Almost all keywords tend to be limited only, I can only think of a few like cascade, storm etc. which are constructed mostly. And as usual there are just 1 or 2 cards with the keyword that are constructed worthy.
For bestow it's boon satyr, won't be some format defining card but it's solid in the green aggro decks.
For monstrosity it's stormbreath dragon and fleecemane lion. The latter is great and the first will see play because it's positioned quite well (flying rocks in upcoming constructed).
Heroic doesn't really have a constructed card at the moment, but fabled hero or anax and cymede will see play somewhere down the line I think.
Overall I think they are all great keywords. Bestow especially because it presents decisions, especially if the bestow cost isn't that much more expensive than the normal one. They could have made more fun and construced worthy cards with it though.
Heroic is quite fun too but unfortunately targeting your own creatures is pretty much terrible in constructed unless it's some gay hexproof/allin build.
Monstrosity is cool but pretty straightforward, a little boring but plays well for limited.
Omenspeaker is terrible, not only is 1/3 with scry 2 just crap it also isn't even positioned well. The aggro decks are looking to be G/W and monored. G/W has guys that are too big mostly and monored has stuff like firefist striker that render it moot too.
You see this quite often where a card looks similar to a card printed before that was amazing and people suddenly think this kind of effect is good. After vapor snag rotated people suddenly thought unsummon was good while it's always been terrible. Now after augur of bolas people suddenly think Omenspeaker is good because of some vague resemblence. Actually it's more like Augury Owl, just really bad.
Augur of bolas was not only much better, it also had sweet interaction with restoration angel. Omenspeaker doesn't come close. Actually Omenspeaker has terrible synergy with the deck it's in usually by providing opponents a target for their removal, which is otherwise practically dead if you play the popular finisher team of elspeth and aetherling.
Reckoner is just terrible in here, note that the card was never good against control and often would be sided out, now it's not even good against aggro because it's so hard to drop early.
Best board cards against aggro are warleader's helix, unflinching courage and glare of heresy. Glare is really an awesome board card I've found ,it's good against all the W(g) aggro stuff and is even sweet against UW control. It takes care of those troublesome cards like elspeth and trostani while still being a valid play if they don't come out by offing detention sphere's or any creature.
Against some aggro like RDW or white weenie just bring in a load of removal and take out domri. Domri is too slow against aggro and with all removal brought in the +1 will miss too often anyway. You don't need card advantage against the super fast aggro, your guys are bigger anyway. You just need to survive the weenie rush.
Not a great card and definately overrated so far as all gods are. It's not bad but doesn't fit too well, RDW tends to dump his hand before he get's played making him a win-more card or a weak pandemonium of sorts. He is better in a more slower version of red focussed on reckoner and more high end cards but that isn't a very good deck i think
Dissolve is fairly good. Swan song is a house in older formats and gainsay is decent board but probably worse than negate. The rest just stinks. The god is too hard to get devotion for and voyage's end is not close to playable. Unsummon isn't even a good card. Vapor snag was only a decent card that happened to fit very well in the tempo delver shell, just because of that people have been overrating creature bounce for quite some time since.
This is what I'm at so far. What I meant to say Talroma about the lategame compared to naya in the previous standard for example that there is less incentive to play 5-6 mana cards. Stormbreath dragon isn't Thundermaw and there are already good 5 mana plays in using montrosity on fleecemane or bestowing with satyr, which may lead me to drop the dragon all together and just play some scavening ooze or extra boon satyr perhaps. But i'm very much in doubt about this still, either way I don't think you want too many and shouldn't have 6 drops at all.
Either way most of the deck choices I explained before. I think it's crucial to play just 1 basic mountain, you need red sources but plains and forests are far more important early on.
Scavenging ooze is cut so far by the way because I find it to be on the receiving end of magma jet too often for now and it often takes some time before the grave fills up, either way it would be a 2-of at most because lion and voice are just far better now.
Xenagos from the board is really impressing me so far and I'm almost considering it moving main. Against control it's just a house making guys with the occasional power play of xenagos +1 into domri. Against GW aggro or the mirror it's actually a decent plan to try and ultimate it while using the +1 for overloaded mizziums, bestowed boon satyrs, rampagers or dragons.
I guess the rest of the board pretty much speaks for itself.
