Azorious aggro is a thing...sort of! Enter Azorius heroes!
This list pushes Heroic as hard as possible, and is an extremely linear take on such a deck. 19 heroes and 20 enablers come together to form one of the most gimmicky decks I've ever conceived. Allow me to explain how it all comes together.
First, you have your heroes. By simply targeting these guys, you can give them a billion +1/1 counters, scry a bunch, and sometimes even draw a bunch of cards.
Second, you have the enablers, which come in a few forms. Mizzium Skin and Gods Willing are there to blank removal; you trade 1-for-1 but get a +1/1 counter and (usually) a tempo advantage. Gods Willing also serves as a win condition for sneaking through damage.
Ordeal of Thassa is insane in this deck, as it is one +1/1 counter away from popping itself on any hero but
Triton Fortune Hunter
once you declare attackers. Aqueous Form is in the deck to help with the heroes lack of evasion. This card originally was in the 75 as sideboard tech but from testing usually outclasses
Ordeal of Heliod
(only useful for aggressive mirrors) very highly.
Finally, we get to the king enabler of this deck, Hidden Strings. This is a tricky card to use/understand in this deck. First off, I'll explain how the card even works in the context of Heroic; each time you cast it, you can untap 1-2 lands, trigger Heroic 1-2 times (and give pseudo Vigiliance to your heroes) and tap blockers. These are the main uses of it. It can't target the same hero twice, and even if it could, you would only trigger Heroic once anyways.
Hidden Strings is an absolutely INSANE value engine in this deck. An example sequence:
Turn 1: Plains ->
Favored Hoplite
Opponent: SwampTurn 2: Island -> Hidden Strings (untap lands, Cipher to Hoplite) -> Ordeal of Thassa (trigger +1/1 counter) -> attack (trigger +1/1 counter, for 3 damage) -> trigger Cipher -> untap Hoplite (+1/1 counter) and Island. (Hoplite is 4/5)Opponent: Swamp -> Doom Blade (we Mizzium Skin, trigger +1/1 counter) (Hoplite is 5/6)...
If you have any of your 8 copies of 1-for-1s, you can actively commit to the board as the majority of removal played by decks is not Edict-based but targeted. Edict based removal (mainly Far / Away, Devour Flesh and so on) is unfortunately a huge bitch for this deck to handle.
This deck's sideboard looks simple but actually feels pretty much optimal from testing. Dispel stops Edict-based removal which gets around Mizzium Skin and Gods Willing.
Ordeal of Heliod
is incredibly difficult to race, especially for GW decks with little removal beyond Selesyna Charm. Triton Tactics is a ridiculously good trigger/combat trick. If your local meta is heavily red-based, by all means start 4x Tactics over Mizzium Skin as the card is 100% better if you know that your opponent's removal is damage-based.
And so ends the heroes journey/deck description. If anyone has any questions/thoughts about the deck I'd love to hear them. Don't knock it until you try it!
