cast their early plays on color, and play the cards listed above to the plan they were built for. (Note: Time Warp is not in either of these decks; in Duels 2013 it belongs to the mono-blue Talrand deck, so ignore older guides that list it here.)