I can see your point about peak eruption not being so great because decks don't really die to getting a land blown up. It is however a house against anything with chained to the rocks and especially against GR ramp / big red. Taking out a land and killing or hurting a domri/chandra/xenagos badly is quite useful. On the play it can often prevent a timely anger of the gods too.
So far I'm seeing enough blood barons and stormbreath dragons that make me want to test GWr instead of GW more.
Card that i'd remove immediately though is boros reckoner. The power of that card is being a roadblock against other aggro and being good on synergy with domri but aggressively it's terrible. This deck can rarely cast it early though because you need forests early and without it coming down fast it just loses almost all it's value.
Boros charm is not really a maindeck card either i'd say, it's only good vs control.
Mistcutter hydra can be ignored as an option all together really, it's just way too expensive for what you get and protection from blue isn't even very relevant.
Chained to the rocks is a difficult one, on the one hand it's just a great journey to nowhere it seems and of the only ways to remove an opposing reckoner easily but the card has too many weaknesses to play in the end I think. First of all it requires enough mountains to reliably play, ie you need to play basic mountains for it since just 8 is a bit iffy. Playing mountains however kinda messes up with your early curve which is almost all Gw. Chained to the rocks also just seems poorly positioned, it doesn't deal with baron, stormbreath, aetherling or big elspeth. Mizzium mortars scores much better there. Also worst of all plenty sideboards make you cry for playing chained to the rocks like destructive revelry, sundering growth and most of all peak eruption. All in all it's probably not worth the trouble especially as I don't think reckoner will be too popular which would be the main reason to go chained to the rocks over mortars probably.
Aurelia, Ruric thar etc is just too slow. I don't think this deck should be as high end as naya before rotation was, the quality just isn't there. I'm not even sure stormbreath dragon deserves a spot.
Magma jet is something I quite like in here, not as a 4-of or something but it's just a good burn spell and the scry and easy casting cost help out in a lot of hands. It can fix those hands where you have red but not green and white by giving some decent action and it sets up domri superbly.
Currently I like a couple advent of the wurms too, mostly because I don't like any other 4-5 drops currently except rampager. I'm still not liking the dragon too much but generally think the lategame is a bit weak actually.
In the sideboard Xenagos might have a place. As a token pumper against control it's quite good and fits quite a similar role to assemble the legion. It hits much faster but isn't as inevitable, I like how it's 4 mana instead of 5 though so for now I like it more but have to still testing. So far he feels stronger than I expected, of course you rarely use the +1 but it does come up, usually when you can dump him early while still playing creatures too.
Warleader's helix and unflinching courage are probably the best bet against RDW and other fast aggro. RDW is definately not to be underestimated and it's far from some autowin matchup since they have quite a bit of reach with phoenix and especially an active firefist striker.
Peak eruption is also a must I feel in any aggro deck that has access to red. People will be trying control with red and it just excels there. It's also just really great against anyone using chained to the rocks. Destructive revelry on the other hand might not be neccesary, despite what Theros promised enchantments probably won't be big in this standard. The god weapons suck mostly and detention sphere or chained to the rocks will probably be the targets for it which may not warrant the slot. As long as the format is new though it will be fine i guess. Boros charms are obviously a must in the board if they aren't main and extra mizziums seems fine.
I like the deck, but I feel like it's going to face some problems. I feel like Banisher Priest is a must somewhere in the 75 without Oblivion Ring in Standard. And even then, 2/2 is fragile in an environment with Shock and Magma Jet, plus there are some big things that it can't hit, like Stormbreath Dragon and Blood Baron. Those will probably see play.
Although I'm sure this deck will do fine vs. aggro. I'm more concerned about its matchup against control now that Rancor and Thalia will be gone. This is especially true if a control deck emerges that utilizes black, because the combination of ThoughtseizeLifebane Zombie seems tailor-made to mess this deck up pretty badly. I'm not the best brewer though, so I'm stumped. Anyone have any more advice for the control matchup? (besides Mistcutter Hydra, of course)
The lack of tricks or removal really hurt this deck, cards like stormbreath dragon and blood baron are indeed a total pain to deal with and racing is just the best option. The control matchup depends quite a bit on the configuration but isn't that bad per se since the deck is very resistant to sweepers. You've got stuff like xp1 and voice that can survive them (loxodon smiter in case of anger the gods) and instant fatties to play around them. It really just depends how many threats like baron etc. the format will play. Overall though the almost complete inability to interact with other decks makes it just best to use a fast build, plenty of other lategame plans just trump this deck even if you're doing stuff like populating trostani tokens.
token version isn't worth it because call of the conclave isn't worth it (even if you think it's better than ooze it should just be 1 or 2x at most, since lion and voice are far better). Populate cards just aren't good main, trostani is way too slow and not even reliable against many decks plus he is hard to cast unless you go into many guildgates which make you even slower. Rootborn defense sucks in some matches (rdw and most aggro). From the side both are fine though as rootborn is pretty sweet against control and trostani in the mirror.
Best mirror card is just collective blessing imo an unanswered one practically wins on the spot and it's easy to get to 6 in the mirror (big garruk can be sweet for some versions too). For RDW some mix of unflinching courage / fiendslayer paladins works fine, not sure yet which is better. Sundering growth might actually be fairly useless once most players realize that the only good enchantment is still detention sphere.
Overall lack of removal and no way to deal with flyers still makes me worry this deck will end up being too weak. Glare of heresy is fine for mirrors but obviously can only be played from the side and blood baron and stormbreath dragon just remain virtually impossible to deal with (except very clumsy ways like elspeth). Ajani is pretty good in here though and gives you nice chances to just double strike your way to victory when these annoying threats come.
In the meantime though I think I prefer GWr. I first thought the mana for that would be horrible but it's actually better then here probably. The duals give you 8 red sources without impacting your G/W counts and with some scry lands you can get 11-12 red while still having same number of G/W. The good thing though is that GWr can have reasonable draws without early white or early red. This GW deck just absolutely needs both G and W or your hole hand is typically uncastable while for example mystic + domri and no white is fine for GWr. Paradoxically 3 color mana base feels more stable than 2 because of needing your secondary color less, the scry lands and if you want magma jet.
Most of all red just let's you upgrade some cards and gives you domri which is always sweet in a deck this creature heavy.
It will see some play but not be crazy popular I think. Scry is better in aggro (or combo if it exists) than control I think, control is more about card avantage and drawing typically while aggro has very weak draws like spare lands or weak 1-drops you want to scry away.
It depends eventually on the power of the 1/3 mostly, so far that looks quite useful I think as there are a fair number of 2/x and x/1 threats in aggro where it shines against but time will tell. At least you shouldn't be temped to run a few and then run less lands in your deck 'because the scry will help me find them anyway', that is just poor deckbuilding.
I play bant aggro irl and am porting to straight GW for theros standard. Here's my tentative build so far
I disagree with a lot of things in this post. First, the angel is slow, but given enough synergy can be very powerful and worthwhile. Second, rootborn defense is one of the most key, synergistic cards in a selesnya token deck. It's good with any token, as you're usually blanking a removal spell and getting another token (2-1), and it absolutely insane with advent of the wurm. You say this deck has almost no other tricks available, I say you don't know what you're talking about. Selesnya charm, boon satyr, rootborn defense, and especially advent of the wurm are all "tricks" by virtue of being instant speed. And now that we have so many actually decent tricks, the opponent can't assume that 4 mana open is just a advent of wurm, because it could be any of those said tricks. Also, being able to EoT Advent and untap with rootborn defense backup is insanely powerful. Don't knock it before you try it, and if you have tried it and are still knocking it, then you're doing something wrong.
Oh yeah, and Trostani is insane. Walls aggro like no tomorrow, hard to race by gaining 3-5-10+ life by simply playing your deck, and if she isn't responded to immediately she's value city. So why is trostani subpar again? I'll agree with you that fleecemane lion is better than call of the conclave in a vaccum, but the synergy with tokens right now from the last block imho makes call (and aforementioned token based cards) better.
problem with the token route compared to block is that the card pool just got better. Rootborn defense and trostani can be sweet cards but they rely on that critical token amount to work, especially call of the conclave basically as that is the only decent token maker besides voice/selesnya charm and advent of the wurm. Call of the conclave just got worse though because it's outmatched by 3 other twodrops already (fleecemane lion, voice and ooze). So playing heavier on the token theme already means losing power in your other cards basically. I also think rootborn defense and trostani are ppsitioned more poorly now. Rootborn defense is very hard to keep up against anger of the gods for example and agianst many aggro decks it's just too slow. Trostani is quite hard to cast unless you play many guildgates and just sucks against control, it's even a little slow against the superfast RDW lists where a difficult to cast 4-drop that only starts working on turn 5 might not the best (unflinching courage and stuff like fiendslayer paladin in the board are arguably better for these matchups).
To put it short, new cards give a higher oppurtunity cost to the token subtheme that I don't think it's worth it main given how narrow these populate cards are as well. From the board it's fine.
@ Novajoe,
I don't see how you like bow of nylea so much and then actually dislike it in the aggro deck. I've found it a pretty poor card so far, it's just slow. It's a versatile card that is rarely great. Against control especially it sucks hard, all modes are pretty much irrelevant against the +1+1 mode which is insanely slow which is why I think nylea is unplayable main.. Against control it's just acting like a terrible Ajani that costs you mana to activate.. Against aggro it's a bit better since the lifegain is fairly ok then and shooting down phoenix (pretty much the only target for that ability) is fine, it''s still way too slow though. The only place it shines is against other midrange / creature decks where the static deathtouch actually comes up, but still do you want to play it for that? It's another thing why the angel list is just not so great now, there aren't enough good lifegainers to enable it.
Overall I just don't see reasons to go midrangy with this deck, the power for GW lies in the great quality lower at the curve. Making the deck slower only helps for the mirror imo, against control I rather be as fast as possible and against aggro i rather just drop fatties reliably then go more for the lategame. Both the token and angel synergies have the problem that you need to play, in my eyes, weak enablers for just a few cards while you can be playing better stuff. Even more so even if you get those synergies going they still suck agianst control as they just force you to overcommit into sweepers or fall apart against a timely removal. Especially with blood baron being such an immensely difficult roadblock for these colors I find that focussing on speed and cutting all the cute chaff works best.
Not the best lists but decent setup for the idea.
first list is really too clunky I think, angel is quite slow and still hard to set up even if you play some otherwise subpar cards like trostani and bow of nylea to make it happen. I don't think it;s worth investing into at all.
The faster list is much better imo and fairly good. I'd definately play soldier of pantheon over judge's familiar though, the upsides on him are quite good. Boon satyr is also a must imo, fantastic card to play around sweepers and the bestow is really useful especially as this deck has almost no other tricks available. The whole call of the conclave - rootborn defenses thing is not so great now, there are much better 2 drops available than call (fleecemane, voice and ooze) and rootborn defense is a bit clunky still and less needed if you have boon satyr anyway.
don't get why people try this deck at the moment. Porting something from a previous standard that loses most of the best pieces is just so futile.. At the moment it just lacks guys and enchantments to do this and it becomes some hideous bant aggro deck
****ty cards..
Who cares about the protection of that hydra, 1/1 for 2, 2/2 for 3 etc is just lousy. I'm still waiting for them to make a good hydra like get x counters but start at 1/1..
Protection from blue is the most useless protection there is, there is no blue removal, bounce or even blue planeswalkers that target.. So can't be blocked by aetherling and maybe a few other things.. whoopdidoo..
izzet charm, steam augury, warleader's helix, and assemble the legion are 4 of the main reasons to splash for red. I've been playing anger of the gods out of the board for the weenie aggro matches and it's been pretty fantastic as extra copies of verdict.
The deck just has so much card draw that it's pretty easy to cycle through half your deck. I kind of want to play a singleton planar cleansing, but it doesn't work that well with dsphere. I'm also looking at cyclonic rift.
Seems to be focussing heavier on red, and splashing white might be more stable. You'd basically be replacing verdict with anger of the gods and slightly changing the manabase towards red (can use more temples). Anger of the gods seems better than verdict so far, against aggro coming down a turn quicker is huge and missing a few creatures (smiter mostly) but getting rid of voice, phoenix and removing fuel for ooze seems great. Slightly more mountains also enables chained to the rocks which seems pretty good.
For bestow it's boon satyr, won't be some format defining card but it's solid in the green aggro decks.
For monstrosity it's stormbreath dragon and fleecemane lion. The latter is great and the first will see play because it's positioned quite well (flying rocks in upcoming constructed).
Heroic doesn't really have a constructed card at the moment, but fabled hero or anax and cymede will see play somewhere down the line I think.
Overall I think they are all great keywords. Bestow especially because it presents decisions, especially if the bestow cost isn't that much more expensive than the normal one. They could have made more fun and construced worthy cards with it though.
Heroic is quite fun too but unfortunately targeting your own creatures is pretty much terrible in constructed unless it's some gay hexproof/allin build.
Monstrosity is cool but pretty straightforward, a little boring but plays well for limited.
You see this quite often where a card looks similar to a card printed before that was amazing and people suddenly think this kind of effect is good. After vapor snag rotated people suddenly thought unsummon was good while it's always been terrible. Now after augur of bolas people suddenly think Omenspeaker is good because of some vague resemblence. Actually it's more like Augury Owl, just really bad.
Augur of bolas was not only much better, it also had sweet interaction with restoration angel. Omenspeaker doesn't come close. Actually Omenspeaker has terrible synergy with the deck it's in usually by providing opponents a target for their removal, which is otherwise practically dead if you play the popular finisher team of elspeth and aetherling.
A terrible card noone should be playing.
Best board cards against aggro are warleader's helix, unflinching courage and glare of heresy. Glare is really an awesome board card I've found ,it's good against all the W(g) aggro stuff and is even sweet against UW control. It takes care of those troublesome cards like elspeth and trostani while still being a valid play if they don't come out by offing detention sphere's or any creature.
Against some aggro like RDW or white weenie just bring in a load of removal and take out domri. Domri is too slow against aggro and with all removal brought in the +1 will miss too often anyway. You don't need card advantage against the super fast aggro, your guys are bigger anyway. You just need to survive the weenie rush.
4 Experiment One
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Fleecemane Lion
4 Voice of Resurgence
3 Boon Satyr
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Ghor-Clan Rampager
2 Stormbreath Dragon
4 Domri Rade
2 Mizzium Mortars
4 Forest
1 Mountain
3 Plains
4 Temple Garden
4 Stomping Ground
4 Sacred Foundry
1 Temple of Triumph
2 Temple of Abandon
1 Destructive Revelry
2 Boros Charm
2 Mizzium Mortars
3 Unflinching Courage
3 Warleader's Helix
2 Xenagos, the Reveler
2 Peak Eruption
This is what I'm at so far. What I meant to say Talroma about the lategame compared to naya in the previous standard for example that there is less incentive to play 5-6 mana cards. Stormbreath dragon isn't Thundermaw and there are already good 5 mana plays in using montrosity on fleecemane or bestowing with satyr, which may lead me to drop the dragon all together and just play some scavening ooze or extra boon satyr perhaps. But i'm very much in doubt about this still, either way I don't think you want too many and shouldn't have 6 drops at all.
Either way most of the deck choices I explained before. I think it's crucial to play just 1 basic mountain, you need red sources but plains and forests are far more important early on.
Scavenging ooze is cut so far by the way because I find it to be on the receiving end of magma jet too often for now and it often takes some time before the grave fills up, either way it would be a 2-of at most because lion and voice are just far better now.
Xenagos from the board is really impressing me so far and I'm almost considering it moving main. Against control it's just a house making guys with the occasional power play of xenagos +1 into domri. Against GW aggro or the mirror it's actually a decent plan to try and ultimate it while using the +1 for overloaded mizziums, bestowed boon satyrs, rampagers or dragons.
I guess the rest of the board pretty much speaks for itself.
I can see your point about peak eruption not being so great because decks don't really die to getting a land blown up. It is however a house against anything with chained to the rocks and especially against GR ramp / big red. Taking out a land and killing or hurting a domri/chandra/xenagos badly is quite useful. On the play it can often prevent a timely anger of the gods too.
Card that i'd remove immediately though is boros reckoner. The power of that card is being a roadblock against other aggro and being good on synergy with domri but aggressively it's terrible. This deck can rarely cast it early though because you need forests early and without it coming down fast it just loses almost all it's value.
Boros charm is not really a maindeck card either i'd say, it's only good vs control.
Mistcutter hydra can be ignored as an option all together really, it's just way too expensive for what you get and protection from blue isn't even very relevant.
Chained to the rocks is a difficult one, on the one hand it's just a great journey to nowhere it seems and of the only ways to remove an opposing reckoner easily but the card has too many weaknesses to play in the end I think. First of all it requires enough mountains to reliably play, ie you need to play basic mountains for it since just 8 is a bit iffy. Playing mountains however kinda messes up with your early curve which is almost all Gw. Chained to the rocks also just seems poorly positioned, it doesn't deal with baron, stormbreath, aetherling or big elspeth. Mizzium mortars scores much better there. Also worst of all plenty sideboards make you cry for playing chained to the rocks like destructive revelry, sundering growth and most of all peak eruption. All in all it's probably not worth the trouble especially as I don't think reckoner will be too popular which would be the main reason to go chained to the rocks over mortars probably.
Aurelia, Ruric thar etc is just too slow. I don't think this deck should be as high end as naya before rotation was, the quality just isn't there. I'm not even sure stormbreath dragon deserves a spot.
Magma jet is something I quite like in here, not as a 4-of or something but it's just a good burn spell and the scry and easy casting cost help out in a lot of hands. It can fix those hands where you have red but not green and white by giving some decent action and it sets up domri superbly.
Currently I like a couple advent of the wurms too, mostly because I don't like any other 4-5 drops currently except rampager. I'm still not liking the dragon too much but generally think the lategame is a bit weak actually.
In the sideboard Xenagos might have a place. As a token pumper against control it's quite good and fits quite a similar role to assemble the legion. It hits much faster but isn't as inevitable, I like how it's 4 mana instead of 5 though so for now I like it more but have to still testing. So far he feels stronger than I expected, of course you rarely use the +1 but it does come up, usually when you can dump him early while still playing creatures too.
Warleader's helix and unflinching courage are probably the best bet against RDW and other fast aggro. RDW is definately not to be underestimated and it's far from some autowin matchup since they have quite a bit of reach with phoenix and especially an active firefist striker.
Peak eruption is also a must I feel in any aggro deck that has access to red. People will be trying control with red and it just excels there. It's also just really great against anyone using chained to the rocks. Destructive revelry on the other hand might not be neccesary, despite what Theros promised enchantments probably won't be big in this standard. The god weapons suck mostly and detention sphere or chained to the rocks will probably be the targets for it which may not warrant the slot. As long as the format is new though it will be fine i guess. Boros charms are obviously a must in the board if they aren't main and extra mizziums seems fine.
The lack of tricks or removal really hurt this deck, cards like stormbreath dragon and blood baron are indeed a total pain to deal with and racing is just the best option. The control matchup depends quite a bit on the configuration but isn't that bad per se since the deck is very resistant to sweepers. You've got stuff like xp1 and voice that can survive them (loxodon smiter in case of anger the gods) and instant fatties to play around them. It really just depends how many threats like baron etc. the format will play. Overall though the almost complete inability to interact with other decks makes it just best to use a fast build, plenty of other lategame plans just trump this deck even if you're doing stuff like populating trostani tokens.
4 Fleecemane Lion
4 Experiment One
3 Soldier of the Pantheon
4 Boon Satyr
4 Voice of Resurgence
1 Scavenging Ooze
4 Loxodon Smiter
4 Elvish Mystic
4 Advent of the Wurm
2 Ajani Goldmane
4 Temple Garden
9 Forest
9 Plains
1 selesnya guildgate
2 Glare of Heresy
2 Sundering Growth
3 Rootborn Defenses
3 Unflinching Courage
1 Fiendslayer Paladin
2 Collective Blessing
token version isn't worth it because call of the conclave isn't worth it (even if you think it's better than ooze it should just be 1 or 2x at most, since lion and voice are far better). Populate cards just aren't good main, trostani is way too slow and not even reliable against many decks plus he is hard to cast unless you go into many guildgates which make you even slower. Rootborn defense sucks in some matches (rdw and most aggro). From the side both are fine though as rootborn is pretty sweet against control and trostani in the mirror.
Best mirror card is just collective blessing imo an unanswered one practically wins on the spot and it's easy to get to 6 in the mirror (big garruk can be sweet for some versions too). For RDW some mix of unflinching courage / fiendslayer paladins works fine, not sure yet which is better. Sundering growth might actually be fairly useless once most players realize that the only good enchantment is still detention sphere.
Overall lack of removal and no way to deal with flyers still makes me worry this deck will end up being too weak. Glare of heresy is fine for mirrors but obviously can only be played from the side and blood baron and stormbreath dragon just remain virtually impossible to deal with (except very clumsy ways like elspeth). Ajani is pretty good in here though and gives you nice chances to just double strike your way to victory when these annoying threats come.
In the meantime though I think I prefer GWr. I first thought the mana for that would be horrible but it's actually better then here probably. The duals give you 8 red sources without impacting your G/W counts and with some scry lands you can get 11-12 red while still having same number of G/W. The good thing though is that GWr can have reasonable draws without early white or early red. This GW deck just absolutely needs both G and W or your hole hand is typically uncastable while for example mystic + domri and no white is fine for GWr. Paradoxically 3 color mana base feels more stable than 2 because of needing your secondary color less, the scry lands and if you want magma jet.
Most of all red just let's you upgrade some cards and gives you domri which is always sweet in a deck this creature heavy.
It depends eventually on the power of the 1/3 mostly, so far that looks quite useful I think as there are a fair number of 2/x and x/1 threats in aggro where it shines against but time will tell. At least you shouldn't be temped to run a few and then run less lands in your deck 'because the scry will help me find them anyway', that is just poor deckbuilding.
problem with the token route compared to block is that the card pool just got better. Rootborn defense and trostani can be sweet cards but they rely on that critical token amount to work, especially call of the conclave basically as that is the only decent token maker besides voice/selesnya charm and advent of the wurm. Call of the conclave just got worse though because it's outmatched by 3 other twodrops already (fleecemane lion, voice and ooze). So playing heavier on the token theme already means losing power in your other cards basically. I also think rootborn defense and trostani are ppsitioned more poorly now. Rootborn defense is very hard to keep up against anger of the gods for example and agianst many aggro decks it's just too slow. Trostani is quite hard to cast unless you play many guildgates and just sucks against control, it's even a little slow against the superfast RDW lists where a difficult to cast 4-drop that only starts working on turn 5 might not the best (unflinching courage and stuff like fiendslayer paladin in the board are arguably better for these matchups).
To put it short, new cards give a higher oppurtunity cost to the token subtheme that I don't think it's worth it main given how narrow these populate cards are as well. From the board it's fine.
@ Novajoe,
I don't see how you like bow of nylea so much and then actually dislike it in the aggro deck. I've found it a pretty poor card so far, it's just slow. It's a versatile card that is rarely great. Against control especially it sucks hard, all modes are pretty much irrelevant against the +1+1 mode which is insanely slow which is why I think nylea is unplayable main.. Against control it's just acting like a terrible Ajani that costs you mana to activate.. Against aggro it's a bit better since the lifegain is fairly ok then and shooting down phoenix (pretty much the only target for that ability) is fine, it''s still way too slow though. The only place it shines is against other midrange / creature decks where the static deathtouch actually comes up, but still do you want to play it for that? It's another thing why the angel list is just not so great now, there aren't enough good lifegainers to enable it.
Overall I just don't see reasons to go midrangy with this deck, the power for GW lies in the great quality lower at the curve. Making the deck slower only helps for the mirror imo, against control I rather be as fast as possible and against aggro i rather just drop fatties reliably then go more for the lategame. Both the token and angel synergies have the problem that you need to play, in my eyes, weak enablers for just a few cards while you can be playing better stuff. Even more so even if you get those synergies going they still suck agianst control as they just force you to overcommit into sweepers or fall apart against a timely removal. Especially with blood baron being such an immensely difficult roadblock for these colors I find that focussing on speed and cutting all the cute chaff works best.
first list is really too clunky I think, angel is quite slow and still hard to set up even if you play some otherwise subpar cards like trostani and bow of nylea to make it happen. I don't think it;s worth investing into at all.
The faster list is much better imo and fairly good. I'd definately play soldier of pantheon over judge's familiar though, the upsides on him are quite good. Boon satyr is also a must imo, fantastic card to play around sweepers and the bestow is really useful especially as this deck has almost no other tricks available. The whole call of the conclave - rootborn defenses thing is not so great now, there are much better 2 drops available than call (fleecemane, voice and ooze) and rootborn defense is a bit clunky still and less needed if you have boon satyr anyway.
Who cares about the protection of that hydra, 1/1 for 2, 2/2 for 3 etc is just lousy. I'm still waiting for them to make a good hydra like get x counters but start at 1/1..
Protection from blue is the most useless protection there is, there is no blue removal, bounce or even blue planeswalkers that target.. So can't be blocked by aetherling and maybe a few other things.. whoopdidoo..
Seems to be focussing heavier on red, and splashing white might be more stable. You'd basically be replacing verdict with anger of the gods and slightly changing the manabase towards red (can use more temples). Anger of the gods seems better than verdict so far, against aggro coming down a turn quicker is huge and missing a few creatures (smiter mostly) but getting rid of voice, phoenix and removing fuel for ooze seems great. Slightly more mountains also enables chained to the rocks which seems pretty good